'If you see Gregor…' she began. But there wasn't anything else. She shrugged and turned away, carrying her case and her bags with her. Rebus, never one for emotional farewells where prostitutes were concerned, turned briskly on his heels and headed back towards his car.
'You've what?'
'I've let him go.'
'You've let Steele go?' Rebus couldn't believe it. He paced what there was of Lauderdale's floor. 'Why?'
Now Lauderdale smiled coldly. 'What was the charge, John? Be realistic, for Christ's sake.'
'Did you talk to him?'
'Yes.'
'And?'
'He seems very plausible.'
'In other words, you believe him?'
'I think I do, yes.'
'What about his car boot?'
'You mean the mud? He told you himself, John, Mrs Kinnoul and he go for walks. That hillside's hardly what you'd call paved. You need wellies, and wellies get muddy. It's their purpose.'
'He admitted he was seeing Cath Kinnoul?'
'He admitted nothing of the sort. He just said there was a 'woman'.'
'That's all he'd say when I brought him in. But he admitted it back in his house.'
'I think it's quite noble of him, trying to protect her.'
'Or could it be that he knows she couldn't back up his story anyway?'
'You mean it's a pack of lies?'
Rebus sighed. 'No, I think I believe it, too.'
'Well then.' Lauderdale sounded – for Lauderdale – genuinely gentle. 'Sit down, John. You've had a hard twenty-four hours.'
Rebus sat down. 'I've had a hard twenty-four years.'
Lauderdale smiled. 'Tea?'
'I think some of the Chief Superintendent's coffee would be a better idea.'
Lauderdale laughed. 'Kill or cure, certainly. Now look, you've just admitted yourself that you believe Steele's story -'
'Up to a point.
Lauderdale accepted the clause. 'But still, the man wanted to leave. How the hell was I going to hold him?'
'On suspicion. We're allowed to hang on to suspects a bit longer than ninety minutes.'
Thank you, Inspector, I'm aware of that.'
'So now he toddles back home and gives the boot of his car a damned good clean.'
'You need more than mucky wellies for a conviction, John.'
'You'd be surprised what forensics can do…'
'Ah, now that's another thing. I hear you've been getting up people's noses faster than a Vick's inhaler.'
'Anybody in particular?'
'Everybody in the field of forensic science, it seems. Stop hassling them, John.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Take a break. Just for the afternoon, say. What about the Professor's missing tomes?'
'Back with their owner.'
'Oh?' Lauderdale waited for elucidation.
'A turn-up for the books, sir,' Rebus said instead. He stood up. 'Well, if there's nothing else – '
The telephone rang. 'Hold on,' Lauderdale ordered. 'The way things have been going, that'll probably be for you.' He picked up the receiver. 'Lauderdale.' Then he listened. I'll be right down,' he said at last, before replacing the receiver. 'Well, well, well. Take a guess who's downstairs.'
'The Dundonald and Dysart Pipe Band?'
'Close. Jeanette Oliphant.'
Rebus frowned. 'I know the name…'
'She's Sir Hugh Feme's solicitor. And also, it seems, Mr Jack's. They're both down there with her.' Lauderdale had risen from his chair and was straightening his jacket. 'Let's see what they want, eh?'
Gregor Jack wanted to make a statement, a statement regarding his movements on the day his wife was murdered. But the prime mover was Sir Hugh Ferrie; that much was obvious from the start.
'I saw that piece in the paper this morning,' he explained. 'Phoned Gregor to ask if it was true. He says it was. I felt a sight better for knowing it, though I told him he's a bloody fool for not telling anyone sooner.' He turned to Gregor Jack. 'A bloody fool.'
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 melee, 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.
