‘If you help American companies, Mr Haldayne, does that mean you have dealings with Scottish Enterprise?’
‘All the time.’
‘And Locate in Scotland?’
‘I’ve had dealings with them all, Inspector. Thing is, you’re just beginning to establish a working relationship, then the government changes everything: changes the name, the rules, the players. SDA becomes Scottish Enterprise, HIDB becomes HIE, and I’ve got to start again from scratch, building up contacts, letting people know who I am.’
‘It’s a tough life.’
‘But somebody’s got to do it, right?’ Haldayne spread cream on to half a scone. ‘I love these pastries,’ he confided, before taking a huge bite.
‘You’ve been here a while?’ Rebus asked.
‘Nine years, on and off. They did send me back to the States for a couple of years in the middle, but I wangled my way back over again. I love Scotland – my ancestors came from here.’
‘I heard a rumour once,’ Rebus said, ‘about a kind of Scottish mafia at the top of some US businesses, persuading people to locate in Scotland.’
Haldayne wiped cream from his mouth with a napkin. ‘It happens,’ he said. ‘What can I say? It’s not illegal.’
‘What would be illegal, Mr Haldayne?’
‘Bribes, money changing hands.’
‘Companies can set up here very cheaply, can’t they?’
‘Some areas, some types of plant, sure. A lot of grant money swilling around, some from the European Community, some from British Government coffers.’
‘There was the DeLorean scandal,’ Rebus said.
‘But the guy did have a sensational car.’
‘And he took the British taxpayer for millions.’
‘You’d still have paid those taxes, Inspector. If DeLorean hadn’t taken them, some other guy would.’ Haldayne shrugged again. His expressions, whether vocal or physical, were always slightly exaggerated, slightly more than you’d get from a Scot.
‘So the Scottish mafia story is true?’
‘I’d guess so. I’m being as open with you as I can.’
‘I appreciate it, sir.’
‘Hey, you’re the one holding those parking tickets at my head.’ Another chuckle. ‘What kind of coffee is this?’
‘Decaf.’
‘It’s not bad actually, but I do miss that caffeine rush. Waiter!’ A teenager trotted over. ‘Can I have a double espresso? Thank you.’ Haldayne turned back to Rebus. ‘So what’s the story here, Inspector? We don’t seem to be talking about Derry Charters any more.’
‘Just part of an ongoing inquiry, sir. I’m not at liberty to –’
‘Well, that’s hardly fair, is it? Hardly British?’
‘You’re not in Britain now, Mr Haldayne.’
‘But I’ve told you mine, now you should tell me yours.’
Rebus saw that Haldayne was having a good deal of fun at his expense. Suddenly he didn’t know how much of Haldayne’s story to believe. Lies usually came gift-wrapped in a thin tissue of truth. Rebus knew he would have to examine the wrappings later.
‘Come on, Inspector,’ Haldayne persisted. ‘You’re checking up on Derry, this much I know. But he’s still serving time, right? So what has he done – set up some paper company from his cell?’
‘Paper company?’
‘You know, one that exists only on paper.’ Haldayne came to an abrupt stop and reached into his pocket for a handkerchief.
He’s stalling, thought Rebus. Why is he stalling? The espresso arrived, and Haldayne took a couple of appreciative mouthfuls, regaining his composure.
‘I came here in good faith, Inspector,’ he said at last. ‘I didn’t need to speak to a man who’s not here in his official capacity.’ Haldayne saw the look on Rebus’s face, and smiled. ‘I wanted to check that you were who you said you were. We US diplomats can’t be too careful these days. Your chief inspector told me you’re on official leave.’
Rebus took a bite from his scone, saying nothing.
‘For a man on leave, Inspector, you sure as hell look busy to me.’ Haldayne finished his cup of sludge. ‘I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure, but in fact it has been deeply frustrating.’ He started to push his arms back into the sleeves of his coat. ‘I don’t expect to be troubled by you again, Inspector. I sent a cheque off today to cover those parking fines. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no other reason for you to contact me.’
‘Who do you know who lives in Royal Circus?’
Haldayne was disconcerted by the question. ‘In the New Town?’
‘That’s the only Royal Circus I know.’
Haldayne made show of thinking about it. ‘Not a soul,’ he said brightly. ‘My superior might move in those kinds of circles, but not me.’
‘What kinds of circles?’
But Haldayne wasn’t about to answer that. He got to his feet and made a little formal bow from the waist. ‘I hope you don’t mind picking up the tab, Inspector.’ Then he turned and walked away.
Rebus let him go. He had plenty to think about, and plenty of coffee still to drink.
27
Rebus had two options: he could go home and wait for the Farmer or Gill to catch him; or he could go to St Leonard’s and get it done with. He chose the latter route.
He’d been in the building less than three minutes before the Farmer spotted him.
‘My office – now.’
Rebus noticed that the Farmer’s computer was up and running. It had taken over his desk. The photo of his family had been moved to the top of the filing-cabinet.
‘Getting to grips with it all right, sir?’ Rebus asked. But the Farmer was not to be deflected.
‘What the hell are you playing at? I ordered you to take a holiday!’
‘And I’m enjoying every minute, sir.’
‘Making a nuisance of yourself at a foreign consulate, that’s your idea of fun?’
‘I couldn’t afford to go abroad.’
‘The way you’re going, maybe you can’t afford not to.’
‘It was just a bit of unfinished business, sir.’
‘What sort of unfinished business?’
‘It’s not really a police matter, sir.’
The Farmer glowered at him. ‘I hope to God that’s the truth, Inspector.’
‘Cross my heart and hope to die, sir.’
‘You’re one step from an official reprimand, two steps from suspension.’
And three steps from heaven, Rebus thought. He told the Farmer he understood.
In the main office, he checked for messages. There were half a dozen, stuck on to the screen of his new PanoTech computer. Around him he could hear the soft clack-clack of muffled keyboards. He stared at his own console as if it was an unfriendly visitor. His reflection stared back at him.
Three of the messages were from Rory McAllister at the Scottish Office. Rebus picked up the telephone.
‘McAllister speaking.’
‘Mr McAllister, it’s John Rebus.’
‘Inspector, thanks for getting back to me.’ McAllister sounded relieved, but also edgy, not like himself.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Can we meet?’
‘Sure, but give me some idea –’
‘Calton Cemetery at one o’clock.’ The phone went dead.
During the day, Calton Cemetery was more or less deserted. In summer, you’d get visitors looking for David Hume’s grave. The more knowledgeable or curious might seek out the resting places of the publisher Constable and David Allan the painter. There was a statue of Abraham Lincoln, too, if it hadn’t been sledgehammered by vandals.
At one o’clock on a crisp winter’s day, nobody was interested in headstones. Such, at least, was Rebus’s first impression as he walked through the cemetery gate. But then he saw that a gentleman was perusing the monuments, using a black rolled umbrella as a walking-cane. What hair he had mixed black with silver, and was slicked back from the forehead. His face
and ears were red, maybe just from the cold, and he wore a black woollen overcoat, belted at the waist.
He saw Rebus, and gestured for him to join him. Rebus climbed the stone steps towards him.
‘Haven’t been here in years,’ the man said. His voice had been Scots once, before the inflexions and elisions had been milked out of it. ‘I take it you’re Rebus?’
Rebus studied the man. ‘That’s right.’
‘McAllister’s not coming. I’m a colleague of his.’
Close up, the man’s face was pockmarked and he had one slightly lazy eye. With his free hand, he played with the cashmere scarf tucked inside the collar of his coat.
‘What’s your name?’ Rebus asked. The man seemed both surprised and amused by the question’s bluntness.
‘My name’s Hunter.’ Something about the way he said this, and his whole bearing, told Rebus he wasn’t so much McAllister’s colleague as his superior.
‘Well, Mr Hunter, what can I do for you?’
‘I’m interested in your line of inquiry, Inspector.’
‘And what line is that, sir?’
‘You were asking certain questions of McAllister.’ A bus roared past, and Hunter raised his voice. ‘The line of those questions intrigues me.’
‘Why?’
‘Why? Because the Scottish Office likes to take an interest.’
‘In what exactly?’
The bus gone, Hunter lowered his voice again. ‘I’ll be succinct. I’d prefer it, Inspector, if you would discontinue your present line of inquiry. I don’t believe it germane.’
‘You’d prefer it?’
‘There may be a conflict of interests.’ Hunter lifted the walnut handle of his umbrella until it rested under his chin. ‘Of course, I’m a civil servant and you are a policeman: it’s not for me to interfere with your business.’
‘Good of you, I’m sure.’
‘But we are both, are we not, servants of the State?’ Hunter swung the umbrella at some leaves on the ground. ‘All I can say to you at this point, Inspector, is that your inquiries may well interfere with longstanding investigations we are pursuing.’
‘I didn’t know investigation was part of the Scottish Office’s remit, Mr Hunter. Unless you’re talking about an internal inquiry?’
‘You are a clever man, Inspector, and I appeal to your intellect.’
‘To be honest, sir, you don’t appeal to me at all.’
Hunter’s face darkened slightly. ‘Let’s not cross swords on this.’ He swung at more leaves.
‘Cooperation?’
Hunter considered this. ‘Not yet. I’m afraid. The affair is confidential. But later, definitely. Full cooperation. What do you say?’ He held out his hand. ‘A gentleman’s agreement.’
Rebus, knowing himself no gentleman, took the hand, just to put Hunter’s mind at rest. The older man didn’t look relieved, just quietly pleased that negotiations had been bloodless and – in his eyes – successful. He turned to leave.
‘I’ll call you when I’ve something I can say,’ he told Rebus.
‘Mr Hunter? Why did you get McAllister to phone me? Why not just call yourself?’
Hunter smiled with half his mouth. ‘What’s life without a little intrigue, Inspector?’ He negotiated the steps carefully, with a slight limp. Too proud to carry a cane, he used a brolly instead. Rebus waited half a minute, then walked quickly to the gate and peered along the street to the right. Hunter was walking along Waterloo Place as if he owned it. Rebus kept well behind him as he followed.
It was a short walk, only as far as the Reichstag: St Andrew’s House. Which, Rebus recalled, was where the most senior Scottish Office bureaucrats did their business. He recalled, too, that it was built on the site of the old Calton Gaol. Rebus walked past the sooty building and crossed the road. He stood outside the old Royal High School, putative HQ for any Scottish Assembly that might come along. It was mothballed, and a lone protestor had taken up residence outside, his banners arguing for devolution and a Scottish Parliament.
Rebus stared at St Andrew’s House for a couple of minutes, then walked back along Waterloo Place to where he’d illegally parked his car. It had received a ticket, but he could square that later. Over the years, he’d collected more tickets than Haldayne, a wheen more. Do as I say, he thought, not as I do. There had been other ‘fringe benefits’ along the way, too: cafés and restaurants where he ate for free, bars where his money was no good, a baker who’d slip him a dozen rolls. He wouldn’t call himself corrupt, but there were some out there who’d say he’d been bribed, or greased for a future bribe. There were those who’d say he’d been bought.
Do as I say, not as I do. And with that he tore up the parking ticket.
Back at his flat, Rebus got out all the information he had on the Scottish Office. He didn’t find the name Hunter anywhere. The documents were shy about naming names where civil servants were involved, though happy to trumpet the names of the incumbent Secretary of State, Minister of State, and Parliamentary Under-Secretaries, all of whom were either MPs or held seats in the House of Lords. As McAllister had explained, these were the temporary boys, the figureheads. When it came to the permanent force – the senior civil servants – Rebus found only silence and anonymity: modesty, he wondered, or discretion? Or maybe something else entirely.
He called Mairie Henderson at her home.
‘Got a story for me?’ she asked. ‘I could do with one.’
‘What do you know about the Scottish Office?’
‘I know a bit.’
‘Senior management?’
‘There may have been changes since I last looked. Phone the paper, talk to – who’d be best? Home Affairs or Parliament? – yes, Roddy McGurk, talk to him, say I gave you his name.’
‘Thanks, Mairie.’
‘And I’m serious about the story. Inspector …’
Rebus called the newspaper office and asked for Roddy McGurk. He was put through immediately.
‘Mr McGurk, I’m a friend of Mairie Henderson’s. She said maybe you could help me clarify something.’
‘Fire away.’ The voice was West Highland.
‘It’s an identity, actually. A man called Hunter, Scottish Office, late-fifties, uses an umbrella when really he should have a stick …’
McGurk was laughing. ‘Let me stop you there. You’re describing Sir Iain Hunter.’
‘And who’s he when he’s at home?’
McGurk laughed again. ‘He is the Scottish Office. He’s the Permanent Under-Secretary, usually known as –’
‘The Permanent Secretary,’ Rebus said, feeling queasy in his gut.
‘Policy initiator for the whole country. You might call him “Mr Scotland”.’
‘Not a very public figure though?’
‘He doesn’t need to be. In the words of the old song, he’s got the power.’
Rebus thanked McGurk and put the receiver down. He was trembling slightly. Mr Scotland … he’s got the power. He wondered what he’d got himself into.
Then the telephone rang.
‘I forgot to say …’ Mairie Henderson began.
‘Yes?’
‘Remember you asked if there was any dirt on Councillor Gillespie?’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, there wasn’t in my day, but I got talking yesterday to someone at BBC Scotland. You know I’m doing some radio stuff down at Queen Street? Anyway, it’s not really Gillespie, it’s about his wife.’
‘What about her?’
‘Word is, she’s involved with someone else.’
‘Having an affair, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
Rebus remembered his visit to the councillor’s home. There had seemed little love lost, but at the time he’d blamed other things.
‘Who’s her partner in crime?’
‘That I don’t know.’
‘So how does your source at the Beeb know?’
‘He didn’t say, it’s just some rumour he picked up when la
st in the City Chambers. The way it was told to him, he thinks maybe it’s another councillor.’
‘Well, let me know if you hear anything more. Bye, Mairie.’
Rebus put the phone down and tried to put his thoughts into some semblance of order. He stared at the bags of shredded paper, but they didn’t help. He ended up repeating a question to himself.
What have I got myself into?
28
Chief Inspector Frank Lauderdale was in an open ward of the Royal Infirmary, but his bed was in a corner by a window, with a view over the Meadows. He’d drawn the curtain between his own bed and his neighbour’s, affording some privacy. There was a vase of flowers on his bedside cabinet. They looked ready to expire in the hospital’s infernal heat.
‘You can almost see my flat from here,’ Rebus said, looking out of the window.
‘That’s been a constant source of comfort to me,’ Lauderdale said. ‘It’s taken you long enough to visit.’
‘I don’t like hospitals, Frank.’
‘Neither do I. You think I’m in here for the good of my health?’
They shared a smile, and Rebus examined the patient. ‘You look like shite, Frank.’
Lauderdale’s face looked like an infant had tried shaving it with a safety razor. There were dozens of nicks and scars where the windscreen had cut him. His eyes were bruised and swollen, and there were black ugly stitches on his nose. With all the plaster and bandages he sported, he looked like the joke patient from a comedy sketch.
‘How are the legs?’ Rebus asked.
‘Itchy.’
‘That’s supposed to be a good sign.’
‘Oh, I’ll walk again … so they say.’ Lauderdale smiled nervously. ‘Maybe I’ll have a limp or two.’
‘Two would be better,’ said Rebus. ‘They’d balance you up.’
‘Want to sign my stookie?’
Rebus looked at the plastercasts on Launderdale’s legs. They’d been signed by several visitors. ‘Which one?’
‘Take your pick.’
Rebus took a ballpoint pen from his pocket. It wasn’t easy to write on the coarse surface, but he did his best.
‘What does it say?’ Lauderdale asked, craning his neck.