10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Why is he smug?’

  ‘Because it’s going to make him a hero. And it’s all crooked. I heard him on the phone, they were talking about how to cover it all up. The whole fucking thing is just a lot of . . . a lot of . . . it’s all just so much shit!’

  ‘I can’t have language like that,’ the waitress warned. ‘There are children in here.’

  ‘Well, fuck them!’ Kirstie screeched, jumping to her feet. ‘Because they’re all fucked anyway, just like everybody else!’

  ‘I’ll have to ask you to leave.’

  Rebus and Duggan were on their feet too.

  ‘Come on, Kirstie.’

  ‘That girl’s on drugs or something, I know it!’

  Rebus threw money down on the table. Kirstie Kennedy’s legs had buckled, and Duggan was holding her upright.

  ‘Let’s get her into the car,’ Rebus said, knowing he should take her straight to St Leonard’s, angry with himself because he knew that’s the last thing he was going to do.

  Instead, Duggan gave him directions back to where she was staying. It was a flat in Leith, in the maze of narrow roads behind Great Junction Street.

  ‘One of yours, is it?’ Rebus asked Duggan. But Duggan was busy stroking Kirstie’s forehead, even though she was asleep.

  They walked her up the stairs, one on either side, arms around her back, her arms over their shoulders. Rebus could feel the swell of a small breast, and the thin rib-cage beneath.

  ‘You did say you wanted to see her,’ Duggan was saying, exculpating himself.

  ‘And I’ll want to see her again.’ He knew there was more she could tell him, more he needed to hear from her.

  He was trying to figure out who or what was responsible for the deaths of Willie and Dixie. This weightless creature he carried? The lads themselves? The police for giving chase? The Lord Provost for agreeing to it all? Maybe even the stepmother for driving Kirstie away? Except that it hadn’t just been the stepmother, it had been some realisation about the Lord Provost himself . . .

  Maybe it was the system, that same system Sammy so passionately attacked. A system that had failed Willie and Dixie as surely as it nurtured people like Sir Iain Hunter and Robbie Mathieson. In nature, there had to be balance; as some rose, others fell or were pushed or made the leap for themselves.

  Or maybe . . . just maybe it had been Rebus himself, for crawling from the wreckage still with the need to confront them . . . standing there in front of them, forcing them to choose. My obsession, he thought. My private morality. Maybe the Farmer was right . . .

  ‘Will you stay with her?’ he asked Duggan when they reached the top of the stairs.

  Duggan nodded. Rebus knew she’d be all right. She had someone who’d look after her.

  ‘What about you?’ Duggan asked. ‘What are you going to do?’

  But Rebus had released his hold on the body and was heading back downstairs.

  He went into a dive he knew near the foot of Leith Walk. It had a burgundy linoleum floor and matching coloured walls, and was like staring into somebody’s throat.

  ‘Whisky,’ Rebus said. ‘A double.’

  And when the whisky came, he drank it down in two gulps.

  ‘Know something?’ he said to the closest drinker. ‘A couple of days ago, I was eating wild smoked salmon and shooting clay-pigeons.’

  ‘Better that than the other way round, son,’ the elderly drinker said, adjusting the cap on his head.

  That night, Mrs Cochrane came upstairs to tell him there was a small dark patch on her living-room ceiling. Rebus had forgotten to empty the coffee-jar. Water had soaked the bare floorboard beneath.

  ‘Wait till it’s dried out,’ he said by way of apology, ‘and I’ll touch up the paintwork.’

  He’d been asleep in his chair, but now felt wide awake. It was half past eleven, too late to do anything. Then the telephone rang, and he picked it up.

  ‘I’m not interested,’ he said.

  ‘You’ll be interested in this.’

  Rebus recognised the voice of DC Robert Burns. ‘Don’t tell me West End needs my help?’

  ‘We’re not that desperate. I just thought I’d do you a favour. Looks like we’ve got a murder.’

  Rebus’s grip tightened on the receiver. ‘Anyone I know?’

  ‘Identification near the body suggests the name’s Thomas Gillespie.’

  ‘Councillor Gillespie?’

  ‘I haven’t told you the best part yet. He was found in a lane connecting Dundee Street to Dalry Road.’

  Rebus tried to fix the geography. ‘Next to the cemetery?’

  ‘Yes. The lane’s called Coffin Walk.’

  Coffin Walk climbed quite steeply from Dalry Road. It had the busy Western Approach Road on one side, Dalry Cemetery on the other. It was a narrow alley, well lit but long.

  ‘If someone stopped you halfway,’ Burns told Rebus, leading him down the lane, ‘there’d be no escape.’

  ‘But you’d see an attacker, wouldn’t you? There’s no place to hide.’

  Burns nodded at the cemetery wall. ‘You could stand behind there, listen for someone coming, then jump over when they got close. It’s the perfect site for an ambush.’

  ‘You think that’s what this was?’

  Burns shrugged. They were close to the body now. Police officers with torches were in the cemetery, looking for footprints and the murder weapon. The lane had been sealed off at both ends, and though there was a knot of policemen near the body, the only person actually next to it was the pathologist, Professor Gates. Gates was telling the photographer what to do, and DI Davidson was talking to the undertaker. Even in mufti – padded jacket and jeans rather than the black suit – an undertaker was recognisable.

  ‘So what happened?’ Rebus asked Burns.

  ‘Somebody came out of the Diggers, walked up Angle Park Terrace, looked down here, and saw the body. They thought it was a tramp sleeping rough. Well, there’s a night shelter on Gorgie Road, so the guy came down here to say so.’

  ‘Like a good citizen.’

  ‘He saw the blood, knew fine well what had happened, and called us.’

  Rebus pointed to a wallet, which lay a couple of feet from the body. ‘That was lying there?’

  ‘Yep, driver’s licence, blood donor card . . .’

  ‘But no cash or credit cards?’

  ‘Cleaned out.’

  ‘And nobody saw the attack?’

  ‘My guess is, he hoofed it back over the wall.’

  Professor Gates had finished his initial examination. ‘We can wrap this one up,’ he said.

  But Rebus wanted a look first. Tom Gillespie lay in a protective foetal position. He hadn’t been dead when he dropped. He’d curled himself around the pain in his gut.

  ‘Stab wound,’ Professor Gates said. ‘The shock probably killed him.’

  ‘Has his widow been notified?’

  ‘Are you volunteering, John?’ Davidson said.

  ‘This isn’t my patch, remember.’

  ‘No, but you knew the deceased. Anything you want to tell us?’

  Rebus shook his head. ‘I will ask a question though: what was he doing here? He lives in Marchmont, chances are he’d never even heard of Coffin Walk. God knows I hadn’t. So why was he here, where was he headed?’

  ‘Maybe the Diggers.’

  The Diggers was actually the Athletic Arms pub, but got its nickname from the gravediggers who’d used it in the past.

  ‘Not much of a shortcut, is it?’

  ‘Not much,’ Davidson agreed. ‘Lots of questions, John.’

  ‘I know the way your mind works, Davidson. You think it’s a simple mugging gone wrong – assailant: unknown; motive: robbery.’

  ‘So let’s hear your theory.’

  Rebus smiled. His head was full of theories. Maybe too many for his own good. ‘Give me a cigarette,’ he said.

  ‘Not at the locus, John,’ Davidson warned. Rebus looked at the body again. It was being bagged. A
trip to the mortuary first, and then the funeral parlour, your last journeys in the world as predictable as your first.

  ‘I asked if you had a theory,’ Davidson said.

  ‘OK, OK.’ Rebus put his hands up in surrender. ‘Take me back to your nice warm police station, give me a cigarette, and I’ll tell you a story. Just don’t blame me if it doesn’t make sense.’

  He would tell Davidson what he knew, which wasn’t half as much as he suspected.

  Which itself wasn’t half as much as he feared.

  34

  Next morning, when DI Davidson went to the widow’s house, Rebus went with him.

  The curtains were closed, reminding Rebus of the day of McAnally’s funeral, inside Tresa’s flat. The door was answered not by Mrs Gillespie but by Helena Profitt, dressed in circumspect black – skirt, tights and shoes – and a plain white blouse.

  ‘I came as soon as I heard,’ she said, leading them inside. She looked surprised to see Rebus. We must, he thought, stop meeting like this.

  ‘Two policemen to see you, Audrey,’ Miss Profitt said, opening the living-room door.

  It was a big light room, with prominence given to the floor-to-ceiling bookcases which lined two walls. The TV didn’t look much used, and though there was a video machine, Rebus couldn’t see more than half a dozen tapes. At one end of the room was a huge desk covered in paperwork, and a small table supporting a telephone and fax machine. The room, it seemed to him, was little more than an extension of the office at the front of the house, making Rebus wonder about Gillespie’s family life or, more pertinently, the lack of it.

  His widow sat on the sofa, legs tucked beneath her. She’d started to rise, but Davidson had waved her back down. She looked as if she hadn’t slept. There was an empty mug on the floor, and next to it a tiny brown bottle of tablets. Despite the central heating, Audrey Gillespie was trembling.

  ‘Shall I make some tea?’ Helena Profitt asked.

  ‘Not for us, thanks,’ Davidson said.

  ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it. Shall I pop back later, Audrey?’

  ‘Only if it’s not too much trouble.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. Rebus saw through her act, saw she was as broken up as anyone. He followed her out of the room.

  ‘Could you wait in the kitchen? I’d like a quick word.’

  She nodded hesitantly. Rebus went back into the living room and sat down next to Davidson.

  ‘Remember me, Mrs Gillespie?’ Davidson was saying. ‘We met last night.’

  Davidson was good, better than a lot of coppers. It was a skill, handling other people’s grief, gauging what to say and how to say it, knowing how much they could take.

  Audrey Gillespie nodded, then looked at Rebus. ‘And I know you, too, don’t I?’

  ‘I came to talk to your husband once.’ Rebus strived for the same tone Davidson had used.

  ‘Has the doctor seen you, Mrs Gillespie?’ Davidson asked.

  ‘He gave me pills to help me sleep. Ridiculous to think I could sleep.’

  ‘But you’re all right?’

  ‘I’m . . .’ She sought the words expected of her. ‘I’m coping, thank you.’

  ‘Do you feel up to answering a few more questions?’

  She nodded, and Davidson relaxed a little. He brought out his notebook and consulted it.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘you said last night that your husband had gone out to visit a constituent – that was what he told you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But he didn’t say where he was meeting this constituent?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or the constituent’s name?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or what they were going to discuss?’

  She shrugged, remembering. ‘We ate dinner at eight as usual – I’d done chicken casserole, Tom’s favourite. He had two helpings. After that, I thought he’d either work in his office – he always has work to do – or else read the paper. Instead, he said he had to go out.’

  ‘You’re surprised he ended up in Dalry?’

  ‘Very. We don’t know anyone in that part of town. Why would he lie to me?’

  ‘Well,’ Rebus put in, ‘he was hiding things from you, wasn’t he?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Davidson gave Rebus a warning look, and Rebus softened his voice a little.

  ‘I mean, the day I came here you were busy shredding documents – sackfuls of them – in a shredder your husband hired specially.’

  ‘Yes, I remember. Tom said he was running out of space in the office. They were ancient history. As you can see, it’s pretty cramped with all the paperwork.’ She waved a hand around the room.

  ‘Mrs Gillespie,’ Rebus persisted, ‘your husband headed the Industrial Planning Committee – did the documents have anything to do with that?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘If they were ancient history, why bother to shred them, why not just chuck them out?’

  Audrey Gillespie got up and walked to the fireplace. Davidson gave Rebus an angry look.

  ‘Tom said they could fall into the wrong hands. Journalists, people like that. He said it was to do with confidentiality.’

  ‘Did you look at the files at all?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t remember.’ She was frantic now, her wet eyes everywhere but on the two policemen.

  ‘You weren’t curious?’

  ‘Look, I don’t see what any of this has to do with anything.’

  Rebus walked over to her and took her hands in his. ‘It might have everything to do with your husband’s murder, Mrs Gillespie.’

  ‘Now, John,’ Davidson complained, ‘we don’t know . . .’

  But Audrey Gillespie looked into Rebus’s eyes, and saw something there she could trust. She blinked away the tears. ‘He was very secretive,’ she said quietly, forcing herself to be calm. ‘I mean, about whatever it was he’d been working on. He’d been at it for months – for the best part of a year, actually. I used to curse the hours he put in. He told me it would be worth it, he said we should always focus on the long view. By that he meant he would one day be an MP, it was what he lived for.’

  ‘You’ve no inkling what this project of his was?’

  She shook her head. ‘It was something he’d discovered while serving on the committee, and I know it was to do with accounting. I could work that much out from the kinds of things he was reading – balance sheets, profit-and-loss accounts . . . I trained as an accountant, something Tom sometimes forgot. I run a string of shops now, but I still handle the books. I could have helped him, but he always had to do everything for himself.’ She paused. ‘You know, the only reason he really needed me was my money. I’m sorry if that sounds heartless.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Davidson said.

  ‘Were these company accounts, Mrs Gillespie?’ Rebus persisted.

  ‘I think they must have been, the numbers involved: hundreds of millions of pounds.’

  ‘Hundreds of millions?’

  So it wasn’t just Mensung, or even Charters’ empire. It was much bigger. Rebus thought of PanoTech, and then recalled that someone else had used the phrase ‘hundreds of millions’ . . . Rory McAllister, or someone like him.

  ‘Mrs Gillespie, could these figures have been to do with the SDA?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ She slumped back on to the sofa.

  ‘OK, John,’ Davidson said, ‘you’ve had your say.’

  But Davidson might as well not have been there.

  ‘You see, Mrs Gillespie,’ Rebus said, sitting down beside her, ‘the thing is, someone tried to scare your husband, and it worked. They paid a man called McAnally to put the fear of God into him. I don’t know if they knew how far McAnally would go. McAnally confronted your husband, and I think gave him a message, a warning of some kind. Then McAnally killed himself, just to force the warning home. He was dying anyway, and he’d been paid handsomely. Your husband got scared, rightly so, and rented that
shredder so he could destroy everything he’d been working on, all the evidence.’

  ‘Evidence of what?’ she asked.

  ‘Of something very big. Now, McAnally slipped up, he died too spectacularly, and that got me curious. I don’t think I’ve discovered even half what your husband knew, but that’s not the point. The point is, these people suspect either that your husband was helping me – maybe he’d given me his notes – or that he would talk to me eventually. Either way, they decided he was beyond scaring. They had to go a bit further.’

  ‘What you’re saying is that, if you’d left well alone, Tom might still be alive.’

  Rebus bowed his head. ‘I accept what you’re saying, but I didn’t kill your husband.’ He paused. ‘I’d like to find out who did.’

  ‘What can I do to help?’

  Rebus glanced towards Davidson. ‘You can start by telling us anything you think might help. And you could go through your husband’s papers; there might be some clue there.’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Will I be in danger, too?’

  Rebus laid a hand on hers. ‘Not at all, Mrs Gillespie. Look, is there no one Tom might have confided in?’

  She started to shake her head. ‘No, wait . . . there is someone.’ Then she got up and left the room. Davidson was staring grimly at Rebus.

  ‘See,’ Rebus told him, ‘you’re great with the hearts and flowers, but weakness is there to be exploited.’

  Davidson didn’t say a word.

  Audrey Gillespie carried a desk diary into the room. ‘This is last year’s,’ she said, sitting down next to Rebus. ‘Tom began all this cloak-and-dagger stuff back in May, but it only really took off in October and November.’ She flipped to the pages for those months. Each day had its fill of meetings and engagements.

  ‘See?’ Mrs Gillespie said, pointing to a page. ‘These meetings here. Two this week –’ she flipped a couple of pages – ‘two the next –’ two more pages – ‘then three more.’

  The meetings were just a series of times, plus the same two letters – CK. ‘Cameron Kennedy,’ Rebus said.