10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Very comfortable,’ Rebus said.

  ‘So I believe.’

  ‘You’ve never driven it yourself then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’ Rebus stared out of the windscreen, then at the passenger seat and the floor. ‘Yes, well designed, comfortable. Plenty of room, eh?’ And he turned in his seat, twisting his whole body round to examine the rear seat . . . the rear floor. ‘Heaps of room,’ he commented. ‘Lovely.’

  ‘Maybe Gregor would let you take her for a spin?’

  Rebus looked up keenly. ‘Do you think so? I mean, when this has all blown over, of course.’ He started to get out of the car. Urquhart snorted.

  ‘Blown over? This sort of thing doesn’t “blow over”, not when you’re an MP. The broth – . . . those allegations in the newspapers, they were bad enough, but now murder? No.’ He shook his head. ‘This won’t just blow over, Inspector. It’s not a raincloud, it’s a mud bath, and mud sticks.’

  Rebus closed the door. ‘Nice solid clunk, too, when you shut it, isn’t there? How well did you know Mrs Jack?’

  ‘Pretty well. I used to see her most days.’

  ‘But I believe Mr and Mrs Jack led fairly separate lives?’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far. They were married.’

  ‘And in love?’

  Urquhart thought for a moment. ‘I’d say so, yes.’

  ‘Despite everything?’ Rebus was walking around the car now, as though deciding whether or not to buy it.

  ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

  ‘Oh, you know, different sorts of friends, different lifestyles, separate holidays . . .’

  ‘Gregor is an MP, Inspector. He can’t always get away at the drop of a hat.’

  ‘Whereas,’ Rebus said, ‘Mrs Jack was . . . what would you say? Spontaneous? Flighty, maybe even? The sort who’d say, let’s just up and go?’

  ‘Actually, yes, that’s fairly accurate.’

  Rebus nodded and tapped the boot. ‘What about luggage room?’

  Urquhart himself actually came forward and opened the boot.

  ‘Goodness,’ said Rebus, ‘yes, there’s plenty of room. Quite deep, isn’t it?’

  It was also immaculately clean. No mud or scuff marks, no crumbs of earth. It looked as though it had never been used. Inside were a small reserve petrol tank, a red warning triangle, and a half-set of golf clubs.

  ‘He’s keen on golf, isn’t he?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  Rebus closed the boot shut. ‘I’ve never seen the attraction myself. The ball’s too small and the pitch is too big. Shall we go in?’

  Gregor Jack looked like he’d been to hell and back on an LRT bus. He’d probably combed his hair yesterday or the day before, and last changed his clothes then, too. He was shaven, but there were small patches of dark stubble the razor had missed. He didn’t bother rising when Rebus entered the room. He just nodded a greeting and gestured with his glass to a vacant chair, one of the infamous marshmallow chairs. Rebus approached with care.

  There was whisky in Jack’s crystal tumbler, and a bottle of the stuff – three quarters empty – on the rug beside him. The room smelt unaired and unpolished. Jack took a gulp of liquid, then used the edge of the glass to scratch at his raw red finger.

  ‘I want to talk to you, Inspector Rebus.’

  Rebus sat down, sinking, sinking . . . ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘I want to say a few things about me . . . and maybe about Liz, too, in a roundabout way.’

  It was another prepared speech, another well-considered opening. There were just the two of them in the room. Urquhart had said he’d make a pot of coffee. Rebus, still jumpy from his meeting with Watson, had begged for tea. Helen Greig, it seemed, was at home, her mother having been taken ill – ‘again’, as Urquhart put it, before marching off kitchenwards. Faithful women: Helen Greig and Cath Kinnoul. Doggedly faithful. And Elizabeth Jack? Doggie-style faithful maybe . . . Christ, that was a terrible thing to think! And especially of the dead, especially of a woman he’d never met! A woman who liked to be tied to bedposts for a spot of . . .

  ‘It’s nothing to do with . . . well, I don’t know, maybe it is.’ Jack paused for thought. ‘You see, Inspector, I can’t help feeling that if Liz saw those stories about me, and if they upset her, then maybe she did something . . . or stayed away . . . and maybe . . .’ He leapt to his feet and wandered over towards the window, looking out at nothing. ‘What I’m trying to say is, what if I’m responsible?’

  ‘Responsible, sir?’

  ‘For Liz’s . . . murder. If we’d been together, if we’d been here together, it might never have happened. It wouldn’t have happened. Do you see what I mean?’

  ‘No good blaming yourself, sir –’

  Jack whirled towards him. ‘But that’s just it, I do blame myself.’

  ‘Why don’t you sit down, Mr Jack –’

  ‘Gregor, please.’

  ‘All right . . . Gregor. Now why don’t you sit down and calm down.’

  Jack did as he was told. Bereavement affected different people in different ways, the weak becoming strong and the strong becoming weak. Ronald Steele hurled books around, Gregor Jack became . . . pathetic. He was scratching at the finger again. ‘But it’s all so ironic,’ he spat.

  ‘How’s that?’ Rebus wished the tea would hurry up. Maybe Jack would pull himself together in Urquhart’s presence.

  ‘That brothel,’ Jack said, fixing Rebus’s eyes with his own. ‘That’s what started it all. And the reason I was there . . .’

  Rebus sat forward. ‘Why were you there, Gregor?’

  Gregor Jack paused, swallowed, seemed to take a breath while he thought about whether to answer or not. Then he answered.

  ‘To see my sister.’

  There was silence in the room, so profound that Rebus could hear his watch ticking. Then the door flew open.

  ‘Tea,’ said Ian Urquhart, sidling into the room.

  Rebus, who had been so eager for Urquhart’s arrival, now couldn’t wait for the man to leave. He rose from the chair and walked to the mantelpiece. The card from The Pack was still there, but it had been joined by over a dozen condolence cards – some from other MPs, some from family and friends, some from the public.

  Urquhart seemed to sense the atmosphere in the room. He left the tray on a table and, without a word, made his exit. The door had barely closed before Rebus said, ‘What do you mean, your sister?’

  ‘I mean just that. My sister was working in that brothel. Well, I suspected she was, I’d been told she was. I thought maybe it was a joke, a sick joke. Maybe a trap, to get me to a brothel. A trap and a trick. I thought long and hard before I went, but I still went. He’d sounded so confident.’

  ‘Who had?’

  ‘The caller. I’d been getting these calls . . .’ Ah yes, Rebus had meant to ask about those. ‘By the time I got to the phone, the caller would have hung up. But one night, the caller got me straight away, and he told me: “Your sister’s working in a brothel in the New Town.” He gave me the address, and said if I went around midnight she’d just be starting her . . . shift.’ The words were like some food he didn’t enjoy, but given him at a banquet so that he didn’t dare spit it out, but had to go on chewing, trying hard not to swallow . . . He swallowed. ‘So along I went, and she was there. The caller had been telling the truth. I was trying to talk to her when the police came in. But it was a trap, too. The newsmen were there . . .’

  Rebus was remembering the woman in the bed, the way she kicked her legs in the air, the way she’d lifted her t-shirt for the photographers to see . . .

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything at the time, Gregor?’

  Jack laughed shrilly. ‘It was bad enough as it was. Would it have been any better if I’d let everyone know my sister’s a tart?’

  ‘Well then, why tell me now?’

  His voice was calm. ‘It looks to me, Inspector, like I’m in deep water. I’m just jettisoning what I don’t need.’


  ‘You must know then, sir . . . you must have known all along, that someone is setting you up to take a very big fall.’

  Jack smiled. ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Any idea who? I mean, any enemies?’

  The smile again. ‘I’m an MP, Inspector. The wonder is that I have any friends.’

  ‘Ah yes, The Pack. Could one of them . . .?’

  ‘Inspector, I’ve racked my brain and I’m no nearer finding out.’ He looked up at Rebus. ‘Honest.’

  ‘You didn’t recognize the caller’s voice?’

  ‘It was heavily muffled. Gruff. A man probably, but to be honest it could have been a woman.’

  ‘Okay then, what about your sister? Tell me about her.’

  It was soon told. She’d left home young, and never been heard of. Vague rumours of London and marriage had drifted north over the years, but that was all. Then the phone call . . .

  ‘How could the caller know? How might they have found out?’

  ‘Now that’s a mystery, because I’ve never told anybody about Gail.’

  ‘But your schoolfriends would know of her?’

  ‘Slightly, I suppose. I doubt any of them remember her. She was two years below us at school.’

  ‘You think maybe she came back up here looking for revenge?’

  Jack spread his palms. ‘Revenge for what?’

  ‘Well, jealousy then.’

  ‘Why didn’t she just get in touch?’

  It was a point. Rebus made a mental note to get in touch with her, supposing she was still around. ‘You haven’t heard from her since?’

  ‘Not before, not since.’

  ‘Why did you want to see her, Gregor?’

  ‘One, I really was interested.’ He broke off.

  ‘And two?’

  ‘Two . . . I don’t know, maybe to talk her out of what she was doing.’

  ‘For her own good, or for yours?’

  Jack smiled. ‘You’re right, of course, bad for the image having a sister on the game.’

  ‘There are worse forms of prostitution than whoring.’

  Jack nodded, impressed. ‘Very deep, Inspector. Can I use that in one of my speeches? Not that I’ll be making many of those from now on. Whichever way you look at it, my career’s down the Swanny.’

  ‘Never give up, sir. Think of Robert the Bruce.’

  ‘And the spider, you mean? I hate spiders. So does Liz.’ He halted. ‘Did Liz.’

  Rebus wanted to keep the conversation moving. The amount of whisky Jack had drunk, he might tip over any minute. ‘Can I ask you about that last party up at Deer Lodge?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘For a start, who was present?’

  Having to use his memory seemed to sober Jack up. Not that he could add much to what Barney Byars had already told Rebus. It was a boozy, sit-around-and-chat evening, followed by a morning hike up some nearby mountain, lunch – at the Heather Hoose – and then home. Jack’s only regret was inviting Helen Greig to go.

  ‘I’m not sure she saw any of us in a decent light. Barney Byars was doing elephant impressions, you know, where you pull out your trouser pockets and –’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Well, Helen took it in good enough part, but all the same . . .’

  ‘Nice girl, isn’t she?’

  ‘The sort my mum would have wanted me to marry.’

  Mine too, thought Rebus. The whisky wasn’t just loosening Jack’s tongue, it was also loosening his accent. The polish was fading fast, leaving the raw wood of towns like Kirkcaldy, Leven, Methil.

  ‘This party was a couple of weeks ago, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Three weeks ago. We were back here five days when Liz decided she needed a holiday. Packed a case and off she went. Never saw her again . . .’ He raised a fist and punched the soft leather of the sofa, making hardly a sound and no discernible mark. ‘Why are they doing this to me? I’m the best MP this constituency’s ever had. Don’t take my word for it. Go out and talk to them. Go to a mining village or a farm or a factory or a fucking afternoon tea party. They tell me the same thing: well done, Gregor, keep up the good work.’ He was on his feet again now, feet holding their ground but the rest of the body in motion. ‘Keep up the good work, the hard work. Hard work! It bloody is hard work, I can tell you.’ His voice was rising steadily. ‘Worked my balls off for them! Now somebody’s trying to piss on my whole life from a very high place. Why me? Why me? Liz and me . . . Liz . . .’

  Urquhart tapped twice before putting his head round the door. ‘Everything all right?’

  Jack put on a grotesque mask of a smile. ‘Everything’s fine, Ian. Listening behind the door, are you? Good, wouldn’t want you to miss a word, would we?’

  Urquhart glanced at Rebus. Rebus nodded: everything’s okay in here, really it is. Urquhart retreated and closed the door. Gregor Jack collapsed into the sofa. ‘I’m making such a mess of everything,’ he said, rubbing his face with his hand. ‘Ian’s such a good friend . . .’

  Ah yes, friends.

  ‘I believe,’ said Rebus, ‘that you haven’t just been receiving anonymous calls.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Someone said something about letters, too.’

  ‘Oh . . . oh yes, letters. Crank letters.’

  ‘Do you still have them?’

  Jack shook his head. ‘Not worth keeping.’

  ‘Did you let anyone see them?’

  ‘Not worth reading.’

  ‘What exactly was in them, Mr Jack?’

  ‘Gregor,’ Jack reminded him. ‘Please, call me Gregor. What was in them? Rubbish. Garbled nonsense. Ravings . . .’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Someone told me you’d refuse to let anyone open them. He thought they might be love letters.’

  Jack hooted. ‘Love letters!’

  ‘I don’t think they were either. But it strikes me, how could Ian Urquhart or anyone else know which letters they were to hand to you unopened? The handwriting? Difficult to tell though, isn’t it? No, it had to be the postmark. It had to be what was on the envelope. I’ll tell you where those letters came from, Mr Jack. They came from Duthil. They came from your old friend Andrew Macmillan. And they weren’t raving, were they? They weren’t garbled or nonsense or rubbish. They were asking you to do something about the system in the special hospitals. Isn’t that right?’

  Jack sat and studied his glass, mouth set petulantly, a kid who’s been caught out.

  ‘Isn’t that right?’

  Jack gave a curt nod. Rebus nodded, too. Embarrassing to have a sister who’s a prostitute. But how much more embarrassing to have an old friend who’s a murderer? And mad, to boot. Gregor Jack had worked hard to form his public image, and harder still to preserve it. Rushing around with his vacuously sincere grin and strong-enough-for-the-occasion handshake. Working hard in his constituency, working hard in public. But his private life . . . well, Rebus wouldn’t have wanted to swop. It was a mess. And what made it so messy was that Jack had tried to hide it. He didn’t have skeletons in his closet; he had a crematorium.

  ‘Wanted me to start a campaign,’ Jack was muttering. ‘Couldn’t do that. Why did you start this crusade, Mr Jack? To help an old friend. Which old friend is that, Mr Jack? The one who cut his wife’s head off. Now, if you’ll excuse me. Oh, and please remember to vote for me next time round . . .’ And he began a drunken, wailing laugh, near-manic, near-crying. Finally actually becoming crying, tears streaming down his cheeks, dripping into the glass he still held.

  ‘Gregor,’ Rebus said quietly. He repeated the name, and again, and again, always quietly. Jack sniffed back more tears and looked blurrily towards him. ‘Gregor,’ said Rebus, ‘did you kill your wife?’

  Jack wiped his eyes on his shirt-sleeve, sniffed, wiped again. He began to shake his head.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I didn’t kill my wife.’

  No, because William Glass killed her. He killed the woma
n under Dean Bridge, and he killed Elizabeth Jack.

  Rebus had missed all the excitement. He had driven back into town unaware of it. He had climbed the steps up to Great London Road station without knowing. And he had entered a place of jumpy, jittery clamour. Christ, what did it mean? Was the station definitely staying open? No move to St Leonard’s? Which meant, if he remembered his bet, that he’d set up home with Patience Aitken. But no, it was nothing to do with the station staying open or being reduced to rubble. It was William Glass. A beat constable had come across him sleeping amidst the dustbins behind a supermarket in Barn-ton. He was in custody. He was talking. They were feeding him soup and giving him endless cups of tea and fresh cigarettes, and he was talking.

  ‘But what’s he saying?’

  ‘He’s saying he did them – both of them!’

  ‘He’s saying what?’

  Rebus started calculating. Barnton . . . not so far from Queensferry when you thought about it. They were thinking he’d have headed north or west, but in fact he’d started crawling back into town . . . supposing he’d ever got as far as Queensferry in the first place.

  ‘He’s admitting both murders.’

  ‘Who’s with him?’

  ‘Chief Inspector Lauderdale and Inspector Dick.’

  Lauderdale! Christ, he’d be loving it. This would be the making of him, the final nail in the Chief Super’s coffee-maker. But Rebus had other things to be doing. He wanted Jack’s sister found, for a start. Gail Jack, but she wouldn’t be calling herself that, would she? He went through the Operation Creeper case-notes. Gail Crawley. That was her. She’d been released, of course. And had given a London address. He found one of the officers who’d interviewed her.

  ‘Yes, she said she was heading south. Couldn’t keep her, could we? Didn’t want to either. Just gave her a kick up the arse and told her not to come back up here again. Isn’t it incredible? Catching Glass like that!’

  ‘Incredible, yes,’ said Rebus. He photocopied what notes there were, along with Gail Crawley’s photograph, and scribbled some further notes of his own on to the copy. Then he telephoned an old friend, an old friend in London.