10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  Holmes seemed puzzled, ‘Who? Anyway, no, it was Rab Kinnoul’s wife. You know, Rab Kinnoul . . . the actor. Who’s this Cathy Gow . . .?’

  It was uphill from the Kinnoul house, and along the side of the hill, too. Not too far a walk, but the country grew if anything bleaker still. Fifty yards from the fast-flowing river there was a narrow road, leading eventually to a wider road which meandered down to the coast. For someone to get here, they either had to walk past the Kinnoul house, or else walk down from the road.

  ‘No sign of a car?’ Rebus asked Holmes. Both men had zippered their jackets against the snell wind and the occasional smirr.

  ‘Any car in particular?’ Holmes asked. ‘The road’s tarmac. I’ve had a look for myself. No tyre tracks.’

  ‘Where does it lead?’

  ‘It peters out into a farm track, then, surprise surprise, a farm.’ Holmes was moving his weight from one foot to the other, trying in vain to keep warm.

  ‘Better check at the farm and see –’

  ‘Someone’s up there doing precisely that.’

  Rebus nodded. Holmes knew this routine well enough by now: he would do something, and Rebus would double check that it had been done.

  ‘And Mrs Kinnoul?’

  ‘She’s in the house with a WPC, drinking sweet tea.’

  ‘Don’t let her take too many downers. We’ll need a statement.’

  Holmes was lost, until Rebus explained about his previous visit here. ‘What about Mr Kinnoul?’

  ‘He went off somewhere this morning early. That’s why Mrs Kinnoul went for a walk. She said she always went for a walk in the morning when she was on her own.’

  ‘Do we know where he’s gone?’

  Holmes shrugged. ‘Just on business, that’s all she could tell us. Couldn’t say where or how long he’d be. But he should be back this evening, according to Mrs Kinnoul.’

  Rebus nodded again. They were standing above the river, near the roadway. The others were down by the river itself. It was in spate after the recent rain. Just about wide enough and deep enough to be classed a river rather than a stream. The ‘others’ included police officers, dressed in waders and plunging their arms into the icy water, feeling for evidence which would long have been flushed away, forensics men, hovering above the body, the Identification Unit, similarly hovering but armed with cameras and video equipment, and Dr Curt, dressed in a long flapping raincoat, its collar turned up. He trudged towards Rebus and Holmes, reciting as he came.

  ‘When shall we three meet again . . . blasted heath et cetera. Good morning, Inspector.’

  ‘Morning, Doctor Curt. What have you got for us?’

  Curt removed his glasses and wiped spots of water from them. ‘Double pneumonia, I shouldn’t wonder,’ he answered, replacing them.

  ‘Accident, suicide, or murder?’ asked Rebus.

  Curt tut-tutted him, shaking his head sadly. ‘You know I can’t make snap decisions, Inspector. Granted, this poor woman hasn’t been in the water as long as the previous one, but all the same . . .’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘A day at most. But with the weight of water and all . . . debris and so on . . . she’s taken a bit of a battering. Lucky she was found at all, really.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Didn’t the sergeant say? Her wrist caught in a dead branch. Otherwise, she’d almost certainly have been swept down into the river and out into the sea.’

  Rebus thought about the direction the river would take, bypassing the only settlements . . . yes, a body falling into the stream here might well have disappeared without trace . . .

  ‘Any idea who she is?’

  ‘No identification on the body. Plenty of rings on her fingers though, and she’s wearing quite a nice dress, too. Care to take a look?’

  ‘Why not, eh? Come on, Brian.’

  But Holmes stood his ground. ‘I had a look earlier, sir. Don’t let me stop you though . . .’

  So Rebus followed the pathologist down the slope. He was thinking: difficult to bring a body down here . . . but you could always roll it from the top . . . yes, roll it . . . hear the splash and assume it had fallen into the river . . . you might not know the wrist had caught in a branch. But to get a body up here in the first place – dead or alive – surely you’d need a car. Was William Glass capable of stealing a car? Why not, everyone else seemed to know how to do it these days. Kids in primary school could show you how to do it . . .

  ‘Like I say,’ Curt was saying, ‘she’s been bashed about a bit . . . can’t tell yet whether post- or ante-mortem. Oh, about that other drowning at Dean Bridge . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Recent sexual intercourse. Traces of semen in the vagina. We should be able to get a DNA profile. Ah, here we go . . .’

  The body had been laid out on a plastic sheet. Yes, it was a nice dress, distinctive, summery, though torn now and smeared with mud. The face was muddy, too . . . and cut . . . and swollen . . . the hair drawn back and part of the skull exposed. Rebus swallowed hard. Had he been expecting this? He wasn’t sure. But the photographs he’d seen made him sure in his mind.

  ‘I know her,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ Even the forensics men looked up at him in disbelief. The tableau must have alerted Brian Holmes, for he came stumbling down the slope to join them.

  ‘I said I know her. At least, I think I do. No, I’m sure I do. Her name is Elizabeth Jack. Her friends call her Liz or Lizzie. She’s . . . she was married to Gregor Jack MP.’

  ‘Good God,’ said Dr Curt. Rebus looked at Holmes, and Holmes stared back at him, and neither seemed to know what to say.

  There was more to identification than that, of course. Much more. Death was certainly suspicious, but this had to be decided officially by the gentleman from the Procurator Fiscal’s office, the gentleman who now stood talking with Dr Curt, nodding his head gravely while Curt made hand gestures which would not have disgraced an excited Italian. He was explaining – explaining tirelessly, explaining for the thousandth time – about the movement of diatoms within the body, while his listener grew paler still.

  The Identification Unit was still busy shooting off photographs and some video film, wiping their camera lenses every thirty seconds or so. The rain had, if anything, grown heavier, the sky an unbroken shading of grey-black. An autopsy was needed, agreed the Procurator Fiscal. The body would be transported to the mortuary in Edinburgh’s Cowgate, and there formal identification would take place, involving two people who knew the deceased in life, and two police officers who had known her in death. If it turned out not to be Elizabeth Jack, Rebus was in a dung-pile of trouble. Watching the body being taken away, Rebus allowed himself a muffled sneeze. Perhaps Dr Curt’s diagnosis of pneumonia was right. He knew where he was headed: the Kinnoul house. With luck, he might find hot tea there. The forensics team squeezed wetly into their car and headed back to police headquarters at Fettes.

  ‘Come on, Brian,’ said Rebus, ‘let’s see how Mrs Kinnoul’s getting on.’

  Cath Kinnoul seemed in a state of shock. A doctor had been to the house, but had left by the time Rebus and Holmes reached the scene. They shed their sodden jackets in the hall, while Rebus had a quiet word with the WPC.

  ‘No sign of the husband?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Comfortably numb.’

  Rebus tried to look bedraggled and pathetic. It wasn’t difficult. The WPC read his mind and smiled.

  ‘I’ll make some tea, shall I?’

  ‘Anything hot would hit the spot, believe me.’

  Cath Kinnoul was sitting in one of the living room’s huge armchairs. The chair itself looked like it was in the process of consuming her, while she looked about half the size and a quarter of the age she’d been when Rebus had last seen her.

  ‘Hello again,’ he said, mock-cheerily.

  ‘Inspector . . . Rebus?’

  ‘That’s it. And this is Sergeant Holmes.
No jokes, please, he’s heard them all before, haven’t you, Sergeant?’

  Holmes saw that they were playing the comedy duo, trying to bring some life back into Mrs Kinnoul. He nodded encouragingly. In fact, he was glancing around wistfully, hoping to find a roaring log or coal fire. But there wasn’t even a roaring gas fire for him to stand in front of. Instead, there was a one-bar electric job, just about glowing with warmth, and there were two radiators. He went and stood in front of one of these, separating his trousers from his legs. He pretended to be admiring the pictures on the wall in front of him. Rab Kinnoul with a TV actor . . . with a TV comedian . . . with a gameshow host . . .

  ‘My husband,’ Mrs Kinnoul explained. ‘He works in television.’

  Rebus spoke. ‘No idea what he’s up to today though, Mrs Kinnoul?’

  ‘No,’ she said quietly, ‘no idea.’

  Two witnesses who had known the deceased in life . . . Well, thought Rebus, you can scrub Cath Kinnoul. She’d fall apart if she knew it was Liz Jack out there, never mind having to identify the body. Even now, someone was trying to get in touch with Gregor Jack, and Jack would probably arrive at the mortuary with Ian Urquhart or Helen Greig, either of whom would do as the second nod of the head. No need to bother Cath Kinnoul

  ‘You look soaked,’ she was saying. ‘Something to drink?’

  ‘The WPC’s making some tea . . .’ But as he spoke, Rebus knew this was not what she was suggesting. ‘A drop of the cratur wouldn’t go amiss though, if it’s not too much trouble.’

  She nodded towards a sideboard. ‘Right-hand cupboard,’ she said. ‘Please help yourself.’

  Rebus thought of suggesting that she join them. But what pills had the doctor given her? And what pills had she taken of her own? He poured Glenmorangie into two long slim glasses and handed one to Holmes, who had taken up a canny position in front of a radiator.

  ‘Mind you don’t get steaming,’ Rebus said in a murmur. Just then, the WPC appeared, carrying a tray of tea things. She saw the alcohol and almost frowned.

  ‘Here’s tae us,’ said Rebus, downing the drink in one.

  At the mortuary, Gregor Jack seemed hardly to recognize Rebus at all. Jack had been holding his weekly constituency surgery, Ian Urquhart explained to Rebus in a conspiratorial whisper. This was usually held on a Friday, but there was a Private Member’s Bill in the Commons this Friday, and Gregor Jack wanted to be part of the debate. So, Gregor having been in the area on Wednesday anyway, they’d decided to hold the surgery on Thursday, leaving Friday free.

  Listening to all this in silence, Rebus thought: Why are you telling me? But Urquhart was clearly nervous and felt the need to talk. Well, mortuaries could have that effect, never mind the fact that your employer was about to see scandal heaped upon scandal. Never mind the fact that your job was about to be made more difficult than ever.

  ‘How did the golf game go?’ Rebus asked back.

  ‘What golf game?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘Oh.’ Urquhart nodded. ‘You mean Gregor’s game. I don’t know. I haven’t asked him yet.’

  So Urquhart himself hadn’t been involved. He paused for so long that Rebus thought a dead end had been reached, but the need to speak was too great.

  ‘That’s a regular date,’ Urquhart went on. ‘Gregor and Ronnie Steele. Most Wednesday afternoons.’

  Ah, Suey, Mr would-be teenage suicide . . .

  Rebus tried to make his next question sound like a joke. ‘Doesn’t Gregor ever do any work?’

  Urquhart looked stunned. ‘He’s always working. That game of golf . . . it’s about the only free time I’ve ever known him have.’

  ‘But he doesn’t seem to be in London very often.’

  ‘Ah well, the constituency comes first, that’s Gregor’s way.’

  ‘Look after the folk who voted you in, and they’ll look after you?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Urquhart allowed. There was no more time for talk. The identification was about to take place. And if Gregor Jack looked bad before he saw the body, he looked like a half-filled rag doll afterwards.

  ‘Oh Christ, that dress . . .’ He seemed about to collapse, but Ian Urquhart had a firm grip on him.

  ‘If you’ll look at the face,’ someone was saying. ‘We need to be definite . . .’

  They all looked at the face. Yes, thought Rebus, that’s the person I saw beside the stream.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gregor Jack, his voice wavering, ‘that’s my . . . that’s Liz.’

  Rebus actually breathed a sigh of relief.

  What nobody had expected, what nobody had really considered, was Sir Hugh Ferrie.

  ‘Let’s just say,’ said Chief Superintendent Watson, ‘that a certain amount of . . . pressure . . . is being applied.’

  As ever, Rebus couldn’t hold his tongue. ‘There’s nothing to apply pressure to! What are we supposed to do that we’re not already doing?’

  ‘Sir Hugh considers that we should have caught William Glass by now.’

  ‘But we don’t even know –’

  ‘Now, we all know Sir Hugh can be a bit hot-headed. But he’s got a point . . .’

  Meaning, thought Rebus, he’s got friends in high places.

  ‘He’s got a point, and we can do without the media interest that’s bound to erupt. All I’m saying is that we should give the investigation an extra push whenever and wherever we can. Let’s get Glass in custody, let’s make sure we keep everyone informed, and let’s get that autopsy report as soon as humanly possible.’

  ‘Not so easy with a drowning.’

  ‘John, you know Dr Curt fairly well, don’t you?’

  ‘We’re on second-name terms.’

  ‘How about giving him that extra little nudge?’

  ‘What happens if he nudges me back, sir?’

  Watson looked like a kindly uncle suddenly tiring of a precocious nephew. ‘Nudge him harder. I know he’s busy. I know he’s got lectures to give, university work to do, God knows what else. But the longer we have to wait, the more the media are going to fill the gaps with speculation. Go have a word, John, eh? Just make sure he gets the message.’

  Message? What message? Dr Curt told Rebus what he’d always told him. I can’t be rushed . . . delicate business, deciding an actual drowning from mere immersion . . . professional reputation . . . daren’t make mistakes . . . more haste, less speed . . . patience is a virtue . . . many a mickle maks a muckle . . .

  All of this delivered between appointments in the doctor’s Teviot Place office. The Department of Pathology’s Forensic Medicine Unit, divided in loyalties between the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Law, had its offices within the University Medical School in Teviot Place. Which seemed, to Rebus, natural enough. You didn’t want your Commercial Law students mixing with people who keened over cadavers . . .

  ‘Diatoms . . .’ Dr Curt was saying. ‘Washerwoman’s skin . . . blood-tinged froth . . . distended lungs . . .’ Almost a litany now, and none of it got them any further. Tests on tissue . . . examination . . . diatoms . . . toxicology . . . fractures . . . diatoms. Curt really did have a thing about those tiny algae.

  ‘Unicellular algae,’ he corrected.

  Rebus bowed his head to the correction. ‘Well,’ he said, rising to his feet, ‘fast as you can, eh, Doctor? If you can’t catch me in the office, you can always try me by unicellular phone.’

  ‘Fast as I can,’ agreed Doctor Curt, chuckling. He too got to his feet. ‘Oh, one thing I can tell you straight away.’ He opened his office door for Rebus.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mrs Jack was depilated. There’d be no getting her by the short-and-curlies . . .’

  Because Teviot Place wasn’t far from Buccleuch Street, Rebus thought he’d wander along to Suey Books. Not that he was expecting to catch Ronald Steele, for Ronald Steele was a hard man to catch. Busy behind the scenes, busy out of sight. The shop itself was open, the rickety bicycle chained up outside. Rebus pushed the door open w
arily.

  ‘It’s okay,’ called a voice from the back of the shop. ‘Rasputin’s gone out for a wander.’

  Rebus closed the door and approached the desk. The same girl was sitting there, and her duties still seemed to entail the pricing of books. There wasn’t any room for any more books on the shelves. Rebus wondered where these new titles were headed . . .

  ‘How did you know it was me?’ he asked.

  ‘That window.’ She nodded towards the front-of-shop. ‘It might look filthy from the outside, but you can see out of it all right. Like one of those two-way mirrors.’

  Rebus looked. Yes, because the shop’s interior was darker than the street, you could see out all right, you just couldn’t see in.

  ‘No sign of your books, if that’s what you’re wondering.’

  Rebus nodded slowly. It was not what he was wondering . . .

  ‘And Ronald’s not here.’ She checked the oversized face of her wristwatch. ‘Should have been in half an hour ago. Must have got held up.’

  Rebus kept on nodding. Steele had told him this girl’s name. What was it again . . .? ‘Was he in yesterday?’

  She shook her head. ‘We were shut. All day. I was a bit off colour, couldn’t come in. At the start of the university year, we do okay business on a Wednesday, Wednesday being a half-teaching day, but not just now . . .’

  Rebus thought of Vaseline . . . vanishing cream . . . Vanessa! That was it.

  ‘Well, thanks anyway. Keep an eye out for those books . . .’

  ‘Oh! Here’s Ronald now.’

  Rebus turned round, just as the door rattled open. Ronald Steele closed it heavily behind him, started up the central aisle of books, but then almost lost balance and had to rest against a bookcase. His eyes caught a particular spine, and he levered the book out from the others around it.

  ‘Fish out of Water,’ he said. ‘Out of water . . .’ He threw the book as far as he could – a matter of a yard or so. It crashed into a bookcase and fell open on to the floor. Then he began picking books out at random and throwing them with force, his eyes red with tears.

  Vanessa screamed at him and came round from her desk, making towards him, but Steele pushed past her and stumbled past Rebus, past the desk, and through a doorway at the very back of the shop. There was the sound of another door closing.