Strip Jack (18 page)

‘And here’s your bedroom. I’ve given it a bit of an airing and –’

‘It’s very nice, thank you.’ Rebus put his bag on the bed, saw her ominous look, and shifted it off the bed and on to the floor.

‘I made the bedspread myself,’ she said with a smile. ‘I was once advised to go professional, selling my bedspreads. But
at my age . . .’ She gave a chuckle. ‘It was a German gentleman told me that. He was in Scotland to buy jam. Would you credit it? He stayed here a few nights . . .’

Eventually, she recalled her duties. She’d just go and make them a spot of supper. Supper. Rebus glanced at his watch. Unless it had stopped, it was not yet five thirty. But then, he’d booked bed and breakfast, and any hot meal tonight would be a bonus. Moffat had given him directions to the closest pub – ‘tourist place, tourist prices’ – before leaving him for the undoubted delights of Dufftown. The fear of God . . .

He had just slipped off his trousers when the door opened and Mrs Wilkie stood there.

‘Is that you, Andrew? I thought I heard a noise.’ Her eyes had a glassy, faraway look. Rebus stood there, frozen, then swallowed.

‘Go and make us some supper,’ he said quietly.

‘Oh yes,’ Mrs Wilkie said. ‘You must be hungry. You’ve been gone such a long time . . .’

Then, the idea of a quick bath appealed. He looked into the kitchen first, and saw that Mrs Wilkie was busy at the stove, humming to herself. So he headed for the bathroom. There was no lock on the door. Or rather, there was a lock, but half of it was hanging loose. He looked around him, but saw nothing he could wedge against the door. He decided to take his chance and started both taps running. There was a furious pressure to the water, and the bath filled quickly and hotly. Rebus undressed and sank beneath the surface. His shoulders were stiff from the drive, and he massaged them as best he could. Then he lifted his knees so that his shoulders, neck and head slid into the water. Immersion. He thought of Dr Curt, of drowning and immersion. Skin wrinkling . . . hair and nails shedding . . . silt in the bronchial . . .

A noise brought him to the surface. He cleared his eyes, blinked, and saw that Mrs Wilkie was staring down at him, a dish towel in her hands.

‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Oh dear, I’m sorry.’ And she retreated behind the door, calling through it: ‘I quite forgot you were here! I was just going to . . . well . . . never mind, it can wait.’

Rebus screwed shut his eyes and sank beneath the waves . . .

The meal was, to his surprise, good, if a bit odd. Cheese pudding, boiled potatoes, and carrots. Followed by tinned steamed pudding and packet custard.

‘So convenient,’ as Mrs Wilkie commented. The shock of seeing a naked man in her bathtub seemed to have brought her into the here and now, and they talked about the weather, the tourists and the government until the meal was over. Rebus asked if he could wash the dishes, and was told he could not – much to his relief. Instead, he asked Mrs Wilkie for a front-door key, then set off, stomach full, clean of body and underwear, for the Heather Hoose.

Not a name he would have chosen for his own pub. He entered by the lounge door, but, the place being dead, pushed through another door into the public bar. Two men and a woman stood at the bar and shared a joke, while a barman studiously filled glasses from a whisky optic. The group looked round at Rebus as he came and stood not too far from them.

‘Evening.’

They nodded back, almost without seeing him, and the barman returned the greeting, setting down three double measures of whisky on the bar.

‘And one for yourself,’ said one of the customers, handing across a ten-pound note.

‘Thanks,’ said the barman, ‘I’ll have a nip myself for later on.’

Behind the array of optics, bottles and glasses, the wall was mirrored, so Rebus was able to study the group without seeming to. The man who had spoken sounded English. There had been only two cars in the pub’s courtyard, a beaten-up Renault 5 and a Daimler. Rebus reckoned he knew who owned which . . .

‘Yes, sir?’ asked the barman and Renault 5 owner.

‘Pint of export, please.’

‘Certainly.’

The wonder of it was that three well-off English tourists would drink in the public bar. Maybe they just hadn’t noticed that the Heather Hoose possessed such an amenity as a lounge. All three looked a bit the worse for wear, mostly from drink. The woman had a formidable face, framed by dyed platinum hair. Her cheeks were too red and her eyelashes too black. When she sucked on her cigarette, she arched her head up to blow the smoke ceilingwards. Rebus tried counting the lines on her neck. Maybe it worked the way it did with tree-rings . . .

‘There you are.’ The pint glass was placed on a mat in front of him. He handed over a fiver.

‘Quiet tonight.’

‘Midweek and not quite the season,’ recited the barman, who had obviously just said the same thing to the other group. ‘It’ll get busier later on.’ Then he retreated to the till.

‘Another round here when you’re ready,’ said the Englishman, the only one of the three to have finished his whisky. He was in his late thirties, younger than the woman. He looked fit, prosperous, but somehow faintly disreputable. It had something to do with the way he stood, slightly slouched and looming, as though he might be about either to fall down or else pounce. And his head swayed a little from side to side in time with his sleepy eyelids.

The third member of the group was younger still, mid-thirties. He was smoking French cigarettes and staring at the bottles above the bar. Either that, thought Rebus, or he’s looking at
me
in the mirror, the way I’m looking at
him
. Certainly, it was a possibility. The man had an affected way of tapping the ash from his affected cigarette. Rebus noticed that he smoked without inhaling, holding the smoke in his mouth and releasing it in a single belch. While his companions stood, he rested on one of the high bar stools.

Rebus had to admit, he was intrigued. An unlikely little threesome. And about to become more unlikely still . . .

A couple of people had entered the lounge bar, and looked like staying there. The barman slipped through a doorway between rooms to serve these new customers, and this seemed
to start off a conversation between the two men and the woman.

‘God, the nerve. He hasn’t served
us
yet.’

‘Well, Jamie, we’re not exactly gasping, are we?’

‘Speak for yourself. I hardly felt that first one slip down. Should have asked for quadruples in the first place.’

‘Have mine,’ said the woman, ‘if you’re going to become ratty.’

‘I am not becoming ratty,’ said the slouching pouncer, becoming very ratty indeed.

‘Well fuck you then.’

Rebus had to stifle a grin. The woman had said this as though it were part of any polite conversation.

‘And fuck you, too, Louise.’

‘Ssh,’ the French-smoker warned. ‘Remember, we’re not alone.’

The other man and woman looked towards Rebus, who sat staring straight ahead, glass to lips.

‘Yes we are,’ said the man. ‘We’re all alone.’

This utterance seemed to signal the end of the conversation. The barman reappeared.

‘Same again, barman, if you’ll be so kind . . .’

The evening hotted up quickly. Three locals appeared and started to play dominoes at a nearby table. Rebus wondered if they were paid to come in and add the requisite local colour. There was probably more colour in a Meadowbank Thistle–Raith Rovers friendly. Two other drinkers appeared, wedging themselves in between Rebus and the threesome. They seemed to take it as an insult that there were other drinkers in the bar before them, and that some of those drinkers were standing next to
their
space at the bar. So they drank in dour silence, merely exchanging looks whenever the Englishman or his two friends said anything.

‘Look,’ said the woman, ‘are we heading back tonight? If not, we’d better think about accommodation.’

‘We could sleep at the lodge.’

Rebus put down his glass.

‘Don’t be so sick,’ the woman retorted.

‘I thought that was why we came.’

‘I wouldn’t be able to sleep.’

‘Maybe that’s why they call it a wake.’

The Englishman’s laughter filled the silent bar, then died. A domino clacked on to a table. Another chapped. Rebus left his glass where it was and approached the group.

‘Did I hear you mention a lodge?’

The Englishman blinked slowly. ‘What’s it to you?’

‘I’m a police officer.’ Rebus brought out his ID. The two dour regulars finished their drinks and left the bar. Funny how an ID had that effect sometimes . . .

‘Detective Inspector Rebus. Which lodge did you mean?’

All three looked sober now. It was an act, but a good act, years in the learning.

‘Well, officer,’ said the Englishman, ‘now what business is that of yours?’

‘Depends which lodge you were talking about, sir. There’s a nice police station at Dufftown if you’d prefer to go there . . .’

‘Deer Lodge,’ said the French-smoker. ‘A friend of ours owns it.’

‘Owned it,’ corrected the woman.

‘You were friends of Mrs Jack then?’

They were. Introductions were made. The Englishman was actually a Scot, Jamie Kilpatrick the antique dealer. The woman was Louise Patterson-Scott, wife (separated) of the retail tycoon. The other man was Julian Kaymer, the painter.

‘I’ve already spoken with the police,’ Julian Kaymer said. ‘They telephoned me yesterday.’

Yes, they had
all
been questioned, asked if they knew Mrs Jack’s movements. But they hadn’t seen her for weeks.

‘I spoke to her on the telephone,’ Mrs Patterson-Scott announced, ‘a few days before she went off on holiday. She didn’t say where she was going, just that she fancied a few days away by herself.’

‘So what are you all doing here?’ Rebus asked.

‘This is a wake,’ said Kilpatrick. ‘Our little token of
friendship, our time of mourning. So why don’t you bugger off and let us get on with it.’

‘Ignore him, Inspector,’ said Julian Kaymer. ‘He’s a bit pissed.’

‘What I am,’ stated Kilpatrick, ‘is a bit
upset
.’

‘Emotional,’ Rebus offered.

‘Exactly, Inspector.’

Kaymer carried on the story. ‘It was my idea. We’d all been on the phone to each other, none of us really able to take it in. Devastated. So I said why don’t we take a run to the lodge? That was where we all met last.’

‘At a party?’ asked Rebus.

Kaymer nodded. ‘A month back.’

‘A great bloody big piss-up it was,’ confirmed Kilpatrick.

‘So,’ said Kaymer, ‘the plan was to drive here, have a few drinks in memory of Lizzie, and drive back. Not everybody could make it. Prior commitments and so on. But here we are.’

‘Well,’ said Rebus, ‘I
would
like you to look inside the house. But there’s no point going out there in the dark. What I
don’t
want is the three of you going out there on your own. The place still has to be gone over for fingerprints.’

They looked a bit puzzled at this. ‘You haven’t heard?’ Rebus said, recalling that Curt had only revealed his findings that morning. ‘It’s a murder hunt now. Mrs Jack was murdered.’

‘Oh no!’

‘Christ . . .’

‘I’m going to be –’

And Louise Patterson-Scott, wife of the et cetera, threw up on to the carpeted floor. Julian Kaymer was weeping, and Jamie Kilpatrick was losing all the blood from his face. The barman stared in horror, while the domino players stopped their game. One of them had to restrain his dog from investigating further. It cowered under the table and licked its whiskery chops . . .

Local colour, as provided by John Rebus.

Finally, a hotel was found, not far out of Dufftown. It was arranged that the three would spend the night there. Rebus had considered asking Mrs Wilkie if she had any spare rooms, but thought better of it. They would stay at the hotel, and meet Rebus at the lodge in the morning. Bright and early: some of them had jobs to get back to.

When Rebus returned to the cottage, Mrs Wilkie was knitting by her gas fire and watching a film on the TV. He put his head round the living room door.

‘I’ll say goodnight, Mrs Wilkie.’

‘Night-night, son. Mind, say your prayers. I’ll be up to tuck you in a bit later on . . .’

Rebus made himself a mug of tea, went to his room, and wedged the chair against the door handle. He opened the window to let in some air, switched on his own little television, and fell on to the bed. There was something wrong with the picture on the TV, and he couldn’t fix it. The vertical hold had gone. So he switched it off again and dug into his bag, coming up with
Fish out of Water
. Well, he’d nothing else to read, and he certainly didn’t feel tired. He opened the book at chapter one.

Rebus woke up the next morning with a bad feeling. He half expected to turn and see Mrs Wilkie lying beside him, saying ‘Come on, Andrew, time for the conjugals’. He turned. Mrs Wilkie was not lying beside him. She was outside his door and trying to get in.

‘Mr Rebus, Mr Rebus.’ A soft knock, then a hard. ‘The door seems to be jammed, Mr Rebus! Are you awake? I’ve brought you a cup of tea.’

During which time Rebus was out of bed and half dressed. ‘Coming, Mrs Wilkie.’

But the old lady was panicking. ‘You’re locked in, Mr Rebus. The door’s stuck! Shall I call for a carpenter? Oh dear.’

‘Hold on, Mrs Wilkie, I think I’ve got it.’ His shirt still unbuttoned, Rebus put his weight to the door, keeping it shut, and at the same time lifted the chair away, stretching
so as to place it nearer the bed. Then he made show of thumping the edges of the door before pulling it open.

‘Are you all right, Mr Rebus? Oh dear, that’s never happened before. Dear me no . . .’

Rebus lifted the cup and saucer from her hand and began pouring the tea back from saucer into cup. ‘Thank you, Mrs Wilkie.’ He made show of sniffing. ‘Is something cooking?’

‘Oh dear, yes. Breakast.’ And off she toddled, back down the stairs. Rebus felt a bit guilty for having pulled the ‘locked-door’ stunt. He’d show her after breakfast that the door was all right really, that she didn’t need to phone for cowboy carpenters to put it right. But for now he had to continue the process of waking up. It was seven thirty. The tea was cold but the day seemed unseasonally warm. He sat on the bed for a moment, collecting his thoughts. What day was it? It was Wednesday. What needed to be done today? What was the best order to do it in? He’d to return to the cottage with the Three Stooges. Then there was Mrs Corbie to speak to. And something else . . . something he’d been thinking about last night, in the melting moment between waking and sleep. Well, why not? He was in the area anyway. He’d telephone after breakfast. A fry-up by the smell of it, rather than Patience’s usual choice of muesli or Bran Crunch. Ah, that was another thing. He’d meant to phone Patience last night. He’d do it today, just to say hello. He thought about her for a little while, Patience and her collection of pets. Then he finished dressing and made his way downstairs . . .