Ian Rankin - Black and Blue

‘Time to buy a new record?’

Rebus smiled for real this time. ‘Maybe you’re right.’

‘One thing I don’t understand... why didn’t Spaven himself explain any of this? I mean, he never touches on it in his book. He could have just said why Geddes had it in for him.’

Rebus shrugged. ‘Look at Weir and his daughter.’

‘You mean it was personal?’

‘I don’t know, Jack.’

Jack picked up the letter, turning its pages. ‘Interesting about the Borneo pics though. Ancram thought they were relevant because they showed Spaven. Now we find it was this guy Sloane that Geddes was after.’ Jack checked his watch. ‘We should nip over to Fettes, show this to Ancram.’

Rebus nodded. ‘Let’s do it. But first, I want a photocopy of Lawson’s letter. Like you say, Jack, I might not believe it, but it’s here in black and white.’ He looked up at his friend. ‘Which should be good enough for The Justice Programme .’

Ancram looked like he should have been fitted with a pressure valve. He was so angry he’d almost swung all the way round to calm. His voice was the first wisp of smoke from a sleeping volcano.

‘What is it?’

Rebus was trying to hand him a sheet of paper, folded in half. They were in Ancram’s office. Ancram was seated, Rebus and Jack standing.

‘Look and see,’ Rebus said.

Ancram stared at him, then unfolded the headed note.

‘It’s a doctor’s line,’ Rebus explained. ‘Forty-eight-hour stomach bug. Dr Curt was very clear that I should isolate myself. He said it could be catching.’

When he spoke, Ancram’s voice was little more than whisper. ‘Since when do pathologists hand out sick notes?’

‘You haven’t seen the queues at my health centre.’

Ancram crunched the note into a ball.

‘It’s dated and everything,’ Rebus said. Of course it was: Dr Curt had been their last call before heading north with Eve.

‘Shut up, sit down, and listen to me while I tell you why you’re on an official reprimand. And don’t think a reprimand’s going to be the end of the affair.’

‘Maybe you should read this first, sir,’ Jack said, handing over Geddes’ letter.

‘What is it?’

‘Not so much the end of the affair, sir,’ Rebus told him, ‘more like the heart of the matter. While you’re digesting it, maybe I could have a browse through the files.’

‘Why?’

‘Those Borneo pics, I’d like another look.’

After the first few sentences of Lawson Geddes’ confession, Ancram was hooked. Rebus could have walked out unnoticed with the files under his arm. But instead he slipped the photos out of their packet and went through them, checking the back of each for identifying names.

In one photo, third from the left was marked as Pvt. Sloane, R. Rebus stared at the face. Slightly blurred, with some water damage and fading. A fresh-faced young man, not long out of teens, his smile slightly crooked, maybe the fault of his teeth.

Bible John had one tooth which overlapped another, according to the eye-witness.

Rebus shook his head. That really was stretching the evidence, and Lawson Geddes had done enough of that in his time for both of them. Without knowing exactly why, and checking first that Ancram was still immersed in the letter, Rebus slid the photo into his pocket.

‘Well,’ Ancram said at last, ‘this will obviously have to be discussed.’

‘Obviously, sir. No interview today then?’

‘Just a couple of questions. Number one, what the devil happened to your nose and tooth?’

‘I got too close to a fist. Anything else, sir?’

‘Yes, what the hell have you been doing with Jack?’

Rebus turned, saw what Ancram meant: Jack fast asleep on a chair by the wall.

‘So,’ Jack said, ‘this is the big challenge.’

They’d come to the Oxford Bar, just for somewhere to be. Rebus ordered two orange juices, then turned to Jack. ‘You want some breakfast?’ Jack nodded. ‘And four packets of crisps, any flavour,’ Rebus told the barmaid.

They raised their glasses, said ‘Cheers’, and drank.

‘Fancy a smoke?’ Jack asked.

‘I’d kill for one,’ Rebus said, laughing.

‘So,’ Jack said, ‘what’s been achieved?’

‘Depends on your point of view,’ Rebus said. He’d been asking himself the same question. Maybe the Squaddies would nab all the drug players: Uncle Joe, Fuller, Stemmons. Maybe before that happened, Fuller would have done something with Ludovic Lumsden and Hayden Fletcher. Maybe. Hayden Fletcher was a regular at Burke’s. He met Tony El there, maybe even scored nose-talc from him. Maybe Fletcher was the type who liked to hang out with gangsters — some people were like that. Seeing the Major was worried, and learning that Allan Mitchison was the problem... it would have been easy to talk it over with Tony El, and for Tony to see the chance of some easy cash... Maybe Major Weir himself ordered Mitch’s death. Well, his was the one certain punishment, his daughter would make sure of that. And had Tony El ever actually intended to kill Mitch? Rebus couldn’t even be sure of that. Maybe he’d have torn the bag from Mitch’s head at the last minute. Then maybe he’d have warned him to forget all about T-Bird Oil.

It seemed part of some larger pattern, accidents forming themselves into a dance of association. Fathers and daughters, fathers and sons, infidelities, the illusions we sometimes call memory. Past errors harped on, or made good by spurious confession. Bodies littered down the years, mostly forgotten except by the perpetrators. History turning sour, or fading away like old photographs. Endings... no rhyme or reason to them. They just happened. You died, or disappeared, or were forgotten. You became nothing more than a name on the back of an old photo, and sometimes not even that.

Jethro Tull: ‘Living in the Past’. Rebus had been a slave to that rhythm for far too long. It was the work that did it. As a detective, he lived in people’s pasts: crimes committed before he arrived on the scene; witnesses’ memories ransacked. He had become a historian, and the role had bled into his personal life. Ghosts, bad dreams, echoes.

But maybe now he had a chance. Look at Jack: he’d reinvented himself. Good news week.

The phone rang, was answered by the barmaid, who nodded towards Rebus. He took the receiver.

‘Hello?’

‘I tried your first home, decided to try your second home.’

Siobhan. Rebus straightened up.

‘What did you get?’

‘A name: Martin Davidson. Stayed at the Fairmount three weeks before the Judith Cairns murder. The room was charged to his employer, a firm called LancerTech, as in technical support. Based in Altens, just outside Aberdeen. They design the safety elements into platform equipment, that sort of thing.’

‘You’ve talked to them?’

‘Soon as I got his name. Don’t worry, I didn’t mention him. I just asked a couple of general questions. Receptionist said I was the second person in two days to ask her the same thing.’

‘Who was the other person?’

‘Chamber of Commerce, she said.’ They were quiet for a moment.

‘And Davidson fits with Robert Gordon’s?’

‘He hosted some seminars earlier this year. His name was down on the staff roll.’

A solid connection. Rebus could feel it like a punch. His knuckles were white on the receiver.

‘There’s more,’ Siobhan said. ‘You know how businesses sometimes stay faithful to one hotel chain? Well, the Fairmount has a sister establishment here. Martin Davidson of LancerTech was in town the night Angie Riddell was killed.’

Rebus saw her picture again: Angie. Hoped she was getting ready to rest.

‘Siobhan, you’re a genius. Have you told anyone else?’