Ian Rankin - Doors Open

Also by Ian Rankin

The Inspector Rebus Series

Knots & Crosses

Hide & Seek

Tooth & Nail

A Good Hanging and Other Stories

Strip Jack

The Black Book

Mortal Causes

Let It Bleed

Black & Blue

The Hanging Garden

Death Is Not the End (a novella)

Dead Souls

Set in Darkness

The Falls

Resurrection Men

A Question of Blood

Fleshmarket Alley

The Naming of the Dead

Exit Music

Other Novels

Witch Hunt

Blood Hunt

Bleeding Hearts

Watchman

M ike saw it happen. There were two doors next to one another. One of them seemed to be permanently ajar by about an inch, except when someone pushed at its neighbor. As each liveried waiter brought trays of canaps into the salesroom, the effect was the same. One door would swing open, and the other would slowly close. It said a lot about the quality of the paintings, Mike thought, that he was paying more attention to a pair of doors. But he knew he was wrong: it was saying nothing about the actual artworks on display, and everything about him.

Mike Mackenzie was thirty-seven years old, rich and bored. According to the business pages of various newspapers, he remained a self-made software mogul, except that he was no longer a mogul of anything. His company had been sold outright to a venture capital consortium. Rumor had it that he was a burn-out, and maybe he was. Hed started the software business fresh from university with a friend called Gerry Pearson. Gerry had been the real brains of the operation, a genius programmer, but shy with it, so that Mike quickly became the public face of the company. After the sale, theyd split the proceeds fifty-fifty and Gerry then surprised Mike by announcing that he was off to start a new life in Sydney. His emails from Australia extolled the virtues of nightclubs, city life, and surfing (and not, for once, the computer kind). He would also send Mike JPEGs and mobile-phone snaps of the ladies he encountered along the way. The quiet, reserved Gerry of old had disappeared, replaced by a rambunctious playboywhich didnt stop Mike from feeling like a bit of a fraud. He knew that without Gerry, hed have failed to make the grade in his chosen field.

Building the business had been exciting and nerve-rackingexisting on three or four hours sleep a night, often in hotel rooms far away from home, while Gerry preferred to pore over circuit boards and programming issues back in Edinburgh. Ironing the glitches out of their best-known software application had given both of them a buzz that had lasted for weeks. But as for the money well, the money had come flooding in, bringing with it lawyers and accountants, advisers and planners, assistants, diary secretaries, media interest, social invites from bankers and portfolio managers and not much else. Mike had grown tired of supercars (the Lambo had lasted barely a fortnight; the Ferrari not much longerhe drove a secondhand Maserati these days, bought on impulse from the small ads). Tired, too, of jet travel, five-star suites, gadgets, and gizmos. His penthouse apartment had been featured in a style magazine, much being made of its viewthe city skyline, all chimneypots and church spires until you reached the volcanic plug on top of which sat Edinburgh Castle. But occasional visitors could tell that Mike hadnt made much of an effort to adjust his life to fit his new surroundings: the sofa was the same one hed brought from his previous home; ditto the dining table and chairs. Old magazines and newspapers sat in piles either side of the fireplace, and there was little evidence that the vast flat-screen television with its surround-sound speakers ever got much use. Instead, guests would fix their attention on the paintings.

Art, one of Mikes advisers had advised, was a canny investment. Hed then gone on to suggest the name of a broker who would ensure that Mike bought wisely; wisely and well had been his exact words. But Mike learned that this would mean buying paintings he didnt necessarily like by feted artists whose coffers he didnt really feel like filling. It would so mean being prepared to part with paintings he might admire, solely to comply with the fluctuations of the market. Instead of which, he had gone his own way, attending his first sale and finding a seat right at the frontsurprised that a few chairs were still vacant while people seemed content to stand in a crush at the back of the room. Of course, he had soon learned the reasonthose at the back had a clear view of all the bidders, and could revise their own bids accordingly. As his friend Allan confided afterwards, Mike had paid about three grand too much for a Bossun still life because a dealer had spotted him as a tyro and had toyed with him, edging the price upwards in the knowledge that the arm at the front of the room would be hoisted again.

But why the hell would he do that? Mike had asked, appalled.

Hes probably got a few Bossuns tucked away in storage, Allan had explained. If prices for the artist look like theyre on the way up, hell get more interest when he dusts them off.

But if Id pulled out, hedve been stuck with the one I bought.

To which Allan had just shrugged and given a smile.

Allan was somewhere in the salesroom right now, catalog open as he perused potential purchases. Not that he could afford muchnot on a banking salary. But he had a passion for art and a good eye, and would become wistful on the day of the actual auction as he watched paintings he coveted being bought by people he didnt know. Those paintings, hed told Mike, might disappear from public view for a generation or more.

Worst case, theyre bought as investments and placed in a vault for safe keepingno more meaning to their buyer than compound interest.

Youre saying I shouldnt buy anything?

Not as an investmentyou should buy whatever pleases you

As a result of which, the walls of Mikes apartment were replete with art from the nineteenth and twentieth centuriesmost of it Scottish. He had eclectic tastes, so that cubism sat alongside pastoral, portraiture beside collage. For the most part, Allan approved. The two had first met a year ago at a party at the banks investment arm HQ on George Street. The First Caledonian BankFirst Caly as it was more usually calledowned an impressive corporate art collection. Large Fairbairn abstracts flanked the entrance lobby, with a Coulton triptych behind the reception desk. First Caly employed its own curator, whose job it was to discover new talentoften from degree showsthen sell when the price was right and replenish the collection. Mike had mistaken Allan for the curator, and theyd struck up a conversation.

Allan Cruikshank, Allan had said, shaking Mikes hand. And of course I already know who you are.

Sorry about the mix-up, Mike had apologized with an embarrassed grin. Its just that we seem to be the only people interested in whats on the walls

Allan Cruikshank was in his late forties and, as he put it, expensively divorced, with two teenage sons and a daughter in her twenties. He dealt with HNWsHigh Net Worth individualsbut had assured Mike that he wasnt angling for business. Instead, in the absence of the curator, hed shown Mike as much of the collection as was open for general viewing.

MDs office will be locked. Hes got a Wilkie and a couple of Raeburns

In the weeks after the party, theyd exchanged emails, gone out for drinks a few times, and become friends. Mike had come to the viewing this evening only because Allan had persuaded him that it might be fun. But so far he had seen nothing to whet his jaded appetite, other than a charcoal study by one of the major Scottish Coloristsand he already had three at home much the same, probably torn from the self-same sketchbook.