‘How’s our position, Alan?’
But Archibald wasn’t listening, not to Rebus.
‘Maybe three-quarters of the way up the slope,’ Oakes was saying. ‘A line of three... maybe four... but three distinct outcrops, similar heights.’
‘Hang on a second,’ Archibald said. His finger scratched over the map. He folded it smaller, brought it closer to his face, blinked so as to focus better. ‘Yes, just to the west. That way, about a hundred yards.’
He started to climb. Oakes was already on his way, Rebus bringing up the rear. He looked behind him: couldn’t see a damned thing. It was a landscape out of time. Kilted warriors might have emerged from that mist and he wouldn’t have been surprised. He rounded some bracken and kept moving, his joints aching, a slight burning in his chest. Archibald was moving faster, moving with the zeal of the possessed.
Rebus wanted to tell him: you’ve got a map, what’s to say Oakes didn’t buy one too? What’s to say he didn’t study it, looking for certain features? He might even have been here already on a recce — he’d given his minders the slip plenty of times.
‘Hang on!’ he called, quickening his pace.
‘John!’ Archibald called back, his form ghostlike up ahead. ‘You try that way, we’ll take the other two!’ Meaning Rebus was to explore the easternmost outcrop.
‘Will I need to dig?’ he called out. Receiving laughter in reply: Oakes’s laughter. The more unsettling for the fact he could barely be seen.
‘Will we?’ he heard Archibald asking Oakes.
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Oakes answered. ‘We’ll just leave the bodies where they fall.’
Rebus was still wondering if he’d misheard when he heard the dull sound of an impact, and a distant groan.
‘Oakes!’ he roared, upping his pace. He could make out the shadowy silhouette: Oakes standing over the fallen Archibald, a rock in his hand, raised to strike again.
‘Oakes!’ he repeated.
‘I hear you!’ Oakes yelled back, bringing the rock down on to Archibald’s head.
By now Rebus was almost upon him. Oakes tossed the rock on to the ground and was licking his lips as Rebus reached him. ‘You’ll never know the satisfaction,’ he said. ‘A flea’s been biting me for years, and now I’ve squashed it.’ He slipped a hand into his waistband and brought out a folding knife.
‘Amazing what the human body can hide,’ Oakes said, grinning now. ‘A rock was good enough for the old man, but I thought maybe you deserved something with a bit more bite.’ He lunged. Rebus jumped back, lost his footing and was skidding back down the slope. Above him, he saw Oakes in pursuit, bounding like a mountain goat.
‘I’m going to enjoy this!’ Oakes called. ‘You’ll never know how much!’
Rebus kept himself rolling until bracken stopped him. He clambered to his feet, picking up a stone and hurling it. His aim was wild. Oakes dodged it easily, only ten yards away now and slowing his descent.
‘Ever skinned a rabbit?’ Oakes said, breathing heavily, sweat glistening on his skull.
‘You’re just where I want you,’ Rebus hissed.
Oakes gave a look of mock surprise. ‘And where’s that?’
‘Committing an offence. Now I get to arrest you, and it’s clean.’
‘You get to arrest me?’ Spluttering laughter. He was so close, his saliva hit Rebus’s face. ‘Man, you’ve got balls.’ Moving the knife. ‘Enjoy them while you can.’
‘All these games,’ Rebus was saying. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there? Something you don’t want us to know. Keeping us all busy so we don’t go looking.’
‘No shit?’
‘What is it?’
But Oakes was shaking his head, working the knife. Rebus turned and ran. Oakes was after him, whooping, bounding through bracken. Rebus looking around, seeing nothing but hillside and a killer with a knife. He stumbled, came to a stop and turned to face Oakes.
‘Gotcha,’ Oakes called out.
Rebus, almost out of breath, just nodded.
‘Know what you are, man?’ Oakes asked. ‘You’re my spot of R&R, that’s all.’
Rebus, walking backwards, started tugging his shirt out of his waistband. Oakes looked puzzled, until Rebus pulled the shirt up, revealing a tiny mike taped to his chest. Oakes looked at him, Rebus holding the stare. Then looked around, seeking shapes.
Voices approaching at speed.
‘Thanks for all that shouting,’ Rebus said. ‘Better than a trail of breadcrumbs any day.’
With a roar, Oakes took a final lunge at him. Rebus sidestepped it, and Oakes was past him and running. Downhill to start with, then changing his mind and making an arc, climbing now, further into the hills. The first uniforms appeared out of the mist. Rebus pointed after Oakes.
‘Get him!’ he called. Then he started climbing too, making his way back to where Alan Archibald lay, still conscious but with blood pouring from his wounds. Rebus crouched beside him as more uniforms ran past.
‘Radio down for help!’ Rebus called out to them. One of the uniforms turned back to him.
‘Don’t need to, sir. You’ve already done it.’
Rebus looked at the mike on his chest and realised this was true.
‘Where did the cavalry come from?’ Archibald asked, his voice faint.
‘I got them from the ACC,’ Rebus told him. ‘He promised me a chopper too, but it would have needed X-ray eyes.’
Archibald managed a smile. ‘Do you think...?’
‘I’m sorry, Alan,’ Rebus said. ‘It was all crap, that’s what I think. He just wanted a couple more scalps.’
Archibald touched shaking fingers to his head. ‘He nearly got one,’ he said, closing his eyes to rest.
Alan Archibald went to hospital, and Rebus went in search of Jim Stevens. He’d already checked out of the hotel, and wasn’t at the newspaper office. Eventually, Rebus tracked him down to The Hebrides, a furtive little bar behind Waverley station. Stevens was sitting alone in a corner with only a full ashtray and glass of whisky for company.
Rebus got himself a whisky and water, gulped it down, ordered another and went to join him.
‘Come to gloat?’ Stevens asked.
‘About what?’
‘That wee shite set me up.’ He told Rebus what had happened.
‘Then I’m an angel straight from heaven,’ Rebus said.
Stevens blinked. ‘How do you make that out?’
‘I bring glad tidings. Or more accurately, a news story, and I’d say you’re ahead of the pack.’
Rebus had never seen a man sober up so quickly. Stevens pulled a notebook from his pocket and folded it open. His pen ready, he looked up at Rebus.
‘It’ll have to be a trade,’ Rebus told him.
‘I need this,’ Stevens said.
Rebus nodded, told him the story. ‘And I’d have been next if he got his way.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ Stevens exhaled, took a gulp of whisky. ‘There are probably dozens of questions I should be asking you, but right now I can’t think of any.’ He took out a mobile phone. ‘Mind if I call this in?’
Rebus shook his head. ‘Then we talk,’ he said.
While Stevens read from his notes, turning them into sentences and paragraphs, Rebus listened, nodding confirmation when it was demanded of him. Stevens listened while the story was read back to him. He made a few changes, then finished the call.
‘I owe you,’ he said, putting the phone on the table. ‘What’ll it be?’
‘Another whisky,’ Rebus said, ‘and the answers to some questions.’
Half an hour later he had a pair of headphones on and was listening to the tape of Oakes’s last interview.
‘“A date with my past”,’ he recited, slipping the headphones off his ears. ‘“A date with destiny”.’