`Night, John.’
For the first time in a while, Rebus actually made it as far as his bed. His sleep was deep and dreamless.
31
Doctors in white coats were doing things to Sammy when Rebus arrived at the hospital next morning: taking her pulse, shining lights in her eyes. They were setting up another scanner, a nurse trying to untangle the thin coloured leads. Rhona looked like she'd lost some sleep. She jumped up and ran towards him.
`She woke up!' It took him a second to take it in. Rhona was holding his arms, shaking him.
`She woke up, John!' He pushed his way to the bedside.
`When?’
`Last night.’
`Why didn't you phone me?’
`I tried three, four times. You were engaged. I tried Patience, but there was no answer there.’
`What happened?’
To him, Sammy looked the same as ever.
`She just opened her eyes… No, first off, it was like she was moving her eyeballs. You know, with her eyelids closed. Then she opened her eyes.’
Rebus could see that the medical personnel were finding their work hampered. Half of him wanted to lash out – We're her fucking parents! The other half wanted them to do all they could to bring her round again. He took Rhona by the shoulder and guided her out into the hallway.
`Did she… Did she look at you? Did she say anything?’
`She was just staring at the ceiling, where the strip-light is. Then I thought she was going to blink, but she closed her eyes again and they stayed shut.’
Rhona burst into tears. `It was like… I lost her all over again.’
Rebus took her in his arms. She hugged him back.
`She did it once,' he whispered into her ear, `she'll do it again.’
`That's what one of the doctors said. He said they're "very hopeful". Oh, John, I wanted to tell you! I wanted to tell everyone!' And he'd been busy with work: Claverhouse, Jack Morton. And he'd got Sammy into all this in the first place. Sammy and Candice pebbles dropped into a pool. And now the ripples had grown so that he'd all but forgotten about the centre, the starting point. Just like when he was married, work consuming him, becoming an end in itself. And Rhona's words: You've exploited every relationship you ever had.
To be born again…
`I'm sorry, Rhona,' he said.
`Can you let Ned know?’
She started crying again.
`Come on,' he said, `let's get some breakfast. Have you been here all night?’
`I couldn't leave.’
`I know.’
He kissed her cheek…
`The person in the car…’
`What?’
She looked at him. `I don't care any more. I don't care who they were or whether they get caught. All I want is for her to wake up.’
Rebus nodded, told her he understood. Told her breakfast was on him. He kept the talk going, his mind not really on it. Instead, her words bounced around in his head: I don't care who they were or whether they get caught…
Whichever stress he put on it, he couldn't make it sound like surrender.
At St Leonard's, he broke the news to Ned Farlowe. Farlowe wanted to go to the hospital, but Rebus shook his head. Farlowe was crying as Rebus left his cell. Back at his desk, the files on the Crab were waiting.
The Crab: real name, William Andrew Colton. He had form going back to his teens, celebrated his fortieth birthday on Guy Fawkes Day. Rebus hadn't had many dealings with him during his time in Edinburgh. Looked like the Crab had lived in the city for a couple of years in the early-80s, and again in the early-90s. 1982: Rebus gave evidence against him in a conspiracy trial. Charges dropped. 1983: he was in trouble again – a fight in a pub left one man in a coma and his girlfriend needing sixty stitches to her face. Sixty stitches: you could knit a pair of mittens with less.
The Crab had held various jobs: bouncer, bodyguard, general labourer. The Inland Revenue had a go at him in 1986. By '88, he was on the West Coast, which was presumably where Tommy Telford had found him. Knowing good muscle when he saw it, he'd put the Crab on the doors of his club in Paisley. More bloodspilling; more accusations. Nothing came of them. The Crab had lived a charmed life, the sort of life that niggled at cops the world over: witnesses too scared to testify; withdrawing or refusing to give evidence. The Crab didn't often make it to trial. He'd served three adult sentences – a total of twenty-seven months – in a career that was now entering its fourth decade. Rebus went through the paperwork again, picked up the phone and called CID in Paisley. The man he wanted to speak to had been transferred to Motherwell. Rebus made the call, eventually got through to Detective Sergeant Ronnie Hannigan, and explained his interest.
`It's just that reading between the lines, you suspected the Crab of a lot more than ever got put down on paper.’
`You're right.’ Hannigan cleared his throat. `Never got close to proving anything though. You say he's south of the border now?’
`Telford placed him with a gangster in Newcastle.’
`Have criminal tendencies, will travel. Well, let's hope they keep him. He was a one-man reign of terror, and that's no exaggeration. Probably why Telford palmed him off on someone else: the Crab was getting out of control. My theory is, Telford tried him out as a hit-man. Crab wasn't suitable, so Telford needed to jettison him.’
`What was the hit?’
`Down in Ayr. Must've been… four years ago? Lot of drugs swilling around, most of them inside a dance-club… can't remember its name. I don't know what happened: maybe a deal went sour, maybe someone was skimming. Whatever, there was a hit outside the club. Guy got his face half torn off with a carving knife.’
`You put the Crab in the frame?’
`He had an alibi, of course, and the eye-witnesses all seemed to have suffered temporary blindness. Could be a plot for the X-Files in that.’
A knife attack outside a nightclub… Rebus tapped his desk with a pen. `Any idea how the attacker got away?’
`On a motorbike. The Crab likes bikes. Crash helmet makes a good disguise.’
`We had an almost identical attack recently. Guy on a motorbike went for a drug dealer outside one of Tommy Telford's nightclubs. Killed a bouncer instead.’
And Cafferty denied any involvement…
`Well, like you say, the Crab's in Newcastle.’
Yes, and staying put… scared to come north. Warned off by Tarawicz. Because Edinburgh was too dangerous… people might remember him.
`Do you know how far away Newcastle is?’
`A couple of hours?’
`No distance at all by bike. Anything else I should know?’
`Well, Telford tried the Crab in the van, but he wasn't much good.’
`What van?’
`The ice-cream van.’
Rebus nearly dropped the phone. Explain,' he said.
`Easy: Telford's boys were selling dope from an ice-cream van. The "five-pound special", they called it. You handed over a fiver and got back a cone or wafer with a wee plastic bag tucked inside…’
Rebus thanked Hannigan and terminated the call. Five-pound specials: Mr Taystee with his clients who ate ice-cream in all weathers. His daytime pitches: near schools. His nighttime pitches: outside Telford's clubs. Five-pound specials on the menu, Telford taking his cut… The new Merc: Mr Taystee's big mistake. Telford's moneymen wouldn't have taken long to work out their boy was skimming. Telford would have decided to turn Mr Taystee into a lesson…
It was coming together. He spun his pen, caught it, and made another call, this time to Newcastle.
`Nice to hear from you,' Miriam Kenworthy said. `Any sign of your lady friend?’
`She's turned up here.’
`Great.’
`In tow with Mr Pink Eyes.’
`Not so great. I wondered where he'd gone.’
`And he's not here to see the sights.’
`I'll bet he isn't.’
`Which is really why I'm calling.’
`Mmm?’