10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Nobody’s safe these days,’ she said, as Rebus examined the news story and saw that it was some fanciful piece about the Wolfman. ‘Nobody. I won’t let my daughter out these nights. A nine o’clock curfew I told her, until they catch him. Even then you can never be sure. I mean, he could be anybody.’

  Her look told Rebus that he, too, was not beyond suspicion. He smiled reassuringly.

  ‘I wasn’t going to go,’ she went on, ‘but Frank – that’s my husband – he said it was all booked so I should.’

  ‘Visiting Glasgow, are you?’

  ‘Not exactly visiting. My son lives there. He’s an accountant in the oil industry. He paid for my ticket, so I could see how he’s getting on. I worry about him, what with being so far away and everything. I mean, it’s a rough place Glasgow, isn’t it? You read about it in the papers. Anything could happen up there.’

  Yes, thought Rebus, his smile fixed, so unlike London. There was a sound like an electronic doorbell, and the Fasten Seatbelts sign came on, next to where the No Smoking sign was already lit. Jesus, Rebus could kill for a cigarette. Was he in Smoking or No Smoking? He couldn’t make out, and couldn’t remember which he’d plumped for at the ticket desk. Was smoking allowed on airplanes these days anyway? If God had meant man to smoke at 20,000 feet, wouldn’t he have given us all longer necks? The woman next to him looked to have no neck at all. Pity the poor serial killer who tried cutting his way through that throat.

  That was a terrible thing to think, God, please forgive me. As penance, he began to concentrate on the woman’s conversation, right up until take-off, when even she was forced to stop talking for a moment or two. Rebus, taking advantage of the situation, tucked his newspapers into the pocket on the back of the seat in front of him, leaned his head against the back of his own seat, and promptly fell asleep.

  George Flight tried Rebus’s hotel again from the Old Bailey, only to be told that Rebus had ‘left in a hurry’ earlier in the morning after asking how best to get to Heathrow.

  ‘Looks like he’s done a runner,’ DC Lamb commented. ‘Frightened off by our consummate professionalism, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘Leave off, Lamb,’ growled Flight. ‘Mind you, it is a bit mysterious. Why would he leave without saying anything?’

  ‘Because he’s a Jock, with all due respect, sir. He was probably worried you were going to drop a bill into his lap.’

  Flight smiled obligingly, but his thoughts were elsewhere. Last night Rebus had been seeing that psychologist, Dr Frazer, and now he was in a hurry to leave London. What had happened? Flight’s nose twitched. He liked a good honest mystery.

  He was in court to have a quiet word with Malcolm Chambers. Chambers was prosecuting counsel in a case involving one of Flight’s snouts. The snout had been incredibly stupid, had been caught red-handed. Flight had told the man there was little he could do, but he would do what he could. The snout had given him a lot of very useful tips in the past year, helping put a few fairly nasty individuals behind bars. Flight guessed he owed the man a helping hand. So he would talk to Chambers, not to influence the prosecutor – that was unthinkable, naturally – but to fill in some details on the snout’s useful contribution to police work and to society, a contribution which would come to a sad end should Chambers push for the maximum sentence.

  Et cetera.

  Dirty job, but someone had to do it and besides, Flight was proud of his network of informers. The idea of that network suddenly splintering was . . . well, best not to consider it. He wasn’t looking forward to going to Chambers, begging bowl in hand. Especially not after the farce involving Tommy Watkiss. Watkiss was back out on the street, probably telling the story in pubs up and down the East End to a laughing chorus of hangers-on. All about how the arresting constable had said, ‘Hello, Tommy, what’s going on here?’ Flight doubted Chambers would ever forget it, or let Flight forget it. What the hell, best get the begging over and done with.

  ‘Hello there.’ It was a female voice, close behind him. He turned to face the cat-like eyes and bright red lips of Cath Farraday.

  ‘Hello, Cath, what are you doing here?’

  She explained that she was at the Old Bailey to meet with the influential crime reporter from one of the more upmarket dailies.

  ‘He’s halfway through covering a fraud case,’ she explained, ‘and never strays too far from the courtroom.’

  Flight nodded, feeling awkward in her presence. From the corner of his eye he could see that Lamb was enjoying his discomfort, so he tried to be brave and steeled himself to meet the full force of her gaze.

  ‘I saw the pieces you placed in today’s press,’ he said.

  She folded her arms. ‘I can’t say I’m optimistic about their chances of success.’

  ‘Do the reporters know we’re spinning them a yarn?’

  ‘One or two were a bit suspicious, but they’ve got a lot of hungry readers out there starving for want of another Wolfman story.’ She unfolded her arms and reached into her shoulder-bag. ‘Ergo, they’ve got a lot of hungry editors, too. I think they’ll take any tidbit we throw them.’ She had brought a pack of cigarettes from her bag, and, without offering them out, lit one, dropped the pack back into her bag and snapped the bag shut.

  ‘Well, let’s hope something comes of it.’

  ‘You said this was all Inspector Rebus’s idea?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then I’m doubtful. Having met him, I wouldn’t say psychology was his strong point.’

  ‘No?’ Flight sounded surprised.

  ‘He doesn’t have a strong point,’ broke in Lamb.

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ said Flight protectively. But Lamb merely gave that insolent grin of his. Flight was part-embarrassed, part-furious. He knew exactly what Lamb’s grin was saying: don’t think we don’t know why you’re sticking so close to him, why you two are so chummy.

  Cath had smiled at Lamb’s interruption, but when she spoke her words were directed at Flight: she did not deign to consort with the lower ranks. ‘Is Rebus still around?’

  Flight shrugged. ‘I wish I knew, Cath. I’ve heard he was last seen heading off towards Heathrow, but he didn’t take any luggage with him.’

  ‘Oh well.’ She didn’t sound disappointed. Flight suddenly shot a hand into the air, waving. Malcolm Chambers acknowledged the signal and came towards them, walking as though no effort whatsoever was involved.

  Flight felt the need for introductions. ‘Mr Chambers, this is Inspector Cath Farraday. She’s the Press Liaison Officer on Wolfman.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Chambers, taking her hand momentarily in his. ‘The woman responsible for this morning’s lurid headlines?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cath. Her voice had taken on a new, soft, feminine edge, an edge Flight couldn’t recall having heard before. ‘Sorry if they spoiled your breakfast.’

  The impossible happened: Chambers’s face cracked into a smile. Flight hadn’t seen him smile outside of the courtroom in several years. This really was a morning for surprises. ‘They did not spoil my breakfast,’ Chambers was saying, ‘I found them highly entertaining.’ He turned to Flight, indicating by this that Cath was dismissed. ‘Inspector Flight, I can give you ten minutes, then I’m due in court. Or would you prefer to meet for lunch?’

  ‘Ten minutes should suffice.’

  ‘Excellent. Then come with me.’ He glanced towards Lamb, who was still feeling slightly snubbed by Cath. ‘And bring your young man with you if you must.’

  Then he was gone, striding on noisy leather soles across the floor of the concourse. Flight winked at Cath, then followed, Lamb silent and furious behind him. Cath grinned, enjoying Lamb’s discomfort and the performance Chambers had just put on. She’d heard of him, of course. His courtroom speeches were reckoned to be just about the most persuasive going, and he had even collected what could only be described as ‘groupies’: people who would attend a trial, no matter how convoluted or boring, just to hear his closing remarks.
Her own little coterie of news reporters seemed bland by comparison.

  So Rebus had scuttled off home, had he? Good luck to him.

  ‘Excuse me.’ A short blurred figure stood before her. She narrowed her eyes until they were the merest slits and peered at a middle-aged woman in a black cloak. The woman was smiling. ‘You’re not on the jury for court eight by any chance?’ Cath Farraday smiled and shook her head. ‘Oh well,’ sighed the usher, moving off again.

  There was such a thing in law as a hung jury, but there were also ushers who would happily see some individual jurors, the rogue jurors, hung. Cath turned on her pointed heels and went off to fulfil her appointment. She wondered if Jim Stevens would remember he was meeting her? He was a good journalist, but his memory was like a sieve at times and seemed especially bad now he was to be a father.

  Rebus had time to kill in Glasgow. Time to visit the Horseshoe Bar, or walk through Kelvinside, or even venture down to the Clyde. Time enough to look up an old friend, always supposing he’d had any. Glasgow was changing. Edinburgh had grown corpulent these past few years, during which time Glasgow had been busy getting fit. It had a toned, muscular look to it, a confident swagger rather than the drunken stagger which had been its public perception for so long.

  It wasn’t all good news. Some of the city’s character had seeped away. The shiny new shops and wine bars, the bright new office blocks, all had a homogenous quality to them. Go to any prosperous city in the world and you would find buildings just like them. A golden hue of uniformity. Not that Rebus was grieving; anything was better than the old swampland Glasgow had been in the 50s, 60s and early 70s. And the people were more or less the same: blunt, yet wonderfully dry in their humour. The pubs, too, had not changed very much, though their clientele might come more expensively and fashionably dressed and the menu might include chilli or lasagne along with the more traditional fare.

  Rebus ate two pies in one pub, standing at the bar with his left foot resting on the polished brass rail. He was biding his time. The plane had landed on schedule, the car had been waiting, the journey into Glasgow had been fast. He arrived in the city centre at twenty minutes past twelve, and would not be called to give his evidence until around three.

  Time to kill.

  He left the pub and took what he hoped might be a shortcut (though he had no ready destination in mind) down a cobbled lane towards some railway arches, some crumbling warehouse buildings and a rubble-strewn wasteland. There were a lot of people milling about here, and he realised that what he had thought were piles of rubbish lying around on the damp ground were actually articles for sale. He had stumbled upon a flea market, and by the look of the customers it was where the down and outs did their shopping. Dank unclean clothes lay in bundles, thrown down anywhere. Near them stood the vendors, shuffling their feet, saying nothing, one or two stoking up a makeshift fire around which others clustered for warmth. The atmosphere was muted. People might cough and hack and wheeze, but they seldom spoke. A few punks, their resplendent mohicans as out of place as a handful of parrots in a cage of sparrows, milled around, not really looking like they meant to buy anything. The locals regarded them with suspicion. Tourists, the collective look said, just bloody tourists.

  Beneath the arches themselves were narrow aisles lined with stalls and trestle tables. The smell in here was worse, but Rebus was curious. No out-of-town hypermarket could have provided such a range of wares: broken spectacles, old wireless sets (with this or that knob missing), lamps, hats, tarnished cutlery, purses and wallets, incomplete sets of dominoes and playing cards. One stall seemed to sell nothing but pieces of used soap, most of them looking as though they had come from public conveniences. Another sold false teeth. An old man, hands shaking almost uncontrollably, had found a bottom set he liked, but could not find a top set to match. Rebus wrinkled his face and turned away. The mohicans had opened a game of Cluedo.

  ‘Hey, pal,’ they called to the stall-holder, ‘there’s nae weapons here. Where’s the dagger an’ the gun an’ that?’

  The man looked at the open box. ‘You could improvise,’ he suggested.

  Rebus smiled and moved on. London was different to all this. It felt more congested, things moved too quickly, there seemed pressure and stress everywhere. Driving a car from A to B, shopping for groceries, going out for the evening, all were turned into immensely tiring activities. Londoners appeared to him to be on very short fuses indeed. Here, the people were stoics. They used their humour as a barrier against everything Londoners had to take on the chin. Different worlds. Different civilisations. Glasgow had been the second city of the Empire. It had been the first city of Scotland all through the twentieth century.

  ‘Got a fag, mister?’

  It was one of the punks. Now, up close, Rebus saw she was a girl. He’d assumed the group had been all male. They all looked so similar.

  ‘No, sorry, I’m trying to give up –’

  But she had already started to move away, in search of someone, anyone, who could immediately gratify. He looked at his watch. It was gone two, and it might take him half an hour to get from here to the court. The punks were still arguing about the missing Cluedo pieces.

  ‘I mean, how can you play a game when there’s bits missing? Know what I mean, pal? Like, where’s Colonel Mustard? An’ the board’s nearly torn in half, by the way. How much d’ye want for it?’

  The argumentative punk was tall and immensely thin, his size and shape accentuated by the black he wore from tip to toe. ‘Twa ply o’ reek,’ Rebus’s father would have called him. Was the Wolfman fat or thin? tall or short? young or old? did he have a job? a wife? a husband even? Did someone close to him know the truth, and were they keeping quiet? When would he strike next? And where? Lisa had been unable to answer any of these questions. Maybe Flight was right about psychology. So much of it was guesswork, like a game where some of the pieces are missing and nobody knows the rules. Sometimes you ended up playing a game completely different to the original, a game of your own devising.

  That was what Rebus needed: a new set of rules in his game against the Wolfman. Rules which would be to his benefit. The newspaper stories were the start of it, but only if the Wolfman made the next move.

  Maybe Cafferty would get off this time, but there’d always be another. The board was always prepared for a fresh start.

  Rebus gave his evidence and was out of the court by four. He handed the file on the case back to his driver, a balding middle-aged detective sergeant, and settled into the passenger seat.

  ‘Let me know what happens,’ he said. The driver nodded.

  ‘Straight back to the airport, Inspector?’ Funny how a Glaswegian accent could be made to sound so sarcastic. The sergeant had managed somehow to make Rebus feel his inferior. Then again, there was little love lost between east and west coasts. There might have been a wall dividing the two, such was their own abiding cold war. The driver was repeating his question, a little louder now.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Rebus, just as loudly. ‘It’s a jet-setting life in the Lothian and Borders Police.’

  His head was fairly thrumming by the time he got back to the hotel in Piccadilly. He needed a quiet night, a night alone. He hadn’t managed to contact Flight or Lisa, but they could wait until tomorrow. For now, he wanted nothing.

  Nothing but silence and stillness, lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling, his mind nowhere.

  It had been one hell of a week, and the week was only halfway through. He took two paracetamol from the bottle he had brought and washed them down with half a glass of tepid tap-water. The water tasted foul. Was it true that London water had passed through seven sets of kidneys before reaching the drinker? It had an oily quality in his mouth, not the sharp clear taste of the water in Edinburgh. Seven sets of kidneys. He looked at his cases, thinking of the amount of stuff he had brought with him, useless stuff, stuff he would never use. Even the bottle of malt sat more or less untouched.

  There was a teleph
one ringing somewhere. His telephone, but he managed to ignore the fact for fully fifteen seconds. He growled and clawed at the wall with his hand, finally finding the receiver and dragging it to his ear.

  ‘This had better be good.’

  ‘Where the fuck have you been?’ It was Flight’s voice, anxious and angry.

  ‘Good evening to you too, George.’

  ‘There’s been another killing.’

  Rebus sat up and swung his legs off the bed. ‘When?’

  ‘The body was discovered an hour ago. There’s something else.’ He paused. ‘We caught the killer.’

  Now Rebus stood up.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We caught him as he was running off.’

  Rebus’s knees almost failed him, but he locked them. His voice was unnaturally quiet. ‘Is it him?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m at HQ. We’ve brought him here. The murder took place in a house off Brick Lane. Not too far from Wolf Street.’

  ‘In a house?’ That was a surprise. The other murders had all taken place out of doors. But then, as Lisa had said, the pattern kept changing.

  ‘Yes,’ said Flight. ‘And that’s not all. The killer was found with money on him stolen from the house, and some jewellery and a camera.’

  Another break in the pattern. Rebus sat down on the bed again. ‘I see what you’re getting at,’ he said. ‘But the method – ?’

  ‘Similar, to be sure. Philip Cousins is on his way. He was at a dinner somewhere.’

  ‘I’m going to the scene, George. I’ll come to see you afterwards.’

  ‘Fine.’ Flight sounded as though he had hoped for this. Rebus was scrabbling for paper and a pen.

  ‘What’s the address?’

  ‘110 Copperplate Street.’

  Rebus wrote the address on the back of his travel ticket from the trip to Glasgow.

  ‘John?’

  ‘Yes, George?’

  ‘Don’t go off again without telling me, okay?’

  ‘Yes, George.’ Rebus paused. ‘Can I go now?’