Иэн Рэнкин - In a House of Lies

The car was found because Ginger was jealous of his friend Jimmy.

There were four of them in the woods that morning. It was the February break, no school for a few days. They’d taken their bikes as far as they could, then left them when the path became too overgrown, with roots and fallen branches suddenly forming a makeshift assault course. All four of them were eleven years old and in the same class. Ginger, Alan, Rick and Jimmy. Jimmy’s bike was the most expensive — his stuff always was. Clothes, backpack, bike. His parents always bought the best. His bedroom was stuffed with game consoles and the latest releases. Which was why Ginger waited till Jimmy was standing at the very edge of the deep gully, sweating and panting after all that running and jumping they’d been doing, before giving him a shove. There wasn’t much force to it. Ginger had intended that Jimmy would get a fright, maybe slide a few feet down the slope but be able to claw his way back without help while the rest of them laughed and watched and filmed. But the sides were steep and unstable, and Jimmy tumbled and skidded all the way down, falling into the mass of bracken, briar and nettles at the bottom.

‘I didn’t do it,’ Ginger said, this being his default position in the classroom, the playground and the house he shared with his parents and two sisters. Alan was cursing under his breath as he peered over the edge. Rick had a hold of the back of Alan’s hoodie, as if fearing that Ginger wasn’t yet finished.

‘I didn’t do it!’ Ginger repeated more loudly.

All three of them watched as Jimmy got to his feet. He checked the backs of his hands for nettle stings, then his face, before reaching down for a severed branch.

‘He’s coming for you,’ Alan teased Ginger.

But Jimmy was using the branch to prod at the bracken, swishing it aside as best he could until they could all see what was hidden there.

‘Somebody dumped a car,’ Jimmy called up to them.

‘Cars get dumped all the time,’ Rick commented. ‘Are you okay to climb out of there?’

But Jimmy ignored him. He was moving around the car, doing his best to uncover it. The windows were still intact, but covered in a mossy film. He tugged his sleeve over his hand and started wiping.

The other boys looked at each other. Alan was the first to start scrambling down the gradient, Rick and Ginger following his lead.

‘Anything worth taking?’ Alan enquired. Jimmy’s face was pressed to the glass. He tried the driver’s-side door but it was jammed.

‘I think it’s a Polo,’ Ginger muttered. Then, to clarify: ‘The car, it’s a VW Polo.’

Rick was rubbing moss across his palms. ‘Nettles got me,’ he complained.

Alan had circled to the passenger side and yanked the door open. The hinges creaked their resistance.

‘Looks empty,’ he said, climbing in. The key was in the ignition, so he turned it, but nothing happened. ‘Dead,’ he announced.

‘Somebody nicked it and dumped it,’ Ginger concluded, growing bored already and giving one wing a kick. Rick had unzipped his fly and was urinating against a clump of ferns.

‘Piss is good for nettle stings,’ Alan informed him, receiving a single raised finger in response.

Jimmy had gone to the back of the car and was pressing the release button for the boot. It opened an inch, then stuck.

‘Help me out,’ he commanded Ginger, the pair of them flinching as the rear window shattered. They turned towards Rick, who had thrown the stone and was now grinning as he brushed dirt from his hands.

‘Fuck’s sake!’ Jimmy yelled.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ Rick replied.

Ginger was peering through the hole in the glass. ‘Something’s in the back,’ he announced, waiting until the others had joined him.

‘Looks like a skeleton,’ Alan offered.

‘Must be a joke or something,’ Rick said. ‘Doesn’t look real to me — does it look real to you?’

‘What does a real one look like, Professor?’ Jimmy shot back. He was taking photos with his phone. The others dug out their own phones so they could do the same.

‘It’s got hair,’ Ginger said. ‘Hair and a shirt.’

‘We should hoof it,’ Rick suggested. ‘Leave it for someone else to find.’ He turned away and started scrabbling up the slope. ‘What are you waiting for?’ he called back down to the others. Ginger and Alan were looking at one another, trying to decide. Then they heard Jimmy’s voice and turned towards him. He had his phone pressed to his ear and was asking to be put through to the police.

Siobhan Clarke parked on the access road, behind a line of other official vehicles. A uniformed officer checked her warrant card before indicating the route into the woods. She opened the back of her Vauxhall Astra and swapped her shoes for a pair of wellingtons.

‘Very wise,’ the uniform said, studying his own mud-caked footwear.

‘Not my first time,’ Clarke informed him.

The back doors of the scene-of-crime van were open, a technician rummaging for something they needed.

‘Is Haj in charge?’ she asked, receiving a nod of confirmation. She gave a nod of her own and kept moving. Haj Atwal was as good a crime-scene manager as Police Scotland had. Clarke’s phone vibrated in her hand. An 0131 number. There was just enough signal, so she answered.

‘Hello?’

Silence at the other end. She checked the screen. Call ended. Clarke didn’t recognise the number, but that didn’t surprise her. Same thing had happened three times the previous day and a couple the day before that. Wrong number, she’d assumed, but now she was beginning to wonder. She passed four bikes. The boys had been taken by car to give their statements at a police station. Their bikes would be delivered later — as long as someone remembered.

It took her over five minutes to reach the gully. She heard the voices first, and then started to see the figures. A couple of thick ropes had been secured to nearby trees. One SOCO was climbing out of the gully, hauling himself up with effort, while another was using the adjacent rope to replace him.

‘Survival of the fittest,’ an officer next to Clarke muttered.

Peering over the edge, Clarke saw the car. Much of its camouflage had been removed. Photographs were being taken, the ground around the vehicle examined. Arc lamps were being assembled, hooked up to a portable generator — early afternoon, but the light was already fading.

‘I’m guessing a doctor wasn’t needed.’

‘Not as such,’ the officer commented. ‘Pathologist’s down there, though.’

Everyone in the gully wore the same white hooded overalls, but Clarke identified Deborah Quant. Quant saw her too, and gave a wave. The figure next to her seemed to ask who she was waving at, and when she replied, he held his hand up in greeting. A minute later, he was climbing out of the gully, making it look easy. He slid his hood back and held out a hand for Clarke to shake.

‘I’m DCI Sutherland,’ he said. ‘But Graham will do. You’re DI Clarke?’

‘Siobhan,’ Clarke said.

‘And you’re acquainted with our local pathologist.’

Clarke nodded. ‘What do we know about the victim?’

‘Male. Deborah’s unwilling to say how long he’s been dead. Looks like there’s some damage to the skull.’

Clarke made a show of studying their surroundings. ‘Not an easy place to drive to.’

‘I’m guessing it used to be a bit more accessible than it is now. We don’t know if he was alive when he went into the gully or already trussed up in the boot.’