Fleshmarket Alley

by Ian Rankin

There were nodded greetings. Alice Jardine had sat down again. Siobhan stood next to the table, arms folded.

  “Way I hear it, you’ve been terrorizing the honest, hardworking ladies of Leith.”

  “We were just asking questions,” Alice remonstrated.

  “Sadly, they don’t make any money from chitchat,” Rebus informed the couple.

  “It was Glasgow last night,” John Jardine said quietly. “That seemed to go all right . . .”

  Siobhan and Rebus shared a look. “And all this because Susie told you Ishbel had been seeing a man who looked like a pimp?” Siobhan asked. “Look, let me fill you in on something. The girls in Leith might have a drug habit, but that’s all they’re supporting—no pimps like the ones you see in the Hollywood films.”

  “Older men,” John Jardine said, eyes on the tabletop. “They get hold of girls like Ishbel and exploit them. You read about it all the time.”

  “Then you’re reading the wrong papers,” Rebus informed them.

  “It was my idea,” Alice Jardine added. “I just thought . . .”

  “What made you lose your cool?” Siobhan asked.

  “Two nights of trying to get hookers to talk to us,” John Jardine explained. But Alice was shaking her head.

  “This is Siobhan we’re talking to,” she chided him. Then, to Siobhan: “The last woman we spoke to . . . she said she thought Ishbel might be . . . I need to think of her exact words . . .”

  John Jardine helped her out. “‘Up the pubic triangle,’” he said.

  His wife nodded to herself. “And when we asked her what that meant, she just started laughing . . . told us to go home. That’s when I lost my temper.”

  “Police car happened to be passing,” her husband added with a shrug. “They brought us here. I’m sorry we’re being a nuisance, Siobhan.”

  “You’re not,” Siobhan assured him, only half believing her own words.

  Rebus had slipped his hands into his pockets. “The pubic triangle’s just off Lothian Road: lap-dancing bars, sex shops . . .”

  Siobhan gave him a warning look, but too late.

  “Maybe that’s where she is, then,” Alice said, voice trembling with emotion. She gripped the edge of the table as though about to stand up and be on her way.

  “Wait a second.” Siobhan held up a hand. “One woman tells you—probably jokingly—that Ishbel might be working as a lap dancer . . . and you’re just going to go barging in?”

  “Why not?” Alice asked.

  Rebus gave her the answer: “Some of those places, Mrs. Jardine, they’re not always run by the most scrupulous individuals. Unlikely to be the patient types either, when someone comes nosing around . . .”

  John Jardine was nodding.

  “Might help,” Rebus added, “if there was one particular establishment the young lady was thinking of . . .”

  “Always supposing she wasn’t just winding you up,” Siobhan warned.

  “One way to find out,” Rebus said. Siobhan turned to face him. “Your car or mine?”

  They took hers, the Jardines in the backseat. They hadn’t gone far when John Jardine indicated that the “young lady” had been standing across the road, against the wall of a disused warehouse. There was no sign of her now, though one of her colleagues was pacing the sidewalk, shoulders hunched against the cold.

  “We’ll give it ten minutes,” Rebus said. “Not many punters about tonight. With luck she’ll be back soon.”

  So Siobhan drove out along Seafield Road, all the way to the Portobello roundabout, turning right at Inchview Terrace and right again at Craigentinny Avenue. These were quiet residential streets. The lights in most of the bungalows were off, owners tucked up in bed.

  “I like driving this time of night,” Rebus said conversationally.

  Mr. Jardine seemed to agree. “Place is completely different when there’s no traffic about. Bit more relaxed.”

  Rebus nodded. “Plus it’s easier to spot the predators . . .”

  The backseat went quiet after that, until they were back in Leith. “There she is,” John Jardine said.

  Skinny, short black hair, most of it blowing into her eyes with each gust of wind. She wore knee-length boots and a black miniskirt with a buttoned denim jacket. No makeup, face pallid. Even from this distance, bruises were visible on her legs.

  “Know her?” Siobhan asked.

  Rebus shook his head. “Looks like the new kid in town. That other one . . .” meaning the woman they’d passed earlier—“can’t be more than twenty feet away, but they’re not talking.”

  Siobhan nodded. Having nothing else, the city’s streetwalkers often showed solidarity with one another, but not here. Which meant that the older woman felt her pitch had been invaded by the incomer. Having driven past, Siobhan did a three-point turn and drew up next to the curb. Rebus had wound his window down. The prostitute stepped forward, wary of the number of people in the car.

  “No group stuff,” she said. Then she recognized the faces in the back. “Christ, not you two again.” She turned and started to walk away. Rebus got out of the car and grabbed her arm, spinning her round. His ID was open in his other hand.

  “CID,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  “Cheyanne.” She raised her chin. “Not that I am shy.” Trying to sound tougher than she was.

  “And that’s your patter, is it?” Rebus said, sounding unconvinced. “How long you been in town?”

  “Long enough.”

  “Is that a Brummie accent?”

  “None of your business.”

  “I could make it my business. Might need to check your real age, for one thing . . .”

  “I’m eighteen!”

  Rebus ploughed on as though she hadn’t spoken. “That would mean looking at your birth certificate, which would mean talking to your parents.” He paused. “Or you could help us out. These people have lost their daughter.” He nodded towards the car and its occupants. “She’s done a runner.”

  “Good luck to her.” Sounding sulky.

  “But her parents care about her . . . maybe like you wish yours did.” He paused to let this sink in, studying her without seeming to: no apparent signs of recent drug use, but maybe that was because she hadn’t made enough money yet for a hit. “But this is your lucky night,” he continued, “because you might be able to help them . . . always supposing you weren’t spinning them a line about the pubic triangle.”

  “All I know is, a few new girls have been hired.”

  “Where exactly?”

  “The Nook. I know ’cause I went asking . . . said I was too skinny.”

  Rebus turned towards the backseat of the car. The Jardines had wound down their window. “Did you show Cheyanne a picture of Ishbel?” Alice Jardine nodded, and Rebus turned back to the girl, whose attention was already wandering. She looked to left and right, as if for potential clients. The woman farther along was pretending to ignore everything but the roadway in front of her.

  “Did you recognize her?” he asked Cheyanne.

  “Who?” Still not looking at him.

  “The girl in the picture.”

  She shook her head briskly, then had to push the hair out of her eyes.

  “Not much of a career this, is it?” Rebus said.

  “It’ll do me for now.” She tried burrowing her hands into the tight pockets of her jacket.

  “Is there anything else you can tell us? Anything that might help Ishbel?”

  Cheyanne shook her head again, eyes focused on the road ahead. “Just . . . sorry about earlier. Don’t know what got me laughing . . . happens sometimes.”

  “Look after yourself,” John Jardine called from the backseat. His wife was holding their photograph of Ishbel out of the window.

  “If you see her . . .” she said, the words trailing off.

  Cheyanne nodded, and even accepted one of Rebus’s business cards. He got back into the car and closed the door. Siobhan signaled out into the road and took her foot off th
e brake.

  “Where are you parked?” she asked the Jardines. They named a street at the other end of Leith, so she did another turn, taking them past Cheyanne again. The girl ignored them. The woman farther along stared at them, though. She was walking towards Cheyanne, ready to ask what had just happened.

  “Could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” Rebus mused, folding his arms. Siobhan wasn’t listening. She stared into her rearview mirror.

  “You’re not to go there, understood?”

  No one answered.

  “Best if myself and DI Rebus intercede on your behalf. That is, if DI Rebus is willing.”

  “Me? Go to a lap-dancing bar?” Rebus tried for a pout. “Well, if you really think it necessary, DS Clarke . . .”

  “We’ll go tomorrow, then,” Siobhan said. “Sometime before opening.” Only now did she look at him.

  And smiled.

  DAY THREE

  Wednesday

  6

  Detective Constable Colin Tibbet arrived at work next morning to find that someone had placed a toy locomotive on his mouse pad. The mouse itself had been disconnected and placed in one of his desk drawers . . . a locked drawer at that—locked when he’d left work the previous evening, and needing to be unlocked this morning . . . yet somehow containing his mouse. He stared at Siobhan Clarke and was about to speak when she silenced him with a shake of her head.

  “Whatever it is,” she said, “it can wait. I’m out of here.”

  And so she was. She’d been coming out of the DI’s office when Tibbet had arrived. Tibbet had heard Derek Starr’s closing words: “A day or two, Siobhan, no more than that . . .” Tibbet presumed it had something to do with Fleshmarket Alley, but he couldn’t guess what. One thing he did know: Siobhan knew that he’d been studying train timetables. This made her the chief suspect. But there were other possibilities: Phyllida Hawes herself was not above the odd practical joke. The same could be said of DC Paddy Connolly and DC Tommy Daniels. Might DCI Macrae have decided on a schoolboy prank? Or what about the man sipping coffee at the little foldaway table in the corner? Tibbet really only knew Rebus by reputation, but that reputation was formidable. Hawes had warned him not to be starstruck.

  “Rule number one with Rebus,” she’d said: “You don’t lend him money and you don’t buy him drinks.”

  “Isn’t that two rules?” he’d asked.

  “Not necessarily . . . both are likely to happen in pubs.”

  This morning, Rebus looked innocent enough: sleepy eyes and a patch of gray bristle on his throat which the razor had missed. He wore a tie the way some schoolkids did—on sufferance. Each morning, he seemed to come into work whistling some irritating line from an old pop song. By midmorning, he’d have stopped doing it, but by then it was too late: Tibbet would be whistling it for him, unable to escape the pernicious chorus.

  Rebus heard Tibbet hum the opening few bars of “Wichita Lineman” and tried not to smile. His work here was done. He got up from the table, slipping his jacket back on.

  “Got to be somewhere,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “Nice train,” Rebus commented, nodding towards the green locomotive. “Hobby of yours?”

  “Present from one of my nephews,” Tibbet lied.

  Rebus nodded, quietly impressed. Tibbet’s face gave nothing away. The lad was quick-thinking and plausible: both useful skills in a detective.

  “Well, I’ll see you later,” Rebus said.

  “And if anyone wants you . . . ?” Angling for a bit more detail.

  “Trust me, they won’t.” He gave Tibbet a wink and left the office.

  DCI Macrae was in the hall, clutching paperwork and on his way to a meeting.

  “Where are you off to, John?”

  “Knoxland case, sir. For some reason, I seem to have become useful.”

  “Despite your best efforts, I’m sure.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “On you go, then, but don’t forget: you’re ours, not theirs. Anything happens here, we can have you back in a minute.”

  “Try and keep me away, sir,” Rebus said, searching in his pockets for his car keys and heading for the exit.

  He was in the car park when his mobile sounded. It was Shug Davidson.

  “Seen the paper today, John?”

  “Anything I should know about?”

  “You might want to see what your friend Steve Holly has been saying about us.”

  Rebus’s face tightened. “I’ll get back to you,” he said. Five minutes later, he was pulling over curbside, lunging into a newsagent’s. He pored over newsprint in the driver’s seat. Holly had printed the photo, but had surrounded it with an article on the sharper practices of bogus asylum seekers. Mention was made of suspected terrorists who’d entered Britain as refugees. There was anecdotal evidence of spongers and charlatans, along with quotes from Knoxland residents. The message given was twofold: Britain is a soft target, and we can’t allow the situation to continue.

  In the middle of which, the photo looked like nothing more than window dressing.

  Rebus called Holly on his mobile, but got an answering service. After a slew of judicious swear words, he hung up.

  He drove to the council housing department on Waterloo Place, where he’d arranged to meet with a Mrs. Mackenzie. She was a small, bustling woman in her fifties. Shug Davidson had already faxed her his official request for information, but she still wasn’t happy.

  “It’s a matter of privacy,” she told Rebus. “There are all sorts of rules and restrictions these days.” She was leading him through an open-plan office.

  “I don’t suppose the deceased will complain, Mrs. Mackenzie, especially if we catch his killer.”

  “Well, all the same . . .” She had brought them into a tiny glass-walled compartment, which Rebus realized was her office.

  “And I thought the walls out at Knoxland were thin.” He tapped the glass. She was shifting paperwork from a chair, gesturing for him to sit. Then she squeezed around the desk and sat in her own chair, putting on a pair of half-moon spectacles and sifting through paperwork.

  Rebus didn’t think charm was going to work with this woman. Maybe just as well, since he’d never scored high marks in those tests. He decided to appeal to her professionalism.

  “Look, Mrs. Mackenzie, we both like to see that whatever job we’re doing is done properly.” She peered at him over her glasses. “My job today happens to be a murder inquiry. We can’t begin that inquiry properly until we know who the victim was. A fingerprint match came through first thing this morning: the victim was definitely your tenant . . .”

  “Well, you see, Inspector, that’s just my problem. The poor man who died was not one of my tenants.”

  Rebus frowned. “I don’t understand.” She handed him a sheet of paper.

  “Here are the tenant’s details. I believe your victim was Asian or similar. Is he likely to have been called Robert Baird?”

  Rebus’s eyes were fixed to that name. The flat number was right . . . right tower block, too. Robert Baird was listed as the tenant.

  “He must have moved.”

  Mackenzie was shaking her head. “These records are up-to-date. The last rent money we received was only last week. It was paid by Mr. Baird.”

  “You’re thinking he sublet?”

  A broad smile lightened Mrs. Mackenzie’s face. “Which is strictly forbidden by the tenancy agreement,” she said.

  “But people do it?”

  “Of course they do. The thing is, I decided to do some sleuthing myself . . .” She sounded pleased with herself. Rebus leaned forward in his chair, warming to her.

  “Do tell,” he said.

  “I checked with the city’s other housing areas. There are several Robert Bairds on the list. Plus other forenames, all with the surname Baird.”

  “Some of them could be genuine,” Rebus said, playing devil’s advocate.

  “And some of them not.”

  “
You think this guy Baird’s been applying for council housing on a grand scale?”

  She shrugged. “There’s only one way to be sure . . .”

  The first address they tried was a tower block in Dumbiedykes, near Rebus’s old police station. The woman who answered the door looked African. There were little kids scurrying around behind her.

  “We’re looking for Mr. Baird,” Mackenzie said. The woman just shook her head. Mackenzie repeated the name.

  “The man you pay rent to,” Rebus added. The woman kept shaking her head, closing the door slowly but purposefully on them.

  “I think we’re getting somewhere,” Mackenzie said. “Come on.”

  Out of the car, she was brisk and businesslike, but in the passenger seat she relaxed, asking Rebus about his job, where he lived, whether he was married.

  “Separated,” he told her. “Long time back. How about you?”

  She held up a hand to show him her wedding ring.

  “But sometimes women just wear one so they get less hassle,” he said.

  She snorted. “And I thought I had a suspicious mind.”

  “Goes with both our jobs, I suppose.”

  She gave a sigh. “My job would be a hell of a lot easier without them.”

  “Immigrants, you mean?”

  She nodded. “I look into their eyes sometimes, and I get a glimpse of what they’ve gone through to get here.” She paused. “And all I can offer them are places like Knoxland . . .”

  “Better than nothing,” Rebus said.

  “I hope so . . .”

  Their next stop was a block of flats in Leith. The lifts were out of order, so they had to climb four stories, Mackenzie powering ahead in her noisy shoes. Rebus took a moment to catch his breath, then nodded to let her know she could knock on the door. A male answered. He was swarthy and unshaven, wearing a white vest and jogging bottoms. He was running fingers through thick dark hair.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he said, in heavily accented English.

  “That’s some elocution teacher you’ve got,” Rebus said, voice hardening to match the man’s. The man stared at him, not understanding.

  Mackenzie turned to Rebus. “Slavic maybe? East European?” She turned to the man. “Where are you from?”