10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Coming, Mrs MacKenzie,’ he called, tearing his gaze away from the school.

  2

  On Monday morning word went around St Leonard’s police station that Inspector John Rebus was in an impressively worse mood than usual. Some found this hard to believe, and were almost willing to get close enough to Rebus to find out for themselves . . . almost.

  Others had no choice.

  DS Brian Holmes and DC Siobhan Clarke, seated with Rebus in their sectioned-off chunk of the CID room, had the look of people who were resting their backsides on soft-boiled eggs.

  ‘So,’ Rebus was saying, ‘what about Rory Kintoul?’

  ‘He’s out of hospital, sir,’ said Siobhan Clarke.

  Rebus nodded impatiently. He was waiting for her to put a foot wrong. It wasn’t because she was English, or a graduate, or had wealthy parents who’d bought her a flat in the New Town. It wasn’t because she was a she. It was just Rebus’s way of dealing with young officers.

  ‘And he’s still not talking,’ said Holmes. ‘He won’t say what happened, and he’s certainly not pressing any charges.’

  Brian Holmes looked tired. Rebus noticed this from the corner of his eye. He didn’t want to make eye-contact with Holmes, didn’t want Holmes to realise that they now had something in common.

  Both had been kicked out by their girlfriends.

  It had happened to Holmes just over a month ago. As Holmes revealed later, once he’d moved in with an aunt in Barnton, it was all to do with children. He hadn’t realised how strongly Nell wanted a baby, and had started to joke about it. Then one day, she’d blown up – an awesome sight – and kicked him out, watched by most of the female neighbours in their mining village south of Edinburgh. Apparently the women neighbours had applauded as Holmes scurried off.

  Now, he was working harder than ever. (This also had been a cause of strife between the couple: her hours were fairly regular, his anything but.) He reminded Rebus of a frayed and faded pair of work denims, not far from the end of their life.

  ‘What are you saying?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘I’m saying I think we should drop it, sir, with all respect.’

  ‘“With all respect”, Brian? That’s what people say when they mean “you fucking idiot”.’ Rebus still wasn’t looking at Holmes, but he could feel the young man blushing. Clarke was looking down at her lap.

  ‘Listen,’ said Rebus, ‘this guy, he staggers a couple of hundred yards with a two-inch gash in his gut. Why?’ No answer was forthcoming. ‘Why,’ Rebus persisted, ‘does he walk past a dozen shops, only stopping at his cousin’s?’

  ‘Maybe he was making for a doctor’s, but had to stop,’ Clarke suggested.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Rebus dismissively. ‘Funny that he can make it into his cousin’s shop, though.’

  ‘You think it’s something to do with the cousin, sir?’

  ‘Let me ask the both of you something else.’ Rebus stood up and took a few paces, then retraced his steps, catching Holmes and Clarke exchanging a glance. It set Rebus wondering. At first, there had been sparks between them, sparks of antagonism. But now they were working well together. He just hoped the relationship didn’t go further than that. ‘Let me ask you this,’ he said. ‘What do we know about the victim?’

  ‘Not much,’ said Holmes.

  ‘He lives in Dalkeith,’ Clarke offered. ‘Works as a lab technician in the Infirmary. Married, one son.’ She shrugged.

  ‘That’s it?’ asked Rebus.

  ‘That’s it, sir.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Rebus. ‘He’s nobody, a nothing. Not one person we’ve talked to has had a bad word to say about him. So tell me this: how did he end up getting stabbed? And in the middle of a Wednesday morning? If it had been a mugger, surely he’d tell us about it. As it is, he’s clammed up as tight as an Aberdonian’s purse at a church collection. He’s got something to hide. Christ knows what, but it involves a car.’

  ‘How do you work that out, sir?’

  ‘The blood starts at the kerb, Holmes. Looks to me like he got out of a car and at that point he was already wounded.’

  ‘He drives, sir, but doesn’t own a car at present.’

  ‘Smart girl, Clarke.’ She prickled at ‘girl’, but Rebus was talking again. ‘And he’d taken a half day off work without telling his wife.’ He sat down again. ‘Why, why, why? I want the two of you to have another go at him. Tell him we’re not happy with his lack of a story. If he can’t think of one, we’ll pester him till he does. Let him know we mean business.’ Rebus paused. ‘And after that, do a check on the butcher.’

  ‘Chop chop, sir,’ commented Holmes. He was saved by the phone ringing. Rebus picked up the receiver. Maybe it would be Patience.

  ‘DI Rebus.’

  ‘John, can you come to my office?’

  It wasn’t Patience, it was the Chief Super. ‘Two minutes, sir,’ said Rebus, putting down the phone. Then, to Holmes and Clarke: ‘Get onto it.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You think I’m making too much of this, Brian?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, maybe I am. But I don’t like a mystery, no matter how small. So bugger off and satisfy my curiosity.’

  As they rose, Holmes nodded towards the large suitcase which Rebus had placed behind his desk, supposedly out of view. ‘Something I should know about?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rebus. ‘It’s where I keep all my graft payments. Yours still probably fit in your back pooch.’ Holmes didn’t look like budging, though Clarke had already retreated to her own desk. Rebus expelled air and lowered his voice. ‘I’ve just joined the ranks of the dispossessed.’ Holmes’ face became animated. ‘Not a bloody word, mind. This is between you and me.’

  ‘Understood.’ Holmes thought of something. ‘You know, most evenings I eat at the Heartbreak Cafe . . .’

  ‘I’ll know where to find you then, if I ever need to hear any early Elvis.’

  Holmes nodded. ‘And Vegas Elvis too. All I mean is, if there’s anything I can do . . .’

  ‘You could start by disguising yourself as me and trotting along to see Farmer Watson.’

  But Holmes was shaking his head. ‘I meant anything within reason.’

  Within reason. Rebus wondered if it was within reason to be asking the students to put up with him sleeping on the sofa while his brother slept in the box room. Maybe he should offer to lower the rent. When he’d arrived at the flat unannounced on Friday night, three of the students and Michael had been sitting cross-legged on the floor rolling joints and listening to mid-period Rolling Stones. Rebus stared in horror at the cigarette papers in Michael’s hand.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Mickey!’ So at last Michael Rebus had elicited a reaction from his big brother. The students at least had the grace to look like the criminals they were. ‘You’re lucky,’ Rebus told them all, ‘that at this exact second I don’t give a shit.’

  ‘Go on, John,’ said Michael, offering a half-smoked cigarette. ‘It can’t do any harm.’

  ‘That’s what I mean.’ Rebus drew a bottle of whisky out of the carrier-bag he was holding. ‘But this can.’

  He had proceeded to spend the final hours of the evening sprawled across the sofa supping whisky and singing along to any old record that was put on the turntable. He’d spent much of the weekend in the same spot, too. The students hadn’t seemed to mind, though he’d made them put away the drugs for the duration. They cleaned the flat around him, with Michael pitching in, and everyone trooped out to the pub on Saturday night leaving Rebus with the TV and some cans of beer. It didn’t look as though Michael had told the students about his prison record; Rebus hoped he’d keep it that way. Michael had offered to move out, or at least give his brother the box room, but Rebus refused. He wasn’t sure why.

  On Sunday he went to Oxford Terrace, but there didn’t seem to be anyone home, and his key still wouldn’t open the door. So either the lock had been changed or Patience was hiding in there somewhere, going throu
gh her own version of cold turkey with the kids for company.

  Now he stood outside Farmer Watson’s door and looked down at himself. Sure enough, when he’d gone to Oxford Terrace this morning Patience had left a suitcase of stuff for him outside the door. No note, just the case. He’d changed into the clean suit in the police station toilets. It was a bit crumpled but no more so than anything he usually wore. He hadn’t a tie to match, though: Patience had included two horrible brown ties (were they really his?) along with the dark blue suit. Brown ties don’t make it. He knocked once on the door before opening it.

  ‘Come in, John, come in.’ It seemed to Rebus that the Farmer too was having trouble making St Leonard’s fit his ways. The place just didn’t feel right. ‘Take a seat.’ Rebus looked around for a chair. There was one beside the wall, loaded high with files. He lifted these off and tried to find space for them on the floor. If anything, the Chief Super had less space in his office than Rebus himself. ‘Still waiting for those bloody filing cabinets,’ he admitted. Rebus swung the chair over to the desk and sat down.

  ‘What’s up, sir?’

  ‘How are things?’

  ‘Things?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Things are fine, sir.’ Rebus wondered if the Farmer knew about Patience. Surely not.

  ‘DC Clarke getting on all right, is she?’

  ‘I’ve no complaints.’

  ‘Good. We’ve got a bit of a job coming up, joint operation with Trading Standards.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Chief Inspector Lauderdale will fill in the details, but I wanted to sound you out first, check how things are going.’

  ‘What sort of joint operation?’

  ‘Money lending,’ said Watson. ‘I forgot to ask, do you want coffee?’ Rebus shook his head and watched as Watson bent over in his chair. There being so little space in the room, he’d taken to keeping his coffee-maker on the floor behind his desk, where twice so far to Rebus’s knowledge he’d spilt it all across the new beige carpet. When Watson sat up again, he held in his meaty fist a cup of the devil’s own drink. The Chief Super’s coffee was a minor legend in Edinburgh.

  ‘Money lending with some protection on the side,’ Watson corrected. ‘But mostly money lending.’

  The same old sad story, in other words. People who wouldn’t stand a chance in any bank, and with nothing worth pawning, could still borrow money, no matter how bad a risk. The problem was, of course, that the interest ran into the hundreds per cent and arrears could soon mount, bringing more prohibitive interest. It was the most vicious circle of all, vicious because at the end of it all lay intimidation, beatings and worse.

  Suddenly, Rebus knew why the Chief Super had wanted this little chat. ‘It’s not Big Ger, is it?’ he asked.

  Watson nodded. ‘In a way,’ he said.

  Rebus sprang to his feet. ‘This’ll be the fourth time in as many years! He always gets off. You know that, I know that!’ Normally, he would have recited this on the move, but there was no floorspace worth the name, so he just stood there like a Sunday ranter at the foot of The Mound. ‘It’s a waste of time trying to pin him on money lending. I thought we’d been through all this a dozen times and decided it was useless going after him without trying another tack.’

  ‘I know, John, I know, but the Trading Standards people are worried. The problem seems bigger than they thought.’

  ‘Bloody Trading Standards.’

  ‘Now, John . . .’

  ‘But,’ Rebus paused, ‘with respect, sir, it’s a complete waste of time and manpower. There’ll be a surveillance, we’ll take a few photos, we’ll arrest a couple of the poor saps who act as runners, and nobody’ll testify. If the Procurator Fiscal wants Big Ger nailed, then they should give us the resources so we can mount a decent size of operation.’

  The problem, of course, was that nobody wanted to nail Morris Gerald Cafferty (known to all as Big Ger) as badly as John Rebus did. He wanted a full scale crucifixion. He wanted to be holding the spear, giving one last poke just to make sure the bastard really was dead. Cafferty was scum, but clever scum. There were always flunkies around to go to jail on his behalf. Because Rebus had failed so often to put the man away, he would rather not think of him at all. Now the Farmer was telling him that there was to be an ‘operation’. That would mean long days and nights of surveillance, a lot of paperwork, and the arrests of a few pimply apprentice hardmen at the end of it all.

  ‘John,’ said Watson, summoning his powers of character analysis, ‘I know how you feel. But let’s give it one more shot, eh?’

  ‘I know the kind of shot I’d take at Cafferty given half a chance.’ Rebus turned his fist into a gun and mimed the recoil.

  Watson smiled. ‘Then it’s lucky we won’t be issuing firearms, isn’t it?’

  After a moment, Rebus smiled too. He sat down again. ‘Go on then, sir,’ he said, ‘I’m listening.’

  At eleven o’clock that evening, Rebus was watching TV in the flat. As usual, there was no one else about. They were either still studying in the University library, or else down at the pub. Since Michael wasn’t around either, the pub seemed an odds-on bet. He knew the students were wary, expecting him to kick at least one of them out so he could claim a bedroom. They moved around the flat like eviction notices.

  He’d phoned Patience three times, getting the answering machine on each occasion and telling it that he knew she was there and why didn’t she pick up the phone?

  As a result, the phone was on the floor beside the sofa, and when it rang he dangled an arm, picked up the receiver, and held it to his ear.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘John?’

  Rebus sat up fast. ‘Patience, thank Christ you –’

  ‘Listen, this is important.’

  ‘I know it is. I know I was stupid, but you’ve got to believe –’

  ‘Just listen, will you!’ Rebus shut up and listened. He would do whatever she told him, no question. ‘They thought you’d be here, so someone from the station just phoned. It’s Brian Holmes.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘No, they were phoning about him.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s been in some sort of . . . I don’t know. Anyway, he’s hurt.’

  Still holding the receiver, Rebus stood up, hauling the whole apparatus off the floor with him. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Somewhere in Haymarket, some bar . . .’

  ‘The Heartbreak Cafe?’

  ‘That’s it. And listen, John?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We will talk. But not yet. Just give me time.’

  ‘Whatever you say, Patience. Bye.’ John Rebus dropped the phone from his hand and grabbed his jacket.

  Rebus was parking outside the Heartbreak Cafe barely seven minutes later. That was the beauty of Edinburgh when you could avoid traffic lights. The Heartbreak Cafe had been opened just over a year before by a chef who also happened to be an Elvis Presley fan. He had used some of his extensive memorabilia to decorate the interior, and his cooking skills to come up with a menu which was almost worth a visit even if, like Rebus, you’d never liked Elvis. Holmes had raved about the place since its opening, drooling for hours over the dessert called Blue Suede Choux. The Cafe operated as a bar too, with garish cocktails and 1950s music, plus bottled American beers whose prices would have caused convulsions in the Broadsword pub. Rebus got the idea that Holmes had become friends with the owner; certainly, he’d been spending a lot of time there since the split from Nell, and had put on a fair few pounds as a result.

  From the outside, the place looked nothing special: pale cement front wall with a narrow rectangular window in the middle, most of which was filled with neon signs advertising beers. And above this a larger neon sign flashing the name of the restaurant. The action wasn’t here, however. Holmes had been set on around the back of the place. A narrow alley, just about able to accommodate the width of a Ford Cortina, led to the patrons’ car park. This w
as small by any restaurant’s standards, and was also where the overflowing refuse bins were kept. Most clients, Rebus guessed, would park on the street out front. Holmes only parked back here because he spent so much time in the bar, and because his car had once been scratched when he’d left it out front.

  There were two cars in the car park. One was Holmes’, and the other almost certainly belonged to the owner of the Heartbreak Cafe. It was an old Ford Capri with a painting of Elvis on its bonnet. Brian Holmes lay between the two cars. So far no one had moved him. He would be moved soon, though, after the doctor had finished his examination. One of the officers present recognised Rebus and came over.

  ‘Nasty blow to the back of the head. He’s been out cold for at least twenty minutes. That’s how long ago he was found. The owner of the place – that’s who found him – recognised him and called in. Could be a fractured skull.’

  Rebus nodded, saying nothing, his eyes on the prone figure of his colleague. The other detective was still talking, going on about how Holmes’ breathing was regular, the usual reassurances. Rebus walked towards the body, standing over the kneeling doctor. The doctor didn’t even glance up, but ordered a uniformed constable, who was holding a flashlight over Brian Holmes, to move it a bit to the left. He then started examining that section of Holmes’ skull.

  Rebus couldn’t see any blood, but that didn’t mean much. People died all the time without losing any blood over it. Christ, Brian looked so at peace. It was almost like staring into a casket. He turned to the detective.