by Ian Rankin
‘It wasn’t his style.’
‘Not even when pushed to the limit? Had you seen him there before?’
Rebus couldn’t think of a thing to say. Ancram had been leaning forward in his seat again, palms against the desk. He sat back. ‘What did you want to ask?’
When Rebus was a child, they’d lived in a semi-detached with a close separating it from the next house along. The close had led to both back gardens. Rebus played football there with his dad. Sometimes he placed a foot against either wall and pushed his way up towards the roof of the close. And sometimes he’d just stand in the middle and throw a small hard rubber ball as hard as he could against the stone floor. The ball would bounce like anything, zipping back and forth, floor to roof to wall to floor to roof …
His head felt like that now.
‘What?’ he said.
‘You said you had a couple of questions.’
Slowly, Rebus’s head came back to the here and now. He rubbed his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘First off, Eve and Stanley.’
‘What about them?’
‘Are they close?’
‘You mean how do they get on? All right.’
‘Just all right?’
‘No flare-ups to report.’
‘I was thinking more of jealousy.’
Ancram cottoned on. ‘Uncle Joe and Stanley?’
Rebus nodded. ‘Is she clever enough to play one off against the other?’ He’d met her, thought he already knew the answer. Ancram just shrugged. The conversation had obviously taken an unexpected turn.
‘Only,’ Rebus said, ‘in Aberdeen they were sharing a hotel room.’
Ancram narrowed his eyes. ‘You’re sure of this?’ Rebus nodded. ‘They must be mad. Uncle Joe’ll kill them both.’
‘Maybe they don’t think he can.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Maybe they think they’re stronger than him. Maybe they reckon in a war the muscle-men would change sides. Stanley’s the one people are scared of these days, you said as much yourself. Especially with Tony El gone.’
‘Tony was history anyway.’
‘I’m not so sure.’
‘Explain.’
Rebus shook his head. ‘I need to talk to a couple of people first. Have you heard of Eve and Stanley working together in the past?’
‘No.’
‘So this Aberdeen jaunt …?’
‘I’d say it’s a newish excursion.’
‘Hotel records say the past six months.’
‘So the question is, what’s Uncle Joe setting up?’
Rebus smiled. ‘I think you know the answer to that: drugs. He’s lost the market in Glasgow, it’s already been divvied up. So he can fight for a piece, or he can play away from home. Burke’s will take the stuff and sell it on, especially with someone from CID in their pocket. Aberdeen’s still a nice market, not the hotbed of fifteen or twenty years ago, but a market nonetheless.’
‘So tell me, what are you going to do that the rest of us can’t?’
Rebus shook his head. ‘I still don’t know if you’re on the level; I mean, you might be see-sawing.’
This time Ancram really did smile. ‘I could say the same about you and the Spaven case.’
‘Probably.’
‘I won’t be satisfied until I know. I think maybe that makes us similar.’
‘Look, Ancram, we walked into that lock-up and the bag was there. Does it matter how we came to be there?’
‘It could have been planted.’
‘Not with my knowledge.’
‘Geddes never confided? I thought the two of you were close?’
Rebus was on his feet. ‘I may not be around for a day or two. All right?’
‘No, it’s not all right. I’ll expect you here tomorrow, same time.’
‘For Christ’s sake …’
‘Or we can turn the machine back on right now and you can tell me what you know. That way, you’ll have all the time in the world. And I think you’ll find it easier to live with yourself, too.’
‘Living with myself has never been the problem. Breathing the same air as people like you – that’s my problem.’
‘I’ve already told you, Strathclyde Police and the Squaddies are planning an operation …’
‘One that’ll get nowhere, because for all we know half the Glasgow force is in Uncle Joe’s pocket.’
‘I’m not the one who goes visiting him at home, with a word put in by a certain Morris Cafferty.’
There was a sudden tightening around Rebus’s chest. Coronary, he thought. But it was only Jack Morton, arms holding him, stopping him moving in on Ancram.
‘Tomorrow morning, gentlemen,’ Ancram said, like they’d had a useful session.
‘Yes, sir,’ Jack said, hustling Rebus out of the room.
Rebus told his friend to get them on to the M8.
‘No way, José.’
‘Then park near Waverley, we’ll take the train.’
Jack didn’t like the way Rebus looked: like his wiring was shorting out. You could almost see the sparks behind his eyes.
‘What are you going to do in Glasgow? Walk up to Uncle Joe and say, “Oh, by the way, your woman’s shagging your son”? Even you can’t be that stupid.’
‘Of course I’m not that stupid.’
‘Glasgow, John,’ Jack pleaded. ‘It’s not our territory. I’ll be back in Falkirk in a few weeks, and you …’
Rebus smiled. ‘Where’ll I be, Jack?’
‘God and the Devil know.’
Rebus was still smiling; thought to himself: I’d rather be the devil.
‘You’ve always got to be the hero, haven’t you?’ Jack asked.
‘Time loves a hero, Jack,’ Rebus told him.
On the M8, halfway between Edinburgh and Glasgow, slowed by syrupy traffic, Jack tried again.
‘This is crazy. I mean really crazy.’
‘Trust me, Jack.’
‘Trust you? The guy who tried to lay me out two nights back? With friends like you …’
‘… you’ll never be short of enemies.’
‘There’s still time.’
‘Not really, you just think there is.’
‘You’re talking out your arse.’
‘Maybe you’re just not listening.’ Rebus felt calmer now they were on the road. To Jack, he looked like someone had pulled the plug on him: no more sparks. He almost preferred the model with the faulty wiring. The lack of emotion in his friend’s voice was chilling, even in the overheated car. Jack slid his window down a little further. The speedometer was steady on forty, and that was them in the outside lane. Traffic to their left was really crawling. If he could find a space, he’d move to the inside – anything to delay their arrival.
He’d oftentimes admired John Rebus – and heard him praised by other officers – for his tenacity, the way he worried at a case terrier-style, more often than not tearing it open, spilling out secret motives and hidden bodies. But that same tenacity could also be a weakness, blinding him to danger, making him impatient and reckless. Jack knew why they were headed for Glasgow, thought he knew pretty well what Rebus would want to do there. And, as ordered by Ancram, Jack would be close by when the crap came tumbling down.
It was a long time since Rebus and Jack had worked together. They’d been an effective team, but Jack had been glad enough of the posting out of Edinburgh. Too claustrophobic – the town and his partner both. Rebus had seemed even then to spend more time living in his own head than in the company of others. Even the pub he chose to haunt was one with fewer than usual distractions: TV, one fruit machine, one cigarette machine. And when group activities were arranged – fishing trips, golf competitions, bus runs – Rebus never signed up. He was an irregular regular, a loner even in company, his brain and heart only fully engaged when he was working a case. Jack knew the score only too well. Work had a way of wrapping itself around you, so you were cut off from the rest of the world. People you met socially tended
to treat you with suspicion or outright hostility – so you ended up mixing only with other cops, which bored your wife or girlfriend. They began to feel isolated too. It was a bastard.
There were plenty of people on the force who coped, of course. They had understanding partners; or they could shut work out whenever they went home; or it was just a job to them, a way of keeping up with the mortgage. Jack would guess CID was split fifty-fifty between those for whom it was a vocation, and those who could fit into any other type of office life, anywhere, any time.
He didn’t know what else John Rebus could do. If they kicked him off the force … he’d probably drink his pension dry, become just another old ex-cop hanging on to a fund of stories, telling them too often to the same people, trading one form of isolation for another.
It was important that John should stay on the force. It was therefore important to keep him off Shit Street. Jack wondered why nothing in life was ever easy. When he’d been told by Chick Ancram that he’d be ‘keeping an eye’ on Rebus, he’d been pleased. He’d seen them going out together, reminiscing about cases and characters, haunts and high points. He should have known better. He might have changed – become a ‘yes man’, a pencil-pusher, a careerist – but John was the same as always … only worse. Time had seasoned his cynicism. He wasn’t a terrier now: he was a fighting dog with locking jaws. You just knew that no matter how bloody he got, how much pain there was behind the eyes, the grip was there to the death …
‘Traffic’s beginning to shift,’ Rebus said.
It was true; whatever the problem had been, it was clearing. The speedo was up to fifty-five. They’d be in Glasgow in no time at all. Jack glanced over at Rebus, who winked without moving his eyes from the road ahead. Jack had a sudden image of himself propping up a bar, dipping into his pension for another drink. Fuck that. For his friend’s sake, he’d go the ninety minutes, but no more: no extra time, no penalties. Definitely no penalties.
They made for Partick police station, since their faces were known there. Govan had been another possibility, but Govan was Ancram’s HQ and not a place they could do business on the q.t. The Johnny Bible investigation had picked up some momentum from the most recent murder, but all the Glasgow squad were really doing was reading through and filing material sent from Aberdeen. It made Rebus shiver to think he’d walked past Vanessa Holden in Burke’s Club. For all that Lumsden had been trying to stitch him up, Aberdeen CID had one thing right: quite a string of coincidences tied Rebus to the Johnny Bible inquiry. So much so that Rebus was beginning to doubt coincidence had much to do with it. Somehow, he couldn’t yet say how exactly, Johnny was connected to one of Rebus’s other investigations. At present it was no more than a hunch, nothing he could do anything about. But it was there, niggling him. It made him wonder if he knew more about Johnny Bible than he thought …
Partick, new and bright and comfortable – basically your state of the art cop-shop – was still enemy territory. Rebus couldn’t know how many friendly ears Uncle Joe might have on-site, but he thought he might know a quiet spot, a place they could make their own. As they wandered through the building, a few officers nodded or greeted Jack by name.
‘Base camp,’ Rebus said at last, turning into the deserted office which was temporary home to Bible John. Here he was, spread out across tables and the floor, pinned and taped to the walls. It was like standing in the middle of an exhibition. The last photofit of Bible John, the one compiled by his third victim’s sister, was repeated around the room, along with her description of him. It was as if by repetition, by piling image upon image, they could will him into physical being, turn wood pulp and ink into flesh and blood.
‘I hate this room,’ Jack said as Rebus closed the door.
‘So does everyone else by the look of things. Long tea-breaks and other business to attend to.’
‘Half the force weren’t alive when Bible John was on the go. He’s lost any sort of meaning.’
‘They’ll be telling their grandkids about Johnny Bible though.’
‘True enough.’ Jack paused. ‘Are you going to do it?’
Rebus saw mat his hand was lying on the receiver. He picked it up, punched in the numbers. ‘Did you doubt me?’ he asked.
‘Not for a minute.’
The voice that answered was gruff, unwelcoming. Not Uncle Joe, not Stanley. One of the body-builders. Rebus gave as good as he got.
‘Malky there?’
Hesitation: only his close friends called him Malky. ‘Who wants to know?’
‘Tell him it’s Johnny.’ Rebus paused. ‘From Aberdeen.’
‘Haud on.’ Clatter as the receiver was dropped on to a hard surface. Rebus listened closely, heard television voices, game-show applause. Watching: Uncle Joe maybe, or Eve. Stanley wouldn’t like game-shows; he’d never get a question right.
‘Phone!’ the body-builder called.
A long wait. Then a distant voice: ‘Who is it?’
‘Johnny.’
‘Johnny? Johnny who?’ The voice closer.
‘From Aberdeen.’
The receiver was picked up. ‘Hello?’
Rebus took a deep breath. ‘For your own sake you better sound natural. I know about you and Eve, know what you’ve been up to in Aberdeen. So if you want to keep it quiet, sound natural. Don’t want Muscle Man to get even the slightest suspicion.’
A rustling sound, Stanley turning away for privacy, tucking the phone into his chin.
‘So what’s the story?’
‘You’ve got a nice scam going, and I don’t want to fuck it up unless I have to, so don’t do anything that would make me do that. Understood?’
‘No bother.’ The voice was not used to attempting levity when its brain demanded bloody restitution.
‘You’re doing all right, Stanley. Eve’ll be proud of you. Now we need to talk, not just you and me, the three of us.’
‘My dad?’
‘Eve.’
‘Oh, right.’ Calming again. ‘Eh … no problem with that.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Eh … OK.’
‘Partick police station.’
‘Wait a minute …’
‘That’s the deal. Just to talk. You’re not walking into anything. If you’re worried, keep your gob shut until you hear the deal. If you don’t like it, you can walk. You won’t have said anything, so there’s nothing to fear. No charges, no tricks. It’s not you I’m interested in. Are we still on?’
‘I’m not sure. Can I call you back?’
‘I need a yes or no right now. If it’s no, you might as well pass me across to your dad.’
Condemned men laughed with more humour. ‘Look, for myself, there’s no problem. But there are other parties involved.’
‘Just tell Eve what I’ve told you. If she won’t come, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. I’ll get some visitors’ passes for you. False names.’ Rebus looked down at a book open in front of him, found two straight off. ‘William Pritchard and Madeleine Smith. Can you remember that?’
‘I think so.’
‘Repeat them.’
‘William … something.’
‘Pritchard.’
‘And Maggie Smith.’
‘Close enough. I know you can’t just sneak off, so we’ll leave the time open. Get here when you can. And if you start thinking of bottling it, just remember all those bank accounts and how lonely they’ll be without you.’
Rebus put down the phone. His hand was hardly trembling.
27
They notified the front desk and got visitors’ passes made up, and after that there was nothing to do but wait. Jack said the room felt cold and musty at the same time; he had to get out. He suggested the canteen or a corridor or anywhere, but Rebus shook his head.
‘You go. I think I’ll stay here, see if I can decide what to say to Bonnie and Clyde. Bring me back a coffee and maybe a filled roll.’ Jack nodded. ‘Oh, and a bottle of whisky.’ Jack looked at him. Rebus smiled.
He tried to remember his last drink. He recalled standing in the Ox with two glasses and a packet of cigs. But before that … Wine with Gill?
Jack had said the room was cold; it felt stifling to Rebus. He took off his jacket, loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. Then he wandered around the office, peering into desk drawers and grey cardboard boxes.
He saw: interview transcripts, their covers faded and curling at the edges; hand-written reports; typed reports; evidence summaries; maps, mostly hand-drawn; duty logs; ream after ream of witness statements – descriptions of the man seen in the Barrowland Ballroom. Then there were the photographs, matt black and whites, ten by eight and smaller. The Ballroom itself, interior and exterior. It looked more modern than the word ‘ballroom’ conjured up, reminded Rebus a bit of his old school – flat building panels with the occasional window. Three spots sat atop a concrete canopy, pointing up towards the windows and the sky. And on the canopy itself – a useful shelter from the rain while you were waiting either to be admitted or, afterwards, for your lift – the words ‘Barrowland Ballroom’ and ‘Dancing’. Most of the exterior pictures had been taken on a wet afternoon, women caught on the periphery with plastic rain-mates, men in bunnets and long coats. More photographs: police frogmen searching the river; the loci, CID in their trademark pork-pie hats and raincoats – a back lane, the back court of a tenement, another back court. Typical locations for a cuddle and a feel-up, maybe going a wee bit further. Too far for the victims. There was a photo of Superintendent Joe Beattie, holding out an artist’s impression of Bible John. Looking between the portrait and Beattie, the men’s expressions seemed similar. Several members of the public had commented on it. Mackeith Street and Earl Street – victims two and three were killed on the streets where they lived. He’d taken them so close to their homes: why? So they’d relax their defences? Or had he been vacillating, putting off the attacks? Nervous to ask for a kiss and a cuddle, or just plain scared and with his conscience battling his deep desire? The files were full of such aimless speculation, and more structured theories from professional psychologists and psychiatrists. In the end they’d been as helpful as Croiset the psychic detective.
