by Ian Rankin
‘Who had?’
‘The caller. I’d been getting these calls . . .’ Ah yes, Rebus had meant to ask about those. ‘By the time I got to the phone, the caller would have hung up. But one night, the caller got me straight away, and he told me: “Your sister’s working in a brothel in the New Town.” He gave me the address, and said if I went around midnight she’d just be starting her . . . shift.’ The words were like some food he didn’t enjoy, but given him at a banquet so that he didn’t dare spit it out, but had to go on chewing, trying hard not to swallow . . . He swallowed. ‘So along I went, and she was there. The caller had been telling the truth. I was trying to talk to her when the police came in. But it was a trap, too. The newsmen were there . . .’
Rebus was remembering the woman in the bed, the way she kicked her legs in the air, the way she’d lifted her t-shirt for the photographers to see . . .
‘Why didn’t you say anything at the time, Gregor?’
Jack laughed shrilly. ‘It was bad enough as it was. Would it have been any better if I’d let everyone know my sister’s a tart?’
‘Well then, why tell me now?’
His voice was calm. ‘It looks to me, Inspector, like I’m in deep water. I’m just jettisoning what I don’t need.’
‘You must know then, sir . . . you must have known all along, that someone is setting you up to take a very big fall.’
Jack smiled. ‘Oh yes.’
‘Any idea who? I mean, any enemies?’
The smile again. ‘I’m an MP, Inspector. The wonder is that I have any friends.’
‘Ah yes, The Pack. Could one of them . . .?’
‘Inspector, I’ve racked my brain and I’m no nearer finding out.’ He looked up at Rebus. ‘Honest.’
‘You didn’t recognize the caller’s voice?’
‘It was heavily muffled. Gruff. A man probably, but to be honest it could have been a woman.’
‘Okay then, what about your sister? Tell me about her.’
It was soon told. She’d left home young, and never been heard of. Vague rumours of London and marriage had drifted north over the years, but that was all. Then the phone call . . .
‘How could the caller know? How might they have found out?’
‘Now that’s a mystery, because I’ve never told anybody about Gail.’
‘But your schoolfriends would know of her?’
‘Slightly, I suppose. I doubt any of them remember her. She was two years below us at school.’
‘You think maybe she came back up here looking for revenge?’
Jack spread his palms. ‘Revenge for what?’
‘Well, jealousy then.’
‘Why didn’t she just get in touch?’
It was a point. Rebus made a mental note to get in touch with her, supposing she was still around. ‘You haven’t heard from her since?’
‘Not before, not since.’
‘Why did you want to see her, Gregor?’
‘One, I really was interested.’ He broke off.
‘And two?’
‘Two . . . I don’t know, maybe to talk her out of what she was doing.’
‘For her own good, or for yours?’
Jack smiled. ‘You’re right, of course, bad for the image having a sister on the game.’
‘There are worse forms of prostitution than whoring.’
Jack nodded, impressed. ‘Very deep, Inspector. Can I use that in one of my speeches? Not that I’ll be making many of those from now on. Whichever way you look at it, my career’s down the Swanny.’
‘Never give up, sir. Think of Robert the Bruce.’
‘And the spider, you mean? I hate spiders. So does Liz.’ He halted. ‘Did Liz.’
Rebus wanted to keep the conversation moving. The amount of whisky Jack had drunk, he might tip over any minute. ‘Can I ask you about that last party up at Deer Lodge?’
‘What about it?’
‘For a start, who was present?’
Having to use his memory seemed to sober Jack up. Not that he could add much to what Barney Byars had already told Rebus. It was a boozy, sit-around-and-chat evening, followed by a morning hike up some nearby mountain, lunch – at the Heather Hoose – and then home. Jack’s only regret was inviting Helen Greig to go.
‘I’m not sure she saw any of us in a decent light. Barney Byars was doing elephant impressions, you know, where you pull out your trouser pockets and –’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Well, Helen took it in good enough part, but all the same . . .’
‘Nice girl, isn’t she?’
‘The sort my mum would have wanted me to marry.’
Mine too, thought Rebus. The whisky wasn’t just loosening Jack’s tongue, it was also loosening his accent. The polish was fading fast, leaving the raw wood of towns like Kirkcaldy, Leven, Methil.
‘This party was a couple of weeks ago, wasn’t it?’
‘Three weeks ago. We were back here five days when Liz decided she needed a holiday. Packed a case and off she went. Never saw her again . . .’ He raised a fist and punched the soft leather of the sofa, making hardly a sound and no discernible mark. ‘Why are they doing this to me? I’m the best MP this constituency’s ever had. Don’t take my word for it. Go out and talk to them. Go to a mining village or a farm or a factory or a fucking afternoon tea party. They tell me the same thing: well done, Gregor, keep up the good work.’ He was on his feet again now, feet holding their ground but the rest of the body in motion. ‘Keep up the good work, the hard work. Hard work! It bloody is hard work, I can tell you.’ His voice was rising steadily. ‘Worked my balls off for them! Now somebody’s trying to piss on my whole life from a very high place. Why me? Why me? Liz and me . . . Liz . . .’
Urquhart tapped twice before putting his head round the door. ‘Everything all right?’
Jack put on a grotesque mask of a smile. ‘Everything’s fine, Ian. Listening behind the door, are you? Good, wouldn’t want you to miss a word, would we?’
Urquhart glanced at Rebus. Rebus nodded: everything’s okay in here, really it is. Urquhart retreated and closed the door. Gregor Jack collapsed into the sofa. ‘I’m making such a mess of everything,’ he said, rubbing his face with his hand. ‘Ian’s such a good friend . . .’
Ah yes, friends.
‘I believe,’ said Rebus, ‘that you haven’t just been receiving anonymous calls.’
‘What?’
‘Someone said something about letters, too.’
‘Oh . . . oh yes, letters. Crank letters.’
‘Do you still have them?’
Jack shook his head. ‘Not worth keeping.’
‘Did you let anyone see them?’
‘Not worth reading.’
‘What exactly was in them, Mr Jack?’
‘Gregor,’ Jack reminded him. ‘Please, call me Gregor. What was in them? Rubbish. Garbled nonsense. Ravings . . .’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What?’
‘Someone told me you’d refuse to let anyone open them. He thought they might be love letters.’
Jack hooted. ‘Love letters!’
‘I don’t think they were either. But it strikes me, how could Ian Urquhart or anyone else know which letters they were to hand to you unopened? The handwriting? Difficult to tell though, isn’t it? No, it had to be the postmark. It had to be what was on the envelope. I’ll tell you where those letters came from, Mr Jack. They came from Duthil. They came from your old friend Andrew Macmillan. And they weren’t raving, were they? They weren’t garbled or nonsense or rubbish. They were asking you to do something about the system in the special hospitals. Isn’t that right?’
Jack sat and studied his glass, mouth set petulantly, a kid who’s been caught out.
‘Isn’t that right?’
Jack gave a curt nod. Rebus nodded, too. Embarrassing to have a sister who’s a prostitute. But how much more embarrassing to have an old friend who’s a murderer? And mad, to boot. Gregor Jack h
ad worked hard to form his public image, and harder still to preserve it. Rushing around with his vacuously sincere grin and strong-enough-for-the-occasion handshake. Working hard in his constituency, working hard in public. But his private life . . . well, Rebus wouldn’t have wanted to swop. It was a mess. And what made it so messy was that Jack had tried to hide it. He didn’t have skeletons in his closet; he had a crematorium.
‘Wanted me to start a campaign,’ Jack was muttering. ‘Couldn’t do that. Why did you start this crusade, Mr Jack? To help an old friend. Which old friend is that, Mr Jack? The one who cut his wife’s head off. Now, if you’ll excuse me. Oh, and please remember to vote for me next time round . . .’ And he began a drunken, wailing laugh, near-manic, near-crying. Finally actually becoming crying, tears streaming down his cheeks, dripping into the glass he still held.
‘Gregor,’ Rebus said quietly. He repeated the name, and again, and again, always quietly. Jack sniffed back more tears and looked blurrily towards him. ‘Gregor,’ said Rebus, ‘did you kill your wife?’
Jack wiped his eyes on his shirt-sleeve, sniffed, wiped again. He began to shake his head.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I didn’t kill my wife.’
*
No, because William Glass killed her. He killed the woman under Dean Bridge, and he killed Elizabeth Jack.
Rebus had missed all the excitement. He had driven back into town unaware of it. He had climbed the steps up to Great London Road station without knowing. And he had entered a place of jumpy, jittery clamour. Christ, what did it mean? Was the station definitely staying open? No move to St Leonard’s? Which meant, if he remembered his bet, that he’d set up home with Patience Aitken. But no, it was nothing to do with the station staying open or being reduced to rubble. It was William Glass. A beat constable had come across him sleeping amidst the dustbins behind a supermarket in Barn-ton. He was in custody. He was talking. They were feeding him soup and giving him endless cups of tea and fresh cigarettes, and he was talking.
‘But what’s he saying?’
‘He’s saying he did them – both of them!’
‘He’s saying what?’
Rebus started calculating. Barnton . . . not so far from Queensferry when you thought about it. They were thinking he’d have headed north or west, but in fact he’d started crawling back into town . . . supposing he’d ever got as far as Queensferry in the first place.
‘He’s admitting both murders.’
‘Who’s with him?’
‘Chief Inspector Lauderdale and Inspector Dick.’
Lauderdale! Christ, he’d be loving it. This would be the making of him, the final nail in the Chief Super’s coffee-maker. But Rebus had other things to be doing. He wanted Jack’s sister found, for a start. Gail Jack, but she wouldn’t be calling herself that, would she? He went through the Operation Creeper case-notes. Gail Crawley. That was her. She’d been released, of course. And had given a London address. He found one of the officers who’d interviewed her.
‘Yes, she said she was heading south. Couldn’t keep her, could we? Didn’t want to either. Just gave her a kick up the arse and told her not to come back up here again. Isn’t it incredible? Catching Glass like that!’
‘Incredible, yes,’ said Rebus. He photocopied what notes there were, along with Gail Crawley’s photograph, and scribbled some further notes of his own on to the copy. Then he telephoned an old friend, an old friend in London.
‘Inspector Flight speaking.’
‘Hello George. When’s the retirement party then?’
There was laughter. ‘You tell me, you were the one who persuaded me to stay on.’
‘Can’t afford to lose you.’
‘Meaning you want a favour?’
‘Official business, George, but speed is of the –’
‘As usual. All right, what is it?’
‘Give me your fax number and I’ll send you the details. If she’s at the address, I’d like you to talk to her. I’ve put down a couple of phone numbers. You can reach me anytime on one or the other.’
‘Two numbers, eh? Got yourself in deep, have you?’
In deep . . . jettisoning what I don’t need . . .
‘You could say that, George.’
‘What’s she like?’ By which he meant Patience, not Gail.
‘She likes domesticity, George. Pets and nights in, candles and firelight.’
‘Sounds perfect.’ George Flight paused. ‘I’ll give it three months max.’
‘Sod you,’ said Rebus, grinning. Flight was laughing again.
‘Four months then,’ he said. ‘But that’s my final offer.’
That done, Rebus headed for the nerve centre, the one place he needed to station himself – the gents’ toilets. Part of the ceiling had fallen down and had been replaced with a piece of brown cardboard on which some joker had drawn a huge eyeball. Rebus washed his hands, dried them, chatted to one of the other detectives, shared a cigarette. In a public toilet, he’d have been picked up for loitering. He was loitering, too, loitering with intent. The door opened. Bingo. It was Lauderdale, a frequent user of rest rooms when he was on an interrogation.
‘All the time you’re coming and going,’ he’d told Rebus, ‘the suspect’s sweating that bit more, wondering what’s up, what’s happened that’s new.’
‘What’s up?’ Rebus asked now. Lauderdale smiled and went to splash water on his face, patting his temples and the back of his neck. He looked pleased with himself. More worrying, he didn’t smell.
‘Looks like our Chief Super may have got it right for once,’ Lauderdale admitted. ‘He said we should be concentrating on Glass.’
‘He’s confessed?’
‘As good as. Looks as though he’s sorting his defence out first.’
‘What’s that then?’
‘The media,’ said Lauderdale, drying himself. ‘The media pushed him into doing it. I mean, killing again. He says it was expected of him.’
‘Sounds to me like he’s one domino shy of a set.’
‘I’m not putting any words into his mouth, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s all on tape.’
Rebus shook his head. ‘No, no, I mean, if he says he did it, then fair enough. That’s fine. And by the way, it was me that shot JFK.’
Lauderdale was examining himself in the spattered mirror. He still looked triumphal, his neck rising from his shirt collar so that his head sat on it like a golf ball on its tee.
‘A confession, John,’ he was saying, ‘it’s a powerful thing is a confession.’
‘Even when the guy’s been sleeping rough for nights on end? Strung out on Brasso and hunted by Edinburgh’s finest? Confession might be good for the soul, sir, but sometimes all it’s worth is a bowl of soup and some hot tea.’
Lauderdale tidied himself, then turned towards Rebus. ‘You’re just a pessimist, John.’
‘Think of all the questions Glass can’t answer. Ask him some of them. How did Mrs Jack get to Queensferry? How come he dumped her there? Just ask him, sir. I’ll be interested to read the transcript. I think you’ll find the conversation’s all one way.’
Exit the Inspector Rebus, leaving behind the Chief Inspector Lauderdale, brushing himself down like a statue examining itself for chips. He seems to find one, too, for he frowns suddenly, and spends longer in the washroom than intended . . .
‘I need just a little bit more, John.’
They were lying in bed together, just the three of them: Rebus, Patience, and Lucky the cat. Rebus affected an American accent.
‘I gave ya everything I got, baby.’
Patience smiled, but wasn’t to be placated. She thumped her pillows and sat up, drawing her knees up to her chin. ‘I mean,’ she said, ‘I need to know what you’re going to do . . . what we’re going to do. I can’t decide whether you’re moving in with me, or else moving out.’
‘In and out,’ he said, a final attempt at humour and escape. She punched him on the shoulder. Punched him hard. He
sucked in his breath. ‘I bruise easily,’ he said.
‘So do I!’ There were almost tears in her eyes, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. ‘Is there anybody else?’
He looked surprised. ‘No, what makes you think that?’
The cat had crawled up the bed to lie in Patience’s lap, plucking at the duvet with its claws. As it settled, she started stroking its head. ‘It’s just that I keep thinking there’s something you’re about to tell me. You look as though you’re gathering up the strength to say it, but then you never quite manage. I’d rather know, whatever it is.’
What was there to know? That he still hadn’t made up his mind about moving in? That he still carried if not a flame then at least an unstruck Scottish Bluebell for Gill Templer? What was there to know?
‘You know how it is, Patience. A policeman’s lot is not a happy one, and all that.’
‘Why do you have to get involved?’
‘What?’
‘In all these bloody cases, why do you have to get involved, John? It’s just a job like any other. I manage to forget about my patients for a few hours at a stretch, why can’t you?’
He gave her just about his only honest answer of the evening. ‘I don’t know.’
The telephone rang. Patience picked the extension up off the floor and held it between them. ‘Yours or mine?’ she asked.
‘Yours.’
She picked up the receiver. ‘Hello? Yes, this is Doctor Aitken. Yes, hello, Mrs Laird. Is he now? Is that right? It isn’t maybe just flu?’
Rebus checked his watch. Nine thirty. It was Patience’s turn to do standby emergency for her group practice.
‘A-ha,’ she was saying, ‘a-ha,’ as the caller talked on. She held the receiver away from her for a second and hurled a silent scream towards the ceiling. ‘Okay, Mrs Laird. No, just leave him be. I’ll be there as soon as I can. What was your address again?’
At the end of the call, she stomped out of bed and started to dress. ‘Mrs Laird’s husband says he’s on the way out this time,’ she said. ‘That’s the third time in as many months, damn the man.’
‘Do you want me to drive you?’
‘No, it’s all right, I’ll go myself.’ She paused, came over and pecked him on the cheek. ‘But thanks for the offer.’
