‘Maybe it’s just his routine.’
‘Like your “Ice Maiden”?’
‘And your Mr Angry.’
Rebus winked and tipped his glass to his mouth. She’d noticed before how he opened his mouth when he drank — as if attacking the liquid, showing it his teeth. ‘Want another?’ she asked.
‘Trying to postpone the evil moment?’ he teased. ‘Well, why not? Got to be cheaper here than there.’
She brought the drinks through. ‘How did it go at Whitemire?’
‘As well as could be expected. Ellen Wylie went off on one.’ He described the visit, ending with Wylie and the guard. ‘Why do you think she did that?’
‘Innate sense of injustice?’ Siobhan suggested. ‘Maybe she comes from immigrant stock.’
‘Like me, you mean?’
‘I seem to remember you telling me you came from Poland.’
‘Not me: my grandad.’
‘You probably still have family there.’
‘Christ knows.’
‘Well, don’t forget I’m an immigrant, too. Parents both English... brought up south of the border.’
‘You were born here, though.’
‘And whisked away again before I was out of nappies.’
‘Still makes you Scottish — stop trying to wriggle out of it.’
‘I’m just saying...’
‘We’re a mongrel nation, always have been. Settled by the Irish, raped and pillaged by the Vikings. When I was a kid, all the chip shops seemed to be run by Italians. Classmates with Polish and Russian surnames...’ He stared into his glass. ‘I don’t remember anyone getting stabbed because of it.’
‘You grew up in a village, though.’
‘So?’
‘So maybe Knoxland’s different, that’s all I’m saying.’
He nodded agreement with this, finished his drink. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.
‘I’ve still got half a glass.’
‘You losing your bottle, DS Clarke?’
A complaint sounded in her throat, but she got to her feet anyway.
‘You been to one of these places before?’
‘Couple of times,’ he admitted. ‘Stag nights.’
They’d parked the car on Bread Street, outside one of the city’s more chic hotels. Rebus wondered what visitors thought, stepping out of their suite and into the pubic triangle. The area spread from the showbars of Tollcross and Lothian Road to Lady Lawson Street. Bars advertised the ‘biggest jugs’ in town, ‘VIP table-dancing’, and ‘non-stop action’. There was just the one discreet sex shop as yet, and no sign that any of Leith’s street-walkers had taken up residence.
‘Takes me back a bit,’ Rebus admitted. ‘You weren’t here in the seventies, were you? Go-go dancers in the pubs at lunchtime... a blue cinema near the university...’
‘Glad to hear you so nostalgic,’ Siobhan said coolly.
Their destination was a refurbished pub just across the road from a disused shop. Rebus could recall several of its previous names: The Laurie Tavern, The Wheaten Inn, The Snakepit. But now it was The Nook. A sign on its large blacked-out window proclaimed it ‘Your First Nookie Stop In The City’, and offered ‘immediate gold-status membership’. There were two bouncers guarding the door from drunks and undesirables. Both were overweight and shaven-headed. They wore identical charcoal suits and black open-necked shirts, and sported earpieces to alert them to any trouble inside.
‘Tweedledum and Tweedledumber,’ Siobhan said under her breath. They were staring at her rather than Rebus, women not being the Nook’s target demographic.
‘Sorry, no couples,’ one of them said.
‘Hiya, Bob,’ Rebus replied. ‘How long you been out?’
The bouncer took a moment to place him. ‘You’re looking well, Mr Rebus.’
‘So are you: must’ve been using the gym at Saughton.’ Rebus turned to Siobhan. ‘Let me introduce Bob Dodds. Bob was doing six for a fairly major assault.’
‘Reduced on appeal,’ Dodds added. ‘And the bastard deserved it.’
‘He’d dumped your sister... that was it, wasn’t it? You went for him with a baseball bat and a Stanley knife. And here you are, large as life.’ Rebus smiled broadly. ‘And performing a useful function in society.’
‘You’re a cop?’ the other bouncer finally twigged.
‘Me too,’ Siobhan told him. ‘And that means, couples or no couples, we’re going in.’
‘You want to see the manager?’ Dodds asked.
‘That’s the general idea.’
Dodds reached into his jacket and produced a walkie-talkie. ‘Door to office.’
There was some static, then a crackled reply. ‘What the fuck is it now?’
‘Two police officers to see you.’
‘They after a bung or what?’
Rebus took the walkie-talkie from Dodds. ‘We just want a quiet word, sir. If you’re offering to bribe us, however, that’s something we’ll have to discuss down the station...’
‘It was a joke, for Christ’s sake. Get Bob to bring you in.’
Rebus handed back the walkie-talkie. ‘I guess that makes us gold-status members,’ he said.
Through the door, there was a thin partition wall, built to stop anyone from outside being able to scope the place out before parting with the admission price. The reception desk consisted of a middle-aged woman with an old-fashioned cash register. The carpeting was crimson and purple, the walls black, with tiny lighting filaments whose purpose was either to resemble the night sky or deter drinkers from a detailed study of the bar prices and measures. The bar itself was much as Rebus remembered it from Laurie Tavern days. There was no draught beer, however, just the more profitable bottled variety. A small stage had been constructed in the centre of the room, two shiny silver poles stretching from it to the ceiling. A young, dark-skinned woman was dancing to an over-amplified instrumental, watched by maybe half a dozen men. Siobhan noticed that she kept her eyes shut throughout, concentrating on the music. Two more men were seated on a nearby sofa, while another woman danced topless between them. An arrow pointed the way to a ‘Private VIP Booth’, shielded by black drapes from the rest of the room. Three suited businessmen sat on stools at the bar, sharing a bottle of champagne.
‘It livens up later on,’ Dodds told Rebus. ‘Place is mental at the weekend...’ He led them across the floor, stopping at a door marked ‘Private’ and punching numbers into the keypad alongside. He pushed the door open and nodded them through.
They were in a short, narrow hallway with a door at its end. Dodds knocked and waited.
‘If you must!’ the voice called from the other side. Rebus motioned with his head to tell Dodds they could manage without him from here on. Then he turned the handle.
The office was not much bigger than a boxroom, and what space there was had been filled almost to capacity. Shelves groaned under paperwork and bits and pieces of discarded equipment — everything from a disconnected beer pump to a golfball typewriter. Magazines were stacked on the linoleum floor: trade mags mostly. The bottom half of a water cooler had become a support for shrink-wrapped collections of beer mats. A venerable-looking green safe stood open, to reveal boxes of drinking straws and packs of paper napkins. There was a tiny barred window behind the desk, which Rebus guessed would give a minimum of natural light in daytime. The available wall space was filled with framed cuttings from newspapers: paparazzi-style pics of men exiting the Nook. Rebus recognised a couple of footballers whose careers had stalled.
The man seated at the desk was in his thirties. He wore a tight white T-shirt, giving definition to his muscular torso and arms. The face was tanned, the cropped hair jet black. No jewellery, other than a gold watch with more dials than necessary. His blue eyes shone, even in this room’s dim wattage. ‘Stuart Bullen,’ he said, reaching out a hand without bothering to stand.