Strip Jack

by Ian Rankin

  ‘I’d have known sooner, Inspector, only we don’t like to let the patients listen to the news. It just upsets them. It’s only when I was getting ready to go home that I turned on the radio in my office . . .’

  Rebus was tired. Rebus was terribly, terribly tired. ‘What is it, Dr Forster?’

  ‘It’s your man Jack, Gregor Jack. He was here this afternoon. He was visiting Andrew Macmillan.’

  13

  Hot-Head

  It was nine that evening when Rebus reached Duthil Hospital. Andrew Macmillan was sitting in Forster’s office, arms folded, waiting.

  ‘Hello again,’ he said.

  ‘Hello, Mr Macmillan.’

  There were five of them: two ‘nurses’, Dr Forster, Macmillan and Rebus. The nurses stood behind Macmillan’s chair, their bodies less than two inches from his.

  ‘We’ve sedated him,’ Forster had explained to Rebus. ‘He may not be as talkative as usual, but he should stay calm. I heard about what happened last time . . .’

  ‘Nothing happened last time, Dr Forster. He just wanted to have a normal conversation. What’s wrong with that?’

  Macmillan looked on the verge of sleep. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his smile fixed. He unfolded his arms and rested the hands delicately on his knees, reminding Rebus at that moment of Mrs Corbie . . .

  ‘Inspector Rebus wants to ask you about Mr Jack,’ explained Forster.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Rebus, resting against the edge of the desk. There was a chair for him, but he was stiff after the drive. ‘I was wondering why he visited. It’s unusual after all, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s a first,’ corrected Macmillan. ‘They should put up a plaque. When I saw him come in, I thought he must be here to open an extension or something. But no, he just walked right up to me . . .’ His hands were moving now, carving air, his eyes held by the movements they made. ‘Walked right up to me, and he said . . . he said, “Hello, Mack.” Just like that. Like we’d seen one another the day before, like we saw one another every day.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘Old friends. Yes, old friends . . . old friendships. We’d always be friends, he told me. We couldn’t not be friends. We went back all the way. Yes, all the way back . . . All of us. Suey and Gowk, Beggar and me, Bilbo, Tampon, Sexton Blake . . . Friends are important, that’s what he said. I told him about Gowk, about how she visited sometimes . . . about the money she gives this place . . . He didn’t know about any of that. He was interested. He works too hard though, you can see that. He doesn’t look healthy any more. Not enough sunlight. Have you ever seen the House of Commons? Hardly any windows. They work away in there like moles . . .’

  ‘Did he say anything else?’

  ‘I asked him why he never answered my letters. Do you know what he said? He said he never even received them! He said he’d take it up with the post office, but I know who it is.’ He turned to Forster. ‘It’s you, Dr Forster. You’re not letting out any of my mail. You’re steaming off the stamps and using them for yourself! Well, be warned, Gregor Jack MP knows all about it now. Something’ll be done now.’ He remembered something and turned quickly to Rebus. ‘Did you touch the earth for me?’

  Rebus nodded. ‘I touched the earth for you.’

  Macmillan nodded too, satisfied. ‘How did it feel, Inspector?’

  ‘It felt fine. Funny, it’s something I’ve always taken for granted –’

  ‘Never take anything for granted, Inspector,’ said Macmillan. He was calming a little. All the same, you could see him fighting against the soporifics in his bloodstream, fighting for the right to get angry, to get . . . to get mad. ‘I asked him about Liz,’ he said. ‘He told me she’s the same as ever. But I didn’t believe that. I’m sure their marriage is in trouble. In-com-pat-ible. My wife and I were just the same . . .’ His voice trailed off. He swallowed, laid his hands flat against his knees again and studied them. ‘Liz was never one of The Pack. He should have married Gowk, only Kinnoul got to her first.’ He looked up. ‘Now there’s a man who needs treatment. If Gowk knew what she was about, she’d have him see a psychiatrist. All those roles he’s played . . . bound to have an effect, aren’t they? I’ll tell Gowk next time I see her. I haven’t seen her for a while . . .’

  Rebus shifted his weight a little. ‘Did Beggar say anything else, Mack? Anything about where he was headed or why he was here?’

  Macmillan shook his head. Then he sniggered. ‘Headed, did you say? Headed?’ He chuckled to himself for a few moments, then stopped as abruptly as he’d started. ‘He just wanted to let me know we were friends.’ He laughed quietly. ‘As if I needed reminding. And one other thing. Guess what he wanted to know? Guess what he asked? After all these years . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He wanted to know what I’d done with her head.’

  Rebus swallowed. Forster was licking his lips. ‘And what did you tell him, Mack?’

  ‘I told him the truth. I told him I couldn’t remember.’ He brought the palms of his hands together as if in prayer and touched the fingertips to his lips. Then he closed his eyes. The eyes were still closed when he spoke. ‘Is it true about Suey?’

  ‘What about him, Mack?’

  ‘That he’s emigrated, that he might not be coming back?’

  ‘Is that what Beggar told you?’

  Macmillan nodded, opening his eyes to gaze at Rebus. ‘He said Suey might not be coming back . . .’

  The nurses had taken Macmillan back to his ward, and Forster was putting on his coat, getting ready to lock up and see Rebus out to the car park, when the telephone rang.

  ‘At this time of night?’

  ‘It might be for me,’ said Rebus. He picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?’

  It was DS Knox from Dufftown. ‘Inspector Rebus? I did as you said and had someone stake out Deer Lodge.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘A white Saab drove in through the gateway not ten minutes ago.’

  There were two cars parked by the side of the road. One of them was blocking the entrance to Deer Lodge’s long driveway. Rebus got out of his own car. DS Knox introduced him to Detective Constable Wright and Constable Moffat.

  ‘We’ve already met,’ Rebus said, shaking Moffat’s hand.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Knox. ‘How could I forget, you’ve been keeping us so busy? So, what do you think, sir?’

  Rebus thought it was cold. Cold and wet. It wasn’t raining now, but any minute it might be on again. ‘You’ve called for reinforcements?’

  Knox nodded. ‘As many as can be mustered.’

  ‘Well, we could wait it out till they arrive.’

  ‘Yes?’

  Rebus was sizing Knox up. He didn’t seem the kind of man who enjoyed waiting. ‘Or,’ he said, ‘we could go in, three of us, one standing guard on the gate. After all, he’s either got a corpse or a hostage in there. If Steele’s alive, the sooner we go in, the better chance he’s got.’

  ‘So what are we waiting for?’

  Rebus looked to DC Wright and Constable Moffat, who nodded approval of the plan.

  ‘It’s a long walk up to the house, mind,’ Knox was saying.

  ‘But if we take a car, he’s bound to hear it.’

  ‘We can take one up so far and walk the rest,’ suggested Moffat. ‘That way the exit road’s good and blocked. I wouldn’t fancy wandering up that bloody road in the dark only to have him come racing towards me in that car of his.’

  ‘Okay, agreed, we’ll take a car.’ Rebus turned to DC Wright. ‘You stay on the gate, son. Moffat here knows the layout of the house.’ Wright looked snubbed, but Moffat perked up at the news. ‘Right,’ said Rebus, ‘let’s go.’

  *

  They took Knox’s car, leaving Moffat’s parked across the entrance. Knox had taken one look at Rebus’s heap and then shaken his head.

  ‘Best take mine, eh?’

  He drove slowly, Rebus in the front beside him, Moffat in the back. The car had a nice quiet engi
ne, but all the same . . . all around was silence. Any noise would travel. Rebus actually began to pray for a sudden storm, thunder and rain, for anything that would give them sound-cover.

  ‘I enjoyed that book,’ said Moffat, his head just behind Rebus’s.

  ‘What book?’

  ‘Fish Out of Water.’

  ‘Christ, I’d forgotten all about it.’

  ‘Cracking story,’ said Moffat.

  ‘How much further?’ asked Knox. ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘There’s a bend to the left then another to the right,’ said Moffat. ‘We better stop after the second one. It’s only another couple of hundred yards.’

  They parked, opening the doors and leaving them open. Knox produced two large rubber torches from the glove compartment. ‘I was a cub scout,’ he explained. ‘Be prepared and all that.’ He handed one torch to Rebus and kept the other. ‘Moffat here eats his carrots, he doesn’t need one. Right, what’s the plan now?’

  ‘Let’s see how things look at the house, then I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  They set off in a line. After about fifty yards, Rebus turned off his torch. It was no longer necessary: all the lights in and around the lodge seemed to be burning. They stopped just before the clearing, peering through what cover there was. The Saab was parked outside the front door. Its boot was open. Rebus turned to Moffat.

  ‘Remember, there’s a back door? Circle around and cover it.’

  ‘Right.’ The constable moved off the road and into the forest, disappearing from sight.

  ‘Meantime, let’s check the car first, then take a look through the windows.’

  Knox nodded. They left their cover and crept forwards. The boot itself was empty. Nothing on the car’s back seat either. Lights were on in the living room and the front bedroom, but there was no sign of anyone. Knox pointed with his torch towards the door. He tried the handle. The door opened a crack. He pushed it a little further. The hall was empty. They waited a moment, listening. There was a sudden eruption of noise, drums and guitar chords. Knox jumped back. Rebus rested a calming hand on his shoulder, then retreated to look again through the living room window. The stereo. He could see its LEDs pulsing. The cassette player, probably on automatic replay. A tape had been winding back while they’d approached the house. Now it was playing.

  Early Stones. ‘Paint It Black’. Rebus nodded. ‘He’s in there,’ he said to himself. My secret vice, Inspector. One of many. At any rate, it meant he might not have heard the car’s approach, and now the music was on again he might not even hear them entering the house.

  So they entered. Moffat was covering the kitchen, so Rebus headed directly upstairs, Knox behind him. There was fine white powder on the wooden banister, leftovers from the dusting the house had been given by forensics. Up the stairs . . . and on to the landing. What was that smell? What was that smell?

  ‘Petrol,’ whispered Knox.

  Yes, petrol. The bedroom door was closed. The music seemed louder up here than downstairs. Thump-thump-thump of drum and bass. Clashing guitar and sitar. And those cheesegrater vocals.

  Petrol.

  Rebus leaned back and kicked in the door. It swung open and stayed open. Rebus took in the scene. Gregor Jack standing there, and against the wall a bound and gagged figure, its face puffy, forehead bloody. Ronald Steele. Gagged? No, not exactly a gag. Scraps of paper seemed to fill his mouth, scraps torn from the Sunday papers on the bed, all the stories which had started with his plotting. Well, Jack had made him eat his words.

  Petrol.

  The can lay empty on its side. The room was reeking. Steele looked to have been drenched in the stuff, or was it just sweat? And Gregor Jack standing there, his face at first full of mischief, but then turning, turning, softening, softening into shame. Shame and guilt. Guilt at being caught.

  All of this Rebus took in in a second. But it took less time than that for Jack to strike the match and drop it.

  The carpet caught immediately, and then Jack was flying forwards, knocking Rebus off balance, powering past Knox, heading for the stairs. The flames were moving too fast. Too fast to do anything. Rebus grabbed Steele by his feet and started to drag him towards the door. Dragging him of necessity through the fire itself. If Steele was soaked in petrol . . . Well, no time to think about that. But it was sweat, that was all. The fire licked at him, but it didn’t suddenly engulf the body.

  Out into the hallway. Knox was already pounding down the stairs, following Jack. The bedroom was an inferno now, the bed like a kind of pyre in the centre of it. Rebus went back and glanced in. The mounted cow’s head above the bed had caught and was crackling. He grabbed the door handle and dragged the door shut, thanking God he hadn’t kicked it off its hinges in the first place . . .

  It was a struggle, but he managed to haul Steele to his feet. Blood was caked on the face, and one eye had swollen shut. The other eye had tears in it. Paper was spilling from his mouth as he tried to speak. Rebus made a perfunctory attempt at loosening the knots. It was baler twine, and tight as tight could be. Christ, his head was hurting. He couldn’t think why. He hefted the taller man on to his shoulder and started down the stairs.

  At some point, Steele disgorged the paper from his mouth. His first words were: ‘Your hair’s on fire!’

  So it was, at the nape of the neck. Rebus patted his head with his free hand. The back of his head was crispy, like strands of breakfast cereal. And something else: it was hurting like blazes.

  They were at the bottom of the stairs now. Rebus dumped Steele on to the floor then straightened up. There was a tidal sound in his ears, and his eyes fogged over for a moment. His heart was thumping in sympathy with the rock music. ‘I’ll get a knife from the kitchen,’ he said. Entering the kitchen, he saw that the back door was wide open. There were noises from outside, shouts, but indistinct. Then a figure stumbled into view. It was Moffat. He was holding both hands to his nose, covering the nose like a protective mask. Blood was pouring down his wrists and chin. He lifted the mask away to speak.

  ‘The bastard butted me!’ Flecks of blood flew from his mouth and his nostrils. ‘Butted me!’ You could tell he thought it wasn’t fair play.

  ‘You’ll live,’ said Rebus.

  ‘The sergeant’s gone after him.’

  Rebus pointed to the hall behind him. ‘Steele’s in there. Find a knife and cut him loose, then both of you get out.’ He pushed past Moffat and out of the back door. Light from the kitchen flooded the immediate scene, but beyond that was darkness. He’d dropped his torch up in the bedroom, and now cursed the fact. Then, eyes adjusting to the changing light, he ran across the small clearing and into the forest beyond.

  More haste, less speed. He moved carefully past trunks and bushes and saplings. Briars tugged at him, but they were a minor nuisance. His main worry was that he didn’t know where he was heading. The ground was sloping upwards, that much he could tell. As long as he kept moving upwards with it, he wouldn’t be chasing his own tail. His foot caught on something and he fell against a tree. The breath left him. His shirt was wringing wet, his eyes stinging from a mixture of recent smoke and present sweat. He paused. He listened.

  ‘Jack! Don’t be stupid! Jack!’

  It was Knox. Up ahead. A good distance ahead, but not impossible. Rebus took a deep breath and started walking. Miraculously, he came out of the forest and into a larger clearing. The slope seemed steeper here, the ground sprawling with bracken and gorse and other low spiky plants. He caught a sudden flash of light: Knox’s torch. Way over to the right of him and slightly uphill. Rebus began jogging, lifting his legs high to avoid the worst of the undergrowth. All the same, something kept tearing at his trouser-legs and his ankles. Stinging and scratching. Then there were patches of short grass, areas where quicker progress was possible – or would have been possible if he’d been fitter and younger. Ahead of him, the torch moved in a circle. The meaning was clear: Knox had lost his quarry. Instead of continuing t
o head for the beam of light, Rebus swung away from it. If it were possible for only two men to fan out, then that’s what Rebus was trying to ensure they did, widening the arc of the search.

  He came to the top of the rise, and the ground levelled out. He got the feeling that in daytime it would make a bleak picture. There was nothing here but stunted wilderness, hardly fit for the hardiest sheep. Way ahead a shadow rose into the sky, some hill-range or other. The wind, which had dried his shirt but chilled him to the marrow, now dropped. Jesus, his head was hurting. Like sunburn but a hundred times worse. He stared up at the sky. The outlines of the clouds were visible. The weather was clearing. A sound had replaced the whistling of the wind in his ears.

  The sound of running water.

  It grew louder as he moved forwards. He had lost Knox’s torchlight now, and was conscious of being alone; conscious, too, that if he strayed too far, he might not find his way back. A route wrongly taken could leave him heading towards nothing but hill and forest. He glanced back. The line of trees was still just about visible, though the house lights beyond were not.

  ‘Jack! Jack!’ Knox’s voice seemed miles away. Rebus decided that he would skirt round towards it. If Gregor Jack was out there, let him freeze to death. The rescue services would find him tomorrow . . .

  The running water was much closer now, and the ground beneath his feet was becoming rockier, the vegetation sparse. The water was somewhere below him. He stopped again. The shapes and shades in front of him . . . they didn’t make sense. It was as if the land were folding in on itself. Just then, a huge chunk of cloud moved away from the moon, the large, nearly full moon. There was light now, and Rebus saw that he was standing not four feet from a sheer drop of five or six yards, a drop into a dark, twisting river. There was a noise to his right. He turned his head towards it. A figure was staggering forwards, bent over nearly double from exhaustion, its arms swinging loose and almost touching the ground. An ape, he thought at first. He looks just like an ape.

  Gregor Jack was panting hoarsely, almost moaning from effort. He wasn’t watching where he was going; all he knew was that he had to keep moving.