The World's Finest Mystery Part 77

PROBABLY NO suspense writer has attracted as much attention as Ian Rankin in these past few years. He has brought his own voice, style, and viewpoint to the police procedural in particular, and to crime fiction is general. He is one of those rare writers who is as good with the short story as he is with the novel. One senses even greater days ahead for him. "The Confession," which first appeared in the June issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, showcases a master at work, with the plot and characterization compacted down to the bare essentials, all the while revealing an incredible depth in every line.

The Confession.

Ian Rankin.

"It was Tony's idea," he says, s.h.i.+fting in his seat. "Tony's my brother, a couple of years younger than me, but he was always the brainy one. It was all his idea. I just went along with it."

He's still trying to get comfortable. It's not easy to get comfortable in the Interview Room. The CID man could tell him that. He could tell him that the chair he's wriggling in has been modified ever so slightly, a quarter-inch taken off its front legs. The chair isn't designed with rest and relaxation in mind.

"So Tony says to me one day, he says: 'Ian, this is one plan that cannot fail.' And he tells me about it. We spend a bit of time bouncing it around, you know, me trying to pick holes in it. I have to admit, it looked pretty good. Well, that's the problem really. That's why I'm here. It was just too b.l.o.o.d.y good all round...."

He looks around again, studying the walls as if expecting two-way mirrors, secret listening devices. The one thing he's not been expecting is the quietness. It's eleven-thirty on a weekday night. The police station is like a ghost town. He wants to see lots of activity, lots of uniforms. Yet again in his life, he's being let down.

Tony had noticed the slip-road. He drove from Fife to Edinburgh most Sat.u.r.day nights, taking a carful of friends. They went to pubs and clubs, danced, chatted up women. A late-night pizza and maybe a couple of espressos before home. Tony didn't drink. He didn't mind staying sober while everyone around him had a skinful. He always liked to be in control. On the A90 south of the Forth Road Bridge, he'd seen the signpost for the slip-road. He'd seen it before- must've pa.s.sed it a hundred times- but this one night something about it bothered him. The next morning, he headed back. The sign said: DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT VEHICLE CHECK AREA ONLY. He took the slip-road, found himself at a sort of roundabout in the middle of nowhere. He stopped his car and got out. There was gra.s.s growing in the middle of the road. He didn't think the place got used much. A hut nearby, and a metal ramp that might have been a weighbridge. Another slip-road led back down onto the A90. He stood there for a while listening to the rush of traffic below him, an idea slowly forming in his head.

"See," Ian went on, "Tony had worked for a time as a security guard, and he still had a couple of uniforms hanging in his wardrobe. He's always had the idea of robbing someplace, always knew those uniforms would come in handy. One of his pals, guy called Malc, he works- I should say worked- in a printing shop. So Tony brought Malc in, said we could trust him. Have you got a cigarette?"

The detective points to the No Smoking sign, but then relents, hands over a packet of ten and some matches.

"Thanks. So you see," lighting up, exhaling noisily, "it was all Tony's idea, and Malc had a certain expertise, too. I didn't have anything. It was just that I was family, so Tony knew he could trust me. I haven't worked in eight years. Used to be in heavy engineering up in Leven, got laid off in the slump. If somebody could do something about the manufacturing industry in this country, there'd be a lot less crime. Bit of advice there, free of charge." He flicks ash into the ashtray, brushes some stray flecks from his trousers. "I'm not saying I didn't play a part. Obviously, I wouldn't be here otherwise. I just want it on record that I wasn't the brains of the operation."

"I think I can go along with that," the detective says. Ian asks him if he shouldn't be taking notes or something. "We're trained, lad. Elephant's memory."

So Ian nods, goes on with his story. The interview room is small and airless. It carries the aromas of every person who's ever been through it, all of them telling their stories. A few of them even turning out to be true...

"So we make a few recces, and never once do we see the place being used. We stopped the car on the slip-road a few nights. Plenty of lorries steaming past, but n.o.body so much as notices us or asks what we're up to. This is what Tony wanted to know. We set the thing up for last Wednesday."

"Why a Wednesday?" the detective asks.

Ian just shrugs. "Tony's idea," he says. "All I did was go along with him. He was the mastermind: That's the word I've been wanting. Mastermind." He s.h.i.+fts again in his chair, stares at the walls again, remembering Wednesday night.

Tony and Ian were dressed in the uniforms. Tony had a friend with a haulage truck. It had been easy to borrow it for the night. The story was, they were helping someone move house. Malc had come up with IDs for them: They'd had their photos taken at a pa.s.sport booth, and the laminated cards, each in its own wallet, looked authentic. They took the truck up to the roundabout, left the car near the bottom of the slip-road. Malc was dressed in a leather jacket and baseball cap. He was supposed to be a truck driver. Tony would head back down the ramp and use a torch to signal a lorry onto the slip-road. Then he'd ask the driver to go to the test area, where Ian would be apparently interviewing another lorry driver. This was so the real driver wouldn't suspect anything.

"It worked," Ian says. "That's what's so unbelievable. First lorry he stopped, the driver brought it up to the roundabout, stopped it, and got out. Tony comes driving up, gets out of his car. Asks to see the delivery note, then says he wants to check the cargo."

The detective has a question. "What if it turned out to be cabbages or fish or something?"

"First thing Tony asked was what he was carrying. If it had been something we couldn't sell, he'd have let him go. But we came up gold at the first attempt. Was.h.i.+ng machines, two dozen of them at three-hundred quid apiece. Only problem was, by the time we'd squeezed them into our own lorry, we'd no room for anything else, and we were cream-crackered anyway. Otherwise, I think we could have kept going all night." Ian pauses. "You're wondering about the driver, aren't you? There were three of us, remember. All we did was tie him up, leave him in his cab. We knew he'd get himself free eventually. Quiet up there; we didn't want him starving to death. And off we went with the haul. We had about fifteen of the machines and were already thinking of who we could sell them to. Storage was no problem. Tony has a couple of lockups. We left them there. There's a local villain, name of Andy Horrigan. He runs a couple of pubs and cafes, so I thought maybe he'd be in the market. We were being careful, see. Once the news was out that someone had boosted a consignment of washer-dryers... well, we had to be careful who we sold to." He pauses. "Only, we'd already made that one fatal mistake...."

One mistake. He asks for another cigarette. His hand is shaking as he lights it. He can't get it out of his head, the insane bad luck of it. Even before he'd had a chance to say anything to Andy Horrigan, Horrigan had something to ask him.

"Here, Ian, heard anything about a heist? Washer-dryers, nicked from the back of a lorry?"

"I didn't see anything in the papers," Ian had replied. Quite honestly, too: It had surprised them, the way there had been nothing in the press or on radio and TV. Ian could see Horrigan was bursting to tell him. He knew right away it couldn't be good news, not coming from Horrigan.

"It wasn't in the papers, never will be neither."

And as he'd gone on to explain it, Ian had felt his life ebb away. He'd run to the lockup, finding Tony there. Tony already knew: It was written on his face. He knew they had to get rid of the machines, dump them somewhere. But that meant getting another lorry from somewhere.

"Hang on, though," Tony had said, his brain slipping into gear. "Eddie Hart isn't after the machines, is he? He only wants what's his."

Eddie Hart: At mention of the name, Ian could feel his knees buckling. "Steady Eddie" was the Dundee G.o.dfather, a man with an almost mythical status as mover and shaker, entrepreneur, and hammer-wielding maniac. If you crossed Steady Eddie, he got out his carpentry nails. And according to the local word, Eddie was absolutely furious.

He'd probably put a lot of thought into the scheme. He needed to move drugs around, and had hit on the idea of hiding them inside white goods. After all, a lorryload of washer-dryers or fridge-freezers- they could saunter up and down every motorway in the country. All you needed were some fake dockets listing origin and destination. It just so happened that Tony had hit on one of Eddie's drivers. And now Eddie was out for blood.

But Tony was right: If they handed back the dope, got it back to Eddie somehow, maybe they'd be allowed to live. Maybe it would be all right. So they started tearing the packing from the machines, uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the back of each to search behind the drum for hidden packages. And when that failed, they emptied out each machine's complimentary packet of was.h.i.+ng powder. They went through both lockups, they checked and double-checked every machine. And found nothing.

Ian thought maybe the stuff had been hidden in one of the machines they'd left behind.

"Use your loaf," his brother told him. "If that were true, why would he be after us? Wait a minute, though..."

And he went back, counting the machines. There was one missing. The brothers looked at one another, headed for Tony's car. At Malc's mother's house, Malc had just plumbed the machine in. The old twin-tub was out on the front path, waiting to be junked. Malc's mother was rubbing her hands over the front of her new washer-dryer, telling the neighbours who'd gathered in the kitchen what a good laddie her son was.

"Saved up and bought it as a surprise."

Even Ian knew that they were in real trouble now. Everyone in town would get to hear about the new was.h.i.+ng-machine... and word would most definitely travel.

They took Malc outside, explained the situation to him. He went back indoors and maneuvered the machine out of its cubbyhole, explaining that he'd forgotten to remove the transit bolts. His hands were trembling so much, he kept dropping the screwdriver. But at last he had the back of the machine off and started handing brown-paper packages to Tony and Ian. Tony explained to the neighbours that they were weights, to stop the machine slipping and sliding when it was in the back of the lorry.

"Like bricks?" one neighbour asked, and when he agreed with her, sweat pouring down his face, she added a further question. "Why cover bricks in brown paper?"

Tony, beyond explanations, put his head in his hands and wept.

The detective brings back two beakers of coffee, one for himself, one for Ian. He's been checking up, using the computer, making a couple of phone calls. Ian sits ready to tell him the last of it.

"We couldn't just hand the stuff back, had to think of a way to do it. So we drove up to Dundee, night before last. Steady Eddie has a nightclub. We put the stuff in one of the skips at the back of the club, then phoned the club and told them where they could find it. Thing is, the club gets its rubbish collected privately, and the company works at night. So that night, the skip got emptied. Well, that wouldn't have mattered, only... only it was me made the call... and there were two numbers in the phone book. Instead of the office, I'd got through to the public phone on the wall beside the bar. It must have been some punter who answered. I just said my piece then hung up. I don't know... maybe they nipped outside and got the stuff for themselves. Maybe they didn't hear me, or thought I was drunk or something...." His voice is choking; he's close to tears.

"Mr. Hart didn't get the stuff?" the detective guesses. Ian nods agreement. "And now your brother and Malc have gone missing?"

"Eddie got them. He must have done."

"And you want us to protect you?"

"Witness relocation: You can do that, can't you? I mean, there's a price on my head now. You've got to!"

The detective nods. "We can do it," he says. "But what exactly is it you're a witness to? There's no record of a lorry being hijacked. n.o.body's reported such a loss. You don't seem to have any evidence linking Mr. Hart to anything illegal- much much as I'd love it if you did." The detective draws his chair closer. "It wasn't a slump that led to you losing your job, Ian. It was threatening your foreman. He didn't like your att.i.tude, and you started spinning him some story about having a brother who's a terrorist, and who'd stick a bomb under his car. You scared the poor man half to death, until he found out the truth. See, I've got all of that in the files, Ian. What I don't have is anything about was.h.i.+ng-machines, drugs wrapped in brown paper, or missing persons."

Ian leaps from his seat, begins pacing the room. "You could send a team out to the dump. If the drugs are there, they'll find them. Or... or go to the lockups, the was.h.i.+ng machines will still be there... unless Steady Eddie's taken them. I wouldn't put it past him. Don't you see? I'm the only one left who can testify against him!"

The detective is on his feet now, too. "I think it's time you were off, son. I'll see you as far as the door."

"I need protection!"

The detective comes up to him again. Their faces are inches apart.

"Get your brother the terrorist to protect you. His name's... Billy, isn't it? Only you can't do that, can you? Because you haven't got a brother called Billy. Or a brother called Tony, if it comes to that." The detective pauses. "You haven't got anybody, Ian. You're a n.o.body. These stories of yours... that's all they are, stories. Come on now, it's time you were home. Your mum will be worrying."

"She got a new was.h.i.+ng machine last week," Ian says softly. "The man who delivered it, he said sorry for being so late. He'd been stopped at a checkpoint."

It is quiet in the interview room. Quiet for a long time, until Ian begins weeping, weeping for the brother he's just lost again.

Peter Lovesey.

The Perfectionist.

PETER LOVESEY won a mystery novel writing contest in 1969 and has never looked back. The numerous awards and distinctions heaped upon his work continue to accrue, his latest being the Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement from the Crime Writers a.s.sociation. He has balanced his love of historical England (both his Prince of Wales and his Sgt. CribbConstable Thackery series) with a more dispa.s.sionate, harsher eye for his own times as seen in several novels, including his latest, and many, many outstanding short stories. As in "The Perfectionist," which first appeared in issue 4 of The Strand Magazine.

The Perfectionist.

Peter Lovesey.

The invitation dropped on the doormat of The Laurels along with a bank statement and a Guide Dogs for the Blind appeal. It was in a cream-coloured envelope made from thick, expensive-looking paper. Duncan left it to open after the others. His custom was to leave the most promising letters while he worked steadily through the others, using a paper knife that cut the envelopes tidily. Eventually he took out a gold-edged card with his name inscribed in the centre in fine italic script. It read: The most perfect club in the world has the good sense to invite Mr. Duncan Driffield.

a proven perfectionist to be an honoured guest at its biannual dinner Friday, January 31st, 7:30 for 8 pm Contact will be made later.

He was wary. This could be an elaborate marketing ploy. In the past he'd been invited- by motor dealers and furniture retailers- to parties that had turned out to be sales pitches, nothing more. Just because no product or company was mentioned, he wasn't going to be taken in. He read the invitation through several times. It has to be said, he liked the designation "a proven perfectionist." Couldn't fault their research. He was a Virgo- orderly, a striver for perfection. To see this written down as if he'd already achieved the ideal was especially pleasing. And to see his name in such elegant script was another fine touch.

Yet it troubled him that the club was not named. Nor was there an address, nor any mention of where the function was to be held. Being a thorough and cautious man, he would normally have looked these things up before deciding what to do about the invitation.

The phone call came about 8:30 the next evening. A voice that didn't need to announce it had been to a very good school spoke his name.

"Yes?"

"You received an invitation to the dinner on January 31st, I trust?"

"Which invitation was that?" Duncan said as if he received invitations by every post.

"A gold-edged card naming you a proven perfectionist. May we take it that you will accept?"

"Who are you, exactly?"

"A group of like-minded people. We know you'll fit in."

"Is there some mystery about it? I don't wish to join the Freemasons."

"We're not Freemasons, Mr. Driffield."

"How did you get my name?"

"It was put to the committee. You were the outstanding candidate."

"Really?" He glowed inwardly before his level-headedness returned.

"Is there any obligation?"

"You mean are we trying to sell something? Absolutely not."

"I don't have to make a speech?"

"We don't go in for speeches. It isn't like that at all. We'll do everything possible to welcome you and make you feel relaxed. Transport is provided."

"Are you willing to tell me your name?"

"Of course. It's David Hopkins. I do hope you're going to say yes."

Why not, he thought. "All right, Mr. Hopkins."

"Excellent. I'm sure if I ask you to be ready at 6:30 that as a proven perfectionist, you will be- to the minute. In case you were wondering, it's a dinner jacket and black tie affair. I'll come for you myself. The drive takes nearly an hour at that time of day, I'm afraid. And it's Dr. Hopkins actually, but please call me David."

After the call, Duncan, in his systematic way, tried to track down David Hopkins in the phone directory and the Medical Register. He found three people by that name and called them on the phone, but their voices had nothing like the honeyed tone of the David Hopkins he had spoken to.

He wondered who had put his name forward. Someone must have. It would be interesting to see if he recognised David Hopkins.

He did not. Precisely on time, on the last Friday in January, Dr. David Hopkins arrived- a slim, dark man in his forties, of average height. They shook hands.

"Is there anything I can bring? A bottle of whisky?"

"No. You're our guest, Duncan."

He liked the look of David. He felt that an uncommonly special evening was in prospect.

They walked out to the car- a large black Daimler, chauffeur-driven.

"We can enjoy the wine with a clear conscience," David explained, "but I would be dishonest if I led you to think that was the only reason we are being driven."

When they were both inside, David leaned across and pulled down a blind. There was one on each window and across the part.i.tion between the driver and themselves. Duncan couldn't see out at all. "This is in your interest."

"Why is that?"

"We ask our guests to be good enough to respect the privacy of the club. If you don't know where we meet, you can't upset anyone."

"I see. Now that we're alone, and I'm committed to coming, can you tell me some more?"