‘These riddles, Inspector... Do you know who I am?’
‘I know exactly who you are. I know both your children committed suicide. I know you were part of the Shiellion set-up.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ A slight trembling in the voice now. A seedling slipped from parchment fingers.
‘Don’t worry, Harold Ince is going to keep his side of the bargain. He talked to me, but it wouldn’t be admissible, and he won’t tell anyone else. He told me you were at Shiellion that night. Ince had talked with you often, had come to know you. He’d told you what he did to the kids in his care. He knew you wouldn’t say anything, because the two of you were alike. He knew how useful it would be to him if a doctor, the man responsible for examining the children, were part of the whole enterprise.’ Rebus leaned close to Margolies’ ear. ‘He told me all of it, Dr Margolies.’
The after-hours drinking, loosening up the doctor. Then the arrival of Ramsay Marshall with a fresh new kid, Darren Rough. Making the kid wear a blindfold so he wouldn’t recognise Margolies — this at the doctor’s insistence. Sweating and trembling... knowing this night changed everything...
And afterwards: self-loathing perhaps; or maybe just fear of exposure. He hadn’t been able to cope, had feigned ill-health, opting for early retirement.
‘But you could never loose Ince’s grip on you. He’d been blackmailing you, him and Marshall both.’ Rebus’s voice was little more than a whisper, his lips almost touching the old man’s ear. ‘Know what? I’m so fucking glad he’s been sucking you dry all these years.’ Rebus stood back.
‘You don’t know anything.’ Margolies’ face was blood-red. Beneath the checked shirt, he was breathing hard.
‘I can’t prove anything, but that’s not quite the same thing. I know, and that’s what matters. I think your daughter found out. The shame of it killed her. You were always the first one awake in the morning; she knew you’d be the one to find her. And then somehow Jim found out, and he couldn’t live with it either. How come you can live with it, Dr Margolies? How come you can live with the deaths of both your children, and the murder of Darren Rough?’
Margolies lifted a gardening fork, held it to Rebus’s throat. His face was squeezed into a mask of anger and frustration. Beads of perspiration dripped from his forehead. And outside, the billowing smoke seemed to be cutting them off from everything.
Margolies didn’t say anything, just made sounds from behind gritted teeth. Rebus stood there, hand in pocket.
‘What?’ he said. ‘You’re going to kill me too?’ He shook his head. ‘Think about it. Your wife’s seen me. There’s another officer waiting for me out front. How will you talk your way out of it? No, Dr Margolies, you’re not going to kill me. Like I say, I can’t prove anything I’ve just said. It’s between you and me.’ Rebus lifted the hand from his pocket, pushed the fork aside. The black lab was watching through the door, seemed to sense all was not well. It frowned at Rebus, looking disappointed in him.
‘What do you want?’ Margolies spluttered, gripping the work-bench with both hands.
‘I want you to live the rest of your life knowing that I know.’ Rebus shrugged. ‘That’s all.’
‘You want me to kill myself?’
Rebus laughed. ‘I don’t think you’ve got it in you. You’re an old man, you’re going to die soon enough. Once you’re dead, maybe Ince and Marshall will rethink their loyalty to you. You won’t be left with any reputation at all.’
Margolies turned towards him, and now there was clear, focused hatred in his eyes.
‘Of course,’ Rebus said, ‘if any evidence does turn up, you can be assured I’ll be back here at the double. You might be celebrating the millennium, you might be getting your card from the Queen, and then you’ll see me walking through the door.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll never be very far away, Dr Margolies.’
He slid open the greenhouse door, manoeuvred his way past the dog. Walked away.
It didn’t feel like any sort of victory. Unless something turned up, there’d be no justice for Darren Rough, no public trial. But Rebus knew he’d done what he could. Mrs Margolies was in the kitchen, making no pretence of doing anything other than waiting for him to return.
‘Everything all right?’ she asked.
‘Fine, Mrs Margolies.’ He headed down the hall, making for the front door. She was right behind him.
‘Well, I just was wondering...’
Rebus opened the door, turned to her. ‘Why not ask your husband, Mrs Margolies?’
The wife often knows, never brings herself to ask.
‘Just one thing, Mrs Margolies...?’
‘Yes?’
Your husband’s a cold-blooded murderer. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came. He shook his head, started down the garden path.
Clarke drove him to Katherine Margolies’ house, in the Grange area of Edinburgh. It was a three-storey Georgian semi in a street half of whose homes had been turned into bed-and-breakfast establishments. The white Merc was parked in front of the gate. Rebus turned to Clarke.
‘I know,’ she said: ‘stay in the car.’
Katherine Margolies looked less than thrilled to see him.
‘What do you want?’ She seemed ready to keep him on the doorstep.
‘It’s about your husband’s suicide.’
‘What about it?’ Her face was narrow and hard, hands long and thin like butcher’s knives.
‘I think I know why he did it.’
‘And what makes you think I’d want to know?’
‘You already do know, Mrs Margolies.’ Rebus took a deep breath. Well, if she didn’t mind them talking like this on her doorstep... ‘When did he find out his father was a paedophile?’
Her eyes widened. A woman emerged from the neighbouring house, preparing to walk her Jack Russell terrier. ‘You better come in,’ Katherine Margolies said sharply, eyes darting up and down the street. After he walked in, she closed the door and stood with her back to it, arms folded.
‘Well?’ she said.
Rebus looked around. The hall had a grey marble floor veined with black lines. A stone staircase swept upwards. There were paintings on the walls: Rebus got the feeling they weren’t prints. She didn’t seem to have noticed his arm, had no interest in him that way.
‘Hannah not home?’ he asked.
‘She’s at school. Look, I don’t know what it is—’
‘Then I’ll tell you. It’s been gnawing at me, Jim’s death. And I’ll tell you why. I’ve been there myself, standing at the top of a very high place, wondering if I’d have the guts to jump off.’
Her face softened a little.
‘Usually it was the booze doing it,’ he went on. ‘These days, I think I’ve got that under control. But I learned two things. One, you have to be incredibly brave to pull it off. Two, there’s got to be some crunch reason for you not to go on living. See, when it comes to it, going on living is the easier of the two options. I couldn’t see any reason why Jim would take his life, no reason at all. But there had to be one. That’s what got to me. There had to be one.’
‘And now you think you’ve found it?’ Her eyes were liquid in the cool dimness of the hall.
‘Yes.’
‘And you felt it worth sharing with me?’
He shook his head. ‘All I need from you is confirmation that I’m right.’