Set in Darkness

  At the church gates, members of the public had gathered, ghouls on the lookout for anyone worth an autograph. Photographers, too, with deadlines to meet, wiping beads of water from zoom lenses. Two TV crews – BBC and independent – had set up their vans. There was a protocol to be observed: invitees only in the churchyard. Police were patrolling the perimeter. With so many public figures around, security was always going to be an issue. Siobhan Clarke was out there somewhere, mingling with the public, scrutinising them without seeming to.

  The service seemed long to Rebus. There wasn’t just the local minister: the dignitaries had to make their speeches, too. Protocol again. And, filling the front pews, the immediate family. Peter Grief had been asked if he’d sit with his aunts and uncles, but preferred to be with his mother, two rows back. Rebus spotted Jo Banks and Hamish Hall, five rows ahead of his own. Colin Carswell, the Assistant Chief Constable, was wearing his best uniform, looking slightly piqued that there wasn’t room for him in the row in front, where so many distinguished invitees had crammed themselves that they had to rise and sit in single, fluid movements.

  Speech after speech, the centre aisle decked with wreaths. Roddy Grieve’s old headmaster had spoken haltingly and softly, so that each clearing of the throat from the pews drowned out half a sentence. The coffin, dark polished oak, gleaming brass handles, was resting on a trestle. The hearse had been a venerable Rolls-Royce. Limos clogged the narrow streets around the church, some of the cars sporting national flags – representatives from the various Edinburgh consulates. Out on the path, Cammo Grieve had given Rebus a half-twist of his mouth, a sombre smile of greeting. He’d done most of the organising, drawing up lists of names, liaising with officials. After the interment, there was to be a finger buffet at a hotel in the West End. Fewer invitees to this function: family and close friends. There’d be a police presence – security again – but provided by the Scottish Crime Squad.

  As another hymn got under way, Rebus slipped from the back of the congregation and out into the churchyard. The burial site was eighty yards away, a family plot containing the deceased’s father and one set of grandparents. The hole had already been dug, its edges covered with lengths of green baize. There was melt water in the bottom of the grave. The mound of earth and clay sat ready to one side. Rebus smoked a cigarette, paced the area. Then when he’d finished, he didn’t know what to do with the dowp: nicked it and popped it back into the packet.

  He heard the church doors opening, the organ music swelling. Walked away from the graveside and took up position at a nearby grouping of poplars. Half an hour later it was all over. Howls and handkerchiefs, black ties and lost looks. As the mourners filtered away, their emotions went with them. What was left was industry, as the diggers got busy filling in the hole. Car doors, engines revving. The scene was cleared in minutes. The churchyard was just that again: no voices or cries, just a crow’s defiant call and the crisp working of shovels.

  Rebus moved further away, towards the rear of the church building, but keeping the graveside in view. Trees and headstones camouflaging him. The headstones were worn almost smooth. He got the feeling very few these days were privileged to have their resting place here. There was a much larger purpose-built cemetery across the road. He picked out a few names – Warriston, Lockhart, Milroy – and read evidence of infant mortality. Hellish to lose a son or daughter. Now Alicia Grieve had lost two.

  An hour he waited, feet growing icy as the damp penetrated his shoe soles. The sleet wasn’t letting up, the sky a hard grey shell, muffling the life beneath. He didn’t smoke; smoke might draw attention. Even kept his breathing slow and regular, each exhalation a billowing indication of life. Just a man coming to terms with mortality, graveyard memories of past family, past friends. Rebus had ghosts in his life: they came hesitantly these days, not sure how welcome they’d be. Came to him as he sat in darkness, incidental music playing. Came to him on the long nights when he had no company, a gathering of souls and gestures, movement without voice. Roddy Grieve might join them some day, but Rebus doubted it. He hadn’t known the man in life, and had little to share with his shade.

  He’d spent all day Sunday in pursuit of Rab Hill. At the hotel, they admitted that Mr Hill had checked out the previous evening. A bit of pressing, and Rebus was informed that Mr Hill hadn’t been seen for a day or two beforehand. Then Mr Cafferty had explained that his friend had been called away. He’d settled the account, keeping his own room open, date of departure uncertain. Cafferty was the last person Rebus wanted to talk to about Hill. He’d been shown the bedroom – nothing had been left behind. As staff said, Mr Hill had brought only the one canvas duffel bag with him. Nobody’d seen him leave.

  Rebus’s next stop had been Hill’s parole officer. It had taken him a couple of hours to track down her home phone number, and she’d been none too pleased to have her Sunday disturbed.

  ‘Surely it can wait till tomorrow.’

  Rebus was beginning to doubt it. Eventually she’d given him what she could. Robert Hill had attended two interviews with her. He wasn’t due to see her again until the following Thursday.

  ‘I think you’ll find he misses that appointment,’ Rebus told her, putting down the receiver.

  He’d spent his Sunday evening parked outside the hotel; no sign of either Cafferty or Hill. Monday and Tuesday he’d been back at St Leonard’s, while his future was debated by people so far up the ladder they were little more than names to him. In the end, he was kept on the case. Linford hadn’t been able to offer any real evidence to support his claim, but Rebus got the feeling it was more to do with PR. Gill Templer, the rumour went, had argued that the last thing the force needed was more bad publicity, and pulling a well-known officer from a high-profile inquiry would have the media vultures hovering.

  Her approach had gone straight to the deepest fears of the High Hiedyins. Only Carswell, the story went, voted for Rebus’s suspension.

  Rebus still had to thank her.

  He looked up now and saw a cream trench coat moving across the grass towards the grave, hands deep in pockets, head bowed. Moving briskly, and with definite purpose. Rebus started moving, too, eyes never leaving the figure. A man, tall, thick hair slightly tousled, giving an impression of boyishness. He was standing graveside as Rebus approached. The diggers were still working, nearly done now. The headstone would come later. Rebus felt slightly dizzy, the way gamblers sometimes did when long odds romped home. Three feet behind the figure now . . . Rebus stopped, cleared his throat. The man’s head half-turned. His back straightened. He began to walk away, Rebus following.

  ‘I’d like you to come with me,’ he said quietly, his performance watched by the gravediggers. The man said nothing, kept moving.

  Rebus repeated the request, this time adding: ‘There’s another grave you should see.’

  The man slowed, but didn’t stop.

  ‘I’m a police officer, if that’s what you’re worried about. You can check my warrant card.’

  The man had stopped on the path, only a yard or two inside the gate. Rebus moved around in front of him, seeing the full face for the first time. Sagging flesh, but suntanned. Eyes which spoke of experience and humour and – above all – fear. A cleft chin, showing flecks of grey stubble. Weary from travel, mistrustful of this stranger, this strange land.

  ‘I’m Detective Inspector Rebus,’ Rebus said, holding up the warrant card.

  ‘Whose grave?’ It was said almost in a whisper, no sign of native accent.

  ‘Freddy’s,’ Rebus said.

  Freddy Hastings had been buried in a barren spot in a sprawling cemetery on the other side of the city. No marker had been erected, so that they stood by an anonymous soft hillock, the bare earth covered patchily with sections of turf.

  ‘There weren’t many turned out for this one,’ Rebus said. ‘Couple of fellow officers, old flame, couple of winos.’

  ‘I don’t understand. How did he die?’

  ‘He killed himself. Saw
something in the paper, and decided, God knows why, that he’d had enough of hiding.’

  ‘The money . . .’

  ‘Oh, he spent some of it at first, but after that . . . Something made him leave it untouched, for the most part. Maybe he was waiting for you to show up. Maybe it was just the guilt.’

  The man didn’t say anything. His eyes were glassy with tears. He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and wiped at his face, shivering as he replaced it.

  ‘Bit parky this far north, eh?’ Rebus said. ‘Where have you been living?’

  ‘The Caribbean. I run a bar there.’

  ‘Bit of a ways from Edinburgh.’

  He turned towards Rebus. ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘I didn’t have to: you found me. All the same, the paintings helped.’

  ‘Paintings?’

  ‘Your mother, Mr Grieve. She’s been putting you on canvas ever since you left.’

  Alasdair Grieve wasn’t sure if he wanted to see his family.

  ‘At this time,’ he argued, ‘it might be too much.’

  Rebus nodded. They were seated in an interview room at St Leonard’s. Siobhan Clarke was there, too.

  ‘Don’t suppose’, Rebus said, ‘you want your visit here trumpeted from the Castle ramparts?’

  ‘No,’ Grieve agreed.

  ‘Incidentally, what name do you go by these days?’

  ‘My passport says Anthony Keillor.’

  Rebus wrote the name down. ‘I won’t ask where you got the passport.’

  ‘I wouldn’t tell you if you did.’

  ‘Couldn’t shrug off every link with the past, though, could you? Keillor, short for Rankeillor.’

  Grieve stared. ‘You know my family.’

  Rebus shrugged. ‘When did you find out about Roddy?’

  ‘A few days after it happened. I thought of coming back then, but didn’t know what good it would do. Then I saw the funeral announcement.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought it would make the Caribbean papers.’

  ‘The Internet, Inspector. The Scotsman online.’

  Rebus nodded. ‘And you thought you’d take the chance?’

  ‘I always liked Roddy . . . thought it was the least I could do.’

  ‘Despite the risks?’

  ‘It was twenty years ago, Inspector. Hard to know after that length of time . . .’

  ‘Just as well it was me at that graveside and not Barry Hutton.’

  The name brought back all sorts of memories. Rebus watched them pass across Alasdair Grieve’s face. ‘That bastard,’ Grieve said at last. ‘Is he still around?’

  ‘Land developer of the parish.’

  Grieve scowled, muttered the word ‘Christ’.

  ‘So,’ Rebus said, leaning forward, resting his elbows on the table, ‘I think maybe it’s time you told us who the body in the fireplace belongs to.’

  Grieve stared at him again. ‘The what?’

  When Rebus had explained, Grieve started to nod.

  ‘Hutton must have put the body there. He was working at Queensberry House, keeping an eye on Dean Coghill for his uncle.’

  ‘Bryce Callan?’

  ‘The same. Callan was grooming Barry. Looks like he did a good job of it, too.’

  ‘And you were in cahoots with Callan?’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it that.’ Grieve half rose from the table, then stopped. ‘Do you mind? I get a bit claustrophobic.’

  Grieve began pacing what floor space there was. Siobhan was standing by the door. She smiled reassuringly at him. Rebus handed him a photo – the computer-generated face from the fireplace.

  ‘How much do you know?’ Grieve asked Rebus.

  ‘Quite a bit. Callan was buying up lots of land around Calton Hill, presumably with both eyes on a new parliament. But he didn’t want the planners knowing it was him, so he used Freddy and you as a front.’

  Grieve was nodding. ‘Bryce had a contact in the council, someone in the planning department.’ Rebus and Siobhan exchanged a look. ‘He’d given Bryce a promise on the parliament site.’

  ‘Bloody risky, though: it was all down to how the vote went in the first place.’

  ‘Yes, but that looked solid at first. It was only later the fix went in, the government making damned sure it wouldn’t happen.’

  ‘So, Callan had all this land and now nothing was going to happen to make it worth anything?’

  ‘The land was still worth something. But he blamed us for everything.’ Grieve laughed. ‘As if we’d rigged the election!’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well . . . Freddy had been playing silly buggers with the figures, telling Callan we’d had to pay more for the land than was the case. Callan found out, wanted the difference back plus the money he’d paid as a fee for fronting the whole thing.’

  ‘He sent someone round?’ Rebus guessed.

  ‘A man called Mackie.’ Grieve tapped the photo. ‘One of his thugs, a real piece of work.’ He rubbed at his temples. ‘Christ, you don’t know how strange it feels, saying all this at last . . .’

  ‘Mackie?’ Rebus prompted. ‘First name Chris?’

  ‘No, not Chris: Alan or Alex . . . something like that. Why?’

  ‘It’s the name Freddy took for himself.’ Guilt again? Rebus wondered. ‘So how did Mackie end up dead?’

  ‘He was there to scare us into paying, and he could be very scary. Freddy just got lucky. There was a knife he kept in his drawer, a sort of letter opener. Took it with him that night for protection. We were supposed to be meeting Callan, sort it all out. Car park off the Cowgate, late night . . . the pair of us were scared shitless.’

  ‘But you went anyway?’

  ‘We’d discussed doing a runner . . . but, yes, we went anyway. Hard to turn down Bryce Callan. Only Bryce wasn’t there. It was this guy Mackie. He gave me a couple of whacks on the head – one of my ears still doesn’t work properly. Then he turned on Freddy. He had this gun, hit me with the butt. I think Freddy was going to get worse . . . I’m sure of it. He was the one in charge, Callan knew that. It was self-defence, I’d swear to it. All the same, I don’t think he meant to kill Mackie, just . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Just stop him, I suppose.’

  ‘Stabbed him through the heart,’ Rebus commented.

  ‘Yes,’ Grieve agreed. ‘We could see straight off he was dead.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Dumped him back in his car and ran for it. We knew we had to split up, knew Callan would have to kill us now, no two ways about it.’

  ‘And the money?’

  ‘I told Freddy I didn’t want anything to do with it. He said we should meet, a year to the day, a bar on Frederick Street.’

  ‘You didn’t make the meet?’

  Grieve shook his head. ‘I was someone else by then, somewhere I was getting to know and like.’

  Freddy had travelled, too, Siobhan was thinking: all the places he’d told Dezzi about.

  But a year to the day, when Alasdair didn’t show, Freddy Hastings had walked into the building society on George Street, just round the corner from Frederick Street, and opened an account in the name of C. Mackie . . .

  ‘There was a briefcase,’ Siobhan asked.

  Grieve looked at her. ‘God, yes. It belonged to Dean Coghill.’

  ‘The letters on it were ADC.’

  ‘I think Dean’s his second name, but he liked it better than the first. Barry Hutton brought us one lot of cash in that briefcase, boasted how he’d taken it from Coghill; “Because I can, and there’s nothing he can do about it.”’ He shook his head.

  ‘Mr Coghill’s dead,’ Siobhan said.

  ‘Chalk up another victim to Bryce Callan.’

  And though Coghill had died of natural causes, Rebus knew exactly what Grieve meant.

  Rebus and Siobhan, a powwow in the CID suite.

  ‘What’ve we got?’ she asked.

  ‘Lots of bits,’ he acknowledged. ‘We’ve got Barry Hutton heading out to check on
Mackie, finding the body. Not far from Queensberry House, so he takes the body there, walls it in. Chances were, it wouldn’t be found for centuries.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Couldn’t have the police asking questions, I suppose.’

  ‘How come no one called Mackie ended up posted a MisPer?’

  ‘Mackie belongs to Bryce Callan, no one to mourn him or post him missing.’

  ‘And Freddy Hastings kills himself when he reads the story in the paper?’

  Rebus nodded. ‘The whole thing’s coming back again, and he can’t deal with it.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Freddy. What made him do what he did, living like that . . .’

  ‘There’s a slightly more pressing concern,’ Rebus told her. ‘Callan and Hutton are getting away with this.’

  Siobhan was leaning against her desk. She folded her arms. ‘Well, in the end, what did they do? They didn’t kill Mackie, they didn’t push Freddy Hastings off North Bridge.’

  ‘But they made it all happen.’

  ‘And now Callan’s a tax exile, and Barry Hutton’s a reformed character.’ She waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. ‘You don’t think so?’ Then she remembered what Alasdair Grieve had said in the interview room.

  ‘A contact in the council,’ she quoted.

  ‘Someone in the planning department,’ Rebus quoted back.

  38

  It took them a week to get everything together, the team working flat out. Derek Linford was convalescing at home, drinking his meals through a straw. As someone commented, ‘Every time an officer takes a kicking, the brass has to reward them.’ The feeling was Linford would be going on a promotion shortlist. Meantime, Alasdair Grieve was acting the tourist. He’d got himself a room at a bed and breakfast on Minto Street. They weren’t letting him leave the country, not quite yet. He’d surrendered his passport, and had to report each day to St Leonard’s. The Farmer didn’t think they’d be charging him with anything, but as the witness to a fatal assault, a case-file would have to be prepared. Rebus’s unofficial contract with Grieve: stay put, and your family needn’t know you’re back.