Chick Muir often drank there, though he managed not to participate in what was reckoned to be Edinburgh’s least musical karaoke. Eddie Ringan for one would have died on the spot at the various awful deaths suffered by ‘Hound Dog’ and ‘Wooden Heart’. Off-key and out of condition, the singers could transform a simple word like ‘crying’ into a multi-syllabled meaningless drawl. Huh-kuh-rye-a-yeng was an approximation of the sound that greeted Rebus as he pulled at the double doors to the pub and slitted his eyes against the cigarette fug.
As ‘Crying in the Chapel’ came to its tearful end, Rebus felt a hand squeeze his arm.
‘You made it then.’
‘Hullo, Chick. What are you having?’
‘A double Grouse would hit the spot, not that I believe they keep real Grouse in their Grouse bottles.’ Chick Muir grinned, showing two rows of dull gold teeth. He was a foot and a half shorter than Rebus, and looked in this crowd like a wee boy lost in the woods. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘it might not be Grouse, but it’s a quarter gill.’
Well, there was logic in that somewhere. So Rebus pushed his way to the bar and shouted his order. There was applause all around as a favourite son of song took the stage. Rebus glanced along the bar and saw Deek Torrance, looking no more drunk or sober than the last time they’d met. As Rebus was paying for his drinks (he’d never to wait; they knew him in here) Torrance saw him, and gave a nod and a wave. Rebus indicated that he had to take the drinks but would be back, and Torrance nodded again.
The music had started up. Oh please, no, thought Rebus. Not ‘Little Red Rooster’. On the video, a cockerel seemed to be taking an interest in the blonde farm-girl who had come out to collect the morning eggs.
‘Here you are, Chick. Cheers.’
‘Slainte.’ Chick took a sip, savoured, then shook his head. ‘I’m sure this isn’t Grouse. Did you see him?’
‘I saw him.’
‘And it’s the right chap?’
Rebus handed over a folded tenner, which Chick pocketed. ‘It’s him, all right.’
And indeed, Deek Torrance was squeezing his way towards them through the crush. But he stopped short and leaned over another drinker to tap Rebus’s shoulder.
‘John, just going-’ He yanked his head towards the toilets at the side of the stage. ‘Back in a min.’ Rebus nodded his understanding and Torrance moved away again through the tide. Chick Muir sank his whisky. ‘I’ll make myself scarce,’ he said.
‘Aye, see you around, Chick.’ Chick nodded and, placing his glass on a table, made for the exit. Rebus tried to shut out ‘Little Red Rooster’, and when this failed he followed Torrance to the toilets. He saw Deek having a word with the DJ on the stage, then pushing open the door of the gents’. Rebus glared at the singer as he passed, but the crowd was whipping the middle-aged man to greater and greater depths.
Deek was at the communal urinal, laughing at a cartoon on the wall. It showed two football players in Hearts strips involved in an act of buggery, and above it was the caption ‘Jam Tarts-Well Stuffed!’ It was the sort of thing you had to expect on Easter Road. In a pub somewhere in Gorgie there would be a similar cartoon portraying two Hibernian players. Rebus checked that no one else was in the gents’. Deek, looking over his shoulder, spotted him.
‘John, I thought for a minute you were a willie-watcher.’
But Rebus was in serious mood. ‘I need you to get me something, Deek.’
Torrance grunted.
‘Remember when you said you could lay your hands on anything?’
‘Anything from a shag to a shooter,’ quoted Deck.
‘The latter,’ Rebus said simply. Deek Torrance looked like he might be about to comment. Instead, he grunted, zipped his fly, and went over to the washbasin.
‘You could get into trouble.’
‘I could.’
Torrance dried his hands on the filthy roller-towel. ‘When would you need it?’
‘ASAP.’
‘Any particular model?’ They were both serious now, talking in quiet, level tones.
‘Whatever you can get will be fine. How much?’
‘Anything up to a couple of hundred. You sure you want to do this?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘You could get a licence, make it legit.’
‘I could.’
‘But you probably won’t.’
‘You don’t want to know, Deck.’
Deek grunted again. The door swung open and a young man, grinning from one side of his mouth while holding a cigarette in the other, breezed in. He ignored the two men and made for the urinal.
‘Give me a phone number.’ The youth half-glanced over his shoulder at them. ‘Eyes front, son!’ Torrance snarled at him. ‘Guide dogs are gey expensive these days!’
Rebus tore a sheet from his notepad. ‘Two numbers,’ he said. ‘Home and work.’
‘I’ll be in touch.’
Rebus pulled open the door. ‘Buy you a drink?’
Torrance shook his head. ‘I’m heading off.’ He paused. ‘You’re sure about this?’
John Rebus nodded.
When Deek had gone, he bought himself another drink. He was shaking, his heart racing. A good-looking woman had been singing ‘Band of Gold’, and adequately too. She got the biggest cheer of the night. The DJ came to the microphone and repeated her name. There were more cheers as her boyfriend helped her down from the stage. His fingers were covered with gold rings. Now the DJ was introducing the next act.
‘He’s chosen to sing for us that great old number “King of the Road”. So let’s have a big hand for John Rebus!’
There was some applause, and the people who knew him lowered their drinks and looked towards where Rebus stood at the bar.
‘You bastard, Deek!’ he hissed. The DJ was looking out over the crowd.
‘John, are you still with us?’ The audience were looking around too. Someone, Rebus realised later, must have pointed him out, for suddenly the DJ was announcing that John was a shy one but he was standing at the bar with the black padded jacket on and his head buried in his glass. ‘So let’s coax him up here with an extra big hand.’
There was an extra big hand for John Rebus as he turned to face the crowd. It was fortunate indeed, he later decided, that Deek hadn’t given him a gun then and there. Just the one bullet would have done.
Deek Torrance hated himself, but he made the phone call anyway. He made it from a public box beside a patch of waste ground. Despite the late hour, some children were riding their bikes noisily across the churned-up tarmac. They had set up a ramp from two planks and a milk crate, and launched themselves into darkness, landing heavily on their suffering tyres.
‘It’s Deek Torrance,’ he said when the telephone was answered. He knew he would have to wait while his name was passed along. He rested his forehead against the side of the call-box. The plastic was cool. We all grow up, he said to himself. It’s not much fun, but we all do it. No Peter Pans around these days.
Someone was on the line now. The telephone had been picked up at the other end.
‘It’s Deek Torrance,’ he repeated, quite unnecessarily. ‘I’ve got a bit of new…’
18
Rebus was at work surprisingly early on Wednesday morning. He’d never been known as the earliest of arrivals, and his presence in the CID room made his more punctual colleagues look twice, just to be sure they weren’t still warm and safe and dreaming in their beds.
They didn’t get too close though, an early morning Rebus not being in the best of humours. But he’d wanted to get here before the day’s swarm began: he didn’t want too many people seeing just what information he was
