10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  Yet the book itself kicked off with a bottle or three of wine and a friend from Australia . . .

  The friend’s name was Lorna. She’d been at university with me in Edinburgh, and we’d stayed in touch. She was living in the Antipodes, working as a teacher, but made occasional trips back to Europe to visit her family. And she came to stay with us for a week at our rural hovel in south-west France. One night, after a big meal and all that wine, we settled down on the sofa and she told me a story. It was something that had happened to her brother. He’d been working on an oil platform, and had returned to Edinburgh for some R&R. Met these two guys in a pub and they said they were heading to a party. He could go with them if he liked. But when they arrived at the abandoned flat . . . well, he started to sober up fast. Not fast enough, though. They tied him to a chair, taped a plastic bag over his head . . . and walked out. Eventually he was able to rip his hands free, tear the bag open, and run gasping to the nearest police station. The cops accompanied him back to the abandoned tenement flat, but couldn’t explain what had happened. He hadn’t been robbed; the modus operandi was new to the officers; there was no motive for the assault . . .

  Lorna just shrugged, tipping the dregs of the bottle into her glass. ‘And that’s the story,’ she said. But I knew it wasn’t: it was only the beginning of a story. The tale gnawed away at me. I needed to know why it had happened. I needed to give the incident some closure. And if that meant composing a five-hundred-page novel around it, so be it. I had my first chapter, after all. (Though I never did find out what Lorna’s brother thought of his fictional equivalent . . .)

  As I was writing it, the book went through a number of working titles, including The Whispering Rain and Dead Crude (both of which became chapter titles instead). I’d managed to find time for a research trip back to Scotland, taking in Aberdeen but not Shetland. For the Shetland scenes, I had recourse to guide books. I also didn’t get to make a helicopter flight to an oil rig, but found the next best thing in an Aberdonian author called Bill Kirton, who had worked in that field and was able to furnish me with as much detail as I needed to make Rebus’s trip on a ‘paraffin budgie’ realistic. Oil companies were generous in the amount of promotional literature they sent me, perhaps slow to realise that I was unlikely to be singing their praises in what was to be, after all, a crime novel. I’d grown up in a coal-mining town, where coal itself had been referred to as ‘black diamonds’. Oil was sometimes called ‘black gold’, and to get across this sense of the importance of the industry, I decided I needed a final title with the word ‘black’ in it. Well, my previous novel, Let It Bleed, had used the title of a Rolling Stones album, and it so happened they had another called Black & Blue: black for oil; blue for the cops (the ‘boys in blue’ of popular lore). Rebus would take at least one beating in the course of the book, too, leaving him black and blue all over.

  I had my title.

  One further ingredient, however, had been missing from my work up until this point – anger. My son Kit had come into the world in July 1994. There’d been no sign of any problems during Miranda’s pregnancy. But when he was three months old, we began to wonder why he didn’t move around much. At six months, our local GP in France was concerned too, and at around the age of nine months we knew Kit had some serious problems. There were long twice-weekly drives to the nearest children’s hospital for tests, and longer drives still to the main paediatric facility in Bordeaux. My French was never as good as Miranda’s. I would drive home full of questions, frustrated by my inability to use language properly, fired up at the joke God seemed to be playing on us. And I would climb the rickety wooden ladder which took me through the trapdoor and into the cobwebbed attic of our old farmhouse. Nothing up there but a computer and some maps and photos of Edinburgh. I would sit down and try to get back into the book I was writing – the book which would eventually become Black & Blue. And suddenly I was in charge of this fictional universe. I was able to play God. Language started working for me again, and I used Rebus as my punchbag, raining physical and psychological blows down on him. As a result of which, Black & Blue became a much tougher book than my previous efforts, and left me feeling better too.

  The book also became a source of wish-fulfilment, which is why, when Greenpeace needed a band of world stature to front a gig in Aberdeen (see Chapter 13), they opted for the Dancing Pigs rather than U2 or REM. The Dancing Pigs, you see, had been my band, the band I’d sung with when I was nineteen. In real life, we broke up after about a year, with little to show for our efforts. But in this parallel world, we lit up the sky.

  As good a reason as any to write a novel.

  May 2005

  Empty Capital

  Weary with centuries

  This empty capital snorts like a great beast

  Caged in its sleep, dreaming of freedom

  But with nae belief . . .

  Sydney Goodsir Smith,

  ‘Kynd Kittock’s Land’

  1

  ‘Tell me again why you killed them.’

  ‘I’ve told you, it’s just this urge.’

  Rebus looked back at his notes. ‘The word you used was “compulsion”.’

  The slumped figure in the chair nodded. Bad smells came off him. ‘Urge, compulsion, same thing.’

  ‘Is it?’ Rebus stubbed out his cigarette. There were so many butts in the tin ashtray, a couple spilled over on to the metal table. ‘Let’s talk about the first victim.’

  The man opposite him groaned. His name was William Crawford Shand, known as ‘Craw’. He was forty years old, single, and lived alone in a council block in Craigmillar. He had been unemployed six years. He ran twitching fingers through dark greasy hair, seeking out and covering a large bald spot at the crown of his head.

  ‘The first victim,’ Rebus said. ‘Tell us.’

  ‘Us’ because there was another CID man in the biscuit-tin. His name was Maclay, and Rebus didn’t know him very well. He didn’t know anyone at Craigmillar very well, not yet. Maclay was leaning against the wall, arms folded, eyes reduced to slits. He looked like a piece of machinery at rest.

  ‘I strangled her.’

  ‘What with?’

  ‘A length of rope.’

  ‘Where did you get the rope?’

  ‘Bought it at some shop, I can’t remember where.’

  Three-beat pause. ‘Then what did you do?’

  ‘After she was dead?’ Shand moved a little in the chair. ‘I took her clothes off and was intimate with her.’

  ‘With a dead body?’

  ‘She was still warm.’

  Rebus got to his feet. The grating of his chair on the floor seemed to unnerve Shand. Not difficult.

  ‘Where did you kill her?’

  ‘A park.’

  ‘And where was this park?’

  ‘Near where she lived.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Polmuir Road, Aberdeen.’

  ‘And what were you doing in Aberdeen, Mr Shand?’

  He shrugged, running his fingers now along the rim of the table, leaving traces of sweat and grease.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ Rebus said. ‘The edges are sharp, you might get cut.’

  Maclay snorted. Rebus walked over towards the wall and stared at him. Maclay nodded briefly. Rebus turned back to the table.

  ‘Describe the park.’ He rested against the edge of the table, got himself another cigarette and lit it.

  ‘It was just a park. You know, trees and grass, a play park for the kids.’

  ‘Were the gates locked?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was late at night, were the gates locked?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘You don’t remember.’ Pause: two beats. ‘Where did you meet her?’

  Quickly: ‘At a disco.’

  ‘You don’t seem the disco type, Mr Shand.’ Another snort from the machine. ‘Describe the place to me.’

  Shand shrugged again. ‘Like any other disco: dar
k, flashing lights, a bar.’

  ‘What about victim number two?’

  ‘Same procedure.’ Shand’s eyes were dark, face gaunt. But for all that he was beginning to enjoy himself, easing into his story again. ‘Met her at a disco, offered to take her home, killed her and fucked her.’

  ‘No intimacy then. Did you take a souvenir?’

  ‘Eh?’

  Rebus flicked ash on to the floor, flakes landed on his shoes. ‘Did you remove anything from the scene?’

  Shand thought it over, shook his head.

  ‘And this was where exactly?’

  ‘Warriston Cemetery.’

  ‘Close to her home?’

  ‘She lived on Inverleith Row.’

  ‘What did you strangle her with?’

  ‘The bit of rope.’

  ‘The same piece?’ Shand nodded. ‘What did you do, keep it in your pocket?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Do you have it with you now?’

  ‘I chucked it.’

  ‘You’re not making it easy for us, are you?’ Shand squirmed with pleasure. Four beats. ‘And the third victim?’

  ‘Glasgow,’ Shand recited. ‘Kelvingrove Park. Her name was Judith Cairns. She told me to call her Ju-Ju. I did her same as the others.’ He sat back in the chair, drawing himself up and folding his arms. Rebus reached out a hand until it touched the man’s forehead, faith-healer style. Then he pushed, not very hard. But there was no resistance. Shand and the chair toppled backwards on to the floor. Rebus was kneeling in front of him, hauling him up by the front of his shirt.

  ‘You’re a liar!’ he hissed. ‘Everything you know you got straight from the papers, and what you had to make up was pure dross!’ He let go and got to his feet. His hands were damp where he’d been holding the shirt.

  ‘I’m not lying,’ Shand pleaded, still prone. ‘That’s gospel I’m telling you!’

  Rebus stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette. The ashtray tipped more butts on to the table. Rebus picked one up and flicked it at Shand.

  ‘Are you not going to charge me?’

  ‘You’ll be charged all right: wasting police time. A spell in Saughton with an arse-bandit for a roomie.’

  ‘We usually just let him go,’ Maclay said.

  ‘Stick him in a cell,’ Rebus ordered, leaving the room.

  ‘But I’m him!’ Shand persisted, even as Maclay was picking him off the floor. ‘I’m Johnny Bible! I’m Johnny Bible!’

  ‘Not even close, Craw,’ Maclay said, quietening him with a punch.

  Rebus needed to wash his hands, splash some water on his face. Two woolly suits were in the toilets, enjoying a story and a cigarette. They stopped laughing when Rebus came in.

  ‘Sir,’ one asked, ‘who did you have in the biscuit-tin?’

  ‘Another comedian,’ Rebus said.

  ‘This place is full of them,’ the second constable commented. Rebus didn’t know if he meant the station, Craigmillar itself, or the city as a whole. Not that there was much comedy in Craigmillar police station. It was Edinburgh’s hardest posting; a stint of duty lasted two years max, no one could function longer than that. Craigmillar was about as tough an area as you could find in Scotland’s capital city, and the station fully merited its nickname – Fort Apache, the Bronx. It lay up a cul-de-sac behind a row of shops, a low-built dour-faced building with even dourer-faced tenements behind. Being up an alley meant a mob could cut it off from civilisation with ease, and the place had been under siege numerous times. Yes, Craigmillar was a choice posting.

  Rebus knew why he was there. He’d upset some people, people who mattered. They hadn’t been able to deal him a death blow, so had instead consigned him to purgatory. It couldn’t be hell because he knew it wasn’t for ever. Call it a penance. The letter telling him of his move had explained that he would be covering for a hospitalised colleague. It had also stated that he would help oversee the shutting down of the old Craigmillar station. Everything was being wound down, transferred to a brand new station nearby. The place was already a shambles of packing cases and pillaged cupboards. Staff weren’t exactly expending great energy solving ongoing cases. Nor had they put any energy into welcoming Detective Inspector John Rebus. The place felt more like a hospital ward than a cop-shop, and the patients were tranquillised to the hilt.

  He wandered back to the CID room – the ‘Shed’. On the way, he passed Maclay and Shand, the latter still protesting his guilt as he was dragged to the cells.

  ‘I’m Johnny Bible! I fucking am and all!’

  Not even close.

  It was nine p.m. on a Tuesday in June and the only other person in the Shed was Detective Sergeant ‘Dod’ Bain. He glanced up from his magazine – Offbeat, the L&B newsletter – and Rebus shook his head.

  ‘Thought not,’ Bain said, turning a page. ‘Craw’s notorious for grassing himself up, that’s why I left him to you.’

  ‘You’ve as much heart as a carpet tack.’

  ‘But I’m as sharp as one, too. Don’t forget that.’

  Rebus sat at his desk and considered writing his report of the interview. Another comedian, another waste of time. And still Johnny Bible was out there.

  First there had been Bible John, terrorising Glasgow in the late 1960s. A well-dressed young man with reddish hair, who knew his Bible and frequented the Barrowland Ballroom. He picked up three women there, beat them, raped them, strangled them. Then he disappeared, right in the middle of Glasgow’s biggest manhunt, and never resurfaced, the case open to this day. Police had a cast-iron description of Bible John from the sister of his last victim. She’d spent close on two hours in his company, shared a taxi with him even. They’d dropped her off; her sister had waved goodbye through the back window . . . Her description hadn’t helped.

  And now there was Johnny Bible. The media had been quick with the name. Three women: beaten, raped, strangled. That was all they’d needed to make the comparison. Two of the women had been picked up at nightclubs, discos. There were vague descriptions of a man who’d been seen dancing with the victims. Well-dressed, shy. It clicked with the original Bible John. Only Bible John, supposing he were still alive, would be in his fifties, while this new killer was described as mid-to-late twenties. Therefore: Johnny Bible, spiritual son of Bible John.

  There were differences, of course, but the media didn’t dwell on those. For one thing, Bible John’s victims had all been dancing at the same dancehall; Johnny Bible ranged far and wide through Scotland in his hunt for victims. This had led to the usual theories: he was a long-distance lorry driver; a company rep. Police were ruling nothing out. It might even be Bible John himself, back after a quarter century away, the mid-to-late twenties description flawed – it had happened before with apparently watertight eyewitness testimony. They were also keeping a few things quiet about Johnny Bible – just as they had with Bible John. It helped rule out the dozens of fake confessions.

  Rebus had barely started his report when Maclay swayed into the room. That was the way he walked, from side to side, not because he was drunk or drugged but because he was seriously overweight, a metabolism thing. There was something wrong with his sinuses too; his breathing often came in laboured wheezes, his voice a blunt plane against the grain of the wood. His station nickname was ‘Heavy’.

  ‘Escorted Craw from the premises?’ Bain asked.

  Maclay nodded towards Rebus’s desk. ‘Wants him charged for wasting our time.’

  ‘Now that’s what I call a waste of time.’

  Maclay swayed in Rebus’s direction. His hair was jet black, ringed with slick kiss-curls. He’d probably won Bonniest Bairn prizes, but not for a while.

  ‘Come on,’ he said.

  Rebus shook his head and kept typing.

  ‘Fuck’s sake.’

  ‘Fuck him,’ Bain said, getting to his feet. He unhooked his jacket from the back of the chair. To Maclay: ‘Drinkie?’

  Maclay wheezed out a long sigh. ‘Just the job.’

&nb
sp; Rebus held his breath until they’d gone. Not that he’d been expecting to be asked along. That was their whole point. He stopped typing and reached into his bottom drawer for the Lucozade bottle, unscrewed the cap, sniffed forty-three percent malt and poured in a mouthful. With the bottle back in its drawer, he popped a mint into his mouth.

  Better. ‘I can see clearly now’: Marvin Gaye.

  He yanked the report from the typewriter and crumpled it into a ball, then called the desk, told them to hold Craw Shand an hour, then release him. He’d just put down the phone when it started ringing.

  ‘DI Rebus.’

  ‘It’s Brian.’

  Brian Holmes, Detective Sergeant, still based at St Leonard’s. They kept in touch. His voice tonight was toneless.

  ‘Problem?’

  Holmes laughed, no humour. ‘I’ve got the world’s supply.’

  ‘So tell me the latest.’ Rebus opened the packet one-handed, in mouth and lit.

  ‘I don’t know that I can, with you being in shit.’

  ‘Craigmillar’s not so bad.’ Rebus looked around the stale office.

  ‘I meant the other thing.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘See, I’m . . . I might have gotten myself into something . . .’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘A suspect, we had him in custody. He was giving me a shit load of grief.’

  ‘You smacked him.’

  ‘That’s what he’s saying.’

  ‘Filed a complaint?’

  ‘In the process. His solicitor wants to take it all the way.’

  ‘Your word against his?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘The rubber-heels will kick it out.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Or get Siobhan to cover your arse.’

  ‘She’s on holiday. My partner for the interview was Glamis.’