Ian Rankin: Let It Bleed

‘Even if he’s in it up to his eyeballs?’

‘Even then.’

‘This stinks,’ Rebus said. ‘What’s the tape? An insurance policy?’

‘I’m preparing a file,’ Gunner said. ‘Unofficially, and to be kept under lock and key.’

‘And if anything should happen to leak out in future …?’

‘The file will show,’ said Hunter, ‘that Charters and others acted unlawfully.’

‘To the extent of murder?’ Hunter nodded. ‘What about Mathieson? Will he be implicated?’ Rebus smiled. ‘Sorry, daft question. Of course he will. You’d sell everything to the court to save your own neck, you — ’

‘Hypocrite?’ Hunter suggested. ‘Hypocrisy is acceptable if it is for the public good.’

‘You know,’ Gunner added, ‘I could have you booted off the force.’

‘I’d fight you all the way.’

Gunner smiled. ‘I know you would.’

Hunter touched Gunner’s arm. ‘We’ve kept your guests waiting long enough, Allan.’

Gunner’s eyes were still on Rebus. ‘Under normal circumstances, you’d be welcome to join us.’

‘I wouldn’t join you if you were coming apart at the seams.’

‘The stories I hear,’ Gunner said, ‘it’s you that’s been coming apart at the seams.’

‘Bear something in mind, Inspector,’ Hunter said, examining his cane. ‘You were at that meeting, too. You’re on the tape, listening to men confess their part in illegal acts. I didn’t hear you caution them, I didn’t hear you do anything much. If questions should ever be asked, they’ll be asked of you along with everyone else.’

‘I’ll see you to the door,’ the chief constable-in-waiting told Rebus.

John Rebus did what he had to do — went on a forty-eight-hour bender.

It wasn’t difficult in Edinburgh. Even in winter, without the benefit of extended summer opening hours, if you paced things right you could drink round the clock. It was all down to permutations of late-licence restaurants, casinos, and early-opening bars. You could always drink at home, of course, but that wasn’t what a bender was about. You could hardly do your bender justice when the only person around to listen to your stories was your own sour self.

Rebus didn’t worry about missing work. He’d been on benders before, after losing cases he’d tried desperately to win. Always he did it with the blessing of his superiors, who might even chip in towards expenses. He thought maybe he’d phoned the Farmer from some pub along the way, and maybe the Farmer had said something about Allan Gunner having okayed things. Hard to tell though, hard to remember.

Still harder to forget.

He’d grab an hour’s sleep, then be awake a couple of minutes at most before the knot was in his guts, reminding him of things he’d far rather forget.

Towards the close of the first day, he was in a bar on Lothian Road, and noticed Maisie and Tresa there, having a good time to themselves. They were at a table, and Rebus was at the bar. Pairs of men kept accosting them — to no avail. Then Maisie saw Rebus and got up, weaving towards him.

‘I see the period of mourning’s over,’ Rebus said.

She smiled. ‘Ach, Wee Shug was all right.’

‘Why don’t you tell me about it?’

Her eyes were only half open, heavy-lidded. ‘See,’ she began, ‘it wasn’t him I wanted, it was Tresa.’ She lit a cigarette for herself, using the onyx and gold lighter. ‘He came to see me the day he topped himself, told me what he was going to do. He gave me this lighter. Maybe he was looking for sympathy, or someone to talk him out of it. Daft bastard: he was doing just what I wanted. I wanted Tresa. I love her, really I do.’

Rebus remembered something she’d told him before, about Wee Shug: ‘He deserved what he got.’ He realised now that she hadn’t meant it vindictively; she’d meant he deserved whatever he was paid. She’d stuck him in prison, and he’d still come back to her, telling his story …

‘Was it rape?’ Rebus asked.

She shrugged. ‘Not really.’

He sucked on his cigarette. ‘Did you scream?’

Now she laughed. ‘The neighbours thought I did. They wanted to have heard it, otherwise there’d be no guilt. We Scots need a bit of guilt, don’t we? It gets us through the day.’

Then she planted a kiss on his cheek, and stood back to gaze at him, before making her way back to where Tresa McAnally sat waiting for her.

She was right about the guilt, he thought. But there was more to it — the neighbours hadn’t done anything at the time, and that was typically Edinburgh. People would rather not know, even if there was nothing there — they didn’t want to be told that their body (or their country) was rotten with cancer, but nor did they want to be told that it wasn’t. And in the end they just sat there, zugzwanged, while the likes of Charters and Sir lain Hunter got on with another game entirely.

In the middle of the second day, in the same rancid clothes as the day before, wreathed in a fug of nicotine and whisky, and in possession of a hangover he was trying to drink away, he met Kirstie Kennedy. Maybe it was halfway down Leith Walk, or at the top of Easter Road. She was shorter than him, and wanted to whisper in his ear. She didn’t need to stand on tiptoe to do it — he stooped under the weight of his skull and shoulders.

‘You should get straight,’ she told him. ‘Killing yourself’s no answer.’

He recalled her words later, when more or less seated on a bench in what purported to be a bar on Dalry Road. It had the dimensions and atmosphere of a bonded warehouse. He had just been speaking to the old thin man, the one who liked American history. Rebus had started to give him a history lesson which didn’t have much to do with Hopalong Cassidy, and the man shuffled off to another part of the bar, where Tartan Shoelaces stood protectively close to his erring wife Morag. Rebus had stood them all a couple of drinks when he’d come in.

Some young turks were playing pool, and Rebus tried to concentrate on their game, but found himself yawning noisily.

‘Not keeping you up, are we, pal?’ one of the players snarled.

‘Cut it out,’ the barmaid called to them. ‘He’s polis.’

‘He’s guttered, that’s what he is. Plain mortal.’

And then Kirstie’s words came back to him. You should get straight. Killing yourself’s no answer. Well, it depended what the question was. Get straight … straight, as in even. Someone sat down next to him. He tried turning his head to look at them.

‘Found you at last.’

‘Sammy?’

‘I got a phone call from somebody called Kirstie. She said she was worried.’

‘I’m fine. Nothing wrong with me.’

‘You’re a mess. What’s happened?’

‘The system, that’s what’s happened. You were right, Sammy. And I knew you were right, all the time I was saying you were wrong.’

She smiled at him. ‘Well, you were right, too. I shouldn’t have smuggled that note out for Derwood Charters.’

‘Don’t worry about it. Gerry Dip isn’t talking. We’ll pin him for the credit cards if nothing else. There’ll be no mention of Charters at the trial. You won’t be involved.’

‘But I am involved.’

Rebus shook his head. ‘Just keep your mouth quiet, that’s what everyone else is doing. Nothing’s going to happen.’

‘Is that what this is about?’

Rebus straightened his back. He didn’t like Sammy seeing him like this; that thought had only just struck him.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘whether you can put this behind you or not is down to you and your conscience. That’s what I’m saying.’ He got to his feet. ‘I’m going to clean up.’