Authors: Ian Rankin
The steps down to the garden flat were worn and slippery. Rebus took them carefully, and so was slow to notice the large sports holdall which, illuminated by the orange street-lamp, was sitting on the rattan mat outside the front door of the flat. It was his bag. He unzipped it and looked in. On top of some clothes and a pair of shoes there was a note. He read it through twice.
Don’t bother trying the door, I’ve bolted it. I’ve also disconnected the doorbell, and the phone is off the hook for the weekend. I’ll leave another load of your stuff on the front step Monday morning.
The note needed no signature. Rebus whistled a long breathy note, then tried his key in the lock. It didn’t budge. He pressed the doorbell. No sound. As a last resort, he crouched down and peered in through the letterbox. The hall was in darkness, no sign of light from any of the rooms.
‘Something came up,’ he called. No response. ‘I tried phoning, I couldn’t get through.’ Still nothing. He waited a few more moments, half-expecting Jenny at least to break the silence. Or Susan, she was a right stirrer of trouble. And a heartbreaker too, by the look of her. ‘Bye, Patience,’ he called. ‘Bye, Susan. Bye, Jenny.’ Still silence. ‘I’m sorry.’
He truly was.
‘Just one of those weeks,’ he said to himself, picking up the bag.
On Sunday morning, in weak sunshine and a snell wind, Andrew McPhail sneaked back into Edinburgh. He’d been away a long time, and the city had changed. Everywhere and everything had changed. He was still jetlagged from several days ago, and poorer than he should have been due to London’s inflated prices. He walked from the bus station to the Broughton area of town, just off Leith Walk. It wasn’t a long walk, but every step seemed heavy, though his bags were light. He’d slept badly on the bus, but that was nothing new: he couldn’t remember when he’d last had a good night’s sleep, sleep without dreams.
The sun looked as though it might disappear at any minute. Thick clouds were pushing in over Leith. McPhail tried to walk faster. He had an address in his pocket, the address of a boarding house. He’d phoned last night, and his landlady was expecting him. She sounded nice on the phone, but it was difficult to tell. He wouldn’t mind, no matter what she was like, so long as she kept quiet. He knew that his leaving Canada had been in the Canadian newspapers, and even in some of the American ones, and he supposed that journalists here would be after him for a story. He’d been surprised at slipping so quietly into Heathrow. No one seemed to know who he was, and that was good.
He wanted nothing but a quiet life, though perhaps not as quiet as a few of the past years.
He’d phoned his sister from London and asked her to check directory enquiries for a Mrs MacKenzie in the Bellevue area. (Directory enquiries in London hadn’t gone out of their way to help.) Melanie and her mother had lodged with Mrs MacKenzie when he’d first met them, before they moved in together. Alexis was a single parent, a DSS case. Mrs MacKenzie had been a more sympathetic landlady than most. Not that he’d ever visited Melanie and her mum there – Mrs MacKenzie wouldn’t have liked it.
She didn’t take lodgers much these days, but she was a good Christian and McPhail was persuasive.
He stood outside the house. It was a plain two-storey construction finished off in grey pebbledash and ugly double glazing. It looked just the same as the houses either side of it. Mrs MacKenzie answered the door as though she’d been ready for him for some time. She fussed about in the living room and kitchen, then led him upstairs to show him the bathroom, and then finally his own bedroom. It was no larger than a prison cell, but had been nicely decorated (sometime in the mid-1960s, he’d guess). It was fine, he’d no complaints.
‘It’s lovely,’ he told Mrs MacKenzie, who shrugged her shoulders as if to say, of course it is.
‘There’s tea in the pot,’ she said. ‘I’ll just go make us a cuppy.’ Then she remembered something. ‘No cooking in the room, mind.’
Andrew McPhail shook his head. ‘I don’t cook,’ he said. She thought of something else and crossed to the window, where the net curtains were still closed.
‘Here, I’ll open these. You can open a window too, if you want some fresh air.’
‘Fresh air would be nice,’ he agreed. They both looked out of the window down onto the street.
‘It’s quiet,’ she said. ‘Not too much traffic. Of course, there’s always a wee bit of noise during the day.’
McPhail could see what she was referring to: there was an old school building across the road with a black iron fence in front of it. It wasn’t a large school, probably primary. McPhail’s window looked down onto the school gates, just to the right of the main building. Directly behind the gates was the deserted playground.
‘I’ll get that tea,’ said Mrs MacKenzie. When she’d gone, McPhail placed his cases on the springy single bed. Beside the bed was a small writing desk and chair. He lifted the chair and placed it in front of the window, then sat down. He moved a small glass clown further along the sill so that he could rest his chin where it had been. Nothing obscured his view. He sat there in a dream, looking at the playground, until Mrs MacKenzie called to him that the tea was in the living room. ‘And a Madeira cake, too.’ Andrew McPhail got up with a sigh. He didn’t really want the tea now, but he supposed he could always bring it up to his room and leave it untouched till later. He felt tired, bone tired, but he was home and something told him that tonight he would sleep the sleep of the dead.
‘Coming, Mrs MacKenzie,’ he called, tearing his gaze away from the school.
On Monday morning word went around St Leonard’s police station that Inspector John Rebus was in an impressively worse mood than usual. Some found this hard to believe, and were almost willing to get close enough to Rebus to find out for themselves … almost.
Others had no choice.
DS Brian Holmes and DC Siobhan Clarke, seated with Rebus in their sectioned-off chunk of the CID room, had the look of people who were resting their backsides on soft-boiled eggs.
‘So,’ Rebus was saying, ‘what about Rory Kintoul?’
‘He’s out of hospital, sir,’ said Siobhan Clarke.
Rebus nodded impatiently. He was waiting for her to put a foot wrong. It wasn’t because she was English, or a graduate, or had wealthy parents who’d bought her a flat in the New Town. It wasn’t because she was a she. It was just Rebus’s way of dealing with young officers.
‘And he’s still not talking,’ said Holmes. ‘He won’t say what happened, and he’s certainly not pressing any charges.’
Brian Holmes looked tired. Rebus noticed this from the corner of his eye. He didn’t want to make eye-contact with Holmes, didn’t want Holmes to realise that they now had something in common.
Both had been kicked out by their girlfriends.
It had happened to Holmes just over a month ago. As Holmes revealed later, once he’d moved in with an aunt in Barnton, it was all to do with children. He hadn’t realised how strongly Nell wanted a baby, and had started to joke about it. Then one day, she’d blown up – an awesome sight – and kicked him out, watched by most of the female neighbours in their mining village south of Edinburgh. Apparently the women neighbours had applauded as Holmes scurried off.
Now, he was working harder than ever. (This also had been a cause of strife between the couple: her hours were fairly regular, his anything but.) He reminded Rebus of a frayed and faded pair of work denims, not far from the end of their life.
‘What are you saying?’ Rebus asked.
‘I’m saying I think we should drop it, sir, with all respect.’
‘“With all respect”, Brian? That’s what people say when they mean “you fucking idiot”.’ Rebus still wasn’t looking at Holmes, but he could feel the young man blushing. Clarke was looking down at her lap.
‘Listen,’ said Rebus, ‘this guy, he staggers a couple of hundred yards with a two-inch gash in his gut. Why?’ No answer was forthcoming. ‘Why,’ Rebus persisted, ‘does he walk past a dozen shops, only stopping at his cousin’s?’
‘Maybe he was making for a doctor’s, but had to stop,’ Clarke suggested.
‘Maybe,’ said Rebus dismissively. ‘Funny that he can make it into his
cousin’s
shop, though.’
‘You think it’s something to do with the cousin, sir?’
‘Let me ask the both of you something else.’ Rebus stood up and took a few paces, then retraced his steps, catching Holmes and Clarke exchanging a glance. It set Rebus wondering. At first, there had been sparks between them, sparks of antagonism. But now they were working well together. He just hoped the relationship didn’t go further than that. ‘Let me ask you this,’ he said. ‘What do we know about the victim?’
‘Not much,’ said Holmes.
‘He lives in Dalkeith,’ Clarke offered. ‘Works as a lab technician in the Infirmary. Married, one son.’ She shrugged.
‘That’s it?’ asked Rebus.
‘That’s it, sir.’
‘Exactly,’ said Rebus. ‘He’s nobody, a nothing. Not one person we’ve talked to has had a bad word to say about him. So tell me this: how did he end up getting stabbed? And in the middle of a Wednesday morning? If it had been a mugger, surely he’d tell us about it. As it is, he’s clammed up as tight as an Aberdonian’s purse at a church collection. He’s got something to hide. Christ knows what, but it involves a car.’
‘How do you work that out, sir?’
‘The blood starts at the kerb, Holmes. Looks to me like he got out of a car and at that point he was already wounded.’
‘He drives, sir, but doesn’t own a car at present.’
‘Smart girl, Clarke.’ She prickled at ‘girl’, but Rebus was talking again. ‘And he’d taken a half day off work without telling his wife.’ He sat down again. ‘Why, why, why? I want the two of you to have another go at him. Tell him we’re not happy with his lack of a story. If he can’t think of one, we’ll pester him till he does. Let him know we mean business.’ Rebus paused. ‘And after that, do a check on the butcher.’
‘Chop chop, sir,’ commented Holmes. He was saved by the phone ringing. Rebus picked up the receiver. Maybe it would be Patience.
‘DI Rebus.’
‘John, can you come to my office?’
It wasn’t Patience, it was the Chief Super. ‘Two minutes, sir,’ said Rebus, putting down the phone. Then, to Holmes and Clarke: ‘Get onto it.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You think I’m making too much of this, Brian?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, maybe I am. But I don’t like a mystery, no matter how small. So bugger off and satisfy my curiosity.’
As they rose, Holmes nodded towards the large suitcase which Rebus had placed behind his desk, supposedly out of view. ‘Something I should know about?’
‘Yes,’ said Rebus. ‘It’s where I keep all my graft payments. Yours still probably fit in your back pooch.’ Holmes didn’t look like budging, though Clarke had already retreated to her own desk. Rebus expelled air and lowered his voice. ‘I’ve just joined the ranks of the dispossessed.’ Holmes’ face became animated. ‘Not a bloody word, mind. This is between you and me.’
‘Understood.’ Holmes thought of something. ‘You know, most evenings I eat at the Heartbreak Cafe …’
‘I’ll know where to find you then, if I ever need to hear any early Elvis.’
Holmes nodded. ‘And Vegas Elvis too. All I mean is, if there’s anything I can do …’
‘You could start by disguising yourself as me and trotting along to see Farmer Watson.’
But Holmes was shaking his head. ‘I meant anything within reason.’
Within reason. Rebus wondered if it was within reason to be asking the students to put up with him sleeping on the sofa while his brother slept in the box room. Maybe he should offer to lower the rent. When he’d arrived at the flat unannounced on Friday night, three of the students and Michael had been sitting cross-legged on the floor rolling joints and listening to mid-period Rolling Stones. Rebus stared in horror at the cigarette papers in Michael’s hand.
‘For fuck’s sake, Mickey!’ So at last Michael Rebus had elicited a reaction from his big brother. The students at least had the grace to look like the criminals they were. ‘You’re lucky,’ Rebus told them all, ‘that at this exact second I don’t give a shit.’
‘Go on, John,’ said Michael, offering a half-smoked cigarette. ‘It can’t do any harm.’
‘That’s what I mean.’ Rebus drew a bottle of whisky out of the carrier-bag he was holding. ‘But this can.’
He had proceeded to spend the final hours of the evening sprawled across the sofa supping whisky and singing along to any old record that was put on the turntable. He’d spent much of the weekend in the same spot, too. The students hadn’t seemed to mind, though he’d made them put away the drugs for the duration. They cleaned the flat around him, with Michael pitching in, and everyone trooped out to the pub on Saturday night leaving Rebus with the TV and some cans of beer. It didn’t look as though Michael had told the students about his prison record; Rebus hoped he’d keep it that way. Michael had offered to move out, or at least give his brother the box room, but Rebus refused. He wasn’t sure why.
On Sunday he went to Oxford Terrace, but there didn’t seem to be anyone home, and his key still wouldn’t open the door. So either the lock had been changed or Patience was hiding in there somewhere, going through her own version of cold turkey with the kids for company.
Now he stood outside Farmer Watson’s door and looked down at himself. Sure enough, when he’d gone to Oxford Terrace this morning Patience had left a suitcase of stuff for him outside the door. No note, just the case. He’d changed into the clean suit in the police station toilets. It was a bit crumpled but no more so than anything he usually wore. He hadn’t a tie to match, though: Patience had included two horrible brown ties (were they really
his
?) along with the dark blue suit. Brown ties don’t make it. He knocked once on the door before opening it.
‘Come in, John, come in.’ It seemed to Rebus that the Farmer too was having trouble making St Leonard’s fit his ways. The place just didn’t feel right. ‘Take a seat.’ Rebus looked around for a chair. There was one beside the wall, loaded high with files. He lifted these off and tried to find space for them on the floor. If anything, the Chief Super had less space in his office than Rebus himself. ‘Still waiting for those bloody filing cabinets,’ he admitted. Rebus swung the chair over to the desk and sat down.