Strip Jack (36 page)

‘That’s nice.’

Patience was a game easily won.

The film rolled past him. Another foil had entered the picture, a big-hearted con man. Rebus had yet to meet a con man in real life who was anything but the most predatory shark. What was the phrase? – they’d steal your false teeth and drink the water out of the glass. Well, maybe
this
con
man was in with a chance. The secretary was interested, but she was loyal to her boss too, and
he
was doing everything short of whipping his sausage out and slapping it on her desk . . .

‘A penny for them.’

‘They’re not worth it, Patience.’ They’d find Steele, they’d find Jack. Why couldn’t he relax? He kept thinking of a set of clothes and a note, left on a beach. Stonehouse. Lucan had done it, hadn’t he, disappeared without trace? It wasn’t easy, but all the same . . .

The next thing he knew, Patience was shaking him by the shoulder.

‘Wake up, John. Time for bed.’

He’d been asleep for an hour. ‘The con man or the student?’ he asked.

‘Neither,’ she said. ‘The boss changed his ways and gave her a partnership in the firm. Now come on, partner . . .’ She held her hands out to help him up on to his feet. ‘After all, tomorrow
is
another day . . .’

Another day, another dolour. Thursday. Two weeks since they’d found Elizabeth Jack’s body. Now all they could do was wait . . . and hope no more bodies turned up. Rebus picked up his office phone. It was Lauderdale.

‘The Chief Super’s bitten the bullet,’ he told Rebus. ‘We’re holding a press conference, putting out wanteds on both of them, Steele and Jack.’

‘Does Sir Hugh know yet?’

‘I wouldn’t want to be the one who tells him. He marches in here with his son-in-law, not knowing the bugger killed his daughter? No, I wouldn’t want to be the one who tells him.’

‘Am I supposed to be there?’

‘Of course, and bring Holmes, too. After all,
he’s
the one who spotted the car . . .’

The line went dead. Rebus stared at the receiver. Alsatian bites man after all . . .

Spotted it
and
told Nell about it all last night. Repeating the story, adding missed details, hardly able to sit down. Until she’d screeched at him to stop or else she’d go off her head. That calmed him down a little, but not much.

‘You see, Nell, if they’d told me earlier, if they’d let me in on the whole story of the car colours, of
why
they were needed, well, we’d have nailed him all the sooner, wouldn’t we? I don’t want to, but really I blame John. It was him who . . .’

‘I thought you said it was Lauderdale who gave you the job in the first place?’

‘Yes, true, but even so John should have –’

‘Shut up! For God’s sake, just shut up!’

‘Mind you, you’re right, Laud –’

‘
Shut up!
’

He shut up.

And now here he was at the press conference, and there was Inspector Gill Templer, who had such a rapport with the press, handing out sheets of paper – the official release – and generally making sure that everyone knew what was going on. And Rebus, of course, looking the same as ever. Which was to say, tired and suspicious. Watson and Lauderdale hadn’t made their entrance yet, but would do so soon.

‘Well, Brian,’ said Rebus quietly, ‘reckon they’ll promote you to Inspector for this?’

‘No.’

‘What then? You look like a kid who’s about to get the school prize.’

‘Come on, be fair. We all know you did most of the work.’

‘Yes, but
you
stopped me haring after the wrong man.’

‘So?’

‘So now I owe you a favour.’ Rebus grinned. ‘I
hate
owing favours.’

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ came Gill Templer’s voice, ‘if you’ll find yourselves a seat we can start . . .’

A moment later Watson and Lauderdale entered the room. Watson was first to speak.

‘I think you all know why we’ve called this conference.’ He
paused. ‘We’re looking for two men we think may be able to help us with a certain inquiry, a murder inquiry. The names are Ronald Adam Steele and Gregor Gordon Jack . . .’

The local evening paper had it in by its lunchtime edition. The radio stations were broadcasting the names in their hourly news slots. The early evening TV news carried the story. The usual questions were being asked, to which the usual ‘no comment’s were being appended. But the phone call itself came only at half past six. The call was from Dr Frank Forster.

‘I’d have known sooner, Inspector, only we don’t like to let the patients listen to the news. It just upsets them. It’s only when I was getting ready to go home that I turned on the radio in my office . . .’

Rebus was tired. Rebus was terribly, terribly tired. ‘What is it, Dr Forster?’

‘It’s your man Jack, Gregor Jack. He was here this afternoon. He was visiting Andrew Macmillan.’

It was nine that evening when Rebus reached Duthil Hospital. Andrew Macmillan was sitting in Forster’s office, arms folded, waiting.

‘Hello again,’ he said.

‘Hello, Mr Macmillan.’

There were five of them: two ‘nurses’, Dr Forster, Macmillan and Rebus. The nurses stood behind Macmillan’s chair, their bodies less than two inches from his.

‘We’ve sedated him,’ Forster had explained to Rebus. ‘He may not be as talkative as usual, but he should stay calm. I heard about what happened last time . . .’

‘Nothing happened last time, Dr Forster. He just wanted to have a normal conversation. What’s wrong with that?’

Macmillan looked on the verge of sleep. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his smile fixed. He unfolded his arms and rested the hands delicately on his knees, reminding Rebus at that moment of Mrs Corbie . . .

‘Inspector Rebus wants to ask you about Mr Jack,’ explained Forster.

‘That’s right,’ said Rebus, resting against the edge of the desk. There was a chair for him, but he was stiff after the drive. ‘I was wondering why he visited. It’s unusual after all, isn’t it?’

‘It’s a first,’ corrected Macmillan. ‘They should put up a plaque. When I saw him come in, I thought he must be here to open an extension or something. But no, he just walked right up to me . . .’ His hands were moving now, carving air,
his eyes held by the movements they made. ‘Walked right up to
me
, and he said . . . he said, “Hello, Mack.” Just like that. Like we’d seen one another the day before, like we saw one another
every
day.’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘Old friends. Yes, old friends . . . old friend
ships
. We’d always be friends, he told me. We couldn’t
not
be friends. We went back
all the way
. Yes, all the way back . . . All of us. Suey and Gowk, Beggar and me, Bilbo, Tampon, Sexton Blake . . . Friends are important, that’s what he said. I told him about Gowk, about how she visited sometimes . . . about the money she gives this place . . . He didn’t know about any of that. He was interested. He works too hard though, you can see that. He doesn’t look healthy any more. Not enough sunlight. Have you ever seen the House of Commons? Hardly any windows. They work away in there like moles . . .’

‘Did he say anything else?’

‘I asked him why he never answered my letters. Do you know what he said? He said he
never even received them!
He said he’d take it up with the post office, but I know who it is.’ He turned to Forster. ‘It’s you, Dr Forster. You’re not letting out any of my mail. You’re steaming off the stamps and using them for yourself! Well, be warned, Gregor Jack MP knows all about it now. Something’ll be done now.’ He remembered something and turned quickly to Rebus. ‘Did you touch the earth for me?’

Rebus nodded. ‘I touched the earth for you.’

Macmillan nodded too, satisfied. ‘How did it feel, Inspector?’

‘It felt fine. Funny, it’s something I’ve always taken for granted –’

‘Never take
anything
for granted, Inspector,’ said Macmillan. He was calming a little. All the same, you could see him fighting against the soporifics in his bloodstream, fighting for the right to get angry, to get . . . to get mad. ‘I asked him about Liz,’ he said. ‘He told me she’s the same as ever. But I didn’t believe
that
. I’m sure their marriage is in trouble. In-com-pat-ible. My wife and I were just the same . . .’ His voice
trailed off. He swallowed, laid his hands flat against his knees again and studied them. ‘Liz was never one of The Pack. He should have married Gowk, only Kinnoul got to her first.’ He looked up. ‘Now
there’s
a man who needs treatment. If Gowk knew what she was about, she’d have him see a psychiatrist. All those roles he’s played . . . bound to have an effect, aren’t they? I’ll tell Gowk next time I see her. I haven’t seen her for a while . . .’

Rebus shifted his weight a little. ‘Did Beggar say anything else, Mack? Anything about where he was headed or why he was here?’

Macmillan shook his head. Then he sniggered. ‘Headed, did you say?
Headed
?’ He chuckled to himself for a few moments, then stopped as abruptly as he’d started. ‘He just wanted to let me know we were friends.’ He laughed quietly. ‘As if I needed reminding. And one other thing. Guess what he wanted to know? Guess what he asked? After all these years . . .’

‘What?’

‘He wanted to know what I’d done with her head.’

Rebus swallowed. Forster was licking his lips. ‘And what did you tell him, Mack?’

‘I told him the truth. I told him I couldn’t remember.’ He brought the palms of his hands together as if in prayer and touched the fingertips to his lips. Then he closed his eyes. The eyes were still closed when he spoke. ‘Is it true about Suey?’

‘What about him, Mack?’

‘That he’s emigrated, that he might not be coming back?’

‘Is that what Beggar told you?’

Macmillan nodded, opening his eyes to gaze at Rebus. ‘He said Suey might not be coming back . . .’

The nurses had taken Macmillan back to his ward, and Forster was putting on his coat, getting ready to lock up and see Rebus out to the car park, when the telephone rang.

‘At this time of night?’

‘It might be for me,’ said Rebus. He picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?’

It was DS Knox from Dufftown. ‘Inspector Rebus? I did as you said and had someone stake out Deer Lodge.’

‘And?’

‘A white Saab drove in through the gateway not ten minutes ago.’

There were two cars parked by the side of the road. One of them was blocking the entrance to Deer Lodge’s long driveway. Rebus got out of his own car. DS Knox introduced him to Detective Constable Wright and Constable Moffat.

‘We’ve already met,’ Rebus said, shaking Moffat’s hand.

‘Oh yes,’ said Knox. ‘How could I forget, you’ve been keeping us so busy? So, what do you think, sir?’

Rebus thought it was cold. Cold and wet. It wasn’t raining now, but any minute it might be on again. ‘You’ve called for reinforcements?’

Knox nodded. ‘As many as can be mustered.’

‘Well, we could wait it out till they arrive.’

‘Yes?’

Rebus was sizing Knox up. He didn’t seem the kind of man who enjoyed waiting. ‘Or,’ he said, ‘we could go in, three of us, one standing guard on the gate. After all, he’s either got a corpse or a hostage in there. If Steele’s alive, the sooner we go in, the better chance he’s got.’

‘So what are we waiting for?’

Rebus looked to DC Wright and Constable Moffat, who nodded approval of the plan.

‘It’s a long walk up to the house, mind,’ Knox was saying.

‘But if we take a car, he’s bound to hear it.’

‘We can take one up so far and walk the rest,’ suggested Moffat. ‘That way the exit road’s good and blocked. I wouldn’t fancy wandering up that bloody road in the dark only to have him come racing towards me in that car of his.’

‘Okay, agreed, we’ll take a car.’ Rebus turned to DC Wright. ‘You stay on the gate, son. Moffat here knows the layout of the house.’ Wright looked snubbed, but Moffat perked up at the news. ‘Right,’ said Rebus, ‘let’s go.’

They took Knox’s car, leaving Moffat’s parked across the entrance. Knox had taken one look at Rebus’s heap and then shaken his head.

‘Best take mine, eh?’

He drove slowly, Rebus in the front beside him, Moffat in the back. The car had a nice quiet engine, but all the same . . . all around was silence. Any noise would travel. Rebus actually began to pray for a sudden storm, thunder and rain, for anything that would give them sound-cover.

‘I enjoyed that book,’ said Moffat, his head just behind Rebus’s.

‘What book?’

‘
Fish Out of Water
.’

‘Christ, I’d forgotten all about it.’

‘Cracking story,’ said Moffat.

‘How much further?’ asked Knox. ‘I can’t remember.’

‘There’s a bend to the left then another to the right,’ said Moffat. ‘We better stop after the second one. It’s only another couple of hundred yards.’

They parked, opening the doors and leaving them open. Knox produced two large rubber torches from the glove compartment. ‘I was a cub scout,’ he explained. ‘Be prepared and all that.’ He handed one torch to Rebus and kept the other. ‘Moffat here eats his carrots, he doesn’t need one. Right, what’s the plan now?’

‘Let’s see how things look at the house, then I’ll tell you.’

‘Fair enough.’

They set off in a line. After about fifty yards, Rebus turned off his torch. It was no longer necessary: all the lights in and around the lodge seemed to be burning. They stopped just before the clearing, peering through what cover there was. The Saab was parked outside the front door. Its boot was open. Rebus turned to Moffat.

‘Remember, there’s a back door? Circle around and cover it.’

‘Right.’ The constable moved off the road and into the forest, disappearing from sight.

‘Meantime, let’s check the car first, then take a look through the windows.’

Knox nodded. They left their cover and crept forwards. The boot itself was empty. Nothing on the car’s back seat either. Lights were on in the living room and the front bedroom, but there was no sign of anyone. Knox pointed with his torch towards the door. He tried the handle. The door opened a crack. He pushed it a little further. The hall was empty. They waited a moment, listening. There was a sudden eruption of noise, drums and guitar chords. Knox jumped back. Rebus rested a calming hand on his shoulder, then retreated to look again through the living room window. The stereo. He could see its LEDs pulsing. The cassette player, probably on automatic replay. A tape had been winding back while they’d approached the house. Now it was playing.