10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Really?’ She sat forward in her chair, the palms of her hands pressed to the tablecloth. ‘Tell me.’

  So he told her. It was a long story, and he didn’t know exactly why he gave her as many details as he did – more details than she needed to know, and more, perhaps, than he should be telling to a psychologist. What would she make of him? Would she find a trace of psychosis or paranoia in his character? But he had her complete attention, so he spun the tale out in order to enjoy that attention the more.

  It took them through two cups of coffee, the paying of the bill, and a balmy night-time walk through Leicester Square, across Charing Cross Road, up St Martin’s Lane and along Long Acre towards Covent Garden. They walked around Covent Garden itself, Rebus still doing most of the talking. He stopped by a row of three telephone boxes, curious about the small white stickers covering every available inch of space on the inside of the booths: Stern corrective measures; French lessons; O and A specialist; TV; Trudy, nymphet, Spank me; S/M chamber; Busty blonde – all of them accompanied by telephone numbers.

  Lisa studied them, too. ‘Every one a psychologist,’ she said. Then: ‘That’s quite a story you’ve just told, John. Has anyone written it up?’

  Rebus shrugged. ‘A newspaper reporter wrote a couple of articles.’ Jim Stevens. Christ, hadn’t he moved to London, too? Rebus thought again of the newspaper story Lamb had shown him, the unattributed newspaper story.

  ‘Yes,’ Lisa was saying, ‘but has anyone looked at it from your point of view?’

  ‘No.’ She looked thoughtful at this. ‘You want to turn me into a case study?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ she said. ‘Ah, here we are.’ She stopped. They were standing outside a shoe shop in a narrow, pedestrianised street. Above the rows of shops were two storeys of flats. ‘This is where I live,’ she said. ‘Thank you for this evening. I’ve enjoyed it.’

  ‘Thank you for the meal. It was great.’

  ‘Not at all.’ She fell silent. They were only two or three feet apart. Rebus shuffled his feet. ‘Will you be able to find your way back?’ she asked. ‘Should I point you in the right direction?’

  Rebus looked up and down the street. He was lost. He had not been keeping track of their meanderings. ‘Oh, I’ll be all right.’ He smiled and she smiled back but did not speak. ‘So this is it then,’ he persisted. ‘No offer of a coffee?’

  She looked at him slyly. ‘Do you really want a coffee?’

  He returned the look. ‘No,’ he admitted, ‘not really.’

  She turned from him and opened the door to the side of the shoe shop. The shop claimed to specialise in handmade and non-leather shoes. Beside the door to the flats was an entryphone boasting six names. One of them read simply ‘L Frazer’. No ‘Dr’, but then he supposed she wouldn’t want to be disturbed by people needing a medical doctor, would she? There were times when a qualification was best kept under wraps.

  Lisa drew the mortice key out of the lock. The stairwell was brightly lit, its plain stone painted cornflower blue. She turned back towards him.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘since you don’t want a coffee, you’d better come on up . . .’

  She later explained, running a hand over his chest as they lay together in bed, that she saw no point in the little games people played, the slow edging towards a moment when both would admit that what they really wanted was to make love.

  So instead she led Rebus up to her first floor flat, took him into the darkened room, undressed and got into bed, sitting with her knees tucked up in front of her.

  ‘Well?’ she said. So he had undressed, too, and joined her. She lay now with her arms reaching behind her to grab at the bedposts, her body dusky in the light cast from a street lamp outside. Rebus ran his tongue back up along the inside of her leg, the inner thigh, her legs supple. She smelt of jasmine, tasted of flowers more pungent still. Rebus was self-conscious at first. His own body had become an embarrassment, while hers was in fine, toned condition. (Squash and swimming, she told him later, and a strict diet.) He ran his fingers over the ripples, the corrugations in her flesh. There was some sagging to the skin above her stomach, some creasing to the sides of her breasts and to her throat. He looked down and saw his own distended chest. There was still some muscle to his stomach, but there was also excessive fleshiness; not supple, tired and ageing. Squash and swimming: he would take up some exercise, join a health club. There were enough of them in Edinburgh.

  He was eager to please. Her pleasure became his only goal, and he worked tirelessly. There was sweat in the room now. A lot of sweat. They were working well together, moving fluidly, each seeming to sense what the other was about to do. When he moved slightly too quickly and bumped his nose on her chin, they laughed quietly, rubbing foreheads. And when later he went in search of her fridge and cold liquid, she came too, popping an ice cube into her mouth before kissing him, the kiss extending downwards as she sank to her knees in front of him.

  Back in bed, they drank chill white wine from the bottle and kissed some more, then began all over again.

  The air between them had lost its nervous charge and they were able to enjoy themselves. She moved on top, rearing above him, her rhythm increasing until all he could do was lie back and watch with his eyes closed, imagining the room in diffuse light, a cold spray of water, a smoothness of skin.

  Or a woman. The Wolfman could be a woman. The Wolfman was playing with the police, seemed to know the way they thought and worked. A woman? A woman officer? Cath Farraday came to mind, with her Teutonic face, that wide but angular jaw.

  Jesus, here he was with Lisa, thinking of another woman! He felt a sudden pang of guilt, hitting him in the stomach a moment before a very different reaction arched his back and his neck, while her hands pressed down upon his chest, her knees clamped to his hips.

  Or a woman. Why the teeth? Leaving not a single clue except those bites. Why? Why not a woman? Why not a policeman? Or . . . or . . .

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Her breath escaped with a hiss, the word losing all meaning as she repeated it ten, twenty, thirty times. Yes what?

  ‘Yes, John, yes, John, yes . . .’

  Yes.

  It had been another busy day for her, a day spent pretending to be what she’s not, but now she was out again, prowling. She is beginning to like the way she can move so smoothly through the two worlds. Earlier this evening she was the guest at a dinner party in Blackheath. Mock-Georgian elegance, stripped pine doors, talk of school fees and fax machines, of interest rates and foreign property – and the Wolfman. They asked for her opinion. Her opinion was reasoned, intelligent, liberal. There was chilled Chablis and an exquisite bottle of Chateau Montrose: the ’82. She could not choose between the two, so enjoyed a glass of both.

  One guest was late arriving, a journalist on one of the better dailies. He apologised. They asked for tidbits from the next day’s news, and he supplied them generously. The sister paper to his own was a downmarket tabloid. He told them the next day’s front page would have a headline reading SECRET LIFE OF GAY WOLFMAN. Of course, as the journalist knows, this is nothing more than a ruse, to try to bait the killer. And she knows too, naturally. They smile at one another across the table, as she lifts more pasta expertly with her fork. How stupid of them to run a story like that: gay Wolfman indeed! She chuckles into her oversized wine glass. The conversation turns to motorway traffic, wine acquisition, the state of Blackheath Common. Blackheath, of course, is where they buried the plague victims, piling the corpses high. Black Death. Black Heath. One letter separates the two. She smiles at this, too, discreetly.

  The meal over, she took a taxi back across the river and got out at the beginning of her street. She intended to go straight home, but walked past her door and kept on walking. She shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be out here, but it feels right. After all, the toy in the gallery must be lonely. It’s always so cold in the gallery. So cold Jack Frost could bite off your nose.

  Her mother must have told her
that. Her mother. Long nosehairs, Johnny, are so unbecoming in a gentleman. Or her father, singing nonsense songs while she hid herself in the garden. ‘Fuck art,’ she hisses quietly to herself.

  She knows where to go, too. Not far. The intersection of one road with a much larger one. There are many like it in London. Traffic lights, and a few women wandering back and forth, sometimes crossing at the lights so that the drivers can see them, can see their legs and their white bodies. If a car window is rolled down, a woman may lean down close to the driver so that they can discuss terms. Professional, but not very discreet. She knows that sometimes the police will make a rudimentary attempt to close down business, knows too that policemen are among the whores’ best customers. That’s why it’s dangerous for her to come here. Dangerous but necessary: she has an itch, and women like these go missing all the time, don’t they? No one gets suspicious. No one starts alarm bells ringing. Alarm bells are the last thing you need in this part of the city. Like with her first victim, by the time they got to her she was a meal for rats. Animal feed. She chuckles again, and makes to walk past one of these women, but stops.

  ‘Hello, love,’ says the woman. ‘Anything you want?’

  ‘How much for the night?’

  ‘For you, love, a hundred.’

  ‘Very well.’ She turns and starts back towards her own street, her own house, so much safer there than out here. The woman follows noisily a yard or two behind, seeming to understand. She does not let the woman catch up until she is at the front door and the key is in the lock. The gallery beckons. Only it doesn’t look like a gallery any more.

  It looks like a butcher’s block.

  ‘Nice place you’ve got, love.’

  She puts a finger to her lips. ‘No talking.’ The woman begins to look suspicious, looks as though she’s thinking twice about being here. So she goes to her and grabs at a breast, planting a clumsy, smeared kiss across puffy lips. The prostitute looks startled for a second, then manages a rehearsed smile.

  ‘Well, you’re certainly not a gentleman,’ she says.

  She nods, pleased with this remark. The front door is locked now. And she goes to the door of the gallery, slips the key in, unlocks it.

  ‘In here, love?’ The woman is removing her coat as she walks across the threshold. The coat is down past her shoulders by the time she sees the room itself. But by then, of course, it’s too late, far too late.

  She moves in on her, like a trained worker on a production line. Hand over the mouth, good pressure on the knife and a quick backward arc before the thrust. She has often wondered if they see the knife, or are their eyes closed in terror by then? She imagines them with eyes bulging open, focussing on the knife as, point directed towards them, it swings back and then flies forward towards their face. She can find out, can’t she? All she needs is a strategically placed wall-mirror. Must remember that for next time.

  Gurgle, gurgle. The gallery is such a marvellous setting, poised between Apollo and Dionysus. The body slips to the floor. Time for the real work now. Her brain is humming – mummydaddymummydaddy mummydaddymummydaddy – as she crouches to her task.

  ‘It’s only a game,’ she whispers, her voice a mere tremble at the back of her throat. ‘Only a game.’ She hears the woman’s words again: certainly not a gentleman. No, certainly not. Her laughter is harsh and abrupt. Suddenly, she feels it again. No! Not already! Next time. The knife twitches. She hasn’t even finished with this one. She can’t possibly do another tonight! It would be madness. Sheer madness. But the craving is there, an absolute and unappeasable hunger. This time with a mirror. She covers her eyes with a bloodstained hand.

  ‘Stop!’ she cries. ‘Stop it, daddy! Mummy! Make it stop! Please, make it stop!’

  But that’s the problem, as she knows only too well. Nobody can make it stop, nobody will make it stop. On it must go, night after night now. Night after night. No letting up, no pausing for breath.

  Night after night after night.

  Fibs

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’

  Rebus was too tired to be truly angry, but there was enough exasperation in his voice to worry the caller on the other end of the telephone, delegated to order Rebus to Glasgow.

  ‘That case isn’t supposed to be heard until the week after next.’

  ‘They moved it,’ says the voice.

  Rebus groaned. He lay back on his hotel bed with the receiver pressed to his ear and checked his watch. Eight thirty. He’d slept soundly last night, waking at seven, dressed quietly so as not to disturb Lisa and had left her a note before making his exit. His nose had led him to the hotel with only a couple of wrong turnings along the way and now he had walked into this telephone call.

  ‘They brought it forward,’ the voice is saying. ‘It starts today. They need your testimony, Inspector.’

  As if Rebus didn’t know. He knows that all he has to do is go into the witness box and say he saw Morris Gerald Cafferty (known in the protection game as ‘Big Ger’) accept one hundred pounds from the landlord of the City Arms pub in Grangemouth. It’s as easy as that, but he needs to be there to say it. The case against Cafferty, boss of a thuggish protection and gaming racket, is not airtight. In fact, it’s got more punctures than a blind dressmaker’s thumb.

  He resigns himself to it. Must it be? Yes, it must be. But there was still the problem of logistics.

  ‘It’s all been taken care of,’ says the voice. ‘We did try phoning you last night, but you were never there. Catch the first available shuttle from Heathrow. We’ll have a car meet you and bring you into Glasgow. The prosecution reckons he’ll call you about half past three, so there’s time enough. With any luck, you can be back in London by tonight.’

  ‘Gee, thanks,’ says Rebus, voice so thick with irony the words hardly escape into the air.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ says the voice.

  He found that the Piccadilly Line went to Heathrow, and Piccadilly Circus tube was right outside the hotel. So things started well enough, though the tube ride itself was slow and stifling. At Heathrow, he picked up his ticket and had just enough time for a dash into the Skyshop. He picked up a Glasgow Herald, then saw the row of tabloids on another shelf: SECRET LIFE OF GAY WOLFMAN; SICK KILLER ‘NEEDS HELP’ SAY POLICE; CATCH THIS MADMAN.

  Cath Farraday had done well. He bought a copy of all three papers as well as the Herald and made for the Departure Lounge. Now that his mind was working, he saw all around him people reading the same headlines and the stories below them. But would the Wolfman see the stories? And if so, would he or she make some kind of move? Hell, the whole thing might be about to crack open and here he was heading four hundred miles north. Damn the judicial system, the judges and advocates and solicitors and all. The Cafferty case had probably been brought forward so that it would not interfere with a golf game or a school sports day. Some spoilt child’s involvement with an egg-and-spoon race might be behind this whole breathless journey. Rebus tried to calm down, sucking in gulps of air and releasing them slowly. He didn’t like flying as it was. Never since his days in the SAS, when they had dropped him from a helicopter. Jesus! That was no way to calm yourself.

  ‘Will passengers for British Airways Super Shuttle flight –’

  The voice was cool and precise, triggering a mass movement. People rose to their feet, checked their baggage and made for the gate just mentioned. Which gate? He’d missed the announcement. Was it his flight? Maybe he should phone ahead so they would have the car waiting. He hated flying. That was why he had come down by train on Sunday. Sunday? And today was Wednesday. It felt like over a week had passed. In fact, he’d been in London only two full days.

  Boarding. Oh, Christ. Where was his ticket? He’d no luggage, nothing to worry about there. The newspapers wriggled beneath his arm, trying to break free and fall in a mess on the floor. He pushed them back together again, squeezing them tightly with his elbow. He had to calm down, had to think about Cafferty, had to get everything straight in
his mind, so that the defence could find no chink in his story. Keep to the facts, forget about the Wolfman, forget about Lisa, Rhona, Sammy, Kenny, Tommy Watkiss, George Flight . . . Flight! He hadn’t notified Flight. They would wonder where he was. He’d have to phone when he landed. He should phone now, but then he might miss the shuttle. Forget it. Concentrate on Cafferty. They would have his notes ready for him when he arrived, so he could go through them before he entered the witness box. There were only the two witnesses, weren’t there? The frightened publican, whom they had more or less coerced into giving evidence, and Rebus himself. He had to be strong, confident and believable. He caught sight of himself in a full-length mirror as he made for the Departure Gate. He looked like he’d spent a night on the tiles. The memory of the night made him smile. Everything would be all right. He should phone Lisa, too, just to say . . . what? Thank you, he supposed. Up the ramp now, the narrow doorway in front of him, flanked by smiling steward and stewardess.

  ‘Good morning, sir.’

  ‘Good morning.’ He saw they were standing by a stack of complimentary newspapers. Christ, he could have saved himself a few bawbees.

  The aisle was narrow too. He had to squeeze past businessmen who were stuffing coats, briefcases and bags into the luggage lockers above their seats. He found his own window seat and fell into it, wrestling with the seatbelt and securing it. Outside, the groundcrew were still working. A plane took off smoothly in the distance, the dull roar perceptible even from here. A plump middle-aged woman sat beside him, spread her newspaper out so that half of it fell onto Rebus’s right leg, and began to read. She had offered no greeting, no acknowledgment of his existence.

  FYT, madam, he thought to himself, still staring out of the window. But then she gave a loud ‘tsk’, prompting him to turn towards her. She was staring at him through thick-lensed spectacles, staring and at the same time rapping a finger against the newspaper.