Strip Jack

by Ian Rankin

  So she’d been here, and she knew. Knew about the raid, about Operation Creeper. Unless someone else had been here and planted this stuff . . . No, keep to the obvious. His eye caught something else. He moved aside one of the pillows. Tied to the post behind it was a pair of black tights. Another pair had been tied to the opposite post. Moffat was staring quizzically, but Rebus thought the young man had learned enough for one day. It was an interesting scenario all the same. Tied to her bed and left there. Moffat could have come, looked the house over, and gone, without ever being aware of her presence upstairs. But it wouldn’t work. If you were really going to restrain someone, you wouldn’t use tights. Too easy to escape. Tights were for sex-games. For restraint, you’d use something stronger, twine or handcuffs . . . Like the handcuffs in Gregor Jack’s dustbin?

  At least now Rebus knew that she’d known. So why hadn’t she got in touch with her husband? There was no telephone at the lodge.

  ‘Where’s the nearest call-box?’ he asked Moffat, who still seemed interested in the tights.

  ‘About a mile and a half away, on the road outside Cragstone Farm.’

  Rebus checked his watch. It was four o’clock. ‘Okay, I’d like to take a look at it, then we’ll call it a day. But I want this place gone over for fingerprints. Christ knows, there should be enough of them. Then we need to check and double check the shops, petrol stations, pubs, hotels. Say, within a twenty-mile radius.’

  Moffat looked doubtful. ‘That’s an awful lot of places.’

  Rebus ignored him. ‘A black BMW. I think some more handouts are being printed today. There’s a photo of Mrs Jack, and the car description and registration. If she was up this way – and she was – somebody must have seen her.’

  ‘Well . . . folk keep to themselves, you know.’

  ‘Yes, but they’re not blind, are they? And if we’re lucky, they won’t be suffering from amnesia either. Come on, sooner we look at that phone-box, the sooner I can get to my digs.’

  *

  Actually, Rebus’s original plan had been to sleep in the car and claim the price of a B&B, pocketing the money. But the weather looked uninviting, and the thought of spending a night cramped in his car like a half-shut knife . . . So, on the way to the phone-box, he signalled to a stop outside a roadside cottage advertising bed & breakfast and knocked on the door. The elderly woman seemed suspicious at first, but finally agreed that she had a vacancy. Rebus told her he’d be back in an hour, giving her time to ‘air’ the room. Then he returned to his car and followed Moffat’s careful driving all the way to Cragstone Farm.

  It wasn’t much of a farm actually. A short track led from the main road to a cluster of buildings: house, byre, some sheds and a barn. The phone-box was by the side of the main road, fifty yards along from the farm and on the other side of the road, next to a lay-by big enough to allow them to park their two cars. It was one of the original red boxes.

  ‘They daren’t change it,’ said Moffat. ‘Mrs Corbie up at the farm would have a fit.’ Rebus didn’t understand this at first, but then he opened the door to the phone-box – and he understood. For one thing, it had a carpet – a good carpet, too, a thick-piled offcut. There was a smell of air freshener, and a posy of field flowers had been placed in a small glass jar on the shelf beside the apparatus.

  ‘It’s better kept than my flat,’ Rebus said. ‘When can I move in?’

  ‘It’s Mrs Corbie,’ Moffat said with a grin. ‘She reckons a dirty phone-box would reflect badly on her, seeing her house is closest. She’s been keeping it spick and span since God knows when.’

  A pity though. Rebus had been hoping for something, some hint or clue. But supposing there had been anything, it must certainly have been tidied away . . .

  ‘I’d like to talk to Mrs Corbie.’

  ‘It’s a Tuesday,’ said Moffat. ‘She’s at her sister’s on a Tuesday.’ Rebus pointed back along the road to where a car was braking hard, signalling to pull into the farm’s driveway. ‘What about him?’

  Moffat looked, then smiled coldly. ‘Her son, Alec. A bit of a tearaway. He won’t tell us anything.’

  ‘Gets into trouble, does he?’

  ‘Speeding mostly. He’s one of the local boy racers. Can’t say I blame him. There’s not much to occupy the teenagers round here.’

  ‘You can’t be much more than a teenager yourself, Constable. You didn’t get into trouble.’

  ‘I had the Church, sir. Believe me, the fear of God is something to reckon with . . .’

  Rebus’s landlady, Mrs Wilkie, was something to reckon with, too. It started when he was changing in his bedroom. It was a nice bedroom, a bit overdone on the frills and finery, but with a comfortable bed and a twelve-inch black and white television. Mrs Wilkie had shown him the kitchen, and told him he should feel free to make himself tea and coffee whenever he felt like it. Then she had shown him the bathroom, and told him the water was hot if he felt like a bath. Then she had led him back to the kitchen and told him that he could make himself a cup of tea or coffee whenever he felt like it.

  Rebus didn’t have the heart to tell her he’d heard it all before. She was tiny, with a tiny voice. Between his first visit and his second, she had dressed in her best B&B-keeper’s clothes and tied some pearls around her neck. He reckoned her to be in her late seventies. She was a widow, her husband Andrew having died in 1982, and she did the B&B ‘as much for the company as the money’. She always seemed to get nice guests, interesting people like the German jam-buyer who had stayed for a few nights last autumn . . .

  ‘And here’s your bedroom. I’ve given it a bit of an airing and –’

  ‘It’s very nice, thank you.’ Rebus put his bag on the bed, saw her ominous look, and shifted it off the bed and on to the floor.

  ‘I made the bedspread myself,’ she said with a smile. ‘I was once advised to go professional, selling my bedspreads. But at my age . . .’ She gave a chuckle. ‘It was a German gentleman told me that. He was in Scotland to buy jam. Would you credit it? He stayed here a few nights . . .’

  Eventually, she recalled her duties. She’d just go and make them a spot of supper. Supper. Rebus glanced at his watch. Unless it had stopped, it was not yet five thirty. But then, he’d booked bed and breakfast, and any hot meal tonight would be a bonus. Moffat had given him directions to the closest pub – ‘tourist place, tourist prices’ – before leaving him for the undoubted delights of Dufftown. The fear of God . . .

  He had just slipped off his trousers when the door opened and Mrs Wilkie stood there.

  ‘Is that you, Andrew? I thought I heard a noise.’ Her eyes had a glassy, faraway look. Rebus stood there, frozen, then swallowed.

  ‘Go and make us some supper,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Mrs Wilkie said. ‘You must be hungry. You’ve been gone such a long time . . .’

  Then, the idea of a quick bath appealed. He looked into the kitchen first, and saw that Mrs Wilkie was busy at the stove, humming to herself. So he headed for the bathroom. There was no lock on the door. Or rather, there was a lock, but half of it was hanging loose. He looked around him, but saw nothing he could wedge against the door. He decided to take his chance and started both taps running. There was a furious pressure to the water, and the bath filled quickly and hotly. Rebus undressed and sank beneath the surface. His shoulders were stiff from the drive, and he massaged them as best he could. Then he lifted his knees so that his shoulders, neck and head slid into the water. Immersion. He thought of Dr Curt, of drowning and immersion. Skin wrinkling . . . hair and nails shedding . . . silt in the bronchial . . .

  A noise brought him to the surface. He cleared his eyes, blinked, and saw that Mrs Wilkie was staring down at him, a dish towel in her hands.

  ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Oh dear, I’m sorry.’ And she retreated behind the door, calling through it: ‘I quite forgot you were here! I was just going to . . . well . . . never mind, it can wait.’

  Rebus screwed shut his eyes and sank ben
eath the waves . . .

  The meal was, to his surprise, good, if a bit odd. Cheese pudding, boiled potatoes, and carrots. Followed by tinned steamed pudding and packet custard.

  ‘So convenient,’ as Mrs Wilkie commented. The shock of seeing a naked man in her bathtub seemed to have brought her into the here and now, and they talked about the weather, the tourists and the government until the meal was over. Rebus asked if he could wash the dishes, and was told he could not – much to his relief. Instead, he asked Mrs Wilkie for a front-door key, then set off, stomach full, clean of body and underwear, for the Heather Hoose.

  Not a name he would have chosen for his own pub. He entered by the lounge door, but, the place being dead, pushed through another door into the public bar. Two men and a woman stood at the bar and shared a joke, while a barman studiously filled glasses from a whisky optic. The group looked round at Rebus as he came and stood not too far from them.

  ‘Evening.’

  They nodded back, almost without seeing him, and the barman returned the greeting, setting down three double measures of whisky on the bar.

  ‘And one for yourself,’ said one of the customers, handing across a ten-pound note.

  ‘Thanks,’ said the barman, ‘I’ll have a nip myself for later on.’

  Behind the array of optics, bottles and glasses, the wall was mirrored, so Rebus was able to study the group without seeming to. The man who had spoken sounded English. There had been only two cars in the pub’s courtyard, a beaten-up Renault 5 and a Daimler. Rebus reckoned he knew who owned which . . .

  ‘Yes, sir?’ asked the barman and Renault 5 owner.

  ‘Pint of export, please.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  The wonder of it was that three well-off English tourists would drink in the public bar. Maybe they just hadn’t noticed that the Heather Hoose possessed such an amenity as a lounge. All three looked a bit the worse for wear, mostly from drink. The woman had a formidable face, framed by dyed platinum hair. Her cheeks were too red and her eyelashes too black. When she sucked on her cigarette, she arched her head up to blow the smoke ceilingwards. Rebus tried counting the lines on her neck. Maybe it worked the way it did with tree-rings . . .

  ‘There you are.’ The pint glass was placed on a mat in front of him. He handed over a fiver.

  ‘Quiet tonight.’

  ‘Midweek and not quite the season,’ recited the barman, who had obviously just said the same thing to the other group. ‘It’ll get busier later on.’ Then he retreated to the till.

  ‘Another round here when you’re ready,’ said the Englishman, the only one of the three to have finished his whisky. He was in his late thirties, younger than the woman. He looked fit, prosperous, but somehow faintly disreputable. It had something to do with the way he stood, slightly slouched and looming, as though he might be about either to fall down or else pounce. And his head swayed a little from side to side in time with his sleepy eyelids.

  The third member of the group was younger still, mid-thirties. He was smoking French cigarettes and staring at the bottles above the bar. Either that, thought Rebus, or he’s looking at me in the mirror, the way I’m looking at him. Certainly, it was a possibility. The man had an affected way of tapping the ash from his affected cigarette. Rebus noticed that he smoked without inhaling, holding the smoke in his mouth and releasing it in a single belch. While his companions stood, he rested on one of the high bar stools.

  Rebus had to admit, he was intrigued. An unlikely little threesome. And about to become more unlikely still . . .

  A couple of people had entered the lounge bar, and looked like staying there. The barman slipped through a doorway between rooms to serve these new customers, and this seemed to start off a conversation between the two men and the woman.

  ‘God, the nerve. He hasn’t served us yet.’

  ‘Well, Jamie, we’re not exactly gasping, are we?’

  ‘Speak for yourself. I hardly felt that first one slip down. Should have asked for quadruples in the first place.’

  ‘Have mine,’ said the woman, ‘if you’re going to become ratty.’

  ‘I am not becoming ratty,’ said the slouching pouncer, becoming very ratty indeed.

  ‘Well fuck you then.’

  Rebus had to stifle a grin. The woman had said this as though it were part of any polite conversation.

  ‘And fuck you, too, Louise.’

  ‘Ssh,’ the French-smoker warned. ‘Remember, we’re not alone.’

  The other man and woman looked towards Rebus, who sat staring straight ahead, glass to lips.

  ‘Yes we are,’ said the man. ‘We’re all alone.’

  This utterance seemed to signal the end of the conversation. The barman reappeared.

  ‘Same again, barman, if you’ll be so kind . . .’

  The evening hotted up quickly. Three locals appeared and started to play dominoes at a nearby table. Rebus wondered if they were paid to come in and add the requisite local colour. There was probably more colour in a Meadowbank Thistle–Raith Rovers friendly. Two other drinkers appeared, wedging themselves in between Rebus and the threesome. They seemed to take it as an insult that there were other drinkers in the bar before them, and that some of those drinkers were standing next to their space at the bar. So they drank in dour silence, merely exchanging looks whenever the Englishman or his two friends said anything.

  ‘Look,’ said the woman, ‘are we heading back tonight? If not, we’d better think about accommodation.’

  ‘We could sleep at the lodge.’

  Rebus put down his glass.

  ‘Don’t be so sick,’ the woman retorted.

  ‘I thought that was why we came.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be able to sleep.’

  ‘Maybe that’s why they call it a wake.’

  The Englishman’s laughter filled the silent bar, then died. A domino clacked on to a table. Another chapped. Rebus left his glass where it was and approached the group.

  ‘Did I hear you mention a lodge?’

  The Englishman blinked slowly. ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘I’m a police officer.’ Rebus brought out his ID. The two dour regulars finished their drinks and left the bar. Funny how an ID had that effect sometimes . . .

  ‘Detective Inspector Rebus. Which lodge did you mean?’

  All three looked sober now. It was an act, but a good act, years in the learning.

  ‘Well, officer,’ said the Englishman, ‘now what business is that of yours?’

  ‘Depends which lodge you were talking about, sir. There’s a nice police station at Dufftown if you’d prefer to go there . . .’

  ‘Deer Lodge,’ said the French-smoker. ‘A friend of ours owns it.’

  ‘Owned it,’ corrected the woman.

  ‘You were friends of Mrs Jack then?’

  They were. Introductions were made. The Englishman was actually a Scot, Jamie Kilpatrick the antique dealer. The woman was Louise Patterson-Scott, wife (separated) of the retail tycoon. The other man was Julian Kaymer, the painter.

  ‘I’ve already spoken with the police,’ Julian Kaymer said. ‘They telephoned me yesterday.’

  Yes, they had all been questioned, asked if they knew Mrs Jack’s movements. But they hadn’t seen her for weeks.

  ‘I spoke to her on the telephone,’ Mrs Patterson-Scott announced, ‘a few days before she went off on holiday. She didn’t say where she was going, just that she fancied a few days away by herself.’

  ‘So what are you all doing here?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘This is a wake,’ said Kilpatrick. ‘Our little token of friendship, our time of mourning. So why don’t you bugger off and let us get on with it.’

  ‘Ignore him, Inspector,’ said Julian Kaymer. ‘He’s a bit pissed.’

  ‘What I am,’ stated Kilpatrick, ‘is a bit upset.’

  ‘Emotional,’ Rebus offered.

  ‘Exactly, Inspector.’

  Kaymer carried on the story. ‘It was my idea. We�
��d all been on the phone to each other, none of us really able to take it in. Devastated. So I said why don’t we take a run to the lodge? That was where we all met last.’

  ‘At a party?’ asked Rebus.

  Kaymer nodded. ‘A month back.’

  ‘A great bloody big piss-up it was,’ confirmed Kilpatrick.

  ‘So,’ said Kaymer, ‘the plan was to drive here, have a few drinks in memory of Lizzie, and drive back. Not everybody could make it. Prior commitments and so on. But here we are.’

  ‘Well,’ said Rebus, ‘I would like you to look inside the house. But there’s no point going out there in the dark. What I don’t want is the three of you going out there on your own. The place still has to be gone over for fingerprints.’

  They looked a bit puzzled at this. ‘You haven’t heard?’ Rebus said, recalling that Curt had only revealed his findings that morning. ‘It’s a murder hunt now. Mrs Jack was murdered.’

  ‘Oh no!’

  ‘Christ . . .’

  ‘I’m going to be –’

  And Louise Patterson-Scott, wife of the et cetera, threw up on to the carpeted floor. Julian Kaymer was weeping, and Jamie Kilpatrick was losing all the blood from his face. The barman stared in horror, while the domino players stopped their game. One of them had to restrain his dog from investigating further. It cowered under the table and licked its whiskery chops . . .

  Local colour, as provided by John Rebus.

  *

  Finally, a hotel was found, not far out of Dufftown. It was arranged that the three would spend the night there. Rebus had considered asking Mrs Wilkie if she had any spare rooms, but thought better of it. They would stay at the hotel, and meet Rebus at the lodge in the morning. Bright and early: some of them had jobs to get back to.

  When Rebus returned to the cottage, Mrs Wilkie was knitting by her gas fire and watching a film on the TV. He put his head round the living room door.

  ‘I’ll say goodnight, Mrs Wilkie.’

  ‘Night-night, son. Mind, say your prayers. I’ll be up to tuck you in a bit later on . . .’

  Rebus made himself a mug of tea, went to his room, and wedged the chair against the door handle. He opened the window to let in some air, switched on his own little television, and fell on to the bed. There was something wrong with the picture on the TV, and he couldn’t fix it. The vertical hold had gone. So he switched it off again and dug into his bag, coming up with Fish out of Water. Well, he’d nothing else to read, and he certainly didn’t feel tired. He opened the book at chapter one.