‘They must’ve been crazy,’ Michael said on the way home, Rebus having got them a lift in the back of a patrol car. ‘Thinking they could pull a stunt like that.’
‘It wasn’t a stunt, Michael. Somebody’s desperate. That story in yesterday’s paper has really shaken them up.’ After all, wasn’t that exactly what he’d wanted? He’d sought a reaction, and here it was.
From the flat he telephoned an emergency windscreen replacement firm. It would cost the earth, but he needed the car first thing in the morning. He just prayed his leg wouldn’t seize up in the night.
30
Which of course it did. He was up at five, practising walking across the living room, trying to unstiffen the joints and tendons. He looked at his left leg. A spectacular blood-filled bruise stretched across his calf, wrapping itself around most of the front of the leg too. If the bony front of his leg had taken the impact rather than the fleshy back, there would have been at the very least a clean break. He swallowed two paracetamol-recommended for the pain by the Infirmary doctor-and waited for morning proper to arrive. He’d needed sleep last night, but hadn’t got much. Today he’d be living on his wits. He just hoped those wits would be sharp enough.
At six-thirty he managed the tenement stairs and hobbled to his car, now boasting a windscreen worth more than the rest of it put together. Traffic wasn’t quite heavy yet coming into town, and non-existent heading out, so the drive itself was mercifully shortened. Pressing down on the clutch hurt all the way up into his groin. He took the coast road out to North Berwick, letting the engine labour rather than changing gears too often. Just the other side of the town, he found the house he was looking for. Well, an estate, actually, and not a housing estate. It must have been about thirty or forty acres, with an uninterrupted view across the mouth of the Forth to the dark lump of Bass Rock. Rebus wasn’t much good at architecture; Georgian, he’d guess. It looked like a lot of the houses in Edinburgh’s New Town, with fluted stone columns either side of the doorway and large sash windows, nine panes of glass to each half.
Broderick Gibson had come a long way since those days in his garden shed, pottering with homebrew recipes. Rebus parked outside the front door and rang the bell. The door was opened by Mrs Gibson. Rebus introduced himself.
‘It’s a bit early, Inspector. Is anything wrong?’
‘If I could just speak to your son, please.’
‘He’s eating breakfast. Why don’t you wait in the sitting-room and I’ll bring you — ’
‘It’s all right, mother.’ Aengus Gibson was still chewing and wiping his chin with a cloth napkin. He stood in the dining-room doorway. ‘Come in here, Inspector.’
Rebus smiled at the defeated Mrs Gibson as he passed her. ‘What’s happened to your leg?’ Gibson asked.
‘I thought you might know, sir.’
‘Oh? Why?’ Aengus had seated himself at the table. Rebus had been entertaining an image of silver service-tureens and hot-plates, kedgeree or kippers, Wedgewood plates, and tea poured by a manservant. But all he saw was a plain white plate with greasy sausage and eggs on it. Buttered toast on the side and a mug of coffee. There were two newspapers folded beside Aengus-Mairie’s paper and the Financial Times — and enough crumbs around the table to suggest that mother and father had eaten already.
Mrs Gibson put her head round the door. ‘A cup of coffee, Inspector?’
‘No, thank you, Mrs Gibson.’ She smiled and retreated.
‘I just thought,’ Rebus said to Aengus, ‘you might have arranged it.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Trying to shut me up before I can ask a few questions about the Central Hotel.
‘That again!’ Aengus bit into a piece of toast.
‘Yes, that again.’ Rebus sat down at the table, stretching his left leg out in front of him. ‘You see, I know you were there that night, long after Mr Vanderhyde left. I know you were at a poker game set up by two villains called Tam and Eck Robertson. I know someone shot and killed Tam, and I know you ran into the kitchens covered in blood and screaming for all the gas rings to be turned on. That, Mr Gibson, is what i know.’
Gibson seemed to have trouble swallowing the chewed toast. He gulped coffee, and wiped his mouth again.
‘Well, Inspector,’ he said, ‘if that’s what you know, I suggest you don’t know very much.’
‘Maybe you’d like to tell me the rest, sir?’
They sat in silence. Aengus toyed with the empty mug, Rebus waiting for him to speak. The door burst open.
‘Get out of here!’ roared Broderick Gibson. He was wearing trousers and an open-necked shirt, whose cuffs flapped for want of their links. Obviously, his wife had disturbed him halfway through dressing. ‘I could have you arrested right this minute!’ he said. ‘The Chief Constable tells me you’ve been suspended.’
Rebus stood up slowly, making much of his injured leg. But there was no charity in Broderick Gibson.
‘And stay away from us, unless you have the authority! I’ll be talking to my solicitor this morning.’
Rebus was at the door now. He stopped and looked into Broderick Gibson’s eyes. ‘I suggest you do that, sir. And you might care to tell him where you were the night the Central Hotel burnt down. Your son’s in serious trouble, Mr Gibson. You can’t hide him from the fact forever.’
‘Just get out,’ Gibson hissed.
‘You haven’t asked about my leg.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing, sir, just wondering alou…’
As Rebus walked back across the large hallway, with its paintings and candelabra and fine curving stairwell, he felt how cold the house was. It wasn’t just its age or the tiled floor either; the place was cold at its heart.
He arrived in Gorgie just as Siobhan was pouring her first cup of decaf of the day.
‘What happened to your leg?’ she asked.
Rebus pointed with his stick to the man stationed behind the camera. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘I’m relieving Petrie,’ said Brian Holmes.
‘I wonder what any of us is doing here,’ said Siobhan. Rebus ignored her.
‘You’re off sick.’
‘I was bored, I came back early. I spoke to the Chief Super yesterday and he okayed it. So here I am.’ Holmes looked fine but sounded dour. ‘There was an ulterior motive, though,’ he said. ‘I wanted to hear from Siobhan herself the story of Eddie and Pat. It all sounds s…incredible. I mean, I cried at that cemetery yesterday, and the bastard I was crying for was sitting at home playing with himself.’
‘He’ll be playing with himself in jail soon,’ said Rebus. Then, to Siobhan: ‘Give me some of that coffee.’ He drank two scalding swallows, before passing the plastic cup back. ‘Thanks. Any progress?’
‘No one’s arrived yet. Not even our Trading Standards companion.’
‘I meant those other things.’
‘What did happen to your leg?’ Holmes asked. So Rebus told them all about it.
‘It’s my fault,’ Holmes said, ‘for getting you into this in the first place.’
‘That’s right, it is,’ said Rebus, ‘and as penance you can keep your eyes glued to that window.’ He turned to Siobhan. ‘So?’
She took a deep breath. ‘So I interviewed Ringan and Calder yesterday afternoon. They’ve both been charged. I also checked and Mrs Cafferty doesn’t have a driving licence, not under her married or her maiden name. Bone’s Mercedes belonged to-’
‘Big Ger Cafferty.’
‘You already knew?’
‘I guessed,’ said Rebus. ‘What about the other half of Bone’s business?’