Ian Rankin - Beggars Banquet

‘That’s very good of you, Inspector,’ Leighton was saying.

‘Not at all, sir.’

‘Only it all seems to have been a mistake anyway.’

‘A mistake?’

‘You’ll see when I show you the photograph.’

Rebus saw.

He saw a man and a woman. In the foreground was a coffee table, spread with bottles and glasses and cans, an ashtray full to overflowing. Behind this, a sofa, and on the sofa a man and a woman. Lying along the sofa, hugging one another. The photographer had caught them like this, their faces just beginning to turn towards the camera, grinning and flushed with that familiar mix of alcohol and passion. Rebus had been to these sorts of party, parties where the alcohol was necessary before there could be any passion. Behind the couple, two men stood in animated conversation. It was a good clear photo, the work of a 35mm camera with either a decent flash-gun or else no necessity for one.

‘And here’s the letter,’ said Leighton. They were seated on an uncomfortable, spongy sofa in the tax office’s reception area. Rebus had been hoping for a sniff behind the scenes, but Leighton worked in an open-plan office with less privacy even than the reception area. Few members of the public ever visited the building, and the receptionist was at the other end of the hallway. Staff wandered through on their way to the coffee machine or the snack dispenser, the toilets or the post-room, but otherwise this was as quiet as it got.

‘A bit longer than the others,’ Leighton said, handing the letter over.

Mr Leighton,

Here is the photo. We have plenty more, plus negatives. Cheap at £2,000 the lot, and your wife will never know. The money should be in fives and tens, nothing bigger. Put it in a William Low’s carrier-bag and go to Greyfriars Kirkyard on Friday at 3 p.m. Leave the bag behind Greyfriars Bobby’s gravestone. Walk away. Photos and negatives will be sent to you.

‘Not exactly the quietest spot for a handover,’ Rebus mused. Although the actual statue of Greyfriars Bobby, sited just outside the kirkyard, was more popular with tourists, the gravestone was a popular enough stop-off. The idea of leaving a bagful of money there surreptitiously was almost laughable. But at least now the extortion was serious. A time and place had been mentioned as well as a sum, a sum to be left in a Willie Low’s bag. Rebus more than ever doubted the blackmailer’s professionalism.

‘You see what I mean?’ Leighton said. ‘I can only think that if it isn’t a joke, then it’s a case of mistaken identity.’

True enough, Leighton wasn’t any of the three men in the photo, not by any stretch of the will or imagination. Rebus concentrated on the woman. She was small, heavy, somehow managing to fit into a dress two sizes too small for her. It was black and short, rumpled most of the way to her bum, with plenty of cleavage at the other end. She also wore black tights and black patent-leather shoes. But somehow Rebus didn’t think he was looking at a funeral.

‘I don’t suppose’, he said, ‘this is your wife?’

Leighton actually laughed, the sound of paper shredding.

‘Thought not,’ Rebus said quietly. He turned his attention to the man on the sofa, the man whose arms were trapped beneath the weight of the smirking woman. There was something about that face, that hairstyle. Then it hit Rebus, and things started to make a little more sense.

‘I didn’t recognise him at first,’ he said, thinking out loud.

‘You mean you know him?’

Rebus nodded slowly. ‘Only I’ve never seen him smile before, that’s what threw me.’ He studied the photo again, then stabbed it with a finger. The tip of his finger was resting on the face of one of the other men, the two behind the sofa. ‘And I know him,’ he said. ‘I can place him now.’ Leighton looked impressed. Rebus moved his finger on to the recumbent woman. ‘What’s more, I know her too. I know her quite well.’

Leighton didn’t look impressed now, he looked startled, perhaps even disbelieving.

‘Three out of four,’ Rebus said. ‘Not a bad score, eh?’ Leighton didn’t answer, so Rebus smiled reassuringly. ‘Don’t you worry, sir. I’ll take care of this. You won’t be bothered any more.’

‘Well… thank you, Inspector.’

Rebus got to his feet. ‘All part of the service, Mr Leighton. Who knows, maybe you’ll be able to help me one of these days…’

Rebus sat at his desk, reading the file. Then, when he was satisfied, he tapped into the computer and checked some details regarding a man who was doing a decent stretch in Peterhead jail. When he’d finished, there was a broad grin on his face, an event unusual enough in itself to send DC Siobhan Clarke sauntering over in Rebus’s direction, trying not to get too close (fear of being hooked), but close enough to register interest. Before she knew it, Rebus was reeling her in anyway.

‘Get your coat,’ he said.

She angled her head back towards her desk. ‘But I’m in the middle of-’

‘You’re in the middle of my catchment, Siobhan. Now fetch your coat.’

Never be nosy, and always keep your head down: somehow Siobhan Clarke hadn’t yet learned those two golden rules of the easy life. Not that anything was easy when John Rebus was in the office. Which was precisely why she liked working near him.

‘Where are we going?’ she said.

Rebus told her on the way. He also handed the file to her so she could read it through.

‘Not guilty,’ she said at last.

‘And I’m Robbie Coltrane,’ said Rebus. They were both talking about a case from a few months before. A veteran hard man had been charged with the attempted armed hold-up of a security van. There had been evidence as to his guilt – just about enough evidence – and his alibi had been shaky. He’d told police of having spent the day in question in a bar near his mother’s home in Muirhouse, probably the city’s most notorious housing scheme. Plenty of witnesses came forward to agree that he had been there all day. These witnesses boasted names like Tam the Bam, Big Shug, the Screwdriver, and Wild Eck. The look of them in the witness-box, police reasoned, would be enough to convince the jury of the defendant’s guilt. But there had been one other witness…

‘Miss June Redwood,’ quoted DC Clarke, rereading the casenotes.

‘Yes,’ said Rebus, ‘Miss June Redwood.’

An innocent, dressed in a solemn two-piece as she gave her evidence at the trial. She was a social worker, caring for the most desperate in Edinburgh’s most desperate area. Needing to make a phone call, and sensing she’d have no luck with Muirhouse’s few public kiosks, she had walked into the Castle Arms, probably the first female the regulars had seen in the saloon bar since the landlord’s wife had walked out on him fifteen years before. She’d asked to use the phone, and a man had wandered over to her from a table and, with a wink, had asked if she’d like a drink. She’d refused. She could see he’d had a few – more than a few. His table had the look of a lengthy session about it – empty pint glasses placed one inside another to form a leaning tower, ashtray brimming with butts and empty packets, the newspaper’s racing page heavily marked in biro.

Miss Redwood had given a quietly detailed account, at odds with the loud, confident lies of the other defence witnesses. And she was sure that she’d walked into the bar at 3 p.m., five minutes before the attack on the security van took place. The prosecution counsel had tried his best, gaining from the social worker the acknowledgement that she knew the accused’s mother through her work, though the old woman was not actually her client. The prosecutor had stared out at the fifteen jury members, attempting without success to plant doubt in their minds. June Redwood was a rock-solid witness. Solid enough to turn a golden prosecution case into a verdict of ‘not guilty’. The accused had walked free. Close, as the fairground saying went, but definitely no goldfish.