by Ian Rankin
The night was delicious, perfect for a walk, and that’s what most people were enjoying. Too bad for the Fringe shows: who wanted to sit in an airless, dark theatre for two hours while the real show was outside, continuous and absolutely free?
Mairie turned left at the west end, heading up Lothian Road. The street was already reeling with drunks. They’d probably be heading for a curry house or pizza emporium. Later, they’d regret this move. You saw the evidence each morning on the pavements. Just past the Tollcross lights, Mairie signalled to cross the oncoming traffic. Rebus wondered where the hell she was headed. His question was soon answered. She parked by the side of the road and turned off her lights. Rebus hurried past while she was locking her door, then stopped at the junction ahead. There was no traffic coming, but he sat there anyway, watching in his rearview.
‘Well, well,’ he said as Mairie crossed the road and went into the Crazy Hose Saloon. He put the car into reverse, brought it back, and squeezed in a few cars ahead of Mairie. He looked across at the Crazy Hose. The sign above was yellow and red flashing neon, which must be fun for the people in the tenement outside which Rebus was parked. A short flight of steps led to the main doors, and on these steps stood two bouncers. The Hose’s wild west theme had passed the bouncers by, and they were dressed in regulation black evening suits, white shirts and black bow ties. Both had cropped hair to match their IQs, and held their hands behind their backs, swelling already prodigious chests. Rebus watched them open the doors for a couple of stetson-tipping cowpokes and their mini-dressed partners.
‘In for a dime, I suppose.’ He locked his car and walked purposefully across the road, trying to look like a man looking for a good time. The bouncers eyed him suspiciously, and did not open the door. Rebus decided he’d played enough games today, so he opened his ID and stuck it in the tallest bouncer’s face. He wondered if the man could read.
‘Police,’ he said helpfully. ‘Don’t I get the door opened for me?’
‘Only on your way out,’ the smaller bouncer said. So Rebus pulled open the door and went in. The admission desk had been done up like an old bank, with vertical wooden bars in front of the smiling female face.
‘Platinum Cowpoke Card,’ Rebus said, again showing his ID. Past the desk was a fair-sized hallway where people were playing one-armed bandits. There was a large crowd around an interactive video game, where some bearded actor on film invited you to shoot him dead if you were quick enough on the draw. Most of the kids in front of the machine were dressed in civvies, though a few sported cowboy boots and bootlace ties. Big belt-buckles seemed mandatory, and both males and females wore Levi and Wrangler denims with good-sized turn-ups. The toilets were out here too, always supposing you could work out which you were, a Honcho or Honchette.
A second set of doors led to the dance hall and four bars, one in each corner of the vast arena. Plenty of money had been spent on the decor, with the choicest pieces being spotlit behind Perspex high up out of reach on the walls. There was a life-size cigar-store Indian, a lot of native headdresses and jackets and the like, and what Rebus hoped was a replica of a Gatling-gun. Old western films played silently on a bank of TV screens set into one wall, and there was a bucking bronco machine against another wall. This was disused now, ever since a teenager had fallen from it and been put in a coma. They’d nearly shut the place down for that. Rebus didn’t like to think about why they hadn’t. He kept coming up with friends in the right places and money changing hands. There was something that looked like a font near one of the bars, but Rebus knew it was a spittoon. He noticed that the bar closest to it wasn’t doing great business.
Rebus wasn’t hard to pick out in a crowd. Although there were people there his own age, they were all wearing western dress to some degree, and they were nearly all dancing. There was a stage which was spotlit and full of instruments but empty of bodies. Instead the music came through the PA. A DJ in an enclosed box next to the stage babbled between songs; you could have heard him halfway to Texas.
‘Can I help you?’
Not hard to pick out in the crowd, and of course the bouncers had sent word to the floor manager. He was in his late-twenties with slick black hair and a rhinestone waistcoat. The accent was strictly Lothian.
‘Is Frankie in tonight?’ If Bothwell were in the dancehall, he’d have spotted him. Bothwell’s clothes would have drowned out the PA.
‘I’m in charge.’ The smile told Rebus he was as welcome as haemorrhoids at a rodeo.
‘Well, there’s no trouble, son, so I can put your mind at rest straight off. I’m just looking for a friend, only I didn’t fancy paying the admission.’
The manager looked relieved. You could see he hadn’t been in the job long. He’d probably been promoted from behind the bar. ‘My name’s Lorne Strang,’ he said.
‘And mine’s Lorne Sausage.’
Strang smiled. ‘My real name’s Kevin.’
‘Don’t apologise.’
‘Drink on the house?’
‘I’d rather drink on a bar-stool, if that’s all right with you.’
Rebus had given the dance floor a good look, and Mairie wasn’t there, which meant she was either trapped in the Honchettes’ or was somewhere behind the scenes. He wondered what she could be doing behind the scenes at Frankie Bothwell’s club.
‘So,’ said Kevin Strang, ‘who are you looking for?’
‘Like I say, a friend. She said she’d be here. Maybe I’m a bit late.’
‘The place is only just picking up now. We’re open another two hours. What’ll you have?’ They were at the bar. The bar staff wore white aprons covering chest and legs and gold-coloured bands around their sleeves to keep their cuffs out of the way.
‘Is that so they can’t palm any notes?’ asked Rebus.
‘Nobody cheats the bar here.’ One of the staff broke off serving someone to attend to Kevin Strang.
‘Just a beer, please,’ Rebus said.
‘Draught? We only serve half pints.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘There’s more profit in it.’
‘An honest answer. I’ll have a bottle of Beck’s.’ He looked back to the dance floor. ‘The last time I saw this many cowboys was at a builders’ convention.’
The record was fading out. Strang patted Rebus’s back. ‘That’s my cue,’ he said. ‘Enjoy yourself.’
Rebus watched him move through the dancers. He climbed onto the stage and tapped the microphone, sending a whump through the on-stage PA. Rebus didn’t know what he was expecting. Maybe Strang would call out the steps of the next barn dance. But instead all he did was speak in a quiet voice, so people had to be quiet to hear him. Rebus didn’t think Kevin Strang had much future as floor manager at the Crazy Hose.
‘Dudes and womenfolk, it’s a pleasure to see you all here at the Crazy Hose Saloon. And now, please welcome onto the Deadwood Stage our band for this evening’s hoedown . . . Chaparral!’
There was generous applause as the band emerged through a door at the back of the stage. A few of the arcade junkies had come in from the foyer. The band was a six-piece, barely squeezing onto the stage. Guitar/vocals, bass, drums, another guitar and two backing singers. They started into their first number a little shakily, but had warmed up by the end, by which time Rebus was finishing his drink and thinking about heading back to the car.
Then he saw Mairie.
No wonder she’d had a raincoat around her. Underneath she must have been wearing a tasselled black skirt, brown leather waistcoat, white blouse cut just above the chest and up around the shoulders, leaving a lot of bare flesh. She wasn’t wearing a stetson, but there was a red kerchief around her throat and she was singing her heart out.
She was one of the backing singers.
Rebus ordered another drink and gawped at the stage. After a few songs, he could differentiate between Mairie’s voice and that of the other backing singer. He noticed that most of the men were watching this singer. She was much taller than
Mairie and had long straight black hair, plus she was wearing a much shorter skirt. But Mairie was the better singer. She sang with her eyes closed, swaying from the hips, knees slightly bent. Her partner used her hands a lot, but didn’t gain much from it.
At the end of their fourth song, the male singer/guitarist gave a short spiel while the others in the band caught their breath, retuned, swigged drinks or wiped their faces. Rebus didn’t know about C&W, but Chaparral seemed pretty good. They didn’t just play mush about pet dogs, dying spouses or standing by your lover. Their songs had a harder, much urban feel, with lyrics to match.
‘And if you don’t know Hal Ketchum,’ the singer was saying, ‘you better get to know him. This is one of his, it’s called Small Town Saturday Night.’
Mairie took lead vocal, her partner patting a tambourine and looking on. At the end of the song, the cheers were loud. The singer came back to his mike and raised his arm towards Mairie.
‘Katy Hendricks, ladies and gentlemen.’ The cheers resumed while Mairie took her bow.
After this they started into their own material, two songs whose intention was always ahead of ability. The singer mentioned that both were available on the band’s first cassette, available to buy in the foyer.
‘We’re going to take a break now. So you can all go away for the next fifteen minutes, but be sure to come back.’
Rebus went into the foyer and dug six pounds out of his pocket. When he came back in, the band were at one of the bars, hoping to be bought drinks if half-time refreshments weren’t on the house. Rebus shook the cassette in Mairie’s ear.
‘Miss Hendricks, would you autograph this, please?’
The band looked at him and so did Mairie. She took him by the lapels and propelled him away from the bar.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Didn’t you know? I’m a big country and western fan.’
‘You don’t like anything but sixties rock, you told me so yourself. Are you following me?’
‘You sang pretty well.’
‘Pretty well? I was great.’
‘That’s my Mairie, never one to hide her light under a tumbleweed. Why the false name?’
‘You think I wanted those arseholes at the paper to find out?’ Rebus tried to imagine the Hose full of drunken journos cheering their singer-scribe.
‘No, I don’t suppose so.’
‘Anyway, everyone in the band uses an alias, it makes it harder for the DSS to find out they’ve been working.’ She pointed at the tape. ‘You bought that?’
‘Well, they didn’t hand it over as material evidence.’
She grinned. ‘You liked us then?’
‘I really did. I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m amazed.’
She was almost persuaded onto this tack, but not quite. ‘You still haven’t said why you’re following me.’
He put the tape in his pocket. ‘Millie Docherty.’
‘What about her?’
‘I think you know where she is.’
‘What?’
‘She’s scared, she needs help. She might just run to the reporter who’s being wanting to see her. Reporters have been known to hide their sources away, protect them.’
‘You think I’m hiding her?’
He paused. ‘Has she told you about the pennant?’
‘What pennant?’
Mairie had lost her cowgirl singer look. She was back in business.
‘The one on Billy Cunningham’s wall. Has she told you what he had hidden behind it?’
‘What?’
Rebus shook his head. ‘I’ll make a deal,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk to her together, that way neither of us is hiding anything. What do you say?’
The bassist handed Mairie an orange juice.
‘Thanks, Duane.’ She gulped it down until only ice was left. ‘Are you staying for the second set?’
‘Will it be worth my while?’
‘Oh yes, we do a cracking version of “Country Honk”.’
‘That’ll be the acid test.’
She smiled. ‘I’ll see you after the set.’
‘Mairie, do you know who owns this place?’
‘A guy called Boswell.’
‘It’s Bothwell. You don’t know him?’
‘Never met him. Why?’
The second set was paced like a foxtrot: two slow dances, two fast, then a slow, sad rendering of ‘Country Honk’ to end with. The floor was packed for the last dance, and Rebus was flattered when a woman a good few years younger than him asked him up. But then her man came back from the Honchos’, so that was the end of that.
As the band played a short upbeat encore, one fan climbed onstage and presented the backing singers with sheriff’s badges, producing the loudest cheer of the night as both women pinned them on their chests. It was a good natured crowd, and Rebus had spent worse evenings. He couldn’t see Patience enjoying it though.
When the band finished, they went back through the door they’d first appeared through. A few minutes later, Mairie reappeared, still dressed in all her gear and with the raincoat folded up in her shopping bag along with her flat-soled driving shoes.
‘So?’ Rebus said.
‘So let’s go.’
He started for the exit, but she was making towards the stage, gesturing for him to follow.
‘I don’t really want her to see me like this,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure the outfit conveys journalistic clout and professionalism. But I can’t be bothered changing.’
They climbed onto the stage, then through the door. It led into a low-ceilinged passage of broom closets, crates of empty bottles, and a small room where in the evening the band got ready and during the day the cleaner could stop for a cup of tea. Beyond this was a dark stairwell. Mairie found the light switch and started to climb.
‘Where exactly are we going?’
‘The Sheraton.’
Rebus didn’t ask again. The stairs were steep and twisting. They reached a landing where a padlocked door faced them, but Mairie kept climbing. At the second landing she stopped. There was another door, this time with no lock. Inside was a vast dark space, which Rebus judged to be the building’s attic. Light infiltrated from the street through a skylight and some gaps in the roof, showing the solid forms of rafters.
‘Watch you don’t bump your head.’
The roofspace, though huge, was stifling. It seemed to be filled with tea chests, ladders, stacks of cloth which might have been old firemen’s uniforms.
‘She’s probably asleep,’ Mairie whispered. ‘I found this place the first night we played here. Kevin said she could stay here.’
‘You mean Lorne? He knows?’
‘He’s an old pal, he got us this residency. I told him she was a friend who’d come up for the Fringe but had nowhere to stay. I said I had eight people in my flat as it was. That’s a lie by the way, I like my privacy. Where else was she going to stay? The city’s bursting at the seams.’
‘But what does she do all day?’
‘She can go downstairs and boil a kettle, there’s a loo there too. The club itself’s off limits, but she’s so scared I don’t think she’d risk it anyway.’
She had led them past enough obstacles for a game of crazy golf, and now they were close to the front of the building. There were some small window panes here, forming a long thin arch. They were filthy, but provided a little more light.
‘Millie? It’s only me.’ Mairie peered into the gloom. Rebus’s eyes had become accustomed to the dark, but even so there were places enough she could be hiding. ‘She’s not here,’ Mairie said. There was a sleeping bag on the floor: Rebus recognised it from the first time he’d met Millie. Beside it lay a torch. Rebus picked it up and switched it on. A paperback book lay face down on the floor.
‘Where’s her bag?’
‘Her bag?’
‘Didn’t she have a bag of stuff?’
‘Yes.’ Mairie looked around. ‘I don’t see it.’
‘She�
��s gone,’ said Rebus. But why would she leave the sleeping-bag, book and torch? He moved the beam around the walls. ‘This place is a junk shop.’ An old red rubberised fire-hose snaked cross the floor. Rebus followed it with the beam all the way to a pair of feet.
He moved the beam up past splayed legs to the rest of the body. She was propped against the corner in a sitting position. ‘Stay here,’ he ordered, approaching the body, trying to keep the torch steady. The fire-hose was coiled around Millie Docherty’s neck. Someone had tried strangling her with it, but they hadn’t succeeded. The perished rubber had snapped. So instead they’d taken the brass nozzle and stuffed it down her throat. It was still there, looking like the mouth of a funnel. And that’s what they’d used it as. Rebus put his nose close to the funnel and sniffed.
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought they’d used acid. They’d tipped it down into her while she’d been choking on the nozzle. If he looked closer, he’d see her throat burnt away. He didn’t look. He shone the torch on the floor instead. Her bag was lying there, its contents emptied onto the floorboards. There was something small and crumpled beside a wooden chest. He picked it up and flattened it out. It was the sleeve for a computer disk. Written on it were the letters SaS.
‘Looks like they got what they wanted,’ he said.
Nobody was dancing in the Crazy Hose Saloon.
Everyone had been sent home. Because the Hose was in Tollcross, it was C Division’s business. They’d sent officers out from Torphichen Place.
‘John Rebus,’ one of the CID men said. ‘You get around more than a Jehovah’s Witness.’
‘But I never try to sell you religion, Shug.’
Rebus watched DI Shug Davidson climb onto the stage and disappear through the door. They were all upstairs; the action was upstairs. They were setting up halogen lamps on tripods to assist the photographers. No key could be found for the first floor padlock, so they’d taken a sledgehammer to it. Rebus didn’t like to ask who or what they thought they’d find hidden behind a door padlocked from the outside. He doubted it would be germane to the case. Only one thing was germane, and it was standing at the bar near the spittoon, drinking a long cold drink. Rebus walked over.