10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (392 page)

He looked for Janice, couldn’t see her. He had to tell her . . . had to find the words. Then someone told him there was whisky in the toilets, and he decided to stop there first. Two cubicles, side by side. Three boys in each, passing the bottle back and forth over the partition. Keeping silent so they wouldn’t be caught. The stuff tasted like fire. Its fumes came rolling down Johnny’s nostrils. He felt drunk; elated; unstoppable.

Back in the hall, it was ladies’ choice. A girl called Mary McCutcheon asked him up. They danced well together. But the reel made Johnny light-headed. He had to sit down. He hadn’t noticed some recent arrivals – three boys from his year; boys who had over time become Mitch’s
implacable enemies. The leader of the three, Alan Protheroe, had gone one-on-one with Mitch. Mitch had pulverised him, eventually. Johnny didn’t see them eyeing up Mitch. Didn’t think that the last dance of schooldays might be a time for settling scores, for ending things as well as beginning them.

Because now Janice was in the hall. Seated next to him. And they were kissing, even when Miss Dysart stood in front of them clearing her throat in warning. When Janice drew away eventually, Johnny stood up, pulling her to her feet.

‘I’ve something to tell you,’ he said. ‘But not here. Come on.’

And had led her outside, round the back of the old building to where the bike-sheds – now largely unused – still stood. Smokers’ Corner, they called it. But it was a place for lovers too, for quick snogs at lunchtime. Johnny sat Janice down on a bench.

‘Aren’t you going to tell me how lovely I look?’

He drank her in. She did look lovely. Light from the school windows made her skin seem to glow. Her eyes were dark invitations, her dress rustled with layers waiting to be unpeeled. He kissed her again. She tried to break away, asked him what it was he wanted to tell her. But now he knew that could wait. He was light-headed and full of dreams and desire. He touched her neck where it was bare at the shoulders. He ran his hand down her back, slipping it beneath the material. Her mum had made the dress; he knew it had taken hours. When he pressed harder, he felt the stitching in the zip give way. Janice gave a gasp and pushed him away.

‘Johnny . . .’ Craning her neck to try to assess the damage. ‘You silly bugger, see what you’ve done.’

His hands on her legs, sliding the dress up past the knee. ‘Janice.’

She was standing now. He stood, too, pressing in on her for another kiss. She turned her face away. He seemed all
limbs, sliding up her legs, slithering around her neck and down her back . . . She knew he tasted of beer and whisky. Knew she didn’t like it. When she felt his hand trying to prise her legs apart, she pushed him away again, and he stumbled. Regaining balance, he wasn’t so much smiling as leering as he moved in on her again.

And she swung back her hand, made a fist of it, and hit him a solid blow, almost dislocating her wrist in the process. She rubbed her knuckles, mouthing silent words of pain. He was flat out on the ground; knocked cold. She sat down again on the bench and waited for him to get up. Then heard what sounded like a commotion, and felt she’d much rather investigate than stay out here . . .

It was a fight. Slaughter might have been nearer the mark. The gang of three had somehow got Mitch on his own. They were at the edge of the playing-field, The Craigs silhouetted behind them. The sky was dark blue, bruise-coloured. Maybe Mitch had felt that tonight of all nights, he could take all three. Maybe they’d offered him a rematch, promising one-on-one. But it was three against one, and Mitch was on his hands and knees as the kicks rained in on his face and ribs. Janice was running forward, but a small, wiry figure beat her to it, legs and arms working like a windmill, head smashing into an unprotected nose, teeth bared with determination. She was amazed to identify the figure as Barney Mee, everyone’s joker. What he lacked in elegance and precision, he more than made up for in sheer bloody-mindedness. He was like a machine. It only lasted a minute, maybe less, and at the end he was exhausted, but three figures were slouching off into the encroaching darkness as Barney slumped to the ground and lay on his back, staring up at the moon and the stars.

Mitch had pulled himself into a sitting position, one hand on his chest, the other covering an eye. Both hands were smeared with his own blood. His lip was split, and his nose was dripping red. When he spat, half a tooth was
attached to the string of thick saliva. Janice stood above Barney Mee. He didn’t seem so small, lying stretched out like that. He seemed . . . compact, but heroic. He opened his eyes and saw her, gave her one of his toothy grins.

‘Lie down here,’ he told her. ‘There’s something you should see.’

‘What?’

‘You won’t see it standing up. You’ve got to lie down.’

She didn’t believe him, but she lay down anyway. What did it matter if her dress got mucky: it was already split at the back. Her face was inches from his.

‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’ she asked.

‘Up there,’ he said, pointing.

And she looked. The sky wasn’t black, that was the first strange thing. It was dark, certainly, but streaked with seams of white stars and clouds. And the moon seemed huge and orange rather than yellow.

‘Isn’t it amazing?’ Barney Mee said. ‘Every time I look at it, I can’t help saying that.’

She turned to him. ‘
You’re
amazing,’ she said.

He smiled at the compliment. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘You mean when I leave?’ She shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Look for a job, I suppose.’

‘You should go to college.’

She looked at him more closely. ‘Why?’

‘You’d make a good teacher.’

She laughed out loud, but only for a second. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘I watch you in class. You’d be good, I know you would. Kids would listen to you.’ He was looking at her now. ‘I know I would,’ he said.

Mitch cleared some blood from the back of his throat. ‘Where’s Johnny?’ he asked.

Janice shrugged. Mitch eased his hand away from his eye. ‘I’m fucking blind,’ he said. ‘And it hurts.’ He bent over and began to cry. ‘It hurts inside my head.’

Janice and Barney got up, helped him to his feet. They got one of the teachers to drive him to hospital. By the time Johnny Rebus came round, the show was over. He didn’t even notice Janice dancing with Barney Mee. He just wanted a lift to the hospital.

‘There’s something I need to tell him.’

Eventually Mitch’s parents came, and gave Johnny a lift to Kirkcaldy.

‘What in God’s name happened?’ Mitch’s mum asked.

‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there.’

She turned to look at him. ‘Weren’t there?’ He shook his head, ashamed. ‘Then how did you get that bruise . . .?’

His cheekbone, all the way down to his chin: a long purple trail. And he couldn’t tell anyone how he’d come by it.

They had a long wait at the hospital. X-rays were mentioned. Cracked ribs.

‘When I find whoever did this . . .’ Mitch’s dad said, balling his fists.

And then later, the bad news: a retina had been dislodged, maybe even worse. Mitch would lose the sight in one eye.

And by the time Johnny was allowed in to see him – with warnings not to stay too long, not to wear him out – Mitch had heard the news and was in tears.

‘Christ, Johnny. Blind in one eye, how about that?’

There was a gauze patch over the eye in question.

‘Long John fucking Silver and no mistake.’ One of the patients on the ward coughed at the swear-word. ‘And you can fuck off too!’ Mitch yelled at him.

‘Jesus, Mitch,’ Johnny whispered. Mitch grabbed his wrist, squeezed it hard.

‘It’s you now. For both of us.’

Johnny licked his lips. ‘How do you mean?’

‘They won’t take me, not blind in one eye. I’m sorry, pal. You know I am.’

Johnny was shaking, trying to think his way out.
‘Right,’ he said, nodding. It was all he could say, and he kept repeating it.

‘You’ll come back and see us, though, eh?’ Mitch was saying. ‘Tell me all about it. That’s what I’d like . . . as if I was there with you.’

‘Right, right.’

‘You’re going to have to live it for me, Johnny.’

‘Sure, right.’

A smile from Mitch. ‘Thanks, pal.’

‘Least I can do,’ said Johnny.

So he’d joined up. Janice hadn’t seemed to mind. Mitch had waved him off at the station. And that was that. He sent Mitch and Janice letters; received none in return. By the time of his first leave, Mitch was nowhere to be found, and Janice was on holiday with her parents. Later, he found out Mitch had run off somewhere, no one seemed to know why or where. Johnny had half an idea: those letters, the visits home – reminders of the life Mitch could now never have . . .

Then his brother Mickey wrote to him, told him Janice had said to tell him she was going out with Barney Mee. And Johnny hadn’t gone home after that for a while, had found other places to be when he was on leave, writing lies home so his father and brother wouldn’t suspect, coming to think of the army as his home now . . . the only place he could be understood.

Drifting further in his mind from Cardenden and the friends he’d once had, and the dreams he’d once thought were within his reach . . .

It was dark and Cary Oakes was hungry and the game still wasn’t over.

In prison, he’d been given lots of good advice about evading capture, all of it from men who’d been caught. He knew he needed to change his appearance: easily achieved with a visit to a charity shop. A new outfit of jacket, shirt and trousers for less than £20, topped off with a flat tweed cap. After all, he couldn’t suddenly make his hair grow. When he saw his likeness in the newspaper, he made further adjustments, shaving himself scrupulously in a public convenience. He found a few stray carrier bags and filled them with rubbish. Examining himself in a shop window, he saw an unemployed man, a little bitter but still with enough money to buy the shopping.

He found the places where the down-and-outs spent their days: drop-in centres in the Grassmarket; the bench beside the toilets at the Tron Kirk; the foot of The Mound. These were safe places for him. People shared a can and a cigarette and didn’t ask questions he couldn’t make up answers to.

He was shivery and achy, made soft from his stay in the hotel. The windswept night on the hills had skimmed off some of his strength. It hadn’t played the way he’d wanted it to. Archibald was still alive. Two spirits needed cleansing from his life: both were still to be dealt with.

And Rebus . . . Rebus had turned out to be something more than the ‘wild operator’ described by Jim Stevens. The way the reporter had talked, Oakes had expected Rebus to turn up naked to do battle. But Rebus had
brought a whole goddamned army with him. Oakes had escaped by dint of good fortune and the weather. Or because the gods wanted his mission to succeed.

He knew things now would be difficult. In the centre of the city, he could remain anonymous, but further out there’d be more danger of discovery. The suburbs of Edinburgh remained places where strangers did not go undetected for long. It was as if people sat with their chairs at their windows in a constant state of alert. Yet one such suburb was his ultimate destination, as it had been all along.

He could have taken a bus, but in the end he walked. It took him well over an hour. He passed Alan Archibald’s bungalow: 1930s styling with a bow window and white harled walls. There was no sign of life within. Archibald was in a hospital bed, and – according to one newspaper – under police guard. For the moment, Oakes had scratched him from his plans. Maybe the old bastard would die in hospital anyway. No, he was heading uphill and along another winding road into East Craigs. He’d been here just twice before, knowing people would get suspicious if he suddenly started frequenting the area. Two trips, one at night, one in the daytime. Both times he’d taken taxis from the foot of Leith Walk, making sure he was dropped off a few streets from his destination, not wanting the cabbies to know. In the dead of night, he’d walked right up to the walls of the building and touched trembling fingers to the stonework, trying to feel for a single life-force within.

He knew he was in there.

Couldn’t stop shaking.

Knew he was in there, because he’d called to ask, identifying himself as the son of a friend. Asked if he could keep his call a secret: he wanted his visit to be a surprise.

He wondered if it
would
be a surprise . . .

Now, he was level with the car park. He sauntered past, just another tired worker on his way home. From the
corner of his eye, he checked for police cars. Not that he thought they’d have guessed, but he wasn’t going to underestimate Rebus again.

And saw instead a car he thought he recognised. Stopped and put his bags down, making to change hands, making out they were heavier than they were. And studied the car. A Vauxhall Astra. Numberplate the same. Oakes bared his teeth and let out a hiss of air. This was too much, the bastards were determined to wreck his plans.

Only one thing for it. He fingered the knife in his pocket, knowing he’d have to do some killing.

He had ditched the carrier bags and was lying beneath the car when he heard footsteps. Turned his head to watch them coming closer. He reckoned he’d been lying on the ground for a good hour and a half. His back was chilled, and the shivers were starting again. When he heard the clunk of the locks disengaging, he slid out from his hiding-place and tugged open the passenger door. Seeing him, the driver made to get out again, but Cary Oakes had the knife in his right hand while his left grabbed at Jim Stevens’s sleeve.

‘Thought you’d be pleased to see me again, Jimbo,’ Oakes said. ‘Now close the door and get this thing moving.’ He took off his jacket, tossed it on to the back seat.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Just drive, man.’ His shirt followed.

‘What are you doing?’ Stevens asked. But Oakes ignored him, loosed his trousers and threw them into the back too.

‘This is all a bit sudden for me, Cary.’

‘A man who likes a joke, huh?’ As they left the car park, Oakes realised he was sitting on something. Pulled out the reporter’s notebook and pen.