Mortal Causes

'Is that right?’ Bothwell wriggled on his barstool and tipped ash onto the floor.

'You were told she was upstairs.’

'Was I?’

'Your manager told you.’

'You've only got his word for that.’

'You deny he said it? Maybe if we could get the two of you together?’

`You can do what you like, he's out on his ear anyway. I sacked him first thing. Can't have people dossing upstairs like that, bad for the club's image. Let them sleep on the streets like everyone else.’

Rebus tried to imagine what resemblance the kid at the Gar-B had seen between himself and Frankie Bothwell. He was here because he was feeling reckless. Plus he'd put a few whiskies away in Sandy Bell's. He was here because he quite fancied beating Lee Francis Bothwell to a bloody mush on the dance floor.

Stripped of music and flashing lights and drink and dancers, the Crazy Hose had as much life as a warehouse full of last year's fashions. Bothwell, appearing to dismiss Rebus from his mind, lifted one foot and began to rub some dust from a cowboy boot. Rebus feared the white trousers would either split or else eviscerate their wearer. The boot was black and soft with small puckers covering it like miniature moon craters. Bothwell caught Rebus looking at it.

'Ostrich skin,' he explained.

Meaning the craters were where each feather had been plucked. 'Look like a lot of little arseholes,' Rebus said admiringly.

Bothwell straightened up. 'Look, Mr Bothwell, all I want are a couple of answers. Is that so much to ask?’

'And then you'll leave?’

`Straight out the door.’

Bothwell sighed and flicked more ash onto the floor. 'Okay then.’

Rebus smiled his appreciation. He rested his hand on the bar and leaned towards Bothwell.

'Two questions,' he said. 'Why did you kill her and who's got the disk?’

Bothwell stared at him, then laughed. `Get out of here.’

Rebus lifted his hand from the bar. 'I'm going,' he said. But he stopped at the doors to the foyer, holding them open. `You know Cafferty's in town?’

`Never heard of him.’

`That's not the, point. The point is, has he heard of you? Your father was a minister. Did you ever learn Latin?’

'What?’

'Nemo me impune lacessit.’

Bothwell didn't even blink. `Never mind, it won't worry Cafferty one way or the other. See, you didn't just meddle with him, you meddled with his family.’

He let the doors swing shut behind him. This was the way he should have worked it throughout, using Cafferty the mere threat of Cafferty – to do his work for him. But would Cafferty be enough to scare the American and the Ulsterman? Somehow, John Rebus doubted it.

Back at St Leonard's, Rebus first phoned the scaffolding company, then placed a call to Peter Cave.

`Something I've been meaning to ask you, sir,' he said.

`Yes?’ Cave sounded tired, deep down inside.

`Since the Church stopped supporting – the youth club, how do you survive?’

'We manage. Everyone who comes along has to pay.’

`Is it enough?’

`No.

`You're not subsidising the place out of your own pocket?’

Cave laughed at this. `What then? Sponsorship?’

'In a way, yes.’

'What sort of way?’

'Just someone who saw the good the club was doing.’

'Someone you know?’

'Never met him, as a matter of fact.’

Rebus took a stab. 'Francis Bothwell?’

'How did you know that?’

'Someone told me,' Rebus lied.

'Davey?’

So Davey Soutar did know Bothwell. Yes, it figured. Maybe from a district lodge football team, maybe some other way. Time to change track.

'What does Davey do by the way?’

'Works in an abattoir.’

'He's not a builder then?’

'No.

'One last thing, Mr Cave. I got a name from a scaffolding company: Malky Haston. He's eighteen, lives in the Gar-B.’

`I know Malky, Inspector. And he knows you.’

'How's that?’

'Heavy metal fan, always wears a band t-shirt. You've spoken with him.’

Black t-shirt, thought Rebus, Davey Soutar's pal. With white flecks in his hair that Rebus had mistaken for dandruff.

'Thank you, Mr Cave,' Rebus said, 'I think that's everything.

Everything he needed.

A uniform approached as he put down the phone, and handed Rebus the information he'd requested on recent and not so-recent break-ins. Rebus knew what he was looking for, and it didn't take long. Acid wasn't that easy to come by, not unless you had a plausible reason for wanting it. Easier to steal the stuff if you could. And where could you find acid? Break-ins at Craigie Comprehensive School were fairly standard. It was like pre-employment training for the unrulier pupils. They learned to slip a window-catch and jemmy open a door, some graduated to lock-picking, and others became fences for the stolen goods. It was always a buyers' market, but then economics was not a strong point with these junior careerists. Three months back, Craigie had been entered at the dead of night and the tuck shop emptied.

They'd also broken into the science rooms, physics and chemistry. The chemistry stock room had a different lock, but they took that out too, and made off with a large jar of methylated spirits, a few other choice cocktail ingredients, and three thick glass jars of various acids.