10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Well, you’ve been taking a great interest in the Johnny Bible case, haven’t you?’

  ‘I’ve been involved tangentially, sir.’

  ‘Oh, tangentially?’ Grogan came back into view, showing yellow teeth that looked like they’d been filed short. ‘Well, that’s one way of putting it. DS Lumsden says you seemed very interested in the Aberdeen side of the case, kept asking him questions.’

  ‘With respect, that’s DS Lumsden’s interpretation.’

  ‘And what’s yours?’ Leaning over the desk, fists resting on it. Getting in close. Objective: cow the suspect, show him who’s boss.

  ‘Mind if I smoke?’

  ‘Answer the question!’

  ‘Stop treating me like a fucking suspect!’

  Rebus regretted the outburst immediately – sign of weakness, sign he was rattled. In army training, he’d survived days on end of interrogation techniques. Yes, but back then his head had been emptier; there’d been less to feel guilty about.

  ‘But, Inspector,’ Grogan sounding hurt by the flare-up, ‘that’s precisely what you are.’

  Rebus grabbed at the edge of the table, feeling its rough metal edge. He tried to stand, but his legs failed him. He probably looked like he was crapping himself, forced his hands to release the table.

  ‘Yesterday evening,’ Grogan said coolly, ‘a woman’s body was found in a crate on the dockside. Pathologist reckons she was killed some time the previous night. Strangled. Raped. One of her shoes is missing.’

  Rebus was shaking his head. Sweet Jesus, he was thinking, not another one.

  ‘There’s no sign that she fought back, no skin beneath the fingernails, but she could have lashed out with her fists. She had the look of a strong woman, tenacious.’

  Involuntarily, Rebus touched the bruise on his temple.

  ‘You were down near the docks, Inspector, and in a foul mood according to DS Lumsden.’

  Rebus was on his feet. ‘He’s trying to stitch me up!’ Attack, they said, was the best form of defence. Not necessarily true, but if Lumsden wanted to play dirty, Rebus would give as good as he got.

  ‘Sit down, Inspector.’

  ‘He’s trying to protect his fucking clients! How much do you take a week, Lumsden? How much do they slip you?’

  ‘I said sit down!’

  ‘Sod you,’ said Rebus. It was like a boil had burst; he couldn’t halt the outpour. ‘You’re trying to tell me I’m Johnny Bible! I’m nearer Bible John’s age, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘You were at the docks around the time she was murdered. You arrived back at your hotel cut and bruised, your clothes a mess.’

  ‘This is bullshit! I don’t have to listen to this!’

  ‘Yes you do.’

  ‘Charge me then.’

  ‘We’ve a few more questions, Inspector. This can be as painless as you like, or it can be absolute bastarding agony. You choose, but before you do that – sit down!’

  Rebus stood there. His mouth was open, and he wiped saliva from his chin. He looked over at Lumsden, who was still seated, albeit tensed, ready to jump if words became deeds. Rebus wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. He sat down.

  Grogan took a deep breath. The air in the room – what was left of it – was beginning to smell bad. It wasn’t even half past seven.

  ‘Bovril and oranges at half time?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘That might be a long way off.’ Grogan walked to the door, opened it and stuck his head out. Then he held the door wide open so someone outside could come in.

  Chief Inspector Chick Ancram.

  ‘Saw you on the news, John. Not exactly telegenic, are you?’ Ancram slipped off his jacket and placed it carefully over the back of a chair. He looked like he was about to enjoy himself. ‘You weren’t wearing your hard hat, mightn’t have recognised you otherwise.’ Grogan walked over to where Lumsden was sitting, like a tag-team wrestler leaving the ring. Ancram started rolling up his sleeves.

  ‘Going to be a hot one, John, eh?’

  ‘A scorcher,’ Rebus muttered. Now he knew why CID liked dawn raids: he felt exhausted already. Exhaustion played tricks with your mind; it made you make mistakes. ‘Any chance of a coffee?’

  Ancram looked to Grogan. ‘I don’t see why not. How about you, Ted?’

  ‘I could do with a cup myself.’ He turned to Lumsden. ‘On you go, son.’

  ‘Fucking message-boy,’ Rebus couldn’t help saying.

  Lumsden sprang to his feet, but Grogan had a restraining hand out.

  ‘Easy, son, just go get those coffees, eh?’

  ‘And DS Lumsden?’ Ancram called. ‘Make sure Inspector Rebus gets decaf, we don’t want him getting all jumpy.’

  ‘Any jumpier and I’d be a kangaroo. Lumsden? I like hundred per cent decaf, no pissing or howking into it, OK?’

  Lumsden left the room in silence.

  ‘Now then.’ Ancram sat down across from Rebus. ‘You’re a hard man to catch.’

  ‘You’ve gone to a lot of trouble.’

  ‘I think you’re worth it, don’t you? Tell me something about Johnny Bible.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Anything. His methods, background, profile.’

  ‘That could take all day.’

  ‘We’ve got all day.’

  ‘Maybe you have, but my room’s got to be vacated by eleven, or else it’s another day’s rate.’

  ‘Your room’s already empty,’ Grogan said. ‘Your stuff’s in my office.’

  ‘Inadmissible as evidence: you should have had a search warrant.’

  Ancram shared a laugh with Grogan. Rebus knew why they were laughing, he’d’ve been doing it too if he’d been where they were. But he wasn’t. He was where a lot of men and women, some of them barely adult, had been before him. Same chair, same sweaty room, same set-up. Hundreds and thousands of them, suspects. In the eyes of the law, innocent until proven guilty. In the eyes of the interrogator, the other way round. Sometimes to prove to yourself that a suspect was innocent you had to break them. Sometimes you had to go that far before you were sure in your mind. Rebus didn’t know how many sessions like this he’d sat in on . . . hundreds, certainly. He’d broken maybe a dozen suspects only to find they were innocent. He knew where he was, knew why he was there, but that didn’t make it any easier.

  ‘I’ll tell you something about Johnny Bible,’ Ancram said. ‘His profile can fit several professions, and one of those is serving or retired police officer, someone who knows our methods and is careful not to leave trace evidence.’

  ‘We’ve a physical description of him. I’m too old.’

  Ancram screwed up his face. ‘IDs, John, we all know their failings.’

  ‘I’m not Johnny Bible.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean you’re not a copycat. Mind, we’re not saying you are. All we’re saying is, there are questions that have to be asked.’

  ‘So ask them.’

  ‘You came to Partick.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Ostensibly to talk to me about Uncle Joe Toal.’

  ‘Uncannily astute.’

  ‘Yet if memory serves, you ended up asking me a lot of questions about Johnny Bible. And you seemed to know a lot about the Bible John case.’ Ancram waited to see if Rebus had a smart comeback. None came. ‘While in Partick, you spent a lot of time in the room where the original Bible John files were being checked.’ Ancram paused again. ‘And now a TV reporter tells me you have cuttings and notes about Bible John and Johnny Bible stashed in your kitchen cupboards.’

  Bitch!

  ‘Now wait a minute,’ Rebus said.

  Ancram sat back. ‘I’m waiting.’

  ‘Everything you’ve said is true. I am interested in the two cases. Bible John . . . that takes a bit of explaining. And Johnny Bible . . . well, for one thing, I knew one of the victims.’

  Ancram sat forward. ‘Which one?’

  ‘Angie Riddell.’

  ‘In Edinburgh?’ Ancram and Grogan exchanged a lo
ok. Rebus knew what they were thinking: another connection.

  ‘I was part of the team that picked her up once. I saw her again after that.’

  ‘Saw her?’

  ‘Drove down to Leith, passed the time of day.’

  Grogan snorted. ‘There’s a euphemism I’ve not heard before.’

  ‘We talked, that’s all. I bought her a cup of tea and a bridie.’

  ‘And you didn’t tell anyone? Do you know how that looks?’

  ‘Another black mark against me. I’ve got so many, I could play Al Jolson on stage.’

  Ancram got up. He wanted to pace the room, but it wasn’t big enough. ‘This is bad,’ he said.

  ‘How can the truth be bad?’ But Rebus knew Ancram was right. He didn’t want to agree with Ancram about anything – that would be to fall into the interrogator’s trap: empathy – but he couldn’t make himself disagree on this one point. This was bad. His life was turning into a Kinks song: ‘Dead End Street’.

  ‘You’re up to your oxters, pal,’ Ancram said.

  ‘Thanks for reminding me.’

  Grogan lit a cigarette for himself, offered one to Rebus, who refused the ploy with a smile. He had his own if he wanted one.

  He wanted one – but not enough yet. Instead, he scratched at his palms, clawing his nails across them, a wake-up call to his nerve-endings. There was silence in the room for a minute or so. Ancram rested his backside against the table.

  ‘Christ, is he waiting for the coffee beans to grow or what?’

  Grogan shrugged. ‘Shift changeover, the canteen’ll be busy.’

  ‘You just can’t get the staff these days,’ Rebus said. Head down, Ancram smiled into his chest. Then he gave a sideways look at the seated figure.

  Here we go, thought Rebus: the sympathy routine. Maybe Ancram read his mind, changed his own accordingly.

  ‘Let’s talk a bit more about Bible John,’ he said.

  ‘Fine with me.’

  ‘I’ve started on the Spaven casenotes.’

  ‘Oh aye?’ Had he got to Brian Holmes?

  ‘Fascinating reading.’

  ‘We had a few publishers interested at the time.’

  No smile for that one. ‘I didn’t know,’ the inquisitor said quietly, ‘that Lawson Geddes worked on Bible John.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Or that he was kicked off the inquiry. Any idea why that was?’

  Rebus didn’t say anything. Ancram spotted the flaw in the armour, stood up and leaned over him.

  ‘You didn’t know?’

  ‘I knew he’d worked the case.’

  ‘But you didn’t know he’d been ordered off it. No, because he didn’t tell you. I found that particular nugget in the Bible John files. But no mention of why.’

  ‘Is this going anywhere other than up the garden path?’

  ‘Did he talk to you about Bible John?’

  ‘Maybe once or twice. He talked a lot about his old cases.’

  ‘I’m sure he did, the two of you were close. And from what I hear, Geddes liked to shoot his mouth off.’

  Rebus glared at him. ‘He was a good copper.’

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘Believe it.’

  ‘But even good coppers make mistakes, John. Even good coppers can cross the line once in their lives. Little birdies tell me you’ve crossed that line more than a few times yourself.’

  ‘Little birdies shouldn’t shit in their own nests.’

  Ancram shook his head. ‘Your past conduct isn’t an issue here.’ He straightened up and turned away, letting that remark sink in. He still had his back to Rebus when he spoke. ‘You know something? This media interest in the Spaven case, it coincided with the first Johnny Bible killing. Know what that might make people think?’ Now he turned round, held up a finger. ‘A copper obsessed with Bible John, remembering stories his old sparring partner told him about the case.’ Second finger. ‘The dirt on the Spaven case is about to be uncovered, years after said copper thought it was buried.’ Third finger. ‘Copper snaps. There’s been this time-bomb in his brain, and now it’s activated . . .’

  Rebus got to his feet. ‘You know it’s not true,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Convince me.’

  ‘I’m not sure I need to.’

  Ancram looked disappointed in him. ‘We’ll want to take samples – saliva, blood, prints.’

  ‘What for? Johnny Bible hasn’t left any clues.’

  ‘I also want a forensic lab to look at your clothes, and a team to give your flat the once-over. If you haven’t done anything, there should be nothing to object to.’ He waited for a reply, got none. The door opened. ‘About fucking time,’ he said.

  Lumsden bearing a tray swimming with spilled coffee.

  Break-time. Ancram and Grogan went into the corridor for a chat. Lumsden stood by the door, arms folded, thinking he was on guard duty, thinking Rebus wasn’t pumped-up enough to rip his head off.

  But Rebus just sat there drinking what was left of his coffee. It tasted disgusting, so probably was unleaded. He took out his cigarettes, lit one, inhaled like it might be his last. He held the cigarette vertical, wondered how something so small and brittle could have taken such a hold over him. Not so very different from this case . . . The cigarette wavered: his hands were shaking.

  ‘This is you,’ he told Lumsden. ‘You’ve sold your boss a story. I can live with that, but don’t think I’ll forget.’

  Lumsden stared at him. ‘Do I look scared?’

  Rebus stared back, smoked his cigarette, said nothing. Ancram and Grogan came back into the room, all business-like.

  ‘John,’ Ancram said, ‘CI Grogan and I have decided this would be best dealt with in Edinburgh.’

  Meaning they couldn’t prove a thing against him. If there was the slightest possibility, then Grogan would want a home collar.

  ‘There are disciplinary matters here,’ Ancram went on. ‘But they can be dealt with as part of my inquiry into the Spaven case.’ He paused. ‘Shame about DS Holmes.’

  Rebus went for it, had to. ‘What about him?’

  ‘When we went to pick up the Spaven casenotes, some clerk told us there’d been a lot of interest in them recently. Holmes had consulted them three days in a row, apparently for hours at a time – when he should have been on regular duties.’ Another pause. ‘Your name was down, too. Apparently you visited him. Going to tell me what he was up to?’

  Silence.

  ‘Removing evidence?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘That’s the way it looks. Stupid move, whatever it was. He’s refusing to talk, facing disciplinary action. He could be out on his ear.’

  Rebus kept his face a blank; not so easy to blank his heart.

  ‘Come on,’ Ancram said, ‘let’s get you out of here. My driver can take your car, we’ll take mine, maybe have a wee chat on the road.’

  Rebus stood up, walked over to Grogan, who straightened his shoulders as if expecting physical assault. Lumsden clenched his fists, ready. Rebus stopped with his face inches from Grogan’s.

  ‘Are you on the take, sir?’ It was fun to watch the balloon fill with blood, highlighting burst veins and ageing lines.

  ‘John . . .’ Ancram warned.

  ‘It’s an honest question,’ Rebus went on. ‘See, if you’re not, you could do a lot worse than put a surveillance on two Glasgow hoods who seem to be holidaying up here – Eve and Stanley Toal, only his real name’s Malky. His dad’s called Joseph Toal, Uncle Joe, and he runs Glasgow, where CI Ancram works, lives, splashes out money and buys his suits. Eve and Stanley drink at Burke’s Club, where coke isn’t something in a long glass with ice. DS Lumsden took me there, looked like he’d been before. DS Lumsden reminded me that Johnny Bible had picked out his first victim there. DS Lumsden drove me down to the harbour that night, I didn’t ask to be taken there.’ Rebus looked over at Lumsden. ‘He’s a canny operator, DS Lumsden. The games he plays, no wonder he’s called Ludo.’

  ‘I
won’t have malicious comments made about my men.’

  ‘Surveillance on Eve and Stanley,’ Rebus stressed. ‘And if it’s blown, you know where to look.’ Same place he was looking now.

  Lumsden flew at him, hands at his throat. Rebus threw him off.

  ‘You’re as dirty as bilge-water, Lumsden, and don’t think I don’t know it!’

  Lumsden swung a punch; it didn’t connect. Ancram and Grogan pulled the two of them apart. Grogan pointed to Rebus, but spoke to Ancram.

  ‘Maybe we’d better keep him here after all.’

  ‘I’m taking him back with me.’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that.’

  ‘I said I’m taking him back, Ted.’

  ‘Long time since I had two men fighting over me,’ Rebus said with a smile.

  The two Aberdeen officers were looking ready to plough a field with him. Ancram slapped a proprietorial hand on to his shoulder.

  ‘Inspector Rebus,’ he said, ‘I think we’d best be going, don’t you?’

  ‘Do me one favour,’ Rebus said.

  ‘What?’ They were in the back of Ancram’s car, heading for Rebus’s hotel, where they’d pick up his car.

  ‘A quick detour down to the docks.’

  Ancram glanced at him. ‘Why?’

  ‘I want to see where she died.’

  Ancram looked at him again. ‘What for?’

  Rebus shrugged. ‘To pay my respects,’ he said.

  Ancram had only a vague idea where the body had been found, but it didn’t take long to find the runs of bright police tape which were there to secure the scene. The docks were quiet, no sign of the crate in which the body had been discovered. It would be in a police lab somewhere. Rebus kept the right side of the cordon, looked around him. Huge white gulls strutted at a safe distance. The wind was fresh. He couldn’t tell how close this was to the spot where Lumsden had dropped him off.

  ‘What do you know about her?’ he asked Ancram, who stood, hands in pockets, studying him.

  ‘Name’s Holden, I think. Twenty-seven, twenty-eight.’

  ‘Did he take a souvenir?’

  ‘Just one of her shoes. Listen, Rebus . . . all this interest is because you once bought a prostitute a cup of tea?’

  ‘Her name was Angie Riddell.’ Rebus paused. ‘She had beautiful eyes.’ He gazed towards a rusting hulk chained dockside. ‘There’s a question I’ve been asking myself. Do we let it happen, or do we make it happen?’ He looked at Ancram. ‘Any idea?’