‘How have you settled in there, by the way?’
Rebus shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter to me where they put me. Where do you want to eat?’
‘I’ve taken the liberty of reserving a table at the University Staff Club.’
‘What, some sort of canteen?’
Curt laughed, shaking his head. He had ushered Rebus out of his office and was locking the door. ‘No,’ said Curt. ‘There is a canteen, of course, but as you’re buying I thought we’d opt for something a little bit more refined.’
‘Then lead on to the refinery.’
The dining-room was on the ground floor, near the main door of the Staff Club on Chambers Street. They’d walked the short walk, talking about nothing in particular when they could hear one another above the traffic noise. Curt always walked as though he were late for some engagement. Well, he was a busy man: a full teaching load, plus the extra duties heaped on him at one time or another by most of the police forces in Scotland, and most onerously by the City of Edinburgh Police.
The dining-room was small but with plenty of space between the tables. Rebus was pleased to see that the prices were reasonable, though the tally was upped when Curt ordered a bottle of wine.
‘My treat,’ he said. But Rebus shook his head.
‘The Chief Constable’s treat,’ he corrected. After all, he had every intention of claiming it as a legitimate expense. The wine arrived before the soup. As the waitress poured, Rebus wondered when would be the right moment to open the real conversation.
‘Slainte!’ said Curt, raising his glass. Then: ‘So what’s this all about? You’re not the kind for lunch with a friend, not unless there’s something you want, and can’t get by buying pints and bridies in some smoky saloon.’
Rebus smiled at this. ‘Do you remember the Central Hotel?’
‘A dive of a place on Princes Street. It burnt down six or seven years ago.’
‘Five years ago actually.’
Curt took another sip of wine. ‘There was a smouldering body as I recall. “Crispy batter” we call those.’
‘But when you examined the corpse, he hadn’t died in the fire, had he?’
‘Some new evidence has come to light?’
‘Not exactly. I just wanted to ask what you remember about the case.’
‘Well, let’s see.’ Curt broke off as the soup arrived. He took three or four mouthfuls, then wiped a napkin around his lips. ‘The body was never identified. I know that we tried dental checks, but to no avail. There was no external evidence, of course, but people stupidly believe that a burned body tells no tales. I cut the deceased open and found, as I’d known I would, that the internal organs were in pretty good shape. Cooked on the outside, raw within, like a good French steak.’
A couple at a nearby table were soundlessly chewing their food, and staring hard at their tabletop. Curt seemed either not to notice or not to mind.
‘DNA fingerprinting had been around for four years, but though we got some blood from the heart, we were never given anything to match it against. Of course, the heart was the clincher.’
‘Because of the bullet wound.’
‘Two wounds, Inspector, entrance and exit. That set you lot scurrying back to the scene, didn’t it?’
Rebus nodded. They’d searched the immediate vicinity of the body, then widened the search until a cadet found the bullet. Its calibre was eight millimetre, matching the wound to the heart, but it offered no other clues.
‘You also found,’ said Rebus, ‘that the deceased had suffered a broken arm at some time in the past.’
‘Did I?’
‘But again it didn’t get us any further forward.’
‘Especially,’ said Curt, mopping his bowl with bread, ‘bearing in mind the reputation of the Central. Probably every second person in the place had been in a fight and suffered some breakages.’
Rebus was nodding. ‘Agreed, yet he was never identified. If he’d been a regular, or one of the staff, surely someone would have come forward. But nobody ever did.’
‘Well, it was a long time ago. Are you about to start dusting off some ghosts?’
‘There was nothing ghostly about whoever brained Brian Holmes.’
‘Sergeant Holmes? What happened?’
Rebus was hoping to spend some of the afternoon reading through more of the case-notes. He’d thought it would take half a day; but this had been optimistic from the start. He was now thinking in terms of half a week, including some evening reading in the flat. There was so much stuff. Lengthy reports from the fire department, the council’s building department, news clippings, police reports, interview statement…
But when he got back to St Leonard’s, Lauderdale was waiting. He had received Rebus’s hasty comment on the money-lending surveillance, and now wanted to push things on. Which meant that Rebus was trapped in the Chief Inspector’s office for the best part of two hours, an hour of it head-to-head stuff. For the other hour, they were joined by Detective Inspector Alister Flower, who had worked out of St Leonard’s since its opening day back in September 1989 and bragged continually that when he had shaken hands with the main dignitary at the occasion, they had both turned out to be Masons, with Flower’s being the older clan.
Flower resented the incomers from Great London Road. If there were friction and factions within the station, you could be sure Flower was at the back of them somewhere. If anything united Lauderdale and Rebus it was a dislike of Flower, though Lauderdale was slowly being drawn into the Flower camp.
Rebus, however, had contempt even for the funny way the man spelt his first name. He called him ‘Little Weed’ and thought probably Flower had something to do with the taxman’s sudden enquiries.
In the operation against the money lenders, Flower was to lead the other surveillance team. Typically, in an effort to appease the man, Lauderdale offered him the pick of the surveillances. One would be of a pub where the lenders were said to hang out and take payments. The other would be of what looked like the nominal HQ of the gang, an office attached to a mini-cab firm on Gorgie Road.
‘I’ve okayed the Gorgie surveillance with Divisional HQ West,’ said Lauderdale, as ever efficient behind a desk. Take him out onto the streets, Rebus knew, and he was about as efficient as pepper on a vindaloo.
‘Well,’ said Flower, ‘if it’s okay with Inspector Rebus, I think I’d prefer the watch on the pub. It’s a bit closer to home.’ And Flower smiled.
‘Interesting choice,’ said Rebus, his arms folded, legs stretched out in front of him.
Lauderdale was nodding, his eyes flitting between the two men. ‘Well, that’s settled then. Now, let’s get down to details.’
The same details, in fact, that Rebus and he had gone through in the hour prior to Flower’s arrival. Rebus tried to concentrate but couldn’t. He was desperate to get back to the Central Hotel records. But the more agitated he grew, the slower things moved.
The plan itself was simple. The money lenders worked out of the Firth Pub in Tollcross. They picked up business there, and generally hung around waiting for debtors to come and pay the weekly dues. The money was taken at some point to the office in Gorgie. This office also was used as a drop-off point by debtors, and here the leading visible player could be found.
The men working out of the Firth were bit-parts. They collected cash, and maybe even used some verbal persuasion when payment was late. But when it came to the crunch, everyone paid dues to Davey Dougary. Davey turned up every morning at the office as prompt as any businessman, parking his BMW 635CSi beside the battered mini-cabs. On the way from car to office, if the weather was warm he would slip his jacket off and roll up his shirt-sleeves. Yes, Trading Standards had been watching Davey for quite some time.
There would be Trading Standards officers involved in both surveillances. The police were really only there to enforce the law; it was a Trading Standards operation in name. The name they had chosen was Moneybags. Another interesting choice, thought Rebus, so original. Keeping surveillance in the pub would mean sitting around reading newspapers, circling the names of horses on the betting sheet, playing pool or the jukebox or dominoes. Oh yes, and drinking beer; after all, they didn’t want to stand out in the crowd.