‘I won’t have malicious comments made about my men.’
‘Surveillance on Eve and Stanley,’ Rebus stressed. ‘And if it’s blown, you know where to look.’ Same place he was looking now.
Lumsden flew at him, hands at his throat. Rebus threw him off.
‘You’re as dirty as bilge-water, Lumsden, and don’t think I don’t know it!’
Lumsden swung a punch; it didn’t connect. Ancram and Grogan pulled the two of them apart. Grogan pointed to Rebus, but spoke to Ancram.
‘Maybe we’d better keep him here after all.’
‘I’m taking him back with me.’
‘I’m not so sure about that.’
‘I said I’m taking him back, Ted.’
‘Long time since I had two men fighting over me,’ Rebus said with a smile.
The two Aberdeen officers were looking ready to plough a field with him. Ancram slapped a proprietorial hand on to his shoulder.
‘Inspector Rebus,’ he said, ‘I think we’d best be going, don’t you?’
‘Do me one favour,’ Rebus said.
‘What?’ They were in the back of Ancram’s car, heading for Rebus’s hotel, where they’d pick up his car.
‘A quick detour down to the docks.’
Ancram glanced at him. ‘Why?’
‘I want to see where she died.’
Ancram looked at him again. ‘What for?’
Rebus shrugged. ‘To pay my respects,’ he said.
Ancram had only a vague idea where the body had been found, but it didn’t take long to find the runs of bright police tape which were there to secure the scene. The docks were quiet, no sign of the crate in which the body had been discovered. It would be in a police lab somewhere. Rebus kept the right side of the cordon, looked around him. Huge white gulls strutted at a safe distance. The wind was fresh. He couldn’t tell how close this was to the spot where Lumsden had dropped him off.
‘What do you know about her?’ he asked Ancram, who stood, hands in pockets, studying him.
‘Name’s Holden, I think. Twenty-seven, twenty-eight.’
‘Did he take a souvenir?’
‘Just one of her shoes. Listen, Rebus... all this interest is because you once bought a prostitute a cup of tea?’
‘Her name was Angie Riddell.’ Rebus paused. ‘She had beautiful eyes.’ He gazed towards a rusting hulk chained dockside. ‘There’s a question I’ve been asking myself. Do we let it happen, or do we make it happen?’ He looked at Ancram. ‘Any idea?’
Ancram frowned. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’
‘Me neither,’ Rebus admitted. ‘Tell your driver to be careful with my car. The steering’s a bit loose.’
The Panic of Dreams
21
They were chasing him up and down monkey-puzzle ladders, the tumorous sea raging beneath, buckling weakened metal. Rebus lost his grip, tumbled down steel steps, gashed his side and dabbed a hand there, finding oil instead of blood. They were twenty feet above him and laughing, taking their time: where was there for him to go? Maybe he could fly, flap his arms and leap into space. The only thing to fear was the drop.
Like landing on concrete.
Was that better or worse than landing on spikes? He had decisions to make; his pursuers weren’t far behind. They were never far behind, yet he always stayed in front of them, even wounded. I could get out of this, he thought.
I could get out of this!
A voice directly behind him: ‘In your dreams.’ Then a push out into space.
Rebus started awake so suddenly his head hit the car roof. His body surged with fear and adrenalin.
‘Christ,’ Ancram said from the driver’s seat, regaining control of the steering-wheel, ‘what happened?’
‘How long was I asleep?’
‘I didn’t realise you were.’
Rebus looked at his watch: maybe only a couple of minutes. He rubbed his face, told his heart it could stop hammering any time it liked. He could tell Ancram it was a bad dream; he could tell him it was a panic attack. But he didn’t want to tell him anything. Until proven otherwise, Ancram was the enemy as surely as any gun-toting thug.
‘What were you saying?’ he said instead.
‘I was outlining the deal.’
‘The deal, right.’ The Sunday papers had slid from Rebus’s lap. He picked them off the floor. Johnny Bible’s latest outrage had made only one front page; the others had been printed too early.
‘Right now, I’ve enough against you to have you suspended,’ Ancram said. ‘Not such an unusual situation for you, Inspector.’
‘I’ve been there before.’
‘Even if I overlook the Johnny Bible questions, there’s still the matter of your distinct lack of cooperation with my inquiries into the Spaven case.’
‘I had flu.’
Ancram ignored this. ‘We both know two things. First, a good cop is going to get into trouble from time to time. I’ve had complaints made against me in the past. Second, these TV programmes almost never uncover new evidence. It’s all speculation and maybes, whereas a police investigation is meticulous, and the gen we gather is passed to the Crown Office and pored over by what are supposed to be some of the finest criminal lawyers in the country.’
Rebus turned in his seat to study Ancram, wondering where this was leading. In the mirror, he could see his own car being driven with due care and attention by Ancram’s lackey. Ancram kept his eyes on the road.
‘See, John, what I’m saying is, why run when you’ve nothing to fear?’
‘Who says I’ve nothing to fear?’
Ancram smiled. The old pals routine was just that — a routine. Rebus trusted Ancram the way he’d trust a paedophile in a play-park. All the same, when Uncle Joe had lied about Tony El, it was Ancram who’d come up with the Aberdeen info... Whose side was the man on? Was he playing a double game? Or had he just thought Rebus wouldn’t get anywhere, info or no info? Was it a way of covering up that he was in Uncle Joe’s pocket?
‘If I’m hearing you right,’ Rebus said, ‘you’re saying I’ve nothing to fear from the Spaven case?’
‘This could be true.’
‘You’d make it true?’ Ancram shrugged. ‘In return for what?’
‘John, you’ve ruffled more feathers than a puma in a parrot-house, and you’ve been about as subtle.’
‘You want me to be more subtle?’
Ancram’s voice tightened. ‘I want you to sit on your arse for once.’
‘Drop the Mitchison inquiry?’ Ancram didn’t say anything. Rebus repeated the question.
‘You might find it does you the world of good.’
‘And you’d have done Uncle Joe Toal another good turn, eh, Ancram?’
‘Wake up to reality. This isn’t a linoleum floor, big squares of black and white.’
‘No, it’s grey silk suits and crisp green cash.’
‘It’s give and take. People like Uncle Joe don’t go away: you get rid of him and a young pretender starts making claims.’
‘Better the devil you know?’
‘Not a bad motto.’
John Martyn: ‘I’d Rather Be the Devil’.
‘Here’s another,’ Rebus said, ‘don’t rock the boat. Sounds like that’s what you’re telling me.’