10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Not guilty, of course.’ Big Ger grinned. He looked like he’d had his teeth seen to as well. Rebus remembered them being greyish-green. Now they were a brilliantly capped white. And his hair . . . was it thicker? One of those hair-weaves, maybe? ‘Anyway, I heard afterwards you went back down to London and had a bit of a time.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  They ran another minute in silence. The pace wasn’t exactly taxing, but then neither was Rebus in condition. His lungs were already passing him warnings of the red hot and burning varieties.

  ‘You’re getting thin at the back,’ Cafferty noticed. ‘A hair weave would sort that out.’

  It was Rebus’s turn to smile. ‘You know damned fine I got burned.’

  ‘Aye, and I know who burned you, too.’

  Still, Rebus reckoned his own guess about the hair weave had been confirmed.

  ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I wanted to talk to you about another fire.’

  ‘Oh aye?’

  ‘At the Central.’

  ‘The Central Hotel?’ Rebus was pleased to notice that the words weren’t coming so easily from Big Ger either now. ‘That’s prehistory.’

  ‘Not as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘But what’s it to do with me?’

  ‘Two of your men were there that night, playing in a poker game.’

  Cafferty shook his head. ‘That can’t be right. I won’t have gamblers working for me. It’s against the Bible.’

  ‘Everything you do from waking till sleeping is against somebody’s Bible, Cafferty.’

  ‘Please, Strawman, call me Mr Cafferty.’

  ‘I’ll call you what I like.’

  ‘And I’ll call you the Strawman.’

  The name jarred . . . every time. It had been at the Glasgow trial, a sheet of notes wrongly glanced at by the prosecution, mistaking Rebus for the only other witness, a pub landlord called Stroman.

  ‘Now then, Inspector Stroman . . .’ Oh, Cafferty had laughed at that, laughed from the dock so hard that he was in danger of contempt. His eyes had bored into Rebus like fat woodworm, and he’d mouthed the word one final time the way he’d heard it – Strawman.

  ‘Like I say,’ Rebus went on, ‘two of your hired heid-the-ba’s. Eck and Tam Robertson.’

  They had just passed the Sheep’s Heid pub, Rebus sorely tempted to veer inside, Cafferty knowing it.

  ‘There’ll be herbal tea when we get back. Watch out there!’ His warning saved Rebus from stepping in a discreet dog turd.

  ‘Thanks,’ Rebus said grudgingly.

  ‘I was thinking of the shoes,’ Cafferty replied. ‘Know what “flowers of Edinburgh” are?’

  ‘A rock band?’

  ‘Keech. They used to chuck all their keech out of the windows and onto the street. There was so much of it lying around, the locals called it the flowers of Edinburgh. I read that in a book.’

  Rebus thought of Alister Flower and smiled. ‘Makes you glad you’re living in a decent society.’

  ‘So it does,’ said Cafferty, with no trace of irony. ‘Eck and Tam Robertson, eh? The Bru-Heid Brothers. I won’t lie to you, they used to work for me. Tam for just a few weeks, Eck for longer.’

  ‘I won’t ask what they did.’

  Cafferty shrugged. ‘They were general employees.’

  ‘Covers a multitude of sins.’

  ‘Look, I didn’t ask you to come out here. But now that you are, I’m answering your questions, all right?’

  ‘I appreciate it, really. You say you didn’t know they were at the Central that night?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know what happened to them afterwards?’

  ‘They stopped working for me. Not at the same time, Tam left first, I think. Tam then Eck. Tam was a dun-derheid, Strawman, a real loser. I can’t abide losers. I only hired him because Eck asked me to. Eck was a good worker.’ He seemed lost in thought for a minute. ‘You’re looking for them?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t help.’ Rebus wondered if Cafferty’s cheeks were half as red as his felt. He had a piercing stitch in his side, and didn’t know how he was going to make the run back. ‘You think they had something to do with the body?’

  Rebus merely nodded.

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘I’m not sure. But if they did have something to do with it, I’m willing to bet you weren’t a hundred miles behind.’

  ‘Me?’ Cafferty laughed again, but the laugh was strained. ‘As I recall, I was on holiday in Malta with some friends.’

  ‘You always seem to be with friends when anything happens.’

  ‘I’m a gregarious man, I can’t help it if I’m popular. Know something else I read about Scotland? The Pope called it “the arse of Europe”.’ Cafferty slowed to a stop. They’d come to near the top of Duddingston Loch, the city just visible down below them. ‘Hard to believe, isn’t it? The arse of Europe, it doesn’t look like one to me.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Rebus, bent over with hands on knees. ‘If this is the arse . . .’ he looked up, ‘I’d know where to stick the enema.’

  Cafferty’s laughter roared out all around. He was breathing deeply, trying to slow things down. When he spoke, it was in an undertone, though there was no one around to hear them. ‘But we’re a cruel people, Strawman. All of us, you and me. And we’re ghouls.’ His face was very close to Rebus’s, both of them bent over. Rebus kept his eyes on the grass below him. ‘When they killed the grave-robber Burke, they made souvenirs from his skin. I’ve got one in the house, I’ll show it to you.’ The voice might have been inside Rebus’s own head. ‘We like to watch, and that’s the truth. I bet even you’ve got a taste for pain, Strawman. You’re hurting all over, but you ran with me, you didn’t give up. Why? Because you like the pain. It’s what makes you a Calvinist.’

  ‘It’s what makes you a public menace.’

  ‘Me? A simple businessman who has managed to survive this disease called recession.’

  ‘No, you’re more than that,’ said Rebus, straightening up. ‘You’re the disease.’

  Cafferty looked like he might throw a punch, but instead he pounded Rebus on the back. ‘Come on, time to go.’

  Rebus was about to plead another minute’s rest, but saw Cafferty walking to the Jag. ‘What?’ Cafferty said. ‘You think I’d run it both ways? Come on now, your herbal tea is waiting.’

  And herbal tea it was, served up poolside after Rebus had showered and changed back into his clothes. He had the feeling someone had been through his wallet and diary in his absence, but knew they wouldn’t have found much there. For one thing, he’d tucked his ID and credit cards into the front of his running shorts; for another, he’d about as much cash as would buy an evening paper and a packet of mints.

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t be more help,’ said Cafferty after Rebus had sat himself down.

  ‘You could if you tried,’ Rebus replied. He was trying to stop his legs from shaking. They hadn’t had this much exercise since the last time he’d flitted.

  Cafferty just shrugged. He was now wearing baggy and wildly coloured swimming trunks, and had just had a dip. As he dried himself off, he showed enough anal cleavage to qualify as a construction worker.

  The devil dog meantime sat by the pool licking its chops. Of the bone it had been chewing, there was not the slightest trace. Rebus suddenly placed the dog.

  ‘Do you own a 4x4?’ Cafferty nodded. ‘I saw it parked across from Bone’s the Butcher on South Clerk Street. This mutt was in the back.’

  Cafferty shrugged. ‘It’s my wife’s car.’

  ‘And she often takes the dog into town?’

  ‘She gets Kaiser’s bones there. Besides, he’s cheaper than a car alarm.’ Cafferty smiled fondly at the dog. ‘And I’ve never known anyone bypass him.’

  ‘Maybe sausages would do it.’ But this was lost on Cafferty. Rebus decided he was getting nowhere. It was time
to try one final tactic. He finished the brew. It tasted like spearmint chewing gum. ‘A colleague of mine was trying to track down the Robertson brothers. Someone put him in hospital.’

  ‘Really?’ Cafferty looked genuinely surprised. ‘What happened?’

  ‘He was attacked behind a restaurant called the Heartbreak Cafe.’

  ‘Dear me. Did he find them, Tam and Eck?’

  ‘If he’d found them, I wouldn’t have had to come here.’

  ‘I thought maybe it was just an excuse for a blether about the good old days.’

  ‘What good old days?’

  ‘True enough, you look about as bad as ever. Not me, though. My wild days are behind me.’ He sipped his tea to prove the point. ‘I’m a changed man.’

  Rebus nearly laughed. ‘You tell that line so often in court, you’re beginning to believe it.’

  ‘No, it’s true.’

  ‘Then you wouldn’t be trying to put the frighteners on me?’

  Cafferty shook his head. He was crouching beside the dog, rubbing its head briskly. ‘Oh no, Strawman, the day’s long past when I’d take a set of six-inch carpentry nails and fix you to the floorboards in some derelict house. Or tickle your tonsils with jump-leads connected to a generator.’ He was warming to his subject, looking almost as ready to pounce as his dog.

  Rebus stayed nonchalant. Indeed, he had one to add to the list. ‘Or hang me over the Forth Rail Bridge?’ There was silence, except for the hum of the Jacuzzi and the snuffling of the dog. Then the door swung open and a woman’s head smiled heedlessly towards them.

  ‘Morris, dinner in ten minutes.’

  ‘Thanks, Mo.’

  The door closed again, and Cafferty got up. So did the dog. ‘Well, Strawman, it’s been lovely chatting away like this, but I better take a shower before I eat. Mo’s always complaining I smell like chlorine. I keep telling her, we wouldn’t have to put chlorine in the pool if the visitors didn’t piss in it, but she blames Kaiser!’

  ‘She’s your . . . er . . .?’

  ‘My wife. As of four years and three months.’

  Rebus was nodding. He knew Cafferty was married, of course. He’d just forgotten the name of the lucky bride.

  ‘She’s the one who’s changed me if anyone has,’ Cafferty was saying. ‘She makes me read all these books.’

  Rebus knew the Nazis had read books too. ‘Just one thing, Cafferty.’

  ‘Mr Cafferty. Go on, indulge me.’

  Rebus swallowed hard. ‘Mr Cafferty. What’s your wife’s maiden name?’

  ‘Morag,’ said Cafferty, puzzled by the question. ‘Morag Johnson.’ Then he padded away towards the shower, kicking off his trunks, mooning mightily at Rebus as he did so.

  Morag Johnson. Yes, of course. Rebus would bet that not many people tried the ‘Mo Johnson’ gag in front of Big Ger. But that’s where he’d heard the name before. The woman into whose flat Aengus Gibson had trespassed had soon afterwards married Big Ger Cafferty. So soon after, in fact, that they must have been going out together at the time the break-in had occurred.

  Rebus had his link between Aengus Gibson, the Bru-Head Brothers and Big Ger.

  Now all he had to do was figure out what the hell it meant.

  He rose from his chair, eliciting a low growl from the devil dog. Slowly and quietly he made for the door, knowing all Big Ger had to do was call from the shower, and Kaiser would be on Rebus faster than piss on a lamp post. As he made his exit, he was remembering those scenarios for his painful execution, so lovingly described by Big Ger.

  John Rebus was once again grateful he didn’t yet have the gun.

  But there was something else. The way Big Ger had seemed surprised when told about Holmes. As if he really hadn’t known about it. Added to which how keen he’d been to find out if Holmes had had any success tracking down Tam and Eck Roberston.

  Rebus drove away with more mysteries than answers. But one question he was sure had been answered: Cafferty had been behind Michael’s abduction. He was certain of it now.

  21

  ‘You can’t have,’ said Siobhan Clarke.

  ‘And yet I have,’ said Peter Petrie. He had run out of film. Plenty of spare batteries. Of batteries there were plenty. But film was there none. It was first thing Thursday morning, and the last thing Clarke needed. ‘So you’d better go and fetch some pronto.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because I am in pain.’ This was true. He was on painkillers for his nose, and had complained about nothing else all day yesterday. So much so that the maddening Madden had lost all sense of good fun and bad puns and had told Petrie to ‘shut the fuck up’. Now they weren’t talking. Siobhan wondered if it was a good idea to leave them alone.

  ‘It’s special film,’ Petrie was telling her. He rummaged in the camera case and came out with an empty film-box, the flap of which he tore off and handed to her. ‘This is the stuff.’

  ‘This,’ she said to him, grabbing the scrap of card, ‘is a pain in the arse.’

  ‘Try Pyle’s,’ said Madden.

  She turned on him. ‘Are you being funny?’

  ‘It’s the name of a camera shop on Morrison Street.’

  ‘That’s miles away!’

  ‘Take your car,’ Petrie suggested.

  Siobhan grabbed her bag. ‘Stuff that, I’ll find somewhere before Morrison Street.’

  However, after ten filmless minutes she began to realise that there was no great demand for special high-speed film in Gorgie Road. It wasn’t as if you needed high-speed to take a photo of Hearts in action. She consoled herself with this thought and resigned herself to the walk to Morrison Street. Maybe she could catch a bus back.

  She saw that she was nearing the Heartbreak Cafe, and crossed the road to look at it. It had looked closed yesterday when she drove past, and there was a sign in the window. She read now that the place was closed ‘due to convalescence’. Strange, though, the door was open a couple of inches. And was there a funny smell, a smell like gas? She pushed the door open and peered in.

  ‘Hello?’

  Yes, definitely gas, and there was no one around. A woman on the street stopped to watch.

  ‘Awfy smell o’ gas, hen.’

  Siobhan nodded and walked into the Heartbreak Cafe.

  Without its lights on, and with little natural light, the place was all darkness and shadows. But the last thing she planned to do was flick an electric switch. She could see chinks of light through the kitchen door, and made towards it. Yes, there were windows in the kitchen, and the smell was much stronger here. She could hear the unmistakable hiss of escaping gas. With a hankie stuffed to her nose, she made for the emergency exit, and pushed at the bar which should release it. But the thing was sticking, or else . . . She gave a mighty heave and the door grunted open an inch. Dustbins were being stored right against it on the outside. Fresh air started trickling in, the welcome smells of traffic exhaust and beer hops.

  Now she had to find whichever cooker had been left on. Only as she turned did she see the legs and body which were lying on the floor, the head hidden inside a huge oven. She walked over and turned off the gas, then peered down. The body lay on its side, dressed in black and white check trousers and a white chef’s jacket. She didn’t recognise the man from his face, but the elaborately stitched name on his left breast made identification easy.

  It was Eddie Ringan.

  The place was still choking with gas, so she walked back to the emergency door and gave it another heave. This time it opened most of the way, scattering clanking dustbins onto the ground outside. It was then that a curious passer-by pushed open the door from the restaurant to the kitchen. His hand went to the light-switch.

  ‘Don’t touch tha –!’

  There was a tremendous blast and fireball. The shock sent Siobhan Clarke flying backwards into the parking lot, where her landing was softened by the rubbish she’d scattered only seconds earlier. She didn’t even suffer the same minor burns as the hapless passer-by, wh
o went crashing back into the restaurant pursued by a blue ball of flame. But Eddie Ringan, well, he looked like he’d been done to a turn inside an oven which wasn’t even hot.

  By the time Rebus got there, aching after last night’s exertions, the scene was one of immaculate chaos. Pat Calder had arrived in time to see his lover being carted away in a blue plastic bag. The bag was deemed necessary to stop bits of charred face breaking off and messing up the floor. The bagging itself had been overseen by a police doctor, but Rebus knew where Eddie would eventually end up: under the all-seeing scalpel of Dr Curt.

  ‘All right, Clarke?’

  Rebus affected the usual inspectorial nonchalance, hands in pockets and an air of having seen it all before.

  ‘Apart from my coccyx, sir.’ And she gave the bone a rub for luck.

  ‘What happened?’

  So she filled in the details, all the way from having no film (yes, why not drop Petrie in it?) to the passer-by who had nearly killed her. He had been seen to by the doctor too: frizzled eyebrows and lashes, some bruising from the fall. Rebus’s scalp tingled at the thought. There was no smell of gas in the kitchen now. But there was a smell of cooked meat, almost inviting till you remembered its source.

  Calder was seated at the bar, watching the world move past him in and out of the dream he had built with Eddie Ringan. Rebus sat down beside him, glad to take the weight off his legs.

  ‘Those nightmares,’ Calder said immediately, ‘looks like he made them come true, eh?’

  ‘Looks like it. Any idea why he’d kill himself?’

  Calder shook his head. He was bearing up, but only just. ‘I suppose it all got too much for him.’

  ‘All what?’

  Calder continued shaking his head. ‘Perhaps we’ll never know.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ Rebus said, trying not to make it sound like a threat. He must have failed, for suddenly Calder turned towards him.