The Hanging Garden (21 page)

He went back downstairs. Hogan was in the basement. The kitchen had a door on to a back garden – stone patio, lawn covered in rotting leaves, an ivy-covered wall giving privacy.

‘Look what I found,’ Hogan said, coming back from the utility room. He was holding a length of rope, frayed at one end where it had been cut.

‘You think it’ll match with the noose? That would mean the killer got it from here.’

‘Meaning Lintz knew them.’

‘Anything in the office?’

‘It’s going to take a bit of time. There’s an address book, lots of entries, but most of them seem to go back a while.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘Old STD codes.’

‘Computer?’

‘Not even a typewriter. He used carbons. Lots of letters to his solicitor.’

‘Trying to shut the media up?’

‘You get a couple of mentions, too. Anything upstairs?’

‘Go take a look. I’ll check the office.’

Rebus climbed upstairs and stood in the office doorway, looking around. Then he sat down at the desk and imagined the room was his. What did he do here? He conducted his daily business. There were two filing-cabinets, but to get to them he’d have to stand up from the desk. And he was an old man. Say the cabinets were for dead correspondence. More recent stuff would be closer to hand.

He tried the drawers. Found the address book Hogan had mentioned. A few letters. A small snuff-box, its contents turned solid. Lintz hadn’t even allowed himself
that small vice. In a bottom drawer were some files. Rebus lifted out the one marked ‘General/Household’. It comprised bills and guarantees. A large brown envelope was marked BT. Rebus opened it and took out the phone bills. They went back to the beginning of the year. The most recent bill was at the front. Rebus was disappointed to find that it wasn’t itemised. Then he noticed that all the other statements
were
. Lintz had been meticulous, placing names beside calls made, double-checking British Telecom’s totals at the foot of each page. The whole year was like that … right up until recently. Frowning, Rebus realised that the penultimate statement was missing. Had Lintz mislaid it? Rebus couldn’t see him mislaying anything. A missing bill would have hinted at chaos in his ordered world. No, it had to be somewhere.

But Rebus was damned if he could find it.

Lintz’s correspondence was all business, either to lawyers or else to do with local charities and committees. He’d been resigning from his committees. Rebus wondered if pressure had been applied. Edinburgh could be cruel and cold that way.

‘Well?’ Hogan said, sticking his head round the door.

‘I’m just wondering …’

‘What?’

‘Whether to add on a conservatory and knock through from the kitchen.’

‘We’d lose some garden space,’ Hogan said. He came in, rested against the desk. ‘Anything?’

‘A missing phone bill, and a sudden change from being itemised.’

‘Worth a call,’ Hogan admitted. ‘I found a chequebook in his bedroom. Stubs show payments of £60 a month to E. Forgan.’

‘Where in the bedroom?’

‘Marking his place in a book.’ Hogan reached into the desk’s top drawer, lifted out the address book.

Rebus got up. ‘Pretty rich street this. Wonder how many of them do their own dusting.’

Hogan shut the book. ‘No listing for an E. Forgan. Think the neighbours will know?’

‘Edinburgh neighbours know
everything
. It’s just that they most often keep it to themselves.’

Joseph Lintz’s neighbours: an artist and her husband on one side; a retired advocate and his wife on the other. The artist used a cleaning lady called Ella Forgan. Mrs Forgan lived in East Claremont Street. The artist gave them a telephone number.

Conclusions drawn from the two interviews: shock and horror that Lintz was dead; praise for the quiet, considerate neighbour. A Christmas card every year, and an invitation to drinks one Sunday afternoon each July. Hard to tell when he’d been at home and when he’d been out. He went off on holiday without telling anyone except Mrs Forgan. Visitors to his home had been few – or few had been noticed, which wasn’t quite the same thing.

‘Men? Women?’ Rebus had asked. ‘Or a mixture?’

‘A mixture, I’d say,’ the artist had replied, measuring her words. ‘Really, we knew very little about him, to say we’ve been neighbours these past twenty-odd years …’

Ah, and that was Edinburgh for you, too, at least in this price bracket. Wealth was a very private thing in the city. It wasn’t brash and colourful. It stayed behind its thick stone walls and was at peace.

Rebus and Hogan held a doorstep conference.

‘I’ll call the cleaning lady, see if I can meet her, preferably here.’ Hogan looked back at Lintz’s front door.

‘I’d love to know where he got the money to buy this place,’ Rebus said.

‘That could take some excavating.’

Rebus nodded. ‘Solicitor would be the place to start. What about the address book? Worth tracking down some of these elusive friends?’

‘I suppose so.’ Hogan looked dispirited at the prospect.

‘I’ll follow up on the phone bills,’ Rebus said. ‘If that’ll help.’

Hogan was nodding. ‘And remember to get me copies of your files. Are you busy otherwise?’

‘Bobby, if time was money, I’d be in hock to every lender in town.’

Mae Crumley reached Rebus on his mobile.

‘I thought you’d forgotten me,’ he told Sammy’s boss.

‘Just being methodical, Inspector. I’m sure you’d want no less.’ Rebus stopped at traffic lights. ‘I’ve been in to see Sammy. Is there any news?’

‘Nothing much. So you’ve talked to her clients?’

‘Yes, and they all seemed genuinely upset and surprised. Sorry to disappoint you.’

‘What makes you think I’m disappointed?’

‘Sammy has a good rapport with all her clients. None of them would have wanted her hurt.’

‘What about the ones who didn’t want to be her clients?’

Crumley hesitated. ‘There was one man … When he was told Sammy had a police inspector for a father, he’d have nothing to do with her.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘It couldn’t have been him though.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because he killed himself. His name was Gavin Tay. He used to drive an ice-cream van …’

Rebus thanked her for her call, and put down the phone. If someone had tried to kill Sammy on purpose, the question was: why? Rebus had been investigating Lintz; Ned Farlowe had been following him. Rebus had twice
confronted Telford; Ned was writing a book about organised crime. Then there was Candice … Could she have
told
Sammy something, something which might have threatened Telford, or even Mr Pink Eyes? Rebus just didn’t know. He knew the most likely culprit – the most vicious – was Tommy Telford. He remembered their first meeting, and the young gangster’s words to him:
That’s the beauty of games. You can always start again after an accident. Not so easy in real life
. At the time it had sounded like bravado, a performance for the troops. But now it sounded like a plain threat.

And now there was Mr Taystee, connecting Sammy to Telford. Mr Taystee had worked Telford’s clubs; Mr Taystee had rejected Sammy. Rebus knew he’d have to talk to the widow.

There was just the one problem. Mr Pink Eyes had intimated that if Telford wasn’t left alone, Candice would suffer. He kept seeing images of Candice: torn from home and homeland; used and abused; abusing herself in the hope of respite; clinging to a stranger’s legs … He recalled Levy’s words:
Can time wash away responsibility?
Justice was a fine and noble thing, but revenge … revenge was an
emotion
, and so much stronger than an abstract like justice. He wondered if Sammy would want revenge. Probably not. She’d want him to help Candice, which meant yielding to Telford. Rebus didn’t think he could do that.

And now there was Lintz’s murder, unconnected but resonant.

‘I’ve never felt comfortable with the past, Inspector,’ Lintz had said once. Funny, Rebus felt the same way about the present.

Joanne Tay lived in Colinton: a newish three-bedroomed semi with the Merc still parked in the drive.

‘It’s too big for me,’ she explained to Rebus. ‘I’ll have to sell it.’

He wasn’t sure if she meant the house or the car. Having declined her offer of tea, he sat in the busy living-room, ornaments on every flat surface. Joanne Tay was still in mourning: black skirt and blouse, dark grooves beneath her eyes. He’d interviewed her back at the start of the inquiry.

‘I still don’t know why he did it,’ she said now, reluctant to see her husband’s death as anything other than suicide.

But the pathology and forensic tests had cast this into doubt.

‘Have you ever heard,’ Rebus asked, ‘of a man called Tommy Telford?’

‘He runs a nightclub, doesn’t he? Gavin took me there once.’

‘So Gavin knew him?’

‘Seemed to.’

Yes: because no way was Mr Taystee setting up his hot-dog pitch outside Telford’s premises without Telford’s okay. And Telford’s okay almost certainly meant payment of some kind. A percentage maybe … or a favour.

‘The week before Gavin died,’ Rebus went on, ‘you said he’d been busy?’

‘Working all hours.’

‘Days as well as nights?’ She nodded. ‘The weather was lousy that week.’

‘I know. I told him: you’ll never get them buying ice-cream, a day like this. Pelting down outside. But still he went out.’

Rebus shifted in his chair. ‘Did he ever mention SWEEP, Mrs Tay?’

‘He had some woman would visit him … red hair.’

‘Mae Crumley?’

She nodded, eyes staring at the coal-effect fire. She asked him again if he wanted some tea. Rebus shook his head and made to leave. Did pretty well: knocked over just the two ornaments on his way to the door.

The hospital was quiet. When he pushed open the door to Sammy’s room, he saw that another bed had been added, a middle-aged woman sleeping in it. Her hands lay on the bedcovers, a white identity tag around one wrist. She was hooked up to a machine, and her head was bandaged.

Two women were sitting by Sammy’s bed. Rhona, and Patience Aitken. Rebus hadn’t seen Patience in a while. The women were sitting close together. Their whispered conversation stopped as he came in. He lifted a chair and placed it beside Patience’s. She leaned over and squeezed his hand.

‘Hello, John.’

He smiled at her, spoke to Rhona. ‘How is she?’

‘The specialist says those last tests were very positive.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means there’s brain activity. She’s not in deep coma.’

‘Is that his version?’

‘He thinks she’ll come out of it, John.’ Her eyes were bloodshot. He noticed a handkerchief gripped in one hand.

‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘Which doctor was it?’

‘Dr Stafford. He’s just back from holiday.’

‘I can’t keep track of them all.’ Rebus rubbed his forehead.

‘Look,’ Patience said, checking her watch, ‘I really should be going. I’m sure the two of you …’

‘Stay as long as you like,’ Rebus told her.

‘I’m already late for an appointment, actually.’ She got to her feet. ‘Nice to meet you, Rhona.’

‘Thanks, Patience.’ The two women shook hands a little awkwardly, then Rhona got up and they hugged, and the awkwardness vanished. ‘Thanks for coming.’

Patience turned to Rebus. She looked radiant, he decided. Light really seemed to emanate from her skin. She was wearing her usual perfume, and had had her hair restyled.

‘Thanks for looking in,’ he said.

‘She’s going to be fine, John.’ She took his hands in hers, leaned towards him. A peck on the cheek, a kiss between friends. Rebus saw Rhona watching them.

‘John,’ she said, ‘see Patience out, will you?’

‘No, that’s all –’

‘Of course, yes,’ Rebus said.

They left the room together. Walked the first few steps in silence. Patience spoke first.

‘She’s great, isn’t she?’

‘Rhona?’

‘Yes.’

Rebus was thoughtful. ‘She’s terrific. Have you met her paramour?’

‘He’s gone back to London. I’ve … I asked Rhona if she wanted to come stay with me. Hotels can be …’

Rebus smiled tiredly. ‘Good idea. Then all you’d have to do is invite my brother over and you’d have the whole set.’

Her face cracked into an embarrassed grin. ‘I suppose it must look a bit like I’m collecting you all.’

‘The perfect hand of Unhappy Families.’

She turned to him. They were at the main doors of the hospital. She touched his shoulder. ‘John, I’m really sorry about Sammy. Anything I can do, you’ve only got to ask.’

‘Thanks, Patience.’

‘But asking for things has never been your strong point, has it? You just sit in silence and hope they come to you.’ She sighed. ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I miss you. I think that’s why I took in Sammy. If I couldn’t be close to you, at least I could be close to someone who was. Does that make any sense? Is this where you say something about not deserving me?’

‘You’ve seen the script.’ He pulled back a little from her, just so he could look at her face. ‘I miss you, too.’

All the nights slumped at the bar, or in his chair at home,
the long midnight drives so he could keep his restlessness alive. He’d have the TV and the hi-fi on at the same time, and the flat would still feel empty. Books he tried reading, finding he was ten pages in and couldn’t remember anything. Gazing from his window at the darkened flats across the street, imagining lives at rest.

All because he didn’t have
her
.

They embraced in silence for a while. ‘You’re going to be late,’ he said.

‘God, John, what are we going to do?’

‘See one another?’

‘That sounds like a start.’

‘Tonight? Mario’s at eight?’ She nodded and they kissed again. He squeezed her hand. Her head was turned to look at him as she pushed open the doors.

Emerson, Lake and Palmer: ‘Still … You Turn Me On.’

Rebus felt a little giddy as he walked back to Sammy’s room. Only it wasn’t any more, wasn’t ‘Sammy’s room’. Now there was another patient there. They’d said there was always that possibility – shortage of space, cutbacks. The woman was still asleep or unconscious, breathing noisily. Rebus ignored her and sat where Patience had been sitting.