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Just as Rebus was thinking their surroundings couldn't get any grimmer – all industrial decay, gutted buildings and potholes Kenworthy signalled to turn in at the gates of a scrapyard.
`You're kidding?’ he said.
Three Alsatians, tethered by thirty-foot chains, barked and bounded towards the car. Kenworthy ignored them, kept driving. It was like being in a ravine. Either side of them stood precarious canyon walls of car wrecks.
`Hear that?’
Rebus heard it: the sound of a collision. The car entered a wide clearing, and he saw a yellow crane, dangling a huge grab from its arm, pluck up the car it had dropped and lift it high, before dropping it again on to the carcass of another. A few men were standing at a safe distance, smoking cigarettes and looking bored. The grab dropped on to the roof of the top car, denting it badly. Glass shimmered on the oily ground, diamonds against black velvet.
Jake Tarawicz – Mr Pink Eyes – was in the crane, laughing and roaring as he picked up the car again, worrying it the way a cat might play with a mouse without noticing it was dead. If he'd seen the new additions to his audience, it didn't show. Kenworthy hadn't got out of her car immediately. First, she'd fixed on a face from her repertoire. When finally she was ready, she nodded to Rebus and they opened their doors simultaneously.
As Rebus stood upright, he saw that the grab had dropped the car and was swinging towards them. Kenworthy folded her arms and stood her ground. Rebus was reminded of those arcade games where you had to pick up a prize. He could see Tarawicz in the cab, manipulating the controls like a kid with a toy. He remembered Tommy Telford on his arcade bike, and saw at once something the two men had in common: neither had ever really grown up.
The motorised hum stopped suddenly, and Tarawicz dropped from the cab. He was wearing a cream suit and emerald shirt, open at the neck. He'd borrowed a pair of green wellies from somewhere, so as to keep his trousers clean. As he walked towards the two detectives, his men stepped into line behind him.
'Miriam,' he said, `always a pleasure.’
He paused. `Or so the rumour goes.’
A couple of his men gri
`All right, Crab?’
Rebus said.
This seemed to disconcert Tarawicz, who half-turned towards his minion. The Crab stayed quiet, but colour had risen, to his neck.
Up close, it was hard not to stare at Mr Pink Eyes's face. His eyes demanded that you meet them, but you really wanted to study the flesh in which they sat.
He was looking at Rebus now.
`Have we met?’
`No.’
`This is Detective Inspector Rebus,' Kenworthy explained. `He's come all the way from Scotland to see you.’
`I'm flattered.’
Tarawicz's grin showed small sharp teeth with gaps between them.
`I think you know why I'm here,' Rebus said.
Tarawicz made a show of astonishment. `Do I?’
' Telford needed your help. He needed a home address for Candice, a note to her in Serbo-Croat…’
`Is this some sort of riddle?’
`And now you've taken her back.’
`Have I?’
Rebus took a half-step forward. Tarawicz's men fa
`She wanted out,' Rebus told him. `I promised I'd help her. I never break a promise.’
`She wanted out? She told you that?’
Tarawicz's voice was teasing.
One of the men behind cleared his throat. Rebus had been wondering about this man, so much smaller and more reticent than the others, better dressed and with sad drooping eyes and sallow skin. Now he knew: lawyer. And the cough was his way of warning Tarawicz that he was saying too much.
`I'm going to take Tommy Telford down,' Rebus said quietly. `That's my promise to you. Once he's in custody, who knows what he'll say?’
`I'm sure Mr Telford can look after himself, Inspector. Which is more than can be said for Candice.’
The lawyer coughed again.
`I want her kept off the streets,' Rebus said.
Tarawicz stared at him, tiny black pupils like spots of absolute darkness.
`Can Thomas Telford go about his daily business unfettered?’ he said at last. Behind him, the lawyer almost choked.
`You know I can't promise that,' Rebus said. `It's not me he has to worry about.’
`Take a message to your friend,' Tarawicz said. `And afterwards, stop being his friend.’
Rebus realised then: Tarawicz was talking about Cafferty. Telford had told him that Rebus was Cafferty's man.
`I think I can do that,' Rebus said quietly.
`Then do it.’
Tarawicz turned away.
`And Candice?’
`I'll see what I can do.’
He stopped, slid his hands into his jacket pockets. `Hey, Miriam,' he said, his back still to them, `I like you better in that red two-piece.’
Laughing, he walked away.
`Get in the car,' Kenworthy said through gritted teeth. Rebus got into the car. She looked nervous, dropped her keys, bent to retrieve them.
`What's wrong?’
`Nothing's wrong,' she snapped.
`The red two-piece?’
She glared at him. `I don't have a red two-piece.’
She did a three point-turn, hitting brakes and accelerator with a little more force than necessary.
`I don't get it.’
`Last week,' she said, `I bought some red underwear… bra and pants.’
She revved the engine. `Part of his little game.’
`So how does he know?’
`That's what I'm wondering.’
She shot past the dogs and out of the gate. Rebus thought of Tommy Telford, and how he'd been watching Rebus's flat.
`Surveillance isn't always one-way,' he said, knowing now who'd taught Telford the skill. A little later he asked about the scrapyard.
`He owns it. He's got a compacter, but before the cars get squashed he likes to play with them. And if you cross him, he welds your seatbelt shut.’
She looked at him. `You become part of his game.’
Never get personally involved: it was the golden rule. And practically every case he worked, Rebus broke it. He sometimes felt that the reason he became so involved in his cases was that he had no life of his own. He could only live through other people.
Why had he become so involved with Candice? Was it down to her physical resemblance to Sammy? Or was it that she had seemed to need him? The way she'd clung to his leg that first day… Had he wanted – just for a little while – to be someone's knight in shining armour, the real thing, not some mockery? John Rebus: complete bloody sham. He phoned Claverhouse from his car, filled him in. Claverhouse told him not to worry. `Thanks for that,' Rebus said. `I feel a whole lot better now. Listen, who's Telford 's supplier?’
`For what? Dope?’
`Yes.’
`That's the real joker in the pack. I mean, he does business with Newcastle, but we can't be certain who's dealing and who's buying.’
`What if Telford 's selling?’
`Then he's got a line from the continent.’
`What do Drugs Squad say?’
`They say not. If he's landing the stuff from a boat, it means transporting it from the coast. Much more likely he's buying from Newcastle. Tarawicz has the contacts in Europe.’
`Makes you wonder why he needs Tommy Telford at all…’
`John, do yourself a favour, switch off for five minutes.’
'Colquhoun seems to be keeping his head down…’
`Did you hear me?’
`I'll talk to you soon.’
`Are you heading back?’
`In a ma
Rebus cut the call and drove.