by Ian Rankin
‘Yes?’
‘Aren’t you going to eat any of that?’
Rebus pushed his plate across to her and watched her take her fill.
When he got back to St Leonard’s, there was a call from the Chief Super’s office. Chief Superintendent Watson wanted to see him straight away, as in ten minutes ago. Rebus checked that there were no messages for him, and called Siobhan Clarke in Gorgie to make sure the new window had been fitted.
‘It’s perfect,’ she told him. ‘It’s got white gunk on it, window polish or something. We just didn’t bother wiping it off. We can take shots through it, but from the outside it just looks like a new window that’s waiting to be cleaned.’
‘Fine,’ said Rebus. He wanted to make sure he was up to date. If Watson intended to carpet him over yesterday, it would be considerably more than Lauderdale’s fireside rug.
But Rebus had got it way wrong.
‘What the hell are you up to?’ Watson looked like he’d run a half-marathon gobbling down chilli peppers all the way. His breathing was raspy, his cheeks a dark cherry colour. If he walked into a hospital, they’d have him whisked to emergency on a two-man stretcher.
No, better make that a four-man.
‘I’m not sure what you mean, sir.’
Watson fairly pounded the desk with his fist. A pencil dropped onto the floor. ‘You’re not sure what I mean!’
Rebus moved forward to pick up the pencil.
‘Leave it! Just sit down.’ Rebus went to sit. ‘No, better yet, keep standing.’ Rebus stood up. ‘Now, just tell me why.’ Rebus remembered a science teacher at his secondary school, a man with an evil temper who had spoken to the teenage Rebus just like this. ‘Just tell me why.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Go on then.’
‘With respect, sir, why what?’
The words came out through gritted teeth. ‘Why you’ve seen fit to start pestering Broderick Gibson.’
‘With respect, sir –’
‘Stop all that “with respect” shite! Just give me an answer.’
‘I’m not pestering Broderick Gibson, sir.’
‘Then what are you doing, wooing him? The Chief Constable phoned me this morning in absolute fucking apoplexy!’ Watson, being a Christian of no mean persuasion, didn’t swear often. It was a bad sign.
Rebus saw it all. The bash for the SSPCC. Yes, and Broderick Gibson collaring his friend the Chief Constable. One of your minions has been on to me, what’s it all about? The Chief Constable not knowing anything about it, stuttering and spluttering and saying he’d get to the bottom of it. Just give me the officer’s name . . .
‘It’s his son I’m interested in, sir.’
‘But you looked both of them up on the computer this morning.’
Ah, so someone had taken notice of his early shift. ‘Yes, I did, but I was really only interested in Aengus.’
‘You still haven’t explained why.’
‘No, sir, well, it’s a bit . . . nebulous.’
Watson frowned. ‘Nebulous? When’s the graduation party?’ Rebus didn’t get it. ‘Since you’ve obviously,’ Watson was happy to explain, ‘just got your astronomy degree!’ He poured himself coffee from the machine on the floor, offering none to Rebus who could just use a cup.
‘It was the word that came to mind, sir,’ he said.
‘I can think of a few words too, Rebus. Your mother wouldn’t like to hear them.’
No, thought Rebus, and yours would wash your mouth out with soap.
The Chief Super slurped his coffee. They didn’t call him ‘Farmer’ for nothing; he had many ways and predilections that could only be described as agricultural.
‘But before I say any of them,’ he went on, ‘I’m a generous enough man to say that I’ll listen to your explanation. Just make it bloody convincing.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Rebus. How could he make any of it sound convincing? He supposed he’d have to try.
So he tried, and halfway through Watson even told him he could sit if he liked. At the end of fifteen minutes, Rebus placed his hands out in front of him, palms up, as if to say: that’s all, folks.
Watson poured another cup of coffee and placed it on the desk in front of Rebus.
‘Thank you, sir.’ Rebus gulped it down black.
‘John, have you ever thought you might be paranoid?’
‘All the time, sir. Show me two men shaking hands and I’ll show you a Masonic conspiracy.’
Watson almost smiled, before recalling that this was no joking matter. ‘Look, let me put it like this. What you’ve got so far is . . . well, it’s . . .’
‘Nebulous, sir?’
‘Piss and wind,’ corrected Watson. ‘Somebody died five years ago. Was it anyone important? Obviously not, or we’d know who they were by now. So we assume it was somebody the world had hardly known and was happy to forget. No grieving widow or weans, no family asking questions.’
‘You’re saying let it die, sir? Let somebody get away with murder?’
Watson looked exasperated. ‘I’m saying we’re stretched as it is.’
‘All Brian Holmes did was ask a few questions. Somebody brained him for it. I take over, my flat’s invaded and my brother half scared to death.’
‘My point exactly, it’s all become personal. You can’t allow that to happen. Look at the other stuff on your plate. Operation Moneybags for a start, and I’m sure there’s more besides.’
‘You’re asking me to drop it, sir? Might I ask if you’re under any personal pressure?’
There was personal pressure aplenty as Watson’s blood rose, his face purpling. ‘Now wait just one second, that’s not the sort of comment I can tolerate.’
‘No, sir. Sorry, sir.’ But Rebus had made his point. The clever soldier knows when to duck. Rebus had taken his shot, and now he was ducking.
‘I should think so,’ said Watson, wriggling in his chair as though his trousers were lined with scouring-pads. ‘Now here’s what I think. I think that if you can bring me something concrete, the dead man’s identity perhaps, within twenty-four hours, then we’ll reopen the case. Otherwise, I want the whole thing dropped until such time as new evidence does come forward.’
‘Fair enough, sir,’ said Rebus. It wasn’t much good arguing the point. Maybe twenty-four hours would be enough. And maybe Charlie Chan had a clan tartan. ‘Thanks for the coffee, much appreciated.’
When Watson started to make his joke about feeling ‘full of beans’, Rebus made his excuses and left.
19
He was seated at his desk, glumly examining all the dead ends in the case, when he happened to catch word of an ‘altercation’ at a house in Broughton. He caught the address, but it took a few seconds for it to register with him. Minutes later, he was in his car heading into the east end of town. The traffic was its usual self, with agonisingly slow pockets at the major junctions. Rebus blamed the traffic lights. Why couldn’t they just do away with them and let the pedestrians take their chances? No, there’d only be more hold-ups, what with all the ambulances they’d need to ferry away the injured and the dead.
Still, why was he hurrying? He thought he knew what he was going to find. He was wrong. (It was turning out to be one of those weeks.) A police car and an ambulance sat outside Mrs MacKenzie’s two-storey house, and the neighbours were out in a show of conspicuous curiosity. Even the kids across the road were interested. It must be a break-time, and some of them pushed their heads between the vertical iron bars and stared open-mouthed at the brightly marked vehicles.
Rebus thought about those railings. Their intention was to keep the kids in, keep them safe. But could they keep anybody out?
Rebus flashed his ID at the constable on door duty and entered Mrs MacKenzie’s house. She was wailing loudly, so that Rebus started to think of murder. A WPC comforted her, while trying to have a conversation with her own over-amplified shoulder radio. The WPC saw Rebus.
‘Make her some tea, will you?’ she
pleaded.
‘Sorry, hen, I’m only CID. Needs someone a bit more senior to mash a pot of Brooke Bond.’ Rebus had his hands in his pockets, the casually informed observer, distanced from the mayhem into which he walked. He wandered over to the bird cage and peered in. On the sand floor, amidst feathers and husks and droppings, lay a mummified budgie.
‘Away the crow road,’ he muttered to himself, moving out of the living room. He saw the ambulancemen in the kitchen, and folowed them. There was a body on the floor, hands and face heavily bandaged. He couldn’t see any blood, though. He nearly skited on wet linoleum, and steadied himself by gripping the edge of the antiquated gas cooker. It was warm to the touch. A police constable stood by the open back door, looking out to right and left. Rebus squeezed past the carers and their patient and joined the PC.
‘Nice day, eh?’
‘What?’
‘I see you’re admiring the weather.’ Rebus showed his ID again.
‘No, not that. Just seeing the way he went.’
Rebus nodded. ‘How do you mean?’
‘The neighbours say he climbed three fences, then ran down a close and away.’ The PC pointed. ‘That close there, just past the line full of washing.’
‘Behind the clothes-pole?’
‘Aye, that must be the one. Three fences . . . one, two, three. It’s got to be that close over there.’
‘Well done, son, that really gets us a long way.’
The constable stared at him. ‘My Inspector’s a stickler for notes. You’re from St Leonard’s? Not quite your patch is it, sir?’
‘Everywhere’s my patch, son, and everybody’s my constable. Now what happened here?’
‘The gentleman on the floor was attacked. The attacker ran off.
Rebus nodded. ‘I can tell you the how and the who already.’ The PC looked dubious. ‘The attacker was a man called Alex Maclean, and he almost certainly punched or headbutted Mr McPhail there.’
The constable blinked, then shook his head. ‘That’s Maclean lying there.’ Rebus looked down, and for the first time took in the size of the man, a good forty pounds heavier than McPhail. ‘And he wasn’t punched or butted. He had a pot of boiling water thrown over him.’
Just a little abashed, Rebus listened without comment to the PC’s version of events. McPhail, who had been steering well clear of the house, had at last telephoned to say he’d be popping over for some clothes and things. He’d fobbed Mrs MacKenzie off with some story about working long shifts in a supermarket. He’d arrived, and was in the kitchen chatting to his landlady while she put on the water for her boiled eggs (boiled eggs every Wednesday lunchtime; poached on Thursdays – this was one part of Mrs MacKenzie’s statement she wanted to get absolutely clear). But Maclean had been watching the house, and saw McPhail go in. He opened the unlocked front door and ran into the kitchen. ‘A terrifying sight,’ according to Mrs MacKenzie. ‘I’ll never forget it if I live to be a hundred.’
It was at this point that McPhail lifted the pan and swung it at Maclean, showering him with boiling water. Then he’d opened the back door and fled. Over three fences and through a close. End of melodrama.
Rebus watched them lift Maclean into the back of the ambulance. They’d be taking him to the Infirmary. Soon everyone Rebus knew in Edinburgh would be lying in the Infirmary. McPhail had been lucky this time. If he knew what was good for him, he would now take Rebus’s advice and flee the city, dodging the police who would be looking for him.
Rebus wondered if McPhail really did know what was good for him. This, after all, was a man who thought little girls were good for him. He wondered this as he sat in heavy lunchtime traffic, slowly oozing towards St Leonard’s. The route he’d taken to Broughton had been so slow, he saw little to lose by sticking to the bigger roads – Leith Street, The Bridges, and Nicolson Street. Something made him stay on this road till he came to the butcher’s shop where Rory Kintoul had ended up, bleeding beneath the meat counter.
He registered only slight surprise at the wooden board which had been placed across the entire front window of the shop. Pinned to the board was a large white sheet of paper with thick felt-pen writing. The sign said simply ‘Business as Usual’. Interesting, thought Rebus, parking his car. He noticed that rain or general wear underfoot had done away with the splashes of blood which had once left a crimson trail along the pavement.
Mr Bone the butcher was slicing corned beef with a manual machine whose circular blade hissed through the meat. He was smaller and thinner than most butchers Rebus had come across, his face all cheekbone and worry line, hair thinning and grey. There was no one else in the front of the shop, though Rebus could hear someone whistling as they worked in the back. Bone noticed that he had a customer.
‘And what’ll it be today, sir?’
Rebus noticed that the display cases just inside the front window were empty, doubtless waiting to be checked for slivers of glass before restocking. He nodded towards the wooden board. ‘When did that happen?’
‘Ach, last night.’ Bone placed the sliced corned beef in an unsullied section of the display case, then skewered the price marker into it. He wiped his hands on his white apron. ‘Kids or drunks.’
‘What was it, a brick?’
‘Search me.’
‘Well, if there was nothing lying in the shop it must have been a sledgehammer. I can’t see a kick with a steel toecap doing that sort of damage.’
Now Bone looked at him properly, and recognised him. ‘You were here when Rory . . .’
‘That’s right, Mr Bone. They didn’t use a sledgehammer on him though, did they?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Pound of beef links, by the way.’
Bone hesitated, then took out the string of sausages and cut a length from it.
‘You could be right, of course,’ Rebus continued. ‘Could have been kids or drunks. Did anyone see anything?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You didn’t report it?’
‘Didn’t have to. Police phoned me at two this morning to tell me about it.’ He sounded disgruntled.
‘All part of the service, Mr Bone.’
‘That’s just over the pound,’ Bone said, looking at the weighing scales. He wrapped the sausages in white paper, then in brown, marking the price with a pencil on this outer wrapper. Rebus handed over a five-pound note.
‘Insurance will take care of it, I suppose,’ he said.
‘Bloody hope so, the money they charge.’
Rebus accepted his change, and made sure to catch Bone’s eye. ‘But I meant the real insurance people, Mr Bone.’ An elderly couple were coming into the shop.
‘What happened, Mr Bone?’ the woman asked, her husband shuffling along behind her.
‘Just kids, Mrs Dowie,’ said Bone in the voice he used with customers, a voice he hadn’t been using with Rebus. He was staring at Rebus, who gave him a wink, picked up his package, and left. Outside, he looked down at the brown paper parcel. It was chill in his hand. He was supposed to be cutting down on meat, wasn’t he? Not that there was much meat in sausages anyway. Another passing shopper stopped to examine the boarded-up window, then went into the shop. Jim Bone would do good business today. Everyone would want to know what had happened. Rebus was different; he knew what had happened, though proving it wasn’t going to be easy. Siobhan Clarke hadn’t managed to talk to the stabbing victim yet. Maybe Rebus should push her along, especially now that she could tell Rory Kintoul all about his cousin’s broken window.
Next to his car someone had parked a Land Rover-style 4x4, inside which a huge black dog was ravening to get out. Pedestrians were giving the car a wide berth, and quite right too: the whole vehicle rocked on its axle when the dog lunged at the back window. Rebus noticed that the considerate owner had left the window open an inch. Maybe it was a trap intended for a particularly stupid car thief.
Rebus stopped in front of the open window and unrolled the package of sausages i
nto the car. They fell onto the seat where the dog sniffed them for a nanosecond before starting to dine.
The street was blessedly quiet as Rebus unlocked his own car.
‘All part of the service,’ he said to himself.
At the station, he telephoned the Heartbreak Cafe, where what sounded like a hastily recorded message told him the place would be shut ‘due to convalescence’. In Brian Holmes’ desk drawer, he found a print-out of names and phone numbers, those most often used by Holmes himself. Some numbers had been added at the bottom in blue biro, including one for Eddie Ringan marked (h).
Rebus returned to his desk and made the call. Pat Calder answered on the third ring.
‘Mr Calder, it’s DI Rebus.’
‘Oh.’ The hope left Calder’s voice.
‘No sign of him then?’
‘None.’
‘Right, let’s make it official, then. He’s a missing person. I’ll have someone come over and –’
‘Why can’t you come?’
Rebus thought about it. ‘No reason at all, sir.’
‘Make it anytime you like, we’re shut today.’
‘What happened to wonderchef Willie?’
‘We had a busy night, busier than usual.’
‘He cracked up?’
‘Came flying out of the kitchen yelling, “I’m the chef! I’m the chef!” Lifted some poor woman’s entrée and started eating it himself with his face in the bowl. I think he’d been taking drugs.’
‘Sounds like he was just doing a good impersonation of late-period Elvis. I’ll be there in half an hour, if that’s all right.’
Stockbridge’s ‘Colonies’ had been constructed to house the working poor, but were now much desired by young professional types. They were designed as maisonettes, with steep flights of stone stairs leading to the first floor properties. Rebus found the proportions mean in comparison with his Marchmont tenement. No high ceilings here, and no huge rooms with splendid windows and original shutters.
But he could see miners and their families being cosy here a hundred years ago. His own father had been born in a miners’ row in Fife. Rebus imagined it must have been very like this . . . at least on the outside.