Ian Rankin - Set in Darkness

‘If you want it first-hand,’ he said, easing into his chair and business both, ‘you need to talk to Dad.’ He paused. ‘Coffee? Tea?’ Seemed pleased when they shook their heads: his was a busy schedule.

‘We appreciate you taking the trouble, sir,’ Wylie said, not above a bit of soft-soap. ‘Business good, is it?’

‘Phenomenal. What with the Holyrood redevelopment and the Western Approach corridor, Gyle, Wester Hailes, and now the plans for Granton...’ He shook his head. ‘We can hardly keep up. Every week we’re making bids on some project or other.’ He waved towards where some plans lay on the room’s conference table. ‘Know how my dad started? He built garages and extensions. Now it looks like we might get a finger in a pie as big as London Docklands.’ He rubbed his hands with what looked to Hood like glee.

‘But in the seventies, the firm worked on Queensberry House?’ Wylie was first with the question. It pulled Kirkwall back down to earth.

‘Yes, sorry. Once you get me started, I don’t know when to stop.’ He cleared his throat, composed himself. ‘I did look up our records...’ Reaching into a drawer, bringing out an old ledger, some notebooks and a card index. ‘Late in ’78, we were one of the firms renovating the hospital. Not me, of course, I was still at school. And now you’ve found a skeleton, eh?’

Hood handed over photographs of the two fireplaces. ‘The room to the far end of the basement. It was originally the kitchen.’

‘And that’s where the body was?’

‘We estimate it’s been there twenty years,’ Wylie said, easing into her role: talker to Hood’s silent type. ‘Which would coincide with the building works.’

‘Well, I’ve had my secretary dig up what she can.’ He smiled to let them know the pun was deliberate. Kirkwall — striped shirt, oval glasses, groomed black hair — was, Wylie presumed, trying for the sophisticated look. But there was something uncomfortable and ill-defined about him. She’d seen footballers turned TV pundits: they could wear the clothes but failed to carry the style.

‘It’s not much, I’m afraid,’ Kirkwall was saying, reaching into a drawer. He unrolled the plan so it faced them, weighting its corners with pieces of polished stone. ‘I collect one from each job I do,’ he explained. ‘Get it cleaned and varnished.’ Then: ‘This is Queensberry House. The blue shaded areas were our project, plus the red lines.’

‘It looks like exterior work.’

‘It was. Downpipes, cracks in the masonry, and one summer house to be built from scratch. It’s like that sometimes with public works, they like to spread the contract around.’

‘You obviously weren’t greasing enough palms at the council,’ Hood muttered.

Kirkwall glared at him.

‘So another firm was doing the internal work?’ Wylie was studying the plan.

‘Firm or firms. I’ve no record. Like I say, you’d have to ask Dad.’

‘Then that’s what we’ll do, Mr Kirkwall,’ Ellen Wylie said.

But first they hit Valvona’s, where Wylie did her shopping before asking if Hood fancied a bite to eat. He made show of checking his watch.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘There’s an empty table, and I’ve been here often enough to know that must be a sign.’

So they ate salad and pizza and shared a bottle of mineral water. Around them, couples were doing the same thing. Hood smiled.

‘We don’t stick out,’ he commented.

She looked at his stomach. ‘Well, I don’t.’

He sucked in some gut and decided to leave the last slice of pizza. ‘You know what I mean,’ he said.

Yes, she knew. Being a cop, being around people who knew cops, you always felt they could spot you, and you came to think everyone had the knack.

‘Bit of a shock to find you’re not a social leper?’

Hood looked at his plate. ‘More of a shock to find I can actually leave food.’

Afterwards, they headed out to the house Jack Kirkwall had built for his retirement. It sat in countryside on the edge of South Queensferry, with both bridges visible in the distance. The house was angular with tall windows. When Wylie stated that it was like a scaled-down cathedral, Hood knew what she meant.

Jack Kirkwall welcomed them by insisting that he be remembered to John Rebus.

‘You know Inspector Rebus?’ Wylie asked.

‘He did me a good turn once.’ Kirkwall chuckled.

‘You might be able to return the favour, sir,’ Hood said. ‘Depending on how good your memory is.’

‘Nothing wrong with the napper,’ Kirkwall grumbled.

Wylie shot her partner a warning look. ‘What DC Hood meant, Mr Kirkwall, is that we’re in the dark and you’re our one ray of light.’

Kirkwall perked up, settled into an easy chair and motioned for them to be seated.

The sofa was cream leather and smelt brand new. The lounge was large and bright with inch-thick white shag pile and a whole wall of French windows. To Wylie’s eye, there seemed very little of Kirkwall’s past on display: no photos or old-looking ornaments or furniture. It was as though, in later life, he had decided to reinvent himself. There was something anonymous about it all. Then Wylie realised: it was a show house. Prospective clients could be shown around, Kirkwall Construction workmanship evident everywhere.

And no place for individual personality.

She wondered if that explained the sad depths to Jack Kirkwall’s face. No way was this his idea of retirement: in the choice of fabrics and furnishings she saw the son, Peter.

‘Your firm’, she said, ‘did some work at Queensberry House in 1979.’

‘The hospital?’ She nodded. ‘Started work in ’78, finished it in ’79. What a hellish time that was.’ He peered at them. ‘Likely you’re too young to remember. That winter there was a rubbish strike, teachers’ strike, even the mortuary was on strike.’ He snorted at the memory, looked to Hood. Tapping his head, he said: ‘See, son? Nothing wrong with the napper. Remember it like it was yesterday. We started in December, finished in March. The eighth, to be precise.’

Wylie smiled. ‘That’s incredible.’

Kirkwall accepted her praise. He was a big man, broad-shouldered, chisel-jawed. He’d probably never been handsome, but she could imagine him having power and presence.

‘Know why I remember?’ He shook his head. ‘You’ll be too young.’

‘The referendum?’ Hood guessed.

Kirkwall looked deflated. Wylie gave another warning look: they needed him on their side.

‘It was March first, wasn’t it?’ Hood continued.

‘Aye, it was. And we won the vote but lost the war.’

‘A temporary setback,’ Wylie felt bound to add.

He glared at her. ‘If you can call twenty years temporary. We had dreams...’ Wylie thought he was turning wistful, but he surprised her. ‘Just think what it would have meant: inward investment, new homes and businesses.’

‘A building boom?’

Kirkwall was shaking his head at the thought of so much opportunity wasted.

‘The boom’s happening now, according to your son,’ Wylie said.

‘Aye.’

She doubted she’d ever heard so much bitterness in a single syllable. Had Jack Kirkwall gone willingly, or had he been pushed?

‘We’re interested in the hospital’s interior,’ Hood said. ‘Which firms had the contracts?’

‘Roofing was Caspian,’ Kirkwall said tonelessly, still lost in thought. ‘Scaffolding was Macgregor. Coghill’s did a lot of the inside work: replastering, a few new partition walls.’

‘Was this in the basement?’

Kirkwall nodded. ‘A new laundry room and a boiler.’

‘Do you remember any of the original walls being exposed?’ Wylie handed over the photo of the fireplaces. ‘Like this?’ Kirkwall looked, shook his head. ‘But the work in the basement was done by a firm called Coghill’s?’