10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

‘Come by for orange juice and coffee.’

  ‘Give me five minutes.’

  Rebus said that was the least he could do. Next he tried phoning Siobhan at home – got her machine. Tried her at St Leonard’s, but she wasn’t there. He knew she wouldn’t be slow in going about the work he’d given her, but he wanted to stick close to her, needed to know when she got a result. He put down the phone and looked at the tray again, then smiled.

  Eve had left him a message after all.

  The dining room was quiet, most tables taken by single men, some of them already at work on portable phones and laptops. Rebus and Jack got stuck in – juice and cornflakes, then the Full Highland Breakfast with a big pot of tea.

  Jack tapped his watch. ‘Quarter of an hour from now, Ancram’s going to hit the roof.’

  ‘Might knock some sense into him.’ Rebus scraped a pat of butter on to his toast. Five-star hotel, but the toast was still cold.

  ‘So what’s our plan of attack?’

  ‘I’m looking for a girl, she’s in photos with Allan Mitchison, an environmental protester.’

  ‘Where do we start?’

  ‘You sure you want in on this?’ Rebus looked around the dining room. ‘You could spend the day here, try the health club, watch a film . . . It’s all on Uncle Joe.’

  ‘John, I’m sticking by you.’ Jack paused. ‘As a friend, not Ancram’s dog’s-body.’

  ‘In that case, our first port of call’s the Exhibition Centre. Now eat up, it’s going to be a long day, believe me.’

  ‘One question.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How come you got the orange juice this morning?’

  The Exhibition Centre was almost deserted. The various stalls and stands – many of them, as Rebus now knew, designed by Johnny Bible’s fourth victim – had been dismantled and taken away, the floors hoovered and polished. There were no demonstrators outside, no inflatable whale. They asked to speak to someone in charge, and were eventually taken to an office where a brisk, bespectacled woman introduced herself as ‘the Deputy’ and asked them how she could help.

  ‘The North Sea Conference,’ Rebus explained, ‘you had a bit of trouble with protesters.’

  She smiled, her mind on other things. ‘Bit late to do anything about that, isn’t it?’ She moved some papers around her desk, looking for something.

  ‘I’m interested in one particular protester. What was the name of the group?’

  ‘It wasn’t that organised, Inspector. They came from all over: Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Save the Whale, God alone knows.’

  ‘Did they cause any trouble?’

  ‘Nothing we couldn’t handle.’ Another frozen smile. But she was looking harassed: she really had misplaced something. Rebus got to his feet.

  ‘Well, sorry to trouble you.’

  ‘No trouble. Sorry I can’t help.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  Rebus turned to go. Jack bent down and retrieved a sheet of paper from the floor, handed it to her.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. Then she followed them out of her office. ‘Look, a local pressure group was responsible for the march on the Saturday.’

  ‘What march?’

  ‘It ended at Duthie Park, there was some music afterwards.’

  Rebus nodded: Dancing Pigs. The day he’d visited Bannock.

  ‘I can give you their phone number,’ she said. The smile was human now.

  Rebus telephoned the group’s headquarters.

  ‘I’m looking for a friend of Allan Mitchison’s. I don’t know her name, but she’s got short fair hair, with some of it braided, you know, with beads and stuff. One braid hangs down past her forehead to her nose. Sort of an American accent, I think.’

  ‘And who might you be?’ The voice was cultured; for some reason, Rebus visualised the speaker sporting a beard, but it wasn’t the kilted Jerry Garcia, different accent.

  ‘My name’s Detective Inspector John Rebus. You know Allan Mitchison is dead?’

  A pause, then an exhalation: cigarette smoke. ‘I heard. Bloody shame.’

  ‘Did you know him well?’ Rebus was trying to recall the faces in the photographs.

  ‘He was the shy type. Only met him a couple of times. Big fan of Dancing Pigs, that’s why he tried so bloody hard to get them to top the bill. I was amazed when it worked. He bombarded them with letters, you know. Maybe a hundred or more, probably wore down their resistance.’

  ‘And his girlfriend’s name?’

  ‘Not given out to strangers, I’m afraid. I mean, I’ve only your word for it you’re a police officer.’

  ‘I could come over —’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Look, I’d really like to talk to you . . .’

  But the telephone was dead.

  ‘Want to take a run down there?’ Jack suggested.

  Rebus shook his head. ‘He won’t tell us anything he doesn’t want to. Besides, I’ve got the feeling by the time we got there he’d have gone out for the day. Can’t afford to waste time.’

  Rebus tapped his pen against his teeth. They were back in his bedroom. The telephone had a speaker, and he’d kept it on so Jack could hear. Jack was helping himself to last night’s chocolates.

  ‘Local cops,’ Rebus said, picking up the receiver. ‘That gig was probably licensed, maybe Queen Street will have records of other organisers.’

  ‘Worth a go,’ Jack agreed, plugging in the kettle.

  So Rebus spent twenty minutes knowing how a pinball feels, as he was shunted from one office to another. He was pretending to be a Trading Standards Officer, interested in bootleggers, following up on an operation at an earlier Dancing Pigs concert. Jack nodded his approval: not a bad story.

  ‘Yes, John Baxter here, City of Edinburgh Trading Standards. I was just explaining to your colleague . . .’ And off he went again. When he was passed on to yet another voice, and recognised it as belonging to the first person he’d spoken to, he slammed down the phone.

  ‘They couldn’t organise the proverbial piss-up.’

  Jack handed him a cup of tea. ‘End of the road?’

  ‘No chance.’ Rebus consulted his notebook, picked up the phone again and was put through to Stuart Minchell at T-Bird Oil.

  ‘Inspector, what a pleasant surprise.’

  ‘Sorry to keep pestering you, Mr Minchell.’

  ‘How’s your investigation?’

  ‘To be honest, I could use a bit of help.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘It’s about Bannock. The day I went out there, some protesters were brought aboard.’

  ‘Yes, I heard. Handcuffed themselves to the rails.’ Minchell sounded amused. Rebus remembered the platform, the strong gusts, the way his hard-hat wouldn’t stay on, and the helicopter overhead, filming everything . . .

  ‘I was wondering what happened to the protesters. I mean, were they placed under arrest?’ He knew they weren’t: a couple of them had been at the concert.

  ‘Best person to ask would be Hayden Fletcher.’

  ‘Do you think you could ask for me, sir? On the quiet, as it were.’

  ‘I suppose so. Give me your number in Edinburgh.’

  ‘That’s all right, I’ll call you back . . . say, twenty minutes?’ Rebus glanced towards the window: he could almost see the T-Bird headquarters from here.

  ‘Depends if I can find anyone.’

  ‘I’ll try again in twenty minutes. Oh, and Mr Minchell?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If you should need to speak to Bannock, could you put a question from me to Willie Ford?’

  ‘What’s the question?’

  ‘I want to know if he knew Allan Mitchison had a girlfriend, blonde with braided hair.’

  ‘Braided hair.’ Minchell was writing it down. ‘Can do.’

  ‘If so, I’d like her name, and an address if possible.’ Rebus thought of something else. ‘When the protesters came to your headquarters, you had them videoed, didn’t yo
u?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Could you find out? It would be security, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Do I still have twenty minutes for all this?’

  Rebus smiled. ‘No, sir. Let’s make it half an hour.’

  Rebus put down the phone and drained his tea.

  ‘How about another phone call now?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Who to?’

  ‘Chick Ancram.’

  ‘Jack, look at me.’ Rebus pointed to his face. ‘Could a man this ill possibly pick up the telephone?’

  ‘You’ll swing.’

  ‘Like a pendulum do.’

  Rebus gave Stuart Minchell forty minutes.

  ‘You know, Inspector, you make working for the Major seem like a picnic by comparison.’

  ‘Glad to be of service, sir. What have you got?’

  ‘Just about everything.’ A rustle of paper. ‘No, the protesters weren’t arrested.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit generous, under the circumstances?’

  ‘It would only have generated more bad publicity.’

  ‘Something you don’t need right now?’

  ‘The company did get names out of the protesters, but they were false. At least, I’m assuming Yuri Gagarin and Judy Garland are aliases.’

  ‘Sound reasoning.’ Judy Garland: Braid-Hair. Interesting choice.

  ‘So they were detained, given something hot to drink, and flown back to the mainland.’

  ‘Very decent of T-Bird.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it?’

  ‘And the video recording?’

  ‘That was, as you guessed, our security staff. Precautionary, I’m told. If there’s trouble, we have physical evidence.’

  ‘They don’t use the film to identify the protesters?’

  ‘We’re not the CIA, Inspector. We’re an oil company.’

  ‘Sorry, sir, go on.’

  ‘Willie Ford says he knew Mitch had been seeing someone in Aberdeen – past tense. But they never discussed her. Mitch was – quote – “a dark horse on the question of his love life” – unquote.’

  Dead ends everywhere.

  ‘Is that everything?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Well, thank you, sir, I really appreciate this.’

  ‘My pleasure, Inspector. But next time you want a favour, try not to make it on a day when I’m due to sack a dozen of our workforce.’

  ‘Hard times, Mr Minchell?’

  ‘A book by Dickens, Inspector Rebus. Goodbye.’

  Jack was laughing. ‘Good line,’ he said approvingly.

  ‘So it should be,’ Rebus said, ‘he was less than a mile away.’ He walked over to the window, watched another plane taking off in the near-distance, the roar of its jets fading as it headed north.

  ‘Had enough for one morning?’

  Rebus didn’t say anything. He’d been expecting Eve to call. There was that favour. He wondered if she’d do it. She owed him, but crossing Judd Fuller didn’t sound like the wisest move on the dance floor. She’d been dancing her own little steps for years: why trip up now?

  Jack repeated his question.

  ‘One option left,’ Rebus said, turning to face him.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Flight.’

  At Dyce Airport, Rebus showed his warrant card and asked if there were any flights out to Sullom Voe.

  ‘Not for a while,’ he was told. ‘Maybe in four or five hours.’

  ‘We’re not fussy who we fly with.’

  Shrugs, shakes of the head.

  ‘It’s important.’

  ‘You could always hitch a ride to Sumburgh.’

  ‘That’s miles from Sullom Voe.’

  ‘Only trying to be helpful. You could rent a car.’

  Rebus thought about it, then had a better idea. ‘How soon could we be out of here?’

  ‘To Sumburgh? Half an hour, forty minutes. There’s a helicopter stopping there on its way out to Ninian.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Let me talk to them.’ She picked up her telephone.

  ‘We’ll be back in five minutes.’

  Jack followed Rebus over to the public telephones, where Rebus made a call to St Leonard’s. He was put through to Gill Templer.

  ‘I’m halfway through listening to the tape,’ she said.

  ‘Better than Saturday Night Theatre, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m going through to Glasgow later on. I want to talk to him myself.’

  ‘Good idea, I’ve left a copy of the tape with Partick CID. Have you seen Siobhan this morning?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Which shift is she working? If you like, I can try to find her.’

  ‘Don’t bother, Gill, long distance doesn’t come cheap.’

  ‘Oh hell, where are you now?’

  ‘Ill in bed, if Ancram comes asking.’

  ‘And looking for that favour?’

  ‘A phone number, actually. Lerwick police station. I’m assuming such a thing exists.’

  ‘It does,’ she said. ‘Under the auspices of Northern Division. There was a conference in Inverness last year, they were complaining about keeping tabs on Orkney and Shetland.’

  ‘Gill . . .’

  ‘I’ve been looking it up while I talk.’ She reeled the number off; it went into his notebook.

  ‘Thanks, Gill. Bye.’

  ‘John!’

  But he’d cut her off. ‘How are you for change, Jack?’ Jack showed him some coins. Rebus took most of them, then called Lerwick and asked if they could lend a car for half a day. He explained it was a murder inquiry, Lothian and Borders. Nothing to get het up about, they’d only be interviewing a friend of the victim.

  ‘Well now, a car . . .’ the voice drawled, like Rebus had asked for a spaceship. ‘When would you be arriving?’

  ‘We’re on a chopper out of here in about half an hour.’

  ‘Two of you?’

  ‘Two of us,’ Rebus said, ‘which rules out a motorbike.’

  His reward: a deep gurgling laugh. ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘Can you do it?’

  ‘Well, I can do something. Only problem might be if the cars are out elsewhere. Some of our calls are to the back of beyond.’

  ‘If there’s no one to meet us at Sumburgh, I’ll phone again.’

  ‘You do that now. Cheerio.’

  Back at the desk, they found they were on the flight in thirty-five minutes.

  ‘I’ve never been on a helicopter,’ Jack said.

  ‘An experience you’ll never forget.’

  Jack frowned. ‘Can you try that again with a bit more enthusiasm?’

  29

  There were half a dozen planes on the ground at Sumburgh Airport, and the same number of helicopters, most of them connected as if by umbilical cord to neighbouring fuel tankers. Rebus walked into the Wilsness Terminal, unzipping his survival suit as he went, then saw that Jack was still outside, taking in the coastal scenery and bleak inland plain. There was a fierce wind rising, and Jack had his chin tucked into his suit. Post-flight, he looked pale and slightly queasy. Rebus for one had spent the entire time trying not to remember his outsized breakfast. Jack eventually saw him signalling, and came in from the cold.

  ‘Doesn’t the sea look blue?’

  ‘Same colour you’d turn after two more minutes out there.’

  ‘And the sky . . . incredible.’

  ‘Don’t go New Age on me, Jack. Let’s get these suits off. I think our escort with the Escort has just arrived.’

  Only it was an Astra, snug with three of them inside, especially when the uniformed driver was built like a rock formation. His head – minus the diced cap – brushed the roof of the car. The voice was the same as on the telephone. He’d shaken Rebus’s hand as though greeting some foreign emissary.

  ‘Have you been to Shetland before?’

  Jack shook his head; Rebus admitted he’d been once, but added no further details.

  ‘And where would you
like me to take you?’

  ‘Back to your base,’ Rebus said from the cramped back seat. ‘We’ll drop you off and turn the car in when we’re finished.’

  The woolly suit – whose name was Alexander Forres – boomed his disappointment. ‘But I’ve been two decades on the force.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘This would be my first murder inquiry!’

  ‘Look, Sergeant Forres, we’re only here to talk to a friend of the victim. It’s background – routine and boring as hell.’

  ‘Ach, all the same . . . I was quite looking forward to it.’

  They were heading up the A970 to Lerwick, twenty-odd miles north of Sumburgh. The wind buffeted them, Forres’ huge hands tight on the steering-wheel, like an ogre choking an infant. Rebus decided to change the subject.

  ‘Nice road.’

  ‘Paid for with oil money,’ Forres said.

  ‘How do you like being ruled from Inverness?’

  ‘Who says we are? You think they come checking up on us every week of the year?’

  ‘I’d guess not.’

  ‘You’d guess right, Inspector. It’s like Lothian and Borders – how often does someone from Fettes bother travelling down to Hawick?’ Forres looked at Rebus in the rearview. ‘Don’t go thinking we’re all idiots up here, with just enough sense to set light to the boat come Up-Helly-Aa.’

  ‘Up-Helly what?’

  Jack turned towards him. ‘You know, John, where they burn a longboat.’

  ‘Last Tuesday in January,’ Forres said.

  ‘Odd form of central heating,’ Rebus muttered.

  ‘He’s a born cynic,’ Jack told the sergeant.

  ‘Well, it’d be sad for him if he died one.’ Forres’ eyes were still on the rearview.

  On the outskirts of Lerwick, they passed ugly pre-fabricated buildings which Rebus guessed were connected to the oil industry. The police station itself was in the New Town. They dropped Forres off, and he went in to fetch them a map of Mainland.

  ‘Not that you could get very lost,’ he’d told them. ‘There are only the three big roads to worry about.’

  Rebus looked at the map and saw what he meant. Mainland comprised a shape in the vague form of a cross, the A970 its spine, the 971 and 968 its arms. Brae was as far north again as they’d just come. Rebus was going to be driving, Jack navigating – Jack’s decision; he said it would give him a chance to sight-see.