Fleshmarket Alley

by Ian Rankin

  “You better go,” she said.

  Rebus nodded, backing away towards the car. He waved before getting into the passenger seat.

  “I hit the horn by accident,” Wylie lied. “So you know her, then?”

  “A little,” he admitted. “She’s an artist—paints portraits.”

  “So it’s true then . . .” Wylie put the car into first gear. “You really are a renaissance man.”

  “One ‘n,’ two ‘s’s, right?”

  “Right,” she said. Rebus angled the rearview mirror so he could watch Caro Quinn recede as the car gathered pace.

  “So how do you know her?”

  “I just do, all right?”

  “Sorry I asked. Do your friends always burst into tears when you talk to them?”

  He gave her a look, and they drove in silence for a few moments.

  “Want to drop into Banehall?” Wylie eventually asked.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Just to take a look.” They’d talked about the murder on the outward journey.

  “What’ll we see?”

  “We’ll see F Troop at work.”

  F Troop because Livingston was “F Division” of the Lothian and Borders Police, and few in Edinburgh really rated them. Rebus was forced to concede a smile.

  “Why not?” he said.

  “That’s decided, then.”

  Rebus’s mobile sounded. He wondered if it might be Caro Quinn, thought maybe he should have stayed a bit longer, kept her company. But it was Siobhan.

  “I’ve just been on the phone to Gayfield,” she said.

  “Oh aye?”

  “DCI Macrae’s got the pair of us marked down as AWOL.”

  “What’s your excuse?”

  “I’m in Banehall.”

  “Funny, we’ll be there in two minutes . . .”

  “We?”

  “Me and Ellen. We’ve been out to Whitemire. You still looking for that girl?”

  “There’s been a bit of lateral movement . . . you heard they found a body?”

  “I thought it was a bloke.”

  “It’s the guy who raped her sister.”

  “I can see that would change things. So now you’re helping F Troop with their inquiries?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  Rebus snorted. “Jim Macrae must think there’s something about Gayfield we don’t like.”

  “He’s not too thrilled . . . And he told me to give you another message.”

  “Oh aye?”

  “Someone else who’s fallen out of love with you . . .”

  Rebus thought for a moment. “Is that sad bastard still after me for the flashlight?”

  “He’s talking about an official complaint.”

  “Christ’s sake . . . I’m buying him a new one.”

  “Apparently, it’s a specialist kit—over a hundred quid’s worth.”

  “You could buy a chandelier for that!”

  “Don’t shoot the messenger, John.”

  The car was passing the sign into town: BANEHALL had become BANEHELL.

  “That’s inventive,” Wylie muttered. Then: “Ask her where she is.”

  “Ellen wants to know where you are,” Rebus said into the phone.

  “There’s a room at the library . . . we’re using it as a base.”

  “Good idea: F Troop can see if there are any reference books to help them. My Big Book of Murders, maybe . . .”

  Wylie smiled at this, but Siobhan sounded anything but amused. “John, don’t bring that attitude here . . .”

  “Only a bit of fun, Shiv. See you in a few minutes.”

  Rebus told Wylie where they were headed. The library’s narrow car park was already full. Uniformed officers were carrying computers into the single-story, prefabricated building. Rebus held the door open for one, then followed, Wylie waiting outside while she checked her phone for messages. The room set aside for the investigation was only about fifteen feet by twelve. Two folding tables had been appropriated from somewhere, along with a couple of chairs.

  “We don’t have space for all these,” Siobhan was telling one of the uniforms, as he crouched to deposit an oversize computer screen at her feet.

  “Orders,” he said, breathing hard.

  “Can I help you?” This question was directed at Rebus from a young man in a suit.

  “DI Rebus,” Rebus said.

  Siobhan stepped forward. “John, this is DI Young. He’s in charge.”

  The two men shook hands. “Call me Les,” the young man said. He was already losing interest in this new visitor: he had a murder room to get ready.

  “Lester Young?” Rebus mused. “Like the jazz musician?”

  “Leslie, actually—like the town in Fife.”

  “Well, good luck, Leslie,” Rebus offered. He walked back into the body of the library, Siobhan following. A few retired people were peering at newspapers and magazines, seated at a large circular table. In the kids’ corner, a mother lay on a beanbag chair, apparently dozing, while her toddler, pacifier in mouth, pulled books off the shelves and piled them on the carpet. Rebus found himself in the history aisle.

  “Les, eh?” he said in an undertone.

  “He’s a good guy,” Siobhan whispered back.

  “You’re a quick judge of character.” Rebus picked a book off the shelf. It seemed to be saying that the Scots had invented the modern world. He looked around to make sure they weren’t in the fiction section. “So what happens about Ishbel Jardine?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. That’s one reason I’m sticking around.”

  “Do the parents know about the murder?”

  “Yes.”

  “Party time tonight, then . . .”

  “I went to see them . . . they weren’t celebrating.”

  “And was either of them caked in blood?”

  “No.”

  Rebus placed the title back on its shelf. The toddler sent up a squeal as the tower of books toppled over. “And the skeletons?”

  “A dead end, as you might say. Alexis Cater says the chief suspect was a guy who came to a party with a friend of Cater’s. Only the friend barely knew him, wasn’t even sure of his name. Barry or Gary, I think she said.”

  “So that’s it, then? The bones can lie in peace?”

  Siobhan shrugged. “What about you? Any luck with the stabbing?”

  “Inquiries are continuing . . .”

  “. . . a police spokesman said today. I take it you’re floundering?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. A break would be nice, though.”

  “Isn’t that what you’re doing here—having a break?”

  “Not the kind I meant . . .” He looked around. “You reckon F Troop is up to this?”

  “No shortage of suspects.”

  “I suppose not. How was he killed?”

  “Whacked with something not unlike a hammer.”

  “Where?”

  “On the head.”

  “I meant where in the house.”

  “His bedroom.”

  “So it was probably someone he knew?”

  “I’d say so.”

  “Reckon Ishbel could swing a hammer hard enough to kill someone?”

  “I don’t think she did it.”

  “Maybe you’ll get the chance to ask her.” Rebus patted her on the arm. “But with F Troop on the case, you may have to work that wee bit harder . . .”

  Outside, Wylie was finishing a call. “Anything worth looking at indoors?” she asked. Rebus shook his head. “Back to base, then,” she guessed.

  “With just one more detour along the way,” Rebus informed her.

  “Where’s that, then?”

  “The university.”

  17

  They parked in a pay-bay on George Square and walked through the gardens, emerging in front of the university library. Most of the buildings here had gone up in the 1960s, and Rebus hated them: blocks of sand-colored concrete replacing the sq
uare’s original eighteenth-century town houses. Rows of treacherous steps, and a notorious wind-tunnel effect which could blow over the unwary on the wrong day. Students walked between the buildings, hugging books and folders in front of them. Some stood and chatted in groups.

  “Bloody students,” was Wylie’s concise summing-up of the situation.

  “Didn’t you used to go to college yourself, Ellen?” Rebus asked.

  “That’s why I’m entitled to say it.”

  A Big Issue vendor stood beside the George Square Theatre. Rebus approached him.

  “All right, Jimmy?”

  “Not so bad, Mr. Rebus.”

  “Are you going to survive another winter?”

  “It’s that or die in the trying.”

  Rebus handed over a couple of coins, but refused to take one of the magazines. “Anything I should know?” he asked, dropping his voice a little.

  Jimmy looked thoughtful. He wore a frayed baseball cap over long, gray matted hair. A green cardigan hung down almost to his knees. There was a Border collie—or a version thereof—asleep at his feet. “Nothing much,” he eventually said, voice coarsened by the usual vices.

  “Sure?”

  “You know I keep my eyes and ears open . . .” Jimmy paused. “Price of blaw is falling, if that’s any use.”

  Blaw: cannabis. Rebus smiled. “Sadly, I’m not in the market. My drugs of choice, prices only ever seem to rise.”

  Jimmy laughed loudly, causing the dog to open one eye. “Aye, the fags and the booze, Mr. Rebus, the most pernicious drugs known to man!”

  “Take care of yourself,” Rebus said, moving away again. Then, to Wylie: “This is the building we want.” He pulled open the door for her.

  “You’ve been here before, then?”

  “There’s a linguistics department—we’ve used them in the past for voice tests.” A gray-uniformed guard sat in a glass reception booth.

  “Dr. Maybury,” Rebus said.

  “Room two-twelve.”

  “Thanks.”

  Rebus led Wylie to the lifts. “Do you know everyone in Edinburgh?” she asked.

  He looked at her. “This is the way it used to be done, Ellen.” He ushered her into the lift and punched the button for the second floor. Knocked on the door of 212 but there was no one home. A frosted-glass window to the side of the door showed no movement within. Rebus tried the next office along, and was told he might find Maybury in the basement language lab.

  The language lab was at the end of a corridor, through a set of double doors. Four students sat in a row of booths, unable to see each other. They wore headphones, and spoke into microphones, repeating a set of random-seeming words:

  Bread

  Mother

  Think

  Properly

  Lake

  Allegory

  Entertainment

  Interesting

  Impressive

  They looked up as Rebus and Wylie entered. A woman was facing them, seated at a large desk with what looked like a switchboard attached to it, and a large cassette recorder hooked up to that. She made an impatient sound and switched off the recorder.

  “What is it?” she snapped.

  “Dr. Maybury, we’ve met before. I’m Detective Inspector John Rebus.”

  “Yes, I think I remember: threatening phone calls . . . you were trying to identify the accent.”

  Rebus nodded and introduced Wylie. “Sorry to interrupt. Just wondered if you might spare a few minutes.”

  “I’ll be finished here at the top of the hour.” Maybury checked her watch. “Why don’t you go up to my office and wait for me? There’s a kettle and stuff.”

  “A kettle and stuff sounds great.”

  She fished in her pocket for the key. By the time they’d turned to leave, she was already telling the students to prepare for the next set of words . . .

  “What do you think she was up to?” Wylie asked as the lift took them back to the second floor.

  “Christ knows.”

  “Well, I suppose it keeps them off the streets . . .”

  Dr. Maybury’s room was a clutter of books and papers, videos and audiocassettes. The computer on her desk was well camouflaged by more paperwork. A table meant to accommodate tutorial groups was laden with books borrowed from the library. Wylie found the kettle and plugged it in. Rebus stepped outside and headed to the toilets, where he took out his mobile and called Caro Quinn.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” she assured him. “I called a reporter on the Evening News. The story might make the final edition this evening.”

  “What’s been happening?”

  “A lot of comings and goings . . .” She broke off. “Is this another interrogation?”

  “Sorry if it looks that way.”

  She paused. “Do you want to come round later on? To the flat, I mean.”

  “What for?”

  “So my team of highly trained anarcho-syndicalists can start the indoctrination process.”

  “They like a challenge, then?”

  She managed a short laugh. “I’m still wondering what makes you tick.”

  “Apart from my wristwatch, you mean? Best be careful, Caro. I’m the enemy, after all.”

  “Don’t they say it’s best to know your enemy?”

  “Funny, someone told me that just recently . . .” He paused. “I could buy you dinner.”

  “Thus propping up the masculine hegemony?”

  “I’ve no idea what that means, but I’m probably guilty as charged.”

  “It means we split the bill,” she told him. “Come to the flat at eight o’clock.”

  “See you then.” Rebus ended the call, and almost at once wondered how she would get home from Whitemire. He hadn’t thought to ask. Did she hitch? He was halfway through calling her number again when he stopped himself. She wasn’t a kid. She’d been holding her vigil for months. She could get home without his help. Besides, she would only accuse him of propping up the masculine hegemony.

  Rebus went back into Maybury’s office and took a cup of coffee from Wylie. They sat at opposite ends of the table.

  “Weren’t you ever a student, John?” she asked.

  “Could never be bothered,” he answered. “Plus I was a lazy sod at school.”

  “I hated it,” Wylie said. “Never seemed to know what to say. I sat in rooms much like this one, year after year, keeping my mouth shut so nobody’d notice I was thick.”

  “How thick were you exactly?”

  Wylie smiled. “Turned out the other students thought I never spoke because I already knew it all.”

  The door opened and Dr. Maybury shuffled in, squeezing behind Wylie’s chair. She muttered an apology and reached the safety of her own desk. She was tall and thin and seemed self-conscious. Her hair was a mass of thick dark waves, pulled back into something resembling a ponytail. She wore old-fashioned glasses, as if these could disguise the classical beauty of her face.

  “Can I get you a coffee, Dr. Maybury?” Wylie asked.

  “I’m awash with the stuff,” Maybury said briskly. Then she uttered another apology, thanking Wylie for the offer.

  Rebus remembered this about her: that she was easily flustered, and she always apologized more than was necessary.

  “Sorry,” she said again, for no apparent reason, as she shuffled together some of the papers in front of her.

  “What was happening downstairs?” Wylie asked.

  “You mean reeling off those lists?” Maybury’s mouth twitched. “I’m doing some research into elision . . .”

  Wylie held up a hand, like a pupil in class. “While you and I know what that means, Doctor, maybe you could explain it for DI Rebus?”

  “I think when you came in, the word I was interested in was ‘properly.’ People have started pronouncing it with part of its middle missing—that’s what elision is.”

  Rebus had to stop himself from asking what the point of such research was.
Instead, he tapped the table in front of him with his fingertips. “We’ve got a tape we’d like you to listen to,” he said.

  “Another anonymous caller?”

  “In a manner of speaking . . . It was a 999 call. We need to establish nationality.”

  Maybury slid her glasses back up the steep slope of her nose and held out a hand, palm upwards. Rebus rose from his seat and gave her the tape. She slid it into a cassette deck on the floor beside her and pressed “play.”

  “You might find it a bit distressing,” Rebus warned her. She gave a nod, listened to the message all the way through.

  “Regional accents are my field, Inspector,” she said after a few moments’ silence. “Regions of the United Kingdom. This woman is nonnative.”

  “Well, she’s a native of somewhere.”

  “But not these shores.”

  “So you can’t help? Not even a guess?”

  Maybury tapped her finger against her chin. “African, maybe Afro-Caribbean.”

  “She probably speaks some French,” Rebus added. “Might even be her first language.”

  “One of my colleagues in the French department might be able to say with more certainty . . . Hang on a minute.” When she smiled, the whole room seemed to light up. “There’s a postgraduate student . . . she’s done a bit of work on French influences in Africa . . . I wonder . . .”

  “We’ll settle for anything you can give us,” Rebus said.

  “Can I keep the tape?”

  Rebus nodded. “There is a certain amount of urgency . . .”

  “I’m not sure where she is.”

  “Maybe you could try calling her at home?” Wylie asked.

  Maybury peered at her. “I think she’s somewhere in southwest France.”

  “That could be a problem,” Rebus offered.

  “Not necessarily. If I can contact her by phone, I could play the tape down the line to her.”

  It was Rebus’s turn to smile.

  “Elision,” Rebus said, leaving the word to hang there.

  They were back at Torphichen Place. The police station was quiet, the Knoxland squad wondering what the hell to do next. When a case wasn’t solved within the first seventy-two hours, it started to feel as if everything slowed down. The initial adrenaline rush was long gone; the door-to-doors and interviews had come and gone; everything conspiring to wear down appetite and application both. Rebus had cases that still weren’t closed twenty years after the fact. They gnawed away at him because he couldn’t shrug off the man-hours spent laboring on them to no effect whatsoever, knowing throughout that you were one phone call—one name—away from a solution. The culprits might have been interviewed and dismissed, or ignored altogether. Some clue might be loitering amid the moldering pages of each case file . . . And you were never going to find it.