Strip Jack (34 page)

‘Well, sir, it’s about Gregor Jack.’

‘Yes . . .?’

‘You know how you told me we’d to help Mr Jack if possible? How you felt he’d perhaps been set up?’ Watson merely nodded. ‘Well, sir, I’m close to proving not only that he was, but
who
did it.’

‘Oh? Go on.’

So Rebus told his story, the story of a chance meeting in a red-lit bedroom. And of three men. ‘What I was wondering was . . . I know you said you couldn’t divulge your source, sir . . . but was it one of them?’

Watson shook his head. ‘Way off, I’m afraid, John. Mmm, do you smell that?’ The room was filling with the aroma. How could Rebus
not
smell it?

‘Yes, sir, very nice. So it wasn’t –?’

‘It wasn’t anyone who
knows
Gregor Jack. If pro –’ He stuttered to a halt. ‘Can’t wait for that coffee,’ he said, rather too eagerly.

‘You were about to say, sir?’ But what? What? Providence? Provost? Prodigal? Problem?

Provost?
No, no. Not provost. Protestant? Proprietor? A name or a title.

‘Nothing, John, nothing. I wonder if I’ve any clean cups . . .?’

A name or a title. Professor.
Professor!

‘You weren’t about to mention a professor then?’

Watson’s lips were sealed. But Rebus was thinking fast now.

‘Professor Costello, for instance. He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he, sir? He doesn’t know Mr Jack then?’

Watson’s ears were turning red. Got you, thought Rebus. Got you, got you, got you. That coffee was worth every last penny.

‘Interesting though,’ mused Rebus, ‘that the Professor would know about a brothel.’

Watson slapped the desk. ‘Enough.’ His light morning mood had vanished. His whole face was red now, except for two small white patches, one on either cheek. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘You might as well know, it
was
Professor Costello who told me.’

‘And how did the Professor know?’

‘He said . . . he
said
he had a
friend
who’d visited the place one night, and now felt ashamed. Of course,’ Watson lowered his voice to a hiss, ‘there isn’t any
friend
. It’s the old chap himself. He just can’t bring himself to admit it. Well,’ his voice rising again, ‘we’re all tempted some time, aren’t we?’ Rebus thought of Gill Templer last night. Yes, tempted indeed. ‘So I promised the Professor I’d have the place closed down.’

Rebus was thoughtful. ‘And did you let him know when Operation Creeper was set for?’

It was Watson’s turn to be thoughtful. Then he nodded. ‘But he’s . . . he’s a
professor
. . . of
divinity
. He wouldn’t have been the one to tip off the papers. And he doesn’t
know
Gregor bloody Jack.’

‘But you told him? Date
and
time?’

‘More or less.’

‘Why? Why did he need to know?’

‘His “friend” . . . The “friend” needed to know so he could warn anyone he knew from going there.’

Rebus leapt to his feet. ‘Jesus Christ, sir!’ He paused. ‘With respect. But don’t you see? There
was
a friend. There
was
someone who needed to be warned. But not so they could stop their friends being caught . . . so they could
ensure
Gregor Jack walked straight into the trap. As soon as they knew when we were going in, all they had to do was phone Jack and tell him his sister was there. They knew he couldn’t
not
go and check it out for himself.’ He tugged open the door.

‘Where are you off to?’

‘To see Professor Costello. Not that I need to, not really, but I want to hear him say the name, I want to hear it for myself. Enjoy your coffee, sir.’

But Watson didn’t. It tasted like charred wood. Too bitter, too strong. For some time now he’d been wavering; now he made the decision. He’d stop drinking coffee altogether. It would be his penance. Just like Inspector John Rebus was his comforter . . .

‘Good morning, Inspector.’

‘Morning, sir. Not disturbing you?’

Professor Costello waved his arm airily around the empty room. ‘Not a student in Edinburgh’s awake at this – to them – ungodly hour. Not the divinity students at any rate. No, Inspector, you’re not disturbing me.’

‘You got the books all right, sir?’

Costello pointed towards his glass-fronted bookshelves. ‘Safe and sound. The officer who delivered them said something about them being found abandoned . . .?’

‘Something like that, sir.’ Rebus glanced back at the door. ‘You haven’t had a proper lock fitted yet.’

‘
Mea culpa
, Inspector. Fear not, one’s on its way.’

‘Only I wouldn’t like you to lose your books again . . .’

‘Point taken, Inspector. Sit down, won’t you? Coffee?’ The hand this time was directed towards an evil-looking percolator sitting smoking on a hotplate in a corner of the room.

‘No thanks, sir. Bit early for me.’

Costello bowed his head slightly. He slid into the comfortable leather chair behind his comfortable oaken desk. Rebus sat on one of the modern, spindly metal-framed chairs the other side of it. ‘So, Inspector, social niceties dispensed with . . . what can I do for you?’

‘You gave some information to Chief Superintendent Watson, sir.’

Costello pursed his lips. ‘Confidential information, Inspector.’

‘At one time perhaps, but it may help us with a murder inquiry.’

‘Surely not!’

Rebus nodded. ‘So you see, sir, that changes things slightly. We need to know who your “friend” was, the one who told you about the . . . er . . .’

‘I believe the phrase is “hoor-hoose”. Almost poetic, much nicer at any rate than “brothel”.’ Costello almost squirmed in his chair. ‘My friend, Inspector, I did promise him . . .’

‘Murder, sir. I’d advise against withholding information.’

‘Oh yes, agreed, agreed. But one’s conscience . . .’

‘Was it Ronald Steele?’

Costello’s eyes opened wide. ‘Then you already know.’

‘Just an inspired guess, sir. You’re a frequent customer in his shop, aren’t you?’

‘Well, I do like to browse . . .’

‘And you were in his shop when he told you.’

‘That’s right. It was a lunchtime. Vanessa, his assistant, she was on her break. She’s a student here, actually. Lovely girl . . .’

If only you knew, thought Rebus.

‘Anyway, yes, Ronald told me his little guilty secret. He’d been taken to this hoor-hoose one night by some friends. He really was
very
embarrassed about it all.’

‘Was he?’

‘Oh, terribly. He knew I knew Superintendent Watson, and he wondered if I could pass word on about the establishment.’

‘So we could close it down?’

‘Yes.’

‘But he needed to know the night?’

‘He was
desperate
to know. His friends, you see, the ones who’d taken him. He wanted to warn them off.’

‘You know Mr Steele is a friend of Gregor Jack’s?’

‘Who?’

‘The MP.’

‘I’m sorry, the name doesn’t . . . Gregor Jack?’ Costello frowned, shook his head. ‘No.’

‘He’s been in all the newspapers.’

‘Really?’

Rebus sighed. The real world, it seemed, stopped at the door to Costello’s office. This was a lighter realm altogether. He was almost startled by the sudden electronic twittering of the high-tech telephone. Costello apologized and picked up the receiver.

‘Yes? Speaking. Yes, he is. Wait one moment, please.’ He held the receiver out towards Rebus. ‘It’s for you, Inspector,’ Somehow, Rebus wasn’t surprised . . .

‘Hello?’

‘The Chief Superintendent said I’d find you there.’ It was Lauderdale.

‘Good morning to you too, sir.’

‘Cut the crap, John. I’m just in and already a bit of the ceiling’s fallen off and missed my head by inches. I’m not in the mood for it okay?’

‘Understood, sir.’

‘I’m only phoning because I thought you’d be interested.’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Forensics didn’t take long with those two glasses you found in Mr Pond’s bathroom.’

Of course they didn’t. They had all the match-up prints they needed, taken so as to eliminate people from Deer Lodge.

‘Guess who they belong to?’ Lauderdale asked.

‘One set will be Mrs Jack, the other set Ronald Steele.’

There was silence on the other end of the telephone.

‘Was I close?’ asked Rebus.

‘How the hell did you know?’

‘What if I told you it was an inspired guess?’

‘I’d tell you you’re a liar. Get back here. We need to talk.’

‘Right you are, sir. Just one more thing . . .?’

‘What?’

‘Mr Glass . . . is he still on for the double?’

The line went dead.

The way Rebus saw it . . .

Well, it didn’t take too much brain activity once the name had been established. The way he saw it, Ronald Steele and Elizabeth Jack had been lovers, probably for some time. (Christ, Sir Hugh was going to
love
this when it came out.) Maybe nobody knew. Maybe everybody but Gregor Jack knew. Anyway, Liz Jack decided to head north, and Steele joined her whenever he could. (Deer Lodge and back every day? A superhuman effort. No wonder Steele looked ready to drop all the time . . .) Deer Lodge itself though was a tip, a heap. So they moved into Pond’s cottage, only using Deer Lodge itself for fetching changes of clothes. Maybe Liz Jack had been fetching clean clothes when she’d stopped and bought the Sunday rags . . . and found out all about her husband’s apparently naughty night.

Steele, though, had plans way above the occasional legover scenario. He wanted Liz. He
wanted
her to himself. The quiet ones always got intense about that sort of thing, didn’t they? He’d been making anonymous calls maybe. And sending letters. Anything to throw a spanner in the works of the marriage, anything to unsettle Gregor. Maybe that’s why Liz had headed north, to get away from it all. Steele saw his chance. He’d already been to the brothel, and he’d already discovered just who Gail Crawley was. (All it took was a halfway decent memory, and maybe a question or two asked of the likes of Cathy Kinnoul.) Ah, Cathy . . . Yes, maybe Steele
was
seeing her too. But Rebus doubted it was for
anything but conversation and counselling. There was that side to Steele, too.

Which didn’t do anything to stop him trying to strip Gregor Jack, his lifelong friend, ally in his bookshop, all-round good guy, to strip him completely and utterly naked. The brothel plan was simple and knife-sharp. Find out the time of the planned raid . . . a call to Gregor Jack . . . and calls beforehand to the Docklands dirt-diggers.

The set-up. And Gregor Jack shed his first layer.

Did Steele try to keep it from Liz? Maybe, maybe not. He thought it would be the final screw in the marriage-coffin. It nearly was. But he couldn’t be north with her all the time, telling her how great they could be together, what a shit Gregor was, et cetera, et cetera. And during the time she was alone, Liz Jack wavered, until finally she made up her mind not to leave Gregor but to leave Steele. Something like that. She was unpredictable after all. She was fire. And they argued. In his interview, he’d alluded to the argument itself:
She always accused me of not being enough fun . . . and I never had enough money either
. . . So they argued, and he stormed off, leaving her in the lay-by. Alec Corbie’s blue car had been a green car, the green Citroën BX. Steele had sped off, only to return and continue the argument, an argument which became violent, violence which went a little too far . . .

The next bit was, to Rebus’s mind, the cleverest, either that or the most fortuitous. Steele had to dump the body. The first thing to do was to get it away from the Highlands: there were too many clues up there to the fact that they’d spent time together. So he headed back towards Edinburgh with her in the boot. But what to do with her? Wait, there had been another killing, hadn’t there? A body dumped in a river. He could make it look the same. Better still, he could send her body out to sea. So he headed for someplace he knew: the hill above the Kinnoul house. He’d walked up there with Cathy so many times. He knew the small road, a road never used. And he knew that even if the body
were
found, the first suspect would be the Dean Bridge killer. So, at some point,
he gave her that blow to the head, the blow so like the one administered to the Dean Bridge victim.

And the beautiful irony was: his alibi for the afternoon was provided by Gregor Jack himself.

‘And that’s how you see it, is it?’

The meeting was in Watson’s office: Watson, Lauderdale and Rebus. On the way in, Rebus had passed Brian Holmes.

‘I hear there’s a meeting in the Farmhouse.’

‘You’ve got good hearing.’

‘What’s it about?’

‘You mean you’re not on the guest list, Brian?’ Rebus winked. ‘Too bad. I’ll try to bring you a doggie-bag.’

‘Big of you.’

Rebus turned. ‘Look, Brian, the paint’s hardly dry on your promotion as it is. Relax, take it easy. If you’re looking for a quick road to Detective Inspector, go track down Lord Lucan. Meantime, I’m expected elsewhere, okay?’

‘Okay.’

Too cocky by half, thought Rebus. But speaking of cocky, he was doing a bit of strutting himself, wasn’t he? Sitting here in Watson’s office, spouting forth, while Lauderdale looked worriedly towards his suddenly caffeine-free superior.

‘And that’s how you see it, is it?’ The question was Watson’s. Rebus merely shrugged.

‘It sounds plausible,’ said Lauderdale. Rebus raised half an eyebrow: having Lauderdale’s support was a bit like locking yourself in with a starved alsatian . . .

‘What about Mr Glass?’ asked Watson.

‘Well, sir,’ said Lauderdale, shifting a little in his seat, ‘psychiatric reports don’t show him to be the most stable individual. He lives in a sort of fantasy world, you might say.’

‘You mean he made it up?’

‘Very probably.’

‘Which brings us back to Mr Steele. I think we’d better have him in for a word, hadn’t we. Did you say you brought him in yesterday, John?’

‘That’s right, sir. I thought we might give the boot of his
car a once-over. But Mr Lauderdale seemed convinced by Steele’s story and let him go.’