by Ian Rankin
The Scene of Crime officers had looked for possible hiding places, finding several. But no traces of anyone, no footprints or fibers.
Another scenario, proposed by DCS Gill Templer:
“Say the assailant was already inside the house. Heard the door being unlocked and ran towards it. Smashed the victim on the head and ran.”
But the house was high-tech: alarms and sensors everywhere. There was no sign of a break-in, no indication that anything was missing. Marber’s best friend, another art dealer called Cynthia Bessant, had toured the house and pronounced that she could see nothing missing or out of place, except that much of the deceased’s art collection had been removed from the walls and, each painting neatly packaged in bubble wrap, was stacked against the wall in the dining room. Bessant had been unable to offer an explanation.
“Perhaps he was about to reframe them, or move them to different rooms. One does get tired of the same paintings in the same spots . . .”
She’d toured every room, paying particular attention to Marber’s bedroom, not having seen inside it before. She called it his “inner sanctum.”
The victim himself had never been married, and was quickly assumed by the investigating officers to have been gay.
“Eddie’s sexuality,” Cynthia Bessant had said, “can have no bearing on this case.”
But that would be something for the inquiry to decide.
Rebus had felt himself sidelined in the investigation, working the telephones mostly. Cold calls to friends and associates. The same questions eliciting almost identical responses. The bubble-wrapped paintings had been checked for fingerprints, from which it became apparent that Marber himself had packaged them up. Still no one — neither his secretary nor his friends — could give an explanation.
Then, towards the end of one briefing, Rebus had picked up a mug of tea — someone else’s tea, milky gray — and hurled it in the general direction of Gill Templer.
The briefing had started much as any other, Rebus washing down three aspirin caplets with his morning latte. The coffee came in a paper cup. It was from a concession on the corner of the Meadows. Usually his first and last decent cup of the day.
“Bit too much to drink last night?” DS Siobhan Clarke had asked. She’d run her eyes over him: same suit, shirt and tie as the day before. Probably wondering if he’d bothered to take any of it off betweentimes. The morning shave erratic, a lazy runover with an electric. Hair that needed washing and cutting.
She’d seen just what Rebus had wanted her to see.
“And a good morning to you too, Siobhan,” he’d muttered to himself, crushing the empty beaker.
Usually he stood towards the back of the room at briefings, but today he was nearer the front. Sat there at a desk, rubbing his forehead, loosening his shoulders, as Gill Templer spelled out the day’s mission.
More door-to-door; more interviews; more phone calls.
His fingers were around the mug by now. He didn’t know whose it was, the glaze cold to the touch — could even have been left from the day before. The room was stifling and already smelled of sweat.
“More bloody phone calls,” he found himself saying, loud enough to be heard at the front. Templer looked up.
“Something to say, John?”
“No, no . . . nothing.”
Her back straightening. “Only if you’ve anything to add — maybe one of your famous deductions — I’m all ears.”
“With respect, ma’am, you’re not all ears — you’re all talk.” Noises around him: gasps and looks. Rebus rising slowly to his feet.
“We’re getting nowhere fast.” His voice was loud. “There’s nobody left to talk to, and nothing worth them saying!”
The blood had risen to Templer’s cheeks. The sheet of paper she was holding — the day’s duties — had become a cylinder, which her fingers threatened to crush.
“Well, I’m sure we can all learn something from you, DI Rebus.” Not “John” anymore. Her voice rising to match his. Her eyes scanned the room: thirteen officers, not quite the full complement. Templer was working under pressure: much of it fiscal. Each investigation had a ticket attached to it, a costing she daren’t overstep. Then there were the illnesses and holidays, the latecomers . . . “Maybe you’d like to come up here,” she was saying, “and give us the benefit of your thoughts on the subject of just exactly how we should be proceeding with this inquiry.” She stretched an arm out, as if to introduce him to an audience. “Ladies and gentlemen . . .”
Which was the moment he chose to throw the mug. It traveled in a lazy arc, spinning as it went, dispensing cold tea. Templer ducked instinctively, though the mug would have sailed over her head in any case. It hit the back wall just above floor level, bouncing off and failing to break. There was silence in the room as people rose to their feet, checking their clothes for spillage.
Rebus sat down then, one finger punching the desk as if trying to find the rewind on life’s remote control.
“DI Rebus?” The uniform was talking to him.
“Yes, sir?”
“Glad you’ve decided to join us.” Smiles all around the table. How much had he missed? He didn’t dare look at his watch.
“Sorry about that, sir.”
“I was asking if you’d be our member of the public.” Nodding to the opposite side of the table to Rebus. “DI Gray will be the officer. And you, DI Rebus, will be coming into the station with what could turn out to be some vital information pertaining to a case.” The teacher paused. “Or you could be a crank.” Laughter from a couple of the men. Francis Gray was beaming at Rebus, nodding encouragement.
“Whenever you’re ready, DI Gray.”
Gray leaned forward on the table. “So, Mrs. Ditchwater, you say you saw something that night?”
The laughter was louder. The teacher waved them quiet. “Let’s try to keep this serious, shall we?”
Gray nodded, turned his eyes to Rebus again. “You definitely saw something?”
“Yes,” Rebus announced, coarsening his voice. “I saw the whole thing, Officer.”
“Though you’ve been registered blind these past eleven years?”
Gales of laughter in the room, the teacher thumping the tabletop, trying to restore order. Gray sitting back, joining the laughter, winking across at Rebus, whose shoulders were rocking.
Francis Gray was fighting hard against resurrection.
“I thought I was going to wet myself,” Tam Barclay said, lowering the tray of glasses onto the table. They were in the larger of Kincardine’s two pubs, lessons finished for the day. Six of them forming a tight circle: Rebus, Francis Gray, Jazz McCullough, plus Tam Barclay, Stu Sutherland and Allan Ward. At thirty-four, Ward was the youngest of the group and the lowest-ranking officer on the course. He had a tough, spoiled look to him. Maybe it came from working in the southwest.
Five pints, one cola: McCullough was driving home afterwards, wanted to see his wife and kids.
“I do my damnedest to avoid mine,” Gray had said.
“No joking,” Barclay said, squeezing into his seat, “near wet myself.” Grinning at Gray. “ ‘Blind these past eleven years.’ ”
Gray picked up his pint, raised it. “Here’s tae us, wha’s like us?”
“Nobody,” Rebus commented. “Or they’d be stuck on this damned course.”
“Just got to grin and bear it,” Barclay said. He was late thirties, thickening around the waist. Salt-and-pepper hair brushed back from the forehead. Rebus knew him from a couple of cases: Falkirk and Edinburgh were only thirty minutes apart.
“I wonder if Wee Andrea grins when she bares it,” Stu Sutherland said.
“No sexism, please.” Francis Gray was wagging a finger.
“Besides,” McCullough added, “we don’t want to stoke John’s fantasies.”
Gray raised an eyebrow. “That right, John? Got the hots for your counselor? Better watch, you might make Allan jealous.”
Allan Ward looked up from the cig
arette he was lighting, just glowered.
“That your sheep-frightening look, Allan?” Gray said. “Not much to do down in Dumfries, is there, except round up the usual ewes?”
More laughter. It wasn’t that Francis Gray had made himself the center of attention; it seemed to happen naturally. He’d been first into his seat, and the others had congregated around him, Rebus sitting directly opposite. Gray was a big man, and the years told on his face. And because he said everything with a smile, a wink or a glint in his eye, he got away with it. Rebus hadn’t heard anyone making a joke about Gray himself yet, though they’d all been his target. It was as if he were challenging them, testing them. The way they took his comments would tell him everything he needed to know about them. Rebus wondered how the big man would react to a jibe or joke directed against him.
Maybe he’d have to find out.
McCullough’s mobile sounded, and he got up, moving away.
“His wife, odds-on,” Gray stated. He was halfway down his pint of lager. Didn’t smoke, told Rebus he’d given up a decade back. The two of them had been outside during a break, Rebus offering the packet. Ward and Barclay smoked too. Three out of six: it meant Rebus could feel comfortable lighting up.
“She’s keeping tabs on him?” Stu Sutherland was saying.
“Proof of a deep and loving relationship,” Gray commented, tipping the glass to his mouth again. He was one of those drinkers, you never saw them swallow: it was as if they could hold their throat open and just pour the stuff down.
“You two know each other?” Sutherland asked. Gray glanced over his shoulder to where McCullough was standing, his head bowed towards the mobile phone.
“I know the type” was all Gray said by way of answer.
Rebus knew better. He rose to his feet. “Same again?”
Two lagers, three IPAs. On his way to the bar, Rebus pointed towards McCullough, who shook his head. He still had most of his cola, didn’t want another. Rebus heard the words “I’ll be on the road in ten minutes . . .” Yes, he was on the phone to his wife. Rebus had a call he wanted to make too. Jean was probably finishing work right around now. Rush hour, the journey from the museum to her home in Portobello might take half an hour.
The barman knew the order: this was their third round of the evening. The previous two nights, they’d stuck to the college premises. First night, Gray had produced a good bottle of malt, and they’d sat in the common room, getting to know one another. Tuesday, they’d met in the college’s own bar for an after-dinner session, McCullough sticking to soft drinks and then heading out for his car.
But at lunchtime today, Tam Barclay had mentioned a bar in the village, good rep.
“No trouble with the locals” was the way he’d put it. So here they were. The barman looked comfortable, which told Rebus he’d dealt with intakes from the college before. He was efficient, not over-friendly. Midweek, only half a dozen regulars in the place. Three at one table, two at one end of the bar, another standing alone next to Rebus. The man turned to him.
“Up at the cop school, are you?”
Rebus nodded.
“Bit old for recruits.”
Rebus glanced at the man. He was tall, completely bald, his head shining. Gray mustache, eyes which seemed to be retracting into the skull. He was drinking a bottle of beer with what looked like a dark rum in the glass next to it.
“Force is desperate these days,” Rebus explained. “Next thing, they’ll be press-ganging.”
The man smiled. “I think you’re having me on.”
Rebus shrugged. “We’re here on a refresher course,” he admitted.
“Teaching old dogs new tricks, eh?” The man lifted his beer.
“Get you one?” Rebus offered. The man shook his head. So Rebus paid the barman and, deciding against a tray, hoisted three of the pints, making a triangle of them between his hands. Went to the table, came back for the last two, including his own. Thinking: best not leave it too late to phone Jean. He didn’t want her to hear him drunk. Not that he was planning on getting drunk, but you could never tell . . .
“This you celebrating the end of the course?” the man asked.
“Just the beginning,” Rebus told him.
St. Leonard’s police station was midevening quiet. There were prisoners in the holding cells waiting for next morning’s court appearance and two teenagers being booked for shoplifting. Upstairs, the CID offices were almost empty. The Marber inquiry had wound down for the day, and only Siobhan Clarke was left, in front of a computer, staring at a screen saver in the form of a banner message: WHAT WILL SIOBHAN DO WITHOUT HER SUGAR DADDY? She didn’t know who had written it: one of the team, having a bit of a laugh. She surmised it referred to John Rebus, but couldn’t quite work out the meaning. Did the author know what a sugar daddy was? Or did it just mean that Rebus looked after her, watched out for her? She was annoyed to find herself so irritated by the message.
She went into the screen-saver options and clicked on “banner,” erased the present message and replaced it with one of her own: I KNOW WHO YOU ARE, SUCKER. Then she checked a couple of other terminals, but their screen savers were asteroids and wavy lines. When the phone on her desk started ringing, she considered not answering. Probably another crank wanting to confess, or ready with spurious information. A respectable middle-aged gent had called yesterday and accused his upstairs neighbors of the crime. Turned out they were students, played their music too loud and too often. The man had been warned that wasting police time was a serious matter.
“Mind you,” one of the uniforms had commented afterwards, “if I’d to listen to Slipknot all day, I’d probably do worse.”
Siobhan sat down in front of her computer, lifted the receiver.
“CID, DS Clarke speaking.”
“One thing they teach at Tulliallan,” the voice said, “is the importance of the quick pickup.”
She smiled. “I prefer to be wooed.”
“A quick pickup,” Rebus explained, “means picking up the phone within half a dozen rings.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“I didn’t. Tried your flat first, got the answering machine.”
“And somehow sensed I wasn’t out on the town?” She settled back in her chair. “Sounds like you’re in a bar.”
“In beautiful downtown Kincardine.”
“And yet you’ve dragged yourself from your pint to call me?”
“I called Jean first. Had a spare twenty-pence piece . . .”
“I’m flattered. A whole twenty pee?” She listened to him snort.
“So . . . how’s it going?” he asked.
“Never mind that, how’s Tulliallan?”
“As some of the teachers would say, we have a new tricks–old dog interface scenario.”
She laughed. “They don’t talk like that, do they?”
“Some of them do. We’re being taught crime management and victim empathy response.”
“And yet you still have time for a drink?”
Silence on the line; she wondered if she’d touched a nerve.
“How do you know I’m not on fresh orange?” he said at last.
“I just do.”
“Go on then, impress me with your detective skills.”
“It’s just that your voice gets slightly nasal.”
“After how many?”
“I’ll guess four.”
“The girl’s a marvel.” The pips started sounding. “Hang on,” he said, putting in more money.
“Another spare twenty pee?”
“A fifty, actually. Which gives you plenty of time to update me on Marber.”
“Well, it’s all been very quiet since the coffee incident.”
“I think it was tea.”
“Whatever it was, the stain’s not budging. For what it’s worth, I think they overreacted, sending you into purdah.”
“I’m wasting money here.”
She sighed, sat forward. The screen saver had just k
icked in: I KNOW WHO YOU ARE, SUCKER scrolling right to left across the screen. “We’re still looking at friends and associates. Couple of interesting stories: an artist Marber had fallings-out with. Not unusual in the business, apparently, but this came to blows. Turns out the artist is one of these New Scottish Colorists, and leaving him out of the exhibition was a definite snub.”
“Maybe he whacked Marber with his easel.”
“Maybe.”
“And the second story?”
“That one I’ve been saving up to tell you. Did you ever see the guest list for the preview?”
“Yes.”
“Turns out not everyone who turned up was on the list. What we had were people who’d signed Marber’s guest book. But now we’ve printed off a list of the people who actually got invites. Some of them were at the exhibition, hadn’t bothered to RSVP or sign the book.”
“This artist was one of them?” Rebus guessed.
“God, no. But a certain M. G. Cafferty was.”
She heard Rebus whistle. Morris Gerald Cafferty— Big Ger, to those in the know — was the east coast’s biggest gangster, or the biggest one they knew about. Cafferty and Rebus went back a long way.
“Big Ger a patron of the arts?” Rebus mused.
“He collects paintings, apparently.”
“What he doesn’t do is smack people over the head on their doorsteps.”
“I bow to your superior knowledge.”
There was a pause on the line. “How’s Gill doing?”
“Much better since you left. Is she going to take it any further?”
“Not if I finish this course — that was the deal. How about the L-plate?”
Siobhan smiled. By L-plate Rebus meant the latest addition to CID, a detective constable called Davie Hynds. “He’s quiet, studious, industrious,” she recited. “Not your type at all.”
