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In a House of Lies: The Brand New Rebus Thriller (Inspector Rebus 22)

Page 24

by Ian Rankin


  ‘I’m fine,’ Rebus assured her. The living room was cramped, stuff everywhere – mugs and dirty plates, a clothes horse draped with laundry. Brie lifted a dozing black cat by the scruff of its neck, offering the chair to Rebus. Larry Huston sat in the chair opposite. It looked as frayed as its occupant. The spectacles must have been a two-for-one deal: Huston’s were identical to his daughter’s, right down to the smudges and smears.

  ‘I’ll take a cup, Brie,’ he said.

  ‘There’s a surprise,’ she snapped back, but she turned and left the room anyway. The brown wallpaper was starting to part company with the walls, and the floor-to-ceiling shelf unit would need a dust before any self-respecting skip would accept it.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Huston rasped from behind a cough. ‘Proceeds of crime and all that …’

  He’d be in his early seventies, hair scraped across the dome of his head, buttoned cardigan sagging, slippers split at the join between sole and upper. The room smelled faintly of urine – Rebus hoped it was the cat’s. Huston’s face was blotchy and his teeth stained by nicotine. He lit up while Rebus watched. Rebus was surprised to find he wasn’t even remotely tempted, not that Huston was offering. He slid a hand into his pocket, just managing to stop himself bringing out a handkerchief to hold over his face. No way of knowing what germs were floating around; maybe the smoke would kill them.

  ‘Christie still at the Bar-L?’ Huston was asking.

  ‘Transferred to Saughton.’

  ‘Never met the lad, but I know who he is.’

  ‘And what he is, I dare say,’ Rebus offered. ‘Sort you might have worked for once upon a time.’

  ‘That was then, back when safe-cracking was a noble pursuit. Never any violence, you see, not on my part. Get me into an office or jeweller’s and I could get you what it was you wanted.’

  ‘How many times did you get caught?’

  ‘Too many. Not always my own fault. Snitches played a part. Deals done when stuff was recovered. Suddenly everybody wants to talk and my name was always going to be mentioned, because I was never the sort to threaten retribution.’ He paused, lost to memory, Rebus content to bide his time. Then: ‘Ever heard of Johnny Ramensky?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Look him up in the history books. Most famous safe-breaker we ever produced. Gentle Johnny they called him, because he never used violence either. Turned war hero and got himself immortalised at the Commando Memorial. Like I say, a noble pursuit.’

  ‘Is he rambling again?’ Brie had shuffled into the room, bringing a mug of muddy-looking tea. She placed it on the arm of her father’s chair. She seemed about to loiter, so Rebus asked if he could have just five minutes with Larry. Sniffing, she left again, closing the door with a bang.

  ‘She’s a good girl,’ Huston said. ‘Took me in when there was nowhere else. The boys at Saughton always teased me, said they knew I’d stashed some loot somewhere that would see me through to the end of my days. Fat chance. Wife got through every last bit of it while I was inside, then went and snuffed it before I could wring her neck.’ He placed his smouldering cigarette on the edge of an ashtray and blew across the surface of the tea before taking a slurp.

  ‘I wanted to ask you about Morris Gerald Cafferty,’ Rebus said.

  ‘Big Ger?’

  ‘You did a few jobs for him.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Darryl Christie says so.’

  Huston digested this, weighing up his options. ‘Well, what if I did?’ he eventually asked.

  ‘You knew Cafferty around 2006?’

  ‘My memory’s not what it was.’

  ‘Darryl will be disappointed to hear that.’

  ‘Not half as disappointed as Big Ger would be if I started shooting my mouth off. And last time I looked, Darryl was behind bars while Cafferty’s walking around, meaning he could knock on my door any time he liked.’

  Huston had grown so agitated, tea was sloshing on to one of his trouser legs. Rebus rose from his chair and stood over him. ‘What is it you’re scared of, Larry?’

  And that was when he saw it – on the floor to one side of Huston’s chair: an unkempt pile of recent newspapers, each open at the latest stories about the Stuart Bloom case. Rebus reached down and held one up in front of Huston’s face.

  ‘Why the interest, Larry? What is it you know?’ He let the paper fall on to Huston’s lap and placed both clenched fists against the arms of the chair, so that he towered over the man, blocking his view of the rest of the room. Huston’s world now consisted of nothing but John Rebus.

  ‘I’m not a cop these days,’ Rebus intoned. ‘I’m a civilian – old, washed up. But I know plenty who are still on the force and if I say the word, they’ll come down on you hard. So you either tell me or you tell them. It doesn’t go any further, you’ve my word on that. But if I have to bring in CID, you might end up back inside. Clean your glasses and look in a mirror, you’ll see that would almost certainly be the death of you. So just for my own satisfaction – what do you know about Stuart Bloom?’

  Huston’s voice when he eventually spoke was tremulous. ‘This stays between us?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘How do I know I can trust you?’

  ‘Because I’m giving you my word.’

  Huston gave a long sigh and cleared his throat. ‘The film guy had come to Big Ger, wanting a favour.’

  ‘The film guy being …?’

  ‘Jackie Ness. He wanted to know if Big Ger knew anyone who could crack a safe. My name came up, so I met with the lad.’

  ‘The lad being Stuart Bloom?’

  Huston managed a weak nod. ‘He wanted us to do an office belonging to Adrian Brand.’

  ‘And did you?’ Rebus had removed the mug from Huston’s shaking hand, placing it on the carpet next to the newspapers. There was another nod. ‘Just so I’m clear,’ Rebus said quietly, ‘with Stuart Bloom’s assistance, you broke in and emptied the safe?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where was this exactly?’

  ‘West End, just off Palmerston Place. Brand’s company office at the time.’

  ‘No alarm system?’

  ‘The lad dealt with it and got me in, good as gold.’

  ‘Cameras?’

  ‘Aye, but we wore balaclavas and kept our traps shut.’

  ‘And what did you take?’

  Huston was shaking his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You can do better than that, Larry.’

  ‘I really can’t. Once the safe was open, the lad stepped in, stuffed everything into a bag he’d brought with him.’

  ‘What sort of bag?’

  ‘Just from a supermarket. White polythene.’

  ‘You must have got a look, even for a few seconds?’

  ‘Folders. I don’t think there was anything except folders. No drugs, jewellery, cash. All I saw was cardboard files.’

  ‘So what happened after?’

  ‘I got paid.’ The answer came with an accompanying shrug.

  ‘You never saw Stuart Bloom again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did Cafferty say?’

  ‘I never saw him. I was picked up by your lot a week later for a factory I’d done a few months before. Got three years nine months. Big Ger sent a few quid to the house, but he never came to see me.’

  ‘And when you got out?’

  ‘I think he’d decided I was a liability. World was changing anyway – more sophisticated alarms and too much CCTV. Jewellers’ shops were like Fort Knox.’ He reached down to retrieve his mug. ‘Got what you came for?’

  ‘To be honest, I didn’t know what I was going to get.’ Rebus had wandered over to the window and was staring out at the row of houses opposite.

  ‘It was bad enough when the lad went AWOL,’ Huston
mused, swapping teacup for cigarette, ‘but then when they found him in his car …’

  ‘You think it’s why he was killed? The office break-in?’

  ‘It happened two nights before he disappeared – what do you think?’ He inhaled, exhaled, coughed again, eyes watering. ‘And I’ll tell you something else. Seemed to me it was all too easy. The safe was bog-standard, so much so I almost felt insulted – an old Sargent and Greenleaf, tumbler combination. Plus an alarm system that was a cinch to breach.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  Huston gave another shrug. ‘I thought at first it must be a trap. The lad wasn’t exactly an expert – he said everything he knew about disarming an alarm he got from the internet – but he got us in there almost as if the place had been left unlocked and ready to plunder.’

  Rebus thought for a moment. ‘It was never reported, was it?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘And this was just two nights before Stuart Bloom disappeared?’

  Huston nodded slowly. ‘Had to be Brand who got to him. I reckoned if the lad talked, I’d be in for a doing, too. That jail cell almost came as a relief.’

  35

  Seated kerbside in his Saab, Rebus called Siobhan Clarke.

  ‘Not now, John,’ were her first words.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Ness ambushed Brand last night, didn’t quite manage to break his nose.’

  ‘Ambushed him why?’

  ‘Brand was sending him photos of our SOCOs ripping up Poretoun House.’

  ‘Fair play to him then.’

  ‘I’m not sure the judge will agree. He’s in court right now.’

  ‘And Brand?’

  ‘Home and recuperating.’

  ‘You might need to question them both. I’ve just been talking to a peter who worked a job with Stuart Bloom.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Safe-blower – peter is what we used to call them.’

  ‘Back in Dickensian times, you mean?’

  ‘If that’s your attitude …’

  He heard her exhale. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Already been a long day. So this safe-blower …?’

  ‘Ness asked Cafferty if he knew anyone. Cafferty put him in touch with Larry Huston – that’s the peter. Met with Stuart Bloom and helped him open the safe in Brand’s office. According to Huston, they emptied the contents into a carrier bag and that’s the last he saw of it. Nothing like that was in the car, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So we can add it to the missing laptop and mobile. And Siobhan, all this happened two nights before Bloom went AWOL.’

  ‘Brand didn’t report the break-in,’ Clarke stated. ‘It would have been in the file, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I’ve certainly no memory of it.’

  ‘So the night Bloom met with Jackie Ness, they’d have been discussing the break-in, maybe looking at whatever was in the safe?’

  ‘I’d think so.’

  ‘Understandable Ness never felt able to tell us that.’ Clarke paused for a moment. ‘John, dare I ask how you found this guy Huston?’

  ‘I have my sources.’

  ‘You want Cafferty, don’t you? You want to be able to tie him to Bloom?’

  Rebus gripped the steering wheel with his free hand. ‘He is tied to Bloom! For one thing, he knew Jackie Ness, and for another, he knew the safe was going to be opened. Don’t you think he’d be curious about its contents? Maybe stuff linking Brand to the Irish gangster?’

  ‘Conor Maloney?’

  ‘Information is power, Siobhan. Cafferty didn’t just bludgeon his way to the top.’ Rebus’s eyes were on the house he’d just left. Brie Huston had pushed aside the net curtain in the living room and was watching him.

  ‘So we need to bring in Huston as well as everybody else?’ Clarke asked without too much enthusiasm.

  ‘Planes stacking overhead, are they?’

  ‘One interview room may not be nearly enough. But give me Huston’s address.’

  Rebus reeled it off. Yes, he’d promised to keep the safe-blower out of it, but that had been just another little white lie.

  ‘So who else is in the firing line today?’ he asked Clarke as he started the ignition.

  ‘Your old colleague Doug Newsome this morning; Steele and Edwards this afternoon. Plus we need to ask Ness about the attack on Brand – and Brand, too, come to think of it. Lady Brand tells us Ness said something like “A man can take only so much – you should know that by now.”’

  ‘Interesting phrasing.’

  ‘Then we’ve got Ralph Hanratty – he used to own Rogues. And that’s just for starters.’

  ‘Sounds like a perfect storm. Thing to remember is, every storm has a still centre. Find your way there and you’ll crack the case.’

  ‘Now he’s giving me weather reports.’

  Rebus could sense her tired smile. ‘When you’ve spoken to Huston, will you bring Cafferty in?’

  ‘We might.’

  ‘Any chance of me tagging along?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I still need to be questioned, you know – formally, I mean. Only chat I’ve had with you lot was back at the start, when you didn’t even know who Stuart Bloom was.’

  ‘So you’re invited to make your statement and that just happens to coincide with Cafferty being in the building?’

  ‘Bingo.’

  ‘No promises, John.’

  ‘I’m here when you need me, Shiv. And trust me, you will find that still centre.’

  He ended the call and considered his options. By the time he reached Restalrig, it would be almost lunchtime, the local high school disgorging kids, friends of Ellis and Kristen among them. Local chip shop, bakery and corner store – that was where they’d congregate, and maybe the play park, too. Rebus got going, thinking of Darryl Christie. Cafferty being questioned – it wasn’t much but it was a start. Would Christie keep his side of the bargain and make sure Ellis Meikle was kept safe?

  And why was Rebus so anxious that he should?

  Gamble and Yeats took the Doug Newsome interview, armed with information gleaned from Fox’s trawl of the original case files. Fox didn’t look particularly happy, despite the promise of a listen to the recording. Tess Leighton offered him half her Twix, but he shook his head. Jackie Ness meantime had been fined £250 and warned not to go within a hundred metres of Brand, his family, his home or place of work. He had left court into a maelstrom of media, only to be plucked out by Sutherland and Reid and taken back to St Leonard’s, solicitor in tow, to be asked about the words Lady Brand had heard him utter.

  Afterwards, in the MIT room, Reid filled them all in. Basically, Ness had no recall of what he’d said. He had been pressed but could only shrug. It had been a moment of madness, the red mist descending – something the judge had taken into account when passing sentence.

  ‘We might need to question him again,’ Clarke interrupted, explaining about Larry Huston. ‘And Sir Adrian, come to that.’

  ‘So Bloom handed the contents of the safe to Jackie Ness?’ Crowther asked.

  ‘Or hung on to it,’ Tess Leighton argued.

  ‘Unless Cafferty got hold of it, of course,’ Clarke added.

  ‘It’s a bloody good motive for murder,’ Callum Reid agreed, brushing doughnut sugar from one trouser leg.

  They all turned as Gamble and Yeats entered the room, Gamble handing a copy of the Newsome interview to Fox with the words ‘Knock yourself out.’

  ‘You will be shocked to hear,’ Yeats told the room, ‘that Mr Newsome reckons he did everything by the book. No faked records, no skipped interviews with suspects, no sleeping on the job. He did, however, have a few harsh words for Mary Skelton and John Rebus.’

  ‘Did you ask him about Steele and Edwards?’

 
‘Said he barely knew them. They were uniforms, well below his pay grade – his words, not mine. For what it’s worth, his thinking at the time mirrored that of his boss – gay love triangle ends in tragedy. He took part in one of the raids on Rogues and didn’t like what he saw. Proper little homophobe is our friend Newsome.’

  Clarke’s phone was vibrating in her pocket. She checked the screen and headed for the peace and quiet of the corridor.

  ‘Mr Speke,’ she said, answering. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘It’s probably nothing, Inspector, but I was turning things over half the night and I remembered something. We shot a thriller for Jackie Ness a few weeks before Zombies v Bravehearts. It was supposed to be erotic; maybe it was to watch, but not to make. Female cop who jumps into bed with suspects and witnesses. That’s how she gets them to talk. But one of them’s a demon or some such nonsense and she ends up half demon and half angel.’

  ‘Sounds riveting. What’s your point?’

  ‘For one scene, Jackie needed handcuffs. He asked if anyone could get hold of some. Ralph Hanratty had been talking about adding some manacles to one of the walls in Rogues – just for a laugh, you know? Manacles and chains and whatnot – not my scene, but Ralph wanted to try it for size.’

  ‘He loaned you some handcuffs?’

  ‘I’m positive they can’t be the ones you found on Stuart. When I took them to Jackie, he thought they looked cheap. They were cheap; I’m not even sure they were proper metal.’

  ‘So you handed them back to Hanratty?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure I did. That’s why I don’t think they can be the ones in the car.’

  ‘What was the film called?’

  ‘Cops v Demons, I think.’

  ‘I should have guessed. Would you have a copy, Mr Speke?’

  ‘Might have a DVD kicking about.’

  ‘Could I send someone to pick it up?’

  ‘If I can find it.’

  ‘Might be helpful to have your fingerprints, too. Just for the process of elimination.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

 

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