Set in Darkness

  They were waiting for him in the corridor, expectant faces collapsing as he shook his head.

  ‘He said to call back in an hour.’ He checked his watch.

  ‘He’ll have a story by then,’ Siobhan Clarke said.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ Rebus snapped.

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘Ach, it’s not your fault.’

  ‘He’s given himself an hour,’ Wylie said, ‘but that means we’ve got an hour, too. Make a few more calls, keep going through Hastings’ paperwork . . .’ She shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

  Rebus nodded his approval. She was right: anything was better than waiting. So they went back to work, fuelled by tins of soft drinks and background music courtesy of a cassette machine provided by Grant Hood. Instrumental stuff – jazz, classical. Rebus had been dubious at first, but it did help stave off the boredom. Farmer’s orders: keep the volume down.

  Siobhan Clarke agreed: ‘If it got out that I listened to jazz, I’d never be able to show my face.’

  An hour later, it was back upstairs to the Farmer’s office. Rebus left the door open this time; felt it was the least they deserved. Watson didn’t seem to notice. Called again, and this time it rang and rang. Callan wasn’t going to answer; of course he wasn’t.

  But he did. No housekeeper this time, and straight to the point.

  ‘You got a conference facility?’

  The Chief Super nodded. ‘Yes,’ Rebus said.

  Callan gave him a number to ring: Glasgow code. The name was C. Arthur Milligan – Rebus knew him as ‘the Big C’, a nickname he shared, seemingly happily, with cancer. And Milligan was like cancer to police officers and the Procurator Fiscal’s office. He was one of the really big defence solicitors, worked a lot with the advocate Richie Cordover, Hugh’s brother. If you had Big C by your side, and Cordover defending you in court, you had the sharpest edge there was.

  At a price.

  The Farmer was showing Rebus how to work the conference call. Milligan’s voice: ‘Yes, Inspector Rebus, can you hear me?’

  ‘Loud and clear, sir.’

  ‘Hiya, Big C,’ Callan said. ‘I’m hearing you, too.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Bryce. How’s the weather out there?’

  ‘God knows. I’m stuck indoors because of this arsehole.’

  Meaning Rebus. ‘Look, Mr Callan, I really do appreciate—’

  Milligan interrupted. ‘I believe you wish to record your conversation with my client. Who else is present?’

  Rebus identified the Chief Super, didn’t bother mentioning the others. Milligan and Callan had a discussion about the taping. At last, it was agreed the recording could begin. Rebus hit the button.

  ‘That’s us,’ he said. ‘Now if I could just—’

  Milligan again: ‘If I could just say at the outset, Inspector, that my client is under no obligation of any kind to answer what questions you may have.’

  ‘I appreciate that, sir.’ Trying to keep his voice level.

  ‘And he’s only talking to you out of a sense of public duty, even though the United Kingdom is no longer his chosen country of residence.’

  ‘Yes, sir, and I’m very grateful.’

  ‘Are you charging him with anything?’

  ‘Absolutely not. This is for information only.’

  ‘And this tape wouldn’t be produced in a court of law?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so, sir.’ Choosing his words carefully.

  ‘But you can’t be definite?’

  ‘I can only speak for myself, sir.’

  There was a pause. ‘Bryce?’ Milligan asked.

  ‘Fire away,’ Bryce Callan said.

  Milligan: ‘Fire away, Inspector.’

  Rebus took a moment to compose himself, looking at the documents on the desk as he fished his cigarette out of the bin and relit it.

  ‘What are you smoking?’ Callan asked.

  ‘Embassy.’

  ‘Tuppence a bloody packet out here. I stick to cigars these days. Now get on with it.’

  ‘AD Holdings, Mr Callan.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Your company, I believe.’

  ‘Nope. I had a few shares, but that’s as far as it went.’

  Eyes were on Rebus from the doorway: we know that’s a lie. But Rebus didn’t want to catch Callan out, not this early on. ‘AD were buying up parcels of land around Calton Hill, using another business as a front. Two men: Freddy Hastings and Alasdair Grieve. Ever meet either of them?’

  ‘You’re going back how far?’

  ‘Late 1970s.’

  ‘Bloody hell, lot of water been passed since then.’

  Rebus repeated the two names.

  ‘If you’d care to tell my client what this is about, Inspector,’ Milligan said, sounding curious himself.

  ‘Yes, sir. It’s a question of a sum of money.’

  ‘Money?’ Now Callan was hooked, too.

  ‘Yes, sir, quite a lot of money. We’re trying to find a home for it.’

  Stares from the doorway: he hadn’t told them how he’d play it.

  Callan was laughing. ‘Well, look no further, chum.’

  ‘How much money?’ the lawyer asked.

  ‘Even more than Mr Callan will be paying you for your services this afternoon,’ Rebus told him. More laughter from Callan, and a warning look from the Farmer: it didn’t do to wind up people like the Big C unnecessarily. Rebus concentrated on his cigarette. ‘Four hundred thousand pounds,’ he said at last.

  ‘A not inconsiderable sum,’ Milligan admitted.

  ‘We think Mr Callan might be able to claim it,’ Rebus told him.

  ‘How?’ Callan sounding cagey; wary of traps.

  ‘It belonged to a man called Freddy Hastings,’ Rebus explained. ‘Belonged in the sense that he carried it around with him in a briefcase. At one time, Mr Hastings was a property developer, working with AD Holdings to buy land near Calton Hill. This was in late ’78 and early ’79, prior to the referendum.’

  Milligan: ‘And if there had been a Yes result, the land would have been worth a fortune?’

  Rebus: ‘Possibly.’

  ‘What does this have to do with my client?’

  ‘In later years, Mr Hastings lived as a down and out.’

  ‘With all that money?’

  ‘We can only speculate why he didn’t spend it. Maybe he was holding it for someone. Maybe he was afraid.’

  ‘Or off his rocker,’ Callan added. But the remark was bravado; Rebus could tell he was thinking about things.

  ‘The point is, AD Holdings, of which we believe Mr Callan was prime mover, was using Hastings to make bids on all this land.’

  ‘And you think Hastings just pocketed the money?’

  ‘It’s one theory.’

  ‘So the money would belong to AD Holdings?’

  ‘It’s possible. Mr Hastings left no family, no will. The Treasury will claim it if no one else does.’

  ‘That would be a shame,’ Milligan said. ‘What do you say, Bryce?’

  ‘I’ve already told him, I only had a few shares in AD.’

  ‘You wish to add to that? Perhaps elucidate?’

  ‘Well, it might have been more than a few shares, now you mention it.’

  Rebus: ‘You had dealings with Mr Hastings?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Using his company as a front for buying land and property?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘You already had a company – AD Holdings. In fact, you had dozens of companies.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

  ‘So why did you need to hide behind Hastings?’

  ‘Work it out for yourself.’

  ‘I’d rather you told me.’

  Milligan interrupted: ‘And why is that, Inspector?’

  ‘Mr Milligan, we need to be clear about whether Mr Callan here and Freddy Hastings did business together. We need some sor
t of proof that the money could conceivably have belonged to Mr Callan.’

  Milligan was thoughtful. ‘Bryce?’ he said.

  ‘As it happens, he did take money off me, and then scarpered.’

  Rebus paused. ‘You notified the police, of course?’

  Callan laughed. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Same reason I used Hastings as a go-between. Filth were trying to drag my good name down, all sorts of lies and accusations. I wasn’t just buying land.’

  ‘You were going to build on it?’

  ‘Houses, clubs, bars . . .’

  ‘And you’d have needed planning permission, which Mr Hastings, with his credentials, might have found easier to come by.’

  ‘See? You’ve worked it out all by yourself.’

  ‘How much did Hastings take?’

  ‘Best part of half a mil.’

  ‘You must have been . . . displeased.’

  ‘I was raging. But he’d disappeared.’

  Rebus looked towards the doorway. It explained why Hastings had changed identity so radically. It explained the money, but not why he hadn’t spent it.

  ‘What about Hastings’ partner?’

  ‘Did a runner at the same time, didn’t he?’

  ‘He doesn’t seem to have got any of the money.’

  ‘You’d have to talk to him about that.’

  Milligan interrupted again. ‘Bryce, any chance you’ve got paperwork proving any of this? It would help validate any claim.’

  ‘I might have,’ Callan conceded.

  ‘Forgeries won’t count,’ Rebus warned. Callan tutted. Now Rebus sat forward in his chair. ‘But thanks for clearing that up. It brings me to a connected series of questions, if you don’t mind?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ Callan said breezily.

  Milligan: ‘I think perhaps we should—’

  But Rebus was off and running. ‘I don’t think I said how Mr Hastings died: he committed suicide.’

  ‘Not before time,’ Callan snapped.

  ‘He did so shortly after the prospective MSP Roddy Grieve was murdered. That’s Alasdair’s brother, Mr Callan.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘And also shortly after the discovery of a corpse in one of the old fireplaces at Queensberry House. You’ll remember that, Mr Callan?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I just mean, maybe your nephew Barry told you about Queensberry House.’ Rebus picked up a sheet of paper, checked the facts. ‘He was working there early in 1979, around the time of the devolution vote. That’s when you found out that all the land you’d been buying up wasn’t going to be a gold mine after all. It’s also probably when you learned that Hastings had been skimming. Either that or he’d just kept all the loot on one of the deals and pretended to you it had gone through. You’d only find out later that it hadn’t, and by then he’d have done a runner.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with Barry?’

  ‘He was working for Dean Coghill.’ Rebus picked up another sheet. Milligan was trying to interrupt, but no way Rebus was letting him. Ellen Wylie was bouncing on her toes, willing him on. ‘I think you were putting pressure on Coghill. You got him to take on Barry. Barry was working for you at the time. I think you put Barry in there to screw things up for Coghill. It was like an apprenticeship.’

  Callan – Rebus could imagine his face suffused with blood: ‘Here, Milligan, you going to let him talk to me like this?’

  Milligan; not Big C; not pal or chum. Oh yes, Callan was fizzing.

  Rebus talked right across the pair of them. ‘See, the body went into the fireplace same time your boy Barry was there, same time you were finding out that Hastings and Grieve had ripped you off. So my question to you, Mr Callan, is: whose body is it? And why did you have him killed?’

  Silence, and then the explosion: Callan screaming; Milligan threatening.

  ‘You lousy conniving—’

  ‘Must strongly object to the—’

  ‘Come on the phone with a load of shit about four hundred grand—’

  ‘Unwarranted attack on someone with no criminal record in this or any other country, a man whose reputation—’

  ‘I swear to God, if I was there you’d need to slap me in chains to stop me smacking you one!’

  ‘I’m waiting,’ Rebus said, ‘any time you want to hop on a plane.’

  ‘Just you watch me.’

  Milligan: ‘Now, Bryce, don’t let this appalling situation goad you into . . . Isn’t there a senior officer present?’ Milligan checked his notes. ‘Chief Superintendent Watson, isn’t it? Chief Superintendent, I must protest in the strongest terms about these underhand tactics, entrapping my client with tales of an unclaimed fortune . . .’

  ‘The story’s true,’ Watson said into the speaker phone. ‘The money’s here. But it seems to be part of a wider mystery, and one which Mr Callan could help clear up by flying back here for a proper interview.’

  ‘Any recording made today is, of course, inadmissible in a court of law,’ Milligan said.

  ‘Really? Well,’ the Farmer said, ‘I leave questions like that to the Fiscal’s office. Meantime, am I right in thinking that your client has yet to deny anything?’

  Callan: ‘Deny? What do I need to deny? You can’t touch me, you bastards!’

  Rebus imagined him on his feet, face turned a colour no hours of tanning would ever match, gripping the receiver in his fist, strangling the tormentor it had become.

  ‘You admit it then?’ Watson asked, his voice all naïve sincerity. He winked towards the doorway as he spoke. If Rebus didn’t know better, he’d say the man was beginning to enjoy himself.

  ‘Piss off!’ Callan growled.

  ‘I think you can take that as a denial,’ Milligan said tonelessly.

  ‘I think you’re probably right,’ Watson agreed.

  ‘Away to hell, the lot of you!’ Callan yelled. There was a click on the line.

  ‘I think Mr Callan has left us,’ Rebus said. ‘Are you still there, Mr Milligan?’

  ‘I’m here, and I really do feel the need to protest in the strongest—’

  Rebus cut the connection. ‘I think we just lost him,’ he told the room. There were whoops from the doorway. Rebus got up. Watson reclaimed his chair.

  ‘Let’s not get too carried away,’ he said as Rebus switched off the tape-recorder. ‘Pieces are beginning to fit, but we still don’t know who did the killing, or even who was killed. Without those two pieces, all the fun we’ve just had with Bryce Callan counts for nothing.’

  ‘All the same, sir . . .’ Grant Hood was grinning.

  Watson nodded. ‘All the same, DI Rebus showed us the way to that man’s black heart.’ He looked at Rebus, who was shaking his head.

  ‘I didn’t get enough.’ He hit the rewind button. ‘I’m not sure I got anything.’

  ‘We know what we’re dealing with, and that’s half the battle,’ Wylie said.

  ‘We should bring in Hutton,’ Siobhan Clarke added. ‘It seems to revolve around him, and at least he’s here.’

  ‘All he has to do is deny it,’ Watson reminded her. ‘He’s not a man without influence. Drag him in here, it would reflect badly on us.’

  ‘Can’t have that,’ Clarke grumbled.

  Rebus looked to his boss. ‘Sir, it’s my shout. Any chance you can join us?’

  The Farmer glanced at his watch. ‘Just the one then,’ he said. ‘And a packet of mints for the car home – my wife can smell alcohol on my breath at twenty paces.’

  Rebus brought the drinks to the table, Hood helping. Wylie just wanted cola from the gun. Hood himself was on a pint of Eighty. For Rebus: a half and a ‘hauf’. A single malt for the Farmer, and red wine for Siobhan Clarke. They toasted each other.

  ‘To teamwork,’ Wylie said.

  The Farmer cleared his throat. ‘Speaking of which, shouldn’t Derek be here?’

  Rebus filled the silence. ‘DI Linford is following up a line of inquiry of
his own: a description of Grieve’s possible murderer.’

  The Chief Super met his eyes. ‘Teamwork should mean just that.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me, sir,’ Rebus said. ‘I’m usually the one out in the cold.’

  ‘Because that’s where you’ve wanted to be,’ the Chief Super reminded him. ‘Not because we wouldn’t let you in.’

  ‘Point taken, sir,’ Rebus said quietly.

  Clarke put down her glass. ‘It’s my fault really, sir, blowing up the way I did. I think John just thought there’d be less tension if DI Linford was kept at a distance.’

  ‘I know that, Siobhan,’ Watson said. ‘But I also want Derek appraised of what’s been going on.’

  ‘I’ll talk to him, sir,’ Rebus said.

  ‘Good.’ They sat in silence for a minute. ‘Sorry if I put a damper on things,’ the Farmer said at last. Then he drained his glass and said he’d better be off. ‘Just get my round in first.’ They assured him he didn’t need to, that it wasn’t expected, but he got the round in anyway. When he’d gone, they could feel themselves relax. Maybe it was the alcohol.

  Maybe.

  Hood brought draughts over from the bar, and commenced a game against Clarke. Rebus said he never played.

  ‘I’m a bad loser, that’s my problem.’

  ‘What I hate is a bad winner,’ Clarke said, ‘the kind that rubs your nose in it.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Hood said, ‘I’ll be gentle with you.’

  The lad was definitely coming out of himself, Rebus thought. Then he watched as Siobhan Clarke took her opponent apart, getting a crown while her own top row was still covered.

  ‘This is brutal,’ Wylie said, comforting Hood by ruffling his hair. When a second game was set up, Wylie and Hood swapped places. Hood sat across from Rebus now, and drained his first pint, replacing it with the one the Chief Super had bought.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, taking a sip. Rebus raised his glass to him. ‘I can’t drink whisky,’ Hood confided. ‘Gives me blazing hangovers.’

  ‘Me, too, sometimes.’

  ‘Then why do you drink it?’

  ‘The pleasure before the pain: it’s a Calvinist thing.’ Hood looked at him blankly. ‘Never mind,’ Rebus told him.

  ‘He had it all wrong, you know,’ Siobhan Clarke said, as Wylie concentrated on her next move.

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Callan. Using a front company so the plans stood a better chance of going through. There was an easier route.’