Ian Rankin - Beggars Banquet

She started punching telephone buttons, so he left. She was breathing hard, but didn’t let it show. She stared at the door, willing it to stay closed. Then she was connected. ‘Police?’ she said. ‘I want to speak to Chief Superintendent Lancaster…’

Outside, he sat in his car, thinking about the man called Arthur, the secretary, and Stefan Duniec. Then he got out again and started looking for another car. Any car would do, so long as it had a car phone.

Lancaster put down the receiver and looked towards the two people sitting across the desk from him.

‘That was your secretary, Mr Cooke.’ Bernard Cooke nodded: he’d gathered as much already. ‘Our man has just turned up again, asking if you’re married and implying you’ve been having an affair with Mrs Webster.’ He looked at the young woman next to Cooke. ‘Or even with you, Gillian.’

Gillian Webster snorted. Lancaster was smiling.

‘Looks like it’s worked,’ he said. I hate puzzles. Those three words had set the whole game in motion. And the game was about to end: right result, right team. ‘He had a photo with him,’ he went on, turning back to Bernard Cooke. ‘You and Gillian’s mother on the veranda at her home.’

‘That Sunday drinks party,’ Cooke decided.

‘The Minute Man was watching.’

‘He thinks Cora and I are lovers?’

‘He’s putting two and two together and making five, luckily for us. If that photo had just shown the two of you talking, he might not have suspected anything.’

‘Whereas as it is…’

‘He thinks he knows why Gillian’s set you up. It couldn’t have worked out better.’

Gillian Webster turned to Cooke. ‘Kissing my mother on the veranda?’

Cooke tried a nervous smile. Lancaster shifted in his chair. He was nervous for all sorts of reasons. The Minute Man had to solve puzzles, even if that meant conjuring an answer out of the thinnest stuff. Lancaster had invented the conundrum, hoping his adversary would be irritated by it… and drawn towards it. Someone even suggested the Minute Man might pose as a reporter – a suitable disguise for showing interest in the case…

There was a knock at the door, and a young man came in. Lancaster introduced him.

‘I don’t think either of you has met Detective Constable Duniec.’ Duniec nodded a greeting, but Gillian’s mind was on the idea of Cooke and her mother. ‘Well, Stefan?’ Lancaster asked.

The look on Duniec’s face was bad news.

‘He paid his bill and left over an hour ago.’

Lancaster nodded. ‘He’s been back to the Forester’s, a regular called Arthur just phoned to tell me. And he paid another visit to the factory.’

‘We know his car, sir, red Fiesta, there’s a call out for it.’

‘All exit roads are covered, aren’t they?’

Duniec nodded.

‘Then all we can do is wait.’

Lancaster tried to look relaxed. Bernard Cooke had been doubtful of the plan at first, but as a friend of Gillian’s he’d gone along with it. After all, partly it had been her idea. She was looking pale again. She’d been ordered to rest by the doctors, but had insisted on sticking around. The phone rang again. Lancaster snatched the call.

‘Red Fiesta,’ he said afterwards. ‘Sighted heading for Lower Traherne.’ He fixed his eyes on Gillian. ‘Looks like he’s heading out to your home.’ Then he turned to Duniec. ‘Get on to it, Stefan.’ Duniec nodded and left the room.

This eventuality, too, had been covered. The Websters were in a local hotel, under plainclothes protection. A driver and unmarked car were waiting outside to take Gillian back there. The Minute Man was driving into a trap.

The phone rang yet again, and Lancaster picked it up, glad of something to do. He listened for a moment, a muscle going rigid in his jaw. When he spoke, it was in a dry voice. ‘Put him through, will you? And try to get a trace.’ He then pushed a button on the telephone and replaced the receiver. A small integral speaker crackled into life. A female voice said, ‘You’re through, caller.’ Lancaster swallowed and spoke.

‘Hello?’

‘Superintendent Lancaster?’

‘Speaking.’

Lancaster watched Gillian. She was staring at the telephone. What little colour she had vanished from her face.

‘Don’t bother with a trace, Tom. I won’t be on long, you know that.’

‘We get a dozen cranks a day saying they’re the Minute Man.’

‘You know who I am, Tom.’

‘Why are you phoning?’

‘Because you’ve got the wrong man.’

Lancaster looked to Gillian and Cooke. She looked ready to leap from her seat, while Cooke seemed pinned against the back of his as if by G-force.

‘Have we?’

‘Yes. She’s set him up.’

‘Who has?’

‘The girl.’

‘Why would she do that?’

‘He’s having an affair with her mother. She wants revenge.’

Lancaster forced a laugh. ‘How can you possibly know that?’

‘I know. I know all of it now.’

The line went dead.

‘Christ,’ Cooke said. Lancaster checked with the switchboard, but the Minute Man hadn’t been on long enough to give them a chance. In fact, he’d been on the line for scarcely a minute…

Lancaster got to his feet. ‘I wonder if he still plans to visit Lower Traherne? One way to find out…’

‘I’m coming too,’ said Cooke, rising shakily to his feet. Gillian was still staring at the telephone. Neither man needed confirmation that she had recognised the voice. When Lancaster touched her shoulder she flinched.

‘Come on, Gillian,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you back to the hotel.’

They opened the back door of the car for her and she got in. The engine was running and the car moved off at once, through the car park, past the usual ruck of reporters and cameras, and out of the iron gates of Castle Lane police station. She didn’t want to go to the hotel, not really. She wanted to go home, to Lower Traherne. But she doubted the police driver could be persuaded to take her there. She noticed a walkie talkie on the floor by his feet. Or maybe it was a portable phone. Whatever happened at the house, she’d hear of it. He was looking at her in the rearview mirror. When she looked back, he gave her a reassuring smile. Then she noticed they’d passed the regular turning.

‘We should have gone left there.’

He was still smiling. The car was building up speed. Gillian felt a lump swell in her throat, the fear nearly choking her.

‘I know it all now,’ he said quietly. ‘The way Lancaster spoke, that confirmed it. Oh yes, that balanced both sides of the ledger quite nicely.’

She swallowed, shifting the blockage. ‘Where’s the driver?’

‘ I’m the driver.’

‘The policeman.’

‘You think he’s in the boot?’ He shook his head. ‘I told him his chief wanted him in the press room.’

She was relaxing a little. His voice was calm. It had been calm all the time she’d been his captive. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘Lower Traherne.’

‘What?’

‘I’m taking you home, Gillian.’

‘But why?’

He shrugged. ‘Just to show them I can.’

She thought for a moment. While she was thinking, he spoke again.

‘It was good, very good, nearly had me fooled. Except for one scared bloke in a pub…’

She felt the words tumble from her mouth, like someone else was speaking. ‘They’ve got the exit roads covered, and there are police at the house, inside and outside. You’ll never-’

‘It’s all right, Gillian. You’ll see, both sides will balance.’

‘What do you mean, balance?’

So for the rest of the journey, the Minute Man tried to explain to her his own particular theories of the principles of accounts.