Set in Darkness (51 page)

Mrs Ure, unable to get next to her husband, stood by the solicitor’s shoulder, making him twitch with discomfort. The room grew hotter, stuffier. There was condensation on the window. They were at the rear of the house, with a view on to a sweeping expanse of lawn, ringed by trees and bushes. A bird table had been fixed into the ground near the window, tits and sparrows visiting from time to time, peering into the room, dismayed by the quality of service.

‘I could die of boredom,’ Archie Ure commented, sipping apple juice.

‘Sorry about that,’ Rebus said. ‘I’ll see what I can do to help.’ He was opening his second case, pulling out a fat manila folder. Ure seemed momentarily transfixed by its sheer weight, but Rebus pulled out a single sheet and laid it on top, creating a makeshift desk much like the lawyer’s.

‘I think we can start,’ Rebus said. Siobhan crouched on the floor and activated the recorder. Nodded to let him know both tapes were rolling. Rebus identified himself for the record, then asked the others present to do likewise.

‘Mr Ure,’ he said, ‘do you know a man called Barry Hutton?’

It was one question Ure had been expecting. ‘He’s a property developer,’ he said.

‘How well do you know him?’

Ure took another sip of juice. ‘I run the council’s planning department. Mr Hutton always has schemes coming before us.’

‘How long have you been head of planning?’

‘Eight years.’

‘And before that?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean, what positions did you fill.’

‘I’ve been a councillor for the best part of twenty-five years; not many posts I haven’t filled at one time or another.’

‘But mostly planning?’

‘Why bother asking? You already know.’

‘Do I?’

Ure’s face twisted. ‘Quarter of a century, you make a few friends.’

‘And your friends tell you we’ve been asking questions?’

Ure nodded, went back to his drink.

‘Mr Ure nods,’ Rebus said, for the benefit of the tape. Ure looked up at him. There was a measure of loathing there, but something in the man was prepared to enjoy this game, because that’s what it was to him: a game. Nothing they could pin on him; no need to say anything incriminating.

‘You were on the planning board in the late seventies,’ Rebus went on.

‘’Seventy-eight to ’83,’ Ure agreed.

‘You must have come across Bryce Callan?’

‘Not really.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means I know his name.’ Both Ure and Rebus watched the lawyer scratch a note on his pad. Rebus noticed he was using a fountain pen, his letters tall and
slanting. ‘I don’t recall his name ever cropping up on a planning application.’

‘How about Freddy Hastings?’

Ure nodded slowly: he’d known this name would come up, too. ‘Freddy was around for a few years. Bit of a wide boy, liked to gamble. All the best developers do.’

‘And was Freddy a good gambler?’

‘He didn’t last long, if that’s what you’re getting at.’

Rebus opened the file, pretending to check something. ‘Did you know Barry Hutton back then, Mr Ure?’

‘No.’

‘I believe he was dipping a toe in the water at that time.’

‘Maybe so, but I wasn’t on the beach.’ Ure wheezed out a laugh at his joke. His wife stretched an arm across the solicitor, touched her husband’s hand. He patted hers. Cameron Whyte looked trapped. He’d had to stop scratching on his pad, seemed relieved when Mrs Ure withdrew the arm.

‘Not even selling the ice creams?’ Rebus asked. Both Ures, husband and wife, glared at him.

‘No need to be glib, Inspector,’ the lawyer drawled.

‘I apologise,’ Rebus said. ‘Only it wasn’t cones you were selling, was it, Mr Ure? It was information. As a result of which, to coin a phrase, you ended up with the lolly.’ Behind him, he could hear Siobhan choke back a laugh.

‘That’s a strong accusation, Inspector,’ Cameron Whyte said.

Ure turned his head towards his lawyer. ‘Do I need to deny that, Cam, or do I just wait for him to fail to prove it?’

‘I’m not sure I
can
prove it,’ Rebus admitted guilelessly. ‘I mean, we know someone in the council tipped off Bryce Callan about the parliament site, and probably about land in the area that could be available for purchase. We know someone smoothed the way for a lot of plans put forward by Freddy Hastings.’ Rebus fixed eyes with Ure. ‘Mr
Hastings’ business partner of the time, Alasdair Grieve, has given us a full statement.’ Rebus searched in the folder again, read from a transcript: ‘We were told there wouldn’t be any problems with consents. Callan had that under control. Someone in planning was making sure.’

Cameron Whyte looked up. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector, maybe my ears aren’t what they were, but I failed to hear my client’s name mentioned there.’

‘Your ears are fine, sir. Alasdair Grieve never knew the mole’s name. Six people on the planning committee at that time: could have been any one of them.’

‘And presumably,’ the lawyer went on, ‘other members of council staff had access to such information?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Everyone from the Lord Provost down to the typing pool?’

‘I wouldn’t know, sir.’

‘But you
should
know, Inspector, otherwise such flimsy allegations could get you into serious trouble.’

‘I don’t think Mr Ure will want to sue,’ Rebus said. He kept stealing glances at the heart monitor. It wasn’t as good as a lie detector, but Ure’s rate had leapt in the past couple of minutes. Rebus again made a show of glancing at his notes.

‘A general question,’ he said, again fixing eyes with Ure. ‘Planning decisions can make people millions of pounds, can’t they? I don’t mean the councillors themselves, or whoever else is responsible for taking the decisions . . . but the builders and developers, anyone who owns land or property near the development site?’

‘Sometimes, yes,’ Ure conceded.

‘So these people, they need to be on good terms with the decision-makers?’

‘We’re under constant scrutiny,’ Ure said. ‘I know
you
think we’re probably all bent, but even if someone wanted to take a backhander, chances are they’d be found out.’

‘Which means there’s a chance they wouldn’t?’

‘They’d be a fool to try.’

‘Plenty of fools around, if the price is right.’ Rebus glanced back down at his notes. ‘You moved into this house in 1980, is that right, Mr Ure?’

It was Whyte who answered. ‘Look, Inspector, I don’t know what you’re insinuating—’

‘August 1980,’ Ure interrupted. ‘Money from my wife’s late mother.’

Rebus was ready. ‘You sold her house to pay for this one?’

Ure was immediately suspicious. ‘That’s right.’

‘But she had a two-bedroom cottage in Dumfriesshire, Mr Ure. Hardly comparable to Queensferry Road.’

Ure was silent for a moment. Rebus knew what he was thinking. He was thinking: if they’ve dug that far back, what else do they know?

‘You’re an evil man!’ Mrs Ure snapped. ‘Archie’s just had a heart attack, and you’re trying to kill him off!’

‘Don’t fret, love,’ Archie Ure said, trying to reach out for her.

‘Again, Inspector,’ Cameron Whyte was saying, ‘I must protest at this line of questioning.’

Rebus turned to Siobhan. ‘Any more tea in that pot?’ Ignoring the flurry of voices; the doctor getting out of his chair, concerned at his patient’s state of agitation. Siobhan poured. Rebus nodded his thanks. He turned back to them again.

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I missed all that. Point I was going to make is that if there’s money to be made on projects in Edinburgh, how much more power would someone have if they were in charge of planning for the whole of Scotland?’ He sat back, sipped the tea, waited.

‘I don’t follow,’ the lawyer said.

‘Well, the question was really for Mr Ure.’ Rebus looked at Ure, who cleared his throat before speaking.

‘I’ve already said, at council level there are all sorts of
checks and scrutinies. At national level, they’d be multiplied tenfold.’

‘Doesn’t quite answer the question,’ Rebus commented affably. He shifted in his chair. ‘You were runner-up to Roddy Grieve in the ballot, weren’t you?’

‘So?’

‘With Mr Grieve dead, you should have taken his place.’

‘If
she
hadn’t stuck her oar in,’ Mrs Ure spat.

Rebus looked at her. ‘I’m assuming that by “she” you mean Seona Grieve?’

‘That’s enough, Isla,’ her husband said. Then, to Rebus: ‘Say your piece.’

Rebus shrugged. ‘It’s just that by rights, with the candidate out of the way, the nomination should have been yours. No wonder you got a shock when Seona Grieve stepped forward.’

‘Shock? It nearly killed him. And now you come in here, stirring it—’

‘I said be quiet, woman!’ Ure had turned on to one side, leaning on an elbow, the better to confront his wife. The beeping of the heart monitor seemed louder to Rebus. The patient was being coaxed on to his back by his doctor. One of the wires had come loose.

‘Leave me alone, man,’ Ure complained. His wife had folded her arms, her mouth and eyes reduced to narrow, angry fissures. Ure took another sip of juice, lay his head back against the pillows. His eyes were focused on the ceiling.

‘Just say your piece,’ he repeated.

Rebus all of a sudden felt a pang of pity for the man, a bond that recognised their common mortality, their pasts paved with guilt. The only enemy Archie Ure had now was death itself, and such self-knowledge could change a man.

‘It’s a supposition really,’ Rebus said quietly. He was shutting them all out; it was just him and the man in the bed now. ‘But say a developer had someone in the council
he could trust to make the right decision. And say this councillor was thinking of running for parliament. Well, if they got in . . . with all that experience behind them – over twenty years mostly spent in city planning – they’d be odds-on for a similar post. Planning supremo for the new Scotland. That’s a lot of power to wield. The power to say aye or nay to projects worth billions. All that knowledge, too: which areas are going to get redevelopment grants; where this factory or that housing development is going to be sited . . . Got to be worth something to a developer. Almost worth killing for . . .’

‘Inspector,’ Cameron Whyte warned. But Rebus had pulled his chair as close to the bed as he could get it. Just him and Ure now.

‘See, twenty years ago, I think you were Bryce Callan’s mole. And when Bryce moved away, he handed you on to his nephew. We’ve checked: Barry Hutton hit a golden streak early on in the game. You said it yourself, a good developer is a gambler. But everyone knows the only way to beat the house is if you cheat. Barry Hutton was cheating, and you were his edge, Mr Ure. Barry had high hopes for you, and then Roddy Grieve ended up selected in your place. Barry couldn’t have that. He decided to have Roddy Grieve followed. Maybe only so he could be “persuaded”, but Mick Lorimer went too far.’ Rebus paused. ‘That’s the name of the man who killed Roddy Grieve: Lorimer. Hutton hired him; we know that.’ He could feel Siobhan shifting uneasily behind him – the tape running, catching him saying something they couldn’t yet prove.

‘Roddy Grieve was drunk. He’d just been selected and wanted a look at his future. I think Lorimer watched Roddy Grieve climb the fence into the parliament site and then followed him. And suddenly, with Grieve out of the way, it was your show again.’ Now Rebus narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. ‘What I can’t figure out is the heart attack: was it because you realised a man had been
murdered, or was it when Seona Grieve stepped into her husband’s shoes, depriving you all over again?’

‘What do you want?’ Ure’s voice was hoarse.

‘There’s no evidence, Archie,’ the lawyer was saying.

Rebus blinked, his eyes never leaving Ure’s. ‘What Mr Whyte says is not quite true. I think we’ve got enough to present in court, but not everyone would agree. We need just that little bit more. And I think you want it, too. Call it a legacy.’ His voice was almost a whisper now; he hoped the recorder was catching it. ‘After all the shit, a clean break of sorts.’

Silence in the room, except for the monitor, its bleeping slower now. Archie Ure raised himself up so he was sitting unsupported. He crooked a finger, beckoning Rebus closer. Rebus half rose from his chair. A whisper in his ear: it wouldn’t make the tape. All the same, he needed to hear . . .

Ure’s breathing sounded even more laboured this close, hot rasps against Rebus’s neck. Grey bristles on the man’s cheeks and throat. Hair oily. When washed, it would be soft and fluffy like a baby’s. Talcum powder, that sweet masking smell: his wife probably used it on him, stopping bed sores.

Lips close to his ear, grazing it at one point. Then the words, louder than a whisper, words everyone was meant to hear.

‘Nice fucking try.’

And then wheezing laughter, rising in volume, filling the room with sudden, violent energy, drowning out the doctor’s advice, the machine’s staccato arrhythmia, the wife’s pleas. The lawyer’s glasses were knocked flying as she lunged at her husband, sensing something. As Whyte leaned down to retrieve them, Isla Ure half clambered across his back. The doctor was studying the machine, pushing Archie Ure back down on to the bed. Rebus stood back. The laughter was for him. The defiance was for him. The red-veined eyes, bulging from their sockets, were for
him. All that was demanded of Rebus was that he play the part of spectator.

For now the laughter had a choked, rending sound to it, disappearing in a white noise of gargled froth as the face turned puce, the chest falling and refusing to rise. Isla Ure shrieking now.

‘
Not again, Christ! Not again!
’

Cameron Whyte was rising to his feet, glasses back in place. His teacup had been knocked over, a brown stain spreading across the pale pink carpet. The doctor was speaking, Siobhan springing forward to help: she’d had the training. So had Rebus, come to that, but something held him back: the audience didn’t clamber on to the stage. The performance had to belong to the actor.

While the doctor issued instructions, he was sliding his body atop his patient, readying himself for CPR. Siobhan was ready to administer mouth-to-mouth. Pyjama shirt wide open, fists flattened one on the other, right at the centre of the chest . . .