Black And Blue

by Ian Rankin

  Rebus slipped off his stool and circuited the dance floor. The toilets were signposted down a passageway. He went inside and listened to someone in one of the cubicles snorting something. Then he washed his hands and waited. The toilet flushed, the lock clicked, and a young man in a suit came out. Rebus had his warrant card ready.

  ‘You’re under arrest,’ he said. ‘Anything you say –’

  ‘Hey, wait a minute!’ The man still had flecks of white powder in his nostrils. He was mid-twenties, lower management struggling to be middle. His jacket wasn’t expensive, but at least it was new. Rebus pushed him against the wall, angled the hand-drier and pushed the button so the hot air blew across his face.

  ‘There,’ he said, ‘blow some of that talc away.’

  The man turned his face away from the heat. He was shaking, his whole body limp, beaten before they really got started.

  ‘One question,’ Rebus said, ‘and then you walk out of here … how does the song go? As free as a bird. One question.’ The man nodded. ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘What?’

  Rebus pushed a bit harder. ‘The stuff.’

  ‘I only do this on a Friday night!’

  ‘Last time: where did you get it?’

  ‘Just some guy. He’s here sometimes.’

  ‘Is he here tonight?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him.’

  ‘What does he look like?’

  ‘Nothing special. Mr Average. You said one question.’

  Rebus let the man go. ‘I lied.’

  The man sniffed, straightened his jacket. ‘Can I go?’

  ‘You’re gone.’

  Rebus washed his hands, loosened the knot in his tie so he could undo his top button. The sniffer might go back to his booth. He might decide to leave. He might complain to the management. Maybe they paid their way so busts like this wouldn’t happen. He left the toilet and went looking for the office, couldn’t find one. Out in the foyer, there was a staircase. The bouncer was parked in front of it. Rebus told the tux he wanted to speak to the manager.

  ‘No can do.’

  ‘It’s important.’

  The bouncer shook his head slowly. His eyes didn’t move from Rebus’s face. Rebus knew what he saw: a middle-aged lush, a pathetic figure in a cheap suit. It was time to disabuse him. He opened his warrant card.

  ‘CID,’ he told the tux. ‘People are selling drugs on these premises and I’m a heartbeat away from calling in the Drugs Squad. Now do I get to talk to the boss?’

  He got to talk to the boss.

  ‘My name’s Erik Stemmons.’ The man came around from his desk to shake Rebus’s hand. It was a small office, but well furnished. Good sound-proofing too: the bass from the dance floor was as much as you could hear. But there were video screens, half a dozen of them. Three showing the main dance floor, two the bar, and one a general view of the booths.

  ‘You want to put one in the bogs,’ Rebus said, ‘that’s where the action is. You’ve got two on the bar: staff problems?’

  ‘Not since we put the cameras in.’ Stemmons was dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, the arms of which he’d rolled up to his shoulders. He had long curling locks, maybe permed, but his hair was thinning and there were tell-tale lines down his face. He wasn’t much younger than Rebus, and the younger he tried to look the older he seemed.

  ‘Are you with Grampian CID?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thought not. We get most of them in here, good customers. Sit down, won’t you?’

  Rebus sat down. Stemmons got comfortable behind his desk. It was covered with paperwork.

  ‘Frankly I’m surprised by your allegation,’ he went on. ‘We cooperate fully with the local police, and this club is as clean as any in the city. You know of course that it’s impossible to rule narcotics out of the equation.’

  ‘Someone was snooking up in the toilet.’

  Stemmons shrugged. ‘Exactly. What can we do? Strip search everyone as they enter? Have a sniffer dog roaming the premises?’ He laughed a short laugh. ‘You see the problem.’

  ‘How long have you lived here, Mr Stemmons?’

  ‘I came over in ’78. Saw a good thing and stayed. That’s nearly two decades. I’m practically integrated.’ Another laugh; another no reaction from Rebus. Stemmons placed his palms on the desktop. ‘Wherever Americans go in the world – Vietnam, Germany, Panama – entrepreneurs follow. And so long as the pickings stay good, why should we leave?’ He looked down at his hands. ‘What do you really want?’

  ‘I want to know what you can tell me about Fergus McLure.’

  ‘Fergus McLure?’

  ‘You know, dead person, lived near Edinburgh.’

  Stemmons shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, that name means nothing to me.’

  Oh, Vienna, Rebus nearly sang. ‘You don’t seem to have a phone in here.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘A phone.’

  ‘I carry a mobile.’

  ‘The portable office.’

  ‘Open twenty-four hours. Look, if you’ve a beef, take it up with the local cops. I don’t need this grief.’

  ‘You haven’t seen grief yet, Mr Stemmons.’

  ‘Hey.’ Stemmons pointed a finger. ‘If you’ve got something to say, say it. Otherwise, the door’s the thing behind you with the brass handle.’

  ‘And you’re the thing in front of me with the brass neck.’ Rebus stood up and leaned across the desk. ‘Fergus McLure had information on a drug ring. He died suddenly. Your club’s phone number was lying on his desk. McLure wasn’t exactly the clubbing type.’

  ‘So?’

  Rebus could see Stemmons in a court of law, saying the exact same thing. He could see a jury asking itself the question too.

  ‘Look,’ Stemmons said, relenting. ‘If I was setting up a drug deal, would I give this guy McLure the number of the club’s payphone, which anyone might pick up, or would I give him my mobile number? You’re a detective, what do you think?’

  Rebus saw a judge tossing the case out.

  ‘Johnny Bible met his first victim here, didn’t he?’

  ‘Jesus, don’t drag that up. What are you, a ghoul or something? We had CID hassling us for weeks.’

  ‘You didn’t recognise his description?’

  ‘Nobody did, not even the bouncers, and I pay them to remember faces. I told your colleagues, maybe he met her after she left the club. Who’s to say?’

  Rebus went to the door, paused.

  ‘Where’s your partner?’

  ‘Judd? He’s not in tonight.’

  ‘Does he have an office?’

  ‘Next door.’

  ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘I don’t have a key.’

  Rebus opened the door. ‘Does he have a mobile phone too?’

  He’d caught Stemmons off guard. The American coughed a response.

  ‘Didn’t you hear the question?’

  ‘Judd doesn’t have a mobile. He hates telephones.’

  ‘So what does he do in an emergency? Send up smoke signals?’

  But Rebus knew damned well what Judd Fuller would do.

  He’d use a payphone.

  He thought he’d earned a last drink before home, but froze halfway to the bar. There was a new couple in one of the booths, and Rebus recognised both of them. The woman was the blonde from his hotel bar. The man sitting beside her, arms draped along the back of the booth, was her junior by about twenty years. He wore an open-necked shirt and a lot of gold chains around his neck. He’d probably seen someone dressed that way in a film once. Or maybe he was going in for the fancy-dress contest: seventies villain. Rebus knew the warty face straight away.

  Mad Malky Toal.

  Stanley.

  Rebus made the connection, made almost too many of them. He felt dizzy, and found himself leaning against the wall-phone. So he picked up the receiver and slammed home a coin. He had the phone number in his notebook. Partick police station. He asked for DI Jack Morton, w
aited an age. He pushed more money home, only to have someone come on and tell him Morton had left the office.

  ‘This is urgent,’ Rebus said. ‘My name’s DI John Rebus. Do you have his home number?’

  ‘I can get him to call you,’ the voice said. ‘Would that do, Inspector?’

  Would it? Glasgow was Ancram’s home turf. If Rebus handed over his number, Ancram could get to hear of it, and would know where he was … Fuck it, he was only here another day. He reeled the number off and put down the receiver, thanking God the DJ had been playing a slow number: Python Lee Jackson, ‘In a Broken Dream’.

  Rebus had those to spare.

  He sat at the bar, his back to Stanley and his woman. But he could see them distorted in the mirror behind the optics. Dark distant figures, coiling and uncoiling. Of course Stanley was in town: hadn’t he killed Tony El? But why? And two bigger questions: was he here in Burke’s Club by coincidence?

  And what was he doing with the blonde from the hotel?

  Rebus was starting to get inklings. He kept an ear out for the telephone, prayed for another slow record. Bowie, ‘John, I’m Only Dancing’. A guitar like sawing through metal. It didn’t matter: the phone didn’t ring.

  ‘Here’s one we’d all rather forget,’ the DJ drawled. ‘But I want to see you up dancing to it anyway, otherwise I might just have to play it again.’

  Lieutenant Pigeon: ‘Mouldy Old Dough’. The telephone rang. Rebus leapt to it.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘John? Got the hi-fi loud enough?’

  ‘I’m at a disco.’

  ‘At your age? Is this the emergency – you want me to talk you out of there?’

  ‘No, I want you to describe Eve to me.’

  ‘Eve?’

  ‘Uncle Joe Toal’s woman.’

  ‘I’ve only seen her in photos.’ Jack Morton thought about it. ‘Blonde out of a bottle, face that could bend nails. Twenty or thirty years ago she might have looked like Madonna, but I’m probably being generous.’

  Eve, Uncle Joe’s lady – chatting Rebus up in an Aberdeen hotel. Coincidence? Hardly. Readying to pump him for information? Nap hand. And up here with Stanley, the two of them looking pretty cosy … He remembered her words: ‘I’m in sales. Products for the oil industry.’ Yes, Rebus could guess now what kind of products …

  ‘John?’

  ‘Yes, Jack?’

  ‘This phone number, is that an Aberdeen code?’

  ‘Keep it to yourself. No grassing me up to Ancram.’

  ‘Just one question …?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can I really hear “Mouldy Old Dough”?’

  Rebus closed the conversation, finished his drink and left. There was a car parked on the other side of the road. The driver lowered his window so Rebus could see him. It was DS Ludovic Lumsden.

  Rebus smiled, waved, started to cross the road. He was thinking: I don’t trust you.

  ‘Hiya, Ludo,’ he said. Just a man who’d been out for a drink and a dance. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘You weren’t in your room. I guessed you might be here.’

  ‘Some guess.’

  ‘You lied to me, John. You told me about a book of matches from Burke’s Club.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘They don’t do books of matches.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Can I give you a lift?’

  ‘The hotel’s only two minutes away.’

  ‘John.’ Lumsden’s eyes were cold. ‘Can I give you a lift?’

  ‘Sure, Ludo.’ Rebus walked around the car and got into the passenger seat.

  They drove down to the harbour, parked on an empty street. Lumsden turned off the ignition and turned in his seat.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So you went to Sullom Voe today and didn’t bother to tell me. So why has my patch suddenly become your patch? How would you like it if I started creeping around Edinburgh behind your back?’

  ‘Am I a prisoner here? I thought I was one of the good guys.’

  ‘It’s not your town.’

  ‘I’m beginning to see that. But maybe it’s not your town either.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean who really runs the place, behind the scenes? You’ve got kids going mad with frustration, you’ve got a ready audience for dope and anything else that might give their life a kick. In that club tonight, I saw the lunatic I told you about, Stanley.’

  ‘Toal’s son?’

  ‘That’s him. Tell me, is he up here for the floral displays?’

  ‘Did you ask him?’

  Rebus lit a cigarette, wound down the window so he could flick the ash out. ‘He didn’t see me.’

  ‘You think we should question him about Tony El.’ A statement of fact, no answer required. ‘What would he tell us – “sure, I did it”? Come on, John.’

  A woman was knocking on the window. Lumsden lowered it, and she was into her spiel.

  ‘Two of you, well, I don’t normally do threesomes but you look like nice … Oh, hello Mr Lumsden.’

  ‘Evening, Cleo.’

  She looked at Rebus, then Lumsden again. ‘I see your tastes have changed.’

  ‘Lose yourself, Cleo.’ Lumsden wound the window back up. The woman disappeared into the darkness.

  Rebus turned to face Lumsden. ‘Look, I don’t know just how bent you are. I don’t know whose money will be paying for my stay at the hotel. There’s a lot I don’t know, but I’m beginning to get the feeling I know this city. I know it because it’s much the same as Edinburgh. I know you could live here for years without glimpsing what’s beneath the surface.’

  Lumsden started to laugh. ‘You’ve been here – what? – a day and a half? You’re a tourist here, don’t presume to know the place. I’ve been here a hell of a lot longer, and even I couldn’t claim that.’

  ‘All the same, Ludo …’ Rebus said quietly.

  ‘Is this leading somewhere?’

  ‘I thought you were the one who wanted to talk.’

  ‘And you’re the one who’s talking.’

  Rebus sighed, spoke slowly as to a child. ‘Uncle Joe controls Glasgow, including – my guess – a fair bit of the drug trade. Now his son’s up here, drinking in Burke’s Club. An Edinburgh snitch had some gen on a consignment headed north. He also had the phone number of Burke’s. He ended up dead.’ Rebus held up a finger. ‘That’s one strand. Tony El tortured an oil-worker, who consequently died. Tony El scurried back up here but neatly passed away. That’s three deaths so far, every one of them suspicious, and nobody’s doing much about it.’ A second finger. ‘Strand two. Are the two connected? I don’t know. At the moment, all that connects them is Aberdeen itself. But that’s a start. You don’t know me, Ludo, a start is all I need.’

  ‘Can I change the subject slightly?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Did you get anything on Shetland?’

  ‘Just a bad feeling. A little hobby of mine, I collect them.’

  ‘And tomorrow you’re going out to Bannock?’

  ‘You’ve been busy.’

  ‘A few phone calls, that’s all it took. Know something?’ Lumsden started the car. ‘I’ll be glad to see the back of you. My life was simple until you came along.’

  ‘Never a dull moment,’ Rebus said, opening the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’ll walk. Nice night for it.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  ‘I always do.’

  Rebus watched the car move off, turn a corner. He listened to the engine fade, flicked his cigarette on to the tarmac and started to walk. The first place he passed was the Yardarm. It was Exotic Dancer night, with a scarecrow on the door charging admission. Rebus had been there, done that. The heyday of the exotic dancer had been the late seventies, every pub in Edinburgh seemed to have them: men watching from behind pint glasses, the stripper selecting her three records from the jukebox, a collection afterwards if
you wanted her to go a bit further.

  ‘Only two quid, pal,’ the scarecrow called, but Rebus shook his head and kept walking.

  The same nighttime sounds were around him: drunken whoops, whistles, and the birds who didn’t know how late it was. A prowl of woolly suits was questioning two teenagers. Rebus passed by, just another tourist. Maybe Lumsden was right, but Rebus didn’t think so. Aberdeen felt so much like Edinburgh. Sometimes, you visited a town or city and couldn’t get a handle on it, but this wasn’t one of those.

  On Union Terrace a low stone wall separated him from the gardens, which were in a gully below. He saw his car still parked across the road, directly outside the hotel. He was about to cross when hands grabbed at his arms and hauled him backwards. He felt the small of his back hit the wall, felt himself tipping backwards, up and over.

  Falling, rolling … Skidding down the steep slope into the gardens, not able to stop himself, so going with the roll. He hit bushes, felt them tear at his shirt. His nose gouged the earth, tears springing into his eyes. Then he was on the flat. Clipped grass. Lying winded on his back, adrenalin masking any immediate damage. More sounds: crashing through bushes. They were following him down. He half rose to his knees, but a foot caught him, sent him sprawling on to his front. The foot came down hard on his head, held it there, so he was sucking grass, his nose feeling ready to break. Someone wrenched his hands behind his back and up, the pressure just right: excruciating pain couldn’t overcome the knowledge that if he moved, he’d pop an arm out of its socket.

  Two men, at least two. One with the foot. One working the arms. The alcoholic streets seemed a long way off, traffic a distant drone. Now something cold against his temple. He knew the feeling – a handgun, colder than dry ice.

  A voice hissing, close to his ear. Blood pounding there, so he had to strain to hear it. A hiss close to a whisper, hard to identify.

  ‘There’s a message, so I hope you’re listening.’