10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  Smoke billowed from grinning mouths.

  ‘Joanna,’ Rebus reminded them.

  ‘Warrant?’ the guitarist asked.

  ‘You know better than that,’ Rebus told her. ‘I only need a warrant if I want to bust this place. Want me to fetch one?’

  ‘Macho Man!’ someone sang.

  ‘What do you want?’

  There was a small white caravan hooked up to an antiquated Land Rover. She’d opened the caravan door – just the top half – and was leaning out.

  ‘Can you smell the bacon, Jo?’ the guitarist asked.

  ‘Need to talk to you, Joanna,’ Rebus said, walking towards the caravan, ‘about Mitch.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Why he died.’

  Joanna Bruce looked at her fellow travellers, saw that Rebus had their attention, and unlocked the bottom half of her door. ‘Better come in,’ she said.

  The caravan was cramped and unheated. There was no TV, but untidy stacks of magazines and newspapers, some of them with articles clipped out, and on the small folding table – benches either side, the whole thing convertible into a bed – a laptop computer. Standing, Rebus’s head touched the caravan roof. Joanna shut down the computer, then gestured for Rebus and Jack to take the bench seats, while she balanced atop a pile of magazines.

  ‘So,’ she said, folding her arms, ‘what’s the story?’

  ‘My question exactly,’ Rebus replied. He nodded towards the wall behind her, where some photos had been pinned for decoration. ‘Snap.’ She looked round at the pictures. ‘I’ve just had another lot of those developed,’ Rebus explained: they were the originals missing from Mitch’s envelope. She sat there with a face like stone, giving nothing away. There was kohl around her eyes and her hair was white fire in the glow from the gas lighting. For a full half-minute, the soft roar of igniting gas was the only sound in the caravan. Rebus was giving her time to change her mind, but she was using that time to erect further barricades, her eyes closing to slits, mouth pressed shut.

  ‘Joanna Bruce,’ Rebus mused. ‘Interesting choice of name.’ She half-opened her mouth, closed it again.

  ‘Is Joanna your real first name, or did you change that too?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Rebus looked at Jack, who was sitting back, trying to look the part of the relaxed visitor, telling her it wasn’t two against one, that she’d no need to be afraid. When Rebus spoke, he spoke to Jack’s face.

  ‘Your real surname’s Weir.’

  ‘How . . . who told you that?’ Trying to laugh it off.

  ‘Nobody needed to. Major Weir had a daughter; they fell out; he disowned her.’ And changed her sex to a son, maybe to muddy the water. Mairie’s source had said as much.

  ‘He didn’t disown her! She disowned him!’

  Rebus turned to her. Her face and body were animated now, clay come to life. Her fists gouged at her knees.

  ‘Two things put me on track,’ he said quietly. ‘One, that surname: Bruce, as in Robert the . . . as any student of Scottish history would know. Major Weir is daft on Scots history, he even named his oilfield after Bannockburn, which as we know was won by Robert the Bruce. Bruce and Bannock. I’m guessing you picked the name because you thought it would rile him?’

  ‘It riles him all right.’ Half a smile.

  ‘The second thing was Mitch himself, once I knew you two were friends. Jake Harley tells me Mitch had gleaned some gen on Negrita, top-secret stuff. Well, Mitch might have been resourceful in some areas, but I couldn’t see how he’d manage to work his way back through a paper trail. He travelled light, no sign of any notes or anything like that, either in his flat or in his cabin. I’m assuming he got the gen from you?’ She nodded. ‘And you’d have to seriously have it in for T-Bird Oil to bother with that sort of labyrinth in the first place. But we already know you’ve got something against T-Bird – the demo outside their HQ; chaining yourself to Bannock in full view of the TV cameras. I thought maybe it was something personal . . .’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Major Weir’s your father?’

  Her face turned sour and strangely childlike. ‘Only in the biological sense. Even then, if you could get a gene transplant I’d be at the front of the queue.’ Her voice sounded more American than ever. ‘Did he kill Mitch?’

  ‘Do you think he did?’

  ‘I’d like to think so.’ She stared at Rebus. ‘I mean, I’d like to think he’d sink that low.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But nothing. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t.’

  ‘You reckon he had the motive?’

  ‘Sure.’ Not aware she was doing it, she picked at a nail and then bit it, before starting on another. ‘I mean, Negrita and the way T-Bird’s culpability was hushed up . . . and now the dumping. He had plenty of economic reasons.’

  ‘Was Mitch threatening to go to the media with the story?’

  She removed a sliver of nail from her tongue. ‘No, I think he was trying blackmail first. Keep quiet about everything, so long as T-Bird went for ecological scrapping of Bannock.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said “everything”, like there was more.’

  She shook her head. ‘No.’ But she wasn’t looking at him.

  ‘Joanna, let me ask you something: why didn’t you go to the media, or try blackmail on your father? Why did it have to be Mitch?’

  She shrugged. ‘He had the chutzpah.’

  ‘Did he?’

  Another shrug. ‘What else?’

  ‘See, the way it looks to me . . . you don’t mind tormenting your father – as publicly as possible. You’re at the front of every demo, you make sure your picture’s on TV . . . but if you actually came forward and let the world know who you are, that would be even more effective. Why the secrecy?’

  Her face turned childlike again, her mouth busy with fingers, knees together. The single braid fell between her eyes, like she wanted to hide from the world but be caught at the same time – a child’s game.

  ‘Why the secrecy?’ Rebus repeated. ‘Seems to me it’s precisely because this is so personal between you and your father, like some sort of private game. You like the idea of torturing him, letting him wonder when you’ll go public with any of this.’ He paused. ‘Seems to me maybe you were using Mitch.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Using him to get at your father.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Which means he had something you found useful. What could that be?’

  She got up. ‘Get out!’

  ‘Something that drew the two of you together.’

  She clamped her hands over her ears, shaking her head.

  ‘Something from your past . . . your childhoods. Something like blood between you. How far back does it go, Jo? Between you and your father – how far into the past does it stretch?’

  She swung around and slapped his face. Hard. Rebus rode it, but it still stung.

  ‘So much for non-violent protest,’ he said, rubbing the spot.

  She slumped down on the magazines again, ran a hand over her head. It came to rest on one of her braids, which she twirled nervously. ‘You’re right,’ she said, so quietly Rebus almost didn’t hear.

  ‘Mitch?’

  ‘Mitch,’ she said, remembering him at last. Allowing herself that pain. Behind her, lighting flickered over the photographs. ‘He was so uptight when we met. Nobody could believe it when we started seeing one another – chalk and cheese they said. They were wrong. It took a while, but one night he opened up to me.’ She looked up. ‘You know his background?’

  ‘Orphaned,’ Rebus said.

  She nodded. ‘Then institutionalised.’ She paused. ‘Then abused. He said there were times he’d thought of coming forward, telling people, but after all this time . . . he wondered what good it would do.’ She shook her head, tears forming. ‘He was the most unselfish person I’ve ever met. But inside, it was like he was eaten away, and
Jesus, I know that feeling.’

  Rebus got it. ‘Your father?’

  She sniffed. ‘They call him “an institution” in the oil world. Me, I was institutionalised . . .’ A deep breath, nothing theatrical about it: a necessity. ‘And then abused.’

  ‘Christ,’ Jack said quietly. Rebus’s heart was racing; he had to fight to keep his voice level.

  ‘For how long, Jo?’

  She looked up angrily. ‘You think I’d let the prick get away with it twice? I ran as soon as I could. Kept running for years, then thought: fuck it, I’m not to blame. I’m not the one who should be doing this.’

  Rebus nodded understanding. ‘So you saw a bond between Mitch and you?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And you told him your own story?’

  ‘Quid pro quo.’

  ‘Including your father’s identity?’ She started to nod, but stopped, swallowed instead. ‘That’s what he was blackmailing your father with – the incest story?’

  ‘I don’t know. Mitch was dead before I could find out.’

  ‘But that was his intention?’

  She shrugged. ‘I guess.’

  ‘Jo, I think we’ll need a statement from you. Not now, later. All right?’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’ She paused. ‘We can’t prove anything, can we?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Maybe not ever, he was thinking. He slid out of the seat, Jack following.

  Outside, there were more songs around the camp-fire. Candles danced inside Chinese lanterns strung from the trees. Faces had turned shiny orange, like pumpkins. Joanna Bruce watched from her doorway, leaning against the bottom half of the door as before. Rebus turned to say goodbye.

  ‘Will you be camped here a while?’

  She shrugged. ‘The way we live, who knows?’

  ‘You like what you’re doing?’

  She gave the question serious thought. ‘It’s a life.’

  Rebus smiled, moved away.

  ‘Inspector!’ she called. He turned back to her. Kohl was dribbling down her cheeks. ‘If everything’s so wonderful, how come everything’s so fucked up?’

  Rebus didn’t have an answer to that. ‘Don’t let the sun catch you crying,’ he told her instead.

  On the drive back, he tried answering her question for himself, found he couldn’t. Maybe it all had to do with balance, cause and effect. Where there was light, there must needs be dark. It sounded like the start of a sermon, and he hated sermons. He tried out his own personal mantra instead: Miles Davis, ‘So What?’ Only, it didn’t sound so clever now.

  It didn’t sound clever at all.

  Jack was frowning. ‘Why didn’t she come forward with any of this?’ he asked.

  ‘Because as far as she’s concerned, it’s got nothing to do with us. It didn’t even have anything to do with Mitch, he just blundered in.’

  ‘Sounded more like he was invited.’

  ‘An invitation he should have refused.’

  ‘You think Major Weir did it?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’m not even sure it matters. He’s not going anywhere.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘He’s in this little private hell she’s constructed for the two of them. As long as he knows she’s out there, demonstrating against everything he holds dear . . . that’s his punishment and her revenge. No getting away from it for either of them.’

  ‘Fathers and daughters, eh?’

  ‘Fathers and daughters,’ Rebus agreed. And past misdemeanours. And the way they refused to go away . . .

  They were beat when they got back to the hotel.

  ‘Round of golf?’ Jack suggested.

  Rebus laughed. ‘I could just about manage coffee and a round of sarnies.’

  ‘Sounds good to me. My room in ten minutes.’

  Their rooms had been made up, fresh chocolates on the pillows, clean bathrobes laid out. Rebus changed quickly, then phoned reception to ask if there were any messages. He hadn’t checked before – hadn’t wanted Jack to know he was expecting one.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the receptionist trilled. ‘I’ve a phone message for you here.’ Rebus’s heart rose: she hadn’t just upped and run. ‘Shall I read it to you?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘It says, “Burke’s, half an hour after closing. Tried another time, another place, but he wasn’t having any.” There’s no name.’

  ‘That’s fine, thanks.’

  ‘You’re welcome, sir.’

  Of course he was welcome: business account. The whole world sucked up to you if you were corporate. He got the outside line, tried Siobhan at home, got her machine again. Tried St Leonard’s, was told she wasn’t there. Tried her at home again, deciding this time to leave his telephone number on her machine. Halfway through, she picked up.

  ‘What’s the use of an answering machine when you’re home?’ he asked.

  ‘Call filtering,’ she said. ‘I get to check if you’re a heavy breather or not before I talk to you.’

  ‘My breathing’s under control, so talk to me.’

  ‘First victim,’ she said. ‘I spoke to someone at Robert Gordon’s. Deceased was studying geology, and it included time spent offshore. People who study geology up there almost always get a job in the oil industry, the whole course is geared towards it. Because she spent time offshore, deceased did a survival module.’

  Rebus was thinking: chopper simulator, ducked in a swimming pool.

  ‘So,’ Siobhan went on, ‘she spent time at OSC.’

  ‘The Offshore Survival Centre.’

  ‘Which deals with nothing but oil people. I got them to fax me staff and student rolls. So much for the first victim.’ She paused. ‘Victim two seemed completely different: older, different set of friends, different city. But she was a prostitute, and we know that a lot of businessmen use that sort of service when they’re away from home.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Victim four worked closely with the oil industry, which left Judith Cairns, the Glasgow victim. Variously employed, including part-time cleaning at a city-centre hotel.’

  ‘Businessmen again.’

  ‘So tomorrow they begin faxing me names. They weren’t keen, client confidentiality and all that.’

  ‘But you can be persuasive.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what are we hoping for? A guest at the Fairmount who’s got a connection with Robert Gordon’s?’

  ‘It’ll be in my prayers.’

  ‘How soon tomorrow will you know?’

  ‘That’s down to the hotel. I may have to drive over there and gee them up.’

  ‘I’ll phone you.’

  ‘If you get the machine, leave a number where I can reach you.’

  ‘Will do. Cheers, Siobhan.’ He put the telephone down, went along to Jack’s room. Jack was wearing his robe.

  ‘I might have to splash out on one of these,’ he said. ‘Sarnies are on their way up, ditto a big pot of coffee. I’m just going to take a shower.’

  ‘Fine. Listen, Siobhan might be on to something.’ He filled Jack in.

  ‘Sounds promising. Then again . . .’ Jack shrugged.

  ‘Christ, and I thought I was cynical.’

  Jack winked, went into the bathroom. Rebus waited till he could hear the shower running, and Jack humming what sounded like ‘Puppy Love’. Jack’s clothes were on a chair. Rebus fished in the jacket pockets, came up with car keys, pocketed them for himself.

  He wondered what time Burke’s closed on a Thursday night. He wondered what he was going to say to Judd Fuller. He wondered how badly Fuller would take it, whatever it was.

  The shower stopped. ‘Puppy Love’ segued into ‘What Made Milwaukee Famous’. Rebus liked a man with catholic tastes. Jack emerged, wrapped in his robe and doing prize-fighter impressions.

  ‘Back to Edinburgh tomorrow?’

  ‘First thing,’ Rebus agreed.

  ‘To face the music.’

  Rebus didn’t say he might
well be facing the music long before that. But when the sandwiches arrived, he found he’d lost his appetite. Thirsty though: four cups of coffee. He needed to stay awake. Long night coming, no moon in the sky.

  Darkness on the short drive in, thin rain falling. Rebus felt jolted by coffee, loose wires sparking where his nerves should be. One-fifteen in the morning: he’d rung Burke’s, the bar-side payphone, asked a punter what time the place shut.

  ‘Party’s nearly finished, ya radge!’ Phone slammed home. Background music: ‘Albatross’, so it was moon-dance time. Two or three slows, your last chance to grab a breakfast partner. Desperate times on the dance floor; as desperate in your forties as in your teens.

  Albatross.

  Rebus tried the radio – vacuous pop, pounding disco, telephone chat. Then jazz. Jazz was OK. Jazz was fine, even on Radio Two. He parked near Burke’s, watched a dumb-show as two bouncers took on three farm-boys whose girlfriends were trying to pull them away.

  ‘Listen to the ladies,’ Rebus muttered. ‘You’ve proved yourselves for tonight.’

  The fight dissolved into pointed fingers and swearing, the bouncers, arms not touching their sides, waddling back inside. A final kick at the doors, saliva hitting the porthole-styled windows, then hauled away and up the road. Opening curtain on another north-east weekend. Rebus got out and locked the car, breathed the city air. Shouts and sirens up on Union Street. He crossed the road and headed for Burke’s.

  The doors were locked. He kicked at them, but nobody answered: probably thinking the farm-boys were back. Rebus kept kicking. Someone poked a head round the interior doors, saw he didn’t look like a punter, shouted something back into the club. Now a bouncer came out, jangling a chain of keys. He looked like he wanted to go to bed, day’s work done. The door rattled, and he opened it an inch.

  ‘What?’ he growled.

  ‘I’ve an appointment with Mr Fuller.’

  The bouncer stared at him, pulled the door wide. The lights were on in the main bar, staff emptying ashtrays and wiping down tables, collecting an enormous number of glasses. With the lights up, the interior looked as bleak as any moorland vista. Two men who looked like DJs – ponytails, black sleeveless T-shirts – sat smoking at the bar, sinking bottles of beer. Rebus turned to the bouncer.