Mortal Causes

`Straight out the door.’

Bothwell sighed and flicked more ash onto the floor. 'Okay then.’

Rebus smiled his appreciation. He rested his hand on the bar and leaned towards Bothwell.

'Two questions,' he said. 'Why did you kill her and who's got the disk?’

Bothwell stared at him, then laughed. `Get out of here.’

Rebus lifted his hand from the bar. 'I'm going,' he said. But he stopped at the doors to the foyer, holding them open. `You know Cafferty's in town?’

`Never heard of him.’

`That's not the, point. The point is, has he heard of you? Your father was a minister. Did you ever learn Latin?’

'What?’

'Nemo me impune lacessit.’

Bothwell didn't even blink. `Never mind, it won't worry Cafferty one way or the other. See, you didn't just meddle with him, you meddled with his family.’

He let the doors swing shut behind him. This was the way he should have worked it throughout, using Cafferty the mere threat of Cafferty – to do his work for him. But would Cafferty be enough to scare the American and the Ulsterman? Somehow, John Rebus doubted it.

Back at St Leonard's, Rebus first phoned the scaffolding company, then placed a call to Peter Cave.

`Something I've been meaning to ask you, sir,' he said.

`Yes?’ Cave sounded tired, deep down inside.

`Since the Church stopped supporting – the youth club, how do you survive?’

'We manage. Everyone who comes along has to pay.’

`Is it enough?’

`No.

`You're not subsidising the place out of your own pocket?’

Cave laughed at this. `What then? Sponsorship?’

'In a way, yes.’

'What sort of way?’

'Just someone who saw the good the club was doing.’

'Someone you know?’

'Never met him, as a matter of fact.’

Rebus took a stab. 'Francis Bothwell?’

'How did you know that?’

'Someone told me,' Rebus lied.

'Davey?’

So Davey Soutar did know Bothwell. Yes, it figured. Maybe from a district lodge football team, maybe some other way. Time to change track.

'What does Davey do by the way?’

'Works in an abattoir.’

'He's not a builder then?’

'No.

'One last thing, Mr Cave. I got a name from a scaffolding company: Malky Haston. He's eighteen, lives in the Gar-B.’

`I know Malky, Inspector. And he knows you.’

'How's that?’

'Heavy metal fan, always wears a band t-shirt. You've spoken with him.’

Black t-shirt, thought Rebus, Davey Soutar's pal. With white flecks in his hair that Rebus had mistaken for dandruff.

'Thank you, Mr Cave,' Rebus said, 'I think that's everything.

Everything he needed.

A uniform approached as he put down the phone, and handed Rebus the information he'd requested on recent and not so-recent break-ins. Rebus knew what he was looking for, and it didn't take long. Acid wasn't that easy to come by, not unless you had a plausible reason for wanting it. Easier to steal the stuff if you could. And where could you find acid? Break-ins at Craigie Comprehensive School were fairly standard. It was like pre-employment training for the unrulier pupils. They learned to slip a window-catch and jemmy open a door, some graduated to lock-picking, and others became fences for the stolen goods. It was always a buyers' market, but then economics was not a strong point with these junior careerists. Three months back, Craigie had been entered at the dead of night and the tuck shop emptied.

They'd also broken into the science rooms, physics and chemistry. The chemistry stock room had a different lock, but they took that out too, and made off with a large jar of methylated spirits, a few other choice cocktail ingredients, and three thick glass jars of various acids.

The caretaker, who lived in a small pre-fabricated house on the school grounds, saw and heard nothing. He'd been watching a special comedy night on the television. Probably he wouldn't have ventured out of doors anyway. Craigie Comprehensive wasn't exactly full of pupils with a sense of humour or love for their elders.

What could you expect from a school whose catchment area included the infamous Garibaldi Estate? He was putting the pieces together when Chief Inspector Lauderdale came over.

'As if we're not stretched thin enough,' Lauderdale complained.

'What's that?’

'Another anonymous threat, that's twice today. He says our time's up.’

'Shame, I was just begi

Lauderdale nodded distractedly. 'A bomb. He didn't say where. He says it's so big there'll be no hiding place.’

'Festival's nearly over,' Rebus said.

'I know, that's what worries me.’

Yes, it worried Rebus too.

Lauderdale turned to walk away, just as Rebus's phone rang.

'Inspector, my name's Blair-Fish, you won't remember me…’

'Of course I remember you, Mr Blair-Fish. Have you called to apologise about your grand-nephew again?’

'Oh no, nothing like that. But I'm a bit of a local historian! you see.’

'Yes.’

'And I was contacted by Matthew Vanderhyde. He said you wanted some information about Sword and Shield.’

Good old Vanderhyde: Rebus had given up on him. 'Go on, please.’

'It's taken me a while. There was thirty years of detritus to wade through…’

'What have you got, Mr Blair-Fish?’

'Well, I've got notes of some meetings, a treasurer's report, minutes and things like that. Plus the membership lists. I'm afraid they're not complete.’

Rebus sat forward in his chair. 'Mr Blair-Fish, I'd like to send someone over to collect everything from you. Would that be all right?’

Rebus was reaching for pen and paper.

'Well, I suppose… I don't see why not.’

'Let's look on it as final atonement for your grandnephew. Now if you'll just give me your address…’

Locals called it the Meat Market, because it was sited close to the slaughterhouse. Workers from the slaughterhouses wandered in at lunchtime for pints, pies and cigarettes. Sometimes they wore flecks of blood; the owner didn't mind. He'd been one of them once, working the jet-air gun at a chicken factory. The pistol, hooked up to a compressor, had taken the heads off several hundred stu

It wasn't lunchtime, so the Market was quiet – two old men drinking slow half pints at opposite ends of the bar, ignoring one another so studiously that there had to be a grudge between them, and two unemployed youths shooting pool and trying to make each game last, their pauses between shots the stuff of chess games. Finally, there was a man with sparks in his eyes: The proprietor was keeping a watch on him. He knew trouble when he saw it. The man was drinking whisky and water. He looked the sort of drinker, when he was mortal you wouldn't want to get in his way. He wasn't getting mortal just now; he was making the one drink last. But he didn't look like he was enjoying anything about it. Finally he finished the quarter gill.

`Take care,' the proprietor said.

'Thanks,' said John Rebus, heading for the door.

Slaughterhouse workers are a different breed. They worked amid brain and offal, thick blood and shit, in a sanitised environment of whitewash and piped radio music. A huge electrical unit reached down from the ceiling to suck the smell away and pump in fresh air. The young man hosing blood into a drain did so expertly, spraying none of the liquid anywhere other than where he wanted it. And afterwards he turned down the pressure at the nozzle and hosed off his black rubber boots. He wore a white rubberised apron round his neck and stretching down to his knees, as did most of those around him. Aprons to Rebus meant barmen, masons and butchers. He was reminded only of this last as he walked across the floor.

They were working with cattle. The cows looked young and fearful, eyes bulging. They'd probably already been injected with muscle relaxants, so moved drunkenly along the line. A jolt of electricity behind either ear numbed them, and quickly the wielder of the bolt-gun took aim with the cold muzzle hard against each skull. Their back legs seemed to crumple first. Already the light was vanishing from behind their eyes.