Rather Be the Devil (Inspector Rebus 21)

  ‘Cafferty may even have hastened their demise,’ Rebus said.

  ‘Are you still in touch with him?’

  ‘Not really,’ he lied.

  ‘But you could get a message to him?’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to promise anything.’

  Fox shifted in his chair. ‘To bring us back to the reason you’re here, Ms Dromgoole …’

  Chastened by his tone, she calmed, and even managed to look solemn. But she couldn’t help glancing towards Rebus as she answered Fox’s questions about her relationship with Robert Chatham. After quarter of an hour, Fox was winding down. Rebus decided this was his cue.

  ‘You met Mr Chatham because of the Maria Turquand case,’ he said. She half turned in her chair so she was facing him.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed.

  ‘Did you retain an interest in it? After you’d published your book, I mean.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Occasional chats about it with Mr Chatham? And maybe with others, too? People like Dougie Vaughan?’

  ‘Have you been speaking to Dougie?’

  ‘I was at his concert last night.’

  ‘It was in my diary,’ Dromgoole said. ‘But I didn’t feel up to it, of course.’

  ‘You’re a fan, though? You go watch him perform, probably buy him a drink after?’

  ‘Or during,’ she corrected him.

  ‘And one night, you took Mr Chatham along too. I think you did that knowing Dougie would eventually place him. Were you hoping for something? Maybe a guilty look or a sudden bum note that would give the game away?’

  ‘I suppose I was,’ she eventually conceded. ‘Rab was angry with me afterwards. If Dougie recognised him, then he might also work out we were lovers. Rab was scared Liz would find out.’

  ‘But you considered it a risk worth taking?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because above all else, you can’t let Maria Turquand go?’

  She considered how to answer. ‘Maria was an extraordinary woman. A free spirit in a world that demanded the opposite. All those boring money men and their dinners and clubs. She should never have allowed herself to be trapped. They couldn’t deal with her, you see.’ She stared at Rebus. ‘You’re interested too, aren’t you?’

  ‘A few questions had cropped up,’ Rebus answered her. ‘I spoke to Rab about them, and soon after that …’

  ‘You’re the ex-cop – he texted me about you.’

  ‘Do you think he might have been doing some archaeology himself? Maybe so he could surprise you if and when he found anything?’

  ‘I suppose it’s possible.’ She was still staring at Rebus. ‘Is there something new?’ But Rebus wasn’t about to answer that. ‘Have you spoken to Maria’s husband and her lover?’ Dromgoole continued. ‘They’re both still alive, you know. When I asked for interviews, they resisted. I ended up posing written questions, but their answers were vague. I’m not sure either of them really loved her …’ After a moment lost in thought, she became animated again. ‘You really should question them! They can hardly refuse to answer a detective!’

  ‘That’s certainly true,’ Rebus said, glancing in Fox’s direction.

  After a further five minutes, Fox accompanied Dromgoole to the station’s front door, shaking her hand and asking if she didn’t want a taxi. But she preferred to walk – she needed a walk. He climbed the stairs again to find Rebus at Alvin James’s computer.

  ‘Christ’s sake, John,’ he complained.

  ‘I can’t unlock it,’ Rebus said. ‘I don’t suppose you know his password?’

  ‘I wouldn’t tell you if I did.’

  Rebus slammed the screen shut and leaned back in James’s chair. ‘What do we do now, then? And where are the rest of the goon squad anyway?’

  ‘Tracking down Chatham’s friends and colleagues … talking to his employer …’

  ‘Remind me of the name.’

  ‘Kenny Arnott.’ Fox sifted through the notes on his desk. ‘There are two outfits in the city providing similar services – one run by Andrew Goodman, one by Arnott.’

  ‘Either of them ever been in trouble?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like it’ll keep James’s crew busy for long, then.’

  ‘They’re also going through Chatham’s house, seeing if there’s anything on his computer or tucked away in a drawer somewhere …’

  ‘While you’re left here to read a library book?’

  ‘Playing to one of my many strengths.’

  ‘What? Basic literacy?’

  Fox managed a smile, and Rebus joined him. ‘So how will you be spending your day?’ Fox asked.

  ‘If I had a warrant card on me, I’d probably be heading off to talk to a couple of antiquated rich white men.’

  ‘Turquand and Attwood?’

  ‘One in St Andrews and one in Perthshire – not a bad afternoon out of the office.’

  ‘But you’ve not got a warrant card, have you?’

  ‘The only flaw in my plan.’

  ‘I could come with you.’

  ‘And why would you do that?’

  ‘Because there’s something I know that you don’t.’

  ‘And I’ll only find out what that is if I take you?’

  ‘One question, John. For Turquand specifically.’ Fox was holding up his forefinger. Rebus mirrored the action as both men’s smiles broadened.

  Harry’s full name was Hugh Harold Hodges. He’d had his first spot of bother with the police at the age of eleven: shoplifting from a supermarket. A dare, apparently. His parents were professionals – one a doctor, one a teacher – and they were paying for him to attend a good school. But he started truanting, and the shoplifting continued. Harry liked hanging around older, less privileged kids. He stole for them, fought alongside them and smoked dope with them. So his parents kicked him out. Slept rough for a while, then seemed to step off the grid completely until he cropped up in France, where the Parisian police took an interest. So it was back to Edinburgh and eventually work for Darryl Christie.

  All of this Clarke had learned in the space of just over thirty minutes, thanks to the Police Scotland database. It had been two years since Hodges’ last run-in with the law – stopped with a car full of untaxed cigarettes. He’d kept his mouth shut and paid the fine. But that should have prevented him owning or running a venue like the Devil’s Dram, and a bit more digging had revealed that he neither owned nor ran it – not according to the paperwork. So what did he do?

  Clarke was about to ask.

  She thumped on the doors of the club and waited. Nobody answered so she tried again. There was a locked gate to the right of the building, leading to a narrow alley two inches deep in rubbish. To the left, a wider lane, paved with wonky-looking setts, led uphill and around to the back, where there was a door for deliveries. The door was open and cases of wine and beer were being unloaded from a white van with no discernible markings. The driver handed her a crate of twenty-four bottles, so she carried them inside. A young man she didn’t recognise took them off her, eyes narrowing only slightly at the stranger’s appearance.

  ‘Harry around?’ Clarke asked.

  ‘Usual spot.’

  Clarke nodded as if fully understanding, and walked through the storage area into a corridor, at the end of which was a door. Opening it, she stepped into the club proper. Harry’s usual spot was the same one where she had found Darryl Christie on her previous visit. She was two thirds of the way up the staircase before he realised she wasn’t staff.

  ‘Who let you in?’

  ‘A face friendlier than yours, Mr Hodges.’

  ‘Oh, it knows my name.’

  ‘And your record.’

  ‘Rehabilitation is a great thing.’

  ‘Is that what Darryl does – takes bad lads and turns them into paragons of virtue?’

  ‘I’m a bit busy here, Officer.’

  ‘Been out to see Craw Shand again? I’ll be taking a look at t
he footage. Lot of traffic cameras along Peffermill Road.’

  ‘Oh aye?’

  ‘And that Range Rover does stand out.’

  ‘You’ve still not said why you’re here.’

  ‘Mr Shand seems to have been abducted. That really wasn’t a very good move on somebody’s part.’

  ‘I’ve already told you I don’t know the fucker.’

  ‘No need for bad language, Mr Hodges.’ She paused for a second. ‘Hugh Harold Hodges – your parents had a sense of humour, then?’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘I want Craw Shand returned to me unharmed.’

  ‘Good for you. Put it on your Christmas list.’

  Clarke placed both hands on the table and leaned in towards him. ‘It won’t be a list I’ll be carrying next time you see me. It’ll be a warrant.’

  Hodges looked her up and down. ‘Your patter’s as pish as your dress sense. The spinster look is so last year.’

  ‘That hurts,’ Clarke said, staring at his feet. ‘What size shoes do you take? Looks like a nine. It’s amazing what our lab can do with the impression of a sole – and one was left on Craw Shand’s back door.’ She paused to let this sink in. ‘Tell your boss: Craw Shand belongs to me.’

  ‘Tell him yourself. But do it somewhere else. And check out the gents’ bogs on your way out – wee treat for you there.’

  He got busy on his phone, checking messages and answering them with rapid movements of his thumb. Clarke held her ground for a few seconds longer, then walked down the stairs with as much dignity as she could muster. As she made for the entrance, she paused and stared at the door to the gents. It was marked ‘Warlocks’ and wasn’t giving anything away, so she pushed it open. There didn’t seem to be anyone inside. She could see cubicles, sinks and a single trough-style urinal. And then something caught her eye. A large framed photograph, blown up from a video still. It was grainy, but she knew when it had been taken and who it showed. Deborah Quant’s party. And there was Siobhan herself, in her short black dress, cut slightly too low at the neck. She had an arm around Quant’s back and was leaning down to yell something in her ear, mouth and eyes open wide.

  From the club’s security cameras. Blown up and framed. Directly above the trough where the men stood in droves each evening.

  She tried to shift it, but it had been screwed into the wall.

  ‘Fuck,’ she said under her breath.

  ‘No need for bad language,’ Hodges chided her, standing by the door, holding it a few inches open with one hand, a grin on his face.

  ‘If you don’t want us back here night after night, checking for drugs and underage drinkers, that’ll be gone by the time I’ve reached my car.’

  ‘Cops are always welcome here,’ he said as she stormed past him. ‘This’ll be the highlight of their trip, wouldn’t you say, Detective Inspector? And you should feel flattered – turns out even spinsters have a bit of life left in them when enough Happy Hour cocktails are poured down their throats …’

  Forensics had finished at Craw Shand’s. They had been satisfied with photos of the shoe print, so the door was still in place, a padlock added so the house could be secured before the team left. Although he had already been interviewed, the next-door neighbour came out to share his thoughts with Clarke.

  ‘Never any trouble … didn’t hear a peep in the night …’

  The neighbour across the back from Shand had said the same. No shouts or yelps, nobody wrestling Craw Shand out from his kitchen. Nothing. Maybe the uniform had been right – the caved-in door had been waiting for Shand, and he’d taken fright and fled. Clarke had asked Laura Smith if she could place a story on the Scotsman’s website.

  ‘Am I allowed to flag up the Darryl Christie connection?’

  ‘Wiser not to.’

  A patrol had last checked the rear of the property at 11 p.m., meaning the door had been forced sometime between then and six in the morning. Only one of the neighbours had seen Craw leave the house that day – a routine morning trip to the local shop. His TV had been heard through the wall in the afternoon – horse-racing commentary. As Clarke took a final tour of the rooms, she found little in the way of clues. A bag of groceries sat on the kitchen worktop – tinned soup, ravioli, peanuts. An open packet of biscuits on a chair in the living room. There was a large empty backpack on top of the wardrobe in Shand’s bedroom. His drawers were half filled with clothes. Didn’t mean he hadn’t taken a smaller bag, maybe enough shirts and pants for a couple of days. The mail on the kitchen table didn’t add much – a couple of overdue bills for his phone and his TV package, and one advising him that his gas supply was being disconnected. She had contacted his mobile provider. If he made any calls, she wanted to know about it pronto. The neighbours had been given her business card – they were to get in touch should Shand return home at any point, or anyone else pay a visit.

  And that was that. Apart from one thing.

  Christie picked up after three rings.

  ‘I’m assuming you’ve heard from Harry?’ Clarke asked.

  ‘I only wish I’d been there when you saw that lovely photo. Now you know how it feels to be framed.’

  ‘Is that what you think’s happening to you?’

  ‘Harry told you the God’s own truth.’

  ‘We’re putting Craw’s description out.’

  ‘You know everyone will think I had something to do with it.’

  ‘I don’t suppose that’ll do your reputation much harm.’

  ‘If anything, it’ll add to it, but that doesn’t mean I snatched him. And by the way, I took your advice.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Moved my mum and the boys into a hotel for a few days.’

  ‘Has something else happened?’

  ‘Cars rumbling past the house at odd hours … stopping outside, engines revving.’

  ‘Recognise any of them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Maybe you got the licence numbers?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘How about cameras? Have you got round to swapping your fakes for real ones?’

  ‘I’m on it.’

  ‘So with your mum and brothers gone, you’ve got the place to yourself?’

  ‘You offering to babysit?’

  ‘I’m just thinking how handy an empty house would be if you wanted to stash someone there.’

  ‘Come take a look sometime.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll do that.’

  ‘From what I hear of the man, you’d smell him long before you saw him. Bye bye, Inspector …’

  Standing in his living room, staring out towards the park opposite, Christie realised that Cafferty now had a better view than him. Another black mark against the sod. Having ended the call with Clarke, he tapped in Hodges’ number.

  ‘Yes, boss?’ Hodges asked.

  ‘I just want to make sure we’re clear on this – you didn’t decide to use your initiative or anything? Maybe you’ve hidden Shand away and were planning to surprise me?’

  ‘Absolutely not. Who’s to say he’s not just done a runner?’

  ‘Did he maybe clock my car one of those times you did a drive-past?’

  ‘That was the whole point, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Christie ended the call and rubbed his free hand softly across his eyes. He was tired and knew he should switch off, if only for ten minutes. But how could he?

  He was Darryl Christie.

  People were out to get him.

  He tried Anthony Brough’s number again. The automated service picked up. It was sorry he could not leave a number but ‘memory is full’.

  ‘I swear I’m going to kill you,’ Christie said into his phone. Then he heard a noise out in the hall.

  Heavy footsteps descending the staircase in a rush.

  Christie shook his head and smiled …

  14

  Maxine Dromgoole had sent Fox a text with addresses and phone numbers for Peter Attwood and John Turquand. Fox sat in the passenger seat of
Rebus’s Saab, checking maps on his phone while Rebus drove. A few miles south of St Andrews, however, Rebus started coughing and had to stop by the side of the road while the fit continued. His face had gone puce-coloured behind the handkerchief he was holding to his mouth.

  ‘Christ, John.’ Fox tried patting Rebus’s back. ‘You sure you’re okay?’

  Instead of answering, Rebus got out of the car, fumbling in his jacket for his inhaler. They were on a straight stretch of road, fields either side. He stood on the overgrown verge, bent over with hands on knees, until the coughing eventually subsided. He wiped tears from the corners of his eyes. Fox had emerged from the car and was standing a few feet away. A tractor chugged past, its driver watching them, trying to decide what they were up to.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Rebus said, gasping for breath.

  ‘No need to apologise. What’s in the inhaler?’

  ‘Some kind of steroids. They’ve promised me I’ll be on the weightlifting team come the next Commonwealth Games.’ Rebus patted his chest. ‘Thought I was maybe getting over it – not that you do get over it.’

  ‘This isn’t just bronchitis, is it?’

  ‘What else would it be?’

  ‘Something that’s got you fretting. I notice things like that.’

  Rebus stuffed the inhaler back in his pocket. ‘It’s probably nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Okay.’

  He met Fox’s eyes and made his mind up. ‘A shadow on one lung,’ he confessed. ‘They’ve done a biopsy. No results as yet. You’re the only one I’ve told, and if it goes any further you’ll be the second detective to be fished out of the Forth – understood?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Last thing I need is anyone treating me as a charity case.’

  ‘You mean Deborah Quant?’

  ‘Deb … Siobhan …’

  ‘But you don’t think I’d do that?’

  ‘You don’t like me well enough.’

  ‘I like you fine.’

  ‘You’re a terrible liar, Malcolm. When you were Complaints, you tried your damnedest to nail me.’

  ‘You weren’t exactly a model police officer.’

  ‘Granted.’