by Ian Rankin
‘So’s my driving,’ Rebus told them.
He had calls to make, but avoiding his flat, Fort Apache, or any other cop-shop. He thought of the early-opening pubs, but they were like offices – he was known to work out of them. Too big a chance that Ancram would find him. So he used his local launderette, shaking his head at the offer of a service wash – ten per cent discount this week. A ‘promotional offer’. Since when did launderettes need promotional offers?
He used the change machine to turn a five-pound note into coins, got coffee and a chocolate biscuit from another machine, and dragged a chair over to the wall-phone. First call: Brian Holmes at his house, a final red card on the ‘investigation’. No answer. He didn’t leave a message. Second call: Holmes at work. He disguised his voice and listened to a young DC tell him Brian was a no-show so far.
‘Is there any message?’
Rebus put down the receiver without saying anything. Maybe Brian was working from home on the ‘investigation’, not answering the phone. It was possible. Third call: Gill Templer at her office.
‘DCI Templer speaking.’
‘It’s John.’ Rebus looked around the launderette. Two customers with their faces in magazines. Soft motor sound of washers and tumble driers. The smell of fabric conditioner. The manageress was loading powder into a machine. Radio on in the background: ‘Double Barrel’, Dave & Ansel Collins. Idiot lyric.
‘You want an update?’
‘Why else would I be phoning?’
‘You’re a smooth operator, DI Rebus.’
‘Tell that to Sade. What have you done about Fergie?’
‘The notepad’s at Howdenhall, no result yet. A forensic team is going into the house today, checking for prints and anything else. They wondered why they were needed.’
‘You didn’t tell them?’
‘I pulled rank. After all, that’s what it’s for.’
Rebus smiled. ‘What about the computer?’
‘I’m going back there this afternoon, look through the disks myself. I’ll also question the neighbours about visitors, strange cars, all that.’
‘And Fergie’s business premises?’
‘I’m off to his salesroom in half an hour. How am I doing?’
‘So far, I can’t complain.’
‘Good.’
‘I’ll phone you later, see how it’s going.’
‘You sound funny.’
‘Funny how?’
‘Like you’re up to something.’
‘I’m not the type. Bye, Gill.’
Next call: Fort Apache, direct line to the Shed. Maclay picked up.
‘Hello, Heavy,’ Rebus said. ‘Any messages for me?’
‘Are you kidding? I need asbestos mitts for this phone.’
‘DCI Ancram?’
‘How did you guess?’
‘ESP. I’ve been trying to reach him.’
‘Where are you anyway?’
‘Laid low, flu or something.’
‘You don’t sound too bad.’
‘I’m putting on a brave face.’
‘Are you at home?’
‘At a friend’s. She’s nursing me.’
‘Oh aye? Tell me more.’
‘Not just now, Heavy. Look, if Ancram phones again …’
‘Which he will.’
‘Tell him I’m trying to reach him.’
‘Does your Florence Nightingale have a number?’
But Rebus had hung up. He called his own flat, checking the answerphone was still working after the abuse he’d given it. There were two messages, both from Ancram.
‘Give me a break,’ Rebus said under his breath. Then he finished his coffee and ate the chocolate biscuit, and sat there staring at the windows of the tumble driers. His head felt like he was inside one, looking out.
He made two more calls – T-Bird Oil and Grampian CID – then decided to take a quick run out to Brian Holmes’s, chancing that Nell wouldn’t be there. It was a narrow terraced house, a nice size for two people. There was a tiny patch of garden out front, in desperate need of work. Hanging baskets were sited either side of the door, gasping for water. He’d thought Nell a keen gardener.
No one answered the door. He went to the window and looked in. They didn’t have net curtains; some younger couples didn’t bother these days. The living room was a bomb-site, the floor littered with newspapers and magazines, food wrappings, plates and mugs and empty pint glasses. The wastepaper-bin was spilling beer cans. The TV played to an empty room: daytime soap, a tanned couple face to face. They looked more convincing when you couldn’t hear them.
Rebus decided to ask next door. A toddler opened the door to him.
‘Hiya, cowboy, is your mum in?’
A young woman was coming from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.
‘Sorry to bother you,’ Rebus said. ‘I was looking for Mr Holmes, he lives next door.’
She looked out of the door. ‘His car’s gone, he always has the same spot.’ She pointed to where Rebus’s Saab was parked.
‘You haven’t seen his wife this morning, have you?’
‘Not for ages,’ the woman said. ‘She used to drop by with sweets for Damon.’ She rubbed the kid’s hair. He shrugged her off and galloped back into the house.
‘Well, thanks anyway,’ Rebus said.
‘He should be back this evening, he doesn’t go out much.’
Rebus nodded. He was still nodding when he got to his car. He sat in the driver’s seat, hands rubbing the wheel. She’d walked out on him. How long ago? Why hadn’t the stubborn sod said anything? Oh sure, cops were famous for releasing their emotions, talking out their personal crises, Rebus himself a case in point.
He drove to the warehouse: no sign of Holmes, but the clerical clerk said he’d been working right up until closing time last night.
‘Did he look like he was finished?’
The clerk shook his head. ‘Said he’d see me today.’
Rebus thought about leaving a message, decided he couldn’t risk it. He got back into the car and drove.
He drove through Pilton and Muirhouse, didn’t want to cut too early on to the busy Queensferry Road. Traffic wasn’t bad heading out of town – at least it was moving. He got change ready for the toll at the Forth Bridge.
He was going north. Not just to Dundee this trip. He was going to Aberdeen. He didn’t know if he was running away, or heading for a confrontation.
No reason it couldn’t be both. Cowards made good heroes sometimes. He stuck a tape into the cassette player. Robert Wyatt, Rock Bottom.
‘Been there, Bob,’ he said. And later: ‘Cheer up, it might never happen.’
Saying which he switched tapes. Deep Purple playing ‘Into the Fire’. The car accelerated just enough.
Furry Boot Town
12
It was a couple of years since Rebus had been in Aberdeen, and then only for an afternoon. He’d been visiting an aunt. She was dead now; he’d found out only after the funeral. She’d lived near Pittodrie Stadium, her old house surrounded by new developments. The house was probably gone now, flattened. For all the associations with granite, Aberdeen had a feeling of impermanence. These days it owed almost everything it had to oil, and the oil wouldn’t be there for ever. Growing up in Fife, Rebus had seen the same thing with coal: no one planned for the day it would run out. When it did, hope ran out with it.
Linwood, Bathgate, the Clyde: nobody ever seemed to learn.
Rebus recalled the early oil years, the sound of Lowlanders scurrying north looking for hard work at high wages: unemployed shipbuilders and steelworkers, school-leavers and students. It was Scotland’s Eldorado. You sat in Saturday afternoon pubs in Edinburgh and Glasgow, the racing pages folded open, dream horses circled, and spoke of the great escape you could make. There were jobs going spare, a mini-Dallas was being constructed from the husk of a fishing port. It was unbelievable, incredible. It was magic.
People watching J.R. scheme his way
through another episode found it easy to fantasise that the same scenario was being played out on the north-east coast. There was an American invasion, and the Americans – roughnecks, bears, roustabouts – didn’t want a quiet, self-contained coastal town; they wanted to raise hell, and started building from the ground up. So the initial stories of Eldorado turned into tales from the darkside: brothels, blood-baths, drunken brawls. Corruption was everywhere, the players spoke millions of dollars, and the locals resented the invasion at the same time as they took the cash and available work. For working-class males based south of Aberdeen, it seemed like the word made flesh, not just a man’s world but a hardman’s world, where respect was demanded and bought with money. It took only weeks for the switch: fit men came back shaking their heads, muttering about slavery, twelve-hour shifts, and the nightmare North Sea.
And somewhere in the middle, between Hell and Eldorado, sat something approximating the truth, nothing like as interesting as the myths. Economically the north-east had profited from oil, and relatively painlessly at that. Like Edinburgh, commercial development had not been allowed to scar the city centre too deeply. But on the outskirts you saw the usual industrial estates, the low-rise factory units, a lot of them with names connecting them to the offshore industry: On-Off; Grampian Oil; PlatTech …
However, before this there was the glory of the drive itself. Rebus stuck as far as possible to the coastal route, and wondered at the mind-set of a nation who would design a golf course along a clifftop. When he stopped at a petrol station for a break, he bought a map of Aberdeen and checked the location of Grampian Police HQ. It was on Queen Street, in the city centre. He hoped the one-way system wasn’t going to be a problem. He’d been to Aberdeen maybe half a dozen times in his life, three of those for childhood holidays. Even though it was a modern city, he still joked about it the way a lot of Lowlanders did: it was full of teuchters, fish-gutters with funny accents. When they asked you where you were from, it sounded like they were saying ‘Furry boot ye frae?’ Thus, Furry Boot Town, while Aberdonians stuck to ‘Granite City’. Rebus knew he was going to have to keep the jokes and jibes in check, at least until he had a feel for the place.
Traffic was bottle-necked heading into the centre, which was fine – it meant he had time to study both map and street names. He found Queen Street and parked, walked into Police HQ and told them who he was.
‘I spoke to someone on the phone earlier, a DC Shanks.’
‘I’ll try CID for you,’ the uniform on reception said. She told him to take a seat. He sat down and watched the movement of bodies in and out of the station. He could tell the plainclothes officers from ordinary punters – when you made eye contact, you knew. A couple of the men sported CID moustaches, bushy but neatly trimmed. They were young, trying to look older. Some kids were sitting across from him, looking subdued but with a gleam in their eyes. They were fresh-faced and freckly, with bloodless lips. Two of them were fair-haired, one red-headed.
‘Inspector Rebus?’
The man was standing over to his right, could have been there a couple of minutes or more. Rebus stood up and they shook hands.
‘I’m DS Lumsden, DC Shanks passed your message on. Something about an oil company?’
‘Based up here. One of their employees took a flight out of an Edinburgh tenement.’
‘Jumped?’
Rebus shrugged. ‘There were others on the scene, one of them’s a known villain called Anthony Ellis Kane. I’ve had word he’s working up here.’
Lumsden nodded. ‘Yes, I heard Edinburgh CID were asking about that name. Doesn’t mean a thing to me, sorry. Normally, we’d assign the Oil Liaison Officer to look after you, but he’s on holiday and I’m filling in, which makes me your guide for the duration.’ Lumsden smiled. ‘Welcome to Silver City.’
*
Silver for the River Dee which ran through it. Silver for the colour of the buildings in sunlight – grey granite transformed into shimmering light. Silver for the money the oil boom had brought. Lumsden explained as Rebus drove them back down on to Union Street.
‘Another myth about Aberdeen,’ he said, ‘is that the folk are mean. Wait till you see Union Street on a Saturday afternoon. It must be the busiest shopping street in Britain.’
Lumsden wore a blue blazer with shiny brass buttons, grey trousers, black slip-on shoes. His shirt was an elegant blue and white stripe, his tie salmon-pink. The clothes made him look like the secretary of some exclusive golf club, but the face and body told another story. He was six feet two, wiry, with cropped fair hair emphasising a widow’s peak. His eyes weren’t so much red-rimmed as chlorinated, the irises a piercing blue. No wedding ring. He could have been anywhere between thirty and forty years old. Rebus couldn’t quite place the accent.
‘English?’ he asked.
‘From Gillingham originally,’ Lumsden acknowledged. ‘The family moved around a bit. My dad was in the forces. You did well to spot the accent, most people think I’m a Borderer.’
They were driving to a hotel, Rebus having declared that he’d probably be staying at least the one night, maybe more.
‘No problem,’ Lumsden had said. ‘I know just the place.’
The hotel was on Union Terrace, overlooking the gardens, and Lumsden told him to park outside the entrance. He took a piece of card from his pocket and pressed it to the inside of the windscreen. It stated OFFICIAL GRAMPIAN POLICE BUSINESS. Rebus got his case out of the boot, but Lumsden insisted on carrying it. And Lumsden took care of the details at reception. A porter took the case upstairs, Rebus following.
‘Just make sure you like the room,’ Lumsden told him. ‘And I’ll see you in the bar.’
The room was on the first floor. It had the tallest windows Rebus had ever seen, and gave him a view down on to the gardens. The room was baking hot. The porter closed the curtains.
‘It’s always like this when we get the sun,’ he explained. Rebus gave the rest of the room a once-over. It was probably the fanciest hotel room he’d ever been in. The porter was watching him.
‘What, no champagne?’
The porter didn’t get the joke, so Rebus shook his head and handed him a pound note. The porter explained how the in-house movies worked, told him about room service, the restaurant, and other facilities, then handed Rebus his key. Rebus followed the man back downstairs.
The bar was quiet, the lunchtime crowd having disappeared back to work, leaving their plates, bowls and glasses behind. Lumsden was perched on a stool at the bar, munching peanuts and watching MTV. There was a pint of beer in front of him.
‘Forgot to ask your tipple,’ he said as Rebus sat down next to him.
‘A pint of the same,’ Rebus told the barman.
‘How’s the room?’
‘A bit rich for my taste, to be honest.’
‘Don’t worry, Grampian CID will pick up the tab.’ He winked. ‘It’s a courtesy thing.’
‘I must visit more often.’
Lumsden smiled. ‘So tell me what you want to do while you’re here.’
Rebus glanced at the TV screen, saw the Stones hamming it up in their latest production. Jesus, they looked old. Stonehenge with a blues riff.
‘Talk to the oil company, maybe see if I can track down a couple of the deceased’s friends. Find out if there’s any sign of Tony El.’
‘Tony El?’
‘Anthony Ellis Kane.’ Rebus reached into his pocket for his cigarettes. ‘Do you mind?’
Lumsden shook his head twice: once to say he didn’t mind, and again to refuse Rebus’s offer of one.
‘Cheers,’ Rebus said, taking a mouthful of beer. He smacked his lips, it was OK. Beer was fine. But the row of optics kept trying to attract his attention. ‘So how’s the Johnny Bible case going?’
Lumsden scooped more peanuts into his mouth. ‘It isn’t. Dead slow to stop. Are you attached to the Edinburgh side?’
‘Only by association. I’ve interviewed a few nutters.’
Lums
den nodded. ‘Me, too. I’d like to throttle some of them. I had to interview some of our RPOs, too.’ He made a face. RPOs: Registered Potential Offenders. These were the ‘usual suspects’, a list of known perverts, sex attackers, flashers and peepers. In a case like Johnny Bible, they all had to be interviewed, alibis provided and checked.
‘I hope you took a bath afterwards.’
‘Half a dozen at least.’
‘No new leads then?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You think he’s local?’
Lumsden shrugged. ‘I don’t think anything: you need to keep an open mind. Why the interest?’
‘What?’
‘The interest in Johnny Bible.’
It was Rebus’s turn to shrug. They sat in silence for a moment, until Rebus thought of a question. ‘What does an Oil Liaison Officer do?’
‘Blunt answer: liaises with the oil industry. It’s a major player up here. The thing is, Grampian Police isn’t just a dry-land force – our beat includes the offshore installations. If there’s a theft on a platform, or a fight, or whatever, anything they bother to report, it’s down to us to investigate. You can end up flying three hours out to the middle of hell on a paraffin budgie.’
‘Paraffin budgie?’
‘Helicopter. Three hours out, chucking your guts up along the way, so you can investigate some minor complaint. Thank Christ we don’t usually get involved. It’s a real frontier out there, with frontier policing.’
One of the Glasgow uniforms had said the same about Uncle Joe’s estate.
‘You mean they police themselves?’
‘It’s a bit naughty, but effective. And if it saves me a six-hour round trip I won’t say I’m sorry.’
‘What about Aberdeen itself?’
‘Reasonably quiet, except at weekends. Union Street on a Saturday night can be like downtown Saigon. There are a lot of frustrated kids around. They’ve grown up with money and stories of money. Now they want their share, only it’s not there any more. Christ, that was quick.’ Rebus saw that he’d finished his pint; only the top inch was missing from Lumsden’s. ‘I like a man who’s not afraid to bevvy.’