The Impossible Dead

by Ian Rankin

  ‘I’m not trying to put you off or anything – quite the opposite.’

  ‘She’s married, Tony.’

  ‘Not always a bad thing, Malcolm.’

  ‘I’m putting the phone down now.’ He could hear Kaye chuckling as he ended the call.

  Fox started driving again, not really sure where he was headed. Not for the first five minutes anyway, after which he realised he was on the Kinghorn road. He passed the filling station where Paul Carter had been spotted on the night of the murder. Signalling right, the Volvo climbed the gradient, coming to a stop at the door to the cottage. The field was empty; no vans or patrol cars. With the incident room set up in Kirkcaldy, the team had finished with Gallowhill Cottage, but not before boarding up the window of the living room to deter gawpers. Fox got out and checked, but the door was padlocked and there was no key beneath the flowerpot on the windowsill. He walked to the garage – judging by the outline under the tarpaulin, Francis Vernal’s car was still there. He was starting down the slope again when he heard another vehicle approaching. Paul Carter parked his silver Astra directly behind the Volvo, blocking Fox in.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Carter asked, slamming shut his driver’s-side door.

  ‘Just came for a look,’ was all Fox could come up with.

  Carter said nothing to this. He took some keys from his pocket, selected one and undid the padlock, kicking open the door.

  ‘This all yours now?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Until they do me for his murder,’ Paul Carter muttered. ‘Nobody’s found a will yet, and I’m next of kin.’ He walked inside, and Fox followed.

  ‘So what happens to your uncle’s company?’

  ‘Goes to the wall, I’m guessing – he’s the only one that can sign cheques.’ Carter was looking around the hallway. ‘Hell am I supposed to do with all this?’

  ‘There are companies who clear houses,’ Fox offered.

  ‘Bonfire might be a better bet. I could be back inside any day.’

  ‘Sheriff Cardonald’s still deliberating?’

  ‘Bastard’s taking his time.’

  ‘Are you surprised he let you out?’

  ‘Been better for me if he hadn’t.’ Carter walked into the living room. ‘Place has been given a good going-over,’ he commented.

  ‘They took my prints,’ Fox admitted.

  ‘And mine.’

  Fox was studying Carter’s face. If he had killed his uncle, would it show as he stood here? Would images from the night flash before him? He looked flustered and fearful, but without remorse or obvious guilt. Fox noticed that the table had been cleared – every scrap of paper had been bagged and removed by the inquiry team. No one, however, had washed the fine spray of blood from the window. Carter opened a drawer – it, too, had been emptied of paperwork; all those neatly kept household bills and bank statements. Carter slid it shut again and stood in the middle of the room, running a hand through his hair, scratching at his scalp.

  ‘When was the last time you were here?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Night he died – after Ray phoned me. He wanted to be the one to break the news.’

  ‘And before that?’

  ‘Months … maybe a year.’

  ‘He said you came here drunk one day, spouting off about stuff.’

  ‘I was in court, remember?’ Carter muttered. ‘I heard it from his own lips.’

  ‘But he wasn’t lying?’

  ‘I was off my tits; no idea what I said or didn’t say.’

  ‘But would that have been the last time you were here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When he made the accusation, you didn’t come back here to ask him why?’

  ‘What good was that going to do me?’

  ‘So why do you think he phoned you the evening he died?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘He hadn’t spoken to you since the trial?’

  Carter shook his head. He walked over to the wall next to the fireplace and ran a hand down the uneven wallpaper. ‘Did all this himself, you know. Top to bottom. My dad used to say he was cack-handed.’ He found a join in the paper and slid a finger underneath, tearing it. ‘Cack-handed’s just about right.’

  Without uttering another word, he left the room and started climbing the stairs. After a few moments, Fox followed. There were three rooms in the eaves – two bedrooms and a bathroom.

  ‘Look at this,’ Carter said. He was showing how wallpaper, badly fitted to the ceiling in the main bedroom, was falling off. Then he knocked against a skirting board with the heel of his shoe, showing that nails were missing. The door didn’t close properly, and the knob was loose.

  ‘Cack-handed,’ he repeated.

  Fox saw cracks in the plasterwork, badly fitted windows, loose floorboards. Some of the cupboards were open, showing that Alan Carter’s wife had not bothered taking all her clothes with her when she left him. Had he kept them in the hope that she might come back? And then, after her death, to keep her memory alive? In the bathroom, tiles were missing from the shower, and the bath looked antiquated. Both of the handbasin’s taps dripped. Fox tried not to linger on the dead man’s toiletries: his wet-razor, denture cream, nail scissors.

  ‘What would you do with the place?’ Carter asked.

  ‘Same thing your uncle presumably did when he got hold of it – rip it up and start again.’

  ‘When he first bought it, my dad dragged me along a few times. Dad found it hilarious, the way Uncle Alan thought he was tarting the place up, when he was actually making it worse …’ Carter seemed caught for a moment in the memory, but shook it away. ‘Maybe I should torch the place and collect on any insurance.’

  ‘Are you sure you should be telling me that?’

  Carter managed a smile. He looked washed-out – the interviews had taken their toll; maybe the whispers and stares around town had too.

  ‘Thing is, I liked him when I was a kid – and I thought he liked me.’

  ‘I forget, what was his wife called?’

  ‘Aunt Jessica – you always had to get it right. If you tried “Jess” or “Jessie”, she’d be quick to correct you. Turned out she’d been seeing someone behind Uncle Alan’s back, and that was the end of that.’

  ‘Did you really make your parents’ lives a misery?’

  ‘Plenty of nippers do.’

  ‘But after you’d stopped being a nipper?’

  Carter shrugged and moved from the bathroom to the small spare bedroom. This was used for storage, boxes and suitcases piled high.

  ‘Bonfire,’ he muttered again, before turning towards Fox. ‘I wasn’t so different from anyone else. If he told you I was some sort of monster, he was lying.’

  ‘He grassed you up,’ Fox stated quietly.

  ‘Then maybe he’s the monster – you ever considered that?’

  ‘I have, actually.’

  Paul Carter had not expected this. He studied Fox, eyes unblinking. Fox noted a slight nervous tremor just below one eye. Carter, conscious of it, pressed a finger to the flesh, as if this would cure it.

  ‘Know what they do to cops in jail?’ he asked quietly, before answering his own question. ‘Course you do – you put cops away all the time.’

  ‘Just the ones that deserve it.’

  ‘You think I deserve it?’ Carter’s voice was rising. ‘For asking one sad wee slut for half an hour of her oh-so-precious time?’

  ‘Why did the other two women come forward?’

  Carter banged the heel of one hand against the wall. The whole building seemed to shudder. ‘I don’t know!’ he cried out. ‘She must have told them to!’

  ‘She didn’t know them.’

  ‘I never did anything to those two – never even tried!’ This time he took a swipe at the wall with his foot, cracking the plaster.

  ‘Remember, this is your place now,’ Fox cautioned.

  ‘I don’t want it!’ Carter ran his hand across his head again. ‘I’m sick of all this. I want my life back. Any minute
now, that judge could make his mind up, or Cash could charge me with murder. Some choices, eh?’ He looked at Fox. ‘But what’s the point of telling you? You don’t give a damn.’

  He shouldered Fox aside and descended the stairs two steps at a time. Fox waited a moment before following. By the time he reached the hallway, Carter had started the Astra’s engine and was making an awkward three-point turn. From the doorway, Fox watched the car head down the hill. The padlock hung loose. It wouldn’t lock without the key. Paul Carter hadn’t been bothered about that – the cottage was just another weight dragging him down. Fox closed the door as best he could, got into his own car and started the long journey home to Edinburgh.

  The day’s post, waiting for him inside his front door, included the copy of No Mere Parcel of Rogues. It was scuffed, and the section of photos had come loose, but it was still serviceable. Fox skimmed it for an hour or so. Professor Martin was sparing with names. Fox jotted a few down anyway. Then, just before the index, he saw a note stating that the names were fictitious – ‘changed to protect the subjects’.

  ‘Thanks a bunch,’ Fox said.

  He went back to the paperwork Charles Mangold had given him. There were trial reports from the early eighties, and this time the names would be real. There were photographs, too – taken at police stations after the suspects had been arrested. A few bruised faces, cuts on lips and noses, swollen eyes.

  Donald MacIver merited a few mentions, along with John Elliot. Wikipedia had a whole page on the broadcaster. When Fox saw his photograph, he realised that he had seen him present the Scottish news a few times. His Wikipedia entry stated that he had been involved in ‘fringe politics’ as a student, and had faced trial for plotting the hijacking of a government minister’s car. Fox compared photos – yes, the newscaster and the radical student were one and the same. The hair had been longer back then, the clothes scruffier and the skin sallower. Fox wouldn’t have called the twenty-year-old Elliot handsome, but promotional shots of him these days showed a chiselled chin, gleaming eyes, and a healthy glow, the hair immaculate, the teeth pearly and the shirt crisp. Elliot employed a management company, and could be hired for ‘corporate and charity functions’. Fox noted the phone number, got up to stretch his spine, and went to make some tea.

  When six o’clock came, he turned on the TV, but it was someone else presenting the day’s headlines. He went back to his desk for an hour, phoned his sister to tell her he’d visited Lauder Lodge, got into the usual argument with her, then ate a tin of tuna mashed with mayonnaise and mustard.

  At half past eight, his phone rang. It was Tony Kaye.

  ‘Tell me,’ Fox said.

  ‘They clocked him,’ Kaye growled, meaning Joe Naysmith had not been able to blend in at the Wheatsheaf.

  Fox exhaled slowly and noisily. ‘Did he get anything?’

  ‘Place wasn’t exactly mobbed, but they were at a table and he had to stick by the bar – a good eight or ten feet away.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘He says it was Haldane. Kept staring, then said something to the others. Scholes comes storming over and tells Joe to sod off. After that, there’s silence in the bar – everybody knows who Joe is, and Joe knows he’s going to get hee-haw …’

  ‘It was a long shot,’ Fox conceded.

  ‘I blame Joe, though.’

  ‘Can I assume he’s listening in?’

  ‘We’re in the Mondeo, fifty yards downhill from the pub.’

  ‘Any point tailing them?’

  ‘Not if we can’t hear anything they’re saying,’ Tony Kaye suggested.

  ‘Okay, then. Might as well get yourselves home – and thank Joe for trying.’

  ‘Foxy says thanks for nothing,’ Fox heard Kaye tell the hapless Naysmith.

  ‘You’re a cruel man, Tony Kaye.’

  ‘Cruel but fair, I think you’ll find.’

  Fox wished his colleague good night.

  Nine

  28

  John Elliot was filming a piece for later in the day. The up side was, Fox didn’t need to drive into the centre of Glasgow. The downside: he was on a trading estate on the outskirts. For some reason, a modern black slab of a hotel had been placed there, and Elliot’s crew had taken over the restaurant. Bemused guests were eating breakfast in the bar area while lights were repositioned, cameras slotted into place on their tripods.

  ‘It’s guerrilla stuff,’ the segment’s director told Fox. Fox had been provided with a little cafetière and a couple of miniature pains au chocolat. Elliot was being attended by a make-up woman in a corner of the restaurant. There was a large illuminated mirror, and something resembling a toolbox, but filled with cosmetic products rather than wrenches.

  ‘Mad business,’ Elliot commented to Fox, meeting his eyes in the mirror. His hair was being combed into place, his nose and forehead checked for sheen, a paper towel protecting his shirt collar from smudges. His eyes glittered, and Fox wondered if drops had been applied. He was dressed in an open-necked shirt, black cotton jacket, and faded denims, frayed at the bottom.

  ‘I appreciate you seeing me at short notice.’

  ‘When I’m done here, we’ll have about fifteen minutes. After that, I have to be back in the studio.’

  The director had arrived at Elliot’s side. He was holding a script and looking stressed.

  ‘Chef says the lobster’s claws are taped shut, so there’s no danger,’ he was explaining.

  ‘The glamour of television,’ Elliot said, meeting Fox’s eyes again and sand-blasting him with a smile.

  There was a rehearsal, after which it took three takes to get the piece right. Then there were cutaways and changes of angle and lighting and other stuff Fox didn’t quite understand. An hour and a half after starting, they had their three minutes of screen time. Elliot was rubbing a wet-wipe across his face as he crossed the room towards Fox. The gear was being packed away, tables and chairs returned to their original positions. One guest, a middle-aged woman, intercepted Elliot and asked him to sign her copy of the breakfast menu.

  ‘A pleasure,’ he said. A small tremor seemed to pass through her as she watched him write.

  ‘Get a lot of that?’ Fox asked when he was eventually able to shake the presenter’s hand.

  ‘Better a fan than the abuse I’d get on Sauchiehall Street after closing time. Let’s sit here.’ Elliot nodded towards a banquette in the open-plan bar. ‘So,’ he said, slapping his palms against his knees, ‘my nefarious past catches up with me …’

  ‘It’s no secret, is it?’

  ‘My whole life is public property, Inspector.’

  A waiter came over to ask if they needed anything. Elliot ordered mint tea, then changed his mind to sparkling water. Fox was nursing half a cup of lukewarm coffee.

  ‘Are you still interested in politics?’ he asked when the waiter had retreated.

  ‘The question is: was I ever?’

  ‘You nearly went to prison …’

  Elliot nodded slowly. ‘But even so. How much of it was posture? I mean, students back then … we didn’t always think too clearly about the reasoning.’

  ‘What was it, then – a way to pick up the opposite sex?’

  Elliot gave a lopsided smile. ‘Maybe.’ He wriggled in his seat, making himself more comfortable. ‘That court case … it was ridiculous really. We were made to look like the mujahideen, but we were just kids playing games.’ His eyes widened slightly, perhaps hoping Fox would share his incredulity. ‘Hijack a government car? Hold the minister to ransom?’ He shook his head. ‘The ransom, incidentally, consisting of a referendum on Scottish self-government – how hare-brained is that?’

  ‘You doubt it would have worked?’

  ‘Of course it wouldn’t have worked! People were laughing at us during the trial – they’d sit in the public gallery and their shoulders would be heaving as we explained the tactics. The prosecution went on about “planning”, but as we pointed out, this amounted to a couple of nights in
the pub and a few doodles on the back of a napkin.’

  ‘Might explain why none of you went to jail.’

  ‘Our university didn’t even bother kicking us out – that’s how seriously everyone took it.’

  ‘Might be different today,’ Fox commented.

  ‘Almost certainly.’

  ‘Stirling was your university?’ Elliot nodded, then thanked the waiter as his water arrived. There was a bill with it, but the presenter pointed the waiter in the direction of one of the crew.

  ‘Ever see any of your old gang?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Hardly ever.’

  ‘None of them still active?’

  ‘Active? You mean plotting the overthrow of the state? No, none of them are still “active”.’ He sipped the water, stifling a belch. ‘We were young and foolish, Inspector.’

  ‘Is that what you really think?’

  ‘You’ve got me pegged as some sort of sleeper agent?’

  Fox returned Elliot’s smile. ‘Not at all. But you’re a public figure – it’s good PR to play down a militant past, maybe make light of it, turn it into an after-dinner routine …’

  ‘That’s probably true.’

  ‘And they were very different times.’

  ‘They were.’

  ‘Plus, as far as I can tell, the Dark Harvest Commando had a seriousness of purpose. If you’d just been along for a laugh, I doubt they’d have tolerated you.’

  Elliot’s face darkened a little. ‘The DHC was too much for me,’ he confided.

  ‘You went to a few of their meetings, though?’

  ‘A few.’

  ‘So you knew Donald MacIver?’

  ‘Poor Donald. They got him eventually, even managed to have him certified after he attacked another prisoner. He’s in Carstairs now.’

  ‘Ever thought of visiting him?’

  ‘No.’ Elliot seemed surprised by the question.

  ‘He must have been close to Francis Vernal, though …’

  ‘I can’t believe anyone’s finally paying attention to that,’ Elliot said.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘We all knew Francis had been assassinated – MI5 had him on their hit list. When he died, nobody seemed bothered – no police investigation, almost nothing in the papers …’ He took another sip of water. ‘But it did the job all right.’