10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (115 page)

‘Chris, I want to tell you something . . .’

Kemp caught the whiff of a story. ‘Attributable?’

But Rebus shook his head. ‘Afraid not.’

‘Accurate then?’

‘Oh yes, I can guarantee it’s accurate.’

‘Go on, I’m listening.’

Last chance to bottle out. No, he wasn’t going to bottle out. ‘I can tell you why Gregor Jack was at that brothel.’

‘Yes?’

‘But I want to know something first –
are
you holding something back?’

Kemp shrugged. ‘I don’t think so.’

Rebus still didn’t believe him. But then Kemp had no reason to tell Rebus anything. It wasn’t as if Rebus was going to tell
him
anything that he didn’t want him to know. They sat in silence for half a minute, neither friends nor enemies; more like trench soldiers on a Christmas Day kickabout. At any moment, the sirens might sound and shrapnel pierce the peace. Rebus recalled that he knew
one
thing Kemp wanted to know: how Ronald Steele got his nickname . . .

‘So,’ Kemp said, ‘why
was
he there?’

‘Because someone told him his sister was working there.’

Kemp pursed his lips.

‘Working as a prostitute,’ Rebus explained. ‘Someone phoned him – anonymously – and told him. So he went along.’

‘That was stupid.’

‘Agreed.’

‘And
was
she there?’

‘Yes. She calls herself Gail Crawley.’

‘How do you spell that?’

‘C-r-a-w-1-e-y.’

‘And you’re sure of this?’

‘I’m sure. I’ve spoken with her. She’s still in Edinburgh, still working.’

Kemp kept his voice level, but his eyes were gleaming. ‘You know this is a story?’

Rebus shrugged, saying nothing.

‘You want me to place it?’

Another shrug.

‘Why?’

Rebus stared at the empty mug in his hands. Why? Because once it was public knowledge, the caller would have failed, at least in his or her own terms. And, having failed, maybe they’d feel compelled to try something else. If they did, Rebus would be ready . . .

Kemp was nodding. ‘Okay, thanks. I’ll think it over.’

Rebus nodded too. He was already regretting the decision to tell Kemp. The man was a reporter, and one with a reputation to make. There was no way of knowing what he’d do with the story. It could be twisted to make Jack sound like Samaritan or slime . . .

‘Meantime,’ Kemp was saying, rising from his chair, ‘I better take a bath if I’m going to make that meeting . . .

‘Right.’ Rebus rose, too, and placed his mug in the sink. ‘Thanks for the coffee.’

‘Thanks for the milk.’

The bathroom was on the way to the front door. Rebus made show of looking at his watch. ‘Go get into your bath,’ he said. ‘I’ll let myself out.’

‘Bye then.’

‘See you, Chris.’ He walked to the door, checking that his weight on the floorboards did not make them creak, then glanced round and saw that Kemp had disappeared into the bathroom. Water started splashing. Gently, Rebus turned the
snib and locked it at the off position. Then he opened the door and slammed it noisily behind him. He stood in the stairwell, pulling the door by its handle so that it couldn’t swing back open. There was a spy-hole, but he kept himself tucked in against the wall. Anyway, if Kemp came to the door he’d notice the snib was off . . . A minute passed. Nobody came to the door. More fortuitously, perhaps, nobody came into the stairwell. He didn’t fancy explaining what he was doing standing there holding on to a door handle. . .

After two minutes, he crouched down and opened the letter box, peering in. The bathroom door was slightly ajar. The water was still running, but he could hear Kemp humming, then a-ha-hee-ha-ing as he got into the bath. The water continued to run, giving the noise-cover he needed. He opened the door quietly, slipped back indoors, and closed it, jamming it shut with a hardback book from the top of one of the stacks. The remaining books looked as though they might topple, but they steadied again. Rebus exhaled and crept along the corridor, past the door. Taps pouring . . . Kemp still humming. This part was easy; getting back out would be the hard part,
if
he had nothing to show for the deception.

He crossed the living room and studied the desk. The files gave nothing away. No sign of the ‘big story’ Kemp was working on. The computer disks were marked numerically – no clues there. Nothing interesting in the open drawer of the filing cabinet. He turned back to the desk. No scribbled sheets of notes had been tucked beneath other, blank sheets. He flipped through the pile of LPs beside the stereo, but no sheets had been hidden there either. Under the sofa . . . no. Cupboards . . . drawers . . . no. Bugger it. He went to the great iron range. Tucked away at the back, behind three or four pot plants, sat an ugly-looking trophy, Kemp’s Young Journalist of the Year Prize. Along the front of the range sat the row of ornamental boxes. He opened one. It contained a CND badge and a pair of ANC earrings. In another box was a ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ badge and a ring which looked to be carved out of ivory. The girlfriend’s stuff, obviously. And in the third box . . . a tiny cellophane package of dope. He
smiled. Hardly enough to run someone in for, half a quarter at most. Was this what Kemp had been so eager to conceal? Well, Rebus supposed a conviction wouldn’t do the ‘campaigning journalist’ tag much good. Difficult to chastise public figures for their small vices when you’d been done for possession.

Bugger it. And on top of everything, he’d now to get out of the flat without being seen or heard. The taps had stopped running. No noise to cover his retreat . . . He crouched by the range and considered. The bold as brass approach might be best. Just go marching past saying something about having left behind your keys . . . Aye, sure, Kemp would fall for
that
. Might as well put five bar on Cowdenbeath for the league and cup double.

He found that, as he thought, he was staring at the range’s small oven, or rather at the closed door of that oven. A spider-plant sat above it, with two of its fronds trapped in the door. Dear me, he couldn’t have that, could he? So he pulled open the door, releasing the leaves. Sitting in the oven itself were some books. Old hardbacks. He lifted one and examined its spine.

John Knox on predestination. Well, wasn’t
that
a coincidence.

The bathroom door flew in.

‘Christ’s sake!’ Chris Kemp, who had been lying with his head floating on the surface of the water, now shot up. Rebus marched over to the toilet, lowered its lid, and made himself comfortable.

‘Carry on, Chris. Don’t mind me. Just thought I might borrow a few of your books.’ He slapped the pile he was holding. They were resting on his knees, all seven of them. ‘I like a good read.’

Kemp actually blushed. ‘Where’s your search warrant?’

Rebus looked stunned. ‘Search warrant? Why should I need a search warrant? I’m just borrowing a few books, that’s all. Thought I might show them to my old friend Professor Costello. You know Professor Costello, don’t you?
Only this stuff’s right up his street. No reason why you should mind me borrowing them . . . is there? If you like, I’ll go get that search warrant and –’

‘Fuck off.’

‘Language, son,’ Rebus reprimanded. ‘Don’t forget, you’re a journalist. You’re the protector of our language. Don’t go cheapening it. You just cheapen yourself.’

‘I thought you wanted me to do you a favour?’

‘What? You mean the story about Jack and his sister?’ Rebus shrugged. ‘I thought
I
was doing
you
a favour. I know keen young reporters who’d give their eye teeth for –’

‘What do you want?’

Now Rebus sat forward. ‘Where did you get them, Chris?’

‘The books?’ Kemp ran his hands down his sleek hair. ‘They’re my girlfriend’s. As far as I know, she borrowed them from her university library . . .’

Rebus nodded. ‘It’s a fair story. I doubt it would get you off the hook, but it’s a fair story. For a start, it won’t explain why you hid them when you knew I was on my way up to see you.’

‘Hid them? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Rebus chuckled. ‘Fine, Chris, fine. There I was, thinking I could do you a favour.
Another
favour, I should say. . .’

‘What favour?’

Rebus slapped the books again ‘Seeing these get back to their rightful owner without anyone needing to know where they’ve been in the interim.’

Kemp considered this. ‘In exchange for what?’

‘Whatever it is you’re keeping from me. I
know
you know something, or you think you do. I just want to help you do your duty.’

‘My duty?’

‘Helping the police. It
is
your duty, Chris.’

‘Like it’s
your
duty to go creeping around people’s flats without their permission.’

Rebus didn’t bother replying. He didn’t need to reply; he just needed to bide his time. Now that he had the books, he
had the reporter in his pocket, too. Safe and snug for future use . . .

Kemp sighed. ‘The water’s getting cold. Mind if I get out?’

‘Any time you like. I’ll go wait next door.’

Kemp came into the living room wearing a blue towelling robe and using a matching towel to rub at his hair.

‘Tell me about your girlfriend,’ Rebus said. Kemp filled the kettle again. He had used the minute’s solitary time to do a little thinking, and he was ready now to talk.

‘Vanessa?’ he said. ‘She’s a student.’

‘A divinity student? With access to Professor Costello’s room?’

‘
Everybody
’s got access to Prof Costello’s room. He told you that himself.’

‘But not everyone knows a rare book when they see it . . .’

‘Vanessa also works part time in Suey Books.’

‘Ah.’ Rebus nodded. Pencilling in her prices. Earrings and a bicycle . . .

‘Old Costello’s a customer, so Vanessa knows him fairly well,’ Kemp added.

‘Well enough to steal from him, at any rate.’

Chris Kemp sighed. ‘Don’t ask me why she did it. Was she planning to sell them? I don’t know. Did she want to keep them for herself? I don’t know. I’ve asked her, believe me. Maybe she just had a . . . a brainstorm.’

‘Yes, maybe.’

‘Whatever, she reckoned Costello might not even miss them. Books are books to him. Maybe she thought he’d be as happy with the latest paperback editions . . .’

‘But she, presumably, wouldn’t be?’

‘Look, just take them back, okay? Or keep them for yourself. Anything.’

The kettle clicked off. Rebus refused the offer of more coffee. ‘So,’ he said, as Kemp made himself a mug, ‘what have you got to tell me, Chris?’

‘It’s just something Vanessa told me about her employer.’

‘Ronald Steele?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about him?’

‘He’s having an affair with Mrs Rab Kinnoul.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Not your business, you see, Inspector. Nothing to do with law and order.’

‘But a juicy story nevertheless, eh?’ Rebus found it hard to talk. His head was birling again. New possibilities, new configurations. ‘So how did she come to this conclusion?’

‘It started a while back. Our entertainment correspondent on the paper had gone to interview
Mr
Kinnoul. But there’d been a cock-up over the dates. He turned up on a Wednesday afternoon when it should have been Thursday. Anyway, Kinnoul wasn’t there, but Mrs Kinnoul was, and she had a friend with her, a friend introduced as Ronald Steele.’

‘One friend visits another . . . I don’t see –’

‘But then Vanessa told me something. A couple of Wednesdays back, there was an emergency at the shop. Well, not exactly an
emergency
. Some old dear wanted to sell some of her deceased husband’s books. She brought a list to the shop. Vanessa could see there were a few gems in there, but she needed to talk to the boss first. He doesn’t trust her when it comes to the buying. Now, Wednesday afternoons are sacrosanct . . .’

‘The weekly round of golf –’

‘With Gregor Jack. Yes, precisely. But Vanessa thought, he’ll kill me if this lot get away. So she rang the golf club, out at Braidwater.’

‘I know it.’

‘And they told her that Messrs Steele and Jack had cancelled.’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, I started to put two and two together. Steele’s supposed to be playing golf every Wednesday, yet one Wednesday my colleague finds him out at the Kinnoul house, and another Wednesday there’s no sign of him on the golf course. Rab Kinnoul’s known to have a temper, Inspector.
He’s known as a very
possessive
man. Do you think he knows that Steele’s visiting his wife when he’s not there?’

Rebus’s heart was racing. ‘You might have a point, Chris. You might have a point.’

‘But like I say, it’s hardly police business, is it?’

Hardly! It was
absolutely
police business. Two alibis chipped into the same bunker. Was Rebus nearer the end of the course than he’d suspected? Was he playing nine holes rather than eighteen? He got up from the sofa.

‘Chris, I’ve got to be going.’ Like spokes on a bicycle wheel, turning in his head: Liz Jack, Gregor Jack, Rab Kinnoul, Cath Kinnoul, Ronald Steele, Ian Urquhart, Helen Greig, Andrew Macmillan, Barney Byars, Louise Patterson-Scott, Julian Kaymer, Jamie Kilpatrick, William Glass. Like spokes on a bicycle wheel.

‘Inspector Rebus?’

He paused by the door. ‘What?’

Kemp pointed to the sofa. ‘Don’t forget to take your books with you.’

Rebus stared at them as though seeing them for the first time. ‘Right,’ he said, heading back towards the sofa. ‘By the way,’ he said, picking up the bundle, ‘I
know
why Steele’s called Suey.’ Then he winked. ‘Remind me to tell you about it some time, when this is all over . . .’

He returned to the station, intending to share some of what he knew with his superiors. But Brian Holmes stopped him outside the Chief Superintendent’s door.

‘I wouldn’t do that.’

Rebus, his fist raised high, ready to knock, paused. ‘Why not?’ he asked, every bit as quietly as Holmes himself had spoken.

‘Mrs Jack’s father’s in there.’

Sir Hugh Ferrie! Rebus lowered his hand carefully, then began backing away from the door. The last thing he wanted was to be dragged into a discussion with Ferrie. Why haven’t you found . . . what are you doing about . . . when will you . . .? No, life was too short, and the hours too long.