Mortal Causes

The tenements either side of the street boasted basements, and a lot of these were flats with their own separate stairwells and entrances. Patience lived in just such a flat not seven minutes' walk away. Rebus walked carefully down the stone steps. They were often worn and slippy. At the bottom, in a sort of damp courtyard, the owner or tenant of the flat had attempted to create a garden of terracotta pots and hanging baskets. But most of the plants had died, probably from lack of light, or perhaps from rough treatment at the hands of the builders. Scaffolding stretched up the front of the tenement, much of it covered with thick polythene, crackling in the breeze.

'Cleaning the facade,' someone said. Rebus nodded. The front door of the flat faced a whitewashed wall, and in the wall were set two doors. Rebus knew what these were, they were storage areas, burrowed out beneath the surface of the pavement. Patience had almost identical doors, but never used the space for anything; the cellars were too damp. One of the doors stood open. The floor was mostly moss, some of which was being scraped into an evidence bag by a SOCO.

Kilpatrick, watching this, was listening to Blackwood, who ran his left hand across his pate, tucking an imaginary hair, behind his ear. Kilpatrick saw Rebus.

'Hello, John.’

'Sir.’

'Where's Smylie?’

Ormiston was coming down the steps. Rebus nodded towards him. 'The Quiet Man there dropped him at HQ. So what's the big mystery?’

Blackwood answered. 'Flat's been on the market a few months, but not selling. Owner decided to tart it up a bit, see if that would do the trick. Builders turned up yesterday: Today one of them decided to take a look at the cellars. He found a body.’

`Been there long?’

Blackwood shook his head. 'They're doing the postmortem this evening.’

'Any tattoos?’

'No tattoos,' said Kilpatrick. 'Thing is, John, it was Calumn.’

The Chief Inspector looked genuinely troubled, almost ready for tears. His face had lost its colour, and had lengthened as though the muscles had lost all motivation. He massaged his forehead with a hand.

`Calumn?’

Rebus shook away his hangover. 'Calumn Smylie?’

He remembered the big man, in the back of the HGV with his brother. Tried imagine him dead, but couldn't. Especially not here, in a cellar…

Kilpatrick blew his nose loudly, then wiped it. `I suppose I'd better get back and tell Ken.’

'No need, sir.’

Ken Smylie was standing at street level, gripping the gloss-black railings. He looked like he might uproot the lot.

Instead he arched back his head and gave a high-pitched howl, the sound swirling up into the sky as a smattering of rain began to fall.

Smylie had to be ordered to go home, they couldn't shift him otherwise. Everyone else in the office moved like automatons. DCI Kilpatrick had some decisions to make, chief among them whether or not to tie together the two murder inquiries.

`He was stabbed,' he told Rebus. `No signs of a struggle, certainly no torture, nothing like that.’

There was relief in his voice, a relief Rebus could understand. 'Stabbed and dumped. Whoever did it probably saw the For Sale sign outside the flat, didn't reckon on the body being found for a while.’

He had produced a bottle of Laphroaig from the bottom drawer of his desk, and poured himself a glass.

`Medicinal,' he explained. But Rebus declined the offer of glass. He'd taken three paracetamol washed down with Irn-Bru. He noticed that the level in the Laphroaig bottle was low. Kilpatrick must have a prescription.

`You think he was rumbled?’

`What else?’ said Kilpatrick, dribbling more malt into his glass.

'I'd have expected another punishment killing, something with a bit of ritual about it.’

`Ritual?’

Kilpatrick considered this. `He wasn't killed there, you know. The pathologist said there wasn't enough blood Maybe they held their "ritual" wherever they killed him. Christ, and I let him go out on a limb He took out a handkerchief and blew his nose, then took a deep breath. 'Well, I've got a murder inquiry to start up, the high hiedyins are going to be asking questions.’

'Yes, sir.’ Rebus stood up, but stopped at the door. 'Two murders, two cellars, two lots of builders.’

Kilpatrick nodded, but said nothing. Rebus opened the door.

'Sir, who knew about Calumn?’

'How do you mean?’

'Who knew he was undercover? Just this office, or anyone else?’

Kilpatrick furrowed his brow. 'Such as?’

'Special Branch, say.’

'Just this office,' Kilpatrick said quietly. Rebus turned to leave. 'John, what did you find out in Belfast?’

'That Sword and Shield exists. That the RUC know it's operating here on the mainland. That they told Special Branch in London.’

He paused. 'That DI Abernethy probably knows all about it.’

Having said which, Rebus left the room. Kilpatrick stared at the door for a full minute.

'Christ almighty,' he said. His telephone was ringing. He was slow to answer it.

'Is it true?’ Brian Holmes asked.

Siobhan Clarke was waiting for an answer too.