Authors: Ian Rankin
The car rental firm had the usual selection of cramped boxes, each with as much soul as a fast-food carton.
‘So which is the cheapest?’
‘The Fiesta, sir.’
Hoffer tried to haggle over the Fiesta, but the assistant couldn’t oblige. There wasn’t even the chance of a blank receipt, since the whole system was computerised, so Hoffer couldn’t hike his expense sheet. He quickly got the hang of driving on the left: it was easy if you stuck to one-way streets. But getting out of London was more pain than he’d bargained for. Twice he had to get out of his car at traffic lights and ask the driver behind for help, then suffer the drivers behind sounding their horns when the lights changed.
He got lost so often that after punching the steering wheel a few times he just stopped caring. He didn’t study roadsigns, he just took whichever route looked good. When he stopped for lunch, he yielded to temptation and asked somebody where he was.
‘Rickmansworth.’
So he’d reached his cab driver’s northern frontier. Cheered by this, he reneged and bought a map book, finding that he would have to cut across country a bit to get on to the right road. The whole UK road network looked like a kid had taken a line for a walk. There seemed no order, no sense to it. Driving was easy in the States, once you’d negotiated the cities. But here the cities didn’t seem to end, they just melted each into the other, with preserved blobs of green in between.
As he moved north, however, he changed his mind a little. There was some green land between London and Yorkshire; it was boring green land, but it was definitely green. He relaxed into the driving, and even remembered to ask for petrol and not ‘gas’. It was late afternoon before he got past Leeds. He came off the Al and into Ripon, where he stopped for a break and a mental council of war.
If Max Harrison was like any gun dealer Hoffer knew, then he would have an arsenal like something from Desert Storm. And what did Hoffer have? A .457 and a pocket knife. All he had going for him was the element of surprise. That meant he’d have those few initial moments to size the situation up. If Harrison was toting heavy artillery, it was no contest. Likewise, if the man was not alone, Hoffer would be compelled to hold back. He realised too late that he’d drunk a whole pot of tea while mulling this over. The caffeine started its relentless surge through his bloodstream. He took a downer to balance things out, and regretted it immediately: he’d need to be sharp, not dopey.
So he took an upper as well.
But Max Harrison didn’t actually live in what there was of Grewelthorpe. He lived somewhere on the outskirts. It was almost dark by the time Hoffer made his approach to the farm. Foresight had warned him to bring a torch, and he stuck it in his pocket after killing the engine. There was no other sign of habitation, and Hoffer had stopped the car half a mile from the house. He was going to walk that final half mile... Or was he? If Harrison had already heard or seen him, then why make himself an easy target? Better to arrive wrapped in steel than leave wrapped in a coffin. He turned the ignition back on and drove sedately up the track and into the yard.
He killed the engine and looked around. There was no sign of life. He sounded the horn tentatively, but got no response. Maybe the guy was a real farmer, out somewhere with his favourite sheep or cow. He opened his door and eased himself out. He couldn’t hear any animals, not even a dog.
‘Hello, anyone home?’ he called. Only the wind whistled a reply. Hoffer walked to the house and peered in through a couple of windows. He was looking into a large clean kitchen. He tried the door and it opened. He went inside and called out again.
The house didn’t feel empty. There was a television or radio on somewhere. He touched the kettle, but it was cold. He came out of the kitchen into an L-shaped hallway. At the other end of the hall was the front door of the house, obviously not much used. A rug had been pushed against it to stop draughts. Halfway along the hall were stairs up. But the sounds were coming from behind a door in the hall. There were two doors. The first was wide open, leading into an empty dining room. Three chairs sat around a four-cornered table. The second was closed, and must presumably lead to the living room. Hoffer’s fingers tightened around the butt of his gun. Harrison couldn’t have fled: where was there to go? Just the barns or the fields beyond. But he could be hiding. He touched the door handle, then turned it and let the door fall open.
Max Harrison had been beaten to a pulp.
His face was almost featureless, just a mess of blood and clots and tissue, like red fruit after a kid had been playing with it. Barney had told him Harrison was suffering from face cancer. A sort of cutaway plastic mask lay on the floor, and there was a large blackish hole cut deep into one of Harrison’s cheeks. Sure, beat up a dying man, why don’t you? Hoffer felt rage inside him, but then Harrison wasn’t his problem.
He was seated on a dining chair in the centre of the room. His hands had been tied behind him and around the back of the chair, and his feet had been tied to the chair-legs.
‘Hey, you Max Harrison?’ Hoffer said.
The room was messy too. There’d been a fight here, or some serious ransacking, or more probably both. A lot of broken ornaments and glass were lying underfoot. Hoffer went over to the chair to take a pulse. As he touched the body, the head rolled from the shoulders and fell on to the carpet.
‘Son of a bitch!’ Hoffer roared, half-turning his head to spew up tea and cake and scones. He spat and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Damn,’ he said, ‘I paid good money for that meal.’ He coughed a couple of times and turned back to the headless corpse. He was no pathologist, but he’d seen a few autopsies during his time on the force. The dead man’s throat had been cut through so deeply and thoroughly that practically nothing had been holding it on. Whoever had left Harrison sitting like that had known what would happen when someone finally touched the corpse.
‘Nice touch, dude,’ Hoffer muttered. He thought of his own knife: it wouldn’t do to be caught here by the police. He had some quick thinking to do. He took another look at the corpse, then around the room. He couldn’t glean much here, so headed upstairs. Could it have been the D-Man’s work? Maybe the gun dealer had double-crossed him in some way, and the D-Man had murdered him.
The first bedroom Hoffer walked into belonged to a man. There were no women’s things lying around, no dresses in the wardrobe. But there were a lot of framed photos, mostly of a man Hoffer assumed to be Max Harrison with a girl Hoffer took to be his daughter. There were photos of her as a baby, and all the way up to what looked like her 20s. Not a bad looker either. Fair hair, prominent cheekbones, beautiful eyes.
There were two other bedrooms, one of them obviously a guest room, which didn’t stop Hoffer looking around for any signs of weapons. The other belonged to a woman, a young woman judging from the magazines and make-up and a few of the cassette tapes lying around.
So Harrison’s daughter lived at home...
‘Whoa!’ Hoffer said, sitting down on the bed. ‘Hold on there.’ He was thinking of the description he’d been given of ‘DC Harris’, the D-Man’s accomplice. He went back to Harrison’s bedroom and picked up the most recent-looking photo. Too close to be coincidence.
‘Son of a bitch,’ he said quietly.
This changed things. Because if the D-Man had killed Harrison, then he’d also taken the daughter with him. Had he taken her under duress? If so, then she was hostage rather than accomplice, which would make a difference when it came time to confront the assassin.
Harrison’s bedroom showed no signs of having been searched, and the daughter’s bedroom was tidy too. There were paperback books on a shelf above her bed. Hoffer opened one and found her name written in the corner of the prelim page: Bel Harrison. Bel, short for Belinda. Hoffer spent a little more time in her room, trying to find out more about her. She hadn’t taken away many clothes; her drawers and wardrobe were more than half full. As he usually did given access to a woman’s bedroom, he lingered over the underwear drawer. You could tell a lot about a woman from her underwear. They should turn it into a police discipline, like psychological profiling. He picked up various items, sniffed their detergent smell, then put them back.
There were no posters on the walls, no clues to any hobbies. Her room gave away less than most. He looked under the bed and even under the carpet, but didn’t find any dope. There didn’t seem to be any contraceptives around either.
‘A clean-living country girl,’ he said to himself. ‘Except, sweetheart, that your daddy dealt in illegal firearms, and now you’re running around with the enemy.’
Downstairs again, he checked the cellar. It contained a few bottles of wine and spirits, plus a deep freeze and some DIY tools and materials. He selected a bottle of Scotch and brought it up to the kitchen. He poured from it, then wiped it clean with a cloth, and he held his glass with a piece of kitchen towel. After he’d had the drink, he went around wiping the doorhandles and all the other surfaces he’d touched with his fingers. Then he switched on his torch and headed for the outbuildings. He found the indoor range straight away. From the length of it, it could be used for both rifles and handguns. He still hadn’t found any weapons. There had to be a cache somewhere. If he could find it, he could help himself. He looked for twenty minutes without success, and returned to the kitchen.
He had another drink and sat down at the table. The extravaganza in the living room was not the D-Man’s style. The D-Man liked to keep his distance. He’d never killed at close range. And for a skilled shot suddenly to revert to a knife or a razor or whatever had been used... No, it hadn’t been the D-Man. Which left two questions. Who’d done it? And what was Bel Harrison doing with the D-Man?
There was a telephone in the kitchen, hooked to an answering machine. He played the tape but there were no messages. Several choices presented themselves. He could phone for the police, then wait for them. He could phone them anonymously and then get out. He could get the hell out without telling anyone. Or he could hang around and see if either the killers or the D-Man came back. It stood to reason that the daughter would return some time. Maybe the body would have been found by then. There had to be a mail service, even to this outpost of civilisation. The body was still fairly fresh. Hoffer didn’t like to think about Bel Harrison stumbling upon it a few days or even weeks hence.
Then again, did he really want another police force involved? What if they scared off the D-Man?
Hoffer didn’t know what to do, so he let another drink decide for him.
Then he drove back towards Ripon, seeking a bed for the night.
16
The first thing I saw after breakfast was Leo Hoffer.
That may sound crazy, but it’s true. When I got back to my room to do some final packing, I must have left the TV on. I’d been watching the early-morning news. Now there was a chat show on, and one of the guests was Hoffer. Not that he stole much airtime, a few minutes, but he was omnipresent, coughing offscreen, twitching and interrupting when other guests were speaking. I told Bel to come and see. They’d got round to the question and answer segment. The host was moving around the audience, his mike at the ready.
‘That’s Jimmy Bridger,’ said Bel. ‘I watch this sometimes.’
A middle-aged lady was standing up to ask her question. ‘Is Mr Hoffer married?’ The camera cut to Hoffer, who was wearing an expensive suit but wearing it cheaply. The cloth shone but he didn’t.
‘No, ma’am,’he said. Then, creasing his face: ‛Was that an offer?’Everyone thought this very funny. Someone else asked him if he found his weight a problem. He agreed that it was.
‘I’ve got to put on a few more pounds before I can Sumo wrestle, and you know those last few pounds are the toughest.’
This had them practically rolling in the aisles.
‘A question for another of our guests,’ said the host, making it plain that he wasn’t going to let Hoffer hog proceedings. It looked to me like they must have had a disagreement along the way.
‘And this is the man who’s chasing you?’ Bel commented.
‘That’s him. My shadow. I sometimes think the only reason he hunts me is so he can appear on shows like this.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘His ego for one thing. But also, he’s in business, and I’m a good advert for him. As far as I can see, I’m the only advert he’s got.’
‘He doesn’t look like he could catch a cold.’
‘That,’ I said quietly, ‘is why he’s so good.’
I sent Bel off to do her packing, and then finished my own. We’d take the car back to Glasgow, I’d buy us train tickets south and let Bel make the connections to take her home. As for me, I’d go back to London. What else could I do? I’d wait it out till Shattuck crept out of the woodwork. I’d waited for victims before.
Bel wasn’t happy.
‘Does this mean the engagement’s off?’
‘It’s the way it was always going to be.’
She couldn’t help but notice a change of tone. ‘What’s up, Michael?’
‘Nothing. Just phone Max and tell him with any luck you’ll be back tonight. Tell him you’ll call from Glasgow with train times.’
So she made the call. It took Max a few moments to answer. Listening, Bel rolled her eyes, meaning it was the answering machine.