Fleshmarket Alley

by Ian Rankin

  “Are you?”

  “She laid a curse on this country, and on anyone who would do her harm or mischief.” Lennox nodded to herself.

  Siobhan thought of Cater and McAteer: not much sign of any curse befalling them. She thought of saying as much, but remembered her promise to Curt.

  “All I know is the skeletons were fake,” Siobhan stressed.

  “My point exactly,” Mangold broke in. “So why are you so bloody interested?”

  “It would be nice to have an explanation,” Siobhan said quietly. She thought back to the scene in the cellar, the way her whole body had contracted at sight of the infant . . . placing her coat gently over the bones.

  “They found skeletons in the grounds of Holyrood,” Lennox was saying. “Those were real enough. And a coven in Gilmerton.”

  Siobhan knew of the “coven”: a series of chambers buried beneath a bookmaker’s shop. But last she’d heard, it had been proven to belong to a blacksmith. Not a view she guessed would be shared by the historian.

  “And that’s as much as you can tell me?” she asked Mangold instead.

  He opened his arms again, gold bracelets sliding over his wrists.

  “In which case,” said Siobhan, “I’ll let you get back to work. It was nice to meet you, Miss Lennox.”

  “And you,” the historian said. She pushed a palm forward. Siobhan took a step back. Lennox had her eyes closed again, lashes fluttering. “Make use of that energy. It is replenishable.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  Lennox opened her eyes, focusing on Siobhan. “We give some of our life force to our children. They are the true replenishment . . .”

  The look Mangold gave Siobhan was mostly apologetic, partly self-pitying: his time with Judith Lennox, after all, still had a ways to run . . .

  Rebus had never seen children in a mortuary before, and the sight offended him. This was a place for professionals, for adults, for the widowed. It was a place for unwelcome truths about the human body. It was the antithesis of childhood.

  Then again, what was childhood to the Yurgii children but confusion and desperation?

  Which didn’t stop Rebus pinning one of the guards to the wall. Not physically, of course, not using his hands. But by dint of placing himself at an intimidating proximity to the man and then inching forward, until the guard had his back to the wall of the waiting area.

  “You brought kids here?” Rebus spat.

  The guard was young; his ill-fitting uniform offered no protection against someone like Rebus. “They wouldn’t stay,” he stammered. “Bawling and grabbing on to her . . .” Rebus had turned his head to look at where the seated mother was folding the children in towards her, showing no interest in this scene, and in turn being embraced by her friend in the head scarf, the one from Whitemire. The boy, however, was watching intently. “Mr. Traynor thought it best to let them come.”

  “They could have stayed in the van.” Rebus had seen it outside: custodial blue with bars on its windows, a toughened grille between the front seats and the benches in the back.

  “Not without their mum . . .”

  The door was opening, a second guard entering. This man was the elder. He held a clipboard. Behind him came the white-coated figure of Bill Ness, who ran the mortuary. Ness was in his fifties, with Buddy Holly glasses. As ever, he was chewing a piece of gum. He went over to the family and offered the rest of the packet to the children, who reacted by moving even closer to their mother. Left standing in the doorway was Ellen Wylie. She was there to witness the ID procedure. She hadn’t known Rebus was coming, and he’d since told her that she was welcome to the job.

  “Everything all right here?” the elder guard was asking Rebus now.

  “Hunky-dory,” Rebus said, taking a couple of paces back.

  “Mrs. Yurgii,” Ness was coaxing, “we’re ready when you are.”

  She nodded and tried rising to her feet, had to be helped up by her friend. She placed a hand on either child’s head.

  “I’ll stay here with them, if you like,” Rebus said. She looked at him, then whispered something to the children, who gripped her all the harder.

  “Your mum’ll just be through that door,” Ness told them, pointing. “We’ll only be a minute . . .”

  Mrs. Yurgii crouched in front of son and daughter, whispered more words to them. Her eyes were glazed with tears. Then she lifted either child onto a chair, smiled at them, and backed away towards the door. Ness held it open for her. Both guards followed her, the elder glaring a warning towards Rebus: Keep an eye on them. Rebus didn’t even blink.

  When the door closed, the girl ran towards it, placing her hands against its surface. She said nothing and wasn’t crying. Her brother went to her, put his arm around her, and led her back to where they’d been sitting. Rebus crouched down, resting his back against the wall opposite. It was a desolate spot: no posters or notices, no magazines. Nothing to pass the time because no one passed time here. Usually you waited only a minute, enough time for the body to be moved from its refrigerated shelf to the viewing room. And afterwards, you left swiftly, not wishing to spend another minute in this place. There wasn’t even a clock, for, as Ness had said once to Rebus, “Our clients are out of time.” One of countless puns which helped him and his colleagues do the job they did.

  “My name’s John, by the way,” Rebus told the children. The girl was transfixed by the door, but the boy seemed to understand.

  “Police bad,” he stated with passion.

  “Not here,” Rebus told him. “Not in this country.”

  “In Turkey, very bad.”

  Rebus nodded acceptance of this. “But not here,” he repeated. “Here, police good.” The boy looked skeptical, and Rebus didn’t blame him. After all, what did he know of the police? They accompanied the Immigration officials, taking the family into custody. The Whitemire guards probably looked like police officers, too: anyone in a uniform was suspect. Anyone in authority.

  They were the people who made his mother cry, his father disappear.

  “You want to stay here? In this country?” Rebus asked. This concept was beyond the lad. He blinked a few times, until it was clear he wasn’t about to answer.

  “What toys do you like?”

  “Toys?”

  “Things you play with.”

  “I play with my sister.”

  “You play games, read books?”

  Again, the question seemed unanswerable. It was as if Rebus were quizzing him on local history or the rules of rugby.

  The door opened. Mrs. Yurgii was sobbing quietly, supported by her friend, the officials behind them somber, as befitted the moment. Ellen Wylie nodded at Rebus to let him know identity had been confirmed.

  “That’s us, then,” the elder guard stated. The children were clinging to their mother again. The guards started maneuvering all four figures towards the opposite door, the one leading back to the outside world, the land of the living.

  The boy turned just the once, as if to gauge Rebus’s reaction. Rebus tried a smile which was not returned.

  Ness headed back into the heart of the building, which left only Rebus and Wylie in the waiting area.

  “Do we need to talk to her?” she asked.

  “Why?”

  “To establish when she last heard from her husband . . .”

  Rebus shrugged. “That’s up to you, Ellen.”

  She looked at him. “What’s wrong?”

  Rebus shook his head slowly.

  “It’s tough on the kids,” she said.

  “Tell me,” he asked, “when do you reckon was the last time life wasn’t tough on those kids?”

  She shrugged. “Nobody asked them to come here.”

  “I suppose that’s true.”

  She was still looking at him. “But it’s not the point you were making?” she guessed.

  “I just think they deserve a childhood,” he responded. “That’s all.”

  He went outside to smoke
a cigarette, watched Wylie drive off in her Volvo. He paced the small car park, three of the mortuary’s unmarked vans standing there, awaiting their next call. Inside, the attendants would be playing cards and drinking tea. There was a nursery school across the street, and Rebus considered the short journey between the two, then squashed the remains of the cigarette underfoot and got into his own car. Drove towards Gayfield Square, but continued past the police station. There was a toy shop he knew: Harburn Hobbies on Elm Row. He parked outside and headed in. Didn’t bother looking at the prices, just picked out a few things: a simple train set, a couple of model kits, and a doll’s house and doll. The assistant helped him load the car. Back behind the steering wheel, he had another idea, this time driving to his flat in Arden Street. In the hall cupboard, he found a box full of old annuals and storybooks from when his daughter was twenty years younger. Why were they still there? Maybe awaiting the grandchildren who’d not yet come. Rebus put them on the backseat beside the other toys, and drove west out of town. Traffic was light, and within half an hour he was at the Whitemire turnoff. There were wisps of smoke from the campfire, but the woman was rolling up her tent, paying him no heed. A different guard was on duty at the gatehouse. Rebus had to show his ID, drive to the car park, and be met by another guard, who was reluctant to help with the haul.

  There was no sign of Traynor, but that didn’t matter. Rebus and the guard took the toys inside.

  “They’ll have to be checked,” the guard said.

  “Checked?”

  “We can’t have people just bring anything in here . . .”

  “You think there are drugs hidden inside the doll?”

  “It’s standard procedure, Inspector.” The guard lowered his voice. “You and I know it’s completely bloody stupid, but it still has to be done.”

  The two men shared a look. Rebus nodded eventually. “But they will get to the kids?” he asked.

  “By the end of the day, if I’ve got anything to do with it.”

  “Thanks.” Rebus shook the guard’s hand, then looked around. “How do you stand it here?”

  “Would you rather have the place staffed by people different from me? God knows there are enough of them . . .”

  Rebus managed a smile. “You’ve got a point.” He thanked the man again. The guard just shrugged.

  Driving out, Rebus noticed that the tent had gone. Its owner was now trudging down the side of the road, a rucksack on her back. He stopped, winding down his window.

  “Need a lift?” he asked. “I’m headed for Edinburgh.”

  “You were here yesterday,” she stated. He nodded. “Who are you?”

  “I’m a police officer.”

  “The murder in Knoxland?” she guessed. Rebus nodded again. She peered into the back of the car.

  “Plenty room for your rucksack,” he told her.

  “That’s not why I was looking.”

  “Oh?”

  “Just wondering what happened to the doll’s house. I saw a doll’s house on the backseat when you drove in.”

  “Then your eyes obviously deceived you.”

  “Obviously,” she said. “After all, why would a policeman bring toys to a detention center?”

  “Why indeed?” Rebus agreed, getting out to help her stash her things.

  They drove the first half mile in silence. Then Rebus asked her if she smoked.

  “No, but you go ahead if you like.”

  “I’m all right,” Rebus lied. “How often do you do that vigil thing?”

  “As often as I can.”

  “All by yourself?”

  “There were more of us to start with.”

  “I remember seeing it on the telly.”

  “Others join me when they can: weekends, usually.”

  “They have jobs to go to?” Rebus guessed.

  “I work, too, you know,” she snapped. “It’s just that I can juggle my time.”

  “You’re an acrobat?”

  She smiled at this. “I’m an artist.” She paused, awaiting a response. “And thank you for not snorting.”

  “Why would I snort?”

  “Most people like you would.”

  “People like me?”

  “People who see anyone who’s different to them as a threat.”

  Rebus made a show of taking this in. “So that’s what I’m like. I’d always wondered . . .”

  She smiled again. “All right, I’m jumping to conclusions, but not without some grounds. You’ll have to trust me on that.” She leaned forward to operate the seat mechanism, sliding it back as far as it would go, giving her room to put her feet on the dashboard in front of her. Rebus thought she was probably in her midforties, long mousy-brown hair woven into braids. Three hooped golden earrings in either lobe. Her face was pale and freckled, and her front two teeth overlapped, giving her the look of an impish schoolgirl.

  “I trust you,” he said. “I also take it you’re not a big fan of our asylum laws?”

  “That’s because they stink.”

  “And what do they stink of?”

  She turned from the windscreen to look at him. “Hypocrisy, for starters,” she said. “This is a country where you can buy your way to a passport if you know the right politician. If you don’t, and we don’t like your skin color or your politics, then forget it.”

  “You don’t think we’re a soft touch, then?”

  “Give me a break,” she said dismissively, turning her attention back to the scenery.

  “I’m just asking.”

  “A question to which you think you already know the answer?”

  “I know we’ve got better welfare than some countries.”

  “Yeah, right. That’s why people pay their life savings to gangs who smuggle them over borders? That’s why they suffocate in the backs of lorries or squashed into cargo containers?”

  “Don’t forget the Eurostar: don’t they cling to its undercarriage?”

  “Don’t you dare patronize me!”

  “Just making conversation.” Rebus concentrated on driving for a few moments. “So what kind of art do you do?”

  It took her a few moments to answer him. “Portraits mostly . . . the occasional landscape . . .”

  “Would I have heard of you?”

  “You don’t look like a collector.”

  “I used to have an H. R. Giger on my wall.”

  “An original?”

  Rebus shook his head. “LP cover—Brain Salad Surgery.”

  “At least you remember the artist’s name.” She sniffed, running a hand across her nose. “Mine’s Caro Quinn.”

  “Caro short for Caroline?” She nodded. Rebus reached out awkwardly with his right hand. “I’m John Rebus.”

  Quinn slipped off a gray woolen glove, and they shook, the car creeping over the highway’s central dividing line. Rebus quickly corrected the steering.

  “Promise to get us back to Edinburgh in one piece?” the artist pleaded.

  “Where do you want to be dropped?”

  “Are you going anywhere near Leith Walk?”

  “I’m based at Gayfield.”

  “Perfect . . . I’m just off Pilrig Street, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Fine by me.” They were quiet for a few minutes until Quinn spoke.

  “You couldn’t move sheep around Europe the way some of these families have been moved . . . nearly two thousand of them in detention in Britain.”

  “But a lot of them get to stay, right?”

  “Not nearly enough. Holland’s getting ready to deport twenty-six thousand.”

  “Seems a lot. How many are there in Scotland?”

  “Eleven thousand in Glasgow alone.”

  Rebus whistled.

  “Go back a couple of years, we took more asylum seekers than any country in the world.”

  “I thought we still did.”

  “Numbers are dropping fast.”

  “Because the world’s a safer place?”

  She
looked at him, decided he was being ironic. “Controls are tightening all the time.”

  “Only so many jobs to go round,” Rebus said with a shrug.

  “And that’s supposed to make us less compassionate?”

  “Never found much room for compassion in my job.”

  “That’s why you went to Whitemire with a car full of toys?”

  “My friends call me Santa . . .”

  Rebus double-parked, as directed, outside her tenement flat. “Come up for a minute,” she said.

  “What for?”

  “Something I’d like you to see.”

  He locked his car, hoping the owner of the boxed-in Mini wouldn’t mind. Quinn lived on the top floor—in Rebus’s experience the usual haunt of student renters. Quinn had another explanation.

  “I get two stories,” she said. “There’s a stair into the roof space.” She unlocked the door, Rebus lagging half a flight behind her. He thought he heard her call out something—a name maybe—but when he entered the hallway, there was no one there. Quinn had rested her rucksack against the wall and was beckoning him up the steep, narrow stairway into the eaves of the building. Rebus took a few deep breaths and started climbing again.

  There was just the one room, illuminated by natural light from four large skylights. Canvases were stacked against the walls, black-and-white photographs pinned to every available inch of the eaves.

  “I tend to work from photos,” Quinn told him. “These are what I wanted you to see.” They were close-ups of faces, the camera seeming to focus on the eyes specifically. Rebus saw mistrust, fear, curiosity, indulgence, good humor. Surrounded by so many stares, he felt like an exhibit himself, and said as much to the artist, who seemed gratified.

  “My next exhibition, I don’t want any wall space showing, just ranks of painted faces demanding we pay them some attention.”

  “Staring us down,” Rebus nodded slowly. Quinn was nodding, too. “So where did you take them?”

  “All over: Dundee, Glasgow, Knoxland.”

  “They’re all immigrants?”

  She nodded, studying her work.

  “When were you in Knoxland?”

  “Three or four months back. I was kicked out after a couple of days . . .”