‘Scotland will be reborn the day the last minister
is strangled with the last copy of the Sunday Post.’
It was after midnight when they reached the hotel. It was situated near the airport, one of the shiny new constructions Rebus had passed on his way to T-Bird Oil. There was too much glare in the lobby, too many mirrors reflecting full-length portraits of three weary figures with meagre luggage. Maybe they would have provoked suspicion, but Eve was a regular and had a business account, so that was that.
‘It all goes through the taxi firm,’ she explained, ‘so this is my treat. Just sign out of the rooms when you’re finished, they’ll send the bill to Joe’s Cabs.’
‘Your usual rooms, Ms Cudden,’ the clerk said, handing over the keys, ‘plus one a few doors further along.’
Jack had been looking through the hotel directory. ‘Sauna, health club, weight gym. We should fit right in, John.’
‘It’s all oil execs,’ Eve said, leading them to the lifts. ‘They like that kind of thing. Keeps them fit enough to handle the hokey-cokey. And I don’t mean the dance.’
‘Do you sell everything direct to Fuller and Stemmons?’ Rebus asked.
Eve stifled a yawn. ‘You mean, do I deal myself?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would I be that stupid?’
‘What about the punters — any names?’
She shook her head, smiled tiredly. ‘You never stop, do you?’
‘It takes my mind off things.’ Specifically: Bible John, Johnny Bible... out there somewhere, and maybe not so very far away...
She handed their room keys to Rebus and Jack. ‘Sleep well, boys. I’ll probably be long gone when you wake up... and I won’t be coming back.’
Rebus nodded. ‘How much will you be taking with you?’
‘About thirty-eight thou.’
‘A decent skim.’
‘Decent profits all round.’
‘How soon till Uncle Joe finds out about Stanley?’
‘Well, Malcolm won’t be in a hurry to tell him, and Joe’s used to him disappearing for a day or two on the trot... With any luck, I won’t even be in the country when the bomb goes off.’
‘You look the lucky type to me.’
They left the lift at the third floor and checked the numbers on their keys. Rebus ended up next door to Eve: Stanley’s old room. Jack was two doors further down.
Stanley’s old room was a good size and boasted what Rebus guessed were the usual corporate embellishments: mini-bar, trouser press, a little saucer of chocolates on the pillow, a bathrobe laid out on the turned-down bed. There was a notice clipped to the robe. It asked him not to take it home with him. If he wanted to, he could purchase one from the health club. ‘Thank you for being a considerate guest.’
The considerate guest made himself a cup of Café Hag. There was a price list on top of the mini-bar, detailing the delights within. He stuck it in a drawer. The wardrobe boasted a mini-safe, so he took the mini-bar key and locked it inside. Another barrier for him to get past, another chance to change his mind if he really wanted that drink.
Meantime, the coffee tasted fine. He had a shower, wrapped himself in the bathrobe, then sat on his bed and stared at the connecting door. Of course, there would have to be a connecting door: couldn’t have Stanley hopping around the corridor at all hours. There was a simple lock his side, as there would be on the other. He wondered what he would find if he unlocked the door: would Eve’s be standing open? If he knocked, would she let him in? What about if she knocked? He turned his eyes from the door, and they settled on the mini-bar. He felt peckish — there would be nuts and crisps inside. Maybe he could...? No, no, no. He turned his attention back to the connecting door, listened hard, couldn’t hear any movement from Eve’s room. Maybe she was already asleep — early start and all that. He found he wasn’t feeling tired any more. Now he was here, he wanted to get to work. He pulled open his curtains. It had started to rain, the tarmac glistening and black like the back of a huge fat beetle. Rebus pulled a chair over to the window. Wind was driving the rain, making shifting patterns in the sodium light. As he stared, the rain began to resemble smoke, billowing out of the darkness. The car park below was half full, the cars huddled like cattle while their owners stayed snug and dry.
Johnny Bible was out there, probably in Aberdeen, probably connected to the oil industry. He thought about the people he’d met these past days, everyone from Major Weir to Walt the tour guide. It was ironic that the person whose case had brought him here — Allan Mitchison — was not only connected to oil but was also the only candidate he could rule out, being long dead by the time Vanessa Holden met her killer. Rebus felt guilty about Mitchison. His case was becoming swamped by the serial killings. It was a job, something Rebus had to do. But it wasn’t wedged in his throat the way the Johnny Bible case was, something he had either to cough up or choke on.
But he wasn’t the only one with an interest in Johnny. Someone had broken into his flat. Someone had been checking library records. Someone using a false identity. Someone with something to hide. Not a reporter, not another policeman. Could Bible John really be out there still? Dormant somewhere until brought to life by Johnny Bible? Enraged by the act of imitation, by its temerity and the cold fact that it brought the original case back up into the light? Not only enraged, but feeling endangered, too — externally and internally: fear of being recognised and caught; fear of not being the bogeyman any longer.
A new bogeyman for the nineties, someone to be scared of again. One mythology erased and replaced by another.
Yes, Rebus could feel it. He could sense Bible John’s hostility to the young pretender. No flattery in imitation, none at all...
And he knows where I live, Rebus thought. He’s been there, touched my obsession, and wondered how far I’m willing to take it. But why? Why would he place himself in danger like that, breaking into a flat in the middle of the day? Looking for what exactly? Looking for something in particular? But what? Rebus turned the question over in his mind, wondered if a drink would help, got as far as the safe before turning back, standing there in the middle of the room, his whole body crackling with need.
The hotel felt asleep; easy to imagine the whole country asleep and dreaming blameless dreams. Stemmons and Fuller, Uncle Joe, Major Weir, Johnny Bible... everyone was innocent in sleep. Rebus walked over to the connecting door and unlocked it. Eve’s door was slightly ajar. Silently, he pushed it wide open. Her room was in darkness, curtains closed. Light from his own room lay like an arrow along the floor, pointing towards the king-size bed. She lay on her side, one arm on top of the covers. Her eyes were closed. He took one step into her room, not merely a voyeur now but an intruder. Then he just stood there, watching her. Maybe he’d have stayed that way for long minutes.
‘Wondered how long it would take you,’ she said.
Rebus walked across to her bed. She reached both arms up to him. She was naked beneath the covers, warm and sweet-smelling. He sat down on the bed, took her hands in his.
‘Eve,’ he said quietly, ‘I need one favour from you before you go.’
She sat up. ‘Not counting this?’
‘Not counting this.’
‘What?’
‘I want you to phone Judd Fuller. Tell him you need to see him.’
‘You should stay away from him.’
‘I know.’
She sighed. ‘But you can’t?’ He nodded, and she touched his cheek with the back of her hand. ‘OK, but now I want a favour in return.’
‘What?’
‘Take the rest of the night off,’ she said, pulling him towards her.
He woke up alone in her bed, and it was morning. He checked to see if she’d left a note or anything, but of course she hadn’t: she wasn’t the type.
He walked through the open doorway and locked his door after him, then switched off the lights in his room. There was a knock at his door: Jack. Rebus pulled on pants and trousers and was halfway to the door when he remembered something. He walked back to the bed and removed the chocolates from the pillow, then pulled the covers down, messing them up. He surveyed the scene, punched a head-shaped dent in one pillow, then answered the door.
And it wasn’t Jack at all. It was one of the hotel staff, carrying a tray.
‘Morning, sir.’ Rebus stood aside to let him in. ‘Sorry if I woke you. Miss Cudden specified the time.’
‘That’s OK.’ Rebus watched the young man slide the tray on to the table by the window.
‘Would you like me to open it?’ Meaning the half bottle of champagne resting in an ice-bucket. There was a jug of fresh orange juice, a crystal glass, and a folded copy of the morning’s Press & Journal. In a slim porcelain vase stood a single red carnation.
‘No.’ Rebus lifted the bucket. ‘This, you can take away. The rest is fine.’
‘Yes, sir. If you’ll just sign...?’
Rebus took the proffered pen, and added a hefty tip to the bill. Fuck it, Uncle Joe was paying. The young man broke into a big grin, making Rebus wish he was this generous every morning.
‘Thank you, sir.’
When he’d gone, Rebus poured a glass of juice. The fresh-squeezed stuff, cost a fortune in the supermarket. Outside, the roads were still damp, and there was plenty of cloud overhead, but the sky looked like it might break into a grin of its own before the morning was out. A light aircraft took off from Dyce, probably Shetland-bound. Rebus looked at his watch, then called Jack’s room. Jack answered with a noise somewhere between an inquiry and an oath.
‘Your morning alarm call,’ Rebus trilled.
‘Fuck off.’
‘Come by for orange juice and coffee.’
‘Give me five minutes.’
Rebus said that was the least he could do. Next he tried phoning Siobhan at home — got her machine. Tried her at St Leonard’s, but she wasn’t there. He knew she wouldn’t be slow in going about the work he’d given her, but he wanted to stick close to her, needed to know when she got a result. He put down the phone and looked at the tray again, then smiled.
Eve had left him a message after all.
The dining room was quiet, most tables taken by single men, some of them already at work on portable phones and laptops. Rebus and Jack got stuck in — juice and cornflakes, then the Full Highland Breakfast with a big pot of tea.
Jack tapped his watch. ‘Quarter of an hour from now, Ancram’s going to hit the roof.’
‘Might knock some sense into him.’ Rebus scraped a pat of butter on to his toast. Five-star hotel, but the toast was still cold.
‘So what’s our plan of attack?’
‘I’m looking for a girl, she’s in photos with Allan Mitchison, an environmental protester.’
‘Where do we start?’
‘You sure you want in on this?’ Rebus looked around the dining room. ‘You could spend the day here, try the health club, watch a film... It’s all on Uncle Joe.’
‘John, I’m sticking by you.’ Jack paused. ‘As a friend, not Ancram’s dog’s-body.’
‘In that case, our first port of call’s the Exhibition Centre. Now eat up, it’s going to be a long day, believe me.’
‘One question.’
‘What?’
‘How come you got the orange juice this morning?’
The Exhibition Centre was almost deserted. The various stalls and stands — many of them, as Rebus now knew, designed by Johnny Bible’s fourth victim — had been dismantled and taken away, the floors hoovered and polished. There were no demonstrators outside, no inflatable whale. They asked to speak to someone in charge, and were eventually taken to an office where a brisk, bespectacled woman introduced herself as ‘the Deputy’ and asked them how she could help.
‘The North Sea Conference,’ Rebus explained, ‘you had a bit of trouble with protesters.’
She smiled, her mind on other things. ‘Bit late to do anything about that, isn’t it?’ She moved some papers around her desk, looking for something.
‘I’m interested in one particular protester. What was the name of the group?’
‘It wasn’t that organised, Inspector. They came from all over: Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Save the Whale, God alone knows.’
‘Did they cause any trouble?’
‘Nothing we couldn’t handle.’ Another frozen smile. But she was looking harassed: she really had misplaced something. Rebus got to his feet.
‘Well, sorry to trouble you.’
‘No trouble. Sorry I can’t help.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
Rebus turned to go. Jack bent down and retrieved a sheet of paper from the floor, handed it to her.
‘Thanks,’ she said. Then she followed them out of her office. ‘Look, a local pressure group was responsible for the march on the Saturday.’
‘What march?’
‘It ended at Duthie Park, there was some music afterwards.’
Rebus nodded: Dancing Pigs. The day he’d visited Bannock.
‘I can give you their phone number,’ she said. The smile was human now.
Rebus telephoned the group’s headquarters.
‘I’m looking for a friend of Allan Mitchison’s. I don’t know her name, but she’s got short fair hair, with some of it braided, you know, with beads and stuff. One braid hangs down past her forehead to her nose. Sort of an American accent, I think.’
‘And who might you be?’ The voice was cultured; for some reason, Rebus visualised the speaker sporting a beard, but it wasn’t the kilted Jerry Garcia, different accent.
‘My name’s Detective Inspector John Rebus. You know Allan Mitchison is dead?’
A pause, then an exhalation: cigarette smoke. ‘I heard. Bloody shame.’
‘Did you know him well?’ Rebus was trying to recall the faces in the photographs.
‘He was the shy type. Only met him a couple of times. Big fan of Dancing Pigs, that’s why he tried so bloody hard to get them to top the bill. I was amazed when it worked. He bombarded them with letters, you know. Maybe a hundred or more, probably wore down their resistance.’
‘And his girlfriend’s name?’
‘Not given out to strangers, I’m afraid. I mean, I’ve only your word for it you’re a police officer.’
‘I could come over —’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Look, I’d really like to talk to you...’
But the telephone was dead.
‘Want to take a run down there?’ Jack suggested.
Rebus shook his head. ‘He won’t tell us anything he doesn’t want to. Besides, I’ve got the feeling by the time we got there he’d have gone out for the day. Can’t afford to waste time.’
Rebus tapped his pen against his teeth. They were back in his bedroom. The telephone had a speaker, and he’d kept it on so Jack could hear. Jack was helping himself to last night’s chocolates.
‘Local cops,’ Rebus said, picking up the receiver. ‘That gig was probably licensed, maybe Queen Street will have records of other organisers.’
‘Worth a go,’ Jack agreed, plugging in the kettle.
So Rebus spent twenty minutes knowing how a pinball feels, as he was shunted from one office to another. He was pretending to be a Trading Standards Officer, interested in bootleggers, following up on an operation at an earlier Dancing Pigs concert. Jack nodded his approval: not a bad story.
‘Yes, John Baxter here, City of Edinburgh Trading Standards. I was just explaining to your colleague...’ And off he went again. When he was passed on to yet another voice, and recognised it as belonging to the first person he’d spoken to, he slammed down the phone.
‘They couldn’t organise the proverbial piss-up.’
Jack handed him a cup of tea. ‘End of the road?’
‘No chance.’ Rebus consulted his notebook, picked up the phone again and was put through to Stuart Minchell at T-Bird Oil.
‘Inspector, what a pleasant surprise.’
‘Sorry to keep pestering you, Mr Minchell.’
‘How’s your investigation?’
‘To be honest, I could use a bit of help.’
‘Fire away.’
‘It’s about Bannock. The day I went out there, some protesters were brought aboard.’
‘Yes, I heard. Handcuffed themselves to the rails.’ Minchell sounded amused. Rebus remembered the platform, the strong gusts, the way his hard-hat wouldn’t stay on, and the helicopter overhead, filming everything...
‘I was wondering what happened to the protesters. I mean, were they placed under arrest?’ He knew they weren’t: a couple of them had been at the concert.
‘Best person to ask would be Hayden Fletcher.’
‘Do you think you could ask for me, sir? On the quiet, as it were.’
‘I suppose so. Give me your number in Edinburgh.’
‘That’s all right, I’ll call you back... say, twenty minutes?’ Rebus glanced towards the window: he could almost see the T-Bird headquarters from here.
‘Depends if I can find anyone.’
‘I’ll try again in twenty minutes. Oh, and Mr Minchell?’
‘Yes?’
‘If you should need to speak to Bannock, could you put a question from me to Willie Ford?’
‘What’s the question?’
‘I want to know if he knew Allan Mitchison had a girlfriend, blonde with braided hair.’
‘Braided hair.’ Minchell was writing it down. ‘Can do.’
‘If so, I’d like her name, and an address if possible.’ Rebus thought of something else. ‘When the protesters came to your headquarters, you had them videoed, didn’t you?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Could you find out? It would be security, wouldn’t it?’
‘Do I still have twenty minutes for all this?’
Rebus smiled. ‘No, sir. Let’s make it half an hour.’
Rebus put down the phone and drained his tea.
‘How about another phone call now?’ Jack asked.
‘Who to?’
‘Chick Ancram.’
‘Jack, look at me.’ Rebus pointed to his face. ‘Could a man this ill possibly pick up the telephone?’
‘You’ll swing.’
‘Like a pendulum do.’
Rebus gave Stuart Minchell forty minutes.
‘You know, Inspector, you make working for the Major seem like a picnic by comparison.’
‘Glad to be of service, sir. What have you got?’
‘Just about everything.’ A rustle of paper. ‘No, the protesters weren’t arrested.’
‘Isn’t that a bit generous, under the circumstances?’
‘It would only have generated more bad publicity.’
‘Something you don’t need right now?’
‘The company did get names out of the protesters, but they were false. At least, I’m assuming Yuri Gagarin and Judy Garland are aliases.’
‘Sound reasoning.’ Judy Garland: Braid-Hair. Interesting choice.
‘So they were detained, given something hot to drink, and flown back to the mainland.’
‘Very decent of T-Bird.’
‘Yes, isn’t it?’
‘And the video recording?’
‘That was, as you guessed, our security staff. Precautionary, I’m told. If there’s trouble, we have physical evidence.’
‘They don’t use the film to identify the protesters?’
‘We’re not the CIA, Inspector. We’re an oil company.’
‘Sorry, sir, go on.’
‘Willie Ford says he knew Mitch had been seeing someone in Aberdeen — past tense. But they never discussed her. Mitch was — quote — “a dark horse on the question of his love life” — unquote.’
Dead ends everywhere.
‘Is that everything?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Well, thank you, sir, I really appreciate this.’
‘My pleasure, Inspector. But next time you want a favour, try not to make it on a day when I’m due to sack a dozen of our workforce.’
‘Hard times, Mr Minchell?’
‘A book by Dickens, Inspector Rebus. Goodbye.’
Jack was laughing. ‘Good line,’ he said approvingly.
‘So it should be,’ Rebus said, ‘he was less than a mile away.’ He walked over to the window, watched another plane taking off in the near-distance, the roar of its jets fading as it headed north.
‘Had enough for one morning?’
Rebus didn’t say anything. He’d been expecting Eve to call. There was that favour. He wondered if she’d do it. She owed him, but crossing Judd Fuller didn’t sound like the wisest move on the dance floor. She’d been dancing her own little steps for years: why trip up now?
Jack repeated his question.
‘One option left,’ Rebus said, turning to face him.
‘What’s that?’
‘Flight.’
At Dyce Airport, Rebus showed his warrant card and asked if there were any flights out to Sullom Voe.
‘Not for a while,’ he was told. ‘Maybe in four or five hours.’
‘We’re not fussy who we fly with.’
Shrugs, shakes of the head.
‘It’s important.’
‘You could always hitch a ride to Sumburgh.’
‘That’s miles from Sullom Voe.’
‘Only trying to be helpful. You could rent a car.’
Rebus thought about it, then had a better idea. ‘How soon could we be out of here?’
‘To Sumburgh? Half an hour, forty minutes. There’s a helicopter stopping there on its way out to Ninian.’
‘Fine.’
‘Let me talk to them.’ She picked up her telephone.
‘We’ll be back in five minutes.’
Jack followed Rebus over to the public telephones, where Rebus made a call to St Leonard’s. He was put through to Gill Templer.
‘I’m halfway through listening to the tape,’ she said.
‘Better than Saturday Night Theatre, isn’t it?’
‘I’m going through to Glasgow later on. I want to talk to him myself.’
‘Good idea, I’ve left a copy of the tape with Partick CID. Have you seen Siobhan this morning?’
‘I don’t think so. Which shift is she working? If you like, I can try to find her.’
‘Don’t bother, Gill, long distance doesn’t come cheap.’
‘Oh hell, where are you now?’
‘Ill in bed, if Ancram comes asking.’
‘And looking for that favour?’
‘A phone number, actually. Lerwick police station. I’m assuming such a thing exists.’
‘It does,’ she said. ‘Under the auspices of Northern Division. There was a conference in Inverness last year, they were complaining about keeping tabs on Orkney and Shetland.’
‘Gill...’
‘I’ve been looking it up while I talk.’ She reeled the number off; it went into his notebook.
‘Thanks, Gill. Bye.’
‘John!’
But he’d cut her off. ‘How are you for change, Jack?’ Jack showed him some coins. Rebus took most of them, then called Lerwick and asked if they could lend a car for half a day. He explained it was a murder inquiry, Lothian and Borders. Nothing to get het up about, they’d only be interviewing a friend of the victim.
‘Well now, a car...’ the voice drawled, like Rebus had asked for a spaceship. ‘When would you be arriving?’
‘We’re on a chopper out of here in about half an hour.’
‘Two of you?’
‘Two of us,’ Rebus said, ‘which rules out a motorbike.’
His reward: a deep gurgling laugh. ‘Not necessarily.’
‘Can you do it?’
‘Well, I can do something. Only problem might be if the cars are out elsewhere. Some of our calls are to the back of beyond.’
‘If there’s no one to meet us at Sumburgh, I’ll phone again.’
‘You do that now. Cheerio.’
Back at the desk, they found they were on the flight in thirty-five minutes.
‘I’ve never been on a helicopter,’ Jack said.
‘An experience you’ll never forget.’
Jack frowned. ‘Can you try that again with a bit more enthusiasm?’
There were half a dozen planes on the ground at Sumburgh Airport, and the same number of helicopters, most of them connected as if by umbilical cord to neighbouring fuel tankers. Rebus walked into the Wilsness Terminal, unzipping his survival suit as he went, then saw that Jack was still outside, taking in the coastal scenery and bleak inland plain. There was a fierce wind rising, and Jack had his chin tucked into his suit. Post-flight, he looked pale and slightly queasy. Rebus for one had spent the entire time trying not to remember his outsized breakfast. Jack eventually saw him signalling, and came in from the cold.
‘Doesn’t the sea look blue?’
‘Same colour you’d turn after two more minutes out there.’
‘And the sky... incredible.’
‘Don’t go New Age on me, Jack. Let’s get these suits off. I think our escort with the Escort has just arrived.’
Only it was an Astra, snug with three of them inside, especially when the uniformed driver was built like a rock formation. His head — minus the diced cap — brushed the roof of the car. The voice was the same as on the telephone. He’d shaken Rebus’s hand as though greeting some foreign emissary.
‘Have you been to Shetland before?’
Jack shook his head; Rebus admitted he’d been once, but added no further details.
‘And where would you like me to take you?’
‘Back to your base,’ Rebus said from the cramped back seat. ‘We’ll drop you off and turn the car in when we’re finished.’
The woolly suit — whose name was Alexander Forres — boomed his disappointment. ‘But I’ve been two decades on the force.’
‘Yes?’
‘This would be my first murder inquiry!’
‘Look, Sergeant Forres, we’re only here to talk to a friend of the victim. It’s background — routine and boring as hell.’
‘Ach, all the same... I was quite looking forward to it.’
They were heading up the A970 to Lerwick, twenty-odd miles north of Sumburgh. The wind buffeted them, Forres’ huge hands tight on the steering-wheel, like an ogre choking an infant. Rebus decided to change the subject.
‘Nice road.’
‘Paid for with oil money,’ Forres said.
‘How do you like being ruled from Inverness?’
‘Who says we are? You think they come checking up on us every week of the year?’
‘I’d guess not.’
‘You’d guess right, Inspector. It’s like Lothian and Borders — how often does someone from Fettes bother travelling down to Hawick?’ Forres looked at Rebus in the rearview. ‘Don’t go thinking we’re all idiots up here, with just enough sense to set light to the boat come Up-Helly-Aa.’
‘Up-Helly what?’
Jack turned towards him. ‘You know, John, where they burn a longboat.’
‘Last Tuesday in January,’ Forres said.
‘Odd form of central heating,’ Rebus muttered.
‘He’s a born cynic,’ Jack told the sergeant.
‘Well, it’d be sad for him if he died one.’ Forres’ eyes were still on the rearview.
On the outskirts of Lerwick, they passed ugly pre-fabricated buildings which Rebus guessed were connected to the oil industry. The police station itself was in the New Town. They dropped Forres off, and he went in to fetch them a map of Mainland.
‘Not that you could get very lost,’ he’d told them. ‘There are only the three big roads to worry about.’
Rebus looked at the map and saw what he meant. Mainland comprised a shape in the vague form of a cross, the A970 its spine, the 971 and 968 its arms. Brae was as far north again as they’d just come. Rebus was going to be driving, Jack navigating — Jack’s decision; he said it would give him a chance to sight-see.
The drive was by turns awe-inspiring and bleak: coastal vistas giving way to interior moorland, scattered settlements, a lot of sheep — many of them on the road — and few trees. Jack was right though, the sky was amazing. Forres had told them this season was ‘simmer dim’ — a time of year without true darkness. But in winter, daylight became a precious commodity. You had to respect people who chose to live miles from everything you took for granted. Easy enough to be a hunter-gatherer in a city, but out here... It wasn’t the sort of scenery to inspire conversation. They found their dialogues crumbling into grunts and nods. As close as they were in the speeding car, they were in isolation each from the other. No, Rebus was damned sure he couldn’t survive out here.
They took a left fork towards Brae, and found themselves suddenly on the island’s west coast. It was still hard to know what to make of the place — Forres was the only born and bred Shetlander they’d met. What architecture they’d seen in Lerwick had been a mix of Scottish and Scandinavian styles, a sort of Ikea baronial. Out in the country, the crofts were the same as any in the Western Isles, but the names of the settlements showed Scandinavian influence. As they drove through Burravoe and into Brae, Rebus realised he felt just about as foreign as he ever had in his life.
‘Where to now?’ Jack asked.
‘Give me a minute. When I was here before, we came into town the other way...’ Rebus got a fix on where they were, and eventually led them to the house Jake Harley shared with Briony. Neighbours looked out at the police car like they’d never seen one before; maybe they hadn’t. Rebus tried Briony’s door — no answer. He knocked harder, the sound echoing emptily. A look in through the living-room window: untidy, but not a mess. A woman’s untidiness, not quite professional enough. Rebus went back to the car.
‘She works at the swimming pool, let’s give it a shot.’
The pool, with its blue metal roof, was hard to miss. Briony was pacing the edge of the pool, watching children at play. She wore the same uniform of singlet and jogging bottoms as when they’d last met, but now had tennis shoes on her feet. Her ankles were bare: lifesavers didn’t bother with socks. She had a referee’s tin whistle strung around her neck, but the kids were behaving themselves. Briony saw Rebus and recognised him. She put the whistle in her mouth and gave three short blasts: a recognised signal — another staff member took her place poolside. She walked up to Rebus and Jack. The temperature was getting on for tropical, with humidity to match.
‘I told you,’ she said, ‘Jake’s still not shown up.’
‘I know, and you said you weren’t worried about him.’
She shrugged. She had short dark hair which fell straight most of the way before ending in kiss-curls. The style took half a dozen years off her, turning her into a teenager, but her face was older — slightly hardened, whether by climate or circumstance Rebus couldn’t say. Her eyes were small, as were nose and mouth. He tried not to think of a hamster, but then she twitched her nose and the picture was complete.
‘He’s a free agent,’ she said.
‘But you were worried last week.’
‘Was I?’
‘When you closed the door on me. I’ve seen the look enough times to know.’
She folded her arms. ‘So?’
‘So one of two things, Briony. Either Jake’s in hiding because he’s in fear of his life.’
‘Or?’
‘Or he’s already dead. Either way, you can help.’
She swallowed. ‘Mitch...’
‘Did Jake tell you why Mitch was killed?’
She shook her head. Rebus tried not to smile: so Jake had been in touch since they’d last spoken.
‘He’s alive, isn’t he?’
She bit her lip, then nodded.
‘I’d like to talk to him. I think I can get him out of this mess.’
She tried to gauge the truth of this, but Rebus’s face was a mask. ‘Is he in trouble?’ she asked.
‘Yes, but not with us.’
She looked back at the pool, saw everything was under control. ‘I’ll take you,’ she said.
They drove back through the moorland and down past Lerwick, heading for a place called Sandwick on the eastern side of Mainland, just ten miles north of where their helicopter had originally landed.
Briony didn’t want to talk during the drive, and Rebus guessed she didn’t know much anyway. Sandwick turned out to be a spread of land taking in older settlements and oil-era housing. She directed them to Leebotten, a nestling of sea-front cottages.
‘Is this where he is?’ Rebus asked as they got out of the car. She shook her head and pointed out to sea. There was an island out there, no sign of habitation. Cliffs and rocky approaches. Rebus looked to Briony.
‘Mousa,’ she said.
‘How do we get there?’
‘Boat, always supposing somebody’s willing to take us.’ She knocked on a cottage door. It was opened by a middle-aged woman.
‘Briony,’ the woman said simply, more statement of fact than greeting.
‘Hello, Mrs Munroe. Is Scott in?’
‘He is.’ The door opened a little wider. ‘Come in, won’t you?’
They entered one decent-sized room which seemed kitchen and living room both. A large wooden table took up most of the space. By the fireplace were two armchairs. A man was rising from one of them, unhooking wire reading-glasses from his ears. He folded them and put them in his waistcoat pocket. The book he’d been reading lay open on the floor: it was a family-sized Bible, black leather cover and brass clasps.
‘Well now, Briony,’ the man said. He was middle-aged or a little after, but his weatherbeaten face was that of an old man. His hair was silver, cut short with the careful simplicity of a home barber. His wife had gone to the sink to fill the kettle.
‘No thanks, Mrs Munroe,’ Briony said, before turning back to the man. ‘Have you seen Jake lately, Scott?’
‘I was over there a couple of days back, he seemed fine.’
‘Could you take us across?’
Scott Munroe looked to Rebus, who stuck out a hand.
‘Detective Inspector Rebus, Mr Munroe. This is DI Morton.’
Munroe shook both hands, putting no power into it: what had he to prove?
‘Well, the wind’s dropped a bit,’ Munroe said, rubbing the grey stubble on his chin. ‘So I suppose that’s all right.’ He turned to his wife. ‘Meg, what about some bread and ham for the lad?’
Mrs Munroe nodded and silently set about her work, while her husband readied himself. He found oilskins for all of them and waterproof boots for himself, by which time a parcel of sandwiches and flask of tea sat waiting. Rebus stared at the flask, knowing Jack was doing the same, both gasping for a drink.
But there was no time for that. They were off.
It was a small boat, freshly painted and with an outboard motor. Rebus had had visions of them rowing across.
‘There’s a jetty,’ Briony said when they were underway, rising and falling against the choppy water. ‘A ferry usually takes visitors across. We’ll have a bit of a hike, not much.’
‘It’s a bleak spot to choose,’ Rebus yelled above the wind.
‘Not that bleak,’ she said with the ghost of a smile.
‘What’s that?’ Jack said, pointing.
It stood on the edge of the island, next to where sloping strata of rock eased down into the dark water. Sheep grazed on the grass around the structure. To Rebus, it looked like some gigantic sandcastle or upturned flower-pot. As they got closer he saw it had to be over forty feet high, maybe fifty feet in diameter at its base, and was constructed from large flat stones, thousands of them.
‘Mousa Broch,’ Briony said.
‘What is it?’
‘Like a fort. They lived there, it was easy to defend.’
‘Who lived there?’
She shrugged. ‘Settlers. Maybe a hundred years BC.’ There was a low-walled area behind the broch. ‘That was the Haa; it’s just a shell now.’
‘And where’s Jake?’
She turned to him. ‘Inside the broch, of course.’
They landed, Munroe saying he’d circle the island and be back for them in an hour. Briony carried the bag of provisions, and struck out towards the broch, watched by the slow-chewing sheep and a few strutting birds.
‘You live in a country all your life,’ Jack was saying, the hood of his oilskin up to protect him from the wind, ‘and you never even know stuff like this is out there.’
Rebus nodded. It was an extraordinary place. The feel of his feet on the grass wasn’t like walking across lawn or field; it was like he was the first person ever to walk there. They followed Briony through a passageway and into the heart of the broch itself, sheltered from the wind but with no roof to protect them from threatening rain. Munroe’s ‘one hour’ was a warning: any later and they’d be in for a rough if not dangerous crossing.
The blue nylon one-man tent looked incongruous pitched in the broch’s central court. A man had risen out of it to hug Briony. Rebus bided his time. Briony handed over the bag of tea and sandwiches.
‘God,’ Jake Harley said, ‘I’ve got too much food here as it is.’
He didn’t look surprised to see Rebus. ‘I thought she’d crack under pressure,’ he said.
‘No pressure necessary, Mr Harley. She’s worried about you, that’s all. I was worried too for a while there — thought you might have had an accident.’
Harley managed a smile. ‘By which you don’t really mean “accident”?’ Rebus nodded. He was staring at Harley, trying to see him as ‘Mr H.’, the person who had ordered Allan Mitchison’s execution. But that seemed way off the mark.
‘I don’t blame you for going into hiding,’ Rebus said. ‘Probably the safest thing you could have done.’
‘Poor Mitch.’ Harley looked down at the ground. He was tall, well built, with short, thinning black hair and metal-rimmed glasses. His face had retained a touch of the schoolboy, but he was badly needing a shave and to wash his hair. The tent’s flaps were open, showing ground-mat, sleeping bag, a radio and some books. Leaning against the interior wall of the broch was a red rucksack, and nearby a camping-stove and carrier bag filled with rubbish.
‘Can we talk about it?’ Rebus asked.
Jake Harley nodded. He saw that Jack Morton was more interested in the broch itself than in their conversation. ‘Isn’t it incredible?’
‘Bloody right,’ Jack said. ‘Did it ever have a roof?’
Harley shrugged. ‘They built lean-tos in here, so maybe they didn’t need a roof up there. The walls are hollow, double-thick. One of the galleries still leads to the top.’ He looked around. ‘There’s a lot we don’t know.’ Then he looked at Rebus. ‘It’s been here two thousand years. It’ll be here long after the oil’s gone.’
‘I don’t doubt that.’
‘Some people can’t see it. Money’s made them short-sighted.’
‘You think this is all about money, Jake?’
‘Not all of it, no. Come on, I’ll show you the Haa.’
So they walked back out into the wind, crossing the grazing land and coming to the low wall around what had been a good-sized stone-built house, only the shell of which remained. They circuited the boundary, Briony walking with them, Jack further back, reluctant to leave the broch.
‘Mousa Broch has always been lucky for the hunted. There’s a story in the Orkneyinga Saga, an eloping couple took shelter here...’ He smiled at Briony.
‘You found out Mitch was dead?’ Rebus asked.
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
‘I phoned Jo.’
‘Jo?’
‘Joanna Bruce. Mitch and her had been seeing one another.’ So at last Braid-Hair had a name.
‘How did she know?’
‘It was in the Edinburgh paper. Jo’s a media checker — she reads all the papers first thing every morning to see if there’s anything the various pressure groups should know.’
‘You didn’t tell Briony?’
Jake took his girlfriend’s hand and kissed it. ‘You’d only have worried,’ he told her.
‘Two questions, Mr Harley: why do you think Mitch was killed, and who was responsible?’
Harley shrugged. ‘As to who did it... I’d never be able to prove anything. But I know why he was killed — it was my fault.’
‘Your fault?’
‘I told him what I suspected about the Negrita.’
The ship Sheepskin had mentioned on the flight to Sullom Voe; afterwards clamming up.
‘What happened?’
‘It was a few months back. You know Sullom Voe has some of the strictest procedures going? I mean, time was tankers would swill out their dirty bilges as they approached the coast — it saved pumping them ashore at the terminal... saved time, which meant money. We used to lose black guillemots, great northern divers, shags, eider ducks, even the otters. That doesn’t happen now — they tightened up. But mistakes still happen. That’s all the Negrita was, a mistake.’
‘An oil spill?’
Harley nodded. ‘Not a big one, not by the standards we’ve managed to set with Braer and Sea Empress. The first mate, who should have been in charge, was in the sick bay — bad hangover apparently. A crew member who hadn’t done the job before hit the wrong sequence of levers. The thing was, the crew member didn’t have any English. That’s not unusual these days: the officers might be British, but the hired help is the cheapest the company can get, which usually means Portuguese, Filipino, a hundred other nationalities. My guess is, the poor sod just didn’t understand the instructions.’
‘It was hushed up?’
Harley shrugged. ‘Never really news in the first place, not a big enough spill.’
Rebus frowned. ‘So what’s the problem?’
‘Like I say, I told Mitch the story...’
‘How did you know?’
‘The crew landed at the terminal. They were in the canteen. I got talking to one of them, he looked awful — I can speak a bit of Spanish. He told me he did it.’
Rebus nodded. ‘And Mitch?’
‘Well, Mitch found out something that had been covered up. Namely the tanker’s real owners. It’s not easy with these boats — they’re registered here, there and everywhere, leaving a real paper trail in their wake. Not always easy to get details from some of the registration ports. And sometimes the name on the papers doesn’t mean much — companies own other companies, more countries are involved...’
‘A real maze.’
‘Purposely so: a lot of the tankers out there are in shocking condition. But maritime law is international — even if we wanted to stop them landing, we couldn’t, not without the say-so of all the other signatories.’
‘Mitch found out that T-Bird Oil owned the tanker?’
‘How did you know?’
‘An educated guess.’
‘Well, that’s what he told me.’
‘And you think someone at T-Bird had him killed? But why? Like you say, it wasn’t a newsworthy spill.’
‘It would be with T-Bird in the frame. They’re going all out to persuade the government to let them dump their platforms at sea. They’re talking up the environment and their record in that area. We’re Mr Clean, so let us do what we want.’ Harley showed bright white teeth as he spoke, the words almost a sneer. ‘So tell me, Inspector, am I being paranoid? Just because Mitch gets thrown out of a window doesn’t mean he was assassinated, right?’
‘Oh, he was assassinated all right. But I’m not sure the Negrita had much to do with it.’ Harley stopped walking and looked at him. ‘I think you’d be quite safe going back home, Jake,’ Rebus said. ‘In fact, I’m sure of it. But first, there’s something I need.’
‘What?’
‘An address for Joanna Bruce.’
The trip back was a real follicle transplant — hairier even than the trip out. They’d taken Jake and Briony back to Brae, then dropped the car off at Lerwick and begged a lift to Sumburgh. Forres was still in the huff, but relented eventually and checked the flights back, one of which gave them enough time for a Cup-a-Soup at the station.
At Dyce, they climbed back into Jack’s car and sat there for a couple of minutes, adjusting to being back on the ground. Then they headed south on the A92, using the directions Jake Harley had given them. It was the same road Rebus had been taken on the night Tony El had been killed. They had Stanley for that — no matter what. Rebus wondered what else the young psychopath might spill, especially now he’d lost Eve. He’d know she’d flown; he’d know she wouldn’t have left the loot behind. Maybe Gill would have twisted more stories out of him.
It could be the making of her.
They saw signposts to Cove Bay, followed Harley’s instructions and came to a lay-by, behind which were parked a dozen vans, caravans, buses and campers. Bumping over ineffectual earth mounds, they came into a clearing in front of a forest. Dogs were barking, kids out playing with a punctured football. Clothes-lines hung between branches, and someone had lit a bonfire. A few adults had parked themselves around the fire, passing joints, one woman strumming a guitar. Rebus had been to travellers’ camps before. They came in two designs. There was the old-style gypsy camp, with smart caravans and builders’ lorries, the inhabitants — Romanies — olive-skinned and lapsing into a tongue Rebus couldn’t understand. Then there were the ‘New Age travellers’: usually with buses which had passed their last MOT on a wing and a prayer. They were young and savvy, cut dead wood for fuel, and worked the social security system, despite government attempts to render it unworkable. They gave their kids names the kids would kill them for when they grew up.
Nobody paid Rebus and Jack any heed as they walked towards the camp-fire. Rebus kept his hands in his pockets, and tried not to make fists of them.
‘Looking for Jo,’ he said. He recognised the guitar chords: ‘Time of the Preacher’. He tried again. ‘Joanna Bruce.’
‘Bummer,’ someone said.
‘That could be arranged,’ Jack cautioned.
The joint went from hand to hand. ‘Decade from now,’ someone else said, ‘this won’t be illegal. It might even be on prescription.’
Smoke billowed from grinning mouths.
‘Joanna,’ Rebus reminded them.
‘Warrant?’ the guitarist asked.
‘You know better than that,’ Rebus told her. ‘I only need a warrant if I want to bust this place. Want me to fetch one?’
‘Macho Man!’ someone sang.
‘What do you want?’
There was a small white caravan hooked up to an antiquated Land Rover. She’d opened the caravan door — just the top half — and was leaning out.
‘Can you smell the bacon, Jo?’ the guitarist asked.
‘Need to talk to you, Joanna,’ Rebus said, walking towards the caravan, ‘about Mitch.’
‘What about him?’
‘Why he died.’
Joanna Bruce looked at her fellow travellers, saw that Rebus had their attention, and unlocked the bottom half of her door. ‘Better come in,’ she said.
The caravan was cramped and unheated. There was no TV, but untidy stacks of magazines and newspapers, some of them with articles clipped out, and on the small folding table — benches either side, the whole thing convertible into a bed — a laptop computer. Standing, Rebus’s head touched the caravan roof. Joanna shut down the computer, then gestured for Rebus and Jack to take the bench seats, while she balanced atop a pile of magazines.
‘So,’ she said, folding her arms, ‘what’s the story?’
‘My question exactly,’ Rebus replied. He nodded towards the wall behind her, where some photos had been pinned for decoration. ‘Snap.’ She looked round at the pictures. ‘I’ve just had another lot of those developed,’ Rebus explained: they were the originals missing from Mitch’s envelope. She sat there with a face like stone, giving nothing away. There was kohl around her eyes and her hair was white fire in the glow from the gas lighting. For a full half-minute, the soft roar of igniting gas was the only sound in the caravan. Rebus was giving her time to change her mind, but she was using that time to erect further barricades, her eyes closing to slits, mouth pressed shut.
‘Joanna Bruce,’ Rebus mused. ‘Interesting choice of name.’ She half-opened her mouth, closed it again.
‘Is Joanna your real first name, or did you change that too?’
‘What do you mean?’
Rebus looked at Jack, who was sitting back, trying to look the part of the relaxed visitor, telling her it wasn’t two against one, that she’d no need to be afraid. When Rebus spoke, he spoke to Jack’s face.
‘Your real surname’s Weir.’
‘How... who told you that?’ Trying to laugh it off.
‘Nobody needed to. Major Weir had a daughter; they fell out; he disowned her.’ And changed her sex to a son, maybe to muddy the water. Mairie’s source had said as much.
‘He didn’t disown her! She disowned him!’
Rebus turned to her. Her face and body were animated now, clay come to life. Her fists gouged at her knees.
‘Two things put me on track,’ he said quietly. ‘One, that surname: Bruce, as in Robert the... as any student of Scottish history would know. Major Weir is daft on Scots history, he even named his oilfield after Bannockburn, which as we know was won by Robert the Bruce. Bruce and Bannock. I’m guessing you picked the name because you thought it would rile him?’
‘It riles him all right.’ Half a smile.
‘The second thing was Mitch himself, once I knew you two were friends. Jake Harley tells me Mitch had gleaned some gen on Negrita, top-secret stuff. Well, Mitch might have been resourceful in some areas, but I couldn’t see how he’d manage to work his way back through a paper trail. He travelled light, no sign of any notes or anything like that, either in his flat or in his cabin. I’m assuming he got the gen from you?’ She nodded. ‘And you’d have to seriously have it in for T-Bird Oil to bother with that sort of labyrinth in the first place. But we already know you’ve got something against T-Bird — the demo outside their HQ; chaining yourself to Bannock in full view of the TV cameras. I thought maybe it was something personal...’
‘It is.’
‘Major Weir’s your father?’
Her face turned sour and strangely childlike. ‘Only in the biological sense. Even then, if you could get a gene transplant I’d be at the front of the queue.’ Her voice sounded more American than ever. ‘Did he kill Mitch?’
‘Do you think he did?’
‘I’d like to think so.’ She stared at Rebus. ‘I mean, I’d like to think he’d sink that low.’
‘But?’
‘But nothing. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t.’
‘You reckon he had the motive?’
‘Sure.’ Not aware she was doing it, she picked at a nail and then bit it, before starting on another. ‘I mean, Negrita and the way T-Bird’s culpability was hushed up... and now the dumping. He had plenty of economic reasons.’
‘Was Mitch threatening to go to the media with the story?’
She removed a sliver of nail from her tongue. ‘No, I think he was trying blackmail first. Keep quiet about everything, so long as T-Bird went for ecological scrapping of Bannock.’
‘Everything?’
‘What?’
‘You said “everything”, like there was more.’
She shook her head. ‘No.’ But she wasn’t looking at him.
‘Joanna, let me ask you something: why didn’t you go to the media, or try blackmail on your father? Why did it have to be Mitch?’
She shrugged. ‘He had the chutzpah.’
‘Did he?’
Another shrug. ‘What else?’
‘See, the way it looks to me... you don’t mind tormenting your father — as publicly as possible. You’re at the front of every demo, you make sure your picture’s on TV... but if you actually came forward and let the world know who you are, that would be even more effective. Why the secrecy?’
Her face turned childlike again, her mouth busy with fingers, knees together. The single braid fell between her eyes, like she wanted to hide from the world but be caught at the same time — a child’s game.
‘Why the secrecy?’ Rebus repeated. ‘Seems to me it’s precisely because this is so personal between you and your father, like some sort of private game. You like the idea of torturing him, letting him wonder when you’ll go public with any of this.’ He paused. ‘Seems to me maybe you were using Mitch.’
‘No!’
‘Using him to get at your father.’
‘No!’
‘Which means he had something you found useful. What could that be?’
She got up. ‘Get out!’
‘Something that drew the two of you together.’
She clamped her hands over her ears, shaking her head.
‘Something from your past... your childhoods. Something like blood between you. How far back does it go, Jo? Between you and your father — how far into the past does it stretch?’
She swung around and slapped his face. Hard. Rebus rode it, but it still stung.
‘So much for non-violent protest,’ he said, rubbing the spot.
She slumped down on the magazines again, ran a hand over her head. It came to rest on one of her braids, which she twirled nervously. ‘You’re right,’ she said, so quietly Rebus almost didn’t hear.
‘Mitch?’
‘Mitch,’ she said, remembering him at last. Allowing herself that pain. Behind her, lighting flickered over the photographs. ‘He was so uptight when we met. Nobody could believe it when we started seeing one another — chalk and cheese they said. They were wrong. It took a while, but one night he opened up to me.’ She looked up. ‘You know his background?’
‘Orphaned,’ Rebus said.
She nodded. ‘Then institutionalised.’ She paused. ‘Then abused. He said there were times he’d thought of coming forward, telling people, but after all this time... he wondered what good it would do.’ She shook her head, tears forming. ‘He was the most unselfish person I’ve ever met. But inside, it was like he was eaten away, and Jesus, I know that feeling.’
Rebus got it. ‘Your father?’
She sniffed. ‘They call him “an institution” in the oil world. Me, I was institutionalised...’ A deep breath, nothing theatrical about it: a necessity. ‘And then abused.’
‘Christ,’ Jack said quietly. Rebus’s heart was racing; he had to fight to keep his voice level.
‘For how long, Jo?’
She looked up angrily. ‘You think I’d let the prick get away with it twice? I ran as soon as I could. Kept running for years, then thought: fuck it, I’m not to blame. I’m not the one who should be doing this.’
Rebus nodded understanding. ‘So you saw a bond between Mitch and you?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And you told him your own story?’
‘Quid pro quo.’
‘Including your father’s identity?’ She started to nod, but stopped, swallowed instead. ‘That’s what he was blackmailing your father with — the incest story?’
‘I don’t know. Mitch was dead before I could find out.’
‘But that was his intention?’
She shrugged. ‘I guess.’
‘Jo, I think we’ll need a statement from you. Not now, later. All right?’
‘I’ll think about it.’ She paused. ‘We can’t prove anything, can we?’
‘Not yet.’ Maybe not ever, he was thinking. He slid out of the seat, Jack following.
Outside, there were more songs around the camp-fire. Candles danced inside Chinese lanterns strung from the trees. Faces had turned shiny orange, like pumpkins. Joanna Bruce watched from her doorway, leaning against the bottom half of the door as before. Rebus turned to say goodbye.
‘Will you be camped here a while?’
She shrugged. ‘The way we live, who knows?’
‘You like what you’re doing?’
She gave the question serious thought. ‘It’s a life.’
Rebus smiled, moved away.
‘Inspector!’ she called. He turned back to her. Kohl was dribbling down her cheeks. ‘If everything’s so wonderful, how come everything’s so fucked up?’
Rebus didn’t have an answer to that. ‘Don’t let the sun catch you crying,’ he told her instead.
On the drive back, he tried answering her question for himself, found he couldn’t. Maybe it all had to do with balance, cause and effect. Where there was light, there must needs be dark. It sounded like the start of a sermon, and he hated sermons. He tried out his own personal mantra instead: Miles Davis, ‘So What?’ Only, it didn’t sound so clever now.
It didn’t sound clever at all.
Jack was frowning. ‘Why didn’t she come forward with any of this?’ he asked.
‘Because as far as she’s concerned, it’s got nothing to do with us. It didn’t even have anything to do with Mitch, he just blundered in.’
‘Sounded more like he was invited.’
‘An invitation he should have refused.’
‘You think Major Weir did it?’
‘I’m not sure. I’m not even sure it matters. He’s not going anywhere.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘He’s in this little private hell she’s constructed for the two of them. As long as he knows she’s out there, demonstrating against everything he holds dear... that’s his punishment and her revenge. No getting away from it for either of them.’
‘Fathers and daughters, eh?’
‘Fathers and daughters,’ Rebus agreed. And past misdemeanours. And the way they refused to go away...
They were beat when they got back to the hotel.
‘Round of golf?’ Jack suggested.
Rebus laughed. ‘I could just about manage coffee and a round of sarnies.’
‘Sounds good to me. My room in ten minutes.’
Their rooms had been made up, fresh chocolates on the pillows, clean bathrobes laid out. Rebus changed quickly, then phoned reception to ask if there were any messages. He hadn’t checked before — hadn’t wanted Jack to know he was expecting one.
‘Yes, sir,’ the receptionist trilled. ‘I’ve a phone message for you here.’ Rebus’s heart rose: she hadn’t just upped and run. ‘Shall I read it to you?’
‘Please.’
‘It says, “Burke’s, half an hour after closing. Tried another time, another place, but he wasn’t having any.” There’s no name.’
‘That’s fine, thanks.’
‘You’re welcome, sir.’
Of course he was welcome: business account. The whole world sucked up to you if you were corporate. He got the outside line, tried Siobhan at home, got her machine again. Tried St Leonard’s, was told she wasn’t there. Tried her at home again, deciding this time to leave his telephone number on her machine. Halfway through, she picked up.
‘What’s the use of an answering machine when you’re home?’ he asked.
‘Call filtering,’ she said. ‘I get to check if you’re a heavy breather or not before I talk to you.’
‘My breathing’s under control, so talk to me.’
‘First victim,’ she said. ‘I spoke to someone at Robert Gordon’s. Deceased was studying geology, and it included time spent offshore. People who study geology up there almost always get a job in the oil industry, the whole course is geared towards it. Because she spent time offshore, deceased did a survival module.’
Rebus was thinking: chopper simulator, ducked in a swimming pool.
‘So,’ Siobhan went on, ‘she spent time at OSC.’
‘The Offshore Survival Centre.’
‘Which deals with nothing but oil people. I got them to fax me staff and student rolls. So much for the first victim.’ She paused. ‘Victim two seemed completely different: older, different set of friends, different city. But she was a prostitute, and we know that a lot of businessmen use that sort of service when they’re away from home.’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Victim four worked closely with the oil industry, which left Judith Cairns, the Glasgow victim. Variously employed, including part-time cleaning at a city-centre hotel.’
‘Businessmen again.’
‘So tomorrow they begin faxing me names. They weren’t keen, client confidentiality and all that.’
‘But you can be persuasive.’
‘Yes.’
‘So what are we hoping for? A guest at the Fairmount who’s got a connection with Robert Gordon’s?’
‘It’ll be in my prayers.’
‘How soon tomorrow will you know?’
‘That’s down to the hotel. I may have to drive over there and gee them up.’
‘I’ll phone you.’
‘If you get the machine, leave a number where I can reach you.’
‘Will do. Cheers, Siobhan.’ He put the telephone down, went along to Jack’s room. Jack was wearing his robe.
‘I might have to splash out on one of these,’ he said. ‘Sarnies are on their way up, ditto a big pot of coffee. I’m just going to take a shower.’
‘Fine. Listen, Siobhan might be on to something.’ He filled Jack in.
‘Sounds promising. Then again...’ Jack shrugged.
‘Christ, and I thought I was cynical.’
Jack winked, went into the bathroom. Rebus waited till he could hear the shower running, and Jack humming what sounded like ‘Puppy Love’. Jack’s clothes were on a chair. Rebus fished in the jacket pockets, came up with car keys, pocketed them for himself.
He wondered what time Burke’s closed on a Thursday night. He wondered what he was going to say to Judd Fuller. He wondered how badly Fuller would take it, whatever it was.
The shower stopped. ‘Puppy Love’ segued into ‘What Made Milwaukee Famous’. Rebus liked a man with catholic tastes. Jack emerged, wrapped in his robe and doing prize-fighter impressions.
‘Back to Edinburgh tomorrow?’
‘First thing,’ Rebus agreed.
‘To face the music.’
Rebus didn’t say he might well be facing the music long before that. But when the sandwiches arrived, he found he’d lost his appetite. Thirsty though: four cups of coffee. He needed to stay awake. Long night coming, no moon in the sky.
Darkness on the short drive in, thin rain falling. Rebus felt jolted by coffee, loose wires sparking where his nerves should be. One-fifteen in the morning: he’d rung Burke’s, the bar-side payphone, asked a punter what time the place shut.
‘Party’s nearly finished, ya radge!’ Phone slammed home. Background music: ‘Albatross’, so it was moon-dance time. Two or three slows, your last chance to grab a breakfast partner. Desperate times on the dance floor; as desperate in your forties as in your teens.
Albatross.
Rebus tried the radio — vacuous pop, pounding disco, telephone chat. Then jazz. Jazz was OK. Jazz was fine, even on Radio Two. He parked near Burke’s, watched a dumb-show as two bouncers took on three farm-boys whose girlfriends were trying to pull them away.
‘Listen to the ladies,’ Rebus muttered. ‘You’ve proved yourselves for tonight.’
The fight dissolved into pointed fingers and swearing, the bouncers, arms not touching their sides, waddling back inside. A final kick at the doors, saliva hitting the porthole-styled windows, then hauled away and up the road. Opening curtain on another north-east weekend. Rebus got out and locked the car, breathed the city air. Shouts and sirens up on Union Street. He crossed the road and headed for Burke’s.
The doors were locked. He kicked at them, but nobody answered: probably thinking the farm-boys were back. Rebus kept kicking. Someone poked a head round the interior doors, saw he didn’t look like a punter, shouted something back into the club. Now a bouncer came out, jangling a chain of keys. He looked like he wanted to go to bed, day’s work done. The door rattled, and he opened it an inch.
‘What?’ he growled.
‘I’ve an appointment with Mr Fuller.’
The bouncer stared at him, pulled the door wide. The lights were on in the main bar, staff emptying ashtrays and wiping down tables, collecting an enormous number of glasses. With the lights up, the interior looked as bleak as any moorland vista. Two men who looked like DJs — ponytails, black sleeveless T-shirts — sat smoking at the bar, sinking bottles of beer. Rebus turned to the bouncer.
‘Mr Stemmons around?’
‘I thought your appointment was with Mr Fuller.’
Rebus nodded. ‘Just wondered if Mr Stemmons was available.’ Talk to him first — the sane member of the cast; businessman, therefore a listener.
‘He might be upstairs.’ They went back into the foyer, climbed to where Stemmons and Fuller had their offices. The bouncer opened a door. ‘In you go.’
In Rebus went, ducking too late. The hand hit his neck like a side of beef, flooring him. Fingers sought his throat, probing for the carotid artery, applying pressure. No brain damage, Rebus thought, as the edges of his vision darkened. Please, God, let there be no damage...
He woke up drowning.
Sucking foam and water in through his nose, his mouth. Fizzing taste — not water, beer. He shook his head wildly, opened his eyes. Lager trickled down his throat. He tried coughing it out. Someone was standing behind him, holding the now-empty bottle, chuckling. Rebus tried turning and found his arms were on fire. Literally. He could smell whisky, see a shattered bottle on the floor. His arms had been doused in the stuff and set alight. He cried out, wriggled. A bar towel flapped at the flames and they died. The smouldering towel fell with a slap on to the floor. Laughter echoing around the walls.
The place reeked of alcohol. It was a cellar. Bare lightbulbs and aluminium kegs, boxes of bottles and glasses. Half a dozen brick pillars supporting the ceiling. They hadn’t tied Rebus to one of these. Instead, he hung suspended from a hook, the rope fraying his wrists, arms readying to pop from sockets. Rebus shifted more weight on to his feet. The figure from behind tossed the beer-bottle into a crate and came round to stand in front of him. Slick black hair with a kiss-curl at the front, and a large hooked nose in the centre of a face lush with corruption. A diamond glinted in one of the teeth. Dark suit, white T-shirt. Rebus took a wild guess — Judd Fuller — but reckoned the time for introductions was past.
‘Sorry I don’t have Tony El’s ingenuity with power tools,’ Fuller said. ‘But I do what I can.’
‘From where I’m standing, you’re doing fine.’
‘Thanks.’
Rebus looked around. They were alone in the cellar, and nobody’d thought to tie his legs together. He could kick Fuller in the balls and...
The punch came low, hitting him just above the groin. It would have doubled him up, if his arms had been free. As it was, he instinctively raised his knees, lifting his feet off the floor. His shoulder-joints told him this was not the brightest move.
Fuller was walking away, flexing the fingers of his right hand. ‘So, cop,’ he said, his back to Rebus, ‘how do you like it so far?’
‘I’m ready for a break if you are.’
‘Only break you’re going to get is your goddamn neck.’ Fuller turned to him, grinned, then picked up another beer-bottle, smacked it open against a wall and gulped half the contents.
The smell of the alcohol was overpowering, and the few mouthfuls Rebus had swallowed seemed already to be having an effect. His eyes stung; so did his hands where the flames had licked them. His wrists were already blistering.
‘We have a nice club here,’ Fuller was saying. ‘Everybody has fun. You can ask around, it’s a popular spot. What gives you the right to spoil the party?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You made Erik upset the night you talked to him.’
‘Does he know about this?’
‘He’ll never get to know about this. Erik’s happier not knowing. He has an ulcer, you know. He worries.’
‘Can’t think why that is.’ Rebus stared at Fuller. If you caught his face in the right kind of shadow, he resembled a young Leonard Cohen, the Travolta comparison way off.
‘You’re a nuisance, that’s all you are, an itch that needs to be scratched.’
‘You don’t get it, Judd. You’re not in America. You can’t just hide a body here and hope nobody stumbles across it.’
‘Why not?’ Fuller opened his arms wide. ‘Boats head out of Aberdeen all the time. Weight you down and tip you into the North Sea. Know how hungry the fish are out there?’
‘I know it’s overfished — do you want some trawler netting me?’
‘Option two,’ Fuller said, raising two fingers, ‘the mountains. Let the fucking sheep find you, nibble you clean to the bone. Plenty of options, don’t think we haven’t used them before.’ He paused. ‘Why did you come here tonight? What did you ever hope you were going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘When Eve phoned... she couldn’t hide it, it was in her voice — I knew she was shitting me, setting me up. But I have to admit, I was expecting something a little more challenging.’
‘Sorry to disappoint you.’
‘I’m glad it’s you, though, I’ve been wanting to see you again.’
‘Well, here I am.’
‘What did Eve tell you?’
‘Eve? She didn’t tell me anything.’
A roundhouse kick took time: Rebus did what he could, turned sideways on to it, caught it in the ribs. Fuller followed up with a punch to the face, his hand moving so slowly Rebus could see the scar on its back — a long ugly welt. A tooth split in half, one of his root-canal jobs. Rebus spat the tooth and some blood at Fuller, who backed off a little, impressed at the damage.
Rebus knew he was dealing with someone who at best could be termed unpredictable, at worst psychotic. Without Stemmons to keep him in check, Judd Fuller looked capable of anything.
‘All I did,’ Rebus lisped, ‘was do a deal with her. She set up the meeting with you, and I let her go.’
‘She must have told you something.’
‘She’s a hard nut to crack. I got even less from Stanley.’ Rebus tried to sound defeated: not difficult. He wanted Fuller to go for the whole story.
‘Stanley and her have gone off together?’ Fuller chuckled again. ‘Uncle Joe’s going to shit monkeys.’
‘Putting it mildly.’
‘So tell me, cop, how much do you know? Make it good, maybe we can work something out.’
‘I’m open to offers.’
Fuller shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Ludo already sniffed you out about that.’
‘He didn’t exactly have the cards you’ve got.’
‘Well, that’s true.’ Fuller took a swipe at Rebus’s face with the jagged neck of his bottle. Instead of connecting, Rebus felt air brush his cheek. ‘Next time,’ Fuller said, ‘I might get careless. You could lose your looks.’
As if the condemned man cared for beauty. But Rebus was shaking.
‘Do I look like martyr material? All I was doing was my job. It’s what they pay me for, I’m not married to it!’
‘But you’re persistent.’
‘Blame fucking Lumsden, he got right up my back!’ A memory came to him unbeckoned: closing time at the Ox, nights when they’d stumbled out into the cold, joking about getting locked in the cellar and drinking the place dry. Now all Rebus wanted was out.
‘How much do you know?’ The jagged glass was an inch from his nose. Fuller stretched his arm until the bottle was beneath Rebus’s nostrils. Lager fumes, the cold touch of glass, pressing upwards. ‘Remember the old joke?’ Fuller asked. ‘Ask yourself how you’d smell without a nose.’
Rebus sniffed. ‘I know the lot,’ he spat.
‘And how much is that?’
‘The dope comes up from Glasgow, straight to here. You sell it, and ship it out to the rigs. Eve and Stanley collected the cash, Tony El was Uncle Joe’s man on the spot.’
‘Proof?’
‘Almost non-existent, especially with Tony El dead and Eve and Stanley on the run. But —’ Rebus swallowed.
‘But what?’
Rebus kept his mouth shut. Fuller flicked the bottle up and pulled it away. Rebus’s nose dribbled fresh blood.
‘Maybe I’ll just bleed you dry! “But what?’”
‘But it doesn’t matter,’ Rebus said, trying to wipe his nose on his shirt. His eyes were watering. He blinked, tears streaking both cheeks.
‘Why not?’ Fuller interested.
‘Because people are blabbing.’
‘Who?’
‘You know I can’t —’
The bottle flew to his right eye. Rebus screwed his eyes shut. ‘All right, all right!’ The bottle stayed where it was, so close he had to focus past it. He took a deep breath. Time to stir the shit. His big plan. ‘How many cops on your payroll?’
Fuller frowned. ‘Lumsden?’
‘He’s been talking... and someone’s been talking to him.’
Rebus could almost hear the cogs creaking inside Fuller’s head, but even he had to work it out eventually.
‘Mr H?’ Fuller’s eyes widened. ‘Mr H. talked to Lumsden, I heard about that. But it was supposed to be about the woman who got herself killed...’ Fuller busied himself thinking.
Mr H. — the man who’d paid Tony El. And now Rebus knew who Mr H. was — Hayden Fletcher, interviewed by Lumsden about Vanessa Holden. Fletcher had paid Tony El to take care of Allan Mitchison — the two men had probably met right here. Maybe Fuller himself had introduced them.
‘It’s not just you. They’ve been grassing up Eddie Segal, Moose Maloney...’ Rebus pulling out the names Stanley had mentioned.
‘Fletcher and Lumsden?’ Fuller said to himself. He shook his head, but Rebus could see he was halfway convinced. He stared at Rebus, who tried to look as beaten as a man could be — no great acting required.
‘There’s a Scottish Crime Squad operation coming,’ Rebus said. ‘Lumsden and Fletcher are in their pockets.’
‘They’re dead men,’ Fuller said at last.
‘Why stop when you’re having fun?’
A cold, wicked smile. Fletcher and Lumsden were for the future: but Rebus was right here.
‘We’ll go for a little ride,’ Fuller said. ‘Don’t worry, you did all right. I’ll make it quick. One bullet to the back of the head. You won’t go out screaming.’ He let the bottle drop to the floor and crunched glass on his way to the stairs. Rebus looked around fast, no way of knowing how long he had. The hook looked pretty solid — it had held his weight so far, no problem. If he could stand on a box, get some height, then he could unhook the ropes. There was the empties’ crate, not three feet away. Rebus stretched, his arms in agony, felt with his shoe, just touched the rim of the crate and started to drag it. Fuller had climbed up through a trapdoor, but left it open. Rebus could hear a voice echoing in the bar. Maybe Fuller wanted a bouncer, someone to witness the policeman’s demise. The crate caught in a dip in the floor, wouldn’t budge. Rebus tried to lift it with the toe of his shoe, couldn’t. He was soaked: blood, booze and sweat. The box gave, and he hauled it beneath him, climbed on to it and pushed with his knees. He freed the rope from the hook and brought his arms down slowly, trying to enjoy the pain, feeling blood tingle its way back along them. His fingers stayed numb and cold. He chewed at the knots in the rope, couldn’t budge them. There was plenty of broken glass around, but sawing through would take too long. He bent down, picked up a broken bottle, then saw something even better.
A cheap pink plastic lighter. Fuller had probably used it to ignite the whisky on Rebus’s arms, dropped it afterwards. Rebus picked it up, looked around. There was a lot of booze down here. No way out except the ladder. He found a rag, opened a bottle of whisky and stuffed it into the neck. Not quite a petrol bomb, but a weapon at any rate. One option: ignite it and toss it into the club, get the fire alarm going and wait for the cavalry. Supposing they came. Supposing that would stop Judd Fuller...
Option two: think again.
He looked around. CO2 cylinders; plastic crates; runs of rubber tubing. Hanging on the wall: a small fire extinguisher. He grabbed the fire extinguisher, primed it, got it under one arm so he could carry the whisky bottle up the steps.
The club looked dead, dimly lit. Someone had left a glitterball turning, throwing glass jewels across walls and ceiling. He was halfway across the dance floor when the door flew open, Fuller standing there, lit from behind by the foyer. He had a set of car keys between his teeth, dropped them as his mouth opened. He was reaching into his jacket pocket when Rebus got the rag lit, tossed the bottle two-handed. It turned in the air, shattered in front of Fuller. A pool of blue flame spread across the floor. Rebus was still coming, fire extinguisher ready. The gun was in Fuller’s hand as the spray caught him full in the face. Rebus followed it up with a head-butt to the bridge of Fuller’s nose and a knee hard into the groin. Not exactly textbook stuff, but powerfully effective. The American sank to his knees. Rebus kicked him in the face and ran, pulled open the door to the outside world and almost fell into Jack Morton.
‘Christ Almighty, man, what have they done to you?’
‘He’s got a gun, Jack, let’s get the fuck out of here.’
They sprinted for the car. Jack got the keys from Rebus’s pocket. Into the car and accelerating away, Rebus feeling a bewildering mix of emotions, chief among them elation.
‘You smell like a brewery,’ Jack said.
‘Jesus, Jack, how did you get here?’
‘Took a taxi.’
‘No, I mean...’
‘You can thank Shetland.’ Jack sniffed. ‘That wind up there, I’ve got a cold coming. Went to get the hankie out of my trouser pocket... no car keys. No car in the car park, and no John Rebus tucked up in bed.’
‘And?’
‘And reception repeated the message they gave you, so I phoned for a taxi. What the hell happened?’
‘I took a beating.’
‘I’d say that was an understatement. Who’s got the gun?’
‘Judd Fuller, the American.’
‘We’ll stop at the nearest phone, get an armed response unit over there.’
‘No.’
Jack turned. ‘No?’ Rebus was shaking his head. ‘Why not?’
‘I was taking a calculated risk, Jack.’
‘Time to buy a new calculator.’
‘I think it worked. Now all we need to do is give it a bit of time.’
Jack thought about it. ‘You want them turning on each other?’ He nodded. ‘Never were one to play by the book, were you? The note was from Eve?’ Rebus nodded. ‘And you thought you’d leave me out. Know something? When I saw the keys were gone, I was so angry, I almost said “Stuff it, let him do what he wants, it’s his neck”.’
‘It almost was.’
‘You’re a stupid bastard.’
‘Years of dedicated practice, Jack. Can you stop and untie me?’
‘I like you better tied up. Casualty or a doctor call-out?’
‘I’ll be fine.’ The nosebleed had already stopped; there was no pain from the dead tooth.
‘So what did you do there?’
‘I fed Fuller a line, and I found out Hayden Fletcher hired Allan Mitchison’s killer.’
‘And you’re telling me there wasn’t an easier way?’ Jack shook his head slowly. ‘If I live to be a hundred, I swear I’ll never understand you.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ Rebus said, leaning his head back against the seat.
Back at the hotel, they decided it was time to leave Aberdeen. Rebus had a bath first, and Jack checked his injuries.
‘Strictly an amateur sadist, our Mr Fuller.’
‘He did apologise at the start.’ Rebus checked his gap-toothed smile in the mirror.
Every bit of his body ached, but he’d live, and he didn’t need a doctor to agree with him. They loaded the car, signed out without fuss, and got back on the road.
‘What an end to our holidays,’ Jack commented. But his audience of one was already asleep.
When he had narrowed the list to four individuals, four companies, it was time to use the ‘key’ — Vanessa Holden herself.
More of the suspects had turned out to be too old, or not right in some other way: one, first name Alex, had turned out to be a woman.
Bible John made the call from his own office, door closed. He had his notepad in front of him. Four companies, four individuals.
Eskflo
James Mackinley
LancerTech
Martin Davidson
Gribbin’s
Steven Jackobs
Yetland
Oliver Howison
The call was to Vanessa Holden’s company. A receptionist answered.
‘Hello,’ he told her, ‘Queen Street CID here, Detective Sergeant Collier. General question: I was wondering if you’d ever undertaken any work for Eskflo Fabrication?’
‘Eskflo?’ The receptionist sounded dubious. ‘Let me put you through to Mr Westerman.’
Bible John wrote the name on his notepad, circled it. When Westerman answered, he repeated his question.
‘Is this to do with Vanessa?’ the man asked.
‘No, sir, though I was sorry to hear about Ms Holden. You have my deepest sympathies — same goes for everyone here.’ He looked around the walls of his office. ‘And I’m sorry to have to call at such a distressing time.’
‘Thank you, Detective Sergeant. It’s been a great shock.’
‘Of course, and rest assured, we’re following up several lines of inquiry concerning Ms Holden. But my present request concerns a suspected fraud.’
‘Fraud?’
‘Nothing to do with yourselves, Mr Westerman, but we’re investigating several companies.’
‘Including Eskflo?’
‘Indeed.’ Bible John paused. ‘You’ll appreciate that I’m telling you this in the strictest confidence?’
‘Oh, of course.’
‘Now, the companies I’m concerned with are...’ He made show of shuffling some papers, eyes on the notepad. ‘Here we are: Eskflo, LancerTech, Gribbin’s, and Yetland.’
‘Yetland,’ said Westerman, ‘we did some work for them recently. No, wait... We pitched for a contract, didn’t get it.’
‘And the others?’
‘Look, can I get back to you? I’m going to have to go to the files. I seem to be having trouble concentrating.’
‘I understand, sir. I’m due out on a call... how about if I phone again in an hour?’
‘Perhaps if I call you when I’m ready?’
‘I’ll phone again in an hour, Mr Westerman. I do appreciate this.’
He put the phone down, bit a fingernail. Would Westerman try phoning Queen Street CID, asking for a DS Collier? He’d give him forty minutes.
But in the end, he gave him thirty-five.
‘Mr Westerman? That call didn’t take as long as I thought. I wonder if you’ve come up with anything for me?’
‘Yes, I think I’ve got what you need.’
Bible John concentrated on the tone of voice, listening for any doubt or suspicion, any inkling Westerman might have that he was not talking to a policeman. He found none.
‘As I said,’ Westerman continued, ‘we pitched for a Yetland contract but didn’t get it. That was in March this year. Lancer... we did a panel display for them in February. They had a stand at the Safety at Sea conference.’
Bible John consulted his list. ‘Do you happen to know who your contact was?’
‘I’m sorry, Vanessa handled it. She was very good with clients.’
‘The name Martin Davidson doesn’t ring any bells?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Not to worry, sir. And the other two companies...?’
‘Well, we’ve worked for Eskflo in the past, but not for a couple of years. And Gribbin’s... well, to be honest, I’ve never heard of them.’
Bible John ringed Martin Davidson’s name. Put a question mark beside James Mackinley: a lag-time of a couple of years? Doubtful, but possible. Decided that Yetland was a distant third, but just to be sure...
‘Would Yetland have dealt with yourself or Ms Holden?’
‘Vanessa was on holiday around then. It was just after Safety at Sea, she was exhausted.’
Bible John scored both Yetland and Gribbin’s off his list.
‘Mr Westerman, you’ve been a big help. I appreciate it.’
‘Glad to help. Just one thing, Detective Sergeant?’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘If you ever find the bastard who killed Vanessa, give him one from me.’
Two M. Davidsons in the phone book, one James Mackinley and two J. Mackinleys. Addresses noted.
Then another phone call, this time to Lancer Technical Support.
‘Hello, it’s the Chamber of Commerce here, just a general question. We’re compiling a database on local companies connected to the oil business. That would include LancerTech, wouldn’t it?’
‘Oh, yes,’ the receptionist said. ‘Definitely.’ She sounded a bit frazzled. Background noise: staff talking, a photocopier, another phone ringing.
‘Can you give me a thumbnail sketch?’
‘Well... we, erm, we design safety aspects into oil platforms, support vessels...’ She sounded like she was reading from a crib-sheet. ‘That sort of thing.’ Her voice trailed off.
‘I’m just writing that down,’ Bible John told her. ‘If you work in safety design, can I take it you have links to RGIT?’
‘Oh yes, close links. We cooperate on half a dozen projects. A couple of our staff are partly based there.’
Bible John underlined the name Martin Davidson. Twice.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Goodbye.’
Two M. Davidsons in the phone book. One might be a woman. He could telephone, but that would be to give the Upstart advance warning... What would he do with him? What did he want to do with him? He had begun his task in anger, but was now composed... and more than a little curious. He could call the police, an anonymous tip-off, that’s what they were waiting for. But he knew now that he wasn’t going to do that. At one point, he’d assumed he could simply dispatch the wretch and resume his life as before, but that just wasn’t possible. The Upstart had changed everything. His fingers went to his tie, checked the knot. He ripped the sheet from his notepad and tore it into tiny pieces, letting them flutter into the waste-bin.
He wondered if he should have stayed in the States. No, there would always have been the craving for home. He remembered one of the early theories about him — that he had been a member of the ‘Exclusive Brethren’. And in a sense, he had been and still was. And intended to remain a member.
Good understanding giveth favour, but the way of transgressors is hard.
Hard it was, hard would always be. He wondered if he had ‘good understanding’ of the Upstart? He doubted it, and wasn’t sure he wanted to understand.
The truth was, now he was here, he didn’t know what he wanted.
But he knew what he needed.
They crash-landed in Arden Street at breakfast time, neither of them feeling much like breakfast. Rebus had taken over the driving at Dundee, so Jack could crawl into the back seat for an hour. It was like driving back after one of his all-nighters, the roads quiet, rabbits and pheasant in the fields. The cleanest time of day, before everyone got busy messing it up again.
There was mail behind the door of the flat, and so many messages on his machine the red indicator was almost solid.
‘Don’t you dare leave,’ Jack said, before shuffling into the guest room, leaving the door open. Rebus made a mug of coffee, then slumped into his chair by the window. The blisters on his wrists looked like nettle-rash. His nostrils were crusted with blood.
‘Well,’ he said to the waking world, ‘that went as well as could be expected.’ He closed his eyes for five minutes. The coffee was cold when he opened them again.
His phone was ringing. He got to it before the machine.
‘Hello?’
‘CID awakes. It’s like a Ray Harryhausen film.’ Pete Hewitt from Howdenhall. ‘Look, I shouldn’t be doing this, but strictly off the record...’
‘What?’
‘All those forensic checks we ran on you — nothing. I expect they’ll get round to telling you officially, but I thought I’d put your mind at rest.’
‘If only you could, Pete.’
‘Hard night?’
‘Another one for the record books. Thanks, Pete.’
‘Bye, Inspector.’
Rebus didn’t put down the receiver; called Siobhan instead. Got her answering machine. Told her he was at home. Another home number, this time answered.
‘What?’ The voice groggy.
‘Morning, Gill.’
‘John?’
‘Alive and kicking. How did it go?’
‘I talked with Malcolm Toal, I think he’s good as gold — that is, when he’s not hitting his head against the cell wall — but...’
‘But?’
‘But I’ve passed everything on to the Squaddies. They’re the experts, after all.’ Silence. ‘John? Look, I’m sorry if you think I bottled out...’
‘You can’t see me smiling. You played it just right, Gill. You’ll get your share of the glory, but let them do the dirty work. You’ve learned.’
‘Maybe I had a good teacher.’
He laughed quietly. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘John... thanks... for everything.’
‘Want to know a secret?’
‘What?’
‘I’m on the wagon.’
‘Good for you. I’m really impressed. What happened?’
Jack slouched into the room, yawning and scratching his head.
‘I had a good teacher,’ Rebus said, replacing the receiver.
‘I heard the phone,’ Jack said. ‘Any coffee on the go?’
‘In the kettle.’
‘Want one?’
‘Go on then.’ Rebus went into the hall and picked up his mail. One envelope was fatter than the others. London postmark. He tore it open as he walked through to the kitchen. There was another envelope inside, fat, with his name and address printed on it. There was also a single sheet of notepaper. Rebus sat down at the table to read it.
It was from Lawson Geddes’ daughter.
My father left the enclosed envelope with instructions that it should be sent on to you. I’m just back from Lanzarote, having had to arrange not only the funeral but the sale of my parents’ house and the sorting out and removal of all their things. As you may remember, Dad was a bit of a magpie. Apologies for the slight delay in sending this on, which I trust you will understand. Hoping all is well with you and your family.
She’d signed it Aileen Jarrold (née Geddes).
‘What is it?’ Jack asked as Rebus tore open the second envelope. He read the first couple of lines, then looked up at Jack.
‘It’s a very long suicide note,’ he said. ‘From Lawson Geddes.’
Jack sat down and they read it together.
John, I’m sitting here writing this in the full and certain knowledge that I’m about to top myself: we always called it the coward’s way out, remember? I’m not so sure about that now, but I get the feeling I’m maybe being more selfish than cowardly exactly, selfish because I know the telly are looking at Spaven again — they’ve even sent a team to the island. This isn’t about Spaven, it’s about Etta. I miss her, and I want to be with her, even if all the afterlife consists of is my bones lying next to hers somewhere.
As Rebus read, the years melted away again. He could hear Lawson’s voice, and see him swaggering into the station, or marching into a pub like he was the landlord, a word for everybody whether he knew them or not... Jack got up for a minute and returned with two mugs of coffee. They read on.
With Spaven dead and me out of the way, there’ll only be you left for the telly people to hassle. I don’t like to think of that — I know you’d nothing to do with any of it. So here’s this letter, after all these years, and maybe it’ll explain things. Shorn it to whoever you need to. They say dying men tell no lies, and maybe they’ll accept that the following is the truth as I know it.
I knew Lenny Spaven back in the Scots Guards. He was always getting into trouble, finding himself consigned to jankers or even on occasion the glass-house. He was a skiver, too, and that’s how he came to be involved with the minister. Spaven used to attend the Sunday church service (I say ‘church’ — in Borneo it was a tent, back home it was a Nissen hut). But I suppose a lot of places can be churches in the sight of God. Maybe I’ll ask him when I see him. It’s ninety-odd degrees outside, and I’m drinking firewater — the old usquebaugh. It tastes better than ever.
Rebus caught the sudden tang of whisky at the back of his mouth: memory playing tricks. Lawson used to drink Cutty Sark.
Spaven helped the minister out, laying hymnaries on the chairs, then counting them back in at the end. You know yourself there are some buggers in the army would steal a hymnary as soon as anything else. There weren’t many regular attenders. If things got hairy, a few more souls would turn up, praying it wouldn’t be them being nailed into a box at the end of play. Well, like I say, Spaven had it cushy. I didn‘t have much to do with him, or with any of the church types.
The thing is, John, there was a murder — a prostitute near our camp. A native girl from the kampong. The villagers blamed it on us, and even the Gurkhas knew it was probably a British soldier. There was an investigation — civil and military. Funny really, I mean, there we were going hell for leather killing people — it was what we got paid for — and there they were looking into a single murder. Anyway, they never found anyone for it. Thing is though, that prozzy was strangled, and one of her sandals was never recovered.
Rebus turned a page.
Well, all that was behind me. I was a bobby, back in Scotland and happy with my lot. Then I got roped into the Bible John case. You’ve got to remember, we didn’t know him as ‘Bible John’ until very late on. It was after the third victim that we got the description of him quoting from the Bible. That’s when the papers came up with the name. Well, when I thought about someone quoting from the Bible, a strangler and rapist, I remembered Borneo. I went to my boss and told him all about it. He said it was a long shot of Olympic standards, but that I could chase it up in my own time if I liked. You know me, John, never one to resist a challenge. Besides, I had a shortcut planned — Lenny Spaven. I knew he was back in Scotland, and he’d have info on all the church-goers. So I got in touch with him, but he’d gone from bad to rotten, didn’t want anything to do with it. I’m the persistent type, and he complained about me to my boss. That got me a warning to ease off, but I wasn’t about to ease off. I knew what I wanted: I reckoned Lenny might have photos from his days in Borneo, maybe with him and the rest of the flock. I wanted to show them to the woman who’d shared the taxi with Bible John. I wanted to see if she recognised anyone. But bloody Spaven kept standing in my way. Eventually, I did manage to get some photos — going the long way round, talking to the army first, then tracking down the minister from the time. It took weeks.
Rebus looked at Jack. ‘The photos Ancram showed us.’ Jack nodded.
We showed the photos to the eye-witness. Mind, they were eight or nine years out of date, and not very good to start with, water damaged some of them. She said she couldn’t be sure, she thought one of them ‘was like him’ — her words. But as my boss said, there were hundreds of men out there in the big wide world who bore a physical resemblance to the killer: we’d interviewed most of them. That wasn’t good enough for me. I got the man’s name, he was called Ray Sloane — an unusual enough name, and it wasn’t hard to track him down. Only he’d cleared out. He’d been living in a bedsit in Ayr, working as a toolmaker. But he’d recently given notice and moved on, nobody knew where. I was convinced in my mind that he could be the man we were looking for, but I couldn’t convince my boss to go all-out on finding him.
See, John, that delay while I was dealing with the army, it was all down to Spaven. If he’d helped, I’d have been on to Sloane before he’d had a chance to pack up and ship out. I know it, I can feel it. I might have had him. Instead of which, I had nothing but my anger and frustration, both of which I vented too publicly. The boss kicked me off the inquiry, and that was that.
‘Your coffee’s getting cold,’ Jack said. Rebus took a gulp, turned another page.
Or at least it was until Spaven came back into my life, moving to Edinburgh much the same time I did. It was like he was haunting me, and I couldn’t forgive him for what he’d done. If anything, as time passed I grew to despise him even more. That’s why I wanted him for the Elsie Rhind killing. I admit it, to you and to anyone else reading this, I wanted him so badly it was like a hard ball in my stomach, something only surgery would remove. When I was told to ease off on him, I didn’t. When I was told to steer clear, I steered closer. I followed him — on my own time — I tracked him every day and every night. I went without sleep for the best part of three days. But it was worth it when I saw him make for that lock-up, somewhere we didn’t know about. I was elated, ecstatic. I didn’t know what we’d find inside, but I had the feeling we’d find something. That’s why I came rushing over to your house, why I dragged you back there with me. You asked me about a search warrant, and I told you not to be so stupid. I put a lot of pressure on you, using our long friendship as blackmail — I was feverish, I’d have done anything, and that surely included breaking rules I now saw as being there to punish the police and protect the villains. So in we went, and found the heaps of boxes, all that knock-off from the factory job in Queensferry. Plus the bag. Elsie Rhind’s, as it turned out. I nearly dropped to my knees to thank God for finding it.
I know what a lot of people thought — yourself included. They thought I’d planted it there. Well, I swear on my deathbed (except I’m writing this at the table) that I did not. I found it fair and square, even though I made us break the rules to accomplish it. But you see, that one crucial piece of evidence would have been ruled inadmissible because of the way we’d come to find it, which is why I persuaded you — against your better judgement — to stick to the story I invented. Am I sorry I did it? Yes and no. It can’t be very comfortable for you just now, John, and it can’t have been a nice thing to have lived with all these years. But we got the murderer, and in my mind — and I’ve spent God knows how long thinking about it, reliving it, running through the way I played it — that’s what really counts.
John, I hope all this fuss dies down. Spaven’s not worth it. Nobody’s giving much thought to Elsie Rhind, are they? The victim can never win. Chalk this one up to Elsie Rhind. Just because a villain can write doesn’t make him less of a villain. I read that the commandants at the concentration camps used to put their feet up at night and read the classics while listening to a bit of Beethoven. Monsters can do that. I know this now. I know because of Lenny Spaven.
Jack patted Rebus’s back. ‘He’s just cleared you, John. Wave this in Ancram’s face and that’s the end of that.’
Rebus nodded, wishing he could feel relief, or any other sensible emotion.
‘What’s wrong?’ Jack asked.
Rebus tapped the paper. ‘This is,’ he said. ‘I mean, most of it is probably right, but it’s still a lie.’
‘What?’
Rebus looked at him. ‘The stuff we found in the lock-up... I saw it in Elsie Rhind’s house the first time we went round there. Lawson must have lifted it later.’
Jack looked uncomprehending. ‘Are you sure?’
Rebus flew to his feet. ‘No, I’m not sure, and that’s the real bastard of it! I’ll never be sure.’
‘I mean, it was twenty years ago, your mind plays tricks.’
‘I know. Even at the time, I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure I’d seen them before — maybe I saw a different bag, different hat. I went round to her place, took another look. This was when we had Spaven in custody. I looked for the hat and the bag I’d seen there... and they were gone. Ah, shit, maybe I didn’t see them at all, only thought I did. It doesn’t change the fact that I think I saw them. I think Lenny Spaven was set up, and I’ve always thought it... and I’ve never done a thing about it.’ He sat down again. ‘Never even told anyone till now.’ He tried to pick up his mug but his hand was shaking. ‘DTs,’ he said, forcing a smile.
Jack was thoughtful. ‘Does it matter?’ he said at last.
‘You mean whether I’m right or not? Jesus, Jack, I don’t know.’ Rebus rubbed his eyes. ‘It was all so long ago. Does it matter if the killer got away? Even if I’d come forward at the time, it would have maybe cleared Spaven but it wouldn’t have got us the real killer, would it?’ He let out a breath. ‘I’ve been spinning it in my head all these years, the grooves are worn almost to nothing.’
‘Time to buy a new record?’
Rebus smiled for real this time. ‘Maybe you’re right.’
‘One thing I don’t understand... why didn’t Spaven himself explain any of this? I mean, he never touches on it in his book. He could have just said why Geddes had it in for him.’
Rebus shrugged. ‘Look at Weir and his daughter.’
‘You mean it was personal?’
‘I don’t know, Jack.’
Jack picked up the letter, turning its pages. ‘Interesting about the Borneo pics though. Ancram thought they were relevant because they showed Spaven. Now we find it was this guy Sloane that Geddes was after.’ Jack checked his watch. ‘We should nip over to Fettes, show this to Ancram.’
Rebus nodded. ‘Let’s do it. But first, I want a photocopy of Lawson’s letter. Like you say, Jack, I might not believe it, but it’s here in black and white.’ He looked up at his friend. ‘Which should be good enough for The Justice Programme.’
Ancram looked like he should have been fitted with a pressure valve. He was so angry he’d almost swung all the way round to calm. His voice was the first wisp of smoke from a sleeping volcano.
‘What is it?’
Rebus was trying to hand him a sheet of paper, folded in half. They were in Ancram’s office. Ancram was seated, Rebus and Jack standing.
‘Look and see,’ Rebus said.
Ancram stared at him, then unfolded the headed note.
‘It’s a doctor’s line,’ Rebus explained. ‘Forty-eight-hour stomach bug. Dr Curt was very clear that I should isolate myself. He said it could be catching.’
When he spoke, Ancram’s voice was little more than whisper. ‘Since when do pathologists hand out sick notes?’
‘You haven’t seen the queues at my health centre.’
Ancram crunched the note into a ball.
‘It’s dated and everything,’ Rebus said. Of course it was: Dr Curt had been their last call before heading north with Eve.
‘Shut up, sit down, and listen to me while I tell you why you’re on an official reprimand. And don’t think a reprimand’s going to be the end of the affair.’
‘Maybe you should read this first, sir,’ Jack said, handing over Geddes’ letter.
‘What is it?’
‘Not so much the end of the affair, sir,’ Rebus told him, ‘more like the heart of the matter. While you’re digesting it, maybe I could have a browse through the files.’
‘Why?’
‘Those Borneo pics, I’d like another look.’
After the first few sentences of Lawson Geddes’ confession, Ancram was hooked. Rebus could have walked out unnoticed with the files under his arm. But instead he slipped the photos out of their packet and went through them, checking the back of each for identifying names.
In one photo, third from the left was marked as Pvt. Sloane, R. Rebus stared at the face. Slightly blurred, with some water damage and fading. A fresh-faced young man, not long out of teens, his smile slightly crooked, maybe the fault of his teeth.
Bible John had one tooth which overlapped another, according to the eye-witness.
Rebus shook his head. That really was stretching the evidence, and Lawson Geddes had done enough of that in his time for both of them. Without knowing exactly why, and checking first that Ancram was still immersed in the letter, Rebus slid the photo into his pocket.
‘Well,’ Ancram said at last, ‘this will obviously have to be discussed.’
‘Obviously, sir. No interview today then?’
‘Just a couple of questions. Number one, what the devil happened to your nose and tooth?’
‘I got too close to a fist. Anything else, sir?’
‘Yes, what the hell have you been doing with Jack?’
Rebus turned, saw what Ancram meant: Jack fast asleep on a chair by the wall.
‘So,’ Jack said, ‘this is the big challenge.’
They’d come to the Oxford Bar, just for somewhere to be. Rebus ordered two orange juices, then turned to Jack. ‘You want some breakfast?’ Jack nodded. ‘And four packets of crisps, any flavour,’ Rebus told the barmaid.
They raised their glasses, said ‘Cheers’, and drank.
‘Fancy a smoke?’ Jack asked.
‘I’d kill for one,’ Rebus said, laughing.
‘So,’ Jack said, ‘what’s been achieved?’
‘Depends on your point of view,’ Rebus said. He’d been asking himself the same question. Maybe the Squaddies would nab all the drug players: Uncle Joe, Fuller, Stemmons. Maybe before that happened, Fuller would have done something with Ludovic Lumsden and Hayden Fletcher. Maybe. Hayden Fletcher was a regular at Burke’s. He met Tony El there, maybe even scored nose-talc from him. Maybe Fletcher was the type who liked to hang out with gangsters — some people were like that. Seeing the Major was worried, and learning that Allan Mitchison was the problem... it would have been easy to talk it over with Tony El, and for Tony to see the chance of some easy cash... Maybe Major Weir himself ordered Mitch’s death. Well, his was the one certain punishment, his daughter would make sure of that. And had Tony El ever actually intended to kill Mitch? Rebus couldn’t even be sure of that. Maybe he’d have torn the bag from Mitch’s head at the last minute. Then maybe he’d have warned him to forget all about T-Bird Oil.
It seemed part of some larger pattern, accidents forming themselves into a dance of association. Fathers and daughters, fathers and sons, infidelities, the illusions we sometimes call memory. Past errors harped on, or made good by spurious confession. Bodies littered down the years, mostly forgotten except by the perpetrators. History turning sour, or fading away like old photographs. Endings... no rhyme or reason to them. They just happened. You died, or disappeared, or were forgotten. You became nothing more than a name on the back of an old photo, and sometimes not even that.
Jethro Tull: ‘Living in the Past’. Rebus had been a slave to that rhythm for far too long. It was the work that did it. As a detective, he lived in people’s pasts: crimes committed before he arrived on the scene; witnesses’ memories ransacked. He had become a historian, and the role had bled into his personal life. Ghosts, bad dreams, echoes.
But maybe now he had a chance. Look at Jack: he’d reinvented himself. Good news week.
The phone rang, was answered by the barmaid, who nodded towards Rebus. He took the receiver.
‘Hello?’
‘I tried your first home, decided to try your second home.’
Siobhan. Rebus straightened up.
‘What did you get?’
‘A name: Martin Davidson. Stayed at the Fairmount three weeks before the Judith Cairns murder. The room was charged to his employer, a firm called LancerTech, as in technical support. Based in Altens, just outside Aberdeen. They design the safety elements into platform equipment, that sort of thing.’
‘You’ve talked to them?’
‘Soon as I got his name. Don’t worry, I didn’t mention him. I just asked a couple of general questions. Receptionist said I was the second person in two days to ask her the same thing.’
‘Who was the other person?’
‘Chamber of Commerce, she said.’ They were quiet for a moment.
‘And Davidson fits with Robert Gordon’s?’
‘He hosted some seminars earlier this year. His name was down on the staff roll.’
A solid connection. Rebus could feel it like a punch. His knuckles were white on the receiver.
‘There’s more,’ Siobhan said. ‘You know how businesses sometimes stay faithful to one hotel chain? Well, the Fairmount has a sister establishment here. Martin Davidson of LancerTech was in town the night Angie Riddell was killed.’
Rebus saw her picture again: Angie. Hoped she was getting ready to rest.
‘Siobhan, you’re a genius. Have you told anyone else?’
‘You’re the first. After all, you gave me the tip.’
‘I gave you a hunch, that’s all. It might not have paid off. This is down to you. Now take it to Gill Templer — she’s your boss — tell her what you’ve just told me, let her pass it on to the Johnny Bible team. Stick to procedure.’
‘It’s him, isn’t it?’
‘Pass the news along, and make sure you get the credit. Then we’ll wait and see. All right?’
‘Yes, sir.’
He put down the receiver, told Jack what she’d just told him. Then they just stood there, drinking their drinks, staring at the mirror behind the bar. Calmly at first, then with more agitation. Rebus was the first to say what they both knew.
‘We need to be there, Jack. I need to be there.’
Jack looked at him, nodded. ‘Your turn to drive or mine?’
British Telecom had listings for two Martin Davidsons in Aberdeen. But Friday afternoon, he was most likely still at work.
‘Doesn’t mean we’ll find him at Altens,’ Jack said.
‘Let’s go there anyway.’ Practically Rebus’s only thought the whole drive: he needed to see Martin Davidson, not necessarily speak to him, just clap eyes on him. Eye contact: Rebus wanted that memory.
‘He could be working at OSC, or anywhere else for that matter,’ Jack went on. ‘He might not even be in Aberdeen.’
‘Let’s go there anyway,’ Rebus repeated.
Altens Industrial Estate was south of the city, signposted off the A92. They found a map at the entrance to the estate, and used it to wind their way in towards LTS — Lancer Technical Support. There was what looked like a jam at one point, cars blocking the road, nobody going anywhere. Rebus got out to take a look, and almost wished he hadn’t. They were police cars, unmarked but with tell-tale static coming from their radios. Siobhan had passed on the info, and someone had been fast to act.
A man was bearing down on Rebus. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
Rebus shrugged, hands in pockets. ‘Informal observer?’
DCI Grogan narrowed his eyes. But his mind was elsewhere; he’d no time or inclination for argument.
‘Is he inside?’ Rebus asked, nodding towards the LTS building, a typical industrial unit of windowless white corrugation.
Grogan shook his head. ‘We came steaming down here, now it seems he hasn’t come in today.’
Rebus frowned. ‘Day off?’
‘Not officially. The switchboard tried his home, no answer.’
‘Is that where you’re headed?’
Grogan nodded.
Rebus didn’t ask if they could tag along; Grogan would only say no. But once the convoy was moving, no one would notice an extra car at the tail.
He got back into the Peugeot and told Jack about it, while Jack reversed and found a parking spot out of the way. They watched the police cars execute three-point turns and head back out of the estate, then eased their way in behind the last of them.
They headed north over the Dee and along Anderson Drive, passing more buildings belonging to Robert Gordon’s University, and several oil company HQs. At last they headed off Anderson Drive, past Summerhill Academy, and into a tight maze of suburban streets with green-field sites beyond.
A couple of the cars left the convoy, probably to circle around and come at Davidson’s house from the other direction, blocking him in. Brake lights came on, the cars stopping in the middle of the road. Doors opened, officers appearing. Quick confabs, Grogan issuing orders, pointing to left and right. Most eyes were on a single house, its curtains closed.
‘Reckon he’s flown?’ Jack asked.
‘Let’s find out.’ Rebus undid his seat-belt and opened the door.
Grogan was sending men to the neighbouring houses, some to ask questions, some to nip out the back door and work their way round the back of the suspect’s house.
‘Hope this isn’t a wild goose chase,’ Grogan muttered. He saw Rebus, but still barely registered his presence.
‘Men in position, sir.’
People had come out of their houses, wondering what was going on. Rebus could hear the distant chimes of an ice-cream van.
‘Armed Response Unit standing by, sir.’
‘I don’t think we’ll need them.’
‘Right you are, sir.’
Grogan sniffed, ran a finger under his nose, then selected two men to go with him to the suspect’s door. He pressed the bell, and there was a collective holding of breath while they waited. Grogan rang again.
‘What can they see round the back?’
One of Grogan’s men radioed to ask. ‘Curtains are closed upstairs and down, no sign of life.’
Just like at the front.
‘Buzz a JP, say we need a warrant.’
‘Right, sir.’
‘And meantime, take a sledgehammer to that bloody door.’
The officer nodded, gave a signal, and a car boot was opened. Inside was like the back of a builder’s van. Out came the sledgehammer. Three blows and the door was open. Ten seconds later there were cries for an ambulance. Ten seconds after that, someone suggested a hearse instead.
Jack was a good copper: the boot of his car held scene of crime equipment, including overshoes and gloves, and the all-over plastic boilersuits which made you look like a walking condom. Officers were being kept out of the house so as not to contaminate the scene. They stood crammed in the doorway, trying to see what they could. When Rebus and Jack stepped forward, no one recognised them, so took them for forensics. The crowd parted for a moment, and both men were inside.
The rules on contamination didn’t seem to extend to senior officers and their flunkeys: Grogan stood in the living room, hands in pockets, examining the scene. The body of a young man lay on the black leather sofa. His fair hair was matted over a deep cut. More blood had dried on his face and neck. There were signs of a struggle: the glass and chrome coffee table overturned, magazines crumpled underfoot. A black leather jacket had been thrown over the man’s chest, a gentle act after the bloodshed. Stepping closer, Rebus saw marks on the neck, visible below the blood-lines. On the floor in front of the body sat a large green holdall, the sort you took to the gym or for a weekend trip. Rebus peered inside, saw a backpack, a single shoe, Angie Riddell’s necklace... and a length of plastic-covered clothes-line.
‘I think we can rule out suicide,’ Grogan muttered.
‘Knocked unconscious, then strangled,’ Rebus guessed.
‘You reckon it’s him?’
‘That bag isn’t just sitting there for fun. Whoever did this, they knew who he was, and wanted us to know, too.’
‘An accomplice?’ Grogan asked. ‘A mate, someone he blabbed to?’
Rebus shrugged again. He was intent on the corpse’s face, felt cheated by it: the closed eyes, the repose. I’ve come all this way, thanks to you, you bastard... He stepped closer, lifted the jacket a couple of inches and peered beneath. A black slip-on shoe had been stuffed into Martin Davidson’s left armpit.
‘Oh, Christ,’ Rebus said, turning to Grogan and Jack. ‘Bible John did this.’ He saw disbelief mingled with horror in their faces. Rebus lifted the jacket a little higher so they could see the shoe. ‘He’s been here all the time,’ he said. ‘He never went away...’
The Scene of Crime team did their business, photographing and videoing, bagging and taping potential evidence. The pathologist examined the body, then said it could be removed and taken to the mortuary. There were reporters outside, kept at a distance by police cordons. Once the SOC team had finished upstairs, Grogan took Rebus and Jack up for a look. He didn’t seem to mind them being there, probably wouldn’t have minded if he’d had Jack the Ripper himself for an audience: Grogan was the man who’d be on TV tonight, the man who tracked down Johnny Bible. Only he hadn’t, of course — someone had beaten them to it.
‘Tell me again,’ Grogan said, as they climbed the stairs.
‘Bible John took souvenirs — shoes, clothes, handbags. But he also placed a sanitary towel in the left armpit. Downstairs... that was him letting us know who did this.’
Grogan shook his head. He would take some convincing. Meantime, he had things to show them. The main bedroom was just that, but beneath the bed were boxes of magazines and videos — hard core S&M, similar to the stuff in Tony El’s bedroom, text in English and several other languages. Rebus wondered if one of the American gangs had brought it to Aberdeen.
There was a small guest bedroom with a padlock on it. Crowbarred open, it gave the lie to one area of speculation. A couple of the CID men had been wondering if Johnny Bible were tricking them — killing an innocent man and setting him up to look like the killer. The guest bedroom said Martin Davidson was Johnny Bible. It had been turned into a shrine to Bible John and other killers: dozens of scrapbooks, cuttings and photos pinned to the cork boards which lined the walls, videos of documentaries about serial killers, paperback books, heavily annotated, and at the centre of it all a blow-up of one of the Bible John flyers: the face almost smiling, a kindly face, and above it the same basic question: Have You Seen This Man?
Rebus almost answered yes; there was something about the shape of the face, he’d seen it before somewhere... somewhere recently. He took the Borneo photo from his pocket, looked at Ray Sloane, then back at the poster. They were very alike, but that wasn’t the similarity that was niggling Rebus. There was something else, someone else...
Then Jack asked him something from the doorway, and Rebus lost it.
They followed everyone back to Queen Street. Rebus and Jack had, by association, become part of the team. There was quiet jubilation, tempered with the knowledge that another murderer was in their midst. But as at least one officer put it, ‘If he did for that bastard, good luck to him.’
Which, Rebus guessed, would be the reaction Bible John would be hoping for. He’d be hoping they wouldn’t try too hard to find him. If he’d come out of retirement, then it had been to one end only — the killing of his impersonator. Johnny Bible had taken the glory, the achievement away from his predecessor; now there’d come the revenge.
Rebus sat in the CID office, staring into space, thinking. When someone handed him a cup, he raised it to his lips. But then Jack’s hand stopped him.
‘It’s whisky,’ he warned. Rebus looked down, saw sweet liquid the colour of honey, gazed at it for a moment, then put the cup down on the desk. There was laughter in the office, cheering and singing, like a football crowd after a result: same songs, same chants.
‘John,’ Jack said, ‘remember Lawson.’ It sounded like a warning.
‘What about him?’
‘He became obsessed.’
Rebus shook his head. ‘This is different. I know it was Bible John.’
‘What if it was?’
Rebus shook his head slowly. ‘Come on, Jack, after everything I told you? After Spaven and everything else? You know better than to ask that.’
Grogan was waving Rebus over to a telephone. Smiling, with whisky breath, he handed Rebus the receiver.
‘Someone wants a word.’
‘Hello?’
‘What in God’s name are you doing there?’
‘Oh, hello, Gill. Congratulations, looks like everything’s coming right for once.’
She melted a little. ‘Siobhan’s doing, not mine. I only passed the info along.’
‘Make sure that goes on record.’
‘I will.’
‘I’ll talk to you later.’
‘John... when are you coming back?’ Not what she’d wanted to ask.
‘Tonight, maybe tomorrow.’
‘OK.’ She paused. ‘See you then.’
‘Fancy doing something on Sunday?’
She sounded surprised by the question. ‘What sort of thing?’
‘I don’t know. A drive, a walk, somewhere down the coast?’
‘Yes, OK.’
‘I’ll call you. Bye, Gill.’
‘Bye.’
Grogan was refilling a cup. There were at least a couple of crates of whisky, and three of bottled beer.
‘Where do you get this stuff?’ Rebus asked.
Grogan smiled. ‘Oh, you know.’
‘Pubs? Clubs? Places you’re owed a favour?’
Grogan just winked. More officers were arriving all the time — uniforms, civilian staff, even people who looked to be off-duty: all had heard, and all wanted to be part of it. The top brass looked stiff but smiling, declining refills.
‘Maybe Ludovic Lumsden gets it for you?’
Grogan’s face creased. ‘I know you think he shafted you, but Ludo’s a good copper.’
‘Where is he?’
Grogan looked around. ‘No idea.’
In fact, no one knew where Lumsden was; he hadn’t been seen all day. Someone had called him at home, but only got an answering machine. His bleeper was turned on, but he wasn’t responding. A patrol car, detouring past his house, reported no sign of him, though his car was outside. Rebus got an idea, and went downstairs to the comms room. There were people at work here — taking incoming calls, keeping communications open with patrol cars and beat officers. But they had a bottle of whisky of their own, and plastic cups to go round. Rebus asked if he could see the day’s sheets.
He only had to look back an hour. A call from a Mrs Fletcher, reporting her husband missing. He’d gone to work that morning as usual, but hadn’t arrived, and hadn’t come home since. The sheet listed details of his car and a brief description. Patrols had been requested to keep a look-out. In another twelve hours or so, they’d start to deal with it more seriously.
Christian name of missing spouse: Hayden.
Rebus recalled Judd Fuller talking about dumping bodies at sea, or inland, places they’d never be found because no one ever went there. He wondered if that would be the fate of Lumsden and Fletcher... No, he couldn’t do it. He wrote a message on the back of one of the sheets and handed it to the duty officer, who read it silently before reaching for the mike.
‘Any patrol in the vicinity of the city centre, to College Street, Burke’s Club. Apprehend Judd Fuller, co-owner, and bring to Queen Street for questioning.’ The comms officer turned to Rebus, who nodded. ‘And check the cellar,’ he continued, ‘persons possibly being held there against their will.’
‘Please repeat,’ one patrol car said. The message was repeated. Rebus went back upstairs.
In spite of the party, some work was still being done. Rebus saw Jack manoeuvring one of the secretaries into a corner, chatting her up twenty to the dozen. Near them, a couple of desk-bound officers were making phone calls. Rebus picked up a spare receiver, called Gill.
‘It’s me.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Nothing. Listen, you passed all the stuff about Toal and Aberdeen on to the Scottish Crime Squad?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who’s your contact there?’
‘Why?’
‘Because whoever it is, I’ve a message for them. I think Judd Fuller has picked up DS Ludovic Lumsden and a man called ‘Hayden Fletcher, and intends to make sure they’re not seen again.’
‘What?’
‘A patrol car’s gone out to the club, God knows what they’ll find, but the Squaddies should keep an eye on it. If they’re found, they’ll be brought back to Queen Street. The Squaddies might want someone on the scene.’
‘I’ll get on it. Thanks, John.’
‘Any time.’
I’m getting soft in my old age, he thought. Or maybe I’ve just relocated my conscience.
He went walkabout, asked a few drinkers the same question, and eventually had the Oil Liaison officer, DI Jenkins, pointed out to him. Rebus just wanted to look at him. His name was mentioned in Stanley’s confession, along with Lumsden. The Squaddies would be wanting a word with him. He was smiling, looking unconcerned, tanned and rested after his holiday. It gave Rebus a warm glow to realise the man would soon be sweating under an internal inquiry.
Maybe he wasn’t getting so soft after all.
He walked over to the working officers, looked down over their shoulders. They were doing the preliminary work on the murder of Martin Davidson, collating information from neighbours and employer, trying to track down a next of kin, and all the time keeping the media at bay.
One of them slammed his phone down and suddenly had a big grin on his face. He reached for his mug of whisky and drained it.
‘Something?’ Rebus asked.
A balled-up piece of paper hit the officer on the head. Laughing, he threw it back.
‘Neighbour came off the night shift,’ he said, ‘found a car blocking his drive. Had to park on the street. Says he hadn’t seen the car before, and took a good look so he’d know it again. Woke up around lunchtime, and it was gone. Metallic blue BMW, 5 Series. He even got part of the licence plate.’
‘Hell’s bells.’
The officer was reaching for his phone. ‘Shouldn’t take too long.’
‘It better not,’ Rebus replied, ‘or DCI Grogan may not be sober enough to take it in.’
Grogan caught Rebus in the hallway, slapped an arm around him. He was missing his tie, and the top two buttons of his shirt were open, showing tufts of wiry grey hair. He’d danced a jig with a couple of WPCs and was sweating profusely. The shift had changed; or rather, a new shift had come on, while the old shift stayed put, not wanting to break the spell. There was occasional talk of pubs and restaurants, nightclubs and bowling alleys, but nobody seemed to leave, and there was communal applause when an Indian restaurant nearby delivered boxes and bags full of food — courtesy of the brass, who by then actually had left the scene. Rebus had helped himself to pakora, keema nan, and chicken tikka, while one CID officer tried to explain to another why his saying ‘Bhajis, we don’ need no steenking bhajis’ was a joke.
Judging by Grogan’s breath, he hadn’t taken a meal break. ‘My wee Lowland laddie,’ he said. ‘How are you doing? Enjoying our Highland hospitality?’
‘It’s a great party.’
‘So why the face like a thistle?’
Rebus shrugged. ‘It’s been a long day.’ And a long night before it, he could have added.
Grogan patted his back. ‘You’re welcome back here any time, any time at all.’ Grogan made towards the toilets, paused and turned. ‘Any sign of Ludo?’
‘He’s in the City Hospital, next bed along from a man called Hayden Fletcher.’
‘What?’
‘There’s a Crime Squad officer on the ward, too, waiting for them to wake up and give their statements. That’s how clean Lumsden is. About time you woke up to the fact.’
Rebus went downstairs to the interview rooms, opened the door of the one he’d been interviewed in. There were two more Squaddies inside. And smoking a cigarette at the table, Judd Fuller. Rebus had come down earlier, just for a look, and to explain to the officers what had happened, referring them back to Gill’s tapes and notes.
‘Evening, Judd,’ Rebus said now.
‘Do I know you?’
Rebus walked up to him. ‘You stupid bastard, you let me get away but you still went on using the cellar.’ He shook his head. ‘Erik will be disappointed.’
‘Screw Erik.’
Rebus nodded. ‘Every man for himself now, eh?’
‘Let’s get it over with.’
‘What?’
‘Why you’re here.’ Fuller looked up at him. ‘You want a free hit at me, this is the only chance you’re ever going to get. So make it good.’
‘I don’t need to hit you, Judd.’ Rebus grinned, showing the stunted tooth.
‘Then you’re yellow.’
Rebus shook his head slowly. ‘I used to be, but not any more.’
He turned his back and walked.
Back in CID, the party was in full swing. A cassette player had been wired up, accordion reels at distorted volume. Only two couples were dancing, and then not very well: there was barely room between the desks for professional ceilidh enthusiasts. Three or four bodies lay slumped at their desks, heads on arms. Someone else lay prone on the floor. Rebus counted nine empty whisky bottles, and someone had been sent out for more cases of beer. Jack was still talking with the secretary, his cheeks red from the heat in the room. The place was beginning to smell like a changing room at full-time.
Rebus walked around the room. The walls were still covered with material pertaining to Johnny Bible’s local victims: maps, diagrams, duty rosters, photographs. He studied the photos, as if memorising the smiling faces. He saw that the fax machine had just finished spewing something out. Car ownership details, metallic blue BMWs. Four in Aberdeen, but only one with the same sequence of letters the witness recalled. Registered to a company called Eugene Construction with a Peterhead address.
Eugene Construction? Eugene Construction?
Rebus emptied his pockets on to a desktop, finding petrol receipts, notebook, scraps of paper with telephone numbers, Rennies, a book of matches... there: business card. Given to him by the man he’d met at the convention. Rebus studied the card. Ryan Slocum, Sales Manager, Engineering Division. The parent company: Eugene Construction, with a Peterhead address. Trembling, Rebus lifted the Borneo photo and looked at it, remembering the man he’d met that day in the bar.
‘No wonder Scotland’s down the pan. And we want independence.’
He’d handed over his business card, then Rebus had announced that he was a policeman.
‘Did I say anything incriminating...? Is it Johnny Bible?’
The face, the eyes, the height... close to the man in the photograph. Close. Ray Sloane... Ryan Slocum. Someone had broken into Rebus’s flat, looking for something, taking nothing. Looking for something that might incriminate them? He looked again at the business card, then reached for a phone, eventually tracked Siobhan down at home.
‘Siobhan, the guy you talked to at the National Library...?’
‘Yes?’
‘He gave you a description of the so-called journalist?’
‘Yes.’
‘Give it to me again.’
‘Hang on.’ She went to fetch her notebook. ‘What’s this about anyway?’
‘I’ll tell you later. Read it out.’
‘“Tall, fair-haired, early fifties, longish face, no distinguishing features.”’
‘Anything about the accent?’
‘Nothing down here.’ She paused. ‘Oh, yes, he did say something. He said it was twangy.’
‘Like American?’
‘But Scottish.’
‘It’s him.’
‘Who?’
‘Bible John, just like you said.’
‘What?’
‘Stalking his offspring...’ Rebus rubbed his forehead, pinched the bridge of his nose. He had his eyes screwed shut. Was it or wasn’t it? Was he obsessed? How different was Johnny Bible’s shrine from the scene in his own kitchen, the table covered in cuttings?
‘I don’t know,’ he said. But he did know. He did. ‘Talk to you later,’ he told Siobhan.
‘Wait!’
But that was the one thing he couldn’t do. He needed to know. He needed to know right now. He looked round the room, saw dissolution and reverie, nobody who could drive, no back-up.
Except Jack.
Who had one arm around the secretary now, and was whispering in her ear. She was smiling, holding her cup with a steady hand. Maybe she was drinking the same thing Jack was: cola. Would Jack give him the keys? Not without an explanation, and Rebus wanted to do this alone, needed to. His motive: confrontation, and maybe exorcism. Besides, Bible John had cheated him out of Johnny Bible.
Rebus called downstairs. ‘Any cars going begging?’
‘Not if you’ve been drinking.’
‘Try me with a breath test.’
‘There’s an Escort parked outside.’
Rebus searched desk drawers, found a phone book. Peterhead... Slocum R. No listing. He could try BT, but an unlisted check would take time. Another option: get on the road. It was what he wanted anyway.
The city streets were wild: another Friday night, young souls at play. Rebus was singing ‘All Right Now’. Segue into: ‘Been Down So Long’. Thirty miles north to Peterhead, deep-water port. Tankers and platforms went there for servicing. Rebus wound the motor up, not much traffic heading out of the city. Sky glowing dull pink. Simmer dim, as the Shetlanders called it. Rebus tried not to think about what he was doing. Breaking rules he’d advised others not to break. No back-up. No real authority up here, a long way from home.
He had the address for Eugene Construction, got it from Ryan Slocum’s business card. I stood next to Bible John in a bar. He bought me a drink. Rebus shook his head. Probably a lot of other people could say the same, if only they knew; Rebus wasn’t so special. The company’s phone number was on the card, but all he’d got was an answering machine. It didn’t mean no one was there: security wouldn’t necessarily answer the phones. The card also had a pager number for Slocum, but Rebus wasn’t about to use that.
The company was housed behind a tall mesh fence. It took twenty minutes of driving around and asking questions before he found it. It wasn’t dockside, which was where he’d expected it to be. There was a country business park on the edge of town, and Eugene Construction bordered that. Rebus drove up to the gates. They were locked. He sounded his horn. There was a gatehouse, its lights on, but nobody in. Past the gates were barriers, painted red and white. His headlamps picked them out, and then behind them, coming forwards, a sauntering figure in guard’s uniform. Rebus left the car running, walked up to the gate.
‘What is it?’ the guard asked.
He pressed his warrant card to the mesh. ‘Police. I need a home address for one of your employees.’
‘Can’t it wait till morning?’
Gritted teeth. ‘Afraid not.’
The guard — sixties, retirement age, low-slung paunch — rasped at his chin. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘Look, who do you contact in an emergency?’
‘My office.’
‘And they contact someone from the company?’
‘I suppose so. Haven’t had to test it. Some kids tried to scale the fence a few months back, but they —’
‘Could you phone in?’
‘— heard me coming and ran away sharpish. What?’
‘Could you phone in?’
‘I suppose so, if it’s an emergency.’ The guard walked towards his hut.
‘And could you let me in while you’re at it? I’ll need to use your phone afterwards.’
The guard scratched his head, muttered something, but shook a chain of keys from his pocket and walked up to the gate.
‘Thanks,’ Rebus told him.
The hut was sparsely furnished. Kettle, mug, coffee and a little jar of milk sat on a rusted tray. There was a one-bar electric heater, two chairs, and a paperback novel on the desk: a western. Rebus took the telephone and explained the situation to the guard’s supervisor, who asked to speak to the guard again.
‘Yes, sir,’ the guard said, ‘ID and everything.’ Staring at Rebus like he might be leader of a heist gang. He put Rebus back on, and the supervisor handed him the name and phone number he needed. Rebus made the call, waited.
‘Hello?’
‘Is that Mr Sturges?’
‘Speaking.’
‘Sir, I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour. My name’s Detective Inspector John Rebus. I’m calling from your company’s gatehouse.’
‘Not a break-in or something?’ The man sighed. A break-in meant he’d have to get dressed and go down there.
‘No, sir, I just need some information on one of your employees.’
‘Can’t it wait till morning?’
‘Afraid not.’
‘Who is it anyway?’
‘Ryan Slocum.’
‘Ryan? What’s wrong?’
‘A serious illness, sir.’ Rebus had used the lie before. ‘An elderly relative. They need Mr Slocum’s permission to operate.’
‘Good God.’
‘That’s why it’s urgent.’
‘Yes, I see, I see.’ It always worked: grandmas in peril. ‘Well, it’s not every employee whose address I know off the top of my head.’
‘But you know Mr Slocum’s?’
‘Been to dinner there a few times.’
‘He’s married?’ Enter a spouse into the equation. Rebus hadn’t imagined Bible John married.
‘Wife’s name’s Una, lovely couple.’
‘And the address, sir?’
‘Well, it’s the phone number you’ll be wanting?’
‘Both actually. That way, if no one’s home, we can send someone round to wait.’
Rebus copied the details into his notebook, thanked the man and put down the phone.
‘Any idea how to get to Springview?’ he asked the guard.
Springview was a modern development on the coast road south of town. Rebus parked outside Three Rankeillor Close, shut off the engine, and took a good long look at the house. There was a landscaped garden to the front — clipped lawn, rockery, shrubs and flower beds. No fence or hedge separated the garden from the pavement in front. The other properties were the same.
The house itself was a newish two-storey with gabled roof. To the right of the house was an integral garage. There was an alarm box above one of the bedroom windows. A light was on behind the living-room curtains. The car parked on the gravel driveway was a white Peugeot 106.
‘Now or never, John,’ Rebus told himself, taking a deep breath as he got out of the car. He walked up to the front door and rang the bell, then stepped back off the doorstep. If Ryan Slocum himself answered, Rebus wanted a bit of distance. He remembered his army training — unarmed combat — and an old maxim: shoot first, ask questions later. Something he should have remembered when he’d gone to Burke’s Club.
A woman’s voice came through the door. ‘Yes? What is it?’
Rebus realised he was being watched through a spy-hole. He stepped back up on to the doorstep, so she could get a close look. ‘Mrs Slocum?’ Holding his warrant card up in front of him. ‘CID, madam.’
The door was flung open. A small, slender woman stood there, black cusps beneath her eyes, her hair short and dark and untidy.
‘Oh my God,’ she said, ‘what’s happened?’ Her accent was American.
‘Nothing, madam.’ Relief washed over her face. ‘Why should there be?’
‘Ryan,’ she said, sniffing back tears. ‘I don’t know where he is.’ She sought a handkerchief, realised the box was back in the living room, and told Rebus he’d better come in. He followed her into the large, well-furnished room, and while she was pulling out paper hankies took the opportunity to open the curtains a little. If a blue BMW turned up, he wanted to know about it.
‘Working late maybe?’ he said, already knowing the answer.
‘I tried his office.’
‘Yes, but he’s a sales manager, could he be entertaining a client?’
‘He always phones, he’s very dutiful that way.’
Dutiful: odd choice of word. The room looked the sort that got cleaned before it was ever dirty; Una Slocum looked like the cleaner. Her hands twitched with the bundle of tissues, her whole face drawn with tension.
‘Try to calm down, Mrs Slocum. Is there anything you could take?’ He’d bet she had a doctor’s prescription somewhere in the house.
‘In the bathroom, but I don’t want any. They make me dopey.’
Towards the far end of the room, a large mahogany dining table and six straight-backed chairs sat in front of a trio of wall units. China dolls behind glass, bathed by recessed lighting. Some silverware. No family photographs...
‘Maybe a friend who could...?’
Una Slocum sat down, got up again, remembering she had a guest. ‘Some tea, Mr...?’
‘Rebus, Inspector Rebus. Tea would be great.’
Give her something to do, keep her mind busy. The kitchen was only slightly smaller than the living room. Rebus peered out into the back garden. It looked enclosed, no easy way for Ryan Slocum to sneak up on the house. Rebus’s ears were primed for car noises...
‘He’s gone,’ she said, stopping suddenly in the middle of the floor with the kettle in one hand, teapot in the other.
‘What makes you say that, Mrs Slocum?’
‘A suitcase, some clothes... they’re gone.’
‘Business, maybe? Something at the last minute?’
She shook her head. ‘He’d have left a note or something, a message on the machine.’
‘You’ve checked?’
She nodded. ‘I was in Aberdeen all day, shopping, walking around. When I got back, the house felt different somehow, emptier. I think I knew right off.’
‘Has he said anything about leaving?’
‘No.’ The ghost of a smile. ‘But a wife gets to know, Inspector. Another woman.’
‘A woman?’
Una Slocum nodded. ‘Isn’t it always? He’s been so... I don’t know, just different lately. Short-tempered, distracted... spending time away from home when I knew he’d no business meetings.’ She was still nodding, confirming it to herself. ‘He’s gone.’
‘And you’ve no idea where he could be?’
She shook her head. ‘Wherever she is, that’s all.’
Rebus walked back through to the living room, checked the window: no BMW. A hand touched his arm, and he spun. It was Una Slocum.
‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘I nearly died.’
‘Ryan always complains I never make any noise. It’s the carpet.’
Half-inch Wilton, yards of it.
‘Have you any children, Mrs Slocum?’
She shook her head. ‘I think Ryan would have liked a son. Maybe that was the problem...’
‘How long have you been married?’
‘A long time, fifteen years, nearer sixteen.’
‘Where did you meet?’
She smiled, drifting back. ‘Galveston, Texas. Ryan was an engineer, I was a secretary in the same company. He’d emigrated from Scotland some time before. I could tell he missed home, I always knew we’d end up coming back.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Four and a half years.’ And no killings during that time, so maybe Bible John had come out of retirement for this one job... ‘Of course,’ Una Slocum said, ‘we go back now and then to see my folks. They’re in Miami. And Ryan goes over three or four times a year on business.’
Business. Rebus added a rider to his previous thought: or maybe not.
‘Is he a churchgoer, Mrs Slocum?’
She stared at him. ‘He was when we met. It tailed off, but he’s been attending again.’
Rebus nodded. ‘Any chance I could look around? He may have left a clue where he was headed.’
‘Well... I suppose that would be all right.’ The kettle came to the boil and clicked off. ‘I’ll make the tea.’ She turned to go, paused, turned back. ‘Inspector, what are you doing here?’
Rebus smiled. ‘A routine inquiry, Mrs Slocum, to do with your husband’s work.’
She nodded as though this explained everything, then walked silently back to the kitchen.
‘Ryan’s study’s to the left,’ she called. So Rebus started there.
It was a small room, made smaller by the furniture and bookshelves. There were dozens of books about the Second World War, a whole wall covered with them. Papers were laid out neatly on the desk — stuff from Slocum’s work. In the drawers were more work files, plus others for tax, house and life insurance, pension. A life put into compartments. There was a small radio, and Rebus turned it on. Radio Three. He turned it off again, just as Una Slocum put her head round the door.
‘Tea’s in the living room.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Oh, another thing, he’s taken his computer.’
‘Computer?’
‘You know, a laptop. He used it a lot. He kept this door locked while he worked, but I could hear the clatter of keys.’
There was a key on the inside of the door. When she’d gone, Rebus closed the door and locked himself in, then turned and tried to imagine this as the den of a murderer. He couldn’t. It was a workspace, nothing more. No trophies, and no place to hide them. No bag filled with souvenirs, like Johnny Bible had collected. And no shrine, no scrapbooks of horror. No indication at all that this person lived a double life...
Rebus unlocked the door, went through to the living room, checked the window again.
‘Find anything?’ Una Slocum was pouring tea into fine china cups. A Battenberg cake had been sliced on a matching plate.
‘No,’ Rebus admitted. He took a cup and a slice of cake from her. ‘Thank you.’ Then retreated to the window again.
‘When your husband’s a salesman,’ she went on, ‘you get used to seeing him irregularly, to having to attend boring parties and gatherings, to being hostess at dinner parties where the guests are not ones you’d have chosen for yourself.’
‘Can’t be easy,’ Rebus agreed.
‘But I never complained. Maybe Ryan would have paid me more attention if I had.’ She looked at him. ‘You’re sure he’s not in trouble?’
Rebus put on his most sincere face. ‘I’m positive, Mrs Slocum.’
‘I suffer from nerves, you know. I’ve tried everything — pills, potions, hypnosis... But if something’s in you, there’s not much they can do, is there? I mean, if it’s there from the time you’re born, a little ticking time bomb...’ She looked around. ‘Maybe it’s this house, so new and all, nothing for me to do.’
Aldous Zane had predicted a house like this, a modern house...
‘Mrs Slocum,’ Rebus said, eyes on the window, ‘this might sound like a daft request, and I’ve no way to explain it, but do you think I could take a look at your attic?’
A chain on the first-floor landing. You tugged at it and the trapdoor opened, the wooden steps sliding down to meet you.
‘Clever,’ Rebus said. He began to climb, Una Slocum staying on the landing.
‘The light switch is just to your right when you get up,’ she called.
Rebus poked his head into space, half-expecting a shovel to come crashing down on it, and fumbled for the switch. A single bare bulb illuminated the floored attic.
‘We talked about converting it,’ Una Slocum called. ‘But why bother? The house is too big for us as it is.’
The attic was a few degrees cooler than the rest of the house, testament to modern insulation. Rebus looked around, not sure what he might find. What had Zane said? Flags: the Stars and Stripes and a swastika. Slocum had lived in the US, and seemed fascinated by the Third Reich. But Zane had also seen a trunk in the attic of a large, modern house. Well, Rebus couldn’t see anything like that. Packing cases, boxes of Christmas decorations, a couple of broken chairs, a spare door, a couple of hollow-sounding suitcases...
‘I haven’t been up here since last Christmas,’ Una Slocum said. Rebus helped her up the last couple of steps.
‘It’s big,’ Rebus said. ‘I can see why you thought of converting it.’
‘Planning permission would have been the problem. All the houses here are supposed to stay the same. You spend a fortune on a place, then you aren’t allowed to do anything with it.’ She lifted a folded piece of red cloth from one of the suitcases, brushed dust from it. It looked like a tablecloth, maybe a curtain. But when she shook it, it unfurled into a large flag, black on a white circle with red border. A swastika. She saw the shock on Rebus’s face.
‘He used to collect this sort of stuff.’ She looked around, her face creasing into a frown. ‘That’s odd.’
Rebus swallowed. ‘What?’
‘The trunk’s gone.’ She pointed to a space on the floor. ‘Ryan must have moved it.’ She looked around, but it obviously wasn’t anywhere in the attic.
‘Trunk?’
‘A big old thing, he’s had it for ever. Why would he move it? Come to that, how would he move it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It was heavy. He kept it locked, said it was full of old stuff, mementoes of his life before we met. He promised he’d show me some day... Do you think he took it with him?’
Rebus swallowed again. ‘A possibility,’ he said, making for the stairs. Johnny Bible had a holdall, but Bible John needed a whole trunk. Rebus began to feel queasy.
‘There’s more tea in the pot,’ Mrs Slocum said as they went back down to the living room.
‘Thanks, but I really must be going.’ He saw her try to hide a look of disappointment. It was a cruel life when the only company you had was a policeman chasing your husband.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘about Ryan.’ Then he glanced out of the window one last time.
And there was a blue BMW parked by the kerb.
Rebus’s heart kicked at his chest. He couldn’t see anyone in the car, no one moving towards the house...
Then the doorbell rang.
‘Ryan?’ Mrs Slocum was making for the door. Rebus caught her and pulled her back. She squealed.
He put a finger to his lips, motioned for her to stay where she was. His gorge was rising, as if he might bring up the curry from earlier. His whole body felt electric. The bell went again. Rebus took a deep breath, ran to the door and hauled it open.
A young man stood there, denim jacket and jeans, spiky gelled hair, acne. He was holding out a set of car keys.
‘Where did you get it?’ Rebus roared. The youth took a step back, stumbled off the step. ‘Where did you get the car?’ Rebus was out of the door now and looming over him.
‘Work,’ the youth said. ‘P-part of the s-service.’
‘What is?’
‘Returning your c-car. From the airport.’ Rebus stared at him, demanding more. ‘We do valet cleaning, all that. And if you drop your car off and want it taking back to your house, we do that, too. Sinclair Car Rentals... you can check!’
Rebus held out a hand, pulled the youth to his feet.
‘I was only going to ask if you wanted it put away,’ the youth said, ashen-faced.
‘Leave it where it is.’ Rebus tried to control his trembling. Another car had drawn up, a horn sounded.
‘My lift,’ the youth explained, the terror still not completely gone from his face.
‘Where was Mr Slocum headed?’
‘Who?’
‘The car’s owner.’
The youth shrugged. ‘How should I know?’ He put the keys in Rebus’s hand, headed back down the drive. ‘We’re not the gestapo,’ his parting shot.
Rebus handed the keys to Mrs Slocum, who was staring at him like she had questions, like she wanted to start again from the beginning. Rebus shook his head, marched off. She looked at the keys in her hand.
‘What am I going to do with two cars?’
But Rebus was gone.
He told his story to Grogan.
The Chief Inspector was almost sober — and very ready to go home. He’d already been talked to by the Crime Squad. They’d said they’d have more questions for him tomorrow, all to do with Ludovic Lumsden. Grogan listened with growing impatience, then asked what evidence there was. Rebus shrugged. They could place Slocum’s car near the scene of the murder, and at a curious hour of the morning. But they couldn’t do more than that. Maybe forensics would throw up some connection, but they both guessed Bible John was too smart to allow that to happen. Then there was the story outlined in Lawson Geddes’ letter — a dead man’s tale — and the photo from Borneo. But that meant nothing without a confession from Ryan Slocum that he’d once been Ray Sloane, had lived in Glasgow in the late sixties and had been — and still was — Bible John.
But Ryan Slocum had disappeared.
They contacted Dyce Airport, but there was no record of his having taken a plane out of there, and no taxi or car rental company would admit seeing him. Had he already left the country? What had he done with the trunk? Was he lying low in some hotel nearby, waiting for the fuss to die?
Grogan said they’d make enquiries, put out an alert to ports and airports. He didn’t see what else they could do. They’d send someone out to talk with Mrs Slocum, maybe go through the house with a fine-toothed comb... Tomorrow maybe, or the day after. Grogan didn’t sound too enthusiastic. He’d found his serial killer for today, and had little inclination to go chasing ghosts.
Rebus found Jack in the canteen, drinking tea and eating chips and beans.
‘Where did you get to?’
Rebus sat down beside him. ‘Thought maybe I was cramping your style.’
Jack shook his head. ‘Tell you what though, I nearly asked her back to that hotel.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
Jack shrugged. ‘She told me she could never trust a man who didn’t drink. Do you feel like heading back?’
‘Why not?’
‘John, where did you get to?’
‘I’ll tell you on the way back. It might help keep you awake...’
Next morning, after a few hours’ sleep on the chair, Rebus telephoned Brian Holmes. He wanted to know how he was doing, and whether Ancram’s threats had evaporated in the light of Lawson Geddes’ letter. The call was answered quickly.
‘Hello?’ A woman’s voice: Nell’s. Softly, Rebus put the receiver down. So she was back. Did that mean she’d come to terms with Brian’s work? Or had he promised to give it up? Rebus was sure to find out later.
Jack wandered through. He reckoned his job of ‘minder’ was finished, but had stayed the night anyway — too tired to contemplate the miles home to Falkirk.
‘Thank God it’s the weekend,’ he said, rubbing both hands through his hair. ‘Any plans?’
‘I thought I might nip down to Fettes, see what the score is with Ancram.’
‘Good idea, I’ll come with you.’
‘You don’t need to.’
‘But I want to.’
They took Rebus’s car for a change. But when they got to Fettes, Ancram’s office was bare, no sign of it ever having been occupied. Rebus telephoned Govan, and was put through.
‘Is that it finished?’ he asked.
‘I’ll write up my report,’ Ancram said. ‘No doubt your boss will want to discuss it with you.’
‘What about Brian Holmes?’
‘It’ll all be in the report.’
Rebus waited. ‘All of it?’
‘Tell me something, Rebus, are you clever or just spawny?’
‘Is there a difference?’
‘You’ve really mucked things up. If we’d gone ahead against Uncle Joe, we could have had the mole.’
‘You’ll have Uncle Joe instead.’ Ancram grunted a response. ‘You know who the mole is?’
‘I have a hunch. Lennox, you met him that day in The Lobby.’ DS Andy Lennox: freckles and ginger curls. ‘Thing is, I’ve no hard evidence.’
Same old problem. In law, knowing was not enough. Scots law was stricter still: there must needs be corroboration.
‘Maybe next time, eh?’ Rebus offered, putting down the phone.
They drove back to the flat so Jack could pick up his car, but then he had to climb the stairs with Rebus, having forgotten some of his kit.
‘Are you ever going to leave me alone?’ Rebus asked.
Jack laughed. ‘Starting any minute.’
‘Well, while you’re here you can help me shift the stuff back into the living room.’
It didn’t take long. The last thing Rebus did was hook the fishing-boat back on the wall.
‘So what now?’ Jack asked.
‘I suppose I could see about getting this tooth fixed. And I said I’d meet up with Gill.’
‘Business or pleasure?’
‘Strictly off-duty.’
‘A fiver says you end up talking shop.’
Rebus smiled. ‘Five says you’re on. What about you?’
‘Ach, I thought while I’m in town I might check out the local AA, see if there’s a meeting. It’s been too long.’ Rebus nodded. ‘Want to tag along?’
Rebus looked up, nodded. ‘Why not?’ he said.
‘The other thing we could do is keep on with the decorating.’
Rebus wrinkled his nose. ‘The mood’s passed.’
‘You’re not going to sell?’ Rebus shook his head. ‘No cottage by the sea?’
‘I think I’ll settle for where I am, Jack. It seems to suit me.’
‘And where’s that exactly?’
Rebus considered his answer. ‘Somewhere north of hell.’
He got back from his Sunday walk with Gill Templer and stuck a fiver in an envelope, addressed it to Jack Morton. Gill and he had talked about the Toals and the Americans, about how they’d go down on the strength of the tape. Rebus’s word might not be enough to convict Hayden Fletcher of conspiracy to murder, but he’d have a damned good go. Fletcher was being brought south for questioning. Rebus had a busy week ahead. His telephone rang as he was tidying the living room.
‘John?’ the voice said. ‘It’s Brian.’
‘Everything all right?’
‘Fine.’ But Brian’s voice was hollow. ‘I just thought I’d... the thing is... I’m putting in my papers.’ A pause. ‘Isn’t that what they say?’
‘Jesus, Brian...’
‘Thing is, I’ve tried to learn from you, but I’m not sure you were the right choice. A bit too intense maybe, eh? See, whatever it is you’ve got, John, I just don’t have it.’ A longer pause. ‘And I’m not sure I even want it, to be honest.’
‘You don’t have to be like me to be a good copper, Brian. Some would say you should strive to be what I’m not.’
‘Well... I’ve tried both sides of the fence, hell, I’ve even tried sitting on the fence. No good, any of it.’
‘I’m sorry, Brian.’
‘Catch you later, eh?’
‘Sure thing, son. Take care.’
He sat down in his chair, stared out of the window. A bright summer’s afternoon, a good time to go for a walk through the Meadows. Only Rebus had just come back from a walk. Did he really want another? His phone rang again and he let the machine take it. He waited for a message, but all he could hear was static crackle, background hiss. There was someone there; they hadn’t broken the connection. But they weren’t about to leave a message. Rebus placed a hand on the receiver, paused, then lifted it.
‘Hello?’
He heard the other receiver being dropped into its cradle, then the hum of the open line. He stood for a moment, then replaced the receiver and walked into the kitchen, pulled open the cupboard and lifted out the newspapers and cuttings. Dumped the whole lot of them into the bin. Grabbed his jacket and took that walk.