Strip Jack (22 page)

He looked up at the hospital windows, but couldn’t be sure which, if any, belonged to Macmillan’s ward. There were no faces staring at him, no signs of life at all. He rose to his feet, went to his car and got in, staring out through the windscreen. The brief sunshine had vanished. There was drizzle again, obscuring the view. Rebus pressed the button . . . and the windscreen wipers came on, came on and stayed on,
their blades moving smoothly. He smiled, hands resting on the steering wheel, and asked himself a question.

‘What happens to sanity when you chain it to a wall?’

He took a detour on his way back south, coming off the dual carriageway at Kinross. He passed Loch Leven (scene of many a family picnic when Rebus had been a kid), took a right at the next junction, and headed towards the tired mining villages of Fife. He knew this territory well. He’d been born and brought up here. He knew the grey housing schemes and the corner shops and the utilitarian pubs. The people cautious with strangers, and almost as cautious with friends and neighbours. Street-corner dialogues like bare-knuckle fights. His parents had taken his brother and him away from it at weekends, travelling to Kirkcaldy for shopping on the Saturday, and Loch Leven for those long Sunday picnics, sitting cramped in the back of the car with salmon-paste sandwiches and orange juice, flasks of tea smelling of hot plastic.

And for summer holidays there had been a caravan in St Andrews, or bed and breakfast in Blackpool, where Michael would always get into trouble and have to be hauled out by his older brother.

‘And a lot of bloody thanks I got for it.’

Rebus kept driving.

Byars Haulage was sited halfway up a steep hill in one of the villages. Across the road was a school. The kids were on their way home, swinging satchels at each other and swearing choicely. Some things never changed. The yard of Byars Haulage contained a neat row of artics, a couple of nondescript cars, and a Porsche Carrera. None of the cars was blue. The offices were actually Portakabins. He went to the one marked ‘Main Office’ (below which someone had crayoned ‘The Boss’) and knocked.

Inside a secretary looked up from her word-processor. The room was stifling, a calor-gas heater roaring away by the side of the desk. There was another door behind the secretary. Rebus could hear Byars talking fast and loud and uproariously
behind the door. Since no one answered him back, Rebus reckoned it was a phone call.

‘Well tell Shite-for-brains to get off his arse and get over here.’ (Pause.) ‘Sick?
Sick
? Sick means he’s shagging that missus of his. Can’t blame him, mind . . .’

‘Yes?’ the secretary said to Rebus. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Well never mind what he says,’ came Byars’ voice, ‘I’ve got a load here that’s got to be in Liverpool yesterday.’

‘I’d like to see Mr Byars, please,’ said Rebus.

‘If you’ll take a seat, I’ll see whether Mr Byars is available. What’s the name, please?’

‘Rebus, Detective Inspector Rebus.’

At that moment, the door of Byars’ office opened and Byars himself came out. He was holding a portable phone in one hand and a sheet of paper in the other. He handed the paper to his secretary.

‘That’s right, wee man, and there’s a load coming up from London the day after.’ Byars’ voice was louder than ever. Rebus noticed that, unseen by her, Byars was staring at his secretary’s legs. He wondered if this whole performance was for her benefit . . .

But now Byars had spotted Rebus. It took Byars a second to place him, then he nodded a greeting in Rebus’s direction. ‘Aye, you give him big licks, wee man,’ he said into the telephone. ‘If he’s got a sick-note, fine, if not tell him I’m looking out his cards, okay?’ He terminated the call and shot out a hand.

‘Inspector Rebus, what the hell brings you to this blighted neck of the bings?’

‘Well,’ said Rebus, ‘I was passing, and –’

‘Passing my arse! Plenty of people pass through, but nobody stops unless they want something. Even then, I’d advise them to keep on going. But you come from round here, don’t you? Into the office then, I can spare you five minutes.’ He turned to the secretary and rested a hand on her shoulder. ‘Sheena, hen, get on to tadger-breath in Liverpool and tell him tomorrow morning definite.’

‘Will do, Mr Byars. Will I make a cup of coffee?’

‘No, don’t bother, Sheena. I know what the polis like to drink.’ He gave Rebus a wink. ‘In you go, Inspector. In you go.’

Byars’ office was like the back room of a dirty bookshop, its walls apparently held together by nude calendars and centrefolds. The calendars all seemed to be gifts donated by garages and suppliers. Byars saw Rebus looking.

‘Goes with the image,’ he said. ‘A hairy-arsed truck driver with tattoos on his neck comes in here, he thinks he knows the sort of man he’s dealing with.’

‘And what if a woman comes in?’

Byars clucked. ‘
She
’d think she knew, too. I’m not saying she’d be all wrong either.’ Byars didn’t keep his whisky in the filing cabinet. He kept it inside a wellington boot. From the other boot he produced two glasses, which he sniffed. ‘Fresh as the morning dew,’ he said, pouring the drinks.

‘Thanks,’ said Rebus. ‘Nice car.’

‘Eh? Oh, outside you mean? Aye, it’s no’ bad. Nary a dent in it either. You should see the insurance payments though. Talk about steep. They make this brae look like a billiard table. Good health.’ He sank the measure in one gulp, then noisily exhaled.

Rebus, having taken a sip, examined the glass, then the bottle. Byars chuckled.

‘Think I’d give Glenlivet to the ba’-heids I get in here? I’m a businessman, not the Samaritans. They look at the bottle, think they know what they’re getting, and they’re impressed. Image again, like the scuddy pics on the wall. But it’s really just cheap stuff I pour into the bottle. Not many folk notice.’

Rebus thought this was meant as a compliment. Image, that’s what Byars was, all surface and appearance. Was he so different from MPs and actors? Or policemen come to that. All of them hiding their ulterior motives behind a set of gimmicks.

‘So what is it you want to see me about?’

That was easily explained. He wanted to ask Byars a little more about the party at Deer Lodge, seemingly the last party to be held there.

‘Not many of us there,’ Byars told him. ‘A few cried off pretty late. I don’t think Tom Pond was there, though he was expected. That’s right, he was off to the States by then. Suey was there.’

‘Ronald Steele?’

‘That’s the man. And Liz and Gregor, of course. And me. Cathy Kinnoul was there, but her husband wasn’t. Let’s see . . . who else? Oh, a couple who worked for Gregor. Urquhart . . .’

‘Ian Urquhart?’

‘Yes, and some young girl . . .’

‘Helen Greig?’

Byars laughed. ‘Why bother to ask if you already know? I think that was about it.’

‘You said a
couple
who worked for Gregor. Did you get the impression that they
were
a couple?’

‘Christ, no. I think everybody
but
Urquhart tried to get the girl into the sack.’

‘Did anyone succeed?’

‘Not that I noticed, but after a couple of bottles of champagne I tend not to notice very much. It wasn’t like one of Liz’s parties. You know, not wild. I mean, everybody had plenty to drink, but that was all.’

‘All?’

‘Well, you know . . . Liz’s crowd was
wild
.’ Byars stared towards one of the calendars, seemingly reminiscing. ‘A real wild bunch and no mistake . . .’

Rebus could imagine Barney Byars lapping it up, mixing with Patterson-Scott, Kilpatrick and the rest. And he could imagine them . . . tolerating Byars, a bit of nouveau rough. No doubt Byars was the life and soul of the party, a laugh a minute. Only they were laughing
at
him rather than with him . . .

‘How was the lodge when you arrived?’ Rebus asked.

Byars wrinkled his nose. ‘Disgusting. It hadn’t been cleaned since the last party a fortnight before. One of Liz’s parties, not one of Gregor’s. Gregor was going spare. Liz or somebody was supposed to have had it cleaned. It looked like a bloody
sixties squat or something.’ He smiled. ‘Actually, I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, you being a member of the constabulary and all, but I didn’t bother staying the night. Drove back about four in the morning. Absolutely guttered, but there was nobody about on the roads for me to be a menace to. Wait till you hear this though. I thought my feet were cold when I stopped the car. Got out to open the garage . . . and I didn’t have any shoes on! Just the one sock and no fucking shoes! Christ knows how come I didn’t notice . . .’

Did John Rebus receive a hero’s welcome? He did not. There were some who felt he’d merely added to the chaos of the case. Perhaps he had. Chief Superintendent Watson, for example, still felt William Glass was the man they were looking for. He sat and listened to Rebus’s report, while Chief Inspector Lauderdale rocked to and fro on another chair, sometimes staring ruminatively at the ceiling, sometimes studying the one immaculate crease down either trouser-leg. It was Friday morning. There was coffee in the air. There was coffee, too, coursing through Rebus’s nervous system as he spoke. Watson interrupted from time to time, asking questions in a voice as thin as an after-dinner mint. And at the end of it all, he asked the obvious question.

‘What do you make of it, John?’

And Rebus gave the obvious, if only mostly truthful, answer.

‘I don’t know, sir.’

‘Let’s get this straight,’ said Lauderdale, raising his eyes from a trouser-crease. ‘She’s at a telephone box. She meets a man in a car. They’re arguing. The man drives off. She hangs around for some time. Another car, maybe the same car, arrives. Another argument. The car goes off, leaving her car still in the lay-by. And next thing we know of her, she’s turning up dumped in a river next to the house owned by a friend of her husband’s.’ Lauderdale paused, as though inviting Rebus to contradict him. ‘We still don’t know when or where she died, only that she managed to end up in
Queensferry. Now, you say this actor’s wife is an old friend of Gregor Jack’s?’

‘Yes.’

‘Any hint that they were a bit
more
than friends?’

Rebus shrugged. ‘Not that I know of.’

‘What about the actor, Rab Kinnoul? Maybe he and Mrs Jack . . .?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Convenient, isn’t it?’ said the Chief Superintendent, rising to pour himself another cup of black death. ‘I mean, if Mr Kinnoul
did
ever want to dispose of a body, what better place than his own fast-flowing river, discharging into the sea, body turning up weeks later, or perhaps never at all.
And
he’s always played killers on the TV and in films. Maybe it’s all gone to his head . . .’

‘Except,’ said Lauderdale, ‘that Kinnoul was in a series of meetings all day that Wednesday.’

‘And Wednesday night?’

‘At home with his wife.’

Watson nodded. ‘We come back to Mrs Kinnoul again. Could she be lying?’

‘She’s certainly under his thumb,’ said Rebus. ‘And she’s on all sorts of anti-depressants. I’d be surprised if she could tell Wednesday night at home in Queensferry from the twelfth of July in Londonderry.’

Watson smiled. ‘Nicely put, John, but let’s
try
to stick to facts.’

‘What precious few there are,’ said Lauderdale. ‘I mean, we all
know
who the obvious candidate is: Mrs Jack’s husband. She finds out he’s been caught trousers-down in a brothel, they have a row, he may not mean to kill her but he strikes her. Next thing, she’s dead.’

‘He was caught trousers-up,’ Rebus reminded his superior.

‘Besides,’ added Watson, ‘Mr Jack, too, has his alibis.’ He read from a sheet of paper. ‘Constituency meeting in the morning. Round of golf in the afternoon – corroborated by his playing partner and checked by Detective Constable Broome. Then a dinner appointment where he made a speech
to eighty or so fine upstanding members of the business community in Central Edinburgh.’

‘And he drives a white Saab,’ Rebus stated. ‘We need to check car colours for everyone involved in the case, all Mrs Jack’s friends and all Mr Jack’s.’

‘I’ve already put DS Holmes on to it,’ said Lauderdale. ‘And forensics say they’ll have a report on the BMW ready by morning. I’ve another question though.’ He turned to Rebus. ‘Mrs Jack was, apparently, up north for anything up to a week. Did she stay all that time at Deer Lodge?’

Rebus had to give Lauderdale credit, the bugger had his thinking cap on today. Watson was nodding as though he’d been about to ask the selfsame thing, but of course he hadn’t. Rebus
had
thought about it though.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘I
do
think she spent some time there, otherwise where did the Sunday papers and the green suitcase come from? But a whole week . . .? I doubt it. No signs of recent cooking. All the food and cartons and stuff I found were either from one party or another. There
had
been an attempt to clear a space on the living room floor, so one person or maybe two could sit and have a drink. But maybe that goes back to the last party, too. I suppose we could ask the guests while we’re fingerprinting them . . .’

‘Fingerprinting them?’ asked Watson.

Lauderdale sounded like an exasperated parent. ‘Purposes of elimination, sir. To see if any prints are left that can’t be identified.’

‘What would that tell us?’ Watson said.

‘The point is, sir,’ commented Lauderdale, ‘if Mrs Jack didn’t stay at Deer Lodge, then
who
was she with and where
did
she stay? Was she even up north all that time?’

‘Ah . . .’ said Watson, nodding again as though understanding everything.

‘She visited Andrew Macmillan on the Saturday,’ added Rebus.

‘Yes,’ said Lauderdale, getting into his stride, ‘but then she’s next seen on the Wednesday by that yob at the farm. What about the days in between?’

‘She was at Deer Lodge on the Sunday with her newspapers,’ Rebus said. Then he realized the point Lauderdale was making. ‘When she saw the story,’ he continued, ‘you think she may have headed south again?’