Ian Rankin - Beggars Banquet

‘Why do you ask?’ asked the barman.

‘I was supposed to be seeing him today. Drove all the way down from bloody Lancaster.’ The barman didn’t seem about to doubt his north-west accent. ‘Only there’s no bugger about except some right rough types in a car parked outside.’

‘Reporters,’ said the crossword solver.

‘Oh aye?’

‘You won’t be seeing Cooke for a while.’ The crossword solver tipped back the dregs of a half-pint.

‘We don’t know that,’ snapped the barman. ‘Don’t go jumping to bloody conclusions, Arthur.’

Arthur merely shrugged in compliance, staring down at his paper.

‘He’s in trouble, is he?’ asked the traveller.

‘Maybe.’

‘Bang goes my bloody contract.’

‘You’re lucky, then,’ said Arthur.’

‘How do you mean?’ He nodded towards the empty glass. ’Get you another?’

‘Thanks, I will.’

The barman refilled the glass, but wouldn’t take one himself. Arthur sipped and swallowed. ‘I mean,’ he said at last, ‘Bernie’s been in trouble for yonks, money trouble. Chances are, if you were buying from him, you wouldn’t have got what you ordered, and if you were selling, you wouldn’t have seen the money.’

‘Thanks for the tip.’

‘I’ve known for months he was in trouble. Used to be, he’d nip in here Friday lunchtime for something to eat and a couple of brandies. Then it got to be twice a week and four brandies, and three times a week and six. Somebody drinks like that, it’s not because they’re flush, it’s that they’re worried.’

‘I know what you mean.’

‘All I know,’ chipped in the barman, ‘is that he always paid… and that’s more than some.’

Arthur winked at Beattie. ‘That’s a dig at me.’

Beattie finished his drink and eased himself off the bar stool.

‘Back to Lancaster?’

He shook his head. ‘Couple more calls first.’

After he’d gone, the bar was silent a few moments, then Arthur cleared his throat.

‘What do you think?’

‘Well,’ said the barman, ‘he wasn’t a reporter. I’m not even sure he’s in business.’

‘How do you make that out?’

‘No expense account – didn’t ask for a receipt for the drinks.’

‘Maybe he doesn’t need receipts, Sherlock.’

‘Maybe.’ The barman lifted away the empty glass and washed it, placing it on the rack to dry. Then he wiped the bartop where the man had been sitting, and put down a fresh beermat. Now there was no sign anyone had ever been there.

‘Just be a second,’ the barman told Arthur. Then he disappeared into the alcove where the telephone was kept.

At three-forty, the journalists slouched out of the press room carrying the latest news release. They were talkative, if they weren’t too busy drawing in cigarette smoke. Some were making calls on their telephones, or going off to their cars to make calls. They squeezed from the police station’s double doors and fanned out across the car park. A camera unit had been readied for the TV reporter called Martin Brockman, who was now checking his script while a make-up girl tried to get his hair to stop flying into a vertical peak every time a gust blew.

Stefan Duniec walked slowly across the car park, not heading towards his car – he did not have a car – but just keeping moving, so he looked as busy and important as the other reporters. He was staring down at his notebook and didn’t notice the figure blocking his way until he’d practically bumped into it.

‘Hello, Mr Beattie, you missed the conference.’

‘Couldn’t be helped, Stef. Anything to report?’

‘I got you a copy of the press release.’

‘Good lad.’ Beattie started to read from the two stapled sheets. Gillian Webster, he read, had now given a description of the room she’d been kept in during her ‘ten-day ordeal’. Not so much a room, more a cupboard, kept in darkness. She could hear distant traffic, as though heavy lorries were passing outside. But she was tied up, mouth taped shut, and couldn’t cry out.

Beattie read it again. Well, it was true he’d kept her mouth taped shut occasionally, but everything else was a fabrication, another false account.

‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Are they still questioning Cooke?’ Duniec nodded. ‘And I suppose they’ll be giving his factory the once-over?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Stands to reason, Stef. This cupboard could be in Cooke’s factory. I’ve just come from there. He’s been laying off staff. The only person left is a secretary, and I doubt she goes anywhere near the shop floor – she might get her hands mucky.’ He glanced again at the paper. ‘Lorries going past… sounds just like an industrial estate.’

‘I suppose it does,’ Duniec said quietly.

‘And if he’s been laying off men, what does that tell you?’

‘His company’s in trouble.’

‘Dead right. So tell me, young Stef, is Cooke wealthy or skint?’

‘Skint, I suppose.’

‘And desperate.’

‘So he kidnaps someone he knows… How could he hope to get away with it?’

‘All we know is that he knew the parents; we don’t know Gillian knew him.’

‘But he let her see him,’ Duniec protested. ‘He must’ve known she’d give a description – that her father would see it…’

Beattie nodded. Precisely. That was just one of the flaws. Would Cooke really have kept her in his factory, with someone else on the premises all day? How could he feed Gillian without the secretary becoming suspicious? Gillian’s story was badly flawed. But Beattie wondered if the police would see that. He could see what Gillian Webster was doing, and how she was doing it. He just couldn’t account for the why. But he had an idea now, a good idea. He only needed to study the photographs again.

Meantime, Stefan had obviously been considering all the flaws too.

‘Like you say, he must have been desperate.’

‘He was desperate all right, he just wasn’t very bright.’ He tapped Duniec’s shoulder with the rolled-up press release. ‘I’ll see you later.’ He winked. ‘Remember the byline.’

‘And the seven-fifty words!’ Duniec called after him. ‘I’ve already made a start!’

Without looking back, Beattie gave a raised thumbs-up. Duniec watched till he was out of sight, then turned back towards the reporters’ cars. Three men were in a huddle next to a red Porsche.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, interrupting them. One man, the one with a proprietorial hand resting on the Porsche’s roof, spoke for all of them.

‘What is it?’

‘You’re Terry Greig, aren’t you?’

Greig puffed out his chest. Of course he was Terry Greig, king of the tabloid newsroom, scourge of copy-takers. And here was another tyro looking to make his acquaintance.

‘What can I do for you, lad?’

Duniec didn’t like that ‘lad’, but like Beattie’s ‘Stef ’ he let it lie. ‘Did you see that man I was talking to?’ he asked instead. ‘In the sheepskin jacket?’

Greig nodded. Little escaped him. ‘I saw him earlier,’ he confirmed.

‘Right,’ said Duniec. ‘And have you seen him before? I mean, do you know who he is?’

‘Don’t know him from Adam. Football manager, is he? Third Division? They’re the only buggers would wear a coat like that.’

‘Except for Brockman,’ added one of the other reporters.

‘Except for old Brockie,’ Greig agreed. Then they all laughed, all except Stefan Duniec. When the laughter had died and they were waiting for him to leave, he turned his gaze once more to Greig.

‘He wrote up the Ripper case for the Telegraph.’

‘No he didn’t, not unless he meant the Belfast Telegraph.’ They all laughed again. Even Duniec’s lips were bent slightly in what might have passed for a smile.