Strip Jack (13 page)

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Puts my own troubles into perspective, doesn’t it? Mind you, there’s a constituency meeting this morning, so my troubles may just be starting. Let me know, won’t you? If you hear anything, I mean.’

‘Of course, Mr Jack.’

‘Thank you, Inspector. Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye, sir.’

All very formal and correct, as their relationship had to be. Not even room for a ‘Good luck with the meeting’. He knew what the meeting would be about. People didn’t like it when their MP got himself into a scandal. There would be questions. There would need to be answers . . .

Rebus opened his desk drawer and lifted out the list of Elizabeth Jack’s friends, her ‘circle’. Jamie Kilpatrick the antique dealer (and apparent black sheep of his titled family); the Hon. Matilda Merriman, notorious for her alleged night of non-stop rogering with a one-time cabinet member; Julian Kaymer, some sort of artist; Martin Inman, professional landowner; Louise Patterson-Scott, separated wife of the retail millionaire . . .

The ‘names’ just kept on coming, most of them, as Jack
himself had put it while making out the list, ‘seasoned dissolutes and hangers-on’. Mainly old money, as Chris Kemp had said, and a long way away from Gregor Jack’s own ‘pack’. But there was one curio among them, one seeming exception. Even Rebus had recognized it as Gregor Jack scratched it on to the list.

‘What?
The
Barney Byars? The original dirty trucker?’

‘The haulier, yes.’

‘A bit out of place in that sort of company, isn’t he?’

Jack had owned up. ‘Actually, Barney’s an old school-pal of mine. But as time’s gone on, he’s grown friendlier with Liz. It happens sometimes.’

‘Still, somehow I can’t see him fitting in with that lot –’

‘You’d be surprised, Inspector Rebus. Believe me, you would be surprised.’ Jack gave each word equal weight, leaving Rebus in no doubt that he meant what he said. Still . . . Byars was another fly Fifer, another famous son. While at school, he’d made his name as a hitchhiker, often claiming he’d spent the weekend in London without paying a penny to get there. After school, he made the news again by hitching his way across France, Italy, Germany, Spain. He’d fallen in love with the lorries themselves, with the whole business of them, so he’d saved, got his HGV licence, bought himself a lorry . . . and now was the largest independent haulier that Rebus could think of. Even on last year’s trip to London, Rebus had been confronted by a Byars Haulage artic trying to steer its way through Piccadilly Circus.

Well, it was Rebus’s job to ask if anyone had seen hide or hair of Liz Jack. He’d gladly let others do the hard work with the likes of Jamie Kilpatrick and the grim-sounding Julian Kaymer; but he was keeping Barney Byars for himself. Another week or two of this, he thought, and I’ll have to buy an autograph book.

As it happened, Byars was in Edinburgh, ‘drumming up custom’, as the girl in his office put it. Rebus gave her his telephone number, and an hour later Byars himself called back. He would be busy all afternoon, and he’d to go to
dinner that evening ‘with a few fat bastards’, but he could see Rebus for a drink at six if that was convenient. Rebus wondered which luxury hotel would be the base for their drink, and was stunned, perhaps even disappointed, when Byars named the Sutherland Bar, one of Rebus’s own watering holes.

‘Right you are,’ he said. ‘Six o’clock.’

Which meant that the day stretched ahead of him. There was the Case of the Lifted Literature, of course. Well, he wasn’t going to hold his breath waiting for a result there. They would turn up or they would not. His bet would be that by now they’d be on the other side of the Atlantic. Then there was William Glass, suspect in a murder inquiry, somewhere out there in a back close or a cobbled side street. Well, he’d turn up come giro day. If, that is, he was more stupid than so far he’d proved to be. No, maybe he was full of cunning. In which case he wouldn’t go near a DHSS office or back to his digs. In which case he would have to get money from somewhere.

So – go talk to the tramps, the city’s dispossessed. Glass would steal, or else he would resort to begging. And where he begged, there would be others begging, too. Put his description about, maybe with a tenner as a reward, and let others do your work for you. Yes, it was definitely worth mentioning to Lauderdale. Except that Rebus didn’t want to do the Chief Inspector
too
many good turns, otherwise Lauderdale would think he was currying favour.

‘I’d rather curry an alsatian.’ he said to himself.

With a nice sense of timing, Brian Holmes came into the office carrying a white paper bag and a polystyrene beaker.

‘What’ve you got there?’ Rebus asked, suddenly hungry.

‘You’re the policeman, you tell me.’ Holmes produced a sandwich from the bag and held it in front of Rebus.

‘Corned chuck?’ Rebus guessed.

‘Wrong. Pastrami on rye bread.’

‘What?’

‘And decaffeinated filter coffee.’ Holmes prised the lid from
the beaker and sniffed the contents with a contented smile. ‘From that new delicatessen next to the traffic lights.’

‘Doesn’t Nell make you up a sandwich?’

‘Women have equal rights these days.’

Rebus believed it. He thought of Inspector Gill Templer and her psychology books and her feminism. He thought of the demanding Dr Patience Aitken. He even thought of the free-living Elizabeth Jack. Strong women to a man . . . But then he remembered Cath Kinnoul. There were still casualties out there.

‘What’s it like?’ he asked.

Holmes had taken a bite from the sandwich and was studying what was left. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Interesting.’

Pastrami – now there was a sandwich filling that would be a long time coming to the Sutherland Bar.

Barney Byars, too, was a long time coming to the Sutherland. Rebus arrived at five minutes to six, Byars at twenty-five past. But he was well worth waiting for.

‘Inspector, sorry I’m late. Some cunt was trying to knock me down five per cent on a four-grand contract,
and
he wanted sixty days to pay. Know what that does to a cash flow? I told him I ran a lorry firm, not fuckin’ rickshaws.’

All of which was delivered in a thick Fife tongue and at a volume appreciably above that of the bar’s early evening rumble of TV and conversation. Rebus was seated at one of the bar stools, but stood and suggested they take a table. Byars, however, was already making himself comfortable on the stool next to the policeman, laying his brawny arms along the bar-top and examining the array of taps. He pointed to Rebus’s glass.

‘That any good?’

‘Not bad.’

‘I’ll have a pint of that then.’ Whether from awe, fear, or just good management of his customers, the barman was on hand to pour the requested pint.

‘Another yourself, Inspector?’

‘I’m okay, thanks.’

‘And a whisky, too,’ ordered Byars. ‘A double, mind, not the usual smear-test.’

Byars handed a fifty-pound note to the barman. ‘Keep the change,’ he said. Then he roared with laughter. ‘Only joking, son, only joking.’

The barman was new and young. He held the note as though it were likely to ignite. ‘Ehh . . . you haven’t got anything smaller on you?’ His accent was effeminate west coast. Rebus wondered how long he’d last in the Sutherland.

Byars exasperated but rejecting Rebus’s offer of help, dug into his pockets and found two crumpled one-pound notes and some change. He accepted his fifty back and pushed the coins towards the barman, then he winked at Rebus.

‘I’ll tell you a secret, Inspector, if I had to choose between having five tenners or one fifty, I’d go for the one fifty every time. Want to know why? Tenners in your pocket, people think nothing of it. But whip a fifty out, and they think you’re Croesus.’ He turned to the barman, who was counting the coins out into the open till. ‘Hey, son, got anything for eating?’ The barman jerked round as though hit by a pellet.

‘Ehh . . . I think there’s some Scotch broth left over from lunch.’ His vowels turned broth into ‘braw-wrath’. The braw wrath of the Scots, Rebus thought to himself. Byars was shaking his head. ‘A pie or a sandwich,’ he demanded.

The barman proffered the last lonely sandwich in the place. It looked unnervingly like pastrami, but turned out to be, as Byars put it, ‘the guid roast beef’.

‘One pound ten,’ the barman said. Byars got out the fifty-pound note again, snorted, and produced a fiver instead. He turned back to Rebus and lifted his glass.

‘Cheers.’ Both men drank.

‘Not bad at all,’ Byars said of the beer.

Rebus gestured towards the sandwich. ‘I thought you were going to dinner later on?’

‘I am, but more importantly,
I’m
paying. This way, I won’t eat as much and won’t cost myself so much.’ He winked again. ‘Maybe I should write a book, eh? Business tips for
sole traders, that sort of thing. Heh, speaking of tips, I once asked a waiter what “tips” meant. Know what he said?’

Rebus hazarded a wild guess. ‘To insure prompt service?’

‘No, to insure I don’t piss in the soup!’ Byars’ voice was back to the level of megaphone diplomacy. He laughed, then took a bite of sandwich, still chortling as he chomped. He was not a tall man, five seven or thereabouts. And he was stocky. He wore newish denims and a black leather jacket, beneath which he sported a white polo-shirt. In a bar like this, you’d take him for . . . well, just about anybody. Rebus could imagine him ruffling feathers in plush hotels and business bars. Image, he told himself. It’s just another image: the hard man, the no-nonsense man, a man who worked hard and who expected others to work hard, too – always in his favour.

He had finished the sandwich, and was brushing crumbs from his lap. ‘You’re from Fife,’ he said casually, sniffing the whisky.

‘Yes,’ Rebus admitted.

‘I could tell. Gregor Jack’s from Fife too, you know. You said you wanted to talk about him. Is it to do with that brothel story? I found that a bit hard to swallow.’ He nodded towards the empty plate in front of him. ‘Not as hard as that sandwich though.’

‘No, it’s not really to do with the . . . with Mr Jack’s . . . no, it’s more to do with Mrs Jack.’

‘Lizzie? What about her?’

‘We’re not sure where she is. Any ideas?’

Byars looked blank. ‘Knowing Lizzie, you’d better get Interpol on the case. She’s as likely to be in Istanbul as Inverness.’

‘What makes you say Inverness?’

Byars looked stuck for an answer. ‘It was the first place that came to mind.’ Then he nodded. ‘I see what you mean though. You were thinking she might be at Deer Lodge, it being up that way. Have you looked?’

Rebus nodded. ‘When did you last see Mrs Jack?’

‘A couple of weeks ago. Maybe three weekends ago, I can
check. Funnily enough, it was at the lodge. A weekend party. The Pack mostly.’ He looked up from his drink. ‘I better explain that . . .’

‘It’s all right, I know who The Pack are. Three weekends ago, you say?’

‘Aye, but I can check if you like.’

‘A weekend party . . . you mean a party lasting the whole weekend?’

‘Well, just a few friends . . . all very civilized.’ A light came on behind his eyes. ‘Ah-ha, I know what you’re getting at. You know about Liz’s parties then? No, no, this was tame stuff, dinner and a few drinks and a brisk country walk on the Sunday. Not really my mug of gin, but Liz had invited me, so . . .’

‘You prefer her other kinds of party?’

Byars laughed. ‘Of course! You’re only young once, Inspector. I mean, it’s all above board . . . isn’t it?’

He seemed genuinely curious, not without reason. Why should a policeman know about ‘those’ parties? Who could have told him if not Gregor, and what exactly
would
Gregor have said?

‘As far as I know, sir. So you don’t know any reason why Mrs Jack might want to disappear?’

‘I can think of a few.’ Byars had finished both drinks, but didn’t look like he was hanging around for another. He kept shifting on the stool, as if unable to get comfortable. ‘That newspaper story for a start. I think I’d want to be well away from it, wouldn’t you? I mean, I can see how it’s bad for Gregor’s image, not having his wife beside him, but at the same time . . .’

‘Any other reasons?’

Byars was half standing now. ‘A lover,’ he suggested. ‘Maybe he’s whisked her off to Tenerife for a bit of pash under the sun.’ He winked again, then his face became serious, as though he’d just remembered something. ‘There were those phone calls,’ he said.

‘Phone calls?’

Now he was standing. ‘Anonymous phone calls. Lizzie told
me about them. Not to her, to Gregor. Bound to happen, the game he’s in. Caller would phone up and say he was Sir Somebody-Somebody or Lord This ’n’ That, and Gregor would be fetched to the phone. Soon as he got to it, the line would go dead. That’s what she told me.’

‘Did these calls worry her?’

‘Oh yes, you could see she was upset. She tried to hide it, but you could see. Gregor just laughed it off, of course. Can’t afford to let something like that rattle him. She might even have mentioned letters. Something about Gregor getting these letters, but tearing them up before anyone could see them. But you’d have to ask Lizzie about that.’ He paused. ‘Or Gregor, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘Right . . .’ Byars stuck out his hand. ‘You’ve got my number if you need me, Inspector.’

‘Yes.’ Rebus shook hands. ‘Thanks for your help, Mr Byars.’

‘Any time, Inspector. Oh, and if you ever need a lift to London, I’ve got lorries make that trip four times a week. Won’t cost you a penny, and you can still claim the journey on expenses.’

He gave another wink, smiled generally around the bar, and marched back out as noticeably as he’d marched in. The barman came to clear away plate and glass. Rebus saw that the tie the young man was wearing was a clip-on, standard issue in the Sutherland. If a punter tried to grab you, the tie came away in his hand . . .

‘Was he talking about me?’

Rebus blinked. ‘Eh? What makes you think that?’

‘I thought I heard him mention my name.’

Rebus poured the dregs from his glass into his mouth and swallowed. Don’t say the kid was called Gregor . . . Lizzie maybe . . . ‘What name is that then?’