10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  After that, it was down to attitude.

  26

  They were waiting outside the photo shop when it opened next morning. Jack looked at his watch for only the fifteenth time.

  ‘He’ll kill us,’ he said for the ninth or tenth. ‘No, I mean it, really he will.’

  ‘Relax.’

  Jack looked about as relaxed as a headless chicken. When the manager started unlocking the shop, they sprinted from the car. Rebus had the stub ready in his hand.

  ‘Give me a minute,’ the manager said.

  ‘We’re late for something.’

  Coat still on, the manager browsed through a box of photograph packets. Rebus imagined family days out, holidays abroad, red-eyed birthdays and blurred wedding receptions. There was something faintly desperate and yet touching about collections of photographs. He’d looked through a lot of photo albums in his time – usually seeking clues to a murder, a victim’s acquaintances.

  ‘You’ll have to wait anyway while I unlock the till.’ The manager handed over the packet. Jack glanced at the price, slapped down more than enough to cover it, and dragged Rebus out of the shop.

  He drove to Fettes like there was a murder scene waiting there. Traffic honked and squealed as he did his stunt-driver routine. They were still twenty minutes late for the meeting. But Rebus didn’t mind. He had his reprints, the missing photos from Allan Mitchison’s cabin. They were similar to the other pictures: group shots, but with fewer figures. And in all of them, braid-hair, standing right next to Mitchison. In one, she had an arm around him; in another, they were kissing, grinning as their lips met.

  Rebus wasn’t surprised, not now.

  ‘I hope they were bloody well worth it,’ Jack said.

  ‘Every penny, Jack.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  Chick Ancram sat with hands clasped, his face the colour of rhubarb crumble. The files were in front of him, as though they hadn’t been moved since the previous meeting. His voice had a slight vibrato. He was in control, but only just.

  ‘I had a phone call,’ he said, ‘from someone called Kayleigh Burgess.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘She wanted to ask me a few questions.’ He paused. ‘About you. About the role DI Morton is currently playing in your life.’

  ‘It’s gossip, sir. Jack and myself are just good friends.’

  Ancram slapped both hands down on the desk. ‘I thought we had a deal.’

  ‘Can’t say I remember.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope your long-term memory’s better.’ He opened a file. ‘Because now the fun really begins.’ He nodded for a sheepish Jack to switch on the tape recorder, then started off by giving date and time, officers present . . . Rebus felt as if he’d explode. He really thought if he sat there a second longer, his eyeballs would fly from their sockets like those jokeshop glasses with spring-loaded eyes. He’d felt like this before, just before a panic attack. But he wasn’t panicking now; he was just charged. He stood up. Ancram broke off what he’d been saying.

  ‘Something the matter, Inspector?’

  ‘Look,’ Rebus rubbed at his forehead, ‘I can’t think straight . . . not about Spaven. Not today.’

  ‘That’s for me to decide, not you. If you’re feeling ill, we can call for a doctor, but otherwise . . .’

  ‘I’m not ill. I just . . .’

  ‘Then sit down.’ Rebus sat down, and Ancram went back to his notes. ‘Now, Inspector, on the night referred to, your report states that you were at Inspector Geddes’ house, and there was a telephone call?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You didn’t actually hear the conversation?’

  ‘No.’ Braid-hair and Mitchison . . . Mitch the organiser, protester. Mitch the oil-worker. Killed by Tony El, henchman to Uncle Joe. Eve and Stanley, working Aberdeen, sharing a room . . .

  ‘But DI Geddes told you it was to do with Mr Spaven? A tip-off?’

  ‘Yes.’ Burke’s Club, police hang-out, maybe an oil-workers’ hang-out too. Hayden Fletcher drinking there. Ludovic Lumsden drinking there. Michelle Strachan meets Johnny Bible there . . .

  ‘And Geddes didn’t say who the call was from?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ancram looked up, and Rebus knew he’d given the wrong answer. ‘I mean, no.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  Ancram stared at him, sniffed, concentrated on his notes again. There were pages and pages of them, specially prepared for this session: questions to be asked, ‘facts’ double-checked, the whole case stripped down and rebuilt.

  ‘Anonymous tip-offs are pretty rare in my experience,’ Ancram said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And they’re almost always made to a police station’s general desk. Would you agree?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Was Aberdeen the key then, or did the answers lie further north? What did Jake Harley have to do with it? And Mike Sutcliffe – Mr Sheepskin – hadn’t Major Weir warned him off? What was it Sutcliffe had said? He’d said something on the plane, then stopped suddenly . . . Something about a boat . . .

  And did any of it connect to Johnny Bible? Was Johnny Bible an oilman?

  ‘So it would be rational to deduce that DI Geddes knew the caller, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Or they knew him.’

  Ancram shrugged this aside. ‘And this tip-off just happened to concern Mr Spaven. Didn’t that strike you at the time as a bit of a coincidence, Inspector? Seeing as Geddes had been warned off Spaven already? I mean, it must have been clear to you that your boss was obsessed with Spaven?’

  Rebus got up again and started pacing the small room as best he could.

  ‘Sit down!’

  ‘With respect, sir, I can’t. If I sit there any longer, I’m going to stick my fist in your face.’

  Jack Morton covered his eyes with one hand.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Wind the tape back and take a listen. And that’s why I’m up and walking: crisis management if you like.’

  ‘Inspector, I’d caution you —’

  Rebus laughed. ‘Would you? That’s big of you, sir.’ Ancram was rising to his feet. Rebus turned away and walked to the far wall, turned round again and stopped.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘a simple question: do you want to see Uncle Joe fucked?’

  ‘We’re not here to —’

  ‘We’re here to put on a show – you know that as well as I do. The brass are sweaty about the media; they want the force to look good if that programme ever gets made. This way, everyone sits back and says there was an inquiry. TV seems to be about the only thing brass are afraid of. Villains don’t scare them, but ten minutes of negative coverage, dearie me, no. Can’t have that. All for a programme which will be stared at by a few million, half of them with the sound down, the other half not taking it in, then forgotten about the very next day. So,’ he took a deep breath, ‘simple yes or no.’ Ancram didn’t say anything, so Rebus repeated the question.

  Ancram signalled for Jack to turn off the machine. Then he sat back down.

  ‘Yes,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I can see that it happens.’ Rebus kept his voice level. ‘But I don’t want you getting sole credit. If it’s anyone’s, the collar belongs to CI Templer.’ Rebus went back to his chair, propped himself on the edge of it. ‘Now I have a couple of questions.’

  ‘Was there a phone call?’ Ancram asked, surprising Rebus. They stared at one another. ‘Tape’s off, this is between the three of us. Was there ever a phone call?’

  ‘I answer yours and you answer mine?’ Ancram nodded. ‘Of course there was a phone call.’

  Ancram almost smiled. ‘You liar. He came to your house, didn’t he? What did he tell you? Did he say you wouldn’t need a search warrant? You must’ve known he was lying.’

  ‘He was a good cop.’

  ‘Every time you come out with that line, it sounds thinner. What’s the matter: stopped finding it convincing?’

  ‘He was.’

&nbs
p; ‘But he had a problem, a little personal demon called Lenny Spaven. You were his friend, Rebus, you should have stopped him.’

  ‘Stopped him?’

  Ancram nodded, eyes gleaming like moons. ‘You should have helped him.’

  ‘I tried,’ Rebus said, his voice a whisper. It was another lie: Lawson by that time had been a junkie with a craving, and only one thing would help – the taste itself.

  Ancram sat back, trying not to look satisfied. He thought Rebus was cracking. The inner doubts had been sown – not for the first time. Ancram could now water them with sympathy.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’m not blaming you. I think I know what you were going through. But there was a cover-up. There was that one central lie: the tip-off.’ He lifted his notes an inch off the desk. ‘It’s written all over these, and it throws everything else into the pot, because if Geddes had been following Spaven, what was to stop him planting a little evidence along the way?’

  ‘It wasn’t his style.’

  ‘Not even when pushed to the limit? Had you seen him there before?’

  Rebus couldn’t think of a thing to say. Ancram had been leaning forward in his seat again, palms against the desk. He sat back. ‘What did you want to ask?’

  When Rebus was a child, they’d lived in a semi-detached with a close separating it from the next house along. The close had led to both back gardens. Rebus played football there with his dad. Sometimes he placed a foot against either wall and pushed his way up towards the roof of the close. And sometimes he’d just stand in the middle and throw a small hard rubber ball as hard as he could against the stone floor. The ball would bounce like anything, zipping back and forth, floor to roof to wall to floor to roof . . .

  His head felt like that now.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘You said you had a couple of questions.’

  Slowly, Rebus’s head came back to the here and now. He rubbed his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘First off, Eve and Stanley.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Are they close?’

  ‘You mean how do they get on? All right.’

  ‘Just all right?’

  ‘No flare-ups to report.’

  ‘I was thinking more of jealousy.’

  Ancram cottoned on. ‘Uncle Joe and Stanley?’

  Rebus nodded. ‘Is she clever enough to play one off against the other?’ He’d met her, thought he already knew the answer. Ancram just shrugged. The conversation had obviously taken an unexpected turn.

  ‘Only,’ Rebus said, ‘in Aberdeen they were sharing a hotel room.’

  Ancram narrowed his eyes. ‘You’re sure of this?’ Rebus nodded. ‘They must be mad. Uncle Joe’ll kill them both.’

  ‘Maybe they don’t think he can.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Maybe they think they’re stronger than him. Maybe they reckon in a war the muscle-men would change sides. Stanley’s the one people are scared of these days, you said as much yourself. Especially with Tony El gone.’

  ‘Tony was history anyway.’

  ‘I’m not so sure.’

  ‘Explain.’

  Rebus shook his head. ‘I need to talk to a couple of people first. Have you heard of Eve and Stanley working together in the past?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So this Aberdeen jaunt . . .?’

  ‘I’d say it’s a newish excursion.’

  ‘Hotel records say the past six months.’

  ‘So the question is, what’s Uncle Joe setting up?’

  Rebus smiled. ‘I think you know the answer to that: drugs. He’s lost the market in Glasgow, it’s already been divvied up. So he can fight for a piece, or he can play away from home. Burke’s will take the stuff and sell it on, especially with someone from CID in their pocket. Aberdeen’s still a nice market, not the hotbed of fifteen or twenty years ago, but a market nonetheless.’

  ‘So tell me, what are you going to do that the rest of us can’t?’

  Rebus shook his head. ‘I still don’t know if you’re on the level; I mean, you might be see-sawing.’

  This time Ancram really did smile. ‘I could say the same about you and the Spaven case.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘I won’t be satisfied until I know. I think maybe that makes us similar.’

  ‘Look, Ancram, we walked into that lock-up and the bag was there. Does it matter how we came to be there?’

  ‘It could have been planted.’

  ‘Not with my knowledge.’

  ‘Geddes never confided? I thought the two of you were close?’

  Rebus was on his feet. ‘I may not be around for a day or two. All right?’

  ‘No, it’s not all right. I’ll expect you here tomorrow, same time.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake . . .’

  ‘Or we can turn the machine back on right now and you can tell me what you know. That way, you’ll have all the time in the world. And I think you’ll find it easier to live with yourself, too.’

  ‘Living with myself has never been the problem. Breathing the same air as people like you – that’s my problem.’

  ‘I’ve already told you, Strathclyde Police and the Squaddies are planning an operation . . .’

  ‘One that’ll get nowhere, because for all we know half the Glasgow force is in Uncle Joe’s pocket.’

  ‘I’m not the one who goes visiting him at home, with a word put in by a certain Morris Cafferty.’

  There was a sudden tightening around Rebus’s chest. Coronary, he thought. But it was only Jack Morton, arms holding him, stopping him moving in on Ancram.

  ‘Tomorrow morning, gentlemen,’ Ancram said, like they’d had a useful session.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Jack said, hustling Rebus out of the room.

  Rebus told his friend to get them on to the M8.

  ‘No way, José.’

  ‘Then park near Waverley, we’ll take the train.’

  Jack didn’t like the way Rebus looked: like his wiring was shorting out. You could almost see the sparks behind his eyes.

  ‘What are you going to do in Glasgow? Walk up to Uncle Joe and say, “Oh, by the way, your woman’s shagging your son”? Even you can’t be that stupid.’

  ‘Of course I’m not that stupid.’

  ‘Glasgow, John,’ Jack pleaded. ‘It’s not our territory. I’ll be back in Falkirk in a few weeks, and you . . .’

  Rebus smiled. ‘Where’ll I be, Jack?’

  ‘God and the Devil know.’

  Rebus was still smiling; thought to himself: I’d rather be the devil.

  ‘You’ve always got to be the hero, haven’t you?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Time loves a hero, Jack,’ Rebus told him.

  On the M8, halfway between Edinburgh and Glasgow, slowed by syrupy traffic, Jack tried again.

  ‘This is crazy. I mean really crazy.’

  ‘Trust me, Jack.’

  ‘Trust you? The guy who tried to lay me out two nights back? With friends like you . . .’

  ‘. . . you’ll never be short of enemies.’

  ‘There’s still time.’

  ‘Not really, you just think there is.’

  ‘You’re talking out your arse.’

  ‘Maybe you’re just not listening.’ Rebus felt calmer now they were on the road. To Jack, he looked like someone had pulled the plug on him: no more sparks. He almost preferred the model with the faulty wiring. The lack of emotion in his friend’s voice was chilling, even in the overheated car. Jack slid his window down a little further. The speedometer was steady on forty, and that was them in the outside lane. Traffic to their left was really crawling. If he could find a space, he’d move to the inside – anything to delay their arrival.

  He’d oftentimes admired John Rebus – and heard him praised by other officers – for his tenacity, the way he worried at a case terrier-style, more often than not tearing it open, spilling out secret motives and hidden bodies. But that same tenacity could also be a weakness, blindi
ng him to danger, making him impatient and reckless. Jack knew why they were headed for Glasgow, thought he knew pretty well what Rebus would want to do there. And, as ordered by Ancram, Jack would be close by when the crap came tumbling down.

  It was a long time since Rebus and Jack had worked together. They’d been an effective team, but Jack had been glad enough of the posting out of Edinburgh. Too claustrophobic – the town and his partner both. Rebus had seemed even then to spend more time living in his own head than in the company of others. Even the pub he chose to haunt was one with fewer than usual distractions: TV, one fruit machine, one cigarette machine. And when group activities were arranged – fishing trips, golf competitions, bus runs – Rebus never signed up. He was an irregular regular, a loner even in company, his brain and heart only fully engaged when he was working a case. Jack knew the score only too well. Work had a way of wrapping itself around you, so you were cut off from the rest of the world. People you met socially tended to treat you with suspicion or outright hostility – so you ended up mixing only with other cops, which bored your wife or girlfriend. They began to feel isolated too. It was a bastard.

  There were plenty of people on the force who coped, of course. They had understanding partners; or they could shut work out whenever they went home; or it was just a job to them, a way of keeping up with the mortgage. Jack would guess CID was split fifty-fifty between those for whom it was a vocation, and those who could fit into any other type of office life, anywhere, any time.

  He didn’t know what else John Rebus could do. If they kicked him off the force . . . he’d probably drink his pension dry, become just another old ex-cop hanging on to a fund of stories, telling them too often to the same people, trading one form of isolation for another.

  It was important that John should stay on the force. It was therefore important to keep him off Shit Street. Jack wondered why nothing in life was ever easy. When he’d been told by Chick Ancram that he’d be ‘keeping an eye’ on Rebus, he’d been pleased. He’d seen them going out together, reminiscing about cases and characters, haunts and high points. He should have known better. He might have changed – become a ‘yes man’, a pencil-pusher, a careerist – but John was the same as always . . . only worse. Time had seasoned his cynicism. He wasn’t a terrier now: he was a fighting dog with locking jaws. You just knew that no matter how bloody he got, how much pain there was behind the eyes, the grip was there to the death . . .