Had there been a disagreement? An argument? Strong words? Well, it was impossible to have a teenager in the house without the occasional difference of view. And how old was the Lord Provost’s daughter, little Kirstie Kennedy? There came the crux: she was seventeen, and a mature, well-educated seventeen at that, well able to look after herself and old enough legally to leave home any time she wished. Which should have taken the matter out of the police’s hands, except … except that it was the Lord Provost asking, the Right Honourable Cameron McLeod Kennedy, JP, Councillor for South Gyle.
So the message filtered down from the DCC: take a look for Kirstie Kennedy, but keep it quiet.
Which was, everyone agreed, next to impossible. You didn’t ask questions on the street without rumours starting, people fearing the worst for the subject of your questions. This was the excuse given when the media got hold of the story.
There was a photograph of the daughter, a photo police had been given and which somehow the media got their paws on. The Lord Provost was furious about that. It proved to him that he had enemies within the force. As Rebus could have told him, if you went demanding a favour, someone down the line could come to resent it.
So there she was, on TV and in the papers: little Kirstie Kennedy. Not a very recent photo, maybe two or three years out of date; and the difference between fourteen or fifteen and seventeen was crucial. Rebus, father of a one-time teenage daughter, knew that. Kirstie was grown up now, and the photo would be next to useless in helping trace her.
The Lord Provost quietened the media hubbub by giving a press conference. His wife was with him — his second wife, not Kirstie’s mother; Kirstie’s mother was dead — and she was asked what she’d like to say to the runaway.
‘I’d just like her to know we’re praying for her, that’s all.’
And then came the first phone call.
It wasn’t hard to phone the Lord Provost. He was in the phone book, plus his appointments number was listed alongside every other councillor in a useful pamphlet handed out to tens of thousands of Edinburgh residents.
The caller sounded young, a voice not long broken. He hadn’t given a name. All he’d said was that he had Kirstie, and that he wanted money for her return. He’d even put a girl on the phone. She’d squealed a couple of words before being pulled away. The words had been ‘Dad’ and ‘I’.
The Lord Provost couldn’t be sure it was Kirstie, but he couldn’t not be sure either. He wanted the police’s help again, and they told him to set up a drop with the kidnappers; only there wouldn’t be money waiting for them, there’d be police officers and plenty of them.
The intention wasn’t to confront but to tail. A police helicopter was brought into play, along with four unmarked cars. It should have been easy.
It should have been. But the caller had selected as drop zone a bus stop on the busy Queensferry Road. Lots of fast-moving traffic, and nowhere to stop an unmarked car inconspicuously. The caller had been clever. When it came time for the pick-up, the Cortina had stopped on the other side of the road from the bus stop. The passenger had come hurtling across the road, dodging traffic, picked up the bag full of wads of newspaper, and taken it back to the waiting car.
Three of the police cars were facing the wrong way, and it took a devil of a time to turn them round. But the fourth had radioed back with the suspect car’s whereabouts. The helicopter, of course, had been grounded earlier, the weather being impossible. All of which left Lauderdale — officer in charge — furiously gunning his car to catch up with the race, and shedding years in the process.
Rebus hoped it had been worth it. He hoped Lauderdale, lying strapped up in hospital, would get a thrill from remembering the chase. All it had given Rebus were a sick feeling in the gut, a bad dream, and this damned sore face.
There was a collection going around to buy something for the chief inspector. Pointedly and all too quickly, DI Alister Flower put in a tenner. He was walking around with his chest stuck out and a greasepaint smile on his face. Rebus loathed him more than ever.
Everybody kept looking at Rebus, wondering if he’d be promoted over Flower. Wondering what Rebus would do if Flower suddenly became his boss. The rumours piled up faster than the collection money. It wasn’t even close.
Rebus was not alone in reckoning the kidnapping for a hoax. They’d know for sure very soon, now that they had traced the car, located its owner, discovered that he’d loaned it to two friends and gone to those friends’ shared house only to find nobody home.
The car owner was downstairs in an interview room. They were telling him that if he was straight with them, they’d forget about the car’s lack of proper insurance. He was telling them story after story, the life and times of Willie Coyle and Dixie Taylor. Rebus went down to listen for a while. DS Macari and DC Allder were doing the interview.
‘Detective Inspector Rebus enters, twelve-fifteen hours,’ Macari said for the benefit of the tape recorder. ‘So,’ he said to the seated youth, ‘how did they make out, Willie and Dixie? Both on the broo, but you can always supplement the broo, eh?’
Rebus stood against the wall, trying to appear casual. He even smiled towards the car owner, nodded to let him know everything was all right. The car owner was in his late teens, presentable enough, neatly dressed and groomed. He wore a discreet silver-loop earring in his right ear, but no other jewellery, not even a watch.
‘They got along,’ he said. ‘Like, the dole money’s no’ bad, even social security, you can live on it if you’re careful.’
‘And they were careful?’ Macari paused. ‘Mr Duggan nods his head.’ This again for the tape recorder. ‘So why would they pull a stunt like this?’
Duggan shook his head. ‘I wish I knew. I never got an inkling. Willie’d never asked for a loan of the car before. He said he had something to shift.’
‘What sort of thing?’
‘He didn’t say.’
‘But you loaned him the car anyway.’
‘Like I say, Willie’s the careful sort.’
‘And Dixie?’
Duggan gave the hint of a smile. ‘Well, Dixie’s different. He needed looking after.’
‘What? Was he soft in the head like?’
‘No, he was just laid back. He didn’t … it was hard to get him interested.’ He looked up. ‘It’s hard to put into words.’
‘Just try your best, Mr Duggan.’
‘Ever since school, Willie and Dixie had been best pals. They liked the same music, same comics, same games. They understood one another.’
‘And they shared digs ever since they left home?’ Rebus liked Macari’s style. Around the station they called him ‘Toni’, after the character in Oor Wullie. He’d managed to get Duggan relaxed and talkative; he’d forged a relationship. Rebus wasn’t so sure of Allder; Allder was one of Flower’s men.
‘I think so,’ Duggan was saying. ‘They were right close. We had a book at school once. It had two characters like them in it, one daft and the other not.’
‘Of Mice and Men?’ Rebus offered.
‘I thought that was Burns,’ Allder said.
Rebus indicated to Macari that he was leaving.
‘Inspector Rebus leaves room, twelve-thirty hours. So, Mr Duggan, to get back to the car …’
As ever, Rebus timed his exit just wrong. Alister Flower was walking along the corridor towards him, whistling ‘Dixie’.
‘There’s a lad in there,’ Rebus reminded him, ‘has just lost two pals, one of them called Dixie.’
Flower stopped whistling and barked a short, unpleasant laugh. ‘Must’ve been my, you know, subconscious.’
‘You’ve got to be conscious to have one of those,’ Rebus said, moving away. ‘Which sort of disqualifies you.’
Flower wasn’t letting him off so easily. He caught up with Rebus at the double doors. ‘Things’ll be different when I’m Chief Inspector,’ he snarled.