10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  When the food arrived, Stevens, who’d been knocking back orange juice and trying to steel himself for toast, took one look at the plate and made his excuses. He drifted outside, lit a cigarette. There was a cold breeze blowing in from the docks. Just through the dock gates, he could see the Scot FM building. Turning his head, he saw the cop in the car watching him. He didn’t recognise the face. Through the dining room window, Oakes was tucking in with exaggerated relish, teasing the detective. Smiling, Stevens walked around to the car park, examined the executive motors: Beamers, Rover 600s, an Audi. Noticed something on the windscreen of his own car. At first he took it for a piece of rubbish, gusted there. Then thought maybe it was a flyer for a carpet sale or antique show. But when he unfolded it, he knew who it was from. Two words:

  DROP HIM.

  Stevens tucked the note in his pocket, headed back to the hotel. Oakes had finished breakfast and was sitting on one of the sofas in reception, flicking through a newspaper: one of the broadsheets.

  ‘I’m hurt,’ he said. ‘After that scrum at the airport . . .’

  ‘Try the tabloids,’ Stevens said, sitting down opposite him. ‘Plenty of coverage there. I think my favourite is “Killer Cary Comes Home”.’

  ‘Well, isn’t that nice?’ Oakes tossed the paper aside. ‘So when do we get down to work?’

  ‘Let’s say fifteen minutes in your room?’

  ‘Fine by me. Before that, though, I’ve another favour to ask.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Someone I want to find. His name’s Archibald.’

  ‘Plenty of those around.’

  ‘That’s his surname. First name, Alan.’

  ‘Alan Archibald? Should I know him?’

  Oakes shook his head.

  ‘Care to tell me who he is?’

  ‘He was a policeman – maybe still is. Got to be getting on a bit, though.’

  ‘And?’

  Oakes shrugged. ‘For now, that’s all you need. If you’re a good boy, I’ll maybe tell you the story.’

  ‘For what we’re paying you, we want all the stories.’

  ‘Just find him, Jim. You’ll make me happy.’

  Stevens studied his charge, wondering just who was pulling the strings. He knew it should be him. But all the same . . .

  ‘I can make a couple of calls,’ he conceded.

  ‘That’s my boy.’ Oakes got to his feet. ‘Fifteen minutes in my room. Bring all the papers with you. I like being the day’s news.’

  And with that he set off towards the stairs.

  14

  It was Jamie’s job to fetch milk, papers and breakfast rolls from the shop. He’d turned it into an art, skimming cash by lying about the prices. His mum complained, knew they could be found cheaper elsewhere, but ‘elsewhere’ wasn’t walking distance for Jamie. She didn’t like him straying too far. That was fine: whenever he wanted to wander the city, he had Billy Boy to say he’d been round at his house.

  Jamie thought he was pretty smart.

  He stopped outside the shop for a cigarette. He didn’t buy them there – it was against the law and the Paki owner wouldn’t let him. Instead, he had a deal with an older kid at school, who supplied packets of twenty in exchange for scud mags. Jamie got the mags from under Cal’s bed. There were so many of them, Cal never seemed to notice. Even in freezing weather, Jamie liked his smoke outside the shop. Early-rise kids on their way to school would stare at him. Friends would sometimes join him. He got noticed.

  A neighbour once told his mum, and she’d tried whacking him, but he was super-fast and dodged beneath her arm, spinning out of the door, laughing at her curses. One time she’d really gone for him had been when the school had sent the letter home. He’d been skiving, whole weeks at a time. His mum had belted him purple and sent him crying to his room, face red with shame at his own tears.

  He’d probably go to school some time today. Cal was good at forging letters. He’d been doing it so long, the school thought his signature was their mum’s, and when she’d signed some note about going on a school trip, the headmaster had quizzed Jamie about its origins. He’d even picked up the phone to talk to Jamie’s mum, which had made Jamie smile: they didn’t have a telephone in the flat. About two dozen ashtrays, most of them from holidays or nicked from pubs, but no telephone. Cal had a mobile, and that’s what they used in emergencies – when Cal was in a mood to let them.

  That was the problem with Cal. He could be great . . . and then he could lose the rag. Boom: like a bottle exploding against a wall. Or he’d get all quiet and lock himself in his room and refuse to write notes to the school. Jamie would go out and get him something, maybe nick it from a shop: peace offerings for some wrong he hadn’t done. On good days, Cal would rub knuckles hard against Jamie’s head, tell him he was the peacemaker: Jamie liked the sound of that. Cal would say he was the United Nations, sustaining an uneasy truce. He got stuff like that from the papers: ‘United Nations’; ‘uneasy truce’. Jamie asked him once: ‘If nations are supposed to be united, how come we want to split away?’

  ‘How do you mean, pal?’

  ‘Split from England.’

  Cal had folded the newspaper on his lap, flicked ash into an ashtray on the arm of his chair. ‘Because we don’t like the English.’

  ‘How no?’

  ‘Because they’re English.’ An edge to Cal’s voice, telling Jamie to back off.

  ‘We’ve got cousins in England, haven’t we? We don’t hate them, do we, Cal?’

  ‘Look . . .’

  ‘And fighting the Germans, we fought with the English, didn’t we?’

  ‘Look, Jamie, we want to run our own country, OK? That’s all it is. Scotland’s a country, isn’t it?’ He’d waited for Jamie’s nod. ‘Then who should be in charge of it? London or Edinburgh?’

  ‘Edinburgh, Cal.’

  ‘Right then.’ Picking up the paper: discussion adjourned.

  Jamie had a lot more questions, but never seemed to get answers. His mum was useless: ‘Don’t talk to me about politics,’ she’d say. Or ‘Don’t talk to me about religion.’ Or anything, really. As if she’d done all the hard thinking in her life, found satisfactory answers, and wasn’t about to start over again for his benefit.

  ‘That’s why you’ve got teachers,’ she’d say.

  Which was fair enough, but at school Jamie had a rep to maintain. He was Cal Brady’s brother. He couldn’t go asking the teachers questions. They’d begin to wonder about him. Cal had told him a long time ago: ‘With school, Jamie, it’s definitely “us” and “them”, know what I mean? A battlefield, pal, take no prisoners, understood?’

  And Jamie had nodded, understanding nothing.

  As he stood at the shop, tapping the toe of one shoe against a rubbish bin, along came Billy Horman. Jamie straightened a bit.

  ‘All right, Billy Boy?’

  ‘No’ bad. Got a fag?’

  Jamie handed over one of his precious cigarettes.

  ‘See the football last night?’

  Jamie shook his head, sniffed. ‘Not bothered,’ he said.

  ‘Hearts, ya beauties.’ The way Billy looked at him as he said this, seeking approval or something, Jamie knew Billy had heard it from someone else, maybe his mum’s boyfriend, and wasn’t sure about it.

  ‘They’re doing OK,’ Jamie conceded as Billy mimed a blazing shot at goal.

  ‘You going home?’ Billy asked.

  Jamie tapped the paper and rolls, held under one of his arms.

  ‘Wait a minute, I’ll come with you.’ Billy marched into the shop, came out again with milk and a carton of marge. ‘Mum went spare this morning. Her new man got in from the pub and had about ten slices of toast.’ He tossed the marge and caught it. ‘Finished the tub.’

  Jamie didn’t say anything. He was thinking about fathers, how it was funny neither Billy nor he had one. Jamie wondered where his was, which story about him to believe.

  ‘Who was that you were with yesterday?’ he asked a
s they began walking.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Bottom of St Mary’s Street. An uncle or somebody?’

  ‘Aye, that’s it. My Uncle Bill.’

  But Billy Boy was lying. His ears always went red when he lied . . .

  Back at the flat, Jamie took the paper into Cal’s bedroom.

  ‘About fucking time, wee man.’ Cal lying in bed, portable telly on. The room smelled stale. Jamie sometimes tried to hold his breath. Cal had a mug of tea on the floor beside his ashtray.

  ‘Switch the channel, will you?’

  The TV was on a chest of drawers at the bottom of the bed. It didn’t have a remote. Cal had just brought it home one night, said he won it in a bet at the pub. There was a little square beside the panel of buttons. It said ‘Remote Sensor’. So Jamie knew there should be a remote with it. He had to jump over a pile of Cal’s clothes on the floor to get to the TV. Pressed the button for Channel 4. You got some dolls on the breakfast show – Cal had taught him the word: dolls.

  Jamie leapt back over the clothes and fled the room, letting out a huge exhalation in the hallway. Twenty-five seconds: not even near his record for breath-holding. His mum was buttering rolls at the kitchen table. She handed him one. He got himself a mug of milk and sat down. He’d told his mum that because of cutbacks, his school didn’t start till half past nine. Either she’d believed him, or hadn’t been up to arguing. She looked tired, his mum, looked like she needed a treat. But he knew looks could deceive: she could go from tired to mental in two seconds flat. He’d seen her do it with one of the old hoors from upstairs who’d come to complain about the noise. Pure mental. Same thing with the old guy who’d complained of the ball landing in his garden.

  ‘Next time I’ll put a garden fork through it, so help me.’

  ‘Do that,’ Jamie’s mum had said, ‘and I’ll take your fucking fork and stick it through your balls.’ Right up close to him, growing huge as he seemed to shrink.

  Jamie had a lot of respect for his mum. Last time she’d clipped him, it had been because he’d tried calling her Van. Cal called her Van, but that was all right because he was grown up, same as she was. Jamie couldn’t wait to grow up.

  With a mug of tea in her hand, his mum went through her morning ritual: trying to remember where she’d put her cigarettes.

  ‘Maybe Cal’s got them,’ Jamie suggested.

  ‘Finish what’s in your mouth before you speak.’ She yelled towards Cal’s room, got a yelled denial back. In the living room, she pulled cushions off the sofa and chair, kicked the pile of car and music magazines sitting on the floor. Found half a packet on top of the hi-fi. The top of the flip-pack was missing. Cal used them for his ‘special roll-ups’. His mum pulled out a cigarette, but most of it was missing too. She sighed heavily, stuck it in her mouth anyway and lit it with the lighter she found inside the packet.

  She didn’t have any pockets, so put the cigarettes on the arm of her chair. She was wearing silver-grey shell-suit bottoms with a purple zip-up jogging top. The top was old, the lettering on its back – SPORTING NATION – cracked and peeling. Jamie wondered if Sporting Nation meant Scotland.

  Roll and milk finished, he slid off his chair. He had plans for today: Princes Street maybe, or a bus out to The Gyle. On his own, or with anyone he could round up. Problem with The Gyle was, it was in the middle of nowhere. There was a games arcade on Lothian Road, he liked it there, but there were other regulars who were better than him at the games, and even if he didn’t want to play against them, they’d stand and watch him on his machine, then tell him what mistakes he was making and say they could do better with their wrists in plaster.

  Just as well, he knew he should tell them, because the way you’re going, your whole body’s going to end up in plaster. But he never did: most of them were bigger than him. And they didn’t know Cal, so he was no use as a threat. Which was why Jamie didn’t go in there so much any more . . .

  Cal’s bedroom door flew open and he stalked into the kitchen. He had his jeans on, but had forgotten to zip them up or buckle his belt. No shoes or socks, no T-shirt. He had nicks and bruises on his chest and arms. You could see the muscles moving beneath his skin. He flung the paper on to the table and slapped a hand down on it.

  ‘Look at this,’ he hissed, face pink with anger. ‘Just take a look at this.’

  Jamie looked: double-page story. SEX OFFENDER WITH PLAYGROUND VIEW. There were photos. One showed a block of flats, an arrow pointing to one of the storeys. The other showed a patch of tarmac and a couple of kids playing.

  ‘That’s here,’ he said, amazed. He’d never seen Greenfield in the papers before, never seen photos of the place. His mum came over.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Fucking pervert living right under our noses,’ Cal spat. ‘Nobody told us.’ He stabbed the paper. ‘Says so right here. Nobody bothered to tell us.’

  Van studied the story. ‘There’s no picture of him.’

  ‘No, but they as good as point at the bastard’s door.’

  She remembered something. ‘Cops came round the other day. I thought they were looking for you.’

  ‘What did they want?’

  ‘Just the one of them. Asked if I knew somebody called . . .’ She squeezed shut her eyes. ‘Darren something-or-other.’

  ‘Darren Rough,’ Jamie said. Cal stared at him.

  ‘You know him?’

  Jamie didn’t know what answer would please Cal. He shrugged. ‘Seen him around the place.’

  ‘How do you know his name?’ Eyes burning into him.

  ‘He . . . I don’t know.’

  ‘He what?’ Cal was facing him now, fists bunched. ‘Which flat’s he in?’ Jamie started to tell him, but Cal snatched the neck of his shirt. ‘Better still, show me.’

  But as they walked along the landing to Darren Rough’s flat, they saw that others had the same idea. A group of seven or eight residents stood outside Rough’s door. Most of them had the morning paper with them, rolled up and brandished like a weapon. Cal was disappointed they weren’t the first.

  ‘Is he no’ in?’

  ‘No’ answering anyway.’

  Cal kicked at the door, saw from the looks around him that they were impressed. Stood back and shouldered the door, kicked it again. Two locks: Yale and mortice. No way to see inside: letterbox was blocked up; a sheet pinned across the window. Everyone was talking about it.

  ‘Wake up, ya bastardin’ pervert!’ Cal Brady shouted at the window. ‘Come and meet your fan club!’ There were smiles around him.

  ‘Maybe he works shifts,’ someone offered. Cal couldn’t think of a smart remark to make back. He thumped on the window instead, then went back to kicking the door. A few more residents arrived, but more began to drift away. Soon there were just a couple of kids, plus Cal and Jamie.

  ‘Jamie,’ Cal said, ‘go get me a spray can. Try under my bed.’

  Jamie already knew there were a couple of cans under there. ‘Blue or black?’ he asked, before he realised what he’d done.

  But Cal didn’t notice. He was busy staring at the door. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. Jamie went off to fetch the can. His mum was outside, arms folded, talking with a couple of women from the landing. Jamie trotted past them.

  ‘Well?’ his mum said.

  ‘Nobody’s in.’

  She turned back to her friends. ‘Could be anywhere. Scum like that, there’s no telling.’

  ‘What we need’s a petition,’ one of the women said.

  ‘Aye, get the council to rehouse him.’

  ‘Think they’ll listen to us?’ Van said. ‘Direct action, that’s what we want. Our problem, we deal with it, never mind what anyone else says.’

  ‘People’s Republic of Greenfield,’ another woman offered.

  ‘I’m serious, Michele,’ Van said, ‘deadly serious.’ Behind her, Jamie disappeared into the flat.

  15

  ‘Mum and me, we seemed to move around a lot in the early da
ys.’

  Cary Oakes was in a chair by his bedroom window, feet up on the table in front of him. Jim Stevens sat on a corner of the bed, holding the tape recorder at arm’s length.

  ‘Places? Dates?’

  Oakes looked at him. ‘I don’t remember the names of towns, people we stayed with. When you’re a kid, that sort of thing doesn’t matter, does it? I had my own life, my own little fantasy world. I’d be a soldier or a fighter pilot. Scotland would be full of aliens, and I’d be out to get them, a vigilante sort of scenario.’ He gazed out of the window. ‘Because we moved so much, I never really made any friends. Not close friends.’ He saw that Stevens was about to interrupt. ‘Again, I can’t give any names. I remember coming to Edinburgh, though.’ He paused, stretched to rub his thumb across the toe of one shoe, removing a trace of dirt. ‘Yes, Edinburgh sticks in my mind. We stayed with family. My aunt and her husband. Don’t remember which part of town they lived in. There was a park nearby. I went there a lot. Maybe we could get a picture of me there.’

  Stevens nodded. ‘If you can remember where it is.’

  Oakes smiled. ‘Any park would do, wouldn’t it? We’d just pretend. That’s what I did in that park. It was my universe. Mine. I could do whatever the hell I liked there. I was God.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ Stevens was thinking: this is easy, fluid. Oakes was either a born storyteller or else . . . or else he’d been rehearsing. But something had jarred, something about family: my aunt and her husband. A strange way of putting it.

  ‘What did I do? I played games, same as every other kid. I had an imagination, I’ll tell you that. When you’re a kid, nobody minds if you run around shooting up the world, know what I’m saying? In your head, you can kill whole populations. I’ll bet there isn’t one damned person on this planet hasn’t thought about murdering someone at some time. I’ll bet you have.’

  ‘I’ll show you my collection of voodoo dolls.’

  Oakes smiled. ‘My mum, she did her best for me.’ He paused. ‘I’m sure of that.’