The Black Book (6 page)

‘You stupid bugger!’ he hissed. ‘You stupid, stupid bugger!’

‘I can’t help it,’ said Ringan, proffering his empty glass. ‘I’m all shook up. Now give me a drink before I do something
really
stupid.’

Pat Calder thought about it for a moment. Then he gave Eddie Ringan the drink.

The ambulance took Brian Holmes to the Royal Infirmary.

Rebus had never been persuaded by this hospital. It seemed full of good intentions and unfilled staff rosters. So he stood close by Brian Holmes’ bed, as close as they’d let him stand. And as the night wore on, he didn’t flinch; he just slid a little lower down the wall. He was crouching with his head resting against his knees, arms cold against the floor, when he sensed someone towering over him. It was Nell Stapleton. Rebus recognised her by her very height, long before his eyes had reached her tear-stained face.

‘Hello there, Nell.’

‘Christ, John.’ And the tears started again. He pulled himself upright, embracing her quickly. She was throwing words into his ear. ‘We talked only this evening. I was horrible. And now this happens …’

‘Hush, Nell. It’s not your fault. This sort of thing can happen anytime.’

‘Yes, but I can’t help remembering, the last time we spoke it was an argument. If we hadn’t argued …’

‘Sshh, pet. Calm down now.’ He held her tight. Christ, it felt good. He didn’t like to think about how good it felt. It felt good all the same. Her perfume, her shape, the way she moulded against him.

‘We argued, and he went to that bar, and then …’

‘Sshh, Nell. It’s not your fault.’

He believed it, too, though he wasn’t sure whose fault it was: protection racketeers? Jealous restaurant owners? Simple neds? A difficult one to call.

‘Can I see him?’

‘By all means.’ Rebus gestured with his arm towards Holmes’ bed. He turned away as Nell Stapleton approached it, giving the couple some privacy. Not that the gesture meant anything; Holmes was still unconscious, hooked up to some monitor and with his head heavily bandaged. But he could almost make out the words Nell used when she spoke to her estranged lover. The tone she used made him think of Dr Patience Aitken, made him half-wish
he
were lying unconscious. It was nice to think people were saying nice things about you.

After five minutes, she came tiredly back. ‘Hard work?’ Rebus offered.

Nell Stapleton nodded. ‘You know,’ she said quietly, ‘I think I’ve an idea why this happened.’

‘Oh?’

She was speaking in a near-whisper, though the ward was quiet. They were the only two souls about on two legs. She sighed loudly. Rebus wondered if she’d ever taken drama classes.

‘The black book,’ she said. Rebus nodded as though understanding her, then frowned.

‘What black book?’ he asked.

‘I probably shouldn’t be telling you, but you’re not just someone he works with, are you? You’re a friend.’ She let out another whistle of air. ‘It was Brian’s notebook. Nothing official, this was stuff he was looking into on his own.’

Rebus, wary of waking anyone, led her out of the ward. ‘A diary?’ he asked.

‘Not really. It was just that sometimes he used to hear rumours, bits of pub gossip. He’d write them down in the black book. Then he might take things further. It was sort of a hobby with him, but maybe he thought it was also a way to an early promotion. I don’t know. We used to argue about that, too. I was hardly seeing him, he was so busy.’

Rebus was staring at the wall of the corridor. The overhead lighting stung his eyes. He’d never heard Holmes mention any kind of notebook.

‘What about it?’

Nell was shaking her head. ‘It was just something he said, something before we …’ Her hand went to her mouth, as though she were about to cry. ‘Before we split up.’

‘What was it, Nell?’

‘I’m not sure exactly.’ Her eyes met Rebus’s. ‘I just know Brian was scared, and I’d never seen him scared before.’

‘Scared of what?’

She shrugged. ‘Something in the book.’ Then she shook her head again. ‘I’m not sure what. I can’t help feeling … feeling I’m somehow responsible. If we’d never …’

Rebus pulled her to him again. ‘There there, pet. It’s not your fault.’

‘But it
is
! It
is
!’

‘No it isn’t.’ Rebus made his voice sound determined. ‘Now, tell me, where did Brian keep this wee black book of his?’

About his person, was the answer. Brian Holmes’ clothes and possessions had been removed when the ambulance delivered him to the Infirmary. But Rebus’s ID was enough to gain access to the hospital’s property department, even at this grim hour. He plucked the notebook out of an A4 envelope’s worth of belongings, and had a look at the other contents. Wallet, diary, ID. Watch, keys, small change. Stuff without personality, now that it had been separated from its owner, but strengthening Rebus’s conviction that this was no mere mugging.

Nell had gone home still crying, leaving no message to be passed along to Brian. All Rebus knew was that she suspected the beating was something to do with the notebook. And maybe she was right. He sat in the corridor outside Holmes’ ward, sipping water and skipping through the cheap leatherette book. Holmes had employed a kind of shorthand, but the code was not nearly complex enough to puzzle another copper. Much of the information had come from a single night and a single action: the night an animal rights group had broken into Fettes HQ’s records room. Amongst other things, they’d uncovered evidence of a rent-boy scandal among Edinburgh’s most respectable citizens.
This
didn’t come as news to John Rebus, but some other entries were intriguing, and especially the one referring to the Central Hotel.

The Central Hotel had been an Edinburgh institution until five years ago, when it had been razed to the ground. An insurance scam was rumoured, and £5,000 had been hoisted by the insurance company involved as a reward for proof that just such a scam had really taken place. But the reward had gone uncollected.

The hotel had once been a traveller’s paradise. It was sited on Princes Street, no distance at all from Waverley Station, and so had become a travelling businessman’s home-from-home. But in its latter years, the Central had seen business decline. And as genuine business declined, so disingenuous business took over. It was no real secret that the Central’s stuffy rooms could be hired by the hour or the afternoon. Room service would provide a bottle of champagne and as much talcum powder as any room’s tenants required.

In other words, the Central had become a knocking-shop, and by no means a subtle one. It also catered to the town’s shadier elements in all shapes and forms. Wedding parties and stag nights were held for a spread of the city’s villains, and underage drinkers could loll in the lounge bar for hours, safe in the knowledge that no honest copper would stray inside the doors. Familiarity bred further contempt, and the lounge bar started to be used for drug deals, and other even less savoury deals too, so that the Central Hotel became something more than a mere knocking-shop. It turned into a swamp.

A swamp with an eviction order over its head.

The police couldn’t turn a blind eye forever and a day, especially when complaints from the public were rising by the month. And the more trash was introduced to the Central, the more trash was produced by the place. Until almost no real drinkers went there at all. If you ventured into the Central, you were looking for a woman, cheap drugs, or a fight. And God help you if you weren’t.

Then, as had to happen, one night the Central burnt down. This came as no surprise to anyone; so much so that reporters on the local paper hardly bothered to cover the blaze. The police, of course, were delighted. The fire saved them having to raid the joint.

But the next morning there was a solitary surprise: for though all the hotel’s staff and customers had been accounted for, a body turned up amongst the charred ceilings and roofbeams. A body that had been burnt out of all recognition.

A body that had been dead when the fire started.

These scant details Rebus knew. He would not have been a City of Edinburgh detective if he
hadn’t
known. Yet here was Holmes’ black book, throwing up tantalising clues. Or what looked like tantalising clues. Rebus read the relevant section through again.

Central fire. El was there! Poker game on 1st floor. R. Brothers involved (so maybe Mork too??). Try finding.

He studied Holmes’ handwriting, trying to decide whether the journal said El or El; the letter 1 or the number 1. And if it was the letter 1, did he mean El to stand as the phonetic equivalent of a single letter 1? Why the exclamation mark? It seemed that the presence of El (or L or E-One) was some kind of revelation to Brian Holmes. And who the hell were the R. Brothers? Rebus thought at once of Michael and him, the Rebus brothers, but shook the picture from his mind. As for Mork, a bad TV show came to mind, nothing else.

No, he was too tired for this. Tomorrow would be time enough. Maybe by tomorrow Brian would be up and talking. Rebus decided he’d say a little prayer for him before he went to sleep.

A prayer which went unanswered. Brian Holmes had still not regained consciousness when Rebus phoned the Infirmary at seven o’clock.

‘Is he in a coma or something, then?’

The voice on the other end of the phone was cold and factual. ‘There will be tests this morning.’

‘What sorts of tests?’

‘Are you part of Mr Holmes’ immediate family?’

‘No, I’m bloody not. I’m …’ A police officer? His boss? Just a friend? ‘Never mind.’ He put down the receiver. One of the students put her head around the living-room door.

‘Want some herbal tea?’

‘No thanks.’

‘A bowl of muesli?’

Rebus shook his head. She smiled at him and disappeared. Herbal tea and muesli, great God almighty. What sort of way was that to start the day? The door of the box room opened from within, and Rebus was startled when a teenage girl dressed only in a man’s shirt came out into the daylight, rubbing at her eyes. She smiled at him as she passed, making for the living-room door. She walked on tiptoe, trying not to put too much bare foot on the cold linoleum.

Rebus stared at the living-room door for another ten seconds, then walked over to the box room. Michael was lying naked on the narrow single bed, the bed Rebus had bought secondhand at the weekend. He was rubbing a hand over his chest and staring at the ceiling. The air inside the box room was foetid.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Rebus asked.

‘She’s eighteen, John.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘Oh? What did you mean?’

But Rebus wasn’t sure any more. There was just something plain ugly about his brother sharing a box room bed with some student while he slept on the sofa not eight feet away. It was all ugly, all of it. Michael would have to go. Rebus would have to move into a hotel or something. None of it could go on like this much longer. It wasn’t fair on the students.

‘You should come to the pub more often,’ Michael offered. ‘That’s what’s wrong you know.’

‘What?’

‘You just don’t see life, John. It’s time you started to live a little.’

Michael was still smiling when his brother slammed the door on him.

I’ve just heard about Brian.’

DC Siobhan Clarke looked in some distress. She had lost all colour from her face except for two dots of red high on her cheeks and the paler red of her lips. Rebus nodded for her to sit down. She pulled a chair over to his desk.

‘What happened?’

‘Somebody hit him over the head.’

‘What with?’

Now
that
was a good question, the sort of question a detective would ask. It was also a question Rebus had forgotten to ask last night. ‘We don’t know,’ he said. ‘Nor do we have any motive, not yet.’

‘It happened outside the Heartbreak Cafe?’

Rebus nodded. ‘In the car park out back.’

‘He kept saying he was going to take me there for a meal.’

‘Brian always keeps his word. Don’t worry, Siobhan, he’ll be all right.’

She nodded, trying to believe this. ‘I’ll go see him later.’

‘If you like,’ said Rebus, not sure quite what his tone was supposed to mean. She looked at him again.

‘I like,’ she said.

After she’d gone, Rebus read through a message from Chief Inspector Lauderdale. It detailed the initial surveillance plans for the money lending operation. Rebus was asked for questions and ‘useful comments’. He smiled at that phrase, knowing Lauderdale had used it hoping to deter Rebus from his usual basic critique of anything put in front of him. Then someone delivered a hefty package, the package he had been waiting for. He lifted the flaps of the cardboard box and started to pull out bulging files. These were the notes referring to the Central Hotel, its history and final sorry end. He knew he had a morning’s reading ahead of him, so he found Lauderdale’s letter, penned a large OK on it, scrawled his signature beneath, and tossed it into his out tray. Lauderdale wouldn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe Rebus had accepted the surveillance without so much as a murmur. It was bound to perplex the Chief Inspector.

Not a bad start to the working day.

Rebus sat down with the first file from the box and started to read.

He was filling a second page with his own notes when the telephone rang. It was Nell Stapleton.

‘Nell, where are you?’ Rebus continued writing, finishing a sentence.

‘I’m at work. Just thought I’d call and see if you’d found anything.’

He finished the sentence. ‘Such as?’

‘Well, what happened to Brian.’

‘I’m not sure yet. Maybe he’ll tell us when he wakes up. Have you talked to the hospital?’

‘First thing.’

‘Me too.’ Rebus started writing again. There was a nervous silence on the other end of the line.

‘What about the black book?’

‘Oh, that. Yes, I had a wee read of it.’

‘Did you find whatever Brian was afraid of?’

‘Maybe and maybe not. Don’t worry, Nell, I’m working on it.’

‘That’s good.’ There was genuine relief in her voice. ‘Only, when Brian wakes up, don’t tell him I told you, will you?’