In a House of Lies: The Brand New Rebus Thriller (Inspector Rebus 22)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Graham told you?’

  Another nod. ‘You were exonerated, though?’

  ‘Whiter than white,’ Clarke said quietly, signalling to turn at the lights.

  9

  The first meeting between Malcolm Fox and Tess Leighton became an immediate battle of wills, which he ended up losing. The 2006 case files had been moved to a small, cold room down the corridor from the MIT office. Fox had argued that they should be returned to MIT.

  ‘All due respect, Malcolm,’ Leighton had drawled, ‘we’re running a murder inquiry in there.’

  ‘I wouldn’t get in the way.’

  She had slid her eyes towards the stacks of boxes. ‘You probably would, though. Easier to concentrate when you’ve got a whole room to yourself. I’m always around if you need me.’

  Having said which, she had inched backwards to the door, closing it after her. An hour later, she’d stuck her head back into the room. ‘We’re making a cuppa,’ she had informed him. ‘How do you take it?’

  ‘Just milk, thanks.’

  ‘Settled in okay?’

  ‘I’m freezing my arse off.’

  ‘Mug of tea will sort you out.’

  When she left, he made up his mind, trailing her to the MIT office and positioning himself against one of the radiators, palms pressed against it. Leighton was behind her desk, Phil Yeats busy at the kettle.

  ‘Just till I’ve thawed out,’ Fox explained to the room at large.

  Graham Sutherland looked up from his computer. ‘Making progress?’

  ‘There’s a lot to take in.’

  ‘If you come across anything you think might be helpful to us …’

  Fox nodded. ‘You’ll be the first to hear.’

  ‘Meantime,’ Sutherland said to his team, ‘Aubrey Hamilton is heading to Poretoun Woods. Who’s up for accompanying her? How about you, George?’

  ‘I’d have to get some boots from somewhere.’

  Sutherland shifted his attention to Callum Reid.

  ‘Wouldn’t I be more useful here?’ Reid argued.

  ‘I can do it if you like,’ Fox chipped in. ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing the gully for myself.’

  ‘You’re not official, though, Malcolm.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Leighton said. ‘Malcolm can tag along if he likes.’ She shrugged as if to say: where’s the harm?

  ‘Don’t leave me hanging, Tess,’ Sutherland instructed. ‘Hamilton finds anything, I want to know ASAP.’

  Leighton nodded her understanding. She had lifted a carrier bag on to her desk and pulled out a pair of wellingtons. ‘You got any?’ she asked Fox.

  ‘I’ll manage,’ he assured her.

  Five minutes later, they were in Leighton’s Corsa. She asked Fox about his work at Gartcosh, then whether he had found anything in the old files.

  ‘You had a look at them before me,’ he countered. ‘What did you think?’

  ‘I didn’t like it that two officers had worked for Brand.’

  ‘Steele and Edwards, you mean?’

  ‘And the investigation really went out of its way to minimise mention of Derek Shankley, while still managing to focus on the victim’s homosexuality. Lot of gay men pulled in for interview and held for longer than seems strictly necessary.’

  ‘How about the family’s complaints?’

  ‘Thing to remember is, it was a misper. There were reasons to suspect foul play but no actual evidence of any kind – which didn’t stop the parents expecting miracles.’

  Fox nodded to himself. ‘My boss told me the family’s complaints had been dismissed – that’s not quite the case, though. Police Scotland did end up apologising for the way we’d dealt with them.’

  ‘Without admitting we’d got anything wrong.’

  ‘I’m already seeing signs of sloppiness, Tess. It took over a week to get round to questioning Brand, for example. And nobody seems to have bothered even looking for CCTV footage from Bloom’s neighbourhood or the route back into the city from Poretoun House.’

  Leighton gave him an appraising glance. ‘All of that from an hour’s reading? I’m impressed.’

  ‘It helped that you’d given it a go – the interesting stuff was all towards the top of the first box. I’m grateful for that.’

  Leighton checked her sat nav. ‘You never did get that tea,’ she said. ‘We could stop for a takeaway.’

  ‘Maybe on the way back, but thanks for the thought.’

  For the rest of the drive they discussed Police Scotland, politics and the state of the world, neither of them particularly willing to open up about their personal lives. But Fox reckoned it would happen; they were starting to get along.

  Professor Hamilton had brought a male assistant with her. Fox hadn’t met the forensic anthropologist before, but he knew her reputation. She was short, with brown hair cut in a fringe. She wore glasses, behind which the eyes remained sharply watchful. Blue and white crime-scene tape surrounded the perimeter of the gully. The ground had been disturbed, evidence of the fingertip search carried out the previous day. They’d tried uncovering the old track, the one the car must have used. There had been some success, though saplings and briars had replaced it at many points.

  ‘Who’d have known there even was an access road?’ Fox had asked as they trudged into the woods.

  ‘Local farmers,’ Leighton offered. ‘Plus forestry staff, the woods’ owner …’

  ‘And anyone who bought an Ordnance Survey map,’ Hamilton added. ‘I got hold of one and it’s still marked.’

  ‘Nice to narrow things down,’ Fox muttered as his shoes sank into the mulch of leaves.

  A bored, cold-looking constable guarded the crime scene. He wore a padded jacket and black gloves but seemed ready for a change of shift. He added their details to his clipboard and nodded towards the ropes that would allow them to negotiate the slope.

  ‘Not that there’s anything to see.’

  No, because a farm tractor had been used to winch the VW Polo out, churning up the side of the gully in the process. Hamilton had already ducked under the tape and, ignoring the ropes, was cantering down the slope, her boots finding the necessary purchase.

  ‘You a climber by any chance?’ Leighton called down to her.

  ‘Hill-walking,’ Hamilton called back. ‘But in Scotland that can often amount to the same thing.’

  Leighton looked towards Fox. He shrugged to let her know he was happy enough where he was. To show willing, however, he began to circle the gully, noting more evidence of the painstaking search. Hamilton’s assistant had joined her in the gully, having made the descent largely on his backside. The two of them began studying the pile of material that had been draped over the car.

  ‘Uprooted rather than cut with a knife,’ Hamilton eventually said, while her assistant photographed everything held up in front of him. She opened the folder she’d brought. There were dozens of crime-scene pictures inside, and she studied some of them closely, looking up from time to time to visualise the Polo. The SOCOs had bagged cigarette butts, rusty drinks cans, chocolate wrappers. They would be checked for prints and other identifiers. Hamilton scooped up some of the rich dark soil, crumbling it between her fingers. ‘You can learn a lot from bugs,’ she stated, her voice carrying without difficulty. ‘Some insects frequent particular environments. And when it comes to man-made objects, those are prone to deteriorate at different rates, affected again by their environment.’ She held up a photo of the Polo for them to see. ‘I’m just not convinced,’ she said, ‘that this car lay in this gully for twelve years.’

  ‘So how long was it here?’ Fox called down to her.

  ‘Not long enough for the amount of corrosion I’d expect to see.’

  ‘Where was it before?’

  ‘Could be the bugs will tell us. I still want a soil expert to examine it. I
’m guessing we now have a budget?’

  Leighton nodded.

  ‘So I can talk to DCI Sutherland?’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll be amenable.’

  ‘Then let’s hope the person I want is available.’

  Having done a circuit, Fox was back next to Leighton. ‘Thoughts?’ she asked him.

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s uppermost in my mind right now, Tess.’

  ‘What?’

  He lifted one leg. ‘I need to buy some new shoes.’

  10

  Sir Adrian Brand ran his empire from a vast Victorian house on Kinellan Road in Murrayfield. The gardens surrounding the property would have constituted a park in less desirable parts of the city. Sheltered beneath a car port sat a Bentley and a Tesla, the latter hooked up to its charging cable. When Clarke and Crowther rang the bell, the door was opened by Glenn Hazard.

  ‘Nice to see you again,’ Clarke told him, her tone giving the lie to her words.

  ‘Sir Adrian is in the garden room,’ Hazard replied. ‘Though like me, he’s wondering why you’re wasting his time.’

  ‘Because we get a kick out of it?’

  He made an exasperated sound and led them across the vast hallway with its chandelier and polished parquet floor, through one door into a sitting room with what looked like a dining room off, then a set of glass doors into an airy conservatory filled with potted plants and wicker furniture. Brand sat pretending to read the Financial Times. He wore rimless glasses on an owl-like face. What hair he still had was slicked back across the top of his head and around his ears. His pale lemon shirt billowed, its top two buttons undone to expose tufts of silvered chest hair. While Jackie Ness’s metal Rolex had looked fake, the gold one hanging loosely around Brand’s thick wrist was almost certainly real.

  Brand made a show of closing and folding his newspaper. His PR man had taken the chair to his right, leaving only a narrow sofa for Clarke and Crowther. The two women made space on it. The glass coffee table between them and Brand held a goblet emptied of fresh orange juice, a small pile of current affairs magazines, and an iPad showing a muted TV channel dedicated to Mammon.

  ‘Thank you for seeing us at such short notice,’ Clarke began.

  Brand looked at her for the first time. ‘You say that as if I had any choice in the matter.’

  ‘I would imagine it’s difficult to force you to do anything you don’t want to do, Sir Adrian.’

  His smile was as thin as the platinum chain around his neck. ‘Well, I suppose I was curious. It’s not every day a body turns up on land one happens to own.’

  ‘Especially the body of someone you knew.’

  ‘Sir Adrian never met Stuart Bloom,’ Hazard snapped.

  Clarke kept her focus on Brand. ‘You knew who he was, though, knew the work he was engaged in for Jackie Ness?’

  ‘This was all gone over at the time, Inspector.’ Brand wafted a hand in front of him. ‘I got wind that Ness had employed some sort of gumshoe. My people knew that someone had tried hacking into my computer system.’

  ‘But you couldn’t prove who it was?’

  ‘I knew Ness was behind it; had my lawyers send a cease and desist notice.’

  ‘You didn’t go to the police?’

  ‘I try as best I can to take care of my own affairs. And as you’ve said yourself, I had no proof of Ness’s involvement.’

  ‘You didn’t think to confront Stuart Bloom?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or send an emissary to do it for you?’

  Brand shifted a little. ‘Again, no.’

  ‘As part of our inquiry into Mr Bloom’s murder, we’ll be looking at original statements and interviews. Is there anything you said then that you might want to amend with the benefit of hindsight?’

  ‘I told the truth, Inspector, just as I’m doing now.’

  ‘As you say, the body was found on land you own – what do you think about that?’

  ‘I’ve only recently acquired Poretoun Woods.’

  ‘But all the same …’

  Brand gave a shrug, the collar of his shirt rising as far as his ears. ‘I feel sorry for his family, obviously, even though they’ve said some poisonous things about me in the past.’

  ‘Libellous things,’ Hazard corrected his employer. ‘Over which Sir Adrian took no action.’

  ‘That’s unusual, isn’t it?’ The two men looked at Clarke. ‘I mean, you’ve never been one to shy away from lawyers and lawsuits.’

  ‘A man needs a hobby, Inspector.’ Brand’s smile showed a row of perfect teeth.

  ‘The Bloom family felt you were being protected by the police, because of you who were.’

  ‘They threw around all manner of wild accusations. It was a Freemasons’ plot, I was lining the chief constable’s pockets – all of it absolute nonsense.’

  ‘Do you still employ a chauffeur, sir?’

  The change of tack didn’t quite throw Brand. ‘Not as such.’

  ‘How about a bodyguard?’

  ‘I often travel with Sir Adrian,’ Hazard butted in. Brand turned to him.

  ‘She means a proper bodyguard, Glenn. Ex-army, Krav Maga training.’ Then, to Clarke: ‘There’s an agency I’ve been known to use on occasion, mostly for overseas trips.’

  Clarke nodded slowly, pretending to digest this. ‘Do you still have any dealings with Brian Steele and Grant Edwards?’

  Brand’s brow furrowed. ‘Should I know those names?’

  ‘They worked for you around the time Stuart Bloom disappeared, just in their free time – their day job was as police officers.’

  ‘A lot of people have worked for me, Inspector.’

  ‘They used to drive you around, act as muscle. I’m sure if you put your mind to it, you’ll find you remember them.’

  Brand eventually nodded. ‘Steele and Edwards, yes. They were with me for a short time.’

  ‘They were even the source of one of the Bloom family’s complaints.’

  ‘Were they?’

  ‘Seeing how both of them were attached to the missing person inquiry. Possible conflict of interest, according to Catherine Bloom.’

  ‘She came here, you know. More than once, actually. The gates were locked but she used the intercom, yelling at my wife.’

  ‘Again, you didn’t contact us?’

  ‘She went away eventually. I felt sorry for her, never having had a son to lose.’

  ‘Your wife isn’t here today?’

  ‘She’d have nothing to add. Cordelia has never taken an interest in my business.’

  Hazard had leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands bunched into fists. ‘You’ll be asking questions of Jackie Ness, too, I trust? For the sake of parity?’

  ‘We’ve just come from Mr Ness.’ Clarke kept her eyes on Brand, whose own attention had drifted to stock-market listings on the TV channel. ‘Any recent hostilities between the two of you?’

  ‘Jackie Ness is living on past glories, such as they were,’ Brand said without looking up. ‘I’ve heard he’s about two phone calls away from bankruptcy, and not for the first time.’

  ‘You’re saying he’s no longer a rival?’

  ‘Bastard’s not big enough,’ Glenn Hazard muttered.

  Brand looked up from the screen, meeting Clarke’s eyes. ‘Jackie Ness is history,’ he intoned.

  ‘Why did you buy Poretoun House, Sir Adrian?’

  ‘As an investment.’

  ‘And how does leaving it to rot increase its value?’

  Brand’s eyes almost gleamed. ‘It got to him, didn’t it? He told you? I knew it would.’

  ‘That’s why you did it?’

  ‘Cheap at half the price.’ Brand appeared to notice Emily Crowther for the first time. ‘Do you talk or are you just here for show?’

  ‘I
talk when I’ve got something to say,’ Crowther offered. ‘And as it happens, I do have something.’

  ‘Yes?’

  Crowther gestured towards the potted plants. ‘You’ve got aphids. Quite a lot of them, actually.’

  When the time came for them to leave, Hazard stayed on the doorstep, watching Clarke unlock the Astra and get behind the steering wheel, while Crowther climbed into the passenger side. Once the doors were closed and the engine started, Clarke asked Crowther what she thought.

  ‘He was lying to us. You saw it too.’

  Clarke nodded. ‘About sending someone to talk to Stuart Bloom. Wonder who his PR was back then.’

  ‘Wouldn’t a lawyer be the more obvious choice?’

  ‘Maybe …’

  ‘You’re thinking of those two uniforms, aren’t you? Steele and Edwards?’

  ‘Jackie Ness has already told us they harassed him. Wouldn’t have been difficult for Brand to set them on Stuart Bloom.’

  ‘Bloom knew of their relationship to Brand – he was the one who warned Ness.’

  Clarke nodded slowly. ‘Maybe Fox will find something in the archives.’

  ‘Something that would earn him a drink?’

  Clarke glanced towards Crowther. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Just the way you talk about him – you’ve obviously been close in the past.’

  ‘Not that close.’ Clarke paused. ‘And when did I even talk about him?’ Then she remembered. ‘The briefing I gave Tess?’

  ‘So I can tell her, then?’

  ‘Tell her what?’

  Crowther waved her phone from side to side. ‘Tess sent me a text from Poretoun Woods. She’s there with Fox. I get the feeling she likes him.’

  ‘She’s free to jump him any time she likes.’ Clarke saw that Crowther had started composing a text. ‘Maybe put it more diplomatically than that, though, eh?’ She released the handbrake, watching Hazard’s figure recede in the rear-view mirror. ‘That was a good line about the aphids, by the way. You’re into gardening?’

  ‘You changing the subject?’

  ‘Absolutely not. I was just wondering.’

  ‘In truth, I probably wouldn’t know an aphid if I saw one. But I reckon it’ll have got him wondering.’