Rather Be the Devil (Inspector Rebus 21)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘He was a customer here.’

  ‘Doubt it.’

  ‘He phoned in a bet every Saturday lunchtime.’

  ‘Then show me a picture of his voice.’

  Fox gave a humourless smile. ‘He never came in?’

  ‘Not on my watch.’

  ‘His name was Robert Chatham.’

  ‘Oh aye?’

  ‘You won’t be taking any more bets from him.’

  The cashier sighed and typed Chatham’s name into his computer. ‘He had an account,’ he confirmed.

  ‘How was he doing?’

  The man studied the screen. ‘Breaking even, more or less.’

  ‘So does he owe you or do you owe him.’

  ‘Nineteen quid in credit. You should let his next of kin know.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Fox said. ‘But he never placed bets in person?’

  ‘Always by phone.’

  ‘How about online?’

  The man scanned the screen again. ‘No sign of that.’

  Fox turned the photograph over. On the back he had scribbled the mobile number, the one Chatham had texted all those times. ‘How about this?’

  ‘Is it supposed to mean something?’

  ‘It’s not a number you recognise?’

  The man shook his head. ‘We done here?’ he asked. Fox realised there was a punter behind him, needing change. He nodded his agreement, pausing by one of the machines and sliding home a pound coin before realising it only gave him a single credit. He pushed the button and waited. When the reels stopped, he had done something right, because a light was flashing to ask him if he wanted to gamble or collect. He pressed gamble and the reels spun at a slower rate than previously. The machine wanted him to decide when to stop each one, so that was what he did. The light was flashing again. He decided to collect and was surprised when coins started coughing out into the metal tray beneath. Pound coins. Twenty of them.

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ the punter at the cash desk complained, as Fox scooped up his winnings and left.

  He bought multi-packs of Kit Kats from the supermarket, as well as a litre of semi-skimmed, even splashing out fivepence on a carrier bag. Outside again, he paused and crossed to the opposite pavement, heading back in the direction of Klondyke Alley. He focused his attention on the unwashed windows of the flat above. The flat was accessed from a scuffed door between Klondyke Alley and the charity shop. How many companies had Sheila Graham told him were registered there? Fox crossed the road again and tried the door. It was locked. There was a bashed-looking intercom, but it boasted only flat numbers rather than the residents’ names. With the remaining coins weighing heavily in one pocket, he started back in the direction of Leith police station.

  He took the stairs two at a time. A discussion was happening among the Major Investigation Team. Oldfield was on kettle duty again.

  ‘You spoil us, ambassador,’ he said, as Fox produced the Kit Kats.

  ‘What have I missed?’ Fox asked, directing the question at James.

  ‘Fitness trainer at Mr Chatham’s health club. He’s not a great one for gossip, but he felt we should know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘That the deceased was quite friendly with a female client.’

  ‘How friendly?’

  ‘Cosy drinks together in the café after they’d finished their workouts. Trainer thought it quite a coincidence how often their visits to the club coincided.’

  ‘We have her name and address?’

  ‘We do now.’

  ‘And phone number?’ Fox watched James nod. ‘Can I see it?’ he asked.

  James had it written on a pad of paper. Fox studied it, then brought out the photo of Robert Chatham, turning it over.

  ‘Are you some sort of magician, Malcolm?’ James said.

  ‘Chatham texted her four times as often as his partner.’

  ‘So why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I got distracted by Klondyke Alley.’

  ‘Speaking of which …’

  Fox shook his head. ‘Phone bets only. They actually owed him a few quid at time of death. What’s her name?’ He was studying the phone number.

  ‘Maxine Dromgoole. Heard of her?’

  ‘Should I have?’

  James turned towards Sean Glancey. ‘Tell the man, Sean.’

  ‘Quick internet search only throws up one Maxine Dromgoole.’ Glancey paused, bunching his handkerchief in a meaty paw. ‘With a link to the Amazon website.’

  Fox couldn’t help but look quizzical.

  ‘She’s a writer, Malcolm,’ James explained. ‘Non-fiction, mostly crime.’

  ‘Including unsolveds,’ Anne Briggs chimed in.

  ‘The Maria Turquand case?’ Fox understood now. ‘She’s the reporter who got Bruce Collier’s road manager talking?’

  ‘The very same, it would seem.’

  ‘Which means she was responsible for the cold-case review – the one headed by Chatham.’

  ‘And that’s why I’ve taken Rebus’s folder from your desk and given it to Wallace.’

  Wallace Sharpe tapped the folder to underline the point.

  ‘Did you try calling her?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Did you, Malcolm?’

  ‘Automated answering service.’

  ‘Well, we could ring again and leave a message,’ James said. ‘But we do have her address. And seeing how you’ve just generously donated all those lovely Kit Kats … how do you fancy a wee trip?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Good, because I could do with a translator – none of us seem able to pronounce the name of her street.’

  Fox studied James’s pad of paper.

  ‘It’s Sciennes,’ he said.

  Sciennes Road was in Marchmont, not too far from Rebus’s flat. Fox was beginning to feel as if the city had become a labyrinth, its denizens and neighbourhoods all connected by knotted threads.

  ‘The red building on the left is the Sick Kids hospital,’ he told James, trying not to sound too much like a tour guide. ‘Sciennes Primary School next along.’ Then a run of shops with three storeys of flats above. A very different feel to Great Junction Street; a different part of the puzzle. Fox signalled and pulled into a parking space.

  ‘You always do that?’ Alvin James asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Signal.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Even when there’s no other traffic?’

  ‘It’s the way I learned.’

  ‘You’re a creature of habit, Malcolm. And you stick to the rules.’

  ‘Got a problem with that, Alvin?’

  ‘Not that I can think of.’

  They got out and found the bell with ‘Dromgoole’ next to it. There was no answer from within. Both men stepped back as the door to the common stairwell swung inwards. One of the residents was emerging, hampered by a bicycle. James held the door open for him.

  ‘Ta.’

  ‘We’re here to see Maxine Dromgoole.’

  ‘Second floor left,’ the man said.

  Alvin James nodded his thanks and waved Fox inside with a sweep of his free arm.

  They climbed the stairs and stopped at Dromgoole’s door. Fox rapped with his knuckles. Nothing. James bent over and prised open the letter box.

  ‘Anyone home?’ he called.

  Fox was just taking out one of his business cards and a pen when there was a sudden croaky voice from within.

  ‘Please, whoever you are, come back later.’

  ‘Can’t do that, Ms Dromgoole,’ James stated through the letter box. ‘We’re police officers.’

  ‘I can’t handle this right now.’

  James made eye contact with Fox. ‘I can appreciate you’re upset, Maxine. Of course you are. But Robert would want you to help us, don’t you think?’

  The silence lasted almost half a minute. Then the door was pulled open with infinite slowness, revealing a woman in what looked like pyjamas, the top baggy and gr
ey, the trousers identical in colour and tied at the waist with a drawstring. Maxine Dromgoole had almost cried herself out. She looked ready to drop, face blotchy, hair unbrushed, eyes bloodshot. She held a wad of paper tissues in one hand. The area around her nose looked sore from rubbing.

  ‘Does Liz know?’ she asked.

  ‘About you and her partner? Not as far as I’m aware.’

  ‘But she’ll find out now, won’t she?’

  ‘Might not have to come to that,’ James said, looking to Fox to back him up.

  ‘We just need a few minutes of your time,’ Fox added as solicitously as he could.

  ‘It was revenge, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘Rab had to chuck some guys out of a club a week or two back. He told me about it after. Said they’d promised payback.’

  ‘Tell you what, Maxine,’ James said. ‘Let’s go take the weight off while my colleague makes us all a cuppa. Does that sound okay?’

  She nodded distractedly and turned towards the living room. Fox got busy in the kitchen. Once the kettle was on, he stood in the living room doorway, making sure he caught the conversation.

  ‘So how long had you known Rab?’ James was asking, notebook out.

  ‘Eight years or so.’

  ‘This would have been around the time you published your book?’

  ‘That’s right. He wanted to ask me about it.’

  ‘Because the case was being reviewed?’

  She was nodding, her eyes fixed on the window and the sky beyond. ‘I’d reworked my interview with Vince Brady and sold it to a newspaper. This was in the days when newspapers still paid their contributors. Anyway, because it was back in the public eye, there had to be a review.’

  ‘And that was how you two met.’

  ‘We got on well. I didn’t really think about it afterwards, but he called me a couple of weeks later. I knew he was married but was on the verge of splitting up. He was already seeing Liz … Christ, that makes me sound like the scarlet woman, doesn’t it? It was actually a few years until we became serious – not that I ever wanted …’ She broke off, gulping and getting her breathing back under control. ‘I met Liz a few times. They have parties at the gym once or twice a year, partners welcome.’ She paused again, lowering her eyes. ‘She seemed very nice. You think it’s possible she won’t find out?’

  Fox sped back to the kitchen and returned with a tray – three mugs, milk, sugar. He placed it on the coffee table and let them help themselves.

  ‘Did you see anything of him that last day?’ James asked when they had settled again.

  ‘He sent a couple of texts.’

  Yes, Fox thought, at 10.45 and 11.10. Sent from home, with his partner either in the room or else not far away.

  ‘How did he seem?’

  ‘He was just letting me know he might not make it to the gym later.’

  ‘Did he say why?’

  ‘He’d been talking to someone about Maria Turquand.’

  ‘And that’s why he couldn’t come to the gym as usual?’ Fox probed.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Can we see the texts?’ James asked.

  ‘They’re … some of them are personal.’

  ‘I think I understand. Maybe just those two from the day itself?’

  She lifted her phone from the coffee table and opened it up, eventually turning it round so they could see the screen, but not about to let them take the phone itself from her.

  Don’t be cross, Hot Buns – can’t watch you sweat today. 

  She had sent a reply a few minutes later:

  Tomoz? Everything okay?

  And then his response:

  In other news, Maria T is back! Ex-cop on the prowl. Maybe I should be insulted my brilliant investigation wasn’t the end of it …

  The last text ever sent by Robert Chatham.

  ‘Would he be at the gym most afternoons?’ James asked, sitting back down.

  ‘He had a good body. He liked to keep it that way.’ Dromgoole had turned the phone back towards her so she could stare at the texts. ‘He told me they used to tease him in CID, call him “Fat Rab”. He decided to do something about that.’

  ‘It was the Turquand case that threw you together,’ Fox interrupted. He was perched on the arm of the sofa, not quite ready to get comfortable. ‘Did he ever share the findings of the review with you?’

  ‘Would that have been against procedure?’ She placed her phone on the arm of her chair.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes. What did you think when he sent you that text?’

  She puffed out her cheeks and exhaled. ‘I was a bit cranky that I wasn’t going to be seeing him. I don’t think I gave it much thought.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Should I have?’

  ‘It was a story that interested you at one time. I notice your book’s still in Amazon’s top thousand.’

  She gave a snort. ‘Top thousand True Crime. I doubt it sells fifty copies a year.’

  ‘Are you working on anything just now?’ Fox asked.

  The question seemed to throw her. She studied his face, more or less for the first time. ‘Very early stages,’ she eventually admitted.

  ‘Mind if I ask the subject?’

  ‘Morris Gerald Cafferty,’ she said. ‘You’ll know the name, I dare say.’

  ‘How far have you got?’

  ‘There are plenty of books out there about London gangsters, Manchester, Glasgow – I thought maybe it was Edinburgh’s turn. There’s a lot in the newspaper archives. Court reports, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Have you mentioned any of this to Cafferty?’

  ‘I’ve written requesting an interview. No news back as yet.’

  Unhappy at this diversion, James leaned forward in his chair. ‘Apart from that disturbance you mentioned, the one outside the club, did Rab seem worried about anything?’

  ‘He’d been a bit on edge, but lovely, too. One night when Liz thought he was at work, the pair of us went to dinner at Mark Greenaway’s. Wasn’t cheap, but we loved it. At the end of the meal, he gave me a rose.’ She nodded towards a bookcase next to the fireplace. On one of the deep shelves sat a slender glass vase with a rose protruding from it, long dead, its petals never having opened.

  As she gazed at it, the tears started trickling again down Maxine Dromgoole’s cheeks.

  After a further ten minutes, they were done, Dromgoole promising to drop by the station and make a formal statement the following day. The two detectives descended the stone stairs in silence, footsteps echoing. They were back in the car before James asked Fox what he thought.

  ‘I don’t sense she’s hiding anything.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure. For nearly eight years she managed to hide the fact she was shagging a man who had another partner.’

  ‘Which might say more about him than it does about her.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Chatham was leading two lives and managing to keep the one hidden from the other.’

  James nodded slowly. ‘So who knows what other secrets he had?’

  ‘Added to which, it’s funny how Turquand keeps cropping up – and now suddenly Cafferty’s in the mix.’

  ‘I only really know him by name.’

  ‘He’s like a cannier version of Joe Stark. Hasn’t managed to grace the front pages quite as often because he is canny.’

  ‘I’m more interested in this group who threatened Chatham. They’ve not appeared on any of the CCTV yet, have they?’

  ‘Only a matter of time, I’d think.’

  James looked thoughtful. ‘Did we miss anything in there, Malcolm? Anything we should have spotted or asked?’

  ‘The only books on her shelves are ones she wrote herself,’ Fox replied. ‘Not sure what that says about her.’

  ‘Would Chatham have kept feeding stories to her, do you think? They met eight years back and he’s only been retired three …’ James was staring at Fox.

  ‘A
re you telling me I have to buy her books?’

  ‘Only if you want to maintain your reputation for absolute thoroughness.’

  ‘When you put it like that,’ Fox said, starting the engine, ‘how can I resist?’

  12

  Joe Stark always dressed as if the clock had stopped in the 1950s – camel-hair coat, polished black shoes, suit with wide lapels and a mauve shirt with a tie of the same colour. He wasn’t tall, but he had heft. As usual, he was flanked by his two oldest friends, Walter Grieve and Len Parker, the three having been in a gang since primary school. Cafferty had his back to them, studying the grandeur of Glasgow City Chambers, but he sensed Stark’s approach and half turned, managing the briefest of nods before turning his attention back to the edifice in front of him.

  ‘Got to be honest, Joe, it’s a damn sight more impressive than its Edinburgh equivalent.’

  ‘Bigger and better, that’s the Glasgow way.’

  ‘Well,’ Cafferty said after a moment’s consideration, ‘showier anyway.’

  ‘If it’s sightseeing you’re after, I’m happy to oblige.’

  Cafferty faced the man for the first time. ‘You’re looking well.’

  ‘I’m breathing.’

  ‘That makes two of us – against all the odds.’

  ‘That sounds like the Glasgow way, too.’ Stark saw that Cafferty was studying the statue next to them.

  ‘“Thomas Graham,”’ Cafferty read from the plaque below the statue, ‘“brilliant experimental chemist.” We’ve known a few of those in our time, eh, Joe?’ He began to chuckle, but Stark was staring hard at him.

  ‘Why are you here?’ he hissed.

  ‘I’m a pensioner like you. The buses are free, so why not use them?’

  ‘You came on the bus?’

  Cafferty shook his head and Stark stifled a snort.

  ‘Someone lamped Darryl Christie,’ Cafferty stated.

  ‘The lad got careless.’

  ‘Maybe he thought he was untouchable.’

  ‘Nobody’s untouchable.’

  ‘You might have been wondering if it was my doing.’

  ‘While you’ve been thinking it was me, eh?’

  ‘But let’s suppose it was neither of us …’ Cafferty paused as a fire engine roared past, siren howling. ‘You’ve not exactly leapt to the lad’s defence.’