10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (348 page)

One last thing about
Dead Souls
. A fan at a question-and-answer session once picked me up on my use of the phrase ‘trellis tables’ when what I actually meant was ‘trestle tables’. She was right, and I’ve left the error intact for your enjoyment. But she also told me that I use trestle tables a lot in my books . . . and in rereading the series as preparation for writing all the new introductions, I can confirm that she was right in this particular also. Don’t ask me what it is about them; I just can’t stop writing the words down . . .

Trestle tables.

There, I did it again.

From this height, the sleeping city seems like a child’s construction, a model which has refused to be constrained by imagination. The volcanic plug might be black Plasticine, the castle balanced solidly atop it a skewed rendition of crenellated building bricks. The orange street lamps are crumpled toffee-wrappers glued to lollipop sticks.

Out in the Forth, the faint bulbs from pocket torches illuminate toy boats resting on black crêpe paper. In this universe, the jagged spires of the Old Town would be angled matchsticks, Princes Street Gardens a Fuzzy-Felt board. Cardboard boxes for the tenements, doors and windows painstakingly detailed with coloured pens. Drinking straws could become guttering and downpipes, and with a fine blade – maybe a scalpel – those doors could be made to open. But peering inside . . . peering inside would destroy the effect.

Peering inside would change
everything
.

He shoves his hands in his pockets. The wind is stropping his ears. He can pretend it is a child’s breath, but the reality chides him.

I am the last cold wind you’ll feel
.

He takes a step forward, peers over the edge and into darkness. Arthur’s Seat crouches behind him, humped and silent as though offended by his presence, coiled to pounce. He tells himself it is papier-mâché. He smooths his hands over strips of newsprint, not reading the stories, then realises he is stroking the air and withdraws his hands, laughing guiltily. Somewhere behind him, he hears a voice.

In the past, he’d climbed up here in daylight. Years back, it would have been with a lover maybe, climbing hand in hand, seeing the city spread out like a promise. Then later, with his wife and child, stopping at the summit to take photos, making sure no one went too close to the edge. Father and husband, he would tuck his chin into his collar, seeing Edinburgh in shades of grey, but getting it into perspective, having risen above it with his family. Digesting the whole city with a slow sweep of his head, he would feel that all problems were containable.

But now, in darkness, he knows better.

He knows that life is a trap, that the jaws eventually spring shut on anyone foolish enough to think they could cheat their way to a victory. A police car blares in the distance, but it’s not coming for him. A black coach is waiting for him at the foot of Salisbury Crags. Its headless driver is becoming impatient. The horses tremble and whinny. Their flanks will lather on the ride home.

‘Salisbury Crag’ has become rhyming slang in the city. It means skag, heroin. ‘Morningside Speed’ is cocaine. A snort of coke just now would do him the world of good, but wouldn’t be enough. Arthur’s Seat could be made of the stuff: in the scheme of things, it wouldn’t matter a damn.

There is a figure behind him in the darkness, drawing nearer. He half-turns to confront it, then quickly looks away, suddenly fearful of meeting the face. He begins to say something.

‘I know you’ll find it hard to believe, but I’ve . . .’

He never finishes the sentence. Because now he’s sailing out across the city, jacket flying up over his head, smothering a final, heartfelt cry. As his stomach surges and voids, he wonders if there really is a coachman waiting for him.

And feels his heart burst open with the knowledge that he’ll never see his daughter again, in this world or any other.

We commit all sorts of injustices at every step without the slightest evil intention. Every minute we are the cause of someone’s unhappiness
. . .

John Rebus was pretending to stare at the meerkats when he saw the man, and knew he wasn’t the one.

For the best part of an hour, Rebus had been trying to blink away a hangover, which was about as much exercise as he could sustain. He’d planted himself on benches and against walls, wiping his brow even though Edinburgh’s early spring was a blood relative of midwinter. His shirt was damp against his back, uncomfortably tight every time he rose to his feet. The capybara had looked at him almost with pity, and there had seemed a glint of recognition and empathy behind the long-lashed eye of the hunched white rhino, standing so still it might have been a feature in a shopping mall, yet somehow dignified in its very isolation.

Rebus felt isolated, and about as dignified as a chimpanzee. He hadn’t been to the zoo in years; thought probably the last time had been when he’d brought his daughter to see Palango the gorilla. Sammy had been so young, he’d carried her on his shoulders without feeling the strain.

Today, he carried nothing with him but a concealed radio and set of handcuffs. He wondered how conspicuous he looked, walking such a narrow ambit while shunning the attractions further up and down the slope, stopping now and then at the kiosk to buy a can of Irn-Bru. The penguin parade had come and gone and seen him not leaving his perch. Oddly, it was when the visitors moved on, seeking excitement, that the first of the meerkats appeared, rising on its hind legs, body narrow and wavering, scouting the territory. Two more had appeared
from their burrow, circling, noses to the ground. They paid little attention to the silent figure seated on the low wall of their enclosure; passed him time and again as they explored the same orbit of hard-packed earth, jumping back only when he lifted a handkerchief to his face. He was feeling the poison fizz in his veins: not the booze, but an early-morning double espresso from one of the converted police boxes near The Meadows. He’d been on his way to work, on his way to learning that today was zoo patrol. The mirror in the cop-shop toilet had lacked any sense of diplomacy.

Greenslade: ‘Sunkissed You’re Not’. Segue to Jefferson Airplane: ‘If You Feel Like China Breaking’.

But it could always be worse, Rebus had reminded himself, applying his thoughts instead to the day’s central question: who was poisoning the zoo animals of Edinburgh? The fact of the matter was, some individual was to blame. Somebody cruel and calculating and so far missed by surveillance cameras and keepers alike. Police had a vague description, and spot-checks were being made of visitors’ bags and coat pockets, but what everyone really wanted – except perhaps the media – was to have someone in custody, preferably with the tainted tidbits locked away as evidence.

Meantime, as senior staff had indicated, the irony was that the poisoner had actually been good for business. There’d been no copycat offences yet, but Rebus wondered how long that would last . . .

The next announcement concerned feeding the sea-lions. Rebus had sauntered past their pool earlier, thinking it not overly large for a family of three. The meerkat den was surrounded by children now, and the meerkats themselves had disappeared, leaving Rebus strangely pleased to have been accorded their company.

He moved away, but not too far, and proceeded to untie and tie a shoelace, which was his way of marking the quarter-hours. Zoos and the like had never held any
fascination for him. As a child, his roll-call of pets had seen more than its fair share of those listed ‘Missing in Action’ or ‘Killed in the Line of Duty’. His tortoise had absconded, despite having its owner’s name painted on its shell; several budgies had failed to reach maturity; and ill-health had plagued his only goldfish (won at the fair in Kirkcaldy). Living as he did in a tenement flat, he’d never been tempted in adulthood by the thought of a cat or dog. He’d tried horse-riding exactly once, rubbing his inside legs raw in the process and vowing afterwards that the closest he’d come in future to the noble beast would be on a betting slip.

But he’d liked the meerkats for a mixture of reasons: the resonance of their name; the low comedy of their rituals; their instinct for self-preservation. Kids were dangling over the wall now, legs kicking in the air. Rebus imagined a role reversal – cages filled with children, peered at by passing animals as they capered and squealed, loving the attention. Except the animals wouldn’t share a human’s curiosity. They would be unmoved by any display of agility or tenderness, would fail to comprehend that some game was being played, or that someone had skinned a knee. Animals would not build zoos, would have no need of them. Rebus was wondering why humans needed them.

The place suddenly became ridiculous to him, a chunk of prime Edinburgh real estate given over to the unreal . . . And then he saw the camera.

Saw it because it replaced the face that should have been there. The man was standing on a grassy slope sixty-odd feet away, adjusting the focus on a sizeable telescopic lens. The mouth below the camera’s body was a thin line of concentration, rippling slightly as forefinger and thumb fine-tuned the apparatus. He wore a black denim jacket, creased chinos, and running shoes. He’d removed a faded blue baseball cap from his head. It dangled from a free finger as he took his pictures. His hair was thinning and
brown, forehead wrinkled. Recognition came as soon as he lowered the camera. Rebus looked away, turning in the direction of the photographer’s subjects: children. Children leaning into the meerkat enclosure. All you could see were shoe-soles and legs, girls’ skirts and the smalls of backs where T-shirts and jerseys had ridden up.

Rebus knew the man. Context made it easier. Hadn’t seen him in probably four years but couldn’t forget eyes like that, the hunger shining on cheeks whose suffused redness highlighted old acne scars. The hair had been longer four years ago, curling over misshapen ears. Rebus sought for a name, at the same time reaching into his pocket for his radio. The photographer caught the movement, eyes turning to match Rebus’s gaze, which was already moving elsewhere. Recognition worked both ways. The lens came off and was stuffed into a shoulder-bag. A lens-cap was clipped over the aperture. And then the man was off, walking briskly downhill. Rebus yanked out his radio.

‘He’s heading downhill from me, west side of the Members’ house. Black denim jacket, light trousers . . .’ Rebus kept the description going as he followed. Turning back, the photographer saw him and broke into a trot, hindered by the heavy camera bag.

The radio burst into life, officers heading for the area. Past a restaurant and cafeteria, past couples holding hands and children attacking ice-creams. Peccaries, otters, pelicans. It was all downhill, for which Rebus was thankful, and the man’s unusual gait – one leg slightly shorter than the other – was helping close the gap. The walkway narrowed just at the point where the crowd thickened. Rebus wasn’t sure what was causing the bottleneck, then heard a splash, followed by cheers and applause.

‘Sea-lion enclosure!’ he yelled into his radio.

The man half-turned, saw the radio at Rebus’s mouth,
looked ahead of him and saw heads and bodies, camouflaging the approach of any other officers. There was fear in his eyes now, replacing the earlier calculation. He had ceased to be in control of events. With Rebus just about within grabbing distance, the man pushed two spectators aside and clambered over the low stone wall. On the other side of the pool was a rock outcrop atop which stood the female keeper, stooping over two black plastic pails. Rebus saw that there were hardly any spectators behind the keeper, since the rocks obstructed any view of the sea-lions. By dodging the crowd, the man could clamber back over the wall at the far side and be within striking distance of the exit. Rebus cursed under his breath, lifted a foot on to the wall, and hauled himself over.

The onlookers were whistling, a few even cheering as video cameras were hoisted to record the antics of two men cautiously making their way along the sharp slopes. Glancing towards the water, Rebus saw rapid movement, and heard warning yells from the keeper as a sea-lion slithered up on to the rocks near her. Its sleek black body rested only long enough for a fish to be dropped accurately into its mouth, before turning and slipping back into the pool. It looked neither too big nor too fierce, but its appearance had rattled Rebus’s quarry. The man turned back for a moment, his camera bag sliding down his arm. He moved it so it was hanging around his neck. He looked ready to retreat, but when he saw his pursuer, he changed his mind again. The keeper had reached for a radio of her own, alerting security. But the pool’s occupants were becoming impatient. The water beside Rebus seemed to flex and sway. A wave foamed against his face as something huge and ink-black rose from the depths, obliterating the sun and slapping itself down on the rocks. The crowd screamed as the male sea-lion, easily four or five times the size of its offspring, landed and looked around for food, loud snorts belching from its nose. As it opened its mouth and let out a ferocious wail, the
photographer yelped and lost his balance, plunging into the pool and taking the camera bag with him.