by Ian Rankin
Brian Holmes came out of the mortuary stuffing a green cardboard file into his briefcase. He saw Rebus rubbing at his jaw.
‘You all right?’
‘Toothache, that’s all.’
It was, too; it was definitely toothache, or at least gum-ache. He couldn’t positively identify any one tooth as the culprit: the pain was just there, swelling below the surface.
‘Give you a lift?’
‘Thanks, Brian, but I’ve got my car.’
Holmes nodded and tugged up his collar. His chin was tucked into a blue lambswool scarf. ‘The bridge is open again,’ he said, ‘one lane southbound.’
‘What about the Cortina?’
‘Howdenhall have it. They’re fingerprinting, just in case she ever was in the car.’
Rebus nodded, saying nothing. Holmes said nothing back.
‘Something I can do for you, Brian?’
‘No, not really. I was just wondering … weren’t you supposed to be at the station first thing?’
‘So?’
‘So why come here instead?’
It was a good question. Rebus looked back at the mortuary doors, remembering the scene all over again. The artic, assuming the crash position, Lauderdale spread across the bonnet, then seeing the other car … a final embrace … a fall.
He shrugged non-committally and made for his car.
Chief Inspector Frank Lauderdale was going to be all right.
That was the good news.
The bad news was that DI Alister Flower was looking for temporary promotion to fill Lauderdale’s shoes.
‘And with the funeral meats not yet cold,’ said Chief Superintendent ‘Farmer’ Watson. He blushed, realising what he’d said. ‘Not that there’s … I mean, no funeral or …’ He coughed into his bunched fist.
‘Flower’s got a point though, sir,’ said Rebus, covering his boss’s embarrassment. ‘It’s just that he’s got the tact of a tomcat. I mean, somebody’ll have to fill in. How long’s Frank going to be out of the game?’
‘We don’t know.’ The Farmer picked up a sheet of paper and read from it. ‘Both legs broken, two broken ribs, broken wrist, concussion: there’s half a page of diagnosis here.’
Rebus rubbed his bruised cheekbone, wondering if it was responsible for the broken wrist.
‘We don’t even know,’ the Farmer went on quietly, ‘whether he’ll walk again. The breaks were pretty severe. Meantime, the last thing I need is Flower and you vying for any temporary promotion it may or may not be in my power to give.’
‘Understood.’
‘Good.’ The Farmer paused. ‘So what can you tell me about last night?’
‘It’ll be in my report, sir.’
‘Of course it will, but I’d prefer the truth. What was Frank playing at?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean driving around like the Dukes of Hazzard. We’ve got expendables for that sort of escapade.’
‘We were just maintaining a pursuit, sir.’
‘Of course you were.’ Watson studied Rebus. ‘Nothing you’d like to add to that?’
‘Not much, sir. Except that it was no accident, and they’d no intention of getting away. It was a suicide pact: unspoken, but suicide all the same.’
‘And why would they do that?’
‘I’ve no idea, sir.’
The Farmer sighed and sat back in his chair. ‘John, I think you should know my feelings on all of this.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘It was an utter balls-up from start to finish.’
… And that was putting it mildly.
They were only there because of power, because of influence, because a favour was asked. That was how it had started: with a discreet call from the city’s Lord Provost to the deputy chief constable of Lothian and Borders Police, requesting that his daughter’s disappearance be investigated.
Not that anything unlawful was hinted at. It wasn’t that she’d been abducted, assaulted, murdered, nothing like that. It was just that she’d walked out of the house one morning and not come back. Yes, she’d left a note. It was addressed to her father and the message was simple: ‘Arseholes, I’m off.’ It was unsigned, but was in the daughter’s handwriting.
Had there been a disagreement? An argument? Strong words? Well, it was impossible to have a teenager in the house without the occasional difference of view. And how old was the Lord Provost’s daughter, little Kirstie Kennedy? There came the crux: she was seventeen, and a mature, well-educated seventeen at that, well able to look after herself and old enough legally to leave home any time she wished. Which should have taken the matter out of the police’s hands, except … except that it was the Lord Provost asking, the Right Honourable Cameron McLeod Kennedy, JP, Councillor for South Gyle.
So the message filtered down from the DCC: take a look for Kirstie Kennedy, but keep it quiet.
Which was, everyone agreed, next to impossible. You didn’t ask questions on the street without rumours starting, people fearing the worst for the subject of your questions. This was the excuse given when the media got hold of the story.
There was a photograph of the daughter, a photo police had been given and which somehow the media got their paws on. The Lord Provost was furious about that. It proved to him that he had enemies within the force. As Rebus could have told him, if you went demanding a favour, someone down the line could come to resent it.
So there she was, on TV and in the papers: little Kirstie Kennedy. Not a very recent photo, maybe two or three years out of date; and the difference between fourteen or fifteen and seventeen was crucial. Rebus, father of a one-time teenage daughter, knew that. Kirstie was grown up now, and the photo would be next to useless in helping trace her.
The Lord Provost quietened the media hubbub by giving a press conference. His wife was with him — his second wife, not Kirstie’s mother; Kirstie’s mother was dead — and she was asked what she’d like to say to the runaway.
‘I’d just like her to know we’re praying for her, that’s all.’
And then came the first phone call.
It wasn’t hard to phone the Lord Provost. He was in the phone book, plus his appointments number was listed alongside every other councillor in a useful pamphlet handed out to tens of thousands of Edinburgh residents.
The caller sounded young, a voice not long broken. He hadn’t given a name. All he’d said was that he had Kirstie, and that he wanted money for her return. He’d even put a girl on the phone. She’d squealed a couple of words before being pulled away. The words had been ‘Dad’ and ‘I’.
The Lord Provost couldn’t be sure it was Kirstie, but he couldn’t not be sure either. He wanted the police’s help again, and they told him to set up a drop with the kidnappers; only there wouldn’t be money waiting for them, there’d be police officers and plenty of them.
The intention wasn’t to confront but to tail. A police helicopter was brought into play, along with four unmarked cars. It should have been easy.
It should have been. But the caller had selected as drop zone a bus stop on the busy Queensferry Road. Lots of fast-moving traffic, and nowhere to stop an unmarked car inconspicuously. The caller had been clever. When it came time for the pick-up, the Cortina had stopped on the other side of the road from the bus stop. The passenger had come hurtling across the road, dodging traffic, picked up the bag full of wads of newspaper, and taken it back to the waiting car.
Three of the police cars were facing the wrong way, and it took a devil of a time to turn them round. But the fourth had radioed back with the suspect car’s whereabouts. The helicopter, of course, had been grounded earlier, the weather being impossible. All of which left Lauderdale — officer in charge — furiously gunning his car to catch up with the race, and shedding years in the process.
Rebus hoped it had been worth it. He hoped Lauderdale, lying strapped up in hospital, would get a thrill from remembering the chase. All it had given Rebus were a sick feeling in the gut, a bad
dream, and this damned sore face.
There was a collection going around to buy something for the chief inspector. Pointedly and all too quickly, DI Alister Flower put in a tenner. He was walking around with his chest stuck out and a greasepaint smile on his face. Rebus loathed him more than ever.
Everybody kept looking at Rebus, wondering if he’d be promoted over Flower. Wondering what Rebus would do if Flower suddenly became his boss. The rumours piled up faster than the collection money. It wasn’t even close.
Rebus was not alone in reckoning the kidnapping for a hoax. They’d know for sure very soon, now that they had traced the car, located its owner, discovered that he’d loaned it to two friends and gone to those friends’ shared house only to find nobody home.
The car owner was downstairs in an interview room. They were telling him that if he was straight with them, they’d forget about the car’s lack of proper insurance. He was telling them story after story, the life and times of Willie Coyle and Dixie Taylor. Rebus went down to listen for a while. DS Macari and DC Allder were doing the interview.
‘Detective Inspector Rebus enters, twelve-fifteen hours,’ Macari said for the benefit of the tape recorder. ‘So,’ he said to the seated youth, ‘how did they make out, Willie and Dixie? Both on the broo, but you can always supplement the broo, eh?’
Rebus stood against the wall, trying to appear casual. He even smiled towards the car owner, nodded to let him know everything was all right. The car owner was in his late teens, presentable enough, neatly dressed and groomed. He wore a discreet silver-loop earring in his right ear, but no other jewellery, not even a watch.
‘They got along,’ he said. ‘Like, the dole money’s no’ bad, even social security, you can live on it if you’re careful.’
‘And they were careful?’ Macari paused. ‘Mr Duggan nods his head.’ This again for the tape recorder. ‘So why would they pull a stunt like this?’
Duggan shook his head. ‘I wish I knew. I never got an inkling. Willie’d never asked for a loan of the car before. He said he had something to shift.’
‘What sort of thing?’
‘He didn’t say.’
‘But you loaned him the car anyway.’
‘Like I say, Willie’s the careful sort.’
‘And Dixie?’
Duggan gave the hint of a smile. ‘Well, Dixie’s different. He needed looking after.’
‘What? Was he soft in the head like?’
‘No, he was just laid back. He didn’t … it was hard to get him interested.’ He looked up. ‘It’s hard to put into words.’
‘Just try your best, Mr Duggan.’
‘Ever since school, Willie and Dixie had been best pals. They liked the same music, same comics, same games. They understood one another.’
‘And they shared digs ever since they left home?’ Rebus liked Macari’s style. Around the station they called him ‘Toni’, after the character in Oor Wullie. He’d managed to get Duggan relaxed and talkative; he’d forged a relationship. Rebus wasn’t so sure of Allder; Allder was one of Flower’s men.
‘I think so,’ Duggan was saying. ‘They were right close. We had a book at school once. It had two characters like them in it, one daft and the other not.’
‘Of Mice and Men?’ Rebus offered.
‘I thought that was Burns,’ Allder said.
Rebus indicated to Macari that he was leaving.
‘Inspector Rebus leaves room, twelve-thirty hours. So, Mr Duggan, to get back to the car …’
As ever, Rebus timed his exit just wrong. Alister Flower was walking along the corridor towards him, whistling ‘Dixie’.
‘There’s a lad in there,’ Rebus reminded him, ‘has just lost two pals, one of them called Dixie.’
Flower stopped whistling and barked a short, unpleasant laugh. ‘Must’ve been my, you know, subconscious.’
‘You’ve got to be conscious to have one of those,’ Rebus said, moving away. ‘Which sort of disqualifies you.’
Flower wasn’t letting him off so easily. He caught up with Rebus at the double doors. ‘Things’ll be different when I’m Chief Inspector,’ he snarled.
‘Yes, they will,’ Rebus agreed. ‘Because by then they’ll have cured cancer and put a man on Mars.’
Then he pushed through the doors and was gone.
4
He drove out to Stenhouse. It was further out of town than he remembered, and nicer too. Quiet, once you came off Gorgie Road. Two-storey semis with tidy front gardens and swept pavements. Some of the doorsteps looked scrubbed; his mother had got down on her knees with all the other women in their cul-de-sac a couple of times a week to scrub the step with hot soapy water or bleach. A dirty front step reflected badly on the home within.
Rebus was more used to central Edinburgh, tenement city. The little suburbia managed to surprise him. Salt had been put down along the pavements and roads. In summer the neighbours would be out gossiping over fences, but this was winter and they were hibernating.
An Edinburgh winter could be a real stayer, starting early in October and lasting into April. The days were not constant: sometimes it was twilight all day; other times, with fresh snow on the ground, the sun’s glare scoured your eyes. People walked everywhere squinting, either peering into the gloom or protecting themselves from the fierce light.
Today was a twilight day, the sky a dull maroon, threatening a fall. Rebus stuffed his hands into his pockets and felt the small paper bag. He’d found an ironmonger’s on Gorgie Road, and had been directed to a specialist shop where he’d been sold a radiator key. Now he looked around, found the house he was looking for, and walked up to the front door.
‘Afternoon sir,’ said Siobhan Clarke, answering his knock. ‘How are you feeling?’
Rebus pushed his way inside. The house wasn’t much warmer than outside. In the living room, Brian Holmes was flipping through a collection of CDs.
‘Anything?’ Rebus asked.
Holmes stood up. ‘There are a few newspapers with items about the Kennedy case. Probably gave them the idea. No sign she’s ever been here. Pretty unlikely she’d run about with dossers like those two. She’s a Gillespie’s girl; Willie and Dixie were strictly comprehensive.’
‘Looks like a straightforward hoax, sir,’ Clarke agreed.
Rebus was looking around. He turned to Clarke. ‘Say you’re a well brought-up wee lassie, good school, nice lifestyle. Say you want to run away from home and just disappear for a while, maybe for ever. Would you take up with people your own class, or would you head downmarket, where nobody’d know you and nobody’d care?’
‘Down to guys like Willie and Dixie you mean?’
Rebus shrugged. ‘I’m only speculating. If you were to ask me, I’d say she’s done what every runner from Scotland does — gone to London.’
‘God help her,’ Holmes said quietly.
‘So, have you finished looking around?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Then don’t let me stop you. In fact, plug that electric fire in and I might even lend a hand.’
Brian Holmes searched in his pockets for coins for the electric meter, then they got to work.
There were two bedrooms, one tidy, the bed made, the other a mess. The tidy room belonged to Willie Coyle, as a letter from the DSS lying by the bed confirmed. There were books on a bookshelf, most of them brand new. Rebus wondered which bookshop had been losing stock recently. He pulled out something called Trainspotting, and saw that there were some sheets of paper hidden behind the row of books. The sheets were stapled at one corner, professionally word-processed with charts and graphs. They seemed to comprise a business report, a plan of some kind.
Holmes looked over his superior’s shoulder. ‘Don’t tell me Willie was an entrepreneur?’
Rebus shrugged, but rolled the report up and put it in his pocket.
‘In here!’ Siobhan Clarke called. By the time they reached her, she was pulling out her haul from beneath Dixie Taylor’s bed. Three d
isposable syringes, still in their wrappers, a candle burnt to a nub, and a dessert spoon blackened on its bottom.
‘No sign of any skag,’ she said, standing up and straightening her hair.
‘I’ll check beneath the other bed,’ Holmes said.
Rebus was smiling. ‘“Skag”?’ he said. ‘What sort of books have you been reading?’ Then his face turned serious. ‘Better call for backup, give this place a thorough going over.’
‘Right, sir.’
When Rebus was alone in the room, he examined the syringes. There was a fine layer of dust on the packets, and little balls of fluff lay in the spoon. Dixie obviously hadn’t used his works in some time. Rebus went to the bathroom, checking for Methodone or whatever the doctors gave you these days to wean you off. But he found only flu powders, paracetamol, mouthwash. He checked the mail again, but found nothing from any hospital or rehab centre.
Then he phoned Professor Gates and asked about the blood samples.
‘I haven’t had the results yet. Is there a problem?’
‘Possible heroin use,’ Rebus said. ‘At least by one of them.’
‘I could check the bodies again. I wasn’t really looking for puncture marks.’
‘Would you find them if they were there?’
‘Well, as you saw yourself, the bodies aren’t exactly pristine, and IV users are good at hiding their wounds. They’ll inject into the tongue, the penis — ’
‘Well, see what you can do, Professor.’ Rebus put down the phone. He suddenly didn’t feel comfortable indoors, so went to get some air. He lasted thirty seconds outside, then went next door and pushed the bell. A middle-aged woman opened the door, and Rebus started to show her his ID.
‘I know who you are,’ she said. ‘It’s a crying shame, those poor wee lads. Come in, come in.’
Her name was Mrs Tweedie, and she kept a warm house. Rebus sat down on the sofa and rubbed his hands, getting some feeling back into them while avoiding the burn on his palm.