The duty desk officer let him through the door. Rebus walked along the silent hall and up the stairs. The only person in the CID room was Rab Burns.
‘Hiya, John, what brings you here? The urbane conversation? The ersatz coffee?’
‘Bags of rubbish, to be precise.’
‘Eh?’
So Rebus explained, and Burns shook his head. ‘I don’t know anything about them.’
‘Maybe they were locked away at close of play.’
‘They’d be in the cupboard. Hold on, I’ll fetch the key.’ But there was nothing in the cupboard. ‘You don’t suppose they could have been thrown out by mistake?’
A shiver went across Rebus’s shoulders. ‘Mind if I use your phone?’ He punched in Davidson’s number and waited until the detective answered. ‘It’s me, where are the files?’
‘John, I was going to call you.’
‘Where are the files?’
‘Orders, John.’
‘What?’
‘They were requisitioned. I was going to tell you in the morning.’
‘Who was it?’
Davidson was a long time answering. ‘The DCC’s office.’
Rebus slammed down the receiver. Allan bloody Gunner! ‘Any idea of the DCC’s home number, Rab?’
‘Oh aye, we’re close friends like.’
Rebus’s look shut him up. They found the number on the Emergency roster. Rebus rang and waited and waited. A woman picked up the receiver. There was laughter in the background. A party, maybe a dinner party.
‘Mr Gunner, please.’
‘Who shall I say?’
‘Walt Disney.’
‘Pardon?’
Rebus was shaking with anger. ‘Just get him.’
A full minute later, Gunner lifted the receiver. ‘Who is this?’
‘It’s Rebus. What the fuck are you playing at?’
‘How dare you speak to me like that!’ The words were hissed, Gunner not wanting his guests in the other room to hear.
‘All right then. With respect, sir, what the fuck are you playing at?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The Gillespie files, where are they?’
‘In the incinerator.’
And Gunner cut the connection. Rebus tried again, but the line was busy — the receiver had been left off the hook. Rebus grabbed the Emergency roster from Burns and looked down it for Gunner’s address.
‘You can borrow my computer if you like,’ Burns said.
‘What for?’
‘To write your letter of resignation.’
‘Rab,’ Rebus said to him, ‘you stole that line from me.’
Rebus gave the bell a good long ring. Gunner didn’t look surprised as he unlocked the door.
‘Come into the study,’ he said angrily.
As Rebus followed him, he heard the sounds of the dinner party. Instead of following Gunner into the study, he walked to a closed door and opened it.
‘Evening,’ he said. ‘Sorry to drag the host away, we’ll only be a minute.’
Then he smiled at the guests, closed the door again, and went into the study. Around the table had been seated the Lord Provost and his wife, the chief constable and his wife, and Gunner’s wife. There were two other place settings, one for Gunner himself.
‘Sir lain couldn’t make it then?’ Rebus guessed.
Gunner closed the study door. ‘He’ll be joining us for coffee.’
‘Cosy.’
‘Look, Rebus — ’
‘I had a little think on the way here, and something occurred to me. Here it is. McAnally wasn’t in Charters’ cell to get to the bottom of anything; he was there so you could be sure Charters was keeping his mouth shut. And you got proof of that, because Charters paid McAnally to scare off the councillor. It was a cover-up from the beginning, whether Flower knew that’s how you were playing it or not. You wanted the whole thing kept hidden, and now that you’ve burnt those papers, that’s the way it’ll stay.’
‘That’s up to you.’
Rebus shook his head. ‘No, I’m worthless. It’s up to people like you, and you’re not going to do a damned thing. You’re going to remain Hunter’s puppet, all the way to chief constable.’
The doorbell rang again, and Gunner walked out, returning with Sir Iain Hunter.
‘Well, Inspector,’ Hunter said, removing his topcoat, ‘you do seem to pop up everywhere.’ He slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out a cassette. ‘It’s all there,’ he said, handing it to Gunner.
Rebus felt the floor move beneath him. ‘You were bugged?’ he said.
Hunter smiled. ‘Thank God he didn’t make us all strip.’
Rebus nodded. ‘I begin to get it.’
‘Sir Iain,’ Gunner said, ‘has been gathering evidence of an embarrassing scandal.’
‘A scandal,’ Rebus added, ‘that will conveniently lack one important name. I should’ve known the Scottish Office was involved from the start. I can’t see a prison governor, especially one like Big Jim Flett, covering up McAnally’s record on the say-so of the police alone. But the DCC backed up by the Permanent Secretary … well, that would be a different story. After all, the Scottish Office pulls the purse-strings.’ His eyes fixed on Hunter. ‘And a lot of other strings besides.’
‘Inspector Rebus,’ Hunter said coolly, ‘it is a fact of life that you simply can’t have the Permanent Secretary mixed up in anything unsavoury. For the good of the country, he must be protected.’
‘Even if he’s in it up to his eyeballs?’
‘Even then.’
‘This stinks,’ Rebus said. ‘What’s the tape? An insurance policy?’
‘I’m preparing a file,’ Gunner said. ‘Unofficially, and to be kept under lock and key.’
‘And if anything should happen to leak out in future …?’
‘The file will show,’ said Hunter, ‘that Charters and others acted unlawfully.’
‘To the extent of murder?’ Hunter nodded. ‘What about Mathieson? Will he be implicated?’ Rebus smiled. ‘Sorry, daft question. Of course he will. You’d sell everything to the court to save your own neck, you — ’
‘Hypocrite?’ Hunter suggested. ‘Hypocrisy is acceptable if it is for the public good.’
‘You know,’ Gunner added, ‘I could have you booted off the force.’
‘I’d fight you all the way.’
Gunner smiled. ‘I know you would.’
Hunter touched Gunner’s arm. ‘We’ve kept your guests waiting long enough, Allan.’
Gunner’s eyes were still on Rebus. ‘Under normal circumstances, you’d be welcome to join us.’
‘I wouldn’t join you if you were coming apart at the seams.’
‘The stories I hear,’ Gunner said, ‘it’s you that’s been coming apart at the seams.’
‘Bear something in mind, Inspector,’ Hunter said, examining his cane. ‘You were at that meeting, too. You’re on the tape, listening to men confess their part in illegal acts. I didn’t hear you caution them, I didn’t hear you do anything much. If questions should ever be asked, they’ll be asked of you along with everyone else.’
‘I’ll see you to the door,’ the chief constable-in-waiting told Rebus.
39
John Rebus did what he had to do — went on a forty-eight-hour bender.
It wasn’t difficult in Edinburgh. Even in winter, without the benefit of extended summer opening hours, if you paced things right you could drink round the clock. It was all down to permutations of late-licence restaurants, casinos, and early-opening bars. You could always drink at home, of course, but that wasn’t what a bender was about. You could hardly do your bender justice when the only person around to listen to your stories was your own sour self.
Rebus didn’t worry about missing work. He’d been on benders before, after losing cases he’d tried desperately to win. Always he did it with the blessing of his superiors, who might even chip in towards expenses. He thought maybe he’d phoned the Farmer from some pub along the way, and maybe the Farmer had said something about Allan Gunner having okayed things. Hard to tell though, hard to remember.