Strip Jack

by Ian Rankin

  ‘It’s for you,’ he said, holding the receiver towards Rebus.

  ‘Yes?’ Rebus said.

  ‘Woman for you,’ explained the switchboard operator. ‘Says it’s urgent.’

  ‘Put her through.’ He waited till the connection was made. ‘Rebus here,’ he said.

  He could hear background noise, announcements. A railway station. Then: ‘About bleedin’ time. I’m at Waverley. My train goes in forty-five minutes. Get here before it leaves and I’ll tell you something.’ The line went dead. Short and sour, but intriguing for all that. Rebus checked his watch.

  ‘I’ve got to go to Waverley Station,’ he told Lauderdale. ‘Why don’t you talk to Steele yourself meantime, sir? See what you make of him?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Lauderdale. ‘Maybe I will . . .’

  *

  She was sitting on a bench in the concourse, conspicuous in sunglasses which were supposed to disguise her identity.

  ‘That bastard,’ she said, ‘putting the papers on to me like that.’ She was talking of her brother, Gregor Jack. Rebus didn’t say anything. ‘One yesterday,’ she went on, ‘then this morning, half a dozen of the bastards. Picture plastered all over the front pages . . .’

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t your brother,’ Rebus said.

  ‘What? Who else could it be?’ Behind the dark lenses, Rebus could still make out Gail Crawley’s tired eyes. She was dressed as though in a hurry – tight jeans, high heels, baggy t-shirt. Her luggage seemed to consist of a large suitcase and two carrier bags. In one hand she clutched her ticket to London, in the other she held a cigarette.

  ‘Maybe,’ Rebus suggested, ‘it was the person who knew who you were, the person who told Gregor where to find you.’

  She shivered. ‘That’s what I wanted to tell you about. God knows why. I don’t owe the bastard any favours . . .’

  Nor do I, thought Rebus, yet I always seem to be doing them for him.

  ‘What about a drink?’ she suggested.

  ‘Sure,’ said Rebus. He picked up her suitcase, while she clip-clopped along carrying the bags. Her shoes made a lot of noise, and attracted glances from some of the men lolling about. Rebus was quite relieved to reach the safety of the bar, where he bought a half of export for himself and a Bacardi and Coke for her. They found a corner not too near the gaming machine or the frazzled loudspeaker of the jukebox.

  ‘Cheers,’ she said, trying to drink and inhale at much the same time. She spluttered and swore, then stubbed out the cigarette, only seconds later to light another.

  ‘Good health,’ said Rebus, sipping his own drink. ‘So, what was it you wanted to get off your chest?’

  She snorted. ‘I like that: get off your chest.’ This time she remembered to swallow her mouthful of rum before drawing on the cigarette. ‘Only,’ she said, ‘what you were saying, about how somebody might have known who I was . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, I remembered. It was a night a while back. Like, a couple of months. Six weeks . . . something like that. I hadn’t been up here long. Anyway, the usual trio of pissed punters comes in. Funny how they usually come in threes . . .’ She paused, snorted. ‘If you’ll pardon the expression.’

  ‘So three men came to the brothel?’

  ‘Just said so, didn’t I? Anyway, one of them liked the look of me, so off we went upstairs. I told him my name was Gail. I can’t see the point of all those stupid names everybody else uses – Candy and Mandy and Claudette and Tina and Suzy and Jasmine and Roberta. I’d just forget who I was supposed to be.’

  Rebus glanced at his watch. A little over ten minutes left . . . She seemed to understand.

  ‘So, anyway, I asked him if he had a name. And he laughed. He said, “You mean you don’t recognize the face?” I shook my head, and he said, “Of course, you’re a Londoner, aren’t you? Well hen,” he said, “I’m weel kent up here.” Something stupid like that. Then he says, “I’m Gregor Jack.” Well, I just started laughing, don’t ask me why. He did ask me why. So I said, “No you’re not. I know Gregor Jack.” That seemed to put him off his stroke. In the end, he buggered off back to his pals. All the usual winks and slaps on the back, and I didn’t say anything . . .’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Big. Like a Highlander. One of the other girls said she thought she had seen him on the telly . . .’

  Rab Kinnoul. Rebus described him briefly.

  ‘Sounds about right,’ she conceded.

  ‘What about the men who were with him?’

  ‘Didn’t pay much attention. One of them was the shy type, tall and skinny like a beanpole. The other was fat and had on a leather jacket.’

  ‘You didn’t catch their names?’

  ‘No.’

  Well, it didn’t matter. Rebus would bet she could pick them out from a line-up. Ronald Steele and Barney Byars. A night out on the town. Byars, Steele, and Rab Kinnoul. A curious little assembly, and another incendiary he could toss in Steele’s direction.

  ‘Finish your drink, Gail,’ he said. ‘Then let’s get you on to that train.’

  But on the way, he extracted an address from her, the same one she had given before, the one he’d had George Flight check on.

  ‘That’s where I’ll be,’ she said. She took a final look around her. The train was idling, filling with people. Rebus lifted her suitcase in through one of the doors. She was still staring up at the glass roof of the station. Then she lowered her gaze to Rebus. ‘I should never have left London, should I? Maybe nothing would have happened if I’d stayed where I was.’

  Rebus tilted his head slightly. ‘You’re not to blame, Gail.’ But all the same, he couldn’t help feeling that she had a point. If she’d stayed away from Edinburgh, if she hadn’t come out with that “I know Gregor Jack” . . . who could say? She stepped up on to the train, then turned back towards him.

  ‘If you see Gregor . . .’ she began. But there wasn’t anything else. She shrugged and turned away, carrying her case and her bags with her. Rebus, never one for emotional farewells where prostitutes were concerned, turned briskly on his heels and headed back towards his car.

  ‘You’ve what?’

  ‘I’ve let him go.’

  ‘You’ve let Steele go?’ Rebus couldn’t believe it. He paced what there was of Lauderdale’s floor. ‘Why?’

  Now Lauderdale smiled coldly. ‘What was the charge, John? Be realistic, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘Did you talk to him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He seems very plausible.’

  ‘In other words, you believe him?’

  ‘I think I do, yes.’

  ‘What about his car boot?’

  ‘You mean the mud? He told you himself, John, Mrs Kinnoul and he go for walks. That hillside’s hardly what you’d call paved. You need wellies, and wellies get muddy. It’s their purpose.’

  ‘He admitted he was seeing Cath Kinnoul?’

  ‘He admitted nothing of the sort. He just said there was a “woman”.’

  ‘That’s all he’d say when I brought him in. But he admitted it back in his house.’

  ‘I think it’s quite noble of him, trying to protect her.’

  ‘Or could it be that he knows she couldn’t back up his story anyway?’

  ‘You mean it’s a pack of lies?’

  Rebus sighed. ‘No, I think I believe it, too.’

  ‘Well then.’ Lauderdale sounded – for Lauderdale – genuinely gentle. ‘Sit down, John. You’ve had a hard twenty-four hours.’

  Rebus sat down. ‘I’ve had a hard twenty-four years.’

  Lauderdale smiled. ‘Tea?’

  ‘I think some of the Chief Superintendent’s coffee would be a better idea.’

  Lauderdale laughed. ‘Kill or cure, certainly. Now look, you’ve just admitted yourself that you believe Steele’s story –’

  ‘Up to a point.’

  Lauderdale accepted the clause. ‘But still, the man
wanted to leave. How the hell was I going to hold him?’

  ‘On suspicion. We’re allowed to hang on to suspects a bit longer than ninety minutes.’

  ‘Thank you, Inspector, I’m aware of that.’

  ‘So now he toddles back home and gives the boot of his car a damned good clean.’

  ‘You need more than mucky wellies for a conviction, John.’

  ‘You’d be surprised what forensics can do . . .’

  ‘Ah, now that’s another thing. I hear you’ve been getting up people’s noses faster than a Vick’s inhaler.’

  ‘Anybody in particular?’

  ‘Everybody in the field of forensic science, it seems. Stop hassling them, John.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Take a break. Just for the afternoon, say. What about the Professor’s missing tomes?’

  ‘Back with their owner.’

  ‘Oh?’ Lauderdale waited for elucidation.

  ‘A turn-up for the books, sir,’ Rebus said instead. He stood up. ‘Well, if there’s nothing else –’

  The telephone rang. ‘Hold on,’ Lauderdale ordered. ‘The way things have been going, that’ll probably be for you.’ He picked up the receiver. ‘Lauderdale.’ Then he listened. ‘I’ll be right down,’ he said at last, before replacing the receiver. ‘Well, well, well. Take a guess who’s downstairs.’

  ‘The Dundonald and Dysart Pipe Band?’

  ‘Close. Jeanette Oliphant.’

  Rebus frowned. ‘I know the name . . .’

  ‘She’s Sir Hugh Ferrie’s solicitor. And also, it seems, Mr Jack’s. They’re both down there with her.’ Lauderdale had risen from his chair and was straightening his jacket. ‘Let’s see what they want, eh?’

  Gregor Jack wanted to make a statement, a statement regarding his movements on the day his wife was murdered. But the prime mover was Sir Hugh Ferrie; that much was obvious from the start.

  ‘I saw that piece in the paper this morning,’ he explained. ‘Phoned Gregor to ask if it was true. He says it was. I felt a sight better for knowing it, though I told him he’s a bloody fool for not telling anyone sooner.’ He turned to Gregor Jack. ‘A bloody fool.’

  They were seated around a table in one of the conference rooms – Lauderdale’s idea. No doubt an interview room wasn’t good enough for Sir Hugh Ferrie. Gregor Jack had been smartened up for the occasion: crisp suit, tidied hair, sparkling eyes. Seated, however, between Sir Hugh and Jeanette Oliphant, he was always going to come home third in the projection stakes.

  ‘The point is,’ said Jeanette Oliphant, ‘Mr Jack told Sir Hugh about something else he’d been keeping secret, namely that his Wednesday round of golf was a concoction.’

  ‘Bloody fool –’

  ‘And,’ Oliphant went on, a little more loudly, ‘Sir Hugh contacted me. We feel that the sooner Mr Jack makes a statement regarding his genuine actions on the day in question, the less doubt there will be.’ Jeanette Oliphant was in her mid-fifties, a tall, elegant, but stern-faced woman. Her mouth was a thin slash of lipstick, her eyes piercing, missing nothing. Her ears stuck out ever so slightly from her short permed hair, as though ready to catch any nuance or ambiguity, any wrong word or overlong pause.

  Sir Hugh, on the other hand, was stocky and pugnacious, a man more used to speaking than listening. His hands lay flat against the table top, as though they were attempting to push through it.

  ‘Let’s get everything sorted out,’ he said.

  ‘If that’s what Mr Jack wants,’ Lauderdale said quietly.

  ‘It’s what he wants,’ replied Ferrie.

  The door opened. It was Detective Sergeant Brian Holmes, carrying a tray of cups. Rebus looked up at him, but Holmes refused to meet his eyes. Not normally a DS’s job, playing waiter, but Rebus could just see Holmes waylaying the real tea-boy. He wanted to know what was going on. So, it seemed, did Chief Superintendent Watson, who came into the room behind him. Ferrie actually half rose from his chair.

  ‘Ah, Chief Superintendent.’ They shook hands. Watson glanced from Lauderdale to Rebus and back, but there was nothing they could tell him, not yet. Holmes, having laid the tray on the table, was lingering.

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ said Lauderdale, dismissing him from the room. In the general mêlée, Rebus saw that Gregor Jack was looking at him, looking with his sparkling eyes and his little boy’s smile. Here we are again, he was saying. Here we are again.

  Watson decided to stay. Another cup would be needed, but then Rebus declined the offer of tea, so there was a cup for Watson after all. It was obvious from his face that he would have preferred coffee, his own coffee. But he accepted the cup from Rebus with a nodded thanks. Then Gregor Jack spoke.

  ‘After Inspector Rebus’s last visit, I did some thinking. I was able to recall the names of some of the places I went to that Wednesday . . .’ He reached into his jacket’s inside pocket and drew out a piece of paper. ‘I looked in on a bar in Eyemouth itself, but it was packed. I didn’t stay. I did have a tomato juice at a hotel outside the town, but again the bar there was packed, so I can’t be sure anyone will remember me. And I bought chewing gum at a newsagent’s in Dunbar on the way down. Apart from that, I’m afraid it’s pretty vague.’ He handed the list to the Chief Superintendent. ‘A walk along the front at Eyemouth . . . a stop in a lay-by just north of Berwick . . . there was another car in the lay-by, a rep or something, but he seemed more interested in his maps than he did in me . . . That’s about it.’

  Watson nodded, studying the list as though it contained exam questions. Then he handed it on to Lauderdale.

  ‘It’s certainly a start,’ said Watson.

  ‘The thing is, Chief Superintendent,’ said Sir Hugh, ‘the boy knows he’s in trouble, but it seems to me the only trouble he’s in stems from trying to help other people.’

  Watson nodded thoughtfully. Rebus stood up. ‘If you’ll excuse me a moment . . .’ And he made for the door, closing it behind him with a real sense of escape. He had no intention of returning. There might be a slap on the wrist later from Lauderdale or Watson – bad manners that, John – but no way could he sit in that stifling room with all those stifling people. Holmes was loitering at the far end of the corridor.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked when Rebus approached.

  ‘Nothing to get excited about.’

  ‘Oh.’ Holmes looked deflated. ‘Only we all thought . . .’

  ‘You all thought he was coming in to confess? Quite the opposite, Brian.’

  ‘Is Glass going to end up going down for both murders then?’

  Rebus shrugged. ‘Nothing would surprise me,’ he said. Despite his morning shower, he felt grimy and unhealthy.

  ‘Makes it nice and neat, doesn’t it?’

  ‘We’re the police, Brian, we’re not meant to be char ladies.’

  ‘Sorry I spoke.’

  Rebus sighed. ‘Sorry, Brian. I didn’t mean to dust you off.’ They stared at one another for a second, then laughed. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. ‘Right, I’m off to Queensferry.’

  ‘Autograph-hunting?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Need a chauffeur?’

  ‘Why not. Come on then.’

  A snap decision, Rebus was later to think, which probably saved his life.

  11

  Old School Ties

  They managed not to speak about work on the way out to Queensferry. Instead, they spoke about women.

  ‘What about the four of us going out some night?’ Brian Holmes suggested at one point.

  ‘I’m not sure Patience and Nell would get on,’ Rebus mused.

  ‘What, different personalities, you mean?’

  ‘No, similar personalities. That’s the problem.’

  Rebus was thinking of tonight’s dinner with Patience. Of trying to take time off from the Jack case. Of not making a Jack-ass of himself. Of jacking it all in . . .

  ‘It was only a thought,’ said Holmes. ‘That’s all, only a th
ought.’

  The rain was starting as they neared the Kinnoul house. The sky had been darkening for the duration of the drive, until now, it seemed, evening had come early. Rab Kinnoul’s Land-Rover was parked outside the front door. Curiously, the door to the house was open. Rain bounced off the car bonnet, becoming heavier by the second.

  ‘Better make a run for it,’ said Rebus. They opened their doors and ran. Rebus, however, was on the right side for the house, while Holmes had to skirt around the car first. So Rebus was first up the steps, and first through the doorway and into the hall. He shook his hair free of water, then opened his eyes.

  And saw the carving knife swooping down on him.

  And heard the shriek behind it.

  ‘Bastard!’

  Then someone pushed him sideways. It was Holmes, flying through the doorway. The knife fell into space and kept falling floorwards. Cath Kinnoul fell after it, her weight propelling her. Holmes was on her in an instant, pulling her wrist round, twisting it up against her back. He had his knee firmly on her spine, just below the shoulder blades.

  ‘Christ almighty !’ gasped Rebus. ‘Jesus Christ almighty.’

  Holmes was examining the sprawled figure. ‘She took a knock when she fell,’ he said. ‘She’s out cold.’ He prised the knife from her grasp and released her arm. It flopped on to the carpet. Holmes stood up. He seemed wonderfully calm, but his face was unnaturally pale. Rebus, meantime, was shaking like a sick mongrel. He rested against the hallway wall and closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply. There was a noise at the door.

  ‘Who the –?’ Rab Kinnoul saw them, then looked down at the unconscious figure of his wife. ‘Oh hell,’ he said. He knelt down beside her, dripping rainwater on to her back, her head. He was drenched.

  ‘She’s all right, Mr Kinnoul,’ Holmes stated. ‘Knocked herself out, that’s all.’

  Kinnoul saw the knife Holmes was holding. ‘She had that?’ he said, his eyes opening wide. ‘Dear God, Cathy.’ He touched a trembling hand to her head. ‘Cathy, Cathy.’