Strip Jack

'Remember, Gowk, remember the day before you found the body? Remember that Wednesday, that Wednesday afternoon? Did Suey come and see you? Did he, Gowk? Did Suey pay a visit that Wednesday?'

'Wensay? Wensay?' She was shaking her head. 'Poor Lizzie… poor, poor…' Now she held her hand palm upwards. 'Gi' me th' knife,' she said. 'Rab'll never know. Gi' me th' knife.'

Rebus glanced at Holmes. 'We can't let you do that, Gowk. That would be murder.'

She nodded. 'Thas right, murder.' She said the final word very carefully, enunciating each letter, then repeated it. 'Cut off his head,' she said. 'An' they'll put me beside Mack.' She smiled again, the thought pleasing her. And all the time Rab Kinnoul's names were drifting from the other room…

'… best, absolutely… like to work with him again. Consummate professionalism… and good old George Cole, too… the old school… yes, the old school… the old school

'Mack…' Cathy Kinnoul was saying. 'Mack… Suey… Sexton… Beggar… Poor Beggar…'

'The old school.'

Some school ties you just kept too long. Way after they should have been thrown out.

Rebus telephoned Barney Byars. The secretary put him through.

'Inspector,' came Byars' voice, all energy and business, 'I just can't shake you off, can I?'

'You're too easy to catch,' Rebus said.

Byars laughed. 'I've got to be,' he said, 'otherwise the clients can't catch me. I always like to make myself available. Now, what's your beef this time?'

'It's about an evening you spent not so long ago with Rab Kinnoul and Ronald Steele…"

Byars was able to substantiate the story in all but the most crucial details. Rebus explained about Kinnoul coming downstairs and repeating what Gail had said to him.

'I don't remember that,' Byars said. 'I was well on by then, mind. So well on I think I stumped up for the three of us.' He chuckled. 'Suey had his usual excuse of being flat broke, and Rab was carrying not more than ten bar by then.' Another chuckle. 'See, I always remember my sums, especially when it's money.'

'But you're sure you don't recall Mr Kinnoul telling you what the prostitute told him?'

I'm not saying he didn't say it, mind, but no, I can't for the life of me remember it.'

Which made it Kinnoul's word against Byars' memory. The only thing for it was to talk to Steele again. Rebus could call in on the way to Patience's. It was a long way round for a shortcut, but it shouldn't take too long. Cathy Kinnoul was another problem. It didn't do to have knife-wielding pill-poppers running around at large. The family doctor, summoned by Holmes, had listened to their story and suggested that Mrs Kinnoul be admitted to a hospital on the outskirts of the city. Would there be any criminal charges…?

'Of course.' said Holmes testily. 'Attempted murder for starters.'

But Rebus was thinking. He was thinking of how badly Cath Kinnoul had been treated. Thinking, too, of all those obstruction charges he might be filing – Hector, Steele, Jack himself. And, most of all, thinking of Andrew Macmillan. He'd seen what 'special hospitals' did with the criminally insane. Cath Kinnoul would be treated anyway. So long as she underwent treatment, what was the point of pressing a charge of attempted murder on her?

So he shook his head – to Brian Holmes' astonishment. No, no charges, not if she was admitted straight away. The doctor checked that the paperwork would be a mere formality, and Kinnoul, who had come back to something like his senses by this time, agreed to the whole thing.

'In that case,' said the doctor, 'she can be admitted today.'

Rebus made one more call. To Chief Inspector Lauderdale.

'Where the hell did you disappear to?'

'It's a long story, sir.'

'It usually is.'

'How did the meeting go?'

'It went. Listen, John, we're formally charging William Glass."

'What?'

'The Dean Bridge victim had had intercourse just before she died. Forensics tell me the DNA-test matches our man Glass.' Lauderdale paused, but Rebus said nothing. 'Don't worry, John, we'll start with the Dean Bridge murder. But really, just between us… do you think you're getting anywhere?'

'Really, sir, just between us… I don't know.'

'Well, you'd better get a move on, otherwise I'm going to charge Glass with Mrs Jack, too. Ferrie and that solicitor are going to start asking awkward questions any minute now. It's on a knife edge, John, understand?'

'Yes, sir, oh yes, I understand all about knife edges, believe me…'

Rebus didn't walk up to Ronald Steele's front door – not straight away. First, he stood in front of the garage and peered in through a crack between the two doors. Steele's Citroen was at home, which presumably meant the man himself was at home. Rebus went to the door and pushed the bell. He could hear it sounding in the hall. Halls: he could write a book on them. My night sleeping in a hallway; the day I was almost stabbed in a hallway… He rang again. It was a loud and unpleasant bell, not the kind you could easily ignore.

So he rang one more time. Then he tried the door. It was locked. He walked on to the little strip of grass running in front of the bungalow and pressed his face against the living room window. The room was empty. Maybe he'd just popped out for a pint of milk… Rebus tried the gate to the side of the garage, the gate giving access to the back garden. It, too, was locked. He walked back to the front gate and stood beside it, looking up and down the silent street. Then he checked his watch. He could give it five minutes, ten at most. The last thing he felt like was sitting down to dinner with Patience. But he didn't want to lose her either… Quarter of an hour to get back to Oxford Terrace… twenty minutes to be on the safe side. Yes, he could still be there by seven thirty. Time enough. Well, you'd better get a move on. Why bother? Why not give Glass his moment of infamy, his second – his famous – victim?

Why bother with anything? Not for the praise of a pat on the back; not for the rightness of it; maybe, then, from sheer stubbornness. Yes. that would just about fit the bill. Someone was coming… His car was pointing the wrong way, but he could see in his rearview. Not a man but a woman. Nice legs. Carrying two carrier bags of shopping. She walked well but she was tired. It couldn't be…? What the…?

He rolled down his window. 'Hello, Gill.'

Gill Templer stopped, stared, smiled. 'You know, I thought I recognized that heap of junk.'

'Ssh! Cars have feelings, too.' He patted the steering wheel. She put down her bags.

'What are you doing here?'

He nodded towards Steele's house. 'Waiting to talk to someone who isn't going to show.'

Trust you.'

'What about you?'

'Me? I live here. Well, next street on the right to be honest. You knew I'd moved.'

He shrugged. 'I didn't realize it was round here.'

She gave him an unconvinced smile.

'No, honest,' he said. 'But now I am here, can I give you a lift?'

She laughed. 'It's only a hundred yards.'

'Please yourself.'

She looked down at her bags. 'Oh, go on then.'

He opened the door for her and she put the bags down on the floor, squeezing her feet in beside them. Rebus started the car. It spluttered, wheezed, died. He tried again, choke full out. The car gasped, whinnied, then got the general idea.

'Like I said, heap of junk.'

'That's why it's behaving like this,' Rebus warned. 'Temperamental, like a thoroughbred horse.'

But the field of an egg-and-spoon race could probably have beaten them over the distance. Finally, they reached the house unscathed. Rebus looked out.

'Nice,' he said. It was a double-fronted affair with bay windows either side of the front door. There were three floors all told, with a small and steep garden dissected by the stone steps which led from gate to doorway.