Black Book

McPhail nodded.

‘In what way?’

‘He came to the house. I wasn’t there. He told Mrs MacKenzie he’ be back to get me. Poor woman’s in a terrible state.’

‘You could always move, get out of Edinburgh.’

‘Christ, is that what you want? That’s why you’ve set Maclean on me. Well, I’m staying put.’

‘Heroic of you, Mr McPhail.’

‘Look, I know what I’ve done, but that’s behind me.’

Rebus nodded. ‘And all you’ve got in front of you is the view from your bedroom.’

‘Jesus, I didn’t know Mrs MacKenzie lived across from a primary school!’

‘Still, you could move. A location like that, it’s bound to rile Maclean further.’

McPhail stared at Rebus. ‘You’re repulsive,’ he said. ‘Whatever I’ve done in my life, I’m willing to bet you’ve done worse. Never mind about me, I’ll look after myself.’ McPhail made show of pushing past Rebus towards the door.

‘Ca’ canny, Mr McPhail,’ Rebus called after him.

‘Christ,’ said the desk sergeant, ‘who was that?’

‘That,’ said Rebus, ‘was someone finding out how it feels to be a victim.’

All the same, he felt a bit guilty. What if McPhail had been rehabilitated, and Maclean did do him some damage? Scared as he was, McPhail might even decide a first strike was his only form of defence. Well, Rebus had slightly more pressing concerns, hadn’t he?

In the CID room, he studied the only available mug-shots of Tam and Eck Robertson, taken over five years ago. He got a DC to make him some photocopies, but then had a better idea. There was no police artist around, but that didn’t bother Rebus. He knew where an artist could always be found.

It was five o’clock when he got to McShane’s Bar near the bottom of the Royal Mile. McShane’s was a haven for bearded folk fans and their woolly sweaters. Upstairs, there was always music, be it a professional performer or some punter who’d taken the stage to belt out ‘Will Ye Go Lassie Go’ or ‘Both Sides 0’ The Tweed’.

Midgie McNair did good business in McShane’s sketching flattering likenesses of acquiescent customers, who paid for the privilege and often bought the drinks as well.

At this early hour, Midgie was downstairs, reading a paperback at a corner table. His sketch-pad sat on the table beside him, along with half a dozen pencils. Rebus placed two pints on the table, then sat down and produced the photos of the Bru-Head Brothers.

‘Not exactly Butch and Sundance, are they?’ said Midgie McNair. ‘Not exactly,’ said Rebus.

14

John Rebus had once known Cowdenbeath very well indeed, having gone to school there. It was one of those Fife mining communities which had grown from a hamlet in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries when coal was in great demand, such demand that the cost of digging it out of the ground hardly entered the equation. But the coalfields of Fife didn’t last long. There was still plenty of coal deep underground, but the thin warped strata were difficult (and therefore costly) to mine. He supposed some opencast mining might still be going on-at one time west central Fife had boasted Europe’s biggest hole in the ground-but the deep pitshafts had all been filled in. In Rebus’s youth there had been three obvious career choices for a fifteen-year-old boy: the pits, Rosyth Dockyard, or the Army. Rebus had chosen the last of these. Nowadays, it was probably the only choice on offer.

Like the towns and villages around it, Cowdenbeath looked and felt depressed: closed down shops and drab chainstore clothes. But he knew that the people were stronger than their situation might suggest. Hardship bred a bitter, quickfire humour and a resilience to all but the most terminal of life’s tragedies. He didn’t like to think about it too deeply, but inside he felt like he really was ‘coming home’. Edinburgh might have been his base for twenty years, but he was a Fifer. ‘Fly Fifers’, some people called them. Rebus was ready to do battle with some very fly people indeed.

Monday night was the quietest of the week for pubs across the land. The pay packets or dole money had disappeared over the course of the weekend. Monday was for staying in. Not that you would know this from the scene that greeted Rebus as he pushed open the door to the Midden. Its name belittled it; its interior was no worse than many a bar in Edinburgh and elsewhere. Basic, yes, with a red linoleum floor spotted black from hundreds of cigarette dowps. The tables and chairs were functional, and though the bar was not large enough space had been found for a pool table and dartboard. A game of darts was in progress when Rebus entered, and one young man marched’ around the pool table, potting shot after shot as he squinted through the smoke which rose from the cigarette in his mouth. At a corner table three old men, all wearing flat bunnets, were playing a tense game of dominoes, groups of steady drinkers filling the other tables.

So Rebus had no choice but to stand at the bar. There was just room for one more, and he nodded a greeting to the pint drinkers either side of him. A greeting no one bothered to return.

‘Pint of special, please,’ he said to the slick-haired barman. ‘Special, son, right you are.’

Rebus got the feeling this fiftyish bartender would call even the domino players ‘son’. The drink was poured with the proper amount of care, like the ritual it was in this part of the world.

‘Special, son, there you are.’

Rebus paid for the beer. It was the cheapest pint he’d bought in months. He started to think about how easy it would be to commute to work from Fif…

‘Pint of spesh, Dod.’

‘Spesh, son, right you are.’

The pool player stood just behind Rebus, not quite menacingly. He placed his empty glass on the bartop and waited for it to be refilled. Rebus knew the youth was interested, maybe waiting to see whether Rebus would speak. But Rebus didn’t say anything. He just took photocopies of the two drawings out of his jacket pocket and unfolded them. He’d had ten copies of each made up at a newsagent’s on the Royal Mile. The originals were safe in the glove compartment of his car; though how safe his car itself was, parked on the poorly lit street outside, was another matter.

He could feel the drinkers either side of him glance at the drawings, and didn’t doubt that the youth was having a look too. Still nobody said anything.

‘Spesh, son, there you are.’ The pool player picked up the glass, spilling some beer onto the sheets of paper. Rebus turned his head towards him.

‘Sorry about that.’

Rebus had seldom heard a less sincere tone of voice. ‘That’s all right,’ he said, matching the tone. ‘I’ve got plenty more copies.’

‘Oh aye?’ The youth took his change from the barman and went back to the pool table, crouching to load coins into the slot. The balls fell with a dull rumble and he started to rack them up, staring at Rebus.

‘You do a bit of drawing, eh?’

Rebus, who had been wiping the drawings with his hand, turned to Dod the barman. ‘Not me, no. Good though, aren’t they?’ He turned the drawings around slowly so Dod could get a better look.

‘Oh aye, no’ bad. I’m no’ an expert, like. The only things anybody around here draws are the pension or the dole.’ There was laughter at this.

‘Or a bowl,’ added one drinker. He made the word sound like ‘bowel’, but Rebus knew what he meant.

‘Or a cigarette,’ somebody else suggested, but the joke was by now history. The barman nodded towards the drawings. ‘Anybody in particular, like?’

Rebus shrugged.

‘Could be brothers, eh?’

Rebus turned to the drinker on his left, who had just spoken. ‘What makes you say that?’

The drinker twitched and turned to stare at the row of optics behind the bar. ‘They look similar.’

Rebus examined the two drawings. As requested, Midgie had aged the brothers five or six years. ‘You could be right.’