Ian Rankin - A Good Hanging and other stories

John MacFarlane was as guilty as hell. They would find blood on his clothes, even if he’d tried cleaning it off. He had stabbed his girlfriend, then calmed down and called in to report the crime, but had grown frightened at the end and had attempted to flee.

The only question left in Rebus’s mind was the why? The why and those missing two hours.

Edinburgh through the night. The occasional taxi rippling across setts and lone shadowy figures slouching home with hands in pockets, shoulders hunched. During the night hours, the sick and the old died peacefully, either at home or in some hospital ward. Two in the morning until four: the dead hours. And then some died horribly, with terror in their eyes. The taxis still rumbled past, the night people kept moving. Rebus let his car idle at traffic lights, missing the change to green, only coming to his senses as amber turned red again. Glasgow Rangers were coming to town on Saturday. There would be casual violence. Rebus felt comfortable with the thought. The worst football hooligan could probably not have stabbed with the same ferocity as Moira Bitter’s killer. Rebus lowered his eyebrows. He was rousing himself to fury, keen for confrontation. Confrontation with the murderer himself.

John MacFarlane was crying as he was led into the interrogation room, where Rebus had made himself look comfortable, cigarette in one hand, coffee in the other. Rebus had expected a lot of things, but not tears.

‘Would you like something to drink?’ he asked. MacFarlane shook his head. He had slumped into the chair on the other side of the desk, his shoulders sagging, head bowed, and the sobs still coming from his throat. He mumbled something.

‘I didn’t catch that,’ said Rebus.

‘I said I didn’t do it,’ MacFarlane answered quietly. ‘How could I do it? I love Moira.’

Rebus noted the present tense. He gestured towards the tape machine on the desk. ‘Do you have any objections to my making a recording of this interview?’ MacFarlane shook his head again. Rebus switched on the machine. He flicked ash from his cigarette onto the floor, sipped his coffee, and waited. Eventually, MacFarlane looked up. His eyes were stinging red. Rebus stared hard into those eyes, but still said nothing. MacFarlane seemed to be calming. Seemed, too, to know what was expected of him. He asked for a cigarette, was given one, and started to speak.

‘I’d been out in my car. Just driving, thinking.’

Rebus interrupted him. ‘What time was this?’

‘Well,’ said MacFarlane, ‘ever since I left work, I suppose. I’m an architect. There’s a competition on just now to design a new art gallery and museum complex in Stirling. Our partnership’s going in for it. We were discussing ideas most of the day, you know, brainstorming.’ He looked up at Rebus again, and Rebus nodded. Brainstorm: now there was an interesting word.

‘And after work,’ MacFarlane continued, ‘I was so fired up I just felt like driving. Going over the different options and plans in my head. Working out which was strongest—’

He broke off, realising perhaps that he was talking in a rush, without thought or caution. He swallowed and inhaled some smoke. Rebus was studying MacFarlane’s clothes. Expensive leather brogues, brown corduroy trousers, a thick white cotton shirt, the kind cricketers wore, open at the neck, a tailor-made tweed jacket. MacFarlane’s 3-Series BMW was parked in the police garage, being searched. His pockets had been emptied, a Liberty print tie confiscated in case he had ideas about hanging himself. His brogues, too, were without their laces, these having been confiscated along with the tie. Rebus had gone through the belongings. A wallet, not exactly bulging with money but containing a fair spread of credit cards. There were more cards, too, in MacFarlane’s personal organiser. Rebus flipped through the diary pages, then turned to the sections for notes and for addresses. MacFarlane seemed to lead a busy but quite normal social life.

Rebus studied him now, across the expanse of the old table. MacFarlane was well-built, handsome if you liked that sort of thing. He looked strong, but not brutish. Probably he would make the local news headlines as ‘Secretary’s Yuppie Killer’. Rebus stubbed out his cigarette.

‘We know you did it, John. That’s not in dispute. We just want to know why.’

MacFarlane’s voice was brittle with emotion. ‘I swear I didn’t, I swear.’

‘You’re going to have to do better than that.’ Rebus paused again. Tears were dripping onto MacFarlane’s corduroys. ‘Go on with your story,’ he said.

MacFarlane shrugged. ‘That’s about it,’ he said, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his shirt.

Rebus prompted him. ‘You didn’t stop off anywhere for petrol or a meal or anything like that?’ He sounded sceptical. MacFarlane shook his head.

‘No, I just drove until my head was clear. I went all the way to the Forth Road Bridge. Turned off and went into Queensferry. Got out of the car to have a look at the water. Threw a few stones in for luck.’ He smiled at the irony. ‘Then drove round the coast road and back into Edinburgh.’

‘Nobody saw you? You didn’t speak to anyone?’

‘Not that I can remember.’

‘And you didn’t get hungry?’ Rebus sounded entirely unconvinced.

‘We’d had a business lunch with a client. We took him to The Eyrie. After lunch there, I seldom need to eat until the next morning.’

The Eyrie was Edinburgh’s most expensive restaurant. You didn’t go there to eat, you went there to spend money. Rebus was feeling peckish himself. The canteen did a fine bacon buttie.

‘When did you last see Miss Bitter alive?’

At the word ‘alive’, MacFarlane shivered. It took him a long time to answer. Rebus watched the tape revolving. ‘Yesterday morning,’ MacFarlane said at last. ‘She stayed the night at my flat.’

‘How long have you known her?’

‘About a year. But I only started going out with her a couple of months ago.’

‘Oh? And how did you know her before that?’

MacFarlane paused. ‘She was Kenneth’s girlfriend,’ he said at last.

‘Kenneth being ’

MacFarlane’s cheeks reddened before he spoke. ‘My best friend,’ he said. ‘Kenneth was my best friend. You could say I stole her from him. These things happen, don’t they?’

Rebus raised an eyebrow. ‘Do they?’ he said. MacFarlane bowed his head again.

‘Can I have a coffee?’ he asked quietly. Rebus nodded, then lit another cigarette.

MacFarlane sipped the coffee, holding it in both hands like a shipwreck survivor. Rebus rubbed his nose and stretched, feeling tired. He checked his watch. Eight in the morning. What a life. He had eaten two bacon rolls and a string of rind curled across the plate in front of him. MacFarlane had refused food, but finished the first cup of coffee in two gulps and gratefully accepted a second.

‘So,’ Rebus said, ‘you drove back into town.’

‘That’s right.’ MacFarlane took another sip of coffee. ‘I don’t know why, but I decided to check my answering machine for calls.’

‘You mean when you got home?’

MacFarlane shook his head. ‘No, from the car. I called home from my car-phone and got the answering machine to play back any messages.’

Rebus was impressed. ‘That’s clever,’ he said.

MacFarlane smiled again, but the smile soon vanished. ‘One of the messages was from Moira,’ he said. ‘She wanted to see me.’

‘At that hour?’ MacFarlane shrugged. ‘Did she say why she wanted to see you?’

‘No. She sounded... strange.’

‘Strange?’

‘A bit... I don’t know, distant maybe.’

‘Did you get the feeling she was on her own when she called?’