by Ian Rankin
‘Gregor thought you might like some tea. There may not be enough cups, you’ll just have to share. There are biscuits in the tin. No ginger nuts, I’m afraid. We’ve run out.’
There were smiles at this, nods of appreciation. But throughout questions were being fired off.
‘Any chance of a word with Mr Jack?’
‘Can we expect a statement?’
‘How’s he taking it?’
‘Is Mrs Jack in the house?’
‘Any chance of a word?’
‘Ian, is he going to be saying anything?’
This last question was directed at the sneering man, who now held up one hand for silence. He waited patiently, and the silence came. Then:
‘No comment,’ he said. And with that he began to close the gates. Rebus pushed through the good-natured crush until he was face to face with Mr Sneer.
‘Inspector Rebus,’ he said. ‘Could I have a word with Mr Jack?’
Mr Sneer and Miss Teatray seemed highly suspicious, even when they accepted and examined Rebus’s ID. Fair enough: he’d known of reporters who’d try a stunt just like this, fake ID and all. But eventually there was a curt nod, and the gates opened again wide enough to allow him to squeeze through. The gates were shut again, locked. With Rebus on the inside.
He had a sudden thought: What the hell am I doing? The answer was: He wasn’t sure. Something about the scene at the gates had made him want to be on the other side of those gates. Well, here he was. Being led back up the gravel driveway, towards the large car, the larger house behind it, and the garage off to the side. Being led towards Gregor Jack MP, with whom, apparently, he wanted a word.
I believe you want a word, Inspector?
No, sir, just being nosey.
It wasn’t much of an opening line, was it? Watson had warned him before about this . . . this . . . was it a character flaw? This need to push his way into the centre of things, to become involved, to find out for himself rather than accepting somebody’s word, no matter who that somebody was.
Just passing, thought I’d pay my respects. Jesus, and Jack would recognize him, wouldn’t he? From the brothel. Sitting on the bed, while the woman in the bed kicked up her legs, screeching with laughter. No, maybe not. He’d had other things on his mind after all.
‘I’m Ian Urquhart, Gregor’s constituency agent.’ Now that he had his back to the reporters, the sneer had left Urquhart’s face. What was left was a mixture of worry and bewilderment. ‘We got word last night of what was coming. I’ve been here ever since.’
Rebus nodded. Urquhart was compact, a bunching of well-kept muscles inside a tailored suit. A bit smaller than the MP, and a bit less good-looking. In other words, just right for an agent. He also looked efficient, which Rebus would say was a bonus.
‘This is Helen Greig, Gregor’s secretary.’ Urquhart was nodding towards the young woman. She gave a quick smile towards Rebus. ‘Helen came over this morning to see if there was anything she could do.’
‘The tea was my idea actually,’ she said.
Urquhart glanced towards her. ‘Gregor’s idea, Helen,’ he warned.
‘Oh yes,’ she said, reddening.
Efficient and faithful, thought Rebus. Rare qualities indeed. Helen Greig, like Urquhart himself, spoke in an educated Scots accent which did not really betray county of origin. He would hazard at east coast for both of them, but couldn’t narrow things down any further. Helen looked either like she’d been to an early Kirk service, or was planning to attend one later on. She was wearing a pale woollen two-piece with plain white blouse offset by a simple gold chain around her neck. Sensible black shoes on her feet and thick black tights. She was Urquhart’s height, five feet six or seven, and shared something of his build. You wouldn’t call her beautiful: you’d call her handsome, in the way Nell Stapleton was handsome, though the two women were dissimilar in many ways.
They were passing the Saab now, Urquhart leading. ‘Was there anything in particular, Inspector? Only, I’m sure you can appreciate that Gregor’s hardly in a state . . .’
‘It won’t take long, Mr Urquhart.’
‘Well, in you come then.’ The front door opened, and Urquhart ushered both Rebus and Helen Greig into the house before him. Rebus was immediately surprised by how modern the interior was. Polished pine flooring, scatter rugs, Mackintosh-style chairs and low-slung Italian-looking tables. They passed through the hall and into a large room boasting more modern furnishings still. Pride of place went to a long angular sofa constructed from leather and chrome. On which sat, in much the same position as when Rebus had first met him, Gregor Jack. The MP was scratching absent-mindedly at a finger and staring at the floor. Urquhart cleared his throat.
‘We have a visitor, Gregor.’
The effect was that of a talented actor changing roles – tragedy to comedy. Gregor Jack stood up and fixed a smile on to his face. His eyes now sparkled, looking interested, his whole face speaking sincerity. Rebus marvelled at the ease of the transformation.
‘Detective Inspector Rebus,’ he said, taking the proffered hand.
‘Inspector, what can we do for you? Here, sit down.’ Jack gestured towards a squat black chair, matching the sofa in design. It was like sinking into marshmallow. ‘Something to drink?’ Now Jack seemed to remember something and turned to Helen Greig. ‘Helen, you took the tea out to our friends?’
She nodded.
‘Excellent. Can’t have the gentlemen of the press going without their elevenses.’ He smiled towards Rebus, then lowered himself on to the edge of the sofa, arms resting on his knees so that the hands remained mobile. ‘Now, Inspector, what’s the problem?’
‘Well, sir, it’s really just that I happened to be passing, and saw that gang at the gates, so I stopped.’
‘You know why they’re here though?’
Rebus was obliged to nod. Urquhart cleared his throat again.
‘We’re going to prepare a statement for them over lunch,’ he said. ‘It probably won’t be enough to see them off, but it might help.’
‘You know, of course,’ said Rebus, aware that he had to tread carefully, ‘that you’ve done nothing wrong, sir. I mean, nothing illegal.’
Jack smiled again and shrugged. ‘It doesn’t need to be illegal, Inspector. It just has to be news.’ His hands kept fluttering, as did his eyes and head. It was as though his mind were elsewhere. Then something seemed to click. ‘You didn’t say, Inspector,’ he said, ‘tea or coffee? Something stronger perhaps?’
Rebus shook his head slowly. His hangover was a dull presence now. No point swaddling it. Jack raised his soulful eyes to Helen Greig.
‘I’d love a cup of tea, Helen. Inspector, you’re sure you won’t . . .?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Ian?’
Urquhart nodded towards Helen Greig.
‘Would you, Helen?’ said Gregor Jack. What woman, Rebus wondered, would refuse? Which reminded him . . .
‘Your wife’s not here then, Mr Jack?’
‘On holiday,’ Jack said quickly. ‘We’ve a cottage in the Highlands. Not much of a place, but we like it. She’s probably there.’
‘Probably? Then you don’t know for sure?’
‘She didn’t make out an itinerary, Inspector.’
‘So does she know . . .?’
Jack shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea, Inspector. Maybe she does. She’s an insatiable reader of newsprint. There’s a village nearby stocks the Sundays.’
‘But she hasn’t been in touch?’
Urquhart didn’t bother clearing his throat this time before interrupting. ‘There’s no phone at the lodge.’
‘That’s what we like about it,’ Jack explained. ‘Cut off from the world.’
‘But if she knew,’ Rebus persisted, ‘surely she’d get in touch?’
Jack sighed, and began scratching at his finger again. He caught himself doing it and stopped. ‘Eczema,’ he explained. ‘Just on the one finger, but it’s annoying all the sam
e.’ He paused. ‘Liz . . . my wife . . . she’s very much a law unto herself, Inspector. Maybe she’d get in touch, maybe she wouldn’t. She’s just as likely not to want to talk about it. Do you see what I mean?’ Another smile, a weaker one, seeking the sympathy vote. Jack ran his fingers through his thick dark hair. Rebus wondered idly whether the perfect teeth were capped. Maybe the thatch was capped, too. The open-necked shirt didn’t look like chain-store stuff . . .
Urquhart was still standing. Or, rather, was on his feet but in constant movement. Over to the window to peer through the net curtains. Over to a glass-topped table to examine some papers lying there. Over to a smaller table where the telephone sat, disconnected at the wall. So that even if Mrs Jack did try to call . . . Neither Urquhart nor Jack seemed to have thought of that. Curious. The room, the taste it displayed, seemed to Rebus not Jack’s but his wife’s. Jack looked like a man for older established pieces of furniture, safe comfy armchairs and a chesterfield sofa. A conservative taste. Look at the car he chose to drive . . .
Yes, Jack’s car: now there was an idea, or rather an excuse, an excuse for Rebus’s presence.
‘Maybe if we could get that statement out by lunchtime, Gregor,’ Urquhart was saying. ‘Sooner we dampen things down the better, really.’
Not very subtle, thought Rebus. The message was: state your business and leave. Rebus knew the question he wanted to ask: Do you think you were set up? Wanted to ask, but daren’t. He wasn’t here officially, was a tourist merely.
‘About your car, Mr Jack,’ he began. ‘Only, I noticed when I stopped that it’s sitting there in the drive, on full view so as to speak. And there are photographers out there. If any pictures of your car get into the papers . . .’
‘Everyone will recognize it in future?’ Jack nodded. ‘I see what you’re getting at, Inspector. Yes, thank you. We hadn’t thought of that, had we, Ian?’ Better put it in the garage. We don’t want everyone who reads a newspaper to know what kind of car I drive.’
‘And its registration,’ Rebus added. ‘There are all sorts of people out there . . . terrorists . . . people with a grudge . . . plain nutters. Doesn’t do any good.’
‘Thank you, Inspector.’ The door swung open and Helen Greig entered, carrying two large mugs of tea. A far cry from the silver salver routine at the gates. She handed one to Urquhart and one to Gregor Jack, then removed a slim box from where it had been held between her arm and her side. It was a fresh box of ginger nuts. Rebus smiled.
‘Lovely, Helen, thanks,’ said Gregor Jack. He eased two biscuits from the packet.
Rebus rose to his feet. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’d better be going. Like I say, I only dropped in . . .’
‘I do appreciate it, Inspector.’ Jack had placed mug and biscuits on the floor and was now standing, too, hand held out again towards Rebus. A warm, strong and unflawed hand. ‘I meant to ask, do you live in the constituency?’
Rebus shook his head. ‘One of my colleagues does. I was staying with him last night.’
Jack raised his head slowly before nodding. The gesture could have meant anything. ‘I’ll open the gates for you,’ Ian Urquhart was saying.
‘Stay here and drink your tea,’ Helen Greig said. ‘I’ll see the Inspector out.’
‘If you like, Helen,’ Urquhart said slowly. Was there a warning in his voice? If there was, Helen Greig seemed not to sense it. He fished in his pocket for the keys and handed them to her.
‘Right then,’ Rebus said. ‘Goodbye, Mr Jack . . . Mr Urquhart.’ He took Urquhart’s hand for a moment and squeezed it. But his attention was on the man’s left hand. Wedding ring on one finger, and a signet ring on another. Gregor Jack’s left hand sported just the one thick band of gold. Not, however, on his wedding finger, but on the finger next to it. The wedding finger was the one with the eczema . . .
And Helen Greig? A few trinket rings on both hands, but she was neither married nor engaged.
‘Goodbye.’
Helen Greig was first out of the house, but waited for him beside the car, jangling the keys in her right hand.
‘Have you worked for Mr Jack long?’
‘Long enough.’
‘Hard work, being an MP, isn’t it? I expect he needs to unwind from time to time –’
She stopped and glared at him. ‘Not you too! You’re as bad as that lot!’ She gestured with the keys towards the gates and the figures beyond. ‘I won’t hear a word said against Gregor.’ She started walking again, more briskly now.
‘He’s a good employer then?’
‘He’s not like an employer at all. My mother’s been ill. He gave me a bonus in the autumn so I could take her for a wee holiday down the coast. That’s the sort of man he is.’ There were tears in her eyes, but she forced them back. The reporters were passing cups between them, complaining about sugar or the lack of it. They didn’t seem to expect much from the approach of the two figures.
‘Talk to us, Helen.’
‘A word with Gregor and we can all go home. We’ve got families to think of, you know.’
‘I’m missing communion,’ joked one of them.
‘Yes, communion with your lunchtime pint,’ returned another.
One of the local reporters – by the accents, there weren’t many of them present – had recognized Rebus.
‘Inspector, anything to tell us?’ A few ears pricked up at that ‘Inspector’.
‘Yes,’ said Rebus, causing Helen Greig to stiffen. ‘Bugger off.’
There were smiles at this and a few groans. The gates opened and were about to close, leaving Rebus on the outside again. But he pressed his weight against the gate and leaned towards the young woman, his mouth close to her ear.
‘I forgot, I’ll have to go back in.’
‘What?’
‘I forgot, or rather Mr Jack did. He wanted me to check on his wife, in case she was taking the news badly . . .’
He waited for the notion of this to sink in. Helen Greig puckered her lips in a silent O. The notion had sunk in.
‘Only,’ Rebus went on, ‘I forgot to get the address . . .’
She stood on her toes and, so the newsmen wouldn’t hear, whispered into his ear: ‘Deer Lodge. It’s between Knockandhu and Tomnavoulin.’
Rebus nodded, and allowed her to close and lock the gates. His curiosity was not exactly dispelled. In fact, he was more curious now than when he’d gone in. Knockandhu and Tomnavoulin: the names of a couple of malt whiskies. His head told him never to drink again. His heart told him differently . . .
Damn, he’d meant to phone Patience from Holmes’ house, just to let her know he was on his way. Not that she kept him to an itinerary or anything . . . but all the same. He made for the reporter he recognized, the local lad, Chris Kemp.
‘Hello, Chris. Got a phone in your car? Mind if I make a call . . .?’
‘So,’ said Dr Patience Aitken, ‘how was your ménage à trois?’
‘Not bad,’ said Rebus, before kissing her loudly on the lips. ‘How was your orgy?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Shop talk and overcooked lasagne. You didn’t manage home then?’ Rebus looked blank. ‘I tried phoning Marchmont, and you weren’t there either. Your suit looks like you slept in it.’
‘Blame the bloody cat.’
‘Lucky?’
‘He was doing the twist all over the jacket till I rescued it.’
‘The twist? Nothing shows a man’s true age more than his choice of dance step.’
Rebus was shedding the suit now. ‘You haven’t got any orange juice, have you?’
‘Bit of a sore head? Time to stop the drinking, John.’
‘Time to settle down, you mean.’ He pulled off his trousers. ‘All right if I take a bath?’
She was studying him. ‘You know you don’t have to ask.’
‘No, but all the same, I like to ask.’
‘Permission granted . . . as always. Did Lucky do that, too?’ She was pointing to the scratches on his wrist.
&n
bsp; ‘He’d be in the microwave if he had.’
She smiled. ‘I’ll see about the orange juice.’
Rebus watched her make for the kitchen. He attempted a dry-mouthed wolf-whistle. From nearby, one of the budgies showed him how to do it properly. Patience turned towards the budgie and smiled.
He lay down in the foaming bath and closed his eyes, breathing deeply, the way his doctor had told him to. Relaxation technique, he’d called it. He wanted Rebus to relax a bit more. High blood pressure, nothing serious, but all the same . . . Of course, there were pills he could take, beta-blockers. But the doctor was in favour of self-help. Deep relaxation. Self-hypnosis. Rebus had had half a mind to tell the doctor that his own father had been a hypnotist, that his brother still might be a professional hypnotist somewhere . . .
Deep breathing . . . emptying the mind . . . relaxing the head, the forehead, the jaw, the neck muscles, the chest, the arms. Counting backwards down to zero . . . no stress, no strain . . .
At first, Rebus had accused the doctor of penny-pinching, of not wanting to give out costly drugs. But the damned thing seemed to work. He could help himself. He could help himself to Patience Aitken . . .
‘Here you go,’ she said, coming into the bathroom. She was holding a long thin glass of orange juice. ‘As squeezed by Dr Aitken.’
Rebus slipped a sudsy arm around her buttocks. ‘As squeezed by Inspector Rebus.’
She bent down and kissed him on his head. Then touched a finger to his hair. ‘You need to start using a conditioner, John. All the life’s going out of your follicles.’
‘That’s because it’s headed somewhere else.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Down, boy,’ she said. Then, before he could make a grab for her again, she fled from the bathroom. Rebus, smiling, settled further into the bath.
Deep breathing . . . emptying the mind . . . Had Gregor Jack been set up. If so, who by? And to what purpose? A scandal, of course. A political scandal, a front-page scandal. But the atmosphere in the Jack household had been . . . well, strange. Strained, certainly, but also cold and edgy, as though the worst were still to happen.
