The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories

by Ian Rankin

  He paid attention now. Paid attention as an Army uniform opened the door of West Lodge to him. He’d already had to talk his way past a mixed guard on the gate – an apologetic PC and two uncompromising squaddies. That was why he’d started thinking back to Scarborough – to stop himself punching those squaddies in their square-chinned faces. The closer he came to Brigadier-General Dean, the more aggressive and unlovely the soldiers seemed. The two on the gate were like lambs compared to the one on the main door of the house, yet he in his turn was meekness itself compared to the one who led Rebus into a well-appointed living-room and told him to wait.

  Rebus hated the Army – with good reason. He had seen the soldier’s lot from the inside and it had left him with a resentment so huge that to call it a ‘chip on the shoulder’ was to do it an injustice. Chip? Right now it felt like a whole transport cafe! There was only one thing for it. Rebus made for the sideboard, sniffed the contents of the decanter sitting there and poured himself an inch of whisky. He was draining the contents of the glass into his mouth when the door opened.

  Rebus had brought too many preconceptions with him today. Brigadier-Generals were squat, ruddy-faced men, with stiff moustaches and VSOP noses, a few silvered wisps of Brylcreemed hair and maybe even a walking stick. They retired in their seventies and babbled of campaigns over dinner.

  Not so Brigadier-General Dean. He looked to be in his mid- to late-fifties. He stood over six feet tall, had a youthful face and vigorous dark hair. He was slim too, with no sign of a retirement gut or a port drinker’s red-veined cheeks. He looked twice as fit as Rebus felt and for a moment the policeman actually caught himself straightening his back and squaring his shoulders.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Dean, joining Rebus at the sideboard. ‘Mind if I join you?’ His voice was soft, blurred at the edges, the voice of an educated man, a civilised man. Rebus tried hard to imagine Dean giving orders to a troop of hairy-fisted Tommies. Tried, but failed.

  ‘Detective Inspector Rebus,’ he said by way of introduction. ‘Sorry to bother you like this, sir, but there are a few questions—’

  Dean nodded, finishing his own drink and offering to replenish Rebus’s.

  ‘Why not?’ agreed Rebus. Funny thing though: he could swear this whisky wasn’t whisky at all but whiskey – Irish whiskey. Softer than the Scottish stuff, lacking an edge.

  Rebus sat on the sofa, Dean on a well-used armchair. The Brigadier-General offered a toast of slainte before starting on his second drink, then exhaled noisily.

  ‘Had to happen sooner or later, I suppose,’ he said.

  ‘Oh?’

  Dean nodded slowly. ‘I worked in Ulster for a time. Quite a long time. I suppose I was fairly high up in the tree there. I always knew I was a target. The Army knew, too, of course, but what can you do? You can’t put bodyguards on every soldier who’s been involved in the conflict, can you?’

  ‘I suppose not, sir. But I assume you took precautions?’

  Dean shrugged. ‘I’m not in Who’s Who and I’ve got an unlisted telephone number. I don’t even use my rank much, to be honest.’

  ‘But some of your mail might be addressed to Brigadier-General Dean?’

  A wry smile. ‘Who gave you that impression?’

  ‘What impression, sir?’

  ‘The impression of rank. I’m not a Brigadier-General. I retired with the rank of Major.’

  ‘But the—’

  ‘The what? The locals? Yes, I can see how gossip might lead to exaggeration. You know how it is in a place like this, Inspector. An incomer who keeps himself to himself. A military air. They put two and two together then multiply it by ten.’

  Rebus nodded thoughtfully. ‘I see.’ Trust Watson to be wrong even in the fundamentals. ‘But the point I was trying to make about your mail still stands, sir. What I’m wondering, you see, is how they found you.’

  Dean smiled quietly. ‘The IRA are quite sophisticated these days, Inspector. For all I know, they could have hacked into a computer, bribed someone in the know, or maybe it was just a fluke, sheer chance.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose we’ll have to think of moving somewhere else now, starting all over again. Poor Jacqueline.’

  ‘Jacqueline being?’

  ‘My daughter. She’s upstairs, terribly upset. She’s due to start university in October. It’s her I feel sorry for.’

  Rebus looked sympathetic. He felt sympathetic. One thing about Army life and police life – both could have a devastating effect on your personal life.

  ‘And your wife, sir?’

  ‘Dead, Inspector. Several years ago.’ Dean examined his now empty glass. He looked his years now, looked like someone who needed a rest. But there was something other about him, something cool and hard. Rebus had met all types in the Army – and since. Veneers could no longer fool him, and behind Major Dean’s sophisticated veneer he could glimpse something other, something from the man’s past. Dean hadn’t just been a good soldier. At one time he’d been lethal.

  ‘Do you have any thoughts on how they might have found you, sir?’

  ‘Not really.’ Dean closed his eyes for a second. There was resignation in his voice. ‘What matters is that they did find me.’ His eyes met Rebus’s. ‘And they can find me again.’

  Rebus shifted in his seat. Christ, what a thought. What a, well, time-bomb. To always be watching, always expecting, always fearing. And not just for yourself.

  ‘I’d like to talk to Jacqueline, sir. It may be that she’ll have some inkling as to how they were able to—’

  But Dean was shaking his head. ‘Not just now, Inspector. Not yet. I don’t want her – well, you understand. Besides, I’d imagine that this will all be out of your hands by tomorrow. I believe some people from the Anti-Terrorist Branch are on their way up here. Between them and the Army … well, as I say, it’ll be out of your hands.’

  Rebus felt himself prickling anew. But Dean was right, wasn’t he? Why strain yourself when tomorrow it would be someone else’s weight? Rebus pursed his lips, nodded, and stood up.

  ‘I’ll see you to the door,’ said the Major, taking the empty glass from Rebus’s hand.

  As they passed into the hallway, Rebus caught a glimpse of a young woman – Jacqueline Dean presumably. She had been hovering by the telephone-table at the foot of the staircase, but was now starting up the stairs themselves, her hand thin and white on the bannister. Dean, too, watched her go. He half-smiled, half-shrugged at Rebus.

  ‘She’s upset,’ he explained unnecessarily. But she hadn’t looked upset to Rebus. She had looked like she was moping.

  The next morning, Rebus went back to Barnton. Wooden boards had been placed over some of the shop windows, but otherwise there were few signs of yesterday’s drama. The guards on the gate to West Lodge had been replaced by beefy plainclothes men with London accents. They carried portable radios, but otherwise might have been bouncers, debt collectors or bailiffs. They radioed the house. Rebus couldn’t help thinking that a shout might have done the job for them, but they were in love with technology; you could see that by the way they held their radio-sets. He’d seen soldiers holding a new gun the same way.

  ‘The guvnor’s coming down to see you,’ one of the men said at last. Rebus kicked his heels for a full minute before the man arrived.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Rebus. I talked with Major Dean yesterday and—’

  The man snapped. ‘Who told you his rank?’

  ‘Major Dean himself. I just wondered if I might—’

  ‘Yes, well there’s no need for that, Inspector. We’re in charge now. Of course you’ll be kept informed.’

  The man turned and walked back through the gates with a steady, determined stride. The guards were smirking as they closed the gates behind their ‘guvnor’. Rebus felt like a snubbed schoolboy, left out of the football game. Sides had been chosen and there he stood, unwanted. He could smell London on these men, that cocky superiority of a self-chosen elite. What
did they call themselves? C13 or somesuch, the Anti-Terrorist Branch. Closely linked to Special Branch, and everyone knew the trade name for Special Branch – Smug Bastards.

  The man had been a little younger than Rebus, well-groomed and accountant-like. More intelligent, for sure, than the gorillas on the gate, but probably well able to handle himself. A neat pistol might well have been hidden under the arm of his close-fitting suit. None of that mattered. What mattered was that the captain was leaving Rebus out of his team. It rankled; and when something rankled, it rankled hard.

  Rebus had walked half a dozen paces away from the gates when he half-turned and stuck his tongue out at the guards. Then, satisfied with this conclusion to his morning’s labours, he decided to make his own inquiries. It was eleven-thirty. If you want to find out about someone, reasoned a thirsty Rebus, visit his local.

  The reasoning, in this case, proved false: Dean had never been near The Claymore.

  ‘The daughter came in though,’ commented one young man. There weren’t many people in the pub at this early stage of the day, save a few retired gentlemen who were in conversation with three or four reporters. The barman, too, was busy telling his life story to a young female hack, or rather, into her tape recorder. This made getting served difficult, despite the absence of a lunchtime scrum. The young man had solved this problem, however, reaching behind the bar to refill his glass with a mixture of cider and lager, leaving money on the bartop.

  ‘Oh?’ Rebus nodded towards the three-quarters full glass. ‘Have another?’

  ‘When this one’s finished I will.’ He drank greedily, by which time the barman had finished with his confessions – much ( judging by her face) to the relief of the reporter. ‘Pint of Snakebite, Paul,’ called the young man. When the drink was before him, he told Rebus that his name was Willie Barr and that he was unemployed.

  ‘You said you saw the daughter in here?’ Rebus was anxious to have his questions answered before the alcohol took effect on Barr.

  ‘That’s right. She came in pretty regularly.’

  ‘By herself ?’

  ‘No, always with some guy.’

  ‘One in particular, you mean?’

  But Willie Barr laughed, shaking his head. ‘A different one every time. She’s getting a bit of a name for herself. And,’ he raised his voice for the barman’s benefit, ‘she’s not even eighteen, I’d say.’

  ‘Were they local lads?’

  ‘None I recognised. Never really spoke to them.’ Rebus swirled his glass, creating a foamy head out of nothing.

  ‘Any Irish accents among them?’

  ‘In here?’ Barr laughed. ‘Not in here. Christ, no. Actually, she hasn’t been in for a few weeks, now that I think of it. Maybe her father put a stop to it, eh? I mean, how would it look in the Sunday papers? Brigadier’s daughter slumming it in Barnton.’

  Rebus smiled. ‘It’s not exactly a slum though, is it?’

  ‘True enough, but her boyfriends … I mean, there was more of the car mechanic than the estate agent about them. Know what I mean?’ He winked. ‘Not that a bit of rough ever hurt her kind, eh?’ Then he laughed again and suggested a game or two of pool, a pound a game or a fiver if the detective were a betting man.

  But Rebus shook his head. He thought he knew now why Willie Barr was drinking so much: he was flush. And the reason he was flush was that he’d been telling his story to the papers – for a price. Brigadier’s Daughter Slumming It. Yes, he’d been telling tales all right, but there was little chance of them reaching their intended audience. The Powers That Be would see to that.

  Barr was helping himself to another pint as Rebus made to leave the premises.

  It was late in the afternoon when Rebus received his visitor, the Anti-Terrorist accountant.

  ‘A Mr Matthews to see you,’ the Desk Sergeant had informed Rebus, and ‘Matthews’ he remained, giving no hint of rank or proof of identity. He had come, he said, to ‘have it out’ with Rebus.

  ‘What were you doing in The Claymore?’

  ‘Having a drink.’

  ‘You were asking questions. I’ve already told you, Inspector Rebus, we can’t have—’

  ‘I know, I know.’ Rebus raised his hands in a show of surrender. ‘But the more furtive you lot are, the more interested I become.’

  Matthews stared silently at Rebus. Rebus knew that the man was weighing up his options. One, of course, was to go to Farmer Watson and have Rebus warned off. But if Matthews were as canny as he looked, he would know this might have the opposite effect from that intended. Another option was to talk to Rebus, to ask him what he wanted to know.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ Matthews said at last.

  ‘I want to know about Dean.’

  Matthews sat back in his chair. ‘In strictest confidence?’ Rebus nodded. ‘I’ve never been known as a clipe.’

  ‘A clipe?’

  ‘Someone who tells tales,’ Rebus explained. Matthews was thoughtful.

  ‘Very well then,’ he said. ‘For a start, Dean is an alias, a very necessary one. During his time in the Army Major Dean worked in Intelligence, mostly in West Germany but also for a time in Ulster. His work in both spheres was very important, crucially important. I don’t need to go into details. His last posting was West Germany. His wife was killed in a terrorist attack, almost certainly IRA. We don’t think they had targeted her specifically. She was just in the wrong place with the wrong number plates.’

  ‘A car bomb?’

  ‘No, a bullet. Through the windscreen, point-blank. Major Dean asked to be … he was invalided out. It seemed best. We provided him with a change of identity, of course.’

  ‘I thought he looked a bit young to be retired. And the daughter, how did she take it?’

  ‘She was never told the full details, not that I’m aware of. She was in boarding school in England.’ Matthews paused. ‘It was for the best.’

  Rebus nodded. ‘Of course, nobody’d argue with that. But why did – Dean – choose to live in Barnton?’

  Matthews rubbed his left eyebrow, then pushed his spectacles back up his sharply sloping nose. ‘Something to do with an aunt of his,’ he said. ‘He spent holidays there as a boy. His father was Army, too, posted here, there and everywhere. Never the most stable upbringing. I think Dean had happy memories of Barnton.’

  Rebus shifted in his seat. He couldn’t know how long Matthews would stay, how long he would continue to answer Rebus’s questions. And there were so many questions.

  ‘What about the bomb?’

  ‘Looks like the IRA, all right. Standard fare for them, all the hallmarks. It’s still being examined, of course, but we’re pretty sure.’

  ‘And the deceased?’

  ‘No clues yet. I suppose he’ll be reported missing sooner or later. We’ll leave that side of things to you.’

  ‘Gosh, thanks.’ Rebus waited for his sarcasm to penetrate, then, quickly: ‘How does Dean get on with his daughter?’

  Matthews was caught off-guard by the question. He blinked twice, three times, then glanced at his wristwatch.

  ‘All right, I suppose,’ he said at last, making show of scratching a mark from his cuff. ‘I can’t see what … Look, Inspector, as I say, we’ll keep you fully informed. But meantime—’

  ‘Keep out of your hair?’

  ‘If you want to put it like that.’ Matthews stood up. ‘Now I really must be getting back—’

  ‘To London?’

  Matthews smiled at the eagerness in Rebus’s voice. ‘To Barnton. Don’t worry, Inspector, the more you keep out of my hair, the quicker I can get out of yours. Fair enough?’ He shot a hand out towards Rebus, who returned the almost painful grip.

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Rebus. He ushered Matthews from the room and closed the door again, then returned to his seat. He slouched as best he could in the hard, uncomfortable chair and put his feet up on the desk, examining his scuffed shoes. He tried to feel like Sam Spade, but failed. His legs soon began to ache
and he slid them from the surface of the desk. The coincidences in Dashiell Hammett had nothing on the coincidence of someone nicking a car seconds before it exploded. Someone must have been watching, ready to detonate the device. But if they were watching, how come they didn’t spot that Dean, the intended victim, wasn’t the one to drive off ?

  Either there was more to this than met the eye, or else there was less. Rebus was wary – very wary. He’d already made far too many prejudgements, had already been proved wrong too many times. Keep an open mind, that was the secret. An open mind and an inquiring one. He nodded his head slowly, his eyes on the door.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll keep out of your hair, Mr Matthews, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m leaving the barber’s.’

  The Claymore might not have been Barnton’s most salubrious establishment, but it was as Princes Street’s Caledonian Hotel in comparison with the places Rebus visited that evening. He began with the merely seedy bars, the ones where each quiet voice seemed to contain a lifetime’s resentment, and then moved downwards, one rung of the ladder at a time. It was slow work; the bars tended to be in a ring around Edinburgh, sometimes on the outskirts or in the distant housing schemes, sometimes nearer the centre than most of the population would dare to think.

  Rebus hadn’t made many friends in his adult life, but he had his network of contacts and he was as proud of it as any grandparent would be of their extended family. They were like cousins, these contacts; mostly they knew each other, at least by reputation, but Rebus never spoke to one about another, so that the extent of the chain could only be guessed at. There were those of his colleagues who, in Major Dean’s words, added two and two, then multiplied by ten. John Rebus, it was reckoned, had as big a net of ‘snitches’ as any copper on the force bar none.

  It took four hours and an outlay of over forty pounds before Rebus started to catch a glimpse of a result. His basic question, though couched in vague and imprecise terms, was simple: have any car thieves vanished off the face of the earth since yesterday?