Strip Jack

by Ian Rankin

  He went through to the living room and listened as the message played. Then the caller’s voice. ‘This is Brian Holmes, trying to get in touch with –’

  Rebus picked up the receiver. ‘Brian, what’s up?’

  ‘Ah, caught you. Thought maybe you’d already headed for the hills.’

  ‘I was just leaving.’

  ‘Sure you don’t want to drop by the station first?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Because Dr Curt is about to pronounce . . .’

  The problem with drowning was that drowning and immersion were two entirely different things. A body (conscious or unconscious) might fall (or be pushed) into water and drown. Or an already dead body might be dumped into water as a means of concealment or to lead the police astray. Cause of death became problematical, as did time of death. Rigor mortis might or might not be present. Bruising on and damage to the body might be the result of rocks or other objects in the water itself.

  However, froth from mouth and nose when the chest was pumped down on was a sign that the body was alive when it entered the water. So was the presence in the brain, marrow, kidney and so forth of diatoms. Diatoms, Dr Curt never tired of explaining, were micro-organisms which penetrated the lung membrane and would be pumped around the bloodstream by a still-beating heart.

  But there were other signs, too. Silted matter in the bronchial tubes provided evidence of inhalation of water. A living person falling into water made attempts to grip something (a true-life ‘clutching at straws’) and so the hands of the corpse would be clenched. Washerwoman’s skin, the shedding of nails and hair, the swelling of the body – all these could lead to an estimate of the amount of time the corpse had spent in the water.

  As Curt pointed out, not all the relevant tests had been completed yet. It would be a few more days before the toxicology tests would yield results, so they couldn’t be sure yet whether the deceased had taken any drink or drugs prior to death. No semen had been found in the vagina, but then the deceased’s husband had provided information that the deceased ‘had trouble’ with the pill, and that her preferred method of contraception had always been the sheath . . .

  Christ, thought Rebus, imagine poor old Jack being asked about that. Still, there might be even less pleasant questions to answer . . .

  ‘What we have so far,’ Curt said, while everyone begged him silently to get on with it, ‘is a series of negatives. No froth from the mouth and nose . . . no silted matter . . . no clenched hands. What’s more, rigor mortis would suggest that the body was dead prior to immersion, and that it had been kept in a confined space. You’ll see from the photographs that the legs are bent quite unnaturally.’

  At that moment, they knew . . . but still he hadn’t said it.

  ‘I’d say the body was in the water not less than eight hours and not more than twenty-four. As to when death occurred, well, some time before that, obviously, but not too long, a matter of hours . . .’

  ‘And cause of death?’

  Dr Curt smiled. ‘The photographs of the skull show a clear fracture to the right-hand side of the head. She was hit very hard from behind, gentlemen. I’d say death was almost instantaneous . . .’

  There was more, but not much more. And much mumbling between officers. Rebus knew what they were thinking and saying: it was the same M.O. as the Dean Bridge killing. But it wasn’t. The woman found at Dean Bridge had been murdered at that spot, not transported there, and she had been murdered on a riverside path in the middle of a city, not . . . well, where had Liz Jack died? Anywhere. It could be anywhere. While people were muttering that William Glass had to be found, Rebus was thinking in a different direction: Mrs Jack’s BMW had to be found, and found quickly. Well, he was already packed, and he’d okayed the trip with Lauderdale. Constable Moffat would be there to meet him, and Gregor Jack had provided the keys.

  ‘So there it is, ladies and gentlemen.’ Curt was saying. ‘Murder would be my opinion. Yes, murder. The rest is down to your forensic scientists and yourselves.’

  ‘Off are you?’ Lauderdale commented, seeing Rebus toting his bag.

  ‘That’s right, sir.’

  ‘Good hunting, Inspector.’ Lauderdale paused. ‘What’s the name of the place again?’

  ‘Where is it expensive to be a Mason, sir?’

  ‘I don’t follow . . . ah, right, a dear lodge.’

  Rebus winked at his superior and made his way out towards his car.

  It was very pleasing the way Scotland changed every thirty miles or so – changed in landscape, in character, and in dialect. Mind you, stick in a car and you’d hardly guess. The roads all seemed much the same. So did the roadside petrol stations. Even the towns, long, straight main streets with their supermarkets and shoe shops and wool shops and chip shops . . . even these seemed to blur one into the other. But it was possible to look beyond them; possible, too, to look further into them. A small country, thought Rebus, yet so various. At school, his geography teacher had taught that Scotland could be divided into three distinct regions: Southern Uplands, Lowlands, and Highlands . . . something like that. Geography didn’t begin to tell the story. Well, maybe it did actually. He was heading due north, towards a people very different to those found in the southern cities or the coastal towns.

  He stopped in Perth and bought some supplies – apples, chocolate, a half bottle of whisky, chewing gum, a box of dates, a pint of milk . . . You never knew what might not be available further north. It was all very well on the tourist trail, but if he stepped off that trail . . .

  In Blairgowrie he stopped for fish and chips, which he ate at a Formica-topped table in the chip shop. Lashings of salt, vinegar and brown sauce on the chips. Two slices of white pan bread thinly spread with margarine. And a cup of dark-brown tea. The haddock was covered in batter, which Rebus picked off, eating it first before starting on the fish.

  ‘You look as if you enjoyed that,’ the frier’s wife said, wiping down the table next to him. He had enjoyed it. All the more so since Patience wouldn’t be smelling his breath this evening, checking for cholesterol and sodium and starch . . . He looked at the list of delights printed above the counter. Red, white and black puddings, haggis, smoked sausage, sausage in batter, steak pie, mince pie, chicken . . . with pickled onions or pickled eggs on the side. Rebus couldn’t resist. He bought another bag of chips to eat while he drove . . .

  Today was Tuesday. Five days since Elizabeth Jack’s body was found, probably six days since she died. Memories were short, Rebus knew. Her photograph had been in all the newspapers, had appeared on television and on several hundred police posters. And still no one had come forward with information. He’d worked through the weekend, seeing little of Patience, and he’d come up with this notion, this latest straw to be clutched at.

  The scenery deepened around him, growing wilder and quieter. He was in Glenshee. In it and through it as quickly as he could. There was something sinister and empty about the place, a louring sense of dis-ease. The Devil’s Elbow wasn’t the treacherous spot it had seemed in his youth; the road had somehow been levelled, or the corner straightened. Braemar . . . Balmoral . . . turning off just before Ballater towards Cockbridge and Tomintoul, that stretch of road which always seemed to be the first of the winter to close for snow. Bleak? Yes, he’d call it bleak. But it was impressive, too. It just went on and on and on. Deep valleys hewn by glaciers, collections of scree. Rebus’s geography teacher had been an enthusiast.

  He was close now, close to his destination. He turned to the directions which he had scribbled down, an amalgam of notes from Sergeant Moffat and Gregor Jack. Gregor Jack . . .

  Jack had wanted to talk with him about something, but Rebus hadn’t given him the chance. Too dangerous to get involved. Not that Rebus believed for one second that Jack had anything to hide. All the same . . . The others though, the Rab Kinnouls and Ronald Steeles and Ian Urquharts . . . there was definitely . . . well, maybe not definitely . . . but there was . . . ach, no, he cou
ldn’t put it into words. He didn’t really want to think about it even. Thinking about it, about all those permutations and possibilities, all those what ifs . . . well, they just made his head birl.

  ‘Left and then right . . . along the track beside a fir plantation . . . up to the top of the rise . . . through a gateway. It’s like Treasure Hunt.’ The car was behaving impeccably (touch wood). Touch wood? He only had to stop the car and stretch his arm out of the window. No plantation now, but a wild wood. The track was heavily rutted, with grass growing high along a strip between the ruts. Some of the larger potholes had been filled in with gravel, and Rebus’s speed was down to five miles an hour or less, but that didn’t seem to stop his bones being shaken, his head snapped from side to side. It didn’t seem possible that there could be a habitation ahead. Maybe he’d taken a wrong turning. But the tyre tracks he was following were fresh enough, and besides, he didn’t fancy reversing all the way back along the trail, and there was no spot wide enough for a three-point turn.

  At last, the surface improved, and he was driving on gravel. As he turned a long, high-cambered bend, he found himself suddenly in front of a house. On the grass outside was parked a police Mini Metro. A narrow stream trickled past the front entrance. There was no garden to speak of, just meadow and then forest, and a smell of wet pine in the air. In the distance, beyond the back of the house, the land climbed and climbed. Rebus got out of the car, feeling his nerves jangle back into position. The door of the Metro had already opened, and out stepped a farm labourer in police uniform.

  It was like some sort of Guinness challenge: how large a man can you get in the front of a Mini Metro? He was also young, late teens or early twenties. He gave a big rubicund smile.

  ‘Inspector Rebus? Constable Moffat.’ The hand Rebus shook was as large as a coal shovel but surprisingly smooth, almost delicate. ‘Detective Sergeant Knox was going to be here, but something came up. He sends his apologies and hopes I’ll do instead, this being my neck of the woods, so to speak.’

  Rebus, who was rubbing his neck at this point, smiled at the joke. Then he pressed a thumb either side of his spine and straightened up, exhaling noisily. Vertebrae clicked and crunched.

  ‘Long drive, eh?’ Constable Moffat commented. ‘But you’ve made not bad time. I’ve only been here five minutes myself.’

  ‘Have you had another look round?’

  ‘Not yet, no. Thought I’d best wait.’

  Rebus nodded. ‘Let’s start with the outside. Big place, isn’t it? I mean, after that road up to it I was expecting something a bit more basic.’

  ‘Well, the house was here first, that’s the point. Used to have a fine garden, well-kept drive, and that forest was hardly there at all. Before my time, of course. I think the place was built in the 1920s. Part of the Kelman estate. The estate got sold off bit by bit. There used to be estate workers to keep the place in check. Not these days, and this is what happens.’

  ‘Still, the house looks in good nick.’

  ‘Oh, aye, but you’ll see there’s a few slates missing, and the gutters could do with patching up.’

  Moffat spoke with the confidence of the DIYer. They were circling the house. It was a two-storey affair of solid-looking stone. To Rebus’s mind, it wouldn’t have been out of place on the outskirts of Edinburgh; it was just a bit odd to find it in a clearing in the wilderness. There was a back door, beside which sat a solitary dustbin.

  ‘Do the bins get emptied around here?’

  ‘They do if you can get them down to the roadside.’

  Rebus lifted the lid. The smell was truly awful. A rotting side of salmon, by the shape of it, and some chicken or duck bones.

  ‘I’m surprised the animals haven’t been at those,’ Moffat said. ‘The deer or the wildcats . . .’

  ‘Looks as though it’s been in the bin long enough, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say they were last week’s leavings, sir, if that’s what you’re getting at.’

  Rebus looked at Moffat. ‘That’s what I’m getting at,’ he agreed. ‘The whole of last week, and for a few days before that, Mrs Jack was away from home. Driving a black BMW. Supposedly staying here.’

  ‘Well, if she did, nobody I’ve spoken to saw her.’

  Rebus held up a door key. ‘Let’s see if the inside of the house tells a different story, eh?’ But first he returned to his car and produced two pairs of clear polythene gloves. He handed one pair to the constable. ‘I’m not even sure these’ll fit you,’ he told him. But they did. ‘Right, try not to touch anything, even though you’re wearing gloves. It might be you could smear or wipe a fingerprint. Remember, this is murder we’re talking about, not joyriding or cattle rustling. Okay?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Moffat sniffed the air. ‘Did you enjoy your chips? I can smell the vinegar from here.’

  Rebus slammed shut the car door. ‘Let’s go.’

  The house smelt damp. At least, the narrow hallway did. The doors off this hallway were wide open, and Rebus stepped through the first, into a room which stretched from the front of the house to the back. The room had been decorated with comfort in mind. There were three sofas, a couple of armchairs, and beanbags and scatter cushions. There were TV and video, and a hi-fi system sitting on the floor, one of its speakers lying side on. There was also mess.

  Mugs, cups and glasses for a start. Rebus sniffed one of the mugs. Wine. Well, the vinegary stuff left in it had once been wine. Empty bottles of burgundy, champagne, armagnac. And stains – on the carpet, on the scatter cushions, and on one wall, where a glass had landed with some force, shattering on impact. Ashtrays overflowed, and there was a small hand-mirror half hidden under one of the floor cushions. Rebus bent down over it. Traces of white powder around its rim. Cocaine. He left it where it was and approached the hi-fi, examining the choice of music. Cassettes, mostly. Fleetwood Mac, Eric Clapton, Simple Minds . . . and opera. Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro.

  ‘A party, sir?’

  ‘Yes, but how recent?’ Rebus got the feeling that this wasn’t all the result of a single evening. A load of bottles looked to have been pushed to one side, making a little oasis of space on the floor, in the midst of which sat a solitary bottle – still upright – and two mugs, one with lipstick on its rim.

  ‘And how many people, do you reckon?’

  ‘Half a dozen, sir.’

  ‘You could be right. A lot of booze for six people.’

  ‘Maybe they don’t bother clearing up between parties.’

  Just what Rebus was thinking. ‘Let’s have a look around.’

  Across the hall there was a front room which had probably once been dining room or lounge, but now served as a makeshift bedroom. A mattress took up half the floor space, sleeping bags covering the other half. There were a couple of empty bottles in here, too, but nothing to drink out of. A few art prints had been pinned to the walls. On the mattress sat a pair of shoes, men’s, size nine, into one of which had been stuffed a blue sock.

  The only room left was the kitchen. Pride of place seemed to go to a microwave oven, beside which sat empty tins, and packets of something called Microwave Popcorn. The tins had contained lobster bisque and venison stew. The double sink was filled with dishes and grey, speckled water. On a foldaway table sat unopened bottles of lemonade, packs of orange juice, and a bottle of cider. There was a larger pine breakfast table, its surface dotted with soup droppings but free from dishes and other detritus. On the floor around it, however, lay empty crisp packets, a knocked-over ashtray, bread-sticks, cutlery, a plastic apron and some serviettes.

  ‘Quick way of clearing a table,’ said Moffat.

  ‘Yes,’ said Rebus. ‘Have you ever seen The Postman Always Rings Twice? The later version, with Jack Nicholson?’

  Moffat shook his head. ‘I saw him in The Shining though.’

  ‘Not the same thing at all, Constable. Only, there’s a bit in the film where . . . you must have heard about it . . . where Jack Nicholson and the bo
ss’s wife clear the kitchen table so they can have a spot of you-know-what on it.’

  Moffat looked at the table suspiciously. ‘No,’ he said. Clearly, this idea was new to him. ‘What did you say the film was called . . .?’

  ‘It’s only an idea,’ said Rebus.

  Then there was upstairs. A bathroom, the cleanest room in the house. Beside the toilet sat a pile of magazines, but they were old, too old to yield any clue. And two more bedrooms, one a makeshift attempt like the one downstairs, the other altogether more serious, with a newish-looking wooden four-poster, wardrobe, chest of drawers and dressing table. Improbably, above the bed had been mounted the head of a Highland cow. Rebus stared at the stuff on the dressing table: powders, lipsticks, scents and paints. There were clothes in the wardrobe – mostly women’s clothes, but also men’s denims and cords. Gregor Jack could give no description of what clothing his wife had taken with her when she left. He couldn’t even be sure that she’d taken any until he noticed that her small green suitcase was missing.

  The green suitcase jutting out from beneath the bed. Rebus pulled it out and opened it. It was empty. So were most of the drawers.

  ‘We keep a change of clothes up there,’ Jack had told detectives. ‘Enough for emergencies, that’s all.’

  Rebus stared at the bed. Its pillows had been fluffed up, and the duvet lay straight and smooth across it. A sign of recent habitation? God knows. This was it, the last room in the house. What had he learned at the end of his hundred-odd-mile drive? He’d learned that Mrs Jack’s suitcase – the one Mr Jack said she’d taken with her – was here. Anything else? Nothing. He sat down on the bed. It crackled beneath him. He stood up again and pulled back the duvet. The bed was covered in newspapers, Sunday newspapers, all of them open at the same story.

  MP Found in Sex Den Raid.