REBUS Biggest regret of the lot. All the ways I’ve failed her.
CAFFERTY I’ve no regrets at all. None. Seriously. Except maybe that. No kids. A waster son that died and didny know me...
REBUS No-one to inherit the royal house of Cafferty.
CAFFERTY No.
REBUS Nothing makes you vulnerable like a child does. Maybe that’s the secret of your success. They could never really get to you.
CAFFERTY Maybe. We’re drinking now eh?
REBUS Aye.
CAFFERTY Good.
Gets them both another.
CAFFERTY You nearly got me Strawman, I can say it now. I did have to scramble to stay ahead of you a few times.
REBUS Good.
CAFFERTY toasts him.
CAFFERTY To a fucking good fight and the best man won.
REBUS Who says it’s over?
CAFFERTY Ah come on. Maybe I could adopt. What do you think?
REBUS I’m no sure you’d match the adoption agency profile of the ideal parent.
CAFFERTY Buy a Chinese one. Na. Fuck that. Needs to look like me.
REBUS Sam doesny look much like me.
CAFFERTY Sure she’s yours?
REBUS Fuck you.
CAFFERTY She’ll have her mother’s looks. Way it goes eh? DNA. All the mysteries it solves, ’cause you canny tell by looking can you?
REBUS So maybe there’s a few monster mini Cafferties running around like the wee bastards they are.
CAFFERTY I’d know.
REBUS But...
CAFFERTY I’d fucking know!
REBUS Christ. Sore point?
CAFFERTY Ach. Alright, since we’re talking. You never got me put away for the heroin dealing you said I was doing.
REBUS That you were doing.
CAFFERTY That you never caught anyone for doing. And how many junkie deaths are we talking about?
REBUS Conscience troubling you?
CAFFERTY No. Not one bit. But yours is eh? Every death another reason to sook on your wee bottle. All those poor dead junkie wasters, and then there’s all the friends and colleagues, all drowned in the endless sea of John Rebus’s mistakes. Your fault. Every one. That’s what you think, eh Strawman, that’s what you see in the 3 a.m. dark. Regrets. Me? If I’ve killed anyone...
REBUS If!?
CAFFERTY Casualties of war, every one. Victims of the battle they brought to me. I sleep like a well-fed bairn. Only kind of death I’d ever regret... the kind that didn’t have to happen. That’s why I’d never drink like you. Responsibility of power. You can never lose control. Too dangerous.
REBUS Sounds like maybe you did then? Just the once.
CAFFERTY You make mistakes and you learn.
REBUS What mistakes?
CAFFERTY One woman. But I learned. Taught me how to behave. You’ve got another woman on the go I hear. Fuck did you pull that off? How’d you find yet another head case who hates herself so much she’ll lie down under a man that regurgitates his own lungs every time he coughs?
REBUS Trick is to let them go on top.
CAFFERTY Trick is to buy the best you can afford, someone smart enough no even to need to fake admiration for the size of your wallet. Big money buys you real respect from an intelligent woman.
REBUS Aye dream on.
CAFFERTY It’s a weird power relationship you see, men and women. If we’ve got the physical power what does that leave them with? Emotional manipulation. Fucking dangerous weapon to turn on a powerful man, do you not think?
REBUS You don’t like that?
CAFFERTY Do you?
REBUS So what’re you saying?
CAFFERTY Nothing. Just there’s very little I regret.
REBUS Except beating up on ‘manipulative’ women?
CAFFERTY Come on. Worst I’ve ever done is hand out a wee slap to some lassie too cheeky to take a telling.
REBUS Christ you’re a feminist icon Big Ger.
CAFFERTY (looking at his watch) She better be back soon. Want to text her Rebus?
REBUS I tell you, I would like to hear that song again.
CAFFERTY No.
REBUS Bad memories?
CAFFERTY What?
REBUS Why do you hate it? Has it got anything to do with a woman. One particular woman?
CAFFERTY Still the fucking detective.
REBUS Your only regret?
CAFFERTY Right. We’re done talking about this. Time’s up. I’m calling D.I. Clarke back.
REBUS Easton property development. Not Weston. Something that begins with an ‘E’. That the name of your company? Easton property?
CAFFERTY What about it?
REBUS You built all those big flats down in Newhaven then.
CAFFERTY Some of them. That company’s sold now. You’ll not get anything digging in that mud. My name wasny ever near the paperwork anyway.
REBUS No you’d have been a bit scary sitting in your best suit eyeballing the ladies and gents of the planning application committee. I heard you were a bit scary altogether, no-one wants to talk about it even now.
CAFFERTY Talk about what?
REBUS Maggie Towler.
A beat.
CAFFERTY What?
REBUS Thought she could take on the world... Till she took on a man she couldny handle.