10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  Three of the police cars were facing the wrong way, and it took a devil of a time to turn them round. But the fourth had radioed back with the suspect car’s whereabouts. The helicopter, of course, had been grounded earlier, the weather being impossible. All of which left Lauderdale – officer in charge – furiously gunning his car to catch up with the race, and shedding years in the process.

  Rebus hoped it had been worth it. He hoped Lauderdale, lying strapped up in hospital, would get a thrill from remembering the chase. All it had given Rebus were a sick feeling in the gut, a bad dream, and this damned sore face.

  There was a collection going around to buy something for the chief inspector. Pointedly and all too quickly, DI Alister Flower put in a tenner. He was walking around with his chest stuck out and a greasepaint smile on his face. Rebus loathed him more than ever.

  Everybody kept looking at Rebus, wondering if he’d be promoted over Flower. Wondering what Rebus would do if Flower suddenly became his boss. The rumours piled up faster than the collection money. It wasn’t even close.

  Rebus was not alone in reckoning the kidnapping for a hoax. They’d know for sure very soon, now that they had traced the car, located its owner, discovered that he’d loaned it to two friends and gone to those friends’ shared house only to find nobody home.

  The car owner was downstairs in an interview room. They were telling him that if he was straight with them, they’d forget about the car’s lack of proper insurance. He was telling them story after story, the life and times of Willie Coyle and Dixie Taylor. Rebus went down to listen for a while. DS Macari and DC Allder were doing the interview.

  ‘Detective Inspector Rebus enters, twelve-fifteen hours,’ Macari said for the benefit of the tape recorder. ‘So,’ he said to the seated youth, ‘how did they make out, Willie and Dixie? Both on the broo, but you can always supplement the broo, eh?’

  Rebus stood against the wall, trying to appear casual. He even smiled towards the car owner, nodded to let him know everything was all right. The car owner was in his late teens, presentable enough, neatly dressed and groomed. He wore a discreet silver-loop earring in his right ear, but no other jewellery, not even a watch.

  ‘They got along,’ he said. ‘Like, the dole money’s no’ bad, even social security, you can live on it if you’re careful.’

  ‘And they were careful?’ Macari paused. ‘Mr Duggan nods his head.’ This again for the tape recorder. ‘So why would they pull a stunt like this?’

  Duggan shook his head. ‘I wish I knew. I never got an inkling. Willie’d never asked for a loan of the car before. He said he had something to shift.’

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  ‘But you loaned him the car anyway.’

  ‘Like I say, Willie’s the careful sort.’

  ‘And Dixie?’

  Duggan gave the hint of a smile. ‘Well, Dixie’s different. He needed looking after.’

  ‘What? Was he soft in the head like?’

  ‘No, he was just laid back. He didn’t . . . it was hard to get him interested.’ He looked up. ‘It’s hard to put into words.’

  ‘Just try your best, Mr Duggan.’

  ‘Ever since school, Willie and Dixie had been best pals. They liked the same music, same comics, same games. They understood one another.’

  ‘And they shared digs ever since they left home?’

  Rebus liked Macari’s style. Around the station they called him ‘Toni’, after the character in Oor Wullie. He’d managed to get Duggan relaxed and talkative; he’d forged a relationship. Rebus wasn’t so sure of Allder; Allder was one of Flower’s men.

  ‘I think so,’ Duggan was saying. ‘They were right close. We had a book at school once. It had two characters like them in it, one daft and the other not.’

  ‘Of Mice and Men?’ Rebus offered.

  ‘I thought that was Burns,’ Allder said.

  Rebus indicated to Macari that he was leaving.

  ‘Inspector Rebus leaves room, twelve-thirty hours. So, Mr Duggan, to get back to the car . . .’

  As ever, Rebus timed his exit just wrong. Alister Flower was walking along the corridor towards him, whistling ‘Dixie’.

  ‘There’s a lad in there,’ Rebus reminded him, ‘has just lost two pals, one of them called Dixie.’

  Flower stopped whistling and barked a short, unpleasant laugh. ‘Must’ve been my, you know, subconscious.’

  ‘You’ve got to be conscious to have one of those,’ Rebus said, moving away. ‘Which sort of disqualifies you.’

  Flower wasn’t letting him off so easily. He caught up with Rebus at the double doors. ‘Things’ll be different when I’m Chief Inspector,’ he snarled.

  ‘Yes, they will,’ Rebus agreed. ‘Because by then they’ll have cured cancer and put a man on Mars.’

  Then he pushed through the doors and was gone.

  4

  He drove out to Stenhouse. It was further out of town than he remembered, and nicer too. Quiet, once you came off Gorgie Road. Two-storey semis with tidy front gardens and swept pavements. Some of the doorsteps looked scrubbed; his mother had got down on her knees with all the other women in their cul-de-sac a couple of times a week to scrub the step with hot soapy water or bleach. A dirty front step reflected badly on the home within.

  Rebus was more used to central Edinburgh, tenement city. The little suburbia managed to surprise him. Salt had been put down along the pavements and roads. In summer the neighbours would be out gossiping over fences, but this was winter and they were hibernating.

  An Edinburgh winter could be a real stayer, starting early in October and lasting into April. The days were not constant: sometimes it was twilight all day; other times, with fresh snow on the ground, the sun’s glare scoured your eyes. People walked everywhere squinting, either peering into the gloom or protecting themselves from the fierce light.

  Today was a twilight day, the sky a dull maroon, threatening a fall. Rebus stuffed his hands into his pockets and felt the small paper bag. He’d found an ironmonger’s on Gorgie Road, and had been directed to a specialist shop where he’d been sold a radiator key. Now he looked around, found the house he was looking for, and walked up to the front door.

  ‘Afternoon sir,’ said Siobhan Clarke, answering his knock. ‘How are you feeling?’

  Rebus pushed his way inside. The house wasn’t much warmer than outside. In the living room, Brian Holmes was flipping through a collection of CDs.

  ‘Anything?’ Rebus asked.

  Holmes stood up. ‘There are a few newspapers with items about the Kennedy case. Probably gave them the idea. No sign she’s ever been here. Pretty unlikely she’d run about with dossers like those two. She’s a Gillespie’s girl; Willie and Dixie were strictly comprehensive.’

  ‘Looks like a straightforward hoax, sir,’ Clarke agreed.

  Rebus was looking around. He turned to Clarke. ‘Say you’re a well brought-up wee lassie, good school, nice lifestyle. Say you want to run away from home and just disappear for a while, maybe for ever. Would you take up with people your own class, or would you head downmarket, where nobody’d know you and nobody’d care?’

  ‘Down to guys like Willie and Dixie you mean?’

  Rebus shrugged. ‘I’m only speculating. If you were to ask me, I’d say she’s done what every runner from Scotland does – gone to London.’

  ‘God help her,’ Holmes said quietly.

  ‘So, have you finished looking around?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Then don’t let me stop you. In fact, plug that electric fire in and I might even lend a hand.’

  Brian Holmes searched in his pockets for coins for the electric meter, then they got to work.

  There were two bedrooms, one tidy, the bed made, the other a mess. The tidy room belonged to Willie Coyle, as a letter from the DSS lying by the bed confirmed. There were books on a bookshelf, most of them brand new. Rebus wondered which bookshop had been losing s
tock recently. He pulled out something called Trainspotting, and saw that there were some sheets of paper hidden behind the row of books. The sheets were stapled at one corner, professionally word-processed with charts and graphs. They seemed to comprise a business report, a plan of some kind.

  Holmes looked over his superior’s shoulder. ‘Don’t tell me Willie was an entrepreneur?’

  Rebus shrugged, but rolled the report up and put it in his pocket.

  ‘In here!’ Siobhan Clarke called. By the time they reached her, she was pulling out her haul from beneath Dixie Taylor’s bed. Three disposable syringes, still in their wrappers, a candle burnt to a nub, and a dessert spoon blackened on its bottom.

  ‘No sign of any skag,’ she said, standing up and straightening her hair.

  ‘I’ll check beneath the other bed,’ Holmes said.

  Rebus was smiling. ‘“Skag”?’ he said. ‘What sort of books have you been reading?’ Then his face turned serious. ‘Better call for backup, give this place a thorough going over.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  When Rebus was alone in the room, he examined the syringes. There was a fine layer of dust on the packets, and little balls of fluff lay in the spoon. Dixie obviously hadn’t used his works in some time. Rebus went to the bathroom, checking for Methodone or whatever the doctors gave you these days to wean you off. But he found only flu powders, paracetamol, mouthwash. He checked the mail again, but found nothing from any hospital or rehab centre.

  Then he phoned Professor Gates and asked about the blood samples.

  ‘I haven’t had the results yet. Is there a problem?’

  ‘Possible heroin use,’ Rebus said. ‘At least by one of them.’

  ‘I could check the bodies again. I wasn’t really looking for puncture marks.’

  ‘Would you find them if they were there?’

  ‘Well, as you saw yourself, the bodies aren’t exactly pristine, and IV users are good at hiding their wounds. They’ll inject into the tongue, the penis –’

  ‘Well, see what you can do, Professor.’ Rebus put down the phone. He suddenly didn’t feel comfortable indoors, so went to get some air. He lasted thirty seconds outside, then went next door and pushed the bell. A middle-aged woman opened the door, and Rebus started to show her his ID.

  ‘I know who you are,’ she said. ‘It’s a crying shame, those poor wee lads. Come in, come in.’

  Her name was Mrs Tweedie, and she kept a warm house. Rebus sat down on the sofa and rubbed his hands, getting some feeling back into them while avoiding the burn on his palm.

  ‘Did you know them well, Mrs Tweedie?’

  She watched him take out his notebook and pen. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ he asked.

  ‘Not at all, but I thought I might make us a cup of tea first. Is that all right?’

  That was just fine with John Rebus.

  He sat there for over half an hour. The room was so hot he thought he might nod off, but what Mrs Tweedie had to say brought him wide awake.

  ‘Nice lads, the pair of them. Helped me home with my shopping once, and wouldn’t stop for a cup of tea.’

  ‘You saw them often?’

  ‘Well, I saw them coming and going.’

  ‘Did they keep regular hours? I mean, were they active at night?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I’m not late to bed. They sometimes played their music a bit loud, but all I did was turn up the telly. If they were having a party, they always warned us in advance.’

  Rebus brought out the Kirstie photograph. ‘Have you seen this girl before, Mrs Tweedie?’

  ‘Gracious, yes!’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I saw her in the Daily Record.’

  Rebus felt his hopes sink. ‘But never round here?’

  ‘No, never. I saw their landlord often though.’

  Rebus frowned. ‘I thought these houses were council-owned?’

  Mrs Tweedie nodded. ‘So they are.’

  Rebus started to get it. ‘But it’s not Willie’s and Dixie’s names in the rent book?’

  ‘They explained to me that they were . . . er, sub-something.’

  ‘Sub-letting?’

  ‘Aye, that’s it. From the lad who had the house before them.’

  ‘And what’s his name, Mrs Tweedie?’

  ‘Well, his first name’s Paul. I don’t know his second. Nice young lad, always smartly dressed. Only thing I didn’t like, he wore one of those . . .’ She tugged her ear and made a face. ‘Doesn’t look at all right on a man.’

  ‘Paul Duggan?’ Rebus suggested.

  She tried the name out. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘you could be right.’

  As Rebus drove out on to Gorgie Road he had a song in his head. It was an old Neil Young number, ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’. He stopped the car in front of the jail to collect his thoughts. An access road ran from Gorgie Road up to the gatehouse, the tall fence, and the solid building behind with its massive door and large clock. Though not yet five o’clock, it was dark, but the prison was well lit. Officially it was HM Prison Edinburgh; but everyone knew it as Saughton Jail. The main building looked like a Victorian workhouse.

  They’d have ended up in jail, he thought to himself. They knew even a hoax kidnapping was a serious offence.

  Willie Coyle, the taller, the fair-haired of the two. Rebus was imagining what had gone through Willie’s mind in those final seconds before he took the plunge. Dixie and he would go to jail. They’d almost certainly be separated: different wings if not different jails. Dixie would have no one to look after him. Rebus thought of Lenny in Of Mice and Men. Dixie had been an injector, maybe he’d been helped off, helped by his friend Willie. But in Scotland’s jails, there were plenty of drugs. Of course, you’d have to have something to trade, and a boy Dixie’s age always had something to trade.

  Had Willie weighed up the options? And had he then hugged his friend, hugged him to death? Rebus was beginning to like Willie Coyle. He was wishing he wasn’t dead.

  But he was, they both were. Cold and commingled on the slab, leaving not much behind except the fact that Paul Duggan was a very cool customer indeed. Rebus would be talking to Paul Duggan, sooner rather than later. But for now he had other people to see, another appointment. It was the one appointment he’d known all day he would keep, come hell or high water.

  5

  There was a gas-fire, the kind that gave out actual flames, burning in what looked like the original grate; and smoke too, though the smoke came from cigarettes and pipes. The TV was on, all but drowned out by the live music. As often happened on a winter’s evening, Edinburgh’s folk musicians managed to find themselves in the same pub at the same time. They were playing in a corner: three fiddles, a squeeze-box, a bodhran, and a flute. The flautist was the only woman. The men were bearded and ruddy-cheeked and wore thick-knit jumpers. The pints on their table were three-quarters full. The woman was thin and pale with long brown hair, but her cheeks were bright from firelight.

  A few customers were up dancing, arms linked and birling in what space there was. Rebus liked to think they were just keeping warm, but in fact they looked like they were having fun.

  ‘Three more halfs and a couple of nips,’ he told the barman.

  ‘And what are your friends drinking?’

  ‘Ha ha,’ said Rebus. He was flanked at the bar by his drinking companions, George Klasser and Donny Dougary. While Klasser was known as ‘Doc’, Dougary was called ‘Salty’. Rebus didn’t know either of them very well outside the confines of the pub, but most evenings between six and half-seven they were the best of pals. Salty Dougary was trying to be heard above the general confusion.

  ‘So what I’m saying is, you can go anywhere on the superhighway, anywhere, and in future it’ll be even bigger. You’ll do your shopping by computer, you’ll watch telly on it, play games, listen to music . . . and everything will be there. I can talk to the White House if I want: I can download stuff from all over the world. I sit there at my desk a
nd I can travel anywhere.’

  ‘Can you travel to the pub by computer, Salty?’ a drinker further down the bar asked.

  Salty ignored him and held his thumb and forefinger a couple of inches apart. ‘Hard disks the size of credit cards, you’ll have a whole PC in the palm of your hand.’

  ‘You shouldn’t say that to a policeman, Salty,’ George Klasser offered, causing laughter. He turned to Rebus.

  ‘How’s that tooth?’

  ‘The anaesthetic helps,’ Rebus said, tipping the last of his whisky into his mouth.

  ‘I hope you’re not mixing alcohol and painkillers.’

  ‘Would I do that? Salty, give the man some money.’

  Salty stopped talking to himself. The barman was waiting, so he pulled out a ten-pound note, watching its sad ebbing as it flowed into the till. Salty was called Salty because of salt and sauce, which were what you put on your chip-shop supper. The connection being chips, since Salty worked in an electronics factory in South Gyle. He’d been a late arrival in ‘Silicon Glen’, and was hoping the industry would continue to prosper. Six factories before this one had closed on him, leaving long periods of jobless space between them. He still remembered the days when money was tight – ‘I could have collected Social Security for Scotland’ – and watched his money accordingly. He made microchips these days, feeding an assembly plant on Clydeside and another in Gyle Park West.

  ‘Yé dancing?’

  Rebus half turned to see a woman grinning toothlessly at him. He thought her name was Morag. She was married to the man with the tartan shoelaces.

  ‘Not tonight,’ he said, trying to look flattered. You could never tell with the man with the tartan shoelaces: dance with his wife and you were flirting; turn her down and you were, by implication, snubbing him. Rebus rested his foot on the polished brass bar-rail and drank his drinks.

  By eight o’clock, both Doc and Salty had left, and an old guy in a shapeless bunnet was standing next to Rebus. The man had forgotten his false teeth, and his cheeks were sunken. He was telling Rebus about American history.