Rather Be the Devil (Inspector Rebus 21)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘He hasn’t asked.’

  ‘Might make him seem weak if he did, but that wouldn’t stop you offering.’

  ‘Who’s saying I didn’t?’

  ‘It’s just a feeling I get.’ Cafferty waited for a response, but Stark remained silent. ‘Now if I was a betting man, Joe, I’d say you’re maybe being a bit cautious. And the reason for that could be you think Darryl’s about to be toppled. Nobody wants to be on the losing side when that happens. No point making unnecessary enemies, eh?’

  ‘Darryl’s a good kid.’

  ‘I won’t deny it. But even good kids make mistakes.’

  ‘What have you heard?’

  ‘Just whispers. I didn’t give them much credence until the attack.’

  ‘Not much of an attack, was it? Amateur hour, more like.’

  ‘Which is why we can rule one another out, but who does that leave? Reason I had Edinburgh to myself for so long is it’s more like a village than a city – better money to be made elsewhere.’

  ‘Lean times, Cafferty.’ Stark sniffed and shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets. ‘Plenty of jackals watching the watering holes.’

  ‘Care to name names?’

  ‘Usual suspects – you know them as well as I do.’

  Cafferty nodded slowly. He placed a hand on Joe Stark’s shoulder, fixing him with a look. ‘You really don’t have a clue, do you?’

  Stark was still considering his response when Cafferty turned and walked away. There was a shiny silver Merc parked outside the City Chambers, and at his approach its liveried driver leapt out, holding open the rear door and closing it again after him. Stark’s trusted lieutenants, who had moved to a discreet distance during the dialogue, appeared at either of the boss’s shoulders.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Grieve asked.

  ‘A little fishing trip,’ Stark muttered, watching the car drive off.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I need a drink.’

  ‘So which were you – the bait or the catch?’

  Stark glowered at Grieve until the message got through. Then the three men, marching almost in line, Joe Stark half a pace ahead, started in the direction of Ingram Street.

  ‘This is nice,’ Clarke said uneasily, and not for the first time. She was seated at a banquette table in the Voodoo Rooms, just upstairs from the Café Royal, where she’d made the rendezvous with Rebus. It was eight in the evening and a blues band were due to play in the ballroom.

  ‘The devil’s own music,’ Rebus had said.

  The bar area was busy and noisy – not the sort of place she would usually associate with her dinner companion.

  ‘My treat,’ Rebus said as their food arrived.

  ‘So why do I feel like the sacrificial offering?’

  He gawped at her. ‘I’m trying to be nice here, Siobhan.’

  ‘That’s what’s making me nervous.’

  ‘Maybe a bit of a boogie later.’

  ‘I’m deleting “nervous” and adding “terrified”.’

  ‘Oh ye of little faith.’ Rebus picked up his lamb chop and bit into it. ‘So how pissed off with Malcolm are you right now – say on a scale of nine to ten?’

  ‘Maybe a three.’ She plucked a chip from her plate and bit it in half.

  ‘That’s pretty generous. Any progress with Craw?’

  ‘He’s still in one piece, as far as I can tell.’

  ‘When was the last time you checked?’

  She made show of studying her phone’s screen. ‘I’m checking right now.’

  ‘Squad cars, though – someone could be bludgeoning him to death and they’d struggle to notice.’

  ‘I’m sure the lower ranks love you too.’

  ‘First time for everything,’ he said with a wink, tossing the bone on to his plate and sucking clean his fingers. ‘Another drink?’

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to be going easy?’

  He tapped his beer glass. ‘Low-alcohol.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Tastes like hell, but it’s got to be doing me good. Gin and tonic, yes?’

  ‘Just a tonic.’

  ‘Sure?’

  She nodded, then watched him approach the bar. He held up a ten-pound note and soon had the attention of the staff. Clarke tapped her phone again: no new messages. She had driven down Craw Shand’s street herself just after 5.30. No sign of either Devil’s Dram Harry or Darryl Christie’s car. Curtains closed, house apparently unlit. She jabbed at a morsel of fish and popped it into her mouth. Rebus was in conversation with a man at the bar. He appeared to be offering to buy the stranger a drink, but was shown a nearly full pint of lager. The man was bald and overweight, dressed in faded denims, an unbuttoned leather waistcoat, and a black T-shirt featuring a band logo. Rebus nodded towards the table and gave a wave. Clarke nodded back, wondering what was going on. Eventually both men approached, one far less reluctantly than the other.

  ‘Dougie here,’ Rebus said, altogether too jovially, ‘won’t take my word for it that we’re CID. He wants to see some ID – would you credit that?’

  Clarke was still chewing as she fished out her warrant card. Having placed their drinks on the table, Rebus clamped a hand around the man’s forearm.

  ‘Happy now?’ he enquired. Then: ‘Sit down, why don’t you?’

  Clarke’s eyes were demanding answers as the two men slid on to the banquette, the visitor effectively trapped.

  ‘I’m on stage in quarter of an hour,’ he complained, a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

  ‘This is Dougie Vaughan,’ Rebus announced by way of introduction.

  ‘What’s this all about?’ Vaughan asked. A tic had formed in one eyelid. He tried rubbing it away.

  ‘It’s just that there’s some renewed interest in the Maria Turquand murder,’ Rebus explained.

  ‘And what’s that got to do with me?’

  ‘You were there when she died, Dougie,’ Rebus stated.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the next room along.’

  Vaughan shook his head. ‘Says who?’

  ‘You had a key to Vince Brady’s room, didn’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I heard differently.’

  ‘I crashed on Bruce’s bed. This was all in my original statement.’

  ‘But then Vince started letting a few things slip out …’

  ‘Because that writer paid him to. After he ripped Bruce off, nobody would work with him. He was skint, his health was ropey, and he had a wife and kids at home.’ Vaughan paused. ‘That’s the most generous interpretation, mind. Bruce would have another view.’

  ‘We know there was no love lost latterly.’

  ‘He ripped Bruce off, pure and simple.’

  ‘Money’s often at the root of it,’ Rebus seemed to concur. ‘But then there’s lust, too. And envy.’ He looked to Clarke. ‘Help me out here.’

  ‘Pride,’ she offered. ‘Sloth …’

  ‘Money isn’t one of the sins,’ Vaughan said. Rebus stared at him, then at Clarke.

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Could be,’ she shrugged.

  ‘Don’t suppose it matters,’ Rebus conceded. ‘Maria Turquand wasn’t killed for the contents of her purse.’ He had fixed his eyes on Vaughan. ‘Ever wondered why she was murdered that day, Dougie?’

  Vaughan shrugged. ‘Crime of passion?’ he eventually offered.

  ‘Does look that way, doesn’t it? And one person we know she shared a bit of passion with was you.’

  ‘Hang on a second. That was strictly one night only. I was stoned and she was blootered – I’m amazed we managed to do anything. And I volunteered as much as I could remember to the original inquiry.’

  ‘That’s not quite true, is it, Dougie? You only went to the papers later with your wee kiss-and-tell – looks to me like Vince wasn’t the only one making money out of the poor woman’s demise …’

  A man with a thinning silver ponytail stopped in front of the table.
<
br />   ‘You about ready, man?’ he asked Vaughan.

  ‘He’ll be there,’ Rebus said, his tone sending the ponytail on a hasty retreat to the ballroom. Then, to Vaughan: ‘You didn’t bump into her at the hotel that day?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But your pal Bruce did.’

  Vaughan was shaking his head. ‘Vince Brady’s lies again,’ he stated. ‘Unless there’s new evidence? Is that what this is all about?’ He tried hoisting his glass, but the tremble in his hand defeated him.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Rebus said, ‘better get a steadier nerve before you have to pick up your axe. But now you’ve asked, I might as well tell you.’ He slid so close to Vaughan the two men looked joined at the hip. ‘Here’s the thing – a detective called Robert Chatham was in charge of the last review.’

  ‘I remember talking to him,’ Vaughan admitted.

  ‘Well, now he’s been done away with, and that’s put a whammy bar up all our jacksies. So let me ask you this – when did you last clap eyes on him?’

  Vaughan’s shoulders twitched. ‘Must have been a couple of months back.’

  Rebus managed to look as though he’d been expecting no less. ‘And where was that?’

  ‘Right here, I think. He was with Maxine.’

  ‘Maxine Dromgoole?’

  Vaughan was nodding. Rebus looked to Clarke. ‘She’s the writer who got the whole case reopened.’

  ‘Right,’ Clarke said, clearly not having studied the file as closely as Rebus had.

  ‘Maxine knows her blues,’ Vaughan was saying. ‘After she’d talked to me for her book, we kept in touch. I mean, she’s on the mailing list for gigs.’

  ‘And she was here with Robert Chatham?’

  ‘Just that one time. They were at the back of the room, next to the door. I knew I knew him from somewhere, but it took me a day or two to remember.’

  ‘You didn’t talk to them that night?’ Clarke asked.

  ‘They were gone by the time we finished the first set.’

  ‘Did you think that was odd?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The two of them being together.’

  ‘What’s odd about it?’

  ‘Did you ever see them together again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You never happened to mention to Maxine that you’d clocked who she was with?’ Rebus watched Vaughan nod slowly. ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘I don’t really remember. Maybe something about bumping into him on the street. Edinburgh’s that sort of place, isn’t it?’ Vaughan broke off. ‘I really need to go. Is that okay?’

  Rebus made a gesture and slid from the booth, allowing the man to get out. Vaughan paused in front of the table. ‘I crashed out on the bed in Bruce’s suite,’ he repeated. ‘When I woke up, someone had taken all my cash.’

  ‘Just the cash?’

  ‘Well, the key wasn’t there, but the state I was in, if I ever did have it, I could have left it anywhere.’ He offered a shrug and moved off. Rebus watched him go.

  ‘Why would she do that?’ he asked Clarke.

  ‘Sex with Mr Vaughan, you mean?’

  ‘Well, that too. But I’m talking about Dromgoole. She’s having a huge secret affair with Rab Chatham, and she brings him face to face with Dougie Vaughan.’

  ‘They were having an affair?’

  Rebus nodded distractedly. ‘Malcolm phoned me with the news.’

  ‘That was nice of him – so what’s your thinking?’

  ‘Maybe she was shaking the tree. That’s feasible, isn’t it? But it would mean she hadn’t quite let the Turquand story lie, in which case it’s also possible she had nudged Chatham into getting back into it too.’ He began to scratch his throat with a fingernail, only eventually noting the look Clarke was giving him.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘You needed me here in case he asked to see a warrant card,’ she stated.

  ‘Busted,’ Rebus admitted, helping himself to one of her chips.

  Fox’s sister lived on a terraced street in Saughtonhall. A lamp was on in her living room and the curtains were open, so he watched her for a moment through the window. She was curled up in an armchair, an ashtray on her thigh, cigarette in one hand and phone in the other. Just as he was about to tap a greeting on the glass, she caught a glimpse of him and, startled, leapt to her feet, sending ashtray, phone and cigarette flying.

  ‘Just me!’ he called as she approached the window. Next thing, she was at the door.

  ‘What are you up to?’ she complained.

  ‘I saw your light was on. I was about to knock.’

  ‘Instead of which you stood out there in the dark like any other bloody pervert.’

  She had headed indoors again and was picking up her phone and ashtray. Fox located the smouldering cigarette. It had left a burn in the oatmeal carpet – by no means the first. She plucked it from him and held it between her lips as she tidied up butts.

  ‘I’ll help you vacuum,’ Fox offered.

  ‘It needs repairing.’

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘It doesn’t work,’ she stated, settling into her chair again, eyes on the screen.

  ‘Must be an important text,’ he mused.

  ‘It’s a game.’ She turned the phone towards him for a moment. All he could make out were coloured balls arranged in rows. ‘And before you ask, I got it for free.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to ask,’ he lied, looking for somewhere to sit that wasn’t covered in sandwich wrappers, crisp packets or women’s magazines. Instead, he opened the window an inch.

  ‘Just letting some air in,’ he said when Jude gave him another of her looks. ‘So how have you been?’

  ‘You mean since you found me in that gambling den? And come to think of it, what were you doing there?’

  ‘A routine inquiry.’

  ‘I bet you say that to all the women you stalk.’ She exhaled smoke towards the ceiling.

  ‘I really wasn’t stalking you. I didn’t even know you liked a flutter.’

  ‘A girl needs something to occupy her time.’

  ‘Yes, so you said.’

  She glanced up from her phone. ‘Did I? Sorry if I found our little chat instantly forgettable.’

  ‘Do you ever use other betting shops?’

  ‘You know me, Malcolm – a complete tart. One of anything is never enough.’

  He chose to ignore her tone. ‘How about on Great Junction Street?’

  ‘I’m not often in Leith.’

  ‘But if you were …?’

  She either paused or finished her game, placing the phone face down next to the ashtray and studying her brother.

  ‘Is this your latest crusade? People gambling their lives away? Last time I looked, it wasn’t a crime.’

  ‘Those fixed-odds machines, they’re sometimes used to launder money.’

  ‘You looking to recruit your own sister as a spy? Is that what this is all about?’

  ‘No.’ He paused. ‘But if you did happen to see or hear anything …’

  ‘Like any other upright citizen I’d come straight to you, Officer.’ She paused. ‘But how will I tell which are the bad guys?’ She tapped her cigarette against the rim of the ashtray.

  ‘Maybe the amount of money they’re feeding into the machines, and the fact they don’t look too bothered about risking it.’

  ‘And say I go along with this – do I get something in return?’

  ‘You mean apart from the gratitude of the law-abiding public?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was there anything in particular?’

  ‘Maybe a moratorium on you nagging me.’

  ‘Define “nagging”.’

  ‘Getting at me about my lifestyle, my laziness, my not having a job.’ She stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Oh, and all that holier-than-thou guff about the money you dole out.’

  ‘It’s to pay your rent and bills.’

  ‘And because you needed a new charity case after Da
d died.’

  ‘Yes, you said that the other day, too.’ Fox’s own phone was buzzing. Caller ID: Sheila Graham. ‘I need to take this,’ he muttered, heading for the hallway, answering only after he’d closed the living-room door.

  ‘Good evening, Sheila.’

  ‘Is this a bad time?’

  ‘Not at all. You’re working late.’

  ‘I was in Edinburgh for a meeting. I got to Waverley just in time to see my train pull away, so I just wondered if you were at a loose end.’

  ‘I can be there in fifteen minutes. There’s a bar called the Doric across the street from the back entrance.’

  ‘I think I saw it when the cab dropped me off. I’ll have a beer waiting for you.’

  ‘I usually drink Appletiser.’

  ‘Then you’re a cheap date.’

  ‘Fifteen minutes.’

  He ended the call and went back into the living room.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ he announced. Jude had lit a fresh cigarette and was busy on her phone again. She held up her hand and gave him the briefest of waves.

  ‘The place I’m interested in is called Klondyke Alley,’ he added.

  ‘Klondyke Alley,’ she echoed, eyes fixed on the screen. ‘Always supposing I happen to find myself on Great Junction Street.’

  ‘Always supposing,’ Fox agreed, turning to leave. ‘And thanks.’

  After he had gone, Jude went over to the window just to make sure. Then she took a small piece of paper from the back pocket of her jeans and unfolded it, tapping the number into her phone.

  ‘Hello?’ she said when her call was answered. ‘I need to talk to Mr Christie. Is there any way you can get a message to him?’

  Sheila Graham was dressed for business – charcoal two-piece trouser suit with plain white blouse beneath. Earlier, the blouse might have been buttoned to the neck, but now it was open, as if to signal that she was off duty. She was at a table by the window and smiled as Fox walked in. Most of the other drinkers looked like people waiting for trains, wheelie cases and backpacks parked next to their seats. Graham had a laptop case and a shoulder bag and was drinking white wine. Fox’s Appletiser was waiting. He perched on a stool across from her, lifted his glass and offered a toast.

  ‘Rough day?’ he enquired.

  ‘Scottish Government stuff. I won’t bore you with the details. How are things with you, Malcolm?’