Rebus frowned. ‘I’ve heard of that. An offshoot of the Nationalists?’
‘It didn’t last long. Very little did in those days. An idea would blossom, then you’d have a few drinks and that would be the end of that.’
‘Did you know Matthew Vanderhyde?’
‘Oh, yes. Everyone knew Matthew. Is he still with us?’
‘I see him occasionally. Maybe not as often as I should.’
‘Matthew and Allan would argue politics with Chris Grieve...’ She broke off. ‘You know he’s not related?’ Rebus nodded, remembering the framed poem in the downstairs hall. ‘Allan would be doing Chris’s portrait, only the man wouldn’t sit still. Always moving, flinging out his arms to make a point.’ She flung out her own arms in imitation. The marmalade jar was in one hand, a roll of Christmas parcel-tape in the other. ‘Edwin Muir was a great foil for him. Then there was dear Naomi Mitchison. Do you know her work?’ Rebus was silent, as if speech might break the spell.
‘And the painters — Gillies, McTaggart, Maxwell.’ She smiled. ‘Sparks always flew. We were lucky with the Festival, it brought visitors to the galleries. The Edinburgh School, we called ourselves. It was a different country then, you know. Trapped between one world war and the threat of another. Hard to bring up children with the A-bomb hanging over your head. It affected my work, I think.’
‘Were your children interested in art?’
‘Lorna dabbled, maybe she still does. But not the boys. Cammo always had his cronies around him, almost like a Praetorian Guard. Roddy liked the company of grown-ups, always so deferential and willing to listen.’
‘And Alasdair?’
She angled her head. ‘Alasdair was a painter’s nightmare, an angelic tearaway. I never captured that. You always knew he was up to something, but you didn’t mind because it was Alasdair. Do you see?’
‘I think so.’ Rebus knew a few young villains like that: charming and cheeky, but always on the make and take. ‘He keeps in touch, doesn’t he?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Why did he leave home?’
‘He wasn’t strictly at home. He had a flat of his own near the foot of the Canongate. When he’d gone, we found out it was a furnished rental, practically none of it was his. He took a suitcase of clothes, some books, and that was it.’
‘He didn’t say why he was leaving?’
‘No, just phoned out of the blue. Told me he’d be in touch.’
Rebus heard the front door open and close, the words ‘I’m back’ drifting up the stairs.
‘I’d better be going,’ he said.
Alicia Grieve looked as though she’d already dismissed him. ‘I wish I knew where it was,’ she said to herself, replacing the marmalade jar in its box. ‘Dear me, if only I knew...’
Seona Grieve was halfway up the stairs when he met her.
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Everything’s fine,’ he assured her. ‘Mrs Grieve’s just lost something, that’s all.’
Seona stared up towards the landing. ‘Inspector, she’s lost practically everything. It’s just that she doesn’t know it yet...’
15
It was an office much like any other.
Grant Hood and Ellen Wylie shared a look. They’d been expecting a builder’s yard — glaur and breeze-blocks, an Alsatian tethered and barking. Wylie even had wellies in the car, just in case. But this was the third floor of a 1960s office block halfway down Leith Walk. Wylie had asked Hood, would it be all right to nip into Valvona and Crolla’s after? He’d told her yes, no problem, but wasn’t it expensive?
‘Quality costs.’ That’s what she’d said, like an advertising slogan.
They were doing the rounds of Edinburgh’s building contractors, starting with the largest and longest established. Phone calls first, and if there was anyone in the firm who could help, then it was time for a visit.
Wylie: ‘Maybe John’s right when he calls us the Time Team. Never saw myself as an archaeologist.’
‘Twenty years, it’s hardly prehistory.’
Hood had found that their conversation flowed. No awkward pauses or slips of the tongue. They’d had one disagreement, over whether they were on a dead-end case.
Wylie: ‘We should be working the Grieve inquiry. That’s where all the attention is.’
Hood: ‘But if we get a result here, it’s something special, isn’t it? And it’s all ours.’
Wylie: ‘Any leads we get, I’ll bet we end up relegated. We’re DCs, Grant. That’s too low in the league to get any medals that might be going.’
‘You like football?’
‘I might.’
‘Who do you support?’
‘You first.’
Hood: ‘I’ve always been Rangers. You?’
Grinning: ‘Celtic.’
Sharing a laugh. Then Wylie again: ‘What is it they say about opposites attracting?’
A line Grant Hood carried with him as they sat in the waiting room. Opposites attracting.
Peter Kirkwall of Kirkwall Construction was in his early thirties and wore an immaculate pinstripe suit. It was impossible to picture him with a shovel in one of his smooth hands, yet there he was in a series of framed photographs around the walls of his office.
‘The first one’, he said, leading them as if through an exhibition, ‘is me at seven, mixing concrete in Dad’s yard.’ Dad being Jack Kirkwall, who’d founded the company back in the 1950s. He was in some of the photos, too. But the focus was on Peter: Peter bricklaying during a summer break from college; Peter with the plans of one of the city’s office blocks, his first Kirkwall project; Peter meeting dignitaries... and behind the wheel of a Mercedes CLK... and on the day of Jack Kirkwall’s retirement.
‘If you want it first-hand,’ he said, easing into his chair and business both, ‘you need to talk to Dad.’ He paused. ‘Coffee? Tea?’ Seemed pleased when they shook their heads: his was a busy schedule.
‘We appreciate you taking the trouble, sir,’ Wylie said, not above a bit of soft-soap. ‘Business good, is it?’
‘Phenomenal. What with the Holyrood redevelopment and the Western Approach corridor, Gyle, Wester Hailes, and now the plans for Granton...’ He shook his head. ‘We can hardly keep up. Every week we’re making bids on some project or other.’ He waved towards where some plans lay on the room’s conference table. ‘Know how my dad started? He built garages and extensions. Now it looks like we might get a finger in a pie as big as London Docklands.’ He rubbed his hands with what looked to Hood like glee.
‘But in the seventies, the firm worked on Queensberry House?’ Wylie was first with the question. It pulled Kirkwall back down to earth.
‘Yes, sorry. Once you get me started, I don’t know when to stop.’ He cleared his throat, composed himself. ‘I did look up our records...’ Reaching into a drawer, bringing out an old ledger, some notebooks and a card index. ‘Late in ’78, we were one of the firms renovating the hospital. Not me, of course, I was still at school. And now you’ve found a skeleton, eh?’
Hood handed over photographs of the two fireplaces. ‘The room to the far end of the basement. It was originally the kitchen.’
‘And that’s where the body was?’
‘We estimate it’s been there twenty years,’ Wylie said, easing into her role: talker to Hood’s silent type. ‘Which would coincide with the building works.’
‘Well, I’ve had my secretary dig up what she can.’ He smiled to let them know the pun was deliberate. Kirkwall — striped shirt, oval glasses, groomed black hair — was, Wylie presumed, trying for the sophisticated look. But there was something uncomfortable and ill-defined about him. She’d seen footballers turned TV pundits: they could wear the clothes but failed to carry the style.