10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  Midday Edinburgh seemed darker than ever, reflecting his mood perhaps. The Castle appeared to be casting a shadow across the expanse of the New Town, but that shadow did not, could not reach as high as The Eyrie. The Eyrie was the city’s most expensive restaurant, and also the most exclusive. Rumour had it that lunchtime was solidly booked twelve months in advance, while dinner entailed the small wait of eight to ten weeks. The restaurant itself was situated on the entire top floor of a Georgian hotel in the heart of the New Town, away from the city centre’s human bustle.

  Not that the streets here were exactly quiet, a steady amount of through traffic pausing long enough to make parking a problem. But not to a detective. Rebus stopped his car on a double yellow line directly outside the hotel’s main door, and, despite the doorman’s warnings about wardens and fines, left it there and entered the hotel. He squeezed his stomach as the lift carried him four floors high, and was satisfied that he felt hungry. These businessmen might well bore the pants off him, and the thought of spending two hours with Farmer Watson was almost too much to bear, but he would eat well. Yes, he would eat exceedingly well.

  And, given his way with the wine list, he’d bankrupt the buggers to boot.

  Brian Holmes left the snack bar carrying a polystyrene cup of grey tea, and studied it, trying to remember when he had last had a cup of good tea, of real tea, of tea he had brewed himself. His life seemed to revolve around polystyrene cups and thermos flasks, unexciting sandwiches and chocolate biscuits. Blow, sip. Blow, sip. Swallow.

  For this he had given up an academic career.

  Which was to say that he had careered around academia for some eight months, studying History at the University of London. The first month he had spent in awe of the city itself, trying to come to terms with its size, the complexities of actually trying to live and travel and survive with dignity. The second and third months he had spent trying to come to terms with university life, with new friends, the persistent openings for discussion, argument, for inclusion in this or that group. He tested the water each time before joining in, all of them nervous as children learning to swim. By months four and five, he had become a Londoner, commuting to the University every day from his digs in Battersea. Suddenly his life had come to be ruled by numbers, by the times of trains and buses and tube connections, the times, too, of late buses and tubes which would whisk him away from coffee-bar politics towards his noisy single room again. Missing a train connection began to be agony, suffering the rush-hour tube, a season spent in hell. Months six and seven he spent isolated in Battersea, studying from his room, hardly attending lectures at all. And in month eight, May, with the sun warming his back, he left London and returned north, back to old friends and a sudden emptiness in his life that had to be filled by work.

  But why in the name of God had he chosen the police?

  He screwed up the now empty polystyrene cup and threw it towards a nearby bin. It missed. So what, he thought. Then caught himself, went to the cup, stooped, picked it up, and deposited it in the bin. You’re not in London now, Brian, he told himself. An elderly woman smiled at him.

  So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

  A naughty world all right. Rebus had landed him in a soup of melted humanity. Pilmuir, Hiroshima of the soul; he couldn’t escape quickly enough. Fear of radiation. He had a little list with him, copied down neatly from last night’s scrawled telephone conversation, and he took this from his pocket now to examine it. The constables had been easy to locate. Rebus would have seen them by now. Then he had gone to the house in Pilmuir. In his inside pocket he had the photographs. Edinburgh Castle. Good shots, too. Unusual angles. And the girl. She looked quite pretty, he supposed. Hard to tell her age, and her face seemed tempered by hard living, but she was bonny enough in a rough and ready way. He had no idea how he would find out anything about her. All he had to go on was that name, Tracy. True, there were people he could ask. Edinburgh was his home turf, an enormous advantage in this particular line of work. He had contacts all right, old friends, friends of friends. He’d re-established contact after the London fiasco. They’d all told him not to go. They’d all been pleased to see him again so soon after their warnings, pleased because they could boast of their foresight. That had only been five years ago. . . . It seemed longer somehow.

  Why had he joined the force? His first choice had been journalism. That went way back, back to his schooldays. Well, childhood dreams could come true, if only momentarily. His next stop would be the offices of the local daily. See if he could find some more unusual angles on the Castle. With any luck, he’d get a decent cup of tea, too.

  He was about to walk on when he saw an estate agent’s window across the street. He had always assumed that this particular agency would, because of its name, be expensive. But what the hell: he was a desperate man. He manoeuvred his way through the queue of unmoving traffic and stopped in front of the window of Bowyer Carew. After a minute, his shoulders slightly more hunched than before, he turned away again and stalked towards the Bridges.

  ‘And this is James Carew, of Bowyer Carew.’

  James Carew lifted his well-upholstered bottom a millimetre off his well-upholstered chair, shook Rebus’s hand, then sat again. Throughout the introduction, his eyes had not left Rebus’s tie.

  ‘Finlay Andrews,’ continued Superintendent Watson, and Rebus shook another firm masonic hand. He didn’t need to know the secret pressure spots to be able to place a freemason. The grip itself told you everything, lasting as it did a little longer than normal, the extra time it took the shaker to work out whether you were of the brotherhood or not.

  ‘You might know Mr Andrews. He has a gaming establishment in Duke Terrace. What’s it called again?’ Watson was trying too hard: too hard to be the host, too hard to get along with these men, too hard for everyone’s comfort.

  ‘It’s just called Finlay’s,’ Finlay Andrews supplied, releasing his grip on Rebus.

  ‘Tommy McCall,’ said the final luncheon guest, making his own introduction, and giving Rebus’s hand a quick, cool shake. Rebus smiled, and sat down, joining them at the table, thankful to be sitting down at last.

  ‘Not Tony McCall’s brother?’ he asked conversationally.

  ‘That’s right.’ McCall smiled. ‘You know Tony then?’

  ‘Pretty well,’ said Rebus. Watson was looking bemused. ‘Inspector McCall,’ Rebus explained. Watson nodded vigorously.

  ‘So,’ said Carew, shifting in his seat, ‘what will you have to drink, Inspector Rebus?’

  ‘Not while on duty, sir,’ said Rebus, unfolding his prettily arranged napkin. He saw the look on Carew’s face and smiled. ‘Just a joke. I’ll have a gin and tonic, please.’

  They all smiled. A policeman with a sense of humour: it usually surprised people. It would have surprised them even more had they known how seldom Rebus made jokes. But he felt the need to conform here, to ‘mix’, in that unhappy phrase.

  There was a waiter at his shoulder.

  ‘Another gin and tonic, Ronald,’ Carew told the waiter, who bowed and moved off. Another waiter replaced him, and started handing out huge leather-bound menus. The thick cloth napkin was heavy on Rebus’s lap.

  ‘Where do you live, Inspector?’ The question was Carew’s. His smile seemed more than a smile, and Rebus was cautious.

  ‘Marchmont,’ he said.

  ‘Oh,’ Carew enthused, ‘that’s always been a very good area. Used to be a farming estate back in the old days, you know.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Mmm. Lovely neighbourhood.’

  ‘What James means,’ interrupted Tommy McCall, ‘is that the houses are worth a few bob.’

  ‘So they are,’ Carew answered indignantly. ‘Handy for the centre of town, close to The Meadows and the University. . . .’

  ‘James,’ Finlay Andrews warned, ‘you’re talking shop.’

  ‘Am I?’ Carew seemed genuinely surprised. He gave Rebus that smile again. ‘Sorry.’

>   ‘I recommend the sirloin,’ said Andrews. When the waiter returned to take their order, Rebus made a point of ordering sole.

  He tried to be casual, not to stare at the other diners, not to examine the minutiae of the tablecloth, the implements unknown to him, the finger bowls, the hallmarked cutlery. But then this was one of those once-in-a-lifetime things, wasn’t it? So why not stare? He did, and saw fifty or so well-fed, happy faces, mostly male, with the occasional decorative female for the sake of decency, of elegance. Prime fillet. That’s what everyone else seemed to be having. And wine.

  ‘Who wants to choose the wine?’ said McCall, flourishing the list. Carew looked eager to snatch, and Rebus held back. It wouldn’t do, would it? To grab the list, to say me, me, me. To look with hungry eyes at the prices, wishing. . . .

  ‘If I may,’ said Finlay Andrews, lifting the wine list from McCall’s hand. Rebus studied the hallmark on his fork.

  ‘So,’ said McCall, looking at Rebus, ‘Superintendent Watson has roped you in on our little mission, eh?’

  ‘I don’t know that any rope was needed,’ said Rebus. ‘I’m glad to help if I can.’

  ‘I’m sure your experience will be invaluable,’ Watson said to Rebus, beaming at him. Rebus stared back evenly, but said nothing.

  As luck would have it, Andrews seemed to know a bit about wine himself, and ordered a decent ’82 claret and a crisp Chablis. Rebus perked up a bit as Andrews did the ordering. What was the name of the gaming club again? Andrews? Finlay’s? Yes, that was it. Finlay’s. He’d heard of it, a small casino, quiet. There had never been any cause for Rebus to go there, either on business or for pleasure. What pleasure was there in losing money?

  ‘Is your Chinaman still haunting the place, Finlay?’ asked McCall now, while two waiters ladled a thin covering of soup into wide-circumferenced Victorian soup plates.

  ‘He won’t get in again. Management reserves the right to refuse entry, et cetera.’

  McCall chuckled, turned to Rebus.

  ‘Finlay had a bad run back there. The Chinese are terrible for gambling, you know. Well, this one Chinaman was taking Finlay for a ride.’

  ‘I had an inexperienced croupier,’ Andrews explained. ‘The experienced eye, and I do mean experienced, could tell pretty much where the ball was going to land on the roulette wheel, just by watching carefully how this youngster was flicking the ball.’

  ‘Remarkable,’ said Watson, before blowing on a spoonful of soup.

  ‘Not really,’ said Andrews. ‘I’ve seen it before. It’s simply a matter of spotting the type before they manage to lay on a really heavy bet. But then, you have to take the rough with the smooth. This has been a good year so far, a lot of money moving north, finding there’s not so much to do up here, so why not simply gamble it away?’

  ‘Money moving north?’ Rebus was interested.

  ‘People, jobs. London executives with London salaries and London habits. Haven’t you noticed?’

  ‘I can’t say I have,’ Rebus confessed. ‘Not around Pilmuir at any rate.’

  There were smiles at this.

  ‘My estate agency has certainly noticed it,’ said Carew. ‘Larger properties are in great demand. Corporate buyers in some cases. Businesses moving north, opening offices. They know a good thing when they see it, and Edinburgh is a good thing. House prices have gone through the roof. I see no reason for them to stop.’ He caught Rebus’s eye. ‘They’re even building new homes in Pilmuir.’

  ‘Finlay,’ McCall interrupted, ‘tell Inspector Rebus where the Chinese players keep their money.’

  ‘Not while we’re eating, please,’ said Watson, and when McCall, chuckling to himself, looked down at his soup plate, Rebus saw Andrews flash the man a hateful look.

  The wine had arrived, chilled and the colour of honey. Rebus sipped. Carew was asking Andrews about some planning permission to do with an extension to the casino.

  ‘It seems to be all right.’ Andrews tried not to sound smug. Tommy McCall laughed.

  ‘I’ll bet it does,’ he said. ‘Would your neighbours find the going as smooth if they tried to stick a big bloody extension on the back of their premises?’

  Andrews gave a smile as cold as the Chablis. ‘Each case is considered individually and scrupulously, Tommy, so far as I know. Maybe you know better?’

  ‘No, no.’ McCall had finished his first glass of wine, and was reaching for a second. ‘I’m sure it’s all totally above board, Finlay.’ He looked conspiratorially at Rebus. ‘I hope you’re not going to tell tales, John.’

  ‘No.’ Rebus glanced towards Andrews, who was finishing his soup. ‘Over lunch, my ears are closed.’

  Watson nodded agreement.

  ‘Hello there, Finlay.’ A large man, heavily built but with the accent on muscularity, was standing by the table. He was wearing the most expensive-looking suit Rebus had ever seen. A silken sheen of blue with threads of silver running through it. The man’s hair was silvered, too, though his face looked to be fortyish, no more. Beside him, leaning in towards him, stood a delicate Oriental woman, more girl than woman. She was exquisite, and everyone at the table rose in a kind of awe. The man waved an elegant hand, demanding they be seated. The woman hid her pleasure beneath her eyelashes.

  ‘Hello, Malcolm.’ Finlay Andrews gestured towards the man. ‘This is Malcolm Lanyon, the advocate.’ The last two words were unnecessary. Everyone knew Malcolm Lanyon, the gossip column’s friend. His very public lifestyle provoked either hatred or envy. He was at the same time all that was most despised about the law profession, and a walking TV mini-series. If his lifestyle occasionally scandalised the prurient, it also satisfied a deep need in the readers of Sunday tabloids. He was also, to Rebus’s sure knowledge, an extraordinarily good lawyer. He had to be, otherwise the rest of his image would have been wallpaper, nothing more. It wasn’t wallpaper. It was bricks and mortar.

  ‘These,’ Andrews said, gesturing now to the occupants of the table, ‘are the working members of that committee I was telling you about.’

  ‘Ah.’ Lanyon nodded. ‘The campaign against drugs. An excellent idea, Superintendent.’

  Watson almost blushed at the compliment: the compliment was that Lanyon knew who Watson was.

  ‘Finlay,’ Lanyon continued, ‘you’ve not forgotten tomorrow night?’

  ‘Firmly etched in my diary, Malcolm.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Lanyon glanced over the table. ‘In fact, I’d like you all to come. Just a little gathering at my house. No real reason for it, I just felt like having a party. Eight o’clock. Very casual.’ He was already moving off, an arm around the porcelain waist of his companion. Rebus caught his final words: his address. Heriot Row. One of the most exclusive streets in the New Town. This was a new world. Although he couldn’t be sure that the invitation was serious, Rebus was tempted to take it up. Once in a lifetime, and all that.

  A little later, conversation moved to the anti-drugs campaign itself and the waiter brought more bread.

  ‘Bread,’ the nervous young man said, carrying another bound file of newspapers over to the counter where Holmes stood. ‘That’s what worries me. Everybody’s turning into a bread head. You know, nothing matters to them except getting more than anyone else. Guys I went to school with, knew by the age of fourteen that they wanted to be bankers or accountants or economists. Lives were over before they’d begun. These are May.’

  ‘What?’ Holmes was shifting his weight from one leg to another. Why couldn’t they have chairs in this place? He had been here over an hour, his fingers blackened by old newsprint as he flicked through each day’s editions, one daytime, one evening. Now and then, a headline or some football story he’d missed first time around would attract his attention. But soon enough he had tired, and now it was merely routine. What’s more, his arms were aching from all that page turning.

  ‘May,’ the youth explained. ‘These are the May editions.’

  ‘Right, thanks.’

  ‘Finished with
June?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’

  The youth nodded, buckled shut two leather straps on the open end of the bound file, and heaved the whole up into his arms, shuffling out of the room. Here we go again, thought Holmes, unbuckling this latest batch of old news and space fillers.

  Rebus had been wrong. There had been no old retainer to act as a computer memory, and no computer either. So it was down to hard graft and page turning, looking for photographs of familiar places, made fresh through the use of odd camera angles. Why? He didn’t know even that yet, and the thought frustrated him. He’d find out later this afternoon hopefully, when he met with Rebus. There was a shuffling sound again as the youth re-entered, arms dangling now, jaw hanging.

  ‘So why didn’t you do the same as your friends?’ Holmes said conversationally.

  ‘You mean go in for banking?’ The youth wrinkled his nose. ‘Wanted something different. I’m learning journalism. Got to start somewhere, haven’t you?’

  Indeed you have, thought Holmes, turning another page. Indeed you have.

  ‘Well, it’s a start,’ said McCall, rising. They were crumpling their used napkins, tossing them onto the dishevelled tablecloth. What had once been pristine was now covered with breadcrumbs and splashes of wine, a dark patch of butter, a single dripped coffee stain. Rebus felt woozy as he pulled himself out of the chair. And full. His tongue was furred from too much wine and coffee, and that cognac – Christ! Now these men were about to go back to work, or so they claimed. Rebus, too. He had a meeting at three with Holmes, didn’t he? But it was already gone three. Oh well, Holmes wouldn’t complain. Couldn’t complain, thought Rebus smugly.

  ‘Not a bad spread that,’ said Carew, patting his girth. Rebus couldn’t be sure whether this, or the food itself, was the spread he meant.

  ‘And we covered a lot of ground,’ said Watson, ‘let’s not forget that.’

  ‘Indeed not,’ said McCall. ‘A very useful meeting.’

  Andrews had insisted on paying the bill. A good three figures’ worth by Rebus’s hasty calculation. Andrews was studying the bill now, lingering over each item as though checking it against his own mental price list. Not only a businessman, thought Rebus unkindly, but a bloody good Scot. Then Andrews called over the brisk maitre d’ and told him quietly about one item for which they had been overcharged. The maitre d’ took Andrews’ word for it, and altered the bill there and then with his own ballpoint pen, apologising unreservedly.