by Ian Rankin
Rebus wasn’t surprised to find Gill Templer’s office locked up for the night. He looked around the night shift and saw Siobhan Clarke trying to make herself inconspicuous, dreading their first meeting since she’d been part of the search team at his flat. He walked up to her, the yellow padded envelope in his hand.
‘It’s OK,’ he said, ‘I know why you were there. I think I should thank you.’
‘I just thought . . .’
He nodded. The relief on her face made him wonder what she’d been going through.
‘Working on anything?’ he asked, figuring she was owed a minute’s conversation. Jack and Eve were downstairs in the car, getting to know one another.
‘I’ve been on Johnny Bible background: deadly dull.’ She perked up. ‘One thing though. I was going through the old newspapers in the National.’
‘Yes?’ Rebus had been there, too: he wondered if that were her story.
‘One of the librarians told me someone was looking at recent newspapers and asking about people calling up ones from 1968 to ’70. I thought the combination was a bit odd. The recent papers were all from just before the first Johnny Bible murder.’
‘And the others were the years Bible John was operating?’
‘Yes.’
‘A journalist?’
‘That’s what the librarian says. Only, the card he handed over was a fake. He contacted the librarian by telephone.’
‘Did the librarian have anything?’
‘A few names. I took them down, on the off chance. A couple of them are journalists. One is you. The others, God knows.’
Yes, Rebus had spent a long day poring over the old stories, arranging for photocopies to be made of the relevant pages . . . building his collection.
‘And the mysterious journalist?’
‘No idea. I got a physical description, but it doesn’t help much. Early fifties, tall, fair-haired . . .’
‘Doesn’t rule too many people out, does it? Why the interest in recent papers? No, wait . . . Looking for cock-ups.’
Siobhan nodded. ‘That’s what I thought. And at the same time asking about people who’d shown an interest in the original Bible John case. It might sound crazy, but maybe Bible John’s out there looking for his offspring. Thing is, whoever he was . . . he’s got your name now, and your address.’
‘Nice to have a fan.’ Rebus thought for a moment. ‘Those other names . . . can I see?’
She found the relevant page in her notebook. One name leapt out: Peter Manuel.
‘Something?’ she asked.
Rebus pointed. ‘Not his real name. Manuel was a killer back in the fifties.’
‘Then who . . .?’
Reading up on Bible John, using a killer’s name as an alias. ‘Johnny Bible,’ Rebus said quietly.
‘I’d better have another word with that librarian.’
‘First thing in the morning,’ Rebus advised. ‘Speaking of which . . .’ He handed her the envelope. ‘Can you see to it that Gill Templer gets this?’
‘Sure.’ She shook it. The cassette rattled. ‘Anything I should know about?’
‘Definitely not.’
She smiled. ‘Now you’ve whetted my curiosity.’
‘Then unwhet it.’ He turned to leave. He didn’t want her to see how shaken he was. Someone else was hunting Johnny Bible, someone who now had Rebus’s name and address. Siobhan’s words: Bible John . . . looking for his offspring. Description: tall, fair-haired, early fifties. The age was right for Bible John. Whoever it was knew Rebus’s address . . . and his flat had been broken into, nothing stolen, but his newspapers and cuttings disturbed.
Bible John . . . looking for his offspring.
‘How’s the inquiry?’ Siobhan called.
‘Which one?’
‘Spaven.’
‘A doddle.’ He stopped, turned back to her. ‘By the way, if you’re really bored . . .?’
‘Yes?’
‘Johnny Bible: there could just be an oil connection. The last victim worked for oil companies and drank with oilmen. First victim studied at RGIT, geology, I think. Find out if there’s any connection to oil, see if there’s something we can link to victims two and three.’
‘You think he lives in Aberdeen?’
‘Right now, I think I’d lay money on it.’
Then he was gone. One more stop to make before the long haul north.
Bible John was driving through the streets of Aberdeen.
The town was quiet. He liked it that way. The trip to Glasgow had been useful, but the fourth victim had proved more useful still.
From the hotel computer, he had his list of twenty companies. Twenty guests of the Fairmount Hotel who had paid by corporate credit card in the weeks before Judith Cairns’s murder. Twenty companies based in the north-east. Twenty individuals he needed to check, any one of whom could be the Upstart.
He’d played with the connection between the victims, and numbers one and four had given him his answer: oil. Oil was at the heart of it. Victim one had studied geology at Robert Gordon’s, and in the north-east the study of geology was in so many ways connected to the subject of oil exploration. Victim four’s company numbered oil companies and their ancillaries among its best clients. He was looking for someone connected to the oil industry, someone so very like himself. The realisation had shaken him. On the one hand, it made it even more imperative he track down the Upstart; on the other, it made the game that much more dangerous. It wasn’t physical danger – he had long since conquered that particular fear. It was the danger of losing his hard-fought-for identity as Ryan Slocum. He almost felt he was Ryan Slocum. But Ryan Slocum was just a dead man, a newspaper obituary he’d come across. So he’d applied for a duplicate birth certificate, pleading the original’s loss in a house fire. This had been in pre-computer days, easy to get away with.
So his own past ceased to exist . . . for a time, at least. The trunk in the attic told a different story, of course. It gave the lie to his change of identity: you couldn’t change the man you were. His trunk full of souvenirs, most of them American . . . He had made arrangements for the trunk to be moved soon, when his wife was out of the house. A moving company would send a Transit. The trunk would be taken to a self-storage warehouse. It made sense as a precaution, but he still regretted it; it was like saying the Upstart had won.
No matter what the outcome.
Twenty companies to check. So far he had dismissed four possible suspects as being too old. A further seven companies were not involved in the oil industry in any way that he could see – they went to the bottom of the list. Leaving nine names. It was a slow business. He’d used guile during telephone calls to the companies’ offices, but guile would only go so far. He’d also had recourse to the telephone book, finding addresses for the names, watching their homes, waiting for a glimpse of a face. Would he know the Upstart when he saw him? He felt he would; at least, he’d recognise the type. But then Joe Beattie had said the same about Bible John – that he’d recognise him in a crowded room. As if a man’s heart showed in the creases and contours of his face, a sort of phrenology of sin.
He parked the car outside another house, called his office to check for messages. In his line of work, they expected him to be out of the office for long periods of the day, if not for days and weeks at a time. It was the perfect career, really. No messages, nothing for him to think about but the Upstart . . . and himself.
In the early days, he had lacked patience. This was no longer the case. This slow stalking of the Upstart would only make the final confrontation sweeter. But this thought was tempered with another: that the police could be closing in, too. After all, the information was there for them to find: it was just a matter of making the connections. So far only the Edinburgh prostitute failed to fit the pattern, but if he could connect three out of four, he’d be satisfied. He could bet, too, that once he knew the Upstart’s identity he could place him in Edinburgh at the time she was killed: hotel records may
be; or a receipt for petrol from an Edinburgh filling station . . . Four victims. One more already than the Bible John of the sixties. It was galling, he had to say it. It rankled.
And someone would pay for it. Very soon.
North of Hell
‘Scotland will be reborn the day the last minister is strangled with the last copy of the Sunday Post.’
Tom Nairn
28
It was after midnight when they reached the hotel. It was situated near the airport, one of the shiny new constructions Rebus had passed on his way to T-Bird Oil. There was too much glare in the lobby, too many mirrors reflecting full-length portraits of three weary figures with meagre luggage. Maybe they would have provoked suspicion, but Eve was a regular and had a business account, so that was that.
‘It all goes through the taxi firm,’ she explained, ‘so this is my treat. Just sign out of the rooms when you’re finished, they’ll send the bill to Joe’s Cabs.’
‘Your usual rooms, Ms Cudden,’ the clerk said, handing over the keys, ‘plus one a few doors further along.’
Jack had been looking through the hotel directory. ‘Sauna, health club, weight gym. We should fit right in, John.’
‘It’s all oil execs,’ Eve said, leading them to the lifts. ‘They like that kind of thing. Keeps them fit enough to handle the hokey-cokey. And I don’t mean the dance.’
‘Do you sell everything direct to Fuller and Stemmons?’ Rebus asked.
Eve stifled a yawn. ‘You mean, do I deal myself?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would I be that stupid?’
‘What about the punters – any names?’
She shook her head, smiled tiredly. ‘You never stop, do you?’
‘It takes my mind off things.’ Specifically: Bible John, Johnny Bible . . . out there somewhere, and maybe not so very far away . . .
She handed their room keys to Rebus and Jack. ‘Sleep well, boys. I’ll probably be long gone when you wake up . . . and I won’t be coming back.’
Rebus nodded. ‘How much will you be taking with you?’
‘About thirty-eight thou.’
‘A decent skim.’
‘Decent profits all round.’
‘How soon till Uncle Joe finds out about Stanley?’
‘Well, Malcolm won’t be in a hurry to tell him, and Joe’s used to him disappearing for a day or two on the trot . . . With any luck, I won’t even be in the country when the bomb goes off.’
‘You look the lucky type to me.’
They left the lift at the third floor and checked the numbers on their keys. Rebus ended up next door to Eve: Stanley’s old room. Jack was two doors further down.
Stanley’s old room was a good size and boasted what Rebus guessed were the usual corporate embellishments: mini-bar, trouser press, a little saucer of chocolates on the pillow, a bathrobe laid out on the turned-down bed. There was a notice clipped to the robe. It asked him not to take it home with him. If he wanted to, he could purchase one from the health club. ‘Thank you for being a considerate guest.’
The considerate guest made himself a cup of Café Hag. There was a price list on top of the mini-bar, detailing the delights within. He stuck it in a drawer. The wardrobe boasted a mini-safe, so he took the mini-bar key and locked it inside. Another barrier for him to get past, another chance to change his mind if he really wanted that drink.
Meantime, the coffee tasted fine. He had a shower, wrapped himself in the bathrobe, then sat on his bed and stared at the connecting door. Of course, there would have to be a connecting door: couldn’t have Stanley hopping around the corridor at all hours. There was a simple lock his side, as there would be on the other. He wondered what he would find if he unlocked the door: would Eve’s be standing open? If he knocked, would she let him in? What about if she knocked? He turned his eyes from the door, and they settled on the mini-bar. He felt peckish – there would be nuts and crisps inside. Maybe he could . . .? No, no, no. He turned his attention back to the connecting door, listened hard, couldn’t hear any movement from Eve’s room. Maybe she was already asleep – early start and all that. He found he wasn’t feeling tired any more. Now he was here, he wanted to get to work. He pulled open his curtains. It had started to rain, the tarmac glistening and black like the back of a huge fat beetle. Rebus pulled a chair over to the window. Wind was driving the rain, making shifting patterns in the sodium light. As he stared, the rain began to resemble smoke, billowing out of the darkness. The car park below was half full, the cars huddled like cattle while their owners stayed snug and dry.
Johnny Bible was out there, probably in Aberdeen, probably connected to the oil industry. He thought about the people he’d met these past days, everyone from Major Weir to Walt the tour guide. It was ironic that the person whose case had brought him here – Allan Mitchison – was not only connected to oil but was also the only candidate he could rule out, being long dead by the time Vanessa Holden met her killer. Rebus felt guilty about Mitchison. His case was becoming swamped by the serial killings. It was a job, something Rebus had to do. But it wasn’t wedged in his throat the way the Johnny Bible case was, something he had either to cough up or choke on.
But he wasn’t the only one with an interest in Johnny. Someone had broken into his flat. Someone had been checking library records. Someone using a false identity. Someone with something to hide. Not a reporter, not another policeman. Could Bible John really be out there still? Dormant somewhere until brought to life by Johnny Bible? Enraged by the act of imitation, by its temerity and the cold fact that it brought the original case back up into the light? Not only enraged, but feeling endangered, too – externally and internally: fear of being recognised and caught; fear of not being the bogeyman any longer.
A new bogeyman for the nineties, someone to be scared of again. One mythology erased and replaced by another.
Yes, Rebus could feel it. He could sense Bible John’s hostility to the young pretender. No flattery in imitation, none at all . . .
And he knows where I live, Rebus thought. He’s been there, touched my obsession, and wondered how far I’m willing to take it. But why? Why would he place himself in danger like that, breaking into a flat in the middle of the day? Looking for what exactly? Looking for something in particular? But what? Rebus turned the question over in his mind, wondered if a drink would help, got as far as the safe before turning back, standing there in the middle of the room, his whole body crackling with need.
The hotel felt asleep; easy to imagine the whole country asleep and dreaming blameless dreams. Stemmons and Fuller, Uncle Joe, Major Weir, Johnny Bible . . . everyone was innocent in sleep. Rebus walked over to the connecting door and unlocked it. Eve’s door was slightly ajar. Silently, he pushed it wide open. Her room was in darkness, curtains closed. Light from his own room lay like an arrow along the floor, pointing towards the king-size bed. She lay on her side, one arm on top of the covers. Her eyes were closed. He took one step into her room, not merely a voyeur now but an intruder. Then he just stood there, watching her. Maybe he’d have stayed that way for long minutes.
‘Wondered how long it would take you,’ she said.
Rebus walked across to her bed. She reached both arms up to him. She was naked beneath the covers, warm and sweet-smelling. He sat down on the bed, took her hands in his.
‘Eve,’ he said quietly, ‘I need one favour from you before you go.’
She sat up. ‘Not counting this?’
‘Not counting this.’
‘What?’
‘I want you to phone Judd Fuller. Tell him you need to see him.’
‘You should stay away from him.’
‘I know.’
She sighed. ‘But you can’t?’ He nodded, and she touched his cheek with the back of her hand. ‘OK, but now I want a favour in return.’
‘What?’
‘Take the rest of the night off,’ she said, pulling him towards her.
He woke up alone in her bed, and it was
morning. He checked to see if she’d left a note or anything, but of course she hadn’t: she wasn’t the type.
He walked through the open doorway and locked his door after him, then switched off the lights in his room. There was a knock at his door: Jack. Rebus pulled on pants and trousers and was halfway to the door when he remembered something. He walked back to the bed and removed the chocolates from the pillow, then pulled the covers down, messing them up. He surveyed the scene, punched a head-shaped dent in one pillow, then answered the door.
And it wasn’t Jack at all. It was one of the hotel staff, carrying a tray.
‘Morning, sir.’ Rebus stood aside to let him in. ‘Sorry if I woke you. Miss Cudden specified the time.’
‘That’s OK.’ Rebus watched the young man slide the tray on to the table by the window.
‘Would you like me to open it?’ Meaning the half bottle of champagne resting in an ice-bucket. There was a jug of fresh orange juice, a crystal glass, and a folded copy of the morning’s Press & Journal. In a slim porcelain vase stood a single red carnation.
‘No.’ Rebus lifted the bucket. ‘This, you can take away. The rest is fine.’
‘Yes, sir. If you’ll just sign . . .?’
Rebus took the proffered pen, and added a hefty tip to the bill. Fuck it, Uncle Joe was paying. The young man broke into a big grin, making Rebus wish he was this generous every morning.
‘Thank you, sir.’
When he’d gone, Rebus poured a glass of juice. The fresh-squeezed stuff, cost a fortune in the supermarket. Outside, the roads were still damp, and there was plenty of cloud overhead, but the sky looked like it might break into a grin of its own before the morning was out. A light aircraft took off from Dyce, probably Shetland-bound. Rebus looked at his watch, then called Jack’s room. Jack answered with a noise somewhere between an inquiry and an oath.
‘Your morning alarm call,’ Rebus trilled.
‘Fuck off.’