10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘What about the barrel?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘When was it filed off?’

  Dave nodded. ‘The edge the file left is still shiny; say in the last couple of months.’

  ‘Have you checked the register?’

  ‘Of course.’ Dave led Rebus to a computer terminal and punched a couple of keys. ‘There are over seventy thousand shotgun certificates on issue.’

  Rebus blinked. ‘Seventy thousand?’

  ‘Compared to thirty-odd thousand for all other firearms combined. Nobody’s really concerned about the amount of shotguns around.’ He tapped another key. ‘See? Owner-ship’s highest in rural areas – Northern, Grampian, Dumfries and Galloway. It’s not some brewhead from Gorgie that’s buying these things, it’s the establishment: farmers, landowners.’

  ‘What about thefts?’

  ‘They’re on the computer, but I’ve checked. Nobody around Edinburgh has lost a shotgun recently.’

  ‘Can I take a look anyway?’

  ‘Sure.’ Rebus sat down and Dave punched the keyboard again. The list of recently reported thefts was not large; nearly all of them were south of the border. ‘Want a print-out?’

  ‘Yes.’ Not that a print-out would help him.

  ‘What’s the big deal anyway?’ Dave asked. ‘It’s a simple suicide, isn’t it?’

  ‘Suicide’s still an offence.’

  ‘The only one we don’t prosecute after the fact. Is there something you’re not telling me?’

  ‘No,’ Rebus said quietly. ‘But there may be things some people aren’t telling me.’ He took the print-out and folded it into his pocket. ‘One other thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The prints on the gun, were they the deceased’s?’

  Dave seemed amused by the question. ‘His and his alone. What are you up to, Inspector?’

  But John Rebus wasn’t about to answer that.

  ‘Thank you for coming in, Councillor.’

  Rebus had just come into the interview room. He’d been biding his time outside the door, letting Tom Gillespie get a bit nervous. An interview room could do that; it could destroy all your pre-planning. You walked in knowing what you were going to say, the line you were going to take with the police, but then the room started to work on you.

  The thing was, it was just a room – crime prevention posters on the walls, a table, three chairs, four electrical sockets. There was a tin ashtray, commandeered from a local pub. The walls were creamy matt custard, institution yellow, and there was strip lighting on the ceiling. The lights burred continuously, an almost subliminal electric hum. Rebus wondered if it was that noise that got to people. He guessed there was a simpler truth: the interview room was in a police station, and if you were there, you were going to be interviewed by the police.

  And when it came down to it, everyone had something to hide.

  ‘Not at all,’ Gillespie said, crossing one leg over the other to let Rebus know how relaxed he was. ‘I hear the poor devil was an ex-prisoner.’

  ‘He’d served just under four years for the rape of a minor.’

  ‘Four years doesn’t seem very long.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t.’ They sat in silence for a moment, until Gillespie broke it.

  ‘I had a friend once who committed suicide. He was still at university – this is going back a while. He was worried about exams, and his girlfriend had left him.’ He paused. ‘Left him for me. I should add.’

  ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘I thought smoking was forbidden in police stations.’

  ‘If it bothers you, I won’t light it.’ He stuck the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and offered one to Gillespie. The councillor shook his head.

  ‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t light up.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Rebus, putting away cigarettes and lighter both. Well, he thought, this is interesting. The guy’s been studying for this exam. Tells a personal story, one that doesn’t paint him in the rosiest glow, and then asserts his authority. And all it was supposed to be was a few follow-up questions.

  ‘How did he do it?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your friend.’

  ‘Flung himself out of the halls of residence. Fifth floor. He was still alive, so they took him to hospital, checking for broken bones and internal bleeding. They were so busy, they didn’t notice he’d taken an overdose before the jump.’

  ‘Well,’ Rebus said, ‘both are fairly common roads out, aren’t they? You leap or you sleep. Mr McAnally, on the other hand . . .’

  ‘You were at the Forth Road Bridge, weren’t you? When those two kids jumped? I saw your name in the paper.’

  ‘We’re here to talk about McAnally, Councillor.’

  ‘Well, guns are a popular mode of suicide too, aren’t they?’

  ‘Maybe among gun owners, but McAnally didn’t own a gun and probably had never used one before.’

  Gillespie uncrossed his legs and crossed them the other way. ‘But given his background, he’d find it easy enough to take possession of a gun.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Rebus. ‘All the same . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why go to all the bother? I mean, even if you’re determined to blow your head off, why walk from Tollcross to Warrender in the middle of a blizzard with this big heavy gun clutched beneath your jacket? And why walk into a school which would have been locked tight on every night of the month except one?’ Rebus had risen to his feet. He rested his buttocks against the edge of the table and folded his arms. ‘Why walk into a classroom and make sure Councillor Tom Gillespie is present? Why do that? Why did he specifically want to top himself in front of you? No other witnesses, no one else invited. It doesn’t make sense to me.’

  ‘Well, the man was obviously unhinged . . . maybe on drugs.’

  ‘I’ve just seen the toxicology results. The police lab has all these smart machines –’

  ‘At Howdenhall?’ Rebus nodded. ‘Yes, I know. I was there for the official opening.’

  ‘Well, the results show that the deceased had had a couple of drinks, but no drugs, not one single painkiller.’

  ‘What’s your point, Inspector?’

  Rebus turned around so that his hands were resting on the table. He was leaning over Gillespie, and Gillespie wasn’t enjoying it.

  ‘See, Councillor, Wee Shug McAnally was dying. He didn’t have long to live at all. His insides were rotten, and he should have been doped to the eyeballs to stand the pain. Those drugs, though, they make your brain mushy, and Wee Shug didn’t want that. He wanted to be compos mentis when he pulled the trigger.’ Rebus stood up straight. ‘Makes even less sense now, eh?’ He popped the cigarette back into his mouth.

  ‘Look, I don’t see what any of this has to do with me.’

  ‘Frankly neither do I. All I know is, it has something to do with you. Now what could that be?’

  ‘There was a line of perspiration on Gillespie’s top lip. He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. Rebus walked to the far wall and lit his cigarette. He didn’t think the councillor would object.

  ‘Look,’ Gillespie said quietly, ‘I really don’t see any connection between this man McAnally and me, none at all. I’ve never met him, never heard of him, and he didn’t live in my ward.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe he held some sort of mad grudge, something linked to his time in prison.’

  Rebus walked slowly back to the table and sat down opposite Gillespie. ‘That’s it?’ he said. ‘That’s your explanation?’

  ‘I don’t have an explanation! I just . . . give me a cigarette, please.’

  Rebus lit the cigarette for him.

  Gillespie studied the burning tip, then looked at Rebus. ‘Why are you doing this?’

  ‘I’ve already told you, Councillor, I’ve to prepare a report on a sudden, violent death, and there are inconsistencies.’

  ‘You mean you don’t know why he did it?’<
br />
  ‘That’s what I mean.’

  ‘Well, I can’t help you, I’m afraid.’ Gillespie got to his feet, making ready to leave.

  ‘Can’t or won’t?’

  Gillespie glared at Rebus, then sat down again. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means I think you’re hiding something.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘That’s what I have to find out . . . before I can finish my report.’

  ‘Are all policeman like you?’

  ‘No. Some of them you wouldn’t want to meet.’

  ‘I meet quite a few actually. A colleague of mine – regional councillor rather than district, but the same party – is chair of Lothian and Borders Joint Police Board.’ Gillespie drew on his cigarette and blew the smoke out in a thin stream. ‘He’s quite a good friend.’

  ‘It’s always nice to have friends.’ Rebus said.

  Gillespie got to his feet again. ‘Look,’ he began. He swung his arms, as if he was deciding to say something he’d rather not say. ‘I promised . . .’ He sighed and sat down yet again. ‘This may mean something or nothing, Inspector.’ Rebus busied himself tidying the end of his cigarette against the ashtray. ‘It’s Helena, Helena Profitt.’

  ‘Your ward secretary?’

  ‘She . . . she told me she knew him.’

  ‘McAnally?’

  Gillespie nodded. ‘When McAnally came into the room and saw her . . . there was a moment when he just stared. I asked her about it afterwards, and she told me she’d known him a long time ago. She wouldn’t say any more than that.’

  12

  ‘What’s wrong with your mouth?’

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘You keep poking it with your finger.’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong with it.’ But Rebus knew something was wrong; he was just hoping it would go away. There was pressure inside his gum and top lip, a dull, unpleasant sensation that was now spreading either side of his nose. It felt as if his whole face should be swollen, but it was just a little red beneath the nose – and that could have been the drink or the weather.

  ‘Whose idea was this?’ he said, folding his arms around himself. They were walking on Portobello beach, the only souls mad enough in this seizure-inducing wind.

  ‘Mine,’ said Mairie Henderson.

  Rebus had turned up at her flat expecting a hot drink and a soft couch, but instead she’d dragged him out for what she euphemistically called her ‘constitutional’.

  ‘You’d have to have the constitution of an ox to survive this,’ Rebus muttered to himself. The blasts of air against his ears meant he could barely hear what Mairie was saying, and every time he opened his mouth to yell something back, the malevolent air flooded in and attacked his tooth again. Mairie ran to a wall and hunkered down with her back against it. Her cheeks looked as if they’d been sandblasted; which in a sense they had.

  Rebus crouched beside her, thankful for the shelter. He liked to take an interest in Mairie, especially now she was a freelance journalist. He worried about that lack of salary, but she seemed to be doing all right.

  ‘So,’ he asked, ‘what exactly did you come up with?’

  She smiled. ‘You forget, I used to cover local government, regional and district councils. It was my first job on the paper. I didn’t have to do much digging.’ She leaned forward and drew a circle in the sand. ‘Where do you want me to start?’

  ‘Give me some background.’

  ‘District council, not regional?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, about the only glamorous angle attached to district councildom is the fact of a big budget, which means only the four major cities are worth the candle.’

  ‘From a journalist’s perspective?’

  ‘It’s the only perspective I can give.’ She pushed the hair out of her eyes. ‘Therefore, being a district councillor is not an attractive proposition. You’ve got long, boring working hours, requiring you to take time off from your daytime job, plus eating into your evening hours, since a lot of the meetings are evening affairs, as are surgeries if they’re not on a Saturday.’

  ‘OK, so I won’t be standing for councillor, unless the money compensates.’

  Mairie shook her head. ‘It’s not great for such a thankless task. Of course, you can claim expenses, plus if you chair a committee there’s a bonus, but even so . . . For all these reasons and others, you find that councillors tend to fall into one of several groups: retired, unemployed, self-employed, or with an affluent spouse.’

  ‘The first two because they’ve got lots of time, the last two because they can make time?’

  She nodded. ‘Result? A lot of councils are not what you’d call dynamic. Edinburgh’s more interesting than most.’

  ‘So tell me about Edinburgh.’ Rebus stared out towards Inchkeith Island.

  ‘Well, we’ve sixty-two wards, Labour holding most of them.’

  ‘No surprise.’

  ‘But there isn’t much of a gap between Labour and the Tories, only about seven seats. The Lib-Dems have a few, and the SNP a couple. As to what the council does, if you’d ever had to sit in on their meetings and then write them up as even vaguely interesting prose, you’d know.’

  ‘Boring?’

  ‘Most councillors could bore for Britain at the World Ennui Cup.’

  ‘So that’s how you pronounce that word.’ This got him a smile. She didn’t smile much these days, not since she’d led Rebus to a horror above the Crazy Hose Saloon. Rebus looked out to sea. It seemed all whitecaps as far as the horizon.

  ‘There are all sorts of committees and sub-committees,’ she went on, ‘and the full district council meets once a month. But despite all that, what the council basically does is house people. Glasgow District Council is the biggest landlord in Britain – one hundred and seventy thousand houses. It’s rumoured the district councils were only given the housing portfolio after local government reorganisation so they’d have something to do.’

  ‘You’ve lost me.’

  ‘The Tories wanted to keep housing out of regional council control.’ She sighed at his puzzled look. ‘It’s all to do with politics and it’s all intensely dull.’

  ‘And the councillors are dull too?’

  ‘Almost of necessity. Maybe “worthy” would be a better word.’ She looked at him. ‘We’re focusing in nicely on Councillor Tom Gillespie. He chairs an industrial planning committee, looking at economic and property development. The council has its own department – Economic Development and Estates – and mostly the committee would be checking to ensure that the department is working hard and not trying to fix anything.’

  ‘Fix? You don’t mean as in repair?’

  ‘I don’t. Land deals and building contracts can be worth millions. Even repairs to buildings can be worth hundreds of thousands. Suppose I handed you the contract to clean the windows of every council building in the city?’

  ‘I’d have to buy a new chamois.’

  ‘You could afford it. The only thing about Gillespie is that he’s ambitious, but that’s nothing new. Twenty years ago, just before the corporation became the district council, Malcolm Rifkind, George Foulkes, and Robin Cook were all councillors. That’s another thing: the district council is about to disappear with effect from April 1996. There are elections coming up so we can install a sort of shadow authority, if anyone bothers to vote.’

  ‘Any news of crooked deals, bent councillors?’

  ‘Nothing. Tom Gillespie is a diligent, hard-working councillor with no bad press, no apparent skeletons in his closet, not even any rumours. He’s not a tippler, not a gambler, and he doesn’t cheat on his wife with the secretary –’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s just one of those things people sometimes do.’ She touched the back of his hand. ‘Do you know something I don’t?’

  Rebus stood up. ‘That’d be the day. Which is he, by the way: self-employed? Unemployed?’

  ‘We
althy spouse. His wife runs her own business.’

  Rebus looked around. ‘Is there a café open somewhere?’

  ‘We could try the Fun Park.’ She wiped her hands clean of sand. ‘Am I in for an exclusive?’

  Rebus rubbed his shoe over the circle she’d made in the sand, obliterating it.

  ‘Well?’ she persisted.

  ‘Are you still singing in that country and western band?’

  ‘Now there’s a subtle change of subject. You were about to answer my question.’

  ‘What question?’

  ‘About the exclusive.’

  ‘No I wasn’t.’ They came off the beach on to the promenade. ‘Can you check a couple of other things for me?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A company name: LABarum.’ He spelt it for her. ‘That’s all I’ve got on it. Plus another name. Dalgety.’

  ‘A company?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve checked, and there are companies called Dalgety, plus it’s a place name and a surname.’

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’

  He shrugged. ‘If you find out anything about LABarum, maybe Dalgety will tie into it.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do. Oh, I forgot to say, I’m talking to your daughter later on.’

  Rebus stopped. ‘You forgot to say?’

  ‘OK, I wasn’t going to tell you. I’m interviewing her on the McAnally suicide.’ Rebus started walking again, Mairie hurrying to catch him up. ‘Any comment you’d like to make at this point, Inspector, strictly on the record?’

  ‘No comment, Miss Henderson,’ Rebus growled.

  He’d decided the interview room might prove just too much for Helena Proffit, so made an appointment to see her at her work. She worked part-time in an office, on top of her post as Gillespie’s ward secretary. But someone from her office phoned to say Miss Proffit had been taken ill with a migraine and had gone home. He tried her home number, but got no answer. It could wait. Meantime he made another appointment, this time with the Governor of HM Prison Edinburgh. He told the governor’s secretary that it concerned the suicide of an ex-inmate. The secretary booked him in for Tuesday afternoon.