by Ian Rankin
Yes, John Rebus had been here before.
He sat in his chair, lights out, and looked out of his window on to Arden Street, thinking of Maisie Finch, thinking of her mother and his own mother. There was frost on the roofs and bonnets of the parked cars. A group of students were laughing their way back to their digs. Rebus poured himself a whisky and told the students how lucky they were. Everybody out there was lucky. All the people sleeping rough, and bumming cigarettes, and plotting and scheming how to get ahead. Alister Flower, twisting and gnawing in his sleep; Gill Templer, still and unperturbed in hers; Frank Lauderdale, with an itch beneath his cast; Tresa McAnally, feet up in front of the TV; Kirstie Kennedy … wherever she was. They were all of them lucky.
Edinburgh was a lucky fucking town.
Two SHREDS
14
The following Tuesday, Rebus was at work uncharacteristically early.
But not so early as to be the first to arrive. Gill Templer was already there, her door ajar, fighting her way through paperwork. Rebus knocked and pushed the door open a little further.
‘You’re early,’ she said, rubbing her eyes.
‘What about you? Have you been here all night?’
‘It feels like it. That coffee smells good.’
‘Want me to fetch you one?’
‘No, just give me half of yours.’ She handed him a clean mug, and he poured half the contents of his beaker into it. Standing over the wastebasket, he was able to see what she’d been working on. She was trying to acquaint herself with every ongoing case, everything Frank Lauderdale had left behind.
‘Tall order,’ he said.
‘You can help.’
‘How’s that, boss?’
‘You’re slow to type up your notes. The McBrane case and the Pettiford especially. I’d like to see them this morning.’
‘Do you know how fast I type?’
‘Just do it.’
‘Would you settle for one out of two? I’ve a funeral on.’
‘I want them both by lunchtime, Inspector.’
Rebus looked back at the open door. There was still no one else around. ‘You know,’ he said quietly, ‘I’m going to start taking this personally.’
She looked up from her work. ‘What’s that?’
‘The way you’ve been treating me ever since you got here. Frankly, it stinks. At first I thought it was just for show, but I’m not so sure. I know you’ve got something to prove to everybody, but that doesn’t — ’
‘Tread carefully, Inspector.’
Rebus stared at her. Finally she looked down at the work in front of her. ‘Thanks for the coffee,’ she said quietly. ‘I still want those case-notes by lunchtime.’
So he went to his desk and worked on them. He didn’t like typing up case-notes, the hard slog of always using the right words, of getting everything right. No police officer liked it when a report which had been painstakingly prepared was sent back by the Procurator-fiscal because of some tiny flaw in the surface of the whole. You were waiting for news that the precognition was being prepared, and instead the case came back to you with a note — ‘unable to proceed as stands’.
The reporting officer — whose job was to liaise with the Crown — took most of the flak, and Rebus was RO on both the McBrane and Pettiford cases. It was his job to make a case that the Procurator-fiscal would accept. He supposed it was Gill Templer’s job to make sure he did the work, but her attitude still rankled. As far as he could gather, she’d been a far from popular choice as Frank Lauderdale’s replacement. If Lauderdale hadn’t been universally respected, at least he’d been a man; and more than that, he’d been ‘one of them’. Gill Templer had been brought in from Fife. And she was a woman. And she didn’t even play golf.
The female officers seemed happy enough — the ill-feeling was among the males only. Siobhan Clarke, Rebus had noticed, had a new spring in her step, working under a woman. Maybe she saw in Gill Templer a future that could be hers. But Gill would have to step carefully. Traps would be laid for her. She’d have to be careful who she trusted. Rebus had so far given her the benefit of the doubt, reckoning she was being hard on him because she couldn’t afford to be soft.
So far it looked like a one-way street.
He took his finished notes to her office, only to discover she was in conference with Farmer Watson. He left them prominently on her desk instead, and went to the washroom to change his tie, removing the blue one and replacing it with black. Brian Holmes came in as Rebus was checking himself in the mirror.
‘Off to a party then?’
‘In a manner of speaking, Brian. In a manner of speaking.’
Certainly, there was enough booze in the kitchenette to start a fair old hootenanny, but this was a wake rather than a celebration.
By the time Rebus got to Tresa McAnally’s flat, the place was bursting at the seams with middle-aged men and women and their disgruntled offspring, plus a few older souls who had the honour of being given chairs to sit on. And in the middle of the living room, dressed top to toe in black but with red gloss fingernails, sat the widow. The curtains were closed, as were those of the neighbouring flats — a sign of solidarity. The Scots always rallied round for a send-off.
Rebus squeezed his way through the whispering throng, and held out his hand. ‘Mrs McAnally,’ he said.
She took his hand and exerted the minimum of pressure. ‘Good of you to come.’
Then he was off again, backpedalling before she could turn to someone and say, ‘This is the policeman who went to the school, he saw Wee Shug flat out on the floor and missing half his head.’ Normally at these occasions the men retreated to the kitchen and got stuck into the whisky. But here there was only the kitchenette, separated from the living area by nothing more than a breakfast-bar. So the men had crammed themselves into the kitchenette, for all the world like a rush-hour busful. They passed around clean glasses, and then the whisky. Tumblers of sweet and dry sherry were passed out to the ladies. Soft drinks for the younger mourners, though you didn’t have to be too old to qualify for a nip of the harder stuff.
Rebus took a glassful and toasted the small man next to him. The man was in his seventies, and wore a wartime charcoal-and-chalkine suit. He had a pinched face and kept moving his lips, pursing and puckering them. When he spoke, it was in an undertone.
‘Here’s to you then, son.’
‘Slainte.’ They drank for a moment, savouring the cheap whisky. Savouring was better than having to talk, one reason why so much whisky was consumed at funerals.
‘The hearse gets here in ten minutes,’ the man informed Rebus.
‘Right.’ A closed casket of course; Tresa McAnally had been denied a final peek at her husband’s blasted remains.
‘Here’s the minister.’
There was nothing wrong with the old guy’s eyesight, despite the thick smeary lenses in his glasses. Rebus watched the minister as he moved through the room towards Tresa McAnally. He wore black, with the white dog-collar, and as he moved the crush of mourners parted before him. Ministers didn’t make friends, not easily; they were like cops that way. People were always afraid they’d say the wrong thing in front of them. They had a skill though, these men of the cloth: they could conduct a conversation while remaining inaudible to all but the person they addressed.
The old man was unscrewing another whisky bottle, different brand. ‘She’s made the flat nice, hasn’t she? I haven’t been here for a couple of years.’
Rebus nodded, noticing that the huge TV set had been moved out to make more space. He guessed it was in the bedroom. He scanned the male mourners again, looking for old lags, known faces, looking for someone who could have procured a shotgun for Wee Shug.
‘Oh aye,’ the old man went on, ‘it’s lovely now. New carpets and wallpaper, really nice.’
And new TV, Rebus thought. New front door, and bedroom fittings that didn’t exactly look superannuated. Money: where the hell had the money come from?
&nb
sp; ‘New carpet in the hall, too,’ the man was saying. He lowered his voice still further. ‘I suppose she did it for Wee Shug. You know, to make his coming home a bit more welcome. I mean, after a jail cell you want something nice.’
Rebus looked at the man more closely. ‘Served time yourself?’
‘A long time ago, son. Back in the fifties. Saughton was a different place then, everything was different. And mind, I’m not saying it was worse.’ Their drinks replenished, he screwed the top back on and passed the bottle to the next man along. Rebus wondered how many more old lags there were in the crush around him. Then he saw someone else coming into the room, and he stopped with his glass half an inch from his mouth.
She was dressed in black, a small woman with a pillbox hat and a short veil which covered her eyes but not her mouth. And behind her, much taller, a younger woman wearing a simple navy suit, low-cut and tight at the hips. It looked the sort of thing you would wear a blouse under, but Maisie Finch wasn’t wearing a blouse, or anything else beneath it that Rebus could see.
For now though, he was more interested in the woman with her. It was Helena Profitt. Rebus turned towards the draining-board, where a rubicund man, hot and jacketless and sporting bright red braces, was dispensing the drinks.
‘Give us a couple of sherries,’ Rebus murmured in the man’s direction. The order was passed along and a few moments later Rebus had his sherries. He left his own whisky on the breakfast-bar and carried them into the living room.
Helena Profitt was having a muted conversation with Tresa McAnally, so Rebus tapped Maisie Finch on the shoulder. When she turned towards him, he handed her the glasses.
‘Thanks.’ She sniffed the contents before handing one glass on to Helena Profitt.
‘Funny,’ Rebus said, ‘you never mentioned knowing Miss Profitt.’
She smiled, then took a sip of sherry and screwed up her face.
‘Too sweet?’
‘It’s loupin’. Is there anything else?’
‘Whisky, dark rum, soft drinks. Maybe some vodka.’
‘A voddy would slip down.’ She surveyed the scrum in the kitchenette and changed her mind, draining the glass.
‘So,’ Rebus said in an undertone, ‘how do you know Helena Profitt?’
‘Same way most folk in this room do.’ She smiled again and turned to the widow. ‘Tresa, hen, mind if I smoke?’ The packet was already out of her pocket.
‘Go ahead, Maisie.’ A pause. ‘It’s what Wee Shug would have wanted. He liked a ciggie himself.’
Taking their signal from this, a lot of hands reached into pockets and handbags. Packs were opened, handed round. Rebus took one from Maisie, and she lit it for him.
‘Nice lighter,’ he said.
‘It was a present.’ She looked at the slim onyx and gold lighter before returning it to her pocket.
‘So,’ Rebus said, ‘Miss Profitt used to live in the tenement?’
‘Floor below this.’
As more people arrived and had to offer their condolences, or else needed to say goodbye before leaving, Rebus and Maisie found themselves moved away from the widow and Miss Profitt. They ended up by the mantelpiece. Rebus picked up a bereavement card. It was signed simply, ‘From all Shug’s pals in Saughton. We shall remember him.’
‘Touching,’ Maisie Finch said.
‘Either that or a bit sick.’
‘How’s that, Inspector?’ He noted she said ‘Inspector’ quite loudly. The nearest mourners looked him up and down, and he knew word would now go around.
‘Depends why he killed himself,’ he said. ‘Maybe it had something to do with Saughton.’
‘Tresa tells me he had the big C.’
‘That’s only one possible reason.’ He found her eyes. ‘I can think of others.’
She looked away, almost casual. ‘Such as?’
‘Guilt, shame, embarrassment.’
She smiled sourly. ‘Not in Shug McAnally’s vocabulary.’
‘Self-pity?’
‘That’d be more like it.’
Rebus saw a pillbox hat and veil moving towards the door. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said.
Helena Profitt was at the front door when he caught her.
‘Miss Profitt?’ She turned to him. ‘I think we’d better talk.’
He led her into the McAnallys’ bedroom.
‘Can’t it wait?’ she asked, looking around her, not liking the surroundings.
Rebus shook his head. The TV was in here sure enough, giving them a narrow aisle to move about in. ‘You’ve been avoiding me,’ he said.
She sighed. ‘Tom told me he’d told you.’
‘You recognised Mr McAnally that night?’
‘Of course I did.’
‘Did he recognise you?’
She nodded. ‘I’m certain he did.’
‘Did he know beforehand that you were close to the councillor?’
Now she stared at him through her veil. ‘What do you mean “close”? I’m his ward secretary, that’s all.’
‘That’s all I meant.’
‘How could he have known? No, I don’t think he knew.’ She suddenly saw what he was getting at. ‘His suicide had nothing to do with me!’
‘We have to check these things. Why didn’t you say anything at the time?’
‘I …’ She sat down on the edge of the bed, hands in her lap, then stood up again abruptly. Rebus watched the bedcover float, finding its level. It was a waterbed. Disconcerted, Helena Profitt patted her hat and tugged at her veil. It didn’t make much of a hiding place.
‘Is it to do with Maisie Finch?’ Rebus asked.
She thought about it, then nodded solemnly before bursting into a fit of loud sobbing. Rebus touched her shoulder, but she spun away from him. A mourner opened the door and looked in. Rebus got the feeling there were others out there, all wanting to see the tears.
‘She’ll be all right,’ he said, closing the door firmly. Helena Profitt had brought a hankie out of her sleeve and was blowing her nose. Rebus offered her his own handkerchief, and she used it to dab at her eyes. There was eyeshadow on the white cotton when she handed it back. The door was pushed open again. The man with the red braces stood there.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing,’ Rebus said.
The man glowered. ‘We know who you are. Maybe you’d better leave.’
‘What are you going to do — throw me out?’
The sweaty face creased in a sneer. ‘You lot are all the same.’
‘And so are you lot.’ Rebus pushed the door hard until it closed. He turned back to Helena Profitt.
‘What is it you’re not saying?’ he asked solicitously. ‘It’ll come out eventually, you know.’
‘I moved out of this tenement four years ago,’ she said. ‘I’ve only been back a couple of times since. I should come more often. Maisie’s mother misses my little visits …’
Four years ago. ‘After McAnally raped Maisie?’ he guessed.
She breathed deeply a few times to calm herself. ‘You know, we didn’t do anything, none of us. We all heard a scream — I know I heard it — but nobody phoned for the police. Not until Maisie ran into Tresa’s. It was Tresa herself who phoned, to say her own husband had just raped their next door neighbour’s girl. We heard the scream, but we just went on minding our own business.’ She wiped her nose again. ‘Isn’t that typical of this bloody city?’
Rebus remembered the words he’d used so recently: guilt, shame, embarrassment.
‘You felt ashamed?’ he offered.
‘You bet I did. I couldn’t stand to live here any longer.’
He nodded. ‘Are you surprised Maisie stayed on, knowing McAnally would be back?’
She shook her head. ‘Maisie’s mum would never move. Besides, Maisie and Tresa, they’ve always been close, especially so since the …’
Rebus tried to imagine walking out of prison and into a situation like that. How much closer had Tresa and the younger woman gro
wn in McAnally’s absence?
‘Tell me what happened that night.’
‘What?’ She tucked the hankie back into her sleeve.
‘The night of the assault.’
‘What’s it to you?’ Her cheeks were reddening with anger. ‘It’s none of your business. It’s long past, long forgotten.’
‘Forgotten, Miss Profitt?’ Rebus shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, not by a long chalk.’
Then he turned from her and left the room.
He looked into the living room. Smoke hung in the air like winter fog. He saw Maisie, perched on the arm of the widow’s fat armchair, one slim leg crossed over the other. She was holding Tresa McAnally’s hand and giving it a pat, and Tresa, head bowed, was listening to whatever Maisie was telling her. Listening to it, and managing to smile. Rebus would have called Tresa McAnally ‘feisty’; maybe even ‘brassy’. But neither description fitted her just now. Maybe it was just the circumstances, the funeral, but he didn’t think so.
‘Car’s here,’ someone at the window said, meaning that the hearse was arriving. The minister got to his feet to say a few words, a tumbler of whisky in one hand, cheeks redder than they had been. Rebus pushed his way back into the hall, slipped out of the open door, and made his way down the tenement stairs. The man in the braces leaned over the guard-rail.
‘I hope we meet again, pal, some place where there are no witnesses.’
The threat echoed down the stairwell. Rebus kept walking. When he drove off, he left a space kerbside for the hearse.
15
Rebus wasn’t the only one interested in Shug McAnally’s suicide. He’d read the newspaper article, scanning it quickly first to see if he was mentioned. He wasn’t, which was a relief. Mairie Henderson’s was one of three names sharing the by-line. It was impossible to see where her contribution started and ended except, of course, that she’d interviewed Rebus’s daughter Sammy; and though Sammy wasn’t mentioned by name, the outfit she worked for was: Scottish Welfare for Ex-Prisoners, or SWEEP as it preferred to be known.