Beggars Banquet

‘Clone Stevie Scoular half a dozen times.’

There were murmurs of agreement, and then the Farmer put his head around the door.

‘John, my office.’

The Farmer – Chief Superintendent Watson to his face – was pouring a mug of coffee from his machine when Rebus knocked at the open door.

‘Sit down, John.’ Rebus sat. The Farmer motioned with an empty mug, but he turned down the offer and waited for his boss to get to his chair and the point both.

‘My birthday’s coming up,’ the Farmer said. This was a new one on Rebus, who kept quiet. ‘I’d like a present.’

‘Not just a card this year then?’

‘What I want, John, is Topper Hamilton.’

Rebus let that sink in. ‘I thought Topper was Mr Clean these days?’

‘Not in my books.’ The Farmer cupped his hands around his coffee mug. ‘He got a fright last time and, granted, he’s been keeping a low profile, but we both know the best villains have got little or no profile at all.’

‘So what’s he been up to?’

‘I heard a story he’s the sleeping partner in a couple of clubs and casinos. I also hear he bought a taxi firm from Big Ger Cafferty when Big Ger went into Barli

Rebus was thinking back three years to their big push against Topper Hamilton: they’d set up surveillance, used a bit of pressure here and there, got a few people to talk. In the end, it hadn’t so much amounted to a hill of beans as to a fart in an empty can. The procurator fiscal had decided not to proceed to trial. But then God or Fate, call it what you like, had provided a spin to the story. Not a plague of boils or anything for Topper Hamilton, but a nasty little cancer which had given him more grief than the whole of the Lothian and Borders Police. He’d been in and out of hospital, endured chemo and the whole works, and had emerged a more slender figure in every sense.

The Farmer – who’d once settled an office argument by reeling off the books in both Old and New Testaments – wasn’t yet content that God and life had done their worst to Topper, or that retribution had been meted out in some mysterious divine way. He wanted Topper in court, even if they had to wheel him there on a trolley.

It was a personal thing.

‘Last time I looked,’ Rebus said now, ‘it wasn’t illegal to invest in a casino.’

‘It is if your name hasn’t come up during the vetting procedure. Think Topper could get a gaming licence?’

‘Fair point. But I still don’t see-’

‘Something else I heard. You’ve got a snitch works as a croupier.’

‘So?’

‘Same casino Topper has a finger in.’

Rebus saw it all and started shaking his head. ‘I made him a promise. He’ll tell me about punters, but nothing on the management.’

‘And you’d rather keep that promise than give me a birthday present?’

‘A relationship like that… it’s eggshells.’

The Farmer’s eyes narrowed. ‘You think ours isn’t? Talk to him, John. Get him to do some ferreting.’

‘I could lose a good snitch.’

‘Plenty more bigmouths out there.’ The Farmer watched Rebus get to his feet. ‘I was looking for you earlier. You were in the video room.’

‘A missing person.’

‘Suspicious?’

Rebus shrugged. ‘Could be. He went up to the bar for a round of drinks, never came back.’

‘We’ve all done that in our time.’

‘His parents are worried.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Twenty-three.’

The Farmer thought about it. ‘Then what’s the problem?’

Two

The problem was the past. A week before, he’d received a phone call from a ghost.

‘Inspector John Rebus, please.’

‘Speaking.’

‘Oh, hello there. You probably won’t remember me.’ A short laugh. ‘That used to be a bit of a joke at school.’

Rebus, immune to every kind of phone call, had this pegged a crank. ‘Why’s that?’ he asked, wondering which punchline he was walking into.

‘Because it’s my name: Mee.’ The caller spelt it for him. ‘Brian Mee.’

Inside Rebus’s head, a fuzzy photograph took sudden shape – a mouth full of prominent teeth, freckled nose and cheeks, a kitchen-stool haircut. ‘Barney Mee?’ he said.

More laughter on the line. ‘Aye, they used to call me Barney. I’m not sure I ever knew why.’

Rebus could have told him: after Barney Rubble in The Flintstones. He could have added, because you were a dense wee bastard. But instead he asked how this ghost from his past was doing.

‘No’ bad, no’ bad.’ The laugh again; Rebus recognised it now as a sign of nerves.

‘So what can I do for you, Brian?’

‘Well, me and Janis, we thought… Well, it was my mum’s idea actually. She knew your dad. Both my mum and dad knew him, only my dad passed away, like. They all used to drink at the Goth.’

‘Are you still in Bowhill?’

‘Never quite escaped. Ach, it’s all right really. I work in Glenrothes though. Lucky to have a job these days, eh? Mind, you’ve done well for yourself, Joh

‘I prefer John.’

‘I remember you hated it when anyone called you Jock.’ Another wheezing laugh. The photo was even sharper now, bordered with a white edge the way photos always were in the past. A decent footballer, a bit of a terrier, the hair reddish-brown. Dragging his satchel along the ground until the stitching rubbed away. Always with some huge hard sweet in his mouth, crunching down on it, his nose ru

‘So what can I do for you, Brian?’

‘Like I say, it was my mum’s idea. Only, she remembered you were in the police in Edinburgh – saw your name in the paper a while back – and she thought you could maybe help.’

‘With what?’

‘Our son. I mean, mine and Janis’s. He’s called Damon.’

‘What’s he done?’ Rebus thought: something minor, and way outside his territory anyway.

‘He’s vanished.’

‘Run away?’

‘More like in a puff of smoke. He was in this club with his pals, see, and he went-’

‘Have you tried calling the police?’ Rebus caught himself. ‘I mean Fife Constabulary.’

‘Oh aye.’ Mee sounded dismissive. ‘They asked a few questions, like, sniffed around a bit, then said there was nothing they could do. Damon’s twenty-three. They say he’s got a right to bugger off if he wants.’

‘They’ve got a point. People run away all the time, Brian. Girl trouble maybe.’

‘He was engaged.’

‘Maybe he got scared?’

‘Helen’s a lovely girl. Never a raised voice between them.’

‘Did he leave a note?’

‘Nothing. I went through this with the police. He didn’t take any clothes or anything. He didn’t have any reason to go.’

‘So you think something’s happened to him?’

‘I know what those buggers are thinking. They say we should give him another week or so to come back, or at least get in touch, but I know they’ll only start doing something about it when the body turns up.’

Again, Rebus could have confirmed that this was only sensible. Again, he knew Mee wouldn’t want to hear it.

‘The thing is, Brian,’ he said, ‘I work in Edinburgh. Fife’s not my patch. I mean, I can make a couple of phone calls, but it’s hard to know what else to do.’

The voice was close to despair. ‘Well, if you could just do some thing. Like, anything. We’d be very grateful. It would put our minds at rest.’ A pause. ‘My mum always speaks well of your dad. He’s remembered in this town.’

And buried there, too, Rebus thought. He picked up a pen. ‘Give me your phone number, Brian.’ And, almost an afterthought, ‘Better give me the address, too.’

That evening, he drove north out of Edinburgh, paid his toll at the Forth Bridge, and crossed into Fife. It wasn’t as if he never went there – he had a brother in Kirkcaldy. But though they spoke on the phone every month or so, there were seldom visits. He couldn’t think of any other family he still had in Fife. The place liked to call itself ‘the Kingdom’ and there were those who would agree that it was another country, a place with its own linguistic and cultural currency. For such a small place it seemed almost endlessly complex – had seemed that way to Rebus even when he was growing up. To outsiders the place meant coastal scenery and St Andrew’s, or a stretch of motorway between Edinburgh and Dundee, but the west-central Fife of Rebus’s childhood had been very different, ruled by coal mines and linoleum, dockyards and chemical plants, an industrial landscape shaped by basic needs, and producing people who were wary and inward-looking with the blackest humour you’d ever find.