Fifty minutes later, when the tenement door rattled open, he slid down in his seat, rose up again to watch the stranger walk away from the building. He looked dirty and dishevelled. Some secret little vice of Rebus’s? Oakes didn’t think so. But it intrigued him all the same. He waited till the man had rounded the corner, then started the engine and began to follow...
At six o’clock, Rebus was wakened by the front buzzer. He went to the door, pushed the intercom.
‘Who is it?’
‘It’s me.’ Bill Pryde, not sounding happy.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘This car I’m supposed to pick up. Just where exactly have you hidden it?’
‘Hang on.’
Rebus walked into the living room, glanced at the sofa. Saw the blanket had been folded neatly; no sign of Darren Rough. Peered out of the window. A space where the car had been. He cursed under his breath. Put his shoes on and headed downstairs.
‘I think someone took it,’ he told Bill Pryde.
‘This isn’t my fuck-up, John.’ Pryde: ticking off the days till retirement.
‘I know,’ Rebus said, unwilling to add that he might know who’d taken it: Darren Rough.
Pryde pointed at his hands. ‘Word’s out you lost the punch-up. How does Oakes look?’
‘That’s not what happened,’ Rebus said.
‘You were found KO’d in a skip, way I heard it.’
Rebus stared at him. ‘You want to walk to work, Bill?’
Pryde shook his head. ‘I want to be ringside for the main bout: you telling the Farmer how you came to lose the car.’
Rebus stared up and down the road again. ‘Better slip a horseshoe into my glove for that one,’ he said, turning back into the tenement.
25
Rebus drove them to St Leonard’s in his Saab and reported the theft, cheering up the day shift who’d just come on. At quarter to nine, he was in the Farmer’s office, explaining the whole thing yet again, including the scrapes on his hands. The Farmer busied himself at his coffee machine all the time Rebus was making his report. It was an espresso-maker with a spout for steamed milk. He hadn’t offered Rebus a cup. When Rebus stopped talking, the Farmer poured the foamy milk into his mug, switched off the machine, and sat behind his desk. Holding the mug in both hands, he looked at Rebus.
‘I always thought surveillance was a fairly simple procedure. Once more, you’ve managed to prove me wrong.’
‘It wasn’t going anywhere, sir.’
‘Unlike the missing car.’
Rebus looked down at the floor.
‘So let me see where we stand,’ the Farmer continued, taking another sip. ‘I tell you to lay off Darren Rough. You go out looking for him. I tell you to keep an eye on a man whom experts say may murder someone. You end up unconscious in a rubbish skip.’ The Farmer’s voice was rising. ‘You find Darren Rough and take him to your flat. He then leaves, taking one of our cars with him, along with the surveillance log. Does that just about cover it?’ His face was growing red with anger.
‘Clear and concise, sir.’
‘Don’t you dare be amused!’ The Farmer slapped a hand down on the desk.
‘I’m anything but, sir.’ Rebus gritted his teeth. ‘But I thought I was doing the right thing at the time.’
‘No, Inspector. As usual, what you were doing was following your own agenda, and to hell with the rest of us. Isn’t that nearer the mark?’
‘With respect, sir—’
‘Don’t give me that. You’ve no respect for me, no respect for the job we’re supposed to be doing here!’
‘Maybe you’re right, sir,’ Rebus said quietly, his head beginning to throb again.
The Farmer looked at him, leaned back in his chair and took another mouthful of coffee. ‘So what are we going to do about that?’
‘I don’t know, sir. I mean, you’re right: I’ve been having doubts about the job for months. Ever since Jack Morton...’
‘Maybe even before then?’ Sounding calmer now.
‘Maybe, sir. More than once, I’ve thought about chucking it.’ He looked at his boss. ‘Make your life a bit easier.’
‘But you haven’t chucked it.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Must be a reason.’
‘Maybe a bit of me still believes, sir. And funnily enough, that part’s been growing.’
‘Oh?’
Alan Archibald; Darren Rough: he hadn’t mentioned Archibald to the Farmer, hadn’t seen the point.
‘I was wrong about Rough, I admit that. Well... I’m not sure I was wrong, to tell you the truth. But I know now why he’s in Edinburgh. I know a bit more about his background.’
‘What are you saying?’ The Farmer narrowed his eyes. ‘You understand him, is that it?’ A smile with an edge of cruelty to it. ‘Compassion? You, John? I didn’t know dinosaurs could evolve.’
‘Either that or the species dies,’ Rebus said, pressing his hands to his knees. How could he explain it, explain what he was learning: that the past shapes the present, that free will is a fantasy, that a force we could call Fate or God controls the paths we take? Janice throwing a punch... young Darren Rough in a car on the way to Shiellion... Alan Archibald and his niece. All seemed connected in some strange and intricate way.
‘You’ll want a full report,’ Rebus said, straightening in his chair.
The Farmer nodded. ‘I was about to pull the surveillance anyway.’ He put down his mug. ‘Do you think Cary Oakes is dangerous?’
‘Definitely. But I think he’s changed.’
‘Changed how?’
‘His spree in the States, it wasn’t planned. There was a lack of deliberation, and it always seemed to be part of some other strategy.’
‘Explain.’
‘He killed because he needed things: money, a car, whatever. But towards the end, I think he was really getting a taste for it. Then he got caught. He’s been all these years in jail, remembering that buzz.’
‘So now he might kill for no other reason than the buzz?’
‘I’m not sure. I think he has some sort of plan, something that involves Edinburgh.’ And Alan Archibald, he might have added. ‘I think he’s getting all sorts of tingly feelings just planning it.’
‘Maybe he’ll put it off indefinitely.’
Rebus smiled. ‘I don’t think so. This is foreplay to him.’
The Farmer seemed embarrassed by the image, relieved when his phone sounded. He picked up the receiver, listened.
‘Good,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll let him know.’
He put down the receiver, looked up at Rebus. ‘The car’s turned up.’
‘Great.’
‘Handily parked, too.’
Rebus asked what the Farmer meant. The answer gave him the shock of his life.
A couple of uniforms were already on the scene when Rebus, the Farmer and Bill Pryde arrived at The Shore. The Rover was sitting in its usual spot, opposite the hotel.