“In suits? In the rain?”
McCullough stared at him in the mirror. “If it isn’t quiet enough, we’ll go someplace else.” He paused. “But thanks for your concern.”
Gray let out a cold chuckle, shoulders shaking. Rebus was running out of ploys. It was hard to think beyond the pain in his side. His whole palm was damp with blood now. He’d taken a handkerchief out, but the blood had seeped through its folded layers, too.
“A nice slow death,” Gray assured him. Rebus leaned back against the headrest. This is ridiculous, he thought. Any second now, I’ll be unconscious. There was sweat on the back of his neck, but his arms felt icy. His knees ached, too: there never had been enough room for passengers in the back of the Saab . . .
“Could you slide your chair forward?” he asked Ward.
“Fuck you,” Ward replied, not turning round.
“Could be his last request,” Gray commented. After a minute or two, Ward found the lever and suddenly Rebus had a few more inches in which to stretch his legs.
Then he drifted away . . .
“This is the place.”
McCullough was signaling, making a hard turn into a gravel car park. Rebus knew the pub — he’d brought Jean here, the place got busy at weekends. But this was a midweek afternoon with rain falling. The car park was deserted.
“Thought we’d lost you there,” Gray said, pushing his face close to Rebus’s. McCullough was directing them to a spot at the far corner of the car park, next to a grassy slope. A public footpath wound its way around the playing area of the golf course and up into the hills. They’d walked off their lunch, Jean and him, until the climb had started making them breathless and they’d turned to start their descent . . .
It was only as Ward was climbing out that Rebus noticed he was carrying something. It was a small spade, folded into two or three. Rebus had seen them in camping shops . . . maybe the same sort of place which had furnished Gray with the hunting knife.
“Going to take a while to dig a hole big enough for me,” Rebus said to no one in particular. He made to slap his stomach, but found his shirtfront sticky with blood. Gray had taken off his own jacket and was wrapping it around Rebus.
“Don’t want people to see you in that state,” he said. Rebus felt ready to agree.
Then they were out of the car, hands grabbing his arms to help him up the slope. Pain seared down his side with every step he took.
“How far?” Ward was asking.
“Need to get off the beaten track,” McCullough advised. He was looking around to ensure they were alone. Rebus’s blurred vision told him they were . . .
Quite, quite alone.
“Here, drink this . . .” Someone was tipping a hip flask into his mouth. Whiskey. Rebus swallowed, but McCullough wanted him to drink more. “Come on, John, finish it off. Eases the aches and pains.”
Yes, Rebus thought, and makes me even easier to deal with. But he swallowed anyway, coughing some of it down his shirt, more dribbling from his nose. His eyes were growing so tearful, nothing was staying in focus. They were having to hold him upright now, almost dragging him . . . One of his shoes came off, and Ward stooped to pick it up, carrying it with him.
One shoe off and one shoe on, diddle-diddle-dumpling, my son John . . .
Could he really remember his mother reading out nursery rhymes at his bedside? The rain was dripping down from his hair, stinging his eyes, running down into his shirtfront. Cold, cold rain. Dozens of songs about rain . . . hundreds . . . he couldn’t recall a single one . . .
“What were you doing at Tulliallan, John?” McCullough was asking.
“I threw a mug of tea . . .”
“No . . . that was just your story. Someone put you there to spy on us, didn’t they?”
“Is that why you broke into my flat?” Rebus took a deep, painful breath. “Didn’t find anything, did you?”
“You were too good for us, John. Who was it put you up to it?”
Rebus shook his head slowly.
“You want to take it to the grave, that’s fine. But just remember: it was no accident they had us working the Lomax case. So don’t think you owe them anything.”
“I know,” Rebus said. He’d already worked it out. There must have been something in the files, something pointing to his involvement in the murder of Rico Lomax, the disappearance of Dickie Diamond. Gray had said it himself: Tennant always used the same case, a murder in Rosyth, solved years back. There had to be some reason for the use of the Lomax case, and Rebus was that reason. The High Hiedyins had nothing to lose after all, and at best they’d be killing two birds with one stone: Rebus might solve his puzzle; the Wild Bunch might solve theirs . . .
“How much farther?” he could hear Ward complaining.
“This’ll do,” McCullough said.
“Allan,” Rebus spluttered. “I feel really sorry for you.”
“Don’t,” Ward snapped back. He’d taken the spade from its plastic sleeve and was straightening it out, tightening the connecting nuts. “Who wants to start?” he asked.
“I wish you could have been spared this, Allan,” Rebus persisted.
“You’re a lazy bastard sometimes, Allan,” Gray snarled.
“Correction: I’m a lazy bastard all the time.” Ward grinned and handed the spade to Gray, who snatched hold of it.
“Give me the knife,” Ward said. Gray gave it to him. Rebus noticed that it looked clean. Either Gray had wiped it on Rebus’s shirt, or else the rain had washed his blood away. Gray pushed the spade into the earth and pressed down with his foot.
Next thing, the knife was sticking out of his neck, embedded in the top of his spine. Gray gave a high-pitched squeal and brought a suddenly shaking hand around to find the knife. But all he did was flap at its handle before dropping to his knees.
Ward had picked up the spade and was swinging it at McCullough. “Lost my cherry now, eh, Jazz?” he was yelling. “You cheating bastard!” Rebus was working hard at staying upright, watching it all happen in a hazy slow motion, realizing that Allan Ward had been brooding and stewing these past hours. The spade was slicing into McCullough’s cheek, bringing with it a spume of blood. McCullough staggered backwards, stumbling and falling. Gray had keeled over onto his side and was shuddering like a wasp hit with a blast of insecticide.
“Allan, for Christ’s sake. . .” Blood gurgled in McCullough’s mouth.
“It was always you two against me,” Ward was explaining, voice shaking. There were flecks of white at the corners of his mouth. “Right down the line.”
“Kept you out of it to protect you.”
“Like hell you did!” Ward raised the spade again, towering over McCullough, but Rebus, standing next to the young man now, placed a hand on his arm.
“Enough, Allan. No need to take it further . . .”
Ward paused, then blinked, and his shoulders dropped. “Call it in,” he said quietly. Rebus nodded. He already had the phone in his hand.
“When did you decide?” he asked, pushing the buttons.
“Decide what?”
“To let me live.”
Ward looked at him. “Five, ten minutes ago.”
Rebus raised the phone to his ear. “Thanks,” he said.
Allan Ward slumped down onto the wet grass. Rebus felt like joining him, maybe laying down and going back to sleep.
In a minute, he told himself. In a minute . . .
33
With Allan Ward’s confession, there was no real necessity for the kilo of heroin which Claverhouse — recipient of an anonymous tip-off — found in Jazz McCullough’s rented flat. But Rebus hadn’t known that at the time. As it was, the fact that the heroin came from the stolen consignment meant that Claverhouse might salvage something of his career at the SDEA, though demotion remained a near cert. Rebus was curious to find out how Claverhouse would cope, serving under Ormiston, for so long his junior . . .