10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘That’s still not the point,’ he said instead.

  ‘Then what in God’s name is the point?’ Flight had finished the can of cola and now tossed it into a metal wastepaper bin, where it rang against the side, the reverberation lasting for what seemed like an age.

  When all was quiet again, Rebus spoke. ‘The point is, the Wolfman doesn’t know she didn’t get a good look at him. We’ve got to persuade Miss Crawford to go public. Let the TV cameras feast on her. The One Who Got Away. Then we say that she’s given us a good description. If that doesn’t panic the bastard, nothing will.’

  ‘Panic! Everything you do is designed to panic him. What good does that do? What if it simply frightens him off? What if he just stops killing and we never find him?’

  ‘He’s not the type,’ Rebus said with authority. ‘He’ll go on killing because it’s taken him over. Haven’t you noticed how the murders are coming at shorter and shorter intervals? He may even have killed again since Lea Bridge, we just haven’t found the body yet. He’s possessed, George.’ Flight looked at him as though seeking a joke, but Rebus was in deadly earnest. ‘I mean it.’

  Flight stood up and walked to the window. ‘It might not even have been the Wolfman.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Rebus conceded.

  ‘What if she won’t go public?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. We still issue the news story. We still say we’ve got a good description.’

  Flight turned from the window. ‘You believe her? You don’t think she’s a crank?’

  ‘It’s possible, but I really don’t think so. She’s very plausible. She kept the details just vague enough to be convincing. It was three months ago. We can check on her if you like.’

  ‘Yes, I’d like that very much.’ The emotion had left Flight’s voice. This case was draining him of every reserve he had. ‘I want to know about her background, her present, her friends, her medical records, her family.’

  ‘I could even get Lisa Frazer to give her some psychological tests?’ Rebus suggested, not altogether without tongue in cheek. Flight smiled faintly.

  ‘No, just the checks I’ve mentioned. Get Lamb onto it. It’ll keep him out of our hair.’

  ‘You don’t like him then?’

  ‘Whatever gives you that idea?’

  ‘Funny, he says you’re like a father to him.’

  The moment of tension was over. Rebus felt he had won another small victory. They both laughed, using their dislike of Lamb to strengthen the link between them.

  ‘You’re a good policeman, John,’ Flight said. Rebus, despite himself, blushed.

  ‘Sod off, you old fart,’ he replied.

  ‘That reminds me,’ said Flight. ‘I told you yesterday to go home. Have you any intention of doing so?’

  ‘None at all,’ said Rebus. There was a pause before Flight nodded.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘That’s good.’ He walked to the door. ‘For now.’ He turned back towards Rebus. ‘Just don’t go rogue on me, John. This is my turf. I need to know where you are and what you’re up to.’ He tapped at his own head. ‘I need to know what’s going on up here. Okay?’

  Rebus nodded. ‘Fine, George. No problem.’ But the fingers behind his back were crossed. He liked to work alone, and had the feeling Flight wanted to stick close to him for reasons other than traditional Cockney chumminess. Besides, if the Wolfman did turn out to be a policeman, nobody could be discounted, nobody at all.

  Rebus tried Lisa again, but without success. At lunchtime, he was wandering around the station when he bumped into Joey Bennett, the constable who had stopped him on Shaftesbury Avenue that first night in London. Bennett was wary at first. Then he recognised Rebus. ‘Oh, hello, sir. Was that your picture I saw in the papers?’

  Rebus nodded. ‘This isn’t your patch, is it?’ he asked.

  ‘No, not exactly, sir. Just passing through, you might say. Dropping off a prisoner. That woman in the photo with you. She looked a bit of all –’

  ‘Do you have your car with you?’

  Bennett was wary again. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And you’re going back into town now?’

  ‘To the West End, yes, sir.’

  ‘Good. Then you won’t mind giving me a lift, will you?’

  ‘Er, no, sir. Of course not, sir.’ Bennett broke into the least convincing smile Rebus had seen outside a synchronised swimming event. On their way out to the car, they passed Lamb.

  ‘Teeth stopped chattering yet?’ he asked, but Rebus was in no mood to respond. Lamb, undaunted, tried again. ‘Going somewhere?’ He managed even to make this simple question sound like a threat. Rebus stopped, turned and walked up to him, so that their faces were a couple of inches apart.

  ‘If that’s all right with you, Lamb, yes, I’m going somewhere.’ Then he turned away again and followed Bennett. Lamb watched them go, half his teeth showing in a parody of a grin.

  ‘Mind how you go!’ he called. ‘Shall I phone ahead and get the hotel to pack your bags?’

  Rebus’s reply was a two-fingered salute, a more determined stride, and a whispered ‘FYTP’. Bennett heard him.

  ‘Sorry, sir?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Rebus. ‘Nothing at all.’

  It took them half an hour to reach Bloomsbury. Every second building seemed to sport a blue circular plaque commemorating some writer’s having lived there. Rebus recognised few of the names. Finally, he found the building he was looking for, and waved Bennett goodbye. It was the Psychology Department of University College in Gower Street. The secretary, who appeared to be the only living soul around at one o’clock, asked if she could help him.

  ‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for Lisa Frazer.’

  ‘Lisa?’ The secretary seemed unsure. ‘Oh, Lisa. Dear me, I don’t think I can help. I haven’t seen her in over a week. You might try the library. Or Dillon’s.’

  ‘Dillon’s?’

  ‘It’s a bookshop, just around the corner. Lisa seems to spend a lot of her time in there. She loves bookshops. Or there’s always the British Library. It’s just possible she might be there.’

  He left the building with a new puzzle. The secretary had seemed very distant, very fuzzy. Maybe it was just him. He was starting to read things into every situation. He found the bookshop and went inside. ‘Shop’ was something of an understatement. It was huge. He read on a wall that psychology books were to be found three floors up. So many books. One man could not hope to read them all in a lifetime. He tried to walk through the aisles without focusing. If he focused, he would become interested, and if he became interested he would buy. He already had over fifty books at home, piled beside his bed, waiting for that elusive weeklong break when he could concentrate on something other than police work. He collected books. It was just about his only hobby. Not that he was precious about it. He did not lust after first editions, signed copies and the like. Mostly, he bought paperbacks. And he was nothing if not catholic in his tastes: any subject matter would do.

  So he tried to pretend he was wearing blinkers, pondered the essential difference between catholic and Catholic and finally reached the psychology section. It was a room joined onto other rooms as in a chain, but there was no sign of Lisa in any of the links. He did, however, find where some of her own library of books had no doubt originated. There was a shelf next to the cashier’s desk, dedicated to crime and violence. One of the books she had loaned him was there. He picked it up and turned it over to look at the price. Then blinked twice in astonishment. So much money! And it wasn’t even a hardback! Still, academic books always did carry steep price tickets. Strange really: weren’t students, the intended readership after all, least able to afford these titles? It might take a psychologist to explain that one, or perhaps a shrewd economist.

  Next to the criminology section were books on the occult and witchcraft, along with various packs of Tarot cards and the like. Rebus smiled at this curious marriage: police work and hocus-pocus. He picked up a book on ritua
ls and flipped through it. A young, slender woman, in billowing satin dress and with long fiery hair, paused beside him to lift a Tarot set, which she took to the cash desk. Well, it took all sorts, didn’t it? She looked serious enough, but then these were serious times.

  Ritual. He wondered if there was an element of ritual to the Wolfman’s particular spree. So far he had been seeking an explanation from the killer’s psyche: what if the whole thing were some kind of rite? Slaughter and defilement of the innocent, that sort of thing. Charlie Manson and his swastika-tattooed forehead. Some said there was a Masonic element to Jack the Ripper’s methods. Madness and evil. Sometimes you found a cause, and sometimes you just didn’t.

  Slash the throat.

  Gouge the anus.

  Bite the stomach.

  The two ends of the human trunk, and something like the mid-point. Could there be a clue in that particular pattern?

  There are clues everywhere.

  The monster from his past, rearing up out of the dark deep waters of memory. That case had tied him up all right, but not half as much as this. He had thought the Wolfman might be a woman. Now a woman had conveniently appeared to tell him the Wolfman was a man. Very conveniently. George Flight was right to be wary. Perhaps Rebus could learn something from him. Flight did everything by the book, and in scrupulous detail. He didn’t go running down the bloody hall with a pair of toy false teeth clutched in his sweaty hand. He was the type to sit down and think things through. That was what made him a good copper, better than Rebus, because he didn’t snap at every red herring that came along. Better because he was methodical, and methodical people never let anything escape them.

  Rebus left Dillon’s Bookshop with his own little thundercloud hanging above his head and a plastic carrier-bag full of newly purchased books swinging from his right hand. He walked down Gower Street and Bloomsbury Street, took a fortuitous left at a set of traffic lights and found himself outside the British Museum, inside which, he knew from memory, was to be found the British Library. Unless, that was, they’d already moved it, as he’d read they were planning to.

  But the British Library itself was off-limit to ‘non-readers’. Rebus tried to explain that he was a reader, but apparently what this meant was that he had to be in possession of a reader’s card. With hindsight, he supposed he could have flashed his ID and said he was on the trail of a maniac, but he didn’t. He shook his head, shrugged his shoulders and went instead for a walk around the museum.

  The place seemed full almost to bursting with tourists and school parties. He wondered if the children, their imaginations still open, were as thunderstruck as he was by the Ancient Egyptian and Assyrian rooms. Vast stone carvings, huge wooden gates, countless exhibits. But the real throng was around the Rosetta Stone. Rebus had heard of it, of course, but didn’t really know what it was. Now he found out. The stone contained writing in three languages and thus helped scholars to work out for the first time what Egyptian hieroglyphics actually meant.

  He was willing to bet they hadn’t solved it overnight, or even over a weekend. Slow, painstaking graft, just like police work, toil as difficult as anything a bricklayer or miner could endure. And in the end it usually still came down to the Lucky Break. How many times had they interviewed the Yorkshire Ripper and let him go? That sort of thing happened more often than the public would ever be allowed to know.

  He walked through more rooms, rooms airy and light and containing Greek vases and figurines, then, pushing open a glass double-door, he found himself confronted by the Sculptures of the Parthenon. (For some reason they had stopped advertising them as the Elgin Marbles.) Rebus walked around this large gallery, feeling almost as though he were in some modern-day place of worship. At one end, a gabble of school-kids squatted before some statues, trying to draw them, while their teacher walked around, trying to keep the grudging artists quiet. It was Rhona. Even at this distance he recognised her. Recognised her walk and the slant of her head and the way she held her hands behind her back whenever she was trying to make a point. . . .

  Rebus turned away, and found himself face to face with a horse’s head. He could see the veins bulging from the marble neck, the open mouth with its teeth worn away to an indeterminate smoothness. No bite. Would Rhona thank him for walking over and interrupting her class, just to make Smalltalk? No, she would not. But what if she spotted him? If he were to slink away, it would look like the action of a coward. Hell, he was a coward, wasn’t he? Best to face facts and move back towards the doors. She might never spot him, and if she did she was hardly likely to announce the fact. But then he wanted to know about Kenny, didn’t he? Who better to ask than Rhona? There was a simple answer: better to ask anyone. He’d ask Samantha. Yes, that’s what he’d do. He’d ask Samantha.

  He crept back to the doors and walked briskly towards the exit. Suddenly all the exquisite vases and statues had become ridiculous. What was the point in burying them behind glass for people to glance at in passing? Wasn’t it better to look forward, forget about ancient history? Wouldn’t it be better if he just took Lamb’s ill-meant advice? There were too many ghosts in London. Way too many. Even the reporter Jim Stevens was down here somewhere. Rebus fairly flew across the museum courtyard only pausing when he reached the gates. The guards stared at him strangely, glancing towards his carrier-bag. They’re just books, he wanted to say. But he knew you could hide anything in a book, just about anything. Knew from painful personal experience.

  When feeling depressed, be rash. He stuck a hand out into the road and at the first attempt managed to stop an empty black cab. He couldn’t remember the name of the street he wanted, but that didn’t matter.

  ‘Covent Garden,’ he said to the driver. As the cab did what Rebus assumed was a fairly illegal u-turn, he dipped into his bag to claim the first prize.

  He wandered around Covent Garden proper for twenty minutes, enjoying an open-air magic act and a nearby fire-eater before moving off in search of Lisa’s flat. It wasn’t too difficult to find. He surprised himself by recalling a kite shop and another shop which seemed to sell nothing but teapots. Took a left and a right and another right and found himself in her street, standing outside the shoe shop. The shop itself was busy. The clientele, like the serving staff, was very young, probably not yet out of teens. A jazz saxophone played. A tape perhaps, or someone busking in the distance. He looked up at the window to Lisa’s flat, with its bright yellow roller blind. How old was she really? It was hard to tell.

  And then, only then, he went to the door and pressed her buzzer. There was noise from the intercom, a crackle of movement. ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s me, John.’

  ‘Hello? I can’t hear you!’

  ‘It’s John,’ he said loudly into the door frame, looking around him in embarrassment. But no one was interested. People glanced into the shop window as they passed, eating strange-looking snacks, vegetable-looking things.

  ‘John?’ As though she had forgotten him already. Then: ‘Oh, John.’ And the buzzer sounded beside him. ‘Door’s open. Come on up.’

  The door to her flat was open, too, and he closed it behind him. Lisa was tidying the studio, as she called it. In Edinburgh it wouldn’t have been called a studio. It would have been called a bedsit. He supposed Covent Garden didn’t have such things as bedsits.

  ‘I’ve been trying to get in touch,’ he said.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Oh?’

  She turned to him, noting the hint of disbelief in his voice. ‘Didn’t they tell you? I must’ve left half a dozen messages with, what was his name, Shepherd?’

  ‘Lamb?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  Rebus’s hate for Lamb intensified.

  ‘About an hour ago,’ she went on, ‘I called and they said you’d gone back to Scotland. I was a bit miffed at that. Thought you’d gone without saying goodbye.’

  Bastards, thought Rebus. They really did hate his guts, didn’t they? Our expert from north of the border.
>
  Lisa had finished making a neat stack from the newspapers lying on the floor and the bed. She had straightened the duvet and the cover on the sofa. And now, a little out of breath, she was standing close to him. He slid his arm around her and pulled her to him.

  ‘Hello,’ he murmured, kissing her.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, returning the kiss.

  She broke away from his hug and walked into the alcove which served as a kitchen. There was the sound of running tap-water, a kettle filling. ‘I suppose you’ve seen the papers?’ she called.

  ‘Yes.’

  Her head came out of the alcove. ‘A friend called me up to tell me. I couldn’t believe it. My picture on the front page!’

  ‘Fame at last.’

  ‘Infamy more like: a “police psychologist” indeed! They might have done their research. One paper even called me Liz Frazier!’ She plugged the kettle in, switched it on, then came back into the room. Rebus was sitting on the arm of the sofa.

  ‘So,’ she asked, ‘how goes the investigation?’

  ‘A few interesting developments.’

  ‘Oh?’ She sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Tell me.’

  So he told her about Jan Crawford, and about his false teeth theory. Lisa suggested that Jan Crawford’s memory might be helped by hypnosis. ‘Lost memory’ she called it. But Rebus knew this sort of thing was inadmissible as evidence. Besides, he’d experienced ‘lost memory’ for himself, and shivered now at the memory.

  They drank Lapsang Souchong, which he said reminded him of bacon butties, and she put on some music, something soft and classical, and they ended up somehow sitting next to one another on the Indian carpet, their backs against the sofa, shoulders, arms and legs touching. She stroked his hair, the nape of his neck.

  ‘What happened the other night between us,’ she said, ‘are you sorry?’

  ‘You mean sorry it happened?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Christ, no,’ said Rebus. ‘Just the opposite.’ He paused. ‘What about you?’

  She thought over her answer. ‘It was nice,’ she said, her eyebrows almost meeting as she concentrated on each word.