Beggars Banquet

‘What about the other radio stations? They can’t be too thrilled about your ratings.’

Her laughter was loud. ‘You think they’ve put out a contract on me, is that it?’

Rebus smiled and shrugged. ‘Just a thought. But yours is the most popular show Lowland has got, isn’t it?’

‘I think I’m still just about ahead of Hamish, yes. But then Hamish’s show is just… well, Hamish. My show’s all about the people themselves, the ones who call in. Human interest, you could say.’

‘And there’s plenty of interest.’

‘Suffering is always interesting, isn’t it? It appeals to the voyeur. We do get our fair share of crank calls. Maybe that’s why. All those lonely, slightly deranged people out there… listening to me. Me, pretending I’ve got all the answers.’ Her smile this time was rueful. ‘The calls recently have been getting… I don’t know whether to say “better” or “worse”. Worse problems, better radio.’

‘Better for your ratings, you mean?’

‘Most advertisers ignore the late-night slots. That’s common knowledge. Not a big enough audience. But it’s never been a problem on my show. We did slip back for a little while, but the figures picked up again. Up and up and up… Don’t ask me what sort of listeners we’re attracting. I leave all that to market research.’

Rebus finished his coffee and clasped both knees, preparing to rise. ‘I’d like to take the tape with me, is that possible?’

‘Sure.’ She ejected the tape.

‘And I’d like to have a word with… Sue, is it?’

She checked her watch. ‘Sue, yes, but she won’t be in for a few hours yet. Night shift, you see. Only us poor disc jockeys have to be here twenty-four hours. I exaggerate, but it feels like it sometimes.’ She patted a tray on the ledge beside the cassette player. The tray was filled with correspondence. ‘Besides, I have my fan mail to deal with.’

Rebus nodded, glanced at the cassette tape he was now holding. ‘Let me have a think about this, Miss Cook. I’ll see what we can do.’

‘OK, Inspector.’

‘Sorry I can’t be more constructive. You were quite right to contact us.’

‘I didn’t suppose there was much you could-’

‘We don’t know that yet. As I say, give me a little time to think about it.’

She rose from her chair. ‘I’ll see you out. This place is a maze, and we can’t have you stumbling in on the Afternoon Show, can we? You might end up doing your Laughing Policeman routine after all…’

As they were walking down the long, hushed corridor, Rebus saw two men in conversation at the bottom of the stairwell. One was a beefy, hearty-looking man with a mass of rumpled hair and a good growth of beard. His cheeks seemed veined with blood. The other man proved a significant contrast, small and thin with slicked-back hair. He wore a grey suit and white shirt, the latter offset by a bright red paisley-patterned tie.

‘Ah,’ said Pe

Well, Rebus had no trouble deciding which man was which. Except that, when Pe

‘I hope you’re going to be able to help, Inspector. There are some sick minds out there.’ This was Gordon Prentice. He wore baggy brown cords and an open-necked shirt from which protruded tufts of wiry hair. Hamish MacDiarmid’s hand, when Rebus took it, was limp and cool, like something lifted from a larder. No matter how hard he tried, Rebus couldn’t match this… for want of a better word, yuppie… couldn’t match him to the combative voice. But then MacDiarmid spoke.

‘Sick minds is right, and stupid minds too. I don’t know which is worse, a deranged audience or an educationally subnormal one.’ He turned to Pe

Prentice chuckled and placed a hand on the shoulder of both his star DJs. ‘I’ll give it some thought, Hamish. Pe

Pe

‘Those two,’ she hissed. ‘Sometimes they act like I’m not even there! Men…’ She glanced towards Rebus. ‘Present company excluded, of course.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

‘I shouldn’t be so hard on Gordon actually. I know I joke about being here twenty-four hours a day, but I really think he does spend all day and all night at the station. He’s here from early morning, but each night he comes into the studio to listen to a bit of my show. Beyond the call of duty, wouldn’t you say?’

Rebus merely shrugged.

‘I bet,’ she went on, ‘when you saw them you thought it was Hamish with the beard.’

Rebus nodded. She giggled. ‘Everybody does,’ she said. ‘Nobody’s what they seem in this place. I’ll let you into a secret. The station doesn’t keep any publicity shots of Hamish. They’re afraid it would hurt his image if everyone found out he looks like a wimp.’

‘He’s certainly not quite what I expected.’

She gave him an ambiguous look. ‘No, well, you’re not quite what I was expecting either.’ There was a moment’s stillness between them, broken only by some coffee commercial being broadcast from the ceiling: ‘… but Camelot Coffee is no myth, and mmm… it tastes so good.’ They smiled at one another and walked on.

Driving back into Edinburgh, Rebus listened, despite himself, to the drivel on Lowland Radio. Advertising was tight, he knew that. Maybe that was why he seemed to hear the same dozen or so adverts over and over again. Lots of airtime to fill and so few advertisers to fill it…

‘… and mmm… it tastes so good.’

That particular advert was begi

‘Was Camelot a myth or is it real? Arthur and Guinevere, Merlin and Lancelot. A dream, or-’

Rebus switched off the radio. ‘It’s only a jar of bloody coffee,’ he told his radio set. Yes, he thought, a jar of coffee… and mmm… it tastes so good. Come to think of it, he needed coffee for the flat. He’d stop off at the corner shop, and whatever he bought it wouldn’t be Camelot.

But, as a promotional gimmick, there was a fifty-pence refund on Camelot, so Rebus did buy it, and sat at home that evening drinking the vile stuff and listening to Pe

You’re not quite what I was expecting.

Was he reading too much into that one sentence? Maybe he was. Well, put it another way then: he had a duty to return to Lowland Radio, a duty to talk to Sue. He wound the tape back for the umpteenth time. That ferocious voice. Sue had been surprised by its ferocity, hadn’t she? The man had seemed so quiet, so polite in their initial conversation. Rebus was stuck. Maybe the caller would simply get fed up. When it was a question of someone’s home being called, there were steps you could take: have someone intercept all calls, change the person’s number and keep it ex-directory. But Pe