Beggars Banquet

by Ian Rankin

  ‘The photo?’ June Redwood looked ready to weep.

  ‘The photo,’ Rebus echoed. ‘Who took it? Did he take any other pics of the two of you? After all, at the moment you’re looking at a jail sentence, but if any photos like this one get to Joyce Leyton, you might end up collecting signatures.’ Rebus waited for a moment, until he saw that June didn’t get it. ‘On your plaster casts,’ he explained.

  ‘Blackmail?’ said Rab Mitchell.He was sitting in the interview room, and he was nervous. Rebus stood against one wall, arms folded, examining the scuffed toes of his black Dr Martens shoes. He’d only bought them three weeks ago. They were hardly broken in - the tough leather heel-pieces had rubbed his ankles into raw blisters - and already he’d managed to scuff the toes. He knew how he’d done it too: kicking stones as he’d come out of June Redwood’s block of flats. Kicking stones for joy. That would teach him not to be exuberant in future. It wasn’t good for your shoes.

  ‘Blackmail?’ Mitchell repeated.

  ‘Good echo in here,’ Rebus said to Siobhan Clarke, who was standing by the door. Rebus liked having Siobhan in on these interviews. She made people nervous. Hard men, brutal men, they would swear and fume for a moment before remembering that a young woman was present. A lot of the time, she discomfited them, and that gave Rebus an extra edge. But Mitchell, known to his associates as ‘Roscoe’ (for no known reason), would have been nervous anyway. A man with a proud sixty-a-day habit, he had been stopped from lighting up by a tutting John Rebus.

  ‘No smoking, Roscoe, not in here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This is a non-smoker.’

  ‘What the f—what are you blethering about?’

  ‘Just what I say, Roscoe. No smoking.’

  Five minutes later, Rebus had taken Roscoe’s cigarettes from where they lay on the table, and had used Roscoe’s Scottish Bluebell matches to light one, which he inhaled with great delight.

  ‘Non-smoker!’ Roscoe Mitchell fairly yelped. ‘You said so yourself !’ He was bouncing like a kid on the padded seat. Rebus exhaled again.

  ‘Did I? Yes, so I did. Oh well . . .’ Rebus took a third and final puff from the cigarette, then stubbed it out underfoot, leaving the longest, most extravagant stub Roscoe had obviously ever seen in his life. He stared at it with open mouth, then closed his mouth tight and turned his eyes to Rebus.

  ‘What is it you want?’ he said.

  ‘Blackmail,’ said John Rebus.

  ‘Blackmail?’

  ‘Good echo in here.’

  ‘Blackmail? What the hell do you mean?’

  ‘Photos,’ said Rebus calmly. ‘You took them at a party four months ago.’

  ‘Whose party?’

  ‘Matt Bennett’s.’

  Roscoe nodded. Rebus had placed the cigarettes back on the table. Roscoe couldn’t take his eyes off them. He picked up the box of matches and toyed with it. ‘I remember it,’ he said. A faint smile. ‘Brilliant party.’ He managed to stretch the word ‘brilliant’ out to four distinct syllables. So it really had been a good party.

  ‘You took some snaps?’

  ‘You’re right. I’d just got a new camera.’

  ‘I won’t ask where from.’

  ‘I’ve got a receipt.’ Roscoe nodded to himself. ‘I remember now. The film was no good.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I put it in for developing, but none of the pictures came out. Not a one. They reckoned I’d not put the film in the right way, or opened the case or something. The negatives were all blank. They showed me them.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘At the shop. I got a consolation free film.’

  Some consolation, thought Rebus. Some swap, to be more accurate. He placed the photo on the table. Roscoe stared at it, then picked it up the better to examine it.

  ‘How the-?’ Remembering there was a woman present, Roscoe swallowed the rest of the question.

  ‘Here,’ said Rebus, pushing the pack of cigarettes in his direction. ‘You look like you need one of these.’

  Rebus sent Siobhan Clarke and DS Brian Holmes to pick up Keith Leyton. He also advised them to take along a back-up. You never could tell with a nutter like Leyton. Plenty of back-up, just to be on the safe side. It wasn’t just Leyton after all; there might be Joyce to deal with too.

  Meantime, Rebus drove to Tollcross, parked just across the traffic lights, tight in at a bus stop, and, watched by a frowning queue, made a dash for the photographic shop’s doorway. It was chucking it down, no question. The queue had squeezed itself so tightly under the metal awning of the bus shelter that vice might have been able to bring them up on a charge of public indecency. Rebus shook water from his hair and pushed open the shop’s door.

  Inside it was light and warm. He shook himself again and approached the counter. A young man beamed at him.

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘I wonder if you can help,’ said Rebus. ‘I’ve got a film needs developing, only I want it done in an hour. Is that possible?’

  ‘No problem, sir. Is it colour?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s fine then. We do our own processing.’

  Rebus nodded and reached into his pocket. The man had already begun filling in details on a form. He printed the letters very neatly, Rebus noticed with pleasure.

  ‘That’s good,’ said Rebus, bringing out the photo. ‘In that case, you must have developed this.’

  The man went very still and very pale.

  ‘Don’t worry, son, I’m not from Keith Leyton. In fact, Keith Leyton doesn’t know anything about you, which is just as well for you.’

  The young man rested the pen on the form. He couldn’t take his eyes off the photograph.

  ‘Better shut up shop now,’ said Rebus. ‘You’re coming down to the station. You can bring the rest of the photos with you. Oh, and I’d wear a cagoule, it’s not exactly fair, is it?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘And take a tip from me, son. Next time you think of blackmailing someone, make sure you get the right person, eh?’ Rebus tucked the photo back into his pocket. ‘Plus, if you’ll take my advice, don’t use words like “reprint” in your blackmail notes. Nobody says reprint except people like you.’ Rebus wrinkled his nose. ‘It just makes it too easy for us, you see.’

  ‘Thanks for the warning,’ the man said coolly.

  ‘All part of the service,’ said Rebus with a smile. The clue had actually escaped him throughout. Not that he’d be admitting as much to Kenneth Leighton. No, he would tell the story as though he’d been Sherlock Holmes and Philip Marlowe rolled into one. Doubtless Leighton would be impressed. And one day, when Rebus was needing a favour from the taxman, he would know he could put Kenneth Leighton in the frame.

  The Confession

  ‘It was Tony’s idea,’ he says, shifting in his seat. ‘Tony’s my brother, a couple of years younger than me, but he was always the brainy one. It was all his idea. I just went along with it.’He’s still trying to get comfortable. It’s not easy to get comfortable in the interview room. The CID man could tell him that. He could tell him that the chair he’s wriggling in has been modified ever so slightly, a quarter-inch taken off its front legs. The chair isn’t designed with rest and relaxation in mind.

  ‘So Tony says to me one day, he says: “Ian, this is one plan that cannot fail.” And he tells me about it. We spend a bit of time bouncing it around, you know, me trying to pick holes in it. I have to admit, it looked pretty good. Well, that’s the problem really. That’s why I’m here. It was just too bloody good all round . . .’

  He looks around again, studying the walls, as if expecting two-way mirrors, secret listening devices. The one thing he’s not been expecting is the quietness. It’s eleven-thirty on a weekday night. The police station is like a ghost town. He wants to see lots of activity, lots of uniforms. Yet again in his life, he’s being let down.

  Tony had noticed the slip-road. He drove from Fife to Edinburgh most Sat
urday nights, taking a carful of friends. They went to pubs and clubs, danced, chatted up women. A late-night pizza and maybe a couple of espressos before home. Tony didn’t drink. He didn’t mind staying sober while everyone around him had a skinful. He always liked to be in control. On the A90 south of the Forth Road Bridge, he’d seen the signpost for the slip-road. He’d seen it before - must’ve passed it a hundred times - but this one night something about it bothered him. The next morning, he headed back. The sign said: Department of Transport Vehicle Check Area Only. He took the slip-road, found himself at a sort of roundabout in the middle of nowhere. He stopped his car and got out. There was grass growing in the middle of the road. He didn’t think the place got used much. A hut nearby, and a metal ramp that might have been a weigh-bridge. Another slip-road led back down on to the A90. He stood there for a while, listening to the rush of traffic below him, an idea slowly forming in his head.

  ‘See,’ Ian went on, ‘Tony had worked for a time as a security guard, and he still had a couple of uniforms hanging in his wardrobe. He’s always had the idea of robbing someplace, always knew those uniforms would come in handy. One of his pals, guy called Malc, he works - I should say worked - in a printing shop. So Tony brought Malc in, said we could trust him. Have you got a cigarette?’

  The detective points to the No Smoking sign, but then relents, hands over a packet of ten and some matches.

  ‘Thanks. So you see,’ lighting up, exhaling noisily, ‘it was all Tony’s idea, and Malc had a certain expertise, too. I didn’t have anything. It was just that I was family, so Tony knew he could trust me. I haven’t worked in eight years. Used to be in heavy engineering up in Leven, got laid off in the slump. If somebody could do something about the manufacturing industry in this country, there’d be a lot less crime. Bit of advice there, free of charge.’ He flicks ash into the ashtray, brushes some stray flecks from his trousers. ‘I’m not saying I didn’t play a part. Obviously, I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I just want it on record that I wasn’t the brains of the operation.’

  ‘I think I can go along with that,’ the detective says. Ian asks him if he shouldn’t be taking notes or something. ‘We’re trained, lad. Elephant’s memory.’

  So Ian nods, goes on with his story. The interview room is small and airless. It carries the aromas of every person who’s ever been through it, all of them telling their stories. A few of them even turning out to be true . . .

  ‘So we make a few recces, and never once do we see the place being used. We stopped the car on the slip-road a few nights. Plenty of lorries steaming past, but nobody so much as notices us or asks what we’re up to. This is what Tony wanted to know. We set the thing up for last Wednesday.’

  ‘Why a Wednesday?’ the detective asks.

  Ian just shrugs. ‘Tony’s idea,’ he says. ‘All I did was go along with him. He was the mastermind: that’s the word I’ve been wanting. Mastermind.’ He shifts again in his chair, stares at the walls again, remembering Wednesday night.

  Tony and Ian were dressed in the uniforms. Tony had a friend with a haulage truck. It had been easy to borrow it for the night. The story was, they were helping someone move house. Malc had come up with IDs for them: they’d had their photos taken at a passport booth, and the laminated cards, each in its own wallet, looked authentic. They took the truck up to the roundabout, left the car near the bottom of the slip-road. Malc was dressed in a leather jacket and baseball cap. He was supposed to be a truck driver. Tony would head back down the ramp and use a torch to signal a lorry on to the slip-road. Then he’d ask the driver to go to the test area, where Ian would be apparently interviewing another lorry-driver. This was so the real driver wouldn’t suspect anything.

  ‘It worked,’ Ian says. ‘That’s what’s so unbelievable. First lorry he stopped, the driver brought it up to the roundabout, stopped it and got out. Tony comes driving up, gets out of his car. Asks to see the delivery note, then says he wants to check the cargo.’

  The detective has a question. ‘What if it turned out to be cabbages or fish or something?’

  ‘First thing Tony asked was what they were carrying. If it had been something we couldn’t sell, he’d have let them go. But we came up gold at the first attempt. Washing machines, two dozen of them at three hundred quid apiece. Only problem was, by the time we’d squeezed them into our own lorry, we’d no room for anything else, and we were cream-crackered anyway. Otherwise, I think we could have kept going all night.’ Ian pauses. ‘You’re wondering about the driver, aren’t you? There were three of us, remember. All we did was tie him up, leave him in his cab. We knew he’d get himself free eventually. Quiet up there, we didn’t want him starving to death. And off we went with the haul. We had about fifteen of the machines, and were already thinking of who we could sell them to. Storage was no problem. Tony had a couple of lock-ups. We left them there. There’s a local villain, name of Andy Horrigan. He runs a couple of pubs and cafés, so I thought maybe he’d be in the market. We were being careful, see. Once the news was out that someone had boosted a consignment of washer-dryers . . . well, we had to be careful who we sold to.’ He pauses. ‘Only, we’d already made that one fatal mistake . . .’

  One mistake. He asks for another cigarette. His hand is shaking as he lights it. He can’t get it out of his head, the insane bad luck of it. Even before he’d had a chance to say anything to Andy Horrigan, Horrigan had something to ask him.

  ‘Here, Ian, heard anything about a heist? Washer-dryers, nicked from the back of a lorry?’

  ‘I didn’t see anything in the papers,’ Ian had replied. Quite honestly, too: it had surprised them, the way there had been nothing in the press or on the radio and TV. Ian could see Horrigan was bursting to tell him. He knew right away it couldn’t be good news, not coming from Horrigan.

  ‘It wasn’t in the papers, never will be neither.’

  And as he’d gone on to explain it, Ian had felt his life ebb away. He’d run to the lock-up, finding Tony there. Tony already knew: it was written on his face. He knew they had to get rid of the machines, dump them somewhere. But that meant getting another lorry from somewhere.

  ‘Hang on though,’ Tony had said, his brain slipping into gear. ‘Eddie Hart isn’t after the machines, is he? He only wants what’s his.’

  Eddie Hart: at mention of the name, Ian could feel his knees buckling. ‘Steady Eddie’ was the Dundee Godfather, a man with an almost mythical status as mover and shaker, entrepreneur, and hammer-wielding maniac. If you crossed Steady Eddie, he got out his carpentry nails. And according to the local word, Eddie was absolutely furious.

  He’d probably put a lot of thought into the scheme. He needed to move drugs around, and had hit on the idea of hiding them inside white goods. After all, a lorryload of washer-dryers or fridge-freezers - they could saunter up and down every motorway in the country. All you needed were some fake dockets listing origin and destination. It just so happened that Tony had hit on one of Eddie’s drivers. And now Eddie was out for blood.

  But Tony was right: if they handed back the dope, got it back to Eddie somehow, maybe they’d be allowed to live. Maybe it would be all right. So they started tearing the packing from the machines, unscrewing the back of each to search behind the drum for hidden packages. And when that failed, they emptied out each machine’s complimentary packet of washing powder. They went through both lock-ups, they checked and double-checked every machine. And found nothing.

  Ian thought maybe the stuff had been hidden in one of the machines they’d left behind.

  ‘Use your loaf,’ his brother told him. ‘If that were true, why would he be after us? Wait a minute though . . .’

  And he went back, counting the machines. There was one missing. The brothers looked at one another, headed for Tony’s car. At Malc’s mother’s house, Malc had just plumbed the machine in. The old twin-tub was out on the front path, waiting to be junked. Malc’s mother was rubbing her hands over the front of her new washer-dryer, telling the
neighbours who’d gathered in the kitchen what a good laddie her son was.

  ‘Saved up and bought it as a surprise.’

  Even Ian knew that they were in real trouble now. Everyone in town would get to hear about the new washing machine . . . and word would most definitely travel.

  They took Malc outside, explained the situation to him. He went back indoors and manoeuvred the machine out of its cubby-hole, explaining that he’d forgotten to remove the transit bolts. His hands were trembling so much, he kept dropping the screwdriver. But at last he had the back of the machine off, and started handing brown-paper packages to Tony and Ian. Tony explained to the neighbours that they were weights, to stop the machine slipping and sliding when it was in the back of the lorry.

  ‘Like bricks?’ one neighbour asked, and when he agreed with her, sweat pouring down his face, she added a further question. ‘Why cover bricks in brown paper?’

  Tony, beyond explanations, put his head in his hands and wept.

  The detective brings back two beakers of coffee, one for himself, one for Ian. He’s been checking up, using the computer, making a couple of phone calls. Ian sits ready to tell him the last of it.‘We couldn’t just hand the stuff back, had to think of a way to do it. So we drove up to Dundee, night before last. Steady Eddie has a nightclub. We put the stuff in one of the skips at the back of the club, then phoned the club and told them where they could find it. Thing is, the club gets its rubbish collected privately, and the company works at night. So that night, the skip got emptied. Well, that wouldn’t have mattered, only . . . only it was me made the call . . . and there were two numbers in the phone-book. Instead of the office, I’d got through to the public phone on the wall beside the bar. It must have been some punter who answered. I just said my piece then hung up. I don’t know . . . maybe they nipped outside and got the stuff for themselves. Maybe they didn’t hear me, or thought I was drunk or something . . .’ His voice is choking; he’s close to tears.