10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (240 page)

John Rebus did what he had to do – went on a forty-eight-hour bender.

It wasn’t difficult in Edinburgh. Even in winter, without the benefit of extended summer opening hours, if you paced things right you could drink round the clock. It was all down to permutations of late-licence restaurants, casinos, and early-opening bars. You could always drink at home, of course, but that wasn’t what a bender was about. You could hardly do your bender justice when the only person around to listen to your stories was your own sour self.

Rebus didn’t worry about missing work. He’d been on benders before, after losing cases he’d tried desperately to win. Always he did it with the blessing of his superiors, who might even chip in towards expenses. He thought maybe he’d phoned the Farmer from some pub along the way, and maybe the Farmer had said something about Allan Gunner having okayed things. Hard to tell though, hard to remember.

Still harder to forget.

He’d grab an hour’s sleep, then be awake a couple of minutes at most before the knot was in his guts, reminding him of things he’d far rather forget.

Towards the close of the first day, he was in a bar on Lothian Road, and noticed Maisie and Tresa there, having a good time to themselves. They were at a table, and Rebus was at the bar. Pairs of men kept accosting them – to no
avail. Then Maisie saw Rebus and got up, weaving towards him.

‘I see the period of mourning’s over,’ Rebus said.

She smiled. ‘Ach, Wee Shug was all right.’

‘Why don’t you tell me about it?’

Her eyes were only half open, heavy-lidded. ‘See,’ she began, ‘it wasn’t him I wanted, it was Tresa.’ She lit a cigarette for herself, using the onyx and gold lighter. ‘He came to see me the day he topped himself, told me what he was going to do. He gave me this lighter. Maybe he was looking for sympathy, or someone to talk him out of it. Daft bastard: he was doing just what I wanted. I wanted Tresa. I love her, really I do.’

Rebus remembered something she’d told him before, about Wee Shug: ‘He deserved what he got.’ He realised now that she hadn’t meant it vindictively; she’d meant he deserved whatever he was paid. She’d stuck him in prison, and he’d still come back to her, telling his story . . .

‘Was it rape?’ Rebus asked.

She shrugged. ‘Not really.’

He sucked on his cigarette. ‘Did you scream?’

Now she laughed. ‘The neighbours thought I did. They
wanted
to have heard it, otherwise there’d be no guilt. We Scots need a bit of guilt, don’t we? It gets us through the day.’

Then she planted a kiss on his cheek, and stood back to gaze at him, before making her way back to where Tresa McAnally sat waiting for her.

She was right about the guilt, he thought. But there was more to it – the neighbours hadn’t done anything at the time, and that was typically Edinburgh. People would rather not know, even if there was nothing there – they didn’t want to be told that their body (or their country) was rotten with cancer, but nor did they want to be told that it wasn’t. And in the end they just sat there,
zugzwanged
,
while the likes of Charters and Sir Iain Hunter got on with another game entirely.

In the middle of the second day, in the same rancid clothes as the day before, wreathed in a fug of nicotine and whisky, and in possession of a hangover he was trying to drink away, he met Kirstie Kennedy. Maybe it was halfway down Leith Walk, or at the top of Easter Road. She was shorter than him, and wanted to whisper in his ear. She didn’t need to stand on tiptoe to do it – he stooped under the weight of his skull and shoulders.

‘You should get straight,’ she told him. ‘Killing yourself’s no answer.’

He recalled her words later, when more or less seated on a bench in what purported to be a bar on Darly Road. It had the dimensions and atmosphere of a bonded warehouse. He had just been speaking to the old thin man, the one who liked American history. Rebus had started to give him a history lesson which didn’t have much to do with Hopalong Cassidy, and the man shuffled off to another part of the bar, where Tartan Shoelaces stood protectively close to his erring wife Morag. Rebus had stood them all a couple of drinks when he’d come in.

Some young turks were playing pool, and Rebus tried to concentrate on their game, but found himself yawning noisily.

‘Not keeping you up, are we, pal?’ one of the players snarled.

‘Cut it out,’ the barmaid called to them. ‘He’s polis.’

‘He’s guttered, that’s what he is. Plain mortal.’

And then Kirstie’s words came back to him.
You should get straight. Killing yourself’s no answer
. Well, it depended what the question was. Get straight . . . straight, as in even. Someone sat down next to him. He tried turning his head to look at them.

‘Found you at last.’

‘Sammy?’

‘I got a phone call from somebody called Kirstie. She said she was worried.’

‘I’m fine. Nothing wrong with me.’

‘You’re a mess. What’s happened?’

‘The
system
, that’s what’s happened. You were right, Sammy. And I knew you were right, all the time I was saying you were wrong.’

She smiled at him. ‘Well, you were right, too. I shouldn’t have smuggled that note out for Derwood Charters.’

‘Don’t worry about it. Gerry Dip isn’t talking. We’ll pin him for the credit cards if nothing else. There’ll be no mention of Charters at the trial. You won’t be involved.’

‘But I
am
involved.’

Rebus shook his head. ‘Just keep your mouth quiet, that’s what everyone else is doing. Nothing’s going to happen.’

‘Is that what this is about?’

Rebus straightened his back. He didn’t like Sammy seeing him like this; that thought had only just struck him.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘whether you can put this behind you or not is down to you and your conscience. That’s what I’m saying.’ He got to his feet. ‘I’m going to clean up.’

He made it to the toilets. He didn’t want the pool players coming in for a ‘Dalry Discussion’, so wedged the door shut with paper towels while he stuck his head under the cold tap. He dried himself off, then was copiously sick into the bowl. Unjamming the door, he walked back into the bar.

‘Feeling better?’ Sammy asked him.

‘Ninety-five per cent to go,’ Rebus told her, taking her hand in his.

Who could he go to?

The Lord Advocate? Hardly: he was probably on pheasant-shooting terms with Hunter. He was the
Establishment
, and the Establishment would be protected at all costs. The chief constable? But he was retiring, and wouldn’t want anything to tarnish his last few months in office. The media perhaps, Mairie Henderson? It was the story of the year, except there was no proof. It would be the word of an embittered policeman against . . . well,
everybody
.

He’d spent time steeping in the bath at home, then showering. Sammy had made him drink a couple of litres of orange juice, and about a packet of ‘Resolve’.

‘I can’t forget what I did,’ she told him quietly.

‘Maybe you got my guilt complex along with my genes,’ he told her.

After Sammy had gone back to Patience’s, Rebus had called Gill Templer. He needed advice, he told her. They arranged to meet at her health club. She had a sauna and massage booked; they could talk in the bar after that.

There was a view from the bar’s first-floor window down on to a quiet New Town street. All around Rebus sat healthy people, tanned and smiling with good teeth and trim confidence. He knew he fitted in like a paedophile in a classroom. He had trashed his bender clothes, just trashed them, and was wearing the gear he’d bought for the trip to Sir Iain’s.

Gill came in and nodded towards him, then went to the bar and bought herself something non-alcoholic. Her skin glowed as she came over to his table. ‘You look rough,’ she said.

‘You should have seen me earlier. You could have sanded doors with me.’

She picked a sliver of orange out of her glass and sucked on it. ‘So what’s the big mystery?’

He told her the whole story. She started to look
uncomfortable halfway through, the look changing by degrees to simple bemusement.

‘I’ll take another orange juice, if you’re buying,’ she said when he’d finished.

She needed time to think, so Rebus didn’t hurry the barman. But when he came back to the table, she still didn’t have anything to say.

‘See, Gill, what I need is the nod on a search warrant, so I can go into Gunner’s house and seize the file and the tape. We could get one from a JP – there are enough councillors left to choose from.’

Her face darkened. ‘Why me?’ she said.

‘Why not?’

‘How good do you think
I’d
come out of this? Do you think anyone would forget that I was the one who’d helped you?’

‘For Christ’s sake, Gill.’

Her voice softened. She stared into her drink. ‘Sorry I’m letting you down, John.’

‘They could crucify me if they wanted to.’

She stared at him. ‘They don’t want to. You don’t know, do you? You really don’t know.’

‘Know what?’

‘You’re going to be promoted to chief inspector. There’s an opening in Galashiels. It came down to the chief super from the DCC.’ She smiled. ‘You’re trying to arrange a search warrant for his house, and he’s busy giving you a hike up. How’s
that
going to look in court?’

‘It’s true,’ Chief Superintendent Watson confirmed.

Rebus was in the Farmer’s office, but not sitting. He couldn’t sit, couldn’t even stand at ease.

‘I don’t want it, I won’t accept it. That’s allowed, isn’t it?’

The Farmer made a pained face. ‘If you refuse, it’s a
snub no one will forget. You might never get a second chance.’

‘I don’t mind snubbing Allan Gunner.’

‘John, Gunner didn’t recommend you for promotion, I did.’

‘What?’

‘Several months back.’

‘You did?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, it’s a damned coincidence Gunner’s held off making a decision until now. Whose idea was Galashiels?’

‘It happens to be an opening.’

‘It happens to be in the middle of nowhere. I can see they’d need a chief inspector down there, what with the farming vendettas and the Saturday night punch-up.’

‘For once in your life, John, go easy on yourself, do yourself a favour. Stop beating yourself up like you’re the Salvation Army drum. Just . . .’ The Farmer shrugged.

‘Drums don’t beat themselves,’ Rebus said. He was staring at the Farmer’s computer, not listening any more. And then he started to smile, and looked at the Farmer. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘tell Gunner I’ll take it.’

‘Good.’

But the Farmer wasn’t as pleased as he’d expected he’d be. There was something going on, some motive he couldn’t fathom. It was so bloody typical of Rebus to make him feel like a win was a draw, a draw a defeat.

‘And, John,’ he said, standing up, stretching out his hand, ‘congratulations.’

Rebus stared at the hand but didn’t take it. ‘I didn’t say I was accepting the promotion, sir, I just said to
tell
Gunner I was.’

And with that he left the Farmer’s office.

Flower was on night-shift again.

Rebus didn’t know why or how Flower got so many night-shifts. Maybe because at night he was more likely to see a spot of trouble. Rebus looked like trouble as he strode towards his adversary’s desk, dragging a chair over and sitting astride it.

‘Done any good fire-raising lately?’

Flower just sneered.

‘Some good it did you,’ Rebus went on.

‘What?’

‘I don’t mean setting the bin on fire. I mean letting the DCC use your man McAnally like that. Whose idea was it to put him in Charters’ cell?’

‘What’s it to you?’

‘Humour me.’ Rebus offered Flower a cigarette. Flower took it warily, and even then laid it to one side.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘it was the DCC’s.’

‘That’s what I figured. And you went along with it. I mean, who wouldn’t? It meant the DCC owed you a favour – very handy that. But it didn’t work out.’

‘You’ve lost me.’

‘I mean, the DCC had a hidden agenda. He wanted to use your man to make sure Charters
wasn’t
talking, because some people on the outside were getting sweaty. Charters was protecting certain people, people like the head of PanoTech, and the Permanent Secretary at the Scottish Office. But a local councillor had started sniffing. Eventually, he would have talked to Charters – maybe he already had. That worried people, they needed to know how safe they were. As it turned out, Charters knew about the councillor and paid McAnally to give him a fright.’

‘Shite.’

‘Is it? Well, no matter.’ Rebus sucked on his cigarette. He’d got Flower thinking, but that process might take weeks. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘your friend the DCC, he didn’t
even get you Lauderdale’s job. Didn’t that make you think?’

‘It was too soon. It would have looked suspicious.’

Rebus laughed, further discomfiting Flower. ‘Is that what he told you?’

‘Never you mind.’

‘Well, bonny lad, I’ve got news for you – the DCC’s just offered
me
promotion to chief inspector.’

‘Away to hell.’

Rebus just shrugged. Flower picked up the cigarette he’d been given and lit it. Then he called the Farmer at home. They had a bruising conversation during which Flower brought up everything from his years in the force (three more than Rebus) to his charitable works. When he finally put the phone down, he was shaking.

‘Know who you should phone now?’ Rebus suggested. ‘Your pal Allan Gunner. Ask him why me instead of you. Know what he’ll say? Well, he might not say it, but it’s the truth. He’s promoting me because I’m dangerous to him. I’m too dangerous for the usual demotion, so instead he’s offering a bribe. And you’re being left behind because he can afford to ignore you. That’s a simple fact.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’ Flower hissed.

‘Believe me, it’s not just for the thrill of seeing you squirm.’

‘Why then?’

Rebus leaned forward. ‘How,’ he asked confidentially, ‘would you like my promotion?’ Flower just sneered. It hurt Rebus to say what he was saying, but he tried not to let that show. He would sacrifice this and much more for a single, risky shot at his quarry. Above all, though, he wouldn’t tell Flower about the move to Galashiels that went along with it . . . ‘I mean it,’ he said.