by Ian Rankin
‘What do you think?’
‘Fantastic,’ Rebus called back.
Wardle grinned.
‘How much would this lot cost me?’ Rebus asked, hoping Wardle wouldn’t notice how long Holmes had been out of the room.
‘About twenty-five K.’
‘You’re joking. My flat didn’t cost that.’
Wardle just laughed. But he was glancing towards the living-room door. He looked as though he might be about to say something, when the door opened and Holmes came in, rubbing his hands as though drying them off. He smiled, sat, and toasted Wardle with his glass. Wardle went over to the amplifier to turn down the volume. Holmes nodded towards Rebus. Rebus toasted no one in particular and finished his drink. The volume dipped.
‘What was that?’ Holmes asked.
‘Let It Bleed.’
‘I thought my ears would.’
Wardle laughed. He seemed to be in a particularly good mood. Maybe it was because of the cassette deck.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘how the hell did you get that deck back so quickly?’
Holmes was about to say something, but Rebus beat him to it. ‘It was abandoned.’
‘Abandoned?’
‘At the bottom of a flight of stairs on Queen Street,’ Rebus went on. He had risen to his feet. Holmes took the hint and, eyes twisted shut, gulped down his whisky. ‘So you see, sir, we were just lucky, that’s all. Just lucky.’
‘Well, thanks again,’ said Wardle. ‘If you ever want some hi-fi, drop into the shop. I’m sure a discount might be arranged.’
‘We’ll bear that in mind, sir,’ said Rebus. ‘Just don’t expect me to put my flat on the market . . .’
Back at the station, Rebus first of all had Jib released, then went to his office, where he spread the files out across his desk, while Holmes pulled over a chair. Then they both sat, reading aloud from lists. The lists were of stolen goods, high-quality stuff stolen in the dead of night by real professionals. The hauls - highly selective hauls - came from five addresses, the homes of well-paid middle-class people, people with things well worth the stealing.Five robberies, all at dead of night, alarm systems disconnected. Art objects had been taken, antiques, in one case an entire collection of rare European stamps. The house-breakings had occurred at more or less monthly intervals, and all within a twenty-mile radius of central Edinburgh. The connection between them? Rebus had explained it to Holmes on their way to Wardle’s flat.
‘Nobody could see any connection, apart from the fact that the five victims worked in the west end. The Chief Super asked me to take a look. Guess what I found? They’d all had smart new hi-fi systems installed. Up to six months before the break-ins. Systems bought from Queensferry Audio and installed by Mr Wardle.’
‘So he’d know what was in each house?’ Holmes had said.
‘And he’d be able to give the alarm system a look-over while he was there, too.’
‘Could just be coincidence.’
‘I know.’
Oh yes, Rebus knew. He knew he had only the hunch, the coincidence. He had no proof, no evidence of any kind. Certainly nothing that would gain him a search warrant, as the Chief Super had been good enough to confirm, knowing damned well that Rebus would take it further anyway. Not that this concerned the Chief Super, so long as Rebus worked alone, and didn’t tell his superiors what he was up to. That way, it was Rebus’s neck in the noose, Rebus’s pension on the line.
Rebus guessed his only hope was that Wardle had kept some of the stolen pieces, that some of the stuff was still on his premises. He’d already had a young DC go into Queensferry Audio posing as a would-be buyer. The DC had gone in four times in all, once to buy some tapes, then to look at hi-fi, then to spend an hour in one of the demo rooms, and finally just for a friendly chat . . . He’d reported back to Rebus that the place was clean. No signs of any stolen merchandise, no locked rooms or cupboards . . .
So then Rebus had persuaded a uniformed constable to pose as a Neighbourhood Watch supervisor. He had visited Wardle at home, not getting past the downstairs hallway. But he’d been able to report that the place was ‘like Fort Knox, metal door and all’. Rebus had had experience of steel-reinforced doors: they were favoured by drug dealers, so that when police came calling with a sledgehammer for invitation, the dealers would have time enough to flush everything away.
But a hi-fi dealer with a steel door . . . Well, that was a new one. True, twenty-five grand’s worth of hi-fi was an investment worth protecting. But there were limits. Not that Rebus suspected Wardle of actually doing the breaking and entering himself. No, he just passed the information on to the men Rebus really wanted, the gang. But Wardle was the only means of getting at them . . .
Finally, in desperation, Rebus had turned to Jib. And Jib had done what he was told, meaning Rebus now owed him a large favour. It was all highly irregular; unlawful, if it came to it. If anyone found out . . . well, Rebus would be making the acquaintance of his local broo office. Which was why, as he explained to Holmes, he’d been keeping so quiet about it.
The plan was simple. Jib would run off with something, anything, watched by Rebus to make sure nothing went wrong - such as a daring citizen’s arrest by one or more passers-by. Later, Rebus would turn up at the shop to investigate the theft. Then later still, he would arrive at Wardle’s flat, ostensibly to report the lack of progress. If a further visit was needed, the cassette deck would be found. But now he had Holmes’s help, so one visit only should suffice, one man keeping Wardle busy while the other sniffed around the rooms in the flat.
They sat now, poring over the lists, trying to match what Holmes had seen in Wardle’s two bedrooms with what had been reported stolen from the five luxury homes.
‘Carriage clock,’ read Rebus, ‘nineteenth-century Japanese cigar box, seventeenth-century prints of Edinburgh by James Gordon, a Swarbreck lithograph . . .’
Holmes shook his head at the mention of each, then read from one of his own lists. ‘Ladies’ and gents’ Longines watches, a Hockney print, Cartier pen, first-edition set of the Waverley novels, Ming vase, Dresden pieces . . .’ He looked up. ‘Would you believe, there’s even a case of champagne.’ He looked down again and read: ‘Louis Roederer Cristal 1985. Value put at six hundred pounds. That’s a hundred quid a bottle.’
‘Bet you’re glad you’re a lager man,’ said Rebus. He sighed. ‘Does none of this mean anything to you, Brian?’
Holmes shook his head. ‘Nothing like any of this in either of the bedrooms.’
Rebus cursed under his breath. ‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘What about that print?’
‘Which one? The Hockney?’
‘Yes, have we got a photo of it?’
‘Just this,’ said Holmes, extracting from the file a page torn from an art gallery’s catalogue. He handed it to Rebus, who studied the picture. ‘Why?’
‘Why?’ echoed Rebus. ‘Because you sat with this painting in front of your nose on Wardle’s living-room wall. I thought it was a real painting, but this is it all right.’ He tapped the sheet of paper. ‘It says here the print’s limited to fifty impressions. What number is the stolen one?’
Holmes looked down the list. ‘Forty-four.’
‘Right,’ said Rebus. ‘That should be easy enough to confirm.’ He checked his watch. ‘What time are you expected home?’
Holmes was shaking his head. ‘Never mind that. If you’re going back to Wardle’s flat, I’m coming too.’
‘Come on then.’
It was only as they were leaving the office that Holmes thought to ask: ‘What if it isn’t the same number on the print?’
‘Then we’ll just have to face the music,’ said Rebus.
But as it turned out, the only one facing the music was Wardle, and he sang beautifully. A pity, Rebus mused later, that he hadn’t arranged for a discount on a new hi-fi system first. He’d just have to wait for Queensferry Audio’s closing-down sale . . .
Principles of Accounts
; It began as a hobby.But then quite quickly the hobby became a career, and now he was a professional, taking a professional’s care in the details of his craft. True, something had been lost; that was the trouble when a hobby became mere business. But at least he had the consolation of knowing that business was good. He saw himself as a value assessor. He assessed the value of an item, then collected on it, the money being insurance against loss. He had always been good at accounts, economics, business studies. He loved those subjects at school, hardly believing the sheer thrill of balancing books. The sums always came out the same, either side of the thick vertical centre line. He used similar skills now when assessing each item: value of item balanced against risk involved.
Not that he ever damaged an item. It hadn’t been necessary so far. But he was very good at pretending he would damage them. He could reduce tough fathers to pleas and weeping, and all via the telephone. The telephone was his friend - not any one particular telephone, but all phones, spread across the country in a matrix of elegantly anonymous paybooths. He made a point of spending not more than a minute in each phone box he used, timing each call. Single-mindedness was his real strength. Determination of purpose. The sixty-second calls had become his trademark. People knew when they were dealing with the Minute Man.
The media, who had coined the nickname, they too were his friends, stirring up fear, building him into a figure of terror. He rewarded them with increased circulation and viewing figures, while the police held increasingly ineffectual press conferences requesting information, playing tapes they’d made of his voices.
He used several voices, none his own. He hadn’t spoken more than six words to any of his four young items, and even then had disguised his voice. Actually, he’d used more than six words with the last one, the one whose value now sat before him on the table. She had been a talker, a good talker, too. She’d recited stories and anecdotes - even when she couldn’t be sure he was there. Occasionally he’d asked a question, something to help him get the story straight in his mind. She had given him her stories, and now her father had given him all this money.
Tonight, with an open bottle of cheapish Australian Chardonnay on the floor beside his chair, with his belly full from the meal he’d eaten at the Indian on the High Street, tonight was for reflection. At the top of the hour, he hit the remote to catch the Channel 4 news and saw with some pride that he was the main story. Or rather, the item was.
She blinked a lot. Nervousness, or perhaps the glare of the lights and flashguns. Her hair had been washed, but she wore no make-up, and her face looked pale. She had lost a little weight, her own fault for not eating everything he’d given her.
She’d worked out pretty quickly - they usually did - that the food was laced with tranqs, crushed-up sleeping pills. But like the others, she’d given in and eaten anyway. Sensible, when the only other alternative was force-feeding by rubber tube and plastic funnel.
She stayed on screen only half a minute, refusing to answer the yelled questions. Now she was replaced by a policeman. A caption appeared along the bottom of the screen: Ch. Supt. Thomas Lancaster. Ah yes, Tom Lancaster. He raised his glass, toasting his adversary, even though the police’s inefficiency was a constant source of irritation to him.
‘. . . and I must praise Miss Webster’s calm and her bravery,’ Lancaster was saying. ‘After her release, she was able to help us compile this composite photograph of her kidnapper.’
He put down his glass. The photo was onscreen now.
‘The man we’re looking for is five feet seven or eight, stocky, with blue eyes. As you can see, he has a round face, full lips, and thick, slightly curly hair, either black or very dark brown.’
He whooped. He got up and danced. She’d never set eyes on him! He never allowed his items the luxury. He looked at himself in the mirror. He was six feet tall, certainly not stocky. He had brown eyes, short, straight, light-brown hair. Full lips? No. Round face? No. She’d given the police a wholly fictitious account. Tomorrow the photo would be in every newspaper, pinned up outside every police station. This was better than he could ever have imagined . . .
But why had she done it? What was she playing at? He didn’t like puzzles, didn’t like it when the accounts failed to balance at the bottom. He switched off the TV and put aside his wine. One thing was obvious: she didn’t want him caught. Only two people could be certain her description was a fiction: the item, and the Minute Man. He was still deep in thought when ten o’clock came round. He switched on the TV news again, and was thrown into fresh confusion.
‘There has been an arrest tonight after the latest Minute Man kidnap victim was released.’
Sitting up, he kicked over the wine bottle. It poured out its contents unchecked.
‘A man, believed to be a business acquaintance of Gillian Webster’s father, has been taken to Castle Lane police station for questioning. We now go over live to Castle Lane, where Martin Brockman is waiting to speak to us. Martin, any more details?’
Now the reporter was on the screen, looking cold against a damp night-time street, headlamps flashing past him. He wore a sheepskin coat and had one hand pressed to his ear, holding in place the earphone. He began to speak.
‘All police will say is that a man is being questioned in connection with the kidnapping of Gillian Webster, who was released unharmed this morning. There’s no word yet of whether or not the man will be asked to take part in an identity parade, but rumour has it that the man police are questioning is actually known to Miss Webster’s father, the millionaire Duncan Webster, and that it was Mr Webster himself who first noticed the resemblance between the photofit and the man police are currently questioning.’
‘Let’s get this right, Martin, you’re saying Mr Webster identified his daughter’s kidnapper?’
‘I don’t think we can go that far just yet, but . . .’
But he had switched off the television.
‘What’s your game, little Gillian?’ he said quietly. ‘Your game . . . or your father’s?’ He felt dizzy, confused. There had to be a reason for all of this. The wine was thumping in his head.
‘I hate puzzles!’ he yelled at the blank TV screen. ‘I hate puzzles!’
In Castle Lane police station, Chief Superintendent Tom Lancaster was about to get some sleep. He’d phoned his wife to explain that he wouldn’t be home. He kept a fresh suit, shirt, and tie in the office anyway, and now there was a camp bed there too, with an army-quality sleeping bag. Nothing to the comforts of home, but it would have to do. Tomorrow might be even busier than today. He was comforted to know that the press weren’t going home either. Some had crawled off to hotels and boarding houses, but others were camping out in cars and vans outside the station.Lancaster slipped off his clothes and into the chilled sleeping bag. He wriggled for a few seconds, getting warm, then reached to the floor, where several bulging files lay. The transcript of Gillian Webster’s conversations with the Minute Man had been typed up. He read through them again. It was one-way traffic. The Minute Man had said only a couple of dozen words, mostly in the form of abrupt questions.
His second victim, Elaine Chatham, had managed a longer utterance from him. She’d asked if she could have a book of crosswords to pass the time. She’d kept on asking until she’d forced from him a gruff confession (in his Geordie accent this time). Three important little words. Tom Lancaster whispered them to himself.
‘ “I hate puzzles”.’
Then, smiling, he reached for the anglepoise and turned off the light.
It was nearly midday when Mrs Angelo heard the bell tinkling at the front desk.‘Coming!’ she called, trying to sound calm. Her husband Tony should have been helping her, but he had the flu and was upstairs asleep. It was his third bout of flu this year; he never wanted the doctor called in. The man standing at the desk carried a sports holdall and a sheaf of the morning papers. He wore a new-smelling sheepskin jacket and a harassed grin.
‘I’d like a room, please,’ he announced.
‘Just the one night, is it?’
‘Well . . .’
‘You’re a journalist,’ Mrs Angelo stated. ‘You’re reporting on that kidnapping, and you don’t know how long you’ll need the room. Am I right?’
‘You could write our astrology column.’
She checked the rack of room keys on the wall. ‘Number six has a wash basin, or there’s number eleven, but it doesn’t. Those are the only two I’ve got.’ She turned to him. ‘We’re busy all of a sudden.’
‘You’ve already got reporters staying?’
‘One’s been here all the way through, the others moved in yesterday. And I’ve a very nice cameraman and sound-man from the BBC, only they complain because their reporter is in some posh hotel. I told them, posh just means expensive. Number six or number eleven?’
‘Six, please.’
‘Only the best, eh? I dare say you’re on expenses.’ She unhooked the key, then swivelled the register around for him to sign. ‘So which paper are you from?’
He didn’t look up from his writing. ‘I’m freelance. A few magazines are interested, so I thought I’d . . . you know.’
She swivelled the register back towards her. ‘Well, Mr Beattie, let’s hope you get your story, eh?’
‘Yes,’ he agreed, taking the key from her warm, damp fingers. ‘Let’s hope.’
He threw the papers on to the floor beside the single bed. The mattress was softer than he liked, but the room was clean and fresh. It worried him that there were other reporters here. He didn’t want them asking him questions. He unzipped the holdall, taking his Gillian Webster case notes from it. Included in the file was a packet of black and white photographs he’d taken during the weeks leading up to the snatch. He looked through them again.The Websters lived in a large detached house set in a few acres of rambling grounds. He’d gone out there one Sunday with his camera. He’d been out that way several times before in his car, stopping once with engine trouble near the house. About a hundred yards from the house there was a clump of bushes and saplings, big enough for him to hide in. On that particular Sunday, he’d taken his very best zoom lenses for the Canon camera. Then he went strolling with camera and binoculars and a bird identification book.
