Fleshmarket Alley

by Ian Rankin

  So I am, Rebus thought, and feel it, too . . .

  He scrutinized the faces all along Princes Street. More Chinese than he’d expected. The beggars all had Scottish and English accents. Rebus stopped in at a hotel. The head barman there had known him fifteen years; didn’t matter if Rebus needed a shave or wasn’t wearing his best suit, his crispest shirt.

  “What’ll it be, Mr. Rebus?” Placing a coaster in front of him. “Maybe a wee malt?”

  “Lagavulin,” Rebus said, knowing a single measure here would cost him the price of a quarter-bottle . . . The drink was placed in front of him, the barman knowing better than to suggest ice or water.

  “Ted,” Rebus said, “does this place ever use foreign staff?”

  No question ever seemed to faze Ted: sign of a good barman. He moved his jaws as he considered a response. Rebus meantime was helping himself from the bowl of nuts which had appeared beside his drink.

  “Had a few Australians behind the bar,” Ted said, starting to polish glasses with a towel. “Doing the world tour . . . stopping off here for a few weeks. We never take them without experience.”

  “What about elsewhere? The restaurant maybe.”

  “Oh aye, there’s all sorts waiting tables. Even more in housekeeping.”

  “Housekeeping?”

  “Chambermaids.”

  Rebus nodded at this clarification. “Look, this is strictly between us . . .” Ted leaned in a little closer at these words. “Any chance illegals could work here?”

  Ted looked askance at the suggestion. “All aboveboard, Mr. Rebus. Management wouldn’t . . . couldn’t . . .”

  “Fair enough, Ted. Didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.”

  Ted seemed consoled by this. “Mind you,” he said, “I’m not saying other establishments are quite as choosy . . . Here, I’ll tell you a story. My local, I usually have a drink there on a Friday night. This group’s started coming in, dunno where they’re from. Two guys playing guitars . . . ‘Save All Your Kisses for Me,’ songs like that. And an older guy toting a tambourine, using it to collect money round the tables.” He shook his head slowly. “Pound to a penny they’re refugees.”

  Rebus lifted his glass. “It’s a whole other world,” he said. “I never really thought about it before.”

  “Looks like you could use a refill.” Ted gave a wink which creased his whole face. “On the house, if you’ll permit . . .”

  The cold air hit Rebus when he left the bar. A turn to the right would send him in the direction of home, but instead he crossed the road and walked towards Leith Street, ending up on Leith Walk, passing Asian supermarkets, tattoo parlors, take-aways. He didn’t really know where he was headed. At the foot of the Walk, Cheyanne might be plying her trade. John and Alice Jardine might be cruising in their car, seeking a sighting of their daughter. All kinds of hunger out there in the dark. He had his hands in his pockets, jacket buttoned against the chill. Half a dozen motorbikes rumbled past, only to find their progress thwarted by a red light. Rebus decided to cross the road, but the lights were already changing. He stepped back as the leading bike roared away.

  “Minicab, sir?”

  Rebus turned towards the voice. There was a man standing in the doorway of a shop. The shop was illuminated from within and had obviously become a minicab office. The man looked Asian. Rebus shook his head but then changed his mind. The driver led him to a parked Ford Escort well past its sell-by date. Rebus told him the address, and the man reached for an A to Z.

  “I’ll give you directions,” Rebus said. The driver nodded and started the engine.

  “Been enjoying a few drinks, sir?” The accent was local.

  “A few.”

  “Day off work tomorrow, is it?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  The man laughed at this, though Rebus couldn’t think why. They headed back along Princes Street and up Lothian Road, heading for Morningside. Rebus told the driver to pull over, said he’d only be a minute. He went into an all-night shop and emerged with a liter bottle of water, swigging from it as he got back into the passenger seat, using it to wash down a four-pack of aspirin.

  “Good idea, sir,” the driver agreed. “Get your retaliation in first, eh? No hangover in the morning; no excuse for a sickie.”

  Half a mile farther, Rebus told the driver they were taking a detour. Headed for Marchmont and stopped outside Rebus’s flat. He went inside, unlocked the door. Extracted a bulging folder from a drawer in the living room. Opened it, decided he’d take a few of the cuttings with him. Back downstairs and into the cab.

  When they got to Bruntsfield, Rebus said to take a right, then another. They were in a dimly lit suburban street of large, detached houses, most of them hidden behind shrubbery and fencing. The windows were darkened or shuttered, the occupants safely asleep. But lights burned in one of them, and that’s where Rebus told the driver to drop him. The gate opened noisily. Rebus found the doorbell and rang it. There was no response. He took a few steps back and peered at the upstairs windows. They were lit but curtained. There were larger windows at ground level, either side of the porch, but both had their wooden shutters firmly closed. Rebus thought he could hear music coming from somewhere. He peered through the letter box but saw no movement and realized that the music was coming from behind the house. There was a gravel driveway to one side and he headed up it, security lights tripping as he passed them. The music was coming from the garden. It was dark, except for a strange reddish glow. Rebus saw a structure in the middle of the lawn, wooden decking leading to it from the glass conservatory. Steam was rising from the structure. And music, too, something classical. Rebus walked forward towards the Jacuzzi.

  That’s what it was: a Jacuzzi, open to the Scottish elements. And in it sat Morris Gerald Cafferty, known as “Big Ger.” He was wedged into one corner, arms stretched along the rim of the molded tub. Jets of water streamed out from either side of him. Rebus looked around, but Cafferty was alone. There was some sort of light in the water, a colored filter casting a red glow over everything. Cafferty’s head was tipped back, eyes closed, a look on his face of concentration rather than relaxation.

  And then he opened his eyes, and was staring directly at Rebus. The pupils were small and dark, the face overfed. Cafferty’s short gray hair stuck damply to his skull. The upper half of his chest, visible above the surface of the water, was covered in a mat of darker, curled hair. He didn’t seem surprised to see someone standing in front of him, even at this time of night.

  “Have you brought your trunks?” he asked. “Not that I’m wearing any . . .” He glanced down at himself.

  “I heard you’d moved house,” Rebus said.

  Cafferty turned to a control panel by his left hand and pressed a button. The music faded. “CD player,” he explained. “The speakers are inside.” He rapped the tub with his knuckles. Pressing another button, the motor ceased, and the water became still.

  “Light show, too,” Rebus commented.

  “Any color you like.” Cafferty jabbed a farther button, changing the water from red to green, and from green to blue, then ice-white and back to red.

  “Red suits you,” Rebus stated.

  “The Mephistopheles look?” Cafferty chuckled. “I love it out here, this time of night. Hear the wind in the trees, Rebus? They’ve been here longer than any of us, those trees. Same with these houses. And they’ll still be here when we’ve gone.”

  “I think you’ve been in there too long, Cafferty. Your brain’s getting all wrinkled.”

  “I’m getting old, Rebus, that’s all . . . And so are you.”

  “Too old to bother with a bodyguard? Reckon you’ve buried all your enemies?”

  “Joe knocks off at nine, but he’s never too far away.” A two-beat pause. “Are you, Joe.”

  “No, Mr. Cafferty.”

  Rebus turned to where the bodyguard was standing. He was barefoot, dressed hurriedly in underpants and a T-shirt.

  “Joe sleeps in the
room above the garage,” Cafferty explained. “Off you go now, Joe. I’m sure I’m safe with the Inspector.”

  Joe glowered at Rebus, then padded back across the lawn.

  “It’s a nice area, this,” Cafferty was saying conversationally. “Not much in the way of crime . . .”

  “I’m sure you’re doing your best to change that.”

  “I’m out of the game, Rebus, same as you’ll be pretty soon.”

  “Oh aye?” Rebus held up the clippings he’d brought from home. Photos of Cafferty from the tabloids. They’d all been taken in the past year; all showed him with known villains from as far afield as Manchester, Birmingham, London.

  “Are you stalking me or something?” Cafferty said.

  “Maybe I am.”

  “I don’t know whether to be flattered . . .” Cafferty stood up. “Hand me that robe, will you?”

  Rebus was glad to. Cafferty climbed over the edge of the tub onto a wooden step, wrapping himself in the white cotton gown and sliding his feet into a pair of flip-flops. “Help me put the cover on,” Cafferty said. “Then we’ll go indoors and you’ll tell me whatever the hell it is you want from me.”

  Again, Rebus obliged.

  At one time, Big Ger Cafferty had run practically every criminal aspect of Edinburgh, from drugs and saunas to business scams. Since his last stretch of jail time, however, he’d kept his head down. Not that Rebus believed the crap about retirement: people like Cafferty didn’t ever jack it in. To Rebus’s mind, Cafferty had just grown wilier with age—and wiser to the ways police might go about investigating him.

  He was around sixty now and had known most of the well-known gangsters from the 1960s on. There were stories that he’d worked with the Krays and Richardson in London, as well as some of the better-known Glasgow villains. Past inquiries had tried linking him to drug gangs in Holland and the sex slavers of Eastern Europe. Very little had ever stuck. Sometimes it was down to a lack of either resources or evidence compelling enough to persuade the Procurator Fiscal into a prosecution. Sometimes it was because witnesses vanished from the face of the earth.

  Following Cafferty into the conservatory and from there to the limestone-floored kitchen, Rebus stared at the broad back and shoulders, wondering not for the first time how many executions the man had ordered, how many lives he’d wrecked.

  “Tea or something stronger?” Cafferty said, shuffling across the floor in his flip-flops.

  “Tea’s fine.”

  “Christ, it must be serious . . .” Cafferty smiled a little smile to himself as he switched the kettle on and dropped three tea bags into the pot. “I suppose I better put some clothes on,” he said. “Come on, I’ll show you the drawing room.”

  It was one of the rooms at the front, with a large bay window and a dominating marble fireplace. An assortment of canvases hung from the picture rails. Rebus didn’t know much about art, but the frames looked expensive. Cafferty had headed upstairs, giving Rebus the opportunity to browse, but there was precious little to attract his attention: no books or hi-fi, no desk . . . not even any ornaments on the mantelpiece. Just a sofa and chairs, a huge Oriental rug, and the exhibits. It wasn’t a room for living in. Maybe Cafferty held meetings there, impressing with his collection. Rebus placed his fingers against the marble, hoping against hope that it would prove fake.

  “Here you go,” Cafferty said, carrying two mugs into the room. Rebus took one from him.

  “Milk, no sugar,” Cafferty informed him. Rebus nodded. “What are you smiling at?”

  Rebus nodded towards the corner of the ceiling above the door, where a small white box was emitting a blinking red light. “You’ve got a burglar alarm,” he explained.

  “So?”

  “So . . . that’s funny.”

  “You think nobody’d break in here? It’s not like there’s a big sign on the wall saying who I am . . .”

  “I suppose not,” Rebus said, trying to be agreeable.

  Cafferty was dressed in gray jogging bottoms and a V-neck sweater. He seemed tanned and relaxed; Rebus wondered if there was a sunbed somewhere on the premises. “Sit down,” Cafferty said.

  Rebus sat. “I’m interested in someone,” he began. “And I think you might know him: Stuart Bullen.”

  Cafferty’s top lip curled. “Wee Stu,” he said. “I knew his old man better.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But what do you know about the son’s recent activities?”

  “He been a naughty boy, then?”

  “I’m not sure.” Rebus took a sip of tea. “You know he’s in Edinburgh?”

  Cafferty nodded slowly. “Runs a strip club, doesn’t he?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And as if that wasn’t hard enough work, now he’s got you digging at his scrotum.”

  Rebus shook his head. “All it is, a girl’s run off from home and her mum and dad got the idea she might be working for Bullen.”

  “And is she?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “But you went to see Wee Stu and he got up your nose?”

  “I just came away with a few questions . . .”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as what’s he doing in Edinburgh?”

  Cafferty smiled. “You telling me you don’t know any west-coast hard-men who’ve made the move east?”

  “I know a few.”

  “They come here because in Glasgow they can’t walk ten yards without someone having a go at them. It’s the culture, Rebus.” Cafferty gave a theatrical shrug.

  “You’re saying he wants a clean break?”

  “Through there, he’s Rab Bullen’s son, always will be.”

  “Which means someone somewhere just might have put a price on his head?”

  “He’s not running scared, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because Stu’s not the type. He wants to prove himself . . . stepping out from his old man’s shadow . . . you know what it’s like.”

  “And running a lap bar’s going to do that?”

  “Maybe.” Cafferty studied the surface of his drink. “Then again, maybe he’s got other plans.”

  “Such as.”

  “I don’t know him well enough to answer that. I’m an old man, Rebus: people don’t tell me as much as they used to. And even if I did know something . . . why the hell would I bother to tell you?”

  “Because you nurse a grudge.” Rebus placed his half-empty mug on the varnished wooden floor. “Didn’t Rab Bullen rip you off on one occasion?”

  “Mists of time, Rebus, mists of time.”

  “So as far as you know, the son’s clean?”

  “Don’t be stupid—nobody’s clean. Have you looked around you recently? Not that there’s much to see from Gayfield Square. Can you still smell the drains in the corridors?” Cafferty smiled at Rebus’s silence. “Some people still tell me stuff . . . just now and again.”

  “Which people?”

  Cafferty’s smile widened. “‘Know thine enemy,’ that’s what they say, isn’t it? I dare say it’s why you keep all my press cuttings.”

  “It’s not for your pop-star looks, that’s for sure.”

  Cafferty’s mouth gaped in a huge yawn. “Hot tub always does that to me,” he said by way of apology, fixing Rebus with a stare. “Something else I hear is that you’re working the Knoxland stabbing. Poor sod had . . . what? Twelve? Fifteen wounds? What do Messrs. Curt and Gates think of that?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Looks to me like a frenzy . . . someone out of control.”

  “Or just very, very angry,” Rebus countered.

  “Same thing in the end. All I’m saying is, it might have given them a taste.”

  Rebus’s eyes narrowed. “You know something, don’t you?”

  “Not me, Rebus . . . I’m happy just sitting here and growing old.”

  “Or heading down to England to meet your scumbag friends.”

  “Sticks an
d stones . . . sticks and stones.”

  “The Knoxland victim, Cafferty . . . what is it you’re not telling me?”

  “Think I’m going to sit here and do your job for you?” Cafferty shook his head slowly, then grasped the arms of the chair and started to rise to his feet. “But now it’s time for bed. Next time you come, bring that nice DS Clarke with you and tell her to pack her bikini. In fact, if you’re sending her, you can stay at home.” Cafferty laughed longer and louder than was merited as he led Rebus towards the front door.

  “Knoxland,” Rebus said.

  “What about it?”

  “Well, since you brought it up . . . remember a few months back, we had the Irish trying to muscle in on the drugs scene there?” Cafferty made a noncommittal gesture. “Seems they could be back . . . Would you happen to know anything about that?”

  “Drugs are for losers, Rebus.”

  “That’s an original line.”

  “Maybe I don’t think you merit any of my better ones.” Cafferty held the front door open. “Tell me, Rebus . . . all those stories about me, do you keep them in a scrapbook with little hearts doodled on the front?”

  “Daggers, actually.”

  “And when they make you retire, that’s what you’ll have waiting for you . . . a few final years alone with your scrapbook. Not much of a legacy, is it?”

  “And what exactly are you leaving behind, Cafferty? Any hospitals out there named after you?”

  “Amount I give to charity, there might well be.”

  “All that guilt money, it doesn’t change who you are.”

  “It doesn’t need to. Thing you have to realize is, I’m happy with my lot.” He paused. “Unlike some I could name.”

  Cafferty was chuckling softly as he closed the door on Rebus.

  DAY FIVE

  Friday

  15

  The first Siobhan heard of it was on the morning news. Muesli with skimmed milk; coffee; multivitamin juice. She always ate at the kitchen table, wrapped in her dressing gown—that way, if she spilled anything, she didn’t have to worry. A shower afterwards, and then her clothes. Her hair took only a few minutes to dry, which was why she was keeping it short. Radio Scotland was usually just background noise, a babble of voices to fill the silence. But then she picked up the word “Banehall” and turned the volume up. She’d missed the gist, but the studio was handing over to an outside broadcast: