10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  Rebus didn’t bother to catch the licence plate. He stood on Oakes’s knife-hand, forcing the fingers open, then lifted the knife and pocketed it. The taxi driver was still at the lights.

  ‘Phone for police assistance!’ Rebus called to him. He held his injured arm to his chest.

  Oakes was rolling on the ground, hand to his thigh and side, teeth bared not in a grin now but in a grimace of pain.

  Rebus stood up, took a step back, and kicked him in the groin. As Oakes groaned and retched, Rebus gave him another kick, then crouched down again.

  ‘I’d like to say that was for Jim Stevens,’ he said. ‘But if I’m being entirely honest with you, really it was for me.’

  Rebus spent an hour in the casualty department – four stitches to his arm, eight to his chest. The arm wound was deepest, but both were clean. Oakes was somewhere nearby, being treated for breaks and fractures. Six of Crime Squad’s finest on guard detail.

  A patrol car took Rebus back to his flat, where he retrieved his cordless phone – didn’t want any of the students pocketing it – and had a mouthful of whisky. Then another after that.

  The rest of the night he spent at St Leonard’s, typing his report one-handed, giving an additional verbal briefing to Chief Superintendent Watson, who’d been summoned from bed and whose hair sported a cow’s-lick which flapped when he moved his head.

  There was little certainty that Oakes could be charged with Jim Stevens’ murder. It would depend on forensic evidence: fingerprints, fibres, saliva. Stevens’ cassette had been bagged and handed over to the white-coat brigade.

  ‘But he’ll go down for the attack on me and Alan Archibald?’ Rebus asked his superior.

  Farmer Watson nodded. ‘For the Pentland attack, yes.’

  ‘What about the attempted murder of three hours ago?’

  The Farmer shuffled paperwork. ‘You’ve said yourself, most of the witnesses will have seen you with the knife, not him.’

  ‘But the taxi driver . . .’

  The Farmer nodded. ‘He’ll be crucial. Let’s hope he gets his story straight.’

  Rebus saw what his boss was getting at. ‘Sir, you do believe I acted in self-defence?’

  ‘Of course, John. Goes without saying.’ But the Farmer wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  Rebus tried to think of something to say; decided it wasn’t worth his breath.

  ‘Crime Squad are pissed off,’ the Farmer added with a smile. ‘They hate an anti-climax.’

  ‘I might not look it, but inside I’m crying for them.’ Rebus turned to leave the room.

  ‘No going back to the hospital, John,’ the Farmer warned. ‘Don’t want him falling out of bed and saying he was pushed.’

  Rebus snorted, went downstairs and into the car park. It would be growing light soon. He dry-swallowed some more painkillers, lit a cigarette and stared in the direction of Holyrood Park. They were there – Arthur’s Seat, Salisbury Crags – it was just, you couldn’t always see them. It didn’t mean they weren’t there.

  Easy to lose your footing in the dark . . . Easy for someone to come up behind you . . .

  Rebus left the car park and headed into St Leonard’s Bank. Stevens’ car had been taken away for examination at Howdenhall. At the end of the road, there was a gap in the fence, allowing passage into the park itself. Rebus headed down the slope towards Queen’s Drive. Once across it, he started to climb. Away from the street-lighting now, his steps were more tentative. He sensed more than saw the starting-point of Radical Road, above which loomed the irregular rockface of the Crags themselves. Rebus ignored the path, kept climbing until he was on top of the Crags, the city spread out below him in a grid of orange sodium and yellow-white halogen. The beast was definitely beginning to awake: cars heading into the city. Turning round, he saw that the sky was a lighter shade of black than the mass of rock below it. Some people said Arthur’s Seat looked like a crouched lion, ready to pounce. It never did pounce, though. There was a lion on the Scottish flag too – not crouched but rampant . . .

  Had Jim Margolies come up here with the express intention of leaping off? Rebus thought he knew the answer now. And he knew because of the Margolies’ dinner engagement that evening, across the park from where they lived.

  That, and the fact of a white saloon car . . .

  50

  Dr Joseph Margolies lived with his wife in a detached house in Gullane, with an uninterrupted view of Muirfield golf course. Rebus didn’t play golf. He’d tried a few times as a kid, dragging a half-set of clubs around his local course, losing half a dozen balls in Jamphlars Pond. He knew some of his colleagues had taken up the game thinking it would help their careers, making sure to concede defeat to their superiors.

  That didn’t sound like a game to Rebus.

  Siobhan Clarke parked the car, and switched off the radio news. It was ten in the morning. Rebus had managed a couple of hours’ shut-eye in his Arden Street flat, and had phoned Patience to let her know Cary Oakes was behind bars.

  ‘Stay in the car,’ he told Clarke, manoeuvring himself out of the door. Not easy with one arm strapped up and his chest giving him grief every time he stretched.

  Mrs Margolies answered the door. Close up, she resembled her son. Same flat chin, same narrow eyes. She even had the same smile.

  Rebus introduced himself and asked if he could have a word with her husband.

  ‘He’s in the greenhouse. Is there a problem, Inspector?’

  He smiled at her. ‘No problem, madam. Just a couple of questions, that’s all.’

  ‘I’ll show you the way,’ she said, standing back to let him in. She’d glanced at his arm, but wasn’t going to comment on it. Some people were like that: didn’t like to ask questions . . . As he followed her down the corridor, he glanced through open doorways, seeing domestic order everywhere: knitting on a chair; magazines in a paper-rack; dusted ornaments; gleaming windows. The house dated from the 1930s. From the outside, it seemed to be all eaves and gables. Rebus asked her how long they’d lived there.

  ‘Over forty years,’ Mrs Margolies replied, proud of the fact.

  So this was the house Jim Margolies had grown up in. And his sister too. From the notes, Rebus knew she’d committed suicide in the family bathroom. Often, in a situation like that, the families elected to sell up and move somewhere new. But he knew other families would elect to stay, because something of their loved one still remained in the home, and would be lost forever if they abandoned it.

  The kitchen was tidy too, not so much as a cup and saucer drying on the draining-board. A message-list had been fixed to the fridge with a magnet in the shape of a teapot. But the list remained blank. Mrs Margolies asked him if he’d like some tea. He shook his head.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks anyway.’ Still smiling, but studying her. Thinking: The wife often knows . . . Thinking: Some people just don’t ask questions . . .

  Outside the kitchen door was a short hall with two walk-in cupboards – both open to display garden tools – and the back door, which also stood open. They stepped outside and into a walled garden, obviously much worked-on. There was a rockery, and next to it some flowerbeds. These were separated by a trimmed lawn from a long, narrow vegetable bed. Towards the bottom of the garden were trees and bushes, and tucked away in one corner a small greenhouse with a figure moving around inside.

  Rebus turned to his guide. ‘Thank you, I’ll be fine.’

  And he walked across the lawn. It was like walking across luxury Wilton. He looked back once, saw Mrs Margolies watching him from the doorway. In a neighbouring garden, someone was having a bonfire. Smoke crackled over the wall, white and pungent. Rebus walked through it as he neared the greenhouse. A black labrador pricked up its ears at his approach, then pushed itself up to sitting and gave a half-hearted bark. Its nose and whiskers were grey, and it had about it a pampered look: overfed and, in its declining years, underexercised. The door of the greenhouse slid open and an elderly man peered through half-moon glasses at his vi
sitor. Tall, grey hair, black moustache – just the way Jamie Brady had described him: the man who’d gone to Greenfield looking for Darren Rough.

  ‘Yes? Can I help you?’

  ‘Dr Margolies, I’m Detective Inspector John Rebus.’

  Margolies held up his hands. ‘You’ll forgive me for not shaking.’ The hands were blackened with soil.

  ‘Me too,’ Rebus said, gesturing to his arm.

  ‘Looks nasty. What happened?’ Not sharing his wife’s reticence. But then maybe she’d had half a lifetime of biting back questions. Rebus leaned down to rub the labrador’s head. Its heavy tail thumped the ground in appreciation.

  ‘Got into a fight,’ Rebus explained.

  ‘Line of duty, eh? We’ve met before, I think.’

  ‘Hannah’s competition.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Nodding slowly. ‘You wanted to speak to Ama.’

  ‘I did then, yes.’

  ‘Is this something to do with her?’ Margolies was retreating back into the greenhouse. Rebus followed, and saw that the old man was potting seedlings. It was warm in the greenhouse, despite the day being overcast. Margolies asked Rebus to close the door.

  ‘Keep the heat in,’ he explained.

  Rebus slid the door shut. Most of the available space was taken up with work surfaces, trays of seedlings laid along them in rows. A bag of potting compost lay open on the ground. Dr Margolies was scooping a black plastic flowerpot into it.

  ‘How does it feel to get away with murder?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Margolies took a seedling, pushed it into its new pot.

  ‘You murdered Darren Rough.’

  ‘Who?’

  Rebus took the pot from Margolies’ fingers. ‘It’s going to be a devil trying to prove it. In fact, I don’t think it will happen. I really do think you’ve got away with it.’

  Margolies met his eyes, reached to take his pot back.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You were seen in Greenfield. You were asking about Darren Rough. Then off you drove in your white Mercedes. A white saloon car was seen in Holyrood Park around the time Darren was killed. I think he went there for sanctuary, but you found it an ideal site for a murder.’

  ‘These riddles, Inspector . . . Do you know who I am?’

  ‘I know exactly who you are. I know both your children committed suicide. I know you were part of the Shiellion set-up.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ A slight trembling in the voice now. A seedling slipped from parchment fingers.

  ‘Don’t worry, Harold Ince is going to keep his side of the bargain. He talked to me, but it wouldn’t be admissible, and he won’t tell anyone else. He told me you were at Shiellion that night. Ince had talked with you often, had come to know you. He’d told you what he did to the kids in his care. He knew you wouldn’t say anything, because the two of you were alike. He knew how useful it would be to him if a doctor, the man responsible for examining the children, were part of the whole enterprise.’ Rebus leaned close to Margolies’ ear. ‘He told me all of it, Dr Margolies.’

  The after-hours drinking, loosening up the doctor. Then the arrival of Ramsay Marshall with a fresh new kid, Darren Rough. Making the kid wear a blindfold so he wouldn’t recognise Margolies – this at the doctor’s insistence. Sweating and trembling . . . knowing this night changed everything . . .

  And afterwards: self-loathing perhaps; or maybe just fear of exposure. He hadn’t been able to cope, had feigned ill-health, opting for early retirement.

  ‘But you could never loose Ince’s grip on you. He’d been blackmailing you, him and Marshall both.’ Rebus’s voice was little more than a whisper, his lips almost touching the old man’s ear. ‘Know what? I’m so fucking glad he’s been sucking you dry all these years.’ Rebus stood back.

  ‘You don’t know anything.’ Margolies’ face was blood-red. Beneath the checked shirt, he was breathing hard.

  ‘I can’t prove anything, but that’s not quite the same thing. I know, and that’s what matters. I think your daughter found out. The shame of it killed her. You were always the first one awake in the morning; she knew you’d be the one to find her. And then somehow Jim found out, and he couldn’t live with it either. How come you can live with it, Dr Margolies? How come you can live with the deaths of both your children, and the murder of Darren Rough?’

  Margolies lifted a gardening fork, held it to Rebus’s throat. His face was squeezed into a mask of anger and frustration. Beads of perspiration dripped from his forehead. And outside, the billowing smoke seemed to be cutting them off from everything.

  Margolies didn’t say anything, just made sounds from behind gritted teeth. Rebus stood there, hand in pocket.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘You’re going to kill me too?’ He shook his head. ‘Think about it. Your wife’s seen me. There’s another officer waiting for me out front. How will you talk your way out of it? No, Dr Margolies, you’re not going to kill me. Like I say, I can’t prove anything I’ve just said. It’s between you and me.’ Rebus lifted the hand from his pocket, pushed the fork aside. The black lab was watching through the door, seemed to sense all was not well. It frowned at Rebus, looking disappointed in him.

  ‘What do you want?’ Margolies spluttered, gripping the work-bench with both hands.

  ‘I want you to live the rest of your life knowing that I know.’ Rebus shrugged. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘You want me to kill myself?’

  Rebus laughed. ‘I don’t think you’ve got it in you. You’re an old man, you’re going to die soon enough. Once you’re dead, maybe Ince and Marshall will rethink their loyalty to you. You won’t be left with any reputation at all.’

  Margolies turned towards him, and now there was clear, focused hatred in his eyes.

  ‘Of course,’ Rebus said, ‘if any evidence does turn up, you can be assured I’ll be back here at the double. You might be celebrating the millennium, you might be getting your card from the Queen, and then you’ll see me walking through the door.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll never be very far away, Dr Margolies.’

  He slid open the greenhouse door, manoeuvred his way past the dog. Walked away.

  It didn’t feel like any sort of victory. Unless something turned up, there’d be no justice for Darren Rough, no public trial. But Rebus knew he’d done what he could. Mrs Margolies was in the kitchen, making no pretence of doing anything other than waiting for him to return.

  ‘Everything all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Fine, Mrs Margolies.’ He headed down the hall, making for the front door. She was right behind him.

  ‘Well, I just was wondering . . .’

  Rebus opened the door, turned to her. ‘Why not ask your husband, Mrs Margolies?’

  The wife often knows, never brings herself to ask.

  ‘Just one thing, Mrs Margolies . . .?’

  ‘Yes?’

  Your husband’s a cold-blooded murderer. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came. He shook his head, started down the garden path.

  Clarke drove him to Katherine Margolies’ house, in the Grange area of Edinburgh. It was a three-storey Georgian semi in a street half of whose homes had been turned into bed-and-breakfast establishments. The white Merc was parked in front of the gate. Rebus turned to Clarke.

  ‘I know,’ she said: ‘stay in the car.’

  Katherine Margolies looked less than thrilled to see him.

  ‘What do you want?’ She seemed ready to keep him on the doorstep.

  ‘It’s about your husband’s suicide.’

  ‘What about it?’ Her face was narrow and hard, hands long and thin like butcher’s knives.

  ‘I think I know why he did it.’

  ‘And what makes you think I’d want to know?’

  ‘You already do know, Mrs Margolies.’ Rebus took a deep breath. Well, if she didn’t mind them talking like this on her doorstep . . . ‘When did he find out his father
was a paedophile?’

  Her eyes widened. A woman emerged from the neighbouring house, preparing to walk her Jack Russell terrier. ‘You better come in,’ Katherine Margolies said sharply, eyes darting up and down the street. After he walked in, she closed the door and stood with her back to it, arms folded.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  Rebus looked around. The hall had a grey marble floor veined with black lines. A stone staircase swept upwards. There were paintings on the walls: Rebus got the feeling they weren’t prints. She didn’t seem to have noticed his arm, had no interest in him that way.

  ‘Hannah not home?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s at school. Look, I don’t know what it is—’

  ‘Then I’ll tell you. It’s been gnawing at me, Jim’s death. And I’ll tell you why. I’ve been there myself, standing at the top of a very high place, wondering if I’d have the guts to jump off.’

  Her face softened a little.

  ‘Usually it was the booze doing it,’ he went on. ‘These days, I think I’ve got that under control. But I learned two things. One, you have to be incredibly brave to pull it off. Two, there’s got to be some crunch reason for you not to go on living. See, when it comes to it, going on living is the easier of the two options. I couldn’t see any reason why Jim would take his life, no reason at all. But there had to be one. That’s what got to me. There had to be one.’

  ‘And now you think you’ve found it?’ Her eyes were liquid in the cool dimness of the hall.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you felt it worth sharing with me?’

  He shook his head. ‘All I need from you is confirmation that I’m right.’

  ‘And then you’ll have contentment?’ She waited till he’d nodded. ‘And what right do you have to that, Inspector Rebus? What gives you the right to sleep easy?’

  ‘I never find sleep very easy, Mrs Margolies.’ It seemed to him then – and maybe it was a trick of the light – that he was seeing her at the end of a long dark tunnel, so that while she stood out clearly, everything between and around them was a blur of indistinct shading. And things were moving and gathering on the periphery: the ghosts. They were all here, providing a ready-made audience. Jack Morton, Jim Stevens, Darren Rough . . . even Jim Margolies. They felt so alive to him he could scarcely believe Katherine Margolies couldn’t make them out.