10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (50 page)

‘It doesn’t make a blind bit of difference, Sheila,’ said Tony. He handed a cup to Rebus.

‘Thanks.’

She stood for a second or two watching the two men, then ran a hand down the front of her dressing gown.

‘Right then,’ she said. ‘Good night.’

‘Good night,’ concurred Rebus.

‘Try not to be too long, Tony.’

‘Right, Sheila.’

They listened, sipping tea, as she climbed the stairs to her bedroom. Then Tony McCall exhaled.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said.

‘What for?’ said Rebus. ‘If a couple of drunks had walked into
my
home at this time of night, you wouldn’t
want
to hear the reception I’d give them! I thought she stayed remarkably calm.’

‘Sheila’s always remarkably calm. On the outside.’

Rebus nodded towards Tommy. ‘What about him?’

‘He’ll be all right where he is. Let him sleep it off.’

‘Are you sure? I can take him home if you –’

‘No, no. Christ, he’s my brother. I think a chair for the night is called for.’ Tony looked across towards Tommy. ‘Look at him. You wouldn’t believe the tricks we got up to when we were kids. We had the neighbourhood terrified of what we’d do next. Chap-Door-Run, setting bonfires, putting the football through somebody’s window. We were wild, I can tell you. Now I never see him unless he’s like this.’

‘You mean he’s pulled this stunt before?’

‘Once or twice. Turns up in a taxi, crashes out in the chair. When he wakes up the next morning, he can’t believe where he is. Has breakfast, slips the kids a few quid, and he’s off. Never phones or visits. Then one night we hear the taxi chugging outside, and there he is.’

‘I didn’t realise.’

‘Ach, I don’t know why I’m telling you, John. It’s not your problem, after all.’

‘I don’t mind listening.’

But Tony McCall seemed reluctant to go further. ‘How do you like this room?’ he asked instead.

‘It’s nice,’ Rebus lied. ‘A lot of thought’s gone into it.’

‘Yes.’ McCall sounded unconvinced. ‘A lot of money, too. See those little glass bauble things? You wouldn’t believe how much one of those can cost.’

‘Really?’

McCall was examining the room as though he were the visitor. ‘Welcome to my life,’ he said at last. ‘I think I’d rather have one of the cells down the station.’ He got up suddenly and walked across to Tommy’s chair, then crouched down in front of his brother, one of whose eyes was open but glazed with sleep. ‘You bugger,’ Tony McCall whispered. ‘You bugger, you bugger.’ And he bowed his head so as not to show the tears.

It was growing light as Rebus drove the four miles back to Marchmont. He stopped at an all night bakery and bought warm rolls and refrigerated milk. This was the time when he liked the city best, the peaceful camaraderie of early morning. He wondered why people couldn’t be happy with their lot.
I’ve got everything I’ve never wanted and it isn’t enough
. All he wanted now was sleep, and in his bed for a change rather than on the chair. He kept playing the scene over and over: Tommy McCall dead to the world, saliva on his chin, and Tony McCall crouched in front of him, body shaking with emotion. A brother was a terrible
thing. He was a lifelong competitor, yet you couldn’t hate him without hating yourself. And there were other pictures too: Malcolm Lanyon in his study, Saiko standing at the door, James Carew dead in his bed, Nell Stapleton’s bruised face, Ronnie McGrath’s battered torso, old Vanderhyde with his unseeing eyes, the fear in Calum McCallum’s eyes, Tracy with her tiny fists. . . .

If I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also
.

Carew had stolen that line from somewhere . . . but where? Who cares, John, who cares? It would just be another bloody thread, and there were far too many of those already, knotted into an impenetrable tangle. Get home, sleep, forget.

One thing was for sure: he’d have some wild dreams.

In fact, he didn’t dream at all. And when he woke up, it was the weekend, the sun was shining, and his telephone was ringing.

‘Hello?’

‘John? It’s Gill.’

‘Oh, hello, Gill. How are you?’

‘I’m fine. What about you?’

‘Great.’ This was not a lie. He hadn’t slept so well in weeks, and there was not a trace of hangover within him.

‘Sorry to ring so early. Any progress on the smear?’

‘Smear?’

‘The things that kid was saying about you.’

‘Oh, that. No, I haven’t heard anything yet.’ He was thinking about lunch, about a picnic, about a drive in the country. ‘Are you in Edinburgh?’ he asked.

‘No, Fife.’

‘Fife? What are you doing there?’

‘Calum’s here, remember.’

‘Of course I remember, but I thought you were steering clear of him?’

‘He wanted to see me. Actually, that’s why I’m calling.’

‘Oh?’ Rebus wrinkled his brow, curious.

‘Calum wants to talk to you.’

‘To
me
? Why?’

‘He’ll tell you that himself, I suppose. He just asked me to tell you.’

Rebus thought for a moment. ‘Do you want me to talk to him?’

‘Can’t say I’m much bothered either way. I told him I’d pass on the message, and I told him it was the last favour he could expect from me.’ Her voice was as slick and cool as a slate roof in the rain. Rebus felt himself sliding down that roof, wanting to please her, wanting to help. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘and he said that if you sounded dubious, I was to tell you it’s to do with Hyde’s.’

‘Hydes?’ Rebus stood up sharply.

‘H-y-d-e-apostrophe-s.’

‘Hyde’s what?’

She laughed. ‘I don’t know, John. But it sounds as if it means
some
thing to you.’

‘It does, Gill. Are you in Dunfermline?’

‘Calling from the station’s front desk.’

‘Okay. I’ll see you there in an hour.’

‘Fine, John.’ She sounded unconcerned. ‘Bye.’

He cut the connection, put his jacket on, and left the flat. The traffic was busy towards Tollcross, busy all the way down Lothian Road and winding across Princes Street towards Queensferry Road. Since the deregulation of public transport, the centre of the city had become a black farce of buses: double deckers, single deckers, even mini-buses, all vying for custom. Locked behind two claret-coloured LRT double deckers and two green single deckers, Rebus began to lose his tiny cache of patience. He slammed his hand down hard on the horn and pulled out, revving past the line of stalled traffic. A motorcycle messenger, squeezing through between the two directions of slower traffic, had to swerve to avoid the imminent accident, and slewed against a Saab. Rebus knew he should stop. He kept on going.

If only he’d had one of those magnetic flashing sirens, the kind CID used on the roofs of their cars whenever they were late for dinner or an engagement. But all he had were his headlights – full-beam – and the horn. Having
cleared the tailback, he eased his hand off the horn, switched off the lamps, and cruised into the outside lane of the widening road.

Despite a pause at the dreaded Barnton roundabout, he made good time to the Forth Road Bridge, paid the toll, and drove across, not too fast, wanting, as ever, to take in the view. Rosyth Naval Dockyard was below him on the left. A lot of his schoolfriends (‘lot’ being relative: he’d never made that many friends) had slipped easily into jobs at Rosyth, and were probably still there. It seemed to be about the only place in Fife where work was still available. The mines were closing with enforced regularity. Somewhere along the coast in the other direction, men were burrowing beneath the Forth, scooping out coal in a decreasingly profitable curve. . . .

Hyde! Calum McCallum knew something about Hyde! Knew, too, that Rebus was interested, so word must have got around. His foot pressed down further on the accelerator. McCallum would want a trade, of course: charges dropped, or somehow jigged into a shape less damning. Fine, fine, he’d promise him the sun and the moon and the stars.

Just so long as he knew. Knew who Hyde was; knew where Hyde was. Just so long as he knew. . . .

The main police station in Dunfermline was easy to find, situated just off a roundabout on the outskirts of the town. Gill was easy to find, too. She was sitting in her car in the spacious car park outside the station. Rebus parked next to her, got out of his car and into the passenger side of hers.

‘Morning,’ he said.

‘Hello, John.’

‘Are you okay?’ This was, on reflection, perhaps the most unnecessary question he had ever posed. Her face had lost colour and substance, and her head seemed to be shrinking into her shoulders, while her hands gripped the
steering wheel, fingernails rapping softly against the top of the dashboard.

‘I’m fine,’ she said, and they both smiled at the lie. ‘I told them at the desk that you were coming.’

‘Anything you want me to tell our friend?’

Her voice was resonant. ‘Nothing.’

‘Okay.’

Rebus pushed open the car door and closed it again, but softly, then he headed towards the station entrance.

She had wandered the hospital corridors for over an hour. It was visiting time, so no one much minded as she walked into this and that ward, passing the beds, smiling down occasionally on the sick old men and women who stared up at her with lonely eyes. She watched families decide who should and should not take turns at grandpa’s bedside, there being two only at a time allowed. She was looking for one woman in particular, though she wasn’t sure she would recognise her. All she had to go on was the fact that the librarian would have a broken nose.

Maybe she hadn’t been kept in. Maybe she’d already gone home to her husband or boyfriend or whatever. Maybe Tracy would be better off waiting and going to the library again. Except that they’d be watching and waiting for her. The guard would know her. The librarian would know her.

But would
she
know the librarian?

A bell rang out, drilling into her the fact that visiting hours were coming to an end. She hurried to the next ward, wondering: what if the librarian’s in a private room? Or in another hospital? Or. . . .

No! There she was! Tracy stopped dead, turned in a half-circle, and walked to the far end of the ward. Visitors were saying their goodbyes and take cares to the patients. Everybody looked relieved, both visitors and visited. She mingled with them as they put chairs back into stacks and
donned coats, scarves, gloves. Then she paused and looked back towards the librarian’s bed. There were flowers all around it, and the single visitor, a man, was leaning over the librarian to kiss her lingeringly on the forehead. The librarian squeezed the man’s hand and. . . . And the man looked familiar to Tracy. She’d seen him before. . . . At the police station! He was some friend of Rebus’s, and he was a policeman! She remembered him checking on her while she was being held in the cells.

Oh Jesus, she’d attacked a policeman’s wife!

She wasn’t sure now, wasn’t sure at all. Why had she come? Could she go through with it now? She walked with one family out of the ward, then rested against the wall in the corridor outside. Could she? Yes, if her nerve held. Yes, she could.

She was pretending to examine a drinks vending machine when Holmes sauntered through the swinging ward doors and walked slowly down the corridor away from her. She waited a full two minutes, counting up to one hundred and twenty. He wasn’t coming back. He hadn’t forgotten anything. Tracy turned from the vending machine and made for the swing doors.

For her, visiting time was just beginning.

She hadn’t even reached the bed when a young nurse stopped her.

‘Visiting hour’s finished now,’ the nurse said.

Tracy tried to smile, tried to look normal; it wasn’t easy for her, but lying was.

‘I just lost my watch. I think I left it at my sister’s bed.’ She nodded in Nell’s direction. Nell, hearing the conversation, had turned towards her. Her eyes opened wide as she recognised Tracy.

‘Well, be as quick as you can, eh?’ said the nurse, moving away. Tracy smiled at the nurse, and watched her push through the swing doors. Now there were only the
patients in their beds, a sudden silence, and her. She approached Nell’s bed.

‘Hello,’ she said. She looked at the chart attached to the end of the iron bedstead. ‘Nell Stapleton,’ she read.

‘What do you want?’ Nell’s eyes showed no fear. Her voice was thin, coming from the back of her throat, her nose having no part in the process.

‘I want to tell you something,’ Tracy said. She came close to Nell, and crouched on the floor, so that she would be barely visible from the doors of the ward. She thought this made her look as though she were searching for a lost watch.

‘Yes?’

Tracy smiled, finding Nell’s imperfect voice amusing. She sounded like a puppet on a children’s programme. The smile vanished quickly, and she blushed, remembering that the reason she was here was because
she
was responsible for this woman being here at all. The plasters across the nose, the bruising under the eyes: all her doing.

‘I came to say I’m sorry. That’s all, really. Just, I’m sorry.’

Nell’s eyes were unblinking.

‘And,’ Tracy continued, ‘well . . . nothing.’

‘Tell me,’ said Nell, but it was too much for her. She’d done most of the talking while Brian Holmes had been in, and her mouth was dry. She turned and reached for the jug of water on the small cupboard beside the bed.

‘Here, I’ll do that.’ Tracy poured water into a plastic beaker, and handed it to Nell, who sipped, coating the inside of her mouth. ‘Nice flowers,’ said Tracy.

‘From my boyfriend,’ said Nell, between sips.

‘Yes, I saw him leaving. He’s a policeman, isn’t he? I know he is, because I’m a friend of Inspector Rebus’s.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘You do?’ Tracy seemed shocked. ‘So you know who I am?’

‘I know your name’s Tracy, if that’s what you mean.’

Tracy bit her bottom lip. Her face reddened again.