LETTING MAEVE do all the work and take all the risks felt like a failure to Darian. That was why he was up early the following morning, taking a detour up to Earmam before he went to work. Down Caol Lane and into Sigurds to interrupt the morning of a woman he should have been sensible enough to avoid. If Maeve was meeting with dangerous people then the least he could do was match her daring commitment.
Viv was standing at the bar, in her usual spot, with no drink in front of her, which meant she must have just arrived. She was wearing tight trousers and a coat, looking tremendously respectable and refined to Darian. She looked like she was taking a drinks break halfway through the school run. He stepped up beside her and got an annoyed glance.
“I’ll pay for your next one.”
Viv said, “I don’t pay for drinks here.”
“Free drinks? Any tips on how you swing an arrangement like that?”
“What do you want?”
Darian took a look around at the pub. There wasn’t another soul in there, not even the barman, although he could hear crates rattling in a backroom behind the bar. Seemed like the barman always found something to do in any other part of the building when Viv was there. Despite that, Darian kept his voice down when he spoke.
“I need to ask you a couple more questions, nothing that’ll cause you any trouble.”
She looked hard at him when she said, “You’re nothing but trouble.”
“Don’t be dramatic. I gave you fair warning of bad weather heading your way last time, and all I have this time are a couple of very minor questions. I want to ask you about the money Randle Cummins paid you. You said he paid it all off soon after Moses was killed.”
“I remember what I said; it’s a brain inside my skull, not a cabbage.”
“You said he paid it in full, in a oner, this guy who didn’t have a penny to his name beforehand, and he didn’t tell you anything about it? He wasn’t reading from a script when he handed it over?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“What sort of state was he in when he delivered the cash?”
“You think I was there waiting for him, my heart aflutter?”
“Someone must have seen him.”
“No, he dropped it at the unit.”
“The unit?”
She sighed through her nose and said, “We have an industrial unit off Tobacco Road; we use it as a drop-off point.”
At that moment the barman emerged from the door behind the bar, wiping his hands on a dirty blue towel, finished with his crates and ready to serve the woman he dared not leave dry. As he moved toward the more expensive whisky bottles he nodded and said, “Morning, Viv.”
“Thalla is cac.”
Without any hint that he’d been offended, the barman turned quickly on his heel and disappeared back through the door.
Viv turned to Darian and said, “With a lot of people we pick the money up from them. If they’re hard to get to, or they suddenly find themselves with cash they want to be relieved of, there’s a drop point. The unit is open, there are lock boxes inside. You put the money and a message in the open box, close the box and it locks automatically. They’re welded to the floor, not that anyone’s stupid enough to steal from us.”
“So there was no one at the unit to see him deliver, and I guess no camera.”
“Ha, good guess, Rebus. Of course there’s no bloody camera at our drop-off point. We’re trying to encourage people to use it, not chase them away. He left a note in the box with the money.”
“Do you have the note?”
“Do I have the note? You think I keep notes from people like Randle Cummins? They’re not love letters, scented and kept in a little shoebox, tied with a ribbon.”
“What did the note say?”
Viv gave him a look and said, “You started this saying you were only going to ask me a couple of questions, we’re past a couple now, in case you’re innumerate. I don’t remember what the note said, the same nonsense they always say. Here’s your money, it’s all there, the debt is repaid. They always put that last line in about the debt being cleared, as though we might not realize.”
“All right, I’ll leave you to your breakfast.”
“If you think I’ll ever repeat a word of what I’ve said here in front of a cop or a judge you’ll be crying yourself to sleep.”
“I expect nothing more of you.”
Darian was halfway to the door when Viv said, “Say hello to Sorley for me, and remind him to remember what I told him.”
It was the same instruction she’d left him with last time, so it meant something to her. Darian said nothing, and walked out of the bar.