10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  Lauderdale thought about it.

  ‘Just till they finish the car,’ Rebus pressed. He wasn’t about to give up: Monday mornings were hell for Lauderdale, and the man would agree to just about anything if it meant getting Rebus out of his office.

  ‘All right, John,’ Lauderdale said, ‘have it your way. But don’t get bogged down in it. Remember, I’ll keep an open mind if you will. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  Lauderdale seemed to relax a little. ‘Have you seen the Chief Superintendent this morning?’ Rebus had not. ‘I’m not even sure he’s in yet. Maybe he had a heavy weekend, eh?’

  ‘None of our business really, sir.’

  Lauderdale stared at him. ‘Of course, none of our business. But if the Chief Super’s personal problems start interfering with his –’

  The phone rang. Lauderdale picked up the receiver. ‘Yes?’ He straightened suddenly in his chair. ‘Yes, sir. Was I, sir?’ He flipped open his desk diary. ‘Oh yes, ten.’ He checked his watch. ‘Well, I’ll be there right away. Yes, sir, sorry about that.’ He had the good grace to blush as he put down the receiver.

  ‘The Chief Super?’ guessed Rebus. Lauderdale nodded.

  ‘I was supposed to be in a meeting with him five minutes ago. Forgot all about the bloody thing.’ Lauderdale got to his feet. ‘Plenty to keep you occupied, John?’

  ‘Plenty. I believe DS Holmes has some cars for me to look at.’

  ‘Oh? Thinking of getting rid of that wreck of yours? About time, eh?’

  And, this being his idea of wit, Lauderdale actually laughed.

  Brian Holmes had cars for him, cars aplenty. Well actually, a Detective Constable seemed to have done the work. Holmes, it appeared, was already learning to delegate. A list of the cars owned and run by friends of the Jacks. Make, registration, and colour. Rebus glanced down it quickly. Oh great, the only possessor of a colour blue was Alice Blake (The Pack’s Sexton Blake), but she lived and worked in London. There were whites, reds, blacks, and a green. Yes, Ronald Steele drove a green Citroën BX. Rebus had seen it parked outside Gregor Jack’s house the night Holmes had gone through the bins . . . Green? Well, yes, green. He remembered it more as a greeny-blue, a bluey-green. Keep an open mind. Okay, it was green. But it was easier to mistake green for blue than, say, red for blue, or white, or black. Wasn’t it?

  Then there was the question of that particular Wednesday. Everyone had been asked: where were you that morning, that afternoon? Some of the answers were vaguer than others. In fact, Gregor Jack’s alibis were more watertight than most. Steele, for example, had been uncertain about the morning. His assistant, Vanessa, had been off work that day, and Steele himself couldn’t recall whether or not he’d gone into the shop. There was nothing in his diary to help him remember either. Jamie Kilpatrick had been sleeping off a hangover all day – no visitors, no phone calls – while Julian Kaymer had been ‘creating’ in his studio. Rab Kinnoul, too, was hesitant; he recalled meetings, but not necessarily the people he’d met. He could check, but it would take time . . .

  Time, the one thing Rebus didn’t have. He, too, needed all the friends he could get. So far, he’d ruled out two suspects: Tom Pond, who was abroad, and Andrew Macmillan, who was in Duthil. Pond was a nuisance. He wasn’t back from the States yet. He had been questioned by telephone of course, and he knew all about the tragedy, but he had yet to be fingerprinted.

  Anyone who might have been at Deer Lodge had been, or was being, or would be, fingerprinted. Just, so they were reassured, for processes of elimination. Just in case there were any fingerprints left in the lodge, any that couldn’t be accounted for. It was painstaking work, this collection and collation of tiny facts and tiny figures. But it was how murder cases worked. Mind you, they worked more easily when there was a distinct scene of crime, a locus. Rebus wasn’t in much doubt that Elizabeth Jack had been killed, or as good as, in the lay-by. Had Alec Corbie seen something, something he was holding back? Was there something he might know, without knowing he knew? Maybe something he didn’t think was important. What if Liz Jack had said something to Andrew Macmillan, something he didn’t realize might be a clue? Christ, Macmillan still didn’t know she was dead. How would he react were Rebus to tell him? Maybe it would jog his memory. Then again, maybe it would have an altogether different effect. And besides, could anything he said be trusted? Wasn’t it possible that he held a grudge against Gregor Jack, the way Gail Crawley did? The way others might, too . . .

  Who, really, was Gregor Jack? Was he merely a tarnished saint, or was he a bastard? He’d ignored Macmillan’s letters; he’d tried to keep his sister from disgracing him; he was embarrassed by his wife. Were his friends really friends? Or were they truly a ‘pack’? Wolves ran in packs. Hounds ran in packs. And so did newshounds. Rebus remembered that he’d still to track down Chris Kemp. Maybe he was clutching at straws, but it felt more as if they were clutching at him . . .

  And speaking of clutch, that was something else to be added to his car’s list of woes. There was a worrying whirring and grinding as he pushed the gear-shift from neutral into first. But the car wasn’t behaving badly (windscreen wipers aside – they’d begun sticking again). It had taken him north and back without so much as a splutter. All of which worried Rebus even more. It was like a terminal patient’s final rally, that last gleam of life before the support machines took over.

  Maybe next time he’d take the bus. After all, Chris Kemp’s flat was only a quarter of an hour from Great London Road. The harassed-sounding woman on the news desk had given him the address as soon as he asked for it. And he had asked for it only when told that Kemp was on his day off. She’d given him the reporter’s home phone number first, and, recognizing the first three digits as designating a local code, Rebus had asked for the address.

  ‘You could just as easily have looked in the book,’ she’d said before ringing off.

  ‘Thank you, too,’ he answered to the dead connection.

  It was a second-floor flat. He pressed the intercom button beside the main door of the tenement, and waited. And waited. Should have phoned first, John. But then a crackle, and after the crackle: ‘Yeah?’ The voice groggy. Rebus glanced at his watch. Quarter to two.

  ‘Didn’t wake you, did I, Chris?’

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘John Rebus. Get your breeks on and I’ll buy you a pie and a pint.’

  A groan. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Nearly two.’

  ‘Christ . . . Never mind the alcohol, I need coffee. There’s a shop at the corner. Fetch some milk, will you? I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘Back in two ticks.’

  The intercom crackled into silence. Rebus went and fetched the milk, then buzzed the intercom again. There was a louder buzz from behind the door, and he pushed it open, entering the dim stairwell. By the time he reached the second floor, he was peching and remembering exactly why he liked living in Patience’s basement. The door to Kemp’s flat was ajar. Another name had been fixed to the door with Sellotape, just below Kemp’s own. V. Christie. The girlfriend, Rebus supposed. A bicycle wheel, missing its tyre, rested against the hall wall. So did books, dozens of them, rickety, towering piles of them. He tiptoed past.

  ‘Milkman!’ he called.

  ‘In here.’

  The living room was at the end of the hall. It was large, but contained almost no space. Kemp, dressed in last week’s t-shirt and the week before’s denims, ran his fingers through his hair.

  ‘Morning, Inspector. A timely alarm call. I’m supposed to be meeting someone at three o’clock.’

  ‘Hint taken. I was just passing and –’

  Kemp threw him a disbelieving glance, then busied himself at the sink, where he was trying his damnedest to get the stains off two mug-rims. The room served as living room and kitchen both. There was a fine old cooking range in the fireplace, but it had become a display case for pot plants and ornamental boxes. The actual cooker was a greasy-looking electrical dev
ice sited just next to the sink. On a dining table sat a word processor, boxes of paper, files, and next to the table stood a green metal filing cabinet, four drawers high, its bottom drawer open to show more files. Books, magazines, and newspapers were stacked on most of the available floor space, but there was room for a sofa, one armchair, TV and video, and a hi-fi.

  ‘Cosy,’ said Rebus. He actually thought he meant it. But Kemp looked around and made a face.

  ‘I’m supposed to be cleaning this place up today.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  Coffee was spooned into the mugs, the milk splashed in after it. The kettle came to the boil and switched itself off, and Kemp poured.

  ‘Sugar?’

  ‘No thanks.’ Rebus had settled on the arm of the sofa, as if to say: don’t worry, I’m not about to linger. He accepted the mug with a nod. Kemp threw himself on to the armchair and gulped at the coffee, screwing up his face as it burned his mouth and throat.

  ‘Christ,’ he gasped.

  ‘Heavy night?’

  ‘Heavy week.’

  Rebus wandered over in the direction of the dining table. ‘It’s a terrible thing, drink.’

  ‘Maybe it is, but I was talking about work.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’ He turned from the table and headed over to the sink . . . the cooker . . . stopping beside the fridge. Kemp had left the carton of milk sitting on top of the fridge, next to the kettle. ‘I’d better put this away,’ he said, lifting the carton. He opened the fridge. ‘Oh, look,’ he said, pointing. ‘There already is milk in the fridge. Looks fresh enough, doesn’t it? I needn’t have bothered going to the shop.’

  He put the new carton of milk in beside the other, slammed shut the door, and returned to the arm of the sofa. Kemp was attempting something like a grin.

  ‘You’re sharp for a Monday.’

  ‘But I can be blunt when I need to. What were you hiding from old Uncle Rebus, Chris? Or did you just need the time to check there was nothing to hide? A bit of blaw? That sort of thing. Or maybe something else, eh? Some story you’re working on . . . working on late into the night. Something I should know about. How about it?’

  ‘Come on, Inspector. I’m the one who’s doing you a favour, remember?’

  ‘You’ll have to refresh my memory.’

  ‘You wanted me to see what I could find about the brothel story, about how the Sundays knew it was breaking.’

  ‘But you never got back to me, Chris.’

  ‘Well, I’ve been pressed for time.’

  ‘You still are. Remember, you’ve got that meeting at three. Better tell me what you know, then I can be on my way.’ Now Rebus slid off the arm and on to the sofa proper. He could feel the springs probing at him through what was left of the patterned covering.

  ‘Well,’ said Kemp, sitting forward in his chair, ‘it looks like there was a kind of mass tip-off. All the papers thought they were getting an exclusive. Then, when they all turned up they knew they’d been had.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, if there was a story, they had to publish. If they didn’t, and their rivals did . . .’

  ‘Editors would be asking questions about how come they got scooped?’

  ‘Exactly. So whoever set the story up was guaranteed maximum exposure.’

  ‘But who did set it up?’

  Kemp shook his head. ‘Nobody knows. It was anonymous. A telephone call on the Thursday to all the news desks. Police are going to raid a brothel in Edinburgh on Friday night . . . here’s the address . . . if you’re there around midnight, you’re guaranteed to bag an MP.’

  ‘The caller said that?’

  ‘Apparently, his exact words were “at least one MP will be inside”.’

  ‘But he didn’t name any names?’

  ‘He didn’t have to. Royalty, MPs, actors and singers – give those papers a sniff of any category and you’ve got them hooked. I’m probably mixing metaphors there, but you get the gist.’

  ‘Oh yes, Chris, I get the gist. So what do you make of it?’

  ‘Looks like Jack was set up to take a fall. But note, his name wasn’t mentioned by the caller.’

  ‘All the same . . .’

  ‘Yes, all the same.’

  Rebus was thinking furiously. If he hadn’t been slouching on the sofa, he might have said he was thinking on his feet. Actually, he was debating with himself. About whether or not to do Gregor Jack a huge favour. Points against: he didn’t owe Jack any favours; besides, he should try to remain objective – wasn’t that what Lauderdale had been getting at? Points for: one really – he wouldn’t just be doing Jack a favour, he might also flush out the rat who’d set Jack up. He made his decision.

  ‘Chris, I want to tell you something . . .’

  Kemp caught the whiff of a story. ‘Attributable?’

  But Rebus shook his head. ‘Afraid not.’

  ‘Accurate then?’

  ‘Oh yes, I can guarantee it’s accurate.’

  ‘Go on, I’m listening.’

  Last chance to bottle out. No, he wasn’t going to bottle out. ‘I can tell you why Gregor Jack was at that brothel.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘But I want to know something first – are you holding something back?’

  Kemp shrugged. ‘I don’t think so.’

  Rebus still didn’t believe him. But then Kemp had no reason to tell Rebus anything. It wasn’t as if Rebus was going to tell him anything that he didn’t want him to know. They sat in silence for half a minute, neither friends nor enemies; more like trench soldiers on a Christmas Day kickabout. At any moment, the sirens might sound and shrapnel pierce the peace. Rebus recalled that he knew one thing Kemp wanted to know: how Ronald Steele got his nickname . . .

  ‘So,’ Kemp said, ‘why was he there?’

  ‘Because someone told him his sister was working there.’

  Kemp pursed his lips.

  ‘Working as a prostitute,’ Rebus explained. ‘Someone phoned him – anonymously – and told him. So he went along.’

  ‘That was stupid.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘And was she there?’

  ‘Yes. She calls herself Gail Crawley.’

  ‘How do you spell that?’

  ‘C-r-a-w-1-e-y.’

  ‘And you’re sure of this?’

  ‘I’m sure. I’ve spoken with her. She’s still in Edinburgh, still working.’

  Kemp kept his voice level, but his eyes were gleaming. ‘You know this is a story?’

  Rebus shrugged, saying nothing.

  ‘You want me to place it?’

  Another shrug.

  ‘Why?’

  Rebus stared at the empty mug in his hands. Why? Because once it was public knowledge, the caller would have failed, at least in his or her own terms. And, having failed, maybe they’d feel compelled to try something else. If they did, Rebus would be ready . . .

  Kemp was nodding. ‘Okay, thanks. I’ll think it over.’

  Rebus nodded too. He was already regretting the decision to tell Kemp. The man was a reporter, and one with a reputation to make. There was no way of knowing what he’d do with the story. It could be twisted to make Jack sound like Samaritan or slime . . .

  ‘Meantime,’ Kemp was saying, rising from his chair, ‘I better take a bath if I’m going to make that meeting . . .

  ‘Right.’ Rebus rose, too, and placed his mug in the sink. ‘Thanks for the coffee.’

  ‘Thanks for the milk.’

  The bathroom was on the way to the front door. Rebus made show of looking at his watch. ‘Go get into your bath,’ he said. ‘I’ll let myself out.’

  ‘Bye then.’

  ‘See you, Chris.’ He walked to the door, checking that his weight on the floorboards did not make them creak, then glanced round and saw that Kemp had disappeared into the bathroom. Water started splashing. Gently, Rebus turned the snib and locked it at the off position. Then he opened the door and slammed it noisily behind him. He stood in t
he stairwell, pulling the door by its handle so that it couldn’t swing back open. There was a spy-hole, but he kept himself tucked in against the wall. Anyway, if Kemp came to the door he’d notice the snib was off . . . A minute passed. Nobody came to the door. More fortuitously, perhaps, nobody came into the stairwell. He didn’t fancy explaining what he was doing standing there holding on to a door handle. . .

  After two minutes, he crouched down and opened the letter box, peering in. The bathroom door was slightly ajar. The water was still running, but he could hear Kemp humming, then a-ha-hee-ha-ing as he got into the bath. The water continued to run, giving the noise-cover he needed. He opened the door quietly, slipped back indoors, and closed it, jamming it shut with a hardback book from the top of one of the stacks. The remaining books looked as though they might topple, but they steadied again. Rebus exhaled and crept along the corridor, past the door. Taps pouring . . . Kemp still humming. This part was easy; getting back out would be the hard part, if he had nothing to show for the deception.

  He crossed the living room and studied the desk. The files gave nothing away. No sign of the ‘big story’ Kemp was working on. The computer disks were marked numerically – no clues there. Nothing interesting in the open drawer of the filing cabinet. He turned back to the desk. No scribbled sheets of notes had been tucked beneath other, blank sheets. He flipped through the pile of LPs beside the stereo, but no sheets had been hidden there either. Under the sofa . . . no. Cupboards . . . drawers . . . no. Bugger it. He went to the great iron range. Tucked away at the back, behind three or four pot plants, sat an ugly-looking trophy, Kemp’s Young Journalist of the Year Prize. Along the front of the range sat the row of ornamental boxes. He opened one. It contained a CND badge and a pair of ANC earrings. In another box was a ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ badge and a ring which looked to be carved out of ivory. The girlfriend’s stuff, obviously. And in the third box . . . a tiny cellophane package of dope. He smiled. Hardly enough to run someone in for, half a quarter at most. Was this what Kemp had been so eager to conceal? Well, Rebus supposed a conviction wouldn’t do the ‘campaigning journalist’ tag much good. Difficult to chastise public figures for their small vices when you’d been done for possession.