10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Thought you’d like some privacy,’ Hogan said. ‘Look, if anyone wonders . . .’

  ‘My lips are sealed, Bobby.’ Rebus was already sitting down. He examined the folder. ‘This won’t take long.’

  Hogan fetched a cup of coffee, then left him to it. It took Rebus precisely twenty minutes to sift through everything: initial report and back-up, plus Jim Margolies’ history. Twenty minutes wasn’t long for a CV. Of course, there was little about his home life. Speculation was for after-work drinks, for cigarette breaks and coffee-machine meetings. The bare facts, set down between double margins, gave no clues at all. His father was a doctor, now retired. Comfortable upbringing. The sister who’d committed suicide in her teens . . . Rebus wondered if his sister’s death had been at the back of Jim Margolies’ mind all these years. There was no mention of Darren Rough, no mention of Margolies’ short time at St Leonard’s. His last night on earth, Jim had been out to dinner at some friends’ house. Nothing out of the ordinary. But afterwards, in the middle of the night, he’d slipped from his bed, got dressed again, and gone walking in the rain. All the way to Holyrood Park . . .

  ‘Anything?’ Bobby Hogan asked.

  ‘Not a sausage,’ Rebus admitted, closing the file.

  Walking in the rain . . . A long walk, from The Grange to Salisbury Crags. No one had come forward to say they’d seen him. Inquiries had been made, cabbies questioned. Perfunctory for the most part: you didn’t want to linger over a suicide. Sometimes you could find out things that were better left undisturbed.

  Rebus drove back into town, parked in the car park behind St Leonard’s and went into the station. He knocked on Farmer Watson’s door, obeyed the command to enter. Watson looked like the day had started badly.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘I had a bit of business down at D Division, looking at Jim Margolies’ file.’ Rebus watched the Farmer pace behind his desk. He cradled a mug of coffee in both hands. ‘Did you speak to Andy Davies, sir?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Andy Davies. Darren Rough’s social worker.’

  The Farmer nodded.

  ‘And, sir?’

  ‘And he told me I’d have to speak to his boss.’

  ‘What did his boss say?’

  The Farmer swung round. ‘Christ, John, give me time, will you? I’ve got more to deal with than your little . . .’ He exhaled, his shoulders slumping. Then he mumbled an apology.

  ‘No problem, sir. I’ll just . . .’ Rebus headed for the door.

  ‘Sit down,’ the Farmer ordered. ‘Now you’re here, let’s see if you can come up with any clever ideas.’

  Rebus sat down. ‘To do with what, sir?’

  The Farmer sat too, then noticed that his mug was empty. He got up again to fill it from the pot, pouring for Rebus too. Rebus examined the dark liquid suspiciously. Over the years, the Farmer’s coffee had definitely improved, but there were still days . . .

  ‘To do with Cary Dennis Oakes.’

  Rebus frowned. ‘Should I know him?’

  ‘If you don’t, you soon will.’ The Farmer tossed a newspaper in Rebus’s direction. It fell to the floor. Rebus picked it up, saw that it was folded to a particular story, a story Rebus had missed because it wasn’t the one he’d been looking for.

  KILLER IS SENT ‘HOME’.

  ‘Cary Oakes,’ Rebus read, ‘convicted of two murders in Washington State, USA, will today board a flight back to the United Kingdom after serving a fifteen-year sentence in a maximum-security prison in Walla Walla, Washington. It is believed that Oakes will make his way back to Edinburgh, where he lived for several years before going to the United States.’

  There was a lot more. Oakes had flown to the States toting a rucksack and a tourist visa, and then had simply stayed put, taking a series of short-term jobs before embarking on a mugging and robbery spree which had climaxed with two killings, the victims clubbed and strangled to death.

  Rebus put down the paper. ‘Did you know?’

  The Farmer slammed his fists down on the table. ‘Of course I didn’t know!’

  ‘Shouldn’t we have been told?’

  ‘Think about it, John. You’re a cop in Wallumballa or whatever it’s called. You’re sending this murderer back to Scotland. Who do you tell?’

  Rebus nodded. ‘Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Not realising for one minute that Scotland Yard might actually be in another country altogether.’

  ‘And the brainboxes in London decided not to pass the message on?’

  ‘Their version is, they got their wires crossed, thought Oakes was only travelling as far as their patch. In fact, his ticket only goes as far as London.’

  ‘So he’s their problem.’ But the Farmer was shaking his head. ‘Don’t tell me,’ Rebus said, ‘they’ve had a whip-round and added the fare to Edinburgh?’

  ‘Bingo.’

  ‘So when does he get here?’

  ‘Later on today.’

  ‘And what do we do?’

  The Farmer stared at Rebus. He liked that we. A problem shared – even if with a thorn like Rebus – was a problem that could be dealt with. ‘What would you suggest?’

  ‘High-visibility surveillance, let him know we’re watching. With any luck he’ll get fed up and slope off somewhere else.’

  The Farmer rubbed at his eyes. ‘Take a look,’ he said, sliding a folder across the desk. Rebus looked: sheets of fax paper, about twenty of them. ‘The Met took pity on us at the last, sent what they’d been sent by the Americans.’

  Rebus started reading. ‘How come he’s been released? I thought in America “life” meant till death.’

  ‘Some technicality to do with the original trial. So arcane, even the American authorities aren’t sure.’

  ‘But they’re letting him go?’

  ‘A retrial would cost a fortune, plus there’s the problem of tracing the original witnesses. They offered him a deal. If he gave it up, signed away the right to any retrial or compensation, they’d fly him home.’

  ‘In the news story, “home” had inverted commas.’

  ‘He hasn’t spent much time in Edinburgh.’

  ‘So why here?’

  ‘His choice, apparently.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Maybe the fax will tell you.’

  The message of the fax was clear and simple. It said Cary Oakes would kill again.

  The psychologist had warned the authorities of this. The psychologist said, Cary Oakes has little concept of right and wrong. There were lots of psychological terms applied to this. The word ‘psychopath’ wasn’t used much any more by the experts, but reading between the lines and the jargon, Rebus knew that was what they were dealing with. Anti-social tendencies . . . deep-seated sense of betrayal . . .

  Oakes was thirty-eight years old. There was a grainy photo of him included with the file. His head had been shaved. The forehead was large and jutting, the face thin and angular. He had small eyes, like little black beads, and a narrow mouth. He was described as above-average intelligence (self-taught in prison), interested in health and fitness. He’d made no friends during his incarceration, kept no pictures on his walls, and his only correspondence was with his team of lawyers (five different sets in total).

  The Farmer was on the telephone, finding out Oakes’s flight schedule, liaising with the Assistant Chief Constable at Fettes. When he’d finished, Rebus asked what the ACC thought.

  ‘He thinks we should ca’ canny.’

  Rebus smiled: it was a typical response.

  ‘He’s right in a way,’ the Farmer continued. ‘The media will be all over this. We can’t be seen to be harassing the man.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll get lucky and the reporters will scare him off.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘It says here he was originally questioned about another four murders.’

  The Farmer nodded, but seemed distracted. ‘I don’t need this,’ he said at last, staring at his desk. The desk was a measure
of the man: always carefully ordered, reflecting the room as a whole. No piles of paperwork, no mess or clutter, not so much as a single stray paperclip on the carpet.

  ‘I’ve been at this job too long, John.’ The Farmer sat back in his chair. ‘You know the worst kind of officers?’

  ‘You mean ones like me, sir?’

  The Farmer smiled. ‘Quite the opposite. I mean the ones who’re biding their time till pension day. The clock-watchers. Recently, I’ve been turning into one. Another six months, that’s what I was giving myself. Six more months till retirement.’ He smiled again. ‘And I wanted them quiet. I’ve been praying for them to be quiet.’

  ‘We don’t know this guy’s going to be a problem. We’ve been here before, sir.’

  The Farmer nodded: so they had. Men who’d done time in Australia and Canada, and hardmen from Glasgow’s Bar-L, all of them settling in Edinburgh, or just passing through. All of them with pasts carved into their faces. Even when they weren’t a problem, they were still a problem. They might settle down, live quietly, but there were people who knew who they were, who knew the reputation they carried with them, something they’d never shake off. And eventually, after too many beers down the pub, one of these people would decide it was time to test himself, because what the hardman brought with him was a parameter, something you could measure yourself against. It was pure Hollywood: the retired gunslinger challenged by the punk kid. But to the police, all it was was trouble.

  ‘Thing is, John, can we afford to play a waiting game? The ACC says we can have funding for partial surveillance.’

  ‘How partial?’

  ‘Two teams of two, maybe a fortnight.’

  ‘That’s big of him.’

  ‘The man likes a nice tight budget.’

  ‘Even when this guy might kill again?’

  ‘Even murder has a budget these days, John.’

  ‘I still don’t get it.’ Rebus picked up the fax. ‘According to the notes, Oakes wasn’t born here, doesn’t have family here. He lived here for, what, four or five years. Went to the States at twenty, he’s been almost half his life there. What’s for him back here?’

  The Farmer shrugged. ‘A fresh start?’

  A fresh start: Rebus was thinking of Darren Rough.

  ‘There has to be more to it than that, sir,’ Rebus said, picking up the file again. ‘There has to be.’

  The Farmer looked at his watch. ‘Aren’t you due in court?’

  Rebus nodded agreement. ‘Waste of time, sir. They won’t call me.’

  ‘All the same, Inspector . . .’

  Rebus got up. ‘Mind if I take this stuff?’ Waving the sheets of fax paper. ‘You told me I should take something to read.’

  11

  Rebus sat with other witnesses, other cases, all of them waiting to be called to give evidence. There were uniforms, attentive to their notebooks, and CID officers, arms folded, trying to be casual about the whole thing. Rebus knew a few faces, held quiet conversations. The members of the public sat there with hands clasped between knees, or with heads angled to the ceiling, bored out of their minds. Newspapers – already read, crosswords finished – lay strewn around the room. A couple of dog-eared paperbacks had attracted interest, but not for long. There was something about the atmosphere that sucked all the enthusiasm out of you. The lighting gave you a headache, and all the time you were wondering why you were here.

  Answer: to serve justice.

  And one of the court officers would wander in and, looking at a clipboard, call your name, and you’d creak your way to the court, where your numbed memory would be poked and prodded by strangers playing to a judge, jury, and public gallery.

  This was justice.

  There was one witness, seated directly across from Rebus, who kept bursting into tears. He was a young man, maybe mid-twenties, corpulent and with thin strands of black hair plastered to his head. He kept emptying his nose loudly into a stained handkerchief. One time, when he looked up, Rebus gave him a reassuring smile, but that only started him off again. Eventually, Rebus had to get out. He told one of the uniforms that he was going for a ciggie.

  ‘I’ll join you,’ the uniform said.

  Outside, they smoked furiously and in silence, watching the ebb and flow of people from the building. The High Court was tucked in behind St Giles’ Cathedral, and occasionally tourists would wander towards it, wondering what it was. There were few signs about, just Roman numerals above the various heavy wooden doors. A guard on the car park would sometimes point them back towards the High Street. Though members of the public could enter the court building, tourists were actively discouraged. The Great Hall was enough of a cattle market as it was. But Rebus liked it: he liked the carved wooden ceiling, the statue of Sir Walter Scott, the huge stained-glass window. He liked peering through the glass door into the library where the lawyers sought precedents in large dusty tomes.

  But he preferred the fresh air, setts below him and grey stone above, and the inhalation of nicotine, and the illusion that he could walk away from all this if he chose. For the thing was, behind the splendour of the architecture, and the weight of tradition, and the high concepts of justice and the law, this was a place of immense and continual human pain, where brutal stories were wrenched up, where tortured images were replayed as daily fare. People who thought they’d put the whole thing behind them were asked to delve into the most secret and tragic moments of their past. Victims rendered their stories, the professionals laid down cold facts over the emotions of others, the accused wove their own versions in an attempt to woo the jury.

  And while it was easy to see it as a game, as some kind of cruel spectator sport, still it could not be dismissed. Because for all the hard work Rebus and others put into a case, this was where it sank or swam. And this was where all policemen learned an early lesson that truth and justice were far from being allies, and that victims were something more than sealed bags of evidence, recordings and statements.

  It had probably all been simple enough once upon a time; the concept still was fairly simple. There is an accused, and a victim. Lawyers speak for both sides, presenting the evidence. A judgment is made. But the whole thing was a matter of words and interpretation, and Rebus knew how facts could be twisted, misrepresented, how some evidence sounded more eloquent than others, how juries could decide from the off which way they’d vote, based on the manner or styling of the accused. And so it turned into theatre, and the cleverer the lawyers became, the more arcane became their games with language. Rebus had long since given up fighting them on their own terms. He gave his evidence, kept his answers short, and tried not to fall for any of the tried and tested tricks. Some of the lawyers could see it in his eyes, could see that he’d been here too often before. They detained him only briefly, before moving on to more amenable subjects.

  That was why he didn’t think they’d call him today. But all the same, he had to sit it out, had to waste his time and energy in the great name of justice.

  One of the guards came out. Rebus knew him, and offered a cigarette. The man took it with a nod, accepting Rebus’s box of matches.

  ‘Fucking awful in there today,’ the guard said, shaking his head. All three men were staring across the car park.

  ‘We’re not allowed to know,’ Rebus reminded him with a sly smile.

  ‘Which court are you in?’

  ‘Shiellion,’ Rebus said.

  ‘That’s the one I’m talking about,’ the guard said. ‘Some of the testimony . . .’ And he shook his head, a man who’d heard more horror stories than most in his working life.

  Suddenly, Rebus knew why the man across from him had been crying. And if he couldn’t put a name to the man, at least now he knew who he was: he was one of the Shiellion survivors.

  Shiellion House lay just off the Glasgow Road at Ingliston Mains. Built in the 1820s for one of the city’s Lord Provosts, after his death and various family wranglings it had passed into the care of the Church of Scotland. As a p
rivate residence it was found to be too big and draughty, its isolation – distant farms its only neighbours – driving away most of its residents. By the 1930s it had become a children’s home, dealing with orphans and the impoverished, teaching them Christianity with hard lessons and early rises. Shiellion had finally closed the previous year. There was talk of it becoming a hotel or a country club. But in its later years, Shiellion had garnered something of a reputation. There had been accusations from former residents, similar stories told by different intakes about the same two men.

  Stories of abuse.

  Physical and mental abuse to be sure, but eventually sexual abuse too. A couple of cases had come to the attention of the police, but the accusations were one-sided – the word of aggressive children against their quietly spoken carers. The investigations had been half-hearted. The Church had carried out its own internal inquiries, which had shown the children’s stories to be tissues of vindictive lies.

  But these inquiries, it now transpired, had been fixed from the start, comprising little more than cover-ups. Something had been happening in Shiellion. Something bad.

  The survivors formed a pressure group, and got some media interest. A fresh police investigation was implemented, and it had led to this – the Shiellion trial; two men up on charges ranging from assault to sodomy. Twenty-eight counts against either man. And meantime, the victims were readying to sue the Church.

  Rebus didn’t wonder that the guard was pale-faced. He’d heard whispers about the stories being retold in court number one. He’d read some of the original transcripts, details of interviews held at police stations up and down the country, as children who’d been held in Shiellion were traced – adults now – and questioned. Some of them had refused to have anything to do with it. ‘That’s all behind me,’ was an oft-used excuse. Only it was more than an excuse: it was the simple truth. They’d worked hard to lock out the nightmares from their childhood: why would they want to relive them? They had whatever peace would ever be available to them in life: why change that?