Иэн Рэнкин - In a House of Lies

‘Catherine?’ Clarke asked Kelly. The journalist nodded.

‘She comes fortnightly,’ he explained, unlocking the door and ushering them into the flat.

‘Thanks for doing this,’ Clarke said, trying not to sound too grudging. Kelly just shrugged.

Derek Shankley stood with his palms to his cheeks. ‘It’s exactly the same,’ he whispered, studying the hallway.

Clarke flicked a switch and the lights came on.

‘Bills get paid on time,’ Kelly confirmed.

‘Explains why the place is warm.’ Clarke touched a radiator.

‘Heating’s on a timer, an hour each day.’

‘That must still add up — never mind the council tax and what have you.’

‘Martin’s tried more than once to convince her to sell.’ Kelly offered a shrug. They had moved from the hall into the living room. Shankley’s palms were still pressed to his cheeks as he took it all in. Books on shelves; a venerable typewriter in a carrying case; a hi-fi with CDs stacked next to it; newspapers and current affairs magazines dating back to 2005 and 2006.

‘It’s a time capsule,’ Clarke said.

‘Or maybe a mausoleum.’

She looked at Kelly. ‘And once the burial’s got the go-ahead...?’

‘I doubt it’ll change anything. She’ll still want to be able to visit. She sits on his bed, I think she even talks to him.’

Shankley had settled on an arm of the sofa, removing his hands from his face and using a finger to wipe a single tear from his eye.

‘The door was repaired after the break-in?’ Clarke asked.

‘Must have been,’ Shankley said. Clarke looked to Kelly.

‘You knew about it?’

‘Not until Derek told me. Catherine confirmed it, though, and yes, she had the door fixed afterwards.’

Clarke studied the room. ‘Where would the papers have been?’ she asked. ‘The ones taken from the safe?’

Shankley didn’t seem sure. ‘On his writing desk maybe,’ he offered.

The desk itself was a dining table with just the one leaf unfolded. It had been positioned near the room’s bay window, where there was plenty of natural light.

‘He always took his laptop with him?’ Clarke asked.

‘Always.’

She had noticed a camera case sitting on one of the bookshelves. It was a Canon.

‘This was here when the place got turned over?’ She watched as Shankley nodded.

‘Odd kind of break-in,’ Kelly agreed. ‘TV left behind; camera equipment and hi-fi untouched; ditto Stuart’s passport and chequebook.’

‘Have you got a theory?’ Clarke asked him.

‘They got exactly what they wanted or else they left empty-handed.’

She nodded her agreement and watched as Shankley left the room, crossing the hall.

‘Bedroom,’ Kelly explained.

‘He feels the family have written him out of Stuart’s story,’ Clarke said quietly.

‘He’s not wrong about that. Catherine doesn’t want him at the funeral either.’

‘Seems unnecessarily cruel.’

‘I don’t disagree.’ He had walked to within a few feet of Clarke. ‘How are things with you?’

‘Your chums Steele and Edwards are determined to have me for dinner.’

‘How about your boss and his team?’

‘I’ll cope.’

‘A drink when we’re finished here?’

‘Not tonight.’ She looked at him, all business. ‘The break-in at Brand’s office — you’ve not given it to the media?’

He shook his head. ‘I convinced Catherine it was in nobody’s interest.’

Clarke nodded, showing she understood. She studied the room again.

‘You think it’s weird,’ he asked, ‘them keeping this place as it is?’

‘I think I can understand it.’ They heard muffled sobbing from the room across the hall. ‘Should we...?’

Kelly shook his head again. ‘Derek had a hell of a time of it, you know — from the very start, I mean. Dad a big macho copper in big macho Glasgow. He lived a lie for a long time; coming out was hard.’

‘How did his dad take it?’

‘Denial to start with. Then whisky and shouting. Just the two of them in the house, hardly speaking, the one hoping and praying the other would start to understand.’

‘Nicely put,’ Clarke said. ‘I hope he does make it into your story — it’s probably the least he deserves.’

Kelly nodded distractedly, watching the doorway as Derek Shankley appeared there.

‘I don’t think I can stay any longer,’ Shankley said, voice trembling. ‘I thought it’d be okay, but it’s really not. I’ll wait outside till you’re done.’

When he was gone, Kelly looked towards Clarke, wondering if she’d seen enough. In answer, she checked the bedroom, kitchen and shower room, lingering in none of them. The bed had been made up, a slight indentation where Shankley had rested for a moment. Clarke brushed the surface flat, so Catherine Bloom wouldn’t suspect.

‘Good thinking,’ Kelly said from the doorway, ready to lead her back to the outside world.

When Clarke brought her car to a halt in the farmyard next morning, she saw that another car and a van were already there. Three men in pristine wellington boots were studying what looked to Clarke like architectural plans as they pointed in the direction of the nearest fields, fields that currently were occupied by a herd of untroubled cows.

Clarke had brought Crowther with her. Fox had pleaded his case, but Sutherland had reminded him that he was attached to the investigation only tangentially and for a specific reason.

‘In fact, I’ve had Jennifer Lyon on the phone; she reckons you must be about ready to wind everything up. Says there’s plenty of work waiting for you at Gartcosh.’

Fox had slouched from the room without saying another word.

‘Puts hairs on your chest,’ Crowther said, sucking in a lungful of the pungent air. ‘That’s what my dad used to tell me.’

Clarke was walking towards the group of men.

‘You the civil engineer?’ one of them asked.

‘I’m a detective.’ She showed her warrant card. ‘I’m looking for Andrew Carlton.’

‘Join the queue.’

‘Can I ask what you’re doing here?’

‘We’re in the process of buying this land. It’s going to be a village in miniature. Sixty to seventy new-builds, mostly detached.’

Clarke had noticed the word Brand on the side of the van. ‘You work for Sir Adrian?’

All three nodded.

‘He’s bought the farm?’

‘Taken him a good few years to persuade Carlton and shred all the red tape, but Sir Adrian’s not a man to give up without a fight.’

‘Not unless he’s caught napping by a bloody film producer,’ another of the three said, pretending to throw a punch. Laughing to themselves, the men moved off, holding the site plans between them as they walked.

Turning around, Clarke saw that Crowther was checking the outbuildings. A large empty byre; a milking shed full of gleaming equipment; a silo half filled with manure; a barn with more machinery, a well-stocked workshop situated in a lean-to attached to it. The farmhouse was a modest two-storey affair, its door locked. Through the windows Clarke could make out breakfast detritus on the kitchen table — just the one plate, knife and mug — and a living room that looked like no one used it much.

Crowther gave a shrug and they continued their search. A muddy track behind the barn led to a ramshackle gate, beyond which stood a churned, steeply sloping field. Crowther gestured towards the field’s furthest corner. It had become a dumping ground for unwanted machines and implements.

‘What do you think?’ she asked. It was Clarke’s turn to shrug.

They opened the gate and headed in, slipping and sliding until they adjusted to the ground beneath them. As they got closer, Clarke could make out a baler (she thought), and other bits and pieces that could be attached to a tractor. There were a couple of old trailers, their wood mostly turned to pulp. A small van was missing all four wheels and had begun to sink into the mire. There were also coils of fencing, dangerous-looking collections of rusting barbed wire, and the remains of a fridge freezer and washing machine. Even a venerable-looking toilet and blackened cast-iron bath.