‘You do know where we are,’ Rebus said, voicing surprise. ‘You know Big Ger, then?’ He waited till Eddie nodded. The chef had assumed a foetal position, feet on the seat beneath him, head tucked into his knees. ‘Are you scared of him?’ Eddie nodded again. ‘Why?’ Slowly, Eddie shook his head. ‘Is it because of the Central Hotel?’
‘Why did I have to tell Brian?’ It was a loud yell, all the louder for being confined by the car. ‘Why the fuck am I so stupid?’
‘They’ve found the gun, you know.’
‘I don’t know anything about that.’
‘You never saw the gun?’
Eddie shook his head. Damn, Rebus had been expecting more. ‘So what did you see?’
‘I was in the kitchens.’
‘Yes?’
‘This guy came running in, screaming at me to turn on the gas. He looked crazy, spots of blood on his fac…in his eyelashes.’ Eddie was calming as the exorcism took effect. ‘He started to turn on all the gas rings. Not lighting them. He looked so crazy, I helped him. I turned on the gas, just like he told me to.’
‘And then?’
‘I got out of there. I wasn’t sticking around. I thought the same as’ everybody else: it was for the insurance money. Till they found the body A week later, I got a visit from Big Ger. A painful visit. The message was never say a word, not a word about what happened.’
‘Was Big Ger there that night?’
Eddie shrugged. Damn him again! ‘I was in the kitchens. I only saw the crazy guy.’
Well, Rebus knew who that was-someone who’d seen the state of the Central kitchens. ‘Black Aengus?’ he asked.
Eddie didn’t say anything for a few minutes, just stared blearily out of the windscreen. Then: ‘Big Ger’s bound to find out I said something. Every now and then he sends another warning. Nothing physica…not to me, at least. Just to let me know he remembers. He’ll kill me.’ He turned his head to Rebus. ‘He’ll kill me, and all I did was turn on the, gas.’
‘The man with the blood, it was Aengus Gibson, wasn’t it?’
Eddie nodded slowly, screwing shut his eyes and wringing out tears. Rebus started the car. As he was driving off, he saw the 4x4 coming towards him from the opposite direction. It was signalling to pull into the gates, and the gates themselves were opening compliantly. The car was driven by a thug whose face was new to Rebus. In the back seat sat Mo Cafferty.
It bothered him, during the short drive back to St Leonard’s, with Eddie bawling and huddled in the passenger seat. It bothered him. Could Mo Cafferty drive at all? That would be easy enough to check: a quick chat with DVLC. If she couldn’t, if she needed a chauffeur, then who was driving the 4x4 that day Rebus had seen it parked outside Bone’s? And wasn’t that quite a coincidence anyway? John Rebus didn’t believe in coincidences.
‘The Heartbreak Cafe didn’t get its meat from Bone’s, did it?’ he asked Eddie, who misinterpreted the question. ‘I mean Bone’s the butcher’s shop,’ Rebus explained. But Eddie shook his head. ‘Never mind,’ said Rebus.
Back at St Leonard’s, the very person he wanted to see was waiting for him.
‘Why aren’t you out at Gorgie?’ he asked.
‘Why aren’t you on suspension?’ Siobhan Clarke asked back. ‘That’s below the belt. Besides, I asked first.’
‘I had to come and pick up these.’ She waved a huge brown envelope at him.
‘Well, listen, I’ve got a little job for you. Several, in fact. First, we need to have Eddie Ringan’s casket back up out of the ground.’
‘What?’
‘It’s not Eddie inside, I’ve just put him in the cells. You’ll need to interview and book him. I’ll tell you all about it.’
‘I’m going to need to write all this down.’
‘No you won’t, your memory’s good enough.’
‘Not when my brain’s in shock. You mean that wasn’t Eddie in the oven?’
‘That’s what I mean. Next, check and see if Mo Cafferty has a driving licence.’
‘What for?’
‘Just do it. And do you remember telling me that when Bone won his Merc, he put up his share of the business to cover the bet? Your words: his share.’
‘I remember. His wife told me.’
Rebus nodded. ‘I want to know who owns the other half.’
‘Is that all, sir?’
Rebus thought. ‘No, not quite. Check Bone’s Merc. See if anyone owned it before him. That way, we’ll know who he won it from.’ He looked at her unblinking. ‘Quick as you can, eh?’
‘Quick as I can, sir. Now, do you want to know what’s in the envelope? It’s for the man who has everything.’
‘Go on then, surprise me.’
So she did.
Rebus was so surprised, he bought her coffee and a dough-ring in the canteen. The X-rays lay on the table between them.
‘I don’t believe this,’ he kept saying. ‘I really don’t believe this. I put out a search for these ages ago.’
‘They were in the records office at Ninewells.’
‘But I asked them!’
‘But did you ask nicely?’
Siobhan had explained that she’d been able to take a few trips to Dundee, chatting up anyone who might be useful, and especially in the chaotic records department, which had been moved and reorganised a few years before, leaving older records an ignored shambles. It had taken time. More than that, she’d had to promise a date to the young man who’d finally come up with the goods.
Rebus held up one of the X-rays again.
‘Broken right arm,’ Siobhan confirmed. ‘Twelve years ago. While he was living and working in Dundee.’
‘Tam Roberston,’ Rebus said simply. That was that then: the dead man, the man with the bullet wound through his heart, the bullet from Rebus’s Colt 45, was Tam Robertson.
‘Difficult to prove in a court of law,’ Siobhan suggested. True enough, you’d need more than hearsay and an X-ray to prove identity to a jury.
‘There are ways,’ said Rebus. ‘We can try dental records again, now we’ve got an idea who the corpse is. Then there’s superimposition. For the moment, it’s enough for me that I’m satisfied.’ He nodded. ‘Well done, Clarke.’ He started to get up.
‘Sir?’
‘Yes?’
She was smiling. ‘Merry Christmas, sir.’
29
He phoned Gibson’s Brewery, only to be told that ‘Mr Aengus’ was attending an ale competition in Newcastle, due back later tonight. So he called the Inland Revenue and spoke for a while to the inspector in charge of his case. If he was going to confront Tommy Greenwood, he’d need all the ammo he could gathe…bad metaphor considering, but true all the same. He left his car at St Leonard’s while he went for a walk, trying to clear his head. Everything was coming together now. Aengus Gibson had been playing cards with Tam Robertson, and had shot him. Then set fire to the hotel to cover up the murder. It should all be tied up, but Rebus’s brain was posing more questions than answers. Was it likely Aengus carried a gun around with him, even in his wild days? Why didn’t Eck, also present, seek revenge for his brother? Wouldn’t Aengus have had to shut him up somehow? Was it likely that only three of them were involved in the poker game? And who had delivered the gun to Deek Torrance? So many questions.
As he came down onto South Clerk Street, he saw that a van was parked outside Bone’s. A new plate-glass window was being installed in the shop itself, and the van door was open at the back. Rebus walked over to the van and looked in the back. It had been a proper butcher’s van at one time, and nobody had bothered changing it. You climbed a step into the back, where there were counters and cupboards and a small fridge-freezer. The van would have had its usual rounds of the housing schemes in the city, housewives and retired folk queuing for meat rather than travelling to a shop. A man in a white apron came out of Bone’s with an ex-pig hoisted on his shoulder.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, carrying the carcass into the van.