by Ian Rankin
'They'd be a fool to try.'
'Plenty of fools around, if the price is right.' Rebus glanced back down at his notes. 'You moved into this house in 1980, is that right, Mr Ure?'
It was Whyte who answered. 'Look, Inspector, I don't know what you're insinuating--'
'August 1980,' Ure interrupted. 'Money from my wife's late mother.'
Rebus was ready. 'You sold her house to pay for this one?'
Ure was immediately suspicious. 'That's right.'
'But she had a two-bedroom cottage in Dumfriesshire, Mr Ure. Hardly comparable to Queensferry Road.'
Ure was silent for a moment. Rebus knew what he was thinking. He was thinking: if they've dug that far back, what else do they know?
'You're an evil man!' Mrs Ure snapped. 'Archie's just had a heart attack, and you're trying to kill him off!'
'Don't fret, love,' Archie Ure said, trying to reach out for her.
'Again, Inspector,' Cameron Whyte was saying, 'I must protest at this line of questioning.'
Rebus turned to Siobhan. 'Any more tea in that pot?' Ignoring the flurry of voices; the doctor getting out of his chair, concerned at his patient's state of agitation. Siobhan poured. Rebus nodded his thanks. He turned back to them again.
Sorry,' he said, 'I missed all that. Point I was going to make is that if there's money to be made on projects in Edinburgh, how much more power would someone have if they were in charge of planning for the whole of Scotland?' He sat back, sipped the tea, waited.
'I don't follow,' the lawyer said.
'Well, the question was really for Mr Ure.' Rebus looked at Ure, who cleared his throat before speaking.
'I've already said, at council level there are all sorts of checks and scrutinies. At national level, they'd be multiplied tenfold.'
'Doesn't quite answer the question,' Rebus commented affably. He shifted in his chair. 'You were runner-up to Roddy Grieve in the ballot, weren't you?'
'So?'
'With Mr Grieve dead, you should have taken his place.'
'If she hadn't stuck her oar in,' Mrs Ure spat.
Rebus looked at her. 'I'm assuming that by "she" you mean Seona Grieve?'
'That's enough, Isla,' her husband said. Then, to Rebus: 'Say your piece.'
Rebus shrugged. 'It's just that by rights, with the candidate out of the way, the nomination should have been yours. No wonder you got a shock when Seona Grieve stepped forward.'
'Shock? It nearly killed him. And now you come in here, stirring it--'
'I said be quiet, woman!' Ure had turned on to one side, leaning on an elbow, the better to confront his wife. The beeping of the heart monitor seemed louder to Rebus. The patient was being coaxed on to his back by his doctor. One of the wires had come loose.
'Leave me alone, man,' Ure complained. His wife had folded her arms, her mouth and eyes reduced to narrow, angry fissures. Ure took another sip of juice, lay his head back against the pillows. His eyes were focused on the ceiling.
'Just say your piece,' he repeated.
Rebus all of a sudden felt a pang of pity for the man, a bond that recognised their common mortality, their pasts paved with guilt. The only enemy Archie Ure had now was death itself, and such self-knowledge could change a man.
'It's a supposition really, ' Rebus said quietly. He, was shutting them all out; it was just him and the man in the bed now. 'But say a developer had someone in the council he could trust to make the right decision. And say this councillor was thinking of running for parliament. Well, if they got in... with all that experience behind them -over twenty years mostly spent in city planning - they'd be odds-on for a similar post. Planning supremo for the new Scotland. That's a lot of power to wield. The power to say aye or nay to projects worth billions. All that knowledge, too: which areas are going to get redevelopment grants; where this factory or that housing development is going to be sited... Got to be worth something to a developer. Almost worth killing for 'Inspector,' Cameron Whyte warned. But Rebus had pulled his chair as close to the bed as he could get it. Just him and Ure now.
'See, twenty years ago, I think you were Bryce Callan's mole. And when Bryce moved away, he handed you on to his nephew. We've checked: Barry Hutton hit a golden streak early on in the game. You said it yourself, a good developer is a gambler. But everyone knows the only way to beat the house is if you cheat. Barry Hutton was cheating, and you were his edge, Mr Ure. Barry had high hopes for you, and then Roddy Grieve ended up selected in your place. Barry couldn't have that. He decided to have Roddy Grieve followed. Maybe only so he could be "persuaded", but Mick Lorimer went too far.' Rebus paused. 'That's the name of the man who killed Roddy Grieve: Lorimer. Hutton hired him: we know that.' He could feel Siobhan shifting uneasily behind him - the tape running, catching him saying something they couldn't yet prove.
Roddy Grieve was drunk. He'd just been selected and wanted a look at his future. I think Lorimer watched Roddy Grieve climb the fence into the parliament site and then followed him. And suddenly, with Grieve out of the way. it was your show again.' Now Rebus narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. 'What I can't figure out is the heart attack: was it because you realised a man had been murdered, or was it when Seona Grieve stepped into her husband's shoes, depriving you all over again?'
'What do you want?' Ure's voice was hoarse.
'There's no evidence, Archie,' the lawyer was saying.
Rebus blinked, his eyes never leaving Ure's. 'What Mr Whyte says is not quite true. I think we've got enough to present in court, but not everyone would agree. We need just that little bit more. And I think you want it, too. Call it a legacy.' His voice was almost a whisper now; he hoped the recorder was catching it. 'After all the shit, a clean break of sorts.'
Silence in the room, except for the monitor, its bleeping slower now. Archie Ure raised himself up so he was sitting unsupported. He crooked a finger, beckoning Rebus closer. Rebus half rose from his chair. A whisper in his ear: it wouldn't make the tape. All the same, he needed to hear...
Ure's breathing sounded even more laboured this close, hot rasps against Rebus's neck. Grey bristles on the man's cheeks and throat. Hair oily. When washed, it would be soft and fluffy like a baby's. Talcum powder, that sweet masking smell: his wife probably used it on him, stopping bed sores.
Lips close to his ear, grazing it at one point. Then the words, louder than a whisper, words everyone was meant to hear.
'Nice fucking try.'
And then wheezing laughter, rising in volume, filling the room with sudden, violent energy, drowning out the doctor's advice, the machine's staccato arrhythmia, the wife's pleas. The lawyer's glasses were knocked flying as she lunged at her husband, sensing something. As Whyte leaned down to retrieve them, Isla Ure half clambered across his back. The doctor was studying the machine, pushing Archie Ure back down on to the bed. Rebus stood back. The laughter was for him. The defiance was for him. The red-veined eyes, bulging from their sockets, were for him. All that was demanded of Rebus was that he play the part of spectator.
For now the laughter had a choked, rending sound to it, disappearing in a white noise of gargled froth as the face turned puce, the chest falling and refusing to rise. Isla Ure shrieking now.
'Not again, Christ! Not again!'
Cameron Whyte was rising to his feet, glasses back in place. His teacup had been knocked over, a brown stain spreading across the pale pink carpet. The doctor was speaking, Siobhan springing forward to help: she'd had the training. So had Rebus, come to that, but something held him back: the audience didn't clamber on to the stage. The performance had to belong to the actor.
While the doctor issued instructions, he was sliding his body atop his patient, readying himself for CPR. Siobhan was ready to administer mouth-to-mouth. Pyjama shirt wide open, fists flattened one on the other, right at the centre of the chest...
The doctor started, Siobhan counting for him.
'One, two, three, four... one, two, three.' She pinched the nose, blew into the mouth.
Then the doctor started pushing again, almost lifting himself off the bed with the effort.
'You'll break his ribs!'
Isla Ure was sobbing, knuckles to her mouth. Siobhan's mouth locked on to the dying man's. Breath of life.
'Come on, Archie, come on!' the doctor roared, as if decibels could counter death. Rebus knew, or feared he knew: if you wished for death, it came for you all too easily. Every step you took, it shadowed your thoughts, waiting for that invitation. It sensed despair, and tiredness and resignation. He could almost sense it in the room. Archie Ure had willed death upon himself, consumed it readily and with that final relished bellow, because it was the only possible victory.
Rebus couldn't despise him for it.
'Come on, come on!'
'... three, four... one, two...'
The lawyer stood pale-faced, one arm missing from his glasses, snapped underfoot. And Isla Ure, head down by her husband's ear, voice cracked to the point of unintelligibility.
'Allu... archmon... allu-yoosweess For all the noise, the sweeping chaos of the room, it was an echo of laughter which filled Rebus's ears. The final, stripped-down laughter of Archie Ure. His eyes gazed past the bed, caught movement behind the window. The bird table, a robin clinging to its underside, head turned towards the human pantomime within. First robin he'd seen this winter. Someone had told him once they weren't seasonal, but if that were the case, then why did you only ever see them in the cold months?
One more question to add to the list.
Two, three minutes had passed. The doctor was tiring. He checked for a pulse in the throat, then put his ear to the chest cavity. The wires were hanging dislodged. The monitor making no sound at all; just three red LED letters where numbers had previously been: ERR Now flashing to a new message: RESET The doctor slid his feet off the bed and on to the floor. Cameron Whyte had picked up the teacup. His spectacles sat at the wrong angle on his face. The doctor was pushing his hair back from his forehead, sweat gleaming in his eyelashes and dripping from his nose. Siobhan Clarke's lips looked dry and pale, as if some of the life had been sucked from them. Isla Ure was lying across her husband's face, shoulders juddering. The robin had flown off, its spirit unfettered by doubt.
John Rebus bent down, retrieved the microphone from the floor. 'Interview ends at...' He checked his watch.
"Eleven thirty-eight a. m.'
Eyes turned to him. When he stopped the tapes, it was as if he'd switched off Archie Ure's life-support.
Fettes HO, the office of the Assistant Chief Constable. Colin Carswell, the ACC (Crime), listened to the jumble of noises which made up the last five minutes of the recording.
You had to be there, Rebus felt like telling him. He identified: the moment when Ure sat up, beckoning him closer... the moment flecks of foam had appeared at the corners of his twisted mouth... the sound of the doctor climbing on to the bed... and that dull static was the mike hitting the floor. From then on, everything was muffled. Rebus turned the bass down, upped the treble and volume. Even so, most of the sounds were indistinct.
Carswell had the two reports - Rebus's and Siobhan Clarke's - on the desk in front of him. He'd moistened his thumb before perusing them, lifting each page by a corner. Between them, they'd put together a second-by-second account of Archie Ure's demise, their timings matched to the tape.
There was one other copy of the tape, of course. It had been handed over to Cameron Whyte. Whyte said that Ure's widow was considering a claim against the police. That's why they were here in the ACC's office. Not just Rebus, but Siobhan and the Farmer, too.
More static: that was the mike being picked up. Interview ends at. . . eleven thirty-eight a. m.
Rebus stopped the tape. Carswell had listened to it twice now. After the first listen, he'd asked a couple of questions. Now he sat back, hands pressed together in front of his nose and lips. The Farmer made to mimic him. saw what he was doing and lowered his hands, pressing them between his legs instead. Then, seeing this as an unflattering pose to strike, he removed them quickly, laid them on his knees.
'Prominent local politician dies under police questioning,' Carswell commented. He might have been repeating a newspaper headline, but in fact so far they'd managed to keep the truth away from the newshounds. The lawyer had seen the sense of it, and had prevailed with the widow: a headline like that, and people would begin asking questions. Why had police wanted to talk to the recent heart-attack victim? She had enough to cope with without all that.
And she had concurred, while at the same time urging Whyte to 'sue the bastards for every penny'.
Words which acted like a frozen sword to the spines of the High Hiedyins at the Big House. So, just as Cameron Whyte and his team were doubtless poring over the tape, looking to build their case, the lawyers for Lothian and Borders Police were already seated in a room along the corridor, ready to take delivery of the evidence.
'A fatal error of judgement, Chief Superintendent,' Carswell was telling the Farmer. 'Sending someone like Rebus into a situation like that. I had my doubts all along, of course, and now I find myself vindicated,' He looked at Rebus. 'I wish I could take some pleasure in that.' He paused. 'A fatal error,' he repeated.
Fatal error, Rebus was thinking. ERR RESET.
'With respect, sir,' the Farmer said, 'we could hardly be expected to know 'Sending someone like Rebus to interview a sick man is tantamount to unlawful killing.'
Rebus clenched his jaw, but it was Siobhan who spoke. "Sir. Inspector Rebus has been invaluable to this investigation throughout.'
Then how come one of our best officers ends up with his face wired together? How come a long-time Labour councillor is in one of the fridges at the Cowgate? How come we don't have a single solitary conviction? And bloody unlikely to get one now.' Carswell pointed to the tape machine. 'Ure was as good a shout at it as we were going to get.'
'There was nothing wrong with the line of questioning,' the Farmer said quietly. He looked like he wanted to go sit hunched in a corner till gold-watch day.
'Without Ure, there's no case,' Carswell persisted, his attention focused on Rebus. 'Not unless you think Barry Hutton will crack under your rapier-like assault.'
'Give me a rapier and let's see.'
Carswell threw him a furious look. The Farmer started apologising.
'Look, sir,' Rebus interrupted, eyes fixed on the ACC, 'I feel as badly about this as anyone. But we didn't kill Archie Ure.'
'Then what did?'
'Maybe a guilty conscience?' Siobhan offered.
Carswell leapt to his feet. 'This whole investigation has been a farce from the start.' He was pointing at Rebus. 'I hold you responsible, and so help me I'll make sure you pay for it.' He turned to the Farmer. 'And as for you, Chief Superintendent... well, it's not a very pretty end to your career, is it?'
'No, sir. But with respect, sir...'
Rebus could see a change in Watson's demeanour.
'What?' Carswell asked.
'Nobody asked your blue-eyed boy to keep tabs on Hutton. No one told him to head off into a Leith housing scheme in pursuit of a possible murder suspect. Those were his decisions and they got him where he is now.' The Farmer paused. 'I think you're putting up a smokescreen so everyone will conveniently forget those facts. The officers here...' the Farmer looked at them, 'my officers... also have your protege pegged as a peeper. Something else you've conveniently ignored.'
'Careful now...' Carswell's eyes were boring into the Farmer.
'I think that time's past, don't you?' The Farmer pointed to the tape machine. 'Same as you, I've listened to that tape, and I can't see a damned thing wrong with DI Rebus's methods or his line of questioning.' He stood up. face to face with Carswell. 'You want to make something of it, fine. I'll be waiting.' He started heading for the door. 'After all, what have I got to lose?'
Carswell told them to get the hell out, but it was too late: they were already gone.
Down in the canteen, they left the food on their plat
es, pushed it around, feeling numb, and didn't talk very much. Rebus turned to the Farmer.
'What happened there?'
The Chief Super shrugged, tried to smile. The fight had gone out of him again; he looked exhausted. 'I just got fed up, simple as that. Thirty years I've been on the force He shook his head. 'Maybe I've just had a bellyful of the Carswells. Thirty years, and he thinks he can talk to me like that.' He looked at the pair of them, tried out a smile.
'I liked your parting shot,' Rebus said: ' "What have I got to lose?" '
'Thought you might,' the Farmer said. 'You've used it on me often enough.' Then he went to fetch three more coffees - not that they'd finished the first ones; he just needed to be moving - and Siobhan leaned back in her chair.
'What do you think?' she asked.
Golgotha via Calvary,' he said. 'And don't bother looking for the return portion.'
'Not that you like to exaggerate.'
'Know what really sticks in my craw? We might be crucified for this, and that bastard Linford's going to get a peg up.'
At least we can eat solids.' She tossed the fork on to her plate.
'Why here?' Rebus said.
He was walking across a frozen lawn in Warriston Crematorium's garden of remembrance. Big Ger Cafferty was wearing a black leather flying-jacket with fur collar, zipped to the chin.
'Remember, you came on a run with me once, years back?'
'Duddingston Loch.' Rebus was nodding. 'I remember.'
'But do you remember what I told you?'
Rebus thought for a moment. 'You said we're a cruel race, and at the same time we like pain.'
'We thrive on defeat, Strawman. And this parliament will put us in charge of our own destinies for the first time in three centuries.'
'So?'
'So it's maybe a time for looking forward, not back.' Cafferty stopped. His breath came out as a grey vapour. 'But you... you just can't leave the past alone, can you?'
'You brought me to a garden of remembrance to tell me I'm living in the past?'
Cafferty shrugged. 'We all have to live with the past; doesn't mean we have to live in it.'