10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Must owe the City Fathers a small fortune,’ said McCall.

  There were books on economics, politics and history, as well as learned and not so learned tomes on demonism, devil worship and witchcraft. There was little fiction, and most of the books had been read thoroughly, with much underlining and pencilled marginalia. On the desk sat a half-completed essay, part of Charlie’s university course work no doubt. It seemed to be trying to link ‘magick’ to modern society, but was mostly, to Rebus’s eye, rambling nonsense.

  ‘Hello!’

  This was shouted from downstairs, as the two constables started to climb the staircase.

  ‘Hello yourselves,’ McCall called back. Then he shook the contents of a large supermarket carrier bag onto the floor, so that pens, toy cars, cigarette papers, a wooden egg, a spool of cotton, a personal cassette player, a Swiss army knife, and a camera fell out. McCall stooped to pick up the camera between thumb and middle finger. Nice model, thirty-five-millimetre SLR. Good make. He gestured with it towards Rebus, who took it from him, having first produced a handkerchief from his pocket, with which he held it. Rebus turned towards Tracy who was standing against the door with her arms folded. She nodded back at him.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s Ronnie’s camera.’

  The constables were at the top of the stairs now. Rebus accepted McCall’s offer of the supermarket carrier and dropped the camera into it, careful not to mess up any prints.

  ‘Todd,’ he said to the constable he knew, ‘take this young lady down to Great London Road station.’ Tracy’s mouth opened. ‘It’s for your own protection,’ Rebus said. ‘Go on with them. I’ll see you later, soon as I can.’

  She still seemed ready to voice a complaint, but thought better of it, nodded and turned, leaving the room. Rebus listened as she went downstairs, accompanied by the officers. McCall was still searching, though without real concern. Two finds were quite enough to be going on with.

  ‘No smoke without fire,’ he said.

  ‘I had lunch with Tommy today,’ said Rebus.

  ‘My brother Tommy?’ McCall looked up. Rebus nodded. ‘Then that’s one up to you. He’s never taken me to lunch these past fifteen years.’

  ‘We were at The Eyrie.’ Now McCall whistled. ‘To do with Watson’s anti-drugs campaign.’

  ‘Yes, Tommy’s shelling out for it, isn’t he? Ach, I shouldn’t be hard on him. He’s done me a few favours in his time.’

  ‘He had a few too many.’

  McCall laughed gently. ‘He hasn’t changed then. Still, he can afford it. That transport company of his, it runs itself. He used to be there twenty-four hours a day, fifty-two weeks of the year. Nowadays, he can take off as long as he likes. His accountant once told him to take a year off. Can you imagine that? For tax purposes. If only we had those kinds of problem, eh, John?’

  ‘You’re right there, Tony.’ Rebus was still holding the supermarket bag. McCall nodded towards it.

  ‘Does this tie it up?’

  ‘It makes things a bit clearer,’ said Rebus. ‘I might get it checked for prints.’

  ‘I can tell you what you’ll find,’ said McCall. ‘The deceased’s and this guy Charlie’s.’

  ‘You’re forgetting someone.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You, Tony. You picked the camera up with your fingers, remember?’

  ‘Ah, sorry. I didn’t think.’

  ‘Never mind.’

  ‘Anyway, it’s something, isn’t it? Something to celebrate, I mean. I don’t know about you, but I’m starved.’

  As they left the room, one pillar of books finally gave way, slewing down across the floor like dominoes waiting to be shuffled. Rebus opened the door again to look in.

  ‘Ghosts,’ said McCall. ‘That’s all. Just ghosts.’

  It wasn’t much to look at. Not what he’d been expecting. Okay, so there was a potted plant in one corner, and black roller blinds over the windows, and even a word processor gathering dust on a newish plastic desk. But it was still the second floor of a tenement, still designed as somebody’s home and never meant to be used as office, studio, workplace. Holmes gave the room – the so-called ‘front office’ – a tour as the cute little school-leaver went off to fetch ‘His Highness’. That was what she’d called him. If your staff didn’t hold you in esteem, or at the very least in frightened awe, there was something wrong with you. Certainly, as the door opened and ‘His Highness’ walked in, it was evident to Holmes that there was something wrong with Jimmy Hutton.

  For a start, he was the other side of fifty, yet what hair he still had was long, thin strands covering his forehead almost down to his eyes. He was also wearing denims: a mistake easily made by those aspiring to youth from the wrong side. And he was short. Five foot two or three. Now Holmes began to see the relevance of the secretary’s pun. His highness, indeed.

  He had a harassed look on his face, but had left the camera through in the back bedroom or box room or whichever room of the smallish flat served as his studio. He stuck out a hand, and Holmes shook it.

  ‘Detective Constable Holmes,’ he announced. Hutton nodded, took a cigarette from the packet on his secretary’s desk and lit it. She frowned openly at this as she sat down again, smoothing her tight skirt beneath her. Hutton had not yet looked at Holmes. His eyes seemed to be mirroring some distraction in his mind. He went to the window, looked out, arched his neck to blow a plume of smoke towards the high, dark ceiling, then let his head go limp, leaning against the wall.

  ‘Get me a coffee, Christine.’ His eyes met Holmes’s momentarily. ‘Do you want one?’ Holmes shook his head.

  ‘Sure?’ said Christine kindly, rising out of her seat again.

  ‘Okay then. Thanks.’

  With a smile she left the room, off to the kitchen or darkroom to fill a kettle.

  ‘So,’ said Hutton. ‘What can I do for you?’

  That was another thing about the man. His voice was high, not shrill or girlish, just high. And slightly rasping, as though he had damaged his vocal cords at some point in his youth and they had never recovered.

  ‘Mr Hutton?’ Holmes needed to be sure. Hutton nodded.

  ‘Jimmy Hutton, professional photographer, at your service. You’re getting married and you want me to do you a discount?’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’

  ‘A portrait then. Girlfriend perhaps? Mum and dad?’

  ‘No, this is business, I’m afraid. My business, that is.’

  ‘But no new business for me, right?’ Hutton smiled, chanced another glance towards Holmes, drew on his cigarette again. ‘I could do a portrait of you, you know. Nice strong chin, decent cheekbones. With the proper lighting. . . .’

  ‘No, thanks. I hate having my picture taken.’

  ‘I’m not talking about pictures.’ Hutton was moving now, circling the desk. ‘I’m talking about art.’

  ‘That’s why I came here actually.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Art. I was impressed by some of your photos I saw in a newspaper. I was wondering whether you might be able to help me.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It’s a missing person.’ Holmes was not a great liar. His ears tingled when he told a real whopper. Not a great liar, but a good one. ‘A young man called Ronnie McGrath.’

  ‘Name doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘He wanted to be a photographer, that’s why I was wondering.’

  ‘Wondering what?’

  ‘If he’d ever come to you. You know, asking advice, that sort of thing. You’re an established name, after all.’ It was almost too blatant. Holmes could sense it: could sense Hutton just about realising what the game was. But vanity won in the end.

  ‘Well,’ the photographer said, leaning against the desk, folding his arms, crossing his legs, sure of himself. ‘What did he look like, this Ronnie?’

  ‘Tallish, short brown hair. Liked to do studies. You know the sort of thing, the Castle, Calton Hill. . . .’

 
; ‘Are you a photographer yourself, Inspector?’

  ‘I’m only a constable.’ Holmes smiled, pleased by the error. Then caught himself: what if Hutton were trying to play the vanity game with him? ‘And no, I’ve never really done much photography. Holiday snaps, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Sugar?’ Christine put her head around the door, smiling at Holmes again.

  ‘No thanks,’ he said. ‘Just milk.’

  ‘Put a drop of whisky in mine,’ said Hutton. ‘There’s a love.’ He winked towards the door as it closed again. ‘Sounds familiar, I have to admit. Ronnie. . . . Studies of the Castle. Yes, yes. I do remember some young guy coming in, bloody pest he was. I was doing a portfolio, some long-term stuff. Mind had to be one hundred percent on the job. He was always coming round, asking to see me, wanting to show me his work.’ Hutton raised his hands apologetically. ‘I mean, we were all young once. I wish I could have helped him. But I didn’t have the time, not right then.’

  ‘You didn’t look at his work?’

  ‘No. No time, as I say. He stopped coming by after a few weeks.’

  ‘How long ago was this?’

  ‘Few months. Three or four.’

  The secretary appeared with their coffees. Holmes could smell the whisky wafting out of Hutton’s mug, and was jealous and repelled in equal measure. Still, the interview was going well enough. Time for a side road.

  ‘Thanks, Christine,’ he said, seeming to please her with the familiarity. She sat down, not drinking herself, and lit a cigarette. He thought for a moment of reaching out to light it for her, but held back.

  ‘Look,’ said Hutton. ‘I’d like to be of assistance, but. . . .’

  ‘You’re a busy man.’ Holmes nodded agreement. ‘I really do appreciate your giving me any time at all. Anyway, that just about wraps it up.’ He took a scalding mouthful of coffee, but dared not spit it back into the mug, so swallowed hard instead.

  ‘Right,’ said Hutton, rising from the edge of the desk.

  ‘Oh,’ said Holmes. ‘Just one thing. Curiosity really, but is there any chance I could have a peek at your studio? I’ve never been in a proper studio before.’

  Hutton looked at Christine, who muffled a smile behind her fingers as she pretended to puff on her cigarette.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, smiling himself. ‘Why not? Come on.’

  The room was large, but otherwise pretty much as Holmes had expected, excepting one significant detail. Half a dozen different types of camera stood on half a dozen tripods. There were photographs covering three of the walls, and against the fourth was a large white backcloth, looking suspiciously like a bedsheet. This was all obvious enough. However, in front of the backcloth had been arranged the set for Hutton’s present ‘portfolio’: two large, freestanding sections, painted pink. And in front of these was a chair, against which, arms folded, stood a young, blonde and bored-looking man.

  A man who was naked.

  ‘Detective Holmes, this is Arnold,’ said Hutton by way of introduction. ‘Arnold is a male model. Nothing wrong, is there?’

  Holmes, who had been staring, now tried not to. The blood was rising to his face. He turned to Hutton.

  ‘No, no, nothing.’

  Hutton went to one camera and bent down to squint through the viewfinder, aiming in Arnold’s general direction. Not at head height.

  ‘The male nude can be quite exquisite,’ Hutton was saying. ‘Nothing photographs quite as well as the human body.’ He clicked the shutter, ran the film on, clicked again, then looked up at Holmes, smiling at the policeman’s discomfort.

  ‘What will you do with the . . .’ Holmes searched for some decorous word. ‘I mean, what are they for?’

  ‘My portfolio, I told you. To show to possible future clients.’

  ‘Right.’ Holmes nodded, to show he understood.

  ‘I am an artist, you see, as well as a portrait snapper.’

  ‘Right,’ Holmes said, nodding again.

  ‘Not against the law, is it?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ He went to the heavily draped window and peeked out through a slight opening. ‘Not unless it disturbs the neighbours.’

  Hutton laughed. Even the sober face of the model opened in a momentary grin.

  ‘They queue up,’ said Hutton, coming to the window and peering out. ‘That’s why I had to put up the curtains. Dirty buggers that they were. Women and men, crammed into the width of a window.’ He pointed to a top-storey window in the tenement across the way. ‘There. I caught them one day, took a couple of quick shots of them with the motor-drive. They didn’t like that.’ He turned away from the window. Holmes was browsing along the walls, picking out this and that photograph and nodding praise towards Hutton, who lapped it up and began to walk with him, pointing out this or that angle or trick.

  ‘That’s good,’ said Holmes, gesturing towards one shot of Edinburgh Castle bathed in mist. It was almost identical to the one he had seen in the newspaper, which made it a very near relative to the one in Ronnie’s bedroom. Hutton shrugged.

  ‘That’s nothing,’ he said, resting a hand on Holmes’s shoulder. ‘Here, have a look at some of my nude work.’

  There was a cluster of a dozen black and white ten-by-eights, pinned to the wall in one corner of the room. Men and women, not all of them young or pretty. But well enough taken, artistic even, Holmes supposed.

  ‘These are just the best,’ said Hutton.

  ‘The best, or the most tasteful?’ Holmes tried not to make the remark sound judgmental, but even so Hutton’s good humour vanished. He went to a large chest of drawers and pulled open the bottom one, scooping up an armful of photographs which he threw to the floor.

  ‘Have a look,’ he said. ‘There’s no porn. Nothing sleazy or disgusting or obscene. They’re just bodies. Posed bodies.’

  Holmes stood over the photographs, not seeming to pay them any attention.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘if I seemed –’

  ‘Forget it.’ Hutton turned away, so that his face was towards the male model. He rubbed at his eyes, shoulders slumped. ‘I’m just tired. I didn’t mean to snap like that. Just tired.’

  Holmes stared at Arnold over Hutton’s shoulder, then, because there was no way it could be done stealthily, bent down, picked out a photograph from the selection on the floor, and, coming upright again, stuffed the photo into his jacket. Arnold saw, of course, and Holmes just had time to wink at him conspiratorially before Hutton turned back towards him.

  ‘People imagine it’s easy, just taking photos all day,’ Hutton said. Holmes risked a look over the man’s shoulder and saw Arnold wag an admonitory finger. But he was smiling archly. He wasn’t about to tell. ‘You’re thinking all the time,’ Hutton went on. ‘Every waking minute of every day, every time you look at something, every time you use your eyes. Everything’s material, you see.’

  Holmes was at the door now, not about to linger.

  ‘Yes, well, I’d better let you get on,’ he said.

  ‘Oh,’ said Hutton, as though coming out of a dream. ‘Right.’

  ‘Thanks for all your help.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Bye, Arnold,’ Holmes called, then pulled the door shut behind him and was gone.

  ‘Back to work,’ said Hutton. He stared at the photographs on the floor. ‘Give me a hand with these, Arnold.’

  ‘You’re the boss.’

  As they began to scoop the photos back into the drawer, Hutton commented, ‘Nice enough bloke for a copper.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Arnold, standing naked with his hands full of paper. ‘He didn’t look like one of the dirty raincoat brigade, did he?’

  And though Hutton asked him what he meant, Arnold just shrugged. It wasn’t his business after all. It was a shame though, the policeman being interested in women. A waste of a good-looking man.

  Holmes stood outside for a minute. For some reason, he was trembling, as though a small motor had stuck somewhere inside him. He touched a hand
to his chest. Slight heart murmur, nothing more. Everybody got them, didn’t they? He felt as though he had just committed some petty crime, which he supposed, really, he had. He had taken someone’s property away without their knowledge or consent. Wasn’t that theft? As a child, he had stolen from shops, always throwing away whatever he stole. Ach, all kids did it, didn’t they? . . . Didn’t they?

  He brought from his pocket the gains from this latest pilfering. The photograph was curled now, but he straightened it between his hands. A woman, pushing a pram past him, glanced at the photograph then hurried on, throwing back a disgusted look towards him. It’s all right, madam, I’m a police officer. He smiled at the thought, then studied the nude shot again. It was mildly salacious, nothing more. A young woman, stretched out on what appeared to be silk or satin. Photographed from above, as she lay spreadeagled on this sheet. Her mouth open in an amateur’s pout, eyes narrowed to slits of fake ecstasy. All this was common enough. More interesting though was the model’s identity.

  For Holmes was sure it was the girl Tracy, the one whose photograph he already had from the squat. The one whose background he was trying to ascertain. The girlfriend of the deceased. Posed for the camera, uncovered, not at all shy, and enjoying herself.

  What was it that kept bringing him back to this house? Rebus wasn’t sure. He turned his torch onto Charlie’s wall painting again, trying to make sense of the mind that had created it. But why did he want to try to understand a piece of jetsam like Charlie anyway? Perhaps because of the nagging feeling that he was absolutely integral to the case.

  ‘What case?’

  There, he had actually, finally said it aloud. What case? There was no ‘case’, not in the sense in which any criminal court would understand the term. There were personalities, misdeeds, questions without answers. Illegalities, even. But there was no case. That was the frustrating thing. If there were only a case, only something structured enough, tangible enough for him to hold on to, some casenotes which he could physically hold up and say, look, here it is. But there was nothing like that. It was all as insubstantial as candle wax. But candle wax left its mark, didn’t it? And nothing ever vanished, not totally. Instead, things altered shape, substance, meaning. A five-pointed star within two concentric circles was nothing in itself. To Rebus it looked like nothing so much as a tin sheriff’s badge he’d had as a boy. Lawman of the Texas tin badge state, cap-firing six-gun in his plastic holster.