‘You must have come across Bryce Callan?’
‘Not really.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means I know his name.’ Both Ure and Rebus watched the lawyer scratch a note on his pad. Rebus noticed he was using a fountain pen, his letters tall and slanting. ‘I don’t recall his name ever cropping up on a planning application.’
‘How about Freddy Hastings?’
Ure nodded slowly: he’d known this name would come up, too. ‘Freddy was around for a few years. Bit of a wide boy, liked to gamble. All the best developers do.’
‘And was Freddy a good gambler?’
‘He didn’t last long, if that’s what you’re getting at.’
Rebus opened the file, pretending to check something. ‘Did you know Barry Hutton back then, Mr Ure?’
‘No.’
‘I believe he was dipping a toe in the water at that time.’
‘Maybe so, but I wasn’t on the beach.’ Ure wheezed out a laugh at his joke. His wife stretched an arm across the solicitor, touched her husband’s hand. He patted hers. Cameron Whyte looked trapped. He’d had to stop scratching on his pad, seemed relieved when Mrs Ure withdrew the arm.
‘Not even selling the ice creams?’ Rebus asked. Both Ures, husband and wife, glared at him.
‘No need to be glib, Inspector,’ the lawyer drawled.
‘I apologise,’ Rebus said. ‘Only it wasn’t cones you were selling, was it, Mr Ure? It was information. As a result of which, to coin a phrase, you ended up with the lolly.’ Behind him, he could hear Siobhan choke back a laugh.
‘That’s a strong accusation, Inspector,’ Cameron Whyte said.
Ure turned his head towards his lawyer. ‘Do I need to deny that, Cam, or do I just wait for him to fail to prove it?’
‘I’m not sure I can prove it,’ Rebus admitted guilelessly. ‘I mean, we know someone in the council tipped off Bryce Callan about the parliament site, and probably about land in the area that could be available for purchase. We know someone smoothed the way for a lot of plans put forward by Freddy Hastings.’ Rebus fixed eyes with Ure. ‘Mr Hastings’ business partner of the time, Alasdair Grieve, has given us a full statement.’ Rebus searched in the folder again, read from a transcript: ‘We were told there wouldn’t be any problems with consents. Callan had that under control. Someone in planning was making sure.’
Cameron Whyte looked up. ‘I’m sorry, Inspector, maybe my ears aren’t what they were, but I failed to hear my client’s name mentioned there.’
‘Your ears are fine, sir. Alasdair Grieve never knew the mole’s name. Six people on the planning committee at that time: could have been any one of them.’
‘And presumably,’ the lawyer went on, ‘other members of council staff had access to such information?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Everyone from the Lord Provost down to the typing pool?’
‘I wouldn’t know, sir.’
‘But you should know, Inspector, otherwise such flimsy allegations could get you into serious trouble.’
‘I don’t think Mr Ure will want to sue,’ Rebus said. He kept stealing glances at the heart monitor. It wasn’t as good as a lie detector, but Ure’s rate had leapt in the past couple of minutes. Rebus again made a show of glancing at his notes.
‘A general question,’ he said, again fixing eyes with Ure. ‘Planning decisions can make people millions of pounds, can’t they? I don’t mean the councillors themselves, or whoever else is responsible for taking the decisions... but the builders and developers, anyone who owns land or property near the development site?’
‘Sometimes, yes,’ Ure conceded.
‘So these people, they need to be on good terms with the decision-makers?’
‘We’re under constant scrutiny,’ Ure said. ‘I know you think we’re probably all bent, but even if someone wanted to take a backhander, chances are they’d be found out.’
‘Which means there’s a chance they wouldn’t?’
‘They’d be a fool to try.’
‘Plenty of fools around, if the price is right.’ Rebus glanced back down at his notes. ‘You moved into this house in 1980, is that right, Mr Ure?’
It was Whyte who answered. ‘Look, Inspector, I don’t know what you’re insinuating—’
‘August 1980,’ Ure interrupted. ‘Money from my wife’s late mother.’
Rebus was ready. ‘You sold her house to pay for this one?’
Ure was immediately suspicious. ‘That’s right.’
‘But she had a two-bedroom cottage in Dumfriesshire, Mr Ure. Hardly comparable to Queensferry Road.’
Ure was silent for a moment. Rebus knew what he was thinking. He was thinking: if they’ve dug that far back, what else do they know?
‘You’re an evil man!’ Mrs Ure snapped. ‘Archie’s just had a heart attack, and you’re trying to kill him off!’
‘Don’t fret, love,’ Archie Ure said, trying to reach out for her.
‘Again, Inspector,’ Cameron Whyte was saying, ‘I must protest at this line of questioning.’
Rebus turned to Siobhan. ‘Any more tea in that pot?’ Ignoring the flurry of voices; the doctor getting out of his chair, concerned at his patient’s state of agitation. Siobhan poured. Rebus nodded his thanks. He turned back to them again.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I missed all that. Point I was going to make is that if there’s money to be made on projects in Edinburgh, how much more power would someone have if they were in charge of planning for the whole of Scotland?’ He sat back, sipped the tea, waited.
‘I don’t follow,’ the lawyer said.
‘Well, the question was really for Mr Ure.’ Rebus looked at Ure, who cleared his throat before speaking.
‘I’ve already said, at council level there are all sorts of checks and scrutinies. At national level, they’d be multiplied tenfold.’
‘Doesn’t quite answer the question,’ Rebus commented affably. He shifted in his chair. ‘You were runner-up to Roddy Grieve in the ballot, weren’t you?’
‘So?’
‘With Mr Grieve dead, you should have taken his place.’
‘If she hadn’t stuck her oar in,’ Mrs Ure spat.
Rebus looked at her. ‘I’m assuming that by “she” you mean Seona Grieve?’
‘That’s enough, Isla,’ her husband said. Then, to Rebus: ‘Say your piece.’
Rebus shrugged. ‘It’s just that by rights, with the candidate out of the way, the nomination should have been yours. No wonder you got a shock when Seona Grieve stepped forward.’
‘Shock? It nearly killed him. And now you come in here, stirring it—’
‘I said be quiet, woman!’ Ure had turned on to one side, leaning on an elbow, the better to confront his wife. The beeping of the heart monitor seemed louder to Rebus. The patient was being coaxed on to his back by his doctor. One of the wires had come loose.
‘Leave me alone, man,’ Ure complained. His wife had folded her arms, her mouth and eyes reduced to narrow, angry fissures. Ure took another sip of juice, lay his head back against the pillows. His eyes were focused on the ceiling.
‘Just say your piece,’ he repeated.
Rebus all of a sudden felt a pang of pity for the man, a bond that recognised their common mortality, their pasts paved with guilt. The only enemy Archie Ure had now was death itself, and such self-knowledge could change a man.
‘It’s a supposition really,’ Rebus said quietly. He was shutting them all out; it was just him and the man in the bed now. ‘But say a developer had someone in the council he could trust to make the right decision. And say this councillor was thinking of running for parliament. Well, if they got in... with all that experience behind them — over twenty years mostly spent in city planning — they’d be odds-on for a similar post. Planning supremo for the new Scotland. That’s a lot of power to wield. The power to say aye or nay to projects worth billions. All that knowledge, too: which areas are going to get redevelopment grants; where this factory or that housing development is going to be sited... Got to be worth something to a developer. Almost worth killing for...’