by Ian Rankin
‘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.
&nb
sp; ‘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.
‘What do you think?’
‘Fantastic,’ Rebus called back.
Wardle grinned.
‘How much would this lot cost me?’ Rebus asked, hoping Wardle wouldn’t notice how long Holmes had been out of the room.
‘About twenty-five K.’
‘You’re joking. My flat didn’t cost that.’
Wardle just laughed. But he was glancing towards the living-room door. He looked as though he might be about to say something, when the door opened and Holmes came in, rubbing his hands as though drying them off. He smiled, sat, and toasted Wardle with his glass. Wardle went over to the amplifier to turn down the volume. Holmes nodded towards Rebus. Rebus toasted no one in particular and finished his drink. The volume dipped.
‘What was that?’ Holmes asked.
‘Let It Bleed.’
‘I thought my ears would.’
Wardle laughed. He seemed to be in a particularly good mood. Maybe it was because of the cassette deck.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘how the hell did you get that deck back so quickly?’
Holmes was about to say something, but Rebus beat him to it. ‘It was abandoned.’
‘Abandoned?’
‘At the bottom of a flight of stairs on Queen Street,’ Rebus went on. He had risen to his feet. Holmes took the hint and, eyes twisted shut, gulped down his whisky. ‘So you see, sir, we were just lucky, that’s all. Just lucky.’
‘Well, thanks again,’ said Wardle. ‘If you ever want some hi-fi, drop into the shop. I’m sure a discount might be arranged.’
‘We’ll bear that in mind, sir,’ said Rebus. ‘Just don’t expect me to put my flat on the market …’
Back at the station, Rebus first of all had Jib released, then went to his office, where he spread the files out across his desk, while Holmes pulled over a chair. Then they both sat, reading aloud from lists. The lists were of stolen goods, high-quality stuff stolen in the dead of night by real professionals. The hauls – highly selective hauls – came from five addresses, the homes of well-paid middle-class people, people with things well worth the stealing.
Five robberies, all at dead of night, alarm systems disconnected. Art objects had been taken, antiques, in one case an entire collection of rare European stamps. The housebreakings had occurred at more or less monthly intervals, and all within a twenty-mile radius of central Edinburgh. The connection between them? Rebus had explained it to Holmes on their way to Wardle’s flat.
‘Nobody could see any connection, apart from the fact that the five victims worked in the west end. The Chief Super asked me to take a look. Guess what I found? They’d all had smart new hi-fi systems installed. Up to six months before the break-ins. Systems bought from Queensferry Audio and installed by Mr Wardle.’
‘So he’d know what was in each house?’ Holmes had said.
‘And he’d be able to give the alarm system a look-over while he was there, too.’
‘Could just be coincidence.’
‘I know.’
Oh yes, Rebus knew. He knew he had only the hunch, the coincidence. He had no proof, no evidence of any kind. Certainly nothing that would gain him a search warrant, as the Chief Super had been good enough to confirm, knowing damned well that Rebus would take it further anyway. Not that this concerned the Chief Super, so long as Rebus worked alone, and didn’t tell his superiors what he was up to. That way, it was Rebus’s neck in the noose, Rebus’s pension on the line.
Rebus guessed his only hope was that Wardle had kept some of the stolen pieces, that some of the stuff was still on his premises. He’d already had a young DC go into Queensferry Audio posing as a would-be buyer. The DC had gone in four times in all, once to buy some tapes, then to look at hi-fi, then to spend an hour in one of the demo rooms, and finally just for a friendly chat … He’d reported back to Rebus that the place was clean. No signs of any stolen merchandise, no locked rooms or cupboards …
So then Rebus had persuaded a uniformed constable to pose as a Neighbourhood Watch supervisor. He had visited Wardle at home, not getting past the downstairs hallway. But he’d been able to report that the place was ‘like Fort Knox, metal door and all’. Rebus had had experience of steel-reinforced doors: they were favoured by drug dealers, so that when police came calling with a sledgehammer for invitation, the dealers would have time enough to flush everything away.
But a hi-fi dealer with a steel door … Well, that was a new one. True, twenty-five grand’s worth of hi-fi was an investment worth protecting. But there were limits. Not that Rebus suspected Wardle of actually doing the breaking and entering himself. No, he just passed the information on to the men Rebus really wanted, the gang. But Wardle was the only means of getting at them …
Finally, in desperation, Rebus had turned to Jib. And Jib had done what he was told, meaning Rebus now owed him a large favour. It was all highly irregular; unlawful, if it came to it. If anyone found out … well, Rebus would
be making the acquaintance of his local broo office. Which was why, as he explained to Holmes, he’d been keeping so quiet about it.
The plan was simple. Jib would run off with something, anything, watched by Rebus to make sure nothing went wrong – such as a daring citizen’s arrest by one or more passers-by. Later, Rebus would turn up at the shop to investigate the theft. Then later still, he would arrive at Wardle’s flat, ostensibly to report the lack of progress. If a further visit was needed, the cassette deck would be found. But now he had Holmes’s help, so one visit only should suffice, one man keeping Wardle busy while the other sniffed around the rooms in the flat.
They sat now, poring over the lists, trying to match what Holmes had seen in Wardle’s two bedrooms with what had been reported stolen from the five luxury homes.
‘Carriage clock,’ read Rebus, ‘nineteenth-century Japanese cigar box, seventeenth-century prints of Edinburgh by James Gordon, a Swarbreck lithograph …’
Holmes shook his head at the mention of each, then read from one of his own lists. ‘Ladies’ and gents’ Longines watches, a Hockney print, Cartier pen, first-edition set of the Waverley novels, Ming vase, Dresden pieces …’ He looked up. ‘Would you believe, there’s even a case of champagne.’ He looked down again and read: ‘Louis Roederer Cristal 1985. Value put at six hundred pounds. That’s a hundred quid a bottle.’
‘Bet you’re glad you’re a lager man,’ said Rebus. He sighed. ‘Does none of this mean anything to you, Brian?’
Holmes shook his head. ‘Nothing like any of this in either of the bedrooms.’
Rebus cursed under his breath. ‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘What about that print?’
‘Which one? The Hockney?’
‘Yes, have we got a photo of it?’
‘Just this,’ said Holmes, extracting from the file a page torn from an art gallery’s catalogue. He handed it to Rebus, who studied the picture. ‘Why?’
‘Why?’ echoed Rebus. ‘Because you sat with this painting in front of your nose on Wardle’s living-room wall. I thought it was a real painting, but this is it all right.’ He tapped the sheet of paper. ‘It says here the print’s limited to fifty impressions. What number is the stolen one?’