10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (143 page)

‘Before they got a toe-hold, aye.’

‘And?’

Chilton said nothing.

‘And,’ Rebus said for him, ‘you started shouting the odds at DC Petrie, who started shouting back that he was a police officer and you’d better bugger off. Only by that time you were too fired up to back off. Got a bit of a temper, Mr Chilton? Maybe it’s rubbed off on Neilly, eh? Did
you
get into a lot of fights at school?’

‘What the hell’s that got to do with anything?’ Chilton’s anger was rising again. Rebus raised a pacifying hand.

‘It’s a serious offence, assaulting a police officer.’

‘Mistaken identity,’ said Chilton.

‘Even after he’d identified himself?’

Chilton shrugged. ‘He never showed me any ID.’

Rebus raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re very knowledgeable about procedure. Maybe you’ve been in this sort of trouble before, eh?’ This shut Chilton’s mouth. ‘Maybe if I go down the station and look you up on the computer . . . what would this be, second offence? Third? Might we be talking about a wee trip to Saughton jail?’ Chilton was looking decidedly uncomfortable, which was exactly what Rebus wanted.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘we could always shut the book on this one.’ Chilton looked interested. ‘
If
,’ Rebus warned, ‘you could keep your gob shut about it.
And
get Neil and his pal to forget they saw anything.’

Chilton nodded towards the camera. ‘You’re watching somebody, eh? A stake-out?’

‘Best if you don’t know, Mr Chilton. Do we have a deal?’

Chilton thought about it, then nodded.

‘Good,’ said Rebus, ‘now get the fuck out of here.’

Chilton knew when he was being made an offer. He got the fuck out of there. Rebus shook his head.

‘Sir –’

‘Shut up and listen,’ Rebus told Siobhan Clarke. ‘This could’ve blown the whole thing. Maybe it has, we won’t know for a day or two. Meanwhile, get that camera set up again and get back to work. Phone HQ and get someone in here to board up the window, leaving a big enough hole for the camera. Either that or we need a new pane of glass.

‘And listen to me, the two of you.’ He raised a warning finger. ‘Nobody gets to know about this,
nobody
. It’s forgotten as of now, understand?’

They understood. What they did not understand perhaps was exactly why Rebus wanted it kept quiet. It wasn’t that he feared the early termination of Operation Moneybags – as far as he was concerned, the whole project was doomed to failure anyway. No, it was another fear altogether, the fear that Detective Inspector Alister Flower, safe and snug in the Firth Pub with his own surveillance crew, would find out. By God, that would mean trouble, more trouble than Rebus was willing to contemplate.

A pity then that he hadn’t managed to say anything to DC Peter Petrie, who went back to St Leonard’s for a change of shirt. The blood on his T-shirt might have been mistaken for tomato sauce or old tea, but there was no doubting the cause of the white gauze pad which had been taped across his nose and half his face. And when questioned, Peter Petrie quite gladly told his story, embellishing it only a little – as, for example, in exaggerating his assailant’s size, skill, and speed of attack. There were sympathetic smiles and shakes of the head, and the same comment was uttered by more than one fellow officer.

‘Wait till Flower hears about this.’

By lunchtime, Flower had heard from several sources about the giant who had wreaked such havoc to the Gorgie surveillance.

‘Dearie me,’ he said, sipping an orange juice laced with blue label vodka. ‘That’s terrible. I wonder if Chief Inspector Lauderdale knows? Ach, of course he does, Rebus wouldn’t try to keep a thing like that from him, would he?’ And he smiled so warmly at the DC seated beside him that the DC got quite worried, really quite worried about his boss . . .

Siobhan picked up the telephone.

‘Hello?’ She watched John Rebus staring out of the broken window. He’d been watching the taxi offices for half an hour, so deep in thought that neither she nor Jardine had uttered a word to one another above a whisper. ‘It’s for you, sir.’

Rebus took the receiver from her. It was CID with a message to relay.

‘Go ahead.’

‘From someone called Pat Calder. He says a Mr Ringan has disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’

‘Yes, and he wanted you to know. Do you want us to do anything this end?’

‘No thanks, I’ll go have a word myself. Thanks for letting me know.’ Rebus put down the phone.

‘Who’s disappeared?’ Siobhan asked.

‘Eddie Ringan.’

‘The Heartbreak Cafe?’

Rebus nodded. ‘I was only speaking to him yesterday. He threatened me with a panful of hot cheese.’ Siobhan was looking interested, but Rebus shook his head. ‘You stay here, at least until Petrie gets back.’ The Heartbreak Cafe was only five minutes away. Rebus wondered if Calder would be there. A kitchen without a chef, after all, it was hardly worth opening for the day . . .

But when Rebus arrived, the Cafe was doing a brisk trade in early lunches. Calder, acting as maitre d’, waved to Rebus when he entered. Passing the same young barman as yesterday, Rebus gave him a wink. Calder was looking frantic.

‘What the hell did you say to Eddie yesterday?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Come off it, you had a stand-up row, didn’t you? I knew something was wrong. He was edgy as hell all last night, and his cooking went to pot.’ Calder saw no humour in this. ‘You must have said
some
thing.’

‘Who told you?’

Calder cocked his head towards the kitchen. ‘Willie.’

Rebus nodded understanding. ‘And today, Willie gets his chance for fame and fortune.’

‘He’s doing the lunches, if that’s what you mean.’

‘So when did Eddie go missing?’

‘After we closed last night, he went off to look for some club or other. One of those moveable feasts that takes over a warehouse for one night a week.’

‘You didn’t fancy it yourself?’

Calder wrinkled his nose in distaste.

‘Would this be a club for gentlemen, Mr Calder?’

‘A gay club, yes. No secret there, Inspector. It’s all quite legit.’

‘I’m sure it is. And Mr Ringan didn’t come home?’

‘No.’

‘So maybe he found someone else to go home with . . .?’

‘Eddie’s not that type.’

‘Then what type is he?’

‘The
faithful
type, believe me. He often goes out drinking, but he always comes back.’

‘Until now.’

‘Yes.’

Rebus considered. ‘Bit early yet to start a missing person file. We usually give it at least forty-eight hours, if there’s no other evidence.’

‘What sort of evidence?’

‘Well, a body, for example.’

Calder turned his head away. ‘Christ,’ he said.

‘Look, I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.’

‘I’m not,’ said Pat Calder.

No, and neither was John Rebus.

Calder slapped a smile on his face as a couple entered the Cafe. He picked up two menus and asked them to follow him to a table. They were in their early twenties and dressed fashionably, the man looking like he’d walked out of a 1930s gangster flick, the woman like she’d put on her wee sister’s skirt by mistake.

When Calder came back he spoke in an undertone. ‘Someone should tell her you can’t hide acne with pan-stick. You know, Eddie hasn’t been the same since the night Brian was attacked.’

‘Brian’s okay now, by the way.’

‘Yes, Eddie rang the hospital yesterday.’

‘He didn’t visit, though?’

‘We hate hospitals, too many friends dying in them lately.’

‘The news about Brian didn’t cheer him up?’

Calder pursed his lips. ‘I suppose it did for a little while.’ He pulled a notebook and pen out of his pocket. ‘Must go and see what they want to drink.’

Rebus nodded. ‘I’ll just have a word with Willie and your barman, see what they think.’

‘Fine. Lunch is on the house.’ Rebus shook his head. ‘We won’t poison you, Inspector.’

‘It’s not that,’ said Rebus. ‘It’s all this Presley stuff on the walls. It fair takes away my appetite.’

Willie the trainee chef looked like he was enjoying his day as ruler of all he surveyed. Flustered as he was, with no one to help him, still he gave off an air of never wanting things to change.

‘Remember me, Willie?’

Willie glanced up. ‘Jailhouse Roquefort?’ He went back to shimmying pans, then started to chop a bunch of fresh parsley. Rebus marvelled at how speedily he worked with the knife mere millimetres from his fingertips.

‘You here about Eddie? He’s a mad bastard that, but a brilliant chef.’

‘Must be fun to be in charge though?’

‘It would be if I got the credit, but those buggers out there probably think the great Eduardo’s prepared each dish of the day. Like Pat says, if they knew he wisnae here, they’d go off for a tandoori businessman’s lunch at half the price.’

Rebus smiled. ‘Still, being in charge . . .’

Willie stopped chopping. ‘What? You think I’ve got Eddie stashed away in my coal bunker? Just so I can have a day of tearing around like a mad-arsed fly?’ He waved his knife towards the kitchen door. ‘Pat might lend a hand, but no, he’s got to be out there buttering up the clientele. Butter Pat, that’s his name. If I was going to do away with either one of them, it’d be the one right outside that door.’

‘You’re taking it very seriously, Willie. Eddie’s only been missing overnight. Could be sleeping it off in the gutter somewhere.’

‘That’s not what Pat thinks.’

‘And what do
you
think?’

Willie tasted from a steaming vat. ‘I think I’ve put too much cream in the
potage
.’

‘It’s the way Elvis would have wanted it,’ commented Rebus.

The barman, whose name was Toni (‘with an i’), poured Rebus a murky half pint of Cask Conditioned.

‘This looks as conditioned as my hair.’

‘I know a good hairdresser if you’re interested.’

Rebus ignored the remark, then decided to ignore the beer too. He waited while Toni chattily served two student types at the other end of the bar.

‘How did Eddie seem after I left yesterday?’

‘What’s the name of that Scorsese film?’

‘
Taxi Driver
?’

The barman shook his head. ‘
Raging Bull
. That was Eddie.’

‘He was like that all evening?’

‘I didn’t see him much. By the time he comes out of the kitchen, I’m putting on my coat to go home.’

‘Was there anyone . . .
unusual
in the bar last night?’ ‘You get a mixed crowd in here. Any particular
type
of unusual?’

‘Forget it.’

It looked like Toni-with-an-i already had.

It was beginning to look like the circle was now complete. Eddie told Holmes something about the body in the Central Hotel. Holmes tried to find out more, by going after the Bru-Head Brothers. Then Rebus came along to offer help. Now all three had been warned off in some way or other. Well, he
hoped
Eddie was just being warned off. He hoped it wasn’t more drastic. Everyone knew the chef had trouble keeping his mouth shut after a drink, and ‘after a drink’ seemed to be his permanent state. Yes, Rebus was worried. They’d tried scaring him off and only made him more determined. So would they now pull another stunt? Or would they perhaps revert to more certain means of silence?

Rebus’s face was as dark as the sky when he walked back into St Leonard’s, only to be ordered immediately to Lauderdale’s office. Lauderdale was pouring whisky into three glasses.

‘Ah, there you are.’

Rebus could not deny it. ‘Summoned by Bell’s, sir.’ He accepted the glass, trying not to look at Alister Flower’s beaming face. The three men sat down.

‘Cheers,’ offered Lauderdale.

‘Here’s tae us,’ said Flower.

Rebus just drank.

‘Been having a bit of bother, John?’ Lauderdale was positioning his half-empty glass on the desk. When he used Rebus’s first name, Rebus knew he was in trouble.

‘I don’t know about that, sir. There was a minor hiccup this morning, all taken care of.’

Lauderdale nodded, still seeming affable. Flower had crossed his legs, at ease with the world. When Lauderdale next spoke, he held up a finger to accompany each point.

‘Two schoolkids barge in on you. Then DC Petrie gets into a punch-up with a complete stranger. A window is smashed, and so is Petrie’s nose. DC Clarke’s down at street level trying to brush away broken glass and curious passers-by.’ He looked up from his full hand. ‘Any possibility, John, that Operation Moneybags has been placed in jeopardy?’

‘No possibility, sir.’ Rebus held up one finger. ‘The man won’t talk, because if he does we’ll charge him with assault.’ A second finger. ‘And the boys won’t talk because the father will warn them not to.’ He held his two fingers in the air, then lowered his hand.

‘With all due respect, sir,’ the Little Weed was saying, ‘we’ve got a fight and a broken window in what was supposed to be a deserted building. People are nosy, it’s human nature. They’ll be looking up at that window tomorrow, and they’ll be wondering. Any movement behind the window will be noticed.’

Lauderdale turned to Rebus. ‘John?’

‘What Inspector Flower says is true, sir, as far as it goes. But people are quick to forget. What they’ll see tomorrow is a new window, end of story. Nobody saw anything from the taxi offices, and even if they heard the glass, it’s not like it doesn’t happen every day along Gorgie.’

‘Even so, John . . .’

‘Even so, sir, it was a mistake. I’ve already made that clear to DC Clarke.’ He could have told them that it was all the fault of the woman from Trading Standards, but making excuses made you seem weak. Rebus could take this on the chin. He’d even take it on the back of his scalp if it would get him out of the office any faster. The aromas of whisky and body odour were making him slightly queasy.

‘Alister?’

‘Well, sir, you know my view on the subject.’

Lauderdale nodded. ‘John,’ he said, ‘a lot of planning has gone into Operation Moneybags, and there’s a lot at stake. If you’re going to let a couple of kids wander into the middle of the surveillance, maybe it’s time you rethought your priorities. For example, those files beside your desk. That stuff’s five years old. Get your brain back to the here and now, understand?’