Free A Good Hanging and other Stories by Ian Rankin Page A

bushes and cat-pee.
    How could one cat produce that amount of odour? Rebus had seen it many a time: a fat, smug-looking creature with hard eyes. He’d caught it on his own landing, turning guiltily to look at him before sprinting for the next floor up. But it was inside Mrs Cochrane’s door just now. He could hear it mewling, clawing at the carpet, desperate to be outside. He wondered. Maybe Mrs Cochrane was ill? He’d noticed that recently her brass nameplate had become tarnished. She wasn’t bothering to polish it any more. How old was she anyway? She seemed to have come with the tenement, almost as if they’d constructed the thing around her. Mr and Mrs Costello on the top floor had been here nigh-on twenty-five years, but they said she’d been here when they arrived. Same brass nameplate on her door. Different cat, of course, and a husband, too. Well, he’d been dead by the time Rebus and his wife - now ex-wife - had moved here, what, was it ten years ago now?
    Getting old, John. Getting old. He clamped his left hand onto the bannister and somehow managed the last flight of steps to his door.
    He started a crossword in one of the newspapers, put some jazz on the hi-fi, drank a pot of tea. Just another Sunday. Day of rest. But he kept catching glimpses of the week ahead. No good. He made another pot of tea and this time added a dollop of J&B to the mixture in his mug. Better. And then, naturally, the doorbell rang.
    Jehovah’s Witnesses. Well, Rebus had an answer ready for them. A friend in the know had said that Roman Catholics are taught how to counter the persuasive arguments of the JWs. Just tell them you’re a Catholic and they’ll go away.
    ‘I’m Catholic,’ he said. They didn’t go away. There were two of them, dressed in dark suits. The younger one stood a little behind the older one. This didn’t matter, since he was a good foot taller than his elder. He was holding a briefcase. The chief, however, held only a piece of paper. He was frowning, glancing towards this. He looked at Rebus, sizing him up, then back to the paper. He didn’t appear to have heard what Rebus said.
    ‘I’m Catholic,’ Rebus repeated, but hollowly.
    The man shook his head. Maybe they were foreign missionaries, come to convert the heathen. He consulted his scrap of paper again.
    ‘I think this is the wrong address,’ he said. ‘There isn’t a Mr Bakewell here?’
    ‘Bakewell?’ Rebus started to relax. A simple mistake; they weren’t JWs. They weren’t salesmen or cowboy builders or tinkers. Simply, they’d got the wrong flat. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No Mr Bakewell here. And his tart’s not here either.’
    Oh, they laughed at that. Laughed louder than Rebus had expected. They were still laughing as they made their apologies and started back downstairs. Rebus watched them until they were out of sight. He’d stopped laughing almost before they’d begun. He checked that his keys were in his pocket, then slammed shut his door - but with himself still out on the landing.
    Their footsteps sent sibilant echoes up towards the skylight. What was it about them? If pressed, he couldn’t have said. There was just something. The way the smaller, older man had seemed to weigh him up in a moment, then mentioned Bakewell. The way the younger man had laughed so heartily, as if it were such a release. A release of what? Tension, obviously.
    The footsteps had stopped. Outside Mrs Cochrane’s door. Yes, that was the ting-ting-ting of her antiquated doorbell, the kind you pulled, tightening and releasing the spring on a bell inside the door. The door which was now being pulled open. The older man spoke.
    ‘Mrs Cochrane?’ Well, they’d got that name right. But then it was on her nameplate, wasn’t it? Anyone could have guessed at it.
    ‘Aye.’ Mrs Cochrane, Rebus knew, was not unique in making this sound not only questioning but like a whole sentence. Yes, I’m Mrs Cochrane, and who might you be and what do you