Beggars Banquet

by Ian Rankin

  ‘I want those letters.’

  ‘I think she meant something feasible - like tea or coffee.’

  Rebus shook his head. ‘Maybe later, sir.’

  Watson nodded, made to retreat, then thought of something. ‘They got him down in the end. Had to use a winch. Not very dignified, but what can you do? I just hope the papers don’t print any pictures.’

  ‘Why don’t you have a word with the editors, just to be on the safe side?’

  ‘I might just do that, John.’ Watson nodded. ‘Yes, I might just do that.’

  Alone again, Rebus rose from his chair and opened the glass doors of the bookcase. The position of chair, ashtray and lamp was interesting. It was as though Sir Walter had been reading volumes from these shelves, from his namesake’s collected works. Rebus ran a finger over the spines. A few he had heard of; the vast majority he had not. One was titled Castle Dangerous. He smiled grimly at that. Dangerous, all right; or in Sir Walter’s case, quite lethal. He angled the light farther into the bookcase. The dust on a row of books had been disturbed. Rebus pushed with one finger against the spine of a volume, and the book slid a good two inches back until it rested against the solid wall behind the bookcase. Two uniform inches of space for the whole of this row. Rebus reached a hand down behind the row of books and ran it along the shelf. He met resistance, and drew the hand out again, now clutching a sheaf of papers. Sir Walter had probably thought it as good a hiding place as any - a poor testament to Scott the novelist’s powers of attraction. Rebus sat down in the chair again, brought the anglepoise closer, and began to sift through what he’d found.

  There were, indeed, twelve letters, ornately fountainpenned promises of love with honour, of passion until doomsday. As with all such youthful nonsense, there was a lot of poetry and classical imagery. Rebus imagined it was standard private boys’ school stuff, even today. But these letters had been written half a century ago, sent from one schoolboy to another a year younger than himself. The younger boy was Sir Walter, and from the correspondence it was clear that Sir Walter’s feelings for the writer had been every bit as inflamed as those of the writer himself.

  Ah, the writer. Rebus tried to remember if he was still an MP. He had the feeling he had either lost his seat, or else had retired. Maybe he was still on the go; Rebus paid little attention to politics. His attitude had always been: don’t vote, it only encourages them. So, here was the presumed scandal. Hardly a scandal, but just about enough to cause embarrassment. At worst a humiliation. But then Rebus was beginning to suspect that humiliation, not financial profit, was the price exacted here.

  And not even necessarily public humiliation, merely the private knowledge that someone knew of these letters, that someone had possessed them. Then the final taunt, the taunt Sir Walter could not resist: come to the Scott Monument, look across to the castle, and you will see who has been tormenting you these past weeks. You will know.

  But now that same taunt was working on Rebus. He knew so much, yet in effect he knew nothing at all. He now possessed the ‘what’, but not the ‘who’. And what should he do with the old love letters? Lady Scott had said she wasn’t sure she wanted to find them. He could take them away with him - destroy them. Or he could hand them over to her, tell her what they were. It would be up to her either to destroy them unread or to discover this silly secret. He could always say: It’s all right, it’s nothing really . . . Mind you, some of the sentences were ambiguous enough to disturb, weren’t they? Rebus read again. ‘When you scored 50 n.o. and afterwards we showered . . .’ ‘When you stroke me like that . . .’ ‘After rugger practice . . .’

  Ach. He got up and opened the bookcase again. He would replace them. Let time deal with them; he could not. But in placing his hand back down behind the line of books, he brushed against something else, not paper but stiff card. He hadn’t noticed it before because it seemed stuck to the wall. He peeled it carefully away and brought it into the light. It was a photograph, black and white, ten inches by eight and mounted on card. A man and woman on an esplanade, arm in arm, posing for the photographer. The man looked a little pensive, trying to smile but not sure he actually wanted to be caught like this. The woman seemed to wrap both her arms round one of his, restraining him; and she was laughing, thrilled by this moment, thrilled to be with him.

  The man was Sir Walter. A Sir Walter twenty years older than the schoolboy of the love letters, mid thirties perhaps. And the woman? Rebus stared long and hard at the woman. Put the photograph down and paced the study, touching things, peering through the shutters. He was thinking and not thinking. He had seen the woman before somewhere . . . but where? She was not Lady Scott, of that he was certain. But he’d seen her recently, seen that face . . . that face.

  And then he knew. Oh yes, he knew.

  He telephoned the Castellain, half listening as the story was given to him. Taken ill suddenly . . . poorly . . . decided to go home . . . airport . . . flying to London and catching a connection tonight . . . Was there a problem? Well, of course there was a problem, but no one at the hotel could help with it, not now. The blackmail over, Rebus himself had inadvertently caused the blackmailer to flee. He had gone to the hotel hoping - such a slim hope - for help, not realising that one of the Grebe Tours party was his quarry. Once again, he had sacrificed his queen too early in the game.

  He telephoned Edinburgh Airport, only to be told that the flight had already taken off. He asked to be rerouted to Security, and asked them for the name of the security chief at Heathrow. He was calling Heathrow when Watson appeared in the hall.

  ‘Making quite a few calls, aren’t you, John? Not personal, I hope.’

  Rebus ignored his superior as his call was connected. ‘Mr Masterson in Security, please,’ he said. And then: ‘Yes, it is urgent. I’ll hold.’ He turned to Watson at last. ‘Oh, it’s personal all right, sir. But it’s nothing to do with me. I’ll tell you all about it in a minute. Then we can decide what to tell Lady Scott. Actually, seeing as you’re a friend of the family and all, you can tell her. That’d be best, wouldn’t it, sir? There are some things only your friends can tell you, after all, aren’t there?’

  He was through to Heathrow Security, and turned away from Watson the better to talk with Masters on. The superintendent stood there, dimly aware that Rebus was going to force him to tell Margaret something she would probably rather not hear. He wondered if she would ever again have time for the person who would tell her . . . And he cursed John Rebus, who was so good at digging yet never seemed to soil his own hands. It was a gift, a terrible, destructive gift. Watson, a staunch believer in the Christian God, doubted Rebus’s gift had come down from on high. No, not from on high.

  The phone call was ending. Rebus put down the receiver and nodded towards Sir Walter’s study.

  ‘If you’ll step into the office, sir,’ he said, ‘there’s something I’d like to show you . . .’

  Shaw Berkely was arrested at Heathrow, and, despite protestations regarding his health and cries for consular aid, was escorted back to Edinburgh, where Rebus was waiting, brisk and definitive, in Interview Room A of Great London Road Police Station.Berkely’s mother had died two months before. She had never told him the truth about his birth, spinning instead some story about his father being dead. But in sorting through his mother’s papers, Shaw discovered the truth - several truths, in fact. His mother had been in love with Walter Scott, had become pregnant by him, but had been, as she herself put it in her journal, ‘discarded’ in favour of the ‘better marriage’ provided by Margaret Winton-Addams.

  Shaw’s mother accepted some money from Scott and fled to the United States, where she had a younger sister. Shaw grew up believing his father dead. The revelation not only that he was alive, but that he had prospered in society after having caused Shaw’s mother misery and torment, led to a son’s rage. But it was impotent rage, Shaw thought, until he came across the love letters. His mother must at some point have stolen them from Scott, or at least had com
e out of the relationship in possession of them. Shaw decided on a teasing revenge, knowing Scott would deduce that any blackmailer in possession of the letters was probably also well informed about his affair and the bastard son.

  He used the tour party as an elaborate cover (and also, he admitted, because it was a cheap travel option). He brought with him to Britain not only the letters, but also the series of typed notes. The irony was that he had been to Edinburgh before, had studied there for three months as part of some exchange with his American college. He knew now why his mother, though proud of the scholarship, had been against his going. For three months he had lived in his father’s city, yet hadn’t known it.

  He sent the notes from London - the travel party’s base for much of its stay in England. The exchange - letters for cash - had gone ahead in the Café Royal, the bar having been a haunt of his student days. But he had known his final note, delivered by hand, would tempt Sir Walter, would lead him to the top of the Scott Monument. No, he said, he hadn’t just wanted Sir Walter to see him, to see the son he had never known. Shaw had much of the money on him, stuffed into a money belt around his waist. The intention had been to release wads of money, Sir Walter’s money, down on to Princes Street Gardens.

  ‘I didn’t mean for him to die . . . I just wanted him to know how I felt about him . . . I don’t know. But Jesus’ - he grinned - ‘I still wish I’d let fly with all that loot.’

  Rebus shuddered to think of the ramifications. Stampede in Princes Street! Hundreds dead in lunchtime spree! Biggest scoor-oot ever! No, best not to think about it. Instead, he made for the Café Royal himself. It was late morning, the day after Berkely’s arrest. The pub was quiet as yet, but Rebus was surprised to see Dr Jameson standing at the bar, fortifying himself with what looked suspiciously like a double whisky. Remembering how he had left the doctor in the lurch regarding Sir Walter’s body, Rebus grinned broadly and offered a healthy slap on the back.

  ‘Morning, Doc, fancy seeing you in here.’ Rebus leaned his elbows on the bar. ‘We mustn’t be keeping you busy enough.’ He paused. There was a twinkle in his eye as he spoke. ‘Here, let me get you a stiff one . . .’ And he laughed so hard even the waiters from the Oyster Bar came to investigate. But all they saw was a tall, well-built man leaning against a much smaller, more timid man, and saying as he raised his glass: ‘Here’s to mortality, to old mortality!’

  So all in all it was just another day in the Café Royal.

  The Wider Scheme

  It is, of course, by no means unusual to find a solicitor in a police station.We’re called there at all hours of the day and night, sometimes by clients, sometimes by the police themselves. There is something about those stations, something unwholesome, and it leaves its mark on you. Put me in a room full of lawyers, and I’ll tell you which ones spend a lot of time in police cells and interview rooms, and hanging around corridors and empty offices, fingers tapping impatiently against briefcases. Those laywers have a tired, drawn look. They look like morticians. They lose colour and smile less than they used to. And they look nervous and cynical at the same time, their eyes flitting over you as if you’d been accused of something.

  Today, I was sitting in Detective Inspector Jack Preston’s office. He’s a friend of mine, insofar as we’ve been known to share a drink, a meal, a joke. We have met socially at parties full of other CID men and lawyers. That’s why he was doing me what he called a ‘favour’. We were having a quiet word, the door closed, about a client of mine. Jack was keen to see my client put away, but knew I could mount a reasonable defence. He wanted to do some trading. He would drop a couple of charges if my client changed his plea.

  This is the way the law works. It’s the only thing that stops the courts blocking up completely. ‘Plumbing’, Jack calls it. He says we’re all plumbers’ mates, trying to keep the merde flowing.

  I was putting the case for my client, not really trying too hard, just enjoying the exercise, when there was a knock at the door.

  ‘Yes,’ Jack called. A head appeared round the door.

  ‘Sorry, sir, I know you didn’t want to be disturbed.’

  Jack waved the young man inside and introduced him as DC Derek Halliwell.

  ‘What is it, Derek?’

  ‘The eleven o’clock identification,’ DC Halliwell said. Jack checked his watch. It was two minutes to eleven.

  ‘Christ,’ he said.

  I smiled. ‘Time flies.’ It was true I’d been in his office a while. We’d been chatting, that’s all. Some gossip, a few stories, a cup of coffee.

  ‘Do it without me,’ Jack said.

  ‘It’s not that, sir. We’re one short for the lineup.’

  ‘Have you had a look around?’

  ‘Nobody’s available.’

  Jack thought about it. ‘Well, she knows me, I can’t do it.’ Then he had an idea. He turned to me. I widened my eyes.

  ‘You want me to appear in an ID parade?’

  ‘You’d be doing us a big favour, Roddy.’

  ‘Would it take long?’

  He smiled. ‘You know it wouldn’t.’

  I sighed, a little theatrically. ‘Only too pleased, Inspector, to help police with their inquiries.’

  Jack and DC Halliwell had a laugh as I got to my feet.

  Most people I know, when they think of an ID parade, they imagine the American system: two-way mirror, the witness hidden from view. But it’s not like that here. Here, the witness is face-to-face with the lineup. He or she walks along the line, then walks back along it. It can be distressing for all concerned. When Jack told me which case this present identification was concerned with, I felt pretty distressed myself.We were standing in the anteroom.

  ‘You might have warned me,’ I said.

  ‘I’m telling you now,’ Jack said.

  It was the Marshall case. Sophie Marshall had been mugged, and had died of her injuries before help could arrive. Her attacker had left her propped against a wall, and had taken only cash and jewellery. The hell of it was, I’d known Sophie Marshall. Well, I’d met her a few times, as had Jack. She’d been a court usher. We’d met her both professionally and at drinks parties. She’d been a good-looking young woman, full of life.

  ‘Thing is,’ Jack confided, ‘you know and I know that the MO fits Barry Cooke.’

  I nodded. Barry Cooke was a young thug of the district who had mugged before and served time. He’d left the victim propped against a wall. I recalled his barrister saying in mitigation that Cooke had left the victim in that position to make him more comfortable. From the moment they found Sophie Marshall, the police suspected Cooke. They took him in for questioning, but he had a good alibi and a keen young solicitor. The evidence against him was circumstantial. It wouldn’t hold up in court.

  ‘But now you’ve got a witness?’ I said, interested.

  Jack nodded. He seemed nervous. ‘A young woman, says she saw somebody near the scene about the time Sophie Marshall was attacked. We’ve brought Cooke in, see if she can point the finger.’ He shrugged. ‘That would just about do it.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Who is she?’

  ‘The witness?’ Jack shrugged again, lighting a cigarette for himself, despite the No Smoking signs on all four walls and above the door. ‘Just someone who lives near there. Actually, she lives on the floor above Marshall, but she didn’t know her. She’s not what you’d call the perfect witness.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Wait till you see her: cropped hair, ring through her nose, tattoos. She’s Ray Boyd’s girlfriend. Know him?’ I shook my head. ‘He’s got a bit of a temper on him. He was in court a couple of days ago for assault. Got off with it though.’

  I nodded. ‘I think I recall the case.’

  The other members of the lineup were milling around, and now the anteroom door opened and Barry Cooke was led in. I didn’t look at him. There was a quick briefing from Jack, and we were told to go into the ID room. There, we were arranged into a line. I was wear
ing a jacket borrowed from DC Halliwell, to make me look more ‘casual’, and I’d taken off my tie. I still looked a good deal more formal than the others in the lineup, one of whom was a police officer.

  I ended up as Number Four. Barry Cooke was right next to me. He was about a foot shorter than me, with thick unkempt hair tied back into a matted ponytail. His mouth was missing a few teeth, and his face was scarred with acne. I tried to look straight ahead of me, but of course he knew who I was.

  ‘You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?’ he said.

  ‘No talking!’ one of the policemen ordered.

  Then the witness was brought into the room. Jack was with her, along with Cooke’s solicitor, an upstart called Tony Barraclough. Barraclough recognised me, but didn’t let it show. He’d probably been forewarned by Jack.

  The witness was about Cooke’s height and age. It struck me that they might know one another, but then this parade wouldn’t have been necessary. She was an ugly little thing, except for her eyes. Her eyes were pretty, the way she’d once been pretty all over. But she’d scraped and savaged herself, pierced herself. She wore her underclass like a uniform.

  She stopped in front of Number One, then passed Two and Three and stopped in front of me. I stared straight ahead, and she moved on to Barry Cooke. But she walked right past him to Number Six. I could see hope fade from Jack’s face. His shoulders sagged. Eventually, she walked past us again. I thought this time she was going to stop at Cooke, but she was standing in front of me.

  Then she reached up and tapped my shoulder.

  ‘That’s him,’ she said, ‘that’s the bastard.’

  Jack shuffled his feet. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure all right. Definitely him. Bastard!’ And she slapped me hard across the face.

  Two uniformed officers led her away, still screaming. Everyone looked a bit shaken up. I rubbed my cheek where it stung. Barry Cooke was watching me intently. Jack was having a quiet word with Tony Barraclough. Jack was smiling, Barraclough nodding. Then the lineup was dismissed, Cooke went off with Barraclough, and Jack came over to me.