Beggars Banquet

‘Maybe he can’t,’ said Rebus, making for the door.

He returned to the surveillance that evening, taking someone with him. There’d been a bit of difficulty, getting things arranged. Nobody was keen for him to walk out of the station with Bernie Few. But Rebus would assume full responsibility.

‘Damned right you will,’ said his boss, signing the form.

Jamphlar and Co

‘What’s this I hear?’ Cooper said, opening the door to Rebus and his companion.

‘About Ribs?’

‘No,’ said Cooper, ‘about you bringing the day shift a selection of patisseries.’

‘Come and take a look,’ Sneddon called. Rebus walked over to the window. The light was on in Ribs’s living-room, and the blinds weren’t shut. Ribs had opened the window and was looking down on to the night-time street, enjoying a cigarette. ‘See?’ Sneddon said.

‘I see,’ said Rebus. Then he turned to Bernie Few. ‘Come over here, Bernie.’ Few came shuffling over to the window, and Rebus explained the whole thing to him. Bernie thought about it, rasping a hand over his chin, then asked the same questions Rebus had earlier asked Jamphlar and Co

‘You keep an eye on the second-floor window?’ he asked Cooper.

‘That’s right.’

‘And the main door?’

‘Yes.’

‘You ever think of looking anywhere else?’

Cooper didn’t get it. Neither did Sneddon.

‘Go on, Bernie,’ said Rebus.

‘Look at the top floor,’ Bernie Few suggested. Rebus looked. He saw a cracked and begrimed window, covered with ragged bits of cardboard. ‘Think anyone lives there?’ Bernie asked.

‘What are you saying?’

‘I think he’s done a proper switch on you. Turned the tables, like.’ He smiled. ‘You’re not watching Ribs Mackay. He’s watching you.’

Rebus nodded, quick to get it. ‘The change of shifts.’ Bernie was nodding too. ‘There’s that minute or two when one shift’s going off and the other’s coming on.’

‘A window of opportunity,’ Bernie agreed. ‘He watches, sees the new shift arrive, and skips downstairs and out the door.’

‘And twelve hours later,’ said Rebus, ‘he waits in the street till he sees the next shift clocking on. Then he nips back in.’

Sneddon was shaking his head. ‘But the lights, the telly…’

‘Timer switches,’ Bernie Few answered casually. ‘You think you see people moving about in there. Maybe you do, but not Ribs. Could just be shadows, a breeze blowing the curtains.’

Sneddon frowned. ‘Who are you?’

‘An expert witness,’ Rebus said, patting Bernie Few’s shoulder. Then he turned to Sneddon. ‘I’m going over there. Keep an eye on Bernie here. And I mean keep an eye on him. As in, don’t let him out of your sight.’

Sneddon blinked, then stared at Bernie. ‘You’re Buttery Bernie.’

Bernie shrugged, accepting the nickname. Rebus was already leaving.

He went to the bar at the street’s far corner and ordered a whisky. He sluiced his mouth out with the stuff, so that it would be heavy on his breath, then came out of the bar and weaved his way towards Ribs Mackay’s tenement, just another soak trying to find his way home. He tugged his jacket over to one side, and undid a couple of buttons on his shirt. He could do this act. Sometimes he did it too well. He got drunk on the method.

He pushed open the tenement door and was in a dimly lit hallway, with worn stone steps curving up. He grasped the banister and started to climb. He didn’t even pause at the second floor, but he could hear music from behind Ribs’s door. And he saw the door was reinforced, just the kind dealers fitted. It gave them those vital extra seconds when the drug squad came calling, sledgehammers and axes their invitations. Seconds were all you needed to flush evidence away, or to swallow it. These days, prior to a house raid, the drugs squad opened up the sewers and had a man stationed there, ready for the flush…

On the top-floor landing, Rebus paused for breath. The door facing him looked hard done by, scarred and chipped and beaten. The nameplate had been hauled off, leaving deep screw holes in the wood. Rebus knocked on the door, ready with excuses and his drunk’s head-down stance. He waited, but there was no answer. He listened, then put his eyes to the letterbox. Darkness. He tried the door handle. It turned, and the door swung inwards. When he thought about it, an unlocked door made sense. Ribs would need to come and go in a hurry, and locks took time.

Rebus stepped quietly into the short hallway. Some of the interior doors were open, bringing with them chinks of streetlight. The place smelt musty and damp, and it was cold. There was no furniture, and the wallpaper had peeled from the walls. Long strips now lay in wrinkled piles, like an old woman’s stockings come to rest at her ankles. Rebus walked on tiptoe. He didn’t know how good the floors were, and he didn’t want anyone below to hear him. He didn’t want Ribs Mackay to hear him.

He went into the living-room. It was identical in shape to the surveillance living-room. There were newspapers on the floor, a carpet rolled up against one wall. Tufts of carpet lay scattered across the floor. Mice had obviously been taking bits for nesting. Rebus went to the window. There was a small gap where two pieces of cardboard didn’t quite meet. Through this gap he had a good view of the surveillance flat. And though the lights were off, the streetlight illuminated the net curtain, so that anyone behind the curtain who moved became a shadow puppet. Someone, Sneddon or Cooper or Bernie Few, was moving just now.

‘You clever little runt,’ Rebus whispered. Then he picked something up off the floor. It was a single-lens reflex camera, with telephoto lens attached. Not the sort of thing you found lying in abandoned flats. He picked it up and focused on the window across the street. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind now. It was so simple. Ribs sneaked up here, watched the surveillance through the telephoto while they thought they were watching him, and at eight o’clock walked smartly out of the tenement and went about his business.

‘You’re as good as gold, Bernie,’ said Rebus. Then he put the camera back just the way he’d found it and tiptoed back through the flat.

‘Where is he?’

Stupid question, considering. Sneddon just shrugged. ‘He had to use the bathroom.’

‘Of course he did,’ said Rebus.

Sneddon led him through to the bathroom. It had a small window high on one wall. The window was open. It led not to the outside, but merely back into the hall near the flat’s stairwell door.

‘He was in here a while, so I came looking. Banged on the door, no answer, managed to force the thing open, but he wasn’t here.’ Sneddon’s face and neck were red with embarrassment; or maybe it was just the exercise. ‘I ran downstairs, but there was no sign of him.’

‘I don’t believe he could have squeezed out of that window,’ Rebus said sceptically. ‘Not even Bernie Few.’ The window was about twelve inches by nine. It could be reached by standing on the rim of the bath, but the walls were white tile, and Rebus couldn’t see any signs of scuff marks. He looked at the toilet. Its lid was down, but didn’t sit level with the pan. Rebus lifted the lid and found himself staring at towels, several of them, stuffed down into the pan.

‘What the…?’ Sneddon couldn’t believe his eyes. But Rebus could. He opened the small airing cupboard beneath the sink. It was empty. A shelf had been lifted out and placed upright in the back of the cupboard. There was just about room inside to make for a hiding place. Rebus smiled at the disbelieving Sneddon.

‘He waited till you’d gone downstairs.’

‘Then what?’ said Sneddon. ‘You mean he’s still in the flat?’