10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘I’ve given you all the reasons I can.’

  Rebus wondered about that, but didn’t say anything.

  ‘Look, this is a new thing for us,’ Yates said. ‘We’re used to facing off the Provies, not the loyalists. But now they’ve got Kalashnikovs, RPG-7s, frag grenades, Brownings.’

  ‘And you’re taking them seriously?’

  ‘Oh yes, Inspector, we’re taking them seriously. That’s why I want to know what you know.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll tell you over a beer,’ Rebus said.

  Yates took them to the Crown Bar. Across the street, most of the windows in the Europa Hotel were boarded up, the result of another bomb. The bomb had damaged the Crown, too, but the damage hadn’t been allowed to linger. It was a Victorian pub, well preserved, with gas lighting and a wall lined with snugs, each with its own table and its own door for privacy. The interior reminded Rebus of several Edinburgh bars, but here he drank stout rather than heavy, and whiskey rather than whisky.

  ‘I know this place,’ he said.

  ‘Been here before, eh?’

  ‘Inspector Rebus,’ Smylie explained, ‘was in the Army in Belfast.’

  So then Rebus had to tell Yates all about it, all about 1969. He wasn’t getting it out of his system; he could still feel the pressure inside him. He remembered the republican drinking club again, and the way they’d gone in there swinging wildly, some of the toms more enthusiastic than others. What would he say if he met any of the men they’d beaten? Sorry didn’t seem enough. He wouldn’t talk about it, but he told Yates a few other stories. Talking was okay, and drinking was okay too. The thought of the return flight didn’t bother him so much after two pints and a nip. By the time they were in the Indian restaurant eating an early lunch in a private booth a long way from any other diners, Smylie had grown loquacious, but it was all mental arm-wrestling, comparing and contrasting the two police forces, discussing manpower, back-up, arrest sheets, drug problems.

  As Yates pointed out, leaving aside terrorism, Northern Ireland had one of the lowest crime rates going, certainly for serious crimes. There were the usual housebreakings and car-jackings, but few rapes and murders. Even the rougher housing schemes were kept in check by the paramilitaries, whose punishments went beyond incarceration.

  Which brought them back to Mary King’s Close. Were they any nearer, Rebus wondered, to finding out why Billy Cunningham had been tortured and killed and who had killed him? The letters SaS on an arm, the word Nemo on the floor, the style of the assassination and Cunningham’s own sympathies. What did it all add up to?

  Yates meantime talked a little more freely, while helping Smylie polish off the remaining dishes. He admitted they weren’t all angels in the RUC, which did not exactly surprise Rebus and Smylie, but Yates said they should see some of the men in the Ulster Defence Regiment, who were so fair-minded that their patrols had to be accompanied by RUC men keeping an eye on them.

  ‘You were here in ’69, Inspector, you’ll remember the B Specials? The UDR was formed to replace the B Spesh. The same madmen joined. See, if a loyalist wants to do something for his cause, all he has to do is join the UDR or the RUC Reserve. That fact has kept the UDA and UVF small.’

  ‘Is there still collusion between the security forces and the loyalists?’

  Yates pondered that one over a belch. ‘Probably,’ he said, reaching for his lager. ‘The UDR used to be terrible, so did the Royal Irish Rangers. Now, it’s not so widespread.’

  ‘Either that or better hidden,’ said Rebus.

  ‘With cynicism like that, you should join the RUC.’

  ‘I don’t like guns.’

  Yates wiped at his plate with a final sliver of nan bread. ‘Ah yes,’ he said, ‘the essential difference between us. I get to shoot people.’

  ‘It’s a big difference,’ Rebus suggested.

  ‘All the difference in the world,’ Yates agreed.

  Smylie had gone quiet. He was wiping his own plate with bread.

  ‘Do the loyalists get aid from overseas?’ Rebus asked.

  Yates sat back contentedly. ‘Not as much as the republicans. The loyalists probably rake in £150,000 a year from the mainland, mostly to help families and convicted members. Two-thirds of that comes from Scotland. There are pockets of sympathisers abroad – Australia, South Africa, the US and Canada. Canada’s the big one. The UVF have some Ingrams submachine guns just now that were shipped from Toronto. Why do you want to know?’

  Rebus and Smylie shared a look, then Smylie started to talk. Rebus was happy to let him: this way, Yates only got to know what Smylie knew, rather than what Rebus suspected. Toronto: headquarters of The Shield. When Smylie had finished, Rebus asked Yates a question.

  ‘This group, Sword and Shield, I didn’t see any names on the file.’

  ‘You mean individuals?’ Rebus nodded. ‘Well, it’s all pretty low-key. We’ve got suspicions, but the names wouldn’t mean anything to you.’

  ‘Try me.’

  Yates considered, then nodded slowly. ‘Okay.’

  ‘For instance, who’s the leader?’

  ‘We haven’t breached their command structure . . . not yet.’

  ‘But you have your suspicions?’

  Yates smiled. ‘Oh yes. There’s one bastard in particular.’ His voice, already low, dropped lower still. ‘Alan Fowler. He was UVF, but left after a disagreement. A right bad bastard, I think the UVF were glad to be shot of him.’

  ‘Can I have a photo? A description?’

  Yates shrugged. ‘Why not? He’s not my problem just now anyway.’

  Rebus put down his glass. ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because he took the ferry to Stranraer last week. A car picked him up and drove him to Glasgow.’ Yates paused. ‘And that’s where we lost him.’

  15

  Ormiston was waiting at the airport with a car.

  Rebus didn’t like Ormiston. He had a huge round face marked with freckles, and a semi-permanent grin too close to a sneer for comfort. His hair was thickly brown, always in need of a comb or a cut. He reminded Rebus of an overgrown schoolboy. Seeing him at his desk next to the bald and schoolmasterly Blackwood was like seeing the classroom dunce placed next to the teacher so an eye could be kept on his work.

  But there was something particularly wrong with Ormiston this afternoon. Not that Rebus really cared. All he cared about was the headache which had woken him on the approach to Edinburgh. A midday drinking headache, a glare behind the eyes and a stupor further back in the brain. He’d noticed at the airport, the way Ormiston was looking at Smylie, Smylie not realising it.

  ‘Got any paracetamol on you?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘Sorry.’ And he caught Rebus’s eye again, as if trying to communicate something. Normally he was a nosy bugger, yet he hadn’t asked about their trip. Even Smylie noticed this.

  ‘What is it, Ormiston? A vow of omerta or something?’

  Ormiston still wasn’t talking. He concentrated on his driving, giving Rebus plenty of time for thought. He had things to tell Kilpatrick . . . and things he wanted to keep to himself for the time being.

  When Ormiston stopped the car at Fettes, he turned to Rebus.

  ‘Not you. We’ve got to meet the Chief somewhere.’

  ‘What?’

  Smylie, half out of his door, stopped. ‘What’s up?’

  Ormiston just shook his head. Rebus looked to Smylie. ‘See you later then.’

  ‘Aye, sure.’ And Smylie got out, relieving the car’s suspension. As soon as he’d closed the door, Ormiston moved off.

  ‘What is it, Ormiston?’

  ‘Best if the Chief tells you himself.’

  ‘Give me a clue then.’

  ‘A murder,’ Ormiston said, changing up a gear. ‘There’s been a murder.’

  The scene had been cordoned off.

  It was a narrow street of tall tenements. St Stephen Street had always enjoyed a rakish reputation, something to do with its mix of student flats, cafes and
junk shops. There were several bars, one of them catering mainly to bikers. Rebus had heard a story that Nico, ex-Velvet Underground, had lived here for a time. It could be true. St Stephen Street, connecting the New Town to Raeburn Place, was a quiet thoroughfare which still managed to exude charm and seediness in equal measures.

  The tenements either side of the street boasted basements, and a lot of these were flats with their own separate stairwells and entrances. Patience lived in just such a flat not seven minutes’ walk away. Rebus walked carefully down the stone steps. They were often worn and slippy. At the bottom, in a sort of damp courtyard, the owner or tenant of the flat had attempted to create a garden of terracotta pots and hanging baskets. But most of the plants had died, probably from lack of light, or perhaps from rough treatment at the hands of the builders. Scaffolding stretched up the front of the tenement, much of it covered with thick polythene, crackling in the breeze.

  ‘Cleaning the façade,’ someone said. Rebus nodded. The front door of the flat faced a whitewashed wall, and in the wall were set two doors. Rebus knew what these were, they were storage areas, burrowed out beneath the surface of the pavement. Patience had almost identical doors, but never used the space for anything; the cellars were too damp. One of the doors stood open. The floor was mostly moss, some of which was being scraped into an evidence-bag by a SOCO.

  Kilpatrick, watching this, was listening to Blackwood, who ran his left hand across his pate, tucking an imaginary hair behind his ear. Kilpatrick saw Rebus.

  ‘Hello, John.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Where’s Smylie?’

  Ormiston was coming down the steps. Rebus nodded towards him. ‘The Quiet Man there dropped him at HQ. So what’s the big mystery?’

  Blackwood answered. ‘Flat’s been on the market a few months, but not selling. Owner decided to tart it up a bit, see if that would do the trick. Builders turned up yesterday. Today one of them decided to take a look at the cellars. He found a body.’

  ‘Been there long?’

  Blackwood shook his head. ‘They’re doing the postmortem this evening.’

  ‘Any tattoos?’

  ‘No tattoos,’ said Kilpatrick. ‘Thing is, John, it was Calumn.’ The Chief Inspector looked genuinely troubled, almost ready for tears. His face had lost its colour, and had lengthened as though the muscles had lost all motivation. He massaged his forehead with a hand.

  ‘Calumn?’ Rebus shook away his hangover. ‘Calumn Smylie?’ He remembered the big man, in the back of the HGV with his brother. Tried to imagine him dead, but couldn’t. Especially not here, in a cellar . . .

  Kilpatrick blew his nose loudly, then wiped it. ‘I suppose I’d better get back and tell Ken.’

  ‘No need, sir.’

  Ken Smylie was standing at street level, gripping the gloss-black railings. He looked like he might uproot the lot. Instead he arched back his head and gave a high-pitched howl, the sound swirling up into the sky as a smattering of rain began to fall.

  Smylie had to be ordered to go home, they couldn’t shift him otherwise. Everyone else in the office moved like automatons. DCI Kilpatrick had some decisions to make, chief among them whether or not to tie together the two murder inquiries.

  ‘He was stabbed,’ he told Rebus. ‘No signs of a struggle, certainly no torture, nothing like that.’ There was relief in his voice, a relief Rebus could understand. ‘Stabbed and dumped. Whoever did it probably saw the For Sale sign outside the flat, didn’t reckon on the body being found for a while.’ He had produced a bottle of Laphroaig from the bottom drawer of his desk, and poured himself a glass.

  ‘Medicinal,’ he explained. But Rebus declined the offer of a glass. He’d taken three paracetamol washed down with Irn-Bru. He noticed that the level in the Laphroaig bottle was low. Kilpatrick must have a prescription.

  ‘You think he was rumbled?’

  ‘What else?’ said Kilpatrick, dribbling more malt into his glass.

  ‘I’d have expected another punishment killing, something with a bit of ritual about it.’

  ‘Ritual?’ Kilpatrick considered this. ‘He wasn’t killed there, you know. The pathologist said there wasn’t enough blood. Maybe they held their “ritual” wherever they killed him. Christ, and I let him go out on a limb.’ He took out a handkerchief and blew his nose, then took a deep breath. ‘Well, I’ve got a murder inquiry to start up, the high hiedyins are going to be asking questions.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Rebus stood up, but stopped at the door. ‘Two murders, two cellars, two lots of builders.’

  Kilpatrick nodded, but said nothing. Rebus opened the door.

  ‘Sir, who knew about Calumn?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Who knew he was undercover? Just this office, or anyone else?’

  Kilpatrick furrowed his brow. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Special Branch, say.’

  ‘Just this office,’ Kilpatrick said quietly. Rebus turned to leave. ‘John, what did you find out in Belfast?’

  ‘That Sword and Shield exists. That the RUC know it’s operating here on the mainland. That they told Special Branch in London.’ He paused. ‘That DI Abernethy probably knows all about it.’

  Having said which, Rebus left the room. Kilpatrick stared at the door for a full minute.

  ‘Christ almighty,’ he said. His telephone was ringing. He was slow to answer it.

  ‘Is it true?’ Brian Holmes asked. Siobhan Clarke was waiting for an answer too.

  ‘It’s true,’ said Rebus. They were in the Murder Room at St Leonard’s. ‘He was working on something that might well be connected to Billy Cunningham.’

  ‘So what now, sir?’

  ‘We need to talk to Millie and Murdock again.’

  ‘We’ve talked to them.’

  ‘That’s why I said “again”. Don’t you listen? And after that, let’s fix up a little chat with some of the Jaffas.’

  ‘Jaffas?’

  Rebus tutted at Siobhan Clarke. ‘How long have you lived here? Jaffas are Orangemen.’

  ‘The Orange Lodge?’ said Holmes. ‘What can they tell us?’

  ‘The date of the Battle of the Boyne for a start.’

  ‘1690, Inspector.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘The date, of course, means more than a mere annus mirabilis. One-six-nine-o. One and six make seven, nine plus nought equals nine, seven and nine being crucial numbers.’ He paused. ‘Do you know anything of numerology, Inspector?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘What about the lassie?’

  Siobhan Clarke bristled visibly. ‘It’s sort of a crank science, isn’t it?’ she offered. Rebus gave her a cooling look. Humour him, the look ordered.

  ‘Not crank, no. It’s ancient, with the ring of truth. Can I get you something to drink?’

  ‘No, thanks, Mr Gowrie.’

  They were seated in Arch Gowrie’s ‘front room’, a parlour kept for visitors and special occasions. The real living room, with comfortable sofa, TV and video, drinks cabinet, was elsewhere on this sprawling ground floor. The house was at least three storeys high, and probably boasted an attic conversion too. It was sited in The Grange, a leafy backwater of the city’s southern side. The Grange got few visitors, few strangers, and never much traffic, since it was not a well-known route between any two other areas of the city. A lot of the huge detached houses, one-time merchants’ houses with walled grounds and high wooden or metal gates, had been bought by the Church of Scotland or other religious denominations. There was a retirement home to one side of Gowrie’s own residence, and what Rebus thought was a convent on the other side.

  Archibald Gowrie liked to be called ‘Arch’. Everyone knew him as Arch. He was the public face of the Orange Lodge, an eloquent enough apologist (not that he thought there was anything to apologise for), but by no means that organisation’s most senior figure. However, he was high enough, and he was easy to find – unlike Millie and Murdock, who weren’t home.

  Gowri
e had agreed readily to a meeting, saying he’d be free between seven and quarter to eight.

  ‘Plenty of time, sir,’ Rebus had said.

  He studied Arch Gowrie now. The man was big and fiftyish and probably attractive to women in that way older men could be. (Though Rebus noticed Siobhan Clarke didn’t seem too enthralled.) Though his hair – thinning nicely – was silver, his thick moustache was black. He wore his shirt with the sleeves rolled up, showing darkly haired arms. He was always ready for business. In fact, ‘open for business’ had been his public motto, and he worked tirelessly whenever he got his teeth into a new development.

  From what Rebus knew, Gowrie had made his money initially as director of a company which had nippily shifted its expertise from ships and pipelines to building exploration platforms and oil rigs for the North Sea. That was back in the early ’70s. The company had been sold at vast profit, and Gowrie had disappeared for several years before reappearing in the guise of property developer and investment guru. He was still a property developer, his name on several projects around the city as well as further afield. But he had diversified into wildly different areas: film production, hi-fi design, edible algae, forestry, two country house hotels, a woollen mill, and the Eyrie restaurant in the New Town. Probably Arch was best known for his part-ownership of the Eyrie, the city’s best restaurant, certainly its most exclusive, by far its most expensive. You wouldn’t find nutritious Hebridean Blue Algae on its menu, not even written in French.

  Rebus knew of only one large loss Gowrie had taken, as money man behind a film set predominantly in Scotland. Even boasting Rab Kinnoul as its star, the film had been an Easter turkey. Still, Gowrie wasn’t shy: there was a framed poster for the film hanging in the entrance hall.

  ‘Annus mirabilis,’ Rebus mused. ‘That’s Latin, isn’t it?’

  Gowrie was horrified. ‘Of course it’s Latin! Don’t tell me you never studied Latin at school? I though we Scots were an educated bunch. Miraculous year, that’s what it means. Sure about that drink?’

  ‘Maybe a small whisky, sir.’ Kill or cure.

  ‘Nothing for me, sir,’ said Siobhan Clarke, her voice coming from the high moral ground.