The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories

by Ian Rankin

  Rebus stopped the car. He had parked outside a block of flats in Oxgangs. The block was one of three, each one shaped like a capital H lying on its face. Caerketton Court: Rebus had once had a fling with a school-dinner lady who lived on the second floor …

  ‘I checked with June Redwood’s office,’ he said. ‘She’s off sick.’ He craned his neck out of the window. ‘Tenth floor apparently, let’s hope the lift’s working.’ He turned to Siobhan. ‘Otherwise we’ll have to resort to the telephone.’

  The lift was working, though barely. Rebus and Siobhan ignored the wrapped paper parcel in one corner. Neither liked to think what it might contain. Still, Rebus was impressed that he could hold his breath for as long as the lift took to crackle its way up ten flights. The tenth floor seemed all draughts and high-pitched winds. The building had a perceptible sway, not quite like being at sea. Rebus pushed the bell of June Redwood’s flat and waited. He pushed again. Siobhan was standing with her arms folded around her, shuffling her feet.

  ‘I’d hate to see you on a football terrace in January,’ said Rebus.

  There was a sound from inside the door, then the door itself was opened by a woman with unwashed hair, a tissue to her nose, and wrapped in a thick dressing-gown.

  ‘Hello there, Miss Redwood,’ said Rebus brightly. ‘Remember me?’ Then he held up the photograph. ‘Doubtless you remember him too. Can we come in?’

  They went in. As they sat in the untidy living-room, it crossed Siobhan Clarke’s mind that they had no way of proving when the photo was taken. And without that, they had nothing. Say the party had taken place after the trial – it could well be that Leyton and June Redwood had met then. In fact, it made sense. After his release, Leyton probably would want to throw a party, and he would certainly want to invite the woman who had been his saviour. She hoped Rebus had thought of this. She hoped he wasn’t going to go too far … as usual.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said June Redwood, wiping her nose again.

  ‘Come on, June,’ said Rebus. ‘Here’s the proof. You and Keith together in a clinch. The man you claimed at his trial was a complete stranger. Do you often get this comfortable with strangers?’

  This earned a thin smile from June Redwood.

  ‘If so,’ Rebus continued, ‘you must invite me to one of your parties.’

  Siobhan Clarke swallowed hard. Yes, the Inspector was going to go too far. Had she ever doubted it?

  ‘You’d be lucky,’ said the social worker.

  ‘It’s been known,’ said Rebus. He relaxed into his chair. ‘Doesn’t take a lot of working out, does it?’ he went on. ‘You must have met Keith through his mum. You became … friends, let’s call it. I don’t know what his wife will call it.’ Blood started to tinge June Redwood’s neck. ‘You look better already,’ said Rebus. ‘At least I’ve put a bit of colour in your cheeks. You met Keith, started going out with him. It had to be kept secret though. The only thing Keith Leyton fears is Mrs Keith Leyton.’

  ‘Her name’s Joyce,’ said Redwood.

  Rebus nodded. ‘So it is.’

  ‘I could know that from the trial,’ she snapped. ‘I wouldn’t have to know him to know that.’

  Rebus nodded again. ‘Except that you were a witness, June. You weren’t in court when Joyce Leyton was mentioned.’

  Her face now looked as though she’d been lying out too long in the non-existent sun. But she had a trump card left. ‘That photo could have been taken any time.’

  Siobhan held her breath: yes, this was the crunch. Rebus seemed to realise it too. ‘You’re right there,’ he said. ‘Any time at all … up to a month before Keith’s trial.’

  The room was quiet for a moment. The wind found a gap somewhere and rustled a spider-plant near the window, whistling as though through well-spaced teeth.

  ‘What?’ said June Redwood. Rebus held the photograph up again.

  ‘The man behind you, the one with long hair and the tattoo. Ugly-looking loon. He’s called Mick McKelvin. It must have been some party, June, when bruisers like Keith and Mick were invited. They’re not exactly your cocktail crowd. They think a canapé’s something you throw over a stolen car to keep it hidden.’ Rebus smiled at his own joke. Well, someone had to.

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘Mick went inside four weeks before Keith’s trial. He’s serving three years in Peterhead. Persistent B and E. So you see, there’s no way this party could have taken place after Keith’s trial. Not unless Peterhead’s security has got a bit lax. No, it had to be before, meaning you had to know him before the trial. Know what that means?’ Rebus sat forward. June Redwood wasn’t wiping her nose with the tissue now; she was hiding behind it, and looking frightened. ‘It means you stood in the witness-box and you lied, just like Keith told you to. Serious trouble, June. You might end up with your own social worker, or even a prison visitor.’ Rebus’s voice had dropped in volume, as though June and he were having an intimate tête-à-tête over a candlelit dinner. ‘So I really think you’d better help us, and you can start by talking about the party. Let’s start with the photograph, eh?’

  ‘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. 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 pi
cked 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 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 from 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.

  Facing the Music

  An unmarked police car.

  Interesting phrase, that. Inspector John Rebus’s car, punch-drunk and weather-beaten, scarred and mauled, would still merit description as ‘unmarked’, despite the copious evidence to the contrary. Oily-handed mechanics stifled grins whenever he waddled into a forecourt. Garage proprietors adjusted the thick gold rings on their fingers and reached for the calculator.

  Still, there were times when the old war-horse came in handy. It might or might not be ‘unmarked’; unremarkable it certainly was. Even the most cynical law-breaker would hardly expect CID to spend their time sitting around in a breaker’s-yard special. Rebus’s car was a must for undercover work, the only problem coming if the villains decided to make a run for it. Then, even the most elderly and infirm could outpace it.

  ‘But it’s a stayer,’ Rebus would say in mitigation.

  He sat now, the driving-seat so used to his shape that it formed a mould around him, stroking the steering-wheel with his hands. There was a loud sigh from the passenger seat, and Detective Sergeant Brian Holmes repeated his question.

  ‘Why have we stopped?’

  Rebus looked around him. They were parked by the side of Queensferry Street, only a couple of hundred yards from Princes Street’s west end. It was early afternoon, overcast but dry. The gusts of wind blowing in from the Firth of Forth were probably keeping the rain away. The corner of Princes Street, where Fraser’s department store and the Caledonian Hotel tried to outstare one another, caught the winds and whipped them against unsuspecting shoppers, who could be seen, dazed and numb, making their way afterwards along Queensferry Street, in search of coffee and shortcake. Rebus gave the pedestrians a look of pity. Holmes sighed again. He could murder a pot of tea and some fruit scones with butter.

  ‘Do you know, Brian,’ Rebus began, ‘in all the years I’ve been in Edinburgh, I’ve never been called to any sort of a crime on this street.’ He slapped the steering-wheel for emphasis. ‘Not once.’

  ‘Maybe they should put up a plaque,’ suggested Holmes.

  Rebus almost smiled. ‘Maybe they should.’

  ‘Is that why we’re sitting here? You want to break your duck?’ Holmes glanced into the tea-shop window, then away again quickly licking dry lips. ‘It might take a while, you know,’ he said.

  ‘It might, Brian. But then again …’

  Rebus tapped out a tattoo on the steering-wheel. Holmes was beginning to regret his own enthusiasm. Hadn’t Rebus tried to deter him from coming out for this drive? Not that they’d driven much. But anything, Holmes reasoned, was better than catching up on paperwork. Well, just about anything.

  ‘What’s the longest time you’ve been on a stake-out?’ he asked, making conversation.

  ‘A week,’ said Rebus. ‘Protection racket run from a pub down near Powderhall. It was a joint operation with Trading Standards. We spent five days pretending to be on the broo, playing pool all day.’

  ‘Did you get a result?’

  ‘We beat them at pool,’ Rebus said.

  There was a yell from a shop doorway, just as a young man was sprinting across the road in front of their car. The young man was carrying a black metal box. The person who’d called out did so again.

  ‘Stop him! Thief! Stop him!’

  The man in the shop doorway was waving, pointing towards the sprinter. Holmes looked towards Rebus, seemed about to say something, but decided against it. ‘Come on then!’ he said.

  Rebus started the car’s engine, signalled, and moved out into the traffic. Holmes was focusing through the windscreen. ‘I can see him. Put your foot down!’

  ‘“Put your foot down, sir”,’ Rebus said calmly. ‘Don’t worry, Brian.’

  ‘Hell, he’s turning into Randolph Place.’

  Rebus signalled again, brought the car across the oncoming traffic, and turned into the dead end that was Randolph Place. Only, while it was a dead end for cars, there were pedestrian passages either side of West Register House. The young man, carrying the narrow box under his arm, turned into one of the passages. Rebus p
ulled to a halt. Holmes had the car door open before it had stopped, and leapt out, ready to follow on foot.

  ‘Cut him off!’ he yelled, meaning for Rebus to drive back on to Queensferry Street, around Hope Street and into Charlotte Square, where the passage emerged.

  ‘“Cut him off, sir”,’ mouthed Rebus.

  He did a careful three-point turn, and just as carefully moved back out into traffic held to a crawl by traffic lights. By the time he reached Charlotte Square and the front of West Register House, Holmes was shrugging his shoulders and flapping his arms. Rebus pulled to a stop beside him.

  ‘Did you see him?’ Holmes asked, getting into the car.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where have you been anyway?’

  ‘A red light.’

  Holmes looked at him as though he were mad. Since when had Inspector John Rebus stopped for a red light? ‘Well, I’ve lost him anyway.’

  ‘Not your fault, Brian.’

  Holmes looked at him again. ‘Right,’ he agreed. ‘So, back to the shop? What was it anyway?’

  ‘Hi-fi shop, I think.’

  Holmes nodded as Rebus moved off again into the traffic. Yes, the box had the look of a piece of hi-fi, some slim rack component. They’d find out at the shop. But instead of doing a circuit of Charlotte Square to take them back into Queensferry Street, Rebus signalled along George Street. Holmes, still catching his breath, looked around disbelieving.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I thought you were fed up with Queensferry Street. We’re going back to the station.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Back to the station.’

  ‘But what about—?’

  ‘Relax, Brian. You’ve got to learn not to fret so much.’

  Holmes examined his superior’s face. ‘You’re up to something,’ he said at last.

  Rebus turned and smiled. ‘Took you long enough,’ he said.

  But whatever it was, Rebus wasn’t telling. Back at the station, he went straight to the main desk.