by Ian Rankin
He did his act in three pubs nursing three half-pints, with no reaction save the usual bad jokes including the ‘drawing the pension’ line. But in the fourth bar, an understandably understated shack near the railway station, he drew the attention of a keen-eyed old man who had been cadging drinks all round the pub. At the time, Rebus was showing the drawings to a cluster of painters and decorators at the corner of the L-shaped bar. He knew they were decorators because they’d asked him if he needed any work doing. ‘On the fly, like. Cheaper that way.’ Rebus shook his head and showed them the drawings.
The old man pushed his way into the group. He looked up at all the faces around him. ‘AH right, lads? Here, I was decorated in the war.’ He cackled at his joke.
‘So you keep telling us, Jock.’
‘Every fuckin’ night.’
‘Without fuckin’ fail.’
‘Sorry, lads,’ Jock apologised. He thrust a short thick finger at one of the drawings. ‘Looks familiar.’
‘Must be a bloody jockey then.’ The decorator winked at Rebus. ‘I’m no’ joking, mister. Jock would recognise a racehorse’s bahookey quicker than a human face.’
‘Ach,’ said Jock dismissively, ‘away tae hell wi’ you.’ And to Rebus: ‘Sure you dinnae owe me a drink fae last week . . .?’
Five minutes after Rebus glumly left this last pub, a young man arrived. It. had taken him some time, visiting all the bars between the Midden and here, asking whether a man had been in with some drawings. He was annoyed, too, at having to break off his pool practice so early. His screwball needed work. There was a competition on Sunday, and he had every intention of winning the £100 prize. If he didn’t, there’d be trouble. But meantime, he knew he could do someone a favour by trailing this man who claimed not to be a copper. He knew it because he’d made a phone call from the Midden.
‘You’d be doing me a favour,’ the person on the other end of the line had said, when the pool player had finally been put through to him, having had to relate his story to two other people first.
It was useful to be owed a favour, so he’d taken off from the Midden, knowing that the man with the drawings was on his way to Lochgelly. But now here he was at the far end of the town; there were no pubs after this until Lochore. And the man had gone. So the pool player made another call and gave his report. It wasn’t much, he knew, but it had been time-consuming work all the same.
‘I owe you one, Sharky,’ the voice said.
Sharky felt elated as he got back into his rusty Datsun. And with luck, he’d still have time for a few games of pool before closing time.
John Rebus drove back to Edinburgh with just desserts on his mind. And Andrew McPhail, and Michael with his tranquillisers, and Patience, and Operation Moneybags, and many other things besides.
Michael was sound asleep when he arrived at the flat. He checked with the students, who were worried that his brother was maybe on some sort of drugs. He assured them the drugs were prescribed rather than proscribed. Then he telephoned Siobhan Clarke at home.
‘How did it go today?’
‘You had to be there, sir – I could write the book on boredom. Dougary had five visitors all day. He had pizza delivered lunch. Drove home at five-thirty.’
‘Any of the visitors interesting?’
‘I’ll let you see the photographs. Customers, maybe. But they came out with as many limbs as they went in with. Will you be joining us tomorrow?’
‘Probably.’
‘Only I thought maybe we could talk about the Central Hotel.’
‘Speaking of which, have you seen Brian?’
‘I popped in after work. He looks great.’ She paused. ‘You sound tired. Have you been working?’
‘Yes.’
‘The Central?’
‘Christ knows. I suppose so.’ Rebus rubbed the back of his neck. The hangover was starting already.
‘You had to buy a few drinks?’ Siobhan guessed.
‘Yes.’
‘And drink a few?’
‘Right again, Sherlock.’
She laughed, then tutted. ‘And afterwards you drove home. I’d be happy to chauffeur you if it would help.’ She sounded like she meant it.
‘Thanks, Clarke. I’ll bear it in mind.’ He paused. ‘Know what I’d like for Christmas?’
‘It’s a long way off.’
‘I’d like someone to prove that the corpse belongs to one of the Bru-Head Brothers.’
‘The body had a broken –’
‘I know, I’ve checked. The hospitals came up with spit.’ He paused again. ‘Not your problem,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Good night, sir.’
Rebus sat in silence for a minute or two. Something about his conversation with Siobhan Clarke made him want to talk with Patience. He picked up the receiver again and rang her.
‘Hello?’
Ye Gods, not an answering machine!
‘Hello, Patience.’
‘John.’
‘I’d like to talk. Are you ready?’
There was silence, then: ‘Yes, I think so. Let’s talk.’
John Rebus lay down on the sofa, one hand behind his head. Nobody else used the phone that night.
15
John Rebus was in a good mood that Tuesday morning, for no other reason than that he’d spent what seemed like half the previous night on the phone with Patience. They were going to meet for a drink; he just had to wait for her to get back to him with a place and a time. He was still in a good mood when he opened the ground floor door and started up the stairs towards Operation Moneybags’ Gorgie centre of operations.
He could hear voices; nothing unusual about that. But the voices grew in intensity as he climbed, and he opened the door just in time to see a man lunge at DC Petrie and butt him square on the nose. Petrie fell back against the window, knocking over the camera tripod. Blood gushed from his nostrils. Rebus only half took in that two small boys were watching, along with Siobhan Clarke and Elsa-Beth Jardine. The man was pulling Petrie upright when Rebus got an arm lock around him, pinning the man’s arms to his side. He pulled Rebus to right and left, trying to throw him off, all the time yelling so loudly it was a wonder nobody on the street below could hear the commotion.
Rebus heaved the man backwards and turned him, so that he lost balance and fell to the floor, where Rebus sat on top of him. Petrie started forward, but the man lashed out with his legs and sent Petrie back into the window, where his elbow smashed the glass. Rebus did what he had to do. He punched the man in the throat.
‘What the hell’s going on here?’ he asked. The man was gasping but still struggling. ‘You, stop it!’ Then something hit Rebus on the back of his head. It was the clenched fist of one of the boys, and it hit him right on his burnt patch of scalp. He screwed shut his eyes, fighting the stinging pain of the blow and a nausea in his gut, right where his muesli and tea with honey were sitting.
‘Leave my dad alone!’
Siobhan Clarke grabbed the boy and dragged him off.
‘Arrest that little bugger,’ Rebus said. Then, to the boy’s father: ‘I mean it, too. If you don’t calm down, I’m going to have him charged with assault. How would you like that?’
‘He’s too young,’ gasped the man.
‘Is he?’ said Rebus. ‘Are you sure?’
The man thought about it and calmed down.
‘That’s better.’ Rebus rose from the man’s chest. ‘Now is someone going to explain all this to me?’
It was quickly explained, once Petrie had been sent off to find a doctor for his nose and the boys had been sent home. The man was called Bill Chilton, and Bill Chilton didn’t like squatters.
‘Squatters?’
‘That’s what Wee Neilly told me.’
‘Squatters?’ Rebus turned to Siobhan Clarke. She’d been downstairs to check no passers-by had been injured by falling glass, and more importantly to explain the ‘accident’.
‘The two boys,’ she said
now, ‘came barging in. They said they sometimes played here.’
Rebus stopped her and turned to Chilton. ‘Why isn’t Neil at school?’
‘He’s been suspended for fighting.’
Rebus nodded. ‘He’s got a fair punch on him.’ The back of his head throbbed agreement. He turned back to Siobhan.
‘They asked us what we were doing, and Ms Jardine’ – at this Elsa-Beth Jardine lowered her head – ‘told them we were squatters.’
‘Just joking,’ Jardine found it necessary to add. Rebus feigned surprise, and she lowered her eyes again, blushing furiously.
‘DC Petrie joined in, the boys cleared out, and we all had a laugh about it.’
‘A laugh?’ Rebus said. ‘It wasn’t a laugh, it was a breach of security.’ He sounded as furious as he looked, so that even Siobhan turned her eyes away from his. He now turned his gaze on Bill Chilton.
‘Well,’ Chilton continued, ‘Neil came home and told me there were squatters here. We’ve had a lot of that going on this past year or two, deserted tenement flats being broken open and used for all sorts of things . . . drug pushing and that. Some of us are doing something about it.’
‘What are we talking about here, Mr Chilton? Vigilante tactics? Pickaxe handles at dawn?’
Chilton was unabashed. ‘You lot are doing bugger all!’
‘So you came up here looking to scare the squatters off?’
‘Before they got a toe-hold, aye.’
‘And?’
Chilton said nothing.
‘And,’ Rebus said for him, ‘you started shouting the odds at DC Petrie, who started shouting back that he was a police officer and you’d better bugger off. Only by that time you were too fired up to back off. Got a bit of a temper, Mr Chilton? Maybe it’s rubbed off on Neilly, eh? Did you get into a lot of fights at school?’
‘What the hell’s that got to do with anything?’ Chilton’s anger was rising again. Rebus raised a pacifying hand.
‘It’s a serious offence, assaulting a police officer.’
‘Mistaken identity,’ said Chilton.
‘Even after he’d identified himself?’
Chilton shrugged. ‘He never showed me any ID.’
Rebus raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re very knowledgeable about procedure. Maybe you’ve been in this sort of trouble before, eh?’ This shut Chilton’s mouth. ‘Maybe if I go down the station and look you up on the computer . . . what would this be, second offence? Third? Might we be talking about a wee trip to Saughton jail?’ Chilton was looking decidedly uncomfortable, which was exactly what Rebus wanted.
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘we could always shut the book on this one.’ Chilton looked interested. ‘If,’ Rebus warned, ‘you could keep your gob shut about it. And get Neil and his pal to forget they saw anything.’
Chilton nodded towards the camera. ‘You’re watching somebody, eh? A stake-out?’
‘Best if you don’t know, Mr Chilton. Do we have a deal?’
Chilton thought about it, then nodded.
‘Good,’ said Rebus, ‘now get the fuck out of here.’
Chilton knew when he was being made an offer. He got the fuck out of there. Rebus shook his head.
‘Sir –’
‘Shut up and listen,’ Rebus told Siobhan Clarke. ‘This could’ve blown the whole thing. Maybe it has, we won’t know for a day or two. Meanwhile, get that camera set up again and get back to work. Phone HQ and get someone in here to board up the window, leaving a big enough hole for the camera. Either that or we need a new pane of glass.
‘And listen to me, the two of you.’ He raised a warning finger. ‘Nobody gets to know about this, nobody. It’s forgotten as of now, understand?’
They understood. What they did not understand perhaps was exactly why Rebus wanted it kept quiet. It wasn’t that he feared the early termination of Operation Moneybags – as far as he was concerned, the whole project was doomed to failure anyway. No, it was another fear altogether, the fear that Detective Inspector Alister Flower, safe and snug in the Firth Pub with his own surveillance crew, would find out. By God, that would mean trouble, more trouble than Rebus was willing to contemplate.
A pity then that he hadn’t managed to say anything to DC Peter Petrie, who went back to St Leonard’s for a change of shirt. The blood on his T-shirt might have been mistaken for tomato sauce or old tea, but there was no doubting the cause of the white gauze pad which had been taped across his nose and half his face. And when questioned, Peter Petrie quite gladly told his story, embellishing it only a little – as, for example, in exaggerating his assailant’s size, skill, and speed of attack. There were sympathetic smiles and shakes of the head, and the same comment was uttered by more than one fellow officer.
‘Wait till Flower hears about this.’
By lunchtime, Flower had heard from several sources about the giant who had wreaked such havoc to the Gorgie surveillance.
‘Dearie me,’ he said, sipping an orange juice laced with blue label vodka. ‘That’s terrible. I wonder if Chief Inspector Lauderdale knows? Ach, of course he does, Rebus wouldn’t try to keep a thing like that from him, would he?’ And he smiled so warmly at the DC seated beside him that the DC got quite worried, really quite worried about his boss . . .
Siobhan picked up the telephone.
‘Hello?’ She watched John Rebus staring out of the broken window. He’d been watching the taxi offices for half an hour, so deep in thought that neither she nor Jardine had uttered a word to one another above a whisper. ‘It’s for you, sir.’
Rebus took the receiver from her. It was CID with a message to relay.
‘Go ahead.’
‘From someone called Pat Calder. He says a Mr Ringan has disappeared.’
‘Disappeared?’
‘Yes, and he wanted you to know. Do you want us to do anything this end?’
‘No thanks, I’ll go have a word myself. Thanks for letting me know.’ Rebus put down the phone.
‘Who’s disappeared?’ Siobhan asked.
‘Eddie Ringan.’
‘The Heartbreak Cafe?’
Rebus nodded. ‘I was only speaking to him yesterday. He threatened me with a panful of hot cheese.’ Siobhan was looking interested, but Rebus shook his head. ‘You stay here, at least until Petrie gets back.’ The Heartbreak Cafe was only five minutes away. Rebus wondered if Calder would be there. A kitchen without a chef, after all, it was hardly worth opening for the day . . .
But when Rebus arrived, the Cafe was doing a brisk trade in early lunches. Calder, acting as maitre d’, waved to Rebus when he entered. Passing the same young barman as yesterday, Rebus gave him a wink. Calder was looking frantic.
‘What the hell did you say to Eddie yesterday?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Come off it, you had a stand-up row, didn’t you? I knew something was wrong. He was edgy as hell all last night, and his cooking went to pot.’ Calder saw no humour in this. ‘You must have said something.’
‘Who told you?’
Calder cocked his head towards the kitchen. ‘Willie.’
Rebus nodded understanding. ‘And today, Willie gets his chance for fame and fortune.’
‘He’s doing the lunches, if that’s what you mean.’
‘So when did Eddie go missing?’
‘After we closed last night, he went off to look for some club or other. One of those moveable feasts that takes over a warehouse for one night a week.’
‘You didn’t fancy it yourself?’
Calder wrinkled his nose in distaste.
‘Would this be a club for gentlemen, Mr Calder?’
‘A gay club, yes. No secret there, Inspector. It’s all quite legit.’
‘I’m sure it is. And Mr Ringan didn’t come home?’
‘No.’
‘So maybe he found someone else to go home with . . .?’
‘Eddie’s not that type.’
‘Then what type is he?’
‘The fait
hful type, believe me. He often goes out drinking, but he always comes back.’
‘Until now.’
‘Yes.’
Rebus considered. ‘Bit early yet to start a missing person file. We usually give it at least forty-eight hours, if there’s no other evidence.’
‘What sort of evidence?’
‘Well, a body, for example.’
Calder turned his head away. ‘Christ,’ he said.
‘Look, I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.’
‘I’m not,’ said Pat Calder.
No, and neither was John Rebus.
Calder slapped a smile on his face as a couple entered the Cafe. He picked up two menus and asked them to follow him to a table. They were in their early twenties and dressed fashionably, the man looking like he’d walked out of a 1930s gangster flick, the woman like she’d put on her wee sister’s skirt by mistake.
When Calder came back he spoke in an undertone. ‘Someone should tell her you can’t hide acne with pan-stick. You know, Eddie hasn’t been the same since the night Brian was attacked.’
‘Brian’s okay now, by the way.’
‘Yes, Eddie rang the hospital yesterday.’
‘He didn’t visit, though?’
‘We hate hospitals, too many friends dying in them lately.’
‘The news about Brian didn’t cheer him up?’
Calder pursed his lips. ‘I suppose it did for a little while.’ He pulled a notebook and pen out of his pocket. ‘Must go and see what they want to drink.’
Rebus nodded. ‘I’ll just have a word with Willie and your barman, see what they think.’
‘Fine. Lunch is on the house.’ Rebus shook his head. ‘We won’t poison you, Inspector.’
‘It’s not that,’ said Rebus. ‘It’s all this Presley stuff on the walls. It fair takes away my appetite.’
Willie the trainee chef looked like he was enjoying his day as ruler of all he surveyed. Flustered as he was, with no one to help him, still he gave off an air of never wanting things to change.
‘Remember me, Willie?’
Willie glanced up. ‘Jailhouse Roquefort?’ He went back to shimmying pans, then started to chop a bunch of fresh parsley. Rebus marvelled at how speedily he worked with the knife mere millimetres from his fingertips.