10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘You told them your story?’

  Steele nodded. ‘They even took me back to the bar. He wasn’t there, of course, and nobody knew him. I didn’t even know his name.’

  ‘But his description of the woman was accurate?’

  ‘Oh aye.’

  ‘Probably an ex-wife or some old flame. He wanted to give them a scare, and it was worth ten notes to do it.’

  ‘Except now the woman’s pressing charges. Not a very good start to my career, is it, Inspector?’

  ‘Depends,’ said Rebus. ‘Your career as a private dick may not be much cop, but as a peeping-tom your star is definitely in the ascendant.’ Seeing Steele’s misery, Rebus winked. ‘Cheer up, I’ll see what I can do.’

  In fact, before he could do anything, Siobhan Clarke was on the telephone from Gorgie to tell him about her meeting with Rory Kintoul.

  ‘I asked him if he knew anything about his cousin’s heavy betting. He wouldn’t say, but I get the feeling they’re a close-knit family. There were hundreds of photos in the living room: aunties and uncles, brothers and sisters, nieces, cousins, grannies . . .’

  ‘I get the idea. Did you mention the broken window?’

  ‘Oh yes. He was so interested, he had to clamp himself to the chair to stop from jumping out of it. Not a great talker, though. He reckoned it must have been a drunk.’

  ‘The same drunk who took a knife to his gut?’

  ‘I didn’t put it quite like that, and neither did he. I don’t know whether it’s relevant or not, but he did say he’d driven the butcher’s van for his cousin.’

  ‘What, full time?’

  ‘Yes. Up until about a year ago.’

  ‘I didn’t know Bone’s had a van. That’ll be the next to go.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘The van. Smash the shop window, and if that doesn’t work, torch the van.’

  ‘You’re saying it’s all about protection?’

  ‘Maybe protection, more likely money owing on bad bets. What do you think?’

  ‘Well, I did raise that possibility with Kintoul.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He laughed.’

  ‘That’s strong language coming from him.’

  ‘Agreed, he’s not exactly the emotional type.’

  ‘So it’s not betting money. I’ll have another think.’

  ‘His son came in while we were talking.’

  ‘Refresh my memory.’

  ‘Seventeen and unemployed, name’s Jason. When Kintoul told him I was CID, the son looked worried.’

  ‘A natural reaction in a teenager on the dole. They think we’re press-ganging these days.’

  ‘There was more to it than that.’

  ‘How much more?’

  ‘I don’t know. Could be the usual, drugs and gangs.’

  ‘We’ll see if he’s got a record. How’s Moneybags?’

  ‘Frankly, I’d rather be sewing mailbags.’

  Rebus smiled. ‘All part of the learning curve, Clarke,’ he said, putting down the phone.

  Somehow yesterday he’d forgotten to ask Pat Calder about the message on the inside of the recipe book. He didn’t like to think it had been jostled from his mind by Mairie’s legs or the sight of all those Elvises. Rebus had checked before leaving the station. Jason Kintoul was not on the flies. Somehow the gun beneath the driver’s seat helped keep Rebus’s mind sharp. The drive to the Colonies didn’t take long.

  Pat Calder seemed quite shocked to see him.

  ‘Morning,’ said Rebus. ‘Thought I’d find you at home.’

  ‘Come in, Inspector.’

  Rebus went in. The living room was much less tidy than on his previous visit, and he began to wonder which of the couple had been the tidier. Certainly, Eddie Ringan looked and acted like a slob, but you couldn’t always tell.

  ‘Sorry for the mess.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got a lot on your mind just now.’ The place was stuffy, with that heavy male smell you got sometimes in shared flats and locker-rooms. But usually it took more than one person to create it. Rebus began to wonder about the lean young bartender who’d accompanied Calder to the mortuary . . .

  ‘I’ve just been arranging the funeral,’ Pat Calder was saying. ‘It’s on Monday. They asked if it would be family and friends. I had to tell them Eddie didn’t have any family.’

  ‘He had good friends, though.’

  Calder smiled. ‘Thank you, Inspector. Thank you for that. Was there something in particular . . .?’

  ‘It was just something we found at the scene.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘A sort of a message. It said, “I only turned on the gas”.’

  Calder froze. ‘Christ, it was suicide, then?’

  Rebus shrugged. ‘It wasn’t that kind of note. We found it on the inside of a school jotter.’

  ‘Eddie’s recipe book?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wondered where that had got to.’

  ‘The message had been heavily scored out. I took it away for analysis.’

  ‘Maybe it’s something to do with the nightmares.’

  ‘That’s just what I was thinking. Depends what he was dreaming about, though, doesn’t it? Nightmares can be about things you fear, or things you’ve done.’

  ‘I’m no psychologist.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Rebus admitted. ‘I take it Eddie had keys to the restaurant?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We didn’t find any on his body. Did you come across them when you were packing things up?’

  ‘I don’t think so. But how did he get in without keys?’

  ‘You should be in CID, Mr Calder. That’s what I’ve been wondering.’ Rebus got up from the sofa. ‘Well, sorry I had to come by.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right. Can you tell Brian about the funeral arrangements? Warriston Cemetery at two o’clock.’

  ‘Monday at two, I’ll tell him. Oh, one last thing. You keep a record of table bookings, don’t you?’

  Calder seemed puzzled. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Only, I’d like to take a look. There might be some names there that don’t mean anything to you but might mean something to a policeman.’

  Calder nodded. ‘I see what you’re getting at. I’ll drop it into the station. I’m going to the Heartbreak at lunchtime, I’ll pick it up then.’

  ‘Still clearing stuff away?’

  ‘No, it’s a potential buyer. One of the pizza restaurants is looking to expand . . .’

  Whatever it was Pat Calder was hiding, he was doing only a fair job. But Rebus really didn’t have the heart to start digging. There was way too much for him to worry about as it was. Starting with the gun. He’d sat with it in his car last night, his finger on the trigger. Just the way his instructor had taught him back in the Army: firm, but not tense. Like it was an erection, one you wanted to sustain.

  He had been thinking too of goodies and baddies. If you thought bad things – dreams of cruelty and lust – that didn’t make you bad. But if your head was full of civilised thoughts and you spent all day as a torturer . . . It came down to the fact that you were judged by your actions in society, not by the inside of your head. So he’d no reason to feel bad about thinking grim and bloody thoughts. Not unless he turned thoughts into deeds. Yet going beyond thought would feel so good. More than that, it would feel right.

  He stopped his car at the first church he came to. He hadn’t attended any kind of worship for several months, always managing to make excuses and promises to himself that he’d try harder. It was just that Patience had made Sunday mornings so good.

  Someone had been busy with a marker-pen on the wooden signboard in the churchyard, turning ‘Our Lady of Perpetual Help’ into ‘Our Lady of Perpetual Hell’. Not the greatest of omens, but Rebus went inside anyway. He sat in a pew for a while. There weren’t many souls in there with him. He had picked up a prayer book on the way in, and stared long and hard at its unjudgmental black cover, wondering why it made him feel so guilty.
Eventually, a woman left the confessional, pulling up her headscarf. Rebus stood up and made himself enter the small box. He sat there in silence for a minute, trying to think what it was you were supposed to say.

  ‘Forgive me, father, I’m about to sin.’

  ‘We’ll see about that, son,’ came a gruff Irish voice from the other side of the grille. There was such assurance in the voice, Rebus almost smiled.

  Instead he said, ‘I’m not even a Catholic.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s true. But you’re a Christian?’

  ‘I suppose so. I used to go to church.’

  ‘Do you believe?’

  ‘I can’t not believe.’ He didn’t add how hard he’d tried.

  ‘Then tell me your problem.’

  ‘Someone’s been threatening me, my friends and family.’

  ‘Have you gone to the police?’

  ‘I am the police.’

  ‘Ah. And now you’re thinking of taking the law into your own hands, as they say in the films.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘You’re not the first bobby I’ve had in this confessional. There are a few Catholics in the police force.’ This time Rebus did smile. ‘So what is it you’re going to do?’

  ‘I’ve got a gun.’

  There was an intake of breath. ‘Now that’s serious. Oh yes, that’s serious. But you must see that if you use a gun, you turn into that which you despise so much. You turn into them.’ The priest managed to hiss this last word.

  ‘So what?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘So, ask yourself this. Can you live the rest of your life with the memories and the guilt?’ The voice paused. ‘I know what you Calvinists think. You think you’re doomed from the start, so why not raise some hell before you get there? But I’m talking about this life, not the next. Do you want to live in Purgatory before you die?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’d be a bloody eejit to say anything else. Tie that gun to a rock and chuck it in the Forth, that’s where it belongs.’

  ‘Thank you, father.’

  ‘You’re more than welcome. And son?’

  ‘Yes, father?’

  ‘Come back and talk to me again. I like to know what madness you Prods are thinking. It gives me something to chew on when there’s nothing good on the telly.’

  Rebus didn’t spend long at Gorgie Road. They weren’t getting anywhere. The photos taken so far had been developed, and some of the faces identified. Those identified were all small-timers, old cons, or up-and-comers. They weren’t so much small fish as spawn in a corner of the pond. It wasn’t as if Flower was having better luck, which was just as well for Rebus. He couldn’t wait for the Little Weed to put in his reimbursement claim. All those rounds of drinks . . .

  He felt revived by his talk with the priest, whose name he now realised he didn’t even know. But then that was part of the deal, wasn’t it? Sinners Anonymous. He might even grant the priest’s wish and go back sometime. And tonight he’d drive out to the coast and get rid of the gun. It had been madness all along. In a sense, buying it had been enough. He’d never have used it, would he?

  He parked at St Leonard’s and went inside. There was a package for him at the front desk – the reservations book for the Heartbreak Cafe. Calder had put a note in with it.

  ‘Well, Elvis ate pizza, didn’t he?’ So it looked like the Heartbreak was about to go Italian.

  While he’d been reading the note, the desk officer had been phoning upstairs, keeping his voice low.

  ‘What’s all that about?’ Rebus asked. He thought he’d overheard the distinct words ‘He’s here’.

  ‘Nothing, sir,’ said the desk officer. Rebus tried to stare an answer out of him, then turned away, just as the inner doors were pushed open in businesslike fashion by the Uglybug Sisters, Lauderdale and Flower.

  ‘Can I have your car-keys?’ Lauderdale demanded.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Rebus looked to Flower, who resembled a preacher at a burning.

  ‘The keys, please.’ Lauderdale’s hand was so steady, Rebus thought if he walked away and left the two men standing there, it would stay stretched out for hours. He handed over his keys.

  ‘It’s a pile of junk. If you don’t kick it in the right place, you won’t even get it to start.’ He was following the two men through the doors and into the car park.

  ‘I don’t want to drive it,’ Lauderdale said. He sounded threatening, but it was Flower’s serene silence that most worried Rebus. Then it hit him: the gun! They knew about the gun. And yes, it was still under his driver’s seat. Where else was he going to hide it – in the flat, where Michael might find it? In his trousers, where it would raise eyebrows? No, he’d left it in the car.

  The door of which Lauderdale was now opening. Lauderdale turned towards him, his hand out again. ‘The gun, Inspector Rebus.’ And when Rebus didn’t move: ‘Give me the gun.’

  24

  He raised the gun and fired it – one, two, three shots. Then lowered it again.

  They all took off their ear-protectors. The forensics man had fired the gun into what looked like a simple wooden crate. The bullets would be retrieved from its interior and could then be analysed. The scientist had been holding the gun’s butt with a polythene glove over his hand. He dropped the gun into a polythene bag of its own before slipping off the glove.

  ‘We’ll let you know as soon as we can,’ he told Chief Superintendent Watson, who nodded the man’s dismissal. After he’d left the room, Watson turned to Lauderdale.

  ‘Give it to me again, Frank.’

  Lauderdale took a deep breath. This was the third time he’d told Watson the story, but he didn’t mind. He didn’t mind at all. ‘Inspector Flower came to me late this morning and told me he’d received information –’

  ‘What sort of information?’

  ‘A phone call.’

  ‘Anonymous, naturally.’

  ‘Naturally.’ Lauderdale took another breath. ‘The caller told him the gun that had been used in the Central Hotel shooting five years ago was in Inspector Rebus’s possession. Then he rang off.’

  ‘And we’re supposed to believe Rebus shot that man five years ago?’

  Lauderdale didn’t know. ‘All I know is, there was a gun in Rebus’s car. And he says himself, it’ll have his prints all over it. Whether it’s the same gun or not, we’ll know by the end of play today.’

  ‘Don’t sound so fucking cheerful! We both know this is a stitch-up.’

  ‘What we know, sir,’ said Lauderdale, ignoring Watson’s outburst, ‘is that Inspector Rebus has been carrying on a little private investigation of his own into the Central Hotel. The files are by the side of his desk. He wouldn’t tell anyone why.’

  ‘So he found something out and now somebody’s worried. That’s why they’ve planted the –’

  ‘With respect, sir,’ Lauderdale paused, ‘nobody planted anything. Rebus has admitted he bought the gun from someone he calls “a stranger”. He specifically asked this “stranger” to get a gun for him.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘He says he was being threatened. Of course, he could be lying.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Maybe the gun was the clue he found, the one that started him back into the Central files. Now he’s spinning this story because at least then we can’t accuse him of withholding evidence.’

  Watson took this in. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Without prejudice, sir –’

  ‘Come on, Frank, we all know you hate Rebus’s guts. When he saw you and Flower coming for him, he must have thought the lynch-mob had arrived.’

  Lauderdale tried an easy laugh. ‘Personalities aside, sir, even if we stick to the bare facts, Inspector Rebus is in serious trouble. Even supposing he did buy the gun, it’s obviously a nasty piece of goods – it’s had a file taken to it in the past.’

  ‘He’s worse than ever,’ Watson mused, ‘now that his girlfriend’s kicked him out. I had high hop
es there.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘She’d got him wearing decent clothes. Rebus was beginning to look . . . promotable.’

  Lauderdale nearly swallowed his tongue.

  ‘Stupid bugger,’ Watson went on. Lauderdale decided he was talking about Rebus. ‘I suppose I’d better talk to him.’

  ‘Do you want me to . . .?’

  ‘I want you to stay here and wait for those results. Where’s Flower?’

  ‘Back on duty, sir.’

  ‘You mean back in the pub. I’ll want to talk to him too. Funny how this anonymous Deep Throat just manages to talk to the one person in St Leonard’s who loves Rebus as much as you do.’

  ‘Loves, sir?’

  ‘I said “loathes”.’

  But actually, as Rebus already knew, the call had been taken not by Flower himself but by a DC who just happened to know how Flower felt about Inspector John Rebus. He’d called Flower at the pub, and Flower had raced Jackie Stewart-style back to St Leonard’s to tell Lauderdale.

  Rebus knew this because he had time to kill at St Leonard’s while everyone else was up at the forensic lab in Fettes. And he knew he had to be quick, because Watson would suspend him as soon as he came back. He found some carrier bags and put the Central Hotel files in them, along with the reservations book from the Heartbreak Cafe. Then he took the whole lot down to his car and threw them in the boot . . . probably the first place Watson would want to look.

  Christ, he’d been planning to get rid of that gun tonight.

  Lauderdale had said it was ‘suspected’ of being the gun used in the Central Hotel murder. Well, that would be easy enough to prove or disprove. They still had the original bullet. Rebus wished he’d given the gun closer scrutiny. It had looked shiny new, but then maybe it had only ever been fired that one fatal time.

  He didn’t doubt that it was the gun. He just wondered how the hell they’d managed to set him up. The only answer was to work backwards. Deek had handed him the gun. So somehow they’d gotten to Deek. Well, Rebus himself had put word out that he was looking for Deek Torrance. And word got around. Someone had heard and been interested enough to track down Deek too. They’d asked him what his connection was with John Rebus. And when Rebus had then asked Deek for a gun, Deek had reported back to them.