Иэн Рэнкин - In a House of Lies

‘Who’d have known there even was an access road?’ Fox had asked as they trudged into the woods.

‘Local farmers,’ Leighton offered. ‘Plus forestry staff, the woods’ owner...’

‘And anyone who bought an Ordnance Survey map,’ Hamilton added. ‘I got hold of one and it’s still marked.’

‘Nice to narrow things down,’ Fox muttered as his shoes sank into the mulch of leaves.

A bored, cold-looking constable guarded the crime scene. He wore a padded jacket and black gloves but seemed ready for a change of shift. He added their details to his clipboard and nodded towards the ropes that would allow them to negotiate the slope.

‘Not that there’s anything to see.’

No, because a farm tractor had been used to winch the VW Polo out, churning up the side of the gully in the process. Hamilton had already ducked under the tape and, ignoring the ropes, was cantering down the slope, her boots finding the necessary purchase.

‘You a climber by any chance?’ Leighton called down to her.

‘Hill-walking,’ Hamilton called back. ‘But in Scotland that can often amount to the same thing.’

Leighton looked towards Fox. He shrugged to let her know he was happy enough where he was. To show willing, however, he began to circle the gully, noting more evidence of the painstaking search. Hamilton’s assistant had joined her in the gully, having made the descent largely on his backside. The two of them began studying the pile of material that had been draped over the car.

‘Uprooted rather than cut with a knife,’ Hamilton eventually said, while her assistant photographed everything held up in front of him. She opened the folder she’d brought. There were dozens of crime-scene pictures inside, and she studied some of them closely, looking up from time to time to visualise the Polo. The SOCOs had bagged cigarette butts, rusty drinks cans, chocolate wrappers. They would be checked for prints and other identifiers. Hamilton scooped up some of the rich dark soil, crumbling it between her fingers. ‘You can learn a lot from bugs,’ she stated, her voice carrying without difficulty. ‘Some insects frequent particular environments. And when it comes to man-made objects, those are prone to deteriorate at different rates, affected again by their environment.’ She held up a photo of the Polo for them to see. ‘I’m just not convinced,’ she said, ‘that this car lay in this gully for twelve years.’

‘So how long was it here?’ Fox called down to her.

‘Not long enough for the amount of corrosion I’d expect to see.’

‘Where was it before?’

‘Could be the bugs will tell us. I still want a soil expert to examine it. I’m guessing we now have a budget?’

Leighton nodded.

‘So I can talk to DCI Sutherland?’

‘I’m sure he’ll be amenable.’

‘Then let’s hope the person I want is available.’

Having done a circuit, Fox was back next to Leighton. ‘Thoughts?’ she asked him.

‘I’ll tell you what’s uppermost in my mind right now, Tess.’

‘What?’

He lifted one leg. ‘I need to buy some new shoes.’

Sir Adrian Brand ran his empire from a vast Victorian house on Kinellan Road in Murrayfield. The gardens surrounding the property would have constituted a park in less desirable parts of the city. Sheltered beneath a car port sat a Bentley and a Tesla, the latter hooked up to its charging cable. When Clarke and Crowther rang the bell, the door was opened by Glenn Hazard.

‘Nice to see you again,’ Clarke told him, her tone giving the lie to her words.

‘Sir Adrian is in the garden room,’ Hazard replied. ‘Though like me, he’s wondering why you’re wasting his time.’

‘Because we get a kick out of it?’

He made an exasperated sound and led them across the vast hallway with its chandelier and polished parquet floor, through one door into a sitting room with what looked like a dining room off, then a set of glass doors into an airy conservatory filled with potted plants and wicker furniture. Brand sat pretending to read the Financial Times . He wore rimless glasses on an owl-like face. What hair he still had was slicked back across the top of his head and around his ears. His pale lemon shirt billowed, its top two buttons undone to expose tufts of silvered chest hair. While Jackie Ness’s metal Rolex had looked fake, the gold one hanging loosely around Brand’s thick wrist was almost certainly real.

Brand made a show of closing and folding his newspaper. His PR man had taken the chair to his right, leaving only a narrow sofa for Clarke and Crowther. The two women made space on it. The glass coffee table between them and Brand held a goblet emptied of fresh orange juice, a small pile of current affairs magazines, and an iPad showing a muted TV channel dedicated to Mammon.

‘Thank you for seeing us at such short notice,’ Clarke began.

Brand looked at her for the first time. ‘You say that as if I had any choice in the matter.’

‘I would imagine it’s difficult to force you to do anything you don’t want to do, Sir Adrian.’

His smile was as thin as the platinum chain around his neck. ‘Well, I suppose I was curious. It’s not every day a body turns up on land one happens to own.’

‘Especially the body of someone you knew.’

‘Sir Adrian never met Stuart Bloom,’ Hazard snapped.

Clarke kept her focus on Brand. ‘You knew who he was, though, knew the work he was engaged in for Jackie Ness?’

‘This was all gone over at the time, Inspector.’ Brand wafted a hand in front of him. ‘I got wind that Ness had employed some sort of gumshoe. My people knew that someone had tried hacking into my computer system.’

‘But you couldn’t prove who it was?’

‘I knew Ness was behind it; had my lawyers send a cease and desist notice.’

‘You didn’t go to the police?’

‘I try as best I can to take care of my own affairs. And as you’ve said yourself, I had no proof of Ness’s involvement.’

‘You didn’t think to confront Stuart Bloom?’

‘No.’

‘Or send an emissary to do it for you?’

Brand shifted a little. ‘Again, no.’

‘As part of our inquiry into Mr Bloom’s murder, we’ll be looking at original statements and interviews. Is there anything you said then that you might want to amend with the benefit of hindsight?’

‘I told the truth, Inspector, just as I’m doing now.’

‘As you say, the body was found on land you own — what do you think about that?’

‘I’ve only recently acquired Poretoun Woods.’

‘But all the same...’

Brand gave a shrug, the collar of his shirt rising as far as his ears. ‘I feel sorry for his family, obviously, even though they’ve said some poisonous things about me in the past.’

‘Libellous things,’ Hazard corrected his employer. ‘Over which Sir Adrian took no action.’

‘That’s unusual, isn’t it?’ The two men looked at Clarke. ‘I mean, you’ve never been one to shy away from lawyers and lawsuits.’

‘A man needs a hobby, Inspector.’ Brand’s smile showed a row of perfect teeth.

‘The Bloom family felt you were being protected by the police, because of you who were.’

‘They threw around all manner of wild accusations. It was a Freemasons’ plot, I was lining the chief constable’s pockets — all of it absolute nonsense.’

‘Do you still employ a chauffeur, sir?’

The change of tack didn’t quite throw Brand. ‘Not as such.’

‘How about a bodyguard?’

‘I often travel with Sir Adrian,’ Hazard butted in. Brand turned to him.

‘She means a proper bodyguard, Glenn. Ex-army, Krav Maga training.’ Then, to Clarke: ‘There’s an agency I’ve been known to use on occasion, mostly for overseas trips.’