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

by Ian Rankin

  ‘I’m saying they’re the ones who leaked to Dougal Kelly.’

  ‘As part of a continuing vendetta against you?’ Mollison smiled with half his mouth.

  ‘I know it was them,’ Clarke continued. ‘And they knew I’d call them out on it, so they got their defence in first.’

  ‘Did you or did you not meet with Kelly?’

  ‘I didn’t know he was going to be there.’

  ‘So you just thought it would be you and Laura Smith – the same reporter who saw you become the focus of an ACU investigation lasting much of last year?’

  ‘I didn’t realise she was on some sort of blacklist – anyone else I’m not supposed to consort with?’

  ‘Siobhan …’ Sutherland was giving her a warning.

  ‘I note,’ Mollison broke in, eyes on Sutherland, ‘that none of this seems to be coming as a surprise to you, Graham.’

  ‘DI Clarke volunteered the information, sir. She knew how it might look and wanted me to know.’

  ‘You didn’t see fit to pass the news along?’

  ‘Apologies for that.’

  ‘Our media office are apoplectic. They’ve got reporters demanding to know why we would talk to an incomer like Kelly and keep them in the dark.’

  That figured, Clarke thought. With Mollison it was all about the public image.

  ‘All I can say, sir,’ Sutherland went on, ‘is that I’m minded to accept DI Clarke’s version of events. Someone leaked, but not her.’

  ‘And keeping her on the case won’t poison the atmosphere within MIT?’

  ‘DI Clarke has earned our trust, sir.’

  Clarke kept her eyes on the wall behind Mollison, her face betraying nothing.

  Mollison stayed silent, then gave a sigh. ‘ACU are champing at the bit to open an investigation.’

  ‘Surprise, surprise,’ Clarke couldn’t help muttering, earning her another hard stare.

  ‘From what I’ve heard,’ Mollison said icily, ‘I can’t see any reason for that investigation not to happen.’

  ‘Except,’ Sutherland broke in, ‘that it would interfere with the inquiry, just as we’ve reached a critical point. And hasn’t Police Scotland aired enough of its dirty laundry in public of late? Surely ACU can wait till the case is wrapped up?’

  ‘When someone is drip-feeding evidence to outside parties?’

  ‘No one from inside my team, sir.’

  ‘Who else then? Who else does Kelly know? Who has he met with?’ Mollison held up a thumb. ‘He knows Laura Smith – and who is it she knows?’ His eyes were on Clarke again.

  ‘He knows ACU too,’ she stated. ‘They’ve been giving him titbits from the original inquiry, covering their arses by grassing up everyone else.’

  ‘You can prove that, can you?’

  ‘My word against theirs,’ Clarke conceded. ‘Right up to the point Dougal Kelly goes public with it.’

  Mollison grew thoughtful again. ‘Maybe ACU should be having a chat with Mr Kelly.’

  ‘Oh aye, that’ll go well.’ Clarke just about succeeded in not rolling her eyes. Sutherland was squeezing her elbow with his fingers.

  ‘Is there anything else, sir?’ he enquired.

  Mollison considered this, then made a brushing motion with one hand.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Sutherland said. He gave Clarke the chance to say the same, but all she did was free herself from his grasp and open the door.

  Outside, he puffed out his cheeks and exhaled.

  ‘Thanks for sticking up for me,’ Clarke said. ‘Even if it did mean telling a few untruths.’

  ‘I dare say it’s not the first time Mollison’s been lied to.’

  ‘I don’t want you getting in trouble on my account.’

  ‘I’m only protecting that game of pitch ’n’ putt you promised me. Besides, ACU do seem badly to want another crack at you.’

  They had exited the station and were in its rear car park, where Clarke’s Astra waited. Another unmarked car sat at the end of a line of patrol vehicles – the black Audi, its driver’s-side window lowered, giving a view of Brian Steele.

  ‘Speak of the devil,’ Clarke commented. Then, to Sutherland: ‘I need a word with him, and I’d rather you weren’t a witness.’

  ‘I’m a big boy, Siobhan.’

  ‘Even so …’ She began to walk purposefully towards the Audi, leaning in towards it so she was face to face with Steele.

  ‘DI Clarke,’ he said with a sneer. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘There’s one thing you need to know,’ she told him, her voice quiet but firm. ‘When you come for me – if you try coming for me – don’t think I won’t be yelling from the rooftops who it really was who spoke to Dougal Kelly.’

  ‘Would that be just before you jump?’

  ‘Think I’d give you the satisfaction?’

  ‘Your phone’s ringing,’ he said, gesturing towards her jacket pocket. Clarke dug the phone out and held it to her face. Her dentist. She waited for the call to ring out.

  ‘Nothing urgent?’

  ‘Just a wrong number.’

  He tried for a solicitous look. ‘Often get those, do you? Annoying, I’d guess.’

  Clarke tried not to let her sense of satisfaction show. He’d fallen for it. As far as he was concerned, she was still being harassed by Dallas Meikle.

  ‘You’d better go see your pal Mollison,’ she told Steele. ‘Press your case again.’ She leaned further into the window. ‘I’m ready for anything you bring, you smug, bent-as-a-paper-clip cock.’

  She walked back to where Graham Sutherland was waiting. Behind her, she could hear Steele chuckling.

  ‘Must have been a good joke,’ Sutherland commented as she unlocked the car.

  ‘An absolute killer,’ Clarke agreed.

  45

  Rebus was parked outside the gates of Billie’s school. He’d arrived early, which was just as well. Soon after, parents had started turning up, meaning the street was now lined with cars waiting to give lifts home. He was thinking about families and the lies they told each other. From the outside, it was hard to know what was happening behind their walls and curtained windows. Even once you’d crossed the threshold, there’d be secrets unshared. In an age of the internet and mobile phones, kids and their parents lived ever more separate lives, sharing confidences but also hiding bits of their true selves behind masks. It had been hard enough in the past to read people, but these days you had to push your way through so much that was fake and misleading. Modern policing fell into that trap, heading straight for technology – computers and CCTV – to replace old skills and the occasional inspired guess or piece of intuition.

  A CD was playing quietly on the Saab’s antiquated sound system, not Arvo Pärt this time but Brian Eno, another gift from Deborah Quant to help his ‘mindfulness’. When she’d explained the concept to him, he’d argued that it was something he’d always done, that it used to be known simply as ‘thinking’. He realised he needed to call her, fix another supper date – maybe even a sleepover. But meantime his phone was buzzing.

  ‘Hiya, Siobhan,’ he said, answering. ‘Any more flak to report?’

  ‘Did you know that Stuart Bloom’s flat was broken into a week after he disappeared?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Another balls-up by the investigation. How about a drug dealer called Gram?’

  ‘As in Gram Parsons?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He was a musician, died young.’

  ‘So it might have been a nickname?’

  ‘Maybe this Gram guy was a fan of the original. He was a dealer?’

  ‘To most of the people working on Jackie Ness’s films.’

  ‘I’d remember if that name had come up.’

  ‘He’s the one who supplied the handcuffs.’

&n
bsp; Rebus thought for a moment. ‘Cafferty’s gang were in charge of the east coast back then. I doubt he’d have countenanced competition, no matter how minor-league.’

  ‘I’ve been discussing that with Malcolm. It got me thinking. A deadly overdose practically on the doorstep of Rogues. We go in hard on the club, cracking down but finding nothing, because the club’s been tipped off by you.’

  ‘I’ll deny that, of course,’ Rebus broke in.

  ‘But did you do it to save Stuart and Derek’s bacon, or were you goading Cafferty? I mean, anybody those raids flushed out would likely have been selling on Cafferty’s behalf.’

  ‘You’re over-thinking things, Shiv – remember the still centre?’

  ‘You got a journalist put in hospital, John.’

  Rebus gave his bottom lip a bit of a gnaw. ‘Collateral damage,’ he eventually said. ‘Malcolm’s good at digging, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he is. Should I ask Cafferty about this Gram guy?’

  Rebus thought for a moment. ‘There’s no other way of identifying him?’

  ‘I suppose we could re-interview everyone who ever played a role behind or in front of the cameras in one of Ness’s flicks.’

  ‘I’m hearing a lack of enthusiasm.’

  ‘I’m beginning to think this could have been wrapped up back in the day.’

  ‘If we hadn’t been such a bunch of lazy, useless, conniving bastards, you mean?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘You’re forgetting – we didn’t have a body.’

  ‘What you did have were two powerful businessmen, neither of whom you landed a glove on.’

  ‘We lacked that little thing called evidence, Siobhan.’

  He heard her give a long sigh. ‘That was by no means the only thing you lacked, John,’ she said, ending the call.

  Rebus couldn’t find it in him to feel slighted. She was right, after all. He had lied about not passing information to Alex Shankley. He’d lied, too, to cover Skelton and Rawlston’s arses. He’d turned a blind eye to the manifest shortcomings of Newsome and the likes of Steele and Edwards. Instead, he’d made more frequent visits to various pubs, using alcohol to blur everything and make it all right. Less than a year till his retirement, he’d begun to fear that the job was just that – a job rather than a vocation. He couldn’t solve every crime, and even if he did, crime would keep happening, so what was the point? Cafferty and the other bosses – the Starks in Glasgow, the Bartollis in Aberdeen – would go on and on. There would always be drugs and stabbings and domestics, and the odd person whose wiring wasn’t right. People would always be rapacious and lustful, envious and angry. He had forgotten about the journalist, the one he’d zeroed in on because the kid was hungry and easy to manipulate, one of those reporters who got a buzz from hanging out with cops. After the beating, the kid had slunk off home to his parents. Rebus hoped he had flourished. Then again, so what if he hadn’t? Rebus couldn’t even put a name to him.

  He chewed some gum and watched through the windscreen as the school began to disgorge its cargo at the end of another day. A trickle at first – the keenest to escape – and then a mass of gossiping, shrieking teenagers. Boys nudged and shoved each other, showing off for the girls, who tried their best to look bored or unimpressed. They were busy on their phones, or talking among themselves. So many of them, Rebus worried he might not see Billie.

  But then she was there, to one side of a line of four. All girls, all her age. She carried the same backpack they all did. Short, tight skirts, black tights on spindly legs. She was animated, turning with a half-smile towards a lad who had flicked her curls. Her friends huddled as if to mark his effort out of ten. He didn’t say anything, just returned to two of his own friends. There was so much energy emanating from the various groupings, Rebus could feel it as a physical force, pushing against him. He knew he was looking at the future, but also that the futures these various young people imagined for themselves might not work out the way they hoped. There’d be tears and traumas along the way, mistakes made, promises broken. Some would marry their sweethearts and live to regret it. Others would break apart. A few would trouble the police in later years. There’d be early deaths from disease and maybe even a suicide or two. Right now, none of that would seem feasible to them. They were alive in and of the moment – and that was all that mattered.

  Watching Billie, he saw a girl who was relaxed and bright, and who had made friends. He thought of her father’s words back in their kitchen: Best thing I ever did was ask if she wanted to come live with me. Her old school was rubbish, grades dropping … Yes, if your kid was unhappy, you’d want to change it. If their grades were falling and they were becoming sullen and withdrawn. Hard to imagine Billie like that now. She seemed almost to glow. They all did.

  Having seen enough, Rebus picked up his phone and called Cafferty.

  ‘You again,’ Cafferty said.

  ‘Me again,’ Rebus confirmed.

  ‘It was Christie, wasn’t it? He’s the one who gave you Larry Huston?’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘I hear I’ve become a bit of an obsession. Plus, Christie’s just been moved to Saughton, and that was Huston’s home from home. Lot of chat goes on in prisons, Rebus.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Yes you fucking would. I hear you went to Saughton yourself. To see Ellis Meikle, I’m guessing. But along the way you had a little one-to-one with Mr Darryl Christie. If he can’t get to me, he wants you to have a go. Fucking good luck with that.’

  ‘I hope you’re not threatening Larry Huston. Anything happens to him, there’d be no one but you in the frame.’

  ‘Huston’s a nobody. There was no break-in – go ask Sir Adrian.’

  ‘You know damned fine that’s already been done. Tell me this then: whatever happened to Gram?’

  ‘Gram?’

  Rebus spelled it for him. ‘He was a drug dealer, so there’s a better than even chance he was one of yours or on your radar.’

  ‘I’m drawing a blank.’

  ‘He sold to Jackie Ness’s crew. I thought you visited the set?’

  ‘Nobody was doing drugs while I was there.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘I think I’d have noticed. Got a description for this Gram?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Could you have heard wrong? Maybe Graeme with an e?’

  ‘Spill.’

  It took Cafferty all of ten seconds to make his mind up. ‘The kid who OD’d, I looked into it. The name I kept hearing was Graeme. Used to deal a bit in places like Rogues. Made himself scarce after the kid died.’

  ‘Where was he sourcing the stuff?’

  ‘Aberdeen maybe.’

  ‘I remember you trying that line with us at the time so we’d go after the Bartollis for you.’

  ‘Aberdeen, Glasgow … wherever he got the stuff, it wasn’t from me.’

  ‘Didn’t really matter, did it? It cost you Conor Maloney’s friendship anyway.’

  ‘How come you always know where to stick your pins in me?’

  ‘Oh aye, you’re hurting.’

  There was a chuckle on the other end of the phone. Then it went dead.

  46

  Late afternoon in Leith. The MIT office had made room for two visitors. Aubrey Hamilton had brought the soil specialist from the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen. The specialist’s name was Professor Lee-Anne Inglis. She was in her early forties, with long brown hair, parted and tucked behind one ear. She had come armed with data. There were charts and the results of chemical analyses. She explained to the room about ‘soil fingerprints’ and the records she had compiled from hundreds upon hundreds of samples. A few crumbs on the sole of a shoe or embedded in a tyre could pinpoint where that shoe or tyre had recently been. Soil, vegetation, pollen – all were crucial. S
omething the size of a grain of rice could be as unique as a fingerprint.

  ‘I used cross-matching first,’ she explained, holding up one of her charts. ‘Then gas chromatography and other tests.’

  Chairs for her and Hamilton had been placed in the centre of the room, so that they were ringed by the MIT officers. Fox, with the rapt attention of a school swot, was studying the stapled sheets that had been handed out. Gamble, in contrast, had barely glanced at his before scratching his head and shrugging his shoulders in Phil Yeats’s direction.

  Graham Sutherland was perched on one corner of his desk, Callum Reid on another, while Leighton and Crowther stayed behind their own desks and Siobhan Clarke stood by the map on the far wall, arms folded, listening intently. Ness and Brodie were long gone. The initial spotting of the two extras had been the only one. She didn’t know why the lawyer had looked so furious – he was bound to be billing Ness by the hour.

  ‘You’ve got us a location for the car?’ Sutherland nudged.

  ‘Not a precise one, no,’ Inglis intoned. ‘That was why I was keen to give you the information in person. It’s not for lack of effort.’ She held up her own copy of the handout in support of this. ‘But what I can say is that before it was in those woods, the car was on farmland of some kind.’

  ‘Farmland?’

  ‘The deposits show straw and animal manure below the loam and nettles picked up when it rolled down into the gully, the loam itself a good deal fresher. I’d say the car sat where you found it for no more than three years, and before that was in a field or a farm or a byre – the faecal matter is bovine. The soil type is from the Scottish lowlands, probably east coast rather than west. The sample was at least ten years old, maybe more.’

  Clarke studied the map. ‘So all you’re asking us to do is search every farm in lowland Scotland?’

  ‘For a car that’s no longer even there,’ Sutherland added.

  ‘I’d suggest,’ Inglis went on, ignoring their tone, ‘the car was driven from the farmland to the woods. The tyres had picked up bits of grit and stone found on tarmacked roads, but without the earlier deposits becoming dislodged.’