Beggars Banquet (31 page)

He pushed open the tenement door and was in a dimly lit hallway, with worn stone steps curving up. He grasped the banister and started to climb. He didn’t even pause at the second floor, but he could hear music from behind Ribs’s door. And he saw the door was reinforced, just the kind dealers fitted. It gave them those vital extra seconds when the drug squad came calling, sledgehammers and axes their invitations. Seconds were all you needed to flush evidence away, or to swallow it. These days, prior to a house raid, the drugs squad opened up the sewers and had a man stationed there, ready for the flush . . .

On the top-floor landing, Rebus paused for breath. The door facing him looked hard done by, scarred and chipped and beaten. The nameplate had been hauled off, leaving deep screw holes in the wood. Rebus knocked on the door, ready with excuses and his drunk’s head-down stance. He waited, but there was no answer. He listened, then put his eyes to the letterbox. Darkness. He tried the door handle. It turned, and the door swung inwards. When he thought about it, an unlocked door made sense. Ribs would need to come and go in a hurry, and locks took time.

Rebus stepped quietly into the short hallway. Some of the interior doors were open, bringing with them chinks of streetlight. The place smelt musty and damp, and it was cold. There was no furniture, and the wallpaper had peeled from the walls. Long strips now lay in wrinkled piles, like an old woman’s stockings come to rest at her ankles. Rebus walked on tiptoe. He didn’t know how good the floors were, and he didn’t want anyone below to hear him. He didn’t want Ribs Mackay to hear him.

He went into the living-room. It was identical in shape to the surveillance living-room. There were newspapers on the floor, a carpet rolled up against one wall. Tufts of carpet lay scattered across the floor. Mice had obviously been taking bits for nesting. Rebus went to the window. There was a small gap where two pieces of cardboard didn’t quite meet. Through this gap he had a good view of the surveillance flat. And though the lights were off, the streetlight illuminated the net curtain, so that anyone behind the curtain who moved became a shadow puppet. Someone, Sneddon or Cooper or Bernie Few, was moving just now.

‘You clever little runt,’ Rebus whispered. Then he picked something up off the floor. It was a single-lens reflex camera, with telephoto lens attached. Not the sort of thing you found lying in abandoned flats. He picked it up and focused on the window across the street. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind now. It was so simple. Ribs sneaked up here, watched the surveillance through the telephoto while they thought they were watching him, and at eight o’clock walked smartly out of the tenement and went about his business.

‘You’re as good as gold, Bernie,’ said Rebus. Then he put the camera back just the way he’d found it and tiptoed back through the flat.

Stupid question, considering. Sneddon just shrugged. ‘He had to use the bathroom.’

‘Of course he did,’ said Rebus.

Sneddon led him through to the bathroom. It had a small window high on one wall. The window was open. It led not to the outside, but merely back into the hall near the flat’s stairwell door.

‘He was in here a while, so I came looking. Banged on the door, no answer, managed to force the thing open, but he wasn’t here.’ Sneddon’s face and neck were red with embarrassment; or maybe it was just the exercise. ‘I ran downstairs, but there was no sign of him.’

‘I don’t believe he could have squeezed out of that window,’ Rebus said sceptically. ‘Not even Bernie Few.’ The window was about twelve inches by nine. It could be reached by standing on the rim of the bath, but the walls were white tile, and Rebus couldn’t see any signs of scuff marks. He looked at the toilet. Its lid was down, but didn’t sit level with the pan. Rebus lifted the lid and found himself staring at towels, several of them, stuffed down into the pan.

‘What the . . . ?’ Sneddon couldn’t believe his eyes. But Rebus could. He opened the small airing cupboard beneath the sink. It was empty. A shelf had been lifted out and placed upright in the back of the cupboard. There was just about room inside to make for a hiding place. Rebus smiled at the disbelieving Sneddon.

‘He waited till you’d gone downstairs.’

‘Then what?’ said Sneddon. ‘You mean he’s still in the flat?’

Rebus wondered. ‘No,’ he said at last, shaking his head. ‘But think of what he just told us, about how Ribs was tricking us.’

He led Sneddon out of the flat, but instead of heading down, he climbed up a further flight to the top floor. Set into the ceiling was a skylight, and it too was open.

‘A walk across the rooftops,’ said Rebus.

Sneddon just shook his head. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he offered.

‘Never mind,’ said Rebus, knowing, however, that his boss would.

As usual the changeover happened at eight. And exactly a minute after Jamphlar and Connaught entered the tenement, the door across the street opened and Ribs Mackay flew out.

Rebus and Sneddon, snug in Rebus’s car, watched him go. Then Sneddon got out to follow him. He didn’t look back at Rebus, but he did wave an acknowledgement that his superior had been right. Rebus hoped Sneddon was better as a tail than he was as a watcher. He hoped they’d catch Ribs with the stuff on him, dealing it out perhaps, or taking delivery from his own supplier. That was the plan. That had been the plan throughout.

He started the ignition and drove out on to Buccleuch Street. Scott’s Bar was an early opener, and John Rebus had an appointment there.

He owed Bernie Few a drink.

Back then a caddie was indispensable if you happened to be visiting the town. If you wanted someone found, if a message needed delivering, if you wanted a bed for the night, fresh oysters, a shirtmaker or the local hoor, you came to a caddie. And if the claret got the better of you, a caddie would see you safely home.

See, the town wasn’t safe, Lord no. The streets were mean. The high-falutin’ were leaving the old town and crossing the Nor’ Loch to the New. They lived in Princes Street and George Street, or did until they could no longer stand the stench. The old loch was an open sewer by that time, and the old town not much better.

I was called Cullender, Cully to my friends. No one knew my first name. They need only say ‘Cullender’, and they’d be pointed in my direction. That was how it was with young Master Gisborne. He had newly arrived by coach from London, and feared he’d never sit down again . . .

‘Wilks?’

‘He was here for some weeks. A medical student.’

I nodded. ‘I recall the young gentleman particularly,’ I lied.

‘I shall require a clean room, nothing too fancy, my pockets aren’t bottomless.’

‘How long will you be staying, master?’

He looked around. ‘I’m not sure. I’m considering a career in medicine. If I like the faculty, I may enrol.’

And he fingered the edges of his coat. It was a pale blue coat with bright silver buttons. Like Master Gisborne it was overdone and didn’t quite fit together. His face was fat like a whelp’s, but his physique was lean and his eyes shone. His skin had suffered neither disease nor malnourishment. He was, I suppose, a fine enough specimen, but I’d seen fine specimens before. Many of them stayed, seduced by Edinburgh. I saw them daily in the pungent howffs, or slouching through the narrow closes, heads bowed. None of them looked so fresh these days. Had they been eels, the fishwives would have tossed them in a bucket and sold them to only the most gullible.

The most gullible, of course, being those newly arrived in the city.

Master Gisborne would need looking after. He was haughty on the surface, cocksure, but I knew he was troubled, wondering how long he could sustain the act of worldliness. He had money, but not in limitless supply. His parents would be professional folk, not gentry. Some denizens would gull him before supper. Me? I was undecided.

I picked up his trunk. ‘Shall I call a chair?’ He frowned. ‘The streets here are too narrow and steep for coaches, haven’t you noticed? Know why they’re narrow?’ I sidled up to him. ‘There’s a serpent buried beneath.’ He looked ill at ease, so I laughed. ‘Just a story, master. We use chairmen instead of horses. Good strong Highland stock.’

I knew he had already walked a good way in search of me, hauling his trunk with him. He was tired, but counting his money too.

‘Let’s walk,’ he decided, ‘and you can acquaint me with the town.’

‘The town, master,’ I said, ‘will acquaint you with itself.’

We got him settled in at Lucky Seaton’s. Lucky had been a hoor herself at one time, then had been turned to the Moderate movement and now ran a Christian rooming house.

‘We know all about medical students, don’t we, Cully?’ she said, while Gisborne took the measure of his room. ‘The worst sinners in Christendom.’

She patted Master Gisborne on his plump cheek, and I led him back down the treacherous stairwell.

‘What did she mean?’ he asked me.

‘Visit a few howffs, and you’ll find out,’ I told him. ‘The medical students are the most notorious group of topers in the city, if you discount the lawyers, judges, poets, boatmen, and Lords this-and-that.’

‘What’s a howff?’

I led him directly into one.

There was a general fug in what passed for the air. Pipes were being smoked furiously, and there were no windows to open, so the stale fumes lay heavy at eye level. I could hear laughter and swearing and the shrieks of women, but it was like peering through a haar. I saw one-legged Jack, balancing a wench on his good knee. Two lawyers sat at the next table along, heads close together. A poet of minor repute scribbled away as he sat slumped on the floor. And all around there was wine, wine in jugs and bumpers and bottles, its sour smell vying with that of tobacco.

But the most noise came from a big round table in the furthest corner, where beneath flickering lamplight a meeting of the Monthly Club was underway. I led Gisborne to the table, having promised him that Edinburgh would acquaint itself with him. Five gentlemen sat round the table. One recognised me immediately.

‘Dear old Cully! What news from the world above?’

‘No news, sir.’

‘None better than that!’

‘What’s the meeting this month, sirs?’

‘The Hot Air Club, Cully.’ The speaker made a toast of the words. ‘We are celebrating the tenth anniversary of Mr Tytler’s fight by montgolfier over this very city.’

This had to be toasted again, while I explained to Master Gisborne that the Monthly Club changed its name regularly in order to have something to celebrate.

‘I see you’ve brought fresh blood, Cully.’

‘Mr Gisborne,’ I said, ‘is newly arrived from London and hopes to study medicine.’

‘I hope he will, too, if he intends to practise.’

There was laughter, and replenishing of glasses.

‘This gentleman,’ I informed my master, ‘is Mr Walter Scott. Mr Scott is an advocate.’

‘Not today,’ said another of the group. ‘Today he’s Colonel Grogg!’

More laughter. Gisborne was asked what he would drink.

‘A glass of port,’ my hapless charge replied.

The table went quiet. Scott was smiling with half his mouth only.

‘Port is not much drunk in these parts. It reminds some people of the Union. Some people would rather drink
whisky
and toast their Jacobite “King O’er the Water”.’ Someone at the table actually did this, not heeding the tone of Scott’s voice. ‘But we’re one nation now,’ Scott continued. That man did like to make a speech. ‘And if you’ll drink some claret with us, we may yet be reconciled.’

The drinker who’d toasted Bonnie Prince Charlie, another lawyer whose name was Urquhart, now turned to Gisborne with his usual complaint to Englishmen. ‘“Rule Britannia”,’ he said, ‘was written by a Scot. John Bull was
invented
by a Scot!’

He slumped back, having to his mind made his point. Master Gisborne looked like he had tumbled into Bedlam.

‘Now now,’ Scott calmed. ‘We’re here to celebrate montgolfiers.’ He handed Gisborne a stemless glass filled to the brim. ‘And new arrivals. But you’ve come to a dangerous place, sir.’

‘How so?’ my master enquired.

‘Sedition is rife.’ Scott paused. ‘As is murder. How many is it now, Cully?’

‘Three this past fortnight.’ I recited the names. ‘Dr Benson, MacStay the coffin-maker, and a wretch called Howison.’

‘All stabbed,’ Scott informed Gisborne. ‘Imagine, murdering a coffin-maker! It’s like trying to murder Death himself !’