10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I don’t really know. But you’ve come here, questions or no. I take it there’s a reason?’

  A dog was bounding through the long grass, crunching on the fallen leaves, nose brushing the ground. It was a yellow labrador, short-haired and overweight. Lintz turned towards it and almost growled. Dogs were the enemy.

  ‘I was just wondering,’ Rebus was saying, ‘what you’re capable of.’ Lintz looked puzzled. The dog began to paw at the ground. Lintz reached down, picked up a stone, and hurled it. It didn’t reach the dog. The labrador’s owner was rounding the corner. He was young, crop-haired and skinny.

  ‘That thing should be kept on its lead!’ Lintz roared.

  ‘Jawohl!’ the owner snapped back, clicking his heels. He was laughing as he passed them.

  ‘I am a famous man now,’ Lintz reflected, back to his old self after the outburst. ‘Thanks to the newspapers.’ He looked up at the sky, blinked. ‘People send me hate by the Royal Mail. A car was parked outside my home the other night . . . they put a brick through the windscreen. It wasn’t my car, but they didn’t know that. Now my neighbours keep clear of that spot, just in case.’

  He spoke like the old man he was, a little tired, a little defeated.

  ‘This is the worst year of my life.’ He stared down at the border he’d been tending. The earth, newly turned, looked dark and rich, like crumbs of chocolate cake. A few worms and wood lice had been disturbed and were still looking for their old homes. ‘And it’s going to get worse, isn’t it?’

  Rebus shrugged. His feet were cold, the damp seeping in through his shoes. He was standing on the rough roadway, Lintz six inches above him on the grass. And still Lintz didn’t reach his height. A little old man: that’s what he was. And Rebus could study him, talk with him, go to his home and see what few photographs remained – according to Lintz – from the old days.

  ‘What did you mean back there?’ he said. ‘What was it you said? Something about what I was capable of?’

  Rebus stared at him. ‘It’s okay, the dog just showed me.’

  ‘Showed you what?’

  ‘What you’re like with the enemy.’

  Lintz smiled. ‘I don’t like dogs, it’s true. Don’t read too much into it, Inspector. That’s the journalists’ job.’

  ‘Your life would be easier without dogs, wouldn’t it?’

  Lintz shrugged. ‘Of course.’

  ‘And easier without me, too?’

  Lintz frowned. ‘If it weren’t you, it would be someone else, a boor like your Inspector Abernethy.’

  ‘What do you think he was telling you?’

  Lintz blinked. ‘I’m not sure. Someone else came to see me. A man called Levy. I refused to talk to him – one privilege still open to me.’

  Rebus shuffled his feet, trying to get some warmth into them. ‘I have a daughter, did I ever tell you that?’

  Lintz looked baffled. ‘You might have mentioned it.’

  ‘You know I have a daughter?’

  ‘Yes . . . I mean, I think I knew before today.’

  ‘Well, Mr Lintz, the night before last, someone tried to kill her, or at least do her some serious damage. She’s in hospital, still unconscious. And that bothers me.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. How did it . . . ? I mean, how do you . . . ?’

  ‘I think maybe someone was trying to send me a message.’

  Lintz’s eyes widened. ‘And you believe me capable of such a thing? My God, I thought we had come to understand one another, at least a little.’

  Rebus was wondering. He was wondering how easy it would be to put on an act, when you’d spent half a century practising. He was wondering how easy it would be to steel yourself to killing an innocent . . . or at least ordering their death. All it took was an order. A few words to someone else who would carry out your bidding. Maybe Lintz had it in him. Maybe it wouldn’t be any more difficult than it had been for Josef Linzstek.

  ‘Something you should know,’ Rebus said. ‘Threats don’t scare me off. Quite the opposite.’

  ‘It’s good that you are so strong.’ Rebus looked for meaning behind the words. ‘I’m on my way home. Can I offer you some tea?’

  Rebus drove, and then sat in the drawing-room while Lintz busied himself in the kitchen. Started flicking through a pile of books on a desk.

  ‘Ancient History, Inspector,’ Lintz said, bringing in the tray – he always refused offers of help. ‘Another hobby of mine. I’m fascinated by that intersection at which history and fiction meet.’ The books were all about Babylonia. ‘Babylon is an historical fact, you see, but what about the Tower of Babel?’

  ‘A song by Elton John?’ Rebus offered.

  ‘Always making jokes.’ Lintz looked up. ‘What is it you’re afraid of?’

  Rebus took one of the cups. ‘I’ve heard of the Gardens of Babylon,’ he admitted, putting the book down. ‘What other hobbies do you have?’

  ‘Astrology, hauntings, the unknown.’

  ‘Have you ever been haunted?’

  Lintz seemed amused. ‘No.’

  ‘Would you like to be?’

  ‘By seven hundred French villagers? No, Inspector, I wouldn’t like that at all. It was astrology that first brought me to the Chaldeans. They came from Babylonia. Have you ever heard of Babylonian numbers . . . ?’

  Lintz had a way of turning conversations in directions he wanted them to take. Rebus wasn’t going to be deflected this time. He waited till Lintz had the cup to his lips.

  ‘Did you try to kill my daughter?’

  Lintz paused, then sipped, swallowed.

  ‘No, Inspector,’ he said quietly.

  Which left Telford, Tarawicz and Cafferty. Rebus thought of Telford, surrounded by his Family but wanting to play with the big boys. How different was a gang war from any other kind? You had soldiers, and orders given to them. They had to prove themselves, or lose face, show themselves cowards. Shoot a civilian, run down a pedestrian. Rebus realised that he didn’t want the driver as such – he wanted the person who’d driven them to do it. Lintz’s defence of Linzstek was that the young lieutenant had been under orders, that war itself was the real culprit, as though humans had no say in the matter . . .

  ‘Inspector,’ the old man was saying, ‘do you think I’m Linzstek?’

  Rebus nodded. ‘I know you are.’

  A wry smile. ‘Then arrest me.’

  ‘Here comes the blue-nose,’ Father Conor Leary said. ‘Out to steal Ireland’s God-given Guinness.’ He paused, eyes narrowing. ‘Or are you still on that abstention kick?’

  ‘I’m trying,’ Rebus said.

  ‘Well, I won’t tempt you then.’ Leary smiled. ‘But you know me, John. I’m not one to judge, but a wee drop never harmed a soul.’

  ‘Problem is, you put lots of wee drops together and you get a bloody big fall.’

  Father Leary laughed. ‘But aren’t we all the fallen? Come away in.’

  Father Leary was priest of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Years back, someone had defaced the board outside to turn ‘Help’ into ‘Hell’. The board had been corrected many times, but Rebus always thought of the place as ‘Perpetual Hell’: it was what the followers of Knox and Calvin would have believed. Father Leary took him through to the kitchen.

  ‘Here, man, sit yourself down. I haven’t seen you in so long, I thought you’d renounced me.’ He went to the fridge and lifted out a can of Guinness.

  ‘Are you operating a pharmacy on the side?’ Rebus asked. Father Leary looked at him. Rebus nodded towards the fridge. ‘The shelves of medicine.’

  Father Leary rolled his eyes. ‘At my age, you go to the doctor with angina and they dose you for every conceivable ailment. They think it makes old folk feel better.’ He brought a glass to the table, placed it next to his can. Rebus felt a hand fall on his shoulder.

  ‘I’m hellish sorry about Sammy.’

  ‘How did you hear?’

  ‘Her name was in one of the rags t
his morning.’ Father Leary sat down. ‘Hit and run, they said.’

  ‘Hit and run,’ Rebus echoed.

  Father Leary shook his head wearily, one hand rubbing slowly over his chest. He was probably in his late-sixties, though he’d never said. Well-built, with a thatch of silver hair. Tufts of grey sprouted from his ears, nose and dog-collar. His hand seemed to smother the can of Guinness. But when he poured, he poured gently, almost with reverence.

  ‘It’s a terrible thing,’ he said quietly. ‘Coma, is it?’

  ‘Not until the doctors say so.’ Rebus cleared his throat. ‘It’s only been a day and a half.’

  ‘You know what we believers say,’ Father Leary went on. ‘When something like this happens, it’s a test for all of us. It’s a way of making us stronger.’ The head on his Guinness was perfect. He took a swallow, licked his lips thoughtfully. ‘That’s what we say; it may not be what we think.’ He looked into his drink.

  ‘It didn’t make me strong. I went back to the whisky.’

  ‘I can understand that.’

  ‘Until a friend reminded me it was the lazy way out, the cowardly way.’

  ‘And who’s to say he’s not right?’

  ‘“Faint-Heart and the Sermon”,’ Rebus said with a smile.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A song. But maybe it’s us, too.’

  ‘Get away, we’re just two old boys having a natter. So how are you holding up, John?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He paused. ‘I don’t think it was an accident. And the man I think is behind it . . . Sammy isn’t the first woman he’s tried to destroy.’ Rebus looked into the priest’s eyes. ‘I want to kill him.’

  ‘But so far you haven’t?’

  ‘I haven’t even talked to him.’

  ‘Because you’re worried what you might do?’

  ‘Or not do.’ Rebus’s mobile sounded. He gave a look of apology and switched it on.

  ‘John, it’s Bill.’

  ‘Yes, Bill?’

  ‘Green Rover 600.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We’ve got it.’

  The car had been parked illegally on the street outside Piershill Cemetery. There was a parking ticket on its windscreen, dated the previous afternoon. If anyone had checked, they’d have found the driver’s-side door unlocked. Maybe someone had: the car was empty, no coins, no map-books or cassettes. The fascia had been removed from the radio/cassette. There were no keys in the ignition. A car transporter had arrived, and the Rover was being winched aboard.

  ‘I called in a favour at Howdenhall,’ Bill Pryde was saying, ‘they’ve promised to fingerprint it today.’

  Rebus was studying the front passenger side. No dents, nothing to suggest this car had been used as a battering-ram against his daughter.

  ‘I think maybe we need your permission, John.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Someone should go to the Infirmary and print Sammy.’

  Rebus stared at the front of the car, then got out the drawing. Yes, she’d put out a hand. Her prints might be there, invisible to him.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘No problem. You think this is it?’

  ‘I’ll tell you once we print it.’

  ‘You steal a car,’ Rebus said, ‘then you hit someone with it, and leave it a couple of miles away.’ He looked around. ‘Ever been on this street before?’ Pryde shook his head. ‘Me neither.’

  ‘Someone local?’

  ‘I’m wondering why they stole it in the first place.’

  ‘Stick false plates on and sell it,’ Pryde suggested. ‘Spot of joy-riding maybe.’

  ‘Joy-riders don’t leave cars looking like this.’

  ‘No, but they’d had a fright. They’d just knocked someone down.’

  ‘And they drove all the way over here before deciding to dump it?’

  ‘Maybe it was stolen for a job, turn over a petrol station. Then they hit Sammy and decide to jump ship. Maybe the job was this side of town.’

  ‘Or Sammy was the job.’

  Pryde put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Let’s see what the boffins turn up, eh?’

  Rebus looked at him. ‘You don’t go for it?’

  ‘Look, it’s a feeling you’ve got, and that’s fair enough, but right now all you’ve got is that student’s word for it. There were other witnesses, John, and I asked them all again, and they told me the same thing: it looked like the driver lost control, that’s all.’

  There was an edge of irritation to Pryde’s voice. Rebus knew why: long hours.

  ‘Will Howdenhall let you know tonight?’

  ‘They promised. And I’ll phone you straight away, okay?’

  ‘On my mobile,’ Rebus said. ‘I’m going to be on the move.’ He looked around. ‘There was something about Piershill Cemetery recently, wasn’t there?’

  ‘Kids,’ Pryde said, nodding. ‘They pushed over a load of gravestones.’

  Rebus remembered now. ‘Just the Jewish headstones, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I think so.’

  And there, sprayed on the wall near the gates, the same piece of graffiti: Won’t Anyone Help?

  It was late evening, and Rebus was driving. Not the M90 into Fife: tonight, he was on the M8, heading west, heading for Glasgow. He’d spent half an hour at the hospital, followed by an hour and a half with Rhona and Jackie Platt, their guest for dinner at the Sheraton. He’d worn a fresh suit and shirt. He hadn’t smoked. He’d drunk a bottle of Highland Spring.

  They were planning yet more tests on Sammy. The neurologist had taken them into his office and talked them through the procedures. There would probably be another operation at the end of it. Rebus could barely remember what the man had said. Rhona had asked for the occasional explanation, but these seemed no more lucid than what had gone before.

  Dinner had been a subdued affair. Jackie Platt, it turned out, sold second-hand cars.

  ‘See, John, where I really score is the obituaries. Check the local paper, hare round there and see if they’ve left a car behind. Quick cash offer.’

  ‘Sammy doesn’t drive, sorry,’ Rebus had said, causing Rhona to drop her cutlery on to her plate.

  At the end of the meal, she’d seen him out to his car, gripped one of his arms hard.

  ‘Get the bastard, John. I want to look him in the face. Just get the bastard who did this to us.’ Her eyes were blazing.

  He nodded. Stones: ‘Just Wanna See His Face’. Rebus wanted it, too.

  The M8, which could be a nightmare at rush-hour, was a quiet drive in the evenings. Rebus knew he was making good time, and that he would soon see the outline of the Easterhouse estate against the sky. When his phone sounded, he didn’t hear it at first: blame Wishbone Ash. As Argus finished, he picked up.

  ‘Rebus.’

  ‘John, it’s Bill.’

  ‘What’ve you got?’

  ‘Forensics were good as gold. There are prints all over the car, interior and exterior. Several sets.’ He paused, and Rebus thought the connection had gone. ‘One good palm and finger set on the front of the bonnet . . .’

  ‘Sammy’s?’

  ‘For definite.’

  ‘So we’ve got our car.’

  ‘The owner’s given us a set so we can eliminate him. When we’ve done that . . .’

  ‘We’re still not home and dry, Bill. The car sat unlocked outside that cemetery, we don’t know someone didn’t clean it out.’

  ‘Owner says the radio/cassette fascia was there when he left it. Also half a dozen tapes, a packet of Paracetamol, receipts for petrol and a road map. So someone cleaned it out, whether it’s the bastard we want or just some scavenger.’

  ‘At least we know it’s the car.’

  ‘I’ll check again with Howdenhall tomorrow, collect any other prints and start trying to match them. Plus I’ll ask around Piershill, see if anyone saw someone dumping it.’

  ‘Meantime get some sleep, eh?’

  ‘Try and stop me. What about you?’

 
‘Me?’ Two cups of espresso after dinner. And with the knowledge of what lay ahead. ‘I’ll get my head down soon enough, Bill. Talk to you tomorrow.’

  On the outskirts of Glasgow, headed for Barlinnie Prison.

  He’d phoned ahead, made sure they were expecting him. It was way outside any visiting hours, but Rebus had made up a story about a murder inquiry. ‘Follow-up questions,’ was what he’d said.

  ‘At this time of night?’

  ‘Lothian and Borders Police, pal. Motto: Justice Never Sleeps.’

  Morris Gerald Cafferty probably didn’t sleep much either. Rebus imagined him lying awake at night, hands under his head, staring into the darkness.

  Scheming.

  Running things through his mind: how to keep his empire from falling, how best to combat threats like Tommy Telford. Rebus knew that Cafferty employed a lawyer – a middle-aged pinstripe from the New Town – to carry messages back to his gang in Edinburgh. He thought of Charles Groal, Telford’s lawyer. Groal was young and sharp, like his paymaster.

  ‘Strawman.’

  He was waiting in the Interview Room, arms folded, chair set well away from the table. And of course his opening gambit was his nickname for Rebus.

  ‘A lovely surprise, two visits in a week. Don’t tell me you’ve another message from the Pole?’

  Rebus sat down opposite Cafferty. ‘Tarawicz isn’t Polish.’ He glanced towards the guard who stood by the door, lowered his voice. ‘Another of Telford’s boys got a doing.’

  ‘How clumsy.’

  ‘He was all but scalped. Are you looking for war?’

  Cafferty drew his chair in to the table, leaned across towards Rebus. ‘I’ve never backed down from a fight.’

  ‘My daughter got hurt. Funny that, so soon after we’d had our little chat.’

  ‘Hurt how?’

  ‘Hit and run.’

  Cafferty was thoughtful. ‘I don’t pick on civilians.’

  Yes, Rebus thought, but she wasn’t a civilian, because he had lured her on to the battlefield.

  ‘Convince me,’ Rebus said.

  ‘Why should I bother?’

  ‘The conversation we had . . . What you asked me to do.’

  ‘Telford?’ A whisper. Cafferty sat back for a moment to consider. When he leaned forward again, his eyes bored into Rebus’s. ‘There’s something you’ve forgotten. I lost a son, remember. Think I could do that to another father? I’d do a lot of things, Rebus, but not that, never that.’