The Black Book (24 page)

It was Eddie Ringan.

The place was still choking with gas, so she walked back to the emergency door and gave it another heave. This time it opened most of the way, scattering clanking dustbins onto the ground outside. It was then that a curious passer-by pushed open the door from the restaurant to the kitchen. His hand went to the light-switch.

‘Don’t touch tha –!’

There was a tremendous blast and fireball. The shock sent Siobhan Clarke flying backwards into the parking lot, where her landing was softened by the rubbish she’d scattered only seconds earlier. She didn’t even suffer the same minor burns as the hapless passer-by, who went crashing back into the restaurant pursued by a blue ball of flame. But Eddie Ringan, well, he looked like he’d been done to a turn inside an oven which wasn’t even hot.

By the time Rebus got there, aching after last night’s exertions, the scene was one of immaculate chaos. Pat Calder had arrived in time to see his lover being carted away in a blue plastic bag. The bag was deemed necessary to stop bits of charred face breaking off and messing up the floor. The bagging itself had been overseen by a police doctor, but Rebus knew where Eddie would eventually end up: under the all-seeing scalpel of Dr Curt.

‘All right, Clarke?’

Rebus affected the usual inspectorial nonchalance, hands in pockets and an air of having seen it all before.

‘Apart from my coccyx, sir.’ And she gave the bone a rub for luck.

‘What happened?’

So she filled in the details, all the way from having no film (yes, why not drop Petrie in it?) to the passer-by who had nearly killed her. He had been seen to by the doctor too: frizzled eyebrows and lashes, some bruising from the fall. Rebus’s scalp tingled at the thought. There was no smell of gas in the kitchen now. But there was a smell of cooked meat, almost inviting till you remembered its source.

Calder was seated at the bar, watching the world move past him in and out of the dream he had built with Eddie Ringan. Rebus sat down beside him, glad to take the weight off his legs.

‘Those nightmares,’ Calder said immediately, ‘looks like he made them come true, eh?’

‘Looks like it. Any idea why he’d kill himself?’

Calder shook his head. He was bearing up, but only just. ‘I suppose it all got too much for him.’

‘All what?’

Calder continued shaking his head. ‘Perhaps we’ll never know.’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ Rebus said, trying not to make it sound like a threat. He must have failed, for suddenly Calder turned towards him.

‘Can’t you let it rest?’ The pale eyes were glistening.

‘No rest for the wicked, Mr Calder,’ said Rebus. He slid off the barstool and went back into the kitchen. Siobhan was standing beside a shelf filled with basic cookery books.

‘Most chefs,’ she said, ‘would rather die than keep this lot out on display.’

‘He wasn’t any ordinary chef.’

‘Look at this one.’ It was a school jotter, with ruled red lines about half an inch apart and an inch-wide margin. The margins were full of doodles and sketches, mostly of food and men with large quiffs. Neatly written in a large hand inside the margins were recipes. ‘His own creations.’ She flipped to the end. ‘Oh look, here’s Jailhouse Roquefort.’ She quoted from the recipe.’ “With thanks to Inspector John Rebus for the idea.” Well, well.’ She was about to put the book back, but Rebus took it from her. He opened it at the inside cover, where he’d spotted a copious collection of doodles. Something had been written in the midst of the drawings (some of them gayly rude). But it had been scored out again with a darker pen.

‘Can you make that out?’

They took the jotter to the back door and stood in the parking lot, where so recently someone had thumped Brian Holmes on the head. Siobhan started things off. ‘Looks like the first word’s “All”.’

‘And that’s “turn”,’ said Rebus of a later word. ‘Or maybe “turn”.’ But the rest remained beyond them. Rebus pocketed the recipe book.

‘Thinking of a new career, sir?’ Siobhan asked.

Rebus pondered a suitable comeback line. ‘Shut up, Clarke,’ he said.

Rebus dropped the jotter off at Fettes HQ, where they had people whose job it was to recover legibility from defaced and damaged writing. They were known as ‘pen pals’, the sort of boffins who liked to do really difficult crosswords.

‘This won’t take long,’ one of them told Rebus. ‘We’ll just put it on the machine.’

‘Great,’ said Rebus. ‘I’ll come back in quarter of an hour.’

‘Make it twenty minutes.’

Twenty minutes was fine by Rebus. While he was here and at a loose end, he might as well pay his respects to DI Gill Templer.

‘Hello, Gill.’ Her office smelt of expensive perfume. He’d forgotten what kind she wore. Chanel, was it? She slipped off her glasses and blinked at him.

‘John, long time no see. Sit down.’

Rebus shook his head. ‘I can’t stay, the lab’s going to have something for me in a minute. Just thought I’d see how you’re doing.’

She nodded her answer. ‘I’m doing fine. How about you?’

‘Aw, not bad. You know how it is.’

‘How’s the doctor?’

‘She’s fine, aye.’ He shuffled his feet. He hadn’t expected this to be so awkward.

‘It’s not true she kicked you out, then?’

‘How the hell do you know about that?’

Gill was smiling her lipsticked smile; a thin mouth, made for irony. ‘Come on, John, this is
Edinburgh
. You want to keep secrets, move somewhere bigger than a village.’

‘Who told you, though? How many people know?’

‘Well, if they know here at Fettes, they’re bound to know at St Leonard’s.’

Christ. That meant Watson knew, Lauderdale knew, Flower knew. And none of them had said anything.

‘It’s only a temporary thing,’ he muttered, shuffling his feet again. ‘Patience has her nieces staying, so I moved back into my flat. Plus Michael’s there just now.’

It was Gill Templer’s turn to look surprised. ‘Since when?’

‘Ten days or so.’

‘Is he back for good?’

Rebus shrugged. ‘Depends, I suppose. Gill, I wouldn’t want word getting round …’

‘Of course not! I can keep a secret.’ She smiled again. ‘Remember, I’m not
from
Edinburgh.’

‘Me neither,’ said Rebus. ‘I just get screwed around here.’ He checked his watch.

‘Are my five minutes up?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be, I’ve got plenty of work to be getting on with.’

He turned to leave.

‘John? Come up and see me again sometime.’

Rebus nodded. ‘Mae West, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Bye, Gill.’

Halfway along her corridor, Rebus recalled that a Mae West was also the name for a life-jacket. He considered this, but shook his head. ‘My life’s complicated enough.’

He returned to the lab.

‘You’re a bit early,’ he was told.

‘Keen’s the word you’re looking for.’

‘Well, speaking of words we’re looking for, come and have a peek.’ He was led to a computer console. The scribble had been OCR’d and fed into the computer, where it was now displayed on the large colour monitor. A lot of the overpenning had been ‘erased’, leaving the original message hopefully intact. The pen pal picked up a sheet of paper. ‘Here are my ideas so far.’ As he read them off, Rebus tried to see them in the message on the screen.

‘“Ale I did, turn on the gum”, “Ole I did man, term on the gam” …’ Rebus gazed up at him, and the pen pal grinned. ‘Or maybe this,’ he said. ‘“All I did was turn on the gas”.’

‘What?’

‘“All I did was turn on the gas”.’

Rebus stared at the message on the screen. Yes, he could see it … well, most of it. The pen pal was talking again.

‘It helped that you told me he’d gassed himself. I still had that half in mind when I started working, and spotted “gas” straight off. A suicide note, maybe?’

Rebus looked disbelieving. ‘What, scored out and surrounded by doodles on the inside cover of a jotter he tucked away on a shelf? Stick to what you know and you’ll do fine.’

What Rebus knew was that Eddie Ringan had suffered nightmares during which he cried out the word ‘gas’. Was this scribble the remnant from one of his bad nights? But then why score it out so heavily? Rebus picked up the jotter from the OCR machine. The inside cover looked old, the stuff there going back a year or more. Some of the doodles looked more recent than the defaced message. Whenever Eddie had written this, it wasn’t last night. Which meant, presumably, that it had no direct connection to his gassing himself. Making it … a coincidence? Rebus didn’t believe in coincidence, but he did believe in serendipity. He turned to the pen pal, who was looking not happy at Rebus’s put-down.

‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘You’re welcome.’

Each was sure the other was being less than sincere.

Brian Holmes was waiting for him at St Leonard’s, waiting to be welcomed back into the world.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Holmes, ‘I’m just visiting. I’ve got another week on the sick.’

‘How are you feeling?’ Rebus was glancing nervously around, wondering if anyone had told Holmes about Eddie. He knew in his heart they hadn’t, of course; if they had, Brian wouldn’t be half as chipper.

‘I get thumping headaches, but that apart I feel like I’ve had a holiday.’ He patted his pocket. ‘And DI Flower got up a collection. Nearly fifty quid.’

‘The man’s a saint,’ said Rebus. ‘I had a present I was going to bring you.’

‘What?’

‘A tape, the Stones’
Let it Bleed
.’

‘Thanks a lot.’

‘Something to cheer you up after Patsy De-Cline.’

‘At least she can sing.’

Rebus smiled. ‘You’re fired. Are you at your aunt’s?’

This quietened Holmes, as Rebus had hoped it would. Bring him down slowly, then drop the real news into his lap. ‘For the meantime. Nell’s … well, she says she’s not quite ready yet.’

Rebus knew the feeling; he wondered when Patience would be ready for that drink. ‘Still,’ he offered, ‘things sound a bit brighter between the two of you.’

‘Ach.’ Holmes sat down opposite his superior. ‘She wants me to leave the police.’

‘That’s a bit drastic.’

‘So is separation.’

Rebus exhaled. ‘I suppose so, but all the same … What are you going to do?’

‘Think it over, what else can I do?’ He got back to his feet. ‘Listen, I’d better get going. I only came in to –’

‘Brian, sit down.’ Holmes, recognising Rebus’s tone, sat. ‘I’ve got some bad news about Eddie.’

‘Chef Eddie?’ Rebus nodded. ‘What about him?’

‘There’s been an accident. Well, sort of. Eddie was involved.’

There was no mistaking Rebus’s meaning. He’d become good at this sort of speech through repetition over the years to the families of car crash victims, accidents at work, murders …

‘He’s dead?’ Holmes asked quietly. Rebus, lips pursed, nodded. ‘Christ, I was going to drop in and see him. What happened?’

‘We’re not sure yet. The post-mortem will probably be this afternoon.’

Holmes was no fool; again he caught the gist. ‘Accident, suicide or murder?’

‘One of those last two.’

‘And your money’d be on murder?’

‘My money stays in my pocket till I’ve spoken to the tipster.’

‘Meaning Dr Curt?’

Rebus nodded. ‘Till then, there’s not much we can do. Listen, let me get a car to take you home …’

‘No, no, I’ll be all right.’ He rose to his feet slowly, as though checking his bones for solidity. ‘I’ll be fine really. It’s just … poor Eddie. He was a friend of mine, you know?’

‘I know,’ said Rebus.

After Holmes had gone, Rebus was able to reflect that he’d gotten off lightly. Brian still wasn’t operating at full throttle; partly the convalescence, partly the shock. So he hadn’t asked Rebus any difficult questions. Questions like, does Eddie’s death have anything to do with the person who nearly killed
me
? It was something Rebus had been wondering himself. Last night Eddie was missing, and Rebus had gone to see Cafferty. Today, first thing, Eddie was dead. Meaning one less person who could say anything about the night the Central burnt down; one less person who’d been there. But Rebus still had the gut feeling Cafferty had been surprised to learn of Holmes’ attack. So what was the answer?

‘I’m buggered if I know,’ John Rebus said quietly to himself. His phone rang. He picked it up and heard pub noises, then Flower’s voice.

‘That’s some team you’ve got there, Inspector. One gets his face mashed in, and now the other falls on her arse.’ The connection was briskly severed.

‘And bugger you, too, Flower,’ Rebus said, all too aware that no one was listening.

Edinburgh’s public mortuary was sited on the Cowgate, named for the route cattle would take when being brought into the city to be sold. It was a narrow canyon of a street with few businesses and only passing traffic. Way up above it were much busier streets, South Bridge for instance. They seemed so far from the Cowgate, it might as well have been underground.

Rebus wasn’t sure the area had ever been anything other than a desperate meeting place for Edinburgh’s poorest denizens, who often seemed like cattle themselves, dull-witted from lack of sunlight and grazing on begged handouts from passers-by. The Cowgate was ripe for redevelopment these days, but who would slaughter the cattle?

A fine setting for the understated mortuary where, when he wasn’t teaching at the University, Dr Curt plied his trade.

‘Look on the bright side,’ he told Rebus. ‘The Cowgate’s got a couple of fine pubs.’

‘And a few more you could shave a dead man with.’

Curt chuckled. ‘Colourful, though I’m not sure the image conjured actually
means
anything.’

‘I bow to your superior knowledge. Now, what have you got on Mr Ringan?’

‘Ah, poor Orphan Eddie.’ Curt liked to find names for all his cadavers. Rebus got the feeling the ‘Orphan’ prefix had been used many a time before. In Eddie Ringan’s case, though, it was accurate. He had no living relations that anyone knew of, and so had been identified by Patrick Calder, and by Siobhan Clarke, since she’d been the one to find the body.