10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (142 page)

‘Oh aye, no’ bad. I’m no’ an expert, like. The only things anybody around here draws are the pension or the dole.’ There was laughter at this.

‘Or a bowl,’ added one drinker. He made the word sound like ‘bowel’, but Rebus knew what he meant.

‘Or a cigarette,’ somebody else suggested, but the joke was by now history. The barman nodded towards the drawings. ‘Anybody in particular, like?’

Rebus shrugged.

‘Could be brothers, eh?’

Rebus turned to the drinker on his left, who had just spoken. ‘What makes you say that?’

The drinker twitched and turned to stare at the row of optics behind the bar. ‘They look similar.’

Rebus examined the two drawings. As requested, Midgie had aged the brothers five or six years. ‘You could be right.’

‘Or cousins maybe,’ said the drinker on his right.

‘Related, though,’ Rebus mused.

‘I cannae see it myself,’ said Dod the barman.

‘Look a bit closer,’ Rebus advised. He ran his finger over the sheets of paper. ‘Same chins, eyes look the same too. Maybe they
are
brothers.’

‘Who are they, then?’ asked the drinker on his right, a middle-aged man with square unshaven jaw and lively blue eyes.

But Rebus just shrugged again. One of the domino players came to the bar to order a round. He looked like he’d just won a rubber, and clapped his hands together.

‘How’s it going then, James?’ he asked the drinker on Rebus’s right.

‘No’ bad, Matt. Yourself?’

‘Ach, just the same.’ He smiled at Rebus. ‘Havenae seen you in here afore, son.’

Rebus shook his head. ‘I’ve been away.’

‘Oh aye?’ Three pints had appeared on a metal tray.

‘There you go, Matt.’

‘Thanks, Dod.’ Matt handed over a ten-pound note. As he waited for change, he saw the drawings. ‘Butch and Sundance, eh?’ He laughed. Rebus smiled warmly. ‘Or more like Steptoe and Son.’

‘Steptoe and Brother,’ Rebus suggested.

‘Brothers?’ Matt studied the drawings. He was still studying them when he asked, ‘Are you the polis then, son?’

‘Do I look like the polis?’

‘No’ exactly.’

‘No’ fat enough for a start,’ said Dod. ‘Eh, son?’

‘You get skinny polis, though,’ argued James. ‘What about Stecky Jamieson?’

‘Right enough,’ said Dod. ‘Thon bugger could hide behind a lamp post.’

Matt had picked up the tray of drinks. The other domino players at his table called out that they were ‘gasping’. Matt nodded towards the drawings. ‘I’ve seen yon buggers afore,’ he said, before moving off.

Rebus drained his glass and ordered another. The drinker on his left finished and, fixing a bunnet to his head, started to make his goodbyes.

‘Cheerio then, Dod.’

‘Aye, cheerio.’

‘Cheerio, James.’

This went on for minutes. The long cheerio. Rebus folded the drawings and put them in his pocket. He took his time over the second pint. There was some talk of football, extra-marital affairs, the nonexistent job market. Mind you, the amount of affairs that seemed to be going on, Rebus was surprised anyone found the time or energy for a job.

‘You know what this part of Fife’s become?’ offered James. ‘A giant DIY store. You either work in one, or you shop there. That’s about it.’

‘True enough,’ said Dod, though there was little conviction in his voice.

Rebus finished the second pint and went to visit the gents’. The place stank to high heaven, and the graffiti was poor. Nobody came in for a quiet word, not that he’d been expecting it. On his way back from bathroom to bar he stopped at the dominoes game.

‘Matt?’ he asked. ‘Sorry to interrupt. You didn’t say where you thought you’d seen Butch and Sundance.’

‘Maybe just the one o’ them,’ said Matt. The doms had been shuffled and he picked up seven, three in one hand and four in the other. ‘It wasnae here, though. Maybe Lochgelly. For some reason, I think it was Lochgelly.’ He put the dominoes face down on the tabletop and picked out the one he wished to play. The man next to him chapped.

‘Bad sign that, Tam, this early on.’

Bad sign indeed. Rebus would have to go to Lochgelly. He returned to the bar and said his own brief cheerio.

‘Or you could draw a fire,’ someone at the bar was saying, poking the embers of that long-dead joke.

The drive from Cowdenbeath to Lochgelly took Rebus through Lumphinnans. His father had always made jokes about Lumphinnans; Rebus wasn’t sure why, and certainly couldn’t recall any of them. When he’d been young, the skies had been full of smoke, every house heated by a coal fire in the sitting room. The chimneys sent up a grey plume into the evening air, but not now. Now, central heating and gas had displaced Old King Coal.

It saddened Rebus, this silence of the lums.

It saddened him, too, that he would have to repeat his performance with the drawings. He’d hoped the Midden would be the start and finish of his quest. Of course, it was always possible Eddie had been setting a false trail in the first place. If so, Rebus would see he got his just deserts, and it wouldn’t be Blue Suede Choux.

He did his act in three pubs nursing three half-pints, with no reaction save the usual bad jokes including the ‘drawing the pension’ line. But in the fourth bar, an understandably understated shack near the railway station, he drew the attention of a keen-eyed old man who had been cadging drinks all round the pub. At the time, Rebus was showing the drawings to a cluster of painters and decorators at the corner of the L-shaped bar. He knew they were decorators because they’d asked him if he needed any work doing. ‘On the fly, like. Cheaper that way.’ Rebus shook his head and showed them the drawings.

The old man pushed his way into the group. He looked up at all the faces around him. ‘AH right, lads? Here, I was decorated in the war.’ He cackled at his joke.

‘So you keep telling us, Jock.’

‘Every fuckin’ night.’

‘Without fuckin’ fail.’

‘Sorry, lads,’ Jock apologised. He thrust a short thick finger at one of the drawings. ‘Looks familiar.’

‘Must be a bloody jockey then.’ The decorator winked at Rebus. ‘I’m no’ joking, mister. Jock would recognise a racehorse’s bahookey quicker than a human face.’

‘Ach,’ said Jock dismissively, ‘away tae hell wi’ you.’ And to Rebus: ‘Sure you dinnae owe me a drink fae last week . . .?’

Five minutes after Rebus glumly left this last pub, a young man arrived. It. had taken him some time, visiting all the bars between the Midden and here, asking whether a man had been in with some drawings. He was annoyed, too, at having to break off his pool practice so early. His screwball needed work. There was a competition on Sunday, and he had every intention of winning the £100 prize. If he didn’t, there’d be trouble. But meantime, he knew he could do someone a favour by trailing this man who claimed not to be a copper. He knew it because he’d made a phone call from the Midden.

‘You’d be doing me a favour,’ the person on the other end of the line had said, when the pool player had finally been put through to him, having had to relate his story to two other people first.

It was useful to be owed a favour, so he’d taken off from the Midden, knowing that the man with the drawings was on his way to Lochgelly. But now here he was at the far end of the town; there were no pubs after this until Lochore. And the man had gone. So the pool player made another call and gave his report. It wasn’t much, he knew, but it had been time-consuming work all the same.

‘I owe you one, Sharky,’ the voice said.

Sharky felt elated as he got back into his rusty Datsun. And with luck, he’d still have time for a few games of pool before closing time.

John Rebus drove back to Edinburgh with just desserts on his mind. And Andrew McPhail, and Michael with his tranquillisers, and Patience, and Operation Moneybags, and many other things besides.

Michael was sound asleep when he arrived at the flat. He checked with the students, who were worried that his brother was maybe on some sort of drugs. He assured them the drugs were prescribed rather than proscribed. Then he telephoned Siobhan Clarke at home.

‘How did it go today?’

‘You had to be there, sir – I could write the book on boredom. Dougary had five visitors all day. He had pizza delivered lunch. Drove home at five-thirty.’

‘Any of the visitors interesting?’

‘I’ll let you see the photographs. Customers, maybe. But they came out with as many limbs as they went in with. Will you be joining us tomorrow?’

‘Probably.’

‘Only I thought maybe we could talk about the Central Hotel.’

‘Speaking of which, have you seen Brian?’

‘I popped in after work. He looks great.’ She paused. ‘You sound tired. Have you been working?’

‘Yes.’

‘The Central?’

‘Christ knows. I suppose so.’ Rebus rubbed the back of his neck. The hangover was starting already.

‘You had to buy a few drinks?’ Siobhan guessed.

‘Yes.’

‘And drink a few?’

‘Right again, Sherlock.’

She laughed, then tutted. ‘And afterwards you drove home. I’d be happy to chauffeur you if it would help.’ She sounded like she meant it.

‘Thanks, Clarke. I’ll bear it in mind.’ He paused. ‘Know what I’d like for Christmas?’

‘It’s a long way off.’

‘I’d like someone to
prove
that the corpse belongs to one of the Bru-Head Brothers.’

‘The body had a broken –’

‘I know, I’ve checked. The hospitals came up with spit.’ He paused again. ‘Not your problem,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Good night, sir.’

Rebus sat in silence for a minute or two. Something about his conversation with Siobhan Clarke made him want to talk with Patience. He picked up the receiver again and rang her.

‘Hello?’

Ye Gods, not an answering machine!

‘Hello, Patience.’

‘John.’

‘I’d like to talk. Are you ready?’

There was silence, then: ‘Yes, I think so. Let’s talk.’

John Rebus lay down on the sofa, one hand behind his head. Nobody else used the phone that night.

John Rebus was in a good mood that Tuesday morning, for no other reason than that he’d spent what seemed like half the previous night on the phone with Patience. They were going to meet for a drink; he just had to wait for her to get back to him with a place and a time. He was still in a good mood when he opened the ground floor door and started up the stairs towards Operation Moneybags’ Gorgie centre of operations.

He could hear voices; nothing unusual about that. But the voices grew in intensity as he climbed, and he opened the door just in time to see a man lunge at DC Petrie and butt him square on the nose. Petrie fell back against the window, knocking over the camera tripod. Blood gushed from his nostrils. Rebus only half took in that two small boys were watching, along with Siobhan Clarke and Elsa-Beth Jardine. The man was pulling Petrie upright when Rebus got an arm lock around him, pinning the man’s arms to his side. He pulled Rebus to right and left, trying to throw him off, all the time yelling so loudly it was a wonder nobody on the street below could hear the commotion.

Rebus heaved the man backwards and turned him, so that he lost balance and fell to the floor, where Rebus sat on top of him. Petrie started forward, but the man lashed out with his legs and sent Petrie back into the window, where his elbow smashed the glass. Rebus did what he had to do. He punched the man in the throat.

‘What the hell’s going on here?’ he asked. The man was gasping but still struggling. ‘You, stop it!’ Then something hit Rebus on the back of his head. It was the clenched fist of one of the boys, and it hit him right on his burnt patch of scalp. He screwed shut his eyes, fighting the stinging pain of the blow and a nausea in his gut, right where his muesli and tea with honey were sitting.

‘Leave my dad alone!’

Siobhan Clarke grabbed the boy and dragged him off.

‘Arrest that little bugger,’ Rebus said. Then, to the boy’s father: ‘I mean it, too. If you don’t calm down, I’m going to have
him
charged with assault. How would you like that?’

‘He’s too young,’ gasped the man.

‘Is he?’ said Rebus. ‘Are you sure?’

The man thought about it and calmed down.

‘That’s better.’ Rebus rose from the man’s chest. ‘Now is
someone
going to explain all this to me?’

It was quickly explained, once Petrie had been sent off to find a doctor for his nose and the boys had been sent home. The man was called Bill Chilton, and Bill Chilton didn’t like squatters.

‘Squatters?’

‘That’s what Wee Neilly told me.’

‘Squatters?’ Rebus turned to Siobhan Clarke. She’d been downstairs to check no passers-by had been injured by falling glass, and more importantly to explain the ‘accident’.

‘The two boys,’ she said now, ‘came barging in. They said they sometimes played here.’

Rebus stopped her and turned to Chilton. ‘Why isn’t Neil at school?’

‘He’s been suspended for fighting.’

Rebus nodded. ‘He’s got a fair punch on him.’ The back of his head throbbed agreement. He turned back to Siobhan.

‘They asked us what we were doing, and Ms Jardine’ – at this Elsa-Beth Jardine lowered her head – ‘told them we were squatters.’

‘Just joking,’ Jardine found it necessary to add. Rebus feigned surprise, and she lowered her eyes again, blushing furiously.

‘DC Petrie joined in, the boys cleared out, and we all had a laugh about it.’

‘A laugh?’ Rebus said. ‘It wasn’t a laugh, it was a breach of security.’ He sounded as furious as he looked, so that even Siobhan turned her eyes away from his. He now turned his gaze on Bill Chilton.

‘Well,’ Chilton continued, ‘Neil came home and told me there were squatters here. We’ve had a lot of that going on this past year or two, deserted tenement flats being broken open and used for all sorts of things . . . drug pushing and that. Some of us are doing something about it.’

‘What are we talking about here, Mr Chilton? Vigilante tactics? Pickaxe handles at dawn?’

Chilton was unabashed. ‘
You
lot are doing bugger all!’

‘So you came up here looking to scare the squatters off?’