Beggars Banquet

‘Do you know, Brian,’ Rebus began, ‘in all the years I’ve been in Edinburgh, I’ve never been called to any sort of a crime on this street.’ He slapped the steering-wheel for emphasis. ‘Not once.’

‘Maybe they should put up a plaque,’ suggested Holmes.

Rebus almost smiled. ‘Maybe they should.’

‘Is that why we’re sitting here? You want to break your duck?’ Holmes glanced into the tea-shop window, then away again quickly licking dry lips. ‘It might take a while, you know,’ he said.

‘It might, Brian. But then again…’

Rebus tapped out a tattoo on the steering-wheel. Holmes was begi

‘What’s the longest time you’ve been on a stake-out?’ he asked, making conversation.

‘A week,’ said Rebus. ‘Protection racket run from a pub down near Powderhall. It was a joint operation with Trading Standards. We spent five days pretending to be on the broo, playing pool all day.’

‘Did you get a result?’

‘We beat them at pool,’ Rebus said.

There was a yell from a shop doorway, just as a young man was sprinting across the road in front of their car. The young man was carrying a black metal box. The person who’d called out did so again.

‘Stop him! Thief! Stop him!’

The man in the shop doorway was waving, pointing towards the sprinter. Holmes looked towards Rebus, seemed about to say something, but decided against it. ‘Come on then!’ he said.

Rebus started the car’s engine, signalled, and moved out into the traffic. Holmes was focusing through the windscreen. ‘I can see him. Put your foot down!’

‘ “Put your foot down, sir ”,’ Rebus said calmly. ‘Don’t worry, Brian.’

‘Hell, he’s turning into Randolph Place.’

Rebus signalled again, brought the car across the oncoming traffic, and turned into the dead end that was Randolph Place. Only, while it was a dead end for cars, there were pedestrian passages either side of West Register House. The young man, carrying the narrow box under his arm, turned into one of the passages. Rebus pulled to a halt. Holmes had the car door open before it had stopped, and leapt out, ready to follow on foot.

‘Cut him off!’ he yelled, meaning for Rebus to drive back on to Queensferry Street, around Hope Street and into Charlotte Square, where the passage emerged.

‘ “Cut him off, sir ”,’ mouthed Rebus.

He did a careful three-point turn, and just as carefully moved back out into traffic held to a crawl by traffic lights. By the time he reached Charlotte Square and the front of West Register House, Holmes was shrugging his shoulders and flapping his arms. Rebus pulled to a stop beside him.

‘Did you see him?’ Holmes asked, getting into the car.

‘No.’

‘Where have you been anyway?’

‘A red light.’

Holmes looked at him as though he were mad. Since when had Inspector John Rebus stopped for a red light? ‘Well, I’ve lost him anyway.’

‘Not your fault, Brian.’

Holmes looked at him again. ‘Right,’ he agreed. ‘So, back to the shop? What was it anyway?’

‘Hi-fi shop, I think.’

Holmes nodded as Rebus moved off again into the traffic. Yes, the box had the look of a piece of hi-fi, some slim rack component. They’d find out at the shop. But instead of doing a circuit of Charlotte Square to take them back into Queensferry Street, Rebus signalled along George Street. Holmes, still catching his breath, looked around disbelieving.

‘Where are we going?’

‘I thought you were fed up with Queensferry Street. We’re going back to the station.’

‘ What? ’

‘Back to the station.’

‘But what about-?’

‘Relax, Brian. You’ve got to learn not to fret so much.’

Holmes examined his superior’s face. ‘You’re up to something,’ he said at last.

Rebus turned and smiled. ‘Took you long enough,’ he said.

But whatever it was, Rebus wasn’t telling. Back at the station, he went straight to the main desk.

‘Any robberies, Alec?’

The desk officer had a few. The most recent was a snatch at a specialist hi-fi shop.

‘We’ll take that,’ said Rebus. The desk officer blinked.

‘It’s not much, sir. Just a single item, thief did a ru

‘Nevertheless, Alec,’ said Rebus. ‘A crime has been committed, and it’s our duty to investigate it.’ He turned to head back out to the car.

‘Is he all right?’ Alec asked Holmes.

Holmes was begi

‘A cassette deck,’ the proprietor explained. ‘Nice model, too. Not top of the range, but nice. Top-of-the-range stuff isn’t kept out on the shop floor. We keep it in the demonstration rooms.’

Holmes was looking at the shelf where the cassette deck had rested. There were other decks either side of the gap, more expensive decks at that.

‘Why would he choose that one?’ Holmes asked.

‘Eh?’

‘Well, it’s not the dearest, is it? And it’s not even the closest to the door.’

The dealer shrugged. ‘Kids these days, who can tell?’ His thick hair was still tousled from where he had stood in the Queensferry Street wind-tu

‘I take it you’ve got insurance, Mr Wardle?’ The question came from Rebus, who was standing in front of a row of loudspeakers.

‘Christ yes, and it costs enough.’ Wardle shrugged. ‘Look, it’s okay. I know how it works. Points system, right? Anything under a four-point crime, and you lads don’t bother. You just fill out the forms so I can claim from the insurance. What does this rate? One point? Two at the most?’

Rebus blinked, perhaps stu

‘You’ve got the serial number, Mr Wardle,’ he said at last. ‘That’ll give us a start. Then a description of the thief – that’s more than we usually get in cases of shop-snatching. Meantime, you might move your stock a bit further back from the door and think about a common chain or circuit alarm so they can’t be taken off their shelves. Okay?’

Wardle nodded.

‘And be thankful,’ mused Rebus. ‘After all, it could’ve been worse. It could have been a ram-raider.’ He picked up a CD case from where it sat on top of a machine: Mantovani and his Orchestra. ‘Or even a critic,’ said Rebus.

Back at the station, Holmes sat fuming like a readying volcano. Or at least like a tin of something flammable left for too long in the sun.

Whatever Rebus was up to, as per usual he wasn’t saying. It infuriated Holmes. Now Rebus was off at a meeting in the Chief Super’s office: nothing very important, just routine… like the snatch at the hi-fi shop.

Holmes played the scene through in his mind. The stationary car, causing an obstruction to the already slow movement of traffic. Then Wardle’s cry, and the youth ru

And carrying a hi-fi component that was neither the easiest piece in the shop to steal, nor the dearest. Wardle had seemed relaxed about the whole affair. The insurance would cover it. An insurance scam: was that it? Was Rebus working on some insurance diddle on the q.t., maybe as a favour to some investigator from the Pru? Holmes hated the way his superior worked, like a greedy if talented footballer hogging the ball, dribbling past man after man, getting himself trapped beside the by-line but still refusing to pass the ball. Holmes had known a boy at school like that. One day, fed up, Holmes had scythed the smart-arse down, even though they’d been on the same side…