A Good Hanging - Rankin: Short 01

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Did money have anything to do with it?’ Rebus asked. Thomson paused.

  ‘With what, Inspector?’

  ‘With Miss Bitter leaving you for Mr MacFarlane. He’s not short of a bob or two, is he?’

  Thomson’s voice rose perceptibly. ‘Look, I really can’t see what this has to do with — ’

  ‘Your car was broken into a few months ago, wasn’t it?’ Rebus was examining a pile of magazines on the floor now. ‘I saw the report. They stole your radio and your car phone.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I notice you’ve replaced the car phone.’ He glanced up at Thomson, smiled, and continued browsing.

  ‘Of course,’ said Thomson. He seemed confused now, unable to fathom where the conversation was leading.

  ‘A journalist would need a car phone, wouldn’t he?’ Rebus observed. ‘So people could keep in touch, contact him at any time. Is that right?’

  ‘Absolutely right, Inspector.’

  Rebus threw the magazine back onto the pile and nodded slowly. ‘Great things, car phones.’ He walked over towards Thomson’s desk. It was a small flat. This room obviously served a double purpose as study and living-room. Not that Thomson entertained many visitors. He was too aggressive for many people, too secretive for others. So John MacFarlane had said.

  On the desk there was more clutter, though in some appearance of organisation. There was also a neat word processor, and beside it a telephone. And next to the telephone sat an answering machine.

  ‘Yes,’ Rebus repeated. ‘You need to be in contact.’ Rebus smiled towards Thomson. ‘Communication, that’s the secret. And I’ll tell you something else about journalists.’

  ‘What?’ Unable to comprehend Rebus’s direction, Thomson’s tone had become that of someone bored with a conversation. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets.

  ‘Journalists are hoarders.’ Rebus made this sound like some great wisdom. His eyes took in the room again. ‘I mean, near-pathological hoarders. They can’t bear to throw things away, because they never know when something might become useful. Am I right?’

  Thomson shrugged.

  ‘Yes,’ said Rebus, ‘I bet I am. Look at these cassettes, for example.’ He went to where the rows of tapes were neatly displayed. ‘What are they? Interviews, that sort of thing?’

  ‘Mostly, yes,’ Thomson agreed.

  ‘And you still keep them, even though they’re years old?’

  Thomson shrugged again. ‘So I’m a hoarder.’

  But Rebus had noticed something on the top shelf, some brown cardboard boxes. He reached up and lifted one down. Inside were more tapes, marked with months and years. But these tapes were smaller. Rebus gestured with the box towards Thomson, his eyes seeking an explanation.

  Thomson smiled uneasily. ‘Answering machine messages,’ he said.

  ‘You keep these, too?’ Rebus sounded amazed.

  ‘Well,’ Thomson said, ‘someone may agree to something over the phone, an interview or something, then deny it later. I need them as records of promises made.’

  Rebus nodded, understanding now. He replaced the brown box on its shelf. He still had his back to Thomson when the telephone rang, a sharp electronic sound.

  ‘Sorry,’ Thomson apologised, going to answer it.

  ‘Not at all.’

  Thomson picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?’ He listened, then frowned. ‘Of course,’ he said finally, holding the receiver out towards Rebus. ‘It’s for you, Inspector.’

  Rebus raised a surprised eyebrow and accepted the receiver. It was, as he had known it would be, Detective Constable Holmes.

  ‘Okay,’ Holmes said. ‘Costain no longer owes you that favour. He’s listened to both tapes. He hasn’t run all the necessary tests yet, but he’s pretty convinced.’

  ‘Go on.’ Rebus was looking at Thomson, who was sitting, hands clasping knees, on the arm of the chair.

  ‘The call we received last night,’ said Holmes, ‘the one from John MacFarlane admitting to the murder of Moira Bitter, originated from a portable telephone.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Rebus, his eyes on Thomson. ‘And what about the other one?’

  ‘Well, the tape you gave me seems to be twice-removed.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means,’ said Holmes, ‘that according to Costain it’s not just a recording, it’s the recording of a recording.’ Rebus nodded, satisfied.

  ‘Okay, thanks, Brian.’ He put down the receiver.

  ‘Good news or bad?’ Thomson asked.

  ‘A bit of both,’ answered Rebus thoughtfully. Thomson had risen to his feet.

  ‘I feel like a drink, Inspector. Can I get you one?’

  ‘It’s a bit early for me, I’m afraid,’ Rebus said, looking at his watch. It was eleven o‘clock: opening time. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘just a small one.’

  ‘The whisky’s in the kitchen,’ Thomson explained. ‘I’ll just be a moment.’

  ‘Fine, sir, fine.’

  Rebus listened as Thomson left the room and headed off towards the kitchen. He stood beside the desk, thinking through what he now knew. Then, hearing Thomson returning from the kitchen, floor-boards bending beneath his weight, he picked up the wastepaper basket from below the desk, and, as Thomson entered the room, proceeded to empty the contents in a heap on the sofa.

  Thomson stood in the doorway, a glass of whisky in each hand, dumbstruck. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ he spluttered at last. But Rebus ignored him and started to pick through the now strewn contents of the bin, talking as he searched.

  ‘It was pretty close to being fool-proof, Mr Thomson. Let me explain. The killer went to Moira Bitter’s flat and talked her into letting him in despite the late hour. He murdered her quite callously, let’s make no mistake about that. I’ve never seen so much premeditation in a case before. He cleaned the knife and returned it to its drawer. He was wearing gloves, of course, knowing John MacFarlane’s fingerprints would be all over the flat, and he cleaned the knife precisely to disguise the fact that he had worn gloves. MacFarlane, you see, had not.’

  Thomson took a gulp from one glass, but otherwise seemed rooted to the spot. His eyes had become vacant, as though picturing Rebus’s story in his mind.

  ‘MacFarlane,’ Rebus continued, still rummaging, ‘was summoned to Moira’s flat. The message did come from her. He knew her voice well enough not to be fooled by someone else’s voice. The killer sat outside Moira’s flat, sat waiting for MacFarlane to arrive. Then the killer made one last call, this one to the police, in the guise of an hysterical MacFarlane. We know this last call was made on a car phone. The lab boys are very clever that way. The police are hoarders, too, you see, Mr Thomson. We make recordings of emergency calls made to us. It won’t be hard to voice-print that call and try to match it to John MacFarlane. But it won’t be John MacFarlane, will it?’ Rebus paused for effect. ‘It’ll be you.’

  Thomson gave a thin smile, but his grip on the two glasses had grown less steady, and whisky was dribbling from the angled lip of one of them.

  ‘Ah-ha.’ Rebus had found what he was looking for in the contents of the bin. With a pleased-as-punch grin on his unshaven, sleepless face, he pinched forefinger and thumb together and lifted them for his own and Thomson’s inspection. He was holding a tiny sliver of brown recording tape.

  ‘You see,’ he continued, ‘the killer had to lure MacFarlane to the murder scene. Having killed Moira, he went to his car, as I’ve said. There he had his portable telephone and a cassette recorder. He was a hoarder. He had kept all his answering machine tapes, including messages left by Moira at the height of their affair. He found the message he needed and he spliced it. He played this message to John MacFarlane’s answering machine. All he had to do after that was wait. The message MacFarlane received was “Hello. I need to see you.” There was a pause after the “hello”. And that pause was where the splice was made in the tape, excising this.’ Rebus looked at the sliver of tape. ‘The
one word “Kenneth”. “Hello, Kenneth, I need to see you.” It was Moira Bitter talking to you, Mr Thomson, talking to you a long time ago.’

  Thomson hurled both glasses at once, so that they arrowed in towards Rebus, who ducked. The glasses collided above his head, shards raining down on him. Thomson had reached the front door, had hauled it open even, before Rebus was on him, lunging, pushing the younger man forwards through the doorway and onto the tenement landing. Thomson’s head hit the metal rails with a muted chime and he let out a single moan before collapsing. Rebus shook himself free of glass, feeling one or two tiny pieces nick him as he brushed a hand across his face. He brought a hand to his nose and inhaled deeply. His father had always said whisky would put hairs on his chest. Rebus wondered if the same miracle might be effected on his temples and the crown of his head ...

  It had been the perfect murder.

  Well, almost. But Kenneth Thomson had reckoned without Rebus’s ability actually to believe someone innocent despite the evidence against him. The case against John MacFarlane had been overwhelming. Yet Rebus, feeling it to be wrong, had been forced to invent other scenarios, other motives and other means to the fairly chilling end. It wasn’t enough that Moira had died - died at the hands of someone she knew. MacFarlane had to be implicated in her murder. The killer had been out to tag them both. But it was Moira the killer hated, hated because she had broken a friendship as well as a heart.

  Rebus stood on the steps of the police station. Thomson was in a cell somewhere below his feet, somewhere below ground level. Confessing to everything. He would go to jail, while John MacFarlane, perhaps not realising his luck, had already been freed.

  The streets were busy now. Lunchtime traffic, the reliable noises of the everyday. The sun was even managing to burst from its slumber. All of which reminded Rebus that his day was over. Time, all in all he felt, for a short visit home, a shower and a change of clothes, and, God and the Devil willing, some sleep.

  The Dean Curse

  The locals in Barnton knew him either as ‘the Brigadier’ or as ‘that Army type who bought the West Lodge’. West Lodge was a huge but until recently neglected detached house set in a walled acre and a half of grounds and copses. Most locals were relieved that its high walls hid it from general view, the house itself being too angular, too gothic for modern tastes. Certainly, it was very large for the needs of a widower and his unsmiling daughter. Mrs MacLennan, who cleaned for the Brigadier, was pumped for information by curious neighbours, but could say only that Brigadier-General Dean had had some renovations done, that most of the house was habitable, that one room had become a library, another a billiard-room, another a study, another a makeshift gymnasium and so on. The listeners would drink this in deeply, yet it was never enough. What about the daughter? What about the Brigadier’s background? What happened to his wife?

  Shopkeepers too were asked for their thoughts. The Brigadier drove a sporty open-topped car which would pull in noisily to the side of the road to allow him to pop into this or that shop for a few things, including, each day at the same time, a bottle of something or other from the smarter of the two off-licences.

  The grocer, Bob Sladden, reckoned that Brigadier-General Dean had been born nearby, even that he had lived for a few childhood years in West Lodge and so had retired there because of its carefree connections. But Miss Dalrymple, who at ninety-three was as old as anyone in that part of Barnton, could not recall any family named Dean living at West Lodge. Could not, indeed, recall any Deans ever living in this ‘neck’ of Barnton, with the exception of Sam Dean. But when pressed about Sam Dean, she merely shook her head and said, ‘He was no good, that one, and got what he deserved. The Great War saw to him.’ Then she would nod slowly, thoughtfully, and nobody would be any further forward.

  Speculation grew wilder as no new facts came to light, and in The Claymore public bar one afternoon, a bar never patronised by the Brigadier (and who’d ever heard of an Army man not liking his drink?), a young out-of-work plasterer named Willie Barr came up with a fresh proposition.

  ‘Maybe Dean isn’t his real name.’

  But everyone around the pool table laughed at that and Willie just shrugged, readying to play his next shot. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘real name or not, I wouldn’t climb over that daughter of his to get to any of you lot.’

  Then he played a double off the cushion, but missed. Missed not because the shot was difficult or he’d had too many pints of Snakebite, but because his cue arm jerked at the noise of the explosion.

  It was a fancy car all right, a Jaguar XJS convertible, its bodywork a startling red. Nobody in Barnton could mistake it for anyone else’s car. Besides, everyone was used to it revving to its loud roadside halt, was used to its contented ticking-over while the Brigadier did his shopping. Some complained - though never to his face - about the noise, about the fumes from the exhaust. They couldn’t say why he never switched off the ignition. He always seemed to want to be ready for a quick getaway. On this particular afternoon, the getaway was quicker even than usual, a squeal of tyres as the car jerked out into the road and sped past the shops. Its driver seemed ready actually to disregard the red stop light at the busy junction. He never got the chance. There was a ball of flames where the car had been and the heart-stopping sound of the explosion. Twisted metal flew into the air, then down again, wounding passers-by, burning skin. Shop windows blew in, shards of fine glass finding soft targets. The traffic lights turned to green, but nothing moved in the street.

  For a moment, there was a silence punctuated only by the arrival on terra firma of bits of speedometer, headlamp, even steering-wheel. Then the screaming started, as people realised they’d been wounded. More curdling still though were the silences, the dumb horrified faces of people who would never forget this moment, whose shock would disturb each wakeful night.

  And then there was a man, standing in a doorway, the doorway of what had been the wine merchant’s. He carried a bottle with him, carefully wrapped in green paper, and his mouth was open in surprise. He dropped the bottle with a crash when he realised his car was not where he had left it, realising that the roaring he had heard and thought he recognised was that of his own car being driven away. At his feet, he saw one of his driving gloves lying on the pavement in front of him. It was still smouldering. Only five minutes before, it had been lying on the leather of his passenger seat. The wine merchant was standing beside him now, pale and shaking, looking in dire need of a drink. The Brigadier nodded towards the carcass of his sleek red Jaguar.

  ‘That should have been me,’ he said. Then: ‘Do you mind if I use your telephone?’

  John Rebus threw The Dain Curse up in the air, sending it spinning towards his living-room ceiling. Gravity caught up with it just short of the ceiling and pulled it down hard, so that it landed open against the uncarpeted floor. It was a cheap copy, bought secondhand and previously much read. But not by Rebus; he’d got as far as the beginning of the third section, ‘Quesada’, before giving up, before tossing what many regard as Hammett’s finest novel into the air. Its pages fell away from the spine as it landed, scattering chapters. Rebus growled. The telephone had, as though prompted by the book’s demise, started ringing. Softly, insistently. Rebus picked up the apparatus and studied it. It was six o’clock on the evening of his first rest-day in what seemed like months. Who would be phoning him? Pleasure or business? And which would he prefer it to be? He put the receiver to his ear.

  ‘Yes?’ His voice was non-committal.

  ‘DI Rebus?’ It was work then. Rebus grunted a response. ‘DC Coupar here, sir. The Chief thought you’d be interested.’ There was a pause for effect. ‘A bomb’s just gone off in Barnton.’

  Rebus stared at the sheets of print lying all around him. He asked the Detective Constable to repeat the message.

  ‘A bomb, sir. In Barnton.’

  ‘What? A World War Two leftover you mean?’

  ‘No, sir. Nothing like that. Nothing like that at all.’<
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  There was a line of poetry in Rebus’s head as he drove out towards one of Edinburgh’s many quiet middle-class districts, the sort of place where nothing happened, the sort of place where crime was measured in a yearly attempted break-in or the theft of a bicycle. That was Barnton. The line of poetry hadn’t been written about Barnton. It had been written about Slough.

  It’s my own fault, Rebus was thinking, for being disgusted at how far-fetched that Hammett book was. Entertaining, yes, but you could strain credulity only so far, and Dashiell Hammett had taken that strain like the anchor-man on a tug-o’-war team, pulling with all his might. Coincidence after coincidence, plot after plot, corpse following corpse like something off an assembly line.

  Far-fetched, definitely. But then what was Rebus to make of his telephone call? He’d checked: it wasn’t 1st April. But then he wouldn’t put it past Brian Holmes or one of his other colleagues to pull a stunt on him just because he was having a day off, just because he’d carped on about it for the previous few days. Yes, this had Holmes’ fingerprints all over it. Except for one thing.

  The radio reports. The police frequency was full of it; and when Rebus switched on his car radio to the local commercial channel, the news was there, too. Reports of an explosion in Barnton, not far from the roundabout. It is thought a car has exploded. No further details, though there are thought to be many casualties. Rebus shook his head and drove, thinking of the poem again, thinking of anything that would stop him focussing on the truth of the news. A car bomb? A car bomb? In Belfast, yes, maybe even on occasion in London. But here in Edinburgh? Rebus blamed himself. If only he hadn’t cursed Dashiell Hammett, if only he hadn’t sneered at his book, at its exaggerations and its melodramas, if only ... Then none of this would have happened.

  But of course it would. It had.

  The road had been blocked off. The ambulances had left with their cargo. Onlookers stood four deep behind the orange and white tape of the hastily erected cordon. There was just the one question: how many dead? The answer seemed to be: just the one. The driver of the car. An Army bomb disposal unit had materialised from somewhere and, for want of anything else to do, was checking the shops either side of the street. A line of policemen, aided so far as Rebus could judge by more Army personnel, was moving slowly up the road, mostly on hands and knees, in what an outsider might regard as some bizarre slow-motion race. They carried with them polythene bags, into which they dropped anything they found. The whole scene was one of brilliantly organised confusion and it didn’t take Rebus longer than a couple of minutes to detect the mastermind behind it all - Superintendent ‘Farmer’ Watson. ‘Farmer’ only behind his back, of course, and a nickname which matched both his north-of-Scotland background and his at times agricultural methods. Rebus decided to skirt around his superior officer and glean what he could from the various less senior officers present.