by Ian Rankin
‘I just wondered,’ the girl was saying, ‘if you knew anything about it. I mean, if it’s true. I mean, if it is . . .’ she sighed. ‘Poor Beggar.’
Rebus frowned now.
‘That’s his nickname,’ she explained. ‘Beggar. That’s what Ronald calls him.’
‘Your boss knows Mr Jack then?’
‘Oh yes, they were at school together. Beggar owns half of this. She waved a hand around her, as though she were proprietress of some Princes Street department store. She saw that the policeman didn’t seem impressed. ‘We do a lot of business behind the scenes,’ she said defensively. ‘A lot of buying and selling. It might not look much, but this place is a goldmine.’
Rebus nodded. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘now that you mention it, it does look a bit like a mine.’ His wrist was crackling now, as though stung by nettles. Bloody cat. ‘Right, keep an eye out for those books, won’t you?’
She didn’t answer. Hurt, he didn’t doubt, by the ‘mine’ jibe. She was opening a book, ready to pencil in a price. Rebus nodded to himself, walked to the door, and rubbed his feet noisily on the mat before leaving the shop. The cat was back in the window, licking its tail.
‘Fuck you too, pal,’ muttered Rebus. Pets, after all, were his pet hate.
Dr Patience Aitken had pets. Too many pets. Tiny tropical fish . . . a tame hedgehog in the back garden . . . two budgies in a cage in the living room . . . and, yes, a cat. A stray which, to Rebus’s relief, still liked to spend much of its time on the prowl. It was a tortoiseshell and it was called Lucky. It liked Rebus.
‘It’s funny,’ Patience had said, ‘how they always seem to go for the people who don’t like them, don’t want them, or are allergic to them. Don’t ask me why.’
As she said this, Lucky was climbing across Rebus’s shoulders. He snarled and shrugged it off. It fell to the floor, landing on its feet.
‘You’ve got to have patience, John.’
Yes, she was right. If he did not have patience, he might lose Patience. So he’d been trying. He’d been trying. Which was perhaps why he’d been tricked into trying to stroke Rasputin. Rasputin! Why was it pets always seemed to be called either Lucky, Goldie, Beauty, Flossie, Spot, or else Rasputin, Beelzebub, Fang, Nirvana, Bodhisattva? Blame the breed of owner.
Rebus was in the Rutherford, nursing a half of eight-shilling and watching the full-time scores on TV, when he remembered that he was expected at Brian Holmes’ new house this evening, expected for a meal with Holmes and Nell Stapleton. He groaned. Then remembered that his only clean suit was at Patience Aitken’s flat. It was a worrying fact. Was he really moving in with Patience? He seemed to be spending an awful lot of time there these days. Well, he liked her, even if she did treat him like yet another pet. And he liked her flat. He even liked the fact that it was underground.
Well, not quite underground. In some parts of town, it might once have been described as the ‘basement’ flat, but in Oxford Terrace, well-appointed Oxford Terrace, Stockbridge’s Oxford Terrace, it was a garden flat. And sure enough it had a garden, a narrow isosceles triangle of land. But the flat itself was what interested Rebus. It was like a shelter, like a children’s encampment. You could stand in either of the front bedrooms and stare up out of the window to where feet and legs moved along the pavement above you. People seldom looked down. Rebus, whose own flat was on the second floor of a Marchmont tenement, enjoyed this new perspective. While other men his age were moving out of the city and into bungalows, Rebus found a sort of amused thrill from walking downstairs to the front door instead of walking up. More than novelty, it was a reversal, a major shift, and his life felt full of promise as a result.
Patience, too, was full of promise. She was keen for him to move more of his things in, to ‘make himself at home’. And she had given him a key. So, beer finished, and car persuaded to make the five-minute trip, he was able to let himself in. His suit, newly cleaned, was lying on the bed in the spare bedroom. So was Lucky. In fact, Lucky was lying on the suit, was rolling on it, plucking at it with his claws, was shedding on it and marking it. Rebus saw Rasputin in his mind’s eye as he swiped the cat off the bed. Then he picked up the suit and took it to the bathroom, where he locked the door behind him before running a bath.
The parliamentary constituency of North and South Esk was large but not populous. The population, however, was growing. New housing estates grew in tight clusters on the outskirts of the mining towns and villages. Commuter belt. Yes, the region was changing. New roads, new railway stations even. New kinds of people doing new kinds of jobs. Brian Holmes and Nell Stapleton, however, had chosen to buy an old terraced house in the heart of one of the smallest of the villages, Eskwell. Actually, it was all about Edinburgh in the end. The city was growing, spreading out. It was the city that swallowed villages and spawned new estates. People weren’t moving into Edinburgh; the city was moving into them . . .
But by the time Rebus reached Eskwell he was in no mood to contemplate the changing face of country living. He’d had trouble starting the car. He was always having trouble starting the car. But wearing a suit and shirt and tie had made it that bit more difficult to tinker beneath the bonnet. One fine weekend he’d strip the engine down. Of course he would. Then he’d give up and phone for a tow truck.
The house was easy to find, Eskwell boasting one main street and only a few back roads. Rebus walked up the garden path and stood on the doorstep, a bottle of wine gripped in one hand. He clenched his free fist and rapped on the door. It opened almost at once.
‘You’re late,’ said Brian Holmes.
‘Perogative of rank, Brian. I’m allowed to be late.’
Holmes ushered him into the hall. ‘I did say informal, didn’t I?’
Rebus puzzled for a moment, then saw that this was a comment on his suit. He noticed now that Holmes himself was dressed in open-necked shirt and denims, with a pair of moccasins covering his bare feet.
‘Ah,’ said Rebus.
‘Never mind, I’ll nip upstairs and change.’
‘Not on my account. This is your house, Brian. You do as you please.’
Holmes nodded to himself, suddenly looking pleased. Rebus was right: this was his house. Well, the mortgage was his . . . half the mortgage. ‘Go on through,’ he said, gesturing to a door at the end of the hall.
‘I think I’ll nip upstairs myself first,’ Rebus said, handing over the bottle. He spread his hands out palms upwards, then turned them over. Even Holmes could see the traces of oil and dirt.
‘Car trouble,’ he said, nodding. ‘The bathroom’s to the right of the landing.’
‘Right.’
‘And those are nasty scratches, too. I’d see a doctor about them.’ Holmes’ tone told Rebus that the young man assumed a certain doctor had been responsible for them in the first place.
‘A cat,’ Rebus explained. ‘A cat with eight lives left.’
Upstairs, he felt particularly clumsy. He rinsed the wash-hand-basin after him, then had to rinse the muck off the soap, then rinsed the basin again. A towel was hanging over the bath, but when he started to dry his hands he found he was drying them not on a towel but on a foot-mat. The real towel was on a hook behind the door. Relax, John, he told himself. But he couldn’t. Socializing was just one more skill he’d never really mastered.
He peered round the door downstairs.
‘Come in, come in.’
Holmes was holding out a glass of whisky towards him. ‘Here you go, cheers.’
‘Cheers.’
They drank, and Rebus felt the better for it.
‘I’ll give you the tour of the house later,’ Holmes said. ‘Sit down.’
Rebus did so, and looked around him. ‘A real Holmes from home,’ he commented. There were good smells in the air, and cooking and clattering noises from the kitchen, which seemed to be through another door off the living room. The living room was almost cuboid, with a table in one corner set with three places for dinner, a chair in another cor
ner, a TV in the third, and a standard lamp in the fourth.
‘Very nice,’ commented Rebus. Holmes was sitting on a two-person sofa against one wall. Behind him was a decent-sized window looking on to the back garden. He shrugged modestly.
‘It’ll do us,’ he said.
‘I’m sure it will.’
Now Nell Stapleton strode into the room. As imposing as ever, she seemed almost too tall for her surroundings, Alice after the ‘Eat Me’ cake. She was wiping her hands on a dishcloth, and smiled at Rebus.
‘Hello there.’
Rebus had risen to his feet. She came over and pecked him on his cheek.
‘Hello, Nell.’
Now she was standing over Holmes, and had lifted the glass out of his hand. There was sweat on her forehead, and she too was dressed casually. She took a swallow of whisky, exhaled noisily, and handed the glass back.
‘Ready in five minutes,’ she announced. ‘Shame your doctor friend couldn’t make it, John.’
He shrugged. ‘Prior engagement. A medical dinner party. I was glad of an excuse to get out of it.’
She gave him rather too fixed a smile. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’ll leave you two to talk about whatever it is boys talk about.’
And then she was gone, the room seeming suddenly empty. Shit, what had he said? Rebus had tried to find words to describe Nell when speaking about her to Patience Aitken. But somehow the words never told the story. Bossy, stroppy, lively, canny, big, bright, a handful . . . like another set of seven dwarves. Certainly, she didn’t fit the stereotype of a university librarian. Which seemed to suit Brian Holmes just fine. He was smiling, studying what was left of his drink. He got up for a refill – Rebus refusing the offer – and came back with a manilla folder.
‘Here,’ he said.
Rebus accepted the folder. ‘What is it?’
‘Take a look.’
Newspaper cuttings mostly, magazine articles, press releases . . . all concerning Gregor Jack MP.
‘Where did you . . .?’
Holmes shrugged. ‘Innate curiosity. When I knew I was moving into his constituency, I thought I’d like to know more.’
‘The papers seem to have kept quiet about last night.’
‘Maybe they’ve been warned off.’ Holmes sounded sceptical. ‘Or maybe they’re just biding their time.’ Having just reseated himself, he now leapt up again. ‘I’ll see if Nell needs a hand.’
Leaving Rebus with little to do but read. There wasn’t much he didn’t already know. Working-class background. Comprehensive school in Fife, then Edinburgh University. Degree in Economics and Accounting. Chartered accountant. Married Elizabeth Ferrie. They’d met at university. She, the daughter of Sir Hugh Ferrie the businessman. She was his only daughter, his only child. He doted on her, could refuse her nothing, all, it was said, because she reminded him of his wife, dead these past twenty-three years. Sir Hugh’s most recent ‘companion’ was an ex-model less than half his age. Maybe she, too, reminded him of his wife . . .
Funny though. Elizabeth Jack was an attractive woman, beautiful even. Yet you never heard much about her. Since when was an attractive wife an asset not to be used by canny politicians? Maybe she wanted her own life. Skiing holidays and health resorts, rather than an MP’s round of factory openings, tea parties, all that.
Rebus recalled now what it was that he liked about Gregor Jack. It was the background – so similar to his own. Born in Fife, and given a comprehensive education. Except that back then they’d been called secondary and high schools. Both Rebus and Gregor Jack had gone to a high school, Rebus because he passed his eleven-plus, the younger Jack because of good grades at his junior high. Rebus’s school had been in Cowdenbeath, Jack’s in Kirkcaldy. No distance at all, really.
The only muck that had ever been thrown at Jack seemed to be over the siting of a new electronics factory just inside his constituency. Rumours that his father-in-law had pulled a few strings . . . It had all died down quickly enough. No evidence, and a whiff of writs for libel. How old was Jack? Rebus studied a recent newspaper photograph. He looked younger on paper than he did in real life. People in the media always did. Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, something like that. Beautiful wife, plenty of money.
And he ends up caught on a tart’s bed during a brothel raid. Rebus shook his head. It was a cruel world. Then he smiled: serve the bugger right for not sticking to his wife.
Holmes was coming back in. He nodded towards the file. ‘Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’
Rebus shrugged. ‘Not really, Brian. Not really.’
‘Well, finish your whisky and sit at the table. I’m informed by the management that dinner is about to be served.’
It was a good dinner, too. Rebus insisted on making three toasts: one to the couple’s happiness, one to their new home, and one to Holmes’ promotion. By then, they were on to their second bottle of wine and the evening’s main course – roast beef. After that there was cheese, and after the cheese, crannachan. And after all that there was coffee and Laphroaig and drowsiness in the armchair and on the sofa for all concerned. It hadn’t taken long for Rebus to relax – the alcohol had seen to that. But it had been a nervous kind of relaxation, so that he felt he’d said too much, most of it rubbish.
There was some shop talk, of course, and Nell allowed it so long as it was interesting. She thought Farmer Watson’s drinking habit was interesting. (‘Maybe he doesn’t drink at all. Maybe he’s just addicted to strong mints.’) She thought Chief Inspector Lauderdale’s ambition was interesting. And she thought the brothel raid sounded interesting, too. She wanted to know where the fun was in being whipped, or dressed in nappies, or having sex with a scuba-diver. Rebus admitted he’d no answer. ‘Suck it and see,’ was Brian Holmes’ contribution. It earned him a cushion over the head.
By quarter past eleven, Rebus knew two things. One was that he was too drunk to drive. The other was that even if he could drive (or be driven) he’d not know his destination – Oxford Terrace or his own flat in Marchmont? Where, these days, did he live? He imagined himself parking the car on Lothian Road, halfway between the two addresses, and kipping there. But the decision was made for him by Nell.
‘The bed in the spare room’s made up. We need someone to christen it so we can start calling it the guest bedroom. Might as well be you.’
Her quiet authority was not to be challenged. Rebus shrugged his acceptance. A little later, she went to bed herself. Holmes switched on the TV but found nothing there worth watching, so he turned on the hi-fi instead.
‘I haven’t got any jazz,’ he admitted, knowing Rebus’s tastes. ‘But how about this . . .?’
It was Sergeant Pepper. Rebus nodded. ‘If I can’t get the Rolling Stones, I’ll always settle for second best.’
So they argued 60s pop music, then talked football for a little while and shop for a bit longer still.
‘How much more time do you think Doctor Curt will take?’
Holmes was referring to one of the pathologists regularly used by the police. A body had been fished out of the Water of Leith, just below Dean Bridge. Suicide, accident or murder? They were hoping Dr Curt’s findings would point the way.
Rebus shrugged. ‘Some of those tests take weeks, Brian. But actually, from what I hear, he won’t be much longer. A day or two maybe.’
‘And what will he say?’
‘God knows.’ They shared a smile; Curt was notorious for his fund of bad jokes and ill-timed levity.
‘Should we stand by to repel puns?’ asked Holmes. ‘How about this: deceased was found near waterfall. However, study of eyes showed no signs of cataracts.’
Rebus laughed. ‘That’s not bad. Bit too clever maybe, but still not bad.’
They spent a quarter of an hour recalling some of Curt’s true gems, before, somehow, turning the talk to politics. Rebus admitted that he’d voted only three times in his adult life.
‘Once Labour, once SNP, and once Tory.’
Holmes seemed to find
this funny. He asked what the chronological order had been, but Rebus couldn’t remember. This, too, seemed worth a laugh.
‘Maybe you should try an Independent next time.’
‘Like Gregor Jack you mean?’ Rebus shook his head. ‘I don’t think there’s any such thing as an “Independent” in Scotland. It’s like living in Ireland and trying not to take sides. Damned hard work. And speaking of work . . . some of us have been working today. If you don’t mind, Brian, I think I’ll join Nell . . .’ More laughter. ‘If you see what I mean.’
‘Sure,’ said Holmes, ‘on you go. I don’t feel so bad. I might watch a video or something. See you in the morning.’
‘Mind you don’t keep me awake,’ said Rebus with a wink.
In fact, meltdown at the Torness reactor couldn’t have kept him awake. His dreams were full of pastoral scenes, skin-divers, kittens, and last-minute goals. But when he opened his eyes there was a dark shadowy figure looming over him. He pushed himself up on his elbows. It was Holmes, dressed and wearing a denim jacket. There was a jangle of car keys from one hand; the other hand held a selection of newspapers which he now threw down on to the bed.
‘Sleep all right? Oh, by the way, I don’t usually buy these rags but I thought you’d be interested. Breakfast’ll be ready in ten minutes.’
Rebus managed to mumble a few syllables. He heaved himself upright and studied the front page of the tabloid in front of him. This was what he’d been waiting for, and he actually felt some of the tension leave his body and his brain. The headline was actually subtle – JACK THE LAD! – but the sub-head was blunt enough – MP NICKED IN SEX-DEN SWOOP. And there was the photograph, showing Gregor Jack on his way down the steps to the waiting van. More photos were promised inside. Rebus turned to the relevant pages. A pasty-faced Farmer Watson; a couple of the ‘escorts’ posing for the cameras; and another four shots of Jack, showing his progress all the way into the van. None from the cop-shop aftermath, so presumably he’d been spirited away. You couldn’t hope to spirit this away though, photogenic or no. Ha! In the background of one of the photos Rebus could make out the cherubic features of Detective Sergeant Brian Holmes. One for the scrapbook and no mistake.