‘The media are after me. They’re making a programme about a case, ancient history, and they want to talk to me.’
‘I get the idea.’
‘They may try tracking me down, phoning up pretending to be colleagues...’
‘Well, no one knows you’re here except me and DC Shanks. I’ll try to keep it that way.’
‘I’d appreciate it. They may try using the name Ancram. That’s the reporter.’
Lumsden winked, finished the bowl of peanuts. ‘Your secret’s safe with me.’
They finished their drinks and Lumsden said he had to get back to the station. He gave Rebus his telephone numbers — office and home — and took note of Rebus’s room number.
‘Anything I can do, give me a call,’ he said.
‘Thanks.’
‘You know how to get to T-Bird Oil?’
‘I’ve got a map.’
Lumsden nodded. ‘What about tonight? Fancy going for a meal?’
‘Great.’
‘I’ll drop by about seven-thirty.’
They shook hands again. Rebus watched him leave, then headed back to the bar for a whisky. As advised, he charged it to the room, and took it upstairs. With the curtains closed, the room was cooler but still airless. He looked to see if he could open the windows, but couldn’t. They had to be twelve feet high. With the curtains closed, he lay on the bed and slipped off his shoes, then replayed his conversation with Lumsden. It was something he did, usually finding things he could have said, better ways of saying them. Suddenly he sat up. Lumsden had mentioned T-Bird Oil, but Rebus couldn’t recall telling him the name of the company. Maybe he had... or maybe he’d mentioned it to DC Shanks over the phone, and Shanks had told Lumsden.
He didn’t feel relaxed any more, so prowled the room. In one of the drawers he found material about Aberdeen, tourist stuff, PR stuff. He sat down at the dressing table and started to go through it. The facts came with a zealot’s force.
Fifty thousand people in the Grampian region worked in the oil and gas industry, twenty per cent of total employment. Since the early seventies, the area’s population had increased by sixty thousand, housing stock had increased by a third, creating major new suburbs around Aberdeen. A thousand acres of industrial land had been developed around the city. Aberdeen Airport had seen a tenfold increase in passenger numbers, and was now the world’s busiest heliport. There wasn’t a negative comment anywhere in the literature, except for the minor mention of a fishing village called Old Torry, which had been granted its charter three years after Columbus landed in America. When oil came to the north-east, Old Torry was flattened to make way for a Shell supply base. Rebus raised his glass and toasted the memory of the village.
He showered, changed his clothes, and headed back to the bar. A flustered-looking woman in long tartan skirt and white blouse came bustling up to him.
‘Are you with the convention?’
He shook his head, and remembered reading about it: pollution in the North Sea or something. Eventually the woman shepherded three corpulent businessmen out of the hotel. Rebus went into the lobby and watched a limo take them away. He checked his watch. Time to go.
Finding Dyce was easy, he just followed signs to the airport. Sure enough, he saw helicopters in the sky. The area around the airport was a mix of farming land, new hotels, and industrial complexes. T-Bird Oil had its headquarters in a modest three-storey hexagon, most of it smoked glass. There was a car park at the front, and landscaped gardens with a path meandering through them to the building itself. In the distance, light aircraft were taking off and landing.
The reception area was spacious and light. Under glass there were models of the North Sea oilfields and of some of T-Bird’s production platforms. Bannock was the biggest as well as the oldest. A scale-sized double-decker bus had been placed beside it, dwarfed by the rig. There were huge colour photos and diagrams on the walls, along with a slew of framed awards. The receptionist told him he was expected, and should take the lift to the first floor. The lift was mirrored, and Rebus examined himself. He remembered taking the lift up to Allan Mitchison’s flat, Bain shadow-boxing his reflection. Rebus knew if he tried that just now, his reflection would probably win. He crunched down on another mint.
A pretty girl was waiting for him. She asked him to follow her, not exactly an onerous task. They moved through an open plan office, only half the desks in current use. There were TVs switched on to Teletext news, share indices, CNN. They came out of the office into another corridor, much quieter, deep carpeting underfoot. At the second door, which was open, the girl gestured for Rebus to enter.
Stuart Minchell’s name was on the door, so Rebus assumed the man rising to his feet to shake hands was Minchell.
‘Inspector Rebus? Nice to meet you at last.’
It was true what they said about voices, you could seldom pin the right face and body to them. Minchell spoke with authority, but looked too young — mid-twenties tops, with a sheen to his face, red cheeks, short slicked-back hair. He wore round metal-framed glasses and had thick dark eyebrows, making the face seem mischievous. He still affected wide red braces with his trousers. When he half-turned, Rebus saw his hair at the back had been coaxed into the beginnings of a ponytail.
‘Coffee or tea?’ the girl was asking.
‘No time, Sabrina,’ Minchell said. He opened his arms wide to Rebus in apology. ‘Change of plan, Inspector. I have to be at the North Sea Conference. I did try reaching you to warn you.’
‘That’s all right.’ Rebus was thinking: shit. If he called Fort Apache, that means they’ll know I’m up here.
‘I thought we could take my car, talk on the way out there. I should only be half an hour or so. If you’ve any questions, we can talk afterwards.’
‘That’ll be fine.’
Minchell was shrugging into his jacket.
‘Files,’ Sabrina reminded him.
‘Check.’ He picked up half a dozen, stuffed them into a briefcase.
‘Business cards.’
He opened his Filofax, saw he had a supply. ‘Check.’
‘Cellphone.’
He patted his pocket, nodded. ‘Is the car ready?’
Sabrina said she’d check, and went to find her phone.
‘We may as well wait downstairs,’ Minchell said.
‘Check,’ said Rebus.
They waited for the lift. When it came, there were already two men inside, which still left room. Minchell hesitated. He looked like he was about to say they’d wait, but Rebus had already stepped into the lift, so he followed, with a slight bow to one of the men, the elder of the two.
Rebus watched in the mirror, saw the elder man staring back at him. He had long yellow-silver hair swept back from his forehead and behind both ears. He rested his hands on a silver-topped cane and wore a baggy linen suit. He looked like a character out of Tennessee Williams, his face chiselled and frowning, gait only slightly stooped despite his years. Rebus looked down and noticed the man was wearing a pair of well-worn trainers. The man brought a notepad out of his pocket, scribbled something on it while still holding his cane, tore the sheet off and handed it to the second man, who read it and nodded.
The lift opened at the ground floor. Minchell physically held Rebus back until the other two had got out. Rebus watched them march to the front door of the building, the man with the note veering off to make a call at reception. There was a red Jaguar parked directly outside. A liveried chauffeur held the back door open for Big Daddy.
Minchell was rubbing his brow with the fingers of one hand.
‘Who was that?’ Rebus asked.
‘That was Major Weir.’
‘Wish I’d known, I’d’ve asked him why I can’t get Green Shield stamps with my petrol any more.’