Strip Jack

'A party, sir?'

'Yes, but how recent?' Rebus got the feeling that this wasn't all the result of a single evening. A load of bottles looked to have been pushed to one side, making a little oasis of space on the floor, in the midst of which sat a solitary bottle – still upright – and two mugs, one with lipstick on its rim.

'And how many people, do you reckon?'

'Half a dozen, sir.'

'You could be right. A lot of booze for six people.'

'Maybe they don't bother clearing up between parties.'

Just what Rebus was thinking. 'Let's have a look around.'

Across the hall there was a front room which had probably once been dining room or lounge, but now served as a makeshift bedroom. A mattress took up half the floor space, sleeping bags covering the other half. There were a couple of empty bottles in here, too, but nothing to drink out of. A few art prints had been pi

The only room left was the kitchen. Pride of place seemed to go to a microwave oven, beside which sat empty tins, and packets of something called Microwave Popcorn. The tins had contained lobster bisque and venison stew. The double sink was filled with dishes and grey, speckled water. On a foldaway table sat unopened bottles of lemonade, packs of orange juice, and a bottle of cider. There was a larger pine breakfast table, its surface dotted with soup droppings but free from dishes and other detritus. On the floor around it, however, lay empty crisp packets, a knocked-over ashtray, bread-sticks, cutlery, a plastic apron and some serviettes.

'Quick way of clearing a table,' said Moffat.

'Yes,' said Rebus. 'Have you ever seen The Postman Always Rings Twice? The later version, with Jack Nicholson?'

Moffat shook his head. 'I saw him in The Shining though.'

'Not the same thing at all, Constable. Only, there's a bit in the film where… you must have heard about it… where Jack Nicholson and the boss's wife clear the kitchen table so they can have a spot of you-know-what on it.'

Moffat looked at the table suspiciously. 'No,' he said. Clearly, this idea was new to him. 'What did you say the film was called…?'

'It's only an idea,' said Rebus.

Then there was upstairs. A bathroom, the cleanest room in the house. Beside the toilet sat a pile of magazines, but they were old, too old to yield any clue. And two more bedrooms, one a makeshift attempt like the one downstairs, the other altogether more serious, with a newish-looking wooden four-poster, wardrobe, chest of drawers and dressing table. Improbably, above the bed had been mounted the head of a Highland cow. Rebus stared at the stuff on the dressing table: powders, lipsticks, scents and paints. There were clothes in the wardrobe – mostly women's clothes, but also men's denims and cords. Gregor Jack could give no description of what clothing his wife had taken with her when she left. He couldn't even be sure that she'd taken any until he noticed that her small green suitcase was missing.

The green suitcase jutting out from beneath the bed. Rebus pulled it out and opened it. It was empty. So were most of the drawers.

'We keep a change of clothes up there,' Jack had told detectives. 'Enough for emergencies, that's all.'

Rebus stared at the bed. Its pillows had been fluffed up, and the duvet lay straight and smooth across it. A sign of recent habitation? God knows. This was it, the last room in the house. What had he learned at the end of his hundred-odd-mile drive? He'd learned that Mrs Jack's suitcase – the one Mr Jack said she'd taken with her – was here. Anything else? Nothing. He sat down on the bed. It crackled beneath him. He stood up again and pulled back the duvet. The bed was covered in newspapers, Sunday newspapers, all of them open at the same story.

MP Found in Sex Den Raid.

So she'd been here, and she knew. Knew about the raid, about Operation Creeper. Unless someone else had been here and planted this stuff… No, keep to the obvious. His eye caught something else. He moved aside one of the pillows. Tied to the post behind it was a pair of black tights. Another pair had been tied to the opposite post. Moffat was staring quizzically, but Rebus thought the young man had learned enough for one day. It was an interesting scenario all the same. Tied to her bed and left there. Moffat could have come, looked the house over, and gone, without ever being aware of her presence upstairs. But it wouldn't work. If you were really going to restrain someone, you wouldn't use tights. Too easy to escape. Tights were for sex-games. For restraint, you'd use something stronger, twine or handcuffs… Like the handcuffs in Gregor Jack's dustbin?

At least now Rebus knew that she'd known. So why hadn't she got in touch with her husband? There was no telephone at the lodge.

'Where's the nearest call-box?' he asked Moffat, who still seemed interested in the tights.

'About a mile and a half away, on the road outside Cragstone Farm.'

Rebus checked his watch. It was four o'clock. 'Okay, I'd like to take a look at it, then we'll call it a day. But I want this place gone over for fingerprints. Christ knows, there should be enough of them. Then we need to check and double check the shops, petrol stations, pubs, hotels. Say, within a twenty-mile radius.'

Moffat looked doubtful. 'That's an awful lot of places.'

Rebus ignored him. 'A black BMW. I think some more handouts are being printed today. There's a photo of Mrs Jack, and the car description and registration. If she was up this way – and she was – somebody must have seen her.'

'Well… folk keep to themselves, you know.'

'Yes, but they're not blind, are they? And if we're lucky, they won't be suffering from amnesia either. Come on, sooner we look at that phone-box, the sooner I can get to my digs.'

Actually, Rebus's original plan had been to sleep in the car and claim the price of a B amp;B, pocketing the money. But the weather looked uninviting, and the thought of spending a night cramped in his car like a half-shut knife… So, on the way to the phone-box, he signalled to a stop outside a roadside cottage advertising bed amp; breakfast and knocked on the door. The elderly woman seemed suspicious at first, but finally agreed that she had a vacancy. Rebus told her he'd be back in an hour, giving her time to 'air' the room. Then he returned to his car and followed Moffat's careful driving all the way to Cragstone Farm.

It wasn't much of a farm actually. A short track led from the main road to a cluster of buildings: house, byre, some sheds and a barn. The phone-box was by the side of the main road, fifty yards along from the farm and on the other side of the road, next to a lay-by big enough to allow them to park their two cars. It was one of the original red boxes.

'They daren't change it,' said Moffat. 'Mrs Corbie up at the farm would have a fit.' Rebus didn't understand this at first, but then he opened the door to the phone-box – and he understood. For one thing, it had a carpet – a good carpet, too, a thick-piled offcut. There was a smell of air freshener, and a posy of field flowers had been placed in a small glass jar on the shelf beside the apparatus.

'It's better kept than my flat,' Rebus said. 'When can I move in?'

'It's Mrs Corbie,' Moffat said with a grin. 'She reckons a dirty phone-box would reflect badly on her, seeing her house is closest. She's been keeping it spick and span since God knows when.'

A pity though. Rebus had been hoping for something, some hint or clue. But supposing there had been anything, it must certainly have been tidied away…

I'd like to talk to Mrs Corbie.'

'It's a Tuesday,' said Moffat. 'She's at her sister's on a Tuesday.' Rebus pointed back along the road to where a car was braking hard, signalling to pull into the farm's driveway. 'What about him?'