10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  Arden Street and the reservations book for the Heartbreak Cafe.

  As he saw it, Rebus had two choices. He could kick the door down, or he could try to open it quietly. It was a snib lock, the kind a stiff piece of plastic could sometimes open. Of course, there was a mortice deadlock too, but probably not engaged. When he pushed and pulled the door, there was enough give in it to suggest this was probably true. Only the snib then. But the gap where door met jamb was covered by a long strip of ornamental wood. This normally wouldn’t deter a burglar, who would take a crowbar to it until he had access to the gap.

  But Rebus had forgotten to pack his crowbar.

  A rap with the door-knocker wouldn’t elicit a response, would it? But he didn’t fancy his chances of shouldering or kicking the door down, snib-lock or not. So he crouched down, opened the letterbox with one hand, put his eyes level with it, and reached up his other hand to the black iron ring, giving it five loud raps: shave-and-a-haircut, some people called it. It signalled a friend; at least, that’s what Rebus hoped. There was neither sound nor movement from the inside of the maisonette. The Colonies was daytime quiet. He could probably crowbar the door open without anyone noticing. Instead, he tried the knocker again. The door had a spy-hole, and he was hoping someone might be intrigued enough to want to creep to the spy-hole and take a look.

  Movement now, a shadow moving slowly from the living area towards the hall. Moving stealthily. And then a head sticking out of the doorway. It was all Rebus needed.

  ‘Hello, Eddie,’ he called. ‘I’ve got your wreath here.’

  Eddie Ringan let him in.

  He was dressed in a red silk kimono-style gown with a fierce dragon crawling all down its back. On the arms were symbols Rebus didn’t understand. They didn’t worry him. Eddie flopped onto the sofa, usually Rebus’s perch, so Rebus made do with standing.

  ‘I was lying about the wreath,’ he said.

  ‘It’s the thought that counts. Nice suit, too.’

  ‘I had to borrow the tie,’ said Rebus.

  ‘Black ties are cool.’ Eddie looked like death warmed up. His eyes were dark-ringed and bloodshot, and his face resembled a prisoner’s: sunless grey, lacking hope. He scratched himself under the armpit. ‘So how did it go?’

  ‘I left just as they were lowering you away.’

  ‘They’ll be at the reception now. Wish I could have done the catering myself, but you know how it is.’

  Rebus nodded. ‘It’s not easy being a corpse. You’d have found that out.’

  ‘Some people have managed quite nicely in the past.’

  ‘Like Radiator McCallum and the Robertson brothers?’

  Eddie produced a grim smile. ‘One of those, yes.’

  ‘You must be pretty desperate to stage your own death.’

  ‘I’m not saying anything.’

  ‘That’s fine.’ There was silence for a minute until Eddie broke it.

  ‘How did you find out?’

  Rebus absent-mindedly took a cigarette from the pack on the mantelpiece. ‘It was Pat. He made up this unnecessarily exaggerated story.’

  ‘That’s Pat for you. Amateur fucking dramatics all the way.’

  ‘He said Willie stormed out of the restaurant after sticking his face in some poor punter’s plate. I checked with a couple of the people who ate there that night. A quick phone call was all it took. Nobody saw anything of the sort. Then there was the dead man’s liver. It was in good nick, so it couldn’t possibly have been yours.’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  Rebus was about to light up. He caught himself, lifted the cigarette from his mouth, and placed it beside the packet.

  ‘Then I checked missing persons. Seems Willie hasn’t been back to his digs in a few days. The whole thing was amateurish, Eddie. If the poor bugger hadn’t got his face blown away in the explosion, we’d’ve known straight away it wasn’t you.’

  ‘Would you? We wondered about that, we reckoned with Brian off the scene and Haymarket not your territory, it might just work.’

  Rebus shook his head. ‘For a start, we take photographs, and I’d have seen them sooner or later. I always do.’ He paused. ‘So why did you kill him?’

  ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘Let me guess, you came back late to the restaurant after a pretty good bender. You were angry as hell to see Willie had coped. You had a fight, he smashed his head. Then you had an idea.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘There’s only one rotten thing about the whole story,’ said Rebus. Eddie shifted on the sofa. He looked ridiculous in the kimono, and had folded his arms protectively. He was staring at the fireplace, avoiding Rebus altogether.

  ‘What?’ he said finally.

  ‘Pat said Willie ran out of the Cafe on Tuesday night. His body wasn’t found until Thursday morning. If he’d died in a fight on Tuesday, lividity and rigor mortis would have told the pathologist the body was old. But it wasn’t, it was fresh. Which means you didn’t booze him up and gas him until early Thursday morning. You must’ve kept him alive all day Wednesday, knowing pretty well what you were going to do with him.’

  ‘I’m not saying anything.’

  ‘No, I’m saying it. Like I say, a desperate remedy, Eddie. About as desperate as they come. Now come on.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’re taking a drive.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Down to the station, of course. Get some clothes on.’ Rebus watched him try to stand up. His legs took a while to lock upright. Yes, murder could do that to you. It was the opposite of rigor mortis. It was liquefaction, the jelly effect. It took him a long time to dress, Rebus watching throughout. There were tears in Eddie’s eyes when he finished, and his lips were wet with saliva.

  Rebus nodded. ‘You’ll do,’ he said. He fully intended taking Eddie to St Leonard’s.

  But they’d be taking the scenic route.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘A little drive. Nice day for it.’

  Eddie looked out of the windscreen. It was a uniform grey outside, buildings and sky, with rain threatening and the breeze gaining force. He started to get the idea when they turned up Holyrood Park Road, heading straight for Arthur’s Seat. And when Rebus took a right, away from Holyrood and in the direction of Duddingston, Eddie started to look very worried indeed.

  ‘You know where we’re going?’ Rebus suggested.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh well.’

  He kept driving, drove all the way up to the gates of the house and signalled with his indicator that he was turning into the drive.

  ‘Christ, no!’ yelped Eddie Ringan. He tucked his knees in front of him, wedging them against the dashboard like he thought they were about to crash. Instead of turning in at the gates, Rebus cruised past them and stopped kerbside. You caught a glimpse of Cafferty’s mansion from here. Presumably, if someone up at the house were looking out of the right window, they could see the car.

  ‘No, no.’ Eddie was weeping.

  ‘You do know where we are,’ Rebus said, voicing surprise. ‘You know Big Ger, then?’ He waited till Eddie nodded. The chef had assumed a foetal position, feet on the seat beneath him, head tucked into his knees. ‘Are you scared of him?’ Eddie nodded again. ‘Why?’ Slowly, Eddie shook his head. ‘Is it because of the Central Hotel?’

  ‘Why did I have to tell Brian?’ It was a loud yell, all the louder for being confined by the car. ‘Why the fuck am I so stupid?’

  ‘They’ve found the gun, you know.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘You never saw the gun?’

  Eddie shook his head. Damn, Rebus had been expecting more. ‘So what did you see?’

  ‘I was in the kitchens.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘This guy came running in, screaming at me to turn on the gas. He looked crazy, spots of blood on his face . . . in his eyelashes.’ Eddie was calming as the exorcism took effect. ‘He started to tu
rn on all the gas rings. Not lighting them. He looked so crazy, I helped him. I turned on the gas, just like he told me to.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I got out of there. I wasn’t sticking around. I thought the same as everybody else: it was for the insurance money. Till they found the body. A week later, I got a visit from Big Ger. A painful visit. The message was: never say a word, not a word about what happened.’

  ‘Was Big Ger there that night?’

  Eddie shrugged. Damn him again! ‘I was in the kitchens. I only saw the crazy guy.’

  Well, Rebus knew who that was – someone who’d seen the state of the Central kitchens. ‘Black Aengus?’ he asked.

  Eddie didn’t say anything for a few minutes, just stared blearily out of the windscreen. Then: ‘Big Ger’s bound to find out I said something. Every now and then he sends another warning. Nothing physical . . . not to me, at least. Just to let me know he remembers. He’ll kill me.’ He turned his head to Rebus. ‘He’ll kill me, and all I did was turn on the gas.’

  ‘The man with the blood, it was Aengus Gibson, wasn’t it?’

  Eddie nodded slowly, screwing shut his eyes and wringing out tears. Rebus started the car. As he was driving off, he saw the 4x4 coming towards him from the opposite direction. It was signalling to pull into the gates, and the gates themselves were opening compliantly. The car was driven by a thug whose face was new to Rebus. In the back seat sat Mo Cafferty.

  It bothered him, during the short drive back to St Leonard’s, with Eddie bawling and huddled in the passenger seat. It bothered him. Could Mo Cafferty drive at all? That would be easy enough to check: a quick chat with DVLC. If she couldn’t, if she needed a chauffeur, then who was driving the 4x4 that day Rebus had seen it parked outside Bone’s? And wasn’t that quite a coincidence anyway? John Rebus didn’t believe in coincidences.

  ‘The Heartbreak Cafe didn’t get its meat from Bone’s, did it?’ he asked Eddie, who misinterpreted the question. ‘I mean Bone’s the butcher’s shop,’ Rebus explained. But Eddie shook his head. ‘Never mind,’ said Rebus.

  Back at St Leonard’s, the very person he wanted to see was waiting for him.

  ‘Why aren’t you out at Gorgie?’ he asked.

  ‘Why aren’t you on suspension?’ Siobhan Clarke asked back.

  ‘That’s below the belt. Besides, I asked first.’

  ‘I had to come and pick up these.’ She waved a huge brown envelope at him.

  ‘Well, listen, I’ve got a little job for you. Several, in fact. First, we need to have Eddie Ringan’s casket back up out of the ground.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s not Eddie inside, I’ve just put him in the cells. You’ll need to interview and book him. I’ll tell you all about it.’

  ‘I’m going to need to write all this down.’

  ‘No you won’t, your memory’s good enough.’

  ‘Not when my brain’s in shock. You mean that wasn’t Eddie in the oven?’

  ‘That’s what I mean. Next, check and see if Mo Cafferty has a driving licence.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Just do it. And do you remember telling me that when Bone won his Merc, he put up his share of the business to cover the bet? Your words: his share.’

  ‘I remember. His wife told me.’

  Rebus nodded. ‘I want to know who owns the other half.’

  ‘Is that all, sir?’

  Rebus thought. ‘No, not quite. Check Bone’s Merc. See if anyone owned it before him. That way, we’ll know who he won it from.’ He looked at her unblinking. ‘Quick as you can, eh?’

  ‘Quick as I can, sir. Now, do you want to know what’s in the envelope? It’s for the man who has everything.’

  ‘Go on then, surprise me.’

  So she did.

  Rebus was so surprised, he bought her coffee and a dough-ring in the canteen. The X-rays lay on the table between them.

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ he kept saying. ‘I really don’t believe this. I put out a search for these ages ago.’

  ‘They were in the records office at Ninewells.’

  ‘But I asked them!’

  ‘But did you ask nicely?’

  Siobhan had explained that she’d been able to take a few trips to Dundee, chatting up anyone who might be useful, and especially in the chaotic records department, which had been moved and reorganised a few years before, leaving older records an ignored shambles. It had taken time. More than that, she’d had to promise a date to the young man who’d finally come up with the goods.

  Rebus held up one of the X-rays again.

  ‘Broken right arm,’ Siobhan confirmed. ‘Twelve years ago. While he was living and working in Dundee.’

  ‘Tam Roberston,’ Rebus said simply. That was that then: the dead man, the man with the bullet wound through his heart, the bullet from Rebus’s Colt 45, was Tam Robertson.

  ‘Difficult to prove in a court of law,’ Siobhan suggested. True enough, you’d need more than hearsay and an X-ray to prove identity to a jury.

  ‘There are ways,’ said Rebus. ‘We can try dental records again, now we’ve got an idea who the corpse is. Then there’s superimposition. For the moment, it’s enough for me that I’m satisfied.’ He nodded. ‘Well done, Clarke.’ He started to get up.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes?’

  She was smiling. ‘Merry Christmas, sir.’

  29

  He phoned Gibson’s Brewery, only to be told that ‘Mr Aengus’ was attending an ale competition in Newcastle, due back later tonight. So he called the Inland Revenue and spoke for a while to the inspector in charge of his case. If he was going to confront Tommy Greenwood, he’d need all the ammo he could gather . . . bad metaphor considering, but true all the same. He left his car at St Leonard’s while he went for a walk, trying to clear his head. Everything was coming together now. Aengus Gibson had been playing cards with Tam Robertson, and had shot him. Then set fire to the hotel to cover up the murder. It should all be tied up, but Rebus’s brain was posing more questions than answers. Was it likely Aengus carried a gun around with him, even in his wild days? Why didn’t Eck, also present, seek revenge for his brother? Wouldn’t Aengus have had to shut him up somehow? Was it likely that only three of them were involved in the poker game? And who had delivered the gun to Deek Torrance? So many questions.

  As he came down onto South Clerk Street, he saw that a van was parked outside Bone’s. A new plate-glass window was being installed in the shop itself, and the van door was open at the back. Rebus walked over to the van and looked in the back. It had been a proper butcher’s van at one time, and nobody had bothered changing it. You climbed a step into the back, where there were counters and cupboards and a small fridge-freezer. The van would have had its usual rounds of the housing schemes in the city, housewives and retired folk queuing for meat rather than travelling to a shop. A man in a white apron came out of Bone’s with an ex-pig hoisted on his shoulder.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said, carrying the carcass into the van.

  ‘You use this for deliveries?’ Rebus asked.

  The man nodded. ‘Just to restaurants.’

  ‘I remember when a butcher’s van used to come by our way,’ Rebus reminisced.

  ‘Aye, it’s not economic these days, though.’

  ‘Everything changes,’ said Rebus. The man nodded agreement. Rebus was examining the interior again. To get behind the counter, you climbed into the van, pulled a hinged section of the counter up, and pushed open a narrow little door. Narrow: that’s what the back of the van was. He remembered Michael’s description of the van he’d been shunted about in. A narrow van with a smell. As the man came out of the van, he disturbed something with his foot. It was a piece of straw. Straw in a butcher’s van? None of the animals carried in here had seen straw for a while.

  Rebus looked into the shop. A young assistant was watching the glass being installed.

  ‘Open for business, sir,’ he informed Rebus cheerily.


  ‘I was looking for Mr Bone.’

  ‘He’s not in this afternoon.’

  Rebus nodded towards the van. ‘Do you still do runs?’

  ‘What, house-to-house?’ The young man shook his head. ‘Just general deliveries, bulk stuff.’

  Yes, Rebus would agree with that.

  He walked back up to St Leonard’s, and caught Siobhan again. ‘I forgot to say . . .’

  ‘More work?’

  ‘Not much more. Pat Calder, you’ll need to bring him in for questioning too. He’ll be back home by now and getting frantic wondering where Eddie’s sloped off to. I’m just sorry I won’t be around for the reunion. I suppose I can always catch it in court . . .’

  It had been quite a day already, and it wasn’t yet six o’clock. Back in the flat, the students were cooking a lentil curry while Michael sat in the living room reading another book on hypnotherapy. It had all become very settled in the flat, very . . . well, the word that came to mind was homely. It was a strange word to use about a bunch of teenage students, a copper and an ex-con, yet it seemed just about right.

  Michael had finished the tablets, and looked the better for it. He was supposed to arrange a check-up, but Rebus was dubious: they’d probably only stick him on more tablets. The scars would heal over naturally. All it took was time. He’d certainly regained his appetite: two helpings of curry.

  After the meal they all sat around in the living room, the students drinking wine, Michael refusing it, Rebus supping beer from a can. There was music, the kind that never went away: the Stones and the Doors, Janis Joplin, very early Pink Floyd. It was one of those evenings. Rebus felt absolutely shattered, and blamed it on the caffeine tablets he’d been taking. Here he’d been worrying about Michael, and all the time he’d been swallowing down his own bad medicine. They’d seen him through the weekend, sleeping little and thinking lots. But you couldn’t go on like that forever. And what with the music and the beer and the relaxed conversation, he’d almost certainly fall asleep here on the sofa . . .

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Sounds like somebody smashed a bottle or something.’

  The students got up to look out of the window. ‘Can’t see anything.’