10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they make everyone money. Russia’s one giant bazaar. You want weapons, counterfeit goods, money, fake passports, even plastic surgery? You want any of that, it’s in Russia. The place has open borders, airports nobody knows exist . . . it’s ideal.’

  ‘If you happen to be an international mobster.’

  ‘Exactly. And the mafiya have made links with their Sicilian cousins, with the Camorra, the Calabrians . . . I could go on forever. British villains go shopping there. They all love the Russians.’

  ‘And now they’re here?’

  ‘Oh, they’re here all right. Running protection and prossies, dealing drugs . . .’

  Prostitutes, drugs: Mr Pink Eyes’s territory; Telford’s territory.

  ‘Any evidence of a hook-up with the Yakuza?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘But if they moved into Britain . . .?’

  ‘They’d be trying to control drugs and prostitution. They’d be laundering money.’

  Ways to launder money: through legitimate businesses such as country clubs and the like; by swopping dirty money for casino chips at an establishment like the Morvena.

  Rebus already knew that the Yakuza liked to smuggle artworks back into Japan. Rebus already knew Mr Pink had made his early money smuggling icons out of Russia. Put the two together.

  Then add Tommy Telford to the equation.

  Did they need the haul from Maclean’s? It didn’t sound to Rebus like they did. So why was Tommy Telford doing it? Two possible reasons: one, to show off; two, because they’d told him to. Some rite of passage . . . If he wanted to play with the big boys, he had to prove himself. He had to wipe out Cafferty, and pull off what would be the biggest heist in Scottish history.

  Something hit Rebus between the eyes.

  Telford wasn’t meant to succeed. Telford was meant to fail.

  Telford was being set up by Tarawicz and the Yakuza.

  Because he had something they wanted: a steady supply of drugs; a kingdom waiting to be plucked from his grasp. Miriam Kenworthy had said as much: rumour was, the drugs were going south from Scotland. Which meant Telford had a supply . . . something nobody knew about.

  With Cafferty out of the way, there’d be no competition. The Yakuza would have their British base – solid, respectable, reliable. The electronics factory would act as perfect cover, maybe even as a laundering operation itself. Every way Rebus looked at it, Telford was unnecessary to the equation, like a zero that could be safely cancelled out.

  Which was where Rebus wanted Telford . . . only not at the price being asked.

  ‘Thanks for your help,’ he said. He noticed that Hogan had stopped listening and was staring into space. Rebus put the phone down.

  ‘Sorry to have bored you.’

  Hogan blinked. ‘No, nothing like that. It’s just that I thought of something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pretty-Boy. I mistook him for a woman.’

  ‘You’re probably not the first.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow you?’

  ‘In the restaurant . . . Lintz and a young woman.’ Hogan shrugged. ‘It’s a long shot.’

  Rebus saw it. ‘Talking business?’

  Hogan nodded. ‘Pretty-Boy runs Telford’s stable.’

  ‘And takes a personal interest in the higher-price models. It’s worth a try, Bobby.’

  ‘What do you think – bring him in?’

  ‘Definitely. Beef up the restaurant angle. Say there’s a positive ID. See what he says to that.’

  ‘Same gag we pulled with Colquhoun? Pretty-Boy’s bound to deny it.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean it ain’t so.’ Rebus patted Hogan on the shoulder.

  ‘What about your call?’

  ‘My call?’ Rebus looked at his scrawled notes. Gangsters preparing to carve up Scotland. ‘It wasn’t the worst news I’ve ever had.’

  ‘And is that saying much?’

  ‘Afraid not, Bobby,’ Rebus said, putting on his jacket. ‘Afraid not.’

  30

  By the end of play, Rebus still hadn’t received the files on the Crab, but he had fielded a frank and foul-mouthed call from Abernethy, accusing him of everything from obstruction – which was pretty rich, considering – to racism, which Rebus thought nicely ironic.

  They’d given him back his car. Someone had run their finger through the dirt crusted on the boot, creating two messages: TERMINAL CASE, and WASHED BY STEVIE WONDER. The Saab, affronted, started first time and seemed to have shrugged off some of its repertoire of clanks and thunks. On the drive home, Rebus kept the windows open so he wouldn’t smell the whisky that had soaked into the upholstery.

  The evening had turned out fine, the sky clear, temperature dropping sharply. The low red sun, curse of the city’s drivers, had disappeared behind the rooftops. Rebus left his coat unbuttoned as he walked down to the chip shop. He bought a fish supper, two buttered rolls, and a couple of cans of Irn-Bru, then returned to the flat. Nothing on the TV, so he put on a record. Van Morrison: Astral Weeks. The record had more scratches than a dog with eczema.

  The opening track contained the refrain ‘To be born again’. Rebus thought of Father Leary, shored up by a fridge full of medicine. Then he thought of Sammy, crowned with electrodes, machines rising either side of her, like she was being offered to them in sacrifice. Leary often talked of faith, but it was hard to have faith in a human race that never learned, that seemed ready to accept torture, murder, destruction. He opened his newspaper: Kosovo, Zaire, Rwanda. Punishment beatings in Northern Ireland. A young girl found murdered in England, another girl’s disappearance termed ‘a cause for concern’. The predators were out there, no doubt about it. Strip the veneer, and the world had moved only a couple of steps from the cave.

  To be born again . . . But sometimes only after a baptism of fire.

  Belfast, 1970. A sniper’s bullet blew open the skull of a British squaddie. The victim was nineteen, came from Glasgow. Back in the barracks, there’d been little mourning, just an overspill of anger. The assassin would never be caught. He’d slipped back into the shadows of a tower-block, and from there deep into the Catholic housing estate.

  Leaving one more newspaper story, one early statistic in the ‘Troubles’.

  And anger.

  The ring-leader went by the nickname of ‘Mean Machine’. He was a lance-corporal, came from somewhere in Ayrshire. Cropped blond hair, looked like he’d played rugby, liked to work out, even if it was just press-ups and sit-ups in the barracks. He started the campaign for retribution. It was to be covert – meaning behind the backs of the ‘brass’. It was to be a release-valve for the frustration, the pressure that was building in the cramped confines of the barracks. The world outside was enemy terrain, everyone a potential foe. Knowing there was no way to punish the sniper, Mean Machine had decided to hold the entire community to blame: collective responsibility, for which there would be collective justice.

  The plan: a raid on a known IRA bar, a place where sympathisers drank and colluded. The pretext: a man with a handgun, chased into the bar, necessitating a search. Maximum harassment, ending with the beating of the local IRA fundraiser.

  And Rebus went along with it . . . because it was collective. You were either part of the team, or you were dead meat. And Rebus wasn’t in the market for pariah status.

  But all the same, he knew the line between ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ had become blurred. And during the incursion, it disappeared altogether.

  Mean Machine went in hardest, teeth bared, eyes ablaze. He swung with his rifle, cracking skulls. Tables flew, pint glasses shattered. Initially the other soldiers seemed shocked by the sudden violence. They looked to each other for guidance. Then one of them lashed out, and the others fell in beside him. A mirror dissolved into glittering stars, stout and lager washed over the wooden floor. Men were shouting, begging, crawling on hands and knees across the glass minefield. Me
an Machine had the IRA man pinned to a wall, kneeing him in the groin. He twisted his body, threw him to the floor, then started pummelling him with the rifle-butt. More soldiers were pouring into the drinking-club: armoured cars arriving outside. A chair crashed into the row of optics. The smell of whisky was almost overpowering.

  Rebus tried to shut it out, his own teeth bared not in anger but anguish. Then he aimed his rifle at the ceiling and let loose a single shot, and everything froze . . . A final kick to the bloodied figure on the floor and Mean Machine turned and walked out of the club. The others hesitated again, then followed. He’d proved something to the other men: for all his lowly rank, he’d become their leader.

  They enjoyed themselves that night in the barracks, chiding Rebus for letting his trigger-finger slip. They cracked open cans of beer and told stories, stories which were already being exaggerated, turning the event into a myth, giving it a grandeur it had lacked.

  Turning it into a lie.

  A few weeks later, the same IRA man was found shot dead in a stolen car south of the city, on a farm road with a view of hills and grazing land. Protestant paramilitaries took the blame, but Mean Machine, though he admitted nothing, would wink and grin when the incident was mentioned. Bravado or confession – Rebus was never sure. All he knew was that he wanted out, away from Mean Machine’s newly minted code of ethics. So he did the one thing he could – applied to join the SAS. Nobody would think him a coward or a turncoat for applying to join the elite.

  To be born again.

  Side one had finished; Rebus turned the record over, switched off the lights and went to sit in his chair. He felt a chill run through him. Because he knew how events like Villefranche could come to be. Because he knew how the world’s continuing horrors could come to be perpetrated at the cusp of the twentieth century. He knew that mankind’s instinct was raw, that every act of bravery and kindness was countered by so many acts of savagery.

  And he suspected that if his daughter had been that sniper’s victim, he’d have run into the bar with his trigger-finger already working.

  Telford’s gang ran in a pack, too, trusted their leader. But now he wanted to run with an even bigger gang . . .

  The phone rang and he picked up.

  ‘John Rebus,’ he said.

  ‘John, it’s Jack.’ Jack Morton. Rebus put down his can.

  ‘Hello, Jack. Where are you?’

  ‘In the poky one-bedroomed flat our friends at Fettes so graciously provided.’

  ‘It has to fit the image.’

  ‘Aye, I suppose so. Got a phone though. Coin job, but you can’t have everything.’ He paused. ‘You okay, John? You sound . . . not all there.’

  ‘That just about sums me up, Jack. What’s it like being a security guard?’

  ‘A dawdle, pal. Should have taken it up years ago.’

  ‘Wait till your pension’s safe.’

  ‘Aye, right.’

  ‘And it went okay with Marty Jones?’

  ‘Oscars all round. They were just heavy enough. I stumbled back into the shop, said I had to sit down. The Gruesome Twosome were very solicitous, then started asking me all these questions . . . Not very subtle.’

  ‘You don’t think they twigged?’

  ‘Like you, I was a bit dubious about setting it up so fast, but I think they fell for it. Whether their boss goes along is a different story.’

  ‘Well, he’s under a lot of pressure.’

  ‘With the war going on?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s the whole story, Jack. I think he’s under pressure from his partners.’

  ‘The Russian and the Japs?’

  ‘I think they’re setting him up for a fall, and Maclean’s is the precipice.’

  ‘Evidence?’

  ‘Gut feeling.’

  Jack was thoughtful. ‘So where do I stand?’

  ‘Just ca’ canny, Jack.’

  ‘I never thought of that.’

  Rebus laughed. ‘When do you think they’ll make contact?’

  ‘They followed me home – that’s how desperate they are. They’re sitting outside right now.’

  ‘They must think you’re a good thing.’

  Rebus could see the way it was going. Dec and Ken getting panicky, needing a quick result – feeling vulnerable so far away from Flint Street, not knowing if they’d be Cafferty’s next victims. Telford, pressure applied by Tarawicz, and now with the Yakuza boss in town . . . needing a result, something to show he was top dog.

  ‘What about you, John? It’s been a while.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How are you holding up?’

  ‘I’m on soft drinks only, if that’s what you mean.’ And a car doused in whisky . . . he could taste it in his lungs.

  ‘Hang on,’ Jack said. ‘Someone’s at the door. I’ll call you back.’

  ‘Be careful.’

  The phone went dead.

  Rebus gave it an hour. When Jack hadn’t called, he got on the blower to Claverhouse.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Claverhouse told him from his mobile. ‘Tweedledee and Tweedledum came calling, took him off somewhere.’

  ‘You’re watching the flat?’

  ‘Decorator’s van parked down the street.’

  ‘So you’ve no idea where they’ve taken him?’

  ‘I’d guess he’s at Flint Street.’

  ‘With no back-up?’

  ‘That’s how we all wanted it.’

  ‘Christ, I don’t know . . .’

  ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

  ‘It’s not you in the firing line. And I’m the one who volunteered him.’

  ‘He knows the score, John.’

  ‘So now you wait for him either to come home or end up on a slab?’

  ‘Christ, John, Calvin was Charlie Chester compared to you.’ Claverhouse had lost all patience. Rebus tried to think of a comeback, slammed the phone down instead.

  Suddenly he couldn’t be doing with Van the Man; put on Bowie instead, Aladdin Sane: nicely discordant, Mike Garson’s piano in key with his thoughts.

  Empty juice cans and a dead pack of cigarettes stared up at him. He didn’t know Jack’s address. The only person who’d give it to him was Claverhouse, and he didn’t want to pick up their conversation. He took Bowie off halfway through side one, substituted Quadrophenia. Liner notes: ‘Schizophrenic? I’m bleeding Quadrophenic’. Which was just about right.

  Quarter past midnight, the phone rang. It was Jack Morton.

  ‘Back home safe and sound?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘Right as nails.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Claverhouse?’

  ‘He can wait his turn. I said I’d phone you back.’

  ‘So what did you get?’

  ‘The third degree, basically. Some guy with dyed black hair, frizzy . . . tight jeans.’

  ‘Pretty-Boy.’

  ‘Wears mascara.’

  ‘Looks like. So what was the gist?’

  ‘Second hurdle passed. Nobody’s mentioned what the job is yet. Tonight was a sort of preface. Wanted to know all about me, told me my money worries could be over. If I could help them with a “little problem” – Pretty-Boy’s words.’

  ‘You asked what the problem was?’

  ‘He wasn’t saying. If you ask me, he goes to Telford, talks it through. Then there’s another meeting, and that’s where they tell me the plan.’

  ‘And you’ll be miked up?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And if they strip you?’

  ‘Claverhouse has access to some miniaturised stuff, cuff-links and the like.’

  ‘And your character would obviously wear cuff-links.’

  ‘True enough. Maybe fit a transmitter into a bookie’s pencil.’

  ‘Now you’re thinking.’

  ‘I’m thinking I’m wiped out.’

  ‘What was the mood like?’

  ‘Fraught.’

  ‘Any sign of Tarawicz or Shoda?’

  ‘Nope, just
Pretty-Boy and the Gruesome Twosome.’

  ‘Claverhouse calls them Tweedledum and Tweedledee.’

  ‘He’s obviously classically educated.’ Morton paused. ‘You’ve spoken to him?’

  ‘When you didn’t call back.’

  ‘I’m touched. Do you think he’s up to it?’

  ‘Claverhouse?’ Rebus thought about it. ‘I’d feel better if I was in charge. But that probably puts me in a minority.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You’re a pal, Jack.’

  ‘They’re running a check on me. But that’s all in place. With luck, I’ll pass.’

  ‘What did they say to your sudden arrival at Maclean’s?’

  ‘I’ve been transferred from another plant. If they go looking, I’m in the personnel files.’ Morton paused again. ‘One thing I want to know . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pretty-Boy handed me a hundred quid on account: what do I do with it?’

  ‘That’s between you and your conscience, Jack. See you soon.’

  ‘Night, John.’

  For the first time in a while, Rebus actually made it as far as his bed. His sleep was deep and dreamless.

  31

  Doctors in white coats were doing things to Sammy when Rebus arrived at the hospital next morning: taking her pulse, shining lights in her eyes. They were setting up another scanner, a nurse trying to untangle the thin coloured leads. Rhona looked like she’d lost some sleep. She jumped up and ran towards him.

  ‘She woke up!’

  It took him a second to take it in. Rhona was holding his arms, shaking him.

  ‘She woke up, John!’

  He pushed his way to the bedside.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last night.’

  ‘Why didn’t you phone me?’

  ‘I tried three, four times. You were engaged. I tried Patience, but there was no answer there.’

  ‘What happened?’ To him, Sammy looked the same as ever.

  ‘She just opened her eyes . . . No, first off, it was like she was moving her eyeballs. You know, with her eyelids closed. Then she opened her eyes.’

  Rebus could see that the medical personnel were finding their work hampered. Half of him wanted to lash out – We’re her fucking parents! The other half wanted them to do all they could to bring her round again. He took Rhona by the shoulder and guided her out into the hallway.