Ian Rankin - Doors Open

‘What time was this?’

‘About eleven till three.’

Meaning Chib probably now did know Ransome had paid Allan Cruikshank a visit. That might work out okay, actually… Chib turning the screws one side of the banker, Ransome the other. ‘So what’s the good news?’ he asked.

‘I’ve got four names for you. Chib told me he wanted to talk to them, then changed his mind. I reckon they’re the ones he was recruiting.’

Glenn recited the names while Ransome jotted them down. ‘So who are they? Bellboy’s the only name I seem to know.’

‘Same here.’

Ransome sighed loudly. ‘Okay then, here’s an easy one: where’s Chib now?’

‘Diamond Jim’s in Gorgie.’

‘The snooker hall?’ Ransome tapped his pen against his notepad, thanked his CHIS, and ended the call. Complaints were rising into the air – someone in the crowded office had farted. Clipboards were being waved like fans; groans and pleas to try opening a window. The smell hadn’t reached him yet, but if he rose to leave he knew he would get the blame, so he held his ground and studied the names on his pad.

Billy, Kev, Dodds and Bellboy. Bellboy was a hard wee bastard. The others would be pals of his; known to local coppers, no doubt. Add Mike Mackenzie and Calloway himself and you had a posse big enough to pull off the heist. ‘The gang’s all here,’ he muttered to himself. He still wasn’t sure about Allan Cruikshank and Professor Gissing. Oh, he reckoned they knew about it – knew all about it. Mackenzie would have taken them into his confidence, bragging, showing off.

Making them complicit.

Making them accessories.

Which meant one of them might just squeal. Ransome hadn’t had a proper talk with Gissing yet. From what he’d seen so far of the old man, he thought he knew the type. Probably marched against the bomb in the fifties. Liked the idea of a student riot in ’68 but couldn’t get anyone else in Edinburgh to agree with him. Typical trendy leftie grown old, still anti-police and unlikely to cooperate as a result.

Leaving the banker, Allan Cruikshank. Ransome intended letting him stew another day, max, before a second visit, trusting the man didn’t have an aneurysm in the interim. But now that the detective had started to consider the professor, he realised there might be some fun to be had there, too. Before that, though, he had to pass these four new names around, get a minion to run a check. He’d managed to shift a further half-inch in depth from his in-tray.

‘Time for a break,’ he persuaded himself, tearing the page from the notebook.

Mike had spent a fruitless half-hour at the art college. Gissing’s secretary wasn’t around, and neither was he. The door to his outer office was open, but the inner sanctum was locked tight. There was paperwork on the secretary’s desk and her phone was ringing. Mike was tempted to pick up, just in case it was Gissing himself, but instead he placed his hand against the coffee mug next to the telephone. There was some residual warmth, meaning the secretary couldn’t be far off – unless she’d clocked off early. In the end, he scribbled a note and slid it under Gissing’s door. Just the three words – NEED TO MEET – and his initials. Heading back downstairs, he decided to visit Westie. The basement was labyrinthine. Plenty of students were at work, but no one had seen Westie. Eventually, a bearded and bespectacled man – somewhat older than the undergraduate norm and standing in a studio half filled with hay bales – told him that Westie was in the next room along. Except that he wasn’t there. His door was ajar, and inside there were signs of recent activity. Seven paintings, framed and prepped. A couple were waiting for hooks to be hammered into the wall against which they rested. The hooks were on the floor next to them, as was a small hammer. Mike hoped that Westie was on the hunt for Alice. He hoped he wasn’t hunched on the sofa in his flat, getting stoned and maudlin.

‘You a dealer?’ It was the beard from the next studio along. He was wiping his hands down the front of his overalls. It took Mike a moment to realise he probably meant art dealer rather than any other kind. Mike shook his head.

‘There was a guy here yesterday,’ the man continued, ‘looked like a bouncer. I asked Westie afterwards who he was. Said he was a dealer. Takes all sorts, I suppose…’ The man was shuffling back towards his work.

‘Excuse me,’ Mike called to him. ‘Is Westie’s stuff any good, do you think?’

‘Define “good”,’ the man said, moving out of view.

Mike thought about this and decided that he couldn’t. He headed upstairs again and pulled open the door to the outside world. Someone else was coming in, so he took a step back. The man made to pass him with a nod of thanks, then stopped in his tracks. Mike realised who it was: Ransome. He stared at the floor, but too late.

‘You’re Michael Mackenzie,’ the detective said.

Mike pretended to look surprised. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Do we know one another?’

‘Has your good friend Chib Calloway not mentioned me to you? Or Allan Cruikshank, come to that?’ Ransome was holding out his hand, waiting for Mike to reciprocate. Mike shook it.

‘Allan?’ he asked. ‘No, I don’t think he has. Do you work with him?’

Ransome laughed. Some students wanted to get past, so that the two men had to move back inside the reception area. ‘I’m a police officer, Mr Mackenzie. Surely Mr Cruikshank must have said something to you about me?’

‘Why should he?’

‘Because I’m investigating your friend Chib Calloway.’

‘You keep calling him that, but I wouldn’t class him a “friend”.’

‘What, then? An associate – would that be nearer the mark?’

‘We were at school together, Tynecastle High… bumped into one another again recently.’

‘And found that you share an interest in fine art,’ Ransome mused. ‘Does that explain your trip here today, Mr Mackenzie?’

‘I’m a bit of a collector.’ Mike offered a shrug. ‘Degree show’s coming up and I was hoping for a sneak preview.’

Ransome nodded along with this, but looked far from convinced. ‘So you weren’t just warning Professor Robert Gissing not to speak to me?’

Mike managed a laugh. ‘Why in God’s name would I do that?’ He cut the end of the sentence off with a little cough. He’d been about to add the word ‘Inspector’ but couldn’t remember if Ransome had identified himself as such. He’d already slipped up with Laura; couldn’t have it happen again.

‘You don’t deny you’re friends with Professor Gissing?’

‘I certainly know him a damned sight better than I do Chib Calloway.’

‘You’ll know where I can find him, then.’

‘He has an office on the top floor. I can’t say for certain he’ll be there.’

‘Well, I’ll try anyway.’ Ransome smiled and made to move past Mike.

‘What’s this all about? First Allan Cruikshank and now Professor Gissing… you seem to be talking to half my friends.’ Mike was trying for levity, but Ransome’s stare was steely.

‘You can’t be that short of friends, Mr Mackenzie, surely.’ He seemed about to leave it at that but then paused. ‘I’ve just been to see a man called Jimmy Allison – too much to expect that you know him, too?’ Ransome watched Mike shake his head. ‘He was the victim of a mugging, night before the Granton warehouse heist. You’ll have heard something about that, Mr Mackenzie?’

‘The heist? Sure,’ Mike agreed.

‘Well, this curator… expert in his field… he lives just a short hike from here, one of those newish blocks of flats by the canal.’

‘Yes?’

‘Only he wasn’t there. His wife’s up to high doh – called the police even, only no one thought to tell me. He’s gone missing, you see. Since yesterday. She’s worried he’s got concussion.’