The Beat Goes On

Not Just Another Saturday

It had taken Rebus longer than usual to get to the barber’s shop on Rose Street. He’d known about the Make Poverty History march, of course; just hadn’t reckoned with the barriers going up so early. Melville Drive had been filling with buses from all over: church congregations from Derbyshire; anti-nuclear pensioners; African drummers; Fair Trade and Christian Aid and Water Aid and Farm Aid... everything but the one thing Rebus needed — Lucozade. He’d only drunk four pints the previous night, but one of them must have been bad.

There was a stage erected on the Meadows, along with tents and vans preparing to sell food to the hungry masses. Someone was doling out Palestinian flags. The Sunday Mail had provided placards saying ‘Drop the Debt’. People were dropping the placards instead, then tearing off the newspaper’s name before picking them up again. Maybe they were southerners, confusing the Scottish paper with its near-namesake. Rebus was handed a plastic carrier bag. Inside he found a Help the Aged T-shirt. First kid he saw, he passed the bag along. He knew George IV Bridge would be impossible, so headed for South Bridge instead, feeling like a salmon swimming against the prevailing current. Families passed him, the kids with their faces painted. People were smiling in the sun, ready to be seen if not heard. At Fettes HQ, the High Hiedyins had guessed 175,000, but to Rebus it looked likely there’d be more: 200, maybe 250. A quarter of a million people, more than half the city’s population. Scale it up, it became four million on the streets of London. Maybe that was why everyone was smiling. They had no need to shout. Their very presence would be louder than that.

Teams of uniforms milled around. Rebus didn’t recognise any of them. Their accents were foreign. One sported Metropolitan Police insignia; others were from Cardiff, Liverpool, Middlesbrough... every bit as varied as the marchers. Rebus didn’t stop to say hello. He looked the way he felt: like a civilian. When the cops bothered to meet his eyes, he saw no recognition there. Just mistrust, mixed with controlled adrenalin. They’d been warned to expect trouble. Looked to Rebus as though a few of them might even welcome it. A couple of police motorbikes were controlling traffic on Buccleuch Street, making sure drivers followed the diversions. Not much for them to do, the roads unnaturally quiet for a Saturday. But then this wasn’t just another Saturday. He did a double-take when he saw what was written on the back of one yellow protective jacket: London Transport Police. Nice overtime, but he couldn’t help feeling the officer would be more use on his own patch, chasing muggers and fare-dodgers. More diversions, more police checkpoints. Some of his colleagues were loving it, looking forward to the whole week. They’d get to tear around the city like they owned it. Courts and cells had been cleared, ready for action. Everyone was poised.

‘You’ll have to go back that way, sir,’ a uniform was explaining now, as Rebus tried to squeeze through the gap between one metal crash barrier and a tenement wall. The accent was English.

Rebus made show of looking back in the direction the man was pointing.

‘You mean, cut along the Meadows, through the hordes and the coaches, and take a right at Tollcross, then make a sudden stop at the first barricade on Lothian Road, where I’ll be politely told to “go back that way, sir”?’

The officer’s eyes narrowed. When Rebus moved a hand towards his inside pocket, he even took a step back.

‘Easy, pal, easy,’ Rebus said, bringing out his warrant card. ‘We’re supposed to be on the same side.’

The officer studied the ID for longer than Rebus felt necessary. ‘CID,’ he said, handing it back. ‘Something going down?’ He hauled at the barrier, giving Rebus more room.

‘Could be a close shave,’ Rebus answered, heading on his way.

A close shave it was. Barber’s shop on Rose Street. An occasional Saturday treat: hot towels, unguents, the works. Even a splash of cologne afterwards. They didn’t use cut-throat razors these days: fear of hep B and HIV. Little disposable blades instead. Still gave a good shave, even though Rebus missed the sliding of the cut-throat against the leather strap. As a kid, he’d watched his father get a regular wet shave, the barber winking at him as he honed the gleaming blade.

‘Might call it a day,’ the barber told Rebus now. ‘Most of my bookings have cancelled.’

‘Wimps,’ Rebus said.

‘Half the shops on Princes Street are shut. Some with the boards up. That fellow Geldof, he wants a million marchers.’

‘He won’t get them,’ Rebus said. ‘Man runs a decent concert, but that’s about it. He’ll get his moment in the sun, shake hands with George W even, and that’ll be about it.’

The barber snorted. ‘We’re maybe cynical old buggers, John.’

‘I marched in the sixties.’

‘But not now?’

Rebus just shrugged. It was different then, he wanted to say. But he wasn’t sure that was true. He was different then; no doubt about that. He’d always assumed ideals were for the young, but the people he’d seen heading for the march... they’d been all ages. Probably all backgrounds and creeds, too. The sun was out, and forty miles up the road at Gleneagles, eight men would sit down to make decisions affecting the whole planet. Not that there was any pressure. Edinburgh’s own Chief Constable would be there too, shuffling around in the background, usurped by spooks and Special Branch, bodyguards and Marines. Jack McConnell kept saying how great it was for Scotland, putting the place on the map. Rebus wondered how close Jack would get to the real power; suspected he’d be little more than a meeter and greeter, positioned front-of-house while the real work went on elsewhere.

‘Off to the Ox?’ the barber said.

‘As per,’ Rebus acknowledged. A wee Saturday afternoon session: racing on TV and a filled roll to feed the soul. The Live Eight concert would be on later. He’d probably watch The Who and Pink Floyd — especially the Floyd; had to see it with his own eyes. If Dave Gilmour let Roger Waters back on stage with him, anything was possible... maybe even world peace, an end to hunger and a cure for global warming.

‘Might shut up shop and follow you,’ the barber said.

‘I’ll wait,’ Rebus offered. The man nodded and began to sweep up. Rebus stepped outside for a cigarette, watching through the window as towels were dumped in a laundry bag, cutters cleaned, the basin rinsed. There was something comforting in observing a person’s routine. It was a ritual that placed a full stop at the end of a working day, and it showed pride, too. Combs and clippers went into a little leather pouch, which was rolled up and tied shut. They’d go home with the barber: his talisman.

At last he turned off the lights and switched on the alarm, locking the door behind him. He looked up at the sky. Rebus nodded to let him know he could hear it too: a cacophony of chants, whistles and drums in the near distance. The march had reached Princes Street.

‘Fancy a quick look-see?’ the barber asked.

‘Sure,’ Rebus said.

They walked down together. More barricades separated the slow parade from bemused shoppers. Policemen stood with arms folded, legs slightly parted. This was ritual, too. Rebus didn’t doubt there’d be troublemakers dotted about the place. Something like this would be a magnet for the city’s tearaways, never mind the international brotherhood of anarchists. But right now it all looked as innocuous as a cavalcade.

‘Think anyone’s listening?’ the barber asked. But Rebus couldn’t answer that. He noticed that the windows of the shops behind them were covered with protective boards.

‘Even the Ann Summers shop,’ the barber said with a laugh. ‘Can you see the good folk of Edinburgh looting a few bits of cheeky lingerie?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘It’s the Basque separatists they’re afraid of,’ he said, lighting another cigarette.

Just for a moment, as he smoked and watched the march, there was the temptation to join in, to add another particle to the mass. But he knew he lacked the passion and the faith. He could try comforting himself with the thought that it wouldn’t change anything. The rules of the game were well established, the cards already dealt. But doing nothing wouldn’t change anything either. In the end it was the barber who broke the spell, offering up a shrug of his own, that most Scottish of gestures. As if synchronised, the two men turned away from the march.

They wouldn’t have let you smoke anyway, Rebus told himself. But he knew he would spend the rest of the day wondering. Wondering, and maybe even regretting.