Beggars Banquet (collection)

by Ian Rankin

  Halfway there, I met the tailor whose family lived two floors below me.

  ‘Cully,’ he said, ‘men are looking for you.’

  ‘What sort of men?’

  ‘The sort you wouldn’t have find you. They’re standing guard on the stairwell and won’t shift.’

  ‘Thanks for the warning.’

  He held my arm. ‘Cully, business is slow. If you could persuade some of your clients of the quality of my cloth…?’

  ‘Depend on it.’ I went back up the brae to The Cross and found Mr Mack.

  ‘Here,’ I said, handing him the parcel. ‘Keep this for me.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I think I may have stepped in something even less savoury than I thought. Any news of the List?’

  Mack shook his head. He looked worried when I left him; not for himself, but for me.

  I kept heading uphill, towards the Castle itself. Beneath Castle Hill lay the catacombs where the town’s denizens used to hide when the place was being sacked. And where the lowest of Edinburgh’s wretches still dwelt. I would be safe there, so I made my way into the tunnels and out of the light, averting my face where possible from each interested, unfriendly gaze.

  The man I sought sat slouched against one of the curving walls, hands on his knees. He could sit like that for hours, brooding. He was a giant, and there were stories to equal his size. It was said he’d been a seditionary, a rabble-rouser, both pirate and smuggler. He had almost certainly killed men, but these days he lay low. His name was Ormond.

  He watched me sit opposite him, his gaze unblinking.

  ‘You’re in trouble,’ he said at last.

  ‘Would I be here otherwise? I need somewhere to sleep for tonight.’

  He nodded slowly. ‘That’s all any of us needs. You’ll be safe here, Cullender.’

  And I was.

  But next morning I was roused early by Ormond shaking me.

  ‘Men outside,’ he hissed. ‘Looking for you.’

  I rubbed my eyes. ‘Is there another exit?’

  Ormond shook his head. ‘If you went any deeper into this maze, you could lose yourself for ever. These burrows run as far as the Canongate.’

  ‘How many men?’ I was standing up now, fully awake.

  ‘Four.’

  I held out my hand. ‘Give me a dagger, I’ll deal with them.’ I meant it too. I was aching and irritable and tired of running. But Ormond shook his head.

  ‘I’ve a better plan,’ he said.

  He led me back through the tunnel towards its entrance. The tunnel grew more populous as we neared the outside world. I could hear my pursuers ahead, examining faces, snarling as each one proved false. Then Ormond filled his lungs.

  ‘The price of corn’s to be raised!’ he bellowed. ‘New taxes! New laws! Everyone to The Cross!’

  Voices were raised in anger, and people clambered to their feet. Ormond was raising a mob. The Edinburgh mob was a wondrous thing. It could run riot through the streets, and then melt back into the shadows. There’d been the Porteous riots, anti-Catholic riots, price-rise riots, and pro-Revolution riots. Each time, the vast majority escaped arrest. A mob could be raised in a minute, and could disperse in another. Even Braxfield feared the mob.

  Ormond was bellowing in front of me. As for me, I was merely another of the wretches. I passed the men who’d been seeking me. They stood dumbfounded in the midst of the spectacle. As soon as the crowd reached the Lawn-market, I peeled off with a wave of thanks to Ormond, slipped into an alley and was alone again.

  But not for long. Down past the Luckenbooths I saw the servant again, and this time he would not evade me. Down towards Princes Street he went, down Geordie Boyd’s footpath, a footpath that would soon be wide enough for carriages. He crossed Princes Street and headed up to George Street. There at last I saw him descend some steps and enter a house by its servants’ door. I stopped a sedan chair. Both chairmen knew me through Mr Mack.

  ‘That house there?’ one of them said in answer to my question. ‘It used to belong to Lord Thorpe before he left for London. A bookseller bought it from him.’

  ‘A Mr Whitewood?’ I asked blithely. The chairman nodded. ‘I admit I don’t know that gentleman well. Is he married?’

  ‘Married aye, but you wouldn’t know it. She’s seldom seen, is she, Donald?’

  ‘Rarely, very rarely,’ the second chairman agreed.

  ‘Why’s that? Has she the pox or something?’

  They laughed at the imputation. ‘How would we know a thing like that?’

  I laughed too, and bid them thanks and farewell. Then I approached the front door of the house and knocked a good solid knock.

  The servant, when he opened the door, was liveried. He looked at me in astonishment.

  ‘Tell your mistress I wish to speak with her,’ I said sharply.

  He appeared in two minds at least, but I sidestepped him and found myself in a fine entrance hall.

  ‘Wait in here,’ the servant growled, closing the front door and opening another. ‘I’ll ask my lady if she’ll deign to see you.’

  I toured the drawing-room. It was like walking around an exhibition, though in truth the only exhibition I’d ever toured was of Bedlam on a Sunday afternoon, and then only to look for a friend of mine.

  The door opened and the lady of the house swept in. She had powdered her cheeks heavily to disguise the redness there – either embarrassment or anger. Her eyes avoided mine, which gave me opportunity to study her. She was in her mid twenties, not short, and with a pleasing figure. Her lips were full and red, her eyes hard but to my mind seductive. She was a catch, but when she spoke her voice was rough-hewn, and I wondered at her history.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘What do you think I want?’

  She picked up a pretty statuette. ‘Are we acquainted?’

  ‘I believe so. We met outside the Tolbooth.’

  She attempted a disbelieving laugh. ‘Indeed? It’s a place I’ve never been.’

  ‘You would not care to see its innards, lady, yet you may if you continue in this manner.’

  No amount of powder could have hidden her colouring. ‘How dare you come here!’

  ‘My life is in danger, lady.’

  This quieted her. ‘Why? What have you done?’

  ‘Nothing save what you asked of me.’

  ‘Have you found the book?’

  ‘Not yet, and I’ve a mind to hand you back your money.’

  She saw what I was getting at, and looked aghast. ‘But if you’re in danger… I swear it cannot be to do with me!’

  ‘No? A man has died already.’

  ‘Mr Cullender, it’s only a book! It’s nothing anyone would kill for.’

  I almost believed her. ‘Why do you want it?’

  She turned away. ‘That is not your concern.’

  ‘My chief concern is my neck, lady. I’ll save it at any cost.’

  ‘I repeat, you are in no danger from seeking that book. If you think your life in peril, there must needs be some other cause.’ She stared at me as she spoke, and the damnation of it was that I believed her. I believed that Dryden’s death, Braxfield’s threat, the men chasing me, that none of it had anything to do with her. She saw the change in me, and smiled a radiant smile, a smile that took me with it.

  ‘Now get out,’ she said. And with that she left the room and began to climb the stairs. Her servant was waiting for me by the front door, holding it open in readiness.

  My head was full of puzzles. All I knew with certainty was that I was sick of hiding. I headed back to the old town with a plan in my mind as half-baked as the scrapings the baker tossed out to the homeless.

  I toured the town gossips, starting with the fishwives. Then I headed to The Cross and whispered in the ears of selected caddies and chairmen. Then it was into the howffs and dining establishments, and I was glad to wash my hard work down with a glass or two of wine.

  My story broadcas
t, I repaired to my lodgings and lay on the straw mattress. There were no men waiting for me on the stairwell. I believe I even slept a little. It was dark when I next looked out of the skylight. The story I’d spread was that I knew who’d killed Dryden, and was merely biding my time before alerting the Town Rats. Would anyone fall for the ploy? I wasn’t sure. I fell to a doze again, but opened my eyes on hearing noises on the stair.

  The steps to my attic were rotten and had to be managed adroitly. My visitor – a lone man, I surmised – was doing his best. I sat up on the mattress and watched the door begin to open. In deep shadow, a figure entered my room, closing the door after it with some finality.

  ‘Good evening, Cully.’

  I swallowed drily. ‘So the stories were true then, Deacon Brodie?’

  ‘True enough,’ he said, coming closer. His face was almost unrecognisable, much older, more careworn, and he wore no wig, no marks of a gentleman. He carried a slender dagger in his right hand.

  ‘I cheated the gibbet, Cully,’ he said with his old pride.

  ‘But I was there, I saw you drop.’

  ‘And you saw my men cut me down and haul me away.’ He grinned with what teeth were left in his head. ‘A wooden collar saved my throat, Cully. I devised it myself.’

  I recalled the red silk he’d worn ostentatiously around his throat. A scarf from a female admirer, the story went. It would have hidden just such a device.

  ‘You’ve been in hiding a long time,’ I said. The dagger was inches from me.

  ‘I fled Edinburgh, Cully. I’ve been away these past five and a half years.’

  ‘What brought you back?’ I couldn’t take my eyes off the dagger.

  ‘Aye,’ Brodie said, seeing what was in my mind. ‘The doctor who pronounced me dead and the coffin-maker who was supposed to have buried me. I couldn’t have witnesses alive… not now.’

  ‘And the others, Dryden and the wretch Howison?’

  ‘Both recognised me, curse them. Then you started to snoop around, and couldn’t be found.’

  ‘But why? Why are you back?’

  The dagger was touching my throat now. I’d backed myself into a corner of the bed. There was nowhere to go. ‘I was tempted back, Cully. A temptation I could not resist. The crown jewels.’

  ‘What?’

  His voice was a feverish whisper. ‘The chest in the crown room. I will have its contents, my last and greatest theft.’

  ‘Alone? Impossible.’

  ‘But I’m not alone. I have powerful allies.’ He smiled. ‘Braxfield for one. He believes the theft of the jewels will spark a Scots revolution. But you know this already, Cully. You were seen watching Braxfield. You were seen in Whitewood’s shop.’

  ‘Whitewood’s part of it too?’

  ‘You know he is, romantic fool that he is.’ The point of the dagger broke my skin. I could feel blood trickle down my throat. If I spoke again, they would be my last words. I felt like laughing. Brodie was so wrong in his surmisings. Everything was wrong. A sudden noise on the stair turned Brodie’s head. My own dagger was hidden beneath my thigh. I grabbed it with one hand, my other hand wrestling with Brodie’s blade.

  When Gisborne opened the door, what he saw sobered him immediately.

  Brodie freed himself and turned to confront the young Englishman, dagger ready, but not ready enough. Gisborne had no hesitation in running him through. Brodie stood there frozen, then keeled over, his head hitting the boards with a dull dead sound.

  Gisborne was the statue now. He stared at the spreading blood.

  I got to my feet quickly. ‘Where did you get the blade?’ I asked, amazed.

  Gisborne swallowed. ‘I bought it new today, heeding your advice.’

  ‘You saved my life, young master.’ I stared down at Brodie’s corpse. ‘But why are you here?’

  Gisborne came to his senses. ‘I heard you were looking for a book.’

  ‘I was. What of it?’ We were both staring at Brodie.

  ‘Only to tell you that I am in possession of it. Or I was. The lawyer Urquhart gave it to me. He said I would doubtless find it useful… Who was this man?’

  I ignored the question and glared at him. ‘ You have the book?’

  He shook his head. ‘I daren’t keep it in my room for fear my landlady might find it.’

  I blinked. ‘That parcel?’ Gisborne nodded. I felt a fool, a dumb fool. But there was Brodie’s corpse to dispose of. I could see little advantage in reporting this, his second demise, to the authorities. Questions would be asked of Master Gisborne, and a young Englishman might not always receive a fair hearing, especially with Braxfield at the bench. God no, the body must be disposed of quietly.

  And I knew just the spot.

  Mr Mack helped us lug the guts down to the new town, propping Brodie in the sedan chair. The slumped corpse resembled nothing so much as a sleeping drunk.

  In Charlotte Square we found some fresh foundations and buried the remains of Deacon Brodie within. We were all three in a sweat by the time we’d finished. I sat myself down on a large stone and wiped my brow.

  ‘Well, friends,’ I said, ‘it is only right and proper.’

  ‘What is?’ Gisborne asked, breathing heavily.

  ‘The old town has its serpent, and now the new town does too.’ I watched Gisborne put his jacket back on. It was the blue coat with silver buttons. There was blood on it, and dirt besides.

  ‘I know a tailor,’ I began, ‘might make something fresh for an excellent price…’

  Next morning, washed and crisply dressed, I returned to my lady’s house. I waved the parcel under the servant’s nose and he hurried upstairs.

  My lady was down promptly, but gave me no heed. She had eyes only for the book. Book? It was little more than a ragged pamphlet, its pages well-thumbed, scribbled margin-alia commenting on this or that entry or adding a fresh one. I handed her the tome.

  ‘The entry you seek is towards the back,’ I told her. She looked startled. ‘You are, I suppose, the Masked Lady referred to therein? A lady for daylight assignations only, and always masked, speaking in a whisper?’

  Her cheeks were crimson as she tore at the book, scattering its shreddings.

  ‘Better have the floor swept,’ I told her. ‘You wouldn’t want Mr Whitewood to find any trace. That was your reason all along, was it not? He is a known philanderer. It was only a matter of time before he got to read of the Masked Lady, and became intrigued to meet her.’

  Her head was held high, like she was examining the room’s cornices.

  ‘I’m not ashamed,’ she said.

  ‘Nor should you be.’

  She saw I was mocking her. ‘I am a prisoner here, with no more life than a doll.’

  ‘So you take revenge in your own particular manner? I understand, lady, but you must understand this. Two men died because of you. Not directly, but that matters not to them. Only one deserved to die. For the other…’ I jangled the bag of money she’d given me that first night. ‘These coins will buy him a burial.’

  Then I bade her good day and left the whole shining new town behind me, with its noises of construction and busyness. Let them build all the mighty edifices they would; they could not erase the stain. They could not erase the real town, the old town, the town I knew so intimately. I returned to the howff where Gisborne and Mack awaited me.

  ‘I’ve decided,’ the young master said, ‘to study law rather than medicine, Cully.’ He poured me a drink. ‘Edinburgh needs another lawyer, don’t you think?’

  The image of Braxfield came unasked into my mind. ‘Like it needs another plague, master.’

  But I raised my glass to him anyway.

  No Sanity Clause – AN INSPECTOR REBUS STORY FOR CHRISTMAS

  It was all Edgar Allan Poe’s fault. Either that or the Scottish Parliament. Joey Briggs was spending most of his days in the run-up to Christmas sheltering from Edinburgh’s biting December winds. He’d been walking up George IV Bridge one day and had watched a down-an
d-out slouching into the Central Library. Joey had hesitated. He wasn’t a down-and-out, not yet anyway. Maybe he would be soon, if Scully Aitchison MSP got his way, but for now Joey had a bedsit and a trickle of state cash. Thing was, nothing made you miss money more than Christmas. The shop windows displayed their magnetic pull. There were queues at the cash machines. Kids tugged on their parents’ sleeves, ready with something new to add to the present list. Boyfriends were out buying gold, while families piled the food trolley high.

  And then there was Joey, nine weeks out of prison and nobody to call his friend. He knew there was nothing waiting for him back in his home town. His wife had taken the children and tiptoed out of his life. Joey’s sister had written to him in prison with the news. So, eleven months on, Joey had walked through the gates of Saughton Jail and taken the first bus into the city centre, purchased an evening paper and started the hunt for somewhere to live.

  The bedsit was fine. It was one of four in a tenement basement just off South Clerk Street, sharing a kitchen and bathroom. The other men worked, didn’t say much. Joey’s room had a gas fire with a coin-meter beside it, too expensive to keep it going all day. He’d tried sitting in the kitchen with the stove lit, until the landlord had caught him. Then he’d tried steeping in the bath, topping up the hot. But the water always seemed to run cold after half a tub.

  ‘You could try getting a job,’ the landlord had said.

  Not so easy with a prison record. Most of the jobs were for security and nightwatch. Joey didn’t think he’d get very far there.

  Following the tramp into the library was one of his better ideas. The uniform behind the desk gave him a look, but didn’t say anything. Joey wandered the stacks, picked out a book and sat himself down. And that was that. He became a regular, the staff acknowledged him with a nod and sometimes even a smile. He kept himself presentable, didn’t fall asleep the way some of the old guys did. He read for much of the day, alternating between fiction, biographies and textbooks. He read up on local history, plumbing and Winston Churchill, Nigel Tranter’s novels and National Trust gardens. He knew the library would close over Christmas, didn’t know what he’d do without it. He never borrowed books, because he was afraid they’d have him on some blacklist: convicted housebreaker and petty thief, not to be trusted with loan material.