‘How the other half live,’ he said to Wylie as they waited for the receptionist to call the Costellos’ room. When Rebus had phoned David Costello’s flat, there’d been no answer, so he’d asked around the office and been told that the parents flew into town Sunday evening, and that their son was spending the day with them.
‘I don’t think I’ve been inside before,’ Wylie replied. ‘It’s just a hotel, after all.’
‘They’d love to hear you say that.’
‘Well, it’s true, isn’t it?’
Rebus got the feeling she wasn’t thinking about what she was saying. Her mind was somewhere else, the words just filling spaces.
The receptionist smiled at them. ‘Mr Costello’s expecting you.’ She gave them the room number and directed them towards the lifts. A liveried porter was hovering, but one look at Rebus told him there was no work for him here. As the lift glided upwards, Rebus tried to get the song ‘Bell-Boy’ out of his head, Keith Moon growling and wailing.
‘What’s that you’re whistling?’ Wylie asked.
‘Mozart,’ Rebus lied. She nodded as if she’d just placed the tune...
It wasn’t a room after all, but a suite, with a connecting door to the suite next to it. Rebus caught a glimpse of Theresa Costello before her husband closed the door. The living area was compact: sofa, chair, table, TV... There was a bedroom off, and a bathroom down the hall. Rebus could smell soap and shampoo, and behind them the unaired smell you sometimes got in hotel rooms. There was a basket of fruit on the table, and David Costello, seated there, had just helped himself to an apple. He had shaved, but his hair was unwashed, lank and greasy. His grey T-shirt looked new, as did the black denims. The shoelaces on both his trainers were untied, either by accident or design.
Thomas Costello was shorter than Rebus had imagined him, a boxer’s roll to his shoulders when he walked. His mauve shirt was open-necked, and his trousers were held up with pale pink braces.
‘Come in, come in,’ he said, ‘sit yourselves down.’ He gestured towards the sofa. Rebus, however, took the armchair, while Wylie stayed standing. There was nothing for the father to do but sink into the sofa himself, where he spread his arms out either side of him. But a split second later he brought his hands together in a single sharp clap and exclaimed that they needed something to drink.
‘Not for us, Mr Costello,’ Rebus said.
‘You’re sure now?’ Costello looked to Ellen Wylie, who managed a slow nod.
‘Well then.’ The father once again arranged his arms either side of him. ‘So what can we be doing for you?’
‘I’m sorry we have to intrude at a time like this, Mr Costello.’ Rebus glanced towards David, who was showing about as much interest in proceedings as Wylie.
‘We quite understand, Inspector. You’ve got a job to do, and we all want to help you catch the sick bastard who did this to Philippa.’ Costello clenched his fists, showing he was ready to do some damage to the culprit himself. His face was almost wider than it was long, the hair cut short and brushed straight back from the forehead. The eyes were narrowed slightly, and Rebus guessed that the man wore contact lenses, and was ever fearful of them falling out.
‘Well, Mr Costello, we just have some follow-up questions...’
‘And do you mind me staying while you ask them?’
‘Not at all. It may even be that you can help.’
‘Go ahead then.’ His head snapped round. ‘Davey! Are you listening?’
David Costello nodded, ripping another bite from the apple.
‘The stage is all yours, Inspector,’ the father said.
‘Well, maybe I could start by asking David a couple of things.’ Rebus made a show of easing the notebook from his pocket, though he knew the questions already and didn’t think he’d need to write anything down. But sometimes the presence of a notebook could work a little magic. Interviewees seemed to trust the written word: if you had something in your notebook, then it had probably been verified. Additionally, if they thought their replies were going to be recorded, they gave each utterance more consideration, or else became flustered and blurted out the truth.
‘You’re sure you won’t sit?’ the father asked Wylie, patting the space on the sofa.
‘I’m fine,’ she answered coolly.
The exchange had somehow broken the spell; David Costello didn’t look in the least bothered about the notebook.
‘Fire away,’ he told Rebus.
Rebus took aim and fired. ‘David, we’ve asked you about this Internet game we think Flip might have been playing...’
‘Yes.’
‘And you said you didn’t know anything about it, and didn’t go much for computer games and such-like.’
‘Yes.’
‘But now we hear that in your schooldays you were a bit of a whizz at dungeons and dragons.’
‘I remember that,’ Thomas Costello interrupted. ‘You and your pals, up there in your bedroom all day and all night.’ He looked at Rebus. ‘All night, Inspector, if you can believe that.’
‘I’ve heard of grown men doing the same thing,’ Rebus said. ‘A few hands of poker and a big enough pot...’
Costello conceded as much with a smile: one gambling man to another.
‘Who told you I was a “whizz”?’ David asked.
‘It just came up.’ Rebus shrugged.
‘Well, I wasn’t. The D and D craze lasted about a month.’
‘Flip played, too, when she was at school, did you know that?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘She’d have told you though... I mean, the pair of you were into it.’
‘Not by the time we met. I don’t think the subject ever came up.’
Rebus stared into David Costello’s eyes. They were red-rimmed and bloodshot.
‘Then how would Flip’s friend Claire have got to hear of it?’
The young man snorted. ‘She told you? Claire the Cow?’
Thomas Costello tutted.
‘Well, she is,’ his son snapped back. ‘She was always trying to break us up, pretending she was “a friend”.’
‘She didn’t like you?’
David considered this. ‘I think it was more that she couldn’t bear to see Flip happy. When I told Flip, she just laughed in my face. She couldn’t see it. There was some history between her family and Claire’s, and I think Flip felt guilty. Claire was a real blind spot...’
‘Why didn’t you tell us this before?’
David looked at him and laughed. ‘Because Claire didn’t kill Flip.’
‘No?’
‘Christ, you’re not saying...’ He shook his head. ‘I mean, when I say Claire was vicious, it was just mind games with her... just words.’ He paused. ‘But then maybe that’s what the game was, too: is that what you’re thinking?’
‘We’re keeping an open mind,’ Rebus said.
‘Jesus, Davey,’ the father said, ‘if there’s anything you need to tell these officers, get it off your chest!’
‘It’s David!’ the young man spat. His father looked furious, but didn’t say anything. ‘I still don’t think it was Claire,’ David added, for Rebus’s benefit.
‘What about Flip’s mother?’ Rebus asked casually. ‘How did you get on with her?’
‘Fine.’
Rebus allowed the silence to linger, then repeated the word back at David, this time as a question.
‘You know how mothers are with daughters,’ David started to add. ‘Protective and all that.’
‘Rightly so, eh?’ Thomas Costello winked at Rebus, who glanced towards Ellen Wylie, wondering if this would rouse her. But she was staring out of the window.
‘Thing is, David,’ Rebus said quietly, ‘we’ve reason to believe there might have been a bit of friction there too.’
‘How so?’ Thomas Costello asked.
‘Maybe David can answer that,’ Rebus told him.