‘The guest who just came in, I need his name.’
The receptionist had to check. ‘Mr Matsumoto.’
‘First name?’
‘Takeshi.’
‘When did he arrive?’
She checked the register again. ‘Yesterday.’
‘How long’s he staying?’
‘Three more days. Look, I should call my supervisor …’
Rebus shook his head. ‘That’s all I needed to know, thanks. Mind if I sit in the lounge for a while?’
She shook her head, so Rebus wandered into the residents’ lounge. He settled on a sofa – perfect view of the reception area through the glass double-doors – and picked up a newspaper. Matsumoto was in town on Poyntinghame business, but Rebus had a whiff of something altogether less savoury. Hugh Malahide’s story had been that a corporation wanted to buy the club, but Matsumoto didn’t look like he worked in any above-board business. When he finally emerged into reception, he’d changed into a white suit, black open-necked shirt, and Burberry trenchcoat, topped off with a woollen tartan scarf. He had a cigarette in his mouth, but didn’t light it until he was outside the hotel. With the collar of his coat turned up, he started walking. Rebus followed him for the best part of a mile, and kept checking that no one was following him. It was possible, after all, that Telford would want to keep tabs on Matsumoto. But if there was surveillance, it was exceptional. Matsumoto wasn’t playing the tourist, wasn’t dawdling. He kept his head down, protecting his face from the wind, and seemed to have some destination in mind.
When he disappeared into a building, Rebus paused, studying the glass door behind which stood a flight of red-carpeted stairs. He knew where he was, didn’t need the sign above the door to tell him. He was outside the Morvena Casino. The place used to be owned by a local villain called Topper Hamilton and managed by a man called Mandel-son. But Hamilton was in retirement, and Mandelson had scarpered. The new owner was still an unknown quantity – or had been till now. Rebus guessed he wouldn’t be far wrong if he placed Tommy Telford and his Japanese friends in the frame. He looked around, checking the parked cars: no Range Rovers.
‘What the hell,’ he said to himself, pushing open the door and starting to climb the stairs.
In the upstairs foyer he was eyeballed by security: two of them looking uncomfortable in their black suits and bowties, white shirts. One skinny – he’d be all about speed and manoeuvres; one a real heavyweight – slow muscle to back up the fast moves. Rebus seemed to pass whatever test they’d just given him. He bought a twenty’s worth of chips and walked into the gaming room.
At one time, it would have been the drawing-room of a Georgian house. There were two huge bay windows, and ornate cornicing connected the twenty-foot-high cream walls to the pastel-pink ceiling. Now it was home to gaming tables: blackjack, dice, roulette. Hostesses moved between the tables, taking orders for drinks. There was very little noise: the gamblers took their work seriously. Rebus wouldn’t have called the place busy, but what clientele there was comprised a veritable United Nations. Matsumoto’s coat had disappeared into the cloakroom, and he was seated at the roulette table. Rebus sat down beside two men at the blackjack table, nodded a greeting. The dealer – young, but obviously sure of himself – smiled. Rebus won with his first hand. Lost with his second and third. Won again with his fourth. There was a voice just behind his right ear.
‘Something to drink, sir?’
The hostess had bent forward to speak to him, showing plenty of cleavage.
‘Coke,’ he told her. ‘Ice and lemon.’ He pretended to watch her move away. Really, he was scoping the room. He’d sat in on the game quickly: walking around the room would have attracted everyone’s interest, and he couldn’t be sure if there’d be anyone here who’d know him.
He needn’t have worried. The only person he recognised was Matsumoto, rubbing his hands as the croupier pushed chips towards him. Rebus stuck on eighteen. The dealer got twenty. Rebus had never been a great gambler. He’d tried the football pools, sometimes the horses, and now occasionally the lottery. But fruit machines didn’t interest him; the poker sessions organised in the office didn’t interest him. He had other ways of losing money.
Matsumoto lost and gave what sounded like a curse, a little bit louder than the room liked. The skinny security ape put his head around the door, but Matsumoto ignored him, and when Mr Skinny saw who was making the noise, he retreated fast. Matsumoto laughed: he might not have much English, but he knew he had power in this place. He told everyone something in a stream of Japanese, nodding, trying for eye contact. Then a hostess brought him a big tumbler of whisky and ice. He handed her a couple of chips as a tip. The croupier was telling everyone to place their bets. Matsumoto quietened down and went back to work.
Rebus’s drink was a while coming, Coke the unlikely beverage of the high roller. He’d won a couple of hands, felt a bit better. Stood up to accept the drink. The table knew to leave him out of the next deal.
‘Where are you from?’ he asked the hostess. ‘I can’t place your accent.’
‘I am from Ukraine.’
‘You speak good English.’
‘Thank you.’ She turned away. Conversation was not house policy, it kept the punters away from their games. Ukraine: Rebus wondered if she was another of Tarawicz’s imports. Like Candice … A few things seemed clear to him. Matsumoto was comfortable here, therefore known. And the staff were wary of him, therefore he had clout, had Telford behind him. Telford wanted him kept sweet. It wasn’t much return for all Rebus’s work, but it was something.
Then someone walked in. Someone Rebus knew. Dr Colquhoun. He saw Rebus immediately and fear jumped into his face. Colquhoun: with his sick line to the university; his enforced holiday; no forwarding address. Colquhoun: who’d known Rebus was taking Candice to the Drinics.
Rebus watched him back towards the doors. Watched him turn and run.
Options: go after him, or stay with Matsumoto? Which was the more important to him now, Candice or Telford? Rebus stayed. But now Colquhoun was back in town, he’d track him down.
For definite.
After an hour and a quarter’s play, he was considering cashing a cheque for more chips. Twenty quid down in a little over an hour, and Candice fighting for some space in his crowded head. He took a break, moved to a row of fruit machines, but the lights and buttons defeated him. He wasted three nudges and ran out of time on some accumulator. Another two quid gone – this time in a couple of minutes. Little wonder clubs and pubs wanted slot machines. Tommy Telford was in the right business. His hostess came to see him again, asked if he wanted another drink.
‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Not much action tonight.’
‘It’s early,’ she told him. ‘Wait till after midnight …’
No way was he sticking around that long. But Matsumoto surprised him, threw up his hands and came out with another rush of Japanese, nodding and grinning, gathering up his chips. He cashed them and left the casino. Rebus waited all of thirty seconds, then followed. He said a breezy goodnight to the security men, felt their eyes on him all the way back down the stairs.
Matsumoto was buttoning his coat, wrapping the scarf tight around his neck. He was headed back in the direction of the hotel. Rebus, suddenly bone-tired, stopped in his tracks. He was thinking of Sammy and Lintz and the Weasel, thinking of all the time he seemed to be wasting.
‘Fuck this for a game of soldiers.’
Turned on his heels and went to collect his car. Ten Years After: ‘Goin’ Home’.
It was a twenty-minute walk to Flint Street, a lot of it uphill and with the wind doing nobody any favours. The city was quiet: people huddled at bus stops; students munching on baked potatoes, chips with curry sauce. A few souls marching home with the concentrated tread of the sozzled. Rebus stopped, frowned, looked around. This was where he’d left the Saab. He was positive … no, not ‘positive’ – the word had taken on malign overtones. He was sure, yes, sure he’d
left the Saab right here. Where now a black Ford Sierra was parked, and behind that a Mini. But no sign of Rebus’s car.
‘Aw, Christ,’ he exploded. There were no signs of glass by the roadside, which meant they hadn’t taken a brick to one of his windows. Oh, there’d be jokes in the office about this though, whether he got the car back or not. A taxi came along and he flagged it down, then remembered he’d no cash, so waved it off again.
His flat in Arden Street wasn’t that far off, but had he been a camel, he’d have been keeping well clear of any straw.
20
He was asleep in his chair by the living-room window, duvet pulled up to his neck, when the buzzer sounded. He couldn’t remember setting the alarm. Consciousness brought the dawning realisation that it was his door. He staggered to his feet, found his trousers and put them on.
‘All right, all right,’ he called, heading for the hall. ‘Keep your hair on.’
He opened the door and saw Bill Pryde.
‘Jesus, Bill, is this some sort of twisted revenge?’ Rebus looked at his watch: two-fifteen.
‘Afraid not, John,’ Pryde said. His face and voice told Rebus something bad had happened.
Something very bad indeed.
‘I’ve been off the booze for weeks.’
‘Sure about that?’
‘Definite.’ Rebus’s eyes burned into those of DCI Gill Templer. They were in her office at St Leonard’s. Pryde was there, too. His jacket was off and his sleeves rolled up. Gill Templer looked bleary from interrupted sleep. Rebus was pacing what floor there was, unable to stay seated.
‘I’ve had nothing to drink all day but coffee and Coke.’
‘Really?’
Rebus ran his hands through his hair. He felt groggy, and his head was throbbing. But he couldn’t ask for Paracetamol and water: they’d assume hangover.
‘Come on, Gill,’ he said, ‘I’m being shafted here.’
‘Who authorised your surveillance?’
‘Nobody. I did it in my own time.’
‘How do you work that out?’
‘The Chief Super said I could take a bit of time off.’
‘He meant so you could visit your daughter.’ She paused. ‘Is that what this was all about?’
‘Maybe.’
‘This Mr …’ she checked her notes ‘… Matsumoto, he was connected to Thomas Telford. And your theory is that Telford was behind the attack on your daughter?’
Rebus thumped the wall with his fists. ‘It’s a set-up, oldest trick in the book. I’ve yet to see one perfected. There’s got to be something at the scene … something out of kilter.’ He turned to his colleagues. ‘You’ve got to let me go there, take a look around.’
Templer looked to Bill Pryde. Pryde folded his arms, shrugged assent. But it was Templer’s play, she was the senior officer here. She tapped her pen against her teeth, then dropped it on to the desk.
‘Will you submit to a blood test?’
Rebus swallowed. ‘Why not?’ he said at last.
‘Come on then,’ she said, getting to her feet.
The story was: Matsumoto had been on his way back to his hotel. Crossing the road, he’d been hit by a car travelling at speed. The driver hadn’t stopped, not right away. But the car had travelled only another couple of hundred yards before mounting the pavement with its front wheels. It had been abandoned there, driver’s door open.
A Saab 900, its identity known to half the Lothian and Borders force.
The interior reeked of whisky, the screw-top from a bottle lying on the passenger seat. No sign of the bottle, no sign of the driver. Just the car, and two hundred yards further back, the body of the Japanese businessman, growing cold by the roadside.
Nobody had seen anything. Nobody had heard anything. Rebus could believe it: never one of the city centre’s busier routes, at this hour the place was dead.
‘When I followed him from his hotel, he didn’t come this way,’ Rebus told Templer. She stood with shoulders hunched, hands deep in her coat pockets, keeping out the cold.
‘So?’ she asked.
‘Long way round for a short-cut.’
‘Maybe he wanted to see the sights,’ Pryde suggested.
‘What time’s this supposed to have happened?’ Rebus asked.
Templer hesitated. ‘There’s a margin of error.’
‘Look, Gill, I know this is awkward. You shouldn’t have brought me here, you shouldn’t answer my questions. I’m the number one suspect, after all.’ Rebus knew how much she had to lose. Over two hundred male Chief Inspectors in Scotland; only five women. Bad odds, and a lot of people waiting for her to fail. He held up his hands. ‘Look, if I was blind drunk and I hit somebody, think I’d leave the car at the scene?’
‘You might not know you’d hit anyone. You hear a thunk, lose control and mount the kerb, and some survival instinct tells you it’s time to get out and walk.’
‘Only I hadn’t been drinking. I left the car near Flint Street, and that’s where they took it from. Any signs it was broken into?’
She didn’t say anything.
‘I’ll guess not,’ Rebus went on. ‘Because professionals don’t leave marks. But to get it started, they must have wired it or got into the steering column. That’s what you should be looking for.’
The car had been towed. First thing in the morning, forensics would be all over it.
Rebus laughed, shaking his head. ‘It’s nice though, isn’t it? First they make Sammy look like a hit and run, and now they try to pin me for the same thing.’
‘Who’s “they”?’
‘Telford and his men.’
‘I thought you said they were doing business with Matsumoto?’
‘They’re all gangsters, Gill. Gangsters fall out.’
‘What about Cafferty?’
Rebus frowned. ‘What about him?’
‘He’s got an old grudge against you. This way, he stitches you up and annoys Telford.’
‘So you do think I’m being stitched up?’
‘I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt.’ She paused. ‘Not everyone will. What was Matsumoto’s business with Telford?’
‘Something to do with a country club – on the surface at least. Some Japanese were buying it, and Telford was clearing the way.’ He shivered: should have worn a coat over his jacket. He rubbed his arm where the blood sample had been taken to test his alcohol level. ‘Of course, a check of the deceased’s hotel room might throw up something.’
‘We’ve already been there,’ Pryde said. ‘Nothing out of the ordinary.’
‘Which deadbeat did you send?’
‘I went myself,’ Gill Templer said, voice as icy as the wind. Rebus bowed his head in apology. She had a point though: Matsumoto and Telford had been doing business. There had been nothing about their farewell to one another to suggest a break-up, and Matsumoto had seemed happy and confident at the casino. What had Telford to gain by bumping him off?
Apart from maybe getting Rebus off his back.
Templer had mentioned Cafferty: was Big Ger capable of such a move? What did he stand to gain? Apart from settling a long-held grudge against Rebus, giving Telford a headache, and maybe gaining Poyntinghame and the Japanese deal for himself.
Balance the two – Telford against Cafferty. Cafferty’s side tipped, went clunk as it hit the ground.
‘Let’s get back to the station,’ Templer said. ‘I’m reaching the early stages of frostbite.’
‘Can I go home then?’
‘We’re not done with you yet, John,’ she said, getting into the car. ‘Not by a long chalk.’
But eventually they had to let him go. He wasn’t being charged, not yet. There was work still to be done. He knew they could make a case against him if they wanted to, knew it only too well. He’d followed Matsumoto out of the club. He was the one with the grudge against Telford. He was the one who’d see poetic justice in sending Telford a message by driving over one of his associates.
He, John Rebus, was firmly in the frame. It was tightly constructed and quite elegant in its way. The scales suddenly tipped back towards Telford again, so much subtler than Cafferty.
Telford.
Rebus visited Farlowe in his cell. The reporter wasn’t asleep.
‘How long do I have to stay here?’ he asked.
‘As long as possible.’
‘How’s Telford?’
‘Minor burns. Don’t expect him to press charges. He’ll want you on the outside.’
‘Then you’ll have to let me go.’
‘Don’t bet on it, Ned. We can press charges. We don’t need Telford.’
Farlowe looked at him. ‘You’re going to prosecute me?’
‘I saw the whole thing. Unwarranted attack on an innocent man.’
Farlowe snorted, then smiled. ‘Ironic, isn’t it? Charging me for my own good.’ He paused. ‘I won’t be able to see Sammy, will I?’
Rebus shook his head.
‘I didn’t think of that. Fact is, I didn’t think.’ He looked up from his ledge. ‘I just did. And right up until the moment I did it, it felt … brilliant.’
‘And afterwards?’
Farlowe shrugged. ‘What does afterwards matter? It’s only the rest of my life.’
Rebus didn’t go home, knew he wouldn’t sleep. And he’d no car, so he couldn’t go driving. Instead, he visited the hospital, sat down by Sammy’s bedside. He took her hand, rested it against his face.
When a nurse came in and asked if he wanted anything, he asked if she’d any Paracetamol.
‘In a hospital?’ she said, smiling. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
21
Rebus was due for further questioning at St Leonard’s at ten o’clock, so when his pager sounded at eight-fifteen, he assumed it was a reminder. But the phone number it wanted him to call was the mortuary down in the Cowgate. He called from the hospital payphone, and was put through to Dr Curt.
‘Looks like I’ve drawn the short straw,’ Curt told him.
‘You’re about to start work on Matsumoto?’
‘For my sins. Look, I’ve heard the stories … don’t suppose there’s any truth in them?’