10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  Rebus turned to Jack. ‘You going to grass me up?’

  ‘I should.’

  ‘Yes, you should. But will you?’

  ‘I don’t know, John.’

  ‘Well, don’t let our friendship stand in your way.’

  ‘That helps me a lot.’

  ‘Look, Jack, the water I’m in is so deep, I’d probably die of the bends coming back up. So I might just as well stay down here.’

  ‘Ever heard of the Marianas Trench? Ancram probably has one just like it waiting for you.’

  ‘You’re slipping.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He was Chick before, now he’s “Ancram”. You better watch yourself.’

  ‘You’re sober, aren’t you?’

  ‘As a judge.’

  ‘Can’t be Dutch courage then, which means it’s plain insanity.’

  ‘Welcome to my world, Jack.’

  They were headed for the back of the Infirmary. There were benches provided just this side of the perimeter wall. Dossers, travellers, down-and-outs . . . whatever you wanted to call them . . . they used these benches as beds in the summer. There used to be one old guy, Frank, Rebus saw him every summer, and at the end of every summer he disappeared like a migrating bird, only to reappear the next year. But this year . . . this year Frank hadn’t appeared. The homeless people Rebus saw were a lot younger than Frank, his spiritual children, if not grandchildren; only they were different – tougher and more frightened, wired and tired. Different game, different rules. Edinburgh’s ‘gentlemen of the road’: twenty years ago you could have measured them in mere dozens. But not these days. Not these days . . .

  They woke up a couple of sleepers, who denied being Mick Hine and said they didn’t know who he was, and then hit lucky with the third bench. He was sitting upright, a pile of newspapers beside him. He had a tiny transistor radio, which he held hard to his ear.

  ‘Are you deaf or does it just need new batteries?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘Not deaf, not dumb, not blind. He said another copper might want to talk to me. Do you want a seat?’

  Rebus sat down on the bench. Jack Morton rested against the wall behind it, like he’d rather be somewhere out of earshot. Rebus drew out a fiver.

  ‘Here, get some batteries.’

  Mick Hine took the money. ‘So you’re Rebus?’ He gave Rebus a long look. Hine was early forties, balding, with a slight squint. He wore a decent enough suit, only it had holes in both knees. Beneath the jacket was a baggy red T-shirt. Two supermarket carrier bags sat on the ground beside him, bulging with worldly goods. ‘Lenny talked about you. I thought you’d be different.’

  ‘Different?’

  ‘Younger.’

  ‘I was younger when Lenny knew me.’

  ‘Aye, that’s true. Only film stars get younger, have you noticed that? The rest of us get wrinkled and grey.’ Not that Hine was either. His face was lightly tanned, like polished brass, and what hair he had was jet black and worn long. He had grazes on his cheeks and chin, forehead, knuckles. Either a stumble or a beating.

  ‘Did you fall over, Mick?’

  ‘I get dizzy sometimes.’

  ‘What does the doctor say?’

  ‘Eh?’

  No doctor consulted. ‘You know there are hostels, you don’t need to be out here.’

  ‘Full up. I hate queueing, so I’m always at the back. Your concern has been noted by Michael Edward Hine. Now, do you want to hear the story?’

  ‘In your own time.’

  ‘I knew Lenny in prison, we shared a cell for maybe four months. He was the quiet type, thoughtful. I know he’d been in trouble before, and yet he didn’t fit with prison life. He taught me how to do crosswords, sort out all the jumbled letters. He was patient with me.’ Hine seemed to be drifting off, but pulled himself back. ‘The man he wrote about is the man he was. He told me himself, he’d done wickedness and never been punished for it. But that didn’t make it any easier on his soul, being punished for a crime he didn’t commit. Time and again he told me, “I didn’t do it, Mick, I swear to God and anybody else who’s up there.” It was an obsession with him. I think if he hadn’t had his writing, he might have done away with himself sooner.’

  ‘You don’t think he was got at?’

  Hine thought it over before shaking his head firmly. ‘I believe he took his own life. That last day, it was like he’d come to a decision, made peace with himself. He was calmer, almost serene. But his eyes . . . he wouldn’t look at me. It was like he couldn’t deal with people any more. He talked, but he was conversing with himself. I liked him such a lot. And his writing was beautiful . . .’

  ‘The last day?’ Rebus prompted. Jack was peering through the railings at the hospital.

  ‘The last day,’ Hine repeated. ‘That last day was the most spiritual of my life. I really felt touched by . . . grace.’

  ‘Lovely girl,’ Jack muttered. Hine didn’t hear him.

  ‘You know what his last words were?’ Hine closed his eyes, remembering. ‘ “God knows I’m innocent, Mick, but I’m so tired of saying it over and over.”’

  Rebus was fidgeting. He wanted to be flippant, ironic, his usual self – but now he found he could identify all too easily with Spaven’s epitaph; even perhaps – just a little – with the man himself. Had Lawson Geddes really blinded him? Rebus hardly knew Spaven at all, yet had helped put him in jail for murder, breaching rules and regulations in the process, aiding a man who was feverish with hatred, spellbound by revenge.

  But revenge for what?

  ‘When I heard he’d cut his throat, it didn’t surprise me. He’d been stroking his neck all day.’ Hine leaned forward suddenly, his voice rising. ‘And to his dying day he insisted you set him up! You and your friend!’

  Jack turned towards the bench, ready for trouble. But Rebus wasn’t worried.

  ‘Look at me and tell me you didn’t!’ Hine spat. ‘He was the best friend I ever had, the kindest, gentlest man. All gone now, all gone . . .’ Hine held his head in his hands and wept.

  Of all the options open to him, Rebus knew which he favoured – flight. And that’s exactly the option he took, Jack working hard to keep up with him as he fled across the grass, back towards Melville Drive.

  ‘Wait up!’ Jack called. ‘Hold on there!’ They were halfway across the playing-field, in the twilit centre of a triangle bordered by footpaths. Jack tugged at Rebus’s arm, tried to slow him. Rebus turned and threw the arm off, then swung a punch. It caught Jack on the cheek, spinning him. There was shock on his face, but he was ready for the second blow, blocked it with a forearm, then threw a right of his own – no southpaw. He feinted, made Rebus think he was aiming for the head, then landed one hard into yielding gut. Rebus grunted, felt the pain but rode with it, took two steps back before launching himself. The two men hit the ground in a roll, their blows lacking force, wrestling for supremacy. Rebus could hear Jack saying his name, over and over. He pushed him off, and came up into a crouch. A couple of cyclists had stopped on one of the paths and were watching.

  ‘John, what the fuck are you doing?’

  Teeth bared, Rebus swung again, even more wildly, giving his friend plenty of time to dodge and launch a punch of his own. Rebus almost defended himself, but thought better of it. Instead, he waited for the impact. Jack hit him low, the sort of blow that could wind a man without doing damage. Rebus doubled over, fell to hands and knees, and spewed on to the ground, spitting out mostly liquid. He went on trying to cough everything out, even when there was nothing left to expel. And then he started crying. Crying for himself and for Lawson Geddes, and maybe even for Lenny Spaven. And most of all for Elsie Rhind and all her sisters, all the victims he couldn’t help and would never ever be able to help.

  Jack was sitting a yard or so away, forearms resting on his knees. He was breathing hard and sweating, pulling off his jacket. The crying seemed to take for ever, bubbles of snot escaping from Rebus’s nose, fine lines of saliva from his mouth. Then
he felt the shuddering lessen, stop altogether. He rolled on to his back, his chest rising and falling, an arm across his brow.

  ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘I needed that.’

  ‘I haven’t had a fight like that since I was a teenager,’ Jack said. ‘Feel better?’

  ‘Much.’ Rebus got a handkerchief out, wiped eyes and mouth, then blew his nose. ‘Sorry it had to be you.’

  ‘Rather me than some innocent bystander.’

  ‘That’s pretty accurate.’

  ‘Is that why you drink? To stop this happening?’

  ‘Christ, Jack, I don’t know. I drink because I’ve always done it. I like it; I like the taste and the sensation, I like standing in pubs.’

  ‘And you like sleep without dreams?’

  Rebus nodded. ‘That most of all.’

  ‘There are other ways, John.’

  ‘Is this where you try to sell me the Juice Church?’

  ‘You’re a big boy, make up your own mind.’ Jack got to his feet, pulled Rebus to his.

  ‘I bet we look like a couple of dossers.’

  ‘Well, you do. I don’t know about me.’

  ‘Elegant, Jack, you look cool and elegant.’

  Jack touched a hand to Rebus’s shoulder. ‘OK now?’

  Rebus nodded. ‘It’s daft, but I feel better than for ages. Come on, let’s go for a walk.’

  They turned and headed back towards the Infirmary. Jack didn’t ask where they were going. But Rebus had a destination in mind: the university library in George Square. It was just closing as they walked in, the departing students, folders huddled to chests, giving them plenty of room as they walked up to the main desk.

  ‘Can I help you?’ a man asked, looking them up and down. But Rebus was walking around the desk to where a young woman was bowed over a pile of books.

  ‘Hello, Nell.’

  She looked up, couldn’t place him at first. Then the blood left her face.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  Rebus held up a hand. ‘Brian’s fine. Jack here and me . . . well, we . . .’

  ‘Tripped and fell,’ Jack said.

  ‘You shouldn’t drink in pubs with stairs.’ Now she knew Brian was all right, she was regaining her composure fast, and with it her wariness. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘A word,’ Rebus said. ‘Maybe outside?’

  ‘I’ll be finished here in five minutes.’

  Rebus nodded. ‘We’ll wait.’

  They went outside. Rebus went to light a cigarette but found the packet crushed, its contents useless.

  ‘Christ, just when I could do with one.’

  ‘Now you know how it feels to give up.’

  They sat on the steps and stared at George Square Gardens and the buildings surrounding it, a mishmash of old and new.

  ‘You can almost feel all that brain power in the air,’ Jack commented.

  ‘Half the force has been to university these days.’

  ‘And I bet they don’t go swinging punches at their friends.’

  ‘I’ve said I’m sorry.’

  ‘Did Sammy ever go to uni?’

  ‘College. I think she did something secretarial. She works for a charity now.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘SWEEP.’

  ‘Working with ex-cons?’

  ‘That’s it’

  ‘Did she do it to have a dig at you?’

  Rebus had asked himself the same question many times. He shrugged.

  ‘Fathers and daughters, eh?’

  The door swung open behind them. It was Nell Stapleton. She was tall, with short dark hair and a defiant face. No earrings or jewellery.

  ‘You can walk me to the bus stop,’ she told them.

  ‘Look, Nell,’ Rebus started, realising that he should have thought this through, should have rehearsed, ‘all I want to say is, I’m sorry about you and Brian.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She was walking quickly. Rebus’s knee hurt as he kept up.

  ‘I know I’m unlikely material as marriage guidance, but there’s something you have to know: Brian’s a born copper. He doesn’t want to lose you – it’s killing him – but leaving the force would be a slow death in itself. He can’t make himself leave, so instead he’s trying to get into trouble, so the high hiedyins will have no alternative but to boot him out. That’s no way to sort a problem.’

  Nell didn’t say anything for a while. They headed for Potterrow, crossed the road at the lights. They were headed for Greyfriars, plenty of bus stops there.

  ‘I know what you’re saying,’ she said at last. ‘You’re saying it’s a no-win situation.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Please, just listen to me.’ Her eyes were glistening in the sodium light. ‘I don’t want to spend the rest of my life waiting for the phone call, the one that tells me there’s bad news. I don’t want to plan weekends off and holidays away only to have them cancelled because some case or court appearance takes precedence. That’s asking too much.’

  ‘It’s asking a hell of a lot,’ Rebus conceded. ‘It’s a high-wire act without the safety net. But all the same . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You can make it work. A lot of people do. Maybe you can’t plan things too far in advance, maybe there’ll be cancellations and tears. When the chances come, you take them.’

  ‘Have I wandered into a Dr Ruth show by mistake?’ Rebus sighed, and she stopped walking, took his hand. ‘Look, John, I know why you’re doing this. Brian’s hurting, and you don’t like to see it. I don’t like it either.’ A distant siren wailed, down towards the High Street, and Nell shivered. Rebus saw it, looked into her eyes, and found himself nodding. He knew she was right; his own wife had said the same things. And the way Jack was standing, the look on his face, he’d been here before, too. Nell started walking again.

  ‘He’ll leave the force, Nell. He’ll make them dump him. But for the rest of his life . . .’ He shook his head. ‘It won’t be the same. He won’t be the same.’

  She nodded. ‘I can live with that.’

  ‘You don’t know for sure.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘You’ll take that risk, but you won’t risk him staying put?’ Her face hardened, but Rebus didn’t give her time for a comeback. ‘Here’s your bus. Just think about it, Nell.’

  He turned and walked back towards the Meadows.

  They’d made up a bed for Jack in the spare room – Sammy’s old bedroom, complete with Duran Duran and Michael Jackson posters. They’d washed themselves and shared a pot of tea – no alcohol, no ciggies. Rebus lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, knew sleep wouldn’t come for ages, and that when it did his dreams would be fierce. He got up and tiptoed through to the living room, keeping the lights off. The room was cool, they’d kept the windows open late, but the fresh paint and the old scorched paint from the door left a nice smell. Rebus uncovered his chair and dragged it over to the bay window. He sat down and pulled his blanket over him, felt himself relax. There were lights on across the way and he concentrated on them. I’m a peeper, he thought, a voyeur. All cops are. But he knew he was more than that: he liked to get involved in the lives around him. He had a need to know which went beyond voyeurism. It was a drug. And the thing was, when he had all this knowledge, he then had to use booze to blank it out. He saw his reflection in the window, two-dimensional, ghostly.

  I’m almost not here at all, he thought.

  24

  Rebus woke up and knew something was wrong. He showered and dressed and still couldn’t put a name to it. Then Jack came slouching through to the kitchen and asked if he’d slept well.

  And he had. That was what was different. He’d slept very well indeed, and he’d been sober.

  ‘Any word from Ancram?’ Jack asked, staring into the fridge.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you’re probably clear for today.’

  ‘He must be in training for the next bout.’

  ‘So do we crack on with the
decorating, or actually go to work?’

  ‘Let’s do an hour’s painting,’ Rebus said. So that’s what they did, Rebus keeping half an eye on the street outside. No reporters, no Justice Programme. Maybe he’d scared them off; maybe they were biding their time. He hadn’t heard anything about an assault charge: Breen was probably too happy with the video footage to consider any further action. Plenty of time to file a complaint after the programme went out . . .

  After the painting, they took Jack’s car to Fort Apache. Jack’s initial response did not disappoint Rebus.

  ‘What a shit-hole.’

  Inside, the station was a frenzy of packing and moving. Vans were already taking crates and boxes to the new station. The desk sergeant had become a shirt-sleeved foreman, making sure the cases were labelled and the moving crew knew where they were to go once they reached their destination.

  ‘It’ll be a miracle if it goes to plan,’ he said. ‘And I notice CID aren’t giving a hand.’

  Jack and Rebus gave him a round of applause: an old joke, but well intentioned. Then they went to the Shed.

  Maclay and Bain were in situ.

  ‘The prodigal son!’ Bain exclaimed. ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘Helping CI Ancram with his inquiries.’

  ‘You should have called in. MacAskill wants a word, toot-sweet.’

  ‘I thought I told you never to call me that.’