Black Book

himself.

At the station, he telephoned the Heartbreak Cafe, where what sounded like a hastily recorded message told him the place would be shut ‘due to convalescence’. In Brian Holmes’ desk drawer, he found a print-out of names and phone numbers, those most often used by Holmes himself. Some numbers had been added at the bottom in blue biro, including one for Eddie Ringan marked (h).

Rebus returned to his desk and made the call. Pat Calder answered on the third ring.

‘Mr Calder, it’s DI Rebus.’

‘Oh.’ The hope left Calder’s voice.

‘No sign of him then?’

‘None.’

‘Right, let’s make it official, then. He’s a missing person. I’ll have someone come over and — ’

‘Why can’t you come?’

Rebus thought about it. ‘No reason at all, sir.’

‘Make it anytime you like, we’re shut today.’

‘What happened to wonderchef Willie?’

‘We had a busy night, busier than usual.’

‘He cracked up?’

‘Came flying out of the kitchen yelling, “I’m the chef! I’m the chef!” Lifted some poor woman’s entree and started eating it himself with his face in the bowl. I think he’d been taking drugs.’

‘Sounds like he was just doing a good impersonation of late-period Elvis. I’ll be there in half an hour, if that’s all right.’

Stockbridge’s ‘Colonies’ had been constructed to house the working poor, but were now much desired by young professional types. They were designed as maisonettes, with steep flights of stone stairs leading to the first floor properties. Rebus found the proportions mean in comparison with his Marchmont tenement. No high ceilings here, and no huge rooms with splendid windows and original shutters.

But he could see miners and their families being cosy here a hundred years ago. His own father had been born in a miners’ row in Fife. Rebus imagined it must have been very like thi…at least on the outside.

On the inside, Pat Calder had done incredible things. (Rebus didn’t doubt that his was the designing and decorating hand.) There were wooden and brass ship’s trunks, black anglepoise lamps, Japanese prints in ornate frames, a dinner table whose candelabra resembled some Jewish icon, and a huge TV hi-fi centre. But of Elvis there was nary a jot. Rebus, seated in a black leather sofa, nodded towards one of the coffin-sized loudspeakers.

‘Neighbours ever complain?’

‘All the time,’ admitted Calder. ‘Eddie’s proudest moment was when the guy from four doors down phoned to tell us he couldn’t hear his TV.’

‘Considerate, eh?’

Calder smiled. ‘Eddie’s never been exactly “politic”.’

‘Have you known one another long?’

Calder, lying stretched on the floor with his bum on a beanbag, blew nervous smoke from a black Sobranie cigarette. ‘Two years casually. We moved in together about the time we had the idea for the Heartbreak.’

‘What’s he like? I mean, outside the restaurant?’

‘Brilliant one minute, a spoilt brat the next.’

‘Do you spoil him?’

‘I buffer him from the world. At least, I used to.’

‘So what was he like when you met?’

‘Drinking more than he does now, if you can believe that.’

‘Ever tell you why he started?’ Rebus had refused a cigarette, but the smoke was getting to him. Maybe he’d have to change his mind.

‘He said he drank to forget. Now you’re going to ask, Forget what?

And I’m going to say that he never told me.’

‘He never even hinted?’

‘I think he told Brian Holmes more than he told me.’

Jesus, was there a hint of jealousy there? Rebus had a sudden vision of Calder bashing Holmes on the nappe…and maybe even doing away with Fast Eddie to…?

Calder laughed. ‘I couldn’t hurt him, Inspector. I know what you’re thinking.’

‘It must be frustrating, though? This genius, you call him, wasting it all for booze. People like that take a lot of looking after.’

‘And you’re right, it can become frustrating.’

‘Especially when they’re gassed all the time.’

Calder frowned, peering through the smoke from his nostrils. ‘Why do you say “gassed”?’

‘It means drunk.’

‘I know it does. So do a lot of other words. It’s just that Eddie used to have these nightmares. About being gassed or gassing people. You know, with real gas, like in the concentration camps.’

‘He told you about these dreams?’

‘Oh no, but he used to shout out in his sleep. A lot of gays went to the gas chambers, Inspector.’

‘You think that’s what he meant?’

Calder stubbed out the cigarette into a porcelain bedpan beside the fireplace. He got up awkwardly from the floor. ‘Come on, I want to show you something.’

Rebus had already seen the kitchen and the bathroom, and so realized that the door Calder was leading him towards must be to the only bedroom. He didn’t know quite what to expect.

‘I know what you’ve been thinking,’ Calder said, swinging the door wide open. ‘This is all Eddie’s work.’

And what a work it was. A huge double bed covered with what looked like several zebra-skins. And on the walls, several large paintings of the rhinestone Elvis at work, the face an intentional blur of pink and sheen. Rebus looked up. There was a mirror on the ceiling. He guessed that pretty much any position you took on that bed, you’d be able to watch a white one-piece suit at work with a microphone-hand raised high.

‘Whatever turns you on,’ he commented.

He visited Clarke and Petrie for a couple of hours, just to show willing. Unsurprisingly, Jardine had been replaced by a young man called Madden with a stock of puns not heard since the days of valve radio.

‘Madden by name,’ the Trading Standards officer said by way of introduction, ‘mad ‘un by nature.’

Make that steam radio. Rebus began to wonder if it had been such a good idea, phoning Jardine’s boss and swearing exotically at him for twenty minutes.

‘I make the jokes around here, son,’ he warned.

Rebus had spent more exciting afternoons in his life. For example, being taken by his father to watch Cowdenbeath reserves at home to Dundee. He managed to break the monotony only by stepping out to buy buns at a nearby bakery, though this sort of activity was supposed to be verboten. He kept the custard slice for himself, peeling away and discarding the icing. Madden asked if he could have it, and Rebus nodded.

Siobhan Clarke looked like she’d stepped under a gardy-loo bucket. She tried not to show it, and smiled whenever she saw him looking in her direction, but there was definitely something up with her. Rebus couldn’t be bothered asking what. He got the idea it was to do with Bria…maybe Brian and Nell. He told her about Bone’s window.

‘Make some time,’ he said. ‘Track down Kintoul, if not at home then at the Infirmary. He works in the labs there, right?’

‘Right.’ Definitely something up with her.

As was his prerogative, Rebus eventually made his excuses and left. Back at St Leonard’s, there was a message for him to call Mairie Henderson at work.

‘Mairie?’

‘Inspector, that didn’t take long.’

‘You’re about the only lead I’ve got.’

‘It’s nice to feel wanted.’ She had one of those accents that could sound sarcastic without really flexing any