The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories (Rebus Collection) (35 page)

‘Blackmail?’ said Rab Mitchell.

He was sitting in the interview room, and he was nervous. Rebus stood against one wall, arms folded, examining the scuffed toes of his black Dr Martens. He’d only bought them three weeks ago. They were hardly broken in – the tough leather heel-pieces had rubbed his ankles into raw blisters – and already he’d managed to scuff the toes. He knew how he’d done it too: kicking stones as he’d come out of June Redwood’s block of flats. Kicking stones for joy. That would teach him not to be exuberant in future. It wasn’t good for your shoes.

‘Blackmail?’ Mitchell repeated.

‘Good echo in here,’ Rebus said to Siobhan Clarke, who was standing by the door. Rebus liked having Siobhan in on these interviews. She made people nervous. Hard men, brutal men, they would swear and fume for a moment before remembering that a young woman was present. A lot of the time, she discomfited them, and that gave Rebus an extra edge. But Mitchell, known to his associates as ‘Roscoe’ (for no known reason), would have been nervous anyway. A man with a proud sixty-a-day habit, he had been stopped from lighting up by a tutting John Rebus.

‘No smoking, Roscoe, not in here.’

‘What?’

‘This is a non-smoker.’

‘What the f— what are you blethering about?’

‘Just what I say, Roscoe. No smoking.’

Five minutes later, Rebus had taken Roscoe’s cigarettes from where they lay on the table, and had used Roscoe’s Scottish Bluebell matches to light one, which he inhaled with great delight.

‘Non-smoker!’ Roscoe Mitchell fairly yelped. ‘You said so yourself !’ He was bouncing like a kid on the padded seat. Rebus exhaled again.

‘Did I? Yes, so I did. Oh well …’ Rebus took a third and final puff from the cigarette, then stubbed it out underfoot, leaving the longest, most extravagant stub Roscoe had obviously ever seen in his life. He stared at it with open mouth, then closed his mouth tight and turned his eyes to Rebus.

‘What is it you want?’ he said.

‘Blackmail,’ said John Rebus.

‘Blackmail?’

‘Good echo in here.’

‘Blackmail? What the hell do you mean?’

‘Photos,’ said Rebus calmly. ‘You took them at a party four months ago.’

‘Whose party?’

‘Matt Bennett’s.’

Roscoe nodded. Rebus had placed the cigarettes back on the table. Roscoe couldn’t take his eyes off them. He picked up the box of matches and toyed with it. ‘I remember it,’ he said. A faint smile. ‘Brilliant party.’ He managed to stretch the word ‘brilliant’ out to four distinct syllables. So it really had been a good party.

‘You took some snaps?’

‘You’re right. I’d just got a new camera.’

‘I won’t ask where from.’

‘I’ve got a receipt.’ Roscoe nodded to himself. ‘I remember now. The film was no good.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I put it in for developing, but none of the pictures came out. Not one. They reckoned I’d not put the film in the right way, or opened the case or something. The negatives were all blank. They showed me them.’

‘They?’

‘At the shop. I got a consolation free film.’

Some consolation, thought Rebus. Some swap, to be more accurate. He placed the photo on the table. Roscoe stared at it, then picked it up the better to examine it.

‘How the—?’ Remembering there was a woman present, Roscoe swallowed the rest of the question.

‘Here,’ said Rebus, pushing the pack of cigarettes in his direction. ‘You look like you need one of these.’

Rebus sent Siobhan Clarke and DS Brian Holmes to pick up Keith Leyton. He also advised them to take along a back-up. You never could tell with a nutter like Leyton. Plenty of back-up, just to be on the safe side. It wasn’t just Leyton after all; there might be Joyce to deal with too.

Meantime, Rebus drove to Tollcross, parked just across from the traffic lights, tight in at a bus stop, and, watched by a frowning queue, made a dash for the photographic shop’s doorway. It was chucking it down, no question. The queue had squeezed itself so tightly under the metal awning of the bus shelter that vice might have been able to bring them up on a charge of public indecency. Rebus shook water from his hair and pushed open the shop’s door.

Inside it was light and warm. He shook himself again and approached the counter. A young man beamed at him.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘I wonder if you can help,’ said Rebus. ‘I’ve got a film needs developing, only I want it done in an hour. Is that possible?’

‘No problem, sir. Is it colour?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s fine then. We do our own processing.’

Rebus nodded and reached into his pocket. The man had already begun filling in details on a form. He printed the letters very neatly, Rebus noticed with pleasure.

‘That’s good,’ said Rebus, bringing out the photo. ‘In that case, you must have developed this.’

The man went very still and very pale.

‘Don’t worry, son, I’m not from Keith Leyton. In fact, Keith Leyton doesn’t know anything about you, which is just as well for you.’

The young man rested the pen on the form. He couldn’t take his eyes off the photograph.

‘Better shut up shop now,’ said Rebus. ‘You’re coming down to the station. You can bring the rest of the photos with you. Oh, and I’d wear a cagoule, it’s not exactly fair, is it?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘And take a tip from me, son. Next time you think of blackmailing someone, make sure you get the right person, eh?’ Rebus tucked the photo back into his pocket. ‘Plus, if you’ll take my advice, don’t use words like “reprint” in your blackmail notes. Nobody says reprint except people like you.’ Rebus wrinkled his nose. ‘It just makes it too easy for us, you see.’

‘Thanks for the warning,’ the man said coolly.

‘All part of the service,’ said Rebus with a smile. The clue had actually escaped him throughout. Not that he’d be admitting as much to Kenneth Leighton. No, he would tell the story as though he’d been Sherlock Holmes and Philip Marlowe rolled into one. Doubtless Leighton would be impressed. And one day, when Rebus was needing a favour from the taxman, he would know he could put Kenneth Leighton in the frame.

Facing the Music

An unmarked police car.

Interesting phrase, that. Inspector John Rebus’s car, punch-drunk and weather-beaten, scarred and mauled, would still merit description as ‘unmarked’, despite the copious evidence to the contrary. Oily-handed mechanics stifled grins whenever he waddled into a forecourt. Garage proprietors adjusted the thick gold rings on their fingers and reached for the calculator.

Still, there were times when the old war-horse came in handy. It might or might not be ‘unmarked’; unremarkable it certainly was. Even the most cynical law-breaker would hardly expect
CID
to spend their time sitting around in a breaker’s-yard special. Rebus’s car was a must for undercover work, the only problem coming if the villains decided to make a run for it. Then, even the most elderly and infirm could outpace it.

‘But it’s a stayer,’ Rebus would say in mitigation.

He sat now, the driving-seat so used to his shape that it formed a mould around him, stroking the steering-wheel with his hands. There was a loud sigh from the passenger seat, and Detective Sergeant Brian Holmes repeated his question.

‘Why have we stopped?’

Rebus looked around him. They were parked by the side of Queensferry Street, only a couple of hundred yards from Princes Street’s west end. It was early afternoon, overcast but dry. The gusts of wind blowing in from the Firth of Forth were probably keeping the rain away. The corner of Princes Street, where Fraser’s department store and the Caledonian Hotel tried to outstare one another, caught the winds and whipped them against unsuspecting shoppers, who could be seen, dazed and numb, making their way afterwards along Queensferry Street, in search of coffee and shortcake. Rebus gave the pedestrians a look of pity. Holmes sighed again. He could murder a pot of tea and some fruit scones with butter.

‘Do you know, Brian,’ Rebus began, ‘in all the years I’ve been in Edinburgh, I’ve never been called to any sort of a crime on this street.’ He slapped the steering-wheel for emphasis. ‘Not once.’

‘Maybe they should put up a plaque,’ suggested Holmes.

Rebus almost smiled. ‘Maybe they should.’

‘Is that why we’re sitting here? You want to break your duck?’ Holmes glanced into the tea-shop window, then away again quickly licking dry lips. ‘It might take a while, you know,’ he said.

‘It might, Brian. But then again …’

Rebus tapped out a tattoo on the steering-wheel. Holmes was beginning to regret his own enthusiasm. Hadn’t Rebus tried to deter him from coming out for this drive? Not that they’d driven much. But anything, Holmes reasoned, was better than catching up on paperwork. Well, just about anything.

‘What’s the longest time you’ve been on a stake-out?’ he asked, making conversation.

‘A week,’ said Rebus. ‘Protection racket run from a pub down near Powderhall. It was a joint operation with Trading Standards. We spent five days pretending to be on the broo, playing pool all day.’

‘Did you get a result?’

‘We beat them at pool,’ Rebus said.

There was a yell from a shop doorway, just as a young man was sprinting across the road in front of their car. The young man was carrying a black metal box. The person who’d called out did so again.

‘Stop him! Thief! Stop him!’

The man in the shop doorway was waving, pointing towards the sprinter. Holmes looked towards Rebus, seemed about to say something, but decided against it. ‘Come on then!’ he said.

Rebus started the car’s engine, signalled, and moved out into the traffic. Holmes was focusing through the windscreen. ‘I can see him. Put your foot down!’

‘“Put your foot down,
sir
”,’ Rebus said calmly. ‘Don’t worry, Brian.’

‘Hell, he’s turning into Randolph Place.’

Rebus signalled again, brought the car across the oncoming traffic, and turned into the dead end that was Randolph Place. Only, while it was a dead end for cars, there were pedestrian passages either side of West Register House. The young man, carrying the narrow box under his arm, turned into one of the passages. Rebus pulled to a halt. Holmes had the car door open before it had stopped, and leapt out, ready to follow on foot.

‘Cut him off!’ he yelled, meaning for Rebus to drive back on to Queensferry Street, around Hope Street and into Charlotte Square, where the passage emerged.

‘“Cut him off,
sir
”,’ mouthed Rebus.

He did a careful three-point turn, and just as carefully moved back out into traffic held to a crawl by traffic lights. By the time he reached Charlotte Square and the front of West Register House, Holmes was shrugging his shoulders and flapping his arms. Rebus pulled to a stop beside him.

‘Did you see him?’ Holmes asked, getting into the car.

‘No.’

‘Where have you been anyway?’

‘A red light.’

Holmes looked at him as though he were mad. Since when had Inspector John Rebus stopped for a red light? ‘Well, I’ve lost him anyway.’

‘Not your fault, Brian.’

Holmes looked at him again. ‘Right,’ he agreed. ‘So, back to the shop? What was it anyway?’

‘Hi-fi shop, I think.’

Holmes nodded as Rebus moved off again into the traffic. Yes, the box had the look of a piece of hi-fi, some slim rack component. They’d find out at the shop. But instead of doing a circuit of Charlotte Square to take them back into Queensferry Street, Rebus signalled along George Street. Holmes, still catching his breath, looked around disbelieving.

‘Where are we going?’

‘I thought you were fed up with Queensferry Street. We’re going back to the station.’

‘
What?
’

‘Back to the station.’

‘But what about—?’

‘Relax, Brian. You’ve got to learn not to fret so much.’

Holmes examined his superior’s face. ‘You’re up to something,’ he said at last.

Rebus turned and smiled. ‘Took you long enough,’ he said.

But whatever it was, Rebus wasn’t telling. Back at the station, he went straight to the main desk.

‘Any robberies, Alec?’

The desk officer had a few. The most recent was a snatch at a specialist hi-fi shop.

‘We’ll take that,’ said Rebus. The desk officer blinked.

‘It’s not much, sir. Just a single item, thief did a runner.’

‘Nevertheless, Alec,’ said Rebus. ‘A crime has been committed, and it’s our duty to investigate it.’ He turned to head back out to the car.

‘Is he all right?’ Alec asked Holmes.

Holmes was beginning to wonder, but decided to go along for the ride anyway.

‘A cassette deck,’ the proprietor explained. ‘Nice model, too. Not top of the range, but nice. Top-of-the-range stuff isn’t kept out on the shop floor. We keep it in the demonstration rooms.’

Holmes was looking at the shelf where the cassette deck had rested. There were other decks either side of the gap, more expensive decks at that.

‘Why would he choose that one?’ Holmes asked.

‘Eh?’

‘Well, it’s not the dearest, is it? And it’s not even the closest to the door.’

The dealer shrugged. ‘Kids these days, who can tell?’ His thick hair was still tousled from where he had stood in the Queensferry Street wind-tunnel, yelling against the elements as passers-by stared at him.

‘I take it you’ve got insurance, Mr Wardle?’ The question came from Rebus, who was standing in front of a row of loudspeakers.

‘Christ yes, and it costs enough.’ Wardle shrugged. ‘Look, it’s okay. I know how it works. Points system, right? Anything under a four-point crime, and you lads don’t bother. You just fill out the forms so I can claim from the insurance. What does this rate? One point? Two at the most?’

Rebus blinked, perhaps stunned by the use of the word ‘lads’ in connection with him.

‘You’ve got the serial number, Mr Wardle,’ he said at last. ‘That’ll give us a start. Then a description of the thief – that’s more than we usually get in cases of shop-snatching. Meantime, you might move your stock a bit further back from the door and think about a common chain or circuit alarm so they can’t be taken off their shelves. Okay?’

Wardle nodded.

‘And be thankful,’ mused Rebus. ‘After all, it could’ve been worse. It could have been a ram-raider.’ He picked up a CD case from where it sat on top of a machine: Mantovani and his Orchestra. ‘Or even a critic,’ said Rebus.

Back at the station, Holmes sat fuming like a readying volcano. Or at least like a tin of something flammable left for too long in the sun.

Whatever Rebus was up to, as per usual he wasn’t saying. It infuriated Holmes. Now Rebus was off at a meeting in the Chief Super’s office: nothing very important, just routine … like the snatch at the hi-fi shop.

Holmes played the scene through in his mind. The stationary car, causing an obstruction to the already slow movement of traffic. Then Wardle’s cry, and the youth running across the road, jinking between cars. The youth had half turned, giving Holmes a moment’s view of a cheek speckled with acne, cropped spiky hair. A skinny runt of a sixteen-year-old in faded jeans and trainers. Pale blue windcheater with a lumberjack shirt hanging loose below its hemline.

And carrying a hi-fi component that was neither the easiest piece in the shop to steal, nor the dearest. Wardle had seemed relaxed about the whole affair. The insurance would cover it. An insurance scam: was that it? Was Rebus working on some insurance diddle on the q.t., maybe as a favour to some investigator from the Pru? Holmes hated the way his superior worked, like a greedy if talented footballer hogging the ball, dribbling past man after man, getting himself trapped beside the by-line but still refusing to pass the ball. Holmes had known a boy at school like that. One day, fed up, Holmes had scythed the smart-arse down, even though they’d been on the same side …

Rebus had known the theft would take place. Therefore, he’d been tipped off. Therefore, the thief had been set up. There was just one big
but
to the whole theory – Rebus had let the thief get away. It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make any sense at all.

‘Right,’ Holmes said, nodding to himself. ‘Right you are, sir.’ And with that, he went off to find the young offender files.

That evening, just after six, Rebus thought that since he was in the area anyway, he’d drop into Mr Wardle’s home and report the lack of progress on the case. It might be that, time having passed, Wardle would remember something else about the snatch, some crucial detail. The description he’d been able to give of the thief had been next to useless. It was almost as though he didn’t want the hassle, didn’t want the thief caught. Well, maybe Rebus could jog his memory.

The radio came to life. It was a message from DS Holmes. And when Rebus heard it, he snarled and turned the car back around towards the city centre.

It was lucky for Holmes, so Rebus said, that the traffic had been heavy, the fifteen-minute journey back into town being time enough for him to calm down. They were in the
CID
room. Holmes was seated at his desk, hands clasped behind his head. Rebus was standing over him, breathing hard. On the desk sat a matt-black cassette deck.

‘Serial numbers match,’ Holmes said, ‘just in case you were wondering.’

Rebus couldn’t quite sound disinterested. ‘How did you find him?’

With his hands still behind his head, Holmes managed a shrug. ‘He was on file, sir. I just sat there flipping through them till I spotted him. That acne of his is as good as a tattoo. James Iain Bankhead, known to his friends as Jib. According to the file, you’ve arrested him a couple of times yourself in the past.’

‘Jib Bankhead?’ said Rebus, as though trying to place the name. ‘Yes, rings a bell.’

‘I’d have thought it’d ring a whole fire station, sir. You last arrested him three months ago.’ Holmes made a show of consulting the file on his desk. ‘Funny, you not recognising him …’ Holmes kept his eyes on the file.

‘I must be getting old,’ Rebus said.

Holmes looked up. ‘So what now, sir?’

‘Where is he?’

‘Interview Room B.’

‘Let him stay there then. Can’t do any harm. Has he said anything?’

‘Not a word. Mind you, he
did
seem surprised when I paid him a visit.’

‘But he kept his mouth shut?’

Holmes nodded. ‘So what now?’ he repeated.

‘Now,’ said Rebus, ‘you come along with me, Brian. I’ll tell you all about it on the way …’

Wardle lived in a flat carved from a detached turn-of-the-century house on the south-east outskirts of the city. Rebus pressed the bell on the wall to the side of the substantial main door. After a moment, there was the muffled sound of footsteps, three clicks as locks were undone, and the door opened from within.