Standing in another's man grave

6

The file on Zoe Beddows had a home address and telephone number for her friend Alasdair Blunt. When Rebus called, he got an answering machine. Man’s voice; Scottish, with a good education: Alasdair and Lesley are otherwise engaged. Leave a message or try Alasdair’s mobile. Rebus made a note of the number, ended the call and punched it in. It rang and rang. He looked around the walls of his living room. Clarke had asked him to scoop up all the files and take them to Gayfield Square.

‘Sure you’ve got the space?’ he’d countered.

‘We’ll find some.’

No one was answering. Rebus stared out of the window, down on to the street. A parking warden was checking residents’ permits and pay-and-display tickets. Rebus had left his Saab on a single yellow line. He watched as the warden glowered through the windscreen at the POLICE OFFICIAL BUSINESS sign. The man looked up and down the street. His jacket was several sizes too big for him, as was the peaked cap. He lifted his machine and started to process the infringement. Rebus sighed and turned away from the window, ending the call. He was starting to phone Blunt’s answering machine again, this time to leave a message, when his mobile trembled. Incoming: number blocked.

‘Hello?’ Rebus decided this was as much information as the caller needed.

‘You just phoned me.’

‘Alasdair Blunt?’

‘That’s right. Who am I speaking to?’

‘My name’s Rebus, sir. I’m calling from Lothian and Borders Police.’

‘Oh yes. .?’

‘It’s concerning Zoe Beddows.’

‘Has she turned up?’

‘I just need to confirm a few details about the picture she sent you from her phone.’

‘You mean the case is still open?’ He sounded incredulous.

‘Isn’t that what her family and friends would want?’

Blunt seemed to consider this, and his tone softened. ‘Yes, of course. Sorry, rough day.’

‘What is it you do, Mr Blunt?’

‘I’m in sales. Though not for much longer if things don’t pick up.’

‘Might help if you answered your phone — I could have been a new client.’

‘Then you’d have called me on my other mobile, the one I use for business. That’s why I was busy when you rang.’

‘Understood.’

Blunt exhaled noisily. ‘So how can I help?’

‘I’ve been looking through the records and there doesn’t appear to be a copy of the photograph Ms Beddows sent you.’

‘That’s because it got deleted.’

Rebus rested his weight on the arm of his sofa. ‘That’s a pity. There was no message? Just a picture?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Showing what exactly?’

Blunt seemed to struggle to remember. ‘Hills. . sky. . a sort of track off to one side.’

‘Trees?’

‘Maybe.’

‘You didn’t recognise the spot?’

Blunt hesitated. ‘No,’ he said eventually.

‘You don’t sound sure.’

‘I’m positive.’

Rebus stayed silent for a moment, inviting Blunt to continue.

‘Are we done?’ the man asked.

‘Not quite. What time of day did you receive the photo?’

‘Sometime in the evening.’

‘Can you be more precise?’

‘Nine, ten o’clock, something like that.’

‘And when do you think the picture was taken?’

‘I’ve really no idea.’

‘Was it bright sunlight, or maybe the sky was growing dark. .?’

‘The quality wasn’t great.’ Blunt paused. ‘Twilight, I suppose.’

Same as with Annette McKie, Rebus noted. Then: ‘Can I ask, how did you know Ms Beddows?’

‘She cut my hair.’

‘But you were friends?’

‘She cut my hair,’ Blunt repeated. Rebus thought for a moment. How many hairdressers kept their clients’ contact details on their mobile? How many forwarded them photographs. .?

‘Which of your phones was the photo sent to, Mr Blunt?’

‘What does it matter?’

‘Was it your wife who saw it when it arrived? Asked you who Zoe was? Then maybe deleted it?’

‘This has got nothing to do with anything.’ Blunt was sounding irritated again.

‘But is that what happened? You’d been spending a bit of time with Zoe? Maybe in your car — a wee drive to a farm track somewhere. .?’

‘I wasn’t sure at first,’ Blunt said quietly. ‘I don’t think the photo meant anything to us. It wasn’t anywhere we’d been. .’

‘Did any of this come out at the time?’

‘Some.’

Rebus was looking at the Zoe Beddows file. Incomplete. Like most cases. You were a cop, at the end of another long day you wrote up only the stuff you thought was important.

‘There’s not an easy way to put this, Mr Blunt, but were you ever a suspect?’

‘Only in my wife’s eyes.’

‘But you got through it, you and Lesley?’

‘Lesley came later. After Judith had walked out on me.’ Blunt paused. ‘Zoe had quite a lot of “friends”, you know. We’d stopped seeing one another several months before she went missing.’

‘And there’s nothing else you can tell me about the photo?’

‘Only that it ended my marriage.’

‘Sure that wasn’t your doing, Mr Blunt?’

The line went dead. Rebus considered calling Blunt back, but decided against it. He would almost certainly refuse to answer. Instead, he walked over to the Zoe Beddows file, its contents splayed across the dining table. He knew he would have to read it again, every single line of it. He was fairly confident there was nothing about Zoe and her ‘friends’. If any more of them had been interviewed, their relationship to the MisPer had not been flagged up. Laziness, or a sense of propriety on the part of the investigators? They would have known what the media would have done with it: created a story; distorted the facts; sold the public another version. In the process, Zoe Beddows would have become slightly less mourned. Rebus had seen it a dozen times or more. Prostitutes were ‘asking for it’, ‘putting themselves in danger’; anyone with a chaotic lifestyle could be pitied less than the newspaper’s mass of readers, the ones with families and steady jobs, the ones who feasted on those same vicarious details.

Rebus reckoned it had been a conscious decision on somebody’s part to leave speculation out of the case. Which was problematic for anyone opening the files from cold: the whole story wasn’t there. He thought about phoning Ken Lochrin again, but decided it could be done later. He called Clarke instead. She answered with a question.

‘What?’

‘I was just thinking,’ Rebus said. ‘The stuff at my flat, it’s been sorted into piles and pinned up on the wall — wouldn’t it be easier for us to work from here?’

‘This is a police inquiry, John, not a hobby. It needs to be brought to the station.’

‘Understood.’ A caller was waiting. Rebus glanced at the display. ‘I’ll see you in an hour,’ he told Clarke. Then, to Daniel Cowan: ‘Rebus speaking.’

‘I don’t like this, John, not one little bit.’

‘I take it DCI Page has been on the blower?’

‘If it’s a cold case, it should be run from SCRU. You should be here.’

‘Believe me, sir, if it were up to me. .’

‘Your patter’s pish, John. Is this your way of sucking up to the big boys?’

‘I’m a team player, sir — ask Bliss and Robison, they’ll vouch for me.’

‘It’s not them you need to win over. Don’t forget what I said: without my approval, you’re staying retired.’

‘But your approval’s all I’ve ever really craved, Danny. .’

Cowan’s voice was rising to something just short of a yell when Rebus ended the call.