by Ian Rankin
His name was Walter Rowbotham, and he was a new recruit to the Sullom Voe Public Relations Department.
‘I’d be happy to show you around, Inspector,’ he said, still grinning, trying too hard to please.
‘Maybe if there’s time,’ Rebus conceded.
‘My pleasure entirely. You know, of course, that the terminal cost one thousand three hundred million just to construct. That’s pounds, not dollars.’
‘Interesting.’
Rowbotham’s face practically lit up, encouraged now. ‘The first oil flowed into Sullom Voe in 1978. It is a major employer and has helped contribute greatly to Shetland’s low unemployment rate, currently around four per cent or half the Scottish average.’
‘Tell me something, Mr Rowbotham.’
‘Walter, please. Or Walt if you like.’
‘Walt.’ Rebus smiled. ‘Had any more trouble with the LPG chilldown?’
Rowbotham’s face turned pickled baby beet. Jesus, Rebus thought, the media were going to love him …
They ended up driving through half the installation to get to where Rebus wanted to be, so he heard most of the tour narration anyway and learned more than he hoped he’d ever have to know about debutanising, de-ethanising and depropanising, not to mention surge tanks and integrity meters. Wouldn’t it be great, he thought, if you could fit integrity meters to human beings?
At the main administration building they’d been told that Jake Harley worked in the process control room, and that his colleagues were waiting there and knew a police officer was coming to talk to them. They passed the incoming crude lines, the pigging station, and the final holding basin, and at one point Walt thought they were lost, but he had a little orientation map with him.
Just as well: Sullom Voe was huge. It had taken seven years to build, breaking all sorts of records in the process (and Walt knew every one of them), and Rebus had to admit that it was an impressive monster. He’d been past Grangemouth and Mossmorran dozens of times, but they just weren’t in the picture. And if you looked out past the crude oil tanks and the unloading jetties, you saw water – the Voe itself to the south; then Gluss Isle over to the west, doing a good impression of unspoilt wilderness. It was like a sci-fi city transported to prehistory.
For all of which, the process control room was about as peaceful a place as Rebus had ever been. Two men and a woman sat behind computer consoles in the centre of the room, while the walls were taken up with electronic charts, softly flashing lights indicating the oil and gas flows. The only sounds were those of fingers on keyboards, and the occasional muted conversation. Walt had decided that it was his job to introduce Rebus. The atmosphere had quieted him, as if he’d walked into the middle of a church service. He went to the central console and spoke in an undertone to the trinity seated there.
The elder of the two men stood up and came to shake Rebus’s hand.
‘Inspector, my name’s Milne. How can we help?’
‘Mr Milne, I really wanted to speak to Jake Harley. But since he’s made himself scarce, I thought maybe you could tell me a little about him. Specifically, about his friendship with Allan Mitchison.’
Milne wore a check shirt, its sleeves rolled up. He scratched at one arm while Rebus spoke. He was in his thirties, with tousled red hair and a face pitted from teenage acne. He nodded, half-turning to his two colleagues, assuming the role of spokesman.
‘Well, we all work beside Jake, so we can tell you about him. Personally, I didn’t know Allan very well, though Jake introduced us.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever met him,’ the woman said.
‘I met him once,’ the other man added.
‘Allan only worked here for two or three months,’ Milne went on. ‘I know he struck up a friendship with Jake.’ He shrugged. ‘Really, that’s about it.’
‘If they were friends, they must have had something in common. Was it bird-watching?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Green issues,’ the woman said.
‘That’s true,’ Milne said, nodding. ‘Of course, in a place like this, we always end up talking about ecology sooner or later – sensitive subject.’
‘Is it a big thing with Jake?’
‘I wouldn’t go that far.’ Milne looked to his colleagues for support. They shook their heads. Rebus realised that nobody was talking much above a whisper.
‘Jake works right here?’ he asked.
‘That’s right. We alternate shifts.’
‘So sometimes you’re working together …’
‘And sometimes we’re not.’
Rebus nodded. He was learning nothing; wasn’t sure he’d ever actually thought he would learn anything. So Mitchison had been into ecology – big deal. But it was pleasant here, relaxing. Edinburgh and all his troubles were a long way away, and felt it.
‘This looks like a cushy job,’ he said. ‘Can anyone apply?’
Milne smiled. ‘You’ll have to hurry, who knows how long the oil will last?’
‘A while yet surely?’
Milne shrugged. ‘It’s down to the economics of retrieval. Companies are beginning to look west – Atlantic oil. And oil from west of Shetland is being landed at Flotta.’
‘On Orkney,’ the woman explained.
‘They won the contract from us,’ Milne went on. ‘Five or ten years from now, the profit margin may be bigger out there.’
‘And they’ll mothball the North Sea?’
All three nodded, like a single beast.
‘Have you talked to Briony?’ the woman asked suddenly.
‘Who’s Briony?’
‘Jake’s … I don’t know, she’s not his wife, is she?’ She looked to Milne.
‘Just a girlfriend, I think.’
‘Where does she live?’ Rebus asked.
‘Jake and her share a house,’ Milne said. ‘In Brae. She works at the swimming pool.’
Rebus turned to Walt. ‘How far is it?’
‘Six or seven miles.’
‘Take me.’
They tried the baths first, but she wasn’t on shift, so they tracked down her house. Brae looked to be suffering a crisis of identity, like it had suddenly plopped into being and didn’t know what to make of itself. The houses were new but anonymous; there was obviously money around, but it couldn’t buy everything. It couldn’t turn Brae back into the village it had been in the days before Sullom Voe.
They found the house. Rebus told Walt to wait in the car. A woman in her early twenties answered his knock. She was wearing jogging bottoms and a white singlet, her feet bare.
‘Briony?’ Rebus asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Sorry, I don’t know your last name. Can I come in?’
‘No. Who are you?’
‘I’m Detective Inspector John Rebus.’ Rebus showed his warrant card. ‘I’m here about Allan Mitchison.’
‘Mitch? What about him?’
There were a lot of answers to that question. Rebus picked one. ‘He’s dead.’ Then he watched the colour drain from her face. She clung on to the door as if for support, but she still wasn’t letting him in.
‘Would you like to sit down?’ Rebus hinted.
‘What happened to him?’
‘We’re not sure, that’s why I want to talk to Jake.’
‘You’re not sure?’
‘Could be an accident. I’m trying to fill in some background.’
‘Jake isn’t here.’
‘I know, I’ve been trying to reach him.’
‘Somebody from personnel keeps phoning.’
‘On my behalf.’
She nodded slowly. ‘Well, he’s still not here.’ She hadn’t taken her hand off the jamb.
‘Can I get a message to him?’
‘I don’t know where he is.’ As she spoke, the colour started to return to her cheeks. ‘Poor Mitch.’
‘You’ve no idea where Jake is?’
‘He sometimes goes off on a walk. He doesn’t know himself where he�
�ll end up.’
‘He doesn’t phone you?’
‘He needs his space. So do I, but I find mine when I swim. Jake walks.’
‘He’s due back tomorrow though, or the day after?’
She shrugged. ‘Who knows?’
Rebus reached into a pocket, wrote on a page of his notebook, tore it out. He held it out to her. ‘It has a couple of phone numbers. Will you tell him to call me?’
‘Sure.’
‘Thanks.’ She was staring dully at the piece of paper, her eyes just short of tears. ‘Briony, is there anything you can tell me about Mitch? Anything that might help?’
She looked up from the card to him.
‘No,’ she said. Then, slowly, she closed the door on his face. In that final glimpse of her before the door separated them, Rebus had found her eyes, and seen something there. Not just bewilderment or grief.
Something more like fear. And behind it, a degree of calculation.
It struck him that he was hungry, and gasping for coffee. So they ate in the Sullom Voe canteen. It was a clean white space with potted plants and no smoking signs. Walt was rattling on about how Shetland remained more Norse than Scots; nearly all the place names were Norwegian. To Rebus, it was like the edge of the world, and he liked that. He told Walt about the man on the plane, the one in sheepskin.
‘Oh, that sounds like Mike Sutcliffe.’
Rebus asked to be taken to him.
Mike Sutcliffe had changed out of his sheepskin and was dressed in crisp work clothes. They finally found him in heated conversation beside the ballast water tanks. Two underlings were listening to him complain that they could be replaced by gibbons and nobody would notice. He pointed up at the tanks, then out towards the jetties. There was a tanker moored at one of them, it couldn’t have been any bigger than half a dozen football pitches. Sutcliffe saw Rebus and lost the thread of his argument. He dismissed the workers and began to move away, only he had to get past Rebus first.
Rebus had a smile ready. ‘Mr Sutcliffe, did you get me that map?’
‘What map?’ Sutcliffe kept walking.
‘You said you might have an idea where I could find Jake Harley.’
‘Did I?’
Rebus was almost having to jog to keep up with him. He wasn’t wearing the smile any more. ‘Yes,’ he said coldly, ‘you did.’
Sutcliffe stopped so suddenly, Rebus ended up in front of him. ‘Look, Inspector, I’m up to my gonads in thistles right now. I don’t have time for this.’
And he walked, his eyes not meeting Rebus’s. Rebus marched alongside, keeping silent. He kept it up for a hundred yards, then stopped. Sutcliffe kept going, looking like he might walk right along the jetty and across the water if he had to.
Rebus went back to where Walt was standing. He took his time, thoughtful. The bum’s rush and then some. What or who had changed Sutcliffe’s mind? Rebus pictured an old white-haired man in kilt and sporran. The picture seemed to fit.
Walt took Rebus back to his office in the main admin building. He showed Rebus where the phone was, and said he’d be back with two coffees. Rebus closed the office door, and sat down behind the desk. He was surrounded by oil platforms, tankers, pipelines, and Sullom Voe itself – huge framed photos on the walls; PR literature stacked high; a scale model of a super tanker on the desk. Rebus got an outside line and telephoned Edinburgh, weighing up diplomacy against bullshit and deciding it might save time to just tell the truth.
Mairie Henderson was at home.
‘Mairie, John Rebus.’
‘Oh, Christ,’ she said.
‘You’re not working?’
‘Haven’t you heard of the portable office? Fax-modem and a telephone, that’s all you need. Listen, you owe me.’
‘How so?’ Rebus tried to sound aggrieved.
‘All that work I did for you, and no story at the end of it. That’s not exactly quid pro quo, is it? And journalists have longer memories than elephants.’
‘I gave you Sir Iain’s resignation.’
‘A full ninety minutes before every other hack knew. And it wasn’t exactly the crime of the century to begin with. I know you held back on me.’
‘Mairie, I’m hurt.’
‘Good. Now tell me this is purely a social call.’
‘Absolutely. So how are you keeping?’
A sigh. ‘What do you want?’
Rebus swung ninety degrees in the chair. It was a comfortable chair, good enough to sleep in. ‘I need some digging.’
‘I am completely and utterly surprised.’
‘The name’s Weir. He calls himself Major Weir, but the rank may be spurious.’
‘T-Bird Oil?’
Mairie was a very good journalist. ‘That’s the one.’
‘He just made a speech at that convention.’
‘Well, he had someone else read it out.’
A pause. Rebus flinched. ‘John, you’re in Aberdeen?’
‘Sort of,’ he confessed.
‘Tell me.’
‘Later.’
‘And if there’s a story …?’
‘You’re in pole position.’
‘With something longer than a ninety-minute lead time?’
‘Absolutely.’
Silence on the line: she knew he could be lying. She was a journalist; she knew these things.
‘OK, so what do you want to know about Weir?’
‘I don’t know. Everything. The interesting stuff.’
‘Business or personal life?’
‘Both, mainly business.’
‘Do you have a number in Aberdeen?’
‘Mairie, I’m not in Aberdeen. Especially if anyone asks. I’ll get back to you.’
‘I hear they’re reopening the Spaven case.’
‘An internal inquiry, that’s all.’
‘Preliminary to a reopening?’
Walt opened the door, brought in two beakers of coffee. Rebus stood up. ‘Look, I have to go.’
‘Cat got your tongue?’
‘Bye, Mairie.’
‘I checked,’ Walt said, ‘your plane leaves in an hour.’ Rebus nodded and took the coffee. ‘I hope you’ve enjoyed your visit.’
Christ, Rebus thought, he means it, too.
17
That evening, once he’d recovered from the flight back to Dyce, Rebus ate at the same Indian restaurant Allan Mitchison had frequented: no coincidence. He didn’t know why he wanted to see the place for himself; he just did. The meal was decent, a chicken dopiaza neither better nor worse than he could find in Edinburgh. The diners were couples, young and middle-aged, their conversations quiet. It didn’t look the sort of restaurant you’d raise hell in after sixteen days offshore. If anything, it was a place for contemplation, always supposing you were dining alone. When Rebus’s bill came, he recalled the sums on Mitchison’s credit-card statement – they were about double the present figure.
Rebus showed his warrant card and asked to speak to the manager. The man came bounding up to his table, nervous smile in place.
‘Is there some problem, sir?’
‘No problem,’ Rebus said.
The manager lifted the bill from the table and was about to tear it up, but Rebus stopped him.
‘I’d prefer to pay,’ he said. ‘I only want to ask a couple of questions.’
‘Of course, sir.’ The manager sat down opposite him. ‘What can I do to help?’
‘A young man called Allan Mitchison used to eat here regularly, about once a fortnight.’
The manager nodded. ‘A policeman came in to ask me about him.’
Aberdeen CID: Bain had asked them to check up on Mitchison, their report back an almost total blank.
‘Do you remember him? The customer, I mean?’
The manager nodded. ‘Very nice man, very quiet. He came maybe ten times.’
‘Alone?’
‘Sometimes alone, sometimes with a lady.’
‘Can you describe her?’
The manager
shook his head. There was a clatter from the kitchen, distracting him. ‘I just remember he was not always alone.’
‘Why didn’t you tell the other policeman this?’
The man didn’t seem to understand the question. He got to his feet, the kitchen decidedly on his mind. ‘But I did,’ he said, moving away.
Something Aberdeen CID had conveniently left out of their report …
There was a different bouncer on the door at Burke’s Club, and Rebus paid his entrance money the same as everybody else. Inside, it was seventies night, with prizes for the best period costume. Rebus watched the parade of platform shoes, Oxford bags, midis and maxis, kipper ties. Nightmare stuff: it all reminded him of his wedding photos. There was a Saturday Night Fever John Travolta, and a girl who was doing a passable imitation of Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver.
The music was a mix of kitsch disco and regressive rock: Chic, Donna Summer, Mud, Showaddywaddy, Rubettes, interspersed with Rod Stewart, the Stones, Status Quo, a blast of Hawkwind and bloody ‘Hi-Ho Silver Lining’.
Jeff Beck: up against the wall now!
The odd song clicked with him, had the power to send him reeling in the years. The DJ somehow still had a copy of Montrose’s ‘Connection’, one of the very best cover versions of a Stones song. Rebus in the army listened to it in his billet late at night, playing on an early Sanyo cassette player, an earpiece plugged in so nobody else could hear. Next morning, he’d be deaf in one ear. He switched the earpiece about each night so he wouldn’t suffer long-term damage.
He sat at the bar. That seemed to be where the single men congregated in silent appraisal of the dance floor. The booths and tables were for couples and office parties, squawks of women who genuinely looked to be enjoying themselves. They wore low-cut tops and short tight skirts, and in the shadowy half-light they all looked terrific. Rebus decided he was drinking too quickly, poured more water into his whisky and asked the barman for more ice, too. He was seated at the corner of the bar, less than six feet from the payphone. Impossible to use it when the music was pounding, and there hadn’t been much of a let-up yet. Which made Rebus think – the only sensible time to use the payphone would be out of hours, when the place was quiet. But at that time there’d be no punters on the premises, just staff …
