Ian Rankin - Mortal Causes

'There's one lead the constable is still following up. He'll get back to me today.’

'I won't hold my breath. Have you ever been to the Orkneys?’

'You're not thinking of-‘. She was interrupted by her telephone. 'DC. Clarke speaking. Yes.’

She looked up at Rebus and pulled her notepad to her, starting to write. Presumably it was the Old Policeman of Hoy, so Rebus took a stroll around the room. He was reminded again just why he didn't fit, why he was so unsuited to the career life had chosen for him. The Murder Room was like a production line. You had your own little task, and you did it. Maybe someone else would follow up any lead you found, and then someone else after that might do the questioning of a suspect or potential witness. You were a small part of a very large team. It wasn't Rebus's way. He wanted to follow up every lead personally, cross referencing them all, taking them through from first principle to final reckoning. He'd been described, not unkindly, as a terrier, locking on with his jaws and not letting go. Some dogs, you had to break the jaw to get them off.

Siobhan Clarke came up to him.

'Something?’ he asked.

'My constable friend found out Cuchullain used to keep a cow and a pig, plus some chickens. Part of the self sufficiency thing. He wondered what might have happened to them when Cuchullain moved away.’

'He sounds bright.’

'Turns out Cuchullain sold them on to another crofter, and this crofter keeps records. We got lucky, Cuchullain had to wait for his money, and he gave the crofter a forwarding address in the Borders.’

She waved a piece of paper at him.

'Don't get too excited,' warned Rebus. 'We're still talking a twenty year old address for a man whose name we don't know.’

'But we do know. The crofter had a note of that too. It's Francis Lee.’

'Francis Lee?’

Rebus sounded sceptical. 'Wasn't he playing for Manchester City in the ' 70s? Francis Lee… as in Frank Lee? As in Frank Lee, my dear, I don't give a damn?’

'You think it's another alias?’

'I don't know. Let's get the Borders police to take a look.’

He studied the Murder Room. 'Ach, no, on second thoughts, let's go take a look ourselves.’

Whenever John Rebus had cause or inclination to drive through any town in the Scottish Borders, one word came to his mind.

Neat.

The towns were simply laid out and almost pathologically tidy. The buildings were constructed from unadorned stone and had a square-built no-nonsense quality to them. The people walking briskly from bank to grocer's shop to chemist's were rosy checked and bursting with health, as though they scrubbed their faces with pumice every morning before sitting down to farmhouse fare. The men's limbs moved with the grace of farm machinery. You could present any of the women to your own mother. She'd tell them you weren't good enough for them.

Truth be told, the Borderers scared Rebus. He couldn't understand them. He understood though, that placed many more miles from any large Scottish conurbation than from the English border, there was bound to be some schizophrenia to the towns and their inhabitants.

Selkirk however was definably Scots in character, architecture, and language. Its annual Laminas Fair was not yet just a memory to see the townfolk through the winter. There were still rows of pennants waiting to be taken down, flapping in the slightest breeze. There were some outside the house which abutted the kirkyard wall. Siobhan Clarke checked the address and shrugged.

'It's the manse, isn't it?’ Rebus repeated, sure that they had something wrong.

'It's the address I've got here.’

The house was large with several prominent gables. It was fashioned from dull grey stone, but boasted a lush and sweet-smelling garden. Siobhan Clarke pushed open the gate. She searched the front door for a bell but found none, so resorted to the iron knocker which was shaped like an open hand. No one answered. From nearby came the sound of a manual lawnmower, its pull and push as regular as a pendulum. Rebus looked in through the front window of the house, and saw no sign of movement.

'We're wasting our time,' he said. A waste of a long car journey too. 'Let's leave a note and get out of here.’

Clarke peered through the letterbox, then stood up again. 'Maybe we could ask around, now we're here.’

'Fine,' said Rebus, 'let's go talk to the lawnmower man.’

They walked round to the kirkyard gate and took the red gravel path around the perimeter of the church itself. At the back of the soot blackened building they saw an old man pushing a mower which in Edinburgh might have graced a New Town antique shop.

The gentleman stopped his work when he saw them crossing the trimmed grass towards him. It was like walking on a carpet. The grass could not have been shorter if he'd been using nail scissors. He produced a voluminous handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his suntanned brow. His face and arms were as brown as oak, the face polished with sweat. The elderly skin was still tight across the skull, shiny like a beetle's back. He introduced himself as Willie McStay.

'Is it about the vandalism?’ he asked.

'Vandalism? Here?’

'They've been desecrating the graves, daubing paint on the headstones. It's the skinheads.’

'Skinheads in Selkirk?’

Rebus was not convinced. 'How many skinheads are there, Mr McStay?’

McStay thought about it, grinding his teeth together as though he were chewing tobacco or a particularly tough piece of phlegm. 'Well,' he said, 'there's Alec Tunnock's son for a start. His hair's cropped awful short and he wears those boots wi' the laces.’

'Boots with laces, eh?’

'He hasna had a job since he left school.’

Rebus was shaking his head. 'We're not here about the headstones, Mr McStay. We were wondering about that house.’

He pointed towards it.

'The manse?’

'Who lives there, Mr McStay?’

'The minister, Reverend McKay.’

'How long has he lived there?’

'Gracious, I don't know. Fifteen years maybe. Before him it was Reverend Bothwell, and the Bothwells were here for a quarter century or more.’

Rebus looked to Siobhan Clarke. A waste of time.

'We're looking for a man called Francis Lee,' she said.

McStay chomped on the name, jaw chewing from side to side, cheekbones working. He reminded Rebus of a sheep. The old man shook his head. 'Nobody I know of,' he said.

'Well, thanks anyway,' said Rebus.

'A minute,' McStay ordered. Meaning that he wanted to think about it for a minute more. Finally he nodded. 'You've got it the wrong way round.’

He leant a hand against the mower's black rubber grip. 'The Bothwells were a lovely couple, Douglas and Ina. Couldn't do enough for this town. When they died, their son sold the house straight off. He wasn't supposed to, Reverend Bothwell told me that often enough. He was supposed to keep it in the family.’

'But it's a manse,' Clarke said. 'Church of Scotland property. How could he sell it?’

'The Bothwells loved the house so much, they bought it off the Church. They were going to live there when Reverend Bothwell retired. The thing is, the son sold it back to the Church. He was a wastrel, that one, took the money and ran. Nobody'd look after their grave if it wasn't for me and a few other old folk here who remember them fondly.’

He shook his head. 'Young people, they've no sense of history or commitment.’

'What's this got to do with Francis Lee?’

Siobhan Clarke asked. McStay looked at her like she was a child who'd spoken out of turn, and addressed his answer to Rebus.

'Their son was called Lee. I think his middle name was Francis.’

Lee Francis Bothwell: Francis Lee. It was too close to be mere coincidence. Rebus nodded slowly.