Fleshmarket Alley

  Rebus caught Siobhan’s eye. “We must look more desperate than I thought.” Then, to the uniform: “We’re CID, son.”

  The other uniform snorted at his partner’s mistake. He was already knocking on the first door. Rebus could hear rising voices heading down the hallway towards it. The door flew open from within.

  The man was already furious. His wife stood behind him, fists bunched. Recognizing police officers, the man rolled his eyes. “Last bastard thing I need.”

  “Sir, if you’ll just calm down . . .”

  Rebus could have told the young constable that this was not the way you dealt with nitroglycerine: you didn’t tell it what it was.

  “Calm? Easy for you to say, ya choob. It’s that bastard that got himself killed, am I right? People could be screaming blue murder out here, cars burning, junkies staggering all over the place . . . Only time we plank eyes on you lot’s when one of them starts wailing. Call that fair?”

  “They deserve what’s coming to them,” his wife spat. She was dressed in gray jogging pants and matching hooded top. Not that she looked the sporty type: like the officers in front of her, she was wearing a kind of uniform.

  “Can I just remind you that someone’s been murdered?” Blood had risen to the constable’s cheeks. They’d riled him, and now they’d know it. Rebus decided to step in.

  “Detective Inspector Rebus,” he said, showing his ID. “We’ve got a job to do here, simple as that, and we’d appreciate your cooperation.”

  “And what do we get out of it?” The woman had drawn level with her husband, the pair of them more than filling the doorway. It was as if their own argument had never happened: they were a team now, shoulder to shoulder against the world.

  “A sense of civic responsibility,” Rebus answered. “Doing your bit for the estate . . . Or maybe you’re not worried by the idea that there’s a murderer running around the place like he owns it.”

  “Whoever he is, he’s not after us, is he?”

  “He can do as many of them as he likes . . . scare them off,” her husband agreed.

  “I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” Siobhan muttered. Maybe she hadn’t meant them to hear, but they noticed her anyway.

  “And who the fuck are you?” the man said.

  “She’s my fucking colleague,” Rebus retorted. “Now look at me . . .” He seemed suddenly larger, and the pair did look at him. “We do this the easy way or the hard—you choose.”

  The man was sizing Rebus up. Eventually, his shoulders untensed a little. “We don’t know nothing,” he said. “Satisfied?”

  “But you’re not sorry an innocent man is dead?”

  The woman snorted. “Way he carried on, it’s a wonder it didn’t happen sooner . . .” Her voice trailed away as her husband’s glare hit home.

  “Stupid bitch,” he said quietly. “Now we’re going to be here all night.” Again he looked at Rebus.

  “Your choice,” Rebus said. “Either in your living room, or down the station.”

  Husband and wife decided as one. “Living room,” they said.

  Eventually the place grew crowded. The constables had been dismissed but told to continue the door-to-doors and keep their mouths shut about what had happened.

  “Which probably means the whole station will know before we get back,” Shug Davidson had conceded. He’d taken over the questioning, Wylie and Reynolds playing supporting roles. Rebus had taken Davidson to one side.

  “Make sure Rat-Arse gets to talk to them.” Davidson’s eyes had sought an explanation. “Let’s just say they might open up to him. I think they share certain social and political opinions. Rat-Arse makes it less ‘us’ and ‘them.’”

  Davidson had nodded, and so far it had worked. Almost everything the pair said, Reynolds nodded his understanding.

  “It’s a culture-conflict sort of thing,” he would agree. Or: “I think we all see your point.”

  The room was claustrophobic. Rebus doubted the windows had ever been opened. They were double-glazed, but condensation had gathered between the panes, leaving trails like tear stains. There was an electric fire on. The bulbs controlling its coal effect had long since blown, making the room seem even gloomier. Three pieces of furniture filled the place: a huge brown sofa flanked by vast brown armchairs. These last were where husband and wife made themselves comfortable. There had been no offer of tea or coffee, and when Siobhan had mimed drinking from a cup, Rebus had shaken his head: no knowing what sort of health risks they’d be taking. For most of the interview, he had stood his ground by the wall cabinet, studying the contents of its shelves. Videotapes: romantic comedies for the lady; bawdy stand-up and football for the gentleman. Some of them were pirate copies, the sleeves not even trying to convince. There were a few paperback books, too: actors’ biographies and a volume about slimming which claimed to have “changed five million lives.” Five million: the population of Scotland, give or take. Rebus saw no sign that it had changed any lives in this room.

  What it boiled down to was: the victim had lived next door. No, they’d never spoken to him, except to tell him to shut up. Why? Because he’d yell the place down some nights. All hours, he’d be stomping around. No friends or family that they knew of; never had visitors that they heard or saw.

  “Mind you, he could have had a clog-dancing team in there, noise he made.”

  “Noisy neighbors can be hell,” Reynolds agreed, without a hint of irony.

  There wasn’t much more: the flat had been vacant before he arrived, and they weren’t sure exactly when that had been . . . maybe five, six months back. No, they didn’t know his name, or whether he worked—“But it’s odds-on he didn’t . . . scavengers, the lot of them.”

  At which point Rebus had stepped outside for a cigarette. It was either that or he’d have had to ask: “And what exactly do you do? What do you add to the sum of human endeavor?” Staring out across the estate, he thought: I haven’t seen any of these people, the people everyone’s so angry at. He guessed they were hiding behind doors, hiding from the hate as they tried to make their own community. If they succeeded, the hate would be multiplied. But that might not matter, because if they succeeded, maybe they’d be able to move on from Knoxland altogether. And then the locals could be happy again behind their barricades and blinkers.

  “It’s times like this I wish I smoked,” Siobhan said, joining him.

  “Never too late to start.” He reached into his pocket as if for the pack, but she shook her head.

  “A drink would be nice, though.”

  “The one you didn’t get last night?”

  She nodded. “But at home . . . in the bath . . . maybe with some candles.”

  “You think you can soak away people like that?” Rebus gestured towards the flat.

  “Don’t worry, I know I can’t.”

  “All part of life’s rich tapestry, Shiv.”

  “Isn’t that good to know?”

  The lift doors opened. More uniforms, but different: stab-proof jackets and crash helmets. Four of them, trained to be mean. Drafted in from Serious Crimes. These were the Drugs Squad, and they carried the tool of their trade: the “key,” basically a length of iron pipe which acted as a battering ram. Its job was to get them into dealers’ reinforced homes as fast as possible, before evidence could be flushed away.

  “A good kick would probably do the trick,” Rebus told them. The leader stared at him, unblinking.

  “Which door?”

  Rebus pointed to it. The man turned to his crew and nodded. They moved in, positioned the cylinder, and swung it.

  Wood splintered and the door opened.

  “I’ve just remembered something,” Siobhan said. “The victim didn’t have any keys on him . . .”

  Rebus checked the splintered doorjamb, then turned the handle. “Not locked,” he said, confirming her theory. The noise had brought people out on to the landing: not just neighbors, but Davidson and Wylie.

  “We’ll have a look-s
ee,” Rebus offered. Davidson nodded.

  “Hang on,” Wylie said: “Shiv’s not even part of this.”

  “That’s the team spirit we’ve been looking for in you, Ellen,” Rebus shot back.

  Davidson twitched his head, letting Wylie know he wanted her back at the interview. They disappeared inside. Rebus turned to the team leader, who was just emerging from the victim’s flat. It was dark in there, but the team carried flashlights.

  “All clear,” the leader said.

  Rebus reached into the hall and tried the light switch: nothing. “Mind if I borrow a flashlight?” He could see that the leader minded very much. “I’ll bring it back, promise.” He held out a hand.

  “Alan, give him your flashlight,” the leader snapped.

  “Yes, sir.” The flashlight was handed over.

  “Tomorrow morning,” the leader instructed.

  “I’ll hand it in first thing,” Rebus assured him. The leader glowered, then signaled to his men that their job was done. They marched back towards the lifts. As soon as the doors had closed behind them, Siobhan let out a snort.

  “Are they for real?”

  Rebus tried the flashlight, found it satisfactory. “Don’t forget the crap they have to deal with. Houses full of weapons and syringes: who would you rather stormed in first?”

  “I take it back,” she apologized.

  They went inside. The place was not only dark, it was cold. In the living room, they found old newspapers which looked as if they’d been rescued from dustbins, plus empty tins of food and milk cartons. No furniture. The kitchen was squalid but tidy. Siobhan pointed up high on one wall. A coin meter. She produced a coin from her pocket, slotted it home, and turned the dial. The lights came on.

  “Better,” Rebus said, placing the flashlight on the countertop. “Not that there’s much to see.”

  “I don’t think he did much cooking.” Siobhan pulled open the cupboards, revealing a few plates and bowls, packets of rice and seasoning, two chipped teacups, and a tea caddy half filled with loose tea. A bag of sugar sat on the countertop next to the sink, a spoon sticking out of it. Rebus peered into the sink, saw carrot shavings. Rice and veg: the deceased’s final meal.

  In the bathroom, it looked as if some rudimentary attempt at clothes washing had taken place: shirts and underpants were draped over the edge of the bathtub, next to a bar of soap. A toothbrush sat by the sink, but no toothpaste.

  This left only the bedroom. Rebus switched on the light. Again there was no furniture. A sleeping bag lay unfurled on the floor. As with the living room, there was dun-colored carpeting, which seemed unwilling to part company with the soles of Rebus’s shoes as he approached the sleeping bag. There were no curtains, but the window was overlooked only by another tower block seventy or eighty feet away.

  “Not much here that would explain the noise he made,” Rebus said.

  “I’m not so sure . . . If I had to live here, I think I’d probably end up having a screaming fit, too.”

  “Good point.” In place of a chest of drawers, the man had used a polyethylene bin liner. Rebus upended it and saw ragged clothes, neatly folded. “Stuff must’ve come from a jumble sale,” he said.

  “Or a charity—plenty of those working with asylum seekers.”

  “You reckon that’s what he was?”

  “Well, let’s just say he doesn’t exactly look settled here. I’d say he arrived with a bare minimum of personal effects.”

  Rebus picked up the sleeping bag and gave it a shake. It was the old-fashioned sort: wide and thin. Half a dozen photographs tumbled from it. Rebus picked them up. Snapshots, softened at their edges by regular handling. A woman and two young children.

  “Wife and kids?” Siobhan guessed.

  “Where do you think they were taken?”

  “Not Scotland.”

  No, because of the background: the plaster-white walls of an apartment, window looking out across the roofs of a city. Rebus got the sense of a hot country, cloudless deep-blue sky. The kids looked bemused; one had his fingers in his mouth. The woman and her daughter were smiling, arms around each other.

  “Someone might recognize them, I suppose,” Siobhan offered.

  “They might not have to,” Rebus stated. “This is a council flat, remember?”

  “Meaning the council will know who he was?”

  Rebus nodded. “First thing we need to do is fingerprint this place, make sure we’re not jumping to conclusions. Then it’ll be down to the council to give us a name.”

  “And does any of that get us nearer to finding the killer?”

  Rebus shrugged. “Whoever did it, they went home covered in blood. No way they walked through Knoxland without being noticed.” He paused. “Which doesn’t mean anyone’s going to come forward.”

  “He might be a murderer, but he’s their murderer?” Siobhan guessed.

  “Either that or they could just be scared of him. Plenty of hard cases in Knoxland.”

  “So we’re no further forward.”

  Rebus held up one of the photos. “What do you see?” he asked.

  “A family.”

  Rebus shook his head. “You see a widow, and two kids who’ll never see their dad again. They’re the ones we should be thinking of, not ourselves.”

  Siobhan nodded her agreement. “I suppose we could always go public with the photos.”

  “I was thinking the same thing. I even think I know the man for the job.”

  “Steve Holly?”

  “The paper he writes for might be a rag, but plenty of people read it.” He looked around. “Seen enough?” Siobhan nodded again. “Then let’s go tell Shug Davidson what we’ve found . . .”

  Davidson got on the phone to the fingerprints team, and Rebus persuaded him to let him keep one of the photos, to be passed on to the media.

  “Can’t do any harm,” was Davidson’s unenthusiastic reaction. He was lifted, however, by the realization that Council Housing would have a name on the tenancy agreement.

  “And by the way,” Rebus said, “however much is in the budget, it just dropped by a pound.” He gestured towards Siobhan. “Had to put money in the meter.”

  Davidson smiled, reached into his pocket, and produced a couple of coins. “There you go, Shiv. Get yourself a drink with the change.”

  “What about me?” Rebus complained. “Is this sex discrimination or what?”

  “You, John, are about to hand an exclusive to Steve Holly. If he doesn’t buy you a few beers on the back of that, he should be run out of the profession . . .”

  As Rebus drove out of the estate, he suddenly remembered something. He called Siobhan on her mobile. She, too, was heading into town.

  “I’ll probably be seeing Holly at the pub,” he said, “if you fancy tagging along.”

  “Tempting as that offer sounds, I have to be elsewhere. But thanks for asking.”

  “It wasn’t why I called . . . You don’t fancy nipping back to the victim’s flat?”

  “No.” She was silent for a moment, then it dawned on her. “You promised you’d take that flashlight back!”

  “Instead of which, it’s lying on the countertop in the kitchen.”

  “Phone Davidson or Wylie.”

  Rebus wrinkled his nose. “Ach, it can wait. I mean, what’s going to happen to it—lying out in the open in an empty flat with a broken-down door? I’m sure they’re all honest, God-fearing souls . . .”

  “You’re really hoping it’ll go walkies, aren’t you?” He could almost hear her grinning. “Just to see what they do about it.”

  “What do you reckon: dawn raid, streaming down my hall looking for something they can replace it with?”

  “There’s an evil streak in you, John Rebus.”

  “Of course there is—no reason for me to be different from anyone else.”

  He ended the call, drove to the Oxford Bar, where he slowly sank a single pint of Deuchar’s, using it to wash down the last corned-beef-and-beet roll on
the shelf. Harry the barman asked him if he knew anything about the satanic ritual.

  “What satanic ritual?”

  “The one in Fleshmarket Alley. Some kind of coven . . .”

  “Christ, Harry, do you believe every story you get told in here?” Harry tried not to look disappointed. “But the baby’s skeleton . . .”

  “Fake . . . planted there.”

  “Why would anybody do that?”

  Rebus sought an answer. “Maybe you’re right, Harry—could’ve been the barman, selling his soul to the devil.”

  The corner of Harry’s mouth twitched. “Reckon mine would be worth doing a deal on?”

  “Not a snowball’s chance in hell,” Rebus said, lifting the pint to his mouth. He was thinking of Siobhan’s I have to be elsewhere. Probably meant she was planning to pin down Dr. Curt. Rebus took out his phone, checking that there was enough of a signal for him to make a call. He had the reporter’s number in his wallet. Holly picked up straightaway.

  “DI Rebus, an unexpected pleasure . . .” Meaning he had caller ID, and was in company, letting whoever he was with know the sort of person who might call him out of the blue, wanting them to be impressed . . .

  “Sorry to interrupt you when you’re in a meeting with your editor,” Rebus said. The phone was silent for a few moments, and Rebus allowed himself a nice, big smile. Holly seemed to be apologizing, stepping out of whatever room he was in. His voice became a hushed hiss.

  “Am I being watched, is that it?”

  “Oh aye, Steve, you’re right up there with those Watergate reporters.” Rebus paused. “I just took a guess, that’s all.”

  “Yeah?” Holly sounded far from convinced.

  “Look, I’ve got something for you, but it can wait till you’ve had that paranoia seen to.”

  “Whoah, hang on . . . what is it?”

  “The Knoxland victim, we found a photo belonging to him—looks like he had a wife and kids.”

  “And you’re giving it to the press?”

  “At the moment, you’re the only one it’s being offered to. If you want it, it’s yours to print just as soon as forensics confirm it belonged to the victim.”