‘We’ve got some friends we’d like to bring on. A few hours back they were fighting the good fight, trying to save our seas. Put your hands together for them.’
Applause, cheering. Rebus watched two figures walk onstage, still dressed in orange oilskins: he recognised their faces from Bannock. He waited, but there was no sign of braid-hair. When they started their speeches, he turned to go. There was one last collecting tin to be avoided, but he thought better of it, folded a fiver in through the slot. And decided to treat himself to dinner in his hoteclass="underline" putting it on the room, of course.
Insistent noise.
Rebus folded it into his dream, then gave up. One eye open: chinks of light through the heavy curtains. What fucking time was it? Bedside lamp: on. He clawed at his watch, blinked. Six a.m. What? Did Lumsden want rid of him that badly?
He swung out of bed, walked stiff-legged to the door, working his muscles. He’d washed a great dinner down with a bottle of wine. In itself the wine would have posed no problem, but as a digestif he’d put away four malts, in flagrant disregard of the drinker’s rule: never mix the grape and the grain.
Thump, thump, thump.
Rebus pulled open the door. Two woolly suits stood there, looking like they’d been up for hours.
‘Inspector Rebus?’
‘Last time I looked.’
‘Will you get dressed, please, sir?’
‘You don’t like the outfit?’ Y-fronts and a T-shirt.
‘Just get dressed.’
Rebus looked at them, decided to comply. When he walked back into the room, they followed, looked around the way cops always do.
‘What have I done?’
‘Tell them at the station.’
Rebus looked at him. ‘Tell me you’re fucking joking.’
‘Language, sir,’ the other uniform said.
Rebus sat on the bed, pulled on clean socks. ‘I’d still like to know what this is all about. You know, on the q.t., officer to officer.’
‘Just a few questions, sir. Quick as you can.’
The second uniform tugged open the curtains, light stabbing Rebus’s eyeballs. He seemed impressed by the view.
‘We had a brawl in the gardens a few nights ago. Remember, Bill?’
His colleague joined him at the window. ‘And someone jumped off the bridge a fortnight back. Whee, smack on to Denburn Road.’
‘Woman in the car got an awful fright.’
They smiled at the memory.
Rebus stood up, looked around him, wondering what to take.
‘Shouldn’t be too long, sir.’
They were smiling at him now. Rebus’s stomach did a back-flip. He tried not to think about timbale of haggis... cranachan with a fruit coulis... wine and whisky...
‘Feeling a bit rough, sir?’
The uniform looked about as solicitous as a razor blade.
20
‘My name’s Chief Inspector Edward Grogan. We’ve a few questions for you, Inspector Rebus.’
So everyone keeps telling me, Rebus thought. But he didn’t say anything, just sat there with arms folded and a wronged man’s smouldering look. Ted Grogan: Rebus had heard of him. Hard bastard. He looked it, too: bull-necked and bald, his physique more Frazier than Ali. Thin eyes and thick lips; a street-taught fighter. Jutting forehead; simian.
‘You already know DS Lumsden.’ Sitting over by the door, head bowed, legs apart. He looked exhausted, embarrassed. Grogan sat down opposite Rebus at the table. They were in a biscuit-tin, though they probably had another name for it in Furry Boot Town.
‘No point beating around the bush,’ Grogan said. He looked about as comfortable on the chair as a prize Aberdeen Angus. ‘How did you get the bruises?’
‘I told Lumsden.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I was mugged by a couple of message-boys. Their message was a pistol whipping.’
‘Any other scars?’
‘They pushed me over a wall, I hit a thorn-bush on the way down. My side’s scratched.’
‘Is that it?’
‘That’s it. Look, I appreciate your concern, but —’
‘But that’s not our concern, Inspector. DS Lumsden says he dropped you off down by the docks, night before last.’
‘That’s right.’
‘I believe he offered you a lift to your hotel.’
‘Probably.’
‘But you didn’t want that.’
Rebus looked over at Lumsden. What the fuck is going on? But Lumsden’s gaze was still concentrated floorwards. ‘I felt like a walk.’
‘Back to your hotel?’
‘Right.’
‘And on the way, you were beaten up?’
‘With a pistol.’
A smile, mixing sympathy with disbelief. ‘In Aberdeen, Inspector?’
‘There’s more than one Aberdeen. I don’t see what this has to do with anything.’
‘Bear with me. So you walked home?’
‘To the very expensive hotel Grampian Police provided for me.’
‘Ah, the hotel. We’d pre-booked for a visiting Chief Constable, only he cancelled at the last minute. We’d have ended up paying anyway. I believe DS Lumsden used his initiative and decided you might as well stay there. Highland courtesy, Inspector.’
Highland fabrication more like.
‘If that’s your story.’
‘It’s not my story that’s important here. On this walk home of yours, did you see anyone, speak to anyone?’
‘No.’ Rebus paused. ‘I saw a crew of your finest in discussion with a couple of teenagers.’
‘You spoke to them?’
Rebus shook his head. ‘Didn’t want to interfere. This isn’t my patch.’
‘From what DS Lumsden tells me, you’ve been acting like it was.’
Rebus caught Lumsden’s eyes. They stared right through him.
‘Did a doctor look at your injuries?’
‘I fixed myself up. Hotel reception had a first aid kit.’
‘They asked you if you wanted a doctor.’ A statement.
‘I said it wasn’t necessary. Lowland self-reliance.’
A cool smile from Grogan. ‘You spent yesterday on an oil rig, I believe.’
‘With DS Lumsden at my heels.’
‘And last night?’
‘I had a drink, went for a walk, ate dinner at the hotel. I put it on the tab, by the way.’
‘Where did you drink?’
‘Burke’s Club, a dope-dealer’s paradise on College Street. My bet is, my attackers started life there. What’s the going rate up here for hiring hard men? Fifty for a duffing? Seventy-five per broken limb?’
Grogan sniffed, rose to his feet. ‘Those prices might be a wee bit on the high side.’
‘Look, with respect, I’m about two hours from out of here. If this is some kind of warning, it’s too much too late.’
Grogan spoke very quietly. ‘It’s not a warning, Inspector.’
‘What is it then?’
‘You say when you left Burke’s you went for a walk?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘Duthie Park.’
‘A fair hike.’
‘I’m a big Dancing Pigs fan.’
‘Dancing Pigs?’
‘A band, sir,’ Lumsden said, ‘they were playing a concert last night.’
‘It talks.’
‘No need for that, Inspector.’ Grogan was standing behind Rebus. The invisible interrogator: did you turn to face him, or did you stare at the wall? Rebus had played the trick himself many a time. Objective: unnerve the prisoner.
Prisoner — Jesus.
‘You’ll remember, sir,’ Lumsden said, voice almost atonal, ‘that’s the route Michelle Strachan took.’
‘That’s true, isn’t it, Inspector? I expect you knew that.’