Set in Darkness (42 page)

‘That’s more or less what he said.’

‘Well then?’

Only it wasn’t the way he’d put it:
a killing to be made
. . .

‘Look,’ the Farmer rubbed his temples, ‘let’s just get on with the work at hand. Clear up the Grieve case and I’ll think about Cafferty. Deal?’

Rebus nodded distractedly. The door was still ajar. A knock came, and a uniform appeared round it. ‘Visitor for DI Rebus.’

‘Who is it?’

‘She didn’t say, sir. Just told me to tell you she’d not brought any peanuts. Said you’d understand.’

Rebus understood.

Lorna Grieve was in the waiting area. He unlocked the interview room, then remembered that Freddy Hastings’ stuff was piled up in there. So he told her there was a change of plan, led her across the road to the Maltings.

‘You have to be drunk before you can talk to me?’ she teased. She was dressed to the tens: tight red leather trousers tucked into knee-high black boots; a black silk blouse with plunging neckline, black suede jacket open over it. More than enough make-up, and her hair freshly styled. She was carrying shopping bags from a couple of boutiques.

Rebus ordered fresh orange and lemonade for himself. She seemed to think her words had forced him into it, rose to the occasion by asking for a Bloody Mary.

‘Mary, Queen of Scots, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Head chopped off, that’s the bloody part.’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Never drunk one? Perfect pick-me-up.’ She waited for a joke, but he didn’t offer one. Nodded when the barmaid asked if she wanted Lea and Perrin’s. They sat at a table inlaid with squares. She admired the pattern.

‘It’s so people can play chess,’ Rebus explained.

‘Loathsome game. Takes for ever, and at the end it all falls apart. No sense of climax.’ Another pause. Again, Rebus wasn’t biting.

‘Cheers,’ he said.

‘First one today.’ She took a gulp of her drink. Rebus doubted her veracity: he considered himself something of
an expert, and would say she’d had at least a couple of belts already.

‘So what can I do for you?’ The commerce of the everyday: people wanting things from people. Sometimes it was an exchange, sometimes not.

‘I want to know what’s happening.’

‘Happening?’

‘The murder inquiry: we’re being kept in the dark.’

‘I don’t think that’s true.’

She lit a cigarette; didn’t offer him one. ‘Well,
is
anything happening?’

‘We’ll let you know as soon as we can.’

She straightened her back. ‘That’s not good enough.’

‘I’m sorry.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘No, you’re not. The family should be told—’

‘In point of fact, it’s the widow we’d talk to first.’

‘Seona? You’ll have to get in the queue. She’s a media darling now, you know. Papers, TV . . . falling over themselves for a photo of the “brave widow”, carrying on where her husband left off.’ She modulated her voice, imitating Seona Grieve: ‘“It’s what Roddy would have wanted.” Like hell it is.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Roddy may have seemed the quiet type, but there was steel in him, too. His wife running for MSP? He wouldn’t have wanted that. It turns
her
into the martyr rather than him. He’s already being forgotten about, except when she dusts off the corpse in the great cause of publicity!’

There were only the two of them in the bar; all the same, the barmaid gave a warning look.

‘Easy,’ Rebus said.

Her eyes were liquid with tears. Rebus got the feeling they weren’t for anyone but Lorna herself: the lost one, the forgotten one. ‘I’ve got the right to know what’s going on.’ Her eyes were clearing as she looked at him. ‘Special rights,’ she said in a low voice.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘what happened that night—’

‘I don’t want to hear it.’ She shook her head, steadied herself with another gulp of Bloody Mary, reducing it to ice.

‘Whatever you’re going through, if I can help I will, but don’t resort to blackm—’

She was on her feet. ‘I don’t know why I came.’

He stood up, grabbed her hands. ‘What have you taken, Lorna?’

‘Just some . . . My doctor prescribed them. Not supposed to mix with alcohol.’ Her eyes were everywhere but on him. ‘That’s all it is.’

‘I’ll get a patrol car to run you—’

‘No, no, I’ll find a cab. Don’t worry.’ She modelled a smile for him. ‘Don’t worry,’ she repeated.

He picked her bags up for her; she seemed to have forgotten they were there. ‘Lorna,’ he said, ‘have you ever met a man called Gerald Sithing?’

‘I don’t know. Who is he?’

‘I think Hugh knows him. He runs a group called the Knights of Rosslyn.’

‘Hugh keeps that side of his life separate. He knows I’d laugh at him.’ She was on the verge of laughing now; she was on the verge of more than laughter. Rebus led her from the bar.

‘Why do you ask?’ she said.

‘Doesn’t matter.’ He saw Grant Hood waving from across the road. In the distance, Siobhan Clarke and Ellen Wylie were unloading their cars. Hood dodged the traffic.

‘What’s up?’ Rebus asked.

‘The reconstruction,’ Hood told him breathlessly. ‘We’ve got a printout.’

Rebus nodded thoughtfully, then looked towards Lorna Grieve. ‘Maybe you should see this,’ he said.

So they went into St Leonard’s and took her to an empty office. Hood fetched the computer graphic while
Rebus provided tea. She wanted two sugars; he added a third, watched her drink.

‘What’s the mystery?’ she asked.

‘It’s a face,’ he explained slowly, studying her. ‘The university in Glasgow put it together for us from a skull.’

‘Queensberry House?’ she guessed, amused by his look of surprise. ‘Not all the brain cells have emigrated to a better place. Why do you want me to see it?’ Then that, too, came to her. ‘You think it might be Alasdair?’ She started shaking; Rebus realised his mistake.

‘Maybe it’d be better if—’

Rising to her feet, she knocked the tea on to the floor, but seemed not to notice. ‘Why? What would Alasdair be doing . . . ? He sends postcards.’

Rebus was cursing himself for being an insensitive bastard, short-sighted, unsubtle, twisted.

And then Grant Hood was in the doorway, brandishing the picture. She snatched it from him, stared at it intently, then burst out laughing.

‘It’s nothing like him,’ she said. ‘You bloody imbecile.’

Imbecile: he hadn’t got to that one yet. He took the sheet from her. It was a good likeness of someone, but he had to agree: judging by the paintings in Alicia Grieve’s studio, this was not her son. The face was a completely different shape, hair a different colour . . . cheekbones, chin, forehead . . . No, whoever it was in the fireplace, it wasn’t Alasdair Grieve.

That would have been too simple. Rebus’s life had never been simple; no reason to suppose it would start now.

Wylie was in the doorway, too, alerted by the laughter: not a regular sound in a police station.

‘He thought it was Alasdair,’ Lorna Grieve was saying, pointing at Rebus. ‘He told me my brother was dead! As if one wasn’t enough.’ There was poison in her eyes. ‘Well, you’ve had your little laugh, and I hope you’re happy.’ She stormed out of the office and down the corridor.

‘Go after her,’ Rebus told Wylie. ‘Make sure she finds
the way out. And here . . .’ He stooped down, retrieved the shopping bags. ‘Give her these.’

She stared at him for a moment.

‘Go!’ he yelled.

‘I hear and obey,’ Ellen Wylie muttered. After she’d gone, Rebus slumped back down on his chair, rubbed both hands through his hair. Grant Hood was watching him.

‘Not looking for tips, I hope,’ Rebus told him.

‘No, sir.’

‘Because if you are, here’s the best I can offer: study what I do, and then strive to do the exact fucking opposite. That way, you might make something of yourself.’ He dragged his hands down his face, stared at the picture.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he asked. For some reason, he knew Skelly was the key, not just to Hastings’ suicide and the four hundred grand, but to Roddy Grieve’s murder, too . . . and maybe a lot more besides.

They sat in the cramped interview room, door closed to passers-by. People in the station were beginning to talk about them, calling them ‘the Manson family’, ‘the Lodge’, ‘the swingers’ club’. Hood was seated in the corner. He had the computer set up. Its screen was weird: black background, orange writing. He’d warned that the disks might be corrupted. Rebus, Wylie and Clarke sat round the centre table, box-files at their feet, the computer-generated image of the Queensberry House victim in front of them.

‘You know what we have to do?’ Rebus told them. Wylie and Clarke shared a look, sceptical of that ‘we’.

‘MisPers,’ Wylie guessed. ‘Back into the files and try to match this with one of the photos.’

Rebus nodded; Wylie shook her head. He turned to Hood: ‘Any problems?’

‘Seems to be running fine,’ Hood said, hammering keys two-fingered. ‘Printer connection’s a problem. None of the
ones we’ve got will fit. Might have to scour the second-hand shops.’

‘So what’s on the disks?’ Siobhan Clarke asked.

He looked at her. ‘Give me a chance.’ And got back to work. Ellen Wylie lifted the first box-file on to the table and opened it. Rebus hoisted up three more, patted them.

‘I’ve already done these,’ he said. The others looked at him. ‘Late night,’ he said, winking.

Just so they knew he wasn’t slacking.

Lunch consisted of sandwiches. By the time they broke at three for coffee, Hood was beginning to get somewhere with the disks.

‘The good news’, he said, unwrapping a chocolate bar, ‘is that the computer was a late addition to Hastings’ office.’

‘How do you work that out?’

‘The stuff on the disks, it’s all dated ’78, early ’79.’

‘My box-file goes back to ’75,’ Siobhan Clarke complained.

‘
Wish You Were Here
,’ Rebus said. ‘Pink Floyd. September, I think it was. Much underrated.’

‘Thank you, Professor,’ Wylie said.

‘You lot were still at nursery, I presume?’

‘I’d really like to print this stuff out,’ Grant Hood mused. ‘Maybe if I phoned around the computer shops . . .’

‘What sort of stuff are we talking about?’ Rebus asked.

‘Bids on land. You know, gap sites, all that.’

‘Where?’

‘Calton Road, Abbey Mount, Hillside . . .’

‘What was he planning to do with them?’

‘Doesn’t say.’

‘He wanted
all
of them?’

‘Looks that way.’

‘That’s a lot of property,’ Wylie commented.

‘Well, a lot of building sites anyway.’

Rebus left the room, came back with an
A–Z
. He circled
Calton Road, Abbey Mount and Hillside Crescent. ‘Tell me he had plans for Greenside,’ he said. Hood sat back down at the computer. They waited.

‘Yep,’ he said. ‘How did you know?’

‘Take a look. He was drawing a circle around Calton Hill.’

‘Why would he do that?’ Wylie asked.

‘1979,’ Rebus stated. ‘The devolution referendum.’

‘With the parliament sited there?’ Siobhan guessed.

Rebus nodded. ‘The old Royal High School.’

Wylie was seeing it now. ‘With the parliament there, all that land would have been worth a fortune.’

‘He took a gamble on Scotland voting Yes,’ Siobhan said. ‘And he lost.’

‘I wonder,’ Rebus said. ‘Did he have the money in the first place? Even back in the seventies – which is prehistory for you lot – those areas weren’t exactly cheap.’

‘What if he didn’t have the money?’ Hood asked.

It was Ellen Wylie who answered: ‘Then someone else did.’

They knew what they were after now: financial records; clues that someone other than Hastings and Alasdair Grieve had been a partner in the business. They stayed late, Rebus reminding them that they could head home if they liked. But they were working as a team – uncomplaining, focused – and no one was about to break the spell. He got the feeling it had nothing to do with overtime. Out in the corridor, taking a breather, he found himself alone with Ellen Wylie.

‘Still feel hard-done-by?’ he asked.

She stopped, looked at him. ‘How do you mean?’

‘You thought I was using the pair of you; just wondering if that’s still how you feel.’

‘Keep wondering,’ she said, moving off.

At seven o’clock, he treated them to dinner at Howie’s
Restaurant. They discussed the case, progress and theories. Siobhan asked when the devolution vote had taken place.

‘March first,’ Rebus told her.

‘And Skelly was killed early in ’79. Could it have happened straight after the election?’

Rebus shrugged.

‘They finished in the basement at Queensberry House on March eighth,’ Wylie said. ‘A week or so later, Freddy Hastings and Alasdair Grieve do a runner.’

‘As far as we know,’ Rebus added.

Hood, cutting into his gammon, just nodded. Rebus, big spender, had splashed out on a bottle of the house white, but they weren’t making inroads. Siobhan was sticking to water; Wylie had taken a glass of wine but had yet to touch it. Hood had finished his glass but refused a refill.

‘Why is it I’m seeing Bryce Callan?’ Rebus said.

There was silence around the table for a moment, then Siobhan: ‘Because you want to?’

‘What would have happened to the land?’ Rebus asked.

Hood: ‘It would have been developed.’

‘And what does Callan’s nephew do?’

Clarke: ‘He’s a developer. But back then he was a labourer.’

‘Learning the ropes.’ Rebus swallowed some wine. ‘Land around Holyrood, any idea what it’s worth now they’re building the parliament there rather than Calton Hill or Leith?’

‘More than it was,’ Wylie guessed.

Rebus was nodding. ‘And now Barry Hutton’s eyeing up Granton, the Gyle, God knows where else.’

‘Because that’s his job.’

Rebus was still nodding. ‘Bit easier if you’ve got something your competitors haven’t.’

Hood: ‘You mean strongarm tactics?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘I mean friends in the right places.’

‘AD Holdings,’ Hood said, tapping the screen. Rebus stood over him, eyes squinting at the orange letters. Hood pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezed his own eyes shut, then opened them and shook his head briskly, as if to shake off cobwebs.