Mortal Causes (22 page)

‘Can I help you?’ the male assistant asked, not looking up from his keyboard.

‘Is Millie around?’ Rebus asked.

‘Through the arch.’

‘Thanks.’

There was a single step up to the arch, through which was another part of the shop, specialising in contract work and business packages. Rebus almost didn’t recognise Millie, though there was no one else there. She was seated at a terminal, thinking about something, tapping her finger against her lips. It took her a second to place Rebus. She hit a key, the screen went blank, and she rose from her seat.

She was dressed in an immaculate combination of brilliant white skirt and bright yellow blouse, with a single string of crystals around her neck.

‘I just can’t shake you lot off, can I?’

She did not sound unhappy. Indeed, she seemed almost
too
pleased to see them, her smile immense. ‘Can I fix you some coffee?’

‘Not for me, thanks.’

Millie looked to Siobhan Clarke, who shook her head. ‘Mind if I make some for myself?’ She went to the arch. ‘Steve? Cuppa?’

‘Wouldn’t say no.’

She came back. ‘No, but he might say please, just once.’ There was a cubby-hole at the back of the shop, leading to a toilet cubicle. In the cubbyhole sat a percolator, a packet of ground coffee, and several grim-looking mugs. Millie got to work. While she was occupied, Rebus asked his first question.

‘Billy’s mum tells us you were good enough to pack up all his stuff.’

‘It’s still sitting in his room, three bin liners. Not a lot to show for a life, is it?’

‘What about his motorbike?’

She smiled. ‘That thing. You could hardly call it a bike. A friend of his asked if he could have it. Billy’s mum said she didn’t mind.’

‘You liked Billy?’

‘I liked him a lot. He was genuine. You never got bullshit with Billy. If he didn’t like you, he’d tell you to your face. I hear his dad’s some kind of villain.’

‘They didn’t know one another.’

She slapped the coffee-maker. ‘This thing takes ages. Is that what you want to ask me about, Billy’s dad?’

‘Just a few general questions. Before he died, did Billy seem worried about anything?’

‘I’ve been asked already, more than once.’ She looked at Clarke. ‘You first, and then that big bastard with the voice like something caught in a mousetrap.’ Rebus smiled: it was a fair description of Ken Smylie. ‘Billy was just the same as ever, that’s all I can say.’

‘Did he get along okay with Mr Murdock?’

‘What sort of question is that? Christ, you’re scraping the barrel if you think Murdock would’ve done anything to Billy.’

‘You know what it’s like in mixed flats though, where there’s a couple plus one, jealousy can be a problem.’

An electric buzzer announced the arrival of a customer. They could hear Steve talking to someone.

‘We’ve got to ask, Millie,’ Clarke said soothingly.

‘No you don’t. It’s just that you
like
asking!’

So much for the good mood. Even Steve and the customer seemed to be listening. The coffee machine started dolloping boiled water into the filter.

‘Look,’ said Rebus, ‘let’s calm down, eh? If you like, we can come back. We could come to the flat –’

‘It never ends, does it? What is this? Trying to get a confession out of me?’ She clasped her hands together. ‘Yes, I killed him. It was me.’

She held her hands out, wrists prominent.

‘I’ve forgotten my cuffs,’ Rebus said, smiling. Millie looked to Siobhan Clarke, who shrugged.

‘Great, I can’t even get myself arrested.’ She sloshed coffee into a mug. ‘And I thought it was the easiest thing in the world.’

‘Are we really so bad, Millie?’

She smiled, looked down at her mug. ‘I suppose not, sorry about that.’

‘You’re under a lot of strain,’ said Siobhan Clarke, ‘we appreciate that. Maybe if we sit down, eh?’

So they sat at Millie’s desk, like customers and assistant. Clarke, who liked computers, had actually picked up a couple of brochures.

‘That’s got a twenty-five megahertz microprocessor,’ Millie said, pointing to one of the brochures.

‘What size memory?’

‘Four meg RAM, I think, but you can select a hard disk up to one-sixty.’

‘Does this one have a 486 chip?’

Good girl, thought Rebus. Clarke was calming Millie down, taking her mind off both Billy Cunningham and her recent outburst. Steve brought the customer through to show him a certain screen. He gave the three of them a look full of curiosity.

‘Sorry, Steve,’ said Millie, ‘forgot your coffee.’ Her smile would not have passed a polygraph.

Rebus waited till Steve and the customer had retreated. ‘Did Billy ever bring friends back to the flat?’

‘I’ve given you a list.’

Rebus nodded. ‘Nobody else you’ve thought of since?’

‘No.’

‘Can I try you with a couple of names? Davey Soutar and Jamesie MacMurray.’

‘Last names don’t mean much in our flat. Davey and Jamesie … I don’t think so.’

Rebus willed her to look at him. She did so, then looked away again quickly. You’re lying, he thought.

They left the shop ten minutes later. Clarke looked up and down the pavement. ‘Want to go see Murdock now?’

‘I don’t think so. What do you suppose it was she didn’t want us to see?’

‘Sorry?’

‘You look up, see the police coming towards you, why do you blank your computer screen pronto and then come flying off your seat all bounce and flounce?’

‘You think there was something on the computer she didn’t want us to see?’

‘I thought I just said that,’ said Rebus. He got into the Renault’s passenger seat and waited for Clarke. ‘Jamesie MacMurray knows about The Shield. They killed Billy.’

‘So why aren’t we pulling him in?’

‘We’ve nothing on him, nothing that would stick. That’s not the way to work it.’

She looked at him. ‘Too mundane?’

He shook his head. ‘Like a golf course, too full of holes. We need to get him scared.’

She thought about this. ‘Why did they kill Billy?’

‘I think he was about to talk, maybe he’d threatened to come to us.’

‘Could he be that stupid?’

‘Maybe he had insurance, something he thought would save his skin.’

Siobhan Clarke looked at him. ‘It didn’t work,’ she said.

Back at St Leonard’s, there was a message for him to call Kilpatrick.

‘Some magazine,’ Kilpatrick said, ‘is about to run with a story about Calumn Smylie’s murder, specifically that he was working undercover at the time.’

‘How did they get hold of that?’

‘Maybe someone talked, maybe they just burrowed deep enough. Whatever, a certain local reporter has made no friends for herself.’

‘Not Mairie Henderson?’

‘That’s the name. You know her, don’t you?’

‘Not particularly,’ Rebus lied. He knew Kilpatrick was fishing. If someone in the notoriously tight-lipped SCS was blabbing, who better to point the finger at than the new boy?

He phoned the news desk while Siobhan fetched them coffee. ‘Mairie Henderson, please. What? Since when? Right, thanks.’ He put the phone down. ‘She’s resigned,’ he said, not quite believing it. ‘Since last week. She’s gone freelance apparently.’

‘Good for her,’ said Siobhan, handing over a cup. But Rebus wasn’t so sure. He called Mairie’s home number, but got her answering machine. Its message was succinct:

‘I’m busy with an assignment, so I can’t promise a quick reply unless you’re offering work. If you
are
offering work, leave your number. You can see how dedicated I am. Here comes the beep.’

Rebus waited for it. ‘Mairie, it’s John Rebus. Here are three numbers you can get me on.’ He gave her St Leonard’s, Fettes, and Patience’s flat, not feeling entirely confident about this last, wondering if any message from a woman would reach him with Patience on the intercept.

Then he made an internal call to the station’s liaison officer.

‘Have you seen Mairie Henderson around?’

‘Not for a wee while. The paper seems to have switched her for someone else, a right dozy wee nyaff.’

‘Thanks.’

Rebus thought about the last time he’d seen her, in the corridor after Lauderdale’s conference. She hadn’t mentioned any story, or any plan of going freelance. He made one more call, external this time. It was to DCI Kilpatrick.

‘What is it, John?’

‘That magazine, sir, the one doing the story about Calumn Smylie, what’s it called?’

‘It’s some London rag …’ There were sounds of papers being shuffled. ‘Yes, here it is.
Snoop
.’

‘
Snoop?
’ Rebus looked to Siobhan Clarke, who nodded, signalling she’d heard of it. ‘Right, thank you, sir.’ He put the receiver down before Kilpatrick could ask any questions.

‘Want me to phone them and ask?’

Rebus nodded. He saw Brian Holmes come into the room. ‘Just the man,’ he said. Holmes saw them and wiped imaginary sweat from his brow.

‘So,’ said Rebus, ‘what did you get from the builders?’

‘Everything but an estimate for repointing my house.’ He took out his notebook. ‘Where do you want me to start?’

Davey Soutar had agreed to meet Rebus in the community hall.

On his way to the Gar-B, Rebus tried not to think about Soutar. He thought instead about building firms. All Brian Holmes had been able to tell him was that the two firms were no cowboys, and weren’t admitting to use of casual, untaxed labour. Siobhan Clarke’s call to the office of
Snoop
magazine had been more productive. Mairie Henderson’s piece, which they intended publishing in their next issue, had not been commissioned specially. It was part of a larger story she was working on for an American magazine. Why, Rebus wondered, would an American magazine be interested in the death of an Edinburgh copper? He thought he had a pretty good idea.

He drove into the Gar-B car park, bumped his car up onto the grass, and headed slowly past the garages towards the community hall. The theatre group hadn’t bothered with the car park either. Maybe someone had had a go at their van. It was now parked close by the hall’s front doors. Rebus parked next to it.

‘It’s the filth,’ someone said. There were half a dozen teenagers on the roof of the building, staring down at him. And more of them sitting and standing around the doors. Davey Soutar had not come alone.

They let Rebus past. It was like walking through hate. Inside the hall, there was an argument going on.

‘I never touched it!’

‘It was there a minute ago.’

‘You calling me a liar, pal?’

Three men, who’d been constructing a set on the stage, had stopped to watch. Davey Soutar was talking with another man. They were standing close, faces inches apart. Clenched fists and puffed-out chests.

‘Is there a problem?’ Rebus said.

Peter Cave, who’d been sitting with head in hands, now stood up.

‘No problem,’ he said lightly.

The third man thought there was. ‘The wee bastard,’ he said, meaning Davey Soutar, ‘just lifted a packet of fags.’

Soutar looked ready to hit something. It was interesting that he didn’t hit his accuser. Rebus didn’t know what he’d been expecting from the theatre company. He certainly hadn’t been expecting this. The accuser was tall and wiry with long greasy hair and several days’ growth of beard. He didn’t look in the least scared of Soutar, whose reputation must surely have preceded him. Nor did the workers on the stage look unwilling to enter any fray. He reached into his pocket and brought out a fresh pack of twenty, which he handed to Davey Soutar.

‘Here,’ he said, ‘take these, and give the gentleman back his ciggies.’

Soutar turned on him like a zoo leopard, not happy with its cage. ‘I don’t need your …’ The roar faded. He looked at the faces around him. Then he laughed, a hysterical giggling laugh. He slapped his bare chest and shook his head, then took the cigarettes from Rebus and tossed another pack onto the stage.

Rebus turned to the accuser. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Jim Hay.’ The accent was west coast.

‘Well, Jim, why don’t you take those cigarettes outside, have a ten-minute break?’

Jim Hay looked ready to protest, but then thought better of it. He gestured to his crew and they followed him outside. Rebus could hear them getting into the van. He turned his attention to Davey Soutar and Peter Cave.

‘I’m surprised you came,’ said Soutar, lighting up.

‘I’m full of surprises, me.’

‘Only, last time I saw you here, you were heading for the hills. You owe Peter an apology, by the way.’ Soutar had changed completely. He looked like he was enjoying himself, like he hadn’t lost his temper in weeks.

‘I don’t think that’s strictly necessary,’ Peter Cave said into the silence.

‘Apology accepted,’ said Rebus. He dragged over a chair and sat down. Soutar decided this was a good idea. He found a chair for himself and sat with a hard man’s slump, legs wide apart, hands stuffed into the tight pockets of his denims, cigarette hanging from his lips. Rebus wanted a cigarette, but he wasn’t going to ask for one.

‘So what’s the problem, Inspector?’

Soutar had agreed to a meeting here, but hadn’t mentioned Peter Cave would be present. Maybe it was coincidence. Whatever, Rebus didn’t mind an audience. Cave looked tired, pale. There was no question who was in charge, who had power over whom.

‘I just have a few things to ask, there’s no question of charges or anything criminal, all right?’ Soutar obliged with a grunt, examining the laces of his basketball boots. He was shirtless again, still wearing the worn denim jacket. It was filthy, and had been decorated with pen drawings and dark-inked words, names mostly. Grease and dirt were erasing most of the messages and symbols, a few of which had already been covered with fresh hieroglyphs in thicker, darker ink. Soutar slid a hand from his pocket and ran it down his chest, rubbing the few fair curling hairs over his breast bone. He was giving Rebus a friendly look, his lips slightly parted. Rebus wanted to smash him in the face.

‘I can walk any time I want?’ he said to Rebus.

‘Any time.’

The chair grated against the floor as Soutar pushed it back and stood up. Then he laughed and sat down again, wriggling to get comfortable, making sure his crotch was visible. ‘Ask me a question then,’ he said.