Even dogs in the wild

by Ian Rankin

  straining at the leash, keen to get home. Dalrymple unlocked the door and called out the name Margaret, but there was no response.

  ‘She must be out,’ he said, relief in his voice. He unhooked the lead from John B’s collar and the dog made for its bed in a corner of the living room, eyeing the visitors warily.

  ‘No flyers in the hall,’ Rebus commented.

  ‘We toss them straight into the recycling.’

  ‘Which is kept where?’

  ‘A box in the kitchen. I’ll fetch it through.’

  Cafferty had settled on the edge of the sofa, while Rebus stayed standing in front of the fireplace. It was a cramped room, boasting too much furniture, from the grandfather clock in one corner to the footstool Rebus had been forced to step over.

  There were bright paintings of harbour scenes on a couple of walls – Rebus guessed they were by John Bellany. When Dalrymple arrived back with the recycling box, he placed it on the footstool and began sifting. Rebus decided to help by bending down and tipping the box up, strewing its contents across the carpet.

  ‘Bingo,’ he said, after a minute or two of crouching next to the drift of paper. He lifted up the menu from Newington Spice.

  ‘What does it mean, though?’ Dalrymple asked.

  ‘The killer poses as someone putting flyers through doors.

  Gets to know the house and street, then makes his move. I don’t suppose you can remember when this arrived?’

  ‘A few days back?’ Dalrymple guessed, his face turning bloodless as Rebus’s words sank in.

  ‘But you’ve not had a note?’ Cafferty demanded.

  ‘A note? Like the one they showed in the papers?’

  Dalrymple was shaking his head.

  ‘He means like this,’ Rebus broke in. He was lifting the folded piece of white notepaper. It had obviously not been noticed and had been dumped into the recycling along with everything else. He unfolded it and held it up.

  Same message. Same hand.

  ‘Fuck,’ Big Ger Cafferty said.

  *

  The restaurant owner, Sanjeev Patel, was waiting for Siobhan Clarke, unlocking the door from the inside. Staff were busy in the kitchen, and Clarke could smell onions frying and a mixture of spices. The voices were loud but good-natured. Meantime, a waiter was laying tablecloths and cutlery in the main room.

  Patel led Clarke to the bar area, where takeaway customers could wait of an evening to collect their food. He was dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and navy tie, and looked every inch the businessman, but Clarke knew he had worked his way up from a teenage kitchen porter. He was Edinburgh born and bred and, like her, supported Hibernian FC, the walls above the bar filled with autographed photos of players past and present.

  ‘We definitely don’t flyer in Linlithgow or the New Town,’

  he said, after she had turned down the offer of coffee.

  ‘Is there a specific firm you use?’

  Patel nodded. ‘Want me to fetch you their details.’

  ‘Please.’

  He got up and went behind the counter, studying the screen of a laptop computer that sat there. He jotted a few lines on to one of the restaurant’s order pads and tore off the sheet, handing it to her as he sat down again.

  ‘You think maybe a member of their workforce . . .?’

  ‘This has got to stay confidential, Mr Patel,’ Clarke warned him.

  ‘Absolutely.’

  She remembered the stack of menus in the loo, and mentioned them. Patel nodded.

  ‘In the Gents too,’ he said.

  ‘So I suppose anyone could have filled their pockets?’

  Patel shrugged. ‘I’m not aware of them suddenly disappearing.’

  ‘You’re probably not the one cleaning the toilets, though.’

  ‘That’s true – not these days. Do you want me to ask the staff?’

  Clarke nodded. ‘Plus if anyone suspicious has come in – maybe they took some menus but didn’t stay to eat, or asked to use the toilet even though they weren’t ordering food.’

  ‘Understood.’ He paused. ‘Could there be another explanation?’

  ‘I’m struggling to think of one.’

  ‘You’ll appreciate I don’t want the restaurant’s reputation sullied.’

  ‘I thought there was no such thing as bad advertising.’

  ‘It’s not a theory I’m keen to test,’ Patel said with a smile.

  ‘I’ll try to be diplomatic,’ Clarke assured him, standing up.

  There was a display of menus on the table, next to a large bowl of Bombay mix. ‘How often do you reprint, by the way?’

  ‘Maybe once a year – to reflect changing prices. Last time we added online ordering – very popular with students.’

  ‘So these menus came into effect . . .?’

  ‘At the start of November.’

  ‘Only three months back? Well that’s something at least.’

  She picked up one of the menus and studied the information on the back.

  ‘Have you always used VampPrint?’

  ‘For the past couple of years.’

  ‘Got a phone number for them?’

  Patel went off to the laptop again and fetched it. Clarke thanked him and he held open the door for her. There was a

  shop across the road, and she headed in for some gum and a bottle of water.

  ‘Cheaper out of the tap, love,’ the woman on the till warned her.

  Clarke’s phone was ringing, so she pulled it from her bag: John Rebus.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ she asked, breaking the seal on the bottle as she exited the shop.

  ‘I’m in Portobello with a man called Todd Dalrymple.’

  Rebus’s tone told her to keep listening. ‘He got one of the flyers and a note. Put both in the recycling so he’s just finding out.

  Dalrymple’s understandably up to high doh and I think we need to get him and his wife out of here. Which gives us the opportunity to bait a trap for our killer.’

  Clarke had almost walked under a bus. She retreated to the edge of the pavement and waited for a gap in the traffic.

  ‘You might have to start from the beginning,’ she said.

  ‘Best done face-to-face. How soon can you get here?’

  ‘Twenty minutes?’

  ‘I might get them to start packing in the meantime.’

  Clarke could hear a woman wailing in the background. ‘Mrs Dalrymple?’ she guessed.

  ‘She didn’t take it terribly well. I’m not sure Cafferty would know subtlety if it stood in front of him holding up its own dictionary entry.’

  ‘Cafferty’s there?’

  ‘Didn’t I just say so?’

  ‘Twenty minutes,’ Clarke repeated, belting across the carriageway to her waiting car.

  Once she had pulled out into traffic, she called Christine Esson.

  ‘Yes, guv?’ Esson said.

  ‘Promise never to use that phrase again.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘Is Ronnie in the office?’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘And are you busy?’

  ‘I’m still trying to cough the dust out of my lungs after a day in the archives.’

  ‘Was the groper on duty?’

  ‘Fortunately not.’

  ‘Well I’ve got something that requires your attention.’

  ‘Fire away.’ Clarke could hear Esson summoning Ogilvie to her desk while simultaneously readying a pen and notepad. She took her eyes off the road long enough to reel off the information Sanjeev Patel had given her.

  ‘I need you to visit both. Ask about the people who go door-to-door with leaflets, then the people who print them and look after their storage.’

  ‘And this is because . . .?’

  ‘Flyers from Newington Spice were found in Lord Minton’s home, plus those of Big Ger Cafferty and the victim of that attack in Linlithgow.’

  ‘Got you,’ Esson said. ‘Should we split it between us?’

 
‘That would be quicker.’

  ‘Any description to go on?’

  ‘Absolutely none.’

  ‘Male? Female?’

  ‘One or the other, certainly. Get back to me once you’ve finished.’

  ‘Yes, guv,’ Esson said, ending the call before Clarke could respond.

  *

  Todd and Margaret Dalrymple were upstairs filling a suitcase.

  Cafferty was standing by the living room window, his back to the room. Rebus had brought Clarke indoors and she was now taking in her surroundings, including the carpet, which was still strewn with recycling.

  ‘He won’t come in daylight,’ Rebus reminded Cafferty, receiving only a grunt in response. ‘But feel free to make yourself a nice big target in case he does.’

  He handed Clarke the note along with the takeaway menu.

  ‘Like I say, we don’t know for sure when it arrived. They put it straight in the recycling without even noticing.’

  ‘And Cafferty got a menu too?’

  Rebus nodded slowly. There was a gleam in his eyes Clarke hadn’t seen in a while – alive to all manner of challenges and possibilities.

  ‘So you went to Ullapool,’ she nudged him.

  Rebus kept nodding. ‘And spoke to a guy called Dave Ritter.

  He was at Acorn House that night and was supposed to dump the body in a grave in some forest in Fife. Thing is, Bryan Holroyd wasn’t dead. He’d been putting on an act. He ran for it and they couldn’t find him.’

  ‘So Holroyd’s behind this?’ She held up the note.

  ‘I’d say there’s a good chance.’

  ‘And how does upstairs fit in?’ She gestured towards the ceiling.

  ‘Dalrymple was another of Acorn House’s clients. Ritter told me as much, which is why Cafferty and I decided to come visit.’

  ‘Does his wife know?’

  ‘Like I said, Big Ger lacks a certain diplomacy . . .’

  ‘Bit of marriage guidance needed.’

  ‘Not our problem.’

  ‘I’m just wondering if we need one place of safety or two.’

  ‘I see what you mean.’

  Clarke thought for a moment. ‘I need to tell Page all this.’

  ‘Of course. But bear in mind what I said – this is our one chance at catching him. We’ve no idea where Holroyd is or what he looks like. All we do know is that he’ll be coming here very soon.’ Rebus paused. ‘Which is why I’m offering myself as bait. I’m much the same age and build as Dalrymple. Enough to fool Holroyd until he gets up close.’

  ‘And then what? He’s going to have a gun, remember.’

  ‘Firearms officers stationed outside in an unmarked car.

  First sign of trouble, they come running.’

  Clarke pointed towards the corner of the room, where John B was asleep in his basket.

  ‘Will Holroyd know the Dalrymples have a dog?’

  ‘He well might. But then I’ve got access to one too, remember.’

  ‘I don’t think Page will agree to it, John – you’re not a police officer.’

  ‘You can fight my corner, though.’

  ‘I can try – I’m just not sure I want to.’

  Fresh wailing had started upstairs, penetrating the ceiling and causing John B to prick up his ears and look concerned.

  ‘And what about him?’ Clarke added, gesturing towards Cafferty.

  ‘He doesn’t want Holroyd dead, if that’s what you mean.’

  Cafferty turned towards them. His face looked solemn rather than angry.

  ‘What I want,’ he stated, eyes boring into Clarke’s, ‘is to say sorry to the man.’

  Clarke met his gaze for a moment before turning her attention back to Rebus.

  ‘I need you to take me through this one more time,’ she said.

  ‘As slowly and methodically as you can . . .’

  Thirty Seven

  Darryl Christie wasn’t a huge fan of Glasgow. It sprawled in a way his own city didn’t. And there were still traces of the old enmity between Catholic and Protestant – of course that existed in Edinburgh too, but it had never quite defined the place the way it did Glasgow. The people spoke differently here, and had a garrulousness to them that spilled over into physical swagger.

  They were, as they chanted on the football terraces, ‘the people’. But they were not Darryl Christie’s people. Edinburgh could seem tame by comparison, head always below the parapet, keeping itself to itself. In the independence referendum, Edinburgh had voted No and Glasgow Yes, the latter parading its saltired allegiance around George Square night after night, or else protesting media bias outside the BBC

  headquarters. The political debate had melted into a blend of carnival and stairheid rammy, so that you never knew if people were joyous or furious.

  Darryl Christie had considered all the implications for his various business interests and come to the conclusion that either outcome would probably suit him just fine, so in the end he hadn’t voted at all.

  The place he was looking for was a restaurant off Buchanan Street. The lunchtime rush was ebbing, and as he peered

  through the window, he could see empty tables waiting to be cleared. Joe Stark was seated alone in one corner, his white cotton napkin tucked into his shirt collar, mopping up sauce with a hunk of bread. The other diners looked like just that, which was what had been agreed. Yes, there was a BMW

  outside with a couple of lookouts in the front, but that was fine too. Christie returned to the Range Rover, told his own men to stay there unless the occupants of the Beemer headed inside.

  Then he pushed open the door to the restaurant.

  ‘Mr Christie?’ the manager said. ‘Such a pleasure. Mr Stark is waiting. Would you like to see a menu?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Just a drink, then?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  Christie walked up to Joe Stark’s table, pulled out a chair and sat down. Then, realising he now had his back to the room, he got up again and made to settle next to the older man on the banquette.

  ‘I don’t even let hoors get that close,’ Stark warned him. ‘Go sit the fuck down and I swear no one’ll come up behind you with a cleaver.’

  Christie did as he was told, but moved the chair until it was at a right angle to the table.

  ‘How’s the food?’ he asked.

  ‘Not bad. You know they’re not releasing my son’s body yet? Is that them taking the piss or what?’

  ‘It’s a murder inquiry – that’s the way it goes.’

  ‘You ready to give me a name?’ Stark pushed aside his plate, but continued chewing on the wad of bread.

  ‘A name?’

  ‘I assume that’s why you’re here.’

  ‘I still don’t know who killed Dennis.’

  ‘Then what possible use are you to me?’ Stark whipped away the napkin and threw it on to the plate.

  ‘The last time we met, I told you I respected you – do you remember that?’

  ‘I’m getting it tattooed on my bollocks.’

  Christie stared at the man. Stark was avoiding eye contact, finishing his glass of red wine and searching between his teeth with the tip of his tongue.

  ‘This is useless,’ Christie said, making to get up. But Stark reached over, gripping him by the forearm.

  ‘Sit down, son. You’ve come all the way from Edinburgh.

  Might as well say your piece.’

  Christie made show of considering his options, then eased back down on to the chair. He was about to start speaking when Stark gestured for the manager, who came bounding over.

  ‘Double espresso for me, Jerry. And whatever my guest is having.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Christie stated.

  The manager bowed and scurried away. Another table was settling up and leaving. Christie realised that the caricatures on the walls represented Scottish pop stars, though he only recognised a few.

  ‘Well?’ Stark said, leaning back and giving the young man his
full attention.

  ‘You were in Edinburgh looking for Hamish Wright, because he’d taken something that you felt belonged to you.’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘And as part of that search, you went to CC Self Storage.’

  ‘Dennis and his boys went to at least three of those places.’

  ‘But what Dennis didn’t know, I’m guessing, is that Wright’s nephew works there.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Stark couldn’t help looking suddenly more interested.

  ‘And my thinking is, the nephew might know the whereabouts of the uncle.’

  Stark gave a thin smile. ‘Son, I know where the uncle is.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘He’s buried in a field somewhere outside Inverness. Dennis let Jackie Dyson have his way with him – reckoned nobody was as good at wringing the truth out of a man as Jackie. Fucker made Dennis look like Greenpeace.’

  ‘Wright died?’

  ‘He did, aye.’ Christie watched the old man nod. He didn’t look in the least concerned. ‘We didn’t want anyone getting wind of it – best thing was to make the cops and anyone else think we were still on the hunt.’

  ‘So they wouldn’t think you’d killed him?’ It was Christie’s turn to nod. ‘So why tell me?’

  Stark fixed him with a look. ‘Because that’s twice now you’ve come to me. Makes me think we might be able to help one another – now and in the future. A sort of alliance against the jackals in Aberdeen and Dundee.’

  ‘Are they starting to circle?’

  ‘They smell blood, son. I can offer Dennis’s crew the moon, but somebody out there’s going to offer one of them Mars or Venus as a bonus. If they knew I had friends . . . well . . .’ Stark shrugged.

  ‘How would it work?’

  ‘Plenty of time for that later.’ Stark patted Christie’s leg.

  ‘For now, you’ve got me interested in this nephew.’

  ‘And you’ve got me interested – you really think we could work together?’

  ‘Only one way to find out. Dennis was gearing up to push me aside. Everyone knew it – Len and Walter were always bending my ear about it. Either his boys will make a move on me anyway, or they’ll decide they need reinforcements from outside the city. It’s either you with me, or you with them. But look at me, son. I’m not going to last much longer – and when I croak, a good-sized chunk of Glasgow would be yours. If you take my side. On the other hand, team up with them, and you’ll be surrounded by wild animals – young, hungry and stupid.’