by Ian Rankin
‘Don’t say I’m not good to you, Siobhan,’ he said to himself as he drove, turning up the volume on the CD player.
The patrol car must have been doing a lick, because he had failed to catch up with it by the time he reached Strathy. There was no sign in the village directing him towards the castle, but then again, there was just the one narrow road off to the left, heading away from the coast. He took it, the lane narrowing, fields to either side. Potholes filled with rainwater added to the fun, Rebus slowing to steer the Saab past as many of them as he could, while the engine whined and wheezed. An imposing gateway came into view, stone posts topped by statues, the ornate wrought-iron gates closed. A weathered wooden sign at ground level warned that what lay beyond was PRIVATE.
Rebus got out of the Saab and approached the gates. Looking up, he saw that the statues represented a lion and a unicorn, holding shields in front of them. Both had been eroded by the elements down the years.
‘You and me both, guys,’ he said, pushing at the gates, feeling them give. When they stood gaping, he got back into the Saab and continued up the drive.
The castle appeared around a long curve. There was a gravelled parking area between the front door and a lawn with an out-of-commission fountain as its centrepiece. Not another dwelling for miles, the views expansive, but precious little protection from the prevailing weather. No trees, no hedges.
As Rebus parked, the heavy wooden door opened. A woman stood there, hands pressed together, almost as if in prayer. He studied her as he approached. Mid fifties, hair tied back in a bun, plain grey skirt with matching cardigan and blouse. Though he’d not met many, he was reminded of a type of nun.
‘Can I help you?’ she was asking.
‘I hope so. I was looking to speak to Lord Strathy if he’s about.’
Any trace of affability her face had carried now evaporated. ‘He’s not.’
‘That’s a pity. I’ve come all the way from Edinburgh … ’
‘Without an appointment?’ She sounded incredulous at such a course of action.
‘We don’t often need them.’ Rebus slipped his hands into his pockets. ‘You’ve heard about the murder of the Saudi student?’
He got the impression that if she’d been wearing pearls, she might have clutched at them. As it was, she merely squeezed one hand beneath the other, as though wringing a dishcloth.
‘You’re with the police?’ Rebus said nothing, content to let her think what she would. ‘Has something happened to … ?’ She broke off. ‘You better come in, please.’
‘Thank you.’
The hallway was everything he’d assumed it would be: stags’ heads on the walls; Barbour jackets on a row of pegs, below which sat an array of green rubber boots; a preponderance of dark wood and a brown, fibrous floor covering.
‘Tea?’ she was asking.
‘Lovely,’ Rebus said.
‘Would you like to wait in the morning room?’
‘The kitchen will be fine. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name … ’
‘I’m Mrs Belkin. Jean Belkin.’
‘My name’s Fox,’ Rebus told her.
He’d been expecting the kitchen to be below stairs and he was not disappointed. They left the entrance hall behind and entered a narrow unadorned corridor, then down a flight of winding stone stairs to another corridor. The large kitchen had last been modernised in the 1960s, he guessed, and the Aga looked even older. He warmed his hands next to it while Belkin filled the electric kettle. She guessed what he was thinking.
‘Hob takes forever,’ she said, flipping the switch.
‘You’re here on your own, Mrs Belkin?’
‘If I had been, I’d not have let you over the threshold, not without seeing some ID.’
Rebus made show of patting his jacket pocket. ‘In the car,’ he apologised.
‘No matter, my husband Colin’s not far away. He’s gardener, handyman and whatever else the place needs.’ She was fetching mugs and teapot, milk and sugar. ‘A biscuit?’
‘Not for me.’
‘You’ve really come all the way from Edinburgh?’
‘Yes.’
‘And have you heard about our murder? It’s getting so nowhere is safe.’
‘Young man along by Naver?’ Rebus nodded. ‘A bad business.’
‘This world of ours is coming apart at the seams.’ She shook her head in bewilderment.
‘Hard to disagree.’
He watched her as she took her time deciding how to frame her next question.
‘Is it because of Lady Isabella, Inspector?’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘She knew the Saudi gentleman – brought him here on a couple of occasions.’
‘Is that so?’
‘But she doesn’t come home very often, prefers the bright lights and what have you.’
‘This is more to do with Lady Isabella’s father. We’ve information that he might have been conducting some business with the deceased.’
‘What sort of business?’ She poured water from the kettle into the teapot. Her hand was steady as she concentrated on the task.
‘Does Lord Strathy have an office – a PA or secretary?’
‘In London, yes. Most of his business dealings are focused there.’
‘Is that where he is just now?’
A sudden flush came into Belkin’s cheeks. ‘We’re not quite sure where he is, that’s the truth of it.’
There was a sound behind them. The door to the outside world rattled open and a heavy-set, unshaven man stood there, eyes wary as they landed on Rebus.
‘Colin, this is Mr Fox, a detective from Edinburgh,’ Belkin began to explain.
‘Oh aye?’ He didn’t sound entirely convinced. ‘Bit long in the tooth, aren’t you?’
‘I’m younger than I look.’
‘Bloody well have to be.’ The gardener went to the sink, rinsing his hands and drying them on a towel his wife handed him. ‘What’s this all about?’
‘The young Saudi,’ his wife informed him, as she filled another mug, ‘the one who came here … ’
‘What of him?’
Rebus took a step forward. ‘We’re looking into any business dealings he might have had, and your employer’s name came up.’
Colin Belkin took a slurp of tea. ‘And how the hell would we know anything about that?’
‘It was Lord Strathy I came to see – your wife’s just been telling me he seems to have disappeared.’
‘Christ’s sake, just because a man takes a bit of time to himself,’ the gardener growled.
‘Is that what he’s done?’
‘Stands to reason.’ Belkin thumped the mug down onto the large wooden table. Then, to his wife: ‘Remember that business two years back? The reporter who said he wasn’t a reporter?’
‘What business?’ Rebus asked.
But the gardener had stretched a hand out towards him, palm up. ‘Let me see some ID.’
‘He told me he left it in the car,’ Jean Belkin said.
‘Then we’ll go to the car and check it out. Against the law to tell people you’re the police when you’re not.’
‘I can give you a number to call,’ Rebus countered. ‘You can ask for DI Malcolm Fox.’
Belkin dug a phone from his back pocket. ‘Let’s do that then.’
Rebus turned his attention to Jean Belkin. ‘What business?’ he asked her again, but she wasn’t about to answer.
‘Door’s there,’ her husband said with a gesture, ‘unless you want to give me that number … ’
Rebus debated for a moment. ‘You’ll be hearing from us again,’ he said.
Colin Belkin was turning the door handle, still with his phone in his other hand. With a final glare at husband and wife, Rebus made his exit, rounding the prop
erty and climbing a sloping path back to where his Saab stood waiting.
At the end of the driveway, he left the gates gaping – it wasn’t much by way of payback, but what else did he have? – and pulled into a passing place. He switched on his phone, but found he had no signal. Had the gardener been bluffing then? It was entirely possible. He heard running footsteps, but too late to do anything about them. The driver’s-side door was hauled open and Colin Belkin grabbed a fistful of his lapel, teeth bared.
‘You’re no bloody copper, so who the hell are you?’
Rebus was trying to undo his seat belt with one hand while he wrestled Belkin’s vice-like grip with the other. The man was shaking him like a rag doll.
‘You keep your nose out of honest people’s business!’ Belkin barked. ‘Or you get this.’ He brandished a clenched fist an inch from Rebus’s face.
‘Which jail were you in?’ Rebus asked. The man’s eyes widened, his grip faltering slightly. ‘I can smell an ex-con at fifty yards. Does your employer know?’
Belkin drew his fist back as if readying to throw a punch, but then froze at the sound of his wife’s voice. She was standing in the gateway, pleading for him to stop. Belkin brought his face so close to Rebus’s that Rebus could feel his oniony breath.
‘Come bothering us again, you’ll be getting a doing.’ He released his grip on the lapel and reared back, turning and walking in the direction of his waiting wife.
Rebus’s heart was pounding and he felt light-headed. He pressed a hand against the outline of the inhaler in his pocket but didn’t think it would help. Instead he sat for a moment, watching in the rear-view mirror as Belkin closed the gates with an almighty clang, his wife steering him back towards the castle. When they disappeared from view, he pushed down on the accelerator, feeling a slight tremble in the arch of his right foot. The perfect time for the CD to decide he merited John Martyn’s ‘I’d Rather Be the Devil’.
Back on the A836, he checked his phone again and found he had one bar of signal, so he pulled over and called Siobhan Clarke.
‘How’s it going?’ she asked.
‘Lord Strathy’s not been seen by his staff for a while.’
‘Must be in London then.’
‘That’s not the impression I get. I’d say they’ve been trying to rouse him without success.’
‘What do you make of it?’
‘That’s your job rather than mine.’
‘I’ll check with his London office. Maybe ask his daughter, too.’
‘One other thing – the staff mentioned some press interest a couple of years back. Any idea what that’s about?’
‘Hang on.’ He could hear her sifting paperwork, and a muttering from Malcolm Fox as she asked him about it.
‘Strathy’s fourth wife,’ Clarke eventually said. ‘Seems he collects them like hunting trophies. She walked out on him.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Renounced the high life for the pleasures of hippiedom.’
Rebus’s eyes narrowed. ‘Meaning?’
‘According to reports, she joined some New Age cult.’
‘Based between Naver and Tongue, by any chance?’
‘Why ask if you already know?’
‘It was more of an educated guess. Do you have a name for her?’
‘Angharad Oates. Cue tabloid headlines about wild oats being sown.’
‘Can you send me what you’ve got on her?’
‘Or you could google it, same as Malcolm did.’
‘He’s keeping you busy then?’
‘Just a bit.’
‘Funny that, when he’s just been up here asking questions at Strathy Castle … ’
‘Keeping your usual low profile?’
‘Just remember who’s doing all your dirty work.’
‘How’s everything else? With Samantha, I mean?’
‘She’s hanging in.’
‘And you?’
‘Do me one last favour, will you? Run a check on a Colin Belkin. He’s the groundsman and general factotum at Strathy Castle.’
‘And?’
‘I’m betting a pound to a penny he’s got previous.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
16
‘Tell me what you see,’ Malcolm Fox said, turning his head towards Siobhan Clarke. He had driven them to Craigentinny golf course, passing the scene of Salman bin Mahmoud’s murder on the way.
Clarke saw some parked cars, most of them the makes and models preferred by middle-management types – indeed, the sort of car Malcolm Fox himself drove these days. A couple of silver-haired gents were exiting the clubhouse at the end of their morning round, bags of clubs slung heavily over their shoulders.
‘Your future?’ she pretended to guess. Then: ‘Maybe just spit it out, eh?’
‘Watch and learn.’ Fox killed the engine and undid his seat belt before opening the driver’s-side door. Clarke hated him when he was like this. He could never just share a finding or what he thought might be an inspired inkling – there always had to be a song-and-dance. He was walking towards the barrier they’d just driven through. It was a weighted white pole, which could be lowered as necessary. The car park was unmanned, though signs warned of penalties and restrictions. Once Clarke had caught up with him, Fox slapped a hand against the barrier.
‘They close it at night – I called and checked.’
‘Okay,’ Clarke agreed.
‘Closed and locked – you see what that means?’ He waited, but she didn’t respond. ‘Salman bin Mahmoud has been here in daylight, played golf here. The car park is a good place for a meeting, he thinks.’ He made a circle in the air with a finger. ‘No CCTV, no security guard.’
‘He doesn’t know it’s not usable at night?’ Clarke concluded.
‘Thwarted, he drives to the first car park he finds.’
‘The warehouse.’ She was nodding now. ‘All of which assumes the meeting was his idea, yet we’ve found nothing on his phone.’
‘Maybe there’s another phone we don’t know about; or the meeting was planned some other way. Could even have been arranged face to face. All I’m saying is, this gives us the reason he ended up being killed where he did. Added to which, maybe the meeting was to be about the golf course.’
Clarke saw the excited look on Fox’s face.
‘Any time you’re ready,’ she said, folding her arms.
‘I got talking to my business reporter contact. Craigentinny’s a public course, meaning the city owns it, but it’s no secret Edinburgh Council’s strapped for cash and desperate to save and make money. A consortium made an approach.’
‘To buy the golf course?’
‘Apparently not just this one – and not just in Edinburgh.’
‘This is connected to Stewart Scoular’s plan for the golf resort up north?’
‘Same names keep popping up.’
‘Including the bin Mahmoud family and Lord Strathy?’
Fox nodded like a bright kid whose teacher had just taken note. Clarke kept her face emotionless as she thought it through.
‘John says Lord Strathy’s done a vanishing act. I tried his London office but they’ve all got degrees in evasion.’
‘His daughter?’
‘Not answering her phone. I left a message.’ Clarke gnawed at her bottom lip. ‘How often did Salman bin Mahmoud play here?’ Fox shrugged. ‘The game with Scoular was how long ago?’
‘You know as much as I do, Siobhan.’
‘We need to talk to Scoular again, don’t we?’ The shrug became a slow nod. ‘And how much of this do you report back to Big Ger Cafferty?’
‘That’s probably best kept between me and him, wouldn’t you say? Last thing I want is for you to be dragged into this.’
‘In case it becomes messy?’
&nb
sp; ‘I’ve got a certain level of body armour.’
‘Better hope whoever comes for you doesn’t aim for the head then.’ Clarke unfolded her arms and placed her hands on her hips. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘let’s go and see if we can get under the skin of a certain reptilian property developer … ’
He didn’t exactly look pleased to see them.
They had tracked him down to a restaurant just off George Street, where he was hosting a business lunch. He was still chewing as he left his guests and entered the foyer.
‘Just a couple of questions,’ Clarke said, this being as much of an apology as she was willing to offer. ‘You played golf with Salman bin Mahmoud how many times?’
‘Three, I think.’
‘How many of those at Craigentinny?’
‘Just the one.’
‘And this,’ Fox interrupted, stepping closer as a waiter squeezed past, ‘was because of your consortium’s interest in taking Craigentinny into private ownership?’
Scoular swallowed whatever was in his mouth. His eyes moved between the two detectives.
‘What’s this got to do with Salman’s murder?’
‘That’s what we’re attempting to ascertain.’
Before Scoular could add anything, Clarke lofted another question in his direction. ‘How long ago was your final game with the deceased?’
‘Maybe three weeks.’
‘Three weeks before he died?’
‘I’d have to check my diary, but thereabouts.’
‘And this was at Craigentinny?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the pair of you were discussing financing the purchase of the course?’
‘Along the way, yes.’
‘I’m guessing buying it would be a cheaper option than building a new resort from scratch elsewhere?’ Fox enquired.
‘That depends on negotiations.’
‘Always assuming you intended keeping it as a golf course. I’m guessing if the membership sums didn’t add up, you could always apply to rezone it and build a lot of nice executive homes … ’
Scoular glared at Fox. ‘Which of my competitors have you been talking to? Not one of them’s to be trusted – and baseless gossip can lead to a libel action, Inspector.’