10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (238 page)

‘Inspector? I’d like you to talk with some people.’

It was the invitation Rebus had been waiting for. ‘When?’

‘Tonight if at all possible. I’ll phone you with the details.’

‘I’ll be at St Leonard’s till six,’ Rebus said, leaving the old man to his view.

But Rebus couldn’t face the police station, so went home instead.

And found, slowly but with growing confidence, that his flat had been broken into in his absence. It was a clean, meticulous job. There were no signs of forced entry, nothing had been taken, almost nothing looked out of place. But his books had been moved. He had them in what looked like unplanned towers, but were actually the order in which he’d bought them and intended to read them. One of the towers had been knocked over and put back up again out of order. His drawers had been closed, too, though he always left them open. And his record collection had been rifled – as if he could hide sacks of shredded paper inside album sleeves . . .

He sat down with a glass of whisky and tried not to think
any thoughts. If he thought, he might not act. He might drop out, like Dalgety, and let them get on with it. He loathed Sir Iain Hunter for the way he used people. But then Paul Duggan used people too, if it came down to it. Kirstie, too, had used and abused her friends. Everybody used someone. The difference was, Sir Iain and his kind had everything – heart, soul, silver and gold – only nobody knew it, never even gave it a thought.

What was more, probably nobody cared.

His phone rang at seven.

‘I did try St Leonard’s,’ Sir Iain said. ‘They told me you’d not been back this afternoon.’

‘Don’t worry, your friends had left before I got back.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Nothing, forget it. But hear this: Gillespie’s files are in a safe place, and I mean
safe
.’

‘You’re not making much sense, Inspector.’

‘Is that for the benefit of anyone listening in?’

‘I only called to remind you of our meeting. Nine tonight, would that suit?’

‘Let me just check my social calendar.’

‘You know Gyle Park West?’

‘I know it.’

‘The PanoTech factory. You’ll be expected at nine.’

PanoTech had won awards for the design of its Gyle Park West factory, with its automated shopfloor delivery system (a series of robot fork-lifts on a network of rails), and its bulbous shape with optimised interior light. The reception area was chrome and grey metal with a black rubberised floor.

There was a security guard on the desk, but Rebus was expected. As he walked through the automatic doors, an automatic voice telling him he was entering a ‘Positively No Smoking Zone’, he saw Sir Iain Hunter standing by a display case. There was a sheet over the case, but Sir Iain had lifted it, the better to inspect the model beneath.

‘The new LABarum building,’ he explained. ‘They’ll start construction in the spring.’ He turned to Rebus. ‘New jobs, Inspector.’

‘And another feather in your cap. What’ll it be this time –
Lord
Hunter of Ruthie?’

Sir Iain’s smile evaporated. ‘They’re waiting for us in the boardroom.’

They took a bright elevator to the third and top floor, and emerged into a compact hallway with three doors off. Sir Iain pressed four numbers on a wall console, and pushed open one of the doors. Inside, three men were waiting, standing by the window. A light airplane was taking off from Turnhouse, so close you could almost see the exhausted executives inside.

Rebus looked at Haldayne first, then at J Joseph
Simpson, and finally at Robbie Mathieson. ‘The gang’s all here,’ he commented.

‘That’s a cheap shot.’ Mathieson came forward to take Rebus’s hand. He was wearing an expensive suit, but showed he’d put aside the day’s cares by having shed his tie and undone the top button of his shirt.

‘Good of you to come,’ he told Rebus, with what some people would have taken for sincerity.

‘Good of you to ask me,’ Rebus said, playing the game.

Mathieson waved a hand around the room. It had cream walls, some blown-up photos of computer chips, and a dozen framed awards for export, industry and achievement. There was a large oval table placed centrally, black like the floor. ‘I have this place swept for bugs once a week, Inspector. Industrial espionage is a constant threat. Unfortunately, this meeting was arranged at short notice . . .’

‘So?’

‘So I don’t have any of the relevant devices to hand. How can I be sure
you’re
not bugged?’

‘What do you want me to do?’

Mathieson tried to look embarrassed. It was just an act. ‘I’d like you to remove your clothes.’

‘Nobody said it was going to be that sort of party.’

Mathieson smiled, but angled his head, expecting compliance.

‘Anyone want to join me?’ Rebus said, removing his jacket.

Sir Iain Hunter laughed.

Rebus studied the four men as he stripped. Simpson looked the most ill at ease; probably because he was the least of the group. Haldayne had seated himself at the table and was toying with a fat chrome pen, as if already bored with proceedings. Mathieson stood by the window, averting
his eyes from the disrobing. But Sir Iain stood fast and watched.

Rebus got down to underpants and socks.

‘Thank you,’ Mathieson said. ‘Please get dressed again, and I apologise for putting you through that.’ He was using his business voice, deep and confident, the American burr touched with Scots inflexions. ‘Let’s all sit down.’

Simpson hadn’t even reached his chair before he started blurting out that he didn’t know what he was doing here, it was all such a long time ago . . .

‘You’re here, Joe,’ Mathieson reminded him firmly, ‘because you broke the law of the land. We all did.’

Then he turned to Rebus.

‘Inspector, a long time ago, almost in another age, we all profited from enterprises set up and run by Derwood Charters. Now, the question in court would be: did we know at the time that those profits were being made by fraudulent means?’ He shrugged. ‘That’s a question for the lawyers, and you know how lawyers can be, especially with questions of corporate law. They might take years and several million pounds to come to their conclusions. A lot of time, a lot of money . . .’ He opened his palms wide, a showman with his spiel. ‘And for what? The fact of the matter is, some of those profits – illicitly gained – went to build this very factory, bringing jobs to hundreds, with spin-off benefits creating and sustaining hundreds, maybe thousands more. Including, as you told me yourself, a friend of yours. Now, in
law
, none of this would count for anything – quite rightly so. The law is a stern mistress, that’s what they say.’ A little smile. ‘But the law, I would argue, isn’t everything. There are considerations of a moral, ethical and economic order.’ He raised a finger to stress the point, then touched it to his lips. ‘Moral law, Inspector, is something else again. If bad money is used to good purpose, can it really be called bad money? If a child stole
some apples, then went on to be a life-saving surgeon, would any court convict him of the original theft?’

Mathieson had prepared his lines well. Rebus tried not to listen, but his ears were working too well. Mathieson seemed to sense a change in him, and got up to walk around the table.

‘Now, Inspector, if you want to drag up ancient history, you must do so, but the consequences will rest on
your
conscience. They sure as hell won’t be on mine.’

Rebus wondered if it was possible that Mathieson had compiled a dossier on him, had people watch him, talk to acquaintances. No, those methods would not have told the essential truths, they wouldn’t have revealed the man to whom Mathieson was appealing so subtly and cleverly. It had to be more than that. It had to be instinct.

‘A murder has been committed,’ Rebus said.

Mathieson had been expecting this argument. ‘Not with the knowledge of anyone in this room,’ he said.

‘You’re saying it was Charters alone?’

Mathieson nodded, stroking his beard. Rebus wondered if he’d grown it in memory of Aidan Dalgety. ‘Derwood has most to lose,’ he was explaining. ‘He’s been in prison all these years, and if you make public what you know, he’ll stay there.’

‘But Gillespie was set up by someone he knew. He wouldn’t have been in that alley otherwise.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because he was scared.’

‘Then who was it?’ Mathieson asked.

‘I would guess Sir Iain,’ Rebus said. Four pairs of eyes fixed the Permanent Secretary. ‘Maybe Charters himself will tell us. As you say, he’s got most to lose. He might be all too willing to bargain down any extension to his sentence.’

‘This is preposterous,’ Hunter said, thumping the floor with his cane.

‘Is it?’ Rebus said. ‘You like guns, Sir Iain. You’ve got a whole room full of shotguns. What if I checked them against the records? Would they all be there, or would one be missing – the one you passed on to Shug McAnally?’ Rebus turned to Mathieson. ‘I want him. I want him tonight. The rest of you, maybe later.’

‘Hold on,’ Haldayne interrupted, ‘what evidence do you have? We’ve told you we don’t know any –’

‘Save your defence, Mr Haldayne. I know Sir Iain’s been controlling you all these years.’

Mathieson was shaking his head slowly. ‘It would be very unfortunate indeed if
any
of this leaked out. If you arrest Sir Iain, you’ll precipitate a media circus as well as political questions. Why can’t you just charge Charters?’

‘Because then you’d all be getting away with it.’

Mathieson looked frustrated. ‘Inspector, understand one thing: I don’t care about Sir Iain, I don’t care about anyone here tonight – including myself, if it comes down to it.’ His voice was rising the way it must have at other boardroom meetings, propelling him towards victory. ‘What I care about – more deeply than you would ever understand or believe – is PanoTech.’ Now the voice fell away. ‘LABarum will be a major expansion, Inspector. A new factory, new R and D unit, meaning more suppliers, contractors, a huge injection of hard cash and confidence into the local economy. But more than that, LABarum will be Europe’s Microsoft – Scotland will be producing its own software to install in the computers it manufactures.’

‘No wonder everyone wants you kept sweet.’

‘And you’re going to put all that in jeopardy over something that happened eight years ago and hurt no one at the time; no one but the taxpayer, who wouldn’t have known anyway how his or her money was being spent. A
few million was a drop in the ocean, hardly even a ripple. Do you have any idea the scale of fraud being perpetrated in mainland Europe? A non-existent training scheme for airline pilots in Naples netted
seventeen
million pounds. Farm products and animals are shipped to and fro across borders, netting a subsidy every time. The EC has paid a
billion
pounds to have vineyards destroyed, yet there are more vines every year. The Greeks lop a branch off a vine and stick it in the ground so they’ll be paid for
two
. I repeat, a few million hurt no one.’

‘It hurt Aidan Dalgety.’

‘Aidan hurt himself. You didn’t know him then. He was becoming so erratic, he could have dragged the company down with him.’

‘It’s hurt other people since.’ Rebus thought of Kirstie, finding out her father was no icon. He thought of her plan, a plan they all thought they could get away with because her father wasn’t going to get his daughter back – they’d been bartering for the LABarum document, and for Kirstie’s knowledge of the whole affair . . . And Willie and Dixie had died.

‘I accept,’ Mathieson was saying, ‘that a man died. Derwood’s gone crazy, that’s what it comes down to.’

‘There’s one other consideration,’ said Sir Iain, who’d had time to recover. ‘As Mr Haldayne will acknowledge, two more US companies have seen the benefits of locating their European operations in Lothian. If my name, or Mr Haldayne’s, were to be bandied about . . .’ Hunter gave a modest shrug.

‘Well,’ Rebus said, ‘this is turning into a harder sell than a Costa del Sol time-share.’ He turned to Simpson. ‘What about you, Joe?’

Simpson nearly slid from his chair. ‘What about me?’

‘Do you have any properties to bargain with in this little
game of moral “Monopoly”, or have you just picked up the Go-To-Jail card?’

‘I can’t go to jail! All I did was provide an accommodation address. It’s not illegal!’

‘Then why are you here?’ Rebus looked to Mathieson, whose lips twitched.

‘An offering,’ he said.

‘Hear that, Joe?’

Simpson had heard. He rose trembling to his feet.

‘You could always testify against them,’ Rebus told him.

‘With what?’ Haldayne said.

‘Mr Haldayne has a point, Inspector.’ Mathieson was sitting down again, in his big chief executive chair at the end of the table. Tables without corners were supposed to make everyone equal, but Mathieson’s chair was a leather throne. He looked and sounded completely unruffled by events thus far, while Rebus felt as if his head would explode.

Hundreds of jobs, spin-offs; happy, smiling faces. People like Salty Dougary, pride restored, given another chance. Did Rebus have the gall to think he could pronounce sentence on the future of people like that? People who wouldn’t care who got away with what, so long as
they
had a pay-cheque at the end of the month?

Gillespie had died, but Rebus knew these men hadn’t killed him, not directly. At the same time he hated them, hated their confidence and their indifference, hated their certainty that what they did was ‘for the good’.
They
knew the way the world worked;
they
knew who – or, rather,
what –
was in charge. It wasn’t the police or the politicians, it wasn’t anyone stupid enough to place themselves in the front line. It was secret, quiet men who got on with their work the world over, bribing where necessary, breaking the rules, but quietly, in the name of ‘progress’, in the name of the ‘system’.

Shug McAnally was dead, but no one was grieving: Tresa was spending his money, and having a good time with Maisie Finch. Audrey Gillespie, too, might start enjoying life for the first time in years, maybe with her lover. A man had died – cruelly and in terror – but he was all there was on Rebus’s side of the balance sheet. And on the other was everything else.