Ian Rankin - A Good Hanging and other stories

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Did you call her back?’

‘Yes. Her answering machine was on. I left a message.’

‘Would you say you’re the jealous type, Mr MacFarlane?’

‘What?’ MacFarlane sounded surprised by the question. He seemed to give it serious thought. ‘No more so than the next man,’ he said at last.

‘Why would anyone want to kill her?’

MacFarlane stared at the table, shaking his head slowly.

‘Go on,’ said Rebus, sighing, growing impatient. ‘You were saying how you got her message.’

‘Well, I went straight to her flat. It was late, but I knew if she was asleep I could always let myself in.’

‘Oh?’ Rebus was interested. ‘How?’

‘I had a spare key,’ MacFarlane explained.

Rebus got up from his chair and walked to the far wall and back, deep in thought.

‘I don’t suppose,’ he said, ‘you’ve got any idea when Moira made that call?’

MacFarlane shook his head. ‘But the machine will have logged it,’ he said. Rebus was more impressed than ever. Technology was a wonderful thing. What’s more, he was impressed by MacFarlane. If the man was a murderer, then he was a very good one, for he had fooled Rebus into thinking him innocent. It was crazy. There was nothing to point to him not being guilty. But all the same, a feeling was a feeling, and Rebus most definitely had a feeling.

‘I want to see that machine,’ he said. ‘And I want to hear the message on it. I want to hear Moira’s last words.’

It was interesting how the simplest cases could become so complex. There was still no doubt in the minds of those around Rebus - his superiors and those below him - that John MacFarlane was guilty of murder. They had all the proof they needed, every last bit of it circumstantial.

MacFarlane’s car was clean: no bloodstained clothes stashed in the boot. There were no prints on the chopping-knife, though MacFarlane’s prints were found elsewhere in the flat, not surprising given that he’d visited that night, as well as on many a previous one. No prints either on the kitchen sink and taps, though the murderer had washed a bloody knife. Rebus thought that curious. And as for motive: jealousy, a falling-out, a past indiscretion discovered. The CID had seen them all.

Murder by stabbing was confirmed and the time of death narrowed down to a quarter of an hour either side of three in the morning. MacFarlane claimed that at that time he was driving towards Edinburgh, but had no witnesses to corroborate the claim. There was no blood to be found on MacFarlane’s clothing, but, as Rebus himself knew, that didn’t mean the man wasn’t a killer.

More interesting, however, was that MacFarlane denied making the call to the police. Yet someone - in fact, whoever murdered Moira Bitter - had made it. And more interesting even than this was the telephone answering machine.

Rebus went to MacFarlane’s flat in Liberton to investigate. The traffic was busy coming into town, but quiet heading out. Liberton was one of Edinburgh’s many anonymous middle-class districts, substantial houses, small shops, a busy thoroughfare. It looked innocuous at midnight, and was even safer by day.

What MacFarlane had termed a ‘flat’ comprised, in fact, the top two storeys of a vast, detached house. Rebus roamed the building, not sure if he was looking for anything in particular. He found little. MacFarlane led a rigorous and regimented life and had the home to accommodate such a lifestyle. One room had been turned into a makeshift gymnasium, with weightlifting equipment and the like. There was an office for business use, a study for private use. The main bedroom was decidedly masculine in taste, though a framed painting of a naked woman had been removed from one wall and tucked behind a chair. Rebus thought he detected Moira Bitter’s influence at work.

In the wardrobe were a few pieces of her clothing and a pair of her shoes. A snapshot of her had been framed and placed on MacFarlane’s bedside table. Rebus studied the photograph for a long time, then sighed and left the bedroom, closing the door after him. Who knew when John MacFarlane would see his home again?

The answering machine was in the living-room. Rebus played the tape of the previous night’s calls. Moira Bitter’s voice was clipped and confident, her message to the point: ‘Hello.’ Then a pause. ‘I need to see you. Come round as soon as you get this message. Love you.’

MacFarlane had told Rebus that the display unit on the machine showed time of call. Moira’s call registered at 3.50 a.m., about forty-five minutes after her death. There was room for some discrepancy, but not three-quarters of an hour’s worth. Rebus scratched his chin and pondered. He played the tape again. ‘Hello.’ Then the pause. ‘I need to see you.’ He stopped the tape and played it again, this time with the volume up and his ear close to the machine. That pause was curious and the sound quality on the tape was poor. He rewound and listened to another call from the same evening. The quality was better, the voice much clearer. Then he listened to Moira again. Were these recording machines infallible? Of course not. The time displayed could have been tampered with. The recording itself could be a fake. After all, whose word did he have that this was the voice of Moira Bitter? Only John MacFarlane’s. But John MacFarlane had been caught leaving the scene of a murder. And now Rebus was being presented with a sort of an alibi for the man. Yes, the tape could well be a fake, used by MacFarlane to substantiate his story, but stupidly not put into use until after the time of death. Still, from what Rebus had heard from Moira’s own answering machine, the voice was certainly similar to her own. The lab boys could sort it out with their clever machines. One technician in particular owed him a rather large favour.

Rebus shook his head. This still wasn’t making much sense. He played the tape again and again.

‘Hello.’ Pause. ‘I need to see you.’

‘Hello.’ Pause. ‘I need to see you.’

‘Hello.’ Pause. ‘I need—’

And suddenly it became a little clearer in his mind. He ejected the tape and slipped it into his jacket pocket, then picked up the telephone and called the station. He asked to speak to Detective Constable Brian Holmes. The voice, when it came on the line, was tired but amused.

‘Don’t tell me,’ Holmes said, ‘let me guess. You want me to drop everything and run an errand for you.’

‘You must be psychic, Brian. Two errands really. Firstly, last night’s calls. Get the recording of them and search for one from John MacFarlane, claiming he’d just killed his girlfriend. Make a copy of it and wait there for me. I’ve got another tape for you, and I want them both taken to the lab. Warn them you’re coming—’

‘And tell them it’s priority, I know. It’s always priority. They’ll say what they always say: give us four days.’

‘Not this time,’ Rebus said. ‘Ask for Bill Costain and tell him Rebus is collecting on his favour. He’s to shelve what he’s doing. I want a result today, not next week.’

‘What’s the favour you’re collecting on?’

‘I caught him smoking dope in the lab toilets last month.’

Holmes laughed. ‘The world’s going to pot,’ he said. Rebus groaned at the joke and put down the receiver. He needed to speak with John MacFarlane again. Not about lovers this time, but about friends.

Rebus rang the doorbell a third time and at last heard a voice from within.

‘Jesus, hold on! I’m coming.’

The man who answered the door was tall, thin, with wire-framed glasses perched on his nose. He peered at Rebus and ran his fingers through his hair.

‘Mr Thomson?’ Rebus asked. ‘Kenneth Thomson?’