10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (228 page)

‘Did you say a company?’

‘Eh?’ Dougary’s attention was already turning towards the TV. Rebus hauled him off the stool and out of the door,
into the chill, dark street. Traffic rumbled past on Castle Street.

‘It’s freezing out here!’ Dougary protested.

‘Just tell me.’ Dougary looked longingly towards the pub door. ‘Tell me here,’ Rebus persisted.

‘Remember when I worked for that semiconductor company?’

‘It was called Mensung?’

‘It wasn’t called any such thing. But it had this policy of trying to retrain workers it turfed out.’

‘So?’

‘So I was a turfee, and there was this agency, outplacement sort of thing. The agency ran seminars, or was supposed to. It was supposed to have all these fancy retraining schemes and programmes, half of which never materialised.
That
bunch of cowboys was called Mensung.’

‘Is it still around?’

Dougary shrugged. ‘I’ve been laid off twice since, and never come across it again.’

‘Where was it based?’

‘By the Playhouse, top of Leith Walk.’

‘Do you still have any information on it, anything in writing?’

Dougary stared at him. ‘I’d have to check with my secretary.’ The irony was so heavy, you could hear it fall.

Rebus smiled. ‘Stupid question, Donny. Sorry.’

‘Can I go back in now?’

‘Sure.’

‘Is anything wrong?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You called me Donny instead of Salty.’

‘It’s your name, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose it is,’ said Dougary, pushing open the door.

One of the reasons Rebus drank was to put him to sleep.

He had trouble sleeping when sober. He’d stare into the darkness, willing it to form shapes so that he might better understand it. He’d try to make sense of life – his early disastrous Army years; his failed marriage; his failings as father, friend, lover – and end up in tears. And if he did eventually stumble into sober sleep, there would be troubled dreams, dreams about ageing and dying, decay and blight. The dark took on shapes in his dreams, but he daren’t look at them. He’d run blindly instead, sometimes bumping into them, feeling the darkness mould itself around him.

Drunk, his sleep was dreamless, or seemed that way on waking. He might be drenched in sweat, but he wouldn’t be shaking. So he always tried to have a few drinks last thing at night, usually in his chair – and since he was already comfortable, what was the point of getting up and going through to the bedroom?

He was in the chair, dead to the world, when the buzzer sounded. He sat up and switched on the lamp, then blinked his eyes open to check his watch. It was one-thirty. He staggered into the hall like he was learning to walk, and unhooked the intercom.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s Patience.’

‘Patience?’ Without thinking, he buzzed her up, then went back into the living room to put on his trousers.
When he got back to the door, she had almost reached his landing. She walked slowly, with purpose. Her head was bowed, eyes on the steps, not looking at him. Her hair was unbrushed.

‘What’s happened?’

She stood directly in front of him, and he could see how angry she was. She was so angry, she was preternaturally calm.

‘I was lying in bed,’ she said quietly, ‘and I don’t know what happened . . . I suddenly saw it.’

‘What?’

‘You know Lucky’s dead?’

‘Yes, I’m sorry.’

She nodded to herself. ‘Well, thanks for being there for me, I appreciate that. I was thinking, that’s pretty cold-hearted, even for him. Sammy told me she’d told you. I wondered why you hadn’t been in touch, and then I remembered. Stupid of me to forget. You were there on Sunday. You were sitting right next to the conservatory door.’ Her voice grew even quieter. ‘You locked Lucky out.’

‘Patience, I –’

‘
Didn’t you
?’

‘Look, it’s late, why don’t –’

‘
Didn’t you
?’

‘Christ, I don’t know . . . all right, yes, if it makes you feel any better.’ He rubbed a hand over his face. ‘Yes, the racket he was making was driving me mental, so I locked the flap and then forgot. I’m sorry.’

She had opened the shoulder bag and was lifting out a smaller plastic bag. ‘This is for you.’ And as he put out a hand to take the bag, she slapped him hard on the left cheek. Then she turned and started downstairs.

‘Patience!’

She didn’t even pause. She just kept on going. He held up the bag, then opened it and looked inside.

It was just some bits and pieces, that was all.

Bits and pieces of Lucky the cat.

In the morning, he took the bag out to the back garden.

The garden was actually a shared drying-green, with a flower border tended by Mrs Cochrane on the floor below Rebus. Just inside the back door of the tenement was a padlocked walk-in cupboard. It was communal storage space, only Rebus didn’t have anything he wanted communally stored. But he unlocked the door and lifted out the spade which had belonged to dear departed Mr Cochrane.

He sat the plastic bag down next to the flower border, looked around and up at the windows to see nobody was watching, then raised the shovel.

When it hit soil, he felt the collision all the way from his wrists to his spine. He tried again, and chipped away a sliver of frozen earth. He stooped to pick up his prize. It was like toffee, frozen toffee.

‘Jesus,’ he said, trying again. He could see his breath in the air. In the tenement across the back, someone making breakfast had come to their kitchen window. It wasn’t daylight yet, but Rebus knew they could see him clearly enough.

It was all the exposure he needed to convince him he should give up.

Instead, he drove to the Cowgate, parked the car, and carried the bag with him into the City Mortuary.

‘Inspector,’ one of the staff said. ‘What can we do for you today?’

Rebus handed over the bag, said thank you, and left.

He’d arranged to meet Holmes and Clarke in a trendy café near the university, but the place hadn’t opened for the
day, so they walked along to Nicolson Street and found a clean, well-lit coffee shop.

He asked them how things were at St Leonard’s. They reckoned they were still under close scrutiny, but they could cope.

‘Good,’ he said, ‘because I’ve got something else I want you to do for me. I want to know about a company. It probably no longer exists, but it was around in ’86–’87.’

‘A limited company?’

‘No idea.’

‘Directors?’

Rebus just shrugged. ‘About all I can tell you is that it was called Mensung.’

Clarke and Holmes looked at one another. ‘The councillor’s file?’ they said as one.

‘It was a retraining company, not a very good one apparently. It had premises at the top of Leith Walk, next to the Playhouse. I want you to check Companies House, any registers you can find, any lists of retraining companies in Scotland.’ He nodded to the waitress that they were ready to order. ‘Now don’t stint yourselves,’ he told them. ‘Believe me, you’re going to earn this meal.’

He checked Leith Walk himself.

Next to the Playhouse was a pub, and then a newsagent’s, but between them was a door, not quite shut. There were a couple of business plaques on the wall outside, and spaces where other plaques had been removed. Rebus pushed open the door, noting that it was none too steady on its hinges, and entered an unlit hallway smelling worse than many a bar’s convenience. The stone steps up were deeply worn, the walls decorated with graffiti.

On the first floor, he was met by two solid doors, one with a card pinned to it saying Combined Knitwear, the other with a much older-looking nameplate: J Joseph
Simpson Associates. Rebus climbed to the second floor, but the doors here were anonymous and heavily padlocked. He went back down to the first floor and knocked on the door of Simpson Associates, then pushed the door open.

He was in a hallway, much like his own flat’s. Rooms led off, and there was a Reception sign pointing into one of them. The door was already open, so Rebus walked in. Seated behind desk and typewriter, an elderly man was on the telephone. Rebus was not totally surprised to see a male secretary, but he’d never come across such a superannuated one. Paperwork slewed across desk, chairs, and the carpet.

The man looked startled by Rebus’s entry, and slammed the phone down.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Rebus said.

‘Quite all right, quite all right.’ The man made show of gathering up some of the sheets of paper. ‘Now, what can I do for you, sir?’

The man reminded Rebus of Charles Laughton. He was rotund, with several chins, and had puffy, worried eyes with blotched shiny skin. He wore a suit which had been in fashion forty years before, including waistcoat and watch-chain. It struck Rebus for a moment that he would pass for Sir Iain Hunter’s bloated and seedy elder brother.

Rebus showed his ID. ‘Inspector Rebus, sir. I’m interested in a company that used to have its offices here.’

‘Here?’

‘In this building. About eight years ago, were you here then?’

‘Most certainly.’

‘The company was called Mensung.’

‘Curious name.’ The man repeated it silently a few times. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I can’t say I’ve heard of it.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Completely sure.’

‘Maybe if I could have a word with your employer?’

The man smiled. ‘I
am
my employer. Joe Simpson at your service.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Simpson.’

‘You thought I was the secretary?’ Simpson looked amused. ‘Well, I suppose I am at that. My last secretary left after only two days. Hopeless, these girls the agency sends. It’s all hours with them, don’t ever try to get them to stay a minute later than five o’clock.’ He shook his head.

‘You don’t know who your secretary was eight years ago, Mr Simpson?’

Joe Simpson wagged a finger. ‘You think her memory might be better than my own, but you’d be wrong. Besides, I’ve no idea. There have been so many women at this desk.’ He shook his head again.

‘So, Mr Simpson, eight years ago, what companies were there in this building?’

‘Well, there was mine, of course, and then there was Capital Yarns.’

‘Now Combined Knitwear?’

‘The woman who ran Capital Yarns left in 1989. The place was empty the best part of a year, then a computer showroom opened – that lasted all of three months. The place was empty again until Mrs Burnett arrived. She’s Combined Knitwear.’

‘What about upstairs?’

‘Oh, years back those were offices. Now they’re just stockrooms, have been for a decade or more.’

Rebus was at a dead end, as surely as if he’d stayed on the floor above. He tried Simpson with the name Mensung again, spelt it for him, wrote it down, and all the old man did was twitch his head and say definitely and positively ‘no’. So Rebus thanked him and went back out on to the landing, resting against the banister. These small tenement businesses, there were a lot of them in Edinburgh. Small, shifting and anonymous, he didn’t see how they ever made
money. It struck him that he didn’t even know what J Joseph Simpson Associates did. But he was willing to bet there were no associates, perhaps never had been.

He was about to leave when the door of Combined Knitwear opened and two women stepped out. They glanced towards him before continuing their conversation. One of the women wore a coat and carried two bulging plastic bags, which didn’t seem heavy. Wool, Rebus surmised. The other woman wore a knitted two-piece, red and black check, and a string of pearls. A pair of glasses hung by a string around her neck. She was petite, trim, probably Rebus’s age.

‘Well, thanks again,’ she said to the departing customer. Then to Rebus: ‘Can I help?’

‘Mrs Burnett?’

‘Yes.’ She sounded uneasy.

‘Inspector Rebus.’ Again he showed his ID.

‘Is it a break-in? Those stockrooms could have steel doors, they’d still find a way in.’

‘No, it’s not a break-in.’

‘Oh.’ She looked at him. ‘Look, I’m about to put the kettle on, do you fancy a cup?’

Rebus accepted her offer with pleasure.

Combined Knitwear’s premises were laid out like Joe Simpson’s: four rooms leading off a narrow hallway. One room served as an office. Mrs Burnett was in there at the sink, filling a kettle. Rebus looked into the other rooms. Wool. Lots and lots of wool. Deep shelves had been installed to display the stuff. There were boxes of knitting patterns, a Perspex case filled with pairs of needles. The walls and doors were decorated with blown-up photos from the fronts of various knitting patterns. Smiling, untroubled men. Women who looked like models from fifteen or twenty years ago. From a series of dowel-rods on one wall hung skeins of thick white wool. Rebus liked the smell of
the place. It reminded him of his mother, and all his aunties and their friends. His mother used to tell him off for using her knitting needles as drumsticks.

He turned and saw that Mrs Burnett was standing in the doorway.

‘You looked very peaceful there for a minute,’ she said.

‘I felt it.’

‘Tea’s about ready.’

‘Do you happen to know what Mr Simpson next door does?’

She laughed lightly. ‘I’ve been wondering that for years.’

‘Years?’

‘Did he tell you I was a newcomer? He doesn’t remember me, but I used to work here when it was Capital Yarns. It wasn’t my business, I was staff. But when I decided to set up for myself, and saw that this place was available – well, I couldn’t help myself.’ She sighed. ‘Sentiment, Inspector. Nostalgia – never be swayed by it. Not too many customers are willing to make the trek from Princes Street. I’d be better off somewhere more central.’

Rebus recalled the story of how IBM had come to set up in Greenock: nostalgia again, but on a grand scale.

He followed Mrs Burnett through to the office. ‘So were you working here eight years ago? Around 1986 or ’87?’

She poured water into two mugs. ‘Oh yes.’

‘Was there an outfit here at that time called Mensung?’

‘
Mensonge
?’

He spelt it for her.

‘No,’ she said, ‘by that time there was just Mr Simpson and Capital Yarns. You’re sure it was this address?’ Rebus nodded, watching her dip the tea-bags. ‘Milk and sugar?’