by Ian Rankin
‘Not the NHS, then?’ Rebus guessed.
‘Not a bloody chance.’ Traynor turned to study him. ‘You sure you need to speak to Jessica? You can’t just tell me?’
‘Afraid not.’ Rebus could have added: I want to see her reaction. .
Having checked he had key cards to both rooms, Traynor locked his door and knocked on his daughter’s, before sliding the key in and out of its slot.
Her room was smaller, but still had space for a sofa and chairs. There were fresh flowers in a vase on a table. She was wearing a simple dress, bare legs showing bruising from the crash, one ankle strapped. She still wore the neck brace and was lying propped up on the bed, three huge pillows behind her. The TV was on — a channel playing music videos. She muted the volume, then noticed Rebus.
‘Oh,’ she said.
‘Hello again, Ms Traynor.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Something that apparently has to be said in front of both of us,’ her father explained, folding his arms in readiness. Rebus wasn’t going to be invited to sit down, but that suited him fine. He made sure he had both father and daughter in his eyeline before commencing.
‘Earlier today,’ he said, ‘Patrick McCuskey was attacked in his home.’ He left it at that for the moment, content to gauge the reaction of the room. Jessica put a hand to her open mouth as if to stifle a gasp.
‘Forbes McCuskey’s father?’ Owen Traynor asked. ‘The government guy?’
‘The government guy,’ Rebus confirmed, his eyes on Jessica.
‘Is he. . all right?’ she asked.
Rebus nodded towards the TV. ‘News channels probably know more than me.’
She found one; the footage was a report from the Middle East, but a few words on the break-in ran along the bottom of the screen: Scottish Justice Minister in hospital after burglary at his Edinburgh home. .
‘Except we don’t call it burglary up here,’ Rebus said by way of correction.
‘Is Forbes okay?’ Jessica Traynor asked. ‘Was he there when it. .?’
‘Father seems to have been on his own. Do you know the house, Ms Traynor?’
‘I’ve been there a few times.’ She paused. ‘How awful for Bethany.’
‘I’ve just come from the house — not too far from where your car went off the road. You weren’t maybe headed there, or away from there. .?’
‘What are you saying?’ Traynor had taken a step towards Rebus, fists clenching. Rebus held up both hands in a show of surrender.
‘Dad, it’s all right,’ Jessica Traynor intervened. ‘The officer’s only doing his job. .’
But Rebus was holding Owen Traynor’s stare. ‘I don’t suppose you know the house, do you?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Never been there?’
‘No.’
‘Not tempted to have a word with young Forbes about the crash? Maybe you couldn’t find him so decided to give his father a piece of your mind instead?’
‘No.’
‘Only, you’ve not got a car, so I’m guessing it would have been a taxi or a rental, meaning a paper trail. .’
Traynor was shaking his head, slowly and at length.
‘Dad? What’s he saying?’
‘Nothing, Jessica.’ Then, to Rebus: ‘I don’t even know where they live.’
Rebus looked doubtful. ‘When you looked up your daughter’s boyfriend online, a click or two would have taken you to Pat McCuskey. Such a public figure, I’m guessing his home address is out there somewhere.’
A smile flitted across Traynor’s face. He turned towards the bed. ‘He thinks maybe my blood was up and I went to give the McCuskey family a piece of my mind.’
‘But you didn’t, did you, Dad?’
‘I did not,’ Traynor confirmed, turning back to face Rebus. ‘I did not,’ he repeated.
‘Then it’s just a terrible coincidence, isn’t it, Jessica?’ Rebus had his eyes on Traynor’s daughter. She was twisting the TV remote in her hand, staring at it.
‘Coincidence,’ she echoed.
But Rebus could tell, all of a sudden, that she didn’t believe it.
‘He’s in a coma,’ Fox said as Rebus walked back into their shared office. ‘Got him stabilised, though, and not as near to popping his clogs as he was.’
Rebus blinked. ‘How do you know?’
Fox held up his phone, giving it a little wave. ‘The wonder of wi-fi,’ he explained.
‘I barely get a signal on mine,’ Rebus muttered. He looked at the paperwork piled up on every available surface. ‘Someone’s been busy.’
‘Did DCI Page decide you were surplus to requirements on the McCuskey case?’
‘That hurts.’ Rebus studied the paperwork again. The two original boxes had been joined by about ten more. ‘So what have we got here?’
‘Summerhall CID in its entirety, late seventies to mid eighties.’
‘You sure this is everything?’
‘You’re saying stuff will have walked?’
‘I’m saying filing wasn’t always a priority.’
‘Neither was handwriting, judging by what I’ve seen.’
Rebus had opened one file from 1983. He saw his own name at the top of an interview transcript. Domestic abuse at an address in Dumbiedykes. The names of victim and suspect meant nothing to him.
‘So much ancient history,’ he said.
‘Some of the procedures seem not to have changed since the Stone Age,’ Fox agreed.
‘We’re focusing on the Saunders case, though?’
‘The murder of Douglas Merchant, yes.’ Fox placed a hand gently on one thick file.
‘That’s not the stuff we went through yesterday,’ Rebus stated.
‘Freshly disinterred.’
‘Mind if I. .?’
‘Be my guest.’
Rebus picked the file up, feeling its heft. He sat with it, clearing space on the desk in front of him, and opened the cover. ‘Smells of mould,’ he commented.
‘Some of the pages needed to be prised apart.’
‘You’ve taken a look at it, though?’ He watched as Fox nodded. ‘And how often does my name come up?’
‘Hardly at all.’
‘Which is why you don’t mind me going through it?’ Rebus paused. ‘See, if I were a betting man, I’d stick money on you having noted everything in here. That way, if I lift anything, you’ll know — and that’ll be the gen you really need.’
Fox’s face remained inscrutable. ‘Just take a read,’ he said. ‘Then we can talk about it.’
‘I hardly need to,’ Rebus said. ‘I’m not going to forget a case like Douglas Merchant. It near destroyed the Saints and put Stefan Gilmour out of a job.’
‘No harm done in the long run, though — for everyone except the dear departed Mr Merchant.’ Fox pointed towards the file. ‘There are photos in there — family photos. Wife and kid. He had three sisters, too, all of them saying how he always looked after them, right from when they were little. Far as I know, they’re all still with us. Maybe they think of him a few times a week, still missing him. .’
‘You auditioning for daytime TV?’
‘I’m just looking at the reality of the situation. Someone ends up dead, there are ripples — lots of lives affected. It’s not just about the Saints, John. The Saints got a slap on the wrist and that was that.’
Rebus considered this for a moment, then asked when the Solicitor General was going to interview Billy Saunders.
‘Soon. Very soon.’
‘He was a crook, remember — maybe he still is. How will anyone know if he’s spinning them a story?’
Fox shrugged. ‘Not my problem.’
Rebus was skimming the file at random. Some of the badly typed sheets had faded. He remembered the typewriter — the o was so fierce, it punched a hole through paper whenever you hit it. Handwriting was blotchy in some places where damp had got to it. He found a photo of the dead man — a glossy square with a white border. Taken in a pub
somewhere, Merchant hoisting a tumbler of whisky, glassy-eyed and with a gap-toothed grin.
‘Did you know him?’ Fox was asking.
‘Merchant?’ Rebus shook his head, still studying the photograph.
‘But you probably met Billy Saunders, him being the station’s star pupil when it came to snitching?’
‘That wasn’t the way it worked,’ Rebus explained. ‘If you had a contact on the street, you kept him or her to yourself as much as you could. Otherwise one of your colleagues might try a bit of poaching. You’d arrange meetings in parks, or maybe you’d just happen to bump into them in a noisy bar, somewhere you couldn’t be overheard. They’d ask you for a light and drop a name into your ear while you got the match struck. No mobile phones in those days, so meetings could be difficult to arrange. But it had to be face to face — that way you could look them in the eye.’
‘And why would you need to do that?’ Fox sounded genuinely curious.
‘Because usually, when they were giving you a name, there was a reason for it. Could be they just wanted to dump someone in the shit — a competitor maybe, or someone who’d crossed them.’
‘So it wasn’t always just about the cash incentive?’
‘There was never a lot of cash. That was the other thing — some of them did it just for the buzz it gave them. But sometimes that meant they gave you a story for the sake of it.’
‘In other words, fed you a pack of lies?’
Rebus nodded.
‘And who was your snitch, back in those days?’
‘I didn’t really have one. I was just beginning to get the feel for who knew stuff and who didn’t, and who might be willing to pass something my way.’
‘There was a reporter for the Scotsman called Albert Stout. .’
‘I remember him — bane of our lives.’
‘He worked hard on the Merchant case — and a few more besides.’
‘He hated the police.’
‘I get that impression from the stories I’ve read — the slant he puts on them.’
‘He can’t be still alive?’
‘Eighty-seven and living next to a golf course in Gullane.’
‘Bloody hell. He smoked forty a day.’ Rebus paused. ‘You’re going to talk to him?’
‘He’s on my list. As is the pathologist who did the autopsy on Douglas Merchant.’
Rebus sought his memory for the name. ‘Before Professor Gates?’
‘His predecessor, yes — Professor Norman Cuttle, who also happens to be a spry eighty-seven.’
‘You’re nothing if not thorough,’ Rebus said, making sure it didn’t sound too much like a compliment. ‘Before or after you talk to Stefan Gilmour and the others?’
‘Depends on availability. Speaking of which, we were just getting started this morning. .’
‘Were we?’
‘Plenty more gaps I’d like you to help me fill.’ Fox was producing his A4 pad from a drawer. Rebus looked at his watch.
‘Do we get time-and-a-half after five o’clock?’
‘You did offer your services. .’
‘I did, didn’t I?’ Rebus acknowledged, leaning back in his chair.
That evening, in the back room of the Oxford Bar, Rebus was halfway down his first pint of IPA when Eamonn Paterson arrived and offered a top-up. Rebus shook his head, so Paterson returned from the bar with a pint of his own and a couple of packets of salted peanuts.
‘Don’t say I never treated you right,’ he said. They were seated in the same corner where Rebus had talked to Fox. ‘So you’ve managed to get your feet under the table, eh?’
Rebus had texted Paterson to say as much. He nodded slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose and swallowing back a yawn.
‘Not quite got his trust yet, though,’ he said. ‘Everything’s kept behind a locked door and Fox is the only one with a key.’
‘He’s sent out invitations, you know. Wants me at three p.m. tomorrow.’
‘Guess who else he’s asking.’
‘Who?’
‘Albert Stout and Norman Cuttle.’
‘Bloody hell.’ Paterson puffed out his cheeks and exhaled.
‘It’s Stefan he’s after.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Saunders belonged to Stefan. Stands to reason Stefan would be the one pulling strings to get him off that murder charge.’ Rebus paused, studying Paterson over the rim of his glass. ‘Unless you know different.’
‘John. .’
‘Going through some of the old files reminded me that I was still earning your trust back then. Might be there’s stuff you think needs keeping from me, even now. Walking into Fox’s office was like wandering into a minefield — I’d hate to find out one of my old pals from the Saints had a map tucked away showing where all those explosives were buried.’
‘I’m keeping nothing from you, John,’ Paterson said quietly.
‘And you can vouch for Stefan and Dod?’
Paterson considered this, then gave a shrug. ‘Everybody’s got a skeleton or two — you should know that better than most. Can you hear them clanking, John? Because I can — but I’m not about to tell that to anyone else.’ Paterson’s eyes had hardened. ‘Just find out what you can, and report back. That way we’re all covered.’ Leaving the rest of his drink, he got to his feet and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his coat. ‘And don’t forget to finish those nuts I bought — they cost enough. .’
Rebus watched him leave. Thirty-odd years since he had been introduced to the man, and he was left wondering if he really knew him at all.
Easy to blame Fox.
Maybe too easy.
Rebus walked through to the main bar and stood with three or four other regulars. They were intent on a local news bulletin. Rebus saw Page give his ad hoc press conference. It was followed by footage of a car arriving at the McCuskey home, Bethany McCuskey in the passenger seat, her son Forbes driving. Both wore tense, worried faces.
‘You can drive, you little bastard,’ Rebus muttered, finishing his drink and ordering another. While it was being poured, he stepped out into the street for a smoke. Behind him, on the TV, the First Minister was telling an interviewer of his ‘great shock and dismay’.
‘And what might this mean for the independence campaign?’ the journalist asked, but the door had closed before Rebus could hear the answer. Clarke’s car drew to a halt kerbside as he was halfway down the cigarette.
‘What are you drinking?’ he asked her, but she shook her head.
‘On my way somewhere,’ she explained.
‘The lawyer again?’
‘Maybe.’ She had changed into fresh clothes, maybe just a dab of make-up. And perfume — subtle but present. ‘So how did you get on with Owen Traynor?’
‘He admitted everything,’ Rebus stated. Just for a moment she was taken in, but then she scowled. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, Shiv, but he says he had nothing to do with it.’
‘You asked him to his face?’
‘In front of his daughter,’ Rebus added. ‘Hers was an interesting reaction.’
‘In what way?’
‘I just sensed that cogs were turning; she wasn’t sure what to make of it. Her dad meantime has created his own little office so he can keep on doing whatever it is he does.’
‘Meaning he’s sticking around?’
‘Looks like.’
‘Not running, the way someone guilty might?’
‘There’s something else — were you at the house when the wife arrived?’
‘No.’
‘Young Forbes was behind the wheel.’
She took a moment to consider this. ‘Can’t really haul him in now, though, can we?’
‘With his dad in intensive care, you mean?’
‘Page would have kittens.’
‘Wouldn’t want the media falling out of love with him.’
‘He’s got half the office going through folders of housebreakings in the city. Old-timers dragged in and questio
ned. .’ She looked at him. ‘Doesn’t feel like locals, though, does it?’
‘The man just wants a quick result — that way the politicians will love him too.’
‘Can you put word out? See if anyone’s heard anything?’
‘I don’t have the contacts I used to.’
‘Thing is, no one else I’ve spoken to has any. It’s a skill that seems to have died out.’
‘Do we have a list of what was taken?’
‘It’s getting there.’
‘Get me a copy and I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Thanks. Anything else I should know?’
‘Just that me and Foxy are best buds now.’
‘Somehow I doubt that.’ She couldn’t help smiling.
‘Then let’s just say he’s thawing.’
‘Really?’
Rebus gave it three beats. ‘No, not really,’ he admitted. The smile was still there as she shifted the Astra’s gearstick into first, giving him a little wave with the fingers of her right hand.
Back inside the bar, Rebus was asked if Alistair Darling was being brought in for questioning, since he was heading the No campaign.
‘Aye, or that mate of his, Stefan Gilmour,’ someone else piped up.
‘Guy like that can spend his way out of any amount of trouble,’ the first speaker argued. ‘See, when you back out of buying a football team, tends to leave you with a bit of spare cash — am I right, John?’
‘Absolutely, Dennis,’ Rebus said, handing over his last five-pound note to the barman.
Alone in the flat in Great King Street, Alice Bell splashed water on her face and dried it with a towel, staring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her eyes were reddened from crying, and she knew the pillow on her narrow single bed would be damp to the touch. She had closed the shutters in her room, aiming to blot out as much of the world as she could. Her knees were threatening to buckle as she made her way to the kitchen, hands brushing the hallway walls as if for support. With her mug of green tea, she settled at her desk in the living room. Her laptop, notes and books — what did any of these mean? Her throat felt cramped, heart pounding. When her phone rang suddenly in the silence, she gave a little gasp of fright. Forbes’s name was on the screen, so she answered.
‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘How are you?’
‘I should be asking you that. I’m sorry about your dad. I tried calling earlier. .’
