‘Just a wee trick, Gareth. See, I didn’t actually know your surname.’ Rebus paused and straightened up again. ‘But I do now. Robert’s what — your brother? Dad?’
‘Who are we talking about?’
Rebus smiled again. ‘Bit late for all that, Gareth.’
Gareth seemed to agree. He jabbed a finger in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Did they grass us up? Did they?’
Rebus shook his head, waited till he had Gareth’s full attention. ‘No, Gareth,’ he said. ‘A dead man did that...’
After which he let the young man simmer gently for five minutes, like so much reheated cock-a-leekie. Rebus made a show of checking text messages on his mobile. Opened a new packet of cigarettes and slid one unlit between his lips.
‘Can I have one of those?’ Gareth asked.
‘Absolutely... just as soon as you tell me: is Robert your brother or your dad? I’m guessing dad but I could be wrong. By the way, I can’t begin to count how many criminal charges are hanging over you right now. Sub-letting’s just the start of it. Does Robert declare all this illegal income? See, once the taxman gets his claws into your baws, he’s worse than a Bengal tiger. Trust me on that — I’ve seen the results.’ He paused. ‘Then there’s demanding money with menaces... that’s where you come in specifically.’
‘I’ve never done nothing!’
‘No?’
‘Nothing like that... I just collect, that’s all.’ A pleading tone entering his voice. Rebus guessed Gareth had been the slow, lumbering kid at school — no real friends, just people who tolerated him because of his bulk, using that bulk when occasion demanded.
‘It’s not you I’m interested in,’ Rebus reassured him. ‘Not once I’ve got an address for your dad — an address I’m going to get anyway. I’m just trying to save the pair of us all that hassle...’
Gareth looked up, wondering about that ‘pair of us’. Rebus shrugged an apology.
‘See, you’ll be coming with me back to the station. Hold you in custody till I get the address... then we pay a visit...’
‘He lives in Porty,’ Gareth blurted out. Meaning Portobello: on the sea-front to the south-east of the city.
‘And he’s your dad?’
Gareth nodded.
‘There,’ said Rebus, ‘that wasn’t so bad. Now up you get...’
‘What for?’
‘Because you and me are going to pay him a visit.’
Gareth didn’t like the sound of this, Rebus could tell, but he didn’t offer any resistance either, not once Rebus had cajoled him to his feet. Rebus shook hands with his hosts, thanked them for the coffee. The father started offering banknotes to Gareth, but Rebus shook his head.
‘No more rent to pay,’ he told the son. ‘Isn’t that right, Gareth?’
Gareth gave a flick of his head, said nothing. Outside, his mobile phone had already been taken. Rebus was reminded of the torch...
‘Somebody’s pocketed it,’ Gareth complained.
‘You’ll have to report that,’ Rebus advised. ‘Make sure the insurance takes care of it.’ He saw the look on Gareth’s face. ‘Always supposing it wasn’t nicked in the first place.’
At ground level, Gareth’s Japanese sports car was ringed by half a dozen kids whose parents had given up on sending them to school.
‘How much did he give you?’ Rebus asked them.
‘Two bar.’ Meaning two quid.
‘And how long does that get him?’
They just stared at Rebus. ‘It’s not a parking meter,’ one of them said. ‘We don’t give tickets.’ His pals joined in the laughter.
Rebus nodded and turned to Gareth. ‘We’re taking my car,’ he told him. ‘Just have to hope yours is still here when you get back...’
‘And if it isn’t?’
‘Back to the cop-shop for a reference to help with the insurance claim... Always supposing you’re insured.’
‘Always supposing,’ Gareth said resignedly.
It wasn’t a long drive to Portobello. They headed out on Seafield Road, no sign of a prostitutes’ day-shift. Gareth directed Rebus to a side road near the promenade. ‘We need to park here and walk,’ he explained. So that was what they did. The sea was the colour of slate. Dogs chased sticks across the beach. Rebus felt like he’d stepped back in time: chip shops and amusement arcades. For years when he was a kid, his parents had taken him and his brother to a caravan in St Andrews for the summer, or to a cheap bed and breakfast in Blackpool. Ever since, any seaside town could pull him back to those days.
‘Did you grow up here?’ he asked Gareth.
‘Tenement in Gorgie, that’s where I grew up.’
‘You’ve gone up in the world,’ Rebus told him.
Gareth just shrugged, pushed open a gate. ‘This is it.’
A garden path led to the front door of a four-storey double-fronted terraced house. Rebus stared for a moment. Every window had uninterrupted views across the beach.
‘Moved on a bit from Gorgie,’ he muttered, following Gareth up the path. The young man unlocked the door and yelled that he was home. The entrance hallway was short and narrow, with doors and a staircase off. Gareth didn’t bother looking in any of the rooms. He headed for the first floor instead, Rebus still close behind.
They entered the drawing room. Twenty-six feet long, with a floor-to-ceiling bay window. The place had been tastefully decorated and furnished, but too modernly: chrome and leather and abstract art. The room’s shape and dimensions didn’t suit any of it. The original chandelier and cornices remained, offering glimpses of what might have been. A brass telescope sat by the window, supported by a wooden tripod.
‘What the hell’s this you’ve dragged in?’
A man was sitting at the table by the telescope. He wore a pair of glasses on a string around his neck. His hair was silvery-grey, neatly barbered, the face lined by weathering rather than age.
‘Mr Baird, I’m Detective Inspector Rebus...’
‘What’s he done this time?’ Baird closed the newspaper he’d been reading and glared at his son. There was resignation rather than anger in his voice. Rebus guessed things weren’t working out as hoped for Gareth in the family’s little enterprise.
‘It’s not Gareth, Mr Baird... it’s you.’
‘Me?’
Rebus did a circuit of the room. ‘Council’s certainly doing a better class of let these days.’
‘What are you on about?’ The question was for Rebus, but Baird’s eyes were asking his son for an explanation, too.
‘He was waiting for me, Dad,’ Gareth burst out. ‘Made me leave my car there and everything.’
‘Fraud’s a serious business, Mr Baird,’ Rebus was saying. ‘Always mystifies me, but the courts seem to hate it more than housebreaking or mugging. I mean, who are you cheating, after all? Not a person, not exactly... just this big anonymous blob called “the council”.’ Rebus shook his head. ‘But they’ll still come down on you like shit from the sky.’
Baird had leaned back in his chair, arms folded across his chest.
‘Mind you,’ Rebus added, ‘you weren’t content with the small stuff... how many flats are you sub-letting — ten? Twenty? Got the whole family roped in, I’d say... maybe a few dead aunties and uncles on the paperwork, too.’
‘You here to arrest me?’
Rebus shook his head. ‘I’m ready to tiptoe out of your life the minute I get what I’ve come for.’
Baird suddenly looked interested, seeing a man he could do business with. But he wasn’t altogether convinced.
‘Gareth, he have anybody else with him?’
Gareth shook his head. ‘Waiting for me in the flat...’
‘Nobody outside? No driver or anything?’
Still shaking his head. ‘We came here in his car... just me and him.’