Strip Jack (30 page)

‘Not always so thorough upstairs. Come on, let’s see.’

Well, someone had been thorough. The beds in both bedrooms had been made. There were no cups or glasses on display, no newspapers or magazines or unfinished books. Pond made show of sniffing the air.

‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s no good, I can’t even smell her perfume.’

‘Whose?’

‘Liz’s. She always wore the same brand, I forget what it was. She always smelt beautiful. Beautiful. Do you think she was here?’

‘Someone was here. And we think she was in this area.’

‘But who was she with – that’s what you’re wondering?’

Rebus nodded.

‘Well, it wasn’t me, more’s the pity. I was having to make do with call girls. And get this – they want to check your medical certificate before they start.’

‘AIDS?’

‘AIDS. Okay, finished up here? Beginning to look like a wasted journey, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe. There’s still the bathroom . . .’

Pond pushed open the bathroom door and ushered Rebus inside. ‘Ah-ha,’ he said, ‘looks like Mrs Heggarty was running out of time.’ He nodded towards where a towel lay in a heap on the floor. ‘Usually, that would go straight in the laundry.’ The shower curtain had been pulled across the bath. Rebus drew it back. The bath was drained, but one or two long hairs were sticking to the enamel. Rebus was thinking: We can check those. A hair’s enough for an ID. Then he noticed the two glasses, sitting together on a corner of the bath. He leaned over and sniffed. White wine. Just a trickle of it left in one glass.

Two glasses! For two people. Two people in the bath and enjoying a drink. ‘Your telephone’s downstairs, isn’t it?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Come on then. This room’s out of bounds until further notice. And I’m about to become a forensic scientist’s nightmare.’

Sure enough, the person Rebus ended up speaking to on the telephone did not sound pleased.

‘We’ve been working our bums off on that car and that other cottage.’

‘I appreciate that, but this could be just as important. It could be
more
important.’ Rebus was standing in the small dining room. He couldn’t quite tie up these furnishings to Pond’s personality. But then he saw a framed photograph of a couple young and in love, captured some time in the 1950s. Then he understood: Pond’s parents. The furniture here had once belonged to them. Pond had probably inherited it but decided it didn’t go with his fast women/slow horses lifestyle. Perfect, though, for filling the spaces in his holiday home.
Pond himself, who had been sitting on a dining chair, rose to his feet. Rebus placed a hand over the receiver.

‘Where are you going?’

‘For a pee. Don’t panic, I’ll go out the back.’

‘Just don’t go upstairs, okay?’

‘Fine.’

The voice on the telephone was still complaining. Rebus shivered. He was cold. No, he was tired. Body temperature dropping. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘bugger off back to bed then, but be here first thing in the morning. I’ll give you the address. And I
mean
first thing. All right?’

‘You’re a generous man, Inspector.’

‘They’ll put it on my gravestone: he gave.’

Pond slept, with Rebus’s envious blessing, in the master bedroom, while Rebus himself kept vigil outside the bathroom door. Once bitten . . . He didn’t want a repetition of the Deer Lodge ‘break-in’. This evidence, if evidence it was, would stay intact. So he sat in the upstairs hallway, his back against the bathroom door, a blanket wrapped around him, and dozed. Then he slid down the door, so that he was lying in front of it on the carpet, curled into a foetus. He dreamed that he was drunk . . . that he was being driven around in a Bentley. The chauffeur was managing to drive and at the same time stick his backside out of the window. There was a party in the back of the Bentley. Holmes and Nell were there, copulating discreetly and hoping for a boy. Gill Templer was there, and attempting to undo Rebus’s zip, but he didn’t want Patience to catch them . . . Lauderdale seemed to be there, too. Watching, just watching. Someone opened the drinks cabinet, but it was full of books. Rebus picked one out and started to read it. It was the best book he’d ever read. He couldn’t put it down. It had everything . . .

In the morning, when he awoke, stiff and cold, he couldn’t recall a line or a word of the book. He rose and stretched, twisting himself back into human shape. Then he opened the bathroom door and stepped inside, and looked towards where the glasses should be.

The glasses were still there. Rebus, despite his aches, almost smiled.

He stood in the shower for a long time, letting the water trampoline on his head, his chest and his shoulders. Where was he? He was in the Oxford Terrace flat. He should be at work by now, but that could be explained away. He felt rough, but not as rough as he’d feared. Amazingly, he’d been able to sleep on the journey back, a journey taken at a more sedate pace than that of the previous night.

‘Clutch trouble,’ Pond had said, only twenty miles out of Kingussie. He’d pulled into the side of the road and had a look under the bonnet. There was a lot of engine under the bonnet. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start looking,’ he’d admitted. The trouble with these fancy cars was that capable mechanics were few and far between. In fact, he had to take the car to London for every service. So they’d ambled, an early-morning amble, having left the cottage under the stewardship of a bemused Detective Sergeant Knox and two overworked forensics people.

And Rebus had slept. Not enough, admittedly, which was why he’d resisted the temptation to run a bath and had opted for the shower instead. Difficult to nod off in a shower; all too easy in a hot morning bath. And he had chosen Patience’s flat over his own – an easy choice, since Oxford Terrace was the right side of Edinburgh after the drive. They’d had a hellish crossing of the Forth Bridge: commuter traffic crawling citywards. Sales reps in Astras gave the Italian car the once-over, and comforted themselves with the thought that its crew looked like crooks of some kind, pimps or moneylenders . . .

He turned off the shower and towelled himself dry, changed into some clean clothes, and began the process of becoming a human being again. Shaving, brushing his teeth, then a mug of fresh-brewed coffee. Lucky pleaded at a window, and Rebus let the cat in. He even tipped some food into a bowl. The cat looked up at him, full of suspicion. This wasn’t the Rebus he knew.

‘Just be thankful while it lasts.’

What day was it? It was Tuesday. Over a fortnight since the brothel raid, nearly two weeks since Alec Corbie heard the lay-by argument and saw either two or three cars. There had been progress, most of it thanks to Rebus himself. If only he could shake his superiors’ minds free of William Glass . . .

There was a note on the mantelpiece, propped up against the clock: ‘Why don’t we try meeting some time? Dinner tonight, or else – Patience.’ No kisses: always a bad sign. No crosses meant she was cross. She had every right to be. He really had to make up his mind one way or the other. Move in or move out. Stop using the place as a public amenity, somewhere to have a shower, a shave, a shit, and, on occasions, a shag. Was he any better than Liz Jack and her mysterious companion, making use of Tom Pond’s cottage? Hell, in some ways he was worse. Dinner tonight, or else. Meaning, or else I lose Patience. He took the biro out of his pocket and turned the note over.

‘If not dinner, then just desserts.’ he wrote. Utterly ambiguous, of course, but it sounded clever. He added his name and a row of kisses.

Chris Kemp had his scoop. A front-page scoop at that. The young reporter had worked hard after the visit from John Rebus. He’d tracked down Gail Crawley, a photographer in tow. She hadn’t exactly been forthcoming, but there was a photograph of her alongside a slightly blurred picture of a teenage girl: Gail Jack, aged fourteen or so. The story itself was riddled with get-out clauses, just in case it proved to be false. The reader was left more or less to make up his or her own mind. MP’s Visit to Mystery Prostitute – His Secret Sister? But the photos were the clincher. They were definitely of the same person, same nose, same eyes and chin. Definitely. The photo of Gail Jack in her youth was a stroke of genius, and Rebus didn’t doubt that the genius behind it was Ian Urquhart. How else could Kemp have found, and so quickly found, the photograph he needed? A call to Urquhart, explaining that the story was worth his cooperation. Either
Urquhart himself searched out the picture, or else he persuaded Gregor Jack to find it.

It was in the morning edition. By tomorrow, the other papers would have their own versions; they could hardly afford not to. Rebus, having recovered his car from outside Pond’s flat, idling at traffic lights had seen the paper-seller’s board: Brothel MP Exclusive. He’d crossed the lights, and parked by the roadside, then jogged back to the newspaper booth. Returned to the car and read the story through twice, admiring it as a piece of work. Then he’d started the car again and continued towards his destination. I should have bought two copies, he thought to himself. He won’t have seen it yet . . .

The green Citroën BX was in its drive, the garage doors open behind it. As Rebus brought his own car to a halt, blocking the end of the driveway, the garage doors were being pulled to. Rebus got out of the car, the folded newspaper in one hand.

‘Looks like I just caught you,’ he called.

Ronald Steele turned from the garage. ‘What?’ He saw the car parked across his driveway. ‘Look, would you mind? I’m in a –’ Then he recognised Rebus. ‘Oh, it’s Inspector . . .?’

‘Rebus.’

‘Rebus, yes. Rasputin’s friend.’

Rebus turned his wrist towards Steele. ‘Healing nicely,’ he said.

‘Look, Inspector . . .’ Steele glanced at his wristwatch. ‘Was it anything important? Only I’m meeting a customer and I’ve already overslept.’

‘Nothing too important, sir,’ Rebus said breezily. ‘It’s just that we’ve found out your alibi for the Wednesday Mrs Jack died is a pack of lies. Wondered if you’d anything to say to that?’

Steele’s face, already long, grew longer. ‘Oh.’ He looked down at the toes of his well-scuffed shoes. ‘I thought it was bound to come out.’ He tried a smile. ‘Not much you can keep hidden from a murder inquiry, eh?’

‘Not much you
should
keep hidden, sir.’

‘Do you want me to come down to the station?’

‘Maybe later, sir. Just so we can get everything on record. But for the moment your living room would do.’

‘Right.’ Steele started to walk slowly back towards the bungalow.

‘Nice area this,’ commented Rebus.

‘What? Oh, yes, yes it is.’

‘Lived here long?’ Rebus wasn’t interested in Steele’s answers. His only interest was in keeping the man talking. The more he talked, the less time he had in which to think, and the less time he had to think, the better the chances of him coming out with the truth.

‘Three years. Before that I had a flat in the Grassmarket.’

‘They used to hang people down there, did you know that?’

‘Did they? Hard to imagine it these days.’

‘Oh, I don’t know . . .’

They were indoors now. Steele pointed to the hall phone. ‘Do you mind if I call the customer? Make my apologies?’

‘Whatever you like, sir. I’ll wait in the living room, if that’s all right.’

‘Through there.’

‘Fine.’

Rebus went into the room but left the door wide open. He heard Steele dialling. It was an old bakelite telephone, the kind with a little drawer in the bottom containing a notepad. People used to want rid of them; now they wanted them back, and were willing to pay. The conversation was short and innocent. An apology and a rescheduling of the meeting. Rebus opened his morning paper wide in front of him and made show of reading the inside pages. The receiver clattered back into its cradle.

‘That’s that,’ said Steele, entering the room. Rebus read on for a moment, then lowered the paper and began to fold it.

‘Good,’ he said. Steele, as he had hoped, was staring at the paper.

‘What’s that about Gregor?’ he said.

‘Hm? Oh, you mean you haven’t seen it yet?’ Rebus
handed over the paper. Steele, still standing, devoured the story. ‘What do you reckon, sir?’

He shrugged. ‘Christ knows. I suppose it makes sense. I mean, none of us could think
what
Gregor was doing in a place like that. I can’t think of a much better reason. The photos certainly look similar . . . I don’t remember Gail at all. Well, I mean, she was always
around
, but I never paid much attention. She never mixed with us.’ He folded the paper. ‘So Gregor’s off the hook then?’

Rebus shrugged. Steele made to hand the paper back. ‘No, no, you can keep it if you like. Now, Mr Steele, about this non-existent golfing fixture . . .’

Steele sat down. It was a pleasant, book-lined room. In fact, it reminded Rebus strongly of another room, a room he’d been in recently . . .

‘Gregor would do anything for his friends,’ Steele said candidly, ‘including the odd telling of a lie. We made up the golf game. Well, that’s not strictly true. At first, there
was
a weekly game. But then I started seeing a . . . a lady. On Wednesdays. I explained it to Gregor. He didn’t see why we shouldn’t just go on telling everyone we were playing golf.’ He looked up at Rebus for the first time. ‘A jealous husband is involved, Inspector, and an alibi was always welcome.’

Rebus nodded. ‘You’re being very honest, Mr Steele.’

Steele shrugged. ‘I don’t want Gregor getting into trouble because of me.’

‘And you were with this woman on the Wednesday afternoon in question? The afternoon Mrs Jack died?’

Steele nodded solemnly.

‘And will she back you up?’

Steele smiled grimly. ‘Not a hope in hell.’

‘The husband again?’

‘The husband,’ Steele acknowledged.

‘But he’s bound to find out sooner or later, isn’t he?’ Rebus said. ‘So many people seem to know already about you and Mrs Kinnoul.’

Steele twitched, as though a small electric shock had been administered to his shoulder blades. He stared down at the
floor, willing it to become a pit he might jump into. Then he sat back.