‘You know,’ she said, ‘I think you’re only the second policeman I’ve had dealings with since I came here.’
‘Not much crime, eh?’
‘The usual student boisterousness.’
‘What was the other time?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘The other policeman.’
‘Oh, it was last month. The severed hand.’
Rebus nodded, remembered reading about it. Some student joke, bits going missing from the medical lab, turning up around the town.
‘Raisin Day, it’s called,’ Billie Collins informed him. She was tall, bony. Prominent cheekbones and black brittle-looking hair. Seona Grieve was a teacher, too. Roddy Grieve had married two teachers. Her profile showed a jutting forehead, hooded eyes. Her nose fell to a point. Masculine features married to a strong, deep voice. Low-heeled black shoes, the navy-blue skirt falling way past her knees. Blue woollen jumper with decoration provided by a large Celtic brooch.
‘Some sort of initiation?’ Rebus asked.
‘The third-year students throw out challenges to the first years. There’s a lot of dressing up, and far too much drinking.’
‘Plus body parts.’
She glanced at him. ‘That was a first, so far as I’m aware. An anatomy prank. The hand was found on the school wall. Several of my girls had to be treated for shock.’
‘Dear me.’
Their walk had slowed. Rebus gestured towards a bench and they sat a decent distance apart. Billie Collins tugged at the hem of her skirt.
‘You came here on holidays, did you say?’
‘Most years. Played on the beach down there, went to the castle... There was a kind of dungeon there.’
‘The bottle dungeon.’
‘That’s it. And a haunted tower...’
‘St Rule’s. It’s just over the cathedral wall.’
‘Where my car’s parked?’ She nodded and he laughed. ‘Everything seemed a lot further apart when I was a boy.’
‘You’d have sworn St Rule’s was a distance from your putting green?’ She seemed to consider this. ‘Who’s to say it wasn’t?’
He nodded slowly, almost understanding her. She was saying that the past was a different place, that it could not be revisited. The town had tricked him by seeming unchanged. But he had changed: that was what mattered.
She took a deep breath, spread her hands out across her lap. ‘You want to talk to me about my past, Inspector, and that’s a painful subject. Given the choice, it’s something I’d avoid. Few happy memories, and those aren’t what interest you anyway.’
‘I can appreciate—’
‘I wonder if you can, I really do. Roddy and I met when we were too young. Second-year undergraduates, right here. We were happy here, maybe that’s why I’ve been able to stay. But when Roddy got his job in the Scottish Office...’ She reached into a sleeve for her handkerchief. Not that she was about to cry, but it helped her to work at the cotton with her fingers, her eyes fixed on the embroidered edges. Rebus looked out to sea, imagining spy ships — probably fishing boats, transformed by imagination.
‘When Peter was born,’ she went on, ‘it was at the worst time. Roddy was snowed under at work. We were living at his parents’ place. It didn’t help that his father was ailing. With my post-natal depression... well, it was a kind of living hell.’ Now she looked up. In front of her lay the beach, and the Labrador bounding across it to fetch a stick. But she was seeing a different picture altogether. ‘Roddy seemed to immerse himself in his work; his way of escaping it all, I suppose.’
And now Rebus had his own pictures: working ever longer hours, keeping clear of the flat. No arguments about politics; no cushion fights. Nothing any more but the knowledge of failure. Sammy had to be protected: the unspoken agreement; the last pact of husband and wife. Until Rhona told him he was a stranger to her, and walked away, taking their daughter...
He couldn’t recall his own parents ever arguing. Money had always been an issue: every week they put a little aside, saving for the boys’ holiday. They scrimped, but Johnny and Mike never went without: patched clothes and hand-me-downs, but hot meals, Christmas treats and the annual holiday. Ice cream and deckchairs, bags of chips on the walk back to the caravan. Games of putting, trips to Craigtoun Park. There was a miniature train there, you sat on it and ended up in some woods with little elfin houses.
It had all seemed so easy, so innocent.
‘And the drinking got worse,’ she was saying, ‘so I ran back here, bringing Peter with me.’
‘How bad did the drinking get?’
‘He did it in secret. Bottles hidden in his study.’
‘Seona says he wasn’t much of a drinker.’
‘She would, wouldn’t she?’
‘Protecting his good name?’
Billie Collins sighed. ‘I’m not sure I really blame Roddy. It was his family, the way they can suffocate you.’ She looked at him. ‘All his life, I think he dreamed of parliament. And just when it was within his reach...’
Rebus shifted on the bench. ‘I’ve heard he worshipped Cammo.’
‘Not quite the right word, but I suppose he did want at least some of what Cammo appeared to have.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Cammo can be charming and ruthless. Sometimes never more ruthless than when he’s being charming to your face. Roddy was attracted to that side of his brother: the ability to scheme.’
‘He had more than one brother, though.’
‘Oh, you mean Alasdair?’
‘Did you know him?’
‘I liked Alasdair, but I can’t say I blame him for leaving.’
‘When did he leave?’
‘Late seventies. Seventy-nine, I think.’
‘Do you know why he left?’
‘Not really. He had a business partner, Frankie or Freddy... a name like that. Story was, they went off together.’
‘Lovers?’
She shrugged. ‘I didn’t believe it; nor did Alicia, though I don’t think she’d have been against a homosexual in the family.’
‘What did Alasdair do?’
‘All sorts. He owned a restaurant at one time: Mercurio’s on Dundas Street. I should think it’s changed names a dozen times since. He was hopeless with the staff. He dabbled in property — I think that was Frankie or Freddy’s line of work also — and put money into a couple of bars. As I say, Inspector, all sorts.’
‘No arts or politics then?’
She snorted. ‘Lord, no. Alasdair was far too down-to-earth.’ She paused. ‘What has Alasdair got to do with Roddy?’
Rebus slid his hands into his pockets. ‘I’m trying to get to know Roddy. Alasdair’s just another piece of the puzzle.’
‘Bit late to get to know him, isn’t it?’
‘By getting to know him, it’s possible I may see who his enemies were.’
‘But we don’t always know who our enemies are, do we? The wolf in sheep’s clothing, et cetera.’
He nodded agreement, stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles. But Billie Collins was getting to her feet. ‘We can be at Kinkell Braes in five minutes. Might be interesting for you.’
He doubted it, but as they began to climb the steep path to the caravan site, he remembered something else from his childhood: a hole, deep and manmade, sided with concrete. It had sat to one side of the path, and he’d had to shuffle past it, fearful of falling in. Some sort of sluice? He recalled water trickling through it.
‘Christ, it’s still here!’ He stood looking down. The hole had been fenced off from the path; didn’t seem half as deep. But this was definitely the same hole. He looked to Billie Collins. ‘This thing scared me half to death when I was a kid. Cliffs to one side and this on the other, I could hardly bring myself to come down this path. I had nightmares about this hole.’