10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (256 page)

‘Thanks, I will,’ said Rebus, wishing he didn’t feel so calm. ‘Since you seem to be so loaded. Nice suit, too.’

The humour left Ancram’s eyes. ‘There’s a tailor on Argyle Street, ten per cent discount for serving officers.’ The eyes narrowed. ‘Spit it out.’

‘No, it’s nothing really, just that when I was going through the files on Toal, I couldn’t help noticing that he always seemed to have inside info.’

‘Careful, laddie.’

The ‘laddie’ rankled; it was meant to.

‘Well,’ Rebus went on, ‘everyone knows the west coast is open to bungs. Not always cash, you understand. Could be watches, ID bracelets, rings, maybe even a few suits . . .’

Ancram looked around the bar, as though begging for witnesses to Rebus’s remarks.

‘Would you care to name any names,
Inspector
, or is hearsay good enough for Edinburgh CID? The way I hear it, there’s no cupboard-space left in Fettes, they’re so jam-packed with skeletons.’ He picked up his drink. ‘And half those skeletons seem to have
your
fingerprints all over them.’

The smile again, sparkling eyes, laughter lines.
How did he know?
Rebus turned to go. Ancram’s voice followed him out of the pub.

‘We can’t all go running to friends in Barlinnie! I’ll see you around, Inspector . . .’

Aberdeen.

Aberdeen meant away from Edinburgh; no
Justice Programme
, no Fort Apache, no shite for him to skite in. Aberdeen looked good.

But Rebus had things to do in Edinburgh. He wanted to see the locus in daylight, so drove out there, not risking his own Saab; leaving it at Fort Apache and taking the spare Escort. Jim MacAskill wanted him on the case because he hadn’t been around long enough to make enemies; Rebus was wondering how you ever made friends in Niddrie. The place was if anything bleaker by day: blocked-in windows, glass like shrapnel on the tarmac, kids playing in the sunshine with no real enthusiasm, eyes and mouths narrowing as his car cruised past.

They’d knocked a lot of the estate down; behind it was better housing, semi-detached. Satellite dishes a status symbol: the owners’ status – unemployed. The estate boasted a derelict pub – insurance job blaze – and one all-purpose corner shop, its window full of video posters. The kids made this last their base. BMX bandits blowing bubble-gum. Rebus drove past slowly, his eyes on them. The death flat wasn’t quite on the edge of the estate, not quite visible from Niddrie Mains Road. Rebus was thinking: Tony El didn’t come from round here, and if he’d picked the spot by chance, there were other derelict flats nearer the main road.

Two men plus the victim. Tony El and an accomplice.

The accomplice had local knowledge.

Rebus climbed the stairs to the flat. The place had been sealed, but he had keys to both padlocks. The living room as before, upside-down table, blanket. He wondered who’d slept there, maybe they’d seen something. He reckoned his chances of finding them were one per cent; of getting them to talk, slightly less. Kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms, hallway. He kept close to the walls, so as not to fall through the floor. There was no one living in the block, but the next block along had glass in a couple of its windows: one on the first storey, one on the second. Rebus knocked on the first door. A dishevelled woman answered, an infant clinging round her neck. He didn’t need to introduce himself.

‘I don’t know anything, and I didn’t see or hear anything.’ She made to close the door.

‘You married?’

She opened the door again. ‘What’s it to you?’

Rebus shrugged; good question.

‘He’s down the boozer, most likely,’ she said.

‘How many kids have you got?’

‘Three.’

‘Must be pushed for space.’

‘That’s what we keep telling them. All they’ll say is our name’s on the list.’

‘What age is your oldest?’

Eyes narrowing. ‘Eleven.’

‘Any chance he saw something?’

She shook her head. ‘He’d’ve told me.’

‘What about your man?’

She smiled. ‘He’d have seen everything
twice
.’

Rebus smiled too. ‘Well, if you hear anything . . . from the kids or your man . . .’

‘Aye, right.’ Slowly, so as not to cause offence, she shut the door on him.

Rebus climbed the next flight. Dog shit on the landing, a used condom: he tried not to connect the two. Felt-marker graffiti on the door – Wanker, HMFC, cartoon coitus. The
occupier had given up trying to wipe it off. Rebus pushed the doorbell. No answer; he tried again.

A voice from within: ‘Bugger off!’

‘Could I have a word?’

‘Who is it?’

‘CID.’

A chain rattled, and the door opened two inches. Rebus saw half a face: an old woman, or maybe an old man. He showed his warrant card.

‘You’re not moving me out. I’ll be here when they pull the place down.’

‘I don’t want to move you out.’

‘Eh?’

Rebus raised his voice. ‘Nobody wants to move you out.’

‘Aye they do, but I’m not moving, you can tell them that.’ Rebus caught foul breath, a meaty smell.

‘Look, have you heard what happened next door?’

‘Eh?’

Rebus peered through the gap. The hallway was littered with sheets of newspaper, empty cat-food tins. One more try.

‘Someone was killed next door.’

‘Don’t try your tricks with me, boyo!’ Anger in the voice.

‘I’m not trying any . . . ach, to hell with it.’ Rebus turned, started back downstairs. Suddenly the outside world looked good to him in the warm sunshine. It was all relative. He walked over to the corner shop, asked the kids a few questions, handed out mints to anyone who wanted one. He didn’t learn anything, but ended up with an excuse to go inside. He bought a packet of extra-strong, put it in his pocket for later, asked the Asian behind the counter a couple of questions. She was fifteen, maybe sixteen, extraordinarily pretty. A video was playing on the TV, high up on one wall. Hong Kong gangsters shooting chunks out of each other. She didn’t have anything to tell him.

‘Do you like Niddrie?’ he asked.

‘It’s all right.’ Her voice was pure Edinburgh, eyes on the TV.

Rebus drove back to Fort Apache. The Shed was empty. He drank a cup of coffee and smoked a cigarette. Niddrie, Craigmillar, Wester Hailes, Muirhouse, Pilton, Granton . . . They all seemed to him like some horrible experiment in social engineering: scientists in white coats sticking families down in this maze or that, seeing what would happen, how strong they’d have to become to cope, whether or not they’d find the exit . . . He lived in an area of Edinburgh where six figures bought you a three-bedroom flat. It amused him that he could sell up and be suddenly rich . . . except, of course, that he’d have nowhere to live, and couldn’t afford to move anywhere nicer in the city. He realised he was just about as trapped as anyone in Niddrie or Craigmillar, nicer model of trap, that was all.

His phone rang. He picked it up and wished he hadn’t.

‘Inspector Rebus?’ A woman’s voice: administrative. ‘Could you attend a meeting tomorrow at Fettes?’

Rebus felt a chill run the length of his spine. ‘What sort of meeting?’

A cool smiling voice. ‘I don’t have that information. The request comes from the ACC’s office.’

The Assistant Chief Constable, Colin Carswell. Rebus called him the ‘CC Rider’. A Yorkshireman – as close to a Scot as the English got. He’d been with Lothian and Borders two and a half years, and so far nobody had a bad word to say about him, which should have put him in the
Guinness Book of Records
. There had been a hairy few months after the last Deputy Chief Constable resigned and before they appointed a new one, but Carswell had coped. Some were of the opinion that he was just
too
good, and therefore would never make it to Chief Constable. Lothian and Borders used to boast one DCC and two ACCs, but one of the ACC posts had now become ‘Director of Corporate Services’, about which no one on the force seemed to know anything at all.

‘What time?’

‘Two o’clock, it shouldn’t take long.’

‘Will there be tea and biccies? I’m not coming otherwise.’

A shocked pause, then a release of breath as she realised he was joking. ‘We’ll see what we can manage, Inspector.’

Rebus put down the phone. It rang again and he picked it up.

‘John? It’s Gill, did you get my message?’

‘Yes, thanks.’

‘Oh. I thought you might have tried to call me.’

‘Mmm.’

‘John? Is something wrong?’

He shook himself. ‘I don’t know. The CC Rider wants to see me.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘Nobody’s saying.’

A sigh. ‘What have you been up to this time?’

‘Absolutely nothing, Gill, that’s the God’s honest truth.’

‘Made any enemies yet at your new posting?’ As she spoke, Bain and Maclay walked through the door. Rebus nodded a greeting.

‘No enemies. Do you think I’m doing something wrong?’ Maclay and Bain were shedding jackets, pretending not to be interested.

‘Listen, about that message I left . . .?’

‘Yes, Chief Inspector?’ Maclay and Bain dropped the pretence.

‘Can we meet?’

‘I don’t see why not. Dinner tonight?’

‘Tonight . . . yes, why not?’

She lived in Morningside, Rebus in Marchmont . . . make it a Tollcross rendezvous.

‘Brougham Street,’ Rebus said, ‘that Indian place with the slat blinds. Half eight?’

‘Sure.’

‘See you there, Chief Inspector.’

Bain and Maclay went about their business, said nothing for a minute or two. Then Bain coughed, swallowed, spoke.

‘How was Raintown?’

‘I got out alive.’

‘Find out anything about Uncle Joe and Tony El?’ Bain’s finger went to the nick below his eye.

Rebus shrugged. ‘Maybe something, maybe nothing.’

‘All right, don’t tell us,’ Maclay said. He looked funny, sitting at his desk. An inch had been sawn off each of the legs of his chair, so his thighs would fit under the lip of the desk. When Rebus had first arrived, he’d asked why Maclay hadn’t just lifted the table legs up an inch. Until then, Maclay hadn’t thought of it – sawing the chair legs had been Bain’s idea.

‘Nothing
to
tell,’ Rebus argued. ‘Except this – word is, Tony El’s a free agent, working out of the north-east, so we need to contact Grampian CID and ask about him.’

‘I’ll fax them his details,’ Maclay said.

‘I take it there’s been no sign?’ Rebus asked.

Bain and Maclay shook their heads.

‘I’ll let you into the secret though,’ Bain said.

‘What?’

‘There are at least
two
Indians on Brougham Street with slatted blinds.’

Rebus watched them have a good laugh about that, then asked what the background check on the decedent had produced.

‘Not much,’ Bain said, leaning back in his chair and waving a sheet of paper. Rebus got up, took the paper from him.

Allan Mitchison. Only child. Born in Grangemouth. His mother died in childbirth; his father went into decline, followed her two years later. Infant Allan was taken into care – no other kin found. Children’s home, then a foster family. Put up for adoption, but was an unruly kid, a trouble-maker. Screaming fits, tantrums, then long sulks. He always ran away eventually, always found his way back to the children’s home. Grew up into a quiet teenager, still prone to black sulks, the
occasional outburst, but talented in some school subjects – English, geography, art, music – and mostly docile. Still preferred the children’s home to foster life. Left school at seventeen. Having seen a documentary on life on a North Sea platform, decided he liked the look of it. Miles from anywhere, and an existence not unlike the children’s home – regimented. He liked group life, dormitories, shared rooms. Painter. His work pattern was uneven – he’d spent time onshore as well as off – a spell of training at RGIT-OSC . . .

‘What’s RGIT-OSC?’

Maclay had been waiting for the question. ‘Robert Gordon Institute of Technology’s Offshore Survival Centre.’

‘Is that the same as Robert Gordon’s University?’

Maclay and Bain looked at one another, shrugged.

‘Never mind,’ Rebus said, thinking: Johnny Bible’s first victim had attended RGU.

Mitchison had also worked at the Sullom Voe terminal on Shetland, a few other locations. Friends and workmates: plenty of the latter, precious few of the former. Edinburgh had proved a dead end: none of his neighbours had ever clapped eyes on him. And the word from Aberdeen and points north was only a little more encouraging. A couple of names: one on a production platform, one at Sullom Voe . . .

‘Are these two willing to be interviewed?’

Bain: ‘Christ, you’re not thinking of going up
there
? First Glasgow, now teuchter-land – didn’t you get a holiday this year?’

Maclay’s high-pitched laughter.

Rebus: ‘I seem to be a sitting target down here. I had a thought today – whoever picked out that flat knew the area. I’m thinking a local. Either of you have snitches in Niddrie?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then get talking to them, a man answering Tony El’s description, he might’ve been hanging around the pubs and clubs, looking for local talent. Is there anything on decedent’s employer?’

Bain lifted another sheet, waved it, smiling. Rebus had to get up again, go fetch it.

T-Bird Oil got its name from Thom Bird, who had been co-founder with ‘Major’ Randall Weir.

‘Major?’

Bain shrugged. ‘That’s what they call him: Major Weir.’

Weir and Bird were both Americans, but with strong Scottish roots. Bird had died in 1986, leaving Weir in charge. It was one of the smaller companies hoovering up oil and gas from below the sea bed . . .

Rebus realised that he knew almost nothing about the oil industry. He had some pictures in his head, mostly disasters – Piper Alpha, the
Braer
.

T-Bird had its UK base in Aberdeen, near Dyce Airport, but the global HQ was in the US, and the company held other oil and gas interests in Alaska, Africa, and the Gulf of Mexico.

‘Boring, eh?’ Maclay offered.

‘Is that meant to be a joke?’

‘Just making conversation.’