by Ian Rankin
‘Working on a Sunday,’ Malky commented, glancing out at another truck.
‘Run-up to Christmas,’ Bryant explained. Then his heart sank as he saw what the trucks were carrying.
‘This has got to be it,’ Malky was saying.
‘Aye,’ Bryant agreed, voice toneless.
Malky was parking the car, only now realising that the forest they’d run through the previous night was not a forest. It had been denuded by chainsaws, half its trees missing. Not a forest: a plantation. A fresh consignment of Christmas firs, heading north to Edinburgh.
The two men looked at one another, then sprinted from the car. There were still trees left, plenty of them. Maybe, if they were lucky… maybe Santa’s tree would still be there.
Two hours and countless arguments later, they were back in the car, heater going full blast. The foreman had threatened to call the police. They’d threatened violence if he did.
‘They’re all the same,’ he’d shouted, meaning the trees.
‘Just call us particular,’ Bryant had snarled back.
‘What are we going to do?’ Malky asked now. ‘We go back there without the necklace, our goose is well and truly stuffed.’
Bryant looked at him, then got out of the car, marching towards the nervous-looking foreman.
‘Where are they headed?’ he demanded.
‘The trees?’ The foreman watched Bryant nod. ‘Edinburgh,’ he said.
‘Where in Edinburgh?’
‘All over.’ The foreman shrugged. ‘Probably be sold within the day.’
‘Addresses,’ Bryant said, his face inches away from the older man’s. ‘I need addresses.’
Rebus and Jean ate Sunday lunch at a hotel in Portobello, surrounded by families pulling crackers and wearing lopsided paper crowns.
‘Basic training for the big day,’ Rebus commented, excusing himself from the table as his mobile started ringing. It was his boss, Detective Chief Superintendent Gill Templer.
‘Enjoying a lazy Sunday?’ she enquired.
‘Up until now.’
‘We’re looking at fences, John.’ Meaning people who might be able to shift an item as hot as the necklace. ‘You know Sash Hooper, don’t you? Wondered if you might pay him a visit.’
‘Today?’
‘Sooner the better.’
Rebus glanced back in Jean’s direction. She was stirring her coffee, no room for dessert. Rebus had promised to go and buy a Christmas tree.
‘Fine,’ he said into the mouthpiece. ‘So where can I find Sash?’
‘Skating on thin ice, as usual,’ Gill Templer said.
Ever the entrepreneur, Sash–real name Sacha, courtesy of a mother with a thing for French crooners–had opened an outdoor skating rink on Leith Links.
‘Just trying to make an honest dollar,’ he told Rebus, as they walked around the rinks perimeter. ‘Licences in place and everything.’ He watched two teenagers as they shuffled across the slushy ice, the rink’s only customers. Then he stared accusingly at the sun, cursing its liquefying powers. Music blared from a faulty loudspeaker: Abba, ‘Dancing Queen’.
‘No interest in stolen antiquities, then?’
‘All in the past, Mr Rebus.’ Hooper was a big man, with clenched fists. What was left of his hair was jet black, tightly curled. His thick moustache was black too. He wore sunglasses, through which Rebus could just make out his small, greedy eyes.
‘And if someone came to you with an offer…’
‘The three wise men could knock on my door tonight, Mr Rebus, and I’d give them the brush-off.’ Hooper shrugged a show of innocence.
Rebus looked all around. ‘Not rushed off your feet, are you?’
‘The day’s young. Besides, Kiddie Wonderland’s doing all right.’ He nodded at the double-decker bus decorated with fake snow and tinsel. Mums and young children were lining up for entry. Rebus had passed the bus when he’d first arrived. It promised ‘A visit you’ll never forget–one gift per child.’ ‘Santa’s grotto on wheels,’ had been Hooper’s explanation, rubbing his hands together. The interior looked to have been decorated with white cotton and sheets of coloured crêpe paper. The queuing parents appeared dubious, but Kiddie Wonderland was the only show in Leith. Still, to Rebus’s mind, there was something missing.
‘No Santa,’ he said, nodding towards the bus.
‘Soon as you’re gone there will be.’ Hooper patted his own stomach.
Rebus stared at him. ‘You realise some of these kids could be traumatised for life?’ Hooper didn’t reply. ‘Let me know if Christmas brings you anything nice, Sash.’
Hooper was rehearsing his ho, ho, hos as Rebus walked back to the car.
He knew that there was a place off Dalkeith Road that sold Christmas trees. It was a derelict builders’ yard, empty all year round except for the run-up to 25 December. When he arrived, two men were doing a good impression of taking the place apart, studying each tree before dismissing it, while the proprietor watched bemused, arms folded. One of the men shook his head at the other, and the pair stormed out.
‘I got a call half an hour back,’ the proprietor told Rebus. ‘They did the same thing to a friend of mine.’
‘Takes all sorts,’ Rebus said. But he watched the men get into their rusty BMW and drive off. The elder and shorter of the two–his face was familiar. Rebus frowned in concentration, bought the first five-foot fir offered to him, and took it out to his car. It stretched from boot to passenger seat. He still couldn’t put a name to the face, and it bothered him all the way to St Leonards police station, where he made his report to Gill Templer.
‘Could do with clearing this one up, John,’ she said.
Rebus nodded. She would have the brass on her back, because the First Minister was on theirs.
‘We can but try, Gill,’ he offered, making to leave. He was driving out of the car park when he saw a face he recognised, and this time the name came easily. It was Ted Hanson. Rebus stopped and wound down his window. ‘This is a surprise, Ted.’
‘I was in town, thought I’d look you up.’ Hanson looked cold.
‘How did you find me?’
‘Asked a policeman,’ Hanson said with a smile. ‘Any chance of a cuppa?’
They were only five minutes from Rebus’s tenement flat. He made two mugs of instant coffee while Hanson flicked through his record collection.
‘A pale imitation of yours, Ted,’ Rebus apologised.
‘A lot of the same albums.’ Hanson waved a copy of Wishbone Ash’s Argus. ‘Great cover.’
‘It’s not the same with CDs, is it?’
Hanson wrinkled his nose. ‘Nothing like.’
Rebus handed over the coffee and sat down. ‘What are you doing here, Ted?’ he asked.
‘Just wanted to get out of the shop–out of Glasgow.’ Hanson blew across the surface of the mug, then took a sip. ‘Sorry, John. Got any sugar?’
‘I’ll fetch some.’ Rebus got to his feet again.
‘Mind if I use your loo meantime?’
‘Be my guest.’ Rebus pointed the way, then retreated to the kitchen. Music was playing in the living room: the Incredible String Band. Rebus returned and placed the sugar beside Hanson’s mug. Some thing was going on. He had a few questions for his new friend. After a couple of minutes, he walked back into the hall, knocked on the bathroom door. No answer. He turned the handle. There was no one inside. Ted Hanson had done a runner.
‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ Rebus muttered to himself. He looked down on to the street from his living room window: no sign of anyone. Then he stared at his record collection. It took him a couple of minutes to work out what was missing.
The last Parachute Game album, the one Hanson himself had given him. Rebus sat in his chair, thinking hard. Then he called Jean.
‘Not found a tree yet?’ she asked.
‘It’s on its way, Jean. Could you do me a favour?’
‘What?’
‘Something I’d like for Christmas…’
Chri
stmas itself was fine. He’d no complaints about Christmas. There was the slow run-up to Hogmanay, Gill Templer growing less festive as the necklace failed to turn up. New Year’s Day, Rebus nursed his accessory of choice: a thumping head. He managed to forgo any resolutions, apart from the usual one to stop drinking.
His Christmas present finally arrived on 4 January, having been posted in Austin, Texas, on 24 December. Jean handed it over, having taken the trouble to wrap it in second-hand paper.
‘You shouldn’t have,’ he said. Then he kissed her, and took the album home for a listen. The lyrics were on the inside of the gatefold sleeve. The songs tended to the elegiac, each seeming to refer to Jake Wheeler. Ted Hanson had taken over vocal duties, and though he didn’t make too bad a fist of it, Rebus could see why the band had folded. Without Wheeler, there was something missing, something irreplaceable. Listening to the title track, Rebus studied the drawing on the front of the sleeve–Ted Hanson’s drawing. An old oak tree with the initials JW carved on it, enclosed in a heart, pierced by an arrow that wasn’t quite an arrow. Holding the sleeve to the light, Rebus saw that it was a syringe.
And there beneath the oldest tree, Hanson sang, you took your last farewell of me… But was it the bassist talking, or something else? Rebus rubbed a hand across his forehead and concentrated on other songs, other lyrics. Then he turned back to the sleeve. So detailed, it couldn’t just be imagined. It had to be a real place. He picked up his phone, called Jean’s number. She worked at the museum. There were things she could find out.
Such as the location of Scotland’s oldest tree.
On the morning of the sixth, he let the office know he’d be late.
‘That’s got to be a record-breaker: the five-day hangover.’
Rebus didn’t bother arguing. Instead, he drove to Glasgow, parking on the street outside Ted Hanson’s shop. Hanson was just opening up; he looked tired and in need of a shave.
‘Amazing what you can find on the internet these days,’ Rebus said. Hanson turned, saw what Rebus was holding: a near-mint copy of The Oldest Tree. ‘Here’s what I think,’ Rebus went on, taking a step forward. ‘I think Jake’s dead. Maybe natural causes, maybe not. Rock stars have a way of hanging around with the wrong people. They get into situations.’ He tapped the album sleeve. ‘I know where this is now. Is that where he’s buried?’
The ghost of a smile passed across Hanson’s face. ‘That’s what you think?’
‘It’s why you had to get the album back from me, once you knew what I did for a living.’
Hanson bowed his head. ‘You’re right.’ Then he looked up again, eyes gleaming. ‘That’s exactly why I had to get the album back.’ He paused, seemed to take a deep breath. ‘But you’re wrong. You couldn’t be more wrong.’
Rebus frowned, thinking he’d misheard.
‘I’ll show you,’ Hanson said. ‘And by the way, happy new year.’
The drive took them over an hour, north out of Glasgow, the scenery stretching, rising, becoming wilderness. They passed lochs and mountains, the sky a vast, bruised skein.
‘All your detective work,’ Hanson said, slouched in the passenger seat, ‘did you notice where the album was recorded?’ Rebus shook his head. Hanson just nodded, then told him to pull over. They were on a stretch of road that would fill with camper vans in the summer, but for now it seemed desolate. Below them lay a valley, and across the valley a farmhouse. Hanson pointed towards it. ‘Owned by our producer at the time. We set up all the gear, did the album in under a month. Braepath Farm, it was called back then.’
Rebus had spotted something. On the hillside behind the farmhouse, the tree from the album sleeve. The tree Jean had told him was the oldest in Scotland: the Braepath Oak. And behind it, a small stone bothy, little more than a shelter for shepherds, outside which a man was splitting logs, watched by his sheepdog.
‘Jake fell apart,’ Hanson was saying, voice low. ‘Maybe it was the company he was keeping, or the industry we were supposed to be part of. He just wanted to be left alone. I promised him I’d respect that. The drawing… it was a way of showing he’d always be part of the band, whatever happened.’ He paused, clearing his throat. Rebus watched the distant figure as it picked up the kindling, taking it indoors. Long-haired, ragged-clothed: too far away to really be sure, but Rebus knew all the same.
‘He’s been out here ever since?’ he asked.
Hanson nodded. His eyes glistened.
‘And you’ve never…?’
‘He knows where I am if he wants me.’ He angled his head. ‘So now you know, John. Up to you what you do about it.’
Rebus nodded, put the car into gear and started a three-point turn.
‘Know what I’d like, Ted?’ he said. ‘I’d like you to sign that album for me. Will you do that?’
‘With pleasure,’ Hanson said with a smile.
Back at St Leonards, Rebus was passing the front desk when he saw the duty sergeant emerging from the comms room, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘I’m not that late,’ Rebus said.
‘It’s not that, John. It’s Mother Hubbard.’
Now Rebus knew: Edwina Hubbard from down the road. Two or three times a week she would call to report some imagined mischief.
‘What is it this time?’ Rebus asked. ‘The peeping postmen or the disappearing dustbins?’
‘Christmas trees,’ the sergeant said. ‘Being collected and taken away.’
‘And did you explain to her that it happens every year, courtesy of our caring, sharing council?’
The sergeant nodded. ‘Thing is, she says they’re early. And using a double-decker bus.’
‘A bus?’ Rebus laughed. ‘Firs, please.’
The sergeant laughed too, turning to retreat into the comms room. ‘It gets better,’ he said. ‘The bus is covered in Christmas decorations.’
Rebus was still laughing as he climbed the stairs. After the morning he’d had, he needed something to cheer him up. Then he froze. A Christmas bus… Kiddie Wonderland. Collecting Christmas trees… Two men running around Edinburgh, looking for a tree… The name flashed from brain to mouth.
‘Neil Bryant!’ Rebus took the stairs two at a time, sat down at a computer and typed in Bryant’s name. Ex-bouncer, convictions for violence. Clever with it. The other man, the taller one, had looked like bouncer material too. And hadn’t Sash Hooper run a nightclub a few years back? Sash… ready to take an unlikely turn as Santa on the bus.
‘Santa,’ Rebus hissed. Then he was back downstairs and in the comms room, grabbing the sergeant’s arm. ‘The bus with the trees,’ he said. ‘Where did she see it?’
Rink.
The bus was full of trees, both decks. But finally they’d found one with that single word scratched on its trunk.
Rink.
The way Bryant had explained it to Sash Hooper, they needed the bus so they could collect as many trees as possible, as quickly as possible. Eventually Hooper had seen the wisdom of the plan. He had got a buyer for the necklace, but the sale had to be quick.
Rink.
Well it didn’t take a genius, did it? They’d turned the bus round and headed for Leith Links. The costume had been Bryant’s idea too, when he’d heard that the First Minister was throwing a party. Send someone in there dressed as Santa, they could walk out with anything they liked. He’d gone to Sash with the idea, and Sash had suggested Benny Welsh, a pretty good housebreaker in his time, now down on his luck. Benny had been good as gold–until he’d found out how much the necklace was worth. After which he’d tried upping out. Wasn’t going to hand it over until they had a deal.
Three of them now–Sash, Malky and Bryant–slipping and sliding across the ice. Looking for the telltale dark patch, finding it. Benny had cut himself a hole, stuffed the necklace in, then poured in some water, letting it freeze over again. Sash had his penknife out. It took a while, the day darkening around them.
‘Give me the knife,’ Malky said, chipping away with it.
‘Watc
h the blade doesn’t snap,’ Sash Hooper warned, as if the knife were somehow more precious than the necklace. Eventually all three men clambered to their feet, Hooper holding the necklace, examining it. A string of shimmering diamonds, embracing a vast blood-red ruby. He actually gasped. They came off the ice and back on to solid earth. They were almost in the shadow of the bus before they noticed Rebus. And he wasn’t alone.
Two uniforms could be seen through the upper-deck windows. Two more were downstairs. Another was outside, circling the bus.
‘Nice little stocking-filler,’ Rebus said, motioning towards the necklace.
‘You got a warrant?’ Hooper asked.
‘Do I look as if I need one?’
‘You can’t just go trampling all over my bus. That’s private property.’ Hooper was attempting to slide the necklace into his pocket.
Malky tugged at Bryant’s sleeve. His eyes had widened. They were on the policeman who’d been circling the bus, the policeman who was now turning the handle that would open the vehicle’s luggage compartment. Bryant saw his friend’s look, and his own mouth dropped open in dismay.
‘Malky, for the love of God, tell me you didn’t…’
Hooper was still concentrating on protesting his innocence. He knew this was the most important speech he would ever make. He felt that if he could just get the words right, then maybe…
‘DI Rebus,’ the constable was saying. ‘Something here you should take a look at…’
And Hooper shifted his gaze and saw what everyone else was seeing. Benny Welsh, still dressed in the telltale red suit, lying at peace on the floor of the luggage bay.
Rebus turned to face the three men.
‘I’m guessing that means you’re Saint Nicked,’ he said.
Atonement
‘They’re dropping like flies.’
The man collapsed into another fit of coughing, doubling over in the tattered armchair. Rebus looked around him, but no one in the large, overheated room was paying the slightest attention. Some were watching a daytime nature programme, others dozing or staring out of the window. It was a large sash window–three windows actually, forming a bay. The paintwork looked new. Rebus thought he could smell fresh paint, its aroma not quite exhausted. There were other smells, too: the remains of a fish lunch; talcum powder and perfume; perished rubber. The redecorating did not stretch as far as the cornices and ceiling. The cornicing was elaborate, the design almost Celtic. The ceiling was pale green, a few veined cracks radiating from the central light fitting.
