Let It Bleed

Professor Gates had finished his initial examination. ‘We can wrap this one up,’ he said.

But Rebus wanted a look first. Tom Gillespie lay in a protective foetal position. He hadn’t been dead when he dropped. He’d curled himself around the pain in his gut.

‘Stab wound,’ Professor Gates said. ‘The shock probably killed him.’

‘Has his widow been notified?’

‘Are you volunteering, John?’ Davidson said.

‘This isn’t my patch, remember.’

‘No, but you knew the deceased. Anything you want to tell us?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘I will ask a question though: what was he doing here? He lives in Marchmont, chances are he’d never even heard of Coffin Walk. God knows I hadn’t. So why was he here, where was he headed?’

‘Maybe the Diggers.’

The Diggers was actually the Athletic Arms pub, but got its nickname from the gravediggers who’d used it in the past.

‘Not much of a shortcut, is it?’

‘Not much,’ Davidson agreed. ‘Lots of questions, John.’

‘I know the way your mind works, Davidson. You think it’s a simple mugging gone wrong — assailant: unknown; motive: robbery.’

‘So let’s hear your theory.’

Rebus smiled. His head was full of theories. Maybe too many for his own good. ‘Give me a cigarette,’ he said.

‘Not at the locus, John,’ Davidson warned. Rebus looked at the body again. It was being bagged. A trip to the mortuary first, and then the funeral parlour, your last journeys in the world as predictable as your first.

‘I asked if you had a theory,’ Davidson said.

‘OK, OK.’ Rebus put his hands up in surrender. ‘Take me back to your nice warm police station, give me a cigarette, and I’ll tell you a story. Just don’t blame me if it doesn’t make sense.’

He would tell Davidson what he knew, which wasn’t half as much as he suspected.

Which itself wasn’t half as much as he feared.

34

Next morning, when DI Davidson went to the widow’s house, Rebus went with him.

The curtains were closed, reminding Rebus of the day of McAnally’s funeral, inside Tresa’s flat. The door was answered not by Mrs Gillespie but by Helena Profitt, dressed in circumspect black — skirt, tights and shoes — and a plain white blouse.

‘I came as soon as I heard,’ she said, leading them inside. She looked surprised to see Rebus. We must, he thought, stop meeting like this.

‘Two policemen to see you, Audrey,’ Miss Profitt said, opening the living-room door.

It was a big light room, with prominence given to the floor-to-ceiling bookcases which lined two walls. The TV didn’t look much used, and though there was a video machine, Rebus couldn’t see more than half a dozen tapes. At one end of the room was a huge desk covered in paperwork, and a small table supporting a telephone and fax machine. The room, it seemed to him, was little more than an extension of the office at the front of the house, making Rebus wonder about Gillespie’s family life or, more pertinently, the lack of it.

His widow sat on the sofa, legs tucked beneath her. She’d started to rise, but Davidson had waved her back down. She looked as if she hadn’t slept. There was an empty mug on the floor, and next to it a tiny brown bottle of tablets. Despite the central heating, Audrey Gillespie was trembling.

‘Shall I make some tea?’ Helena Profitt asked.

‘Not for us, thanks,’ Davidson said.

‘Well, I’ll leave you to it. Shall I pop back later, Audrey?’

‘Only if it’s not too much trouble.’

‘Of course not.’ Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. Rebus saw through her act, saw she was as broken up as anyone. He followed her out of the room.

‘Could you wait in the kitchen? I’d like a quick word.’

She nodded hesitantly. Rebus went back into the living room and sat down next to Davidson.

‘Remember me, Mrs Gillespie?’ Davidson was saying. ‘We met last night.’

Davidson was good, better than a lot of coppers. It was a skill, handling other people’s grief, gauging what to say and how to say it, knowing how much they could take.

Audrey Gillespie nodded, then looked at Rebus. ‘And I know you, too, don’t I?’

‘I came to talk to your husband once.’ Rebus strived for the same tone Davidson had used.

‘Has the doctor seen you, Mrs Gillespie?’ Davidson asked.

‘He gave me pills to help me sleep. Ridiculous to think I could sleep.’

‘But you’re all right?’

‘I’m …’ She sought the words expected of her. ‘I’m coping, thank you.’

‘Do you feel up to answering a few more questions?’

She nodded, and Davidson relaxed a little. He brought out his notebook and consulted it.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘you said last night that your husband had gone out to visit a constituent — that was what he told you?’

‘Yes.’

‘But he didn’t say where he was meeting this constituent?’

‘No.’

‘Or the constituent’s name?’

‘No.’

‘Or what they were going to discuss?’

She shrugged, remembering. ‘We ate dinner at eight as usual — I’d done chicken casserole, Tom’s favourite. He had two helpings. After that, I thought he’d either work in his office — he always has work to do — or else read the paper. Instead, he said he had to go out.’

‘You’re surprised he ended up in Dalry?’

‘Very. We don’t know anyone in that part of town. Why would he lie to me?’

‘Well,’ Rebus put in, ‘he was hiding things from you, wasn’t he?’

‘What do you mean?’

Davidson gave Rebus a warning look, and Rebus softened his voice a little.

‘I mean, the day I came here you were busy shredding documents — sackfuls of them — in a shredder your husband hired specially.’

‘Yes, I remember. Tom said he was running out of space in the office. They were ancient history. As you can see, it’s pretty cramped with all the paperwork.’ She waved a hand around the room.

‘Mrs Gillespie,’ Rebus persisted, ‘your husband headed the Industrial Planning Committee — did the documents have anything to do with that?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘If they were ancient history, why bother to shred them, why not just chuck them out?’

Audrey Gillespie got up and walked to the fireplace. Davidson gave Rebus an angry look.

‘Tom said they could fall into the wrong hands. Journalists, people like that. He said it was to do with confidentiality.’

‘Did you look at the files at all?’

‘I … I don’t remember.’ She was frantic now, her wet eyes everywhere but on the two policemen.

‘You weren’t curious?’

‘Look, I don’t see what any of this has to do with anything.’

Rebus walked over to her and took her hands in his. ‘It might have everything to do with your husband’s