The Beat Goes On

Saint Nicked

The man dressed as Santa Claus took to his heels and ran, arms held out to stop the branches scratching his face. It was night, but the moon had appeared from its hiding place behind the clouds. The man’s shadow stretched in front of him, snared by the car’s headlights. He dodged left, deeper into the woods, hoping he would soon outrun the bright beams. There was laughter at his back, the laughter of men who were not yet pursuing him, men who knew his flight was doomed.

‘Come back, Santa! Where do you think you’re going?’

‘You’re not exactly in camouflage! Got Rudolph tied to a tree, ready for a quick getaway?’

More laughter, then the first voice again: ‘Here we come, ready or not...’

He didn’t pause to look back. His red jacket was heavy, its thick lining padding out a frame that was stocky to begin with. Funny thing was, he’d been stick thin until his thirties. Made up for it since, though. Chips, chocolate and beer. He knew he could ditch the costume, but that would leave a trail for them to follow. They were right: no way was he going to outrun them. He was already down to a light trot, a stitch developing in his side. The baggy red trousers kept snagging on low branches and bracken. When he paused at last, catching his breath, he heard whistling. ‘Jingle Bells’, it sounded like. The light over to his right was wavering: his pursuers had brought torches. He could hear their boots crunching over the ground. They weren’t running. Their steps were steady and purposeful. He started moving again. His plan: to get away. There was a road junction somewhere not far off. Maybe a passing car would save him. The sweat was icy on his neck, steam rising from his body, reminding him of the last horse home in the 2.30.

‘You’re going to get a kick in the fairy lights for this!’ one of the voices called out.

‘There won’t be enough of you left to fill a Christmas stocking!’ yelled the other.

They were still a hundred, maybe two hundred yards behind him. He started picking his way over the ground, trying to muffle any sound. Something scratched his face. He wiped a thumb across his cheek, feeling the prickle of blood. The stitch was getting worse. His heart was pounding in his ears, so loud he feared they would hear it. As the pain grew worse, he remembered someone telling him once that the secret to beating a stitch was touching your toes. He paused, bent down, but his hands didn’t even make it to his knees. He fell into a crouch instead, resting his forehead against cold bark. There was a piney smell in the air, like those air fresheners you could get for the car. His clenched fists were pushing against the frozen ground. There was something jagged there beneath his knuckles: a thin slice of stone. He prised it from the earth, held it as he would a weapon. But it wasn’t a weapon, and never would be. Instead, he had an idea, and started working its edge against the tree trunk.

The movement behind him had stopped, torchlight scanning the night. For the moment, they had lost him. He couldn’t make out what they were saying: they were either too far away, or keeping their voices low. If they stayed where they were, they would hear him scratching. Sure enough, the beam from at least one torch was arcing towards him. He had a sudden, ludicrous image from films he’d devoured as a kid: he was escaping from Colditz; he’d tunnelled out and now the searchlights were tracking him, the Nazis in pursuit. The Great Escape: that was the one they’d always shown at Christmas. He wondered if it would be shown this year, and whether he’d be around to see it.

‘Is that you, Santa?’ The voice was closer. But he’d finished now, and was back on his feet, moving away from the light, sweat stinging his eyes. It was the smoking that had taken its toll. Time was, he wasn’t a bad athlete. At school he’d sometimes come runner-up in races. OK, so that had been forty years ago, but were his pursuers any fitter? Maybe they would be tiring, thinking of giving up. Was he worth all this effort to them, when the snug warmth of the BMW was waiting?

Of course! The BMW! He could circle back, nick the car from beneath their noses. If only he could keep going. But his sides were burning, his legs buckling. And the truth was, he didn’t even know which direction he was headed. He’d been doing anything but run in a straight line. The car could be anywhere. Chances were he was heading further into the middle of nowhere. Even if he got away, he might end up freezing to death on the hills. There were pockets of habitation out here; he’d spotted the lights during the drive south. But they were within shouting distance of the roadside, and he felt suddenly he was a long way from any road. He was an achingly long way from home.

He knew now that he would give them what they wanted, but only on his terms. It had to be on his terms, not theirs. And he didn’t want a kicking. Didn’t deserve it. He’d done everything just the way he’d been told... well, almost everything.

His head felt light, but his body was a dead weight. It was like wading through waist-deep water, and he was slowing again. Did he want to escape, to end up alone in this wilderness? The sky was darkening again, clouds closing over the land. Sleet might be on its way. How could it be that he was floating and drowning both at the same time?

And falling to his knees.

Stretching out, as if on crisp sheets. His eyes closing...

And then the glare of the searchlights. The guards with their torches. Hands pulling at him, grabbing him by the hair. The silver wig came away. He’d forgotten he’d been wearing it.

‘Sleeping on the job, Santa?’

They had him now, both of them. He didn’t care. He didn’t feel well enough to care.

‘Tell us where it is.’

‘I...’ His chest was ablaze, as if he’d fallen asleep too close to the fire. He started pulling at the front of his costume, trying to shed it.

‘Just tell us where it is.’

‘I...’ He knew that if he told them, they might leave him here. Or punish him. He knew he had to play for time. Blood pounded in his ears, deafening him.

‘No more fun and games.’

‘Scratched it,’ he blurted out.

‘What’s that?’

He tried to swallow. ‘Scratched it on a tree.’

‘Which tree?’

‘I’ll... show you.’

They were trying to pull him to his feet, but he was too heavy, altogether too large for them. Which was how he’d broken away from them in the first place.

‘Just tell us!’

He tried shaking his head. ‘Show you.’

They dropped him then, arguing with one another.

‘He’s having us on,’ the taller one said.

The stocky one shrugged. ‘Tells us or shows us, what’s the difference?’

‘Difference is...’ But the tall one didn’t seem to have an answer. He sniffed instead. ‘He’s caused us enough grief as it is.’

‘Agreed, which is why I want this over with.’

‘So why don’t I persuade him?’ The tall man slapped his torch against the palm of his hand.

‘What do you say, Santa?’ The stocky one shone his own torch against Santa’s face. The eyes were open, but staring. The face seemed to be going slack. The stocky man knelt down.

‘Don’t tell me...’ the tall man groaned.

‘Looks like.’ The stocky man made a few checks, and stood up again. ‘Heart gave out.’

‘Don’t tell me...’

‘I just did tell you.’

‘So what do we do now?’

The stocky man waved his torch around. ‘Said he’d scratched the answer on one of the trees. Can’t be too far. Let’s start looking...’

But after twenty minutes, they’d found nothing. They reconvened at Santa’s cooling body. ‘So what now?’

‘We’ll come back in the morning. The tree’s not going anywhere. Plenty of daylight tomorrow.’

‘And him?’ The torch picked out the prone figure.

‘What about him?’

‘We can’t just leave him. Think about it...’

The stocky man nodded. ‘You’re right. Can’t have the kids finding out Santa’s not around any more.’ He tucked his torch under his arm. ‘You take the feet...’

Detective Inspector John Rebus was in a bad place, doing a bad thing, at his least favourite time of year.

Which is to say that he was Christmas shopping in Glasgow. It had been his girlfriend’s idea: everyone, she’d explained, knew that Glasgow boasted better shops than Edinburgh. Which was why he found himself traipsing around busy stores on the last Saturday before Christmas, carrying more and more bags as Jean consulted the neatly typed list she’d brought with her. Each purchase had been selected carefully beforehand, something Rebus was forced to admire. He, after all, shopped from what some would call instinct and others desperation. What he couldn’t work out was why the process took so long: even though Jean knew what she was looking for, and where to find it, they still spent half an hour in each shop. Sometimes — when she was buying something for him — he had to stand outside, shuffling his chilled toes and trying not to look like a man with an impatient wait ahead of him.

It was when they stopped for lunch that Jean, noticing his slumped shoulders, patted his cheek.

‘A good impersonation of the condemned man,’ she told him. ‘You’re not exactly entering into the spirit.’

‘I’m not the festive sort.’

‘I’m beginning to realise.’ She smiled. ‘The words “retail” and “therapy” don’t coincide in your world, do they? Maybe we should go our separate ways this afternoon.’

Rebus nodded slowly. ‘That would let me buy a few things for you — without you knowing.’

She studied him, seeing through the lie. ‘Consider yourself off the hook,’ she said. ‘Do you want to meet up later?’

Rebus nodded again. ‘Give me a bell when you’re finished.’

They parted outside the restaurant, Jean pecking his cheek. Rebus watched her go. Fifty yards down Buchanan Street, she disappeared into an arcade of small, expensive-looking shops. Rebus let his nose guide him to the Horseshoe Bar, where he sat at a corner table, nursing a first and then a second whisky, perusing a newspaper. Thursday’s theft from the First Minister’s residence in Edinburgh was still causing plenty of amusement. Rebus had already heard two hardened Glaswegian accents joking about it at the bar:

‘Looks like Christmas came early, eh?’

‘Only Santa was the one on the receiving end...’

It was all grist to the mill, and rightly so. Doubtless Rebus would have laughed had a man dressed as Father Christmas walked into a reception in Glasgow and wandered out again with a priceless necklace tucked beneath his costume. No ordinary piece of jewellery, but once the property of Mary, Queen of Scots, brought into the light just one day each year so it could be shown off at a party. With the First Minister of the recently devolved Scottish Parliament as victim, Rebus’s police station had been a hive of activity, which was why he intended enjoying what was left of today.

Finishing his drink, he asked at the bar for a Yellow Pages, jotting down the addresses of local record shops. He was going to find a small gift for himself, a rarity or some new album, something he could play on the big day. Something to take his mind off Christmas. The third shop he tried was a second-hand record specialist, and Rebus was its only customer. The proprietor had frizzy greying hair tied in a ponytail, and was wearing a Frank Zappa T-shirt that had shrunk in the wash at some point in the 1970s. As Rebus consulted the racks, the man asked if he was looking for anything in particular.

‘I’ll know it when I see it,’ Rebus told him. On an overcast day, it was easy enough to start a conversation. Five minutes in, Rebus realised he knew the man from somewhere. He pointed a finger. ‘You were in a band yourself once.’

The man grinned, showing gaps between his teeth. ‘That’s some memory you’ve got.’

‘You played bass for the Parachute Game.’ The man held up his hands in surrender. ‘Ted Handsome?’ Rebus guessed, eyes narrowed in concentration.

The man nodded. ‘The name’s Hanson, actually. Ted Hanson.’

‘I had a couple of your albums.’

‘Almost as many as we made.’

Rebus nodded slowly. The Parachute Game had appeared on the Scottish scene in the mid seventies, supporting headliners such as Nazareth and Alex Harvey. Then things had gone quiet.

‘Your singer did a runner, didn’t he?’

Hanson shrugged. ‘Bad timing.’

Rebus remembered: the band had crept into the lower reaches of the Top 30 with a single from their second album. Their first headlining tour was looming. And then their singer had walked out. Jack... no, Jake, that was it.

‘Jake Wheeler,’ he said out loud.

‘Poor Jake,’ Ted Hanson said. He was thoughtful for a moment, then checked his watch. ‘You look like a drinking man, am I right?’

‘You’ve got a good eye.’

‘Then I reckon this could be my early-closing day.’

Rebus didn’t like to say, but he got the feeling Ted had a few of those each week.

They hit a couple of bars, talking music, bands from the ‘old days’. Hanson had a fund of stories. He’d started the shop with stock ransacked from his own collection.

‘And my flat still looks like a vinyl museum.’

‘I’d like to see that,’ Rebus said with a smile. So they jumped in a taxi, heading for Hillhead. Rebus called Jean on his mobile, said he might be late getting back to Edinburgh. She sounded tired and unbothered. Hanson’s Victorian tenement flat was as promised. Albums lay slumped against every wall. Boxes of them sat on tables, singles spilling from home-made shelves that had warped under the weight.

‘A little piece of heaven,’ Rebus said.

‘Try telling that to my ex-wife.’ Hanson handed him a can of beer.

They spent a couple of hours on the sofa, staring into the space between the loudspeakers and listening to a shared musical heritage. Finally, Rebus plucked up the courage to ask about Jake Wheeler.

‘You must have been gutted when he walked out.’

‘He had his reasons.’

‘What were they?’

Hanson offered a shrug. ‘Come to think of it, he never said.’

‘There were rumours about drugs...’

‘Rock stars and drugs? Surely not.’

‘A good way to meet some very bad people.’ Rebus knew of these rumours too: gangsters, dealers. But Hanson just shrugged again.

‘He never resurfaced?’ Rebus asked.

Hanson shook his head. Then he smiled. ‘You said you had a couple of our albums, John...’ He sprang to his feet, rummaged in a box by the door. ‘Bet this isn’t one of them.’ He held out the album to Rebus.

‘I did own it once upon a time,’ Rebus mused, recognising the cover. The Oldest Tree, recorded by the remaining trio after Wheeler had walked out. ‘Lost it at a party, week after I’d bought it.’ Examining the cover — swirly late-hippy pencil drawings of dells and hills, a broad oak tree at the centre — Rebus remembered something. ‘You drew this?’

Hanson nodded. ‘I had more than a few pretensions back then.’

‘It’s good.’ Rebus studied the drawing. ‘I mean it.’

Hanson sat down again. ‘Back at the shop, you said you were after something special. Could this be it?’

Rebus smiled. ‘Could be. How much do you want?’

‘Compliments of the season.’

Rebus raised an eyebrow. ‘I couldn’t...’

‘Yes you could. It’s not like it’s worth anything.’

‘Well, OK then, thanks. Maybe I can do you a favour some day in return.’

‘How’s that then?’

Rebus had lifted a business card out of his wallet. He handed it over. ‘I’m in CID, Ted. Never know when you might need a friend...’

Studying the record sleeve again, Rebus failed to notice the look of fear and panic that flitted across his new friend’s face.

Sunday morning, Neil Bryant woke up and knew something was wrong. He was the stockier of the two men who’d spent much of the previous evening chasing an overweight, unfit Santa to his death. He was also supposed to be the brains of the outfit, which was why he was so annoyed. He was annoyed because he’d asked Malky Bunker — his tall, skinny partner in crime — to wake him up. It was past ten, and still no sign of Malky. So much for his dawn wake-up call. He phoned Malky and gave him a good roasting.

Twenty minutes later, the BMW pulled up at Bryant’s door. Malky’s hair was tousled, face creased from sleep. He was yawning.

‘You got rid of the deceased?’ Bryant asked. Malky nodded. Good enough: the fewer details Bryant knew, the better. They drove out of Glasgow, heading east and south. Different route from last night, and a map neither of them knew how to read.

‘Be easier if we drove into Edinburgh and out again,’ Malky suggested.

‘We’re late as it is,’ Bryant snapped. The thing was, as you headed towards the Border country, it all started to look the same. Plenty of forests and crossroads. It was early afternoon before they started to recognise a few landmarks. Passing a couple of flatbed trucks, Bryant sensed they were getting warm.

‘Working on a Sunday,’ Malky commented, glancing out at another truck.

‘Run-up to Christmas,’ Bryant explained. Then his heart sank as he saw what the trucks were carrying.

‘This has got to be it,’ Malky was saying.

‘Aye,’ Bryant agreed, voice toneless.

Malky was parking the car, only now realising that the forest they’d run through the previous night was not a forest. It had been denuded by chainsaws, half its trees missing. Not a forest: a plantation. A fresh consignment of Christmas firs, heading north to Edinburgh.

The two men looked at one another, then sprinted from the car. There were still trees left, plenty of them. Maybe, if they were lucky... maybe Santa’s tree would still be there.

Two hours and countless arguments later, they were back in the car, heater going full blast. The foreman had threatened to call the police. They’d threatened violence if he did.

‘They’re all the same,’ he’d shouted, meaning the trees.

‘Just call us particular,’ Bryant had snarled back.

‘What are we going to do?’ Malky asked now. ‘We go back there without the necklace, our goose is well and truly stuffed.’

Bryant looked at him, then got out of the car, marching towards the nervous-looking foreman.

‘Where are they headed?’ he demanded.

‘The trees?’ The foreman watched Bryant nod. ‘Edinburgh,’ he said.

‘Where in Edinburgh?’

‘All over.’ The foreman shrugged. ‘Probably be sold within the day.’

‘Addresses,’ Bryant said, his face inches away from the older man’s. ‘I need addresses.’

Rebus and Jean ate Sunday lunch at a hotel in Portobello, surrounded by families pulling crackers and wearing lopsided paper crowns.

‘Basic training for the big day,’ Rebus commented, excusing himself from the table as his mobile started ringing. It was his boss, Detective Chief Superintendent Gill Templer.

‘Enjoying a lazy Sunday?’ she enquired.

‘Up until now.’

‘We’re looking at fences, John.’ Meaning people who might be able to shift an item as hot as the necklace. ‘You know Sash Hooper, don’t you? Wondered if you might pay him a visit.’

‘Today?’

‘Sooner the better.’

Rebus glanced back in Jean’s direction. She was stirring her coffee, no room for dessert. Rebus had promised to go and buy a Christmas tree.

‘Fine,’ he said into the mouthpiece. ‘So where can I find Sash?’

‘Skating on thin ice, as usual,’ Gill Templer said.

Ever the entrepreneur, Sash — real name Sacha, courtesy of a mother with a thing for French crooners — had opened an outdoor skating rink on Leith Links.

‘Just trying to make an honest dollar,’ he told Rebus, as they walked around the rinks perimeter. ‘Licences in place and everything.’ He watched two teenagers as they shuffled across the slushy ice, the rink’s only customers. Then he stared accusingly at the sun, cursing its liquefying powers. Music blared from a faulty loudspeaker: Abba, ‘Dancing Queen’.

‘No interest in stolen antiquities, then?’

‘All in the past, Mr Rebus.’ Hooper was a big man, with clenched fists. What was left of his hair was jet black, tightly curled. His thick moustache was black too. He wore sunglasses, through which Rebus could just make out his small, greedy eyes.

‘And if someone came to you with an offer...’

‘The three wise men could knock on my door tonight, Mr Rebus, and I’d give them the brush-off.’ Hooper shrugged a show of innocence.

Rebus looked all around. ‘Not rushed off your feet, are you?’

‘The day’s young. Besides, Kiddie Wonderland’s doing all right.’ He nodded at the double-decker bus decorated with fake snow and tinsel. Mums and young children were lining up for entry. Rebus had passed the bus when he’d first arrived. It promised ‘A visit you’ll never forget — one gift per child.’ ‘Santa’s grotto on wheels,’ had been Hooper’s explanation, rubbing his hands together. The interior looked to have been decorated with white cotton and sheets of coloured crêpe paper. The queuing parents appeared dubious, but Kiddie Wonderland was the only show in Leith. Still, to Rebus’s mind, there was something missing.

‘No Santa,’ he said, nodding towards the bus.

‘Soon as you’re gone there will be.’ Hooper patted his own stomach.

Rebus stared at him. ‘You realise some of these kids could be traumatised for life?’ Hooper didn’t reply. ‘Let me know if Christmas brings you anything nice, Sash.’

Hooper was rehearsing his ho, ho, hos as Rebus walked back to the car.

He knew that there was a place off Dalkeith Road that sold Christmas trees. It was a derelict builders’ yard, empty all year round except for the run-up to 25 December. When he arrived, two men were doing a good impression of taking the place apart, studying each tree before dismissing it, while the proprietor watched bemused, arms folded. One of the men shook his head at the other, and the pair stormed out.

‘I got a call half an hour back,’ the proprietor told Rebus. ‘They did the same thing to a friend of mine.’

‘Takes all sorts,’ Rebus said. But he watched the men get into their rusty BMW and drive off. The elder and shorter of the two — his face was familiar. Rebus frowned in concentration, bought the first five-foot fir offered to him, and took it out to his car. It stretched from boot to passenger seat. He still couldn’t put a name to the face, and it bothered him all the way to St Leonards police station, where he made his report to Gill Templer.

‘Could do with clearing this one up, John,’ she said.

Rebus nodded. She would have the brass on her back, because the First Minister was on theirs.

‘We can but try, Gill,’ he offered, making to leave. He was driving out of the car park when he saw a face he recognised, and this time the name came easily. It was Ted Hanson. Rebus stopped and wound down his window. ‘This is a surprise, Ted.’

‘I was in town, thought I’d look you up.’ Hanson looked cold.

‘How did you find me?’

‘Asked a policeman,’ Hanson said with a smile. ‘Any chance of a cuppa?’

They were only five minutes from Rebus’s tenement flat. He made two mugs of instant coffee while Hanson flicked through his record collection.

‘A pale imitation of yours, Ted,’ Rebus apologised.

‘A lot of the same albums.’ Hanson waved a copy of Wishbone Ash’s Argus. ‘Great cover.’

‘It’s not the same with CDs, is it?’

Hanson wrinkled his nose. ‘Nothing like.’

Rebus handed over the coffee and sat down. ‘What are you doing here, Ted?’ he asked.

‘Just wanted to get out of the shop — out of Glasgow.’ Hanson blew across the surface of the mug, then took a sip. ‘Sorry, John. Got any sugar?’

‘I’ll fetch some.’ Rebus got to his feet again.

‘Mind if I use your loo meantime?’

‘Be my guest.’ Rebus pointed the way, then retreated to the kitchen. Music was playing in the living room: the Incredible String Band. Rebus returned and placed the sugar beside Hanson’s mug. Something was going on. He had a few questions for his new friend. After a couple of minutes, he walked back into the hall, knocked on the bathroom door. No answer. He turned the handle. There was no one inside. Ted Hanson had done a runner.

‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ Rebus muttered to himself. He looked down on to the street from his living room window: no sign of anyone. Then he stared at his record collection. It took him a couple of minutes to work out what was missing.

The last Parachute Game album, the one Hanson himself had given him. Rebus sat in his chair, thinking hard. Then he called Jean.

‘Not found a tree yet?’ she asked.

‘It’s on its way, Jean. Could you do me a favour?’

‘What?’

‘Something I’d like for Christmas...’

Christmas itself was fine. He’d no complaints about Christmas. There was the slow run-up to Hogmanay, Gill Templer growing less festive as the necklace failed to turn up. New Year’s Day, Rebus nursed his accessory of choice: a thumping head. He managed to forgo any resolutions, apart from the usual one to stop drinking.

His Christmas present finally arrived on 4 January, having been posted in Austin, Texas, on 24 December. Jean handed it over, having taken the trouble to wrap it in second-hand paper.

‘You shouldn’t have,’ he said. Then he kissed her, and took the album home for a listen. The lyrics were on the inside of the gatefold sleeve. The songs tended to the elegiac, each seeming to refer to Jake Wheeler. Ted Hanson had taken over vocal duties, and though he didn’t make too bad a fist of it, Rebus could see why the band had folded. Without Wheeler, there was something missing, something irreplaceable. Listening to the title track, Rebus studied the drawing on the front of the sleeve — Ted Hanson’s drawing. An old oak tree with the initials JW carved on it, enclosed in a heart, pierced by an arrow that wasn’t quite an arrow. Holding the sleeve to the light, Rebus saw that it was a syringe.

And there beneath the oldest tree, Hanson sang, you took your last farewell of me... But was it the bassist talking, or something else? Rebus rubbed a hand across his forehead and concentrated on other songs, other lyrics. Then he turned back to the sleeve. So detailed, it couldn’t just be imagined. It had to be a real place. He picked up his phone, called Jean’s number. She worked at the museum. There were things she could find out.

Such as the location of Scotland’s oldest tree.

On the morning of the sixth, he let the office know he’d be late.

‘That’s got to be a record-breaker: the five-day hangover.’

Rebus didn’t bother arguing. Instead, he drove to Glasgow, parking on the street outside Ted Hanson’s shop. Hanson was just opening up; he looked tired and in need of a shave.

‘Amazing what you can find on the internet these days,’ Rebus said. Hanson turned, saw what Rebus was holding: a near-mint copy of The Oldest Tree. ‘Here’s what I think,’ Rebus went on, taking a step forward. ‘I think Jake’s dead. Maybe natural causes, maybe not. Rock stars have a way of hanging around with the wrong people. They get into situations.’ He tapped the album sleeve. ‘I know where this is now. Is that where he’s buried?’

The ghost of a smile passed across Hanson’s face. ‘That’s what you think?’

‘It’s why you had to get the album back from me, once you knew what I did for a living.’

Hanson bowed his head. ‘You’re right.’ Then he looked up again, eyes gleaming. ‘That’s exactly why I had to get the album back.’ He paused, seemed to take a deep breath. ‘But you’re wrong. You couldn’t be more wrong.’

Rebus frowned, thinking he’d misheard.

‘I’ll show you,’ Hanson said. ‘And by the way, happy new year.’

The drive took them over an hour, north out of Glasgow, the scenery stretching, rising, becoming wilderness. They passed lochs and mountains, the sky a vast, bruised skein.

‘All your detective work,’ Hanson said, slouched in the passenger seat, ‘did you notice where the album was recorded?’ Rebus shook his head. Hanson just nodded, then told him to pull over. They were on a stretch of road that would fill with camper vans in the summer, but for now it seemed desolate. Below them lay a valley, and across the valley a farmhouse. Hanson pointed towards it. ‘Owned by our producer at the time. We set up all the gear, did the album in under a month. Braepath Farm, it was called back then.’

Rebus had spotted something. On the hillside behind the farmhouse, the tree from the album sleeve. The tree Jean had told him was the oldest in Scotland: the Braepath Oak. And behind it, a small stone bothy, little more than a shelter for shepherds, outside which a man was splitting logs, watched by his sheepdog.

‘Jake fell apart,’ Hanson was saying, voice low. ‘Maybe it was the company he was keeping, or the industry we were supposed to be part of. He just wanted to be left alone. I promised him I’d respect that. The drawing... it was a way of showing he’d always be part of the band, whatever happened.’ He paused, clearing his throat. Rebus watched the distant figure as it picked up the kindling, taking it indoors. Long-haired, ragged-clothed: too far away to really be sure, but Rebus knew all the same.

‘He’s been out here ever since?’ he asked.

Hanson nodded. His eyes glistened.

‘And you’ve never...?’

‘He knows where I am if he wants me.’ He angled his head. ‘So now you know, John. Up to you what you do about it.’

Rebus nodded, put the car into gear and started a three-point turn.

‘Know what I’d like, Ted?’ he said. ‘I’d like you to sign that album for me. Will you do that?’

‘With pleasure,’ Hanson said with a smile.

Back at St Leonards, Rebus was passing the front desk when he saw the duty sergeant emerging from the comms room, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘I’m not that late,’ Rebus said.

‘It’s not that, John. It’s Mother Hubbard.’

Now Rebus knew: Edwina Hubbard from down the road. Two or three times a week she would call to report some imagined mischief.

‘What is it this time?’ Rebus asked. ‘The peeping postmen or the disappearing dustbins?’

‘Christmas trees,’ the sergeant said. ‘Being collected and taken away.’

‘And did you explain to her that it happens every year, courtesy of our caring, sharing council?’

The sergeant nodded. ‘Thing is, she says they’re early. And using a double-decker bus.’

‘A bus?’ Rebus laughed. ‘Firs, please.’

The sergeant laughed too, turning to retreat into the comms room. ‘It gets better,’ he said. ‘The bus is covered in Christmas decorations.’

Rebus was still laughing as he climbed the stairs. After the morning he’d had, he needed something to cheer him up. Then he froze. A Christmas bus... Kiddie Wonderland. Collecting Christmas trees... Two men running around Edinburgh, looking for a tree... The name flashed from brain to mouth.

‘Neil Bryant!’ Rebus took the stairs two at a time, sat down at a computer and typed in Bryant’s name. Ex-bouncer, convictions for violence. Clever with it. The other man, the taller one, had looked like bouncer material too. And hadn’t Sash Hooper run a nightclub a few years back? Sash... ready to take an unlikely turn as Santa on the bus.

‘Santa,’ Rebus hissed. Then he was back downstairs and in the comms room, grabbing the sergeant’s arm.

‘The bus with the trees,’ he said. ‘Where did she see it?’

Rink.

The bus was full of trees, both decks. But finally they’d found one with that single word scratched on its trunk.

Rink.

The way Bryant had explained it to Sash Hooper, they needed the bus so they could collect as many trees as possible, as quickly as possible. Eventually Hooper had seen the wisdom of the plan. He had got a buyer for the necklace, but the sale had to be quick.

Rink.

Well it didn’t take a genius, did it? They’d turned the bus round and headed for Leith Links. The costume had been Bryant’s idea too, when he’d heard that the First Minister was throwing a party. Send someone in there dressed as Santa, they could walk out with anything they liked. He’d gone to Sash with the idea, and Sash had suggested Benny Welsh, a pretty good housebreaker in his time, now down on his luck. Benny had been good as gold — until he’d found out how much the necklace was worth. After which he’d tried upping out. Wasn’t going to hand it over until they had a deal.

Three of them now — Sash, Malky and Bryant — slipping and sliding across the ice. Looking for the telltale dark patch, finding it. Benny had cut himself a hole, stuffed the necklace in, then poured in some water, letting it freeze over again. Sash had his penknife out. It took a while, the day darkening around them.

‘Give me the knife,’ Malky said, chipping away with it.

‘Watch the blade doesn’t snap,’ Sash Hooper warned, as if the knife were somehow more precious than the necklace. Eventually all three men clambered to their feet, Hooper holding the necklace, examining it. A string of shimmering diamonds, embracing a vast blood-red ruby. He actually gasped. They came off the ice and back on to solid earth. They were almost in the shadow of the bus before they noticed Rebus. And he wasn’t alone.

Two uniforms could be seen through the upper-deck windows. Two more were downstairs. Another was outside, circling the bus.

‘Nice little stocking-filler,’ Rebus said, motioning towards the necklace.

‘You got a warrant?’ Hooper asked.

‘Do I look as if I need one?’

‘You can’t just go trampling all over my bus. That’s private property.’ Hooper was attempting to slide the necklace into his pocket.

Malky tugged at Bryant’s sleeve. His eyes had widened. They were on the policeman who’d been circling the bus, the policeman who was now turning the handle that would open the vehicle’s luggage compartment. Bryant saw his friend’s look, and his own mouth dropped open in dismay.

‘Malky, for the love of God, tell me you didn’t...’

Hooper was still concentrating on protesting his innocence. He knew this was the most important speech he would ever make. He felt that if he could just get the words right, then maybe...

‘DI Rebus,’ the constable was saying. ‘Something here you should take a look at...’

And Hooper shifted his gaze and saw what everyone else was seeing. Benny Welsh, still dressed in the telltale red suit, lying at peace on the floor of the luggage bay.

Rebus turned to face the three men.

‘I’m guessing that means you’re Saint Nicked,’ he said.