10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  So Rebus travelled through the Underground and tried hard not to look out of place, not to gawp at the buskers and the beggars, not to pause in a busy conduit the better to read this or that advertising poster. A tramp actually entered his carriage at one stop and as the doors closed and the train pulled away again he began to rave, but his audience were deaf and dumb as well as blind and they successfully ignored his existence until the next stop where, daunted, he slouched from the carriage onto the platform. As the engine pulled away, Rebus could hear his voice again, coming from the next carriage along. It had been an astonishing performance, not by the tramp but by the passengers. They had closed off their minds, refusing involvement. Would they do the same if they saw a fight taking place? Saw a thick-set man stealing a tourist’s wallet? Yes, they probably would. This wasn’t an environment of good and evil: it was a moral vacuum and that frightened Rebus more than anything else.

  But there were compensations of a sort. Every beautiful woman he saw reminded him of Lisa Frazer. Squeezed into one compartment on the Central Line, he found himself pressed against a young blonde girl. Her blouse was undone to the cleft of her breasts, giving the taller Rebus an occasionally breathtaking view of slopes and swells. She glanced up from her paperback and caught him staring. He looked away quickly, but felt her cold gaze focusing on the side of his head.

  Every man is a rapist: hadn’t someone said that once? Traces of salt . . . Bite marks on the . . . The train slowed into another station: Mile End, his stop. The girl was getting out, too. He lingered on the platform until she was gone, without really knowing why, then headed up towards ground level and a taste of fresh air.

  Taste of monoxide, more like. Three lanes of traffic were jammed in either direction, the result of an articulated lorry failing to reverse through the narrow gates of some building. Two exasperated constables were trying to untie this Gordian Knot and for the first time it struck Rebus how silly their tall rounded hats looked. The Scottish-issue flat caps were more sensible. They also made less of a target at football matches.

  Rebus wished the constables a silent ‘Good luck’ and made for Gideon Park – not a park but a road – and for number 78, a three-storey house which, according to the front door’s entry system, had been split somehow into four flats. He pressed the second-from-bottom buzzer and waited. The door was opened by a tall skinny teenage girl, her long straight hair dyed black, three earrings in each ear. She smiled and gave him an unexpected hug.

  ‘Hello, Dad,’ she said.

  Samantha Rebus led her father up a narrow staircase to the first-floor flat she shared with her mother. If the change in his daughter was striking, then the change in Rebus’s ex-wife was doubly so. He had never seen her looking so good. There were strands of grey in her hair, but it had been cut fashionably short and there was a healthy suntanned look to her face, a gleam to her eyes. They studied one another without words, then embraced quickly.

  ‘John.’

  ‘Rhona.’

  She had been reading a book. He looked at its cover: To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf. ‘Tom Wolfe’s more my style,’ he said. The living-room was small, cramped even, but a lot of clever work with shelves and wall-mirrors gave the impression of space. It was a strange sensation, seeing things he recognised, that chair, a cushion-cover, a lamp, things from his life with Rhona, now transported to this pokey flat. But he praised the interior decoration, the snug feel of the place and then they sat down to drink tea. Rebus had brought gifts: record tokens for Samantha, chocolates for Rhona – received with a knowing, coded look between the two women.

  Two women. Samantha was no longer a child. Her figure might retain a child’s suppleness, but her way of moving, her actions, her face were all fully formed and adult.

  ‘You look good, Rhona.’

  She paused, accepting the compliment. ‘Thank you, John,’ she said at last. He noted her inability to say the same of him. Mother and daughter shared another of their secret looks. It was as though their time together had led to a kind of telepathy between them, so that during the course of the evening Rebus was to do most of the talking, nervously filling the many silent gaps in the conversation.

  None of it was very important anyway. He spoke of Edinburgh, without going into detail about his work. This wasn’t easy, since work apart he did very little. Rhona asked about mutual friends and he had to admit that he saw none of the old crowd. She talked about her teaching, of property prices in London. (Rebus heard nothing in her tone to suggest that he should pay something towards a bigger place for his kin. After all, it had been her idea to leave him. No real grounds, except, as she’d put it, that she’d loved a man but married a job.) Then Samantha told him about her secretarial course.

  ‘Secretarial?’ said Rebus, trying to sound enthusiastic. Samantha’s reply was cool.

  ‘I told you about it in one of my letters.’

  ‘Oh.’ There was another break in the conversation. Rebus wanted to burst out: I read your letters, Sammy! I devour your letters! And I’m sorry I so seldom write back, but you know what a lousy letter-writer I am, how much effort it takes, how little time and energy I have. So many cases to solve, so many people depending on me.

  But he said nothing. Of course he said nothing. Instead, they played out this little sham scenario. Polite chit-chat in a tiny living-room off Bow Road. Everything to say. Saying nothing. It was unbearable. Truly unbearable. Rebus moved his hands to his knees, spreading the fingers, ready to rise to his feet in the expected manner of one about to leave. Well, it’s been nice seeing you, but there’s a starched hotel bed waiting for me, and a machine to dispense ice, and another to shine shoes. He started to rise.

  And the buzzer sounded. Two short, two long. Samantha fairly flew to the stairs. Rhona smiled.

  ‘Kenny,’ she explained.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Samantha’s current gentleman.’

  Rebus nodded slowly, the understanding father. Sammy was sixteen. She’d left school. A secretarial course at college. Not a boyfriend, a gentleman. ‘What about you, Rhona?’ he said.

  She opened her mouth, forming a reply, when the thump of feet climbing the stairs closed it for her. Samantha’s face was flushed as she led her gentleman by his hand into the room. Instinctively, Rebus stood up.

  ‘Dad, this is Kenny.’

  Kenny was clad in black leather zip-up jacket and black leather trousers, with boots reaching almost to his knees. He squeaked as he moved and in his free hand he carried an upturned crash-helmet, from which poked the fingers of a pair of black leather gloves. Two fingers were prominent, and appeared to be pointing directly at Rebus. Kenny removed his hand from Samantha’s grip and held it out towards her father.

  ‘Wotcher.’

  The voice was abrupt, the tone deep and confident. He had lank black hair, almost parted at centre, some residual acne on cheeks and neck, a day’s growth of stubble. Rebus shook the hot hand with little enthusiasm.

  ‘Hello, Kenny,’ Rhona said. Then, for Rebus’s benefit: ‘Kenny’s a motorcycle messenger.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Rebus, taking his seat again.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Kenny enthused, ‘down the City.’ He turned to Rhona. ‘Made a fair old packet today, Rhona,’ he said, winking. Rhona smiled warmly. This young gentleman, this lad of eighteen or so (so much older, so much more worldly than Samantha) had obviously charmed his way into mother’s heart as well as daughter’s. He turned now to Rebus with that same winning way. ‘I make a hundred quid on a good day. Course, it used to be better, back at Big Bang. There were a lot of new companies then, all of them trying to show off how much dosh they had. Still, there’s a killing to be made if you’re fast and reliable. A lot of the customers ask for me by name now. That shows I’m getting somewhere.’ He sat down on the sofa beside Samantha and waited, as did they all, for Rebus to say something.

  He knew what was expected of him. Kenny had thrown down a gauntlet, and the message was, Just you dare dis
approve of me now. What did the kid want? A pat on the ego? Rebus’s permission to deflower his daughter? A few tips on how to avoid speed-traps? Whatever, Rebus wasn’t about to knuckle under.

  ‘Can’t be good for your lungs,’ he said instead. ‘All those exhaust fumes.’

  Kenny seemed perplexed by this turn in the conversation. ‘I keep myself fit,’ he said, sounding slightly piqued. Good, thought Rebus, I can nettle this little bastard. He knew Rhona was warning him to lay off, warning him with her piercing eyes, but Rebus kept his attention on Kenny.

  ‘Must be a lot of prospects for a lad like you.’

  Kenny cheered up immediately. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I might even set up my own fleet. All you need’s –’ He fell silent as he belatedly noticed that use of ‘lad’, as though he were dressed in shorts and school-cap. But it was too late to go back and correct it, way too late. He had to push on, but now it all sounded like pipe-dreams and playground fantasies. This rozzer might be from Jockland, but he was every bit as oily as an East End old-timer. He’d have to watch his step. And what was happening now? This Jock, this rough-looking tosser in the ill-fitting gear, the completely uncoordinated gear, this ‘man at C&A’ type, was reminiscing about a grocery shop from his youth. For a time, Rebus had been the grocer’s ‘message boy’. (He explained that in Scotland ‘messages’ meant ‘groceries’.) He’d run about on a heavy-framed black bicycle, with a metal rectangle in front of the handlebars. The box of groceries would be held in this rectangle and off he would pedal to do his deliveries.

  ‘I thought I was rich,’ Rebus said, obviously coming to a punch line. ‘But when I wanted more money, there wasn’t any to be had. I had to wait till I was old enough to get a proper job, but I loved running around on that bike, doing errands and delivering messages to the old folk. Sometimes they’d even give me a tip, a piece of fruit or a jar of jam.’

  There was silence in the room. A police siren sped past outside. Rebus sat back and folded his arms, a sentimental smile spread across his face. And then it dawned on Kenny: Rebus was comparing the two of them! His eyes widened. Everyone knew it. Rhona knew it. Sam knew it. For tuppence, he’d get up and stick the nut on the copper, Sam’s dad or not. But he held back and the moment passed. Rhona got up to make more tea, and the big bastard got up and said he had to be going.

  It had all happened so fast. Kenny was still trying to unravel Rebus’s story and Rebus could see it. The poor half-educated runt was trying to work out just how far Rebus had put him down. Rebus could answer that: as far as was necessary. Rhona hated him for it, of course, and Samantha looked embarrassed. Well to hell with them. He’d done his duty, he’d paid his respects. He wouldn’t bother them any more. Let them live in their cramped flat, visited by this . . . gentleman, this mock adult. Rebus had more important things to do. Books to read. Notes to make. And another busy day ahead. It was ten o’clock. He could be back at his hotel by eleven. An early night, that’s what was needed. Eight hours’ sleep in the last two days. No wonder he was ratty, looking for a fight.

  He began to feel a little bit ashamed. Kenny was too easy a target. He’d crushed a tiny fly beneath a tower-block of resentment. Resentment, John, or plain jealousy? That was not a question for a tired man. Not a question for a man like John Rebus. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, he might start getting some answers. He was determined to pay for his keep now that he had been brought to London. Tomorrow, the task began in earnest.

  He shook Kenny’s hand again and gave him a man-to-man half-wink before leaving the flat. Rhona offered to see him to the door. They went into the hall, leaving Samantha and Kenny in the living-room, behind a closed door.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Rebus said quickly. ‘I’ll see myself out.’ He started downstairs, aware that to linger was to invite an argument with Rhona. What was the point? ‘Better go keep an eye on Lothario,’ he called, unable to resist the parting shot.

  Outside, he remembered that Rhona liked her lovers young, too. Perhaps she . . . but no, that thought was unworthy of him. ‘Sorry, God,’ he said, turning with a steady stride back towards the Underground.

  Something is going wrong.

  After the first killing, she had felt horror, remorse, guilt. She had begged forgiveness; she would not kill again.

  After a month, a month of not being found, she grew more optimistic, and grew hungry too. So she killed again. This had satisfied for another month, and so it had gone on. But now, only twenty-four hours after the fourth time, she had felt the urge again. An urge more powerful and focused than ever. She would get away with it, too. But it would be dangerous. The police were still hunting. Time had not elapsed. The public was wary. If she killed now, she would break her patternless pattern, and perhaps that would give the police some clue that she could not predict.

  There was only one solution. It was wrong; she knew it was wrong. This wasn’t her flat, not really. But she did it anyway. She unlocked the door and entered the gallery. There, tied up on the floor, lay the latest body. She would store this one. Keep it out of sight of the police. Examining it, she realised that now she would have more time with it, more time in which to play. Yes, storage was the answer. This lair was the answer. No fear of being found. After all, this was a private place, not a public place. No fear. She walked around the body, enjoying its silence. Then she raised the camera to her eye.

  ‘Smile please,’ she says, snapping her way through the film. Then she has an idea. She loads another film cartridge and photographs one of the paintings, a landscape. This is the one she will carve, just as soon as she has finished playing with her new toy. But now she has a record of it, too. A permanent record. She watches the photograph develop but then starts to scratch across the plate, smearing the colours and the focus until the picture becomes a chemical swirl, seemingly without form. God, her mother would have hated that.

  ‘Bitch,’ she says, turning from the wall filled with paintings. Her face is creased with anger and resentment. She picks up a pair of scissors and goes to her plaything again, kneels in front of it, takes a firm hold of the head and brings the scissors down towards the face until they hover a centimetre away from the nose. ‘Bitch,’ she says again, then carefully snips at the nostrils, her hand shaking. ‘Long nosehairs,’ she wails, ‘are so unbecoming. So unbecoming.’

  At last she rises again and crosses to the opposite wall, lifts an aerosol and shakes it noisily. This wall – she calls it her Dionysian wall – is covered in spray-painted black slogans: DEATH TO ART, KILLING IS AN ART, THE LAW IS AN ARSE, FUCK THE RICH, FEEL THE POOR. She thinks of something else to say, something worth the diminishing space. She sprays with a flourish.

  ‘This is art,’ she says, glancing over her shoulder towards the Apollonian wall with its framed paintings. ‘This is fucking art. This is fuck art.’ She sees that the doll’s eyes are open and throws herself down to within an inch of those eyes, which suddenly screw themselves shut. Carefully, she uses both hands to prise apart the eyelids. Faces are close now, so intimate. The moment is always so intimate. Her breath is fast. So is the doll’s. The doll’s mouth struggles against the tape holding it shut. The nostrils flare.

  ‘Fuck art,’ she hisses to the doll. ‘This is fuck art.’ She has the scissors in her hand again now, and slides one blade into the doll’s left nostril. ‘Long nosehairs, Johnny, are so unbecoming in a man. So unbecoming in a man.’ She pauses, as though listening to something, as though considering this statement. Then she nods. ‘Good point,’ she says, smiling now.

  ‘Good point.’

  Catching a Bite

  The telephone woke Rebus. He could not locate it for a moment, then realised that it was mounted on the wall just to the right of his headboard. He sat up, fumbling with the receiver.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Inspector Rebus?’ The voice was full of zest. He didn’t recognise it. Took his Longines (his father’s Longines actually) from the bedside table and peered through the badly scratched face to find that it was seven f
ifteen. ‘Did I wake you up? Sorry. It’s Lisa Frazer.’

  Rebus came to life. Or rather his voice did. He still sat slumped and jangling on the edge of the bed, but heard himself say a bright, ‘Hello, Dr Frazer. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’ve been studying the notes you gave me on the Wolfman case. Working through most of the night, to be honest. I just couldn’t sleep, I was so excited by them. I’ve made some preliminary observations.’

  Rebus touched the bed, feeling its residual warmth. How long since he’d slept with a woman? How long since he’d woken up the following day regretting nothing?

  ‘I see,’ he said.

  Her laughter was like a clear jet of water. ‘Oh, Inspector, I’m sorry, I’ve wakened you. I’ll call back later.’

  ‘No, no. I’m fine, honestly. A bit startled, but fine. Can we meet and talk about what you’ve found?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But I’m a bit tied up today.’ He was trying to sound vulnerable, and thought on the whole that it was probably working. So he played his big card. ‘What about dinner?’

  ‘That would be nice. Where?’

  He rubbed at a shoulder-blade. ‘I don’t know. This is your town, not mine. I’m a tourist, remember.’

  She laughed. ‘I’m not exactly a local myself, but I take your point. Well in that case, dinner’s on me.’ She sounded set on this. ‘And I think I know just the place. I’ll come to your hotel. Seven thirty?’

  ‘I look forward to it.’

  What a very pleasant way to start the day, thought Rebus, lying down again and plumping up the pillow. He’d just closed his eyes when the telephone rang again.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m in reception and you’re a lazy git. Come down here so I can put my breakfast on your tab.’