by Ian Rankin
‘Yes,’ Thomas said quietly, getting it, ‘what would we do?’
Philip was nodding slowly, and Matthew straightened his back, adding an inch to his height.
‘There’s only one guilty party here, Leonard,’ Paul was saying.
‘You really believe that?’
‘I’m not saying it’s you.’ Paul was staring into Leonard’s eyes. He saw red paint reflected from the walls.
‘You’re saying it’s one of us, Paul. The rest of us don’t like that.’
Leonard took a step forwards. Paul’s hand went to his jacket pocket. Philip was behind him, his arms stretching. Thomas’s hands were fists. Matthew leaned against the door, keeping it closed.
Outside it was dark, no streetlight, no traffic. You would bet that it couldn’t get any darker, but you’d be wrong. People most often are.
Facing the Music
AN INSPECTOR REBUS STORY
An unmarked police car.Interesting phrase, that. Inspector John Rebus’s car, punch-drunk and weather-beaten, scarred and mauled, would still merit description as ‘unmarked’, despite the copious evidence to the contrary. Oily-handed mechanics stifled grins whenever he waddled into a forecourt. Garage proprietors adjusted the thick gold rings on their fingers and reached for the calculator.
Still, there were times when the old war-horse came in handy. It might or might not be ‘unmarked’; unremarkable it certainly was. Even the most cynical law-breaker would hardly expect CID to spend their time sitting around in a breaker’s-yard special. Rebus’s car was a must for undercover work, the only problem coming if the villains decided to make a run for it. Then, even the most elderly and infirm could outpace it.
‘But it’s a stayer,’ Rebus would say in mitigation.
He sat now, the driving-seat so used to his shape that it formed a mould around him, stroking the steering-wheel with his hands. There was a loud sigh from the passenger seat, and Detective Sergeant Brian Holmes repeated his question.
‘Why have we stopped?’
Rebus looked around him. They were parked by the side of Queensferry Street, only a couple of hundred yards from Princes Street’s west end. It was early afternoon, overcast but dry. The gusts of wind blowing in from the Firth of Forth were probably keeping the rain away. The corner of Princes Street, where Fraser’s department store and the Caledonian Hotel tried to outstare one another, caught the winds and whipped them against unsuspecting shoppers, who could be seen, dazed and numb, making their way afterwards along Queensferry Street, in search of coffee and shortcake. Rebus gave the pedestrians a look of pity. Holmes sighed again. He could murder a pot of tea and some fruit scones with butter.
‘Do you know, Brian,’ Rebus began, ‘in all the years I’ve been in Edinburgh, I’ve never been called to any sort of a crime on this street.’ He slapped the steering-wheel for emphasis. ‘Not once.’
‘Maybe they should put up a plaque,’ suggested Holmes.
Rebus almost smiled. ‘Maybe they should.’
‘Is that why we’re sitting here? You want to break your duck?’ Holmes glanced into the tea-shop window, then away again quickly licking dry lips. ‘It might take a while, you know,’ he said.
‘It might, Brian. But then again . . .’
Rebus tapped out a tattoo on the steering-wheel. Holmes was beginning to regret his own enthusiasm. Hadn’t Rebus tried to deter him from coming out for this drive? Not that they’d driven much. But anything, Holmes reasoned, was better than catching up on paperwork. Well, just about anything.
‘What’s the longest time you’ve been on a stake-out?’ he asked, making conversation.
‘A week,’ said Rebus. ‘Protection racket run from a pub down near Powderhall. It was a joint operation with Trading Standards. We spent five days pretending to be on the broo, playing pool all day.’
‘Did you get a result?’
‘We beat them at pool,’ Rebus said.
There was a yell from a shop doorway, just as a young man was sprinting across the road in front of their car. The young man was carrying a black metal box. The person who’d called out did so again.
‘Stop him! Thief ! Stop him!’
The man in the shop doorway was waving, pointing towards the sprinter. Holmes looked towards Rebus, seemed about to say something, but decided against it. ‘Come on then!’ he said.
Rebus started the car’s engine, signalled, and moved out into the traffic. Holmes was focusing through the windscreen. ‘I can see him. Put your foot down!’
‘ “Put your foot down, sir”,’ Rebus said calmly. ‘Don’t worry, Brian.’
‘Hell, he’s turning into Randolph Place.’
Rebus signalled again, brought the car across the oncoming traffic, and turned into the dead end that was Randolph Place. Only, while it was a dead end for cars, there were pedestrian passages either side of West Register House. The young man, carrying the narrow box under his arm, turned into one of the passages. Rebus pulled to a halt. Holmes had the car door open before it had stopped, and leapt out, ready to follow on foot.
‘Cut him off !’ he yelled, meaning for Rebus to drive back on to Queensferry Street, around Hope Street and into Charlotte Square, where the passage emerged.
‘ “Cut him off, sir”,’ mouthed Rebus.
He did a careful three-point turn, and just as carefully moved back out into traffic held to a crawl by traffic lights. By the time he reached Charlotte Square and the front of West Register House, Holmes was shrugging his shoulders and flapping his arms. Rebus pulled to a stop beside him.
‘Did you see him?’ Holmes asked, getting into the car.
‘No.’
‘Where have you been anyway?’
‘A red light.’
Holmes looked at him as though he were mad. Since when had Inspector John Rebus stopped for a red light? ‘Well, I’ve lost him anyway.’
‘Not your fault, Brian.’
Holmes looked at him again. ‘Right,’ he agreed. ‘So, back to the shop? What was it anyway?’
‘Hi-fi shop, I think.’
Holmes nodded as Rebus moved off again into the traffic. Yes, the box had the look of a piece of hi-fi, some slim rack component. They’d find out at the shop. But instead of doing a circuit of Charlotte Square to take them back into Queensferry Street, Rebus signalled along George Street. Holmes, still catching his breath, looked around disbelieving.
‘Where are we going?’
‘I thought you were fed up with Queensferry Street. We’re going back to the station.’
‘What? ’
‘Back to the station.’
‘But what about—?’
‘Relax, Brian. You’ve got to learn not to fret so much.’
Holmes examined his superior’s face. ‘You’re up to something,’ he said at last.
Rebus turned and smiled. ‘Took you long enough,’ he said.
But whatever it was, Rebus wasn’t telling. Back at the station, he went straight to the main desk.‘Any robberies, Alec?’
The desk officer had a few. The most recent was a snatch at a specialist hi-fi shop.
‘We’ll take that,’ said Rebus. The desk officer blinked.
‘It’s not much, sir. Just a single item, thief did a runner.’
‘Nevertheless, Alec,’ said Rebus. ‘A crime has been committed, and it’s our duty to investigate it.’ He turned to head back out to the car.
‘Is he all right?’ Alec asked Holmes.
Holmes was beginning to wonder, but decided to go along for the ride anyway.
‘A cassette deck,’ the proprietor explained. ‘Nice model, too. Not top of the range, but nice. Top-of-the-range stuff isn’t kept out on the shop floor. We keep it in the demonstration rooms.’Holmes was looking at the shelf where the cassette deck had rested. There were other decks either side of the gap, more expensive decks at that.
‘Why would he choose that one?’ Holmes asked.
‘Eh?’
‘Well, it’s not the
dearest, is it? And it’s not even the closest to the door.’
The dealer shrugged. ‘Kids these days, who can tell?’ His thick hair was still tousled from where he had stood in the Queensferry Street wind-tunnel, yelling against the elements as passers-by stared at him.
‘I take it you’ve got insurance, Mr Wardle?’ The question came from Rebus, who was standing in front of a row of loudspeakers.
‘Christ yes, and it costs enough.’ Wardle shrugged. ‘Look, it’s okay. I know how it works. Points system, right? Anything under a four-point crime, and you lads don’t bother. You just fill out the forms so I can claim from the insurance. What does this rate? One point? Two at the most?’
Rebus blinked, perhaps stunned by the use of the word ‘lads’ in connection with him.
‘You’ve got the serial number, Mr Wardle,’ he said at last. ‘That’ll give us a start. Then a description of the thief - that’s more than we usually get in cases of shop-snatching. Meantime, you might move your stock a bit further back from the door and think about a common chain or circuit alarm so they can’t be taken off their shelves. Okay?’
Wardle nodded.
‘And be thankful,’ mused Rebus. ‘After all, it could’ve been worse. It could have been a ram-raider.’ He picked up a CD case from where it sat on top of a machine: Mantovani and his Orchestra. ‘Or even a critic,’ said Rebus.
Back at the station, Holmes sat fuming like a readying volcano. Or at least like a tin of something flammable left for too long in the sun.Whatever Rebus was up to, as per usual he wasn’t saying. It infuriated Holmes. Now Rebus was off at a meeting in the Chief Super’s office: nothing very important, just routine . . . like the snatch at the hi-fi shop.
Holmes played the scene through in his mind. The stationary car, causing an obstruction to the already slow movement of traffic. Then Wardle’s cry, and the youth running across the road, jinking between cars. The youth had half turned, giving Holmes a moment’s view of a cheek speckled with acne, cropped spiky hair. A skinny runt of a sixteen-year-old in faded jeans and trainers. Pale blue windcheater with a lumberjack shirt hanging loose below its hemline.
And carrying a hi-fi component that was neither the easiest piece in the shop to steal, nor the dearest. Wardle had seemed relaxed about the whole affair. The insurance would cover it. An insurance scam: was that it? Was Rebus working on some insurance diddle on the q.t., maybe as a favour to some investigator from the Pru? Holmes hated the way his superior worked, like a greedy if talented footballer hogging the ball, dribbling past man after man, getting himself trapped beside the by-line but still refusing to pass the ball. Holmes had known a boy at school like that. One day, fed up, Holmes had scythed the smart-arse down, even though they’d been on the same side . . .
Rebus had known the theft would take place. Therefore, he’d been tipped off. Therefore, the thief had been set up. There was just one big but to the whole theory - Rebus had let the thief get away. It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make any sense at all.
‘Right,’ Holmes said, nodding to himself. ‘Right you are, sir.’ And with that, he went off to find the young offender files.
That evening, just after six, Rebus thought that since he was in the area anyway, he’d drop into Mr Wardle’s home and report the lack of progress on the case. It might be that, time having passed, Wardle would remember something else about the snatch, some crucial detail. The description he’d been able to give of the thief had been next to useless. It was almost as though he didn’t want the hassle, didn’t want the thief caught. Well, maybe Rebus could jog his memory.The radio came to life. It was a message from DS Holmes. And when Rebus heard it, he snarled and turned the car back around towards the city centre.
It was lucky for Holmes, so Rebus said, that the traffic had been heavy, the fifteen-minute journey back into town being time enough for him to calm down. They were in the CID room. Holmes was seated at his desk, hands clasped behind his head. Rebus was standing over him, breathing hard. On the desk sat a matt-black cassette deck.
‘Serial numbers match,’ Holmes said, ‘just in case you were wondering.’
Rebus couldn’t quite sound disinterested. ‘How did you find him?’
With his hands still behind his head, Holmes managed a shrug. ‘He was on file, sir. I just sat there flipping through them till I spotted him. That acne of his is as good as a tattoo. James Iain Bankhead, known to his friends as Jib. According to the file, you’ve arrested him a couple of times yourself in the past.’
‘Jib Bankhead?’ said Rebus, as though trying to place the name. ‘Yes, rings a bell.’
‘I’d have thought it’d ring a whole fire station, sir. You last arrested him three months ago.’ Holmes made a show of consulting the file on his desk. ‘Funny, you not recognising him . . .’ Holmes kept his eyes on the file.
‘I must be getting old,’ Rebus said.
Holmes looked up. ‘So what now, sir?’
‘Where is he?’
‘Interview Room B.’
‘Let him stay there then. Can’t do any harm. Has he said anything?’
‘Not a word. Mind you, he did seem surprised when I paid him a visit.’
‘But he kept his mouth shut?’
Holmes nodded. ‘So what now?’ he repeated.
‘Now,’ said Rebus, ‘you come along with me, Brian. I’ll tell you all about it on the way . . .’
Wardle lived in a flat carved from a detached turn-of-the-century house on the south-east outskirts of the city. Rebus pressed the bell on the wall to the side of the substantial main door. After a moment, there was the muffled sound of footsteps, three clicks as locks were undone, and the door opened from within.‘Good evening, Mr Wardle,’ said Rebus. I see you’re security-conscious at home at least.’ Rebus was nodding towards the door, with its three separate keyholes, spy-hole and security chain.
‘You can’t be too—’ Wardle broke off as he saw what Brian Holmes was carrying. ‘The deck!’
‘Good as new,’ said Rebus, ‘apart from a few fingerprints.’
Wardle opened the door wide. ‘Come in, come in.’
They entered a narrow entrance hall which led to a flight of stairs. Obviously the ground floor of the house did not belong to Wardle. He was dressed much as he had been in the shop: denims too young for his years, an open-necked shirt louder than a Wee Free sermon, and brown moccasins.
‘I can’t believe it,’ he said, leading them towards the stairs. ‘I really can’t. But you could have brought it round to the shop . . .’
‘Well, sir, we were going to be passing anyway.’ Rebus closed the door, noting the steel plate on its inner face. The door-surround too was reinforced with metal plates. Wardle turned and noticed Rebus’s interest.
‘Wait till you see the hi-fi, Inspector. It’ll all become clear.’
They could already hear the music. The bass was vibrating each step of the stairs.
‘You must have sympathetic neighbours,’ Rebus remarked.
‘She’s ninety-two,’ said Wardle. ‘Deaf as a post. I went round to explain to her about the hi-fi just after I moved in. She couldn’t hear a word I was saying.’
They were at the top of the stairs now, where a smaller hallway led into a huge open-plan living-room and kitchen. A sofa and two chairs had been pushed hard back against one wall, and there was nothing but space between them and the opposite wall, where the hi-fi system sat, with large floor-standing speakers either side of it. One rack comprised half a dozen black boxes, boasting nothing to Rebus’s eye but a single red light.
‘Amplifiers,’ Wardle explained, turning down the music.
‘What, all of them?’
‘Pre-amp and power supply, plus an amp for each driver.’
Holmes had rested the cassette deck on the floor, but Wardle moved it away immediately.
‘Spoils the sound,’ he said, ‘if there’s an extra piece of gear in the room.’
Holmes and Rebus stared at one another. Wardle
was in his element now. ‘Want to hear something? What’s your taste?’
‘Rolling Stones?’ Rebus asked.
‘Sticky Fingers, Exile, Let It Bleed?’
‘That last one,’ said Rebus.
Wardle went over to where a twenty-foot row of LPs was standing against the wall beneath the window.
‘I thought those went out with the Ark,’ said Holmes.
Wardle smiled. ‘You mean with the CD. No, vinyl’s still the best. Sit down.’ He went over to the turntable and took off the LP he’d been playing. Rebus and Holmes sat. Holmes looked to Rebus, who nodded. Holmes got up again.
‘Actually, could I use your loo?’ he asked.
‘First right out on the landing,’ said Wardle. Holmes left the room. ‘Any particular track, Inspector?’
‘“Gimme Shelter”,’ stated Rebus. Wardle nodded agreement, set the needle on the disc, rose to his feet, and turned up the volume. ‘Something to drink?’ he asked. The room exploded into a wall of sound. Rebus had heard the phrase ‘wall of sound’ before. Well, here he was with his nose pressed against it.
‘A whisky, please,’ he yelled. Wardle tipped his head towards the hall. ‘Same for him.’ Wardle nodded and went off towards the kitchen area. Pinned to the sofa as he was, Rebus looked around the room. He had eyes for everything but the hi-fi. Not that there was much to see. A small coffee table whose surface seemed to be covered with arcana to do with the hi-fi system, cleaning-brushes and such like. There were some nice-looking prints on the wall. Actually, one looked like a real painting rather than a print: the surface of a swimming-pool, someone moving through the depths. But no TV, no shelves, no books, no knick-knacks, no family photos. Rebus knew Wardle was divorced. He also knew Wardle drove a Y-registered Porsche 911. He knew quite a lot about Wardle, but not yet enough . . .
A healthy glass of whisky was handed to him. Wardle placed another on the floor for Holmes, then returned to the kitchen and came back with a glass for himself. He sat down next to Rebus.