Set in Darkness

by Ian Rankin

  ‘He could have a point.’

  ‘Maybe so, dear, but I told him I’d be willing to take my chances any time he felt like emptying the safe.’

  They shared a laugh at this, before Clarke asked Mrs Briggs how she might find Mr Samuels.

  ‘That’s an easy one. He’s a demon for the bowls. It’s like a religion with him.’

  ‘In this weather?’

  ‘Do you give up churchgoing because it’s snowing outside?’

  It was a good point, and one Clarke was willing to concede in exchange for an address.

  She walked past the bowling green and pushed open the door to the social club. She hadn’t been to Blackhall before, and the maze of streets had defeated her, twice misleading her back on to the busy Queensferry Road. This was Bungalow Land, an area of the city that seemed to have stepped straight out of the 1930s. It seemed a world away from Broughton Street. Here, you appeared to have left the city. There was precious little commerce, precious few people about. The bowling green had a careworn look, its grass a dull emulsion. The clubhouse behind it was a single-storey affair of brown wooden slats, probably thirty years old and showing its age. She stepped inside to a furnace-blast from the ceiling-mounted heater. There was a bar ahead of her, where an elderly woman was humming some show tune as she dusted the bottles of spirits.

  ‘Bowls?’ Clarke called.

  ‘Through the doors, hen.’ Nodding in the general direction without losing her beat. Clarke pushed open the double doors and was in a long narrow room. A green baize mat, twelve feet wide and about fifty long, took up most of the available space. A few plastic chairs were scattered around the periphery, but there were no spectators, just the four players, who looked towards the interruption with all the ire they could muster until, noting her sex and youth, their faces melted and backs straightened.

  ‘One of yours, I’ll bet,’ one man said, nudging his neighbour.

  ‘Away to hell.’

  ‘Jimmy likes them with a bit more meat on their bones,’ the third player added.

  ‘And a few more miles on the clock, too,’ said player four. They were laughing now, laughing with the confidence of old men, immune from penalty.

  ‘Wouldn’t you give your left one to be forty years younger?’ The speaker stooped to pick up one of his bowls. The jack had been dispatched to the far end of the carpet. Two bowls sat either side of it.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt your game,’ Clarke said, deciding immediately on her approach. ‘I’m Detective Constable Clarke.’ She showed them her warrant card. ‘I’m looking for George Samuels.’

  ‘Told you they’d catch up with you, Dod.’

  ‘It was only a matter of time.’

  ‘I’m George Samuels.’ The man who stepped forward was tall and slender and wore a burgundy tie under his sleeveless V-neck jumper. His hand when she shook it had a firm grip and was warm and dry. His hair was snowy white and plentiful, like cotton wadding.

  ‘Mr Samuels, I’m from St Leonard’s police station. Would you mind if I had a word?’

  ‘I’ve been expecting you.’ His eyes were the blue of summer water. ‘It’s about Christopher Mackie, isn’t it?’ He saw the look of surprise on her face and broke into a smile, pleased that he still had some force in the world.

  They sat in a corner of the bar. An elderly couple sat in the other corner: the man had drifted off to sleep and the woman was knitting. A half-pint of beer sat in front of the man, a sherry in front of his companion.

  George Samuels had ordered a whisky, doubling its volume with water. He’d signed Clarke in so that she could drink as his guest, but she’d only wanted coffee. Now, after the first sip, she was wishing she hadn’t bothered. The catering-sized tin of instant behind the bar should have given her the first clue. The second should have been when the barmaid started chipping away at the contents.

  ‘How did you know?’ she asked.

  Samuels ran a hand over his forehead. ‘I always knew there was something wrong with it . . . with him. You don’t just walk into a building society with that amount of money.’ He looked up from his drink. ‘You don’t, do you?’

  ‘I’d like the chance to try,’ she said.

  He smiled. ‘You’ve been talking to Val Briggs. She said much the same thing. We always joked about it.’

  ‘If you thought there was something odd about it, why take the money?’

  He opened his arms. ‘If I hadn’t, someone else would. This was twenty years ago. We weren’t under any obligation to tell the police if something like that happened. That one deposit made me Branch Manager of the Month.’

  ‘Did he say anything about the money?’

  Samuels was nodding. There was something Christmasy about his hair; Clarke imagined playing with it, like playing with fresh snow. ‘Oh, I asked,’ he told her. ‘I came straight out.’

  ‘And?’ A couple of biscuits had arrived with the coffee. She bit into one. It was soft, felt greasy in her mouth.

  ‘He asked if I needed to know. I said I’d like to know, which wasn’t quite the same thing. He told me it was from a bank robbery.’ Her look pleased him all over again. ‘Of course, we both laughed. I mean, he was joking. The notes . . . their serial numbers . . . I’d have known if they’d been stolen.’

  Clarke nodded. There was a paste in her mouth. The only way she could swallow it was with the help of a drink, and the only drink available was the coffee. She took a swig, held her breath and swallowed.

  ‘So what else did he say?’

  ‘Oh, he said something about the money coming to him in a will. Him having cashed the cheque to see what that amount of cash looked like.’

  ‘He didn’t say where he cashed the cheque?’

  Samuels shrugged. ‘I’m not sure I’d have believed him, even if he had.’

  She looked at him. ‘You thought the money was . . . ?’

  ‘Tainted in some way.’ He was nodding. ‘But no matter what I thought, there he was, offering to place it in an account at my branch.’

  ‘No qualms?’

  ‘Not at the time.’

  ‘But you always knew someone would be coming to speak with you about Mr Mackie?’

  Another shrug. ‘I’m beyond the point of giving excuses, Miss Clarke. But I’m guessing you know where the money came from.’

  Clarke shook her head. ‘Haven’t a clue, sir.’

  Samuels sat back in his chair. ‘Then why are you here?’

  ‘Mr Mackie committed suicide, sir. Lived like a tramp, then threw himself off North Bridge. I’m trying to find out why.’

  Samuels couldn’t help. He’d spoken with Mackie only on that one occasion. As Clarke drove back into the city, heading for the Grassmarket, she considered her options. The process took all of three seconds. She had this one slender trail, that was all. To find out the what and why, she had to find out who Christopher Mackie had been. She’d already phoned a search request to the records people. He wasn’t in any phone book, and, just as she’d suspected, when she arrived at the Grassmarket address she found herself at a hostel for the homeless.

  Grassmarket was an odd little world all of its own. Centuries back, they’d held executions here, a fact commemorated by the name of one of the pubs: The Last Drop. Until the 1970s, the area had borne the reputation of being a haven for the destitute and the wandering. But then gentrification became the model. Small specialist shops opened, the bars were spruced up, and tourists began their hesitant, steep descent down Victoria Street and Candlemaker Row.

  The hostel wasn’t exactly publicising its existence. Two grimy windows and a solid-looking door. Outside, a couple of men were crouched beside the wall. One of them asked if she had a light. She shook her head.

  ‘Probably means you’ve no fags on you either,’ he said, resuming his conversation with his friend.

  Clarke turned the door handle, but the door was locked. There was a buzzer on the wall. She pressed it twice and waited. A scrawny young man yanked open the door,
took one look at her and retreated back inside, saying to no one in particular, ‘Surprise, surprise, it’s the polis.’ He fell into a chair and got back to the serious business of daytime TV. There were a couple of beaten-up armchairs in the room, plus a long wooden bench and two that looked like bar stools. The TV and a coffee table more or less completed the furnishings. There was a tin ashtray on the table, but the linoleum floor looked to be the more popular destination for stubbed cigarettes. One elderly man was asleep in an armchair, his face speckled with bits of white paper. Clarke was about to investigate, when her meeter and greeter tore a scrap from an old newspaper, moistened it in his mouth, then spat it towards the sleeping figure.

  ‘Two points for the face,’ he explained. ‘One for the hair or beard.’

  ‘What’s your record?’

  He grinned, showing a mouth missing half its teeth. ‘Eighty-five.’

  A door opened at the far end of the room. ‘Can I help you?’

  Clarke walked over, shook the woman’s hand. Behind her, the record-holder made siren noises. ‘I’m DC Clarke, St Leonard’s police station.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you know a man called Christopher Mackie?’

  A protective look. ‘I might do. What has he done?’

  ‘I’m afraid Mr Mackie’s dead. Suicide, it looks like.’

  The woman closed her eyes for a second. ‘Was he the one who jumped from North Bridge? All it said in the papers was that he was homeless.’

  ‘You knew him then?’

  ‘Let’s talk about it in the store.’

  *

  Her name was Rachel Drew and she’d been in charge of the hostel for a dozen years.

  ‘Not that it’s really a hostel,’ she said. ‘It’s a day centre. But to be honest, when there’s no place else for them to go, they do use the front room for bedding down in. I mean, it’s winter, what else are you going to do?’

  Clarke nodded. The room they sat in was pretty much as Rachel Drew had said: a store. There was a desk and a couple of chairs, but the rest of the space was taken up with boxes of tinned foods. Drew had explained that there was a tiny kitchen annexe, and that she and a couple of helpers rustled up three meals a day.

  ‘It’s not haute cuisine, but I don’t get many complaints.’

  Drew was a large, homely woman, maybe mid-forties, with shoulder-length brown hair which looked naturally frizzy. She had dark eyes and a sallow face, but there was warmth and humour in her voice, fighting what Clarke reckoned was near-permanent tiredness.

  ‘What can you tell me about Mr Mackie?’

  ‘He was a lovely, gentle man. Didn’t make friends easily, but that was his choice. It took me a long time to get to know him. He was already a feature here when I arrived. I don’t mean he was always hanging about the place, but you’d see him regularly.’

  ‘You kept his mail for him?’

  Drew nodded. ‘There was never much. His DSS cheque was about it . . . Maybe two or three letters a year.’

  His building society statements, Clarke guessed. ‘How well did you know him?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  Clarke stared her out. Drew managed a wry smile. ‘Sorry, I’m pretty protective about my boys and girls. You’re wondering if Chris was suicidal.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘I wouldn’t have said so.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘A week or so back.’

  ‘Do you know where he went when he wasn’t here?’

  ‘I make it a rule never to ask.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Clarke was genuinely interested.

  ‘You never know which question will hit a nerve.’

  ‘He didn’t tell you anything about his past?’

  ‘A few stories. He said he’d been in the forces. Another time, he told me he’d been a chef. Said his wife ran off with one of the waiters.’

  Clarke caught Drew’s tone. ‘You didn’t believe him?’

  Drew sat back in her chair, her face and shoulders framed by tinned goods. Every day she opened some tins and did some cooking, feeding people so the rest of the world could forget about them. ‘I get told a lot of stories. I’m a good listener.’

  ‘Did Chris have any close friends?’

  ‘Not here, not that I noticed. But maybe outside . . .’ Drew narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t get me wrong or anything, but just why the hell are you so interested in a down and out.’

  ‘Because he wasn’t. Chris had a building society account. He was in credit to the tune of four hundred thousand pounds.’

  ‘Lucky him,’ Drew snorted. Then she saw the look on Clarke’s face. ‘Oh, Christ, you’re serious.’ Now she sat forward in her chair, toes on the ground, elbows on her knees. ‘Where did he get . . . ?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘Goes some way to explaining your interest. Who gets the money?’

  Clarke shrugged. ‘Next of kin . . . relatives.’

  ‘Always supposing he has any.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And supposing you can find them.’ Drew chewed at her bottom lip. ‘You know, there were times when this place was struggling. Christ, we’re struggling now. And he never so much as . . .’ She laughed suddenly and harshly, clapping her hands together. ‘The sneaky little sod. What was he playing at?’

  ‘That’s what I’m wondering.’

  ‘If you can’t trace his family, where does the money go?’

  ‘I think the Treasury.’

  ‘The government? Christ, there’s no justice, is there?’

  ‘Careful who you say that to,’ Clarke said with a smile.

  Drew was shaking her head and chuckling. ‘Four hundred grand. And he jumped and left it all behind.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Knowing you’d find out about it.’ Drew stared at Clarke. ‘It’s like he was setting you a puzzle, isn’t it?’ She was thoughtful for a moment. ‘You should take it to the papers. Once the story’s out, the family will come to you.’

  ‘Along with every shyster and fraud in the game. That’s why I need to find out about him: so I can weed out the con artists.’

  ‘True enough. You’ve got a head on your shoulders, haven’t you?’ She exhaled loudly. ‘Things I could do with that money.’

  ‘Like hire a cook?’

  ‘I was thinking more of a year in Barbados.’

  Clarke smiled again. ‘One last thing: I don’t suppose you’ve a picture of Chris?’

  Drew raised an eyebrow. ‘You know, I think you might be in luck.’ She opened a drawer of the desk and began pulling out sheets of paper and raffle tickets, pens and cassette tapes. Finally she found what she was looking for: a packet of photographs. She flicked through them, picked one out and handed it over.

  ‘Taken last Christmas, but Chris hasn’t really changed much since. That’s him next to the Bearded Wonder.’

  Clarke recognised the sleeping man from the other room. In the photo, he was in his armchair but very much awake, mouth agape in almost a parody of joy. On the arm of the chair sat the man called Christopher Mackie. Medium height, the beginnings of a paunch. Black hair swept back from a prominent forehead. His smile was mischievous, as though he was in on some secret. Yes, and wasn’t he just? It was the first time she’d been face to face with him. It felt strange. So far, she’d only known him in death . . .

  ‘Here he is on his own,’ Drew said.

  The second photo showed Mackie washing a sinkful of dishes. He’d been caught unawares by the photographer, and his face was determined, focused on the job at hand. The flash made his face ghostly white, red dots for eyes.

  ‘Mind if I take these?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  Clarke tucked the pictures into her jacket pocket. ‘I’d also appreciate it if you’d keep what I’ve told you to yourself for the moment.’

  ‘Don’t want to be snowed under with cranks?’

  ‘Wouldn’t make my job any easier.’

  Drew seemed to make her min
d up about something. She opened a red plastic card index, flicked through the contents and lifted out one of the cards.

  ‘Chris’s personal details,’ she said, handing the card over. ‘Date of birth and his doctor’s name and phone number. Maybe they’ll help.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Clarke said. She drew a banknote from her pocket. ‘This isn’t a bribe or anything, I’d just like to put something towards the hostel.’

  Drew stared at the money. ‘Fair enough,’ she said at last, accepting it. ‘If it helps your conscience, how can I refuse?’

  ‘I’m a police officer, Ms Drew. The conscience is removed during training.’

  ‘Well,’ Rachel Drew said, getting to her feet, ‘looks to me like you’ve maybe grown a new one.’

  12

  Rebus gave Derek Linford the choice: Roddy Grieve’s workplace, or Hugh Cordover’s studio. Knowing full well which one Linford would go for.

  ‘I might pick up a few tips for my portfolio while I’m at it,’ Linford said, leaving Rebus to head out towards Roslin and the baronial home of Hugh Cordover and Lorna Grieve. Roslin was the home of the ancient and extraordinary Rosslyn Chapel, which in recent years had become the target of a range of millennialist nutters. They said the Ark of the Covenant was buried beneath its floor. Or it was an alien mothership. The village itself was quiet, nondescript. High Manor sat a quarter-mile further on, behind a low stone wall. There were stone gateposts but no gates, just a sign saying ‘Private’. It was called High Manor because in his days as a member of Obscura, Hugh had been ‘High Chord’. Rebus had one of their albums with him: Continuous Repercussions. Lorna was on the sleeve, seated high-priestess style on a throne, diaphanous white dress, a snake coiled around her head. Laser lights shone from her eyes. Around the edges of the album sleeve were rows of hieroglyphs.

  He parked his Saab beside a Fiat Punto and a Land-Rover. A couple of other cars stood off to one side: a beaten-up old Merc and an open-topped American classic. He left the album in the car and made for the front door. Lorna Grieve herself opened it. Ice rattled in the glass she was holding.