Free Beggars Banquet by Ian Rankin Page A

that?’
    ‘I’m not saying it’s you.’ Paul was staring into Leonard’s eyes. He saw red paint reflected from the walls.
    ‘You’re saying it’s one of us, Paul. The rest of us don’t like that.’
    Leonard took a step forwards. Paul’s hand went to his jacket pocket. Philip was behind him, his arms stretching. Thomas’s hands were fists. Matthew leaned against the door, keeping it closed.
    Outside it was dark, no streetlight, no traffic. You would bet that it couldn’t get any darker, but you’d be wrong. People most often are.

Facing the Music
    AN INSPECTOR REBUS STORY
    An unmarked police car.
    Interesting phrase, that. Inspector John Rebus’s car, punch-drunk and weather-beaten, scarred and mauled, would still merit description as ‘unmarked’, despite the copious evidence to the contrary. Oily-handed mechanics stifled grins whenever he waddled into a forecourt. Garage proprietors adjusted the thick gold rings on their fingers and reached for the calculator.
    Still, there were times when the old war-horse came in handy. It might or might not be ‘unmarked’; unremarkable it certainly was. Even the most cynical law-breaker would hardly expect CID to spend their time sitting around in a breaker’s-yard special. Rebus’s car was a must for undercover work, the only problem coming if the villains decided to make a run for it. Then, even the most elderly and infirm could outpace it.
    ‘But it’s a stayer,’ Rebus would say in mitigation.
    He sat now, the driving-seat so used to his shape that it formed a mould around him, stroking the steering-wheel with his hands. There was a loud sigh from the passenger seat, and Detective Sergeant Brian Holmes repeated his question.
    ‘Why have we stopped?’
    Rebus looked around him. They were parked by the side of Queensferry Street, only a couple of hundred yards from Princes Street’s west end. It was early afternoon, overcast but dry. The gusts of wind blowing in from the Firth of Forth were probably keeping the rain away. The corner of Princes Street, where Fraser’s department store and the Caledonian Hotel tried to outstare one another, caught the winds and whipped them against unsuspecting shoppers, who could be seen, dazed and numb, making their way afterwards along Queensferry Street, in search of coffee and shortcake. Rebus gave the pedestrians a look of pity. Holmes sighed again. He could murder a pot of tea and some fruit scones with butter.
    ‘Do you know, Brian,’ Rebus began, ‘in all the years I’ve been in Edinburgh, I’ve never been called to any sort of a crime on this street.’ He slapped the steering-wheel for emphasis. ‘Not once.’
    ‘Maybe they should put up a plaque,’ suggested Holmes.
    Rebus almost smiled. ‘Maybe they should.’
    ‘Is that why we’re sitting here? You want to break your duck?’ Holmes glanced into the tea-shop window, then away again quickly licking dry lips. ‘It might take a while, you know,’ he said.
    ‘It might, Brian. But then again . . .’
    Rebus tapped out a tattoo on the steering-wheel. Holmes was beginning to regret his own enthusiasm. Hadn’t Rebus tried to deter him from coming out for this drive? Not that they’d driven much. But anything, Holmes reasoned, was better than catching up on paperwork. Well, just about anything.
    ‘What’s the longest time you’ve been on a stake-out?’ he asked, making conversation.
    ‘A week,’ said Rebus. ‘Protection racket run from a pub down near Powderhall. It was a joint operation with Trading Standards. We spent five days pretending to be on the broo, playing pool all day.’
    ‘Did you get a result?’
    ‘We beat them at pool,’ Rebus said.
    There was a yell from a shop doorway, just as a young man was sprinting across the road in front of their car. The young man was carrying a black metal box. The person who’d called out did so again.
    ‘Stop him! Thief ! Stop him!’
    The man in the shop doorway was waving, pointing towards the