10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  Looking for Candice. Or for girls who might know her.

  After a couple of hours, he gave up, headed back into the centre. He’d had the idea of sleeping in his car, but when he found a hotel with an empty room, the thought of en-suite facilities suddenly seemed too good to miss.

  He made sure there was no mini-bar.

  A long soak with his eyes closed, mind and body still racing from the drive. He sat in a chair by his window and listened to the night: taxis and yells, delivery lorries. He couldn’t sleep. He lay on the bed, watching soundless TV, remembering Candice in the hotel room, asleep under sweet wrappers. Deacon Blue: ‘Chocolate Girl.’

  He woke up to breakfast TV. Checked out of the hotel and had breakfast in a café, then called Miriam Kenworthy’s office, relieved to find she was an early starter.

  ‘Come right round,’ she said, sounding bemused. ‘You’re only a couple of minutes away.’

  She was younger than her telephone voice, face softer than her attitude. It was a milkmaid’s face, rounded, the cheeks pink and plump. She studied him, swivelling slightly in her chair as he told her the story.

  ‘Tarawicz,’ she said when he’d finished. ‘Jake Tarawicz. Real name Joachim, probably.’ Kenworthy smiled. ‘Some of us around here call him Mr Pink Eyes. He’s had dealings – meetings anyway – with this guy Telford.’ She opened the brown folder in front of her. ‘Mr Pink Eyes has a lot of European connections. You know Chechnia?’

  ‘In Russia?’

  ‘It’s Russia’s Sicily, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Is that where Tarawicz comes from?’

  ‘It’s one theory. The other is that he’s Serbian. Might explain why he set up the convoy.’

  ‘What convoy?’

  ‘Running aid lorries to former Yugoslavia. A real humanitarian, our Mr Pink.’

  ‘But also a way of smuggling people out?’

  Kenworthy looked at him. ‘You’ve been doing your homework.’

  ‘Call it an educated guess.’

  ‘Well, it gets him noticed. He got a papal blessing six months ago. Married to an Englishwoman – not for love. She was one of his girls.’

  ‘But it gives him residency here.’

  She nodded. ‘He hasn’t been around that long, five or six years . . .’

  Like Telford, Rebus thought.

  ‘But he’s built himself a rep, muscled in where there used to be Asians, Turks . . . Story is, he started with a nice line in stolen icons. A ton of stuff has been lifted out of the Soviet bloc. And when that operation started drying, he moved into prossies. Cheap girls, and he could keep them docile with a bit of crack. The crack comes up from London – the Yardies control that particular scene. Mr Pink spreads their goods around the north-east. He also deals heroin for the Turks and sells some girls to Triad brothels.’ She looked at Rebus, saw she had his attention. ‘No racial barriers when it comes to business.’

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘Probably also sells drugs to your friend Telford, who distributes them through his nightclubs.’

  ‘“Probably”?’

  ‘We’ve no hard proof. There was even a story going around that Pink wasn’t selling to Telford, he was buying.’

  Rebus blinked. ‘Telford’s not that big.’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Where would he get the stuff?’

  ‘It was a story, that’s all.’

  But it had Rebus thinking, because it might help explain the relationship between Tarawicz and Telford . . .

  ‘What does Tarawicz get out of it?’ he asked, making his thoughts flesh.

  ‘You mean apart from money? Well, Telford trains a good bouncer. Jock bouncers get respect down here. Then, of course, Telford has shares in a couple of casinos.’

  ‘A way for Tarawicz to launder his cash?’ Rebus thought about this. ‘Is there anything Tarawicz doesn’t have a finger in?’

  ‘Plenty. He likes businesses which are fluid. And he’s still a relative newcomer.’

  Eagles: ‘New Kid in Town’.

  ‘We think he’s been dealing arms: a lot of stuff crossing into Western Europe. The Chechens seem to have weaponry to spare.’ She sniffed, gathered her thoughts.

  ‘Sounds like he’s one step ahead of Tommy Telford.’ Which would explain why Telford was so keen to do business with him. He was on a learning curve, learning how to fit into the bigger picture. Yardies and Asians, Turks and Chechens, and all the others. Rebus saw them as spokes on a huge wheel which was trundling mercilessly across the world, breaking bones as it went.

  ‘Why “Mr Pink Eyes”?’ he asked.

  She’d been awaiting the question, slid a colour photo towards him.

  It was the close-up of a face, the skin pink and blistered, white lesions running through it. The face was puffy, bloated, and in its midst sat eyes hidden by blue-tinted glasses. There were no eyebrows. The hair above the jutting forehead was thin and yellow. The man looked like some monstrous shaved pig.

  ‘What happened to him?’ he asked.

  ‘We don’t know. That’s the way he looked when he arrived.’

  Rebus remembered the description Candice had given: sunglasses, looks like a car-crash victim. Dead ringer.

  ‘I want to talk to him,’ Rebus said.

  But first, Kenworthy gave him a guided tour. They took her car, and she showed him where the street girls worked. It was mid-morning, no action to speak of. He gave her a description of Candice, and she promised she’d put the word out. They spoke with the few women they met. They all seemed to know Kenworthy, weren’t hostile towards her.

  ‘They’re the same as you or me,’ she told him, driving away. ‘Working to feed their kids.’

  ‘Or their habit.’

  ‘That too, of course.’

  ‘In Amsterdam, they’ve got a union.’

  ‘Doesn’t help the poor sods who’re shipped there.’ Kenworthy signalled at a junction. ‘You’re sure he has her?’

  ‘I don’t think Telford does. Someone knew addresses back in Sarajevo, addresses that were important to her. Someone shipped her out of there.’

  ‘Sounds like Mr Pink all right.’

  ‘And he’s the only one who can send her back.’

  She looked at him. ‘Why would he do a thing like that?’

  Just as Rebus was thinking their surroundings couldn’t get any grimmer – all industrial decay, gutted buildings and pot-holes – Kenworthy signalled to turn in at the gates of a scrapyard.

  ‘You’re kidding?’ he said.

  Three Alsatians, tethered by thirty-foot chains, barked and bounded towards the car. Kenworthy ignored them, kept driving. It was like being in a ravine. Either side of them stood precarious canyon walls of car wrecks.

  ‘Hear that?’

  Rebus heard it: the sound of a collision. The car entered a wide clearing, and he saw a yellow crane, dangling a huge grab from its arm, pluck up the car it had dropped and lift it high, before dropping it again on to the carcass of another. A few men were standing at a safe distance, smoking cigarettes and looking bored. The grab dropped on to the roof of the top car, denting it badly. Glass shimmered on the oily ground, diamonds against black velvet.

  Jake Tarawicz – Mr Pink Eyes – was in the crane, laughing and roaring as he picked up the car again, worrying it the way a cat might play with a mouse without noticing it was dead. If he’d seen the new additions to his audience, it didn’t show. Kenworthy hadn’t got out of her car immediately. First, she’d fixed on a face from her repertoire. When finally she was ready, she nodded to Rebus and they opened their doors simultaneously.

  As Rebus stood upright, he saw that the grab had dropped the car and was swinging towards them. Kenworthy folded her arms and stood her ground. Rebus was reminded of those arcade games where you had to pick up a prize. He could see Tarawicz in the cab, manipulating the controls like a kid with a toy. He remembered Tommy Telford on his arcade bike, and saw at once something the two men had in common: neither ha
d ever really grown up.

  The motorised hum stopped suddenly, and Tarawicz dropped from the cab. He was wearing a cream suit and emerald shirt, open at the neck. He’d borrowed a pair of green wellies from somewhere, so as to keep his trousers clean. As he walked towards the two detectives, his men stepped into line behind him.

  ‘Miriam,’ he said, ‘always a pleasure.’ He paused. ‘Or so the rumour goes.’ A couple of his men grinned. Rebus recognised one face: ‘The Crab’, that’s what he’d been called in central Scotland. His grip could crush bones. Rebus hadn’t seen him in a long time, and had never seen him so smartly groomed and dressed.

  ‘All right, Crab?’ Rebus said.

  This seemed to disconcert Tarawicz, who half-turned towards his minion. The Crab stayed quiet, but colour had risen to his neck.

  Up close, it was hard not to stare at Mr Pink Eyes’s face. His eyes demanded that you meet them, but you really wanted to study the flesh in which they sat.

  He was looking at Rebus now.

  ‘Have we met?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘This is Detective Inspector Rebus,’ Kenworthy explained. ‘He’s come all the way from Scotland to see you.’

  ‘I’m flattered.’ Tarawicz’s grin showed small sharp teeth with gaps between them.

  ‘I think you know why I’m here,’ Rebus said.

  Tarawicz made a show of astonishment. ‘Do I?’

  ‘Telford needed your help. He needed a home address for Candice, a note to her in Serbo-Croat . . .’

  ‘Is this some sort of riddle?’

  ‘And now you’ve taken her back.’

  ‘Have I?’

  Rebus took a half-step forward. Tarawicz’s men fanned out either side of their boss. There was a sheen on Tarawicz’s face which could have been sweat or some medical cream.

  ‘She wanted out,’ Rebus told him. ‘I promised I’d help her. I never break a promise.’

  ‘She wanted out? She told you that?’ Tarawicz’s voice was teasing.

  One of the men behind cleared his throat. Rebus had been wondering about this man, so much smaller and more reticent than the others, better dressed and with sad drooping eyes and sallow skin. Now he knew: lawyer. And the cough was his way of warning Tarawicz that he was saying too much.

  ‘I’m going to take Tommy Telford down,’ Rebus said quietly. ‘That’s my promise to you. Once he’s in custody, who knows what he’ll say?’

  ‘I’m sure Mr Telford can look after himself, Inspector. Which is more than can be said for Candice.’ The lawyer coughed again.

  ‘I want her kept off the streets,’ Rebus said.

  Tarawicz stared at him, tiny black pupils like spots of absolute darkness.

  ‘Can Thomas Telford go about his daily business unfettered?’ he said at last. Behind him, the lawyer almost choked.

  ‘You know I can’t promise that,’ Rebus said. ‘It’s not me he has to worry about.’

  ‘Take a message to your friend,’ Tarawicz said. ‘And afterwards, stop being his friend.’

  Rebus realised then: Tarawicz was talking about Cafferty. Telford had told him that Rebus was Cafferty’s man.

  ‘I think I can do that,’ Rebus said quietly.

  ‘Then do it.’ Tarawicz turned away.

  ‘And Candice?’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ He stopped, slid his hands into his jacket pockets. ‘Hey, Miriam,’ he said, his back still to them, ‘I like you better in that red two-piece.’

  Laughing, he walked away.

  ‘Get in the car,’ Kenworthy said through gritted teeth. Rebus got into the car. She looked nervous, dropped her keys, bent to retrieve them.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ she snapped.

  ‘The red two-piece?’

  She glared at him. ‘I don’t have a red two-piece.’ She did a three point-turn, hitting brakes and accelerator with a little more force than necessary.

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘Last week,’ she said, ‘I bought some red underwear . . . bra and pants.’ She revved the engine. ‘Part of his little game.’

  ‘So how does he know?’

  ‘That’s what I’m wondering.’ She shot past the dogs and out of the gate. Rebus thought of Tommy Telford, and how he’d been watching Rebus’s flat.

  ‘Surveillance isn’t always one-way,’ he said, knowing now who’d taught Telford the skill. A little later he asked about the scrapyard.

  ‘He owns it. He’s got a compacter, but before the cars get squashed he likes to play with them. And if you cross him, he welds your seatbelt shut.’ She looked at him. ‘You become part of his game.’

  Never get personally involved: it was the golden rule. And practically every case he worked, Rebus broke it. He sometimes felt that the reason he became so involved in his cases was that he had no life of his own. He could only live through other people.

  Why had he become so involved with Candice? Was it down to her physical resemblance to Sammy? Or was it that she had seemed to need him? The way she’d clung to his leg that first day . . . Had he wanted – just for a little while – to be someone’s knight in shining armour, the real thing, not some mockery?

  John Rebus: complete bloody sham.

  He phoned Claverhouse from his car, filled him in. Claverhouse told him not to worry.

  ‘Thanks for that,’ Rebus said. ‘I feel a whole lot better now. Listen, who’s Telford’s supplier?’

  ‘For what? Dope?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s the real joker in the pack. I mean, he does business with Newcastle, but we can’t be certain who’s dealing and who’s buying.’

  ‘What if Telford’s selling?’

  ‘Then he’s got a line from the continent.’

  ‘What do Drugs Squad say?’

  ‘They say not. If he’s landing the stuff from a boat, it means transporting it from the coast. Much more likely he’s buying from Newcastle. Tarawicz has the contacts in Europe.’

  ‘Makes you wonder why he needs Tommy Telford at all . . .’

  ‘John, do yourself a favour, switch off for five minutes.’

  ‘Colquhoun seems to be keeping his head down . . .’

  ‘Did you hear me?’

  ‘I’ll talk to you soon.’

  ‘Are you heading back?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’ Rebus cut the call and drove.

  11

  ‘Strawman,’ said Morris Gerald Cafferty, as he was escorted into the room by two prison guards.

  Earlier in the year, Rebus had promised Cafferty he would put a Glasgow gangster, Uncle Joe Toal, behind bars. It hadn’t worked, despite Rebus’s best efforts. Toal, pleading old age and illness, was still a free man, like a war criminal excused for senility. Ever since then, Cafferty had felt Rebus owed him.

  Cafferty sat down, rolled his neck a few times, loosening it.

  ‘So?’ he asked.

  Rebus nodded for the guards to leave, waited in silence until they’d gone. Then he slipped a quarter-bottle of Bell’s from his pocket.

  ‘Keep it,’ Cafferty told him. ‘From the look of you, I’d say your need was greater than mine.’

  Rebus put the bottle back in his pocket. ‘I’ve brought a message from Newcastle.’

  Cafferty folded his arms. ‘Jake Tarawicz?’

  Rebus nodded. ‘He wants you to lay off Tommy Telford.’

  ‘What does he mean?’

  ‘Come on, Cafferty. That bouncer who got stabbed, the dealer wounded . . . There’s war breaking out.’

  Cafferty stared at the detective. ‘Not my doing.’

  Rebus snorted, but looking into Cafferty’s eyes, he found himself almost believing.

  ‘So who was it?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘How do I know?’

  ‘Nevertheless, war is breaking out.’

  ‘That’s as may be. What’s in it for Tarawicz?’

  ‘He does business with Tommy.’

 
‘And to protect that, he needs to have me warned off by a cop?’ Cafferty was shaking his head. ‘You really buy that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Rebus said.

  ‘One way to finish this.’ Cafferty paused. ‘Take Telford out of the game.’ He saw the look on Rebus’s face. ‘I don’t mean top him, I mean put him away. That should be your job, Strawman.’

  ‘I only came to deliver a message.’

  ‘And what’s in it for you? Something in Newcastle?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Are you Tarawicz’s man now?’

  ‘You know me better than that.’

  ‘Do I?’ Cafferty sat back in his chair, stretched out his legs. ‘I wonder about that sometimes. I mean, it doesn’t keep me awake at night, but I wonder all the same.’

  Rebus leaned on the table. ‘You must have a bit salted away. Why can’t you just be content with that?’

  Cafferty laughed. The air felt charged; there might have been only the two of them left in the world. ‘You want me to retire?’

  ‘A good boxer knows when to stop.’

  ‘Then neither of us would be much cop in the ring, would we? Got any plans to retire, Strawman?’

  Despite himself, Rebus smiled.

  ‘Thought not. Do I have to say something for you to take back to Tarawicz?’

  Rebus shook his head. ‘That wasn’t the deal.’

  ‘Well, if he does come asking, tell him to get some life insurance, the kind with death benefits.’

  Rebus looked at Cafferty. Prison might have softened him, but only physically.

  ‘I’d be a happy man if someone took Telford out of the game,’ Cafferty went on. ‘Know what I mean, Strawman? It’d be worth a lot to me.’

  Rebus stood up. ‘No deal,’ he said. ‘Personally, I’d be happy if you wiped one another out. I’d be jumping for joy at ring-side.’

  ‘Know what happens at ring-side?’ Cafferty rubbed at his temples. ‘You tend to get spattered with blood.’

  ‘As long as it’s someone else’s.’