10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  HOGAN: Did you kill him, Dr Colquhoun?

  COLQUHOUN: Emphatically not.

  HOGAN: Any idea who did?

  COLQUHOUN: No.

  HOGAN: Why didn’t you tell us? Why tell lies?

  COLQUHOUN: Because I knew this would happen. These suspicions. Stupidly, I thought I could circumvent them.

  HOGAN: Circumvent?

  COLQUHOUN: Yes.

  HOGAN: A young woman was seen dining with Lintz, same restaurant he took you to. Any idea who she might be?

  COLQUHOUN: None.

  HOGAN: You knew Professor Lintz a long time ... what did you think were his sexual proclivities?

  COLQUHOUN: Never thought about it.

  HOGAN: No?

  COLQUHOUN: No.

  HOGAN: What about yourself, sir?

  COLQUHOUN: I don’t see what that ... well, for the record, Inspector, I’m monogamous and heterosexual.

  HOGAN: Thank you, sir. I appreciate your frankness.

  Rebus switched off the tape.

  ‘I’ll bet you did.’

  ‘What do you think?’ Bobby Hogan asked.

  ‘I think you mistimed the did-you-do-it. Otherwise, not bad.’ Rebus tapped the tape machine. ‘Is there much more?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  Rebus switched it back on.

  HOGAN: When you met in the restaurant, it was the same routine as before?

  COLQUHOUN: Oh, yes. Names, dates ... countries I was taken through on my way into Britain from the continent.

  HOGAN: He told you how this was achieved?

  COLQUHOUN: He called it the Rat Line. Said it was operated by the Vatican, if you can believe that. And all the western governments were in cahoots to get the top Nazis – the scientists and intellectuals – away from the Russians. I mean, really ... it’s Ian Fleming meets John Le Carré, isn’t it?

  HOGAN: But he was very detailed?

  COLQUHOUN: Yes, but it can be that way with obsessives.

  HOGAN: There have been books written alleging the same thing Professor Lintz was talking about.

  COLQUHOUN: Have there?

  HOGAN: Nazis smuggled overseas ... war criminals rescued from the gallows.

  COLQUHOUN: Well, yes, but those are just stories. You don’t seriously think ...?

  HOGAN: I’m just collecting information, Dr Colquhoun. In my job, we don’t throw anything away.

  COLQUHOUN: Yes, I can see that. The problem is, sorting out the wheat from the chaff.

  HOGAN: You mean the truths from the lies? Yes, that’s one problem.

  COLQUHOUN: I mean, the stories you hear about Bosnia and Croatia ... slaughterhouses, mass torture, the guilty being spirited away ... It’s hard to know what’s true.

  HOGAN: Just before we finish ... any idea what happened to the money?

  COLQUHOUN: What money?

  HOGAN: The withdrawal Lintz made from his bank. Five thousand pounds in cash.

  COLQUHOUN: This is the first I’ve heard of it. Another motive?

  HOGAN: Thank you for your time, Dr Colquhoun. It might be necessary for us to talk again. I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t have lied to us, it makes our job that much more difficult.

  COLQUHOUN: I’m sorry, Inspector Hogan. I quite understand, but I hope you can comprehend why I did it. HOGAN: My mum always told me never to lie, sir. Thanks again for your time.

  Rebus looked at Hogan. ‘Your mum?’

  Hogan shrugged. ‘Maybe it was my granny.’

  Rebus drained his coffee. ‘So we know one of Lintz’s mealtime companions.’

  ‘And we know he was hounding Colquhoun.’

  ‘Is he a suspect?’

  ‘I’m not exactly snowed under with them.’

  ‘Fair point, but all the same ...’

  ‘You think he’s on the level?’

  ‘I don’t know, Bobby. He sounded like he had it rehearsed. And he was relieved at the end.’

  ‘You don’t think I got it all? I could bring him in again.’

  Rebus was thinking: stories you hear ... the guilty being spirited away. Not stories you read, but ones you hear ... Who might he have heard them from? Candice? Jake Tarawicz?

  Hogan rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘I need a drink.’

  Rebus dropped his beaker into a waste-bin. ‘Message received and understood. By the way, any word from Abernethy?’

  ‘He’s a bloody nuisance,’ Hogan said, turning away.

  26

  ‘He’s in place,’ Claverhouse said, when Rebus phoned him to ask about Jack Morton. ‘Got him a little one-bedroom shit-hole in Polwarth. Measured him up for his uniform, and he’s now officially a member of on-site security.’

  ‘Is anyone else in on it?’

  ‘Just the big boss. His name’s Livingstone. We had a long session with him last night.’

  ‘Won’t the other security men find it a bit odd, a stranger arriving in their midst?’

  ‘It’s down to Jack to put them at ease. He was pretty confident.’

  ‘What’s his cover?’

  ‘Secret drinker, open gambler, busted marriage.’

  ‘He doesn’t drink.’

  ‘Yes, he told me. Doesn’t matter, so long as everyone thinks he does.’

  ‘Is he in character?’

  ‘Getting there. He’s going to be working double shifts. That way he makes more trips to the shop, some in the evening when the place is quieter. More chance to get to know Ken and Dec. We’ve no contact with him during the day. Debriefing takes place once he’s reached home. Telephone only, can’t risk too many meetings.’

  ‘You think they’ll watch him?’

  ‘If they’re being thorough. And if they fall for the plan.’

  ‘Did you talk to Marty Jones?’

  ‘That’s set for tomorrow. He’ll bring a couple of heavies, but they’ll go easy on Jack.’

  ‘Isn’t tomorrow a bit soon?’

  ‘Can we afford to wait? They might already have someone in mind.’

  ‘We’re asking a lot of him.’

  ‘He was your idea.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You don’t think he’s up to it?’

  ‘It’s not that ... but he’s stepping into a war.’

  ‘Then get the ceasefire sorted out.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘That’s not what I hear ...’

  Rebus heard it too, as soon as he got off the phone. He knocked on the Chief Super’s door. The Farmer was in conference with Gill Templer.

  ‘Did you talk to him?’ the Farmer asked.

  ‘He agreed to a ceasefire,’ Rebus said. He was looking at Templer. ‘What about you?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘I spoke to Mr Telford – his solicitor was present throughout. I kept telling him what we wanted, and the lawyer kept telling me I was blackening his client’s name.’

  ‘And Telford?’

  ‘Just sat there, arms folded, smiling at the wall.’ Colour was creeping up her face. ‘I don’t think he looked at me once.’

  ‘But you gave him the message?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You said Cafferty would comply?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Then what the hell’s happening?’

  ‘We can’t let it get out of control,’ the Farmer said.

  ‘Looks to me like it already is.’

  The latest score-line: two of Cafferty’s men, their faces mashed to something resembling fruit-pulp.

  ‘Lucky they’re not dead,’ the Farmer went on.

  ‘You know what’s happening?’ Rebus said. ‘It’s Tarawicz, he’s the problem. Tommy’s playing up to him.’

  ‘It’s times like this you yearn for independence,’ the Farmer agreed. ‘Then we could just extradite the bugger.’

  ‘Why don’t we?’ Rebus suggested. ‘Tell him his presence here is no longer acceptable.’

  ‘And if he stays?’

  ‘We shadow him, make sure everyone knows we’re doing it. We make nuisances of ourselves.
’

  ‘You think that would work?’ Gill Templer sounded sceptical.

  ‘Probably not,’ Rebus agreed, slumping into a chair.

  ‘We’ve no real leverage,’ the Farmer said, glancing at his watch. ‘Which isn’t going to please the Chief Constable. He wants me in his office in half an hour.’ He got on the phone, ordered a car, rose to his feet.

  ‘Look, see if you can thrash something out between you.’

  Rebus and Templer exchanged a look.

  ‘I’ll be back in an hour or two.’ The Farmer looked around, as if he were suddenly lost. ‘Lock the door when you leave.’ With that and a wave of his hand, he left. There was silence in the room.

  ‘Has to keep his office locked,’ Rebus said, ‘to stop people stealing the secret of his terrible coffee.’

  ‘Actually, it’s been getting better recently.’

  ‘Maybe your taste buds are being corroded. So, Chief Inspector ...’ Rebus turned his chair to face hers. ‘What about thrashing it out then, eh?’

  She smiled. ‘He thinks he’s losing it.’

  ‘Is he in for a bollocking?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘So it’s down to us to come to the rescue?’

  ‘I don’t really see us as the Dynamic Duo, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then there’s always that part of you that says, let them tear each other apart. So long as no civilians get caught in the crossfire.’

  Rebus thought of Sammy, of Candice. ‘Thing is,’ he said, ‘they always do.’

  She looked at him. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Same as ever.’

  ‘As bad as that?’

  ‘It’s my calling.’

  ‘You’re done with Lintz though?’

  Rebus shook his head. ‘There’s half a chance he ties in to Telford.’

  ‘You still think Telford was behind the hit-and-run?’

  ‘Telford or Cafferty.’

  ‘Cafferty?’

  ‘Setting up Telford, the way someone tried to set me up for Matsumoto.’

  ‘You know you’re not out of the woods?’

  He looked at her. ‘An internal inquiry? The men with rubber soles?’ She nodded. ‘Bring them on.’ He sat forward in his chair, rubbed his temples. ‘No reason they should be left out of the party.’

  ‘What party?’

  ‘The one inside my head. The party that never stops.’ Rebus leaned across the desk to answer the phone. ‘No, he’s not here. Can I take a message? This is DI Rebus.’ A pause; he was looking at Gill Templer. ‘Yes, I’m working that case.’ He found pen and paper, started writing. ‘Mmm, I see. Yes, sounds like. I’ll let him know when he gets back.’ Eyes boring into hers. Then the punchline: ‘How many did you say were dead?’

  Just the one. Another fled the scene, holding his arm, all but severed from the shoulder. He turned up at a local hospital later, needing surgery and a huge transfusion of blood.

  In broad daylight. Not in Edinburgh, but Paisley. Telford’s hometown, the town he still ruled. Four men, dressed in council work jackets, like a road team. But in place of picks and shovels, they’d toted machetes and a large-calibre revolver. They’d chased two men into a housing scheme. Kids playing on tricycles; kicking a ball up the street. Women hanging out of their windows. And grown men itching to hurt one another. A machete swung overhead, coming down hard. The wounded man kept running. His friend tried hurdling a fence, wasn’t agile enough. Three inches higher and he’d have made it. As it was, his toe caught, and he fell. He was pushing himself back up when the barrel of the gun touched the back of his head. Two shots, a fine drizzle of blood and brain. The children not playing any more, the women screaming for them to run. But something had been satisfied by those two shots. The chase was over. The four men turned and jogged back down the street, towards a waiting van.

  A public execution, in Tommy Telford’s heartland.

  The two victims: known money-lenders. The one in hospital was called ‘Wee’ Stevie Murray, age twenty-two. The one in the mortuary was Donny Draper – known since childhood as ‘Curtains’. They’d be making jokes about that. Curtains was two weeks shy of his twenty-fifth birthday. Rebus hoped he’d made the most of his short time on the planet.

  Paisley police knew about Telford’s move to Edinburgh, knew there were some problems there. A courtesy call had been placed to Chief Superintendent Watson.

  The caller said: the men were two of Telford’s brightest and best.

  The caller said: descriptions of the attackers were vague.

  The caller said: the children weren’t talking. They were being shielded by their parents, fearful of reprisals. Well, they might not be talking to the police, but Rebus doubted they’d be so reticent when Tommy Telford came calling, armed with his own questions and determined to have answers.

  This was bad. This was escalation. Fire-bombings and beatings: these could be remedied. But murder ... murder put the grudge-match on to a much higher plane.

  ‘Is it worth talking to them again?’ Gill Templer asked. They were in the canteen, sandwiches untouched in front of them.

  ‘What do you think?’

  He knew what she thought. She was talking because she thought talking was better than doing nothing. He could have told her to save her breath.

  ‘They used a machete,’ he said.

  ‘Same thing they took to Danny Simpson’s scalp.’ Rebus nodded. ‘I’ve got to ask ...’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘About Lintz ... what you said?’

  He drained the last inch of his cold coffee. ‘Fancy another?’

  ‘John ...’

  He looked at her. ‘Lintz had some phone calls he was trying to hide. One of them was to Tommy Telford’s office in Flint Street. We don’t know how it ties in, but we think it does tie in.’

  ‘What could Lintz and Telford have had in common?’

  ‘Maybe Lintz went to him for help. Maybe he rented prossies off him. Like I say, we don’t know. Which is why we’re keeping it under the table.’

  ‘You want Telford very badly, don’t you?’

  Rebus stared at her, thought about it. ‘Not as much as I did. He’s not enough any more.’

  ‘You want Cafferty, too?’

  ‘And Tarawicz . . . and the Yakuza . . . and anybody else who’s along for the ride.’

  She nodded. ‘This is the party you were talking about?’

  He tapped his head. ‘They’re all in here, Gill. I’ve tried kicking them out, but they won’t leave.’

  ‘Maybe if you stopped playing their kind of music?’

  He smiled tiredly. ‘Now there’s an idea. What do you reckon: ELP? The Enid? How about a Yes triple album?’

  ‘Your department, not mine, thank God.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re missing.’

  ‘Yes, I do: I was there first time round.’

  Old Scottish proverb: he who has had knuckles rapped will want to rap someone else’s. Which is why Rebus found himself back in Watson’s office. The Farmer’s cheeks were still red from his meeting with the Chief Constable. When Rebus made to sit, Watson told him to get back on his feet.

  ‘You’ll sit when you’re told and not before.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘What the bloody hell’s going on, John?’

  ‘Pardon, sir?’

  The Farmer looked at the note Rebus had left on his desk. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘One dead, one seriously wounded in Paisley, sir. Telford’s men. Cafferty’s hitting him where it hurts. Probably reckons that Telford’s territory’s spun a bit thin. Leaves him open to breaches.’

  ‘Paisley.’ The Farmer stuffed the note in his drawer. ‘Not our problem.’

  ‘It will be, sir. When Telford hits back, it’ll be right here.’

  ‘Never mind that, Inspector. Let’s talk about Maclean’s Pharmaceuticals.’

  Rebus blinked, relaxed his shoulders. ‘I was going to tell you,
sir.’

  ‘But instead I had to hear it from the Chief Constable?’

  ‘Not really my baby, sir. Crime Squad are pushing the pram.’

  ‘But who put the baby in the pram?’

  ‘I was going to tell you, sir.’

  ‘Know how it makes me look? I walk into Fettes and I don’t know something one of my junior officers knows? I look like a mug.’

  ‘With respect, sir, I’m sure that’s not the case.’

  ‘I look like a mug!’ The Farmer slammed the desk with both palms. ‘And it’s not as though this was the first time. I’ve always tried to do my best for you, you know that.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Always been fair.’

  ‘Absolutely, sir.’

  ‘And you pay me back like this?’

  ‘It won’t happen again, sir.’

  The Farmer stared at him; Rebus held it, returned it.

  ‘I bloody well hope not.’ The Farmer leaned back in his chair. He’d calmed down a little. Bollocking as therapy. ‘Nothing else you want to tell me, is there, while I’ve got you here?’

  ‘No, sir. Except . . . well . . .’

  ‘Go on.’ The Farmer sat forward again.

  ‘It’s the man in the flat above me, sir,’ Rebus said. ‘I think he might be Lord Lucan.’

  27

  Leonard Cohen: ‘There is a War’.

  They were waiting for Telford’s retaliatory strike. The Chief Constable’s idea: ‘visible presence as deterrent’. It came as no surprise to Rebus: probably even less so to Telford, who had Charles Groal ready, claiming harassment the minute the patrol cars turned up in Flint Street. How was his client supposed to carry on with his legitimate and substantial business interests, as well as his many community developments, under the pressure of unwarranted and intrusive police surveillance? ‘Community developments’ meaning the pensioners and their rent-free flats: Telford wouldn’t hesitate to use them as pawns. The media would love it.

  The patrol cars would be pulled, it was just a matter of time. And afterwards: firework night all over again. That’s what everyone was expecting.

  Rebus went to the hospital, sat with Rhona. The room, so familiar to him now, was an oasis where calm and order reigned, where each hour of the day brought its comforting rituals.

  ‘They’ve washed her hair,’ he said.