Strip Jack (32 page)

They were seated around a table in one of the conference rooms – Lauderdale’s idea. No doubt an interview room wasn’t good enough for Sir Hugh Ferrie. Gregor Jack had been smartened up for the occasion: crisp suit, tidied hair, sparkling eyes. Seated, however, between Sir Hugh and Jeanette Oliphant, he was always going to come home third in the projection stakes.

‘The point is,’ said Jeanette Oliphant, ‘Mr Jack told Sir Hugh about something else he’d been keeping secret, namely that his Wednesday round of golf was a concoction.’

‘Bloody fool –’

‘And,’ Oliphant went on, a little more loudly, ‘Sir Hugh contacted me. We feel that the sooner Mr Jack makes a statement regarding his genuine actions on the day in question, the less doubt there will be.’ Jeanette Oliphant was in her mid-fifties, a tall, elegant, but stern-faced woman. Her mouth was a thin slash of lipstick, her eyes piercing, missing nothing. Her ears stuck out ever so slightly from her short permed hair, as though ready to catch any nuance or ambiguity, any wrong word or overlong pause.

Sir Hugh, on the other hand, was stocky and pugnacious, a man more used to speaking than listening. His hands lay flat against the table top, as though they were attempting to push
through
it.

‘Let’s get everything sorted out,’ he said.

‘If that’s what Mr Jack wants,’ Lauderdale said quietly.

‘It’s what he wants,’ replied Ferrie.

The door opened. It was Detective Sergeant Brian Holmes, carrying a tray of cups. Rebus looked up at him, but Holmes refused to meet his eyes. Not normally a DS’s job, playing waiter, but Rebus could just see Holmes waylaying the
real
tea-boy. He wanted to know what was going on. So, it seemed, did Chief Superintendent Watson, who came into the room behind him. Ferrie actually half rose from his chair.

‘Ah, Chief Superintendent.’ They shook hands. Watson glanced from Lauderdale to Rebus and back, but there was nothing they could tell him, not yet. Holmes, having laid the tray on the table, was lingering.

‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ said Lauderdale, dismissing him from the room. In the general mêlée, Rebus saw that Gregor Jack was looking at him, looking with his sparkling eyes and his little boy’s smile. Here we are again, he was saying. Here we are again.

Watson decided to stay. Another cup would be needed, but then Rebus declined the offer of tea, so there was a cup for
Watson after all. It was obvious from his face that he would have preferred coffee, his own coffee. But he accepted the cup from Rebus with a nodded thanks. Then Gregor Jack spoke.

‘After Inspector Rebus’s last visit, I did some thinking. I was able to recall the names of some of the places I went to that Wednesday . . .’ He reached into his jacket’s inside pocket and drew out a piece of paper. ‘I looked in on a bar in Eyemouth itself, but it was packed. I didn’t stay. I
did
have a tomato juice at a hotel outside the town, but again the bar there was packed, so I can’t be sure anyone will remember me. And I bought chewing gum at a newsagent’s in Dunbar on the way down. Apart from that, I’m afraid it’s pretty vague.’ He handed the list to the Chief Superintendent. ‘A walk along the front at Eyemouth . . . a stop in a lay-by just north of Berwick . . . there was another car in the lay-by, a rep or something, but he seemed more interested in his maps than he did in me . . . That’s about it.’

Watson nodded, studying the list as though it contained exam questions. Then he handed it on to Lauderdale.

‘It’s certainly a start,’ said Watson.

‘The thing is, Chief Superintendent,’ said Sir Hugh, ‘the boy knows he’s in trouble, but it seems to me the only trouble he’s in stems from trying to help other people.’

Watson nodded thoughtfully. Rebus stood up. ‘If you’ll excuse me a moment . . .’ And he made for the door, closing it behind him with a real sense of escape. He had no intention of returning. There might be a slap on the wrist later from Lauderdale or Watson – bad manners that, John – but no way could he sit in that stifling room with all those stifling people. Holmes was loitering at the far end of the corridor.

‘What’s up?’ he asked when Rebus approached.

‘Nothing to get excited about.’

‘Oh.’ Holmes looked deflated. ‘Only we all thought . . .’

‘You all thought he was coming in to confess? Quite the opposite, Brian.’

‘Is Glass going to end up going down for both murders then?’

Rebus shrugged. ‘Nothing would surprise me,’ he said. Despite his morning shower, he felt grimy and unhealthy.

‘Makes it nice and neat, doesn’t it?’

‘We’re the police, Brian, we’re not meant to be char ladies.’

‘Sorry I spoke.’

Rebus sighed. ‘Sorry, Brian. I didn’t mean to dust you off.’ They stared at one another for a second, then laughed. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. ‘Right, I’m off to Queensferry.’

‘Autograph-hunting?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Need a chauffeur?’

‘Why not. Come on then.’

A snap decision, Rebus was later to think, which probably saved his life.

They managed not to speak about work on the way out to Queensferry. Instead, they spoke about women.

‘What about the four of us going out some night?’ Brian Holmes suggested at one point.

‘I’m not sure Patience and Nell would get on,’ Rebus mused.

‘What, different personalities, you mean?’

‘No, similar personalities. That’s the problem.’

Rebus was thinking of tonight’s dinner with Patience. Of trying to take time off from the Jack case. Of not making a Jack-ass of himself. Of jacking it all in . . .

‘It was only a thought,’ said Holmes. ‘That’s all, only a thought.’

The rain was starting as they neared the Kinnoul house. The sky had been darkening for the duration of the drive, until now, it seemed, evening had come early. Rab Kinnoul’s Land-Rover was parked outside the front door. Curiously, the door to the house was open. Rain bounced off the car bonnet, becoming heavier by the second.

‘Better make a run for it,’ said Rebus. They opened their doors and ran. Rebus, however, was on the right side for the house, while Holmes had to skirt around the car first. So Rebus was first up the steps, and first through the doorway and into the hall. He shook his hair free of water, then opened his eyes.

And saw the carving knife swooping down on him.

And heard the shriek behind it.

‘
Bastard!
’

Then someone pushed him sideways. It was Holmes, flying through the doorway. The knife fell into space and kept falling floorwards. Cath Kinnoul fell after it, her weight propelling her. Holmes was on her in an instant, pulling her wrist round, twisting it up against her back. He had his knee firmly on her spine, just below the shoulder blades.

‘Christ almighty !’ gasped Rebus. ‘Jesus Christ almighty.’

Holmes was examining the sprawled figure. ‘She took a knock when she fell,’ he said. ‘She’s out cold.’ He prised the knife from her grasp and released her arm. It flopped on to the carpet. Holmes stood up. He seemed wonderfully calm, but his face was unnaturally pale. Rebus, meantime, was shaking like a sick mongrel. He rested against the hallway wall and closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply. There was a noise at the door.

‘Who the –?’ Rab Kinnoul saw them, then looked down at the unconscious figure of his wife. ‘Oh hell,’ he said. He knelt down beside her, dripping rainwater on to her back, her head. He was drenched.

‘She’s all right, Mr Kinnoul,’ Holmes stated. ‘Knocked herself out, that’s all.’

Kinnoul saw the knife Holmes was holding. ‘She had that?’ he said, his eyes opening wide. ‘Dear God, Cathy.’ He touched a trembling hand to her head. ‘Cathy, Cathy.’

Rebus had recovered a little. He swallowed. ‘She didn’t get those bruises from falling though.’ Yes, there were bruises on her arms, fresh-looking. Kinnoul nodded.

‘We had a bit of a row,’ he said. ‘She went for me, so I . . . I was just trying to push her away. But she was hysterical. I decided to go for a walk until she calmed down.’

Rebus had been looking at Kinnoul’s shoes. They were caked with mud. There were splashes, too, on his trousers. Go for a walk? In
that
rain? No, he’d run for it, pure and simple. He’d turned tail and run . . .

‘Doesn’t look as though she calmed down,’ Rebus said matter of factly. Matter of factly, she had almost murdered him, mistaking him for her husband, or so incensed by then
that any man – any victim – would do. ‘Tell you what, Mr Kinnoul, I could do with a drink.’

‘I’ll see what there is,’ said Kinnoul, rising to his feet.

Holmes phoned for the doctor. Cath Kinnoul was still unconscious. They’d left her lying in the hall, just to be on the safe side. It was best not to move fall victims anyway; and besides, this way they could keep an eye on her through the open door of the living room.

‘She needs treatment,’ Rebus said. He was sitting on the sofa, nursing a whisky and what were left of his nerves.

‘What she needs,’ Kinnoul said quietly, ‘is to be away from me. We’re useless together, Inspector, but then we’re just as useless apart.’ He was standing with his hands resting against the window sill, his head against the glass.

‘What was the fight about?’

Kinnoul shook his head. ‘It seems stupid now. They always start with something petty, and it just builds and builds . . .’

‘And this time?’

Kinnoul turned from the window. ‘The amount of time I’m spending away from home. She didn’t believe there were any “projects”. She thinks it’s all just an excuse so I can get out of the house.’

‘And is she right?’

‘Partly, yes, I suppose. She’s a shrewd one . . . a bit slow sometimes, but she gets there.’

And what about evenings.’

‘What about them?’

‘You don’t always spend
them
at home either, do you? Sometimes you have a night out with friends.’

‘Do I?’

‘Say, with Barney Byars . . . with Ronald Steele.’

Kinnoul stared at Rebus, appearing not to understand, then he snapped his fingers. ‘Christ, you mean
that
night. Jesus, the night . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Who told you? Never mind, it must have been one or the other. What about it?’

‘I just thought you made an unlikely trio.’

Kinnoul smiled. ‘You’re right there. I don’t know Byars all
that well, hardly at all really. But that day he’d been in Edinburgh and he’d sewn up a deal . . . a
big
deal. We bumped into each other at the Eyrie. I was in the bar having a drink, drowning my sorrows, and he was on his way up to the restaurant. Somehow I got roped in. Him and the firm he’d done the deal with. After a while . . . well, it was good fun.’

‘What about Steele?’

‘Well . . . Barney was planning on taking these guys to a brothel he knew about, but they weren’t interested. They went their way, and Barney and me nipped into the Straw-man for another drink. That’s where we picked up Ronnie. He was a bit pissed, too. Something to do with the lady in his life . . .’ Kinnoul was thoughtful for a moment. ‘Anyway, he’s usually a bit of a boring fart, but that night he seemed all right.’

Rebus was wondering: Did Kinnoul know about Steele and Cathy? It didn’t look like it, but then the man was an actor, a pro.

‘And,’ Kinnoul was saying, ‘we all ended up going on to the ill-famed house.’

‘Did you have a good time?’

Kinnoul seemed to think this an unusual question. ‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘I can’t really remember too clearly.’

Oh, thought Rebus, you can remember clearly enough. You can remember, all right. But now Kinnoul was looking through the hallway at Cathy’s still figure.

‘You must think I’m a bit of a shite,’ he said in a level tone. ‘You’re probably right. But, Christ . . .’ The actor had run out of words. He looked around the room, looked out of the window at what, weather willing, would have been the view, then looked towards the door again. He exhaled noisily, then shook his head.

‘Did you tell the others what the prostitute told you?’

Now Kinnoul looked startled.

‘I mean,’ said Rebus, ‘did you tell them what she said about Gregor Jack?’

‘How the hell do you know about that?’ Kinnoul fell onto one of the chairs.

‘An inspired guess. Did you?’

‘I suppose so.’ He thought about it. ‘Yes, definitely. Well, it was such a strange thing for her to say.’

‘A strange thing for you to say, too, Mr Kinnoul.’

Kinnoul shrugged his huge shoulders. ‘Just a laugh, Inspector. I was a bit pissed. I thought it would be funny to pretend to be Gregor. To be honest, I was a bit hurt that she didn’t recognize Rab Kinnoul. Look at the photos on the wall. I’ve met all of them.’ He was up on his feet again now, studying the pictures of himself, like he was in an art gallery and not seeing them for the thousandth, the ten thousandth time.

‘Bob Wagner . . . Larry Hagman . . . I knew them all once.’ The litany continued. ‘Martin Scorsese . . . the top director, absolutely the top . . . John Hurt . . . Robbie Coltrane and Eric Idle . . .’

Holmes was motioning for Rebus to come into the hall. Cathy Kinnoul was coming round. Rab Kinnoul stood in front of his photographs, his mementoes, the list of names sloshing around in his mouth.

‘Take it easy,’ Holmes was telling Cathy Kinnoul. ‘How do you feel?’

Her speech was slurred to incoherence.

‘How many have you taken, Cathy?’ Rebus asked. ‘Tell us how many?’

She was trying to focus. ‘I’ve checked all the rooms,’ Holmes said. ‘No sign of any empty bottles.’

‘Well, she’s taken something.’

‘Maybe the doctor will know.’

‘Yes, maybe.’ Rebus leaned down close to Cathy Kinnoul, his mouth two inches from her ear. ‘Gowk,’ he said quietly, ‘tell me about Suey.’

The names registered with her, but the question seemed not to.

‘You and Suey,’ Rebus went on. ‘Have you been seeing Suey? Just the two of you, eh? Like the old days? Have you and Suey been seeing one another?’

She opened her mouth, paused, then closed it again, and slowly began to shake her head. She mumbled something.