Initially, there’d been one man in the flat and one in a car at street level. But the man at street level hadn’t been needed, and looked suspicious anyway. The street was no main thoroughfare, but a conduit between Clerk Street and Buccleuch Street. There were a few shops at road level, but they carried the look of permanent closure.
Connaught glanced up from the window. ‘Afternoon, sir. What brings you here?’
‘Any sign of him?’ Rebus said.
‘Not so much as a tweet.’
‘I reckon I know why that is. Your bird’s already flown.’
‘No chance,’ said Jamphlar, biting into a doughring.
‘I saw him half an hour ago in Scott’s Bar. That’s a fair hike from here.’
‘Must’ve been his double.’
But Rebus shook his head. ‘When was the last time you saw him?’
Jamphlar checked the notebook. ‘We haven’t seen him this shift. But this morning Cooper and Sneddon watched him go to the corner shop and come back. That was seven-fifteen. ’
‘And you come on at eight?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you haven’t seen him since?’
‘There’s someone in there,’ Connaught persisted. ‘I’ve seen movement.’
Rebus spoke slowly. ‘But you haven’t seen Ribs Mackay, and I have. He’s out on the street, doing whatever he does.’ He leaned closer to Connaught. ‘Come on, son, what is it? Been skiving off? Half an hour down the pub, a bit of a thirst-quencher? Catching some kip on the sofa? Looks comfortable, that sofa.’
Jamphlar was trying to swallow a mouthful of dough which had become suddenly dry. ‘We’ve been doing our job!’ he said, spraying crumbs.
Connaught just stared at Rebus with burning eyes. Rebus believed those eyes.
‘All right,’ he conceded, ‘so there’s another explanation. A back exit, a convenient drainpipe.’
‘The back door’s been bricked up,’ Connaught said stiffly. ‘There’s a drainpipe, but Ribs couldn’t manage down it.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I know.’ Connaught stared out through the curtain.
‘Something else then. Maybe he’s using a disguise.’
Jamphlar, still chewing, flicked through the notebook. ‘Everyone who comes out and goes in is checked off.’
‘He’s a druggie,’ said Connaught. ‘He’s not bright enough to fool us.’
‘Well, son, that’s just what he’s doing. You’re watching an empty flat.’
‘TV’s just come on,’ said Connaught. Rebus looked out through the curtain. Sure enough, he could see the animated screen. ‘I hate this programme,’ Connaught muttered. ‘I wish he’d change the channel.’
‘Maybe he can’t,’ said Rebus, making for the door.
He returned to the surveillance that evening, taking someone with him. There’d been a bit of difficulty, getting things arranged. Nobody was keen for him to walk out of the station with Bernie Few. But Rebus would assume full responsibility.
‘Damned right you will,’ said his boss, signing the form.
Jamphlar and Connaught were off, Cooper and Sneddon were on.
‘What’s this I hear?’ Cooper said, opening the door to Rebus and his companion.
‘About Ribs?’
‘No,’ said Cooper, ‘about you bringing the day shift a selection of patisseries.’
‘Come and take a look,’ Sneddon called. Rebus walked over to the window. The light was on in Ribs’s living-room, and the blinds weren’t shut. Ribs had opened the window and was looking down on to the night-time street, enjoying a cigarette. ‘See?’ Sneddon said.
‘I see,’ said Rebus. Then he turned to Bernie Few. ‘Come over here, Bernie.’ Few came shuffling over to the window, and Rebus explained the whole thing to him. Bernie thought about it, rasping a hand over his chin, then asked the same questions Rebus had earlier asked Jamphlar and Connaught. Then he thought about it some more, staring out through the curtain.
‘You keep an eye on the second-floor window?’ he asked Cooper.
‘That’s right.’
‘And the main door?’
‘Yes.’
‘You ever think of looking anywhere else?’
Cooper didn’t get it. Neither did Sneddon.
‘Go on, Bernie,’ said Rebus.
‘Look at the top floor,’ Bernie Few suggested. Rebus looked. He saw a cracked and begrimed window, covered with ragged bits of cardboard. ‘Think anyone lives there?’ Bernie asked.
‘What are you saying?’
‘I think he’s done a proper switch on you. Turned the tables, like.’ He smiled. ‘You’re not watching Ribs Mackay. He’s watching you.’
Rebus nodded, quick to get it. ‘The change of shifts.’ Bernie was nodding too. ‘There’s that minute or two when one shift’s going off and the other’s coming on.’
‘A window of opportunity,’ Bernie agreed. ‘He watches, sees the new shift arrive, and skips downstairs and out the door.’
‘And twelve hours later,’ said Rebus, ‘he waits in the street till he sees the next shift clocking on. Then he nips back in.’
Sneddon was shaking his head. ‘But the lights, the telly…’
‘Timer switches,’ Bernie Few answered casually. ‘You think you see people moving about in there. Maybe you do, but not Ribs. Could just be shadows, a breeze blowing the curtains.’
Sneddon frowned. ‘Who are you?’
‘An expert witness,’ Rebus said, patting Bernie Few’s shoulder. Then he turned to Sneddon. ‘I’m going over there. Keep an eye on Bernie here. And I mean keep an eye on him. As in, don’t let him out of your sight.’
Sneddon blinked, then stared at Bernie. ‘You’re Buttery Bernie.’
Bernie shrugged, accepting the nickname. Rebus was already leaving.
He went to the bar at the street’s far corner and ordered a whisky. He sluiced his mouth out with the stuff, so that it would be heavy on his breath, then came out of the bar and weaved his way towards Ribs Mackay’s tenement, just another soak trying to find his way home. He tugged his jacket over to one side, and undid a couple of buttons on his shirt. He could do this act. Sometimes he did it too well. He got drunk on the method.
He pushed open the tenement door and was in a dimly lit hallway, with worn stone steps curving up. He grasped the banister and started to climb. He didn’t even pause at the second floor, but he could hear music from behind Ribs’s door. And he saw the door was reinforced, just the kind dealers fitted. It gave them those vital extra seconds when the drug squad came calling, sledgehammers and axes their invitations. Seconds were all you needed to flush evidence away, or to swallow it. These days, prior to a house raid, the drugs squad opened up the sewers and had a man stationed there, ready for the flush…
On the top-floor landing, Rebus paused for breath. The door facing him looked hard done by, scarred and chipped and beaten. The nameplate had been hauled off, leaving deep screw holes in the wood. Rebus knocked on the door, ready with excuses and his drunk’s head-down stance. He waited, but there was no answer. He listened, then put his eyes to the letterbox. Darkness. He tried the door handle. It turned, and the door swung inwards. When he thought about it, an unlocked door made sense. Ribs would need to come and go in a hurry, and locks took time.
Rebus stepped quietly into the short hallway. Some of the interior doors were open, bringing with them chinks of streetlight. The place smelt musty and damp, and it was cold. There was no furniture, and the wallpaper had peeled from the walls. Long strips now lay in wrinkled piles, like an old woman’s stockings come to rest at her ankles. Rebus walked on tiptoe. He didn’t know how good the floors were, and he didn’t want anyone below to hear him. He didn’t want Ribs Mackay to hear him.