Ian Rankin & Inspector Rebus
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For Doreen Porter, Tracey Allen, Mark Ottowell, David Barlow and Graham A Thomas – professional editors, journalists and pure artists all. My thanks and best wishes for the friendship and time we spent together on Focus.
Also, to the great writers and editors of Scotland – past and present.
‘“I’m not supposed to be here,” Detective Inspector John Rebus said. Not that anyone was listening.’
Fleshmarket Close
‘It was all Sherlock Holmes’ fault, really.’
Ian Rankin Presents Criminal Minded
A copy of The Falls signed by Ian Rankin… and Inspector Rebus.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First I would like to thank Ian Rankin himself, for the many interviews and other conversations/emails over the years (including that alfresco breakfast meeting in the heart of winter!), Helen Richardson at Orion for always being so generous and accommodating, Tricia Malley and Ross Gillespie for their kindness and assistance with photographs (lovely people), Ellie Graham at Titan, Campbell Armstrong, John Connolly, Frederick Forsyth, James Herbert, Bernard Cornwall, for being great friends and mentors over the years, also Michael Connolly, Jeffrey Deaver, Peter James, the late great Ed McBain, for their time; and the spirits of Spark, Hogg, Stevenson, Conan Doyle, Burns and Scott, who continue to play their part in our lives.
Also thanks to Anita, Samantha, Nathan, Fern, who have to put up with my thought processes on a daily basis and – in regard to Nathan – treading the Edinburgh streets in search of Rebus’s Scotland too. Thanks also to legendary cops Leonard ‘Nipper’ Reed and Peter Wilton, who gave me a strong insight into the Police Forces of the UK over the past 50-odd years; and Lenny Hamilton, Billy Frost, Charlie Kray, Ronnie Knight and the Dixon brothers who have given me their perceptions about the criminal underworld. Thanks also to Everington, Evans-Hendrick, Savage, Felton, Holdcroft, Fletcher, Townsend and Cherry, in fact all at the BTK, who have been my spiritual backbone over the past four years regarding internal security and other relevant areas of expertise. Thanks are also due to Euan and Iris Martyn; Euan has been a good friend over the years from north of the border with a keen perception and wit, especially when I’ve had to pull rank! Thanks also to Tony Mulliken for being Tony Mulliken and reminding me that you can still do six impossible things before – or during! – breakfast (Miami Rules or not!). Thanks also to Samantha Hammell for helping me solve Edinburgh’s secret of Sherlock Holmes, a shame our conversation was cut short but so was the queue! Thanks to Doreen and Tracey, Mark, Dave and GT for being such a great team: you all kept me sane during the early years (long live Office 2). Thanks also to the genius of David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, John Lennon and The Beatles and, of course, The Rolling Stones, for the musical accompaniment while I proofed the book (a bit of method-writing at the end there!). Finally, thanks also to my father who found ten early Stones’ albums for me and additionally keeps my children covered in artist’s paints and glues on a regular basis when I have to work – perhaps we should invite you over for bath time soon!
Sincerely, many thanks to all.
Craig Cabell
Blackheath, August 2009
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
QUOTE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PREFACE
NOTE ON THE TEXT
CHAPTER ONE GIMME SHELTER
CHAPTER TWO EDINBURGH, A TOWN CALLED JEKYLL AND HYDE
CHAPTER THREE THE GERM OF AN IDEA
CHAPTER FOUR REBUS, IN THE BEGINNING
CHAPTER FIVE HIDE AND SEEK
CHAPTER SIX THE WOLFMAN
CHAPTER SEVEN STRIP JACK NAKED
CHAPTER EIGHT THE PLOTS THICKEN
CHAPTER NINE THE CITY BENEATH THE STREETS
CHAPTER TEN JUST A SHOT AWAY
CHAPTER ELEVEN BLACK AND BLUE
CHAPTER TWELVE EDINBURGH, BENEATH THE VENEER
CHAPTER THIRTEEN A SHORT INTERLUDE
CHAPTER FOURTEEN YOU GOT THE SILVER
CHAPTER FIFTEEN WRITING IN REALITY
CHAPTER SIXTEEN JIGSAW PUZZLE
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN MIDNIGHT RAMBLER
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN THE YOUNGSTER COMES OF AGE
CHAPTER NINETEEN REBUS AND HIS NEMESIS GET OLD
CHAPTER TWENTY THE G8 UNPLEASANTNESS
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE EXIT WOUND
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT
CONCLUSION LET IT BLEED
ANNEX A THE BIRTH OF JOHN REBUS
ANNEX B REBUS ON SCREEN
ANNEX C IAN RANKIN COLLECTOR’S GUIDE
ANNEX D IAN RANKIN: THE OXFORD BAR INTERVIEW
FURTHER READING AND COPYRIGHT NOTES
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
NOTES
PLATES
COPYRIGHT
PREFACE
‘But it wasn’t all image, was it?’
Ian Rankin, Strip Jack
Ian Rankin and Inspector Rebus. There’s a coincidence in that title: the first letter of each name is the same – IR. Okay, Rebus’s first name is John not Inspector; but the analogy endures, especially when we acknowledge that the only description we get of Rebus in the first novel is that he has brown hair and green eyes – the same as his creator Ian Rankin.
So Rankin created something of a self-image in Rebus? An interesting question and one that can’t be answered in a simple preface.
This is not a biography of Ian Rankin and it is not an in-depth piece of literary criticism. It’s somewhere between the two, that interesting place, which is part fact and part fiction, the area where Ian Rankin encounters Inspector John Rebus and the character and stories take shape.
I decided to write this book after reading – and listening to – Rankin’s entertaining Rebus’s Scotland, a book – or audio if you prefer it – in which Rankin seeks answers to complicated questions such as: What is Edinburgh? And, am I indeed John Rebus?
As a Scot he probably answered the first question successfully through a range of observations and experiences, although perhaps leaving himself open to a slight charge of xenophobia along the way; but perhaps that’s where you’ll find John Rebus – or where Rankin wants you to find him?
I personally felt that Rankin was too close to himself (and Rebus) to answer the second question in Rebus’s Scotland. So what you have here is my version of the answer to the important question, is Rankin, Rebus? Or, based on the assumption that every character is based on the writer who created it: how much of Rankin is Rebus?
Throughout this book you will learn all that a reader really needs to know about an author: the path of his life up to becoming a writer, his thought processes connected with the formation of his main character and his adopted city, and how the main characters in the novels have developed over the years. You will also see how Rankin’s style has developed over the years too, becoming more intricate.
The things you won’t find here are in-depth discussions about police procedure, social and economic issues raised by the plotlines, and analysis of inconsistencies throughout the books, which are all part of the wider picture of literary criticism. I’m simply interested in the man and his creation here and the parallels between them.
That said, what you will find here are basic plotlines for every Rebus novel (without giving away the punchlines), character analysis, extensive interviews with Ian Rankin over a ten-year period, a TV guide and a detailed bibliography and collector’s guide. The end product is a solid companion work to Ian Rankin and John Rebus. And if that is not enough, there is an uncut interview with
Rankin in Rebus’s watering hole, the Oxford Bar, by way of conclusion.
OK, so that’s the sales pitch over with: what about those questions I wanted to answer? Well, let us now walk the atmospheric streets of Rankin’s – Rebus’s – Edinburgh and seek the answers together…
‘Rebus was still trying to come to terms with his new workplace. Everything was so tidy, he could never find anything, as a result of which he was always keen to get out of the office and onto the street.’
The Black Book
NOTE ON THE TEXT
I have deliberately spelled out the titles of Ian Rankin’s novels in full throughout this book: Knots and Crosses, Hide and Seek, Tooth and Nail, rather than using ampersand, which is inconsistently used throughout Rankin’s published work.
With regard to Tooth and Nail, I use its original title Wolfman up to the point where the change of title was accepted by Rankin (after being suggested by his American publisher).
I call Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the exact title it was published under in January 1886. I only adapt an abbreviated version of the title when the flow of the text dictates it.
All quotes are credited in footnotes. However, for the early interviews that support the facts of the author’s early life, I leave these unrecorded as I rarely quote Rankin directly in the text (basically my Set in Darkness interview); other interviews are fully credited.
I have used several sound bites from other journalists/publications, which are fully credited in the text and/or in End Notes, although these are few.
Craig Cabell
The Pleasance, Eltham, August 2009
CHAPTER ONE
GIMME SHELTER
‘Here’s the scoop: crime writing is sexy.’
Ian Rankin presents Criminal Minded
Ian Rankin was born in Cardenden, Fife, on 28 April 1960, ‘a rough working class town’, he explains.1 Cardenden is situated in central Fife, between Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline, and sprang up in Victorian times with the growth of the coal-mining industry. Today, the mines are closed and unemployment is endemic.
Rankin’s home was 17 Craigmead Terrace, a small house his parents lived in from the time it was built in 1960 – shortly after Rankin was born – until his father’s untimely death in 1990.
Rankin’s parents got together through tragic circumstances. His father had been married before and his wife had died; his mother had been married before and her husband had died. So they met as widow and widower. Rankin would state that, ‘Death was the reason they got together and had me… There has always been the shadow of death in my family.’ Interesting thing to say and may explain book titles such as Mortal Causes, The Naming of the Dead, Dead Souls, Let It Bleed, Death Comes at the End (well, he has used the odd song title too!). Rankin’s mother was a school dinner lady but sadly died when he was only 18. ‘She died when she was only in her early fifties. They said it was a stroke and then MS, although eventually they called it lung cancer.’2
This proved to be a very difficult time for Rankin and may explain his deep-rooted interest in the plight of people of all classes and how they struggle against incredible odds; it’s a constant theme in his books.
His father died at the age of 72, an age Rankin doesn’t consider to be that old. He was a dock worker, so Rankin grew up in a strong working-class environment, with two half-sisters as a legacy from his parents’ previous marriages.
He went to school at Auchterderran Junior High for a couple of years and then Beath High School in Cowdenbeath, the latter being a four-mile bus ride from his home. Rankin gives a gritty picture of his formative years: ‘The job opportunities in Fife during the 1960s and ’70s were not diverse. You would either go into the Armed Forces or the Police Force. That was pretty much it. People would get to the age of 16 or 18 and just leave and you’d never see them again.’3. Not surprising then that the fictional John Rebus did both (Armed Forces and Police Force), as he was also born in Cardenden and in the same cul-de-sac as Rankin! But what about Rankin himself? Did he feel that these careers were the only options open to him? Perhaps to begin with he did; but he wanted something different and, not unlike the proverbial fairytale, he escaped and achieved it. He went on to higher education and broke the mould for Cardenden and his own family, who had never pursued further education.
In the light of all this, we could argue that through Rebus, Rankin has written about his breathtaking escape from the normal career path of a lad from Cardenden.
This isn’t completely true but there are some strong parallels between the author and his creation.
Rankin would say that he started his literary life as a short story writer – well, a comic book writer to be brutal.4
At the ages of six, seven and eight, he would draw stick-men cartoons with speech bubble stories, folding sheets of plain paper to form little booklets with typical boy-themes such as football, war and space.5 This went on for several years until it was pointed out to him that he couldn’t draw!
At the age of 10 or 11 he started to listen to music, but his ‘obsessive’ (his word not mine) behaviour meant that it wasn’t good enough just to listen to the music, he wanted to form a band too. His friends weren’t interested but he decided to write song lyrics and form a band in his head called The Amoebas.
This vivid fantasy world may give the general reader the impression that Rankin was a stay-at-home goody-goody but he wasn’t. He had tough friends while growing up and he eventually did his own bit of thuggery with them, including shoplifting and fighting.6 Reading became Rankin’s escape and was probably his saviour too. It certainly gave him a broader outlook academically, because if one reads at a young age then one tends to want to write, and the writing bug separated Rankin from his friends: ‘I grew up feeling “different” from my family and friends, and trying desperately to blend in.’ He said this in an almost throw-away sentence towards the end of Rebus’s Scotland and said something similar to artist Jack Vettriano: ‘I did like my own company. I felt very different. I felt like a chameleon. I was trying to look like I fitted in but I didn’t really fit in… from an early age I felt they wouldn’t understand because what I was doing was so out [of touch] with the tribe I was with; I was this dude who wanted to write poetry and short stories.’7
Writing certainly separated Rankin from his street-corner pals and family while growing up, and that distance formed the central theme of isolation – albeit in a more extreme way – in his first attempt at a novel, as he explained: ‘My first novel was only about 40 pages long but it was about a teenager whose parents didn’t understand him so he ran away to London… there was a lot of autobiography in that. I probably wanted to run away to London but I didn’t have the gumption to do it. I always kept that side of [my personality] hidden away.8
It is very easy to blow this part of Rankin’s life out of proportion. He didn’t alienate himself; he simply became a little secretive in order to protect his hobby. I once asked him about his early friendships in juxtaposition to his growing interest in reading: ‘I used to hang around street corners and there would be great affiliation between the guys and we would fight other youths in the towns nearby. We would pass around books like Skinhead and Suedehead, lots of pulp fiction.’ So his friends did read; but Rankin took it one step further when he couldn’t get into the cinema to see the films that were an extension of the pulp fiction he passed around his cronies:‘Suddenly along came A Clockwork Orange. I wasn’t old enough to go and see it at the flicks; I was only 11 or 12 when it was released, so I went to the library and got it out. I couldn’t believe that the librarian would let me do that. And the same thing happened with The Godfather. Nobody said to me, “Hey, are you 18?” And I suddenly found that there was no censorship with books. And therefore I started reading voraciously. I started reading the books of the films I couldn’t get in to see. And my parents were so thrilled! They didn’t care what I was reading as long as I was reading and not watching the
television.’9
Here lies the rub. Rankin wasn’t pressured into reading: he chose to read in order to get at the stories he couldn’t see at the cinema. Couple this with his imagination and general interest in books/comics, a strong hobby started to evolve in his life.
We have already found that Rankin didn’t feel that he fitted in too well with his friends, he also didn’t want to stay in Cardenden all his life and become a serviceman or policeman, he wanted to break away from all of that, as he qualified to Jack Vettriano: ‘… how I started to write books… replace the real drab Fife of the ’60s with an alternative universe.’ This ‘feel-good’ world he created for himself, the security blanket of escape, accidentally made him a self-starter in the academic world. It gave him a perspective about books and therefore a grounding that took him further along the educational path and yes, he can thank himself for that; with some quality English teachers along the way (who almost act like spiritual guides throughout his formative years).
On that basis it is perhaps no surprise that in the last year of High School Rankin was sent back to his Primary School, Denend, to follow the daily life of a teacher, as the noble profession seemed to be his obvious calling!
He didn’t enjoy the experience too much, but something inspirational did happen to him in the classroom while there and kindled the flame of an academic profession: he became aware of a nationwide poetry competition.
It is said that writers are born, not made, and it is clear that this strain of creative pursuit was embedded in Rankin from a very early age and endured throughout his character-building formative years. It then evolved with his maturity and keen perception in his teens. He must have had a driving passion for writing to do something that nobody else in his family circle had done, nor indeed his friends. But he was driven and therefore determined to make the best of his skills. And it eventually paid off too.