Rather Be the Devil (Inspector Rebus 21)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘But that’s history.’

  ‘Besides which, you got your wish – I’m not a cop these days.’

  ‘You still do a pretty good impression.’ Fox paused, watching a car speed past on its way to St Andrews. ‘So when will you have news?’

  ‘About Hank Marvin? Any day – might even be an envelope or a phone message waiting for me at home right now.’

  ‘Hank Marvin played guitar in the Shadows,’ Fox said.

  ‘You catch on fast, Malcolm.’

  ‘I have my moments. Do you want me to drive? We’re nearly there.’

  Rebus shook his head. ‘I need you to navigate, remember? Those bloody phone apps make no sense to me whatsoever …’

  Both men had seen photos of Peter Attwood, but none of them recent. He lived with his wife in a modern detached house on the outskirts of the town. As the Saab crunched over the gravel driveway, Attwood appeared at the door. He wore a baggy brown cardigan and brown cord trousers, and his thinning silver hair looked brilliantined. A pipe was clamped between his teeth. He shook hands with both visitors as they made their introductions.

  ‘Jessica’s visiting a friend,’ he said, leading them indoors, ‘but I’m just about capable of making a cup of tea.’

  While he was in the kitchen, Rebus and Fox explored the living room. Bookshelves, a rack filled with classical CDs, a TV that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Antiques Roadshow. There were a couple of squishy armchairs and matching sofa, plus an array of family photographs on the mantelpiece.

  ‘Seems to come round regular as clockwork,’ Attwood said, carrying in a tray and placing it on the small table between the armchairs.

  ‘What does, sir?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Reopening the file on poor Maria’s death. Help yourselves, chaps.’ Attwood added a splash of milk to his own mug and sat down. Rebus and Fox did the same, settling side by side on the sofa.

  ‘Eight years ago,’ Rebus said, ‘you would have been interviewed by an officer called Chatham.’

  ‘That sounds about right. Then there was the ghastly journalist woman …’

  ‘Maxine Dromgoole,’ Fox clarified.

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘The thing is, sir,’ Rebus said, ‘Robert Chatham has been murdered.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘And we just wondered if you’d had any contact with him.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Because he might not have been able to let the case go.’

  Attwood considered this. ‘Maria had that effect on men, but I haven’t heard anything of the fellow in the eight years since he questioned me.’

  ‘How about Ms Dromgoole?’

  ‘She sent me a lengthy email, like something out of Mastermind. Did I know that musician fellow? Was I sure I hadn’t visited the hotel earlier in the day?’

  ‘Which musician did she mean?’ Rebus asked. ‘Bruce Collier?’

  ‘Is he the one Maria had the knee-trembler with?’

  ‘That’ll be Dougie Vaughan.’

  Attwood clicked his fingers. ‘Exactly so. But you see, I definitely wasn’t anywhere near the bloody hotel – that was the whole point.’

  ‘You wanted Maria to get the hint? That you were breaking off the affair?’

  Attwood screwed up his face. ‘I’d tried telling her a couple of times, but then she would say something or do something and suddenly I’d change my mind. But Joyce had come along, you see …’

  ‘The lover you left her for?’

  ‘I really thought Joyce was the one.’

  ‘Things didn’t work out that way, though.’

  ‘And then I met dear Jessica …’

  Rebus knew from the photos on file that Attwood had possessed Hollywood good looks and a dress style to match. With the passing years he had lost both, and now he looked like any other pensioner. Which was to say: harmless. Forty years back, he would have been a very different proposition, something Rebus had to keep reminding himself.

  ‘The staff member who said he saw you …’ Fox prompted.

  ‘Yes, that little bugger tried to dip me in shit all right. Know why? I’d never bothered to tip him. The mark-up on room service, why should I? He was sly with it, too – he only ever said he saw someone who looked “a bit” like me.’

  ‘What did you think about Vince Brady’s story?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘Is he the one who said Maria had been snogging the musician? Not the knee-trembler, but the other one?’

  ‘Not snogging exactly, but she’d been talking to Bruce Collier in the corridor.’

  ‘I think that’s balls, if you’ll allow a measure of frankness. Maria was expecting me to turn up at her door. She would have gone straight to her room, same as always – the first tap you gave, the door flew open and she was standing there, ready to pounce.’ He smiled wistfully. ‘She was some woman, I don’t know if you can appreciate that.’

  ‘She hadn’t made a good marriage, though.’

  ‘John was all right, I suppose. A decent type – too strait-laced, maybe, and not a huge fan of the physical stuff … intimacy, you know. They implied at the time that Maria was a nympho or off her head, but that was just to sell their papers.’

  ‘You were friends with John Turquand, weren’t you?’ Rebus asked.

  Attwood squirmed a little. ‘Not so much that I wouldn’t sleep with his wife.’

  ‘You don’t think he knew the two of you were lovers?’

  ‘Not until the police told him.’

  ‘Did you ever see him afterwards?’

  ‘Once, some years later. We happened to be lunching in the same restaurant. He punched me square on the nose, and who’s to say I didn’t deserve it?’

  ‘Did it ever cross your mind he might have killed her?’

  ‘He wasn’t that sort. Plus he was in meetings and such like.’

  ‘Then who did?’

  ‘If I had a fiver for every time I’ve been asked that … I think it featured more than once on Miss Dromgoole’s questionnaire.’

  ‘You don’t have an answer?’

  ‘Some psycho on the hotel staff? One of those musicians who were swarming through the place that day, high on drugs? Take your pick.’ Attwood offered a shrug and slurped some of the weak tea. ‘Whoever it was,’ he eventually offered, ‘they stole a beautiful spirit from the world. I’d never met anyone like her, and never would again.’ He looked from one visitor to the other. ‘But please don’t tell Jessica I said that. She’d run me through with one of her knitting needles …’

  John Turquand’s country pile was reached by way of a half-mile private road bordered by rhododendron bushes. The house itself was probably Edwardian, with apparently endless crow-stepped gables and mullioned windows. The huge reception hall smelled of damp, however, and there was no sign of the army of servants such a place demanded, just the stooped, balding figure of Turquand himself. Fishing rods stood in an untidy line against one wall, while a stag’s dusty head graced another.

  ‘Whisky?’ Turquand asked, his voice reedy.

  ‘Maybe just a soft drink,’ Fox responded.

  ‘I think there might be something in the library.’

  And that was where Turquand took them. He wore carpet slippers that, like their owner, had seen better days.

  ‘Broke my hip last year,’ he said, explaining his gait.

  ‘Quite some place you have here,’ Fox said. ‘Takes a lot of upkeep, though.’

  ‘You’ve hit the nail on the head,’ Turquand agreed.

  ‘You live here by yourself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They were in the library now. Its floor-to-ceiling fitted shelves were mostly devoid of books, other than a few true stories of adventure. Turquand sported a tweed waistcoat and collarless white shirt. Two of the fly buttons on his trousers hadn’t been done up. He had made for a drinks trolley. Next to decanters of whisky and gin sat a plastic one-litre cola bottle, a few inches missing from it.

  ‘Might be a bi
t flat, I’m afraid,’ he said as he poured, handing both men a glass covered in enough fingerprints to keep any crime scene manager happy. He poured an inch of whisky for himself, adding a splash of water from a jug.

  ‘Down the hatch,’ he said. The first gulp brought some colour to his gaunt cheeks and seemed to perk him up. Four chairs sat around a green baize card table. A deck of cards lay untouched in the middle. Turquand motioned to Rebus and Fox, and the three men sat down, the unpadded wooden chairs creaking in protest.

  ‘We’ve just been to see Peter Attwood,’ Fox said. ‘He mentioned the punch you gave him.’

  ‘I’d have done worse, too, but he’s a bit bigger than me.’

  ‘You know why we’re here?’

  ‘I saw it in the paper – Robert Chatham, it said. Retired detective. Dreadful thing to happen.’ He shook his head. ‘The only mystery is why you think I might be able to help.’

  ‘Mr Chatham interviewed you eight years ago,’ Fox recited. ‘Had you heard from him in the intervening period?’

  ‘Not a peep. Are you suggesting his death had something to do with Maria’s story?’

  ‘We’re just trying to put together the complete picture.’

  ‘I always thought Attwood must have killed her, you know.’

  ‘He had an alibi, though.’

  ‘Yes, the altogether convenient new lover,’ Turquand said dismissively.

  ‘While you yourself were locked away with Sir Magnus Brough,’ Rebus commented.

  Turquand smiled at the memory. ‘Plotting the takeover of the Royal Bank of Scotland, no less.’

  ‘Might have dodged a bullet there, if you’ll pardon the phrase.’

  ‘We would never have made the mistakes RBS did. What happened to that bank was a tragedy.’

  ‘From everything we’ve discovered about your wife, Mr Turquand,’ Rebus went on, ‘she seems a remarkable woman.’

  ‘She really was.’

  ‘Were the two of you well matched, do you think?’

  ‘I was making a lot of money, and a successful man needs to show it.’

  ‘By investing in a glamorous partner?’

  Turquand’s mouth twitched at Rebus’s use of ‘investing’, but he didn’t deny the truth of the comment.

  ‘I provided stability in her life, I suppose – that was the trade-off, or so I thought.’ He stared at Rebus. ‘Surely none of this can have any bearing on that poor man’s demise.’

  Rebus just shrugged. ‘We have to keep an open mind, sir. Do you remember a woman called Maxine Dromgoole?’

  ‘She wrote a book, didn’t she? I remember giving it a quick squint – not very pleasant. She did want to interview me, but I think I told her to bugger off.’

  ‘And she’s not been in touch since?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m sure you must have a few theories yourself …’

  ‘About who killed Maria? The guitarist, I thought for a long time.’

  ‘Dougie Vaughan?’

  ‘I think he was infatuated with her, but she’d moved on and cast him adrift. When he saw her in the hotel that day …’

  ‘He says he didn’t see her, though.’

  ‘And what else would you expect him to say? Why didn’t he tell the inquiry he’d had a fling with her? Why wait until the trail had gone cold?’

  ‘Have you ever confronted him about this?’

  Turquand shook his head. ‘I tried not to think about it at all, once the dust had settled – threw myself into my work instead. Some nights I’d dream about Maria, dream she was still alive. But every hour I was awake, I focused on money, how to make more and more of it for the bank and myself.’

  ‘Where did it all go wrong, eh?’ Rebus said, stretching out both arms.

  ‘Mr Turquand,’ Fox interrupted, glancing towards Rebus to let him know his ‘one question’ was coming, ‘you were an early champion of Anthony Brough, weren’t you?’

  ‘For my sins.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘He was Sir Magnus’s grandson. I felt I owed him a certain fealty.’

  ‘You don’t sound too enthusiastic.’

  ‘Anthony lost me quite a lot of money. He talks a good game, but really that’s all he does.’

  ‘Are you in touch with him at all?’

  ‘A six-monthly statement, if I’m lucky.’

  ‘You don’t visit his office or speak on the phone?’

  ‘Not for quite some time.’

  ‘You still have money invested with him, though?’

  ‘The losses were such, it was pointless withdrawing what little was left.’

  ‘That must grate,’ Rebus said. ‘You having been a hotshot money man yourself back in the day.’

  ‘Don’t I bloody know it.’ Turquand got to his feet and poured another drink. He appeared not to mind that neither man had taken more than a sip of the stale cola. Once he had returned to the table, Fox started speaking again.

  ‘Anthony seems to have gone missing. Could all those bad investments have caught up with him?’

  ‘You’d need to study his books to answer that – even then, he’s probably not above having two sets of accounts.’

  ‘Do people still do that?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘They probably employ even more circuitous ruses, thanks to the wonders of the online world.’

  ‘Do you know what SLPs are, Mr Turquand.’

  Turquand turned his gaze from Rebus to Fox. ‘Scottish limited partnerships?’

  ‘Would it surprise you to learn that Anthony is involved with quite a number of them?’

  ‘Involved in what way?’

  ‘Setting them up.’

  ‘In order to salt away money in them?’ Turquand guessed. ‘Well, I don’t suppose it’s illegal. If it were, HMRC would be on the hunt …’ He broke off. ‘Ah, now I see – that’s why he’s on the run?’

  ‘I really can’t say.’

  Turquand tapped the side of his nose. ‘Understood. Maybe I should try to repatriate the rest of my investment – always supposing he’s not ditched Molly yet …’

  ‘Molly being?’

  ‘Secretary, receptionist, switchboard, personal assistant.’

  Fox nodded, remembering the voice on the phone. ‘She was in situ last time I rang.’

  ‘Molly will know the score. I’ll call her this afternoon. And thanks for the tip.’

  ‘Doesn’t count as insider trading, does it?’ Rebus enquired.

  ‘Not at all,’ Turquand said.

  ‘Pity …’

  ‘Now we have a nice long drive back to Edinburgh,’ Rebus announced as they got into the Saab and started fastening their seat belts. ‘Which gives you plenty of time to talk me through Anthony Brough and these SLPs of his.’

  ‘I’ve got a question for you first – what did you think of him?’

  ‘Turquand? A bit eccentric, maybe.’

  ‘I’d say he hasn’t got two pennies to rub together. I’m betting he got rid of the staff. The grounds have seen better days. And the whisky smelled cheap.’

  ‘All because he trusted his capital to Sir Magnus Brough’s grandson?’ Rebus mused. ‘I wonder how many other clients are feeling short-changed as Molly fobs them off about her boss’s comings and goings?’

  ‘Darryl Christie could well be one,’ Fox admitted.

  Rebus’s hands tightened around the steering wheel. ‘You have my full attention, Malcolm. Make sure you don’t waste it.’

  ‘Darryl owns a betting shop and flat on Great Junction Street. Brough rents the flat and uses it as the address for hundreds of SLPs.’ Fox saw Rebus looking at him. ‘What is it?’

  ‘When I called you from Rutland Square, you started to say something about betting, but then choked off the rest – now I know why.’ He nodded to himself. ‘Keep going,’ he said eventually. ‘And if you’re talking company law and malfeasance, pretend you’re explaining it to a complete idiot …’

  Clarke tapped on the open door of the MIT room. Anne B
riggs glanced up from her desk.

  ‘I was looking for DI Fox.’

  ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘So I see. My name’s Clarke.’

  ‘DI Clarke?’

  ‘Siobhan will probably do.’

  ‘I’m DC Briggs – Anne. Malcolm’s mentioned you.’

  ‘You holding the fort?’

  ‘The super’s at Gartcosh. Couple of the others are interviewing the deceased’s boss. And one’s gone to the shop for milk and biscuits.’

  ‘Leaving DI Fox unaccounted for?’

  ‘He was supposed to be in the interview room, but he isn’t.’

  ‘I’m guessing the tidy desk is his?’ Clarke stood next to it.

  ‘That’s why you earn the big bucks.’

  Clarke picked up The Ends of Justice and began flipping pages.

  ‘That’s who he was supposed to be questioning,’ Briggs offered.

  ‘Maybe I should phone him,’ Clarke was saying as Mark Oldfield walked in, waving a carrier bag at Briggs. Briggs made the introductions as Oldfield switched the kettle on.

  ‘I’m sure he won’t be long,’ Briggs said. ‘Have a coffee first.’

  ‘I might do that.’ Clarke had moved from Fox’s desk to the next one along. A pile of A4 sheets was lying on top of a closed laptop. The sheets were photocopies of stills from CCTV footage.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve just finished printing those out,’ Briggs said. ‘Deceased had been threatened by the guys you see there.’

  ‘The really blurry guys,’ Oldfield added.

  Clarke moved from group shots to close-ups of individual faces. She held one up towards Briggs.

  ‘I think I know him,’ she announced. ‘I was talking to him only a couple of hours back. Name’s Hugh Harold Hodges, but he prefers Harry. Works at a place called the Devil’s Dram.’

  Oldfield had come over to study the picture. ‘You sure?’ he asked.

  ‘Fairly positive. It’s the haircut and beard.’

  ‘Every second guy I see these days has that beard.’

  ‘Well, I reckon it’s him.’

  Oldfield turned towards Briggs. ‘Do we call the boss man?’ he asked.

  ‘We call the boss man,’ she said. ‘After we’ve had what turns out to be a well-earned cuppa.’