10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  Rebus had telephone calls to make. First: Pete Hewitt at Howdenhall.

  ‘Morning, Inspector, and isn’t she a beauty?’

  Voice dripping irony. Rebus looked out at milky sunshine. ‘Rough night, Pete?’

  ‘Rough? You could shave a yak with it. I take it you got my message?’ Rebus had pen and paper ready. ‘I got a couple of decent prints off the whisky bottle: thumb and forefinger. Tried lifting from the polythene bag and the tape binding him to the chair, but only a few partials, nothing to build a case on.’

  ‘Come on, Pete, get to the ID.’

  ‘Well, all that money you complain we spend on computers . . . I got a match within quarter of an hour. The name is Anthony Ellis Kane. He has a police record for attempted murder, assault, reset. Ring any bells?’

  ‘Not a one.’

  ‘Well, he used to operate out of Glasgow. No convictions these past seven years.’

  ‘I’ll look him up when I get to the station. Thanks, Pete.’

  Next call: the personnel office at T-Bird Oil. A long-distance call; he’d wait and make it from Fort Apache. A glance out of the window: no sign of the Redgauntlet crew. Rebus put his jacket on and made for the door.

  He stopped in at the boss’s office. MacAskill was guzzling Irn-Bru.

  ‘We have a fingerprint ID, Anthony Ellis Kane, previous convictions for violence.’

  MacAskill tossed the empty can into his waste-basket. His desk was stacked with old paperwork – drawer one of the filing cabinet. There was an empty packing case on the floor.

  ‘What about the decedent’s family, friends?’

  Rebus shook his head. ‘Deceased worked for T-Bird Oil. I’m going to call the personnel manager for details.’

  ‘Make that job one, John.’

  ‘Job one, sir.’

  But when he got to the Shed and sat at his desk, he thought about phoning Gill Templer first, decided against it. Bain was at his desk; Rebus didn’t want an audience.

  ‘Dod,’ he said, ‘run a check on Anthony Ellis Kane. Howdenhall found his prints on the carry-out.’ Bain nodded and started typing. Rebus phoned Aberdeen, gave his name and asked to be put through to Stuart Minchell.

  ‘Good morning, Inspector.’

  ‘Thanks for leaving a message, Mr Minchell. Do you have Allan Mitchison’s employment details?’

  ‘Right in front of me. What do you want to know?’

  ‘A next of kin.’

  Minchell shuffled paper. ‘There doesn’t appear to be one. Let me check his CV.’ A long pause, Rebus happy not to be making the call from home. ‘Inspector, it seems Allan Mitchison was an orphan. I have details of his education, and there’s a children’s home mentioned.’

  ‘No family?’

  ‘No mention of a family.’

  Rebus had written Mitchison’s name on a sheet of paper. He underlined it now, the rest of the page a blank. ‘What was Mr Mitchison’s position within the company?’

  ‘He was . . . let’s see, he worked for Platform Maintenance, specifically as a painter. We have a base in Shetland, maybe he worked there.’ More paper shuffling. ‘No, Mr Mitchison worked on the platforms themselves.’

  ‘Painting them?’

  ‘And general maintenance. Steel corrodes, Inspector. You’ve no idea how fast the North Sea can strip paint from steel.’

  ‘Which rig did he work on?’

  ‘Not a rig, a production platform. I’d have to check that.’

  ‘Could you do that, please? And could you fax me through his personnel file?’

  ‘You say he’s dead?’

  ‘Last time I looked.’

  ‘Then there should be no problem. Give me your number there.’

  Rebus did so, and terminated the call. Bain was waving him over. Rebus crossed the room and stood by Bain’s side, the better to see the computer screen.

  ‘This guy’s pure mental,’ Bain said. His phone rang. Bain picked up, started a conversation. Rebus read down the screen. Anthony Ellis Kane, known as ‘Tony El’, had a record going back to his youth. He was now forty-four years old, well known to Strathclyde police. The bulk of his adult life had been spent in the employ of Joseph Toal, a.k.a. ‘Uncle Joe’, who practically ran Glasgow with muscle provided by his son and by men like Tony El. Bain put down the receiver.

  ‘Uncle Joe,’ he mused. ‘If Tony El is still working for him, we could have a very different case.’

  Rebus was remembering what the boss had said: it’s got a gang feel to it. Drugs or a default on a loan. Maybe MacAskill was right.

  ‘You know what this means?’ Bain said.

  Rebus nodded. ‘A trip to weegie-land.’ Scotland’s two main cities, separated by a fifty-minute motorway trip, were wary neighbours, as though years back one had accused the other of something and the accusation, unfounded or not, still rankled. Rebus had a couple of contacts in Glasgow CID, so went to his desk and made the calls.

  ‘If you want info on Uncle Joe,’ he was told during the second call, ‘best talk to Chick Ancram. Wait, I’ll give you his number.’

  Charles Ancram, it turned out, was a Chief Inspector based in Govan. Rebus spent a fruitless half hour trying to find him, then went for a walk. The shops in front of Fort Apache were the usual metal shutters and mesh grille affairs, Asian owners mostly, even if the shops were staffed with white faces. Men hung around on the street outside, T-shirted, sporting tattoos, smoking. Eyes as trustworthy as a weasel in a hen-house.

  Eggs? Not me, pal, can’t stand them.

  Rebus bought cigarettes and a newspaper. Walking out of the shop, a baby buggy caught his ankles, a woman told him to mind where he was fucking going. She bustled away, hauling a toddler behind her. Twenty, maybe twenty-one, hair dyed blonde, two front teeth missing. Her bared forearms showed tattoos, too. Across the road, an advertising hoarding told him to spend £20k on a new car. Behind it, the discount supermarket was doing no business, kids using its car park as a skateboard rink.

  Back in the Shed, Maclay was on the telephone. He held the receiver out to Rebus.

  ‘Chief Inspector Ancram, returning your call.’ Rebus rested against the desk.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Inspector Rebus? Ancram here, I believe you want a word.’

  ‘Thanks for getting back to me, sir. Two words really: Joseph Toal.’

  Ancram snorted. He had a west coast drawl, nasal, always managing to sound a little condescending. ‘Uncle Joe Corleone? Our own dear Godfather? Has he done something I don’t know about?’

  ‘Do you know one of his men, a guy called Anthony Kane?’

  ‘Tony El,’ Ancram confirmed. ‘Worked for Uncle Joe for years.’

  ‘Past tense?’

  ‘He hasn’t been heard of in a while. Story is he crossed Uncle Joe, and Uncle Joe got Stanley to see to things. Tony El was all cut up about it.’

  ‘Who’s Stanley?’

  ‘Uncle Joe’s son. It’s not his real name, but everyone calls him Stanley, on account of his hobby.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Stanley knives, he collects them.’

  ‘You think Stanley topped Tony El?’

  ‘Well, the body hasn’t turned up, which is usually proof enough in a perverse way.’

  ‘Tony El’s very much alive. He was through here a few days ago.’

  ‘I see.’ Ancram was quiet for a moment. In the background Rebus could hear busy voices, radio transmissions, police station sounds. ‘Bag over the head?’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Tony El’s trademark. So he’s back in circulation, eh? Inspector, I think you and me better have a talk. Monday morning, can you find Govan station? No, wait, make it Partick, 613 Dumbarton Road. I’ve a meeting there at nine. Can we say ten?’

  ‘Ten’s fine.’

  ‘See you then.’

  Rebus put down the telephone. ‘Monday morning at ten,’ he told Bain. ‘I’m off to Partick.’

  ‘You poor bastard,’ Bain replied, sound
ing like he meant it.

  ‘Want us to put out Tony El’s description?’ Maclay asked.

  ‘Pronto. Let’s see if we can lassoo him before Monday.’

  Bible John flew back into Scotland on a fine Friday morning. The first thing he did at the airport was pick up some newspapers. In the kiosk, he saw that a new book had been published on World War Two, so bought that too. Sitting in the concourse, he flicked through the newspapers, finding no new stories concerning the Upstart. He left the papers on his seat and went to the carousel, where his luggage was waiting.

  A taxi took him into Glasgow. He had already decided not to stay in the city. It wasn’t that he had anything to fear from his old hunting-ground, but that a stay there would bring little profit. Of necessity, Glasgow brought back bittersweet memories. In the late sixties, it had been reinventing itself: knocking down old slums, building their concrete equivalents on the outskirts. New roads, bridges, motorways – the place had been an enormous building site. He got the feeling the process was still ongoing, as if the city still hadn’t acquired an identity it could be comfortable with.

  A problem Bible John knew something about.

  From Queen Street station, he took a train to Edinburgh, and used his cellphone to reserve a room at his usual hotel, placing it on his corporate account. He called his wife to tell her where he’d be. He had his laptop with him, and did some work on the train. Work soothed him; a busy brain was best. Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks. The Book of Exodus. The media back then had done him a favour, and so had the police. They’d issued a description saying his first name was John and he was ‘fond of quoting from the Bible’. Neither was particularly true: his middle name was John, and he had only occasionally quoted aloud from the good book. In recent years, he’d started attending church again, but now regretted it, regretted thinking he was safe.

  There was no safety in this world, just as there would be none in the next.

  He left the train at Haymarket – in summer it was easier to catch a taxi there – but when he stepped out into sunshine, he decided to walk to the hotel: it was only five or ten minutes away. His case had wheels, and his shoulder-bag was not particularly heavy. He breathed deeply: traffic fumes and a hint of brewery hops. Tired of squinting, he paused to put on sunglasses, and immediately liked the world better. Catching his reflection in a shop window he saw just another businessman tired of travelling. There was nothing memorable about either face or figure, and the clothes were always conservative: a suit from Austin Reed, shirt by Double 2. A well-dressed and successful businessman. He checked the knot of his tie, and ran his tongue over the only two false teeth in his head – necessary surgery from a quarter-century before. Like everyone else, he crossed the road at the lights.

  Check-in at his hotel took a matter of moments. He sat at the room’s small circular table and opened his laptop, plugging it into the mains, changing the adaptor from 110v to 240. He used his password, then double-clicked on the file marked UPSTART. Inside were his notes on Johnny Bible so-called, his own psychological profile of the killer. It was building nicely.

  Bible John reflected that he had something the authorities didn’t have: inside knowledge of how a serial killer worked, thought and lived, the lies he had to tell, the guile and disguises, the secret life behind the everyday face. It put him ahead in the game. With any luck, he’d get to Johnny Bible before the police did.

  He had avenues to follow. One: from his working habits, it was clear the Upstart had prior knowledge of the Bible John case. How did he gain this knowledge? The Upstart was in his twenties, too young to remember Bible John. Therefore he’d heard about it somewhere, or read about it, and then had gone on to research it in some detail. There were books – some of them recent, some not – about the Bible John killings or with chapters on them. If Johnny Bible were being meticulous, he would have consulted all the available literature, but with some of the material long out of print he must have been searching secondhand bookshops, or else must have used libraries. The search was narrowing nicely.

  Another connected avenue: newspapers. Again, it was unlikely the Upstart had open access to papers from a quarter century ago. That meant libraries again, and very few libraries held newspapers for that length of time. Search narrowing nicely.

  Then there was the Upstart himself. Many predators made errors early on, mistakes executed due to a lack either of proper planning or of simple nerve. Bible John himself was unusual: his real mistake had come with victim three, with sharing a taxi with her sister. Were there victims around who had escaped the Upstart? That meant looking through recent newspapers, seeking out attacks on women in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, tracking down the killer’s false starts and early failures. It would be time-consuming work. But therapeutic, too.

  He stripped and had a shower, then put on a more casual outfit: navy blazer and khaki trousers. He decided not to risk using the telephone in his room – the numbers would be logged by reception – so headed out into the sunshine. No phone boxes these days held directories, so he walked into a pub and ordered tonic water, then asked for the phone book. The barmaid – late teens, nose-stud, pink hair – handed it over with a smile. At his table, he took out notebook and pen and jotted down some numbers, then went to the back of the bar where the telephone was kept. It was next to the toilets – private enough for the purpose, especially just now with the pub all but empty. His calls were to a couple of antiquarian booksellers and three libraries. The results were, to his mind, satisfactory if by no means revelatory, but then he’d decided weeks back that this might be a drawn-out process. After all, he had self-knowledge on his side, but the police had hundreds of men and computers and a publicity machine. And they could investigate openly. He knew his own investigation into the Upstart had to be undertaken with more discretion. But he also knew he needed help, and that was risky. Involving others was always a risk. He’d considered the dilemma over long days and nights – on one side of the scales, his wish to track down the Upstart; on the other, the risk that in so doing, he would be putting himself – his identity – in danger.

  So he’d asked himself a question: how badly did he want the Upstart?

  And had answered it: very badly. Very badly indeed. He spent the afternoon on and around George IV Bridge – the National Library of Scotland and the Central Lending Library. He had a reader’s card for the National Library, had done research there in the past – business; plus some reading on the Second World War, his main hobby these days. He browsed in local secondhand bookshops too, asking if they had any true-life crime. He told staff the Johnny Bible murders had kindled his interest.

  ‘We only have half a shelf of true crime,’ the assistant in the first shop said, showing him where it was. Bible John feigned interest in the books, then returned to the assistant’s desk.

  ‘No, nothing there. Do you also search for books?’

  ‘Not as such,’ the assistant said. ‘But we keep requests . . .’ She pulled out a heavy old-style ledger and opened it. ‘If you put down what you’re looking for, your name and address, if we happen across the book we’ll get in touch.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  Bible John took out his pen, wrote slowly, checking recent requests. He flicked back a page, eyes running down the list of titles and subjects.

  ‘Don’t people have such varied interests?’ he said, smiling at the assistant.

  He tried the same ploy at three further shops, but found no evidence of the Upstart. He then walked to the National Library’s annexe on Causewayside, where recent newspapers were kept, and browsed through a month’s worth of Scotsmans, Heralds and Press and Journals, taking notes from certain stories: assaults, rapes. Of course, even if there was an early, failed victim, it didn’t mean the attempt had gone reported. The Americans had a word for what he was doing. They called it shitwork.

  Back in the National Library proper, he studied the
librarians, looking for someone special. When he thought he’d found what he was looking for, he checked the library’s opening hours, and decided to wait.

  At closing time, he was standing outside the National Library, sunglasses on in the mid-evening light, crawling lines of traffic separating him from the Central Library. He saw some of the staff leave, singly and in groups. Then he spotted the young man he was looking for. When the man headed down Victoria Street, Bible John crossed the road and followed. There were a lot of pedestrians about, tourists, drinkers, a few people making their way home. He became just another of them, walking briskly, his eyes on his quarry. In the Grassmarket, the young man turned into the first available pub. Bible John stopped and considered: a quick drink before heading home? Or was the librarian going to meet friends, maybe make an evening of it? He decided to go inside.

  The bar was dark, noisy with office workers: men with their suit jackets draped over their shoulders, women sipping from long glasses of tonic. The librarian was at the bar, alone. Bible John squeezed in beside him and ordered an orange juice. He nodded to the librarian’s beer glass.

  ‘Another?’

  When the young man turned to look at him, Bible John leaned close, spoke quietly.

  ‘Three things I want to tell you. One: I’m a journalist. Two: I want to give you £500. Three: there’s absolutely nothing illegal involved.’ He paused. ‘Now, do you want that drink?’

  The young man was still staring at him. Finally he nodded.

  ‘Is that yes to the drink or yes to the cash?’ Bible John was smiling too.