Ian Rankin - A Good Hanging and other stories

After Trish Poole had returned for a whispered confab with her group, Rebus tried the canvas bag. This belonged to Margaret Grieve, a writer and, as she said herself, ‘one of Serena’s closest friends’. Rebus didn’t doubt this, and asked if she was married. No, she was not, but she did have a ‘significant other’. She smiled broadly as she said this. Rebus smiled back. She’d been in the room with the statue when it was noticed to be missing? Yes, she had. Not that she’d seen anything. She’d been intent on the paintings. So much so that she couldn’t be sure whether the statue had been in the room when she’d entered, or whether it had already gone. She thought perhaps it had already gone.

Dismissed by Rebus, she returned to her group in front of the red gash and they too began whispering. An elegant older woman came forward from the same group.

‘The last bag is mine,’ she said haughtily, her vowels pure Morningside. Perhaps she’d been Jean Brodie’s elocution mistress; but no, she wasn’t even quite Maggie Smith’s age, though to Rebus there were similarities enough between the two women.

Cluzeau seemed quietly cowed by this grand example of Scottish womanhood. He stood at a distance, giving her vowels the necessary room in which to perform. And, Rebus noticed, he clutched his pouch close to his groin, as though it were a lucky charm. Maybe that’s what sporrans were?

‘I’m Maureen Beck,’ she informed them loudly. There would be no hiding this conversation from the waggling ears.

Maureen Beck told Rebus that she was married to the architect Robert Beck and seemed surprised when this name meant nothing to the policeman. She decided then that she disliked Rebus and turned to Cluzeau, answering to his smiling countenance every time Rebus asked her a question. She was in the loo at the time, yes, and returned to pandemonium. She’d only been out of the room a couple of minutes, and hadn’t seen anyone...

‘Not even M s Fowler?’ Rebus asked. ‘I believe she was late to arrive?’

‘Yes, but that was a minute or two after I came back in.’

Rebus nodded thoughtfully. There was a teasing piece of ham wedged between two of his back teeth and he pushed it with his tongue. A woman put her head around the partition.

‘Look, Inspector, some of us have got appointments this afternoon. Isn’t there at least a telephone we can use?’

It was a good point. Who was in charge of the gallery itself? The gallery director, it turned out, was a timid little woman who had burrowed into the quietest of the groups. She was only running the place for the real owner, who was on a well-deserved holiday in Paris. (Cluzeau rolled his eyes at this. ‘No one,’ he said with a shudder, ‘deserves such torture.’) There was a cramped office, and in it an old bakelite telephone. If the women could leave twenty pence for each call. A line started to form outside the office. (‘Ah, how you love queuing!’) Mrs Beck, meantime, had returned to her group. Rebus followed her, and was introduced to Ginny Elyot, who had raised the alarm, and to Moira Fowler the latecomer.

Ginny Elyot kept patting her short auburn hair as though searching it for misplaced artworks. A nervous habit, Rebus reasoned. Cluzeau quickly became the centre of attention, with even the distant and unpunctual Moira becoming involved in the interrogation. Rebus sidled away and touched Brian Holmes’ arm.

‘That’s all the addresses noted, sir.’

‘Well done, Brian. Look, slip upstairs, will you? Give the loo a recce.’

‘What am I looking for exactly - suspiciously shaped bundles of four-ply?’

Rebus actually laughed. ‘We should be so lucky. But yes, you never know what you might find. And check any windows, too. There might be a drainpipe.’

‘Okay.’

As Holmes left, a small hand touched Rebus’s arm. A girl in her late-teens, eyes gleaming behind studious spectacles, jerked her head towards the gallery’s first partitioned room. Rebus followed her. She was so small, and spoke so quietly, he actually had to grasp hands to knees and bend forward to listen.

‘I want the story.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I want the story for my dad’s paper.’

Rebus looked at her. His voice too was a dramatic whisper. ‘You’re Lesley Jameson?’

She nodded.

‘I see. Well, as far as I’m concerned the story’s yours. But we haven’t got a story yet.’

She looked around her, then dropped her voice even lower. ‘You’ve seen her.’

‘Who?’

‘Serena, of course. She’s ravishing, isn’t she?’ Rebus tried to look non-committal. ‘She’s terribly attractive to men.’ This time he attempted a Gallic shrug. He wondered if it looked as stupid as it felt. Her voice died away almost completely, reducing Rebus to lip-reading. ‘She has loads of men after her. Including Margaret’s.’

‘Ah,’ said Rebus, ‘right.’ He nodded, too. So Margaret Grieve’s boyfriend was...

The lips made more movements: ‘He’s Serena’s lover.’

Yes, well, now things began to make more sense. Maybe the Frenchman was right: a crime of passion. The one thing missing thus far had been the passion itself; but no longer. And it was curious, when he came to think of it, how Margaret Grieve had said she couldn’t recall whether the statue had been in the room or not. It wasn’t the sort of thing you could miss, was it? Not for a bunch of samey paintings of pink bulges and grey curving masses. The newspapers in her bag would have concealed the statue quite nicely, too. There was just one problem.

Cluzeau’s head appeared around the partition. ‘Ah! Here you are. I’m sorry if I interrupt—’

But Lesley Jameson was already making for the main room. Cluzeau watched her go, then turned to Rebus.

‘Charming women.’ He sighed. ‘But all of them either married or else with lovers. And one of them, of course, is the thief.’

‘Oh?’ Rebus sounded surprised. ‘You mean one of the women you’ve just been talking with?’

‘Of course.’ Now he, too, lowered his voice. ‘The statue left the gallery in a bag. You could not simply hide it under your dress, could you? But I don’t think a plastic bag would have been strong enough for this task. So, we have a choice between Madame Beck and Mademoiselle Grieve.’

‘Grieve’s boyfriend has been carrying on with our artist.’

Cluzeau digested this. But he too knew there was a problem. ‘She did not leave the gallery. She was shut in with the others.’

Rebus nodded. ‘So there has to have been an accomplice. I think I’d better have another word with Lesley Jameson.’

But Brian Holmes had appeared. He exhaled noisily. ‘Thank Christ for that,’ he said. ‘For a minute there I thought you’d buggered off and left me.’

Rebus grinned. ‘That might not have been such bad idea. How was the loo ?’

‘Well, I didn’t find any solid evidence,’ Holmes replied with a straight face. ‘No skeins of wool tied to the plumbing and hanging out of the windows for a burglar to shimmy down.’

‘But there is a window?’

‘A small one in the cubicle itself. I stood on the seat and had a squint out. A two-storey drop to a sort of back yard, nothing in it but a rusting Renault Five and a skip full of cardboard boxes.’

‘Go down and take a look at that skip.’

‘I thought you might say that.’

‘And take a look at the Renault,’ ordered Cluzeau, his face set. ‘I cannot believe a French car would rust. Perhaps you are mistaken and it is a Mini Cooper, no?’

Holmes, who prided himself on knowing a bit about cars, was ready to argue, then saw the smile spread across the Frenchman’s face. He smiled, too.

‘Just as well you’ve got a sense of humour,’ he said. ‘You’ll need it after the match on Saturday.’