The Black Book (19 page)

John Rebus found that very interesting indeed.

He returned to St Leonard’s and was relieved to find no sign of Lauderdale or Little Weed. He’d forgotten to visit Holmes, so telephoned the hospital instead. He knew how it went at the Infirmary; they could wheel a payphone to your bed.

‘Brian?’

‘Hello there. I’ve just had a visit from Nell.’ He sounded bright. Rebus hoped he wasn’t just getting her sympathy vote.

‘How is she?’

‘She’s okay. Any progress?’

Rebus thought about the past twenty-four hours. A lot of work. ‘No,’ he said, ‘no progress.’ He decided not to tell Holmes that Eddie Ringan was missing: he might worry himself back into relapse.

‘Are you thinking of giving up?’

‘I’ve got a lot on my plate, Brian, but no, I’m not giving up.’

‘Thanks.’

Rebus almost blurted out, It’s not just for you now, it’s for my brother too. Instead, he told Holmes to take care, and promised him a visit soon.

‘Better make it
very
soon, they’re letting me out tomorrow or the day after.’

‘That’s good.’

‘I don’t know … there’s this nurse in here …’

‘Ach, away with ye!’ But Rebus remembered a nurse who had treated his scalp, a nurse he’d become too friendly with. That had been the start of the trouble with Patience. ‘Be careful,’ he ordered, putting down the phone.

His next call was to the local newspaper. He spoke to someone there for a few minutes, after which he tried calling Siobhan Clarke in Gorgie. But there was no answer. Obviously Dougary had clocked off for the day, and with him her surveillance. Well, it was time for Inspector Rebus to clock off too. On his way out, he heard the unmistakable brag of Alister Flower’s voice heading towards him. Rebus dodged into another office and waited for Flower and his underlings to pass. They hadn’t been talking about him, which was something. He felt only a little ashamed at hiding. Every good soldier knew when to hide.

Michael was up and about that evening, doing a fair imitation of a telly addict. He held the remote control like it was a pacemaker, and stared deeply at anything on the screen. Rebus began to wonder about the dosages he’d been taking. But there still seemed to be a fair number of tablets in the bottle.

He went out and bought fish suppers from the local chip shop. It wasn’t the best of stuff, but Rebus didn’t feel like driving the distance to anywhere better. He remembered the chip shop in their home town, where the fryer would spit into the fat to check how hot it was. Michael smiled at the story, but his eyes never left the TV. He pushed chips into his mouth, chewing slowly, picking batter off the fish and eating that before attacking the fatty white flesh.

‘Not bad chips,’ Rebus commented, pouring Irn-Bru for both of them. He was waiting for Patience’s phone call, giving the time and place for their meet. But whenever the phone did ring, it was for the students.

It rang for a fifth or sixth time, and Rebus picked up the receiver. ‘Edinburgh University answering service?’

‘It’s me,’ said Siobhan Clarke.

‘Oh, hello there.’

‘Don’t sound
too
excited.’

‘What can I do for you, Clarke?’

‘I wanted to apologise for this morning.’

‘Not entirely your fault.’

‘I should have told those boys who we really were. I’ve been going over it again and again in my head, what I should have done.’

‘Well, you won’t do it again.’

‘No, sir.’ She paused. ‘I heard you were carpeted.’

‘You mean by the Chief Inspector?’ Rebus smiled. ‘More like a fireside rug than a length of Wilton. How’s the window?’

‘Boarded up. The glass’ll be replaced overnight.’

‘Anything of interest today?’

‘You were there for it, sir. Petrie came back in the afternoon.’

‘Oh yes, how was he?’

‘Bandaged up like the Elephant Man.’

Rebus knew that if anyone had talked about the morning’s incident – and someone had – it must be Petrie. He’d little sympathy. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Yes, sir. Goodnight.’

‘What was all that about?’ asked Michael.

‘Nothing.’

‘I thought that’s what you’d say. Is there any more Irn-Bru?’

Rebus passed him the bottle.

When Patience hadn’t phoned by ten, he gave up and started to concentrate on the TV. He had half a mind to leave the receiver off its cradle. The next call came ten minutes later. There was tremendous background noise, a party or a pub. A bad song was being badly sung nearby.

‘Turn that down a bit, Mickey.’ Michael hit the mute button, silencing a politician on the news. ‘Hello?’

‘Is that you, Mr Rebus?’

‘It’s me.’

‘Chick Muir here.’ Chick was one of Rebus’s contacts.

‘What is it, Chick?’ The song had come to an end, and Rebus heard clapping, laughter, and whistles.

‘That fellow you were wanting to see, he’s about twenty feet away from me with a treble whisky up at his nose.’

‘Thanks, Chick. I’ll be right there.’

‘Wait a second, don’t you want to know where I am?’

‘Don’t be stupid, Chick. I
know
where you are.’

Rebus put the receiver down and looked over at Mickey, who seemed to have fallen asleep. He switched off the television, and went to get his jacket.

It was a nap Chick Muir had been calling from the Bowery, a late-opening dive near the bottom of Easter Road. The pub had been called Finnegan’s until a year ago, when a new owner had come up with the ‘inspired’ change of name, because, as he explained, he wanted to see loads of bums on seats.

He got bums all right, some of whom wouldn’t have looked amiss in the original Bowery. He also got some students and perennial hard drinkers, partly because of the pub’s location but mostly because of the late licence. There had never been any trouble though, well, none to speak of. Half the drinkers in the Bowery feared the other half, who meantime were busy fearing
them
. Besides which, it was rumoured Big Ger gave round-the-clock insurance – for a price.

Chick Muir often drank there, though he managed not to participate in what was reckoned to be Edinburgh’s least musical karaoke. Eddie Ringan for one would have died on the spot at the various awful deaths suffered by ‘Hound Dog’ and ‘Wooden Heart’. Off-key and out of condition, the singers could transform a simple word like ‘crying’ into a multi-syllabled meaningless drawl. Huh-kuh-rye-a-yeng was an approximation of the sound that greeted Rebus as he pulled at the double doors to the pub and slitted his eyes against the cigarette fug.

As ‘Crying in the Chapel’ came to its tearful end, Rebus felt a hand squeeze his arm.

‘You made it then.’

‘Hullo, Chick. What are you having?’

‘A double Grouse would hit the spot, not that I believe they keep real Grouse in their Grouse bottles.’ Chick Muir grinned, showing two rows of dull gold teeth. He was a foot and a half shorter than Rebus, and looked in this crowd like a wee boy lost in the woods. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘it might not be Grouse, but it’s a quarter gill.’

Well, there was logic in that somewhere. So Rebus pushed his way to the bar and shouted his order. There was applause all around as a favourite son of song took the stage. Rebus glanced along the bar and saw Deek Torrance, looking no more drunk or sober than the last time they’d met. As Rebus was paying for his drinks (he’d never to wait; they knew him in here) Torrance saw him, and gave a nod and a wave. Rebus indicated that he had to take the drinks but would be back, and Torrance nodded again.

The music had started up. Oh please, no, thought Rebus. Not ‘Little Red Rooster’. On the video, a cockerel seemed to be taking an interest in the blonde farm-girl who had come out to collect the morning eggs.

‘Here you are, Chick. Cheers.’

‘Slainte.’ Chick took a sip, savoured, then shook his head. ‘I’m sure this isn’t Grouse. Did you see him?’

‘I saw him.’

‘And it’s the right chap?’

Rebus handed over a folded tenner, which Chick pocketed. ‘It’s him, all right.’

And indeed, Deek Torrance was squeezing his way towards them through the crush. But he stopped short and leaned over another drinker to tap Rebus’s shoulder.

‘John, just going –’ He yanked his head towards the toilets at the side of the stage. ‘Back in a min.’ Rebus nodded his understanding and Torrance moved away again through the tide. Chick Muir sank his whisky. ‘I’ll make myself scarce,’ he said.

‘Aye, see you around, Chick.’ Chick nodded and, placing his glass on a table, made for the exit. Rebus tried to shut out ‘Little Red Rooster’, and when this failed he followed Torrance to the toilets. He saw Deek having a word with the DJ on the stage, then pushing open the door of the gents’. Rebus glared at the singer as he passed, but the crowd was whipping the middle-aged man to greater and greater depths.

Deek was at the communal urinal, laughing at a cartoon on the wall. It showed two football players in Hearts strips involved in an act of buggery, and above it was the caption ‘Jam Tarts – Well Stuffed!’ It was the sort of thing you had to expect on Easter Road. In a pub somewhere in Gorgie there would be a similar cartoon portraying two Hibernian players. Rebus checked that no one else was in the gents’. Deek, looking over his shoulder, spotted him.

‘John, I thought for a minute you were a willie-watcher.’

But Rebus was in serious mood. ‘I need you to get me something, Deek.’

Torrance grunted.

‘Remember when you said you could lay your hands on anything?’

‘Anything from a shag to a shooter,’ quoted Deek.

‘The latter,’ Rebus said simply. Deek Torrance looked like he might be about to comment. Instead, he grunted, zipped his fly, and went over to the washbasin.

‘You could get into trouble.’

‘I could.’

Torrance dried his hands on the filthy roller-towel. ‘When would you need it?’

‘ASAP.’

‘Any particular model?’ They were both serious now, talking in quiet, level tones.

‘Whatever you can get will be fine. How much?’

‘Anything up to a couple of hundred. You sure you want to do this?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘You could get a licence, make it legit.’

‘I could.’

‘But you probably won’t.’

‘You don’t want to know, Deek.’

Deek grunted again. The door swung open and a young man, grinning from one side of his mouth while holding a cigarette in the other, breezed in. He ignored the two men and made for the urinal.

‘Give me a phone number.’ The youth half-glanced over his shoulder at them. ‘Eyes front, son!’ Torrance snarled at him. ‘Guide dogs are gey expensive these days!’

Rebus tore a sheet from his notepad. ‘Two numbers,’ he said. ‘Home and work.’

‘I’ll be in touch.’

Rebus pulled open the door. ‘Buy you a drink?’

Torrance shook his head. ‘I’m heading off.’ He paused. ‘You’re sure about this?’

John Rebus nodded.

When Deek had gone, he bought himself another drink. He was shaking, his heart racing. A good-looking woman had been singing ‘Band of Gold’, and adequately too. She got the biggest cheer of the night. The DJ came to the microphone and repeated her name. There were more cheers as her boyfriend helped her down from the stage. His fingers were covered with gold rings. Now the DJ was introducing the next act.

‘He’s chosen to sing for us that great old number “King of the Road”. So let’s have a big hand for John Rebus!’

There was some applause, and the people who knew him lowered their drinks and looked towards where Rebus stood at the bar.

‘You bastard, Deek!’ he hissed. The DJ was looking out over the crowd.

‘John, are you still with us?’ The audience were looking around too. Someone, Rebus realised later, must have pointed him out, for suddenly the DJ was announcing that John was a shy one but he was standing at the bar with the black padded jacket on and his head buried in his glass. ‘So let’s coax him up here with an extra big hand.’

There was an extra big hand for John Rebus as he turned to face the crowd. It was fortunate indeed, he later decided, that Deek hadn’t given him a gun then and there. Just the one bullet would have done.

Deek Torrance hated himself, but he made the phone call anyway. He made it from a public box beside a patch of waste ground. Despite the late hour, some children were riding their bikes noisily across the churned-up tarmac. They had set up a ramp from two planks and a milk crate, and launched themselves into darkness, landing heavily on their suffering tyres.

‘It’s Deek Torrance,’ he said when the telephone was answered. He knew he would have to wait while his name was passed along. He rested his forehead against the side of the call-box. The plastic was cool. We all grow up, he said to himself. It’s not much fun, but we all do it. No Peter Pans around these days.

Someone was on the line now. The telephone had been picked up at the other end.

‘It’s Deek Torrance,’ he repeated, quite unnecessarily. ‘I’ve got a bit of news …’

Rebus was at work surprisingly early on Wednesday morning. He’d never been known as the earliest of arrivals, and his presence in the CID room made his more punctual colleagues look twice, just to be sure they weren’t still warm and safe and dreaming in their beds.

They didn’t get too close though, an early morning Rebus not being in the best of humours. But he’d wanted to get here before the day’s swarm began: he didn’t want too many people seeing just what information he was calling up on the computer.

Not that there was much on Aengus Grahame Fairmile Gibson. Public drunkenness mostly, usually with associated high jinks. Knocking the policeman’s helmet off seemed to be a game enjoyed by youthful Gibson and his cronies. Other indiscretions included kerb-crawling in a part of town not renowned for its prostitutes, and an attempt to enter a friend’s flat by the window (the key having been lost) which landed him in the wrong flat.

But it all came to a stop five years ago. From then till now, Gibson had received not so much as a parking ticket or a speeding fine. So much for his police files. Rebus punched in Broderick Gibson, too, not expecting anything. His expectations were fulfilled. The elder Gibson’s ‘youthful indiscretions’ would be the stuff of musty old files in an annexe somewhere – always supposing there were any to begin with. Rebus had the feeling that anyone associated with Scottish Sword & Shield would probably have been arrested for disorderly conduct or breach of the peace at
some
point in their career. The possible exception, perhaps, being Matthew Vanderhyde.