Fleshmarket Alley

by Ian Rankin

  Initially, he’d thought her the typical spoiled middle-class conscience. All that affordable liberal suffering—so much more palatable than the real thing. But it took more than that to drive someone out to Whitemire day after day, sneered at by the workforce, unthanked by the inmates. It took a large measure of guts.

  He could see, right now, the toll it was taking. She’d leaned her head against his shoulder again. Her eyes were still open, staring at the building across the narrow lane. It was a barber’s shop, complete with red-and-white-striped pole. Red and white meaning blood and bandages, Rebus seemed to think, though he couldn’t remember why. And now there was the sound of a diesel engine chugging towards them, the taxi bathing them in its headlights.

  “Here’s the cab,” Rebus said, helping Caro to her feet.

  “I still don’t remember asking for one,” she confessed.

  “That’s because you didn’t,” he said with a smile, holding open the door for her.

  She told him “coffee” meant just that: no euphemisms. He nodded, wanting to see her safely indoors. Then he reckoned he would walk all the way home, burn some of the alcohol out of his system.

  Ayisha’s bedroom door was closed. They tiptoed past it and into the living room. The kitchen was through another doorway. While Caro filled the kettle, he took a look at her record collection—all vinyl, no CDs. There were albums he hadn’t seen in years: Steppenwolf, Santana, Mahavishnu Orchestra . . . Caro came back through holding a card.

  “This was on the table,” she said, handing it to him. It was a thank-you for the rattle. “Decaf all right? It’s either that or mint tea . . .”

  “Decaf’s fine.”

  She made tea for herself, its aroma filling the small square room. “I like it at night,” she said, staring out of the window. “Sometimes I work for a few hours . . .”

  “Me, too.”

  She gave a sleepy smile and sat down on the chair opposite him, blowing across the surface of her cup. “I can’t decide about you, John. Most people, we know within half a minute of meeting them whether they’re on the same wavelength.”

  “So am I FM or medium wave?”

  “I don’t know.” They were keeping their voices low so as not to wake mother and child. Caro tried stifling a yawn.

  “You should get some sleep,” Rebus told her.

  She nodded. “Finish your coffee first.”

  But he shook his head, placing the mug on the bare floorboards and rising to his feet. “It’s late.”

  “I’m sorry if I . . .”

  “What?”

  She shrugged. “Siobhan’s your friend . . . the Oxford’s your pub . . .”

  “Both are pretty thick-skinned,” he assured her.

  “I should have left you to it. I was in the wrong mood.”

  “Will you be going to Whitemire this weekend?”

  She gave a shrug. “That depends on my mood, too.”

  “Well, if you get bored, give me a call.”

  She was on her feet now, too. Walked over to him and pushed up with her toes so she could plant a kiss on his left cheek. When she stepped back, her eyes widened suddenly and a hand flew to her mouth.

  “What’s wrong?” Rebus asked.

  “I’ve just remembered . . . I let you pay for dinner!”

  He smiled and headed for the door.

  He walked back up Leith Walk, checking his mobile to see if Siobhan had left a message. She hadn’t. Midnight was chiming. He reckoned it would take him half an hour to get home. There’d be plenty of drunks on South Bridge and Clerk Street, stoking up on whatever was left under the chip shops’ heat lamps, then maybe heading down the Cowgate to the two A.M. bars. There were some railings on South Bridge, and you could stop there and peer down onto the Cowgate, like watching exhibits in a zoo. This time of night, traffic was banned from the street—too many drinkers falling into the road and being sideswiped by cars. He knew he could probably still get a drink at the Royal Oak, but the place would be heaving. No, he was headed straight home, and at as brisk a pace as he could manage: sweating off tomorrow’s hangover. He wondered if Siobhan was back in her flat. He could call her, try to clear the air. Then again, if she was drunk . . . Better to wait till morning.

  Everything would look better in the morning: streets hosed down, bins emptied, broken glass swept away. All the ugly energy of the night earthed for a few hours. Crossing Princes Street, Rebus saw that a fight was taking place in the middle of North Bridge, taxis slowing and veering around the two young men. They held each other by the backs of their shirt collars, so that only the tops of their heads were showing. Swinging with their free hands and their feet. No sign of weapons. It was a dance to which Rebus knew all the steps. He kept walking, passing the girl for whose affections they were vying.

  “Marty!” she was yelling. “Paul! Dinnae be sae fuckn daft!”

  Of course, she didn’t really mean what she was saying. Her eyes were alight at the spectacle—and all of it for her! Friends were trying to comfort her, arms embracing her, wanting to be close to the drama’s core.

  Farther along, someone was singing to the effect that they were too sexy for their shirt, which went some way towards explaining why they’d ditched it somewhere along the route. A patrol car cruised by to jeers and V-signs. Someone kicked a bottle into the road, eliciting cheers when it exploded under a wheel. The patrol car didn’t seem to mind.

  A young woman appeared suddenly in Rebus’s path, hair falling in dirty ringlets, eyes hungry as she asked him first for money, then for a cigarette, and finally whether he wanted to “do a bit of business.” The phrase sounded curiously old-fashioned. He wondered if she’d learned it from a book or film.

  “Bugger off home before I arrest you,” he told her.

  “Home?” she mouthed, as though this were some new and alien concept. She sounded English. Rebus just shook his head and moved on. He cut through to Buccleuch Street. Things were quieter here, and quieter still as he crossed the expanse of the Meadows, its name reminding him that at one time much of this had been farmland. As he entered Arden Street, he looked up at the tenement windows. There were no signs of student parties, nothing to keep him awake. He heard car doors open behind him, spun round expecting to confront Felix Storey. But these two men were white, dressed in black from their turtlenecks to their shoes. It took him a moment to place them.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” he said.

  “You owe us a flashlight,” the leader said. His colleague was younger and scowling. Rebus recognized him as Alan, the man whose flashlight he had borrowed in the first place.

  “It got stolen,” Rebus told them with a shrug.

  “It was an expensive piece of kit,” the leader said. “And you promised to return it.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never lost stuff before.” But the man’s face told Rebus that he was unlikely to be won over by any argument, any appeal to a spirit of camaraderie. The Drugs Squad saw itself as a force of nature, independent from other cops. Rebus held his hands up in surrender. “I can write you a check.”

  “We don’t want a check. We want a flashlight identical to the one we gave you.” The leader held out a slip of paper, which Rebus took. “That’s the make and model number.”

  “I’ll nip down Argos tomorrow . . .”

  The leader was shaking his head. “Think you’re a good detective? Tracking that down will be the proof.”

  “Argos or Dixon’s—I’ll let you have what I find.”

  The leader took a step closer, chin jutting. “You want us off your back, you’ll find that flashlight.” He stabbed a finger at the piece of paper. Then, satisfied he’d made his point, he pivoted and headed for the car, followed by his young colleague.

  “Look after him, Alan,” Rebus called. “Bit of TLC and he’ll be right as rain.”

  He waved the car off, then climbed the steps to his flat and unlocked the door. The floorboards creaked underfoot, as though in complaint. Rebus switc
hed on the hi-fi: a Dick Gaughan CD, just audible. Then he collapsed into his favorite chair, searching his pockets for a cigarette. He inhaled and closed his eyes. The world seemed to be tilting, taking it with him. His free hand gripped the arm of the chair, feet pressed solidly to the floor. When the phone rang, he knew it would be Siobhan. He reached down and picked up the receiver.

  “You’re home, then,” her voice said.

  “Where did you expect me to be?”

  “Do I need to answer that?”

  “You’ve got a dirty little mind.” Then: “I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.”

  “Apologize?” Her voice had risen. “What in God’s name is there to apologize about?”

  “You’d had a bit too much to drink.”

  “That’s got nothing to do with it.” She sounded grimly sober.

  “If you say so.”

  “I admit I don’t quite see the attraction . . .”

  “You sure you want us to have this conversation?”

  “Will it be taken down and used in evidence?”

  “Hard to take things back once they’re said out loud.”

  “Unlike you, John, I’ve never been good at bottling things up.”

  Rebus had spotted a mug on the carpet. Cold coffee, half full. He took a mouthful, swallowed. “So you don’t approve of my choice of companion . . .”

  “It’s not up to me who you go out with.”

  “That’s generous of you.”

  “But the two of you just seem so . . . different.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  She gave a loud sigh, which rumbled like static down the line. “Look, all I’m trying to say . . . We don’t just work together, do we? There’s more to us than that—we’re . . . pals.”

  Rebus smiled to himself, smiled at the pause before “pals.” Had she considered “mates,” discarding it because of its other, more awkward meaning?

  “And as a pal,” he said, “you don’t want to see me make a bad decision?”

  Siobhan was silent for a moment, long enough for Rebus to drain the mug. “Why are you so interested in her, anyway?” she asked.

  “Maybe because she is different.”

  “You mean because she holds to a set of woolly ideals?”

  “You don’t know her well enough to be able to say that.”

  “I think I know the type.”

  Rebus closed his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose, thinking: that’s pretty much what I’d have said before this case came along. “We’re back on thin ice, Shiv. Why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll call you in the morning.”

  “You think I’m going to change my mind, don’t you?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “I can assure you I’m not.”

  “Your prerogative. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  She paused so long, Rebus feared she’d already drifted off. But then: “What’s that you’re listening to?”

  “Dick Gaughan.”

  “He sounds angry about something.”

  “That’s just his style.” Rebus had taken out the slip of paper with the flashlight’s details.

  “A Scottish trait maybe?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Good night, then, John.”

  “Before you go . . . if you didn’t phone to apologize, then why exactly did you phone?”

  “I didn’t want us falling out.”

  “And are we falling out?”

  “I hope not.”

  “So you weren’t just checking that I was safely tucked up on my lonesome?”

  “I’m going to ignore that.”

  “Night, Shiv. Sleep tight.”

  He put down the receiver, rested his head against the back of the chair, and closed his eyes again.

  Not mates . . . just pals.

  DAYS SIX AND SEVEN

  Saturday/ Sunday

  20

  Saturday morning the first thing he did was call Siobhan’s number. When her machine picked up, he left a brief answer—“This is John, keeping that promise from last night . . . talk to you soon”—then tried her mobile, and was forced to leave one there, too.

  After breakfast, he dug in the hall cupboard and in the boxes beneath his bed, and emerged with dust and cobwebs clinging to him, clasping packets of photographs to his chest. He knew he didn’t have many family snaps—his ex-wife had taken most of them with her. But he did retain a few photos she hadn’t felt able to claim right to—members of his family, his mother and father, uncles and aunts. Again, there weren’t many of these. He reckoned either his brother had the majority, or they’d been lost over time. Years back, his daughter, Sammy, would want to play with them, staring at them for long periods, running fingers over their ribbed edges, touching sepia faces, studio poses. She would ask who people were, and Rebus would turn the photo over, hoping to find clues penciled on the back, then offering a shrug.

  His grandfather—his father’s father—had arrived in Scotland from Poland. Rebus didn’t know why he’d emigrated. It had been before the rise of fascism, so he could only guess that it had been for economic reasons. He’d been a young man and single, marrying a woman from Fife a year later or thereabouts. Rebus was sketchy on that whole period of his family’s history. He didn’t think he’d ever really asked his father. If he had, then his father either hadn’t wanted to answer or simply didn’t know. There could have been things his grandfather hadn’t wanted to remember, far less share and discuss.

  Rebus held a photo now. He thought it was his grandfather: a middle-aged man, thinning black hair combed close the the skull, a wry smile on his face. He was dressed in Sunday best. It was a studio shot, showing a painted background of hayfield and bright sky. On the back was printed the photographer’s address in Dunfermline. Rebus turned the photo over again. He was searching for something of himself in his grandfather—the way the facial muscles worked, or the posture when at rest. But the man was a stranger to him. His whole family history was a collection of questions asked too late: photos with no names attached, no hint of year or provenance. Blurry, smiling mouths, the pinched faces of workers and their families. Rebus considered his own remaining family: daughter Sammy; brother Michael. He phoned them infrequently, usually after one drink too many. Maybe he’d call both of them later on, making sure he hadn’t been drinking first.

  “I don’t know anything about you,” he said to the man in the photograph. “I can’t even be a hundred percent sure that you are who I think you are . . .” He wondered if he had any relatives in Poland. There could be whole villages of them, a clan of cousins who would speak no English but be pleased to see him all the same. Maybe Rebus’s grandfather hadn’t been the only one to leave. The family might well have spread to America and Canada, or east to Australia. Some could have ended up assassinated by the Nazis, or aiding that selfsame cause. Untold histories, crisscrossing with Rebus’s own life . . .

  He thought again of the refugees and asylum seekers, the economic migrants. The mistrust and resentment they brought with them, the way tribes feared anything new, anything from outside the camp’s tight confines. Maybe that explained Siobhan’s reaction to Caro Quinn, Caro not part of the gang. Multiply that mistrust and you got a situation like Knoxland.

  Rebus didn’t blame Knoxland itself: the estate was a symptom rather than anything else. He realized he wasn’t going to glean anything from these old photographs, representing as they did his own lack of roots. Besides, he had a trip to take.

  Glasgow had never been his favorite place. It seemed all teeming concrete and high-rise. He got lost there and always had trouble finding landmarks to navigate by. There were areas of the city which felt as if they could swallow up Edinburgh wholesale. The people were different, too; he couldn’t say what it was exactly—accent or mind-set. But the place made him uncomfortable.

  Even with an A to Z, he managed to take take an apparent wrong turn almost as soon as he left the motorway. He’d come off too soon and found
himself not far from Barlinnie prison, working his way slowly towards the center of the city, through a sludge of Saturday shopping traffic. It didn’t help that the fine mist had developed into rain, blurring street names and road signs. Mo Dirwan had said that Glasgow was the murder capital of Europe; Rebus wondered if the traffic system might have something to do with it.

  Dirwan lived in Calton, between the Necropolis and Glasgow Green. It was a pleasant enough area, with plenty of green spaces and mature trees. Rebus found the house, but there was nowhere to park nearby. He did a circuit, and eventually ended up jogging the hundred yards from the car to the front door. It was a solidly built red-stone semi with a small front garden. The door was new: glazed with leaded diamonds of frosted glass. Rebus rang the bell and waited, only to find that Mo wasn’t home. His wife, however, knew who Rebus was and tried to pull him inside.

  “I really just wanted to check he’s okay,” Rebus argued.

  “You must wait for him. If he finds out I pushed you away . . .”

  Rebus glanced down at the grip she had on his arm. “Doesn’t look like you’re doing much pushing.”

  She relented, smiling in embarrassment. She was probably ten or fifteen years younger than her husband, with lustrous waves of black hair framing her face and neck. Her makeup had been applied liberally but with great care, turning her eyes dark and her mouth crimson. “I am sorry,” she told Rebus.

  “Don’t be, it’s nice to feel wanted. Will Mo be back soon?”

  “I’m not sure. He had to go to Rutherglen. There has been some trouble recently.”

  “Oh?”

  “Nothing serious, we hope, just gangs of young men fighting each other.” She shrugged. “I’m sure the Asians are just as much to blame as the others.”