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“Fu
“I’m thinking of extending my repertoire,” Rebus told her. “Might try playing the piano with my nose.” He got the lighter to work on the third attempt, started puffing.
“Thanks for leaving me out in the cold, by the way.”
“It’s not cold out here.”
“I meant -”
“I know what you mean.” He looked at her. “I just wanted to hear what Johnson had to say for himself.”
“Johnson?”
“Peacock Johnson.” He saw her eyes narrow. “He calls himself that.”
“Why?”
“You saw the way he dresses.”
“I meant why did you want to see him?”
“I’m interested in him.”
“Any particular reason?”
Rebus just shrugged.
“Who is he anyway?” Siobhan asked. “Should I know him?”
“He’s small-time, but those can be the most dangerous. Sells replica guns to anyone who wants them… might even deal in a few examples of the real thing. Fences stolen goods, dispenses soft drugs, just the odd bit of hash…”
“Where does he operate?”
Rebus looked like he was thinking. “Out Burdiehouse way.”
She knew him too well to be co
“That direction…” The cigarette flexing in his mouth.
“Maybe I could go look in the files.” She held his gaze, waited until he blinked.
“Southhouse, Burdiehouse… somewhere out there.” Smoke spilled down his nostrils, reminding her of a cornered bull.
“In other words, next door to Gracemount?”
He shrugged. “It’s just geography.”
“It’s where Fairstone lived… his patch. What are the chances of two scumbags like that not knowing each other?”
“Maybe they did.”
“John…”
“What was in the envelope?”
Her turn to try for the poker face. “Don’t change the subject.”
“Subject’s closed. What was in the envelope?”
“Nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about, DI Rebus.”
“Now you’ve got me worried.”
“It was nothing, honest.”
Rebus waited, then nodded slowly. “Because you can take care of yourself, right?”
“That’s right.”
He tipped his head, let the remains of the cigarette fall to the ground. Crushed it under the toe of his shoe. “You know I won’t need you tomorrow?”
She nodded. “I’ll try to while away the hours.”
He tried to think of a comeback, gave up eventually. “Come on, then, let’s skedaddle before Gill Templer can find another excuse for a bollocking.” He started walking towards her car.
“Good,” Siobhan said. “And while I’m driving, you can be telling me all about Mr. Peacock Johnson.” She paused. “By the way: top three Scottish rock and pop acts?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Come on, off the top of your head.”
Rebus thought for a moment. “Nazareth, Alex Harvey, Deacon Blue.”
“Not Rod Stewart?”
“He’s not Scottish.”
“You’re still allowed him if you want.”
“Then I’ll get to him eventually, probably right after Ian Stewart. But first I need to go through John Martyn, Jack Bruce, Ian Anderson… not forgetting Donovan and the Incredible String Band… Lulu and Maggie Bell…”
Siobhan rolled her eyes. “Is it too late for me to say I wish I’d never asked?”
“Far too late,” Rebus said, getting into the passenger side. “Frankie Miller’s another… Simple Minds in their heyday… I always had a soft spot for Pallas…”
Siobhan stood by the driver’s-side door, gripping the handle but making no further effort. From inside, she could hear the catalogue continuing, Rebus’s voice rising, making sure she didn’t miss a single name.
“Not the sort of place where I’d normally drink,” Dr. Curt muttered. He was tall and thin, often described behind his back as “funereal.” Late fifties, with a long, slack face and baggy eyes. He reminded Rebus of a bloodhound.
A funereal bloodhound.
Which was apt in its way, considering that he was one of Edinburgh’s most highly respected pathologists. Under his guidance, corpses could tell their stories, sometimes revealing secrets: suicides who turned out to be murder victims, bones that turned out not to be human. Curt’s skill and intuition had helped Rebus solve dozens of cases down through the years, so it would have been churlish to turn the man down when he called and asked Rebus to join him for a drink, adding, as a postscript: “Somewhere quiet, mind. Somewhere we can talk without tongues wagging all around us.”
Which was why Rebus had suggested his regular haunt, the Oxford Bar, tucked away in an alley behind George Street and a long way from both Curt’s office and St. Leonard’s.
They were seated in the back room, at the table at the far end. No one else about. Midweek and mid-evening, the main bar boasting only a couple of suits who were about to go home, and one regular who’d just come in. Rebus brought the drinks to the table: a pint for him, gin and tonic for the pathologist.
“Slainte,” Curt said, raising his glass.
“Cheers, Doc.” Rebus still couldn’t lift his beer with just the one hand.
“It’s like you’re holding a chalice,” Curt commented. Then: “Do you want to talk about how it happened?”
“No.”
“The rumors are flying.”
“They can be stacking up frequent flier miles for all I care. What’s intriguing me is your phone call. Do you want to talk about that?”
Rebus had arrived home, soaked in a tepid bath, and phoned out for a curry. Jackie Leven on the hi-fi, singing about the romantic hard men of Fife-how could Rebus have forgotten to put him on the list? And then Curt’s phone call.
“Can we talk? Maybe in person? Tonight…?”
No hint as to why, just an arrangement to be in the Oxford Bar at half past seven.
Curt savored his drink. “How’s life been treating you, John?”
Rebus stared at him. With some men, men of a certain age and class, there had to be this preamble. He offered a cigarette, which the pathologist accepted.
“Take one out for me, too,” Rebus asked. Curt did so, and both men smoked in silence for a moment.
“I’ve been hunky-dory, Doc. How about yourself? Often get this urge to phone cops up of an evening and arrange assignations in dingy back rooms?”
“I believe the ‘dingy back room’ was your choice rather than mine.”
Rebus acknowledged as much with a slight bow of the head.
Curt smiled. “You’re not a man of great patience, John…”
Rebus shrugged. “Actually, I can sit here all night, but I’ll be a lot more relaxed once I know what this is about.”
“It’s about what’s left of a man called Martin Fairstone.”
“Oh, yes?” Rebus moved a little in his chair, crossing one leg over the other.
“You know him, of course?” When Curt sucked on the cigarette, his whole face seemed to collapse inward. He’d become a smoker only in the past five years, as if keen to test his own mortality.
“I knew him,” Rebus said.
“Ah, yes… past tense, unfortunately.”
“Not too unfortunate. I can’t see him being missed.”
“Be that as it may, Professor Gates and myself… well, we think there are gray areas.”
“Ash and bone, you mean?”
Curt shook his head slowly, refusing to see the joke.
“Forensics will tell us more…” His voice drifted off. “DCS Templer has been persistent. I think Gates will talk to her tomorrow.”
“And what’s this got to do with me?”
“She thinks you may have been involved in some way in this man’s murder.”
The final word lay in the smoky air between them. Rebus didn’t need to repeat it aloud; Curt heard the unspoken question.
“We think maybe murder,” he said, nodding slowly. “Some evidence that he was tied to the chair. I have photos…” He reached into a briefcase that was on the floor next to him.
“Doc,” Rebus was saying, “you probably shouldn’t be showing me these.”
“I know, and I wouldn’t if I thought there was the slightest chance that you were involved.” He looked up. “But I know you, John.”