A Good Hanging and other Stories by Ian Rankin Read Free Book Online Page B

both spheres was very important, crucially important. I don’t need to go into details. His last posting was West Germany. His wife was killed in a terrorist attack, almost certainly IRA. We don’t think they had targeted her specifically. She was just in the wrong place with the wrong number plates.’
    ‘A car bomb?’
    ‘No, a bullet. Through the windscreen, point-blank. Major Dean asked to be ... he was invalided out. It seemed best. We provided him with a change of identity, of course.’
    ‘I thought he looked a bit young to be retired. And the daughter, how did she take it?’
    ‘She was never told the full details, not that I’m aware of. She was in boarding school in England.’ Matthews paused. ‘It was for the best.’
    Rebus nodded. ‘Of course, nobody’d argue with that. But why did - Dean — choose to live in Barnton?’
    Matthews rubbed his left eyebrow, then pushed his spectacles back up his sharply sloping nose. ‘Something to do with an aunt of his,’ he said. ‘He spent holidays there as a boy. His father was Army, too, posted here, there and everywhere. Never the most stable upbringing. I think Dean had happy memories of Barnton.’
    Rebus shifted in his seat. He couldn’t know how long Matthews would stay, how long he would continue to answer Rebus’s questions. And there were so many questions.
    ‘What about the bomb?’
    ‘Looks like the IRA, all right. Standard fare for them, all the hallmarks. It’s still being examined, of course, but we’re pretty sure.’
    ‘And the deceased?’
    ‘No clues yet. I suppose he’ll be reported missing sooner or later. We’ll leave that side of things to you.’
    ‘Gosh, thanks.’ Rebus waited for his sarcasm to penetrate, then, quickly: ‘How does Dean get on with his daughter?’
    Matthews was caught off-guard by the question. He blinked twice, three times, then glanced at his wristwatch.
    ‘All right, I suppose,’ he said at last, making show of scratching a mark from his cuff. ‘I can’t see what ... Look, Inspector, as I say, we’ll keep you fully informed. But meantime — ’
    ‘Keep out of your hair?’
    ‘If you want to put it like that.’ Matthews stood up. ‘Now I really must be getting back -’
    ‘To London?’
    Matthews smiled at the eagerness in Rebus’s voice. ‘To Barnton. Don’t worry, Inspector, the more you keep out of my hair, the quicker I can get out of yours. Fair enough?’ He shot a hand out towards Rebus, who returned the almost painful grip.
    ‘Fair enough,’ said Rebus. He ushered Matthews from the room and closed the door again, then returned to his seat. He slouched as best he could in the hard, uncomfortable chair and put his feet up on the desk, examining his scuffed shoes. He tried to feel like Sam Spade, but failed. His legs soon began to ache and he slid them from the surface of the desk. The coincidences in Dashiell Hammett had nothing on the coincidence of someone nicking a car seconds before it exploded. Someone must have been watching, ready to detonate the device. But if they were watching, how come they didn’t spot that Dean, the intended victim, wasn’t the one to drive off?
    Either there was more to this than met the eye, or else there was less. Rebus was wary - very wary. He’d already made far too many prejudgments, had already been proved wrong too many times. Keep an open mind, that was the secret. An open mind and an inquiring one. He nodded his head slowly, his eyes on the door.
    ‘Fair enough,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll keep out of your hair, Mr Matthews, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m leaving the barber’s.’
     
    The Claymore might not have been Barnton’s most salubrious establishment, but it was as Princes Street’s Caledonian Hotel in comparison with the places Rebus visited that evening. He began with the merely seedy bars, the ones where each quiet voice seemed to contain a lifetime’s resentment, and then moved downwards, one rung of the ladder at