Black Book

As Rebus left the restaurant, he could actually hear Eddie Ringan starting to laugh.

He didn’t laugh for long. Drink was demanding his attention. ‘Gimme another,’ he ordered. Pat Calder silently poured to the level of the shot.. glass. They’d bought the glasses on a trip to Miami, along with a lot of other stuff. Much of the money had come out of Pat Calder’s own pockets, as well as those of his parents. He held the glass in front of Ringan, then toasted him before draining the contents himself. When Ringan started to complain, Calder slapped him across the face.

Ringan looked neither surprised nor hurt. Calder slapped him again.

‘You stupid bugger!’ he hissed. ‘You stupid, stupid bugger!’

‘I can’t help it,’ said Ringan, proffering his empty glass. ‘I’m all shook up. Now give me a drink before I do something really stupid.’

Pat Calder thought about it for a moment. Then he gave Eddie Ringan the drink.

The ambulance took Brian Holmes to the Royal Infirmary.

Rebus had never been persuaded by this hospital. It seemed full good intentions and unfilled staff rosters. So he stood close by Brian Holmes’ bed, as close as they’d let him stand. And as the night wore on, he didn’t flinch; he just slid a little lower down the wall. He was, crouching with his head resting against his legs, arms cold against the floor, when he sensed someone towering over kill. It was Nell Stapleton Rebus recognised her by her very height, lo g before his eyes ha reached her tear-stained face.

‘Hello there, Nell.’

‘Christ, John.’ And the tears started again. He pulled himself upright, embracing her quickly. She was throwing words into his ear. ‘We talked only this evening. I was horrible. And now this happen…’

‘Hush, Nell. It’s not your fault. This sort of thing can happen anytime.

‘Yes, but I can’t help remembering, the last time we spoke it was an argument. If we hadn’t argue…’

‘Sshh, pet. Calm down now.’ He held her tight. Christ, it felt good. He didn’t like to think about how good it felt. It felt good all the same. perfume, her shape, the way she moulded against him.

‘We argued, and he went to that bar, and the…’

‘Sshh, Nell. It’s not your fault.’

He believed it, too, though he wasn’t sure whose fault it was: protection racketeers? Jealous restaurant owners? Simple neds? A difficult one to call.

‘Can I see him?’

‘By all means.’ Rebus gestured with his arm towards Holmes’ bed. He turned away as Nell Stapleton approached it, giving the couple some privacy. Not that the gesture meant anything; Holmes was still unconscious, hooked up to some monitor and with his head heavily bandaged. But he could almost make out the words Nell used when she spoke to her estranged lover. The tone she used made him think of Dr Patience Aitken, made him half- wish he were lying unconscious. It was nice to think people were saying nice things about you.

After five minutes, she came tiredly back. ‘Hard work?’ Rebus offered. Nell Stapleton nodded. ‘You know,’ she said quietly, ‘I think I’ve an idea why this happened.’

‘Oh?’

She was speaking in a near-whisper, though the ward was quiet. They, were the only two souls about on two legs. She sighed loudly. Rebus wondered if she’d ever taken drama classes.

‘The black book,’ she said. Rebus nodded as though understanding her, then frowned.

‘What black book?’ he asked.

‘I probably shouldn’t be telling you, but you’re not just someone he works with, are you? You’re a friend.’ She let out another whistle of air. ‘It was Brian’s notebook. Nothing official, this was stuff he was looking into on his own.

Rebus, wary of waking anyone, led her out of the ward. ‘A diary?’ he asked.

‘Not really. It was just that sometimes he used to hear rumours, bits of pub gossip. He’d write them down in the black book. Then he might take things further. It was sort of a hobby with him, but maybe he thought it was also a way to an early promotion. I don’t know. We used to argue about that, too. I was hardly seeing him, he was so busy.’

Rebus was staring at the wall of the corridor. The overhead lighting stung his eyes. He’d never heard Holmes mention any kind of notebook.

‘What about it?’

Nell was shaking her head. ‘It was just something he said, something before w…’ Her hand went to her mouth, as though she were about to cry. ‘Before we split up.’

‘What was it, Nell?’

‘I’m not sure exactly.’ Her eyes met Rebus’s. ‘I just know Brian was scared, and I’d never seen him scared before.’

‘Scared of what?’

She shrugged. ‘Something in the book.’ Then she shook her head again. ‘I’m not sure what. I can’t help feelin…feeling I’m somehow responsible. If we’d neve…’

Rebus pulled her to him again. ‘There there, pet. It’s not your fault.’

‘But it is! It is!’

‘No it isn’t.’ Rebus made his voice sound determined. ‘Now, tell me, where did Brian keep this wee black book of his?’

About his person, was the answer. Brian Holmes’ clothes and possessions had been removed when the ambulance delivered him to the Infirmary.

But Rebus’s ID was enough to gain access to the hospital’s property department, even at this grim hour. He plucked the notebook out of an A4 envelope’s worth of belongings, and had a look at the other contents. Wallet, diary, ID. Watch, keys, small change. Stuff without personality, now that it had been separated from its owner, but strengthening Rebus’s conviction that this was no mere mugging.

Nell had gone home still crying, leaving no message to be passed along to Brian. All Rebus knew was that she suspected the beating was something to do with the notebook. And maybe she was right. He sat in the corridor outside Holmes’ ward, sipping water and skipping through the cheap leatherette book. Holmes had employed a kind of shorthand, but the code was not nearly complex enough to puzzle another copper. Much of the information had come from a single night and a single action: the night an animal rights group had broken into Fettes HQ’s records room. Amongst other things, they’d uncovered evidence of a rent-boy scandal among Edinburgh’s most respectable citizens. This didn’t come as news to John Rebus, but some other entries were intriguing, and especially the one referring to the Central Hotel.

The Central Hotel had been an Edinburgh institution until five years ago, when it had been razed to the ground. An insurance scam was rumoured, and?5,000 had been hoisted by the insurance company involved as a reward for proof that just such a scam had really taken place. But the reward had gone uncollected.

The hotel had once been a traveller’s paradise. It was sited on Princes Street, no distance at all from Waverley Station, and so had become a travelling businessman’s home-from-home. But in its latter years, the Central had seen business decline. And as genuine business declined, so disingenuous business took over. It was no real secret that the Central’s stuffy rooms could be hired by the hour or the afternoon. Room service would provide a bottle of champagne and as much talcum powder as any room’s tenants required.

In other words, the Central had become a knocking-shop, and by no means a subtle one. It also catered to the town’s shadier elements in all shapes and forms. Wedding parties and stag nights were held for a spread of the city’s villains, and underage drinkers could loll in the lounge bar for hours, safe in the knowledge that no honest copper would stray inside the doors. Familiarity bred further contempt, and the lounge bar started to be used for drug deals, and other even less savoury deals too, so that the Central Hotel became something more than a mere knocking-shop. It turned into a swamp.

A swamp with an eviction order over its head.

The police couldn’t turn a blind eye forever and a day, especially when complaints from the public were rising by the month. And the more trash was introduced to the Central, the more trash was produced by the place. Until almost no real drinkers went there at all. If you ventured into the Central, you were looking for a woman, cheap drugs, or a fight. And God help you if you weren’t.

Then, as had to happen, one night the Central burnt down. This came as no surprise to anyone; so much so