by Ian Rankin
‘You weren’t to know what would happen.’
‘I just wanted to do something.’ She looked up at him, wanting him to understand. He nodded slowly. ‘What… what do I do now?’
Rebus slipped his hands back into his pockets. ‘Learn to live with yourself, I suppose.’
That afternoon, he was back at the Oxford Bar, nursing a drink and thinking about love, about how it could make you do things you couldn’t explain. All the passions–love and hate and everything in between–they all made people act in ways that would seem inexplic able to a visitor from another planet. The barman asked him if he was ready for another, but Rebus shook his head.
‘How’s the weekend been treating you?’ the barman asked.
‘Same as always,’ Rebus replied. It was one of those little lies that went some way towards making life appear that bit less complicated.
‘Seen any good films lately?’
Rebus smiled, stared down into his glass. ‘Watched one last night,’ he said. ‘Let me tell you about it…’
Saint Nicked
The man dressed as Santa Claus took to his heels and ran, arms held out to stop the branches scratching his face. It was night, but the moon had appeared from its hiding place behind the clouds. The man’s shadow stretched in front of him, snared by the car’s headlights. He dodged left, deeper into the woods, hoping he would soon outrun the bright beams. There was laughter at his back, the laughter of men who were not yet pursuing him, men who knew his flight was doomed.
‘Come back, Santa! Where do you think you’re going?’
‘You’re not exactly in camouflage! Got Rudolph tied to a tree, ready for a quick getaway?’
More laughter, then the first voice again: ‘Here we come, ready or not…’
He didn’t pause to look back. His red jacket was heavy, its thick lining padding out a frame that was stocky to begin with. Funny thing was, he’d been stick thin until his thirties. Made up for it since, though. Chips, chocolate and beer. He knew he could ditch the costume, but that would leave a trail for them to follow. They were right: no way was he going to outrun them. He was already down to a light trot, a stitch developing in his side. The baggy red trousers kept snagging on low branches and bracken. When he paused at last, catching his breath, he heard whistling. ‘Jingle Bells’, it sounded like. The light over to his right was wavering: his pursuers had brought torches. He could hear their boots crunching over the ground. They weren’t running. Their steps were steady and purposeful. He started moving again. His plan: to get away. There was a road junction somewhere not far off. Maybe a passing car would save him. The sweat was icy on his neck, steam rising from his body, reminding him of the last horse home in the 2.30.
‘You’re going to get a kick in the fairy lights for this!’ one of the voices called out.
‘There won’t be enough of you left to fill a Christmas stocking!’ yelled the other.
They were still a hundred, maybe two hundred yards behind him. He started picking his way over the ground, trying to muffle any sound. Something scratched his face. He wiped a thumb across his cheek, feeling the prickle of blood. The stitch was getting worse. His heart was pounding in his ears, so loud he feared they would hear it. As the pain grew worse, he remembered someone telling him once that the secret to beating a stitch was touching your toes. He paused, bent down, but his hands didn’t even make it to his knees. He fell into a crouch instead, resting his forehead against cold bark. There was a piney smell in the air, like those air fresheners you could get for the car. His clenched fists were pushing against the frozen ground. There was something jagged there beneath his knuckles: a thin slice of stone. He prised it from the earth, held it as he would a weapon. But it wasn’t a weapon, and never would be. Instead, he had an idea, and started working its edge against the tree trunk.
The movement behind him had stopped, torchlight scanning the night. For the moment, they had lost him. He couldn’t make out what they were saying: they were either too far away, or keeping their voices low. If they stayed where they were, they would hear him scratching. Sure enough, the beam from at least one torch was arcing towards him. He had a sudden, ludicrous image from films he’d devoured as a kid: he was escaping from Colditz; he’d tunnelled out and now the searchlights were tracking him, the Nazis in pursuit. The Great Escape: that was the one they’d always shown at Christmas. He wondered if it would be shown this year, and whether he’d be around to see it.
‘Is that you, Santa?’ The voice was closer. But he’d finished now, and was back on his feet, moving away from the light, sweat stinging his eyes. It was the smoking that had taken its toll. Time was, he wasn’t a bad athlete. At school he’d sometimes come runner-up in races. OK, so that had been forty years ago, but were his pursuers any fitter? Maybe they would be tiring, thinking of giving up. Was he worth all this effort to them, when the snug warmth of the BMW was waiting?
Of course! The BMW! He could circle back, nick the car from beneath their noses. If only he could keep going. But his sides were burning, his legs buckling. And the truth was, he didn’t even know which direction he was headed. He’d been doing anything but run in a straight line. The car could be anywhere. Chances were he was heading further into the middle of nowhere. Even if he got away, he might end up freezing to death on the hills. There were pockets of habitation out here; he’d spotted the lights during the drive south. But they were within shouting distance of the roadside, and he felt suddenly he was a long way from any road. He was an achingly long way from home.
He knew now that he would give them what they wanted, but only on his terms. It had to be on his terms, not theirs. And he didn’t want a kicking. Didn’t deserve it. He’d done everything just the way he’d been told… well, almost everything.
His head felt light, but his body was a dead weight. It was like wading through waist-deep water, and he was slowing again. Did he want to escape, to end up alone in this wilderness? The sky was darkening again, clouds closing over the land. Sleet might be on its way. How could it be that he was floating and drowning both at the same time?
And falling to his knees.
Stretching out, as if on crisp sheets. His eyes closing…
And then the glare of the searchlights. The guards with their torches. Hands pulling at him, grabbing him by the hair. The silver wig came away. He’d forgotten he’d been wearing it.
‘Sleeping on the job, Santa?’
They had him now, both of them. He didn’t care. He didn’t feel well enough to care.
‘Tell us where it is.’
‘I…’ His chest was ablaze, as if he’d fallen asleep too close to the fire. He started pulling at the front of his costume, trying to shed it.
‘Just tell us where it is.’
‘I…’ He knew that if he told them, they might leave him here. Or punish him. He knew he had to play for time. Blood pounded in his ears, deafening him.
‘No more fun and games.’
‘Scratched it,’ he blurted out.
‘What’s that?’
He tried to swallow. ‘Scratched it on a tree.’
‘Which tree?’
‘I’ll… show you.’
They were trying to pull him to his feet, but he was too heavy, altogether too large for them. Which was how he’d broken away from them in the first place.
‘Just tell us!’
He tried shaking his head. ‘Show you.’
They dropped him then, arguing with one another.
‘He’s having us on,’ the taller one said.
The stocky one shrugged. ‘Tells us or shows us, what’s the difference?’
‘Difference is…’ But the tall one didn’t seem to have an answer. He sniffed instead. ‘He’s caused us enough grief as it is.’
‘Agreed, which is why I want this over with.’
‘So why don’t I persuade him?’ The tall man slapped his torch against the palm of his hand.
‘What do you say, Santa?’ The stocky one shone his own
torch against Santa’s face. The eyes were open, but staring. The face seemed to be going slack. The stocky man knelt down.
‘Don’t tell me…’ the tall man groaned.
‘Looks like.’ The stocky man made a few checks, and stood up again. ‘Heart gave out.’
‘Don’t tell me…’
‘I just did tell you.’
‘So what do we do now?’
The stocky man waved his torch around. ‘Said he’d scratched the answer on one of the trees. Can’t be too far. Let’s start looking…’
But after twenty minutes, they’d found nothing. They reconvened at Santa’s cooling body. ‘So what now?’
‘We’ll come back in the morning. The tree’s not going anywhere. Plenty of daylight tomorrow.’
‘And him?’ The torch picked out the prone figure.
‘What about him?’
‘We can’t just leave him. Think about it…’
The stocky man nodded. ‘You’re right. Can’t have the kids finding out Santa’s not around any more.’ He tucked his torch under his arm. ‘You take the feet…’
Detective Inspector John Rebus was in a bad place, doing a bad thing, at his least favourite time of year.
Which is to say that he was Christmas shopping in Glasgow. It had been his girlfriend’s idea: everyone, she’d explained, knew that Glasgow boasted better shops than Edinburgh. Which was why he found himself traipsing around busy stores on the last Saturday before Christmas, carrying more and more bags as Jean consulted the neatly typed list she’d brought with her. Each purchase had been selected carefully beforehand, something Rebus was forced to admire. He, after all, shopped from what some would call instinct and others desperation. What he couldn’t work out was why the process took so long: even though Jean knew what she was looking for, and where to find it, they still spent half an hour in each shop. Sometimes–when she was buying something for him–he had to stand outside, shuffling his chilled toes and trying not to look like a man with an impatient wait ahead of him.
It was when they stopped for lunch that Jean, noticing his slumped shoulders, patted his cheek.
‘A good impersonation of the condemned man,’ she told him. ‘You’re not exactly entering into the spirit.’
‘I’m not the festive sort.’
‘I’m beginning to realise.’ She smiled. ‘The words “retail” and “therapy” don’t coincide in your world, do they? Maybe we should go our separate ways this afternoon.’
Rebus nodded slowly. ‘That would let me buy a few things for you–without you knowing.’
She studied him, seeing through the lie. ‘Consider yourself off the hook,’ she said. ‘Do you want to meet up later?’
Rebus nodded again. ‘Give me a bell when you’re finished.’
They parted outside the restaurant, Jean pecking his cheek. Rebus watched her go. Fifty yards down Buchanan Street, she disappeared into an arcade of small, expensive-looking shops. Rebus let his nose guide him to the Horseshoe Bar, where he sat at a corner table, nursing a first and then a second whisky, perusing a newspaper. Thursday’s theft from the First Minister’s residence in Edinburgh was still causing plenty of amusement. Rebus had already heard two hardened Glaswegian accents joking about it at the bar:
‘Looks like Christmas came early, eh?’
‘Only Santa was the one on the receiving end…’
It was all grist to the mill, and rightly so. Doubtless Rebus would have laughed had a man dressed as Father Christmas walked into a reception in Glasgow and wandered out again with a priceless necklace tucked beneath his costume. No ordinary piece of jewellery, but once the property of Mary, Queen of Scots, brought into the light just one day each year so it could be shown off at a party. With the First Minister of the recently devolved Scottish Parliament as victim, Rebus’s police station had been a hive of activity, which was why he intended enjoying what was left of today.
Finishing his drink, he asked at the bar for a Yellow Pages, jotting down the addresses of local record shops. He was going to find a small gift for himself, a rarity or some new album, something he could play on the big day. Something to take his mind off Christmas. The third shop he tried was a second-hand record specialist, and Rebus was its only customer. The proprietor had frizzy greying hair tied in a ponytail, and was wearing a Frank Zappa T-shirt that had shrunk in the wash at some point in the 1970s. As Rebus consulted the racks, the man asked if he was looking for anything in particular.
‘I’ll know it when I see it,’ Rebus told him. On an overcast day, it was easy enough to start a conversation. Five minutes in, Rebus realised he knew the man from somewhere. He pointed a finger. ‘You were in a band yourself once.’
The man grinned, showing gaps between his teeth. ‘That’s some memory you’ve got.’
‘You played bass for the Parachute Game.’ The man held up his hands in surrender. ‘Ted Handsome?’ Rebus guessed, eyes narrowed in concentration.
The man nodded. ‘The name’s Hanson, actually. Ted Hanson.’
‘I had a couple of your albums.’
‘Almost as many as we made.’
Rebus nodded slowly. The Parachute Game had appeared on the Scottish scene in the mid seventies, supporting headliners such as Nazareth and Alex Harvey. Then things had gone quiet.
‘Your singer did a runner, didn’t he?’
Hanson shrugged. ‘Bad timing.’
Rebus remembered: the band had crept into the lower reaches of the Top 30 with a single from their second album. Their first headlining tour was looming. And then their singer had walked out. Jack… no, Jake, that was it.
‘Jake Wheeler,’ he said out loud.
‘Poor Jake,’ Ted Hanson said. He was thoughtful for a moment, then checked his watch. ‘You look like a drinking man, am I right?’
‘You’ve got a good eye.’
‘Then I reckon this could be my early-closing day.’
Rebus didn’t like to say, but he got the feeling Ted had a few of those each week.
They hit a couple of bars, talking music, bands from the ‘old days’. Hanson had a fund of stories. He’d started the shop with stock ransacked from his own collection.
‘And my flat still looks like a vinyl museum.’
‘I’d like to see that,’ Rebus said with a smile. So they jumped in a taxi, heading for Hillhead. Rebus called Jean on his mobile, said he might be late getting back to Edinburgh. She sounded tired and unbothered. Hanson’s Victorian tenement flat was as promised. Albums lay slumped against every wall. Boxes of them sat on tables, singles spilling from home-made shelves that had warped under the weight.
‘A little piece of heaven,’ Rebus said.
‘Try telling that to my ex-wife.’ Hanson handed him a can of beer.
They spent a couple of hours on the sofa, staring into the space between the loudspeakers and listening to a shared musical heritage. Finally, Rebus plucked up the courage to ask about Jake Wheeler.
‘You must have been gutted when he walked out.’
‘He had his reasons.’
‘What were they?’
Hanson offered a shrug. ‘Come to think of it, he never said.’
‘There were rumours about drugs…’
‘Rock stars and drugs? Surely not.’
‘A good way to meet some very bad people.’ Rebus knew of these rumours too: gangsters, dealers. But Hanson just shrugged again.
‘He never resurfaced?’ Rebus asked.
Hanson shook his head. Then he smiled. ‘You said you had a couple of our albums, John…’ He sprang to his feet, rummaged in a box by the door. ‘Bet this isn’t one of them.’ He held out the album to Rebus.
‘I did own it once upon a time,’ Rebus mused, recognising the cover. The Oldest Tree, recorded by the remaining trio after Wheeler had walked out. ‘Lost it at a party, week after I’d bought it.’ Examining the cover–swirly late-hippy pencil drawings of dells and hills, a broad oak tree at the centre–Rebus remembered something. ‘You
drew this?’
Hanson nodded. ‘I had more than a few pretensions back then.’
‘It’s good.’ Rebus studied the drawing. ‘I mean it.’
Hanson sat down again. ‘Back at the shop, you said you were after something special. Could this be it?’
Rebus smiled. ‘Could be. How much do you want?’
‘Compliments of the season.’
Rebus raised an eyebrow. ‘I couldn’t…’
‘Yes you could. It’s not like it’s worth anything.’
‘Well, OK then, thanks. Maybe I can do you a favour some day in return.’
‘How’s that then?’
Rebus had lifted a business card out of his wallet. He handed it over. ‘I’m in CID, Ted. Never know when you might need a friend…’
Studying the record sleeve again, Rebus failed to notice the look of fear and panic that flitted across his new friend’s face.
Sunday morning, Neil Bryant woke up and knew something was wrong. He was the stockier of the two men who’d spent much of the previous evening chasing an overweight, unfit Santa to his death. He was also supposed to be the brains of the outfit, which was why he was so annoyed. He was annoyed because he’d asked Malky Bunker–his tall, skinny partner in crime–to wake him up. It was past ten, and still no sign of Malky. So much for his dawn wake-up call. He phoned Malky and gave him a good roasting.
Twenty minutes later, the BMW pulled up at Bryant’s door. Malky’s hair was tousled, face creased from sleep. He was yawning.
‘You got rid of the deceased?’ Bryant asked. Malky nodded. Good enough: the fewer details Bryant knew, the better. They drove out of Glasgow, heading east and south. Different route from last night, and a map neither of them knew how to read.
‘Be easier if we drove into Edinburgh and out again,’ Malky suggested.
‘We’re late as it is,’ Bryant snapped. The thing was, as you headed towards the Border country, it all started to look the same. Plenty of forests and crossroads. It was early afternoon before they started to recognise a few landmarks. Passing a couple of flatbed trucks, Bryant sensed they were getting warm.
