Black And Blue

by Ian Rankin

  Rebus nodded. He was looking at all the material, thinking how he’d like to have a few weeks with it, how he might find something no one else had spotted … It was a dream, of course, a fantasy, but on slow nights sometimes it was motivation enough. Rebus had his newspapers, but they told only as much of the story as the police had wanted made public. He walked over to a row of shelves, read the spines of the box-files: Door to Door; Taxi Firms; Hairdressers; Tailors’ Shops; Hairpiece Suppliers.

  ‘Hairpiece suppliers?’

  Ancram smiled. ‘His short hair, they thought maybe it was a wig. They talked to hairdressers to see if anyone recognised the cut.’

  ‘And to tailors because of his Italian suit.’

  Again Ancram stared at him.

  Rebus shrugged. ‘The case interests me. What’s this?’ He pointed to a wall chart.

  ‘Similarities and dissimilarities between the two cases,’ Ancram said. ‘Dancehalls versus the club scene. And the descriptions: tall, skinny, shy, auburn hair, well dressed … I mean, Johnny could almost be Bible John’s son.’

  ‘That’s something I’ve been asking myself. Supposing Johnny Bible is basing himself on his hero, and supposing Bible John’s still out there somewhere …’

  ‘Bible John’s dead.’

  Rebus kept his eyes on the chart. ‘But just supposing he isn’t. I mean, is he flattered? Is he pissed off? What?’

  ‘Don’t ask me.’

  ‘The Glasgow victim hadn’t been to a club,’ Rebus said.

  ‘Well, she wasn’t last seen in a club. But she’d been to one earlier that evening, he could have followed her from there to the concert.’

  Victims one and two had been picked up by Johnny Bible in nightclubs, the nineties equivalent of a sixties dancehall: louder, darker, more dangerous. They’d been in parties, who were able to furnish only the vaguest descriptions of the man who had walked off into the night with their friend. But victim three, Judith Cairns, had been picked up at a rock concert in a room above a pub.

  ‘We’ve had others too,’ Ancram was saying. ‘Three unsolveds in Glasgow in the late seventies, all three missing some personal item.’

  ‘Like he never went away,’ Rebus muttered.

  ‘There’s too much to go on, yet not nearly enough.’ Ancram folded his arms. ‘How well does Johnny know the three cities? Did he pick the clubs at random, or did he know them to start with? Was each locus chosen beforehand? Could he be a brewery delivery-man? A DJ? Music journalist? Maybe he writes fucking travel guides for all I know.’ Ancram started a joyless laugh, and rubbed at his forehead.

  ‘Could always be Bible John himself,’ Rebus said.

  ‘Bible John’s dead and buried, Inspector.’

  ‘You really think so?’

  Ancram nodded. He wasn’t alone. There were plenty of coppers who thought they knew who Bible John was, and knew him to be dead. But there were others more sceptical, and Rebus was among them. A DNA match probably wouldn’t have been enough to change his mind. There was always the chance that Bible John was out there.

  They had a description of a man in his late twenties, but witness evidence was notoriously uneven. As a result, the original photofits and artists’ impressions of Bible John had been dusted off and put back into circulation with the media’s help. The usual psychological ploys were being used too – pleas in the press for the killer to come forward: ‘You obviously need help, and we’d like you to contact us.’ Bluff, with silence the retort.

  Ancram pointed to photos on one wall: a photofit from 1970, aged by computer, beard and glasses added, the hair receding at crown and temples. They’d been made public too.

  ‘Could be anybody, couldn’t it?’ Ancram stated.

  ‘Getting to you, sir?’ Rebus was waiting for an invitation to call Ancram by his first name.

  ‘Of course it’s getting to me.’ Ancram’s face relaxed. ‘Why the interest?’

  ‘No real reason.’

  ‘I mean, we’re not here for Johnny Bible, are we? We’re here to talk about Uncle Joe.’

  ‘Ready when you are, sir.’

  ‘Come on then, let’s see if we can find two empty chairs in this fucking building.’

  They ended up standing in the corridor, with coffee bought from a machine further along.

  ‘Do we know what he strangles them with?’ Rebus asked.

  Ancram’s eyes widened. ‘More Johnny Bible?’ He sighed. ‘Whatever it is, it doesn’t leave much of an impression. The latest theory is a length of washing-line; you know, the nylon stuff, plastic-coated. The forensic labs have tested about two hundred possibles, everything from rope to guitar strings.’

  ‘What do you think about the souvenirs?’

  ‘I think we should go public with them. I know keeping them hush-hush helps us rule out the nutters who walk in to confess, but I honestly think we’d be better off asking the public for help. That necklace, I mean, you couldn’t get more distinctive. If someone out there has found it, or seen it … housey-housey.’

  ‘You’ve got a psychic working the case, haven’t you?’

  Ancram looked nettled. ‘Not me personally, some arsehole further up the ranks. It’s a newspaper stunt, but the brass went for it.’

  ‘He hasn’t helped?’

  ‘We told him we needed a demonstration, asked him to predict the winner of the two-fifteen at Ayr.’

  Rebus laughed. ‘And?’

  ‘He said he could see the letters S and P, and a jockey dressed in pink with yellow spots.’

  ‘That’s impressive.’

  ‘Thing is though, there was no two-fifteen at Ayr, or anywhere else for that matter. All this voodoo and profiling, a waste of time if you ask me.’

  ‘So you’ve nothing to go on?’

  ‘Not much. No saliva at the locus, not so much as a hair. Bastard uses a johnny, then takes it with him – wrapper included. My bet is, he wears gloves too. We’ve a few threads from a jacket or the like, forensics are still busy with them.’ Ancram raised his cup to his lips, blew on it. ‘So, Inspector, do you want to hear about Uncle Joe or not?’

  ‘That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder.’ Rebus just shrugged, so Ancram took a deep breath. ‘OK, then listen. He controls a lot of the muscle-work – and I mean that literally; he has a share in a couple of bodybuilder gyms. In fact, he has a share in just about everything that’s the least bit dodgy: money-lending, protection, prozzy pitches, betting.’

  ‘Drugs?’

  ‘Maybe. There are a lot of maybes with Uncle Joe. You’ll see that when you read the files. He’s as slippery as a Thai bath – he owns massage parlours too. Then he’s got a lot of the taxi cabs, the ones that don’t switch their meters on when you get in; or if they do, the rate-per-mile’s been hiked. The cabbies are all on the broo, claiming benefit. We’ve approached several of them, but they won’t say a word against Uncle Joe. Thing is, if the DSS start sniffing around for scroungers, the investigators receive a letter. It details where they live, spouse’s name and daily movements, kids’ names, the school they go to …’

  ‘I get the picture.’

  ‘So they start requesting a transfer to another department, and meantime go to their doctor because they’re having trouble sleeping at night.’

  ‘OK, Uncle Joe isn’t Glasgow’s Man of the Year. Where does he live?’

  Ancram drained his cup. ‘This is a beauty. He lives in a council house. But just remember: Robert Maxwell lived in a council house, too. You have to see this place.’

  ‘I intend to.’

  Ancram shook his head. ‘He won’t talk to you, you won’t get past the door.’

  ‘Want a bet?’

  Ancram narrowed his eyes. ‘You sound confident.’

  Jack Morton walked past them, rolling his eyes: a general comment on life. He was searching his pockets for coins. As he waited for the machine to pour his drink, he turned to them.

  ‘Chick, The Lobby?’

&nb
sp; Ancram nodded. ‘One o’clock?’

  ‘Braw.’

  ‘What about associates?’ Rebus asked. He noticed Ancram hadn’t yet said he could call him by his nickname.

  ‘Oh, he has plenty of those. His guards are bodybuilders, hand-picked. Then he has some nutters, real headbangers. The bodybuilders might look the business, but these others are the business. There was Tony El, poly-bag merchant with a penchant for power tools. Uncle Joe still has one or two like him. Then there’s Joe’s son, Malky.’

  ‘Mr Stanley knife?’

  ‘Emergency rooms all over Glasgow can testify to that particular hobby.’

  ‘But Tony El hasn’t been around?’

  Ancram shook his head. ‘But I’ve had my grasses out sniffing on your behalf; I should hear back today.’

  Three men pushed open the doors at the end of the hall.

  ‘Aye, aye,’ Ancram said in an undertone, ‘it’s the man with the crystal balls.’

  Rebus recognised one of the men from a magazine photograph: Aldous Zane, the American psychic. He’d helped a US police force in their hunt for Merry Mac, so called because someone passing the scene of one of his murders – without realising what was happening on the other side of the wall – had heard deep gurgling laughter. Zane had given his impressions of where the killer lived. When police finally arrested Merry Mac, the media pointed out that the location bore a striking resemblance to the picture Zane had drawn.

  For a few weeks, Aldous Zane was newsworthy all around the world. It was enough to tempt a Scottish tabloid to pay for him to offer his impressions in the Johnny Bible hunt. And the police brass were just desperate enough to offer their cooperation.

  ‘Morning, Chick,’ one of the other men said.

  ‘Morning, Terry.’

  ‘Terry’ was looking at Rebus, awaiting an introduction.

  ‘DI John Rebus,’ Ancram said. ‘DCS Thompson.’

  The man stuck out his hand, which Rebus shook. He was a mason, like every second cop on the force. Rebus wasn’t of the brotherhood, but had learned to mimic the handshake.

  Thompson turned to Ancram. ‘We’re taking Mr Zane along to have another look at some of the physical evidence.’

  ‘Not just a look,’ Zane corrected. ‘I need to touch it.’

  Thompson’s left eye twitched. Obviously he was as sceptical as Ancram. ‘Right, well, this way, Mr Zane.’

  The three men walked off.

  ‘Who was the silent one?’ Rebus asked.

  Ancram shrugged. ‘Zane’s minder, he’s from the newspaper. They want to be in on everything Zane does.’

  Rebus nodded. ‘I know him,’ he said. ‘Or I used to, years back.’

  ‘I think his name’s Stevens.’

  ‘Jim Stevens,’ Rebus said, still nodding. ‘By the way, there’s another difference between the two killers.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bible John’s victims were all menstruating.’

  Rebus was left alone at a desk with the available files on Joseph Toal. He didn’t learn much more from them except that Uncle Joe seldom saw the inside of a court. Rebus wondered about that. Toal always seemed to know when police had him or his operations under surveillance, when the shit was heading fanwards. That way, they never found any evidence, or not enough to put him away. A couple of fines, that was about the sum total. Several big pushes had been made, but they’d always been abandoned for lack of hard evidence or because a surveillance was blown. As if Uncle Joe had a psychic of his own. But Rebus knew there was a more likely explanation: someone in CID was feeding gen back to the gangster. Rebus thought of the fancy suits everyone seemed to be wearing, the good watches and shoes, the general air of prosperity and superiority.

  It was west coast dirt, let them sweep it up or push it into the corner. There was a hand-written notation towards the end of the file; he guessed it was Ancram’s writing:

  ‘Uncle Joe doesn’t need to kill people any more. His rep is weapon enough, and the bastard’s getting stronger all the time.’

  He found a spare telephone, made a call to Barlinnie Prison, then, no sign of Chick Ancram, went walkabout.

  As he’d known he would, he ended up back in the musty-smelling room dominated by the old monster, Bible John. People in Glasgow still talked about him, had done even before Johnny Bible had come along. Bible John was the bedtime bogeyman made flesh, a generation’s scare story. He was your creepy next-door neighbour; the quiet man who lived two flights up; he was the parcel courier with the windowless van. He was whoever you wanted him to be. Back in the early seventies, parents had warned their children, ‘Behave, or Bible John will get you!’

  Bogeyman made flesh. Now reproducing.

  The shift of detectives looked to have taken a collective break. Rebus was alone in the room. He left the door open, not sure why, and pored over the documents. Fifty thousand statements had been taken. Rebus read a couple of the newspaper headlines: ‘The Dance Hall Don Juan With Murder on his Mind’; ‘100 Day Hunt for Ladykiller’. In the first year of the hunt, over five thousand suspects had been interviewed and eliminated. When the third victim’s sister gave her detailed description, police knew so much about the killer: blue-grey eyes; straight teeth except for one on the upper-right which overlapped its neighbour; his preferred brand of cigarette was Embassy; he spoke of a strict upbringing, and he quoted passages from the Bible. But by then it was too late. Bible John was history.

  Another difference between Bible John and Johnny Bible: the gaps between the killings. Johnny was killing every few weeks, while Bible John had killed to no pattern of weeks or even months. His first victim had been February ’68. There followed a gap of nearly eighteen months – August ’69, victim number two. And then two and a half months later, his third and final outing. Victims one and three had been killed on a Thursday night, the second victim on a Saturday. Eighteen months was a hell of a gap – Rebus knew the theories: that he’d been overseas, perhaps as a merchant seaman or navy sailor, or on some army or RAF posting; that he’d been in jail, serving time for some lesser offence. Theories, that’s all they were. All three of his victims were mothers of children: so far, none of Johnny Bible’s was. Was it important that Bible John’s victims had been menstruating, or that they had children? He’d tucked a sanitary towel under his third victim’s armpit – a ritual act. A lot had been read into that action by the various psychologists involved in the case. Their theory: the Bible told Bible John that women were harlots, and he was offered proof when married women left a dancehall with him. The fact that they were menstruating angered him somehow, fed his bloodlust, so he killed them.

  Rebus knew there were those out there – always had been – who believed there to be no connection, other than pure circumstance, between the three killings. They posited three murderers, and it was true that only strong coincidences connected the murders. Rebus, no great champion of coincidence, still believed in a single, driven killer.

  Some great policemen had been involved: Tom Goodall, the man who’d gone after Jimmy Boyle, who’d been there when Peter Manuel confessed; then when Goodall died, there’d been Elphinstone Dalgliesh and Joe Beattie. Beattie had spent hours staring at photos of suspects, using a magnifying glass sometimes. He’d felt that if Bible John walked into a crowded room, he would know him. The case had obsessed some officers, sent them spiralling downwards. All that work, and no result. It made a mockery of them, their methods, their system. He thought of Lawson Geddes again …

  Rebus looked up, saw he was being watched from the doorway. He got up as the two men walked into the room.

  Aldous Zane, Jim Stevens.

  ‘Any luck?’ Rebus asked.

  Stevens shrugged. ‘Early days. Aldous came up with a couple of things.’ He put out his hand. Rebus took it. Stevens smiled. ‘You remember me, don’t you?’ Rebus nodded. ‘I wasn’t sure, back there in the hallway.’

  ‘I thought you were in London.’

  ‘I moved back three years ag
o. I’m mainly freelance now.’

  ‘And doing guard duty, I see.’

  Rebus glanced towards Aldous Zane, but the American wasn’t listening. He was moving his palms over the paperwork on the nearest desk. He was short, slender, middle-aged. He wore steel-framed glasses with blue-tint lenses, and his lips were slightly parted, showing small, narrow teeth. He reminded Rebus a little of Peter Sellers playing Dr Strange-love. He wore a cagoule over his jacket, and made swishing sounds when he moved.

  ‘What is this?’ he said.

  ‘Bible John. Johnny Bible’s ancestor. They brought in a psychic on his case, too, Gerard Croiset.’

  ‘The paragnost,’ Zane said quietly. ‘Was there any success?’

  ‘He described a location, two shopkeepers, an old man who could help the inquiry.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And,’ Jim Stevens interrupted, ‘a reporter found what looked like the location.’

  ‘But no shopkeepers,’ Rebus added, ‘and no old man.’

  Zane looked up. ‘Cynicism is not helpful.’

  ‘Call me par-agnostic’

  Zane smiled, held out his hand. Rebus took it, felt tremendous heat in the man’s palm. A tingle ran up his arm.

  ‘Creepy, isn’t it?’ Jim Stevens said, as though he could read Rebus’s mind.

  Rebus waved a hand over the material on all four desks. ‘So, Mr Zane, do you feel anything?’

  ‘Only sadness and suffering, an incredible amount of both.’ He picked up one of the later photofits of Bible John. ‘And I thought I could see flags.’

  ‘Flags?’

  ‘The Stars and Stripes, a swastika. And a trunk filled with objects …’ He had his eyes shut, the lids fluttering. ‘In the attic of a modern house.’ The eyes opened. ‘That’s all. There’s a lot of distance, a lot of distance.’

  Stevens had his notebook out. He wrote quickly in shorthand. There was someone else in the doorway, looking surprised at the assembly.

  ‘Inspector,’ Chick Ancram said, ‘time for lunch.’