10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Traffic’s beginning to shift,’ Rebus said.

  It was true; whatever the problem had been, it was clearing. The speedo was up to fifty-five. They’d be in Glasgow in no time at all. Jack glanced over at Rebus, who winked without moving his eyes from the road ahead. Jack had a sudden image of himself propping up a bar, dipping into his pension for another drink. Fuck that. For his friend’s sake, he’d go the ninety minutes, but no more: no extra time, no penalties. Definitely no penalties.

  They made for Partick police station, since their faces were known there. Govan had been another possibility, but Govan was Ancram’s HQ and not a place they could do business on the q.t. The Johnny Bible investigation had picked up some momentum from the most recent murder, but all the Glasgow squad were really doing was reading through and filing material sent from Aberdeen. It made Rebus shiver to think he’d walked past Vanessa Holden in Burke’s Club. For all that Lumsden had been trying to stitch him up, Aberdeen CID had one thing right: quite a string of coincidences tied Rebus to the Johnny Bible inquiry. So much so that Rebus was beginning to doubt coincidence had much to do with it. Somehow, he couldn’t yet say how exactly, Johnny was connected to one of Rebus’s other investigations. At present it was no more than a hunch, nothing he could do anything about. But it was there, niggling him. It made him wonder if he knew more about Johnny Bible than he thought . . .

  Partick, new and bright and comfortable – basically your state of the art cop-shop – was still enemy territory. Rebus couldn’t know how many friendly ears Uncle Joe might have on-site, but he thought he might know a quiet spot, a place they could make their own. As they wandered through the building, a few officers nodded or greeted Jack by name.

  ‘Base camp,’ Rebus said at last, turning into the deserted office which was temporary home to Bible John. Here he was, spread out across tables and the floor, pinned and taped to the walls. It was like standing in the middle of an exhibition. The last photofit of Bible John, the one compiled by his third victim’s sister, was repeated around the room, along with her description of him. It was as if by repetition, by piling image upon image, they could will him into physical being, turn wood pulp and ink into flesh and blood.

  ‘I hate this room,’ Jack said as Rebus closed the door.

  ‘So does everyone else by the look of things. Long tea-breaks and other business to attend to.’

  ‘Half the force weren’t alive when Bible John was on the go. He’s lost any sort of meaning.’

  ‘They’ll be telling their grandkids about Johnny Bible though.’

  ‘True enough.’ Jack paused. ‘Are you going to do it?’

  Rebus saw mat his hand was lying on the receiver. He picked it up, punched in the numbers. ‘Did you doubt me?’ he asked.

  ‘Not for a minute.’

  The voice that answered was gruff, unwelcoming. Not Uncle Joe, not Stanley. One of the body-builders. Rebus gave as good as he got.

  ‘Malky there?’

  Hesitation: only his close friends called him Malky. ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘Tell him it’s Johnny.’ Rebus paused. ‘From Aberdeen.’

  ‘Haud on.’ Clatter as the receiver was dropped on to a hard surface. Rebus listened closely, heard television voices, game-show applause. Watching: Uncle Joe maybe, or Eve. Stanley wouldn’t like game-shows; he’d never get a question right.

  ‘Phone!’ the body-builder called.

  A long wait. Then a distant voice: ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Johnny.’

  ‘Johnny? Johnny who?’ The voice closer.

  ‘From Aberdeen.’

  The receiver was picked up. ‘Hello?’

  Rebus took a deep breath. ‘For your own sake you better sound natural. I know about you and Eve, know what you’ve been up to in Aberdeen. So if you want to keep it quiet, sound natural. Don’t want Muscle Man to get even the slightest suspicion.’

  A rustling sound, Stanley turning away for privacy, tucking the phone into his chin.

  ‘So what’s the story?’

  ‘You’ve got a nice scam going, and I don’t want to fuck it up unless I have to, so don’t do anything that would make me do that. Understood?’

  ‘No bother.’ The voice was not used to attempting levity when its brain demanded bloody restitution.

  ‘You’re doing all right, Stanley. Eve’ll be proud of you. Now we need to talk, not just you and me, the three of us.’

  ‘My dad?’

  ‘Eve.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Calming again. ‘Eh . . . no problem with that.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘Eh . . . OK.’

  ‘Partick police station.’

  ‘Wait a minute . . .’

  ‘That’s the deal. Just to talk. You’re not walking into anything. If you’re worried, keep your gob shut until you hear the deal. If you don’t like it, you can walk. You won’t have said anything, so there’s nothing to fear. No charges, no tricks. It’s not you I’m interested in. Are we still on?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Can I call you back?’

  ‘I need a yes or no right now. If it’s no, you might as well pass me across to your dad.’

  Condemned men laughed with more humour. ‘Look, for myself, there’s no problem. But there are other parties involved.’

  ‘Just tell Eve what I’ve told you. If she won’t come, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. I’ll get some visitors’ passes for you. False names.’ Rebus looked down at a book open in front of him, found two straight off. ‘William Pritchard and Madeleine Smith. Can you remember that?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Repeat them.’

  ‘William . . . something.’

  ‘Pritchard.’

  ‘And Maggie Smith.’

  ‘Close enough. I know you can’t just sneak off, so we’ll leave the time open. Get here when you can. And if you start thinking of bottling it, just remember all those bank accounts and how lonely they’ll be without you.’

  Rebus put down the phone. His hand was hardly trembling.

  27

  They notified the front desk and got visitors’ passes made up, and after that there was nothing to do but wait. Jack said the room felt cold and musty at the same time; he had to get out. He suggested the canteen or a corridor or anywhere, but Rebus shook his head.

  ‘You go. I think I’ll stay here, see if I can decide what to say to Bonnie and Clyde. Bring me back a coffee and maybe a filled roll.’ Jack nodded. ‘Oh, and a bottle of whisky.’ Jack looked at him. Rebus smiled.

  He tried to remember his last drink. He recalled standing in the Ox with two glasses and a packet of cigs. But before that . . . Wine with Gill?

  Jack had said the room was cold; it felt stifling to Rebus. He took off his jacket, loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. Then he wandered around the office, peering into desk drawers and grey cardboard boxes.

  He saw: interview transcripts, their covers faded and curling at the edges; hand-written reports; typed reports; evidence summaries; maps, mostly hand-drawn; duty logs; ream after ream of witness statements – descriptions of the man seen in the Barrowland Ballroom. Then there were the photographs, matt black and whites, ten by eight and smaller. The Ballroom itself, interior and exterior. It looked more modern than the word ‘ballroom’ conjured up, reminded Rebus a bit of his old school – flat building panels with the occasional window. Three spots sat atop a concrete canopy, pointing up towards the windows and the sky. And on the canopy itself – a useful shelter from the rain while you were waiting either to be admitted or, afterwards, for your lift – the words ‘Barrowland Ballroom’ and ‘Dancing’. Most of the exterior pictures had been taken on a wet afternoon, women caught on the periphery with plastic rain-mates, men in bunnets and long coats. More photographs: police frogmen searching the river; the loci, CID in their trademark pork-pie hats and raincoats – a back lane, the back court of a tenement, another back court. Typical locations for a cuddle and a feel-up, maybe g
oing a wee bit further. Too far for the victims. There was a photo of Superintendent Joe Beattie, holding out an artist’s impression of Bible John. Looking between the portrait and Beattie, the men’s expressions seemed similar. Several members of the public had commented on it. Mackeith Street and Earl Street – victims two and three were killed on the streets where they lived. He’d taken them so close to their homes: why? So they’d relax their defences? Or had he been vacillating, putting off the attacks? Nervous to ask for a kiss and a cuddle, or just plain scared and with his conscience battling his deep desire? The files were full of such aimless speculation, and more structured theories from professional psychologists and psychiatrists. In the end they’d been as helpful as Croiset the psychic detective.

  Rebus thought of meeting Aldous Zane in this very room. Zane had been in the papers again – he’d inspected the latest locus, given the same rambling spiel, and been flown home. Rebus wondered what Jim Stevens was up to now. He remembered Zane’s handshake, the way it had tingled. And Zane’s impressions of Bible John – though Stevens had been present, the paper hadn’t bothered printing them. A trunk in the attic of a modern house. Well, Rebus could have come up with better than that himself, if some paper had put him up in a posh hotel.

  Lumsden had put him up in a posh hotel, probably thinking CID would never know. Lumsden had tried to get pally with him, telling him they were alike, showing Rebus that he had stature in the city – free meals and drinks, free entrance to Burke’s Club. He’d been testing Rebus, seeing how open he’d be to a bung. But at whose behest? The club’s owners? Or Uncle Joe himself . . .?

  More photos. There seemed no end to them. It was the onlookers who interested Rebus, the people who didn’t know they’d been snapped for posterity. A woman in high heels, good legs – all you could see of her were heels and legs, the rest hidden behind a WPC taking part in a reconstruction. Woolly suits searching the back courts off Mackeith Street, looking for the victim’s handbag. The courts looked like bomb-sites – drying-poles poking up out of stunted grass and rubble. Roadside motor cars: Zephyrs, Hillman Imps, Zodiacs. A world ago. A bundle of posters sat in one box, the rubber band long ago perished. Photofits of Bible John along with varying descriptions: ‘Speaks with a polite Glasgow accent and has an erect posture’. Very helpful. The phone number of the inquiry HQ. They’d received thousands of phone calls, boxes of them. Brief details of every one, with more detailed back-up notes if the call seemed worth checking.

  Rebus’s eyes moved over the remaining boxes. He chose one at random – a big flat cardboard box, inside which were newspapers from the time, intact and unread for quarter of a century. He examined front pages, then turned to the back to look at the sports. A few of the crosswords had been half-done, probably by a bored detective. Slips of paper stapled to each banner-head gave page numbers with Bible John coverage. But Rebus wasn’t going to find anything there. He looked at the other stories instead and smiled at some of the adverts. Some seemed artless by today’s standards; others hadn’t aged at all. In the personal ads, people were selling lawnmowers, washing machines, and record players at knockdown prices. In a couple of papers, Rebus found the same ad, framed like a public notice: ‘Find a New Life and a Good Job in America – Booklet Tells You How’. You had to send off a couple of stamps to an address in Manchester. Rebus sat back, wondering if Bible John had got that far.

  In October ’69, Paddy Meehan had been sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh and had shouted out, ‘You’ve made a terrible mistake – I’m innocent!’ That made Rebus think of Lenny Spaven; he shook the thought away and turned to a new paper. November 8: gales forced the evacuation of the Staflo oil rig; November 12: a report that the owners of the Torrey Canyon had paid out £3 million in compensation after losing 5,000 tons of Kuwaiti crude into the English Channel. Elsewhere, Dunfermline had decided to allow The Killing of Sister George to be shown in the town, and a brand new Rover three-and-a-half litre would cost you £1,700. Rebus turned to late December. The SNP chairman was predicting that Scotland stood ‘on the threshold of a decade of destiny’. Nice one, sir. December 31: Hogmanay. The Herald wished its readers a happy and prosperous 1970, and led with the story of a shootout in Govanhill: one constable dead, three wounded. He put the paper down, the gust blowing some photos off the desk. He picked them up: the three victims, so full of life. Victims one and three shared some facial similarities. All three looked hopeful, like the future just might bring them everything they were dreaming of. It was good to have hope, and never to give up. But Rebus doubted many people managed that. They might smile for the camera, but if caught unawares they’d more likely look bedraggled and exhausted, like the bystanders in the photos.

  How many victims were there? Not just Bible John or Johnny Bible, but all the killers, the punished and the never found. The World’s End murders, Cromwell Street, Nilsen, the Yorkshire Ripper . . . And Elsie Rhind . . . If Spaven hadn’t killed her, then the murderer must have been hooting with laughter all through the trial. And he was still out there, maybe with other scalps added to his tally, other unsolveds. Elsie Rhind lay in her grave unavenged, a forgotten victim. Spaven had committed suicide because he couldn’t bear the weight of his innocence. And Lawson Geddes . . . had he killed himself over grief for his wife, or because of Spaven? Had cold realisation finally crept over him?

  The bastards were all gone; only John Rebus was left. They wanted to shift their burdens on to him. But he was refusing, and he’d go on refusing, denying. He didn’t know what else he could do. Except drink. He wanted a drink, wanted one desperately. But he wasn’t going to have one, not yet. Maybe later, maybe sometime. People died and you couldn’t bring them back. Some of them died violently, cruelly young, without knowing why they’d been chosen. Rebus felt surrounded by loss. All the ghosts . . . yelling at him . . . begging him . . . shrieking . . .

  ‘John?’

  He looked up from the desk. Jack was standing there with a mug in one hand and a roll in the other. Rebus blinked, his vision was going: it was like he was looking at Jack through a heat haze.

  ‘Christ, man, are you all right?’

  His nose and lips were wet. He wiped at them. The photos on the desk were wet too. He knew he’d been crying and pulled out a handkerchief. Jack put the mug and roll down and rested an arm along his shoulders, squeezing gently.

  ‘Don’t know what’s up with me,’ Rebus said, blowing his nose.

  ‘Yes you do,’ Jack said quietly.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Rebus acknowledged. He gathered up the photographs and newspapers and stuffed them all back into their boxes. ‘Stop looking at me like that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I wasn’t talking to you.’

  Jack lifted his backside on to a desk. ‘Not many defences left, have you?’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it.’

  ‘Time to get your act together.’

  ‘Ach, Stanley and Eve won’t be here for a while yet.’

  ‘You know that’s not —’

  ‘I know, I know. And you’re right: time to get my act together. Where do I start? No, don’t tell me – the Juice Church?’

  Jack just shrugged. ‘Your decision.’

  Rebus picked up the roll and bit into it. A mistake: the block in his throat made it hard to swallow. He gulped at the coffee, managed to finish the roll – bland ham and wet tomato. Then remembered he had to make another call: a Shetland number.

  ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he told Jack.

  In the toilets he washed his face. Tiny red veins had burst in the whites of his eyes; he looked like he’d been on a bender.

  ‘Stone cold sober,’ he told himself, heading back to the telephone.

  Briony, Jake Harley’s girlfriend, picked up.

  ‘Is Jake there?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘No, sorry.’

  ‘Briony, we met the other day, DI Rebus.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Has he been in touch?’


  A long pause. ‘Sorry, I missed that. The line’s not great.’

  It sounded just fine to Rebus. ‘I said, has he been in touch?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’ Edgy now.

  ‘OK, OK. Aren’t you a bit worried?’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Jake.’

  ‘Why should I be?’

  ‘Well, he’s been off on his own longer than intended. Maybe something’s happened.’

  ‘He’s all right.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I just do!’ Almost shouting now.

  ‘Calm down. Look, why don’t I get —’

  ‘Just leave us alone!’ The phone died on him.

  Us. Leave us alone. Rebus stared at the receiver.

  ‘I could hear her from over here,’ Jack said. ‘Sounds like she’s cracking up.’

  ‘I think she is.’

  ‘Boyfriend trouble?’

  ‘Boyfriend in trouble.’ He put the receiver down. There was an incoming call.

  ‘DI Rebus.’

  It was the front desk, telling him the first of his visitors had arrived.

  Eve looked much as she had that night in the bar of Rebus’s hotel – dressed for business in a two-piece suit, conservative blue rather than vamp red, and with the gold jewellery on wrists, fingers and neck, and the same gold clasp pulling back her peroxide hair. She had a handbag with her, and tucked it under her arm as she clipped on her visitor’s pass.

  ‘Who’s Madeleine Smith?’ she asked as they climbed the stairs.

  ‘I got her name out of a book, I think she was a murderess.’

  She gave Rebus a look which managed to be hard and amused at the same time.

  ‘This way,’ Rebus said. He led her to the Bible John room, where Jack was waiting. ‘Jack Morton,’ Rebus said, ‘Eve . . . I don’t know your last name. It’s not Toal, is it?’