10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Somebody went for a dip with their clothes on.’

  The constable followed Rebus down to the jetty. There were cruise boats moored there, and a couple of tourist-types who looked like they’d come for a trip on one of them. The rain had started again, pockmarking the surface of the canal. The ducks were keeping their distance. A body had been hauled out of the water, clothes sodden, and laid on the wooden slats that constituted the jetty. A man who looked like a doctor was checking for signs of life, no real hope in his face. The back door to the restaurant was open, staff members standing there, faces interested but full of horror.

  The doctor shook his head. One of the tourists, a woman, began to cry. Her companion, a man, cradled his video camera and put an arm around her.

  ‘He must’ve slipped and fallen in,’ someone said, ‘banged his head.’

  The doctor checked the corpse’s head, found a clean gash.

  Rebus looked up towards the staff. ‘Anyone see anything?’ Headshakes. ‘Who reported it?’

  ‘I did.’ The woman tourist, English accent.

  Rebus turned to the doctor. ‘How long has he been in the water?’

  ‘I’m just a GP, not an expert. All the same, if you want a guess . . . not long. Certainly not overnight.’ Something had rolled out of the drowned man’s jacket pocket and wedged between two of the slats. A small brown bottle with white plastic top. Prescription pills. Rebus looked at the bloated face, fixed it to a much younger man, a man he’d interviewed in 1978 about his connection to Lenny Spaven.

  ‘He’s a local,’ Rebus told the company. ‘His name’s Fergus McLure.’

  He tried phoning Gill Templer, couldn’t track her down, ended up leaving messages for her in half a dozen different places. Back home, he polished his shoes and changed into his best suit, picked out the shirt with the fewest creases, and found the most sober tie he had (excepting his funeral one).

  He looked at himself in the mirror. He’d showered and shaved, dried his hair and combed it. The knot in his tie looked OK, and for once he’d found a matching pair of socks. He looked fine, felt anything but.

  It was half past one, time to go to Fettes.

  The traffic wasn’t too bad, the lights with him, like they didn’t want to hold up his appointment. He was early at L&B HQ thought of driving around, but knew it would only make him more nervous. Instead, he went inside, and sought out the Murder Room. It was on the second floor, a large central office space with smaller compartments off for the senior officers. This was the Edinburgh side of the triangle Johnny Bible had created, the heart of the Angie Riddell investigation. Rebus knew some of the faces on duty, smiled, nodded. The walls were covered with maps, photographs, charts – an attempt at order. So much of police work was putting things in some kind of order: fixing chronology, getting the details right, tidying up after the mess of people’s lives as well as their deaths.

  Most of the people on duty this afternoon looked tired, lacking enthusiasm. They were waiting by telephones, waiting for the elusive tip-off, the missing link, a name or a sighting, waiting for the man . . . They’d been waiting a long time. Someone had mocked up a photofit of Johnny Bible: horns curling from the head, wisps of smoke from the flared nostrils, fangs and a serpent’s forked tongue.

  The Bogeyman.

  Rebus looked closer. The photofit had been done on computer. The starting-point had been an old photofit of Bible John. With the horns and fangs, he bore a vague likeness to Alister Flower . . .

  He examined the photographs of Angie Riddell in life, kept his eyes away from her autopsy pics. He remembered her the night he’d arrested her, remembered her sitting in his car talking, almost too full of life. Her hair seemed to be dyed a different colour in almost every picture, like she was never quite happy with herself. Maybe she’d just needed to keep changing, running from the person she’d been, laughing to stop herself crying. Circus clown, painted smile . . .

  Rebus checked his watch. Fuck it: it was time.

  9

  There was just the CC Rider himself, Colin Carswell, waiting for Rebus in the comfortable and carpeted office.

  ‘Take a seat, won’t you?’ Carswell had half-risen to welcome Rebus, now sat down again. Rebus sat opposite him, studying the desktop, looking for clues. The Yorkshireman was tall, with a body that sagged towards a beer drinker’s gut. His hair was brown, thinning, his nose small, almost flat like a pug’s. He sniffed. ‘Sorry, can’t oblige with your request for biscuits, but there’s tea or coffee if you want it.’

  Rebus remembered the phone call: Will there be tea and biccies? I’m not coming otherwise. The remark had been passed along.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks, sir.’

  Carswell opened a folder, picked something up, a newspaper clipping. ‘Damned shame about Lawson Geddes. I hear he was an exceptional officer in his day.’

  The story concerned Geddes’ suicide.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Rebus said.

  ‘They say it’s a coward’s way out, but I know I wouldn’t have the guts.’ He looked up. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I hope I never have to find out, sir.’

  Carswell smiled, put the cutting back, closed the folder. ‘John, we’re getting flak from the media. At first it was just that TV crew, but now everyone seems to want to join the circus.’ He stared at Rebus. ‘Not good.’

  ‘No sir.’

  ‘So we’ve decided – the Chief Constable and myself – that we should make an effort.’

  Rebus swallowed. ‘You’re reopening the Spaven case?’

  Carswell brushed invisible dust off the folder. ‘Not straight away. There’s no new evidence, therefore no real need to.’ He looked up quickly. ‘Unless you know some reason why we should?’

  ‘It was cut and dried, sir.’

  ‘Try telling the media that.’

  ‘I have, believe me.’

  ‘We’re going to open an internal inquiry, just to satisfy ourselves that nothing was overlooked or . . . untoward . . . at the time.’

  ‘Putting me under suspicion.’ Rebus could feel his hackles rising.

  ‘Only if you’ve got something to hide.’

  ‘Come on, sir, you reopen an investigation, everyone begins to look dirty. And with Spaven and Lawson Geddes dead, I’m left carrying the can.’

  ‘Only if there’s a can to carry.’

  Rebus leapt to his feet.

  ‘Sit down, Inspector, I’ve not finished with you yet!’

  Rebus sat down, made his hands grip the sides of the chair. He felt if he let go, he might fly clean through the ceiling. Carswell was taking a second to regain his own composure.

  ‘Now, to keep things objective, the inquiry will be headed by someone from outside Lothian and Borders, reporting directly to me. They’ll go through the original files . . .’

  Warn Holmes.

  ‘. . . do any follow-up interviews deemed necessary, and compile their report.’

  ‘Is this going to be made public?’

  ‘Not until I have the finished report. It can’t look like a whitewash, that’s all I’ll say. If any breach of the rules has taken place anywhere down the line, it’ll be dealt with. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Now, is there anything you’d like to tell me?’

  ‘Just between us, or do you want to bring the strongarm in?’

  Carswell allowed this as a joke. ‘I’m not sure you could call him that.’

  Him.

  ‘Who’s in charge, sir?’

  ‘An officer from Strathclyde, DCI Charles Ancram.’

  Oh dear Jesus fucking Christ. His goodbye to Ancram: an accusation of graft. And Ancram had known, all that day he’d known this was coming, the way he’d smiled, like he had secrets, the way he’d studied Rebus, like they might well become adversaries.

  ‘Sir, there may be some bad blood between CI Ancram and myself.’

  Carswell stared at him. ‘Care to eluc
idate?’

  ‘No, sir, with respect.’

  ‘Well, I suppose I could get Chief Inspector Flower instead. He’s the bee’s knees just now, nabbing that MP’s son for cannabis growing . . .’

  Rebus swallowed. ‘I’d prefer CI Ancram, sir.’

  Carswell glowered. ‘It’s not your bloody decision, is it, Inspector?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Carswell sighed. ‘Ancram’s already been briefed. Let’s stick with him . . . if that’s all right with you?’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ How did I get here, Rebus thought: thanking the man for putting Ancram on my tail . . . ‘Can I go now, sir?’

  ‘No.’ Carswell was looking in the folder again, while Rebus tried to get his heart-rate down. Carswell read a note, spoke without looking up.

  ‘What were you doing in Ratho this morning?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘A body was hauled out of the canal. I’ve had word you were there. Not exactly Craigmillar, is it?’

  ‘I was just in the area.’

  ‘Apparently you ID’d the body?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You’re a handy man to have around.’ Heavy with irony. ‘How did you know him?’

  Blurt it out or clam up? Neither. Dissemble. ‘I recognised him as one of our snitches, sir.’

  Carswell looked up. ‘Whose in particular?’

  ‘DI Flower’s.’

  ‘Were you looking to poach him?’ Rebus kept his mouth shut, letting Carswell draw his own conclusions. ‘On the very morning he took a tumble into the canal . . . strange coincidence?’

  Rebus shrugged. ‘These things happen, sir.’ He fixed his eyes on Carswell’s. They stared one another out.

  ‘Dismissed, Inspector,’ Carswell said.

  Rebus didn’t blink until he was back in the corridor.

  He phoned St Leonard’s from Fettes, his hand shaking. But Gill wasn’t there, and nobody seemed to know where she was. Rebus asked the switchboard to page her, then asked to be put through to CID. Siobhan answered.

  ‘Is Brian there?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him for a couple of hours. Are you two cooking something up?’

  ‘The only thing cooking around here is my fucking goose. When you see him, tell him to call. And pass the same message along to Gill Templer.’

  He broke the connection before she could say anything. Probably she’d have offered to help, and the one thing Rebus didn’t want right now was anyone else involved. Lying to protect himself . . . lying to protect Gill Templer . . . Gill . . . he had questions for her, urgent questions. He tried her home number, left a message on the answering machine, then tried Holmes’s home number: another machine, same message. Call me.

  Wait. Think.

  He’d asked Holmes to read up on the Spaven case, and that meant going through the files. When Great London Road police station had been burnt to the ground, a lot of files had gone up with it, but not the older stuff, because by then the older files had been shipped out to make space. They were stored with all the other ancient cases, all the clanking old skeletons, in a warehouse near Granton Harbour. Rebus had guessed Holmes would sign them out, but maybe not . . .

  It was a ten-minute drive from Fettes to the warehouse. Rebus did it in seven. He allowed himself a grin when he saw Holmes’s car in the car park. Rebus walked over to the main door, pulled it open, and was in a vast, dark, echoing space. Regimented rows of green metal shelves ran the length of the warehouse, filled with heavy-duty cardboard boxes, inside which lay the mouldering history of the Lothian and Borders force – and the City of Edinburgh force until its demise – from the 1950s to the 1970s. Documents were still arriving: tea-chests with labels hanging from them sat waiting to be unpacked, and it looked like a changeover was taking place – lidded plastic boxes replacing heavy-duty board. A small elderly man, very trim, with a black moustache and jam-jar glasses, was marching towards Rebus.

  ‘Yes, can I help you?’

  The man defined ‘clerical’. When he wasn’t looking at the floor, he was staring off somewhere past Rebus’s right ear. He wore a grey nylon overall over a white shirt with frayed collar and green tweed tie. Pens and pencils protruded from his top pocket.

  Rebus showed his warrant card. ‘I’m looking for a colleague, DS Holmes, I think he may be looking through some old casenotes.’

  The man was studying the warrant card. He walked over to a clipboard and wrote down Rebus’s name and rank, plus date and time of arrival.

  ‘Is that necessary?’ Rebus asked.

  The man looked like he’d never in his life been asked such a thing. ‘Paperwork,’ he snapped, looking around at the warehouse’s contents. ‘It’s all necessary, or I wouldn’t be here.’

  And he smiled, the overhead lighting glinting from his lenses. ‘This way.’

  He led Rebus down an alleyway of boxes, then took a right turn and finally, after a moment’s hesitation, a left. They came into a clearing, where Brian Holmes sat at what looked like an old school desk, inkwell intact. There was no chair, so he was using an upturned box. His elbows rested on the desk, head in hands. There was a lamp on the desk, bathing the scene in light. The clerk coughed.

  ‘Someone to see you.’

  Holmes turned, stood up when he saw who it was. Rebus turned quickly to the clerk.

  ‘Thanks for your help.’

  ‘No trouble. I don’t get many visitors.’

  The little man shuffled away, footsteps receding into the distance.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Holmes said. ‘I’ve laid a trail of breadcrumbs so we can find our way back.’ He looked around. ‘Isn’t this the creepiest place you’ve ever been?’

  ‘It’s straight into the top five. Listen, Brian, there’s a problem.’ He held up his right hand. ‘Fan.’ Then his left. ‘Shit.’ He clapped both hands together. The sound reverberated through the warehouse.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘The CC Rider’s opening an inquiry into the Spaven case, prior to reopening the case itself. And he’s managed to put in charge someone I recently rubbed up the wrong way.’

  ‘Silly you.’

  ‘Silly me. So no doubt they’ll be down here some day soon to lift the casenotes. And I don’t want them lifting you.’

  Holmes looked at the bulging files, the faded black ink on each cover. ‘The files could get lost, couldn’t they?’

  ‘They could. Two problems. One, that would look highly suspicious. Two, I’m assuming Mr Clipboard knows which files you’ve been consulting.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Holmes conceded. ‘And it went down on his sheet.’

  ‘Along with your name.’

  ‘We could try slipping him some cash.’

  ‘He doesn’t look the type. He’s not in this for money, is he?’

  Holmes looked thoughtful. He also looked terrible: unevenly shaven, his hair uncombed and needing a trim. The bags under his eyes could have carried half a hundredweight of coal.

  ‘Look,’ he said at last, ‘I’m halfway through . . . more than halfway. If I burn the candle tonight, maybe speed up my reading, I could have it finished by tomorrow.’

  Rebus nodded slowly. ‘What do you think so far?’ He was almost scared to touch the files, to flip through them. It wasn’t history, it was archaeology.

  ‘I think your typing hasn’t improved. Straight answer: there’s something dodgy going on, that much I can read between the lines. I can see exactly where you’re covering up, rewriting the true story to fit your version. You weren’t quite so subtle in those days. Geddes’ version reads better, more confident. He glosses over stuff, he’s not afraid to understate. What I’d like to know is, what was the story with him and Spaven in the first place? I know you told me they served together in Burma or somewhere; how did they come to fall out? See, if we knew that, we’d know how valid the chip on Geddes’ shoulder was, and maybe how far it would take him.’

  Rebus clapped his hands again, this time in muffled applause.


  ‘That’s good going.’

  ‘So give me another day, see what else I come up with. John, I want to do this for you.’

  ‘And if they catch you?’

  ‘I’ll talk my way out, don’t worry.’

  Rebus’s pager sounded. He looked to Holmes.

  ‘Sooner you go,’ Holmes said, ‘sooner I can get back to it.’

  Rebus patted him on the shoulder and headed back along the stacks. Brian Holmes: friend. Difficult to equate with the person who had roughed up Mental Minto. Schizophrenia, the policeman’s ally: a dual personality came in handy . . .

  He asked the clerk if he could use a telephone. There was one on the wall. He called in.

  ‘DI Rebus.’

  ‘Yes, Inspector, apparently you’ve been trying to reach DCI Templer.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I have a location for her. She’s in Ratho, at some restaurant.’

  Rebus slammed down the phone, cursing himself for not thinking of it sooner.

  The wooden walkway where McLure’s body had lain had been blown dry by the wind, leaving nothing to indicate that a death had occurred so recently. The ducks were skimming the water; one of the boats had just left with half a dozen passengers; diners in the restaurant chewed on their food and stared out at the two figures on the canal bank.

  ‘I was in meetings half the day,’ Gill said. ‘I didn’t hear about it until an hour ago. What happened?’

  She had her hands deep in coat pockets, the coat a cream Burberry. She looked sad.

  ‘Ask the pathologist. There was a cut on McLure’s head, but that doesn’t tell us a lot. He could have hit it when he slipped.’

  ‘Or he could have been whacked and pushed in.’

  ‘Or he could have jumped.’ Rebus shivered; the death reminded him of the Mitchison options. ‘My guess is, all the autopsy will tell us is whether he was alive when he hit the water. Right now I’ll tell you he was probably alive, which still doesn’t answer the question: accident, suicide, or a whack and a push?’ He watched Gill turn away, begin to walk the towpath. He caught up with her. It was starting to rain again, small drops, sparse. He watched them land on her coat, darkening it by degrees.