by Ian Rankin
'This may not seem like the time,' he said, 'but you told us your husband didn't drink. I believe at one time his drinking may have been a problem.'
'For heaven's sake,' Jo Banks hissed.
Seona Grieve blew her nose, sniffed. 'You've been talking to Billie.'
'Yes,' he acknowledged.
'Trying to blacken a dead man's name,' Jo Banks muttered.
Rebus looked at her. 'See, there's a problem, Ms Banks. We don't know what Roddy Grieve was doing in the hours prior to his death. So far we've a sighting of him in one pub, just the one, drinking on his own. We need to know if that's the kind of man he was: a solitary drinker. Then maybe we can stop wasting our time trying to locate the friends we've been told he would be out drinking ¦ Its all right, Jo,' Seona Grieve said quietly. Then, to Rebus: 'He said he felt he sometimes had to get out of himself.'
Where would he have gone?' e shook her head. 'He never said.'
The times he stayed out all night...?'
"I think maybe he went to hotels, or slept in the car.'
Rebus nodded, and she seemed to read his thoughts. Maybe he wasn't alone in doing that, Inspector?'
'Maybe,' he conceded. Some mornings, he'd woken in his car and didn't even know where he was... country roads, the middle of nowhere... 'Is there anything else we should know?'
She shook her head slowly.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I really am. I'm sorry.' Rebus laid his coffee cup on the table, got up, and left the room.
By the time Linford caught up with him, Rebus was seated in his Saab, window down, smoking. Linford leaned down so their faces were almost touching. Rebus blew some smoke past his ear.
'So what do you think?' Linford asked. Rebus considered his answer. Late afternoon; light had died from the sky. 'I think we're in the dark,' he said, 'swiping at things we think might be bats.'
'What does that mean?' The young man sounding genuinely annoyed.
'It means we'll never understand one another,' Rebus answered, starting his engine.
Linford stood at the kerbside, watching the Saab move off. He reached into his pocket for his mobile, put in a call to ACC Carswell at Fettes. He had the words formed and waiting in his head: I think maybe Rebus is going to be a problem after all. But as he waited to be put through, he had another thought: in saying as much to Carswell, he'd be admitting defeat, showing weakness. Carswell might understand, but that didn't mean he wouldn't see it as such: defeat; weakness. Linford cut the call, switched the phone off. This was his problem. It was up to him to think of a way round it.
Dean Coghill was dead. His building firm had been wound up, the company office now a design consultancy, the builders' yard turned into a three-storey block of flats. Hood and Wylie eventually tracked down an address for Coghill's widow.
'All these dead guys...' Grant Hood had commented.
Ellen Wylie's reply: 'The male of the species doesn't live as long as the female.'
They couldn't get a phone number for the widow, so went to the last known address.
'Probably died or retired to Benidorm,' Wylie said.
'Is there a difference then?'
Wylie smiled, brought the car in to the kerbside and pulled on the handbrake. Hood opened his door a fraction and peered down.
'No,' he said, 'this is fine. I can walk to the kerb from here.'
Wylie gave his arm a thump. He suspected it would bruise.
Meg Coghill was a short, spry woman in her early seventies. Though it didn't look like she was going out or ready for visitors, she was dressed immaculately and had made up her face. As she led them into the sitting room, there were noises from the kitchen.
'My cleaner,' Mrs Coghill explained. Hood felt like asking if she always dressed up for the cleaner, but thought he probably knew the answer already.
Do you want a cup of tea or something?'
"No. thank you, Mrs Coghill.' Ellen Wylie sat on the sofa. Hood remained standing, while Mrs Coghill sank into an armchair big enough to accommodate someone three times her size. Hood was looking at some framed photographs on a wall unit. 'Is this Mr Coghill?'
'That's Dean. I still miss him, you know.' Hood guessed that the chair the widow now sat in had been her husband's. The photos showed a bear of a man, thick arms and neck, back held straight, the chest prominent and gut sucked in. His face told you he'd be fair as long as you didn't muck him around. Cropped silver hair. Jewellery around his neck and on his left wrist, a fat Rolex on the right.
'When did he pass away?' Wylie was asking, her voice trained in dealing with the bereaved. 'Best part of a decade ago.'
'Was it a medical condition?'
'He'd had problems with his heart before. Hospitals, specialists. He couldn't slow down, you see. Had to keep working.'
Wylie nodded slowly. 'It's hard for some people.'
'Were there any partners in the business, Mrs Coghill?' Hood had rested his backside on the arm of the sofa.
'No.' Mrs Coghill paused. 'Dean had hopes for Alexander.'
Hood turned to look again at the photos: family groups, a boy and girl from their pre-teens through to their twenties. 'Your son?' he asked.
'But Alex had other ideas. He's in America, married. He works in a car showroom, only over there they call them automobiles.'
'Mrs Coghill,' Wylie said, 'did your husband know a man called Bryce Callan?'
'Is that why you're here?'
'You know the name then?'
'He was some kind of gangster, wasn't he?'
'He had that reputation, certainly.'
Meg Coghill got up, fussed with some ornaments on the mantelpiece. Little china animals: cats playing with balls of wool; spaniels with floppy ears.
'Is there something you want to tell us, Mrs Coghill?' Hood spoke quietly, his eyes meeting Wylie's.
'It's too late now, isn't it?' There was a tremor in Meg Coghill's voice. She kept her back to her visitors. Wylie wondered if she took any tablets for nerves.
'You tell us, Mrs Coghill,' she suggested.
The widow's hands kept busy with the ornaments as she spoke.
'Bryce Callan was a thug, wasn't he? You paid up, or you got in trouble. Tools would disappear, or the tyres on the van would be slashed. The job you were working on might end up vandalised, only they weren't just vandals, they were Bryce Callan's men.'
'Your husband paid protection to Bryce Callan?'
She turned towards them. 'You didn't know my Dean. He was the only one who stood up to Callan. And I think it killed him. All the extra work and worry... Bryce Callan as good as stuck his hand into Dean's chest and squeezed his heart dry.'
'Your husband told you this?'
Lord, no. He never said a word, liked to keep me separate from anything to do with the business. Family on one hand, work on the other, he'd say. That's why he needed an office, didn't want work coming home with him.'
'He wanted his family kept separate,' Wylie said, "yet he thought maybe Alex would help in the business?'
"That was in the early days, before Callan.'
'Mrs Coghill, you heard about the body in the fireplace at Queensberry House?'
'Yes'
'Your husband's firm worked there twenty years ago. Would there be any records, or anyone who worked for your husband that we could talk to?'
'You think it has something to do with Callan?'
'The first thing we need', Hood said, 'is to identify the body.'
'Do you remember your husband working there, Mrs Coghill?' Wylie asked. 'Maybe he mentioned someone disappearing from the job...?'
When Mrs Coghill started shaking her head, Wylie looked to Hood, who smiled. Yes, that would have been too easy. She got the feeling this would be one of those cases where you never got a lucky break.
'His business came here in the end,' Mrs Coghill said. 'Maybe that will help you.'
And when Ellen Wylie asked what she meant, Meg Coghill said it might be easier if she showed them.
'I can't dri
ve,' the widow explained. 'I sold Dean's cars. He had two of them, one for work and one for pleasure.' She smiled at some private memory. They were walking across the mono-blocked drive in front of the house. It was an elongated bungalow on Frogston Road, with views to the snowcapped Pentland Hills to the south.
'He had his men build this double garage,' Mrs Coghill went on. 'They extended the house, too, added a couple of rooms to either side of the original.'
The two CID officers nodded, still unsure why they were headed for the twin garage. There was a door to the side. Mrs Coghill unlocked it and reached in to turn on a light. The large space had been almost completely filled with tea chests, office furniture and tools. There were pickaxes and crowbars, hammers and boxes filled with screws and nails. Industrial drills, a couple of pneumatics, even steel pails splashed with mortar. Mrs Coghill rested her hand on one of the tea chests.
'All the paperwork. There's a filing-cabinet somewhere, too...'
'Under that blanket maybe?' Wylie suggested, pointing towards the far corner.
'If you want to know anything about Queensberry House, it'll be here somewhere.'
Wylie and Hood shared a look. Hood puffed out his cheeks.
'Another job for the Time Team,' Ellen Wylie said. Hood nodded, looked around. 'Any heating in here, Mrs Coghill?'
'I could bring you out an electric fire.'
'Show me where it is,' Hood said, 'I'll fetch it,'
'And something tells me you wouldn't say no to that cup of tea now,' said Mrs Coghill, seeming delighted by the thought of their company.
Siobhan Clarke sat at her desk with 'Supertramp"s effects spread before her. To wit: the contents of his carrier bag, his building society passbook, the briefcase (which its most recent owner hadn't given up without a fight) and the photographs. She also had a pile of crank letters and telephone messages, including three from Gerald Sithing. It was one of the tabloids who had coined the name Supertramp. They'd also dragged up the sex-on-church-steps story, with an archive photo of Dezzi. Siobhan knew the vultures would be out there, trying to track Dezzi down for an interview, for some juicy morsel. Maybe Dezzi would tell them about the briefcase. It wouldn't be chequebook journalism - she doubted Dezzi had a bank account. Call it cashpoint journalism then. Maybe they'd talk to Rachel Drew, too. She wouldn't say no to a cheque.
A few more titbits for the readers and gold-diggers.
And as long as the story ran, the letters and calls would keep coming.
She rose from the desk, pushed at her spine until the vertebrae clicked. It was gone six, and the office was empty. She'd had to move desks - the Grieve murder had taken priority - and was squeezed into a corner of the long, narrow room. No window near by. Mind you, Hood and Wylie had it even worse: no natural light at all in the shoebox they'd been given. The Chief Super had been blunt with her this afternoon: take a few more days, but if there was no ID on Supertramp by then, that was an end of it. The cash went to the Treasury; the suicide, Mackie's whole prehistory, would remain unexplained.
'We've got real work to be getting on with,' her boss had said. He looked like a candidate for a stroke. 'Dossers kill themselves every day.'
'No suspicious circumstances, sir?' she'd dared to ask.
'The money doesn't make for suspicious circumstances, Siobhan. It's a mystery, that's all. Life's full of them.'
'Yes, sir.'
'You've been too close to John Rebus for too long.'
She'd looked up, frowning. 'Meaning?'
'Meaning you're looking for something here that probably doesn't exist.'
'The money exists. He walked into a building society, all of it in cash. Next thing he's living as a down and out.'
'A rich eccentric; money does strange things to some people.'
'He erased his past. It's like he was in hiding.'
'You think the money was stolen? Then why didn't he spend it?'
'That's just one other question, sir.'
A sigh; a scratch of the nose. 'A few more days, Siobhan. All right?'
She'd nodded. 'Yes, sir,' she'd said...
'Evening all.'
John Rebus was standing in the doorway.
She glanced at her watch. 'How long have you been there?'
'How long have you been staring at that wall?'
She realised she was halfway down the office, and had been gazing at photos of the Grieve locus. 'I was dreaming. What are you doing here?'
'Working, same as you.' He came into the office, leaned against one of the desks with his arms folded.
You've been too close to John Rebus for too long.
'How's the Grieve case?' she asked.
He shrugged. 'Shouldn't your first question be "How's Derek?'"
She half-turned from him, cheeks reddening slightly.
'Sorry,' he said. 'That was bad taste, even for me.'
'We just didn't hit it off,' she told him.
'I'm having the selfsame problem.'
She turned to him. 'Is Derek the problem though, or is it you?'
He feigned a pained look, then winked and walked up the central aisle between the rows of desks. 'Is this your man's stuff?' he asked. She followed him back to her desk. She could smell whisky.
'They're calling him Supertramp.'
'Who are?'
'The media.'
He was smiling. She asked him why.
'Supertramp: I saw them in concert once. Usher Hall. I think it was.'
'Before my time.'
'So what's the story with Mr Supertramp anyway?'
'He had all this money he either couldn't spend or didn't want to. He took on a new identity. My theory is that he was hiding.'
'Maybe.' He was rifling through the scraps on the desk. She folded her arms, gave him a hard look which he failed to notice. He opened the bread bag and shook out the contents: disposable razor, a sliver of soap, toothbrush. An organised mind,' he said. 'Makes himself a washbag. Doesn't like being dirty.'
'It's like he was acting the part,' she said.
He caught her tone, looked up. 'What is it?' he asked.
'Nothing.' She couldn't say the words: my case, my pitch.
Rebus lifted the arrest photograph. 'What did he do?' She told him and he laughed.
'I've tracked him back as far as 1980. That was when "Chris Mackie" was born.'
'You should talk to Hood and Wylie. They're checking MisPers from 78 and 79.'
'Maybe I'll do that.'
'You sound tired. What if I offered to buy you dinner?'
'And we talk shop all through the meal? Yes, that would be a real break from routine.'
'I happen to have a wide range of conversational topics.'
'Name three.'
'Pubs, progressive rock, and...'
'And you're struggling.'
'Scottish history: I've been reading up on it lately.'
'How thrilling. Besides, pubs are where you have conversations; they're not what you talk about.'
'I talk about them.'
'That's because you're obsessed.'
He was sorting through her messages. 'Who's G. Sithing?'
She rolled her eyes. 'His first name's Gerald. He came to see me this morning: the first of many, no doubt.'
'He's keen to talk to you.'
'Once was enough.'
'Woodwork creaks and out come the freaks, eh?'
'I've a feeling that's a line from a song.'
'Not a song, a classic. So who is he?'
'He runs some bunch of nutters called the Knights of Rosslyn.'
'As in Rosslyn Chapel?'
'The same. He says Supertramp was a member.'
'Sounds unlikely.'
'Oh, I think they knew one another. I just can't see Mackie leaving all that money to Mr Sithing.'
'So who are these Knights of Rosslyn?'
'They think there's something beneath the chapel floor. Come the millennium, up it pops and they're in the vanguard.'
'I was out there the
other day.'
'I didn't know you were interested.'
'I'm not. But Lorna Grieve lives out that way.' Rebus had turned his attention to the newspaper which had been in Mackie's carrier. 'Was this folded like this?'
The newspaper looked filthy, as though it had been fished out of a bin. It had been opened to an inside page, and folded into quarters.
'I think so,' she said. 'Yes, it was crumpled like that.'
'Not crumpled, Siobhan. Look what story it's open at.'
She looked: a follow-up article on the 'body in the fireplace'. She took the paper from Rebus and unfolded it. 'Could be one of these other stories.'
'Which one: traffic congestion or the doctor who's prescribing Viagra?'
'Don't forget the advert for New Year in County Kerry.' She gnawed her bottom lip, turned to the paper's front page: the lead was Roddy Grieve's murder. 'Are you seeing something I'm not?' Thinking of the Chief Super's words: you're looking for something here that probably doesn't exist.
Seems to me maybe Supertramp had some interest in Skelly. You should ask the people who knew him.'
Rachel Drew at the hostel; Dezzi, heating burgers by hand-dryer; Gerald Sithing. Siobhan managed not to look thrilled by Rebus's suggestion.
'We've a body in Queensberry House,' Rebus said, "dates back to late 78 or early 79. A year later, Supertramp is born.' He held up a finger on his right hand. 'Supertramp suddenly decides to top himself, having read in the paper about the find in the fireplace.' He held up a finger on his left hand, touched the two together.
'Careful,' Siobhan said, 'that means something rude in several countries.'
'You don't see a connection?' He sounded disappointed.
'Sorry to play Scully to your Mulder, but couldn't it be that you're seeing connections here because nothing's happening in your own case?'
'Which translated means: get your nose out of my business, Rebus?'
'No, it's just that I...' She rubbed at her forehead. 'I only know one thing.'
'What's that?'
'I haven't eaten since breakfast.' She, looked at him. 'The dinner offer still stand?'
They ate at Pataka's on Causewayside. She asked how his daughter was doing. Sammy was down south, some specialist physiotherapy place. Rebus told her there wasn't much news.
'She'll get over it though?'