‘Yes. I’m sure there was a white saloon.’
‘Can I call you back?’
‘Soon as poss.’ He put down the receiver, scribbled circles within circles on his pad, then sent lines radiating out from the centre. He couldn’t decide if it looked more like a spider’s web or a dartboard, came to the answer: neither. The telescopic sight from a warplane maybe? Or a section through a tree-trunk? All possibilities, but really all it was in the end was a meaningless squiggle. And when he ran over it a few times with the pen, it became clotted past interpretation.
His phone rang and he picked up.
‘Is it important?’ Bobby Hogan asked.
‘I don’t know. Might connect to something else.’
‘Want to tell me what?’
‘You go first.’
He seemed to be considering the offer, then began to recite from the case-notes. ‘Light-coloured saloon car, possibly white or cream. Seen parked on Queen’s Drive.’
‘Where on Queen’s Drive?’ Queen’s Drive being the roadway that wound around Holyrood Park.
‘You know The Hawse?’
‘Not by name.’
‘It’s at the foot of the Crags, near where the path starts. This car was parked there, lights on, apparently nobody in it. Someone came forward when they heard about the suicide. But the timing was wrong. They spotted it at around ten thirty that night. It was gone by the time a patrol went past at midnight. Margolies didn’t head up there until later.’
‘According to his widow.’
‘Well, she should know, shouldn’t she? So are you going to tell me what this is all about?’
‘Another sighting of a white saloon, the morning Darren Rough was killed. Seen haring out of Holyrood Park.’
‘What’s that got to do with Jim’s suicide?’
‘Probably nothing,’ Rebus said, thinking of the doodle again. ‘Maybe I’m just seeing things,’ He saw the Farmer standing in the doorway, beckoning. ‘Thanks anyway,’ he said.
‘Any other fantasies you get, they’ve got special phone numbers these days.’
Rebus put down the receiver, started towards the door.
‘My office,’ the Farmer said, moving away before Rebus could reach him. There was a mug of coffee already sitting on the Farmer’s desk. He poured Rebus one, handed it over.
‘What have I done this time?’ Rebus asked.
The Farmer motioned for him to sit. ‘It’s Darren Rough’s social worker. He’s made an official complaint.’
‘About me?’
‘He reckons you “outed” his client, and brought this whole thing on. He’s asking questions about how closely you tie in to Rough’s death.’
Rebus rubbed his eyes, managed a tired smile. ‘He’s welcome to his opinions.’
‘No danger he can back them up with hard proof?’
‘Not a chance in hell, sir.’
‘It’s still not going to look good. You were the last person Rough had any contact with.’
‘Only if you discount the killer. Have forensics turned up anything?’
‘Only that the killer probably got some of Rough’s blood on him.’
‘What if I put forward a proposal?’
The Farmer picked up a pen, studied it. ‘What sort of proposal?’
‘That we bring in Cary Oakes again. I’m positive he nicked my car, which puts him in Arden Street around the time Darren Rough was leaving. What was he doing there in the first place? Staking the place out? In which case, he’d been there a while, maybe saw us going in, took Rough for a friend of mine...’
The Farmer was shaking his head. ‘We can’t bring in Oakes, not without something solid.’
‘How about a mallet?’
It was the Farmer’s turn to smile. ‘Stevens’ paper has lawyers, John. And you’ve said yourself, Oakes is a pro. He’ll sit there keeping schtum till they spring him. At which point, the daily rags have got themselves another story about police harassment.’
‘I thought we were trying to harass him?’
The Farmer dropped the pen on the floor, stooped to pick it up. ‘We’ve been through all this.’
‘I know.’
‘So now we’re going in circles. Bottom line, a complaint from Social Work has to be followed up.’
‘And meantime, I can’t work the investigation.’
‘It would look bloody odd under the circumstances. What other work have you got?’
‘Officially, not a lot.’
‘I heard you had a MisPer.’
‘I was working it in my own time.’
‘So spend a bit more time on it. But — and this is off the record, mind — keep close to Gill and the team. You seem to know more about Rough and Greenfield than most.’
‘In other words, you need me, but can’t afford to be seen with me?’
‘You always had a way with words, John. Off you go now. POETS day, you know, weekend coming up. Go and enjoy yourself.’
31
Janice Mee turned up at Arden Street for want of anything more constructive to do. She had all this time to herself, and over in Fife she felt she was accomplishing nothing. If she sat at home, the patterns on the wallpaper started swirling, and the clock’s tick seemed amplified beyond all enduring. But if she went out, there were questions to be answered by neighbours and passers-by — ‘Is he no’ back yet?’; ‘Where do you think he’d have went?’ — and comments to be fielded — usually to do with having patience or keeping fingers crossed. Besides, she had a feeling whenever she stepped off the train at Waverley that Damon was nearby. It was true people had a sixth sense: you could feel when someone was creeping up behind you. And every time she stepped on to the platform, stopping there while the workers and shoppers made to pass her, hurried lives they had to be getting on with... when she stopped there, it was as if her world stopped turning, and everything became still and peaceful. In those moments, with the city hushed and the blood singing in her heart, she could almost hear him, smell him — everything but reach out and touch his arm. She saw herself pulling him to her, scolding him as she poured kisses on his face, and him all grown-up and trying to resist, but pleased, too, to be wanted like this and loved like this, loved the way no one in the universe would ever love him.
Since he’d gone missing, she’d been sleeping in his room. At first, she’d reasoned to Brian that Damon might sneak back in the night for his things. This way, she’d be there to confront him, to snare him. But then Brian had said he’d move into the room too, and she’d pointed out there was just the single bed, and he’d countered that he’d sleep on the floor. On and on the discussion had gone, until she’d lost it and blurted out that she’d rather be on her own.
The first time she’d spoken the words.
‘Frankly, Brian, I’d much rather be on my own...’
His face had lost all rigidity, had folded in on itself, and she’d felt sick in her stomach. But she’d been right to say the words, wrong to keep them inside the past months and years.
‘It’s Johnny, isn’t it?’ Brian, face averted, had plucked up the courage to ask.
And in a way it was, though not quite the way Brian meant. It was that Johnny had shown her another road she might have taken, and in doing so had opened up the possibility of all the other roads left untravelled, all the places she’d never been. Places like Emotion and High and Elation. Places like Myself and Free and Aware. She knew she’d never say these things to anyone; they sounded too much like stuff from the magazines. But that didn’t stop her feeling they were true. Born and bred in the town, lived most of her days there: did she really want to die there? Did she want it that thirty-odd years of her life could be summarised in five minutes to a friend she hadn’t seen since secondary school?