10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

‘So I needn’t have brought a razor?’

  The big man snorted. ‘What takes you to Sullom Voe?’

  ‘A suspicious death.’

  ‘On Shetland?’

  ‘In Edinburgh.’

  ‘How suspicious?’

  ‘Maybe not very, but we have to check.’

  ‘I know all about that. It’s like at the terminal, we run hundreds of checks every day, whether they’re needed or not. The LPG chilldown area, we had a suspected problem there, and I stress suspected. I’ll tell you, we had more men on standby than God knows what. See, it’s not that far from the crude oil storage.’

  Rebus nodded, not sure what the man was getting at. He seemed to be drifting off again. Time to reel him in.

  ‘The man who died worked for a while at Sullom Voe. Allan Mitchison.’

  ‘Mitchison?’

  ‘He might’ve been on maintenance. I think that was his speciality.’

  Sheepskin shook his head. ‘Name doesn’t . . . no.’

  ‘What about Jake Harley? He works at Sullom Voe.’

  ‘Oh aye, I’ve come across him. Don’t much like him, but I know the face.’

  ‘Why don’t you like him?’

  ‘He’s one of those Green bastards. You know, ecology.’ He almost spat the word. ‘What the fuck’s ecology ever done for us?’

  ‘So you know him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Jake Harley?’

  ‘I said so, didn’t I?’

  ‘He’s off on some walking holiday.’

  ‘On Shetland?’ Rebus nodded. ‘Aye, sounds about right. He’s always on about archaeology and whatsit, bird-watching. The only birds I’d spend all day watching don’t have fucking feathers on them, let me tell you.’

  Rebus to himself: I thought I was bad, but this guy redefines all the terms.

  ‘So he’s off walking and bird-watching: any idea where he’d go?’

  ‘The usual places. There are a few bird-watchers at the terminal. It’s like pollution control. We know we’re doing all right as long as the birds don’t suddenly start turning up their toes. Like with the Negrita.’ He almost bit off the end of the word, swallowed hard. ‘Thing is, the wind’s so fierce, and the currents are fierce too. So you get dispersal, like with the Braer. Somebody told me Shetland has a complete change of air every quarter hour. Perfect dispersal conditions. And fuck it, they’re only birds. What are they good for, when it comes down to it?’

  He rested his head against the window.

  ‘When we get to the terminal, I’ll get a map for you, mark some of the places he might go . . .’ Seconds later, his eyes were closed. Rebus got up and went to the back of the cabin, where the toilet was. As he passed Major Weir, who was seated in the very back row, he saw he was deep in the Financial Times. The toilet was no smaller than a child’s coffin. If Rebus had been any wider, they’d have had to starve him out. He flushed, thinking of his urine splashing into the North Sea – as far as pollution went, a mere drop in the ocean – and tugged open the accordion doors. He slid into the seat across the aisle from the Major. The stewardess had been sitting there, but he could see her up front in the cockpit.

  ‘Any chance of a keek at the racing results?’

  Major Weir lifted his eyes from the newsprint, swivelled his head to take in this strange new creature. The whole process couldn’t have taken longer than half a minute. He didn’t say anything.

  ‘We met yesterday,’ Rebus told him. ‘My name’s Detective Inspector Rebus. I know you don’t say much . . .’ he patted his jacket . . . ‘I’ve a notepad in my pocket if you need one.’

  ‘In your spare time, Inspector, are you some sort of comedian?’ The voice was a cultured drawl; urbane just about summed it up. But it was also dry, a little rusty.

  ‘Can I ask you something, Major? Why did you name your oilfield after an oatcake?’

  Weir’s face reddened with sudden rage. ‘It’s short for Bannockburn!’

  Rebus nodded. ‘Did we win that one?’

  ‘Don’t you know your history, laddie?’ Rebus shrugged. ‘I swear, sometimes I despair. You’re a Scot.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So your past is important! You need to know it so you can learn.’

  ‘Learn what, sir?’

  Weir sighed. ‘To borrow a phrase from a poet – a Scots poet, he was talking about words – that we Scots are “creatures tamed by cruelty”. Do you see?’

  ‘I think I’m having trouble focusing.’

  Weir frowned. ‘Do you drink?’

  ‘Teetotal is my middle name.’ The Major grunted his satisfaction. ‘Trouble is,’ Rebus went on, ‘my first name’s Not-at-all.’

  He got it eventually and grudged a frowning smile, the first time Rebus had seen the trick.

  ‘The thing is, sir, I’m up here —’

  ‘I know why you’re up here, Inspector. When I saw you yesterday, I had Hayden Fletcher find out who you were.’

  ‘Can I ask why?’

  ‘Because you stared back at me in the elevator. I’m not used to that sort of behaviour. It meant you didn’t work for me, and since you were with my personnel manager . . .’

  ‘You thought I was after a job?’

  ‘I meant to see to it you didn’t get one.’

  ‘I’m flattered.’

  The Major looked at him again. ‘So why is my company flying you to Sullom Voe?’

  ‘I want to talk to a friend of Mitchison’s.’

  ‘Allan Mitchison.’

  ‘You knew him?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I had Minchell report to me yesterday evening. I like to know everything that’s going on in my company. I have a question for you.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Could Mr Mitchison’s death have anything to do with T-Bird Oil?’

  ‘At the moment . . . I don’t think so.’

  Major Weir nodded, lifted his newspaper to eye level. The interview was over.

  16

  Welcome to the Mainland,’ Rebus’s guide said, meeting him on the tarmac.

  Major Weir had already been installed in a Range Rover and was speeding from the airfield. A row of helicopters stood in repose nearby. The wind was . . . well, the wind was serious. It was flapping the helicopters’ rotor blades, and it was singing in Rebus’s ears. The Edinburgh wind was a pro; sometimes you walked out your front door and it was like being punched in the face. But the Shetland wind . . . it wanted to pick you up and shake you.

  The descent had been rocky, but before that he’d had his first sighting of Shetland proper. ‘Miles and miles of bugger all’ didn’t do it justice. Hardly any trees, plenty of sheep. And spectacular barren coastline with white breakers crashing into it. He wondered if erosion was a problem. The islands weren’t exactly large. They’d crossed to the east of Lerwick, then passed some dormitory towns, which, according to Sheepskin’s commentary, had been mere hamlets in the 1970s. He’d woken up by then, and had come armed with a few more facts and fancies.

  ‘Know what we did? The oil industry, I mean? We kept Maggie Thatcher in power. Oil revenue paid for all those tax cuts. Oil revenue paid for the Falklands War. Oil was pumping through the veins of her whole fucking reign, and she never thanked us once. Not once, the bitch.’ He laughed. ‘You can’t help liking her.’

  ‘Apparently there are pills you can take.’ But Sheepskin wasn’t listening.

  ‘You can’t separate oil and politics. The sanctions against Iraq, whole point was to stop him flooding the market with cheap oil.’ He paused. ‘Norway, the bastards.’

  Rebus felt he’d missed something. ‘Norway?’

  ‘They’ve got oil, too, only they’ve banked the money, used it to kickstart other industries. Maggie used it to pay for a war and a bloody election . . .’

  As they swung out to sea past Lerwick, Sheepskin had pointed out some boats – bloody big boats.

  ‘Klondikers,’ he said. ‘Factory ships. They’re busy processing fish. Probably doin
g more environmental damage than the whole North Sea oil industry. But the locals just let them get on with it, they don’t give a bugger. Fishing’s a heritage thing with them . . . not like oil. Aah, fuck the lot of them.’

  Rebus still hadn’t learned the man’s name when they parted on the runway. There was someone waiting for Rebus, a slight grinning man with too many teeth in his head. And he said, ‘Welcome to the Mainland.’ Then explained what he meant in the car, during the short trip to the Sullom Voe terminal. ‘That’s what Shetlanders call the main island: Mainland, as opposed to mainland with a small m, which means . . . well, the mainland.’ A snort for a laugh. He had to wipe his nose on the sleeve of his jacket. He drove the way a kid would when seated in its father’s car: bent forward, hands overly busy on the steering-wheel.

  His name was Walter Rowbotham, and he was a new recruit to the Sullom Voe Public Relations Department.

  ‘I’d be happy to show you around, Inspector,’ he said, still grinning, trying too hard to please.

  ‘Maybe if there’s time,’ Rebus conceded.

  ‘My pleasure entirely. You know, of course, that the terminal cost one thousand three hundred million just to construct. That’s pounds, not dollars.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  Rowbotham’s face practically lit up, encouraged now. ‘The first oil flowed into Sullom Voe in 1978. It is a major employer and has helped contribute greatly to Shetland’s low unemployment rate, currently around four per cent or half the Scottish average.’

  ‘Tell me something, Mr Rowbotham.’

  ‘Walter, please. Or Walt if you like.’

  ‘Walt.’ Rebus smiled. ‘Had any more trouble with the LPG chilldown?’

  Rowbotham’s face turned pickled baby beet. Jesus, Rebus thought, the media were going to love him . . .

  They ended up driving through half the installation to get to where Rebus wanted to be, so he heard most of the tour narration anyway and learned more than he hoped he’d ever have to know about debutanising, de-ethanising and depropanising, not to mention surge tanks and integrity meters. Wouldn’t it be great, he thought, if you could fit integrity meters to human beings?

  At the main administration building they’d been told that Jake Harley worked in the process control room, and that his colleagues were waiting there and knew a police officer was coming to talk to them. They passed the incoming crude lines, the pigging station, and the final holding basin, and at one point Walt thought they were lost, but he had a little orientation map with him.

  Just as well: Sullom Voe was huge. It had taken seven years to build, breaking all sorts of records in the process (and Walt knew every one of them), and Rebus had to admit that it was an impressive monster. He’d been past Grangemouth and Mossmorran dozens of times, but they just weren’t in the picture. And if you looked out past the crude oil tanks and the unloading jetties, you saw water – the Voe itself to the south; then Gluss Isle over to the west, doing a good impression of unspoilt wilderness. It was like a sci-fi city transported to prehistory.

  For all of which, the process control room was about as peaceful a place as Rebus had ever been. Two men and a woman sat behind computer consoles in the centre of the room, while the walls were taken up with electronic charts, softly flashing lights indicating the oil and gas flows. The only sounds were those of fingers on keyboards, and the occasional muted conversation. Walt had decided that it was his job to introduce Rebus. The atmosphere had quieted him, as if he’d walked into the middle of a church service. He went to the central console and spoke in an undertone to the trinity seated there.

  The elder of the two men stood up and came to shake Rebus’s hand.

  ‘Inspector, my name’s Milne. How can we help?’

  ‘Mr Milne, I really wanted to speak to Jake Harley. But since he’s made himself scarce, I thought maybe you could tell me a little about him. Specifically, about his friendship with Allan Mitchison.’

  Milne wore a check shirt, its sleeves rolled up. He scratched at one arm while Rebus spoke. He was in his thirties, with tousled red hair and a face pitted from teenage acne. He nodded, half-turning to his two colleagues, assuming the role of spokesman.

  ‘Well, we all work beside Jake, so we can tell you about him. Personally, I didn’t know Allan very well, though Jake introduced us.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met him,’ the woman said.

  ‘I met him once,’ the other man added.

  ‘Allan only worked here for two or three months,’ Milne went on. ‘I know he struck up a friendship with Jake.’ He shrugged. ‘Really, that’s about it.’

  ‘If they were friends, they must have had something in common. Was it bird-watching?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Green issues,’ the woman said.

  ‘That’s true,’ Milne said, nodding. ‘Of course, in a place like this, we always end up talking about ecology sooner or later – sensitive subject.’

  ‘Is it a big thing with Jake?’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’ Milne looked to his colleagues for support. They shook their heads. Rebus realised that nobody was talking much above a whisper.

  ‘Jake works right here?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s right. We alternate shifts.’

  ‘So sometimes you’re working together . . .’

  ‘And sometimes we’re not.’

  Rebus nodded. He was learning nothing; wasn’t sure he’d ever actually thought he would learn anything. So Mitchison had been into ecology – big deal. But it was pleasant here, relaxing. Edinburgh and all his troubles were a long way away, and felt it.

  ‘This looks like a cushy job,’ he said. ‘Can anyone apply?’

  Milne smiled. ‘You’ll have to hurry, who knows how long the oil will last?’

  ‘A while yet surely?’

  Milne shrugged. ‘It’s down to the economics of retrieval. Companies are beginning to look west – Atlantic oil. And oil from west of Shetland is being landed at Flotta.’

  ‘On Orkney,’ the woman explained.

  ‘They won the contract from us,’ Milne went on. ‘Five or ten years from now, the profit margin may be bigger out there.’

  ‘And they’ll mothball the North Sea?’

  All three nodded, like a single beast.

  ‘Have you talked to Briony?’ the woman asked suddenly.

  ‘Who’s Briony?’

  ‘Jake’s . . . I don’t know, she’s not his wife, is she?’ She looked to Milne.

  ‘Just a girlfriend, I think.’

  ‘Where does she live?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘Jake and her share a house,’ Milne said. ‘In Brae. She works at the swimming pool.’

  Rebus turned to Walt. ‘How far is it?’

  ‘Six or seven miles.’

  ‘Take me.’

  They tried the baths first, but she wasn’t on shift, so they tracked down her house. Brae looked to be suffering a crisis of identity, like it had suddenly plopped into being and didn’t know what to make of itself. The houses were new but anonymous; there was obviously money around, but it couldn’t buy everything. It couldn’t turn Brae back into the village it had been in the days before Sullom Voe.

  They found the house. Rebus told Walt to wait in the car. A woman in her early twenties answered his knock. She was wearing jogging bottoms and a white singlet, her feet bare.

  ‘Briony?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sorry, I don’t know your last name. Can I come in?’

  ‘No. Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Detective Inspector John Rebus.’ Rebus showed his warrant card. ‘I’m here about Allan Mitchison.’

  ‘Mitch? What about him?’

  There were a lot of answers to that question. Rebus picked one. ‘He’s dead.’ Then he watched the colour drain from her face. She clung on to the door as if for support, but she still wasn’t letting him in.

  ‘Would you like to sit down?’ Rebus hinted.

  ‘Wha
t happened to him?’

  ‘We’re not sure, that’s why I want to talk to Jake.’

  ‘You’re not sure?’

  ‘Could be an accident. I’m trying to fill in some background.’

  ‘Jake isn’t here.’

  ‘I know, I’ve been trying to reach him.’

  ‘Somebody from personnel keeps phoning.’

  ‘On my behalf.’

  She nodded slowly. ‘Well, he’s still not here.’ She hadn’t taken her hand off the jamb.

  ‘Can I get a message to him?’

  ‘I don’t know where he is.’ As she spoke, the colour started to return to her cheeks. ‘Poor Mitch.’

  ‘You’ve no idea where Jake is?’

  ‘He sometimes goes off on a walk. He doesn’t know himself where he’ll end up.’

  ‘He doesn’t phone you?’

  ‘He needs his space. So do I, but I find mine when I swim. Jake walks.’

  ‘He’s due back tomorrow though, or the day after?’

  She shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

  Rebus reached into a pocket, wrote on a page of his notebook, tore it out. He held it out to her. ‘It has a couple of phone numbers. Will you tell him to call me?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She was staring dully at the piece of paper, her eyes just short of tears. ‘Briony, is there anything you can tell me about Mitch? Anything that might help?’

  She looked up from the card to him.

  ‘No,’ she said. Then, slowly, she closed the door on his face. In that final glimpse of her before the door separated them, Rebus had found her eyes, and seen something there. Not just bewilderment or grief.

  Something more like fear. And behind it, a degree of calculation.

  It struck him that he was hungry, and gasping for coffee. So they ate in the Sullom Voe canteen. It was a clean white space with potted plants and no smoking signs. Walt was rattling on about how Shetland remained more Norse than Scots; nearly all the place names were Norwegian. To Rebus, it was like the edge of the world, and he liked that. He told Walt about the man on the plane, the one in sheepskin.

  ‘Oh, that sounds like Mike Sutcliffe.’

  Rebus asked to be taken to him.

  Mike Sutcliffe had changed out of his sheepskin and was dressed in crisp work clothes. They finally found him in heated conversation beside the ballast water tanks. Two underlings were listening to him complain that they could be replaced by gibbons and nobody would notice. He pointed up at the tanks, then out towards the jetties. There was a tanker moored at one of them, it couldn’t have been any bigger than half a dozen football pitches. Sutcliffe saw Rebus and lost the thread of his argument. He dismissed the workers and began to move away, only he had to get past Rebus first.