Ian Rankin - Beggars Banquet

The plan was simple. Jib would run off with something, anything, watched by Rebus to make sure nothing went wrong – such as a daring citizen’s arrest by one or more passers-by. Later, Rebus would turn up at the shop to investigate the theft. Then later still, he would arrive at Wardle’s flat, ostensibly to report the lack of progress. If a further visit was needed, the cassette deck would be found. But now he had Holmes’s help, so one visit only should suffice, one man keeping Wardle busy while the other sniffed around the rooms in the flat.

They sat now, poring over the lists, trying to match what Holmes had seen in Wardle’s two bedrooms with what had been reported stolen from the five luxury homes.

‘Carriage clock,’ read Rebus, ‘nineteenth-century Japanese cigar box, seventeenth-century prints of Edinburgh by James Gordon, a Swarbreck lithograph…’

Holmes shook his head at the mention of each, then read from one of his own lists. ‘Ladies’ and gents’ Longines watches, a Hockney print, Cartier pen, first-edition set of the Waverley novels, Ming vase, Dresden pieces…’ He looked up. ‘Would you believe, there’s even a case of champagne.’ He looked down again and read: ‘Louis Roederer Cristal 1985. Value put at six hundred pounds. That’s a hundred quid a bottle.’

‘Bet you’re glad you’re a lager man,’ said Rebus. He sighed. ‘Does none of this mean anything to you, Brian?’

Holmes shook his head. ‘Nothing like any of this in either of the bedrooms.’

Rebus cursed under his breath. ‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘What about that print?’

‘Which one? The Hockney?’

‘Yes, have we got a photo of it?’

‘Just this,’ said Holmes, extracting from the file a page torn from an art gallery’s catalogue. He handed it to Rebus, who studied the picture. ‘Why?’

‘Why?’ echoed Rebus. ‘Because you sat with this painting in front of your nose on Wardle’s living-room wall. I thought it was a real painting, but this is it all right.’ He tapped the sheet of paper. ‘It says here the print’s limited to fifty impressions. What number is the stolen one?’

Holmes looked down the list. ‘Forty-four.’

‘Right,’ said Rebus. ‘That should be easy enough to confirm.’ He checked his watch. ‘What time are you expected home?’

Holmes was shaking his head. ‘Never mind that. If you’re going back to Wardle’s flat, I’m coming too.’

‘Come on then.’

It was only as they were leaving the office that Holmes thought to ask: ‘What if it isn’t the same number on the print?’

‘Then we’ll just have to face the music,’ said Rebus.

But as it turned out, the only one facing the music was Wardle, and he sang beautifully. A pity, Rebus mused later, that he hadn’t arranged for a discount on a new hi-fi system first. He’d just have to wait for Queensferry Audio’s closing-down sale…

It began as a hobby.

But then quite quickly the hobby became a career, and now he was a professional, taking a professional’s care in the details of his craft. True, something had been lost; that was the trouble when a hobby became mere business. But at least he had the consolation of knowing that business was good. He saw himself as a value assessor. He assessed the value of an item, then collected on it, the money being insurance against loss. He had always been good at accounts, economics, business studies. He loved those subjects at school, hardly believing the sheer thrill of balancing books. The sums always came out the same, either side of the thick vertical centre line. He used similar skills now when assessing each item: value of item balanced against risk involved.

Not that he ever damaged an item. It hadn’t been necessary so far. But he was very good at pretending he would damage them. He could reduce tough fathers to pleas and weeping, and all via the telephone. The telephone was his friend – not any one particular telephone, but all phones, spread across the country in a matrix of elegantly anonymous paybooths. He made a point of spending not more than a minute in each phone box he used, timing each call. Single-mindedness was his real strength. Determination of purpose. The sixty-second calls had become his trademark. People knew when they were dealing with the Minute Man.

The media, who had coined the nickname, they too were his friends, stirring up fear, building him into a figure of terror. He rewarded them with increased circulation and viewing figures, while the police held increasingly ineffectual press conferences requesting information, playing tapes they’d made of his voices.

He used several voices, none his own. He hadn’t spoken more than six words to any of his four young items, and even then had disguised his voice. Actually, he’d used more than six words with the last one, the one whose value now sat before him on the table. She had been a talker, a good talker, too. She’d recited stories and anecdotes – even when she couldn’t be sure he was there. Occasionally he’d asked a question, something to help him get the story straight in his mind. She had given him her stories, and now her father had given him all this money.

Tonight, with an open bottle of cheapish Australian Chardonnay on the floor beside his chair, with his belly full from the meal he’d eaten at the Indian on the High Street, tonight was for reflection. At the top of the hour, he hit the remote to catch the Channel 4 news and saw with some pride that he was the main story. Or rather, the item was.

She blinked a lot. Nervousness, or perhaps the glare of the lights and flashguns. Her hair had been washed, but she wore no make-up, and her face looked pale. She had lost a little weight, her own fault for not eating everything he’d given her.

She’d worked out pretty quickly – they usually did – that the food was laced with tranqs, crushed-up sleeping pills. But like the others, she’d given in and eaten anyway. Sensible, when the only other alternative was force-feeding by rubber tube and plastic funnel.

She stayed on screen only half a minute, refusing to answer the yelled questions. Now she was replaced by a policeman. A caption appeared along the bottom of the screen: Ch. Supt. Thomas Lancaster. Ah yes, Tom Lancaster. He raised his glass, toasting his adversary, even though the police’s inefficiency was a constant source of irritation to him.

‘… and I must praise Miss Webster’s calm and her bravery,’ Lancaster was saying. ‘After her release, she was able to help us compile this composite photograph of her kidnapper.’

He put down his glass. The photo was onscreen now.

‘The man we’re looking for is five feet seven or eight, stocky, with blue eyes. As you can see, he has a round face, full lips, and thick, slightly curly hair, either black or very dark brown.’

He whooped. He got up and danced. She’d never set eyes on him! He never allowed his items the luxury. He looked at himself in the mirror. He was six feet tall, certainly not stocky. He had brown eyes, short, straight, light-brown hair. Full lips? No. Round face? No. She’d given the police a wholly fictitious account. Tomorrow the photo would be in every newspaper, pinned up outside every police station. This was better than he could ever have imagined…

But why had she done it? What was she playing at? He didn’t like puzzles, didn’t like it when the accounts failed to balance at the bottom. He switched off the TV and put aside his wine. One thing was obvious: she didn’t want him caught. Only two people could be certain her description was a fiction: the item, and the Minute Man. He was still deep in thought when ten o’clock came round. He switched on the TV news again, and was thrown into fresh confusion.