Ian Rankin: Black and Blue

‘OK, you come up with me, but stay on the landing. Only come in if you hear trouble.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m only going to speak to the man.’ Rebus touched Holmes’s shoulder. ‘Relax.’

The main door was unlocked. They climbed the winding stairs without speaking. Rebus pushed at the bell and took a deep breath. Minto started to pull the door open, and Rebus shouldered it, propelling Minto and himself into the dimly lit hallway. He slammed the door shut behind him.

Minto was ready for violence until he saw who it was. Then he just snarled and strode back to the living room. It was a tiny room, half kitchenette, with a narrow floor-to-ceiling cupboard Rebus knew held a shower. There was one bedroom, and a toilet with a doll-house sink. They made igloos bigger.

‘Fuck do you want?’ Minto was reaching for a can of lager, high-alcohol. He drained it, standing.

‘A word.’ Rebus looked around the room, casually as it were. But his hands were by his sides, ready.

‘This is unlawful entry.’

‘Keep yapping, I’ll show you unlawful entry.’

Minto’s face creased: not impressed. He was mid-thirties but looked fifteen years older. He’d done most of the major drugs in his time: Billy Whizz, skag, Morningside speed. He was on a meth programme now. On dope, he was a small problem, an irritation; off dope, he was pure radge. He was Mental.

‘Way I hear, you’re fucked anyway,’ he said now.

Rebus took a step closer. ‘That’s right, Mental. So ask yourself: what have I got to lose? If I’m fucked, might as well make it good and.’

Minto held up his hands. ‘Easy, easy. What’s your problem?’

Rebus let his face relax. ‘You’re my problem, Mental. Making a charge against a colleague of mine.’

‘He laid into me.’

Rebus shook his head. ‘I was there, didn’t see a thing. I’d called in with a message for DS Holmes. I stuck around. So if he’d assaulted you, I’d’ve known, wouldn’t I?’

They stood facing one another silently. Then Minto turned and slumped into the room’s only armchair. He looked like he was going to sulk. Rebus bent down and picked something off the floor. It was the city’s tourist accommodation brochure.

‘Going somewhere nice?’ He flicked through the lists of hotels, B&Bs, self-catering. Then he waved the magazine at Minto. ‘If one single place in here gets turned, you’ll be our first stop.’

‘Harassment,’ Minto said, but quietly.

Rebus dropped the brochure. Minto didn’t look so mental now; he looked done in and done down, like life was sporting a horseshoe in one of its boxing gloves. Rebus turned to go. He walked down the hall and was reaching for the door when he heard Minto call his name. The small man was standing at the other end of the hall, only twelve feet away. He had pulled his baggy black T-shirt up to his shoulders. Having shown the front, he turned to give Rebus a view of the back. The lighting was poor — forty-watt bulb in a flyblown shade — but even so Rebus could see. Tattoos, he thought at first. But they were bruises: ribs, sides, kidneys. Self-inflicted? It was possible. It was always possible. Minto dropped the shirt and stared hard at Rebus, not blinking. Rebus let himself out of the flat.

‘Everything all right?’ Brian Holmes said nervously.

‘The story is, I came by with a message. I sat in on the interview.’

Holmes exhaled noisily. ‘That’s it then?’

‘That’s it.’

Perhaps it was the tone of voice that alerted Holmes. He met John Rebus’s stare, and was the first to break contact. Outside, he put out a hand and said, ‘Thanks.’

But Rebus had turned and walked away.

He drove through the streets of the empty capital, six-figure housing huddled either side of the road. It cost a fortune to live in Edinburgh these days. It could cost you everything you had. He tried not to think about what he’d done, what Brian Holmes had done. The Pet Shop Boys inside his head: ‘It’s a Sin’. Segue to Miles Davis: ‘So What?’

He headed in the vague direction of Craigmillar, then thought better of it. He’d go home instead, and pray there were no reporters camped outside. When he went home, he took the night home with him, and had to soak and scrub it away, feeling like an old paving slab, walked on daily. Sometimes it was easier to stay on the street, or sleep at the station. Sometimes he drove all night, not just through Edinburgh: down to Leith and past the working girls and hustlers, along the waterfront, South Queensferry sometimes, and then up on to the Forth Bridge, up the M90 through Fife, past Perth, all the way to Dundee, where he’d turn and head back, usually tired by then, pulling off the road if necessary and sleeping in his car. It all took time.

He remembered he was in a station car, not his own. If they needed it, they could come fetch it. When he reached Marchmont, he couldn’t find a parking space on Arden Street, ended up on a double yellow. There were no reporters; they had to sleep some time, too. He walked along Warrender Park Road to his favourite chip shop — huge portions, and they sold toothpaste and toilet-rolls too, if you needed them. He walked back slowly, nice night for it, and was halfway up the tenement stairs when his pager went off.

His name was Allan Mitchison and he was drinking in a hometown bar, not ostentatiously, but with a look on his face that said he wasn’t worried about money. He got talking to these two guys. One of them told a joke. It was a good joke. They bought the next round, and he bought one back. They wiped tears from their eyes when he told his only gag. They ordered three more. He was enjoying the company.

He didn’t have many pals left in Edinburgh. Some of his one-time friends resented him, the money he still made. He didn’t have any family, hadn’t had for as long as he could remember. The two men were company. He didn’t quite know why he came home, or even why he called Edinburgh ‘home’. He had a flat with a mortgage on it, but hadn’t decorated it yet or put in any furniture. It was just a shell, nothing worth coming back for. But everyone went home, that was the thing. The sixteen days straight that you worked, you were supposed to think about home. You talked about it, spoke of all the things you’d do when you got there — the booze, the minge, clubbing. Some of the men lived in or near Aberdeen, but a lot still had homes further away. They couldn’t wait for the sixteen days to end, the fourteen-day break to begin.

This was the first night of his fourteen days.

They passed slowly at first, then more quickly towards the end, until you were left wondering why you hadn’t done more with your time. This, the first night, this was the longest. This was the one you had to get through.

They moved on to another bar. One of his new friends was carrying an old-style Adidas bag, red plastic with a side pocket and a broken strap. He’d had one just like it at school, back when he was fourteen, fifteen.

‘What have you got in there,’ he joked, ‘your games kit?’

They laughed and slapped him on the back.

At the new place, they moved to shorts. The pub was heaving, wall-to-wall minge.

‘You must think about it all the time,’ one of his friends said, ‘on the rigs. Me, I’d go off my head.’

‘Or blind,’ said the other.

He grinned. ‘I get my share.’ Downed another Black Heart. He didn’t used to drink dark rum. A fisherman in Stonehaven had introduced him to the stuff. OVD or Black Heart, but he liked Black Heart best. He liked the name.

They needed a carry-out, keep the party going. He was tired. The train from Aberdeen had taken three hours, and there’d been the paraffin budgie before that. His friends were ordering over the bar: a bottle of Bell’s and one of Black Heart, a dozen cans, crisps and smokes. It cost a fortune, buying that way. They split it three ways even, so they weren’t after his cash.