Иэн Рэнкин: In a House of Lies

‘Why would CCU be involved, John?’ Sutherland interrupted.

Rebus made show of thinking for a moment. ‘Well,’ he eventually said, ‘we somehow managed to make a complete fucking mess of things. CCU was just the icing on the cake, so to speak.’

‘He’s not wrong,’ Callum Reid said, eyes fixed on his phone, thumb busy. ‘Bloom’s family made over a dozen complaints during the inquiry and after. Just last year they were at it again.’

Rebus nodded slowly, eyes on Sutherland. ‘Be a lot simpler if it turned out to be just about anyone in that car other than Stuart Bloom. Any chance that it was a suicide?’

‘I think we can pretty much rule that out. Someone covered the car with branches and bracken.’

‘He might have done that before climbing into the boot, if he really didn’t want to be found.’

George Gamble gave a gravelly chuckle. ‘Ever come across a suicide handcuffed at the ankles?’

‘Handcuffed?’ Rebus looked from Sutherland to Siobhan Clarke and back again.

‘I’m not sure we want that particular detail made public just yet.’ Sutherland glared at Gamble.

‘ Police handcuffs?’ Rebus pressed.

Sutherland held up a hand, palm towards Rebus. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Maybe we should sit down and you can tell us the story.’

‘Cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss.’

Sutherland nodded and turned his attention to Clarke. ‘Siobhan, you’re the one with the local knowledge...’

‘There’s a café across the street. Probably the best option.’

Sutherland produced a twenty-pound note from his pocket and held it out for her to take.

‘Hang on,’ she complained. ‘You want me to go?’

‘I’m delegating,’ he said with a sly look.

She snatched the note from him and walked over to Emily Crowther. ‘Off you go then, DC Crowther.’

Crowther scowled and seemed reluctant to take the money, so Clarke placed it on the desk, sliding it towards her.

‘Nicely delegated,’ Rebus commented with a thin smile. Then, to Graham Sutherland: ‘Where do you want me to start?’

A street of bungalows in Blackhall, quietly residential apart from drivers keen to avoid the adjacent — and busier — Queensferry Road. Rebus pushed open the wrought-iron gate. No sound from its hinges, the garden to either side of the flagstone path well tended. Two bins — one landfill, one garden waste — had already been placed on the pavement outside. None of the neighbours had got round to it yet. Rebus rang the doorbell and waited. The door was eventually opened by a man the same age as him, though he looked half a decade younger. Bill Rawlston had kept himself trim since retirement, and the eyes behind the half-moon spectacles retained their keen intelligence.

‘John Rebus,’ he said, a sombre look on his face as he studied Rebus from top to toe.

‘Have you heard?’

Rawlston’s mouth twitched. ‘Of course I have. But nobody’s saying it’s him yet.’

‘Only a matter of time.’

‘Aye, I suppose so.’ Rawlston gave a sigh and stepped back into the hall. ‘You better come in then. Tea or something that bit stronger?’

‘Tea will be fine.’

Rawlston glanced over his shoulder as he headed for the kitchen. ‘First time I’ve known you to turn one down.’

‘I seem to have picked up a wee dose of COPD.’

‘What’s that when it’s at home?’

‘Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — known as emphysema in the old days.’

‘Trust you to get something that has the word COP in it.’

‘Aye, I feel like I drew a winning ticket there.’

‘Well, I’m sorry all the same. Neither “chronic” nor “obstructive” sounds like a top prize.’

‘How about you, Bill?’ Rebus asked.

‘Beth died last year. Smoked a pack a day all her adult life. Then she trips and hits her head and a blood clot gets her. Would you credit it?’

The kitchen was immaculate. Lunchtime’s soup bowl and side plate had been washed and were sitting on the drainer. The plastic container the soup had been in had also been rinsed — there’d be a recycling bin outside the back door waiting to receive it.

‘Sugar?’ Rawlston asked. ‘I can’t remember.’

‘Just milk, thanks.’ Not that Rebus was planning on drinking the tea; he was awash with the stuff after his trip to Leith. But the making of the drinks had given him time to size up Bill Rawlston. And Rawlston, too, he knew, would have been using the time to do some thinking.

‘Just through here,’ Rawlston told his guest, handing over a mug and leading the way. The living room was small, a dining room off. Family photos, ornaments and a bookcase stocked with paperbacks and DVDs. Rebus made a show of studying the shelves.

‘You don’t hear much of Alistair MacLean these days,’ he commented.

‘Probably a good reason for that. Sit down and tell me what’s on your mind.’

There was an occasional table next to Rawlston’s favoured armchair. Two remote controls and a phone, plus a spare pair of glasses. The colourful paintings on the walls probably reflected Beth’s taste rather than her husband’s. Rebus perched on the edge of the sofa, mug cupped in both hands.

‘If it is him, it’s likely a murder case. From the description of the body, he was probably already dead all the time we were looking for him.’

‘The body was found in Poretoun Woods?’

Rebus nodded.

‘We searched those woods, John, you know that. We had dozens of men... spent hundreds of hours...’

‘I remember.’

Stuart Bloom had lived in Comely Bank, to the north of the city centre. The nearest police station to his home was the Lothian and Borders Police HQ on Fettes Avenue — colloquially known as ‘the Big House’ — so that was where they’d based the inquiry team, in two rooms usually used for meetings of the top brass. DCI Bill Rawlston had been put in charge, with Rebus and half a dozen other CID officers under him. At the first briefing, Rawlston had informed the group that this was his last year before retirement.

‘You and me both,’ Rebus had interrupted. Rawlston had locked eyes with him.

‘So I want a result here. No slacking. No tipping off the media. No back-stabbing. If you want to play politics, there’s a parliament waiting for you down the road. Understood?’

But there had been slacking, and whispers to favoured journalists, and fronts stabbed when backs were not available. The team had never quite gelled, never become a family.

Rawlston placed his mug on the table next to him. ‘Say it is him...’

‘They’ll open a murder inquiry,’ Rebus stated. ‘And the media will go digging out all the old stories, which our lot will already be looking at afresh. Then there’s his family to consider.’

‘They were at me again last year, did you hear?’ Rawlston watched Rebus nod. ‘As far as they’re concerned, the whole thing was a conspiracy from the start, with us bang in the middle of it. Well, they finally got their official apology from the Big Chief.’

‘Just before he was kicked into touch.’

‘He said we’d behaved with “institutional arrogance” in the way we dealt with all their bloody complaints. The nerve of the man...’

‘Nobody ever proved we got the inquiry wrong, though,’ Rebus felt it necessary to add. Then, when Rawlston said nothing: ‘I seem to recall the mother was best described as feisty.’

Rawlston gave a hoot. ‘We worked ourselves into the ground, and not one bit of thanks.’

‘Quite the reverse, in fact.’

‘I loved my job, John, but by the end, I was as relieved as hell to walk away.’ Rawlston paused. ‘How about you?’