A Good Hanging - Rankin: Short 01

by Ian Rankin

  ‘A clipe?’

  ‘Someone who tells tales,’ Rebus explained. Matthews was thoughtful.

  ‘Very well then,’ he said. ‘For a start, Dean is an alias, a very necessary one. During his time in the Army Major Dean worked in Intelligence, mostly in West Germany but also for a time in Ulster. His work in both spheres was very important, crucially important. I don’t need to go into details. His last posting was West Germany. His wife was killed in a terrorist attack, almost certainly IRA. We don’t think they had targeted her specifically. She was just in the wrong place with the wrong number plates.’

  ‘A car bomb?’

  ‘No, a bullet. Through the windscreen, point-blank. Major Dean asked to be ... he was invalided out. It seemed best. We provided him with a change of identity, of course.’

  ‘I thought he looked a bit young to be retired. And the daughter, how did she take it?’

  ‘She was never told the full details, not that I’m aware of. She was in boarding school in England.’ Matthews paused. ‘It was for the best.’

  Rebus nodded. ‘Of course, nobody’d argue with that. But why did - Dean — choose to live in Barnton?’

  Matthews rubbed his left eyebrow, then pushed his spectacles back up his sharply sloping nose. ‘Something to do with an aunt of his,’ he said. ‘He spent holidays there as a boy. His father was Army, too, posted here, there and everywhere. Never the most stable upbringing. I think Dean had happy memories of Barnton.’

  Rebus shifted in his seat. He couldn’t know how long Matthews would stay, how long he would continue to answer Rebus’s questions. And there were so many questions.

  ‘What about the bomb?’

  ‘Looks like the IRA, all right. Standard fare for them, all the hallmarks. It’s still being examined, of course, but we’re pretty sure.’

  ‘And the deceased?’

  ‘No clues yet. I suppose he’ll be reported missing sooner or later. We’ll leave that side of things to you.’

  ‘Gosh, thanks.’ Rebus waited for his sarcasm to penetrate, then, quickly: ‘How does Dean get on with his daughter?’

  Matthews was caught off-guard by the question. He blinked twice, three times, then glanced at his wristwatch.

  ‘All right, I suppose,’ he said at last, making show of scratching a mark from his cuff. ‘I can’t see what ... Look, Inspector, as I say, we’ll keep you fully informed. But meantime — ’

  ‘Keep out of your hair?’

  ‘If you want to put it like that.’ Matthews stood up. ‘Now I really must be getting back -’

  ‘To London?’

  Matthews smiled at the eagerness in Rebus’s voice. ‘To Barnton. Don’t worry, Inspector, the more you keep out of my hair, the quicker I can get out of yours. Fair enough?’ He shot a hand out towards Rebus, who returned the almost painful grip.

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Rebus. He ushered Matthews from the room and closed the door again, then returned to his seat. He slouched as best he could in the hard, uncomfortable chair and put his feet up on the desk, examining his scuffed shoes. He tried to feel like Sam Spade, but failed. His legs soon began to ache and he slid them from the surface of the desk. The coincidences in Dashiell Hammett had nothing on the coincidence of someone nicking a car seconds before it exploded. Someone must have been watching, ready to detonate the device. But if they were watching, how come they didn’t spot that Dean, the intended victim, wasn’t the one to drive off?

  Either there was more to this than met the eye, or else there was less. Rebus was wary - very wary. He’d already made far too many prejudgments, had already been proved wrong too many times. Keep an open mind, that was the secret. An open mind and an inquiring one. He nodded his head slowly, his eyes on the door.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll keep out of your hair, Mr Matthews, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m leaving the barber’s.’

  The Claymore might not have been Barnton’s most salubrious establishment, but it was as Princes Street’s Caledonian Hotel in comparison with the places Rebus visited that evening. He began with the merely seedy bars, the ones where each quiet voice seemed to contain a lifetime’s resentment, and then moved downwards, one rung of the ladder at a time. It was slow work; the bars tended to be in a ring around Edinburgh, sometimes on the outskirts or in the distant housing schemes, sometimes nearer the centre than most of the population would dare to think.

  Rebus hadn’t made many friends in his adult life, but he had his network of contacts and he was as proud of it as any grandparent would be of their extended family. They were like cousins, these contacts; mostly they knew each other, at least by reputation, but Rebus never spoke to one about another, so that the extent of the chain could only be guessed at. There were those of his colleagues who, in Major Dean’s words, added two and two, then multiplied by ten. John Rebus, it was reckoned, had as big a net of ‘snitches’ as any copper on the force bar none.

  It took four hours and an outlay of over forty pounds before Rebus started to catch a glimpse of a result. His basic question, though couched in vague and imprecise terms, was simple: have any car thieves vanished off the face of the earth since yesterday?

  One name was uttered by three very different people in three distinct parts of the city: Brian Cant. The name meant little to Rebus.

  ‘It wouldn’t,’ he was told. ‘Brian only shifted across here from the west a year or so ago. He’s got form from when he was a nipper, but he’s grown smart since then. When the Glasgow cops started sniffing, he moved operations.’ The detective listened, nodded, drank a watered-down whisky, and said little. Brian Cant grew from a name into a description, from a description into a personality. But there was something more.

  ‘You’re not the only one interested in him,’ Rebus was told in a bar in Gorgie. ‘Somebody else was asking questions a wee while back. Remember Jackie Hanson?’

  ‘He used to be CID, didn’t he?’

  ‘That’s right, but not any more ...’

  Not just any old banger for Brian Cant: he specialised in ‘quality motors’. Rebus eventually got an address: a third-floor tenement flat near Powderhall race-track. A young man answered the door. His name was Jim Cant, Brian’s younger brother. Rebus saw that Jim was scared, nervous. He chipped away at the brother quickly, explaining that he was there because he thought Brian might be dead. That he knew all about Cant’s business, but that he wasn’t interested in pursuing this side of things, except insofar as it might shed light on the death. It took a little more of this, then the brother opened up.

  ‘He said he had a customer interested in a car,’ Jim Cant explained. ‘An Irishman, he said.’

  ‘How did he know the man was Irish?’

  ‘Must have been the voice. I don’t think they met. Maybe they did. The man was interested in a specific car.’

  ‘A red Jaguar?’

  ‘Yeah, convertible. Nice cars. The Irishman even knew where there was one. It seemed a cinch, that’s what Brian kept saying. A cinch.’

  ‘He didn’t think it would be hard to steal?’

  ‘Five seconds’ work, that’s what he kept saying. I thought it sounded too easy. I told him so.’ He bent over in his chair, grabbing at his knees and sinking his head between them. ‘Ach, Brian, what the hell have you done?’

  Rebus tried to comfort the young man as best he could with brandy and tea. He drank a mug of tea himself, wandering through the flat, his mind thrumming. Was he blowing things up out of all proportion? Maybe. He’d made mistakes before, not so much errors of judgment as errors of jumping the gun. But there was something about all of this ... Something.

  ‘Do you have a photo of Brian?’ he asked as he was leaving. ‘A recent one would be best.’ Jim Cant handed him a holiday snap.

  ‘We went to Crete last summer,’ he explained. ‘It was magic.’ Then, holding the door open for Rebus: ‘Don’t I have to identify him or something?’

  Rebus thought of the scrapings which were all tha
t remained of what may or may not have been Brian Cant. He shook his head. ‘I’ll let you know,’ he said. ‘If we need you, we’ll let you know.’

  The next day was Sunday, day of rest. Rebus rested in his car, parked fifty yards or so along the road from the gates to West Lodge. He put his radio on, folded his arms and sank down into the driver’s seat. This was more like it. The Hollywood private eye on a stakeout. Only in the movies, a stakeout could be whittled away to a few minutes’ footage. Here, it was measured in a slow ticking of seconds ... minutes ... quarter hours.

  Eventually, the gates opened and a figure hurried out, fairly trotting along the pavement as though released from bondage. Jacqueline Dean was wearing a denim jacket, short black skirt and thick black tights. A beret sat awkwardly on her cropped dark hair and she pressed the palm of her hand to it from time to time to stop it sliding off altogether. Rebus locked his car before following her. He kept to the other side of the road, wary not so much from fear that she might spot him but because C13 might have put a tail on her, too.

  She stopped at the local newsagent’s first and came out heavy-laden with Sunday papers. Rebus, making to cross the road, a Sunday-morning stroller, studied her face. What was the expression he’d thought of the first time he’d seen her? Yes, moping. There was still something of that in her liquid eyes, the dark shadows beneath. She was making for the corner shop now. Doubtless she would appear with rolls or bacon or butter or milk. All the things Rebus seemed to find himself short of on a Sunday, no matter how hard he planned.

  He felt in his jacket pockets, but found nothing of comfort there, just the photograph of Brian Cant. The window of the corner shop, untouched by the blast, contained a dozen or so personal ads, felt-tipped onto plain white postcards. He glanced at these, and past them, through the window itself to where Jacqueline was making her purchases. Milk and rolls: elementary, my dear Conan Doyle. Waiting for her change, she half-turned her head towards the window. Rebus concentrated on the postcards. ‘Candy, Masseuse’ vied for attention with ‘Pram and carrycot for sale’, ‘Babysitting considered’, and ‘Lada, seldom used’. Rebus was smiling, almost despite himself, when the door of the shop tinkled open.

  ‘Jacqueline?’ he said. She turned towards him. He was holding open his ID. ‘Mind if I have a word, Miss Dean?’

  Major Dean was pouring himself a glass of Irish whiskey when the drawing-room door opened.

  ‘Mind if I come in?’ Rebus’s words were directed not at Dean but at Matthews, who was seated in a chair by the window, one leg crossed over the other, hands gripping the arm-rests. He looked like a nervous businessman on an airplane, trying not to let his neighbour see his fear.

  ‘Inspector Rebus,’ he said tonelessly. ‘I thought I could feel my scalp tingle.’

  Rebus was already in the room. He closed the door behind him. Dean gestured with the decanter, but Rebus shook his head.

  ‘How did you get in?’ Matthews asked.

  ‘Miss Dean was good enough to escort me through the gate. You’ve changed the guard detail again. She told them I was a friend of the family.’

  Matthews nodded. ‘And are you, Inspector? Are you a friend of the family?’

  ‘That depends on what you mean by friendship.’

  Dean had seated himself on the edge of his chair, steadying the glass with both hands. He didn’t seem quite the figure he had been on the day of the explosion. A reaction, Rebus didn’t doubt. There had been a quiet euphoria on the day; now came the aftershock.

  ‘Where’s Jacqui?’ Dean asked, having paused with the glass to his lips.

  ‘Upstairs,’ Rebus explained. ‘I thought it would be better if she didn’t hear this.’

  Matthews’ fingers plucked at the arm-rests. ‘How much does she know?’

  ‘Not much. Not yet. Maybe she’ll work it out for herself.’

  ‘So, Inspector, we come to the reason why you’re here.’

  ‘I’m here,’ Rebus began, ‘as part of a murder inquiry. I thought that’s why you were here, too, Mr Matthews. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’re here to cover up rather than bring to light.’

  Matthews’ smile was momentary. But he said nothing.

  ‘I didn’t go looking for the culprits,’ Rebus went on. ‘As you said, Mr Matthews, that was your department. But I did wonder who the victim was. The accidental victim, as I thought. A young car thief called Brian Cant, that would be my guess. He stole cars to order. A client asked him for a red open-top Jag, even told him where he might find one. The client told him about Major Dean. Very specifically about Major Dean, right down to the fact that every day he’d nip into the wine-shop on the main street.’ Rebus turned to Dean. ‘A bottle of Irish a day, is it, sir?’

  Dean merely shrugged and drained his glass.

  ‘Anyway, that’s what your daughter told me. So all Brian Cant had to do was wait near the wine-shop. You’d get out of your car, leave it running, and while you were in the shop he could drive the car away. Only it bothered me that the client - Cant’s brother tells me he spoke with an Irish accent - knew so much, making it easy for Cant. What was stopping this person from stealing the car himself?’

  ‘And the answer came to you?’ Matthews suggested, his voice thick with irony.

  Rebus chose to avoid his tone. He was still watching Dean. ‘Not straight away, not even then. But when I came to the house, I couldn’t help noticing that Miss Dean seemed a bit strange. Like she was waiting for a phone call from someone and that someone had let her down. It’s easy to be specific now, but at the time it just struck me as odd. I asked her about it this morning and she admitted it’s because she’s been jilted. A man she’d been seeing, and seeing regularly, had suddenly stopped calling. I asked her about him, but she couldn’t be very helpful. They never went to his flat, for example. He drove a flashy car and had plenty of money, but she was vague about what he did for a living.’

  Rebus took a photograph from his pocket and tossed it into Dean’s lap. Dean froze, as though it were some hair-trigger grenade.

  ‘I showed her a photograph of Brian Cant. Yes, that was the name of her boyfriend - Brian Cant. So you see, it was small wonder she hadn’t heard from him.’

  Matthews rose from the chair and stood before the window itself, but nothing he saw there seemed to please him, so he turned back into the room. Dean had found the courage to lift the photograph from his leg and place it on the floor. He got up too, and made for the decanter.

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ Matthews hissed, but Dean poured regardless.

  Rebus’s voice was level. ‘I always thought it was a bit of a coincidence, the car being stolen only seconds before exploding. But then the IRA use remote control devices, don’t they? So that someone in the vicinity could have triggered the bomb any time they liked. No need for all these long-term timers and what have you. I was in the SAS once myself.’

  Matthews raised an eyebrow. ‘Nobody told me that,’ he said, sounding impressed for the first time.

  ‘So much for Intelligence, eh?’ Rebus answered. ‘Speaking of which, you told me that Major Dean here was in Intelligence. I think I’d go further. Covert operations, that sort of thing? Counter-intelligence, subversion?’

  ‘Now you’re speculating, Inspector.’

  Rebus shrugged. ‘It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that someone had been spying on Brian Cant, an ex-policeman called Jackie Hanson. He’s a private detective these days. He won’t say anything about his clients, of course, but I think I can put two and two together without multiplying the result. He was working for you, Major Dean, because you were interested in Brian Cant. Jacqueline was serious about him, wasn’t she? So much so that she might have forsaken university. She tells me they were even talking of moving in together. You didn’t want her to leave. When you found out what Cant did for a ... a living, I suppose you’d call it, you came up with a plan.’ Rebus was enjoying himself now, but tried to keep the pleasure out of his voice.

  ‘You contac
ted Cant,’ he went on, ‘putting on an Irish accent. Your Irish accent is probably pretty good, isn’t it, Major? It would need to be, working in counter-intelligence. You told him all about a car - your car. You offered him a lot of money if he’d steal it for you and you told him precisely when and where he might find it. Cant was greedy. He didn’t think twice.’ Rebus noticed that he was sitting very comfortably in his own chair, whereas Dean looked ... the word that sprang to mind was ‘rogue’. Matthews, too, was sparking internally, though his surface was all metal sheen, cold bodywork.

  ‘You’d know how to make a bomb, that goes without saying. Wouldn’t you, Major? Know thine enemy and all that. Like I say, I was in the SAS myself. What’s more, you’d know how to make an IRA device, or one that looked like the work of the IRA. The remote was in your pocket. You went into the shop, bought your whiskey, and when you heard the car being driven off, you simply pressed the button.’

  ‘Jacqueline.’ Dean’s voice was little more than a whisper. ‘Jacqueline.’ He rose to his feet, walked softly to the door and left the room. He appeared to have heard little or nothing of Rebus’s speech. Rebus felt a pang of disappointment and looked towards Matthews, who merely shrugged.

  ‘You cannot, of course, prove any of this, Inspector.’

  ‘If I put my mind to it I can.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve no doubt, no doubt.’ Matthews paused. ‘But will you?’

  ‘He’s mad, you’ve got to see that.’

  ‘Mad? Well, he’s unstable. Ever since his wife ...’

  ‘No reason for him to murder Brian Cant.’ Rebus helped himself to a whisky now, his legs curiously shaky. ‘How long have you known?’

  Matthews shrugged again. ‘He tried a similar trick in Germany, apparently. It didn’t work that time. So what do we do now? Arrest him? He’d be unfit to plead.’

  ‘However it happens,’ Rebus said, ‘he’s got to be made safe.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Matthews was nodding agreement. He came to the sideboard. ‘A hospital, somewhere he can be treated. He was a good soldier in his day. I’ve read his record. A good soldier. Don’t worry, Inspector Rebus, he’ll be “made safe” as you put it. He’ll be taken care of.’ A hand landed on Rebus’s forearm. ‘Trust me.’