Set in Darkness (25 page)

‘How about you?’ Linford asked. ‘How was St Andrews?’

‘Fine. I took a walk down by the seashore.’

‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘And did you talk to Billie Collins?’

‘That’s why I was there.’

‘And?’

‘And she shed about as much light as an asbestos candle.’

Linford stared at him. ‘You wouldn’t tell me anyway, would you? She could confess, and I’d be the last to know.’

‘It’s how I work.’

‘Keeping things to yourself?’ Linford’s voice was rising. ‘You’re awfully tense, Derek. Not been getting any lately?’

Linford’s face flushed. ‘Sod you.’

‘Come on, you can do better than that.’

‘I don’t need to. You’re not worth it.’

‘Now that’s a comeback.’

Rebus lit a cigarette, smoked in the uncompanionable silence. He could still see St Andrews as it had been to him nearly half a century before. He knew it represented something extraordinary, but couldn’t have said what. The words didn’t quite exist. It was as though loss and permanence had mingled and become some new entity, the one tasting of the other.

‘Should we talk to her?’

Rebus sighed, sucked again on the cigarette. The smoke was blowing back into Linford’s face. The wind, Rebus thought, is on my side. ‘I suppose so,’ he said at last. ‘Now we’re here.’

‘It’s good to hear such enthusiasm. I’m sure our respective bosses would be thrilled.’

‘Oh, I’ve always cared what the brass think.’ He looked at Linford. ‘You don’t get it, do you? I’m the best thing that could have happened to you.’ Linford hooted. ‘Think about it,’ Rebus went on. ‘Case solved, you take the credit. Case unsolved, you lay the blame on me. Either way, your boss and mine will go for it. You’re their blue-eyed boy.’ He flicked the cigarette on to the road. ‘Every time I refuse to share information with you, you should make a note. Gives you ammo for later. Every time I piss you off or head off on my own tangent, same thing.’

‘Why are you telling me this? Does pariah status give you some kind of thrill?’

‘I’m not the pariah here, son. Think about it.’ Rebus unbuttoned his jacket, affected a Wild West drawl. ‘Now let’s go visit the widow lady.’

Left Linford lurching in his wake.

The door was opened by Hamish Hall, Roddy Grieve’s press officer.

‘Oh, hello again,’ he said, ushering them inside. It was a neat semi-detached, brick-built and of 1930s vintage. Lots of doors seemed to lead off the entrance hall. Hamish
squeezed past them and they followed, through the dining room and into a recent addition, a conservatory, much smarter, Linford noted, than the one out at the daycare centre. An electric fan-heater was humming briskly in one corner. Cane furniture, including a glass-topped table, and seated at the table Seona Grieve and Jo Banks, a mound of paperwork before them. The few pot plants looked expertly tended.

‘Oh, hello,’ Seona Grieve said.

‘Coffee?’ Hamish asked. Both detectives nodded, and he headed into the kitchen.

‘Sit down if you can find a space,’ Seona Grieve said. Jo Banks got up and scooped newspapers and folders from a couple of the chairs. Rebus picked up one folder, examined it:
In Prospect – A Briefing Pack on the Scottish Parliament for Prospective Candidates
. Notes had been scribbled in most of the margins; Roddy Grieve’s writing, most probably.

‘And to what do we owe this pleasure?’ Seona Grieve asked.

‘Just a few follow-up questions,’ Linford told her, easing his notebook out of his pocket.

‘We heard you were stepping into your husband’s shoes,’ Rebus added.

‘My feet are much smaller than Roddy’s,’ the widow said.

‘Maybe so,’ Rebus went on, ‘but we’ve not got a motive yet for his death. DI Linford here thinks maybe you’ve just supplied us with one.’

Linford looked ready to remonstrate, but Jo Banks beat him to it. ‘You think Seona would kill Roddy, just to become an MSP? That’s ludicrous!’

‘Is it?’ Rebus scratched his nose. ‘I don’t know, I tend to agree with DI Linford. It
is
a motive. Had you thought of running before?’

Seona Grieve straightened her back. ‘You mean before Roddy was killed?’

‘Yes.’

She thought about it, then nodded. ‘I suppose I had, yes.’

‘What stopped you?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘This is totally out of order,’ Jo Banks said. Seona Grieve touched her arm.

‘It’s all right, Jo. Best just put their minds at rest.’ She glared at Rebus. ‘It was when I realised that one of them, Ure, Mollison or Bone, would take Roddy’s place . . . I thought: I could do it, maybe better than any of them, so why not ask?’

‘Good for you,’ Jo Banks said. ‘It’s in memory of Roddy. It’s what he would have wanted.’

They had the sound of words used previously. Rebus wondered: maybe Jo Banks had come to the widow with the idea. Just maybe . . .

‘I can see your point, Inspector,’ Seona Grieve informed Rebus. ‘But if I’d wanted to, I could have stood. Roddy wouldn’t have minded. I didn’t need him dead for me to stand.’

‘And yet he’s dead, and here you are.’

‘Here I am,’ she agreed.

‘With the whole of the party behind her,’ Jo Banks cautioned. ‘So if you’re thinking of making any accusations . . .’

‘They just want to find Roddy’s killer,’ Seona Grieve told her. ‘Isn’t that right, Inspector?’

Rebus nodded.

‘Then we’re still on the same side, aren’t we?’

Rebus nodded again, but judging from the look on Jo Banks’ face, he wasn’t so sure she’d agree.

By the time Hamish arrived with a tray bearing coffee pot and cups, Seona Grieve was asking for a progress report and Linford was hauling out the usual flannel about ‘pursuing leads’ and ‘inquiries still to make’. None of which looked to be convincing the two women, despite the effort he was putting in. Seona Grieve met Rebus’s
eyes and inclined her head a little, telling him she knew what he was thinking. Then she turned to Linford, interrupting him.

‘It’s an American phrase, I think. Never kid a kidder . . . Or is it never shit a shitter?’ She looked to Hamish as if for help, but he merely shrugged and went on handing out the coffees. ‘Sounds to me, DI Linford, as though you’ve made precious little progress.’

‘Clutching at straws, more like,’ Jo Banks muttered.

‘We still have every confidence . . .’ Linford began.

‘Oh, I can see that. I can see you’re positively brimming with the stuff. Because that’s what’s got you where you are today. I’m a teacher, DI Linford. I’ve seen plenty of boys like you. They leave school and feel it in their bones that they can do anything they set their minds to. With most of them, it doesn’t last long. But you . . .’ She wagged a finger, then turned towards Rebus, who was blowing on the scalding coffee. ‘DI Rebus, on the other hand . . .’

‘What?’ The question coming from Linford.

‘DI Rebus has no confidence in anything very much any more. An accurate assessment?’ Rebus blew on the coffee, said nothing. ‘DI Rebus is jaded and cynical about most things.
Weltschmerz
, do you know that word, Inspector?’

‘I think I ate some last time I was abroad,’ Rebus said.

She smiled at him; a smile without happiness. ‘World-weariness.’

‘Pessimism,’ Hamish agreed.

‘You won’t be voting, will you, Inspector?’ Seona Grieve asked. ‘Because you don’t see the point.’

‘I’m all for job creation schemes,’ Rebus said. Jo Banks let out a hiss of air; Hamish snorted good-naturedly. ‘But there’s something I can’t figure out. If I’ve got a problem, who do I go to – my MSP, my list MSP, or my MP? Maybe my MEP or councillor? That’s what I mean about job creation.’

‘Then why am I doing this?’ Seona Grieve said quietly, her hands in her lap. Jo Banks reached out and touched her hand.

‘Because it makes sense,’ she said.

When Seona Grieve looked up at Rebus, there were tears in her eyes. Rebus looked away.

‘This may not seem like the time,’ he said, ‘but you told us your husband didn’t drink. I believe at one time his drinking may have been a problem.’

‘For heaven’s sake,’ Jo Banks hissed.

Seona Grieve blew her nose, sniffed. ‘You’ve been talking to Billie.’

‘Yes,’ he acknowledged.

‘Trying to blacken a dead man’s name,’ Jo Banks muttered.

Rebus looked at her. ‘See, there’s a problem, Ms Banks. We don’t know what Roddy Grieve was doing in the hours prior to his death. So far we’ve a sighting of him in one pub, just the one, drinking on his own. We need to know if that’s the kind of man he was: a solitary drinker. Then maybe we can stop wasting our time trying to locate the friends we’ve been told he would be out drinking with.’

‘It’s all right, Jo,’ Seona Grieve said quietly. Then, to Rebus: ‘He said he felt he sometimes had to get out of himself.’

‘Where would he have gone?’

She shook her head. ‘He never said.’

‘The times he stayed out all night . . . ?’

‘I think maybe he went to hotels, or slept in the car.’

Rebus nodded, and she seemed to read his thoughts. ‘Maybe he wasn’t alone in doing that, Inspector?’

‘Maybe,’ he conceded. Some mornings, he’d woken in his car and didn’t even know where he was . . . country roads, the middle of nowhere . . . ‘Is there anything else we should know?’

She shook her head slowly.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I really am. I’m sorry.’

Rebus laid his coffee cup on the table, got up, and left the room.

By the time Linford caught up with him, Rebus was seated in his Saab, window down, smoking. Linford leaned down so their faces were almost touching. Rebus blew some smoke past his ear.

‘So what do you think?’ Linford asked.

Rebus considered his answer. Late afternoon; light had died from the sky. ‘I think we’re in the dark,’ he said, ‘swiping at things we think might be bats.’

‘What does that mean?’ The young man sounding genuinely annoyed.

‘It means we’ll never understand one another,’ Rebus answered, starting his engine.

Linford stood at the kerbside, watching the Saab move off. He reached into his pocket for his mobile, put in a call to ACC Carswell at Fettes. He had the words formed and waiting in his head:
I think maybe Rebus is going to be a problem after all
. But as he waited to be put through, he had another thought: in saying as much to Carswell, he’d be admitting defeat, showing weakness. Carswell might understand, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t see it as such: defeat; weakness. Linford cut the call, switched the phone off. This was his problem. It was up to him to think of a way round it.

Dean Coghill was dead. His building firm had been wound up, the company office now a design consultancy, the builders’ yard turned into a three-storey block of flats. Hood and Wylie eventually tracked down an address for Coghill’s widow.

‘All these dead guys . . .’ Grant Hood had commented.

Ellen Wylie’s reply: ‘The male of the species doesn’t live as long as the female.’

They couldn’t get a phone number for the widow, so went to the last known address.

‘Probably died or retired to Benidorm,’ Wylie said.

‘Is there a difference then?’

Wylie smiled, brought the car in to the kerbside and pulled on the handbrake. Hood opened his door a fraction and peered down.

‘No,’ he said, ‘this is fine. I can walk to the kerb from here.’

Wylie gave his arm a thump. He suspected it would bruise.

Meg Coghill was a short, spry woman in her early seventies. Though it didn’t look like she was going out or ready for visitors, she was dressed immaculately and had made up her face. As she led them into the sitting room, there were noises from the kitchen.

‘My cleaner,’ Mrs Coghill explained. Hood felt like asking if she always dressed up for the cleaner, but thought he probably knew the answer already.

‘Do you want a cup of tea or something?’

‘No, thank you, Mrs Coghill.’ Ellen Wylie sat on the
sofa. Hood remained standing, while Mrs Coghill sank into an armchair big enough to accommodate someone three times her size. Hood was looking at some framed photographs on a wall unit.

‘Is this Mr Coghill?’

‘That’s Dean. I still miss him, you know.’

Hood guessed that the chair the widow now sat in had been her husband’s. The photos showed a bear of a man, thick arms and neck, back held straight, the chest prominent and gut sucked in. His face told you he’d be fair as long as you didn’t muck him around. Cropped silver hair. Jewellery around his neck and on his left wrist, a fat Rolex on the right.

‘When did he pass away?’ Wylie was asking, her voice trained in dealing with the bereaved.

‘Best part of a decade ago.’

‘Was it a medical condition?’

‘He’d had problems with his heart before. Hospitals, specialists. He couldn’t slow down, you see. Had to keep working.’

Wylie nodded slowly. ‘It’s hard for some people.’

‘Were there any partners in the business, Mrs Coghill?’

Hood had rested his backside on the arm of the sofa.

‘No.’ Mrs Coghill paused. ‘Dean had hopes for Alexander.’

Hood turned to look again at the photos: family groups, a boy and girl from their pre-teens through to their twenties. ‘Your son?’ he asked.

‘But Alex had other ideas. He’s in America, married. He works in a car showroom, only over there they call them automobiles.’

‘Mrs Coghill,’ Wylie said, ‘did your husband know a man called Bryce Callan?’

‘Is that why you’re here?’

‘You know the name then?’

‘He was some kind of gangster, wasn’t he?’

‘He had that reputation, certainly.’

Meg Coghill got up, fussed with some ornaments on the mantelpiece. Little china animals: cats playing with balls of wool; spaniels with floppy ears.

‘Is there something you want to tell us, Mrs Coghill?’ Hood spoke quietly, his eyes meeting Wylie’s.

‘It’s too late now, isn’t it?’ There was a tremor in Meg Coghill’s voice. She kept her back to her visitors. Wylie wondered if she took any tablets for nerves.

‘You tell us, Mrs Coghill,’ she suggested.

The widow’s hands kept busy with the ornaments as she spoke.

‘Bryce Callan was a thug, wasn’t he? You paid up, or you got in trouble. Tools would disappear, or the tyres on the van would be slashed. The job you were working on might end up vandalised, only they weren’t just vandals, they were Bryce Callan’s men.’