Set in Darkness (38 page)

Rebus lit a cigarette, narrowing his eyes against gusts of powder and grit. ‘Looks like we’re a bit on the late side.’

He was standing with Siobhan outside what had been
the building containing Freddy Hastings’ office. She was calm now, seemed to have put Linford out of her mind as she watched the demolition. Hastings’ office had been on the ground floor, with flats above. There was no sign of it now. Once levelled, contractors would commence putting up a new structure, an ‘apartment complex’ only a stone’s throw from the new parliament.

‘Someone on the council might know,’ Siobhan offered. Rebus nodded: she meant, might know what had happened to the contents of Hastings’ office. ‘You don’t look very hopeful,’ she added.

‘It’s not in my nature,’ Rebus said, inhaling the smoke, and with it a mixture of plaster dust and other people’s lives.

They drove to the City Chambers on the High Street, where an official was eventually able to provide the name of a solicitor. The solicitor was based in Stockbridge. On the way there, they stopped off at what had been Hastings’ home, but the present owners didn’t know anything about him. They’d bought from an antique dealer who, they thought, had bought from a football player. 1979 was ancient history; New Town flats could change hands every three or four years. Young professionals bought them, one eye on the investment potential. Then they had kids, and the stairs became a chore, or they bemoaned the lack of a garden. They sold up, moved on to something bigger.

The solicitor was young, too, and knew nothing of Frederick Hastings. But he got on the phone to one of the senior partners, who was in a meeting elsewhere. A time was arranged. Rebus and Siobhan debated over whether to return to the office. She suggested a walk along the Dean Valley, but Rebus, remembering that Linford lived in Dean Village, made the excuse that his heart wasn’t up to the exertion required.

Siobhan: ‘I suppose you want to find a pub.’

Rebus: ‘There’s a good one actually, just at the corner of St Stephen’s Street.’

In the end, they walked to a café on Raeburn Place. Siobhan ordered tea, Rebus decaf. A waitress apologised for the fact that they were seated in a no smoking establishment. With a sigh, Rebus put the packet away.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘life used to be so simple.’

She nodded agreement. ‘You lived in a cave, clubbed your food to death . . .’

‘And little girls went to charm schools. Now, you’ve all got degrees from the University of Sarcasm.’

‘Three words,’ she said: ‘pot, kettle and black.’

Their drinks came. Siobhan checked that she had no messages on her mobile.

‘Okay,’ Rebus said, ‘it’ll have to be me who asks it.’

‘Asks what?’

‘What are you going to do about Linford?’

‘Do I know anyone called that?’

‘Fair enough.’ Rebus went back to drinking his coffee.

Siobhan poured some tea into her cup and lifted it with both hands. ‘Did you talk to him?’ she asked. Rebus nodded slowly. ‘Thought so. You were spotted running out after him.’

‘He told the Farmer a lie about me.’

‘I know. The chief mentioned it.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘The truth,’ she said. They were silent, raising their cups and drinking, lowering them again as though synchronised. Rebus was nodding again, though he didn’t really know why. Siobhan cracked first. ‘So what did you say to Linford?’

‘He’s going to send you an apology.’

‘That’s big of him.’ She paused. ‘You think he means it?’

‘I think he regrets what he did.’

‘Only because it might have affected his glorious career.’

‘You could be right. All the same . . .’

‘You think I should let it drop?’

‘Not exactly. But Linford’s got his own leads to follow. With any luck, they’ll keep him out of your way.’ He looked at her. ‘I think he’s scared of you.’

She snorted. ‘He should be.’ She lifted her cup again. ‘But fair enough, if he keeps out of my way, I’ll keep out of his.’

‘Sounds good.’

‘You think the trail’s gone cold, don’t you?’

‘Hastings?’ She nodded. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘It’s amazing what you can turn up in Edinburgh.’

Blair Martine was waiting for them when they returned to the solicitors’ offices. He was rotund and elderly, with a chalk-stripe suit and silver watch-chain.

‘I always wondered’, he said, ‘whether Freddy Hastings would come back to haunt me.’ In front of him on the desk sat a ten-inch-thick bundle of manila folders and envelopes, tied together with parcel string. His fingers brushed the topmost folder, came away dusty.

‘How do you mean, sir?’

‘Well, it was never a case for you lot, but it was a mystery all the same. He just upped and left.’

‘Creditors at his heels,’ Rebus added.

Martine looked sceptical. He’d obviously lunched very well, his cheeks suffused with contentment, waistcoat straining. When he leaned back in his chair, Rebus feared the buttons would pop slapstick-style.

‘Freddy was not without resources,’ Martine said. ‘That’s not to say he didn’t make some bad investments; he did. But all the same . . .’ He tapped the files again. Rebus was champing at the bit to be let loose on them, but knew Martine would plead client confidentiality.

‘And he did leave a number of creditors,’ Martine went on. ‘But none of them so very significant. We had to arrange for his flat to be sold. It fetched a fair price, not quite what it might have done.’

‘Enough to see off these creditors?’ Siobhan asked.

‘Yes, and my firm’s own fees. Costly business, when someone disappears.’ He paused. There was a trick hiding beneath his cuff-linked sleeve. Rebus and Siobhan stayed silent; they could see he was bursting to play it. Martine leaned forward, elbows on the desk.

‘I did keep a little aside,’ he said conspiratorially, ‘to defray the storage costs.’

‘Storage?’ Siobhan echoed.

The lawyer shrugged. ‘I did think Freddy might walk back into my life some day. I just never expected it to be posthumous.’ He sighed. ‘When is the funeral, incidentally?’

‘We’ve just been to it,’ Siobhan told him. She didn’t add: with half a dozen mourners. A speedy burial, no personal eulogy from the minister. It could have been called a pauper’s funeral, only Supertramp had been no pauper.

‘So what exactly is it that’s in storage?’ Rebus asked.

‘Effects from his flat: everything from pens and pencils to a rather fine Persian carpet.’

‘Had your eye on that, did you?’

The lawyer glared at Rebus. ‘Plus the contents of his office.’

Rebus’s back stiffened visibly. ‘And where’, he asked, ‘might we find this storage facility?’

The answer was: on a bleak stretch of road round the northern perimeter of the city. Edinburgh, being coastal, was bounded on its northern and eastern sides by the Firth of Forth. Developers and the council had big plans for Granton, at the city’s northernmost extreme.

‘Active imagination required,’ Rebus said as they drove.

Meaning: Granton at present was an unassuming, in places ugly and brutal, region of harsh sea-wall views, grey industrial buildings and redundancy. Broken factory windows, spray paint, sooty lorries. People like Sir Terence
Conran had taken one look at the place and visualised a future of retail and leisure developments, Docklands-style warehouse apartments. They foresaw moneyed people moving in, jobs and homes, a whole new lifestyle.

‘Any redeeming features?’ Siobhan asked.

Rebus thought for a moment. ‘The Starbank’s not a bad boozer,’ he said. She looked at him. ‘You’re right,’ he conceded. ‘That’s more Newhaven than Granton.’

Seismic Storage, the premises were called. Three long rows of concrete bunkers, each one roughly three-quarters the size of a normal garage.

‘Seismic,’ the owner, Gerry Reagan explained, ‘in that they’ll survive an earthquake.’

‘A real worry around here, earthquakes,’ Rebus commented.

Reagan smiled. He was leading them down one of the rows. The weather was closing in, clouds gathering and a fierce wind blowing off the estuary. ‘The Castle’s built on a volcano,’ he said. ‘And do you remember those tremors a while back in Portobello?’

‘Wasn’t that mine workings?’ Siobhan asked.

‘Whatever,’ Reagan said. There was constant humour in his eyes, topped off with bushy grey eyebrows. He wore metal-rimmed glasses on a chain around his neck. ‘Thing is, my customers know their stuff’ll be safe till kingdom come.’

‘What sort of customers do you get?’ Siobhan asked.

‘All sorts: old folk who’ve moved into sheltered accommodation, no space for all their furniture. People flitting, either on their way here or heading south. Sometimes they sell up before their new place is ready. I’ve one or two collectors’ cars, too.’

‘Do they fit?’ Rebus asked.

‘It’s snug,’ Reagan conceded. ‘One of them, we had to remove the bumpers. This is it.’

They’d come armed with a letter of authorisation from
Blair Martine, which Reagan now held in his hand, along with a key to unlock the up-and-over door.

‘Unit thirteen,’ he said, double-checking he was in the right place. Then he stooped to unlock the door, yanking it open.

As Martine had explained, Hastings’ effects had first been stored in a warehouse. But then the warehouse had undergone conversion, forcing the lawyer to make other arrangements: ‘I swear, him going off like that gave me more headaches than a dozen contested estates.’ The effects had ended up at Seismic Storage only three years before, and Martine couldn’t swear that everything was intact. He’d also told them that he hadn’t known Hastings well – a few social occasions: dinners, parties. And that he’d had no dealings with Alasdair Grieve.

Siobhan’s question afterwards: ‘So if money wasn’t why they left, what was?’

Rebus’s response: ‘Freddy didn’t leave.’

‘He left and came back,’ Siobhan corrected. ‘And Alasdair? Is it his body in the fireplace?’

Rebus had let that one go unanswered.

Now, as Reagan opened the door to its fullest extent, they saw that the place was a ready-made bric-a-brac shop, lacking only the cash register.

‘Nice, neat job we made of it,’ Reagan said, admiring his self-storage handiwork.

‘Oh, dear heavens,’ Siobhan gasped. Rebus was already punching numbers into his mobile phone.

‘Who are you calling?’ she asked.

He said nothing, straightening up when the call was answered. ‘Grant? Is Wylie with you?’ He grinned wickedly. ‘Get a pen in your mitt, I’ll give you directions. Little job here that’s just perfect for the Time Team.’

Linford was back at Fettes, seated in ACC Carswell’s office. He sipped his tea – china cup and saucer – while Carswell
took a call. When the call was finished, Carswell lifted his own cup, held it to his lips and blew.

‘Bit of a mess at St Leonard’s, Derek.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I told Watson to his face, if he’s got no control over his officers . . .’

‘With respect, sir, a case like this one, tempers are bound to flare.’

Carswell nodded. ‘I admire you for that, Derek.’

‘Sir?’

‘You’re not the kind to drop fellow officers in the soup, even when they’re at fault.’

‘I’m sure I was partly to blame, sir. Nobody likes it when someone comes into an inquiry from outside.’

‘So you become the scapegoat?’

‘Not exactly, sir.’ Linford was looking at his cup. Small blobs of oil dotted the surface. He wasn’t sure if the tea, the water or the milk was to blame.

‘We could transfer the investigation here,’ Carswell was saying. ‘Lock, stock and barrel if need be. Use Crime Squad officers to—’

‘With respect, sir, it’s late on in the investigation to start over from scratch. We’d lose a lot of time.’ He paused. ‘And it would send the budget rocketing.’

Carswell was known to like a nice, tidy budget. He frowned, took a sip from his cup. ‘Don’t want that,’ he said. ‘Not if we can help it.’ He stared across the desk at Linford. ‘You want to stay put, that’s what you’re telling me?’

‘I think I can win them over, sir.’

‘Well, you’re braver than most, Derek.’

‘Most of the team are absolutely fine,’ Linford went on. ‘It’s just a couple . . .’ He broke off, lifted his cup again.

Carswell looked at the notes he’d made for himself back in St Leonard’s. ‘Would that be DI Rebus and DC Clarke, by any chance?’

Linford said nothing; made sure his eyes didn’t meet Carswell’s.

‘No one’s irreplaceable, Derek,’ the ACC said quietly. ‘Believe me, no one.’

‘It’s
déjà vu
all over again,’ Wylie said, as she and Hood inspected the contents. The concrete store was full almost to its roof. Desks, tables, chairs, rugs. Cardboard boxes, framed prints, a stereo system.

‘This’ll take days,’ Hood complained. And with no Mrs Coghill to make coffee, no inviting kitchen. Just this bleak wasteland, the wind forcing tears from his eyes, rain threatening.

‘Nonsense,’ Rebus said. ‘We’re looking for paperwork. All the big items, we just put to one side. The interesting-looking stuff goes into the back of the car. We’ll work shifts of two.’

Wylie looked at him. ‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning two clearing out the junk, and two sorting through all the papers. We’ll take the stuff back to St Leonard’s.’

‘Fettes is closer,’ Wylie reminded him.

He nodded. But Fettes was Linford’s home turf. It was as though Siobhan could read his mind.

‘That’s even closer,’ she said, nodding towards the glorified Portakabin which acted as Gerry Reagan’s office.

Rebus nodded. ‘I’ll go square it with him.’

Grant Hood carried a portable TV out of the garage and placed it on the ground. ‘Ask him if he’s got a tarp, too.’ He looked up. ‘Rain’s not far off.’

Half an hour later, the first showers blew in off the Forth, jabbing their faces and hands with needles of cold, and bringing a thick haar which seemed to cut them off from the world. Reagan had provided a large sheet of
thick translucent polythene, which was going to blow away given half a chance. They’d fixed down three of its corners with bricks, leaving one open, flapping entrance. Then Reagan had a better idea: the garage two along was currently out of use. So the three of them – Hood, Wylie and Siobhan Clarke – carried the goods along to this new site while Reagan attempted to fold up his polythene sheet.