Ian Rankin - Beggars Banquet

Chick nodded. He was still nodding as she brought a roll of banknotes from her drawer and proceeded to peel off ten fifties.

‘I get a lot of cash customers,’ she said with a wink. ‘Hard to bank the stuff without the taxman taking an interest.’

Chick pocketed the money. Then he asked for the driver’s name.

‘Jack Grover,’ she told him. ‘He has a personalised number plate.’ As she went on to describe Grover, a smile spread over Chick’s face. She saw it and broke off.

‘You know him?’

Chick told her he thought he did. He shrugged like it was the most natural thing in the world, and added that knowing people was his job, after all. She looked impressed. As he was leaving, he had a thought.

‘Any chance of a test-drive some day?’ he asked.

She smiled at him. ‘Bring back my Lexus, you can have your pick of the showroom.’

Chick was actually blushing as he left.

He knew a mechanic in Peterhead who showed him the best way to get into a Lexus and start it up. It took the mechanic about a minute and a half. He told Chick his teenage son could do it in twenty-eight seconds flat.

On the drive west, thoughts raced through Chick’s mind. A body could disappear in a loch and never be found. Then there were the Highlands themselves, remote and unvisited. A corpse could lie there for months, becoming unrecognisable. And the roads around Loch Ness were treacherous… an accident could have you over the side.

He asked at the tourist board about holiday cottages in the area, got a list. But it might be a private house, so he bought himself an Ordnance Survey map. Each little black dot was a building. He made a triangle of Inverness, Beauly and Urquhart Castle. Somewhere in here, he felt, he would find the Lexus and its driver, Jack Grover, the man who’d beaten him at cards.

The roads were narrow and steep, the land empty except for the occasional croft or recently built bungalow. He stopped to ask questions, not being subtle about it. A man in a big silver car: had anyone seen him? He was living nearby. He spent two days like this, two days of rejection, silence and slow shakes of the head. Two days spent mostly by himself. To save money and the journey back to Inverness, he slept in his Ford Mondeo, parking it on forest tracks. He knew he needed a shave and change of clothes, but those could wait. He wanted the job finished, because now he had a plan of sorts. It was stupid to blame his wife, to think of harming her. Her new man… well, that was for the future maybe. But Jack Grover, on the other hand… he just had to rub his nose in it. Just to show him he could.

He was thinking these things when he found the Lexus. It was parked in full view, outside a two-storey house on the outskirts of Milton. Chick stopped his car by the roadside and looked around. The house seemed quiet. He drove into Milton and left his car there – it could be picked up later. Then, taking his camera with him, he walked back to the Lexus, took another look around, and got to work. He was sweating by the time he’d got the door open and started the ignition. He got his camera ready and sounded the horn, wanting Grover to see him making off in the car, wanting a photo of the moment of triumph. But no one came to the door. Chick tried again; still no one came. He felt deflated as he sped out of the driveway and down to the banks of the loch, taking the road back into Inverness.

But as he crossed the Caledonian Canal, he felt the car’s steering slip, and a low juddering from beneath. He pulled over and found that he had a puncture. Cursing silently, he kicked the tyre and opened the boot, looking for a jack and spare tyre.

And found instead a body.

Not any old body, but that of the card player, Jack Grover. Chick stumbled backwards and turned his head to be sick on the verge. Trembling, approaching the boot again, he took a handkerchief out to wipe his mouth. The bundle of notes came with it, floating into the boot. He reached in for them… beginning to wonder now. Cash in hand, untraceable… Gently, he patted the dead man’s pockets and reached a hand into one, bringing out a wallet. He thought he could hear a siren in the distance. There were credit cards in the wallet, and the same name on all of them: James Gemmell. The JG on the numberplate stood for James Gemmell, not Jack Grover.

He saw it in a flash: there was no Jack Grover; no stolen Lexus. There was just Jacqueline Gemmell’s husband, who had gone home and told his wife about some drunk in the casino who’d been steamed up at him, a private detective of all things…

The sirens were closer now. Chick rubbed his jaw, feeling the rasp of his beard, seeing himself dishevelled and dirty, recalling all the witnesses who would say he’d been looking for a man in a Lexus. And the witnesses at the casino – he’d told them to remember his name…

Seeing, with absolute clarity, the way he’d been used by Gemmell’s wife, who had found for herself the perfect way to get rid of an unwanted spouse. Chick had been wrong: you didn’t need an unbreakable alibi or some obscure hiding-place. All you needed was someone like him, unlucky in love, unlucky at cards. Someone you could put in the frame…

You know the videos I mean. They get passed around, brought back from trips to Germany or France or the United States. A case of beer and a few mates round while the ladies are elsewhere. You won’t see ladies in these videos, except on the covers. Oh yes, the models on the covers are dolls, but on the tape itself… well. Once inside, we are talking gynaecology, and the rougher it gets the rougher the women begin to look. When one of the men suggests anal sex, you can be sure a new woman is about to enter the scene, her eyes as tired and heavy as her flesh, all pucker and tattoo and bruise. I wonder about those bruises sometimes, about coercion and persuasion behind the scenes.

I’m always invited to watch these videos. For two reasons: my working knowledge of French and German, and my technical ability with video recorders. These films aren’t always compatible with the British VHS players. You can lose colour, sound, or even the picture. But with a few home-made cables and boxes of tricks everything’s made hunky-dory, which pleases my friend Maxwell no end.

‘What’s that he’s saying, Kenny?’

‘Which one?’ I can see at least three men.

‘The one who’s talking, idiot.’

‘He’s saying “faster, faster”.’

And Maxwell nods. He looks like he’s watching a Buñuel film, my translation crucial to his understanding and appreciation of the director’s intent. But the film we’re watching, along with Andrew, Mark and Jimmy, has the same dénouement as the dozen or so others in Maxwell’s mews flat. Despite being a bachelor, he keeps these videos tucked away in the wardrobe in his bedroom. I think for him the furtiveness is part of the fun; perhaps even all the fun. I look around at my friends’ faces. They are like kids at a birthday party watching Goofy cartoons. They say you can choose your friends, but that’s a lie. My life, I am sure, is a closed loop, like the eight-track cartridges you still find at car boot sales, along with Betamax video recorders and broken Rolf Harris Stylophones.

Look at Maxwell. I didn’t choose him. On our first day at school we just happened to sit together. The next day, it seemed polite to do the same (and besides, the other desks and chairs were already occupied). We never had much in common. More, certainly, when at school than at university. And more at university than since. Maxwell is still single, has a fabulous job (with attendant car and home in the right part of town), and sees life as a series of challenges. I am married, in a dead-end career, with an ailing automobile and a tenement flat. My life too is a series of challenges. But where Maxwell spends his time trying to work out which gorgeous woman to date next, or where next to go for a sun-drenched holiday, I spend my time worrying over mortgage, overdraft, car insurance and council tax.