Иэн Рэнкин - In a House of Lies

Clarke nodded slowly, pretending to digest this. ‘Do you still have any dealings with Brian Steele and Grant Edwards?’

Brand’s brow furrowed. ‘Should I know those names?’

‘They worked for you around the time Stuart Bloom disappeared, just in their free time — their day job was as police officers.’

‘A lot of people have worked for me, Inspector.’

‘They used to drive you around, act as muscle. I’m sure if you put your mind to it, you’ll find you remember them.’

Brand eventually nodded. ‘Steele and Edwards, yes. They were with me for a short time.’

‘They were even the source of one of the Bloom family’s complaints.’

‘Were they?’

‘Seeing how both of them were attached to the missing person inquiry. Possible conflict of interest, according to Catherine Bloom.’

‘She came here, you know. More than once, actually. The gates were locked but she used the intercom, yelling at my wife.’

‘Again, you didn’t contact us?’

‘She went away eventually. I felt sorry for her, never having had a son to lose.’

‘Your wife isn’t here today?’

‘She’d have nothing to add. Cordelia has never taken an interest in my business.’

Hazard had leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands bunched into fists. ‘You’ll be asking questions of Jackie Ness, too, I trust? For the sake of parity?’

‘We’ve just come from Mr Ness.’ Clarke kept her eyes on Brand, whose own attention had drifted to stock-market listings on the TV channel. ‘Any recent hostilities between the two of you?’

‘Jackie Ness is living on past glories, such as they were,’ Brand said without looking up. ‘I’ve heard he’s about two phone calls away from bankruptcy, and not for the first time.’

‘You’re saying he’s no longer a rival?’

‘Bastard’s not big enough,’ Glenn Hazard muttered.

Brand looked up from the screen, meeting Clarke’s eyes. ‘Jackie Ness is history,’ he intoned.

‘Why did you buy Poretoun House, Sir Adrian?’

‘As an investment.’

‘And how does leaving it to rot increase its value?’

Brand’s eyes almost gleamed. ‘It got to him, didn’t it? He told you? I knew it would.’

‘That’s why you did it?’

‘Cheap at half the price.’ Brand appeared to notice Emily Crowther for the first time. ‘Do you talk or are you just here for show?’

‘I talk when I’ve got something to say,’ Crowther offered. ‘And as it happens, I do have something.’

‘Yes?’

Crowther gestured towards the potted plants. ‘You’ve got aphids. Quite a lot of them, actually.’

When the time came for them to leave, Hazard stayed on the doorstep, watching Clarke unlock the Astra and get behind the steering wheel, while Crowther climbed into the passenger side. Once the doors were closed and the engine started, Clarke asked Crowther what she thought.

‘He was lying to us. You saw it too.’

Clarke nodded. ‘About sending someone to talk to Stuart Bloom. Wonder who his PR was back then.’

‘Wouldn’t a lawyer be the more obvious choice?’

‘Maybe...’

‘You’re thinking of those two uniforms, aren’t you? Steele and Edwards?’

‘Jackie Ness has already told us they harassed him. Wouldn’t have been difficult for Brand to set them on Stuart Bloom.’

‘Bloom knew of their relationship to Brand — he was the one who warned Ness.’

Clarke nodded slowly. ‘Maybe Fox will find something in the archives.’

‘Something that would earn him a drink?’

Clarke glanced towards Crowther. ‘What are you saying?’

‘Just the way you talk about him — you’ve obviously been close in the past.’

‘Not that close.’ Clarke paused. ‘And when did I even talk about him?’ Then she remembered. ‘The briefing I gave Tess?’

‘So I can tell her, then?’

‘Tell her what?’

Crowther waved her phone from side to side. ‘Tess sent me a text from Poretoun Woods. She’s there with Fox. I get the feeling she likes him.’

‘She’s free to jump him any time she likes.’ Clarke saw that Crowther had started composing a text. ‘Maybe put it more diplomatically than that, though, eh?’ She released the handbrake, watching Hazard’s figure recede in the rear-view mirror. ‘That was a good line about the aphids, by the way. You’re into gardening?’

‘You changing the subject?’

‘Absolutely not. I was just wondering.’

‘In truth, I probably wouldn’t know an aphid if I saw one. But I reckon it’ll have got him wondering.’

‘Wondering and maybe even worrying,’ Clarke agreed. The two detectives were chuckling as the gates opened automatically in front of them.

DCI Sutherland had gathered his team for a meeting. Fox stood by the door, waiting to be told to scram, but Sutherland seemed relaxed about his presence in the room.

‘We need fresh interviews with everyone who was part of the inquiry last time round,’ Sutherland said. ‘We know that they might not always be willing. Some of Stuart Bloom’s friends and associates felt they were treated with a lack of proper respect. So there may need to be an apology or two, a bit of mea culpa, but also some benign insistence.’ He scanned the faces around them. ‘We want to speak to every single one of them. It’s been twelve years, so contact details will almost certainly have changed. I’ve requested extra staff to ease the burden, but we need to make a start as of right now.’ He broke off. ‘Are you listening, Siobhan?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Fox noticed that half Clarke’s attention was on her computer. She had plugged in a pair of earbuds but left one dangling. He slid around the periphery towards her. A film seemed to be playing on her screen.

‘Tess,’ Sutherland continued. ‘News from the professor?’

‘She can’t be sure as yet how long the car was in the woods, but she doubts it was there all along.’

‘Pathology tells us Stuart Bloom probably died ten or more years back, so where does that leave us?’

‘It’s definitely his car?’ George Gamble asked.

‘Serial number on the engine block confirms it. Doubtful he was murdered in situ — not enough blood and brain matter on the floor of the boot, according to Forensics. It’s a miracle they can be so confident after all these years, but there you are. The two professors seem to agree — the way the body was positioned in the boot, the injured section of skull was towards the floor. Almost physically impossible to have hit someone while they were lying in that position and damage that particular section. Besides, putting someone in a boot and then hitting them? More probably it was done while he was standing up. Whacked from behind with an object as yet undecided.

‘And the handcuffs?’ Phil Yeats asked.

‘Standard issue for police officers in Scotland up until the millennium. Two metal links joining one cuff to its neighbour. By 2006 they’d been replaced by the Hiatt model — solid plastic moulding instead of the links. The Hiatts were stamped with serial numbers, meaning there’s a record of who owned them. Alas, that wasn’t true of the older model. Bear in mind, they could have been acquired from other sources. We’re not saying these were definitively police handcuffs.’

‘This place Rogues that Bloom used to go to.’ Callum Reid nodded towards Clarke, who had reported on the meetings with Ness and Brand. ‘Didn’t happen to have a dungeon or anything, did it?’

‘Doubtful, but worth checking,’ Sutherland said. ‘In fact, that’s a good point: were there any S and M clubs operating in Edinburgh at the time? Or prostitutes specialising in bondage? Something to add to the list. DCS Mollison is keen for a press conference sooner rather than later; it’d be nice to have a bit of progress to report.’ He noted that Gamble had his hand up. ‘Yes, George?’