10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  Rebus took the book. ‘Does it prove anything?’

  ‘That depends on your terms.’

  ‘Concrete proof.’

  ‘Concrete proof exists, Inspector.’

  ‘In this book?’

  Levy shook his head. ‘Under lock and key in Whitehall, kept from scrutiny by the Hundred Year Rule.’

  ‘So there’s no way to prove anything.’

  ‘There’s one way . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If someone talks. If we can get just one of them to talk . . .’

  ‘That’s what this is all about: wearing down their resistance? Looking for the weakest link?’

  Levy smiled again. ‘We have learned patience, Inspector.’ He finished his drink. ‘I’m so grateful you called. This has been a much more satisfactory meeting.’

  ‘Will you send your bosses a progress report?’

  Levy chose to ignore this. ‘We’ll talk again, when you’ve read the book.’ He stood up. ‘The Special Branch officer . . . I’ve forgotten his name?’

  ‘I didn’t give it.’

  Levy waited a moment, then said, ‘Ah, that explains it then. Is he still in Edinburgh?’ He watched Rebus shake his head. ‘Then he’s probably on his way to Carlisle, yes?’

  Rebus sipped coffee, offered no comment.

  ‘My thanks again, Inspector,’ Levy said, undeterred.

  ‘Thanks for dropping by.’

  Levy took a final look around. ‘Your office,’ he said, shaking his head.

  8

  The Rat Line was an ‘underground railway’, delivering Nazis – sometimes with the help of the Vatican – from their Soviet persecutors. The end of the Second World War meant the start of the Cold War. Intelligence was necessary, as were intelligent, ruthless individuals who could provide a certain level of expertise. It was said that Klaus Barbie, the ‘Butcher of Lyons’, had been offered a job with British Intelligence. It was rumoured that high-profile Nazis had been spirited away to America. It wasn’t until 1987 that the United Nations released its full list of fugitive Nazi and Japanese war criminals, forty thousand of them.

  Why so late in releasing the list? Rebus thought he could understand. Modern politics had decreed that Germany and Japan were part of the global brotherhood of capitalism. In whose interests would it be to reopen old wounds? And besides, how many atrocities had the Allies themselves hidden? Who fought a war with clean hands? Rebus, who’d grown to adulthood in the Army, could comprehend this. He’d done things . . . He’d served time in Northern Ireland, seen trust disfigured, hatred replace fear.

  Part of him could well believe in the existence of a Rat Line.

  The book Levy had given him went into the mechanics of how such an operation might have worked. Rebus wondered: was it really possible to disappear completely, to change identity? And again, the recurring question: did any of it matter? There did exist sources of identification, and there had been court cases – Eichmann, Barbie, Demjanjuk – with others ongoing. He read about war criminals who, rather than being tried or extradited, were allowed to return home, running businesses, growing rich, dying of old age. But he also read of criminals who served their sentences and became ‘good people’, people who had changed. These men said war itself was the real culprit. Rebus recalled one of his first conversations with Joseph Lintz, in the drawing-room of Lintz’s home. The old man’s voice was hoarse, a scarf around his throat.

  ‘At my age, Inspector, a simple throat infection can feel like death.’

  There didn’t seem to be many photographs around. Lintz had explained that a lot had gone missing during the war.

  ‘Along with other mementoes. I do have these photos though.’

  He’d shown Rebus half a dozen framed shots, dating back to the 1930s. As he’d explained who the subjects were, Rebus had suddenly thought: what if he’s making it up? What if these are just a bunch of old photos he picked up somewhere and had framed? And the names, the identities he now gave to the faces – had he invented them? He’d seen in that instant, for the first time, how easy it might be to construct another life.

  And then, later in their conversation that day, Lintz, sipping honeyed tea, had started discussing Villefranche.

  ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about it, Inspector, as you might imagine. This Lieutenant Linzstek, he was in charge on the day?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But presumably under orders from above. A lieutenant is not so very far up the pecking order.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘You see, if a soldier is under orders . . . then they must carry out those orders, no?’

  ‘Even if the order is insane?’

  ‘Nevertheless, I’d say the person was at the very least coerced into committing the crime, and a crime that very many of us would have carried out under similar circumstances. Can’t you see the hypocrisy of trying someone, when you’d probably have done the same thing yourself? One soldier standing out from the crowd . . . saying no to the massacre: would you have made that stand yourself?’

  ‘I hope so.’ Rebus thinking back to Ulster and the ‘Mean Machine’ . . .

  Levy’s book didn’t prove anything. All Rebus knew was that Josef Linzstek’s name was on a list as having used the Rat Line, posing as a Pole. But where had the list originated? In Israel. Again, it was highly speculative. It wasn’t proof.

  And if Rebus’s instincts told him Lintz and Linzstek were one and the same, they were still failing to tell him whether it mattered.

  He dropped the book back to the Roxburghe, asked the receptionist to see that Mr Levy got it.

  ‘I think he’s in his room, if you’d like to . . .’

  Rebus shook his head. He hadn’t left any message with the book, knowing Levy might interpret this as a message in itself. He went home for his car, drove down to Haymarket and along to Shandon. As usual, parking near Sammy’s flat was a problem. Everyone was home from work and tucked in front of their televisions. He climbed the stone steps, wondering how treacherous they’d get when the frosts came, and rang the bell. Sammy herself led him into the living room, where Candice was watching a game show.

  ‘Hello, John,’ she said. ‘Are you my wonderwall?’

  ‘I’m nobody’s wonderwall, Candice.’ He turned to Sammy. ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Just fine.’

  At that moment, Ned Farlowe walked in from the kitchen. He was eating soup from a bowl, dunking a folded slice of brown bread into it.

  ‘Mind if I have a word?’ Rebus said.

  Farlowe shook his head, then jerked it in the direction of the kitchen.

  ‘Can I eat while we talk? I’m starving.’ He sat down at the foldaway table, got another slice of bread from the packet and spread margarine on it. Sammy put her head round the doorway, saw the look on her father’s face, and made a tactical retreat. The kitchen was about seven foot square and too full of pots and appliances. Swinging a cat, you could have done a lot of damage.

  ‘I saw you today,’ Rebus said, ‘skulking in Warriston Cemetery. Coincidence?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I’m asking you.’ Rebus leaned his back against the sink unit, folded his arms.

  ‘I’m watching Lintz.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m being paid to.’

  ‘By a newspaper?’

  ‘Lintz’s lawyer has interim interdicts flying around. Nobody can afford to be seen near him.’

  ‘But they still want him watched?’

  ‘If there’s a court case coming, they want to know as much as possible, stands to reason.’

  By court case, Farlowe didn’t mean any trial of Lintz, but rather of the newspapers themselves, for libel.

  ‘If he catches you . . .’

  ‘He doesn’t know me from Adam. Besides, there’d always be somebody to take my place. Now do I get to ask a question?’

  ‘Let me say something first. You know I’m investigating Lintz?’ Farlowe nodded.
‘That means we’re too close. If you find out anything, people might think it came from me.’

  ‘I haven’t told Sammy what I’m doing, specifically so there’s no conflict of interests.’

  ‘I’m just saying others might not believe it.’

  ‘A few more days, I’ll have enough money to fund the book for another month.’ Farlowe had finished his soup. He carried the empty bowl over to the sink, stood next to Rebus.

  ‘I don’t want this to be a problem, but the bottom line is: what can you do about it?’

  Rebus stared at him. His instinct was to stuff Farlowe’s head into the sink, but how would that look with Sammy?

  ‘Now,’ Farlowe said, ‘do I get to ask my question?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Who’s Candice?’

  ‘A friend of mine.’

  ‘So what’s wrong with your flat?’

  Rebus realised he was no longer dealing with his daughter’s boyfriend. He was confronted with a journalist, someone with a nose for a story.

  ‘Tell you what,’ said Rebus, ‘say I didn’t see you in the cemetery. Say we didn’t just have this little chat.’

  ‘And I don’t ask about Candice?’ Rebus stayed quiet. Farlowe considered the deal. ‘Say I get to ask you a few questions for my book.’

  ‘What sort of questions?’

  ‘About Cafferty.’

  Rebus shook his head. ‘I could talk about Tommy Telford though.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When we’ve got him behind bars.’

  Farlowe smiled. ‘I could be on the pension by then.’ He waited, saw Rebus was going to give him nothing.

  ‘She’s only here till tomorrow anyway,’ Rebus said.

  ‘Where’s she off to?’

  Rebus just winked. Left the kitchen, returned to the living-room. Talked to Sammy while Candice’s game show reached its climax. Whenever she heard audience laughter, she joined in. Rebus made arrangements for the following day, then left. There was no sign of Farlowe. He’d either hidden himself in the bedroom or else gone back out. It took Rebus a few moments to remember where he’d parked his car. He drove home carefully; stopped for all the lights.

  The parking spaces were all taken in Arden Street. He left the Saab on a yellow line. As he approached his tenement door, he heard a car door open and spun towards the sound.

  It was Claverhouse. He was on his own. ‘Mind if I come in?’

  Rebus thought of a dozen reasons for saying yes. But he shrugged and made for the door. ‘Any news of the stabbing at Megan’s?’ he asked.

  ‘How did you know we’d be interested?’

  ‘A bouncer gets stabbed, the attacker flees on a waiting motorbike. It was premeditated. And the majority of the bouncers work for Tommy Telford.’

  They were climbing the stairs. Rebus’s flat was on the second floor.

  ‘Well, you’re right,’ Claverhouse said. ‘Billy Tennant worked for Telford. He controlled the traffic in and out of Megan’s.’

  ‘Traffic as in dope?’

  ‘The footballer’s friend, the one who got wounded, he’s a known dealer. Works out of Paisley.’

  ‘Therefore connected to Telford, too.’

  ‘We’re speculating he was the target, Tennant just got in the way.’

  ‘Leaving only one question: who was behind it?’

  ‘Come on, John. It was Cafferty, obviously.’

  ‘Not Cafferty’s style,’ Rebus said, unlocking his door.

  ‘Maybe he’s learned a thing or two from the Young Pretender.’

  ‘Make yourself at home,’ Rebus said, walking down the hall. The breakfast things were still on the dining table. Siobhan’s bag of goodies was down the side of a chair.

  ‘A guest.’ Claverhouse had noticed the two mugs, two plates. He looked around. ‘She’s not here now though?’

  ‘She wasn’t here for breakfast either.’

  ‘Because she’s at your daughter’s.’

  Rebus froze.

  ‘I went to settle up with the hotel. They said a police car had come and taken all her things away. So then I asked around, and the driver gave me Samantha’s address as the drop-off.’ Claverhouse sat down on the sofa, crossed one leg over the other. ‘So what’s the game, John, and how come you’ve seen fit to leave me on the bench?’ He sounded calm now, but Rebus could tell there’d been a storm.

  ‘Do you want a drink?’

  ‘I want an answer.’

  ‘When she walked out . . . she waited beside my car. I couldn’t think where to take her, so I brought her here. But she recognised the street. Telford had been watching my flat.’

  Claverhouse looked interested. ‘Why?’

  ‘Maybe because I know Cafferty. I couldn’t let Candice stay here, so I took her to Sammy’s.’

  ‘Is she still there?’ Rebus nodded. ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘There’s a place she can go, the refugee family.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Claverhouse sighed. ‘John, she’s . . . the only life she’s known here is prostitution.’

  Rebus went over to the hi-fi for something to do, looked through his tapes. He needed to do something.

  ‘What’s she going to do for money? Are you going to provide? What does that make you?’

  Rebus dropped a CD, turned on his heels. ‘Nothing like that,’ he spat.

  Claverhouse had his hands up, palms showing. ‘Come on, John, you know yourself there’s –’

  ‘I don’t know anything.’

  ‘John . . .’

  ‘Look, get out, will you?’ It wasn’t just that it had been a long day, more that it felt like the day would never end. He could feel the evening stretch to infinity, no rest available to him. In his head, bodies were swaying gently from trees while smoke engulfed a church. Telford was on his arcade motorbike, cannoning off spectators. Abernethy was touching an old man’s shoulder. Soldiers were rifle-butting civilians. And John Rebus . . . John Rebus was in every frame, trying hard to remain an onlooker.

  He put Van Morrison on the hi-fi: Hardnose the Highway. He’d played this music on East Neuk beaches and tenement stakeouts. It always seemed to heal him, or at least patch the wounds. When he turned back into the room, Claverhouse was gone. He looked out of his window. Two kids lived in the second-floor flat across from his. He’d watched them often from this window, and they never once saw him, for the simple reason that they never so much as glanced outside. Their world was complete and all-absorbing, anything outside their window an irrelevance. They were in bed now, their mother closing the shutters. Quiet city. Abernethy was right about that. There were large chunks of Edinburgh where you could live your whole life and never encounter a spot of bother. Yet the murder rate in Scotland was double that of its southern neighbour, and half those murders took place in the two main cities.

  Not that the statistics mattered. A death was a death. Something unique had disappeared from the world. One murder or several hundred . . . they all meant something to the survivors. Rebus thought of Villefranche’s sole existing survivor. He hadn’t met her, probably never would. Another reason it was hard to get passionate about a historical case. In a contemporary one, you had many of the facts to hand, and could talk to witnesses. You could gather forensic evidence, question people’s stories. You could measure guilt and grief. You became part of the whole story. This was what interested Rebus. The people interested him; their stories fascinated him. When part of their lives, he could forget his own.

  He noticed the answering-machine was flashing: one message.

  ‘Oh, hello there. I’m . . . um, I don’t know how to put this . . .’ Placed the voice: Kirstin Mede. She sighed. ‘Look, I can’t do this any more. So please don’t . . . I’m sorry, I just can’t. There are other people who can help you. I’m sure one of them . . .’

  End of message. Rebus stared down at the machine. He didn’t blame her. I can’t do this any more. That makes t
wo of us, Rebus thought. The only thing was, he had to keep going. He sat down at his table and pulled the Villefranche paperwork towards him: lists of names and occupations, ages and dates of birth. Picat, Mesplede, Rousseau, Deschamps. Wine merchant, china painter, cartwright, housemaid. What did any of it mean to a middle-aged Scot? He pushed it aside and lifted Siobhan’s paperwork on to the table.

  Off with Van the Man; on with side one of Wish You Were Here. Scratched to hell. He remembered it had come in a black polythene wrapper. When opened, there’d been this smell, which afterwards he’d learned was supposed to be burning flesh . . .

  ‘I need a drink,’ he said to himself, sitting forward in his chair. ‘I want a drink. A few beers, maybe with whiskies attached.’ Something to smooth the edges . . .

  He looked at his watch; not even near to closing time. Not that it mattered much in Edinburgh, the land that closing time forgot. Could he make it to the Ox before they shut up shop? Yes, too easily. It was nicer to have a challenge. Wait an hour or so and then repeat the debate.

  Or call Jack Morton.

  Or go out, right now.

  The telephone rang. He picked it up.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘John?’ Making it sound like ‘Sean’.

  ‘Hello, Candice. What’s up?’

  ‘Up?’

  ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘Problem, no. I just wanting . . . I say to you, see you tomorrow.’

  He smiled. ‘Yes, see you tomorrow. You speak very good English.’

  ‘I was chained to a razor blade.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Line from song.’

  ‘Oh, right. But you’re not chained to it now?’

  She didn’t seem to understand. ‘I’m . . . uh . . .’

  ‘It’s okay, Candice. See you tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, see you.’

  Rebus put down the receiver. Chained to a razor blade . . . Suddenly he didn’t want a drink any more.

  9

  He picked Candice up the next afternoon. She had two carrier bags, her worldly belongings. She gave Sammy as much of a hug as her bandaged arms would allow.