Страница 83 из 99
Look on my works…
Had Gareth Tench really seen himself that way too? Rebus thought it was more complex. Tench had known he would fail, but was determined to give it a try all the same. Rebus had considered the outside chance that the councilman had been their killer, his “works” the little gallery of horror in Auchterarder. Determined to rid the world of its monsters-Cafferty included. Killing Cyril Colliar had put Cafferty briefly in the frame. A lazy investigation might have ended there, with Cafferty the chief suspect. Tench had also known Trevor Guest…helps the guy out then is incensed to come across his details on a Web site. Decides he’s been betrayed.
Leaving only Fast Eddie Isley. Nothing to co
Who else have you talked to about Gareth Tench?
You’re supposed to be the detective around here…
Or a poor excuse for one. Rebus reached for his drink again, just to give himself something to do. The dancers on the stage looked bored. They wanted to be down on the floor, where this week’s pay was being emptied into peekaboo bras and minuscule thongs. Rebus didn’t doubt there’d be a rotation-they’d get their chance. More men were coming inside, executive types. One of them was grinding to the room’s pounding sound track. He was fifteen pounds overweight and the moves didn’t suit him. But no one was about to ridicule him: that was the whole point of somewhere like the Nook. It was all about the shedding of inhibitions. Rebus couldn’t help thinking back to the 1970s, when most Edinburgh bars had offered a lunchtime stripper. The drinkers would hide their faces behind their pint glasses whenever the dancer looked in their direction. All that reticence had melted away in the course of the intervening decades. The businessmen were yelping encouragement as one of the lap dancers at the police table started doing her stuff, while her victim sat with legs parted, hands on knees, gri
Molly was standing next to Rebus. He hadn’t noticed her ending her routine. “Give me two minutes to throw a coat on, and I’ll see you outside.” He nodded distractedly.
“Pe
“Just thinking about how sex has changed over the years. We used to be such a shy wee nation.”
“And now?”
The dancer was gyrating her hips mere inches from her victim’s nose.
“Now,” Rebus mused, “it’s…well…”
“In your face?” she offered.
He nodded his agreement, and placed the empty glass back on the bar.
She offered him a cigarette from her own pack. She’d wrapped a long black woolen coat around her and was leaning against one of the Nook’s walls, just far enough from the doormen for eavesdropping to be a problem.
“You don’t smoke in the apartment,” Rebus commented.
“Eric’s allergic.”
“It was Eric I wanted to speak to you about, actually.” Rebus was making a show of examining his cigarette’s glowing tip.
“What about him?” She shuffled her feet and Rebus noticed she’d exchanged the stilettos for sneakers.
“When we talked before, you said he knows how you go about earning a wage. You even told me he’d been a customer at one point.”
“And?”
Rebus shrugged. “I don’t really want him getting hurt, which is why I think maybe you should leave him.”
“Leave him?”
“So I don’t have to tell him that you’ve been milking him for inside info, and passing everything he tells you back to your boss. See, I’ve just been talking to Cafferty, and it suddenly clicked. He’s known stuff he shouldn’t, stuff he’s been getting from the inside, and who knows more than someone like Brains?”
She snorted. “You call him Brains…why don’t you start crediting him with some?”
“How do you mean?”
“You think I’m the big bad hooker, wheedling stuff out of the poor sap.” She rubbed a finger across her top lip.
“I’d go a bit further actually-seems to me you’re only living with Eric because Cafferty tells you to-probably feeds that coke habit of yours to make it all worthwhile. First time we met, I thought it was just nerves.”
She didn’t bother denying it.
“Soon as Eric stops being useful,” Rebus went on, “you’ll drop him like a stone. My advice is to do that right now.”
“Like I said, Rebus, Eric’s no idiot. He’s known all along what the score is.”
Rebus narrowed his eyes. “In the apartment, you said you stopped him taking job offers-how will he feel when he finds out that was because he’d be no use to your boss in the private sector?”
“He tells me stuff because he wants to,” she went on, “and he knows damned fine where it’ll end up.”
“Classic honey trap,” Rebus muttered.
“Once you get a taste…” she said teasingly.
“You’re still going to walk away from him,” he demanded.
“Or what?” Her eyes burned into him. “You’ll go tell him something he already knows?”
“Sooner or later, Cafferty’s walking the plank-you really want to be there with him?”
“I’m a good swimmer.”
“It’s not water you’ll end up in, Molly-it’s jail. Time inside will play havoc with those looks, I guarantee it. See, slipping confidential info to a criminal is just about as serious as it gets.”
“You sell me out, Rebus, Eric gets sold out, too. So much for protecting him.”
“Price has to be paid.” Rebus flicked away the remains of the cigarette. “First thing tomorrow, I’ll be talking to him. Your bags had better be packed.”
“What if Mr. Cafferty doesn’t agree?”
“He will. Once your cover’s blown, CID could be feeding you any amount of manure dressed as caviar. Cafferty takes one bite, and we’ve got him.”
Her eyes were still fixed on his. “So why aren’t you doing that?”
“Sting operation means telling the brass…and that really would be the end of Eric’s career. You walk away now, I get Eric back. Too many lives shat on by your boss, Molly. I just want a few of them sluiced down.” He reached into his pocket for his cigarettes, opened the pack, and offered her one. “So what do you say?”
“Time’s up,” one of the doormen called, pressing a finger to his earpiece. “Clients three-deep in there.”
She looked at Rebus. “Time’s up,” she echoed, turning toward the backstage door. Rebus watched her go, lit himself another cigarette, and decided the walk home across the Meadows would do him good.
His phone was ringing as he unlocked the door. He picked it up from the chair.
“Rebus,” he said.
“It’s me,” Ellen Wylie said. “What the hell’s been happening?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve had Siobhan on the phone. I don’t know what you’ve been saying to her, but she’s in a hell of a state.”
“Gareth Tench is dead.”
“It was me who told you, remember?”
“She thinks she should take some of the blame.”
“I tried telling her she’s crazy.”
“That’ll have helped.” Rebus started turning on the lights. He wanted them all on-not just the living room, but the hall and the kitchen, the bathroom and his bedroom.
“She sounded pretty pissed off with you.”
“You don’t need to sound so happy about it.”
“I spent twenty minutes calming her down!” Wylie yelled. “Don’t you dare start accusing me of enjoying any of this!”
“Sorry, Ellen.” Rebus meant it, too. He sat on the edge of the bath, shoulders slumped, phone tucked in against his chin.
“We’re all tired, John, that’s the trouble.”
“I think my troubles go just that little bit deeper, Ellen.”
“So go beat yourself up about it-wouldn’t be the first time.”
He puffed air from his cheeks. “So what’s the bottom line with Siobhan?”
“Maybe give her a day to calm down. I told her she should drive up to T in the Park, let off some steam.”
“Not a bad idea.” Except that his own weekend plans included the Borders…looked like he’d be heading south unaccompanied. No way he could invite Ellen-didn’t want it getting back to Siobhan.