Mortal Causes

'Personal,' he'd said. A few years back, a riot like this would have prompted the permanent closure of the community hall. But these days it was more likely the Council would bung some more cash at the estate, guilt money. Shutting the hall down wouldn't do much good anyway. There were plenty of empty flats on the estate – flats termed 'unlettable'. They were kept boarded up and padlocked, but could soon be opened. Squatters and junkies used them; gangs could use them too. A couple of miles away in different directions, middle class Barnton and Inverleith were getting ready for work. A world away. They only ever took notice of Pilmuir when it exploded.

It wasn't much of a drive to Fettes either, even with the morning bottlenecks starting their day's business. He wondered if he'd be first in the office; that might show too willing. Well, he could check, then nip out to the canteen until everyone started arriving. But when he pushed open the office door, he saw that there was someone in before him. It was Smylie.

'Morning,' Rebus said. Smylie nodded back. He looked tired to Rebus, which was saying something, the amount of sleep Rebus himself had had. He rested against one of the desks and folded his arms. 'Do you know an Inspector called Abernethy?’

'Special Branch,' said Smylie.

'That's him. Is he still around?’

Smylie looked up. 'He went back yesterday, caught an evening plane. Did you want to see him?’

'Not really.’

'There was nothing here for him.’

'No?’

Smylie shook his head. 'We'd know about it if there was. We're the best, we'd've spotted it before him. QED.’

'Quod erat demonstrandum.’

Smylie looked at him. 'You're thinking of Nemo, aren't you? Latin for nobody.’

'I suppose I am.’

Rebus shrugged. 'Nobody seems to think Billy Cu

Smylie didn't say anything. 'I'm not wanted here, am I?’

'How do you mean?’

'I mean, you don't need me. So why did Kilpatrick bring me in? He must've known it'd cause nothing but aggro.’

`Best ask him yourself.’

'Maybe I will. Meantime, I'll be at St Leonard's.’

'We'll be pining away in your absence.’

'I don't doubt it, Smylie.’

'What does the woman do?’

'Her name's Millie Docherty,' said Siobhan Clarke. 'She works in a computer retailer's.’

'And her boyfriend's a computer consultant. And they shared their fiat with an unemployed postie. An odd mix?’

'Not really, sir.’

'No? Well, maybe not.’

They were in the canteen, facing one another across the small table. Rebus took occasional bites from a damp piece of toast. Siobhan had finished hers.

'What's it like over at Fettes?’ she asked.

'Oh, you know: glamour, danger, intrigue.’

`Much the same as here then?’

'Much the same. I read some of Cafferty's notes last night. I've marked the place, so you can take over.’

'Three's more fun,' said Brian Holmes, dragging over a chair. He'd placed his tray on the table, taking up all the available room. Rebus gave Holmes's fry-up a longing look, knowing it wouldn't square with his.diet. All the same… Sausage, bacon, eggs, tomato and fried bread.

'Ought to carry a government health warning,' said the vegetarian Clarke.

'Hear about the riot?’ Holmes asked.

'I went out there this morning,' Rebus admitted. 'The place looked much the same.’

'I heard they threw an amplifier at a couple of our lads.’

The process of exaggeration had begun.

'So, about Billy Cu

Holmes forked up some tomato. 'What about him?’

'What have you found out?’

'Not a lot,' Holmes conceded. `Unemployed deliverer of the royal mail, the only regular job he's ever had. Mum was overfond of him and kept gifting him money to get by on. Bit of a loyalist extremist, but no record of him belonging to the Orange Lodge. Son of a notorious gangster, but didn't know it.’

Holmes thought for a second, decided this was all he had to say, and cut into his sliced sausage.

'Plus,' said Clarke, 'the anarchist stuff we found.’

'Ach, that's nothing,' Holmes said dismissively.

'What anarchist stuff?’ asked Rebus.

'There were some magazines in his wardrobe,' Clarke explained. 'Soft porn, football programmes, a couple of those survivalist mags teenagers like to read to go with their diet of Terminator films.’

Rebus almost said something, but stopped himself. 'And a flimsy little pamphlet called…’

She sought the title. 'The Floating Anarchy Factfile.’

'It was years old, sir,' said Holmes. 'Not relevant.’

'Do we have it here?’

'Yes, sir,' said Siobhan Clarke.

'It's from the Orkneys,' said Holmes. 'I think it's priced in old money. It belongs in a museum, not a police station.’

'Brian,' said Rebus, 'all that fat you're eating is going to your head. Since when do we dismiss anything in a murder inquiry?’

He picked a thin rasher of streaky from the plate and dropped it into his mouth: It tasted wonderful.

The Floating Anarchy Factfile consisted of six sheets of A4 paper, folded over with a single staple through the middle to keep it from falling apart. It was typed on an old and irregular typewriter, with hand printed titles to its meagre articles and no photographs or drawings. It was priced not in old money but in new pence: five new pence to be exact, from which Rebus guessed it to be fifteen to twenty years old. There was no date, but it proclaimed itself 'issue number three'. To a large extent Brian Holmes was right: it belonged in a museum. The pieces were written in a style that could be termed 'Celtic hippy', and this style was so uniform (as were the spelling mistakes) that the whole thing looked to be the work of a single individual with access to a copying machine, something like an old Roneo.

As for the content, there were cries of nationalism and individualism in one paragraph, philosophical and moral lethargy the next. Anarcho-syndicalism was mentioned, but so were Bakunin, Rimbaud and Tolstoy. It wasn't, to Rebus's eye, the sort of stuff to boost advertising revenue.

For example: 'What Dalriada needs is a new commitment, a new set of mores which look to the existent and emerging youth culture. What we need is action by the individual without recourse or prior thought to the rusted machinery of law, church, state.

'We need to be free to make our own decisions about our nation and then act self-consciously to make those decisions a reality. The sons and daughters of Alba are the future, but we are living in the mistakes of the past and must change those mistakes in the present. If you do not act then remember: Now is the first day of the rest of your strife. And remember too: inertia corrodes.’

Except that 'mores' was spelt 'moeres' and 'existent' as 'existant'. Rebus put the pamphlet down.

'A psychiatrist could have a field day,' he muttered. Holmes and Clarke were seated on the other side of his desk. He noticed that while he'd been at Fettes, people. had been using his desktop as a dumping ground for sandwich wrappers and polystyrene cups. He ignored these and turned the pamphlet over. There was an address at the bottom of the back page: Zabriskie House, Brinyan, Rousay, Orkney Isles.

'Now that's what I call dropping out,' said Rebus. 'And look, the house is named after Zabriskie Point.’

'Is that in the Orkneys too?’ asked Holmes.

'It's a film,' said Rebus. He'd gone to see it a long long time ago, just for the '60s soundtrack. He couldn't remember much about it, except for an explosion near the end. He tapped his finger against the pamphlet. 'I want to know more about this.’

'You're kidding, sir,' said Holmes.

'That's me,' said Rebus sourly, 'always a smile and a joke.’

Clarke turned to Holmes. 'I think that means he's serious.’

'In the land of the blind,' said Rebus, 'the one-eyed man is king. And even I can see there's more to this than meets your eyes, Brian.’