by Ian Rankin
'I didn't have to: you found me. All the same, the paintings helped.'
'Paintings?'
'Your mother, Mr Grieve. She's been putting you on canvas ever since you left.'
Alasdair Grieve wasn't sure if he wanted to see his family.
'At this time,' he argued, 'it might be too much.'
Rebus nodded. They were seated in an interview room at St Leonard's. Siobhan Clarke was there, too.
'Don't suppose', Rebus said, 'you want your visit here trumpeted from the Castle ramparts?'
'No,' Grieve agreed.
'Incidentally, what name do you go by these days?'
'My passport says Anthony Keillor.'
Rebus wrote the name down. 'I won't ask where you got the passport.'
'I wouldn't tell you if you did.'
'Couldn't shrug off every link with the past, though, could you? Keillor, short for Rankeillor.'
Grieve stared. ' You know my family.'
Rebus shrugged. 'When did you find out about Roddy?'
'A few days after it happened. I thought of coming back then, but didn't know what good it would do. Then I saw the funeral announcement.'
'I wouldn't have thought it would make the Caribbean papers.'
'The Internet, Inspector. The Scotsman online.'
Rebus nodded. 'And you thought you'd take the chance?'
'I always liked Roddy... thought it was the least I could do.'
'Despite the risks?'
'It was twenty years ago, Inspector. Hard to know after that length of time 'Just as well it was me at that graveside and not Barry Hutton.'
The name brought back all sorts of memories. Rebus watched them pass across Alasdair Grieve's face. 'That bastard,' Grieve said at last. 'Is he still around?'
'Land developer of the parish.'
Grieve scowled, muttered the word 'Christ'.
'So,' Rebus said, leaning forward, resting his elbows on the table, 'I think maybe it's time you told us who the body in the fireplace belongs to.'
Grieve stared at him again. 'The what?'
When Rebus had explained, Grieve started to nod.
'Hutton must have put the body there. He was working at Queensberry House, keeping an eye on Dean Coghill for his uncle.'
'Bryce Callan?'
'The same. Callan was grooming Barry. Looks like he did a good job of it, too.'
'And you were in cahoots with Callan?'
'I wouldn't call it that.' Grieve half rose from the table, then stopped. 'Do you mind? I get a bit claustrophobic'
Grieve began pacing what floor space there was. Siobhan was standing by the door. She smiled reassuringly at him. Rebus handed him a photo - the computer-generated face from the fireplace.
'How much do you know?' Grieve asked Rebus.
'Quite a bit. Callan was buying up lots of land around Calton Hill, presumably with both eyes on a new parliament. But he didn't want the planners knowing it was him, so he used Freddy and you as a front.'
Grieve was nodding. 'Bryce had a contact in the council, someone in the planning department.' Rebus and Siobhan exchanged a look. 'He'd given Bryce a promise on the parliament site.'
'Bloody risky, though: it was all down to how the vote went in the first place.'
'Yes, but that looked solid at first. It was only later the fix went in, the government making damned sure it wouldn't happen.'
'So, Callan had all this land and now nothing was going to happen to make it worth anything?'
'The land was still worth something. But he blamed us for everything.' Grieve laughed. 'As if we'd rigged the election!'
'And?'
'Well... Freddy had been playing silly buggers with the figures, telling Callan we'd had to pay more for the land than was the case. Callan found out, wanted the difference back plus the money he'd paid as a fee for fronting the whole thing.'
'He sent someone round?' Rebus guessed.
'A man called Mackie.' Grieve tapped the photo. 'One of his thugs, a real piece of work.' He rubbed at his temples. "Christ, you don't know how strange it feels, saying all this at last...'
'Mackie?' Rebus prompted. 'First name Chris?'
'No, not Chris: Alan or Alex... something like that. Why?'
'It's the name Freddy took for himself.' Guilt again? Rebus wondered. 'So how did Mackie end up dead?'
'He was there to scare us into paying, and he could be very scary. Freddy just got lucky. There was a knife he kept in his drawer, a sort of letter opener. Took it with him that night for protection. We were supposed to be meeting Callan, sort it all out. Car park off the Cowgate, late night... the pair of us were scared shitless.'
'But you went anyway?'
'We'd discussed doing a runner... but, yes, we went anyway. Hard to turn down Bryce Callan. Only Bryce wasn't there. It was this guy Mackie. He gave me a couple of whacks on the head - one of my ears still doesn't work properly. Then he turned on Freddy. He had this gun, hit me with the butt. I think Freddy was going to get worse... I'm sure of it. He was the one in charge, Callan knew that. It was self-defence, I'd swear to it. All the same, I don't think he meant to kill Mackie, just..." He shrugged. 'Just stop him, I suppose.'
'Stabbed him through the heart,' Rebus commented.
'Yes,' Grieve agreed. 'We could see straight off he was dead.'
'What did you do?'
'Dumped him back in his car and ran for it. We knew we had to split up, knew Callan would have to kill us now, no two ways about it.'
'And the money?'
'I told Freddy I didn't want anything to do with it. He said we should meet, a year to the day, a bar on Frederick Street.'
'You didn't make the meet?'
Grieve shook his head. 'I was someone else by then, somewhere I was getting to know and like.'
Freddy had travelled, too, Siobhan was thinking: all the places he'd told Dezzi about.
But a year to the day, when Alasdair didn't show, Freddy Hastings had walked into the building society on George Street, just round the corner from Frederick Street, and opened an account in the name of C. Mackie...
'There was a briefcase,' Siobhan asked.
Grieve looked at her. 'God, yes. It belonged to Dean Coghill'
'The letters on it were ADC 'I think Dean's his second name, but he liked it better than the first. Barry Hutton brought us one lot of cash in that briefcase, boasted how he'd taken it from Coghill; "Because I can, and there's nothing he can do about it." ' He shook his head.
'Mr Coghill's dead,' Siobhan said.
'Chalk up another victim to Bryce Callan.'
And though Coghill had died of natural causes, Rebus knew exactly what Grieve meant.
Rebus and Siobhan, a powwow in the CID suite.
'What've we got?' she asked.
'Lots of bits,' he acknowledged. 'We've got Barry Hutton heading out to check on Mackie, finding the body. Not far from Queensberry House, so he takes the body there, walls it in. Chances were, it wouldn't be found for centuries.'
'Why?'
'Couldn't have the police asking questions, I suppose.'
'How come no one called Mackie ended up posted a MisPer?'
'Mackie belongs to Bryce Callan, no one to mourn him or post him missing.'
'And Freddy Hastings kills himself when he reads the story in the paper?'
Rebus nodded. 'The whole thing's coming back again, and he can't deal with it.'
'I'm not sure I understand him.'
'Who?'
'Freddy. What made him do what he did, living like that...'
'There's a slightly more pressing concern,' Rebus told her. 'Callan and Hutton are getting away with this.'
Siobhan was leaning against her desk. She folded her arms. 'Well, in the end, what did they do? They didn't kill Mackie, they didn't push Freddy Hastings off North Bridge.'
'But they made it all happen.'
'And now Callan's a tax exile, and Barry Hutton's a reformed character.' She waited for him to say something, but
he didn't. 'You don't think so?' Then she remembered what Alasdair Grieve had said in the interview room.
'A contact in the council,' she quoted.
'Someone in the planning department,' Rebus quoted back.
It took them a week to get everything together, the team working flat out. Derek Linford was convalescing at home, drinking his meals through a straw. As someone commented, 'Every time an officer takes a kicking, the brass has to reward them.' The feeling was Linford would be going on a promotion shortlist. Meantime, Alasdair Grieve was acting the tourist. He'd got himself a room at a bed and breakfast on Minto Street. They weren't letting him leave the country, not quite yet. He'd surrendered his passport, and had to report each day to St Leonard's. The Farmer didn't think they'd be charging him with anything, but as the witness to a fatal assault, a case-file would have to be prepared. Rebus's unofficial contract with Grieve: stay put, and your family needn't know you're back.
The team compiled their case. Not just the Roddy Grieve team, but Siobhan and Wylie and Hood, Wylie making Hire she had a desk by a window: her reward, she said, for all the hours in the interview room.
They had help from further afield, too - NCIS, Crime Squad, the Big House. And when they were ready, there was still work to be done. A doctor had to be arranged, the suspect contacted and informed that a solicitor might be a good idea. He would know they'd been asking questions; even in his state, he'd have to know - friends lipping him the wink. Again, Carswell argued against Rebus's involvement; again, he was voted down, but only When Rebus and Siobhan turned up at the detached. walled house on Queensferry Road, there were three cars in the driveway: both doctor and solicitor had already arrived. It was a big house, 1930s vintage, but next to the main artery between the city and Fife. That would knock £50k from the value, easy; even so, it had to be worth a third of a million. Not bad for a 'toon cooncillor'.
Archie Ure was in bed, but not in his bedroom. To avoid the stairs, a single bed had been erected in the dining room. The dining table now sat out in the hall, six formal chairs upended and resting on its polished surface. The room was redolent of illness: that stuffy, fusty smell of sweat and unbrushed teeth. The patient sat up, breathing noisily. The doctor had just finished his examination. Ure was hooked up to a heart monitor, his pyjama top unbuttoned, thin black wires disappearing beneath circles of flesh-toned tape. His chest was near hairless, falling with each laboured exhalation like a punctured bellows.
Ure's solicitor was a man called Cameron Whyte, a short, meticulous-looking individual who, according to Ure's wife, had been a family friend for the past three decades. He was seated on a chair at the bedside, briefcase on his knees and a fresh pad of A4 lined paper resting atop it. Introductions had to be made. Rebus did not shake Archie Ure's hand, but did ask how he was feeling.
'Bloody fine till all this nonsense,' was the gruff response.
'We'll try to be as quick as we can,' Rebus said.
Ure grunted. Cameron Whyte went on to ask some preliminary questions, while Rebus opened one of the two cases he was carrying and brought out the cassette machine. It was a cumbersome piece of kit, but would record two copies of the interview and time-stamp each one. Rebus went over the procedure with Whyte, who watched carefully as Rebus set the date and time, then broke open two fresh tapes. There were problems with the flex, which just barely stretched from the wall socket, and then with the double-headed microphone, whose lead just made it to the bed. Rebus shifted his own chair, so that he was seated in a claustrophobic triangle with lawyer and patient, the mike resting on top of the duvet. The whole process had taken the best part of twenty minutes. Not that Rebus was hurrying: he was hoping the wait might bore Mrs Ure into retreating. She did disappear at one point, returning with a tray containing teacups and pot. Pointedly, she poured for the doctor and lawyer, but told the police officers to 'serve yourselves'. Siobhan did so smilingly, before moving back to stand by the door, there being no chair for her - and little enough room for one. The doctor was seated at the far side of the bed, beside the heart monitor. He was young, sandy-haired, and seemed bemused by the whole scene being acted out before him.
Mrs Ure, unable to get next to her husband, stood by the solicitor's shoulder, making him twitch with discomfort. The room grew hotter, stumer. There was condensation on the window. They were at the rear of the house, with a view on to a sweeping expanse of lawn, ringed by trees and bushes. A bird table had been fixed into the ground near the window, tits and sparrows visiting from time to time, peering into the room, dismayed by the quality of service.
'I could die of boredom,' Archie Ure commented, sipping apple juice.
'Sorry about that,' Rebus said. 'I'll see what I can do to help.' He was opening his second case, pulling out a fat manila folder. Ure seemed momentarily transfixed by its sheer weight, but Rebus pulled out a single sheet and laid it on top, creating a makeshift desk much like the lawyer's.
'I think we can start,' Rebus said. Siobhan crouched on the floor and activated the recorder. Nodded to let him know both tapes were rolling. Rebus identified himself for the record, then asked the others present to do likewise.
'Mr Ure,' he said, 'do you know a man called Barry Hutton?'
It was one question Ure had been expecting. 'He's a property developer.' he said.
'How well do you know him?'
Ure took another sip of juice. 'I run the council's planning department. Mr Hutton always has schemes coming before us.'
'How long have you been head of planning?'
'Eight years.'
'And before that?'
'How do you mean?'
'I mean, what positions did you fill.'
'I've been a councillor for the best part of twenty-five years; not many posts I haven't filled at one time or another.'
'But mostly planning?'
'Why bother asking? You already know.'
'Do I?'
Ure's face twisted. 'Quarter of a century, you make a few friends.'
'And your friends tell you we've been asking questions?'
Ure nodded, went back to his drink.
'Mr Ure nods,' Rebus said, for the benefit of the tape. Ure looked up at him. There was a measure of loathing there, but something in the man was prepared to enjoy this game, because that's what it was to him: a game. Nothing they could pin on him; no need to say anything incriminating.
'You were on the planning board in the late seventies,' Rebus went on.
"Seventy-eight to '83,' Ure agreed.
'You must have come across Bryce Callan?'
'Not really.'
'What does that mean?'
'It means I know his name.' Both Ure and Rebus watched the lawyer scratch a note on his pad. Rebus noticed he was using a fountain pen, his letters tall and slanting. 'I don't recall his name ever cropping up on a planning application.'
'How about Freddy Hastings?'
Ure nodded slowly: he'd known this name would come up, too. 'Freddy was around for a few years. Bit of a wide boy, liked to gamble. All the best developers do.'
'And was Freddy a good gambler?'
'He didn't last long, if that's what you're getting at.'
Rebus opened the file, pretending to check something. 'Did you know Barry Hutton back then, Mr Ure?'
'No.'
'I believe he was dipping a toe in the water at that time.'
'Maybe so, but I wasn't on the beach.' Ure wheezed out a laugh at his joke. His wife stretched an arm across the solicitor, touched her husband's hand. He patted hers. Cameron Whyte looked trapped. He'd had to stop scratching on his pad, seemed relieved when Mrs Ure withdrew the arm.
'Not even selling the ice creams?' Rebus asked. Both Ures, husband and wife, glared at him.
'No need to be glib, Inspector,' the lawyer drawled.
'I apologise,' Rebus said. 'Only it wasn't cones you were selling, was it, Mr Ure? It was information. As a result of which, to coin a phrase, you ended up with the lolly.' Behind him, he could h
ear Siobhan choke back a laugh.
'That's a strong accusation, Inspector,' Cameron Whyte said.
Ure turned his head towards his lawyer. 'Do I need to deny that, Cam, or do I just wait for him to fail to prove it?'
"I'm not sure I can prove it,' Rebus admitted guilelessly. T mean, we know someone in the council tipped off Bryce Callan about the parliament site, and probably about land in the area that could be available for purchase. We know someone smoothed the way for a lot of plans put forward by Freddy Hastings.' Rebus fixed eyes with Ure. 'Mr Hastings' business partner of the time, Alasdair Grieve, has given us a full statement.' Rebus searched in the folder again, read from a transcript: 'We were told there wouldn't be any problems with consents. Callan had that under control. Someone in planning was making sure.'
Cameron Whyte looked up. 'I'm sorry, Inspector, maybe my ears aren't what they were, but I failed to hear my client's name mentioned there.'
'Your ears are fine, sir. Alasdair Grieve never knew the mole's name. Six people on the planning committee at that time: could have been any one of them.'
'And presumably,' the lawyer went on, 'other members of council staff had access to such information?'
'Perhaps.'
'Everyone from the Lord Provost down to the typing pool?'
'I wouldn't know, sir.'
'But you should know, Inspector, otherwise such flimsy allegations could get you into serious trouble.'
'I don't think Mr Ure will want to sue,' Rebus said. He kept stealing glances at the heart monitor. It wasn't as good as a lie detector, but Ure's rate had leapt in the past couple of minutes. Rebus again made a show of glancing at his notes.
'A general question,' he said, again fixing eyes with Ure. 'Planning decisions can make people millions of pounds, can't they? I don't mean the councillors themselves, or whoever else is responsible for taking the decisions... but the builders and developers, anyone who owns land or property near the development site?'
'Sometimes, yes,' Ure conceded.
'So these people, they need to be on good terms with the decision-makers?'
'We're under constant scrutiny,' Ure said. 'I know you think we're probably all bent, but even if someone wanted to take a backhander, chances are they'd be found out.'
'Which means there's a chance they wouldn't?'