10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (269 page)

She looked up from the card to him.

‘No,’ she said. Then, slowly, she closed the door on his face. In that final glimpse of her before the door separated them, Rebus had found her eyes, and seen something there. Not just bewilderment or grief.

Something more like fear. And behind it, a degree of calculation.

It struck him that he was hungry, and gasping for coffee. So they ate in the Sullom Voe canteen. It was a clean white space with potted plants and no smoking signs. Walt was rattling on about how Shetland remained more Norse than Scots; nearly all the place names were Norwegian. To Rebus, it was like the edge of the world, and he liked that. He told Walt about the man on the plane, the one in sheepskin.

‘Oh, that sounds like Mike Sutcliffe.’

Rebus asked to be taken to him.

Mike Sutcliffe had changed out of his sheepskin and was dressed in crisp work clothes. They finally found him in heated conversation beside the ballast water tanks. Two underlings were listening to him complain that they could be replaced by gibbons and nobody would notice. He pointed up at the tanks, then out towards the jetties. There was a tanker moored at one of them, it couldn’t have been any bigger than half a dozen football pitches. Sutcliffe saw Rebus and lost the thread of his argument. He dismissed the workers and began to move away, only he had to get past Rebus first.

Rebus had a smile ready. ‘Mr Sutcliffe, did you get me that map?’

‘What map?’ Sutcliffe kept walking.

‘You said you might have an idea where I could find Jake Harley.’

‘Did I?’

Rebus was almost having to jog to keep up with him. He wasn’t wearing the smile any more. ‘Yes,’ he said coldly, ‘you did.’

Sutcliffe stopped so suddenly, Rebus ended up in front of him. ‘Look, Inspector, I’m up to my gonads in thistles right now. I don’t have time for this.’

And he walked, his eyes not meeting Rebus’s. Rebus marched alongside, keeping silent. He kept it up for a hundred yards, then stopped. Sutcliffe kept going, looking like he might walk right along the jetty and across the water if he had to.

Rebus went back to where Walt was standing. He took his time, thoughtful. The bum’s rush and then some. What or who had changed Sutcliffe’s mind? Rebus pictured an old white-haired man in kilt and sporran. The picture seemed to fit.

Walt took Rebus back to his office in the main admin building. He showed Rebus where the phone was, and said
he’d be back with two coffees. Rebus closed the office door, and sat down behind the desk. He was surrounded by oil platforms, tankers, pipelines, and Sullom Voe itself – huge framed photos on the walls; PR literature stacked high; a scale model of a super tanker on the desk. Rebus got an outside line and telephoned Edinburgh, weighing up diplomacy against bullshit and deciding it might save time to just tell the truth.

Mairie Henderson was at home.

‘Mairie, John Rebus.’

‘Oh, Christ,’ she said.

‘You’re not working?’

‘Haven’t you heard of the portable office? Fax-modem and a telephone, that’s all you need. Listen, you owe me.’

‘How so?’ Rebus tried to sound aggrieved.

‘All that work I did for you, and no story at the end of it. That’s not exactly
quid pro quo
, is it? And journalists have longer memories than elephants.’

‘I gave you Sir Iain’s resignation.’

‘A full ninety minutes before every other hack knew. And it wasn’t exactly the crime of the century to begin with. I
know
you held back on me.’

‘Mairie, I’m hurt.’

‘Good. Now tell me this is purely a social call.’

‘Absolutely. So how are you keeping?’

A sigh. ‘What do you want?’

Rebus swung ninety degrees in the chair. It was a comfortable chair, good enough to sleep in. ‘I need some digging.’

‘I am completely and utterly surprised.’

‘The name’s Weir. He calls himself Major Weir, but the rank may be spurious.’

‘T-Bird Oil?’

Mairie was a
very
good journalist. ‘That’s the one.’

‘He just made a speech at that convention.’

‘Well, he had someone else read it out.’

A pause. Rebus flinched. ‘John, you’re in Aberdeen?’

‘Sort of,’ he confessed.

‘Tell me.’

‘Later.’

‘And if there’s a story . . .?’

‘You’re in pole position.’

‘With something longer than a ninety-minute lead time?’

‘Absolutely.’

Silence on the line: she knew he could be lying. She was a journalist; she knew these things.

‘OK, so what do you want to know about Weir?’

‘I don’t know. Everything. The interesting stuff.’

‘Business or personal life?’

‘Both, mainly business.’

‘Do you have a number in Aberdeen?’

‘Mairie, I’m not
in
Aberdeen. Especially if anyone asks. I’ll get back to you.’

‘I hear they’re reopening the Spaven case.’

‘An internal inquiry, that’s all.’

‘Preliminary to a reopening?’

Walt opened the door, brought in two beakers of coffee. Rebus stood up. ‘Look, I have to go.’

‘Cat got your tongue?’

‘Bye, Mairie.’

‘I checked,’ Walt said, ‘your plane leaves in an hour.’ Rebus nodded and took the coffee. ‘I hope you’ve enjoyed your visit.’

Christ, Rebus thought, he means it, too.

That evening, once he’d recovered from the flight back to Dyce, Rebus ate at the same Indian restaurant Allan Mitchison had frequented: no coincidence. He didn’t know why he wanted to see the place for himself; he just did. The meal was decent, a chicken dopiaza neither better nor worse than he could find in Edinburgh. The diners were couples, young and middle-aged, their conversations quiet. It didn’t look the sort of restaurant you’d raise hell in after sixteen days offshore. If anything, it was a place for contemplation, always supposing you were dining alone. When Rebus’s bill came, he recalled the sums on Mitchison’s credit-card statement – they were about double the present figure.

Rebus showed his warrant card and asked to speak to the manager. The man came bounding up to his table, nervous smile in place.

‘Is there some problem, sir?’

‘No problem,’ Rebus said.

The manager lifted the bill from the table and was about to tear it up, but Rebus stopped him.

‘I’d prefer to pay,’ he said. ‘I only want to ask a couple of questions.’

‘Of course, sir.’ The manager sat down opposite him. ‘What can I do to help?’

‘A young man called Allan Mitchison used to eat here regularly, about once a fortnight.’

The manager nodded. ‘A policeman came in to ask me about him.’

Aberdeen CID: Bain had asked them to check up on Mitchison, their report back an almost total blank.

‘Do you remember him? The customer, I mean?’

The manager nodded. ‘Very nice man, very quiet. He came maybe ten times.’

‘Alone?’

‘Sometimes alone, sometimes with a lady.’

‘Can you describe her?’

The manager shook his head. There was a clatter from the kitchen, distracting him. ‘I just remember he was not always alone.’

‘Why didn’t you tell the other policeman this?’

The man didn’t seem to understand the question. He got to his feet, the kitchen decidedly on his mind. ‘But I did,’ he said, moving away.

Something Aberdeen CID had conveniently left out of their report . . .

There was a different bouncer on the door at Burke’s Club, and Rebus paid his entrance money the same as everybody else. Inside, it was seventies night, with prizes for the best period costume. Rebus watched the parade of platform shoes, Oxford bags, midis and maxis, kipper ties. Nightmare stuff: it all reminded him of his wedding photos. There was a
Saturday Night Fever
John Travolta, and a girl who was doing a passable imitation of Jodie Foster in
Taxi Driver
.

The music was a mix of kitsch disco and regressive rock: Chic, Donna Summer, Mud, Showaddywaddy, Rubettes, interspersed with Rod Stewart, the Stones, Status Quo, a blast of Hawkwind and bloody ‘Hi-Ho Silver Lining’.

Jeff Beck: up against the wall
now
!

The odd song clicked with him, had the power to send him reeling in the years. The DJ somehow still had a copy of Montrose’s ‘Connection’, one of the very best cover versions of a Stones song. Rebus in the army listened to it in his billet late at night, playing on an early Sanyo cassette player, an
earpiece plugged in so nobody else could hear. Next morning, he’d be deaf in one ear. He switched the earpiece about each night so he wouldn’t suffer long-term damage.

He sat at the bar. That seemed to be where the single men congregated in silent appraisal of the dance floor. The booths and tables were for couples and office parties, squawks of women who genuinely looked to be enjoying themselves. They wore low-cut tops and short tight skirts, and in the shadowy half-light they
all
looked terrific. Rebus decided he was drinking too quickly, poured more water into his whisky and asked the barman for more ice, too. He was seated at the corner of the bar, less than six feet from the payphone. Impossible to use it when the music was pounding, and there hadn’t been much of a let-up yet. Which made Rebus think – the only sensible time to use the payphone would be out of hours, when the place was quiet. But at that time there’d be no punters on the premises, just staff . . .

Rebus slipped off his stool and circuited the dance floor. The toilets were signposted down a passageway. He went inside and listened to someone in one of the cubicles snorting something. Then he washed his hands and waited. The toilet flushed, the lock clicked, and a young man in a suit came out. Rebus had his warrant card ready.

‘You’re under arrest,’ he said. ‘Anything you say –’

‘Hey, wait a minute!’ The man still had flecks of white powder in his nostrils. He was mid-twenties, lower management struggling to be middle. His jacket wasn’t expensive, but at least it was new. Rebus pushed him against the wall, angled the hand-drier and pushed the button so the hot air blew across his face.

‘There,’ he said, ‘blow some of that talc away.’

The man turned his face away from the heat. He was shaking, his whole body limp, beaten before they really got started.

‘One question,’ Rebus said, ‘and then you walk out of here
. . . how does the song go? As free as a bird. One question.’ The man nodded. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘What?’

Rebus pushed a bit harder. ‘The stuff.’

‘I only do this on a Friday night!’

‘Last time: where did you get it?’

‘Just some guy. He’s here sometimes.’

‘Is he here tonight?’

‘I haven’t seen him.’

‘What does he look like?’

‘Nothing special. Mr Average. You said one question.’

Rebus let the man go. ‘I lied.’

The man sniffed, straightened his jacket. ‘Can I go?’

‘You’re gone.’

Rebus washed his hands, loosened the knot in his tie so he could undo his top button. The sniffer might go back to his booth. He might decide to leave. He might complain to the management. Maybe they paid their way so busts like this wouldn’t happen. He left the toilet and went looking for the office, couldn’t find one. Out in the foyer, there was a staircase. The bouncer was parked in front of it. Rebus told the tux he wanted to speak to the manager.

‘No can do.’

‘It’s important.’

The bouncer shook his head slowly. His eyes didn’t move from Rebus’s face. Rebus knew what he saw: a middle-aged lush, a pathetic figure in a cheap suit. It was time to disabuse him. He opened his warrant card.

‘CID,’ he told the tux. ‘People are selling drugs on these premises and I’m a heartbeat away from calling in the Drugs Squad.
Now
do I get to talk to the boss?’

He got to talk to the boss.

‘My name’s Erik Stemmons.’ The man came around from his desk to shake Rebus’s hand. It was a small office, but well furnished. Good sound-proofing too: the bass from the dance
floor was as much as you could hear. But there were video screens, half a dozen of them. Three showing the main dance floor, two the bar, and one a general view of the booths.

‘You want to put one in the bogs,’ Rebus said, ‘that’s where the action is. You’ve got two on the bar: staff problems?’

‘Not since we put the cameras in.’ Stemmons was dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, the arms of which he’d rolled up to his shoulders. He had long curling locks, maybe permed, but his hair was thinning and there were tell-tale lines down his face. He wasn’t much younger than Rebus, and the younger he tried to look the older he seemed.

‘Are you with Grampian CID?’

‘No.’

‘Thought not. We get most of them in here, good customers. Sit down, won’t you?’

Rebus sat down. Stemmons got comfortable behind his desk. It was covered with paperwork.

‘Frankly I’m surprised by your allegation,’ he went on. ‘We cooperate fully with the local police, and this club is as clean as any in the city. You know of course that it’s impossible to rule narcotics out of the equation.’

‘Someone was snooking up in the toilet.’

Stemmons shrugged. ‘Exactly. What can we do? Strip search everyone as they enter? Have a sniffer dog roaming the premises?’ He laughed a short laugh. ‘You see the problem.’

‘How long have you lived here, Mr Stemmons?’

‘I came over in ’78. Saw a good thing and stayed. That’s nearly two decades. I’m practically integrated.’ Another laugh; another no reaction from Rebus. Stemmons placed his palms on the desktop. ‘Wherever Americans go in the world – Vietnam, Germany, Panama – entrepreneurs follow. And so long as the pickings stay good, why should we leave?’ He looked down at his hands. ‘What do you
really
want?’

‘I want to know what you can tell me about Fergus McLure.’

‘Fergus McLure?’

‘You know, dead person, lived near Edinburgh.’

Stemmons shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, that name means nothing to me.’

Oh, Vienna, Rebus nearly sang. ‘You don’t seem to have a phone in here.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘A phone.’

‘I carry a mobile.’