Ian Rankin - Beggars Banquet

‘Is he all right?’ Alec asked Holmes.

Holmes was beginning to wonder, but decided to go along for the ride anyway.

‘A cassette deck,’ the proprietor explained. ‘Nice model, too. Not top of the range, but nice. Top-of-the-range stuff isn’t kept out on the shop floor. We keep it in the demonstration rooms.’

Holmes was looking at the shelf where the cassette deck had rested. There were other decks either side of the gap, more expensive decks at that.

‘Why would he choose that one?’ Holmes asked.

‘Eh?’

‘Well, it’s not the dearest, is it? And it’s not even the closest to the door.’

The dealer shrugged. ‘Kids these days, who can tell?’ His thick hair was still tousled from where he had stood in the Queensferry Street wind-tunnel, yelling against the elements as passers-by stared at him.

‘I take it you’ve got insurance, Mr Wardle?’ The question came from Rebus, who was standing in front of a row of loudspeakers.

‘Christ yes, and it costs enough.’ Wardle shrugged. ‘Look, it’s okay. I know how it works. Points system, right? Anything under a four-point crime, and you lads don’t bother. You just fill out the forms so I can claim from the insurance. What does this rate? One point? Two at the most?’

Rebus blinked, perhaps stunned by the use of the word ‘lads’ in connection with him.

‘You’ve got the serial number, Mr Wardle,’ he said at last. ‘That’ll give us a start. Then a description of the thief – that’s more than we usually get in cases of shop-snatching. Meantime, you might move your stock a bit further back from the door and think about a common chain or circuit alarm so they can’t be taken off their shelves. Okay?’

Wardle nodded.

‘And be thankful,’ mused Rebus. ‘After all, it could’ve been worse. It could have been a ram-raider.’ He picked up a CD case from where it sat on top of a machine: Mantovani and his Orchestra. ‘Or even a critic,’ said Rebus.

Back at the station, Holmes sat fuming like a readying volcano. Or at least like a tin of something flammable left for too long in the sun.

Whatever Rebus was up to, as per usual he wasn’t saying. It infuriated Holmes. Now Rebus was off at a meeting in the Chief Super’s office: nothing very important, just routine… like the snatch at the hi-fi shop.

Holmes played the scene through in his mind. The stationary car, causing an obstruction to the already slow movement of traffic. Then Wardle’s cry, and the youth running across the road, jinking between cars. The youth had half turned, giving Holmes a moment’s view of a cheek speckled with acne, cropped spiky hair. A skinny runt of a sixteen-year-old in faded jeans and trainers. Pale blue windcheater with a lumberjack shirt hanging loose below its hemline.

And carrying a hi-fi component that was neither the easiest piece in the shop to steal, nor the dearest. Wardle had seemed relaxed about the whole affair. The insurance would cover it. An insurance scam: was that it? Was Rebus working on some insurance diddle on the q.t., maybe as a favour to some investigator from the Pru? Holmes hated the way his superior worked, like a greedy if talented footballer hogging the ball, dribbling past man after man, getting himself trapped beside the by-line but still refusing to pass the ball. Holmes had known a boy at school like that. One day, fed up, Holmes had scythed the smart-arse down, even though they’d been on the same side…

Rebus had known the theft would take place. Therefore, he’d been tipped off. Therefore, the thief had been set up. There was just one big but to the whole theory – Rebus had let the thief get away. It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make any sense at all.

‘Right,’ Holmes said, nodding to himself. ‘Right you are, sir.’ And with that, he went off to find the young offender files.

That evening, just after six, Rebus thought that since he was in the area anyway, he’d drop into Mr Wardle’s home and report the lack of progress on the case. It might be that, time having passed, Wardle would remember something else about the snatch, some crucial detail. The description he’d been able to give of the thief had been next to useless. It was almost as though he didn’t want the hassle, didn’t want the thief caught. Well, maybe Rebus could jog his memory.

The radio came to life. It was a message from DS Holmes. And when Rebus heard it, he snarled and turned the car back around towards the city centre.

It was lucky for Holmes, so Rebus said, that the traffic had been heavy, the fifteen-minute journey back into town being time enough for him to calm down. They were in the CID room. Holmes was seated at his desk, hands clasped behind his head. Rebus was standing over him, breathing hard. On the desk sat a matt-black cassette deck.

‘Serial numbers match,’ Holmes said, ‘just in case you were wondering.’

Rebus couldn’t quite sound disinterested. ‘How did you find him?’

With his hands still behind his head, Holmes managed a shrug. ‘He was on file, sir. I just sat there flipping through them till I spotted him. That acne of his is as good as a tattoo. James Iain Bankhead, known to his friends as Jib. According to the file, you’ve arrested him a couple of times yourself in the past.’

‘Jib Bankhead?’ said Rebus, as though trying to place the name. ‘Yes, rings a bell.’

‘I’d have thought it’d ring a whole fire station, sir. You last arrested him three months ago.’ Holmes made a show of consulting the file on his desk. ‘Funny, you not recognising him…’ Holmes kept his eyes on the file.

‘I must be getting old,’ Rebus said.

Holmes looked up. ‘So what now, sir?’

‘Where is he?’

‘Interview Room B.’

‘Let him stay there then. Can’t do any harm. Has he said anything?’

‘Not a word. Mind you, he did seem surprised when I paid him a visit.’

‘But he kept his mouth shut?’

Holmes nodded. ‘So what now?’ he repeated.

‘Now,’ said Rebus, ‘you come along with me, Brian. I’ll tell you all about it on the way…’

Wardle lived in a flat carved from a detached turn-of-the-century house on the south-east outskirts of the city. Rebus pressed the bell on the wall to the side of the substantial main door. After a moment, there was the muffled sound of footsteps, three clicks as locks were undone, and the door opened from within.

‘Good evening, Mr Wardle,’ said Rebus. I see you’re security-conscious at home at least.’ Rebus was nodding towards the door, with its three separate keyholes, spy-hole and security chain.

‘You can’t be too-’ Wardle broke off as he saw what Brian Holmes was carrying. ‘The deck!’

‘Good as new,’ said Rebus, ‘apart from a few fingerprints.’

Wardle opened the door wide. ‘Come in, come in.’

They entered a narrow entrance hall which led to a flight of stairs. Obviously the ground floor of the house did not belong to Wardle. He was dressed much as he had been in the shop: denims too young for his years, an open-necked shirt louder than a Wee Free sermon, and brown moccasins.

‘I can’t believe it,’ he said, leading them towards the stairs. ‘I really can’t. But you could have brought it round to the shop…’

‘Well, sir, we were going to be passing anyway.’ Rebus closed the door, noting the steel plate on its inner face. The door-surround too was reinforced with metal plates. Wardle turned and noticed Rebus’s interest.

‘Wait till you see the hi-fi, Inspector. It’ll all become clear.’

They could already hear the music. The bass was vibrating each step of the stairs.

‘You must have sympathetic neighbours,’ Rebus remarked.

‘She’s ninety-two,’ said Wardle. ‘Deaf as a post. I went round to explain to her about the hi-fi just after I moved in. She couldn’t hear a word I was saying.’