Beggars Banquet

They’d built new roads since Rebus’s last visit, and knocked down a few more landmarks, but the place didn’t feel so very different from thirty-odd years before. It wasn’t such a great span of time after all, except in human terms; maybe not even then. Entering Cardenden – Bowhill had disappeared from road signs in the 1960s, even if locals still knew it as a village distinct from its neighbour – Rebus slowed to see if the memories would turn out sweet or sour. Then he caught sight of a Chinese takeaway and thought: both, of course.

Brian and Janis Mee’s house was easy enough to find: they were standing by the gate waiting for him. Rebus had been born in a prefab but brought up in a house just like the one he now parked in front of. Brian Mee practically opened the car door for him, and was trying to shake his hand while Rebus was still emerging from his seat.

‘Let the man catch his breath!’ Janis Mee snapped. She was still standing by the gate, arms folded. ‘How have you been, Joh

And Rebus realised that Brian Mee had married Janis Playfair, the only girl in his long and trouble-strewn life who’d ever managed to knock him unconscious.

The narrow, low-ceilinged living-room was full to bursting – not just Rebus and Janis and Brian, but Brian’s mother and Mr and Mrs Playfair. Introductions had to be made, and Rebus guided to ‘the seat by the fire’. The room was overheated. A pot of tea was produced, and on the table by Rebus’s armchair sat enough slices of cake to feed a football crowd.

‘He’s a brainy one,’ Janis’s mother said, handing Rebus a framed photo of Damon Mee. ‘Plenty of certificates from school. Works hard. Saving up to get married. The date’s set for next August.’

The photo showed a smiling imp, not long out of school. ‘Have you got anything more recent?’

Janis handed him a packet of snapshots. ‘From last summer.’

Rebus went through them slowly. It saved having to look at the faces around him. He felt like a doctor, expected to produce an immediate diagnosis and remedy. The photos showed a man in his early twenties, still retaining the impish smile but recognisably older. Not careworn exactly, but with something behind the eyes, some disenchantment with adulthood. A few of the photos showed Damon’s parents.

‘We all went together,’ Brian explained. ‘Janis’s mum and dad, my mum, Helen and her parents.’

Beaches, a big white hotel, poolside games. ‘Where is it?’

‘Lanzarote,’ Janis said, handing him his tea. In a few of the pictures she was wearing a bikini – good body for her age, or any age come to that. He tried not to linger.

‘Can I keep a couple of the close-ups?’ he asked. Janis looked at him. ‘Of Damon.’ She nodded and he put the other photos back in their packet.

‘We’re really grateful,’ someone said. Janis’s mum? Brian’s? Rebus couldn’t tell.

‘Does Helen live locally?’

‘Practically round the corner.’

‘I’d like to talk to her.’

‘I’ll give her a bell,’ Brian Mee said, leaping to his feet.

‘Damon had been drinking in some club?’

‘Guisers,’ Janis said, handing round cigarettes. ‘It’s in Kirkcaldy.’

‘On the Prom?’

She shook her head, looking just the same as she had that night of the school dance… shaking her head, telling him so far and no further. ‘In the town. It used to be a department store.’

‘It’s really called Gaitanos,’ Mr Playfair said. Rebus remembered him, too. He was an old man now.

‘Where does Damon work?’ Careful to stick to the present tense.

Brian Mee came back into the room. ‘Same place I do. I managed to get him a job in packaging. He’s been learning the ropes; it’ll be management soon.’

Working-class nepotism; jobs handed down from father to son. Rebus was surprised it still existed.

‘Helen’ll be here in a minute,’ Brian added.

‘Are you not eating any cake, Inspector?’ said Mrs Playfair.

Helen Cousins hadn’t been able to add much to Rebus’s picture of Damon, and hadn’t been there the night he’d vanished. But she’d introduced him to someone who had, Andy Peters. Andy had been part of the group at Gaitanos. There’d been four of them. They’d been in the same year at school and still met up once or twice a week, sometimes to watch Raith Rovers if the weather was decent and the mood took them, other times for an evening session in a pub or club. It was only their third or fourth visit to Guisers.

Rebus thought of paying the club a visit, but knew he should talk to the local cops first, and decided that it could all wait until morning. He knew he was jumping through hoops. He didn’t expect to find anything the locals had missed. At best, he could reassure the family that everything possible had been done.

Next morning he made a few phone calls from his office, trying to find someone who could be bothered to answer some casual questions from an Edinburgh colleague. He had one ally – Detective Sergeant Hendry at Dunfermline CID – but only reached him at the third attempt. He asked Hendry for a favour, then put the phone down and got back to his own work. But it was hard to concentrate. He kept thinking about Bowhill and about Janis Mee, née Playfair. Which led him – eventually – guiltily – to thoughts of Damon. Younger runaways tended to take the same route: by bus or train or hitching, and to London, Newcastle, Edinburgh or Glasgow. There were organisations who would keep an eye open for runaways, and even if they wouldn’t always reveal their whereabouts to the anxious families, at least they could confirm that someone was alive and unharmed.

But a twenty-three-year-old, someone a bit ca

The manager at first insisted that he’d need something in writing, but relented when Rebus promised to fax him later. Rebus held while the manager went off to check, and had doodled half a village, complete with stream, parkland and school, by the time the man came back.

‘The most recent withdrawal was from a cash machine in Kirkcaldy. One hundred pounds on the twenty-second.’

‘What time?’

‘I’ve no way of knowing.’

‘No other withdrawals since then?’

‘No.’

‘How up-to-date is that information?’

‘Very. Of course a cheque – especially if post-dated – would take longer to show up.’

‘Could you keep tabs on that account, let me know if anyone starts using it again?’

‘I could, but I’d need it in writing, and I might also need Head Office approval.’

‘Well, see what you can do, Mr Brayne.’

‘It’s Bain,’ the bank manager said coldly, putting down the phone.

DS Hendry didn’t get back to him until late afternoon.

‘Gaitanos,’ Hendry said. ‘I don’t know the place personally. Locals call it Guisers. It’s a pretty choice establishment. Two stabbings last year, one inside the club itself, the other in the back alley where the owner parks his Merc. Local residents are always girning about the noise when the place lets out.’

‘What’s the owner’s name?’

‘Charles Mackenzie, nicknamed “Charmer”. He seems to be clean. A couple of uniforms talked to him about Damon Mee, but there was nothing to tell. Know how many missing persons there are every year? They’re not exactly a white-hot priority. God knows there are times I’ve felt like doing a ru

‘Haven’t we all? Did the woolly suits talk to anyone else at the club?’

‘Such as?’

‘Bar staff, punters.’

‘No. Someone did take a look at the security video for the night Damon was there, but they didn’t see anything.’