by Ian Rankin
Then he saw Mairie.
No wonder she’d had a raincoat around her. Underneath she must have been wearing a tasselled black skirt, brown leather waistcoat, white blouse cut just above the chest and up around the shoulders, leaving a lot of bare flesh. She wasn’t wearing a stetson, but there was a red kerchief around her throat and she was singing her heart out.
She was one of the backing singers.
Rebus ordered another drink and gawped at the stage. After a few songs, he could differentiate between Mairie’s voice and that of the other backing singer. He noticed that most of the men were watching this singer. She was much taller than Mairie and had long straight black hair, plus she was wearing a much shorter skirt. But Mairie was the better singer. She sang with her eyes closed, swaying from the hips, knees slightly bent. Her partner used her hands a lot, but didn’t gain much from it.
At the end of their fourth song, the male singer/guitarist gave a short spiel while the others in the band caught their breath, retuned, swigged drinks or wiped their faces. Rebus didn’t know about C&W, but Chaparral seemed pretty good. They didn’t just play mush about pet dogs, dying spouses or standing by your lover. Their songs had a harder, much urban feel, with lyrics to match.
‘And if you don’t know Hal Ketchum,’ the singer was saying, ‘you better get to know him. This is one of his, it’s called Small Town Saturday Night.’
Mairie took lead vocal, her partner patting a tambourine and looking on. At the end of the song, the cheers were loud. The singer came back to his mike and raised his arm towards Mairie.
‘Katy Hendricks, ladies and gentlemen.’ The cheers resumed while Mairie took her bow.
After this they started into their own material, two songs whose intention was always ahead of ability. The singer mentioned that both were available on the band’s first cassette, available to buy in the foyer.
‘We’re going to take a break now. So you can all go away for the next fifteen minutes, but be sure to come back.’
Rebus went into the foyer and dug six pounds out of his pocket. When he came back in, the band were at one of the bars, hoping to be bought drinks if half-time refreshments weren’t on the house. Rebus shook the cassette in Mairie’s ear.
‘Miss Hendricks, would you autograph this, please?’
The band looked at him and so did Mairie. She took him by the lapels and propelled him away from the bar.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Didn’t you know? I’m a big country and western fan.’
‘You don’t like anything but sixties rock, you told me so yourself. Are you following me?’
‘You sang pretty well.’
‘Pretty well? I was great.’
‘That’s my Mairie, never one to hide her light under a tumbleweed. Why the false name?’
‘You think I wanted those arseholes at the paper to find out?’ Rebus tried to imagine the Hose full of drunken journos cheering their singer-scribe.
‘No, I don’t suppose so.’
‘Anyway, everyone in the band uses an alias, it makes it harder for the DSS to find out they’ve been working.’ She pointed at the tape. ‘You bought that?’
‘Well, they didn’t hand it over as material evidence.’
She grinned. ‘You liked us then?’
‘I really did. I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m amazed.’
She was almost persuaded onto this tack, but not quite. ‘You still haven’t said why you’re following me.’
He put the tape in his pocket. ‘Millie Docherty.’
‘What about her?’
‘I think you know where she is.’
‘What?’
‘She’s scared, she needs help. She might just run to the reporter who’s being wanting to see her. Reporters have been known to hide their sources away, protect them.’
‘You think I’m hiding her?’
He paused. ‘Has she told you about the pennant?’
‘What pennant?’
Mairie had lost her cowgirl singer look. She was back in business.
‘The one on Billy Cunningham’s wall. Has she told you what he had hidden behind it?’
‘What?’
Rebus shook his head. ‘I’ll make a deal,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk to her together, that way neither of us is hiding anything. What do you say?’
The bassist handed Mairie an orange juice.
‘Thanks, Duane.’ She gulped it down until only ice was left. ‘Are you staying for the second set?’
‘Will it be worth my while?’
‘Oh yes, we do a cracking version of “Country Honk”.’
‘That’ll be the acid test.’
She smiled. ‘I’ll see you after the set.’
‘Mairie, do you know who owns this place?’
‘A guy called Boswell.’
‘It’s Bothwell. You don’t know him?’
‘Never met him. Why?’
The second set was paced like a foxtrot: two slow dances, two fast, then a slow, sad rendering of ‘Country Honk’ to end with. The floor was packed for the last dance, and Rebus was flattered when a woman a good few years younger than him asked him up. But then her man came back from the Honchos’, so that was the end of that.
As the band played a short upbeat encore, one fan climbed onstage and presented the backing singers with sheriff’s badges, producing the loudest cheer of the night as both women pinned them on their chests. It was a good natured crowd, and Rebus had spent worse evenings. He couldn’t see Patience enjoying it though.
When the band finished, they went back through the door they’d first appeared through. A few minutes later, Mairie reappeared, still dressed in all her gear and with the raincoat folded up in her shopping bag along with her flat-soled driving shoes.
‘So?’ Rebus said.
‘So let’s go.’
He started for the exit, but she was making towards the stage, gesturing for him to follow.
‘I don’t really want her to see me like this,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure the outfit conveys journalistic clout and professionalism. But I can’t be bothered changing.’
They climbed onto the stage, then through the door. It led into a low-ceilinged passage of broom closets, crates of empty bottles, and a small room where in the evening the band got ready and during the day the cleaner could stop for a cup of tea. Beyond this was a dark stairwell. Mairie found the light switch and started to climb.
‘Where exactly are we going?’
‘The Sheraton.’
Rebus didn’t ask again. The stairs were steep and twisting. They reached a landing where a padlocked door faced them, but Mairie kept climbing. At the second landing she stopped. There was another door, this time with no lock. Inside was a vast dark space, which Rebus judged to be the building’s attic. Light infiltrated from the street through a skylight and some gaps in the roof, showing the solid forms of rafters.
‘Watch you don’t bump your head.’
The roofspace, though huge, was stifling. It seemed to be filled with tea chests, ladders, stacks of cloth which might have been old firemen’s uniforms.
‘She’s probably asleep,’ Mairie whispered. ‘I found this place the first night we played here. Kevin said she could stay here.’
‘You mean Lorne? He knows?’
‘He’s an old pal, he got us this residency. I told him she was a friend who’d come up for the Fringe but had nowhere to stay. I said I had eight people in my flat as it was. That’s a lie by the way, I like my privacy. Where else was she going to stay? The city’s bursting at the seams.’
‘But what does she do all day?’
‘She can go downstairs and boil a kettle, there’s a loo there too. The club itself’s off limits, but she’s so scared I don’t think she’d risk it anyway.’
She had led them past enough obstacles for a game of crazy golf, and now they were close to the front of the building. There were some small window panes here, forming a long thin arch. The
y were filthy, but provided a little more light.
‘Millie? It’s only me.’ Mairie peered into the gloom. Rebus’s eyes had become accustomed to the dark, but even so there were places enough she could be hiding. ‘She’s not here,’ Mairie said. There was a sleeping bag on the floor: Rebus recognised it from the first time he’d met Millie. Beside it lay a torch. Rebus picked it up and switched it on. A paperback book lay face down on the floor.
‘Where’s her bag?’
‘Her bag?’
‘Didn’t she have a bag of stuff?’
‘Yes.’ Mairie looked around. ‘I don’t see it.’
‘She’s gone,’ said Rebus. But why would she leave the sleeping-bag, book and torch? He moved the beam around the walls. ‘This place is a junk shop.’ An old red rubberised fire-hose snaked cross the floor. Rebus followed it with the beam all the way to a pair of feet.
He moved the beam up past splayed legs to the rest of the body. She was propped against the corner in a sitting position. ‘Stay here,’ he ordered, approaching the body, trying to keep the torch steady. The fire-hose was coiled around Millie Docherty’s neck. Someone had tried strangling her with it, but they hadn’t succeeded. The perished rubber had snapped. So instead they’d taken the brass nozzle and stuffed it down her throat. It was still there, looking like the mouth of a funnel. And that’s what they’d used it as. Rebus put his nose close to the funnel and sniffed.
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought they’d used acid. They’d tipped it down into her while she’d been choking on the nozzle. If he looked closer, he’d see her throat burnt away. He didn’t look. He shone the torch on the floor instead. Her bag was lying there, its contents emptied onto the floorboards. There was something small and crumpled beside a wooden chest. He picked it up and flattened it out. It was the sleeve for a computer disk. Written on it were the letters SaS.
‘Looks like they got what they wanted,’ he said.
Nobody was dancing in the Crazy Hose Saloon.
Everyone had been sent home. Because the Hose was in Tollcross, it was C Division’s business. They’d sent officers out from Torphichen Place.
‘John Rebus,’ one of the CID men said. ‘You get around more than a Jehovah’s Witness.’
‘But I never try to sell you religion, Shug.’
Rebus watched DI Shug Davidson climb onto the stage and disappear through the door. They were all upstairs; the action was upstairs. They were setting up halogen lamps on tripods to assist the photographers. No key could be found for the first floor padlock, so they’d taken a sledgehammer to it. Rebus didn’t like to ask who or what they thought they’d find hidden behind a door padlocked from the outside. He doubted it would be germane to the case. Only one thing was germane, and it was standing at the bar near the spittoon, drinking a long cold drink. Rebus walked over.
‘Have you talked to your boss yet, Kevin?’
‘I keep getting his answering machine.’
‘Bad one.’
Kevin Strang nearly bit through the glass. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Bad for business.’
‘Aye, right enough.’
‘Mairie tells me you and her are friends?’
‘Went to school together. She was a couple of years above me, but we were both in the school orchestra.’
‘That’s good, you’ll have something to fall back on.’
‘Eh?’
‘If Bothwell sacks you, you can always busk for a living. Did you ever see her? Talk to her?’
Kevin knew who he meant. He was shaking his head before Rebus had finished asking.
‘No?’ Rebus persisted. ‘You weren’t even a wee bit curious? Didn’t want to see what she looked like?’
‘Never thought about it.’
Rebus looked across to the distant table where Mairie was being questioned by one of the Torphichen squad, with a WPC in close attendance. ‘Bad one,’ he said again. He leaned closer to Kevin Strang. ‘Just between us, Kevin, who did you tell?’
‘I didn’t tell anyone.’
‘Then you’re going down, son.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘They didn’t find her by accident, Kevin. They knew she was there. Only two people could have provided that information: Mairie or you. C Division are hard bastards. They’ll want to know all about you, Kevin. You’re about the only suspect they’ve got.’
‘I’m not a suspect.’
‘She died about six hours ago, Kevin. Where were you six hours ago?’ Rebus was making this up: they wouldn’t know for sure until the pathologist took body temperature readings. But he reckoned it was a fair guess all the same.
‘I’m telling you nothing.’
Rebus smiled. ‘You’re just snot, Kevin. Worse, you’re hired snot.’ He made to pat Kevin Strang’s face, but Strang flinched, staggered back, and hit the spittoon. They watched it tip with a crash to the floor, rock to and fro, and then lie there. Nothing happened for a second, then with a wet sucking sound a thick roll of something barely liquid oozed out. Everyone looked away. The only thing Strang found to look at was Rebus. He swallowed.
‘Look, I had to tell Mr Bothwell, just to cover myself. If I hadn’t told him, and he’d found out …’
‘What did he say?’
‘He just shrugged, said she was my responsibility.’ He shuddered at the memory.
‘Where were you when you told him?’
‘In the office, off the foyer.’
‘This morning?’ Strang nodded. ‘Tell me, Kevin, did Mr Bothwell go check out the lodger?’
Strang looked down at his empty glass. It was answer enough for Rebus.
There were strict rules covering the investigation of a serious crime such as murder. For one, Rebus should talk to the officer in charge and tell him everything he knew about Millie Docherty. For two, he should also mention his conversation with Kevin Strang. For three, he should then leave well alone and let C Division get on with it.
But at two in the morning, he was parked outside Frankie Bothwell’s house in Ravelston Dykes, giving serious thought to going and ringing the doorbell. If nothing else, he might learn whether Bothwell’s night attire was as gaudy as his daywear. But he dismissed the idea. For one thing, C Division would be speaking with Bothwell before the night was out, always supposing they managed to get hold of him. They would not want to be told by Bothwell that Rebus had beaten them to it.
For another, he was too late. He heard the garage doors lift automatically, and saw the dipped headlights as Bothwell’s car, a gloss-black Merc with custom bodywork, bounced down off the kerb onto the road and sped away. So he’d finally got the message, and was on his way to the Hose. Either that or he was fleeing.
Rebus made a mental note to do yet more digging on Lee Francis Bothwell.
But for now, he was relieved the situation had been taken out of his hands. He drove back to Oxford Terrace at a sedate pace, trying hard not to fall asleep at the wheel. No one was waiting in ambush outside, so he let himself in quietly and went to the living room, his body too tired to stay awake but his mind too busy for sleep. Well, he had a cure for that: a mug of milky tea with a dollop of whisky in it. But there was a note on the sofa in Patience’s handwriting. Her writing was better than most doctors’, but not by much. Eventually Rebus deciphered it, picked up the phone, and called Brian Holmes.
‘Sorry, Brian, but the note said to call whatever the time.’
‘Hold on a sec.’ He could hear Holmes getting out of bed, taking the cordless phone with him. Rebus imagined Nell Stapleton awake in the bed, rolling back over to sleep and cursing his name. The bedroom door closed. ‘Okay,’ said Holmes, ‘I can talk now.’
‘What’s so urgent? Is it about our friend?’
‘No, all’s quiet on that front. I’ll tell you about it in the morning. But I was wondering if you’d heard the news?’
‘I was the one who found her.’
Rebus heard a fridge opening, a bottle being taken out, som
ething poured into a glass.
‘Found who?’ Brian asked.
‘Millie Docherty. Isn’t that what we’re talking about?’ But of course it wasn’t; Brian couldn’t possibly know so soon. ‘She’s dead, murdered.’
‘They’re piling up, aren’t they? What happened to her?’
‘It’s not a bedtime story. So what’s your news?’
‘A breakout from Barlinnie. Well, from a van actually, stopped between Barlinnie and a hospital. The whole thing was planned.’
Rebus sat down on the sofa. ‘Cafferty?’
‘He does a good impersonation of a perforated ulcer. It happened this evening. The prison van was sandwiched between two lorries. Masks, sawn-offs and a miracle recovery.’
‘Oh Christ.’
‘Don’t worry, there are patrols all up and down the M8.’
‘If he’s coming back to Edinburgh, that’s the last road he’ll use.’
‘You think he’ll come back?’
‘Get a grip, Brian, of course he’s coming back. He’s going to have to kill whoever butchered his son.’
24
He didn’t get much sleep that night, in spite of the tea and whisky. He sat by the recessed bedroom window wondering when Cafferty would come. He kept his eyes on the stairwell outside until dawn came. His mind made up, he started packing. Patience sat up in bed.
‘I hope you’ve left a note,’ she said.
‘We’re both leaving, only not together. What’s the score in an emergency?’
‘My dream was making more sense than this.’
‘Say you had to go away at very short notice?’
She was rubbing her hair, yawning. ‘Someone would cover for me. What did you have in mind, elopement?’
‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
When he came back from the kitchen carrying two mugs of coffee, she was in the shower.
‘What’s happening?’ she asked afterwards, rubbing herself dry.
‘You’re going to your sister’s,’ he told her. ‘So drink your coffee, phone her, get dressed, and start packing.’
She took the mug from him. ‘In that order?’
‘Any order you like.’
‘And where are you going?’