Ian Rankin - A Good Hanging and other stories

John Rebus went down onto his knees.

‘I’m begging you,’ he said, ‘don’t do this to me, please.’

But Chief Inspector Lauderdale just laughed, thinking Rebus was clowning about as per usual. ‘Come on, John,’ he said. ‘It’ll be just like Interpol.’

Rebus got back to his feet. ‘No it won’t,’ he said. ‘It’ll be like a bloody escort service. Besides, I can’t speak French.’

‘Apparently he speaks perfect English, this Monsieur...’ Lauderdale made a show of consulting the letter in front of him on his desk.

‘Don’t say it again, sir, please.’

‘Monsieur Cluzeau.’ Rebus winced. ‘Yes,’ Lauderdale continued, enjoying Rebus’s discomfort, ‘Monsieur Cluzeau. A fine name for a member of the gendarmerie, don’t you think?’

‘It’s a stunt,’ Rebus pleaded. ‘It’s got to be. DC Holmes or one of the other lads...’

But Lauderdale would not budge. ‘It’s been verified by the Chief Super,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry about this, John, but I thought you’d be pleased.’

‘Pleased?’

‘Yes. Pleased. You know, showing a bit of Scots hospitality.’

‘Since when did the CID job description encompass “tourist guide”?’

Lauderdale had had enough of this: Rebus had even stopped calling him ‘sir’. ‘Since, Inspector, I ordered you to do it.’

‘But why me ?’

Lauderdale shrugged. ‘Why not you?’ He sighed, opened a drawer of his desk and dropped the letter into it. ‘Look, it’s only a day, two at most. Just do it, eh? Now if you don’t mind, Inspector, I’ve got rather a lot to do.’

But the fight had gone out of Rebus anyway. His voice was calm, resigned. ‘When does he get here?’

Again, there was a pause while that missing ‘sir’ hung motionless in the air between them. Well, thought Lauderdale, the sod deserves this. ‘He’s already here.’

‘What?’

‘I mean, he’s in Edinburgh. The letter took a bit of a time to get here.’

‘You mean it sat in someone’s office for a bit of time.’

‘Well, whatever the delay, he’s here. And he’s coming to the station this afternoon.’

Rebus glanced at his watch. It was eleven-fifty. He groaned.

‘Late afternoon, I’d imagine,’ said Lauderdale, trying to soften the blow now that Rebus was heading for the canvas. This had been a bit of a mess all round. He’d only just received final confirmation himself that Monsieur Cluzeau was on his way. ‘I mean,’ he said, ‘the French like to take a long lunch, don’t they? Notorious for it. So I don’t suppose he’ll be here till after three.’

‘Fine, he can take us as he finds us. What am I supposed to do with him anyway?’

Lauderdale tried to retain his composure: just say it once, damn you! Just once so I know that you recognise me for what I am! He cleared his throat. ‘He wants to see how we work. So show him. As long as he can report back to his own people that we’re courteous, efficient, diligent, scrupulous, and that we always get our man, well, I’ll be happy.’

‘Right you are, sir,’ said Rebus, opening the door, making ready to leave Lauderdale’s newly refurbished office. Lauderdale sat in a daze: he’d said it! Rebus had actually ended a sentence with ‘sir’ !

‘That should be easy enough,’ he was saying now. ‘Oh, and I might as well track down Lord Lucan and catch the Loch Ness monster while I’m at it. I’m sure to have a spare five minutes.’

Rebus closed the door after him with such ferocity that Lauderdale feared for the glass-framed paintings on his walls. But glass was more resilient than it looked. And so was John Rebus.

Cluzeau had to be an arse-licker, hell-bent on promotion. What other reason could there be? The story was that he was coming over for the Scotland-France encounter at Murrayfield. Fair enough, Edinburgh filled with French-men once every two years for a weekend in February, well-behaved if boisterous rugby fans whose main pleasure seemed to be dancing in saloon bars with ice-buckets on their heads.

Nothing out of the ordinary there. But imagine a Frenchman who, having decided to take a large chunk of his annual leave so as to coincide with the international season, then has another idea: while in Scotland he’ll invite himself to spend a day with the local police force. His letter to his own chief requesting an introduction so impresses the chief that he writes to the Chief Constable. By now, the damage is done, and the boulder starts to bounce down the hillside - Chief Constable to Chief Super, Chief Super to Super, Super to Chief Inspector - and Chief Inspector to Mr Muggins, aka John Rebus.

Thank you and bonne nuit. Ha! There, he did remember a bit of French after all. Rhona, his wife, had done one of those teach-yourself French courses, all tapes and repeating phrases. It had driven Rebus bonkers, but some of it had stuck. And all of it in preparation for a long weekend in Paris, a weekend which hadn’t come off because Rebus had been drawn into a murder inquiry. Little wonder she’d left him in the end.

Bonne nuit. Bonjour. That was another word. Bonsoir. What about Bon accord ? Was that French, too? Bo’ness sounded French. Hadn’t Bonnie Prince Charlie been French? And dear God, what was he going to do with the Frenchman?

There was only one answer: get busy. The busier he was, the less time there would be for small-talk, xenophobia and falling-out. With the brain and the body occupied, there would be less temptation to mention Onion Johnnies, frogs’-legs, the war, French letters, French kissing and French & Saunders. Oh dear God, what had he done to deserve this?

His phone buzzed.

‘ Oui ?’ said Rebus, smirking now because he remembered how often he’d managed to get away with not calling Lauderdale ‘sir’.

‘Eh?’

‘Just practising, Bob.’

‘You must be bloody psychic then. There’s a French gentleman down here says he’s got an appointment.’

‘What? Already?’ Rebus checked his watch again. It was two minutes past twelve. Christ, like sitting in a dentist’s waiting-room and being called ahead of your turn. Would he really look like Peter Sellers? What if he didn’t speak English?

‘John? ’

‘Sorry, Bob, what?’

‘What do you want me to tell him?’

‘Tell him I’ll be right down.’ Right down in the dumps, he thought to himself, letting the receiver drop like a stone.

There was only one person in the large, dingy reception. He wore a biker’s leather jacket and had a spider’s-web tattoo creeping up out of his soiled T-shirt and across his throat. Rebus stopped in his tracks. But then he saw another figure, over to his left against the wall. This man was studying various Wanted and Missing posters. He was tall, thin, and wore an immaculate dark blue suit with a tightly-knotted red silk tie. His shoes looked brand new, as did his haircut.

Their eyes met, forcing Rebus into a smile. He was suddenly aware of his own rumpled chain-store suit, his scuffed brogues, the shirt with a button missing on one cuff.

‘Inspector Rebus?’ The man was coming forward, hand held out.

‘That’s right.’ They shook. He was wearing after-shave too, not too strong but certainly noticeable. He had the bearing of someone much further up the ladder, yet Rebus had been told they were of similar ranks. Having said which, there was no way Rebus was going to say ‘Inspector Cluzeau’ out loud. It would be too... too...

‘For you.’

Rebus saw that he was being handed a plastic carrier-bag. He looked inside. A litre of duty-free malt, a box of chocolates and a small tin of something. He lifted out the chocolates.