Mortal Causes

  He looked like a has-been trying to look trendy. It would do. The palms of his hands were still red, but he could say he’d been painting. He popped his head round the living room door.

  ‘Chris, Jenny,’ he said. The couple were seated on the sofa. Patience must be in the kitchen. ‘Sorry, I’m running a bit late. I’ll just dry my hair and I’ll be with you.’

  ‘No rush,’ said Jenny as he retreated into the hall. He took the telephone into the bedroom and called Dr Curt at home.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s John Rebus here, tell me about Caroline Rattray.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Tell me what you know about her.’

  ‘You sound smitten,’ Curt said, amusement in his voice.

  ‘I’m smitten all right. She’s just sprayed me with a can of paint.’

  ‘I’m not sure I caught that.’

  ‘Never mind, just tell me about her. Like for instance, is she the jealous type?’

  ‘John, you’ve met her. Would you say she’s attractive?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she has a very good career, plenty of money, a lifestyle many would envy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But does she have any beaux?’

  ‘You mean boyfriends, and the answer is I don’t know.’

  ‘Then take it from me, she does not. That’s why she can be at a loose end when I have ballet tickets to spare. Ask yourself, why should this be? Answer, because she scares men off. I don’t know what’s wrong with her, but I know that she’s not very good at relationships with the opposite sex. I mean, she has relationships, but they never last very long.’

  ‘You might have told me.’

  ‘I didn’t realise you two were an item.’

  ‘We’re not.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Only she thinks we are.’

  ‘Then you’re in trouble.’

  ‘It looks like it.’

  ‘Sorry I can’t be more help. She’s always been all right with me, perhaps I could have a word with her …?’

  ‘No thanks, that’s my department.’

  ‘Goodbye then, and good luck.’

  Rebus waited till Curt had put his receiver down. He listened to the line, then heard another click. Patience had been listening on the kitchen extension. He sat on the bed, staring at his feet, till the door opened.

  ‘I heard,’ she said. She had an oven glove in one hand. She knelt down in front of him, her hands on his knees. ‘You should have told me.’

  He smiled. ‘I just did.’

  ‘Yes, but to my face.’ She paused. ‘There was nothing between the two of you, nothing happened?’

  ‘Nothing happened,’ he said without blinking. There was another moment’s silence.

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  He took her hands. ‘We,’ he said, ‘are going to join our guests.’ Then he kissed her on the forehead and pulled her with him to her feet.

  22

  At nine-thirty next morning, Rebus was sitting in his car outside Lachlan Murdock’s flat.

  When he’d washed his eyes last night, it had been like washing behind them as well. Always it came to this, he tried to do things by the books and ended up cooking them instead. It was easier, that was all. Where would the crime detection rates be without a few shortcuts?

  He had tried Murdock’s number from a callbox at the end of the road. There was no one there, just an answering machine. Murdock was at work. Rebus got out of the car and tried Murdock’s intercom. Again, no answer. So he picked the lock, the way he’d been taught by an old lag when he’d gone to the man for lessons. Once inside, he climbed the stairwell briskly, a regular visitor rather than an intruder. But no one was about.

  Murdock’s flat was on the Yale rather than a deadlock, so it was easy to open too. Rebus slipped inside and closed the door after him. He went straight to Murdock’s bedroom. He didn’t suppose Millie would have left the computer disk behind, but you never knew. People with no access to safe deposit boxes sometimes mistook their homes for one.

  The postman had been, and Murdock had left the mail strewn on the unmade bed. Rebus glanced at it. There was a letter from Millie. The envelope was postmarked the previous day, the letter itself written on a single sheet of lined writing paper.

  ‘Sorry I didn’t say anything. Don’t know how long I’ll be away. If the police ask, say nothing. Can’t say more just now. Love you. Millie.’

  Rebus left the letter lying where it was and pulled on a pair of surgical gloves stolen from Patience. He walked over to Murdock’s workdesk and switched on the computer, then started going through the computer disks. There were dozens of them, kept in plastic boxes, most of them neatly labelled. The majority had labels with spidery black handwriting, which Rebus guessed was Murdock’s. The few that remained he took to be Millie’s.

  He went through these first, but found nothing to interest him. The unlabelled disks proved to be either blank or corrupted. He started searching through drawers for other disks. Parked on the floor one side of the bed were the plastic binliners containing Billy’s things. He looked through these, too. Murdock’s side of the bed was a chaos of books, ashtray, empty cigarette packets, but Millie’s side was a lot neater. She had a bedside cupboard on which sat a lamp, alarm clock, and a packet of throat lozenges. Rebus crouched down and opened the cupboard door. Now he knew why Millie’s side of the bed was so neat: the cupboard was like a wastepaper bin. He sifted through the rubbish. There were some crumpled yellow Post-It notes in amongst it. He picked them out and unpeeled them. They were messages from Murdock. The first one contained a seven-digit phone number and beneath it the words ‘Why don’t you call this bitch?’ As Rebus unpeeled the others, he began to understand. There were half a dozen telephone messages, all from the same person. Rebus had thought he recognised the phone number, but on the rest of the messages the caller’s name was printed alongside.

  Mairie Henderson.

  Back at St Leonard’s he was pleased to find that both Holmes and Clarke were elsewhere. He went to the toilets and splashed water on his face. His eyes were still irritated, red at their rims and bloodshot. Patience had taken a close look at them last night and pronounced he’d live. After the Bremners had gone home happy, she’d also helped him scrub the rest of the red out of his hair and off his hands. Actually, there was still some on his right palm.

  ‘Cuchullain of the Red Hand,’ Patience had said. She’d been great really, considering. Trust a doctor to be calm in a crisis. She’d even managed to calm him down when, late in the evening, he’d considered going round to Caroline Rattray’s flat and torching it.

  ‘Here,’ she’d said, handing him a whisky, ‘set fire to yourself instead.’

  He smiled at himself in the toilet mirror. There was no Smylie here, about to grope him to death, no jeering Ormiston or preening Blackwood. This was where he belonged. He wondered again just what he was doing at Fettes. Why had Kilpatrick scooped him up?

  He thought now that he had a bloody good idea.

  Edinburgh’s Central Lending Library is situated on George IV Bridge, across the street from the National Library of Scotland. This was student territory, and just off the Royal Mile, and hence at the moment also Festival Fringe territory. Pamphleteers were out in force, still enthusing, sensing audiences to be had now that the least successful shows had packed up and headed home. For the sake of politeness, Rebus took a lurid green flyer from a teenage girl with long blonde hair, and read it as far as the first litter bin, where it joined many more identical flyers.

  The Edinburgh Room was not so much a room as a gallery surrounding an open space. Far below, readers in another section of the library were at their desks or browsing among the bookshelves. Not that Mairie Henderson was reading books. She was poring over local newspapers, seated at one of the few readers’ tables. Rebus stood beside Mairie, reading over her shoulder. She had a neat portable computer with her, flipped open and plugged into a
socket in the library floor. Its screen was milky grey and fllled with notes. It took her a minute to sense that there was someone standing over her. She looked round slowly, expecting a librarian.

  ‘Let’s talk,’ said Rebus.

  She saved what she’d been writing and followed him out onto the library’s large main staircase. A sign told them not to sit on the window ledges, which were in a dangerous condition. Mairie sat on the top step, and Rebus sat a couple of steps down from her, leaving plenty of room for people to get past.

  ‘I’m in a dangerous condition, too,’ he said angrily.

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’ She looked as innocent as stained glass.

  ‘Millie Docherty.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You didn’t tell me about her.’

  ‘What exactly should I have told you?’

  ‘That you’d been trying to talk to her. Did you succeed?’

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘She’s run off.’

  ‘Really?’ She considered this. ‘Interesting.’

  ‘What did you want to talk to her about?’

  ‘The murder of one of her flatmates.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘Shouldn’t it be?’ She was looking interested.

  ‘Funny she does a runner when you’re after her. How’s the research?’ She’d told him over their drink in Newhaven that she was looking into what she called ‘past loyalist activity’ in Scotland.

  ‘Slow,’ she admitted. ‘How’s yours?’

  ‘Dead stop,’ he lied.

  ‘Apart from Ms Docherty’s disappearance. How did you know I wanted to talk to her?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Her flatmate didn’t tell you?’

  ‘No comment at this time.’

  She smiled.

  ‘Come on,’ said Rebus, ‘maybe you’ll talk over a coffee.’

  ‘Interrogation by scone,’ Mairie offered.

  They walked the short walk to the High Street and took a right towards St Giles Cathedral. There was a coffee shop in the crypt of St Giles, reached by way of an entrance which faced Parliament House. Rebus glanced across the car park, but there was no sign of Caroline Rattray. The coffee shop though was packed, having not many tables to start with and this still being the height of the tourist season.

  ‘Try somewhere else?’ Mairie suggested.

  ‘Actually,’ said Rebus, ‘I’ve gone off the idea. I’ve got a bit of business across the road.’ Mairie tried not to look relieved. ‘I’d caution you,’ he warned her, ‘not to piss me about.’

  ‘Caution received and understood.’

  She waved as she walked off back towards the library. Rebus watched her good legs recede from view. They stayed good-looking all the way out of his vision. Then he threaded his way between the lawyers’ cars and entered the court building. He had an idea he was going to leave a note for Caroline Rattray in her box, always supposing she had one. But as he walked into Parliament Hall he saw her talking with another lawyer. There was no chance to retreat; she spotted him immediately. She kept up the conversation for a few more moments, then put her hand on her colleague’s shoulder, said a brief farewell, and headed towards Rebus.

  It was hard to reconcile her, in her professional garb, with the woman who had spray-painted him the previous night. She left her colleague with a faint smile on her lips, and met Rebus with that same smile. Under her arm were the regulation files and documents.

  ‘Inspector, what brings you here?’

  ‘Can’t you guess?’

  ‘Ah yes, of course, I’ll send a cheque.’

  He had kept telling himself all the way across the car park that he wasn’t going to let her get under his skin. Now he found she was already there, like a half inch of syringe.

  ‘Cheque?’

  ‘For the dry cleaning or whatever.’ A passing lawyer nodded to her. ‘Hullo, Mansie. Oh, Mansie?’ She spoke with the lawyer for a few moments, her hand on his elbow.

  She was offering a cheque for the dry cleaning. Rebus was glad of a few moments in which to cool off. But now someone was tapping his shoulder. He turned to find Mairie Henderson standing there.

  ‘I forgot,’ she said, ‘the American’s in town.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Have you done anything about him?’

  She shook her head. ‘Biding my time.’

  ‘Good, no use scaring him off.’ Caroline Rattray was looking interested in this new arrival, so much so that she was losing the thread of her own conversation. She dismissed Mansie halfway through a sentence and turned to Rebus and Mairie. Mairie smiled at her, the two women waiting for an introduction.

  ‘See you then,’ Rebus said to Mairie.

  ‘Oh, right.’ Mairie walked backwards a step or two, just in case he’d change his mind, then turned. As she turned, Caroline Rattray took a step forward, her hand out as though she were about to make her own introduction, but Rebus really didn’t want her to, so he grabbed the hand and held her back. She shrugged his grip off and glared at him, then looked back through the doorway. Mairie had already left the building.

  ‘You seem to have quite a little stable, Inspector.’ She tried rubbing at her wrist. It wasn’t easy with the files still precariously pressed between her elbow and stomach

  ‘Better stable than unstable,’ he said, regretting the dig immediately. He should just have denied the charge.

  ‘Unstable?’ she echoed. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Look, let’s forget it, eh? I mean, forget everything. I’ve told Patience all about it.’

  ‘I find that difficult to believe.’

  ‘That’s your problem, not mine.’

  ‘You think so?’ She sounded amused.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Remember something, Inspector.’ Her voice was level and quiet. ‘You started it. And then you told the lie. My conscience is clear, what about yours?’

  She gave him a little smile before walking away. Rebus turned and found himself confronting a statue of Sir Walter Scott, seated with his feet crossed and a walking-cane held between his open knees. Scott looked as though he’d heard every word but wasn’t about to pass judgment.

  ‘Keep it that way,’ Rebus warned, not caring who might hear.

  He phoned Patience and invited her to an early evening drink at the Playfair Hotel on George Street.

  ‘What’s the occasion?’ she asked.

  ‘No occasion,’ he said.

  He was restless the rest of the day. Glasgow came back to him, but only to say that they’d nothing on either Jim Hay or Active Resistance Theatre. He turned up early at the Playfair, making across its entrance hall (all faded glory, but studied faded glory, almost too perfect) to the bar beyond. It called itself a ‘wet bar’, which was okay with Rebus. He ordered a Talisker, hoisted himself onto a well-padded barstool and dipped a hand into the bowl of peanuts which had appeared at his approach.

  The bar was empty, but would be filled soon enough with prosperous businessmen on their way home, other businessmen who wanted to look prosperous and didn’t mind spending money on it, and the hotel clientele, enjoying a snifter before a pre-dinner stroll. A waitress stood idly against the end of the bar, not far from the baby grand. The piano was kept covered with a dustsheet until evening, so for now there was wallpaper music, except that whoever was playing trumpet wasn’t half bad. He wondered if it was Chet Baker.

  Rebus paid for his drink and tried not to think about the amount of money he’d just been asked for. After a bit, he changed his mind and asked if he could have some ice. He wanted the drink to last. Eventually a middle-aged couple came into the bar and sat a couple of seats away from him. The woman put on elaborate glasses to study the cocktail list, while her husband ordered Drambuie, pronouncing it Dramboo-i. The husband was short but bulky, given to scowling. He was wearing a white golfing cap, and kept glancing at his watch. Rebus managed to catch his eye, and toasted him.

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; ‘Slainte.’

  The man nodded, saying nothing, but the wife smiled. ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘are there many Gaelic speakers left in Scotland?’

  Her husband hissed at her, but Rebus was happy to answer. ‘Not many,’ he conceded.

  ‘Are you from Edinburgh?’ Head-in-burrow, it sounded like.

  ‘Pretty much.’

  She noticed that Rebus’s glass was now all melting ice. ‘Will you join us?’ The husband hissed again, something about her not bothering people who only wanted a quiet drink.

  Rebus looked at his watch. He was calculating whether he could afford to buy a round back. ‘Thank you, yes, I’ll have a Talisker.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘Malt whisky, it comes from Skye. There are some Gaelic speakers over there.’

  The wife started humming the first few notes of the Skye Boat Song, all about a French Prince who dressed in drag. Her husband smiled to cover his embarrassment. It couldn’t be easy, travelling with a madwoman.

  ‘Maybe you can tell me something,’ said Rebus. ‘Why is a wet bar called a wet bar?’

  ‘Could be because the beer’s draught,’ the husband offered grudgingly, ‘not just bottled.’

  The wife had perched her shiny handbag on the bar and now opened it, taking out a compact so she could check her face. ‘You’re not the mystery man, are you?’ she asked.

  Rebus put down his glass. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Ellie!’ her husband warned.

  ‘Only,’ she said, putting away her compact, ‘Clyde had a message to meet someone in the bar, and you’re the only person here. They didn’t leave a name or anything.’

  ‘A misunderstanding, that’s all,’ said Clyde. ‘They got the wrong room.’ But he looked at Rebus anyway. Rebus obliged with a nod.

  ‘Mysterious, certainly.’

  The fresh glass was put before Rebus, and the barman decided he merited another bowl of nuts too.