10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  Rebus thanked the Customs official and went in search of food. Parked in the middle of town and grabbed a burger, sat at a window table and thought it all through. There were still aspects that didn’t make sense, but he could cope with that.

  He made two calls: one to the hospital; one to Bobby Hogan. Sammy hadn’t woken up again. Hogan was interviewing Pretty-Boy at seven o’clock. Rebus said he’d be there.

  The weather was kind on the trip south, the traffic manageable. The Saab seemed to enjoy long drives, or maybe it was just that at seventy miles an hour the engine noise disguised all the rattles and bumps.

  He drove straight to Leith cop-shop, looked at his watch and found he was quarter of an hour late. Which didn’t matter, since they were just starting the interview. Pretty-Boy was there with Charles Groal, all-purpose solicitor. Hogan was sitting with another CID officer, DC James Preston. A tape-recorder had been set up. Hogan looked nervous, realising how speculative this whole venture was, especially with a lawyer present. Rebus gave him a reassuring wink and apologised for having been detained. The burger had given him indigestion, and the coffee he’d had with it had done nothing for his frayed nerves. He had to shake his head clear of Inverness and all its implications and concentrate on Pretty-Boy and Joseph Lintz.

  Pretty-Boy looked calm. He was wearing a charcoal suit with a yellow t-shirt, black suede winkle-picker boots. He smelt of expensive aftershave. In front of him on the desk: a pair of tortoiseshell Ray-Bans and his car keys. Rebus knew he’d own a Range Rover – it was mandatory for Telford employees – but the key-ring boasted the Porsche marque, and on the street outside Rebus had parked behind a cobalt blue 944. Pretty-Boy showing a touch of individuality . . .

  Groal had his briefcase open on the floor beside him. On the desk in front of him: an A4 pad of ruled paper, and a fat black Mont Blanc pen.

  Lawyer and client oozed money easily made and just as easily spent. Pretty-Boy used his money to buy class, but Rebus knew his background: working-class Paisley, a granite-hard introduction to life.

  Hogan identified those present for the benefit of the tape-recorder, then looked at his own notes.

  ‘Mr Summers . . .’ Pretty-Boy’s real name: Brian Summers. ‘Do you know why you’re here?’

  Pretty-Boy made an O of his glossy lips and stared ceilingwards.

  ‘Mr Summers,’ Charles Groal began, ‘has informed me that he is willing to co-operate, Inspector Hogan, but that he’d like some indication of the accusations against him and their validity.’

  Hogan stared at Groal, didn’t blink. ‘Who said he’s accused of anything?’

  ‘Inspector, Mr Summers works for Thomas Telford, and your police force’s harassment of that individual is on record . . .’

  ‘Nothing to do with me, Mr Groal, or this station.’ Hogan paused. ‘Nothing at all to do with my present inquiries.’

  Groal blinked half a dozen times in quick succession. He looked at Pretty-Boy, who was now studying the tips of his boots.

  ‘You want me to say something?’ Pretty-Boy asked the lawyer.

  ‘I’m just . . . I’m not sure if . . .’

  Pretty-Boy cut him off with a wave of his hand, then looked at Hogan.

  ‘Ask away.’

  Hogan made show of studying his notes again. ‘Do you know why you’re here, Mr Summers?’

  ‘General vilification as part of your witch-hunt against my employer.’ He smiled at the three CID men. ‘Bet you didn’t think I’d know a word like “vilification”.’ His gaze rested on Rebus, then he turned to Groal.

  ‘DI Rebus isn’t based at this station.’

  Groal took the hint. ‘That’s true, Inspector. Might I ask by what authority you’ve been allowed to sit in on this interview?’

  ‘That will become clear,’ Hogan said, ‘if you’ll allow us to begin?’

  Groal cleared his throat, but said nothing. Hogan let the silence lie for a few moments, then began.

  ‘Mr Summers, do you know a man called Joseph Lintz?’

  ‘No.’

  The silence stretched out. Summers recrossed his feet. He looked up at Hogan, and blinked, the blink deteriorating into a momentary twitch of one eye. He sniffed, rubbed at his nose – trying to make out that the twitch meant nothing.

  ‘You’ve never met him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The name means nothing to you?’

  ‘You’ve asked me about him before. I’ll tell you same as I told you then: I never knew the cat.’ Summers sat up a bit straighter in his chair.

  ‘You’ve never spoken to him by telephone?’

  Summers looked at Groal.

  ‘Hasn’t my client made himself clear, Inspector?’

  ‘I’d like an answer.’

  ‘I don’t know him,’ Summers said, forcing himself to relax again, ‘I’ve never spoken to him.’ He gave Hogan his stare again, and this time held it. There was nothing behind the eyes but naked self-interest. Rebus wondered how anyone could ever think him ‘pretty’, when his whole outlook on life was so fundamentally ugly.

  ‘He didn’t phone you at your . . . business premises?’

  ‘I don’t have any business premises.’

  ‘The office you share with your employer.’

  Pretty-Boy smiled. He liked those phrases: ‘business premises’; ‘your employer’. They all knew the truth, yet played this little game . . . and he liked playing games.

  ‘I’ve already said, I never spoke to him.’

  ‘Funny, the phone company says differently.’

  ‘Maybe they made a mistake.’

  ‘I doubt that, Mr Summers.’

  ‘Look, we’ve been through this before.’ Summers sat forward in his chair. ‘Maybe it was a wrong number. Maybe he spoke to one of my associates, and they told him he had a wrong number.’ He opened his arms. ‘This is going nowhere.’

  ‘I agree with my client, Inspector,’ Charles Groal said, scribbling something down. ‘I mean, is this leading anywhere?’

  ‘It’s leading, Mr Groal, to an identification of Mr Summers.’

  ‘Where and by whom?’

  ‘In a restaurant with Mr Lintz. The same Mr Lintz he claims never to have met, never to have spoken to.’

  Rebus saw hesitation cross Pretty-Boy’s face. Hesitation, rather than surprise. He made no immediate denial.

  ‘An identification made by a member of staff at the restaurant,’ Hogan continued. ‘Corroborated by another diner.’

  Groal looked to his client, who wasn’t saying anything, but the way he was staring at the table, Rebus wondered a smoking hole didn’t start appearing in it.

  ‘Well,’ Groal went on, ‘this is fairly irregular, Inspector.’

  Hogan wasn’t interested in the lawyer. It was Pretty-Boy and him now.

  ‘What about it, Mr Summers? Care to revise your version of events? What were you talking about with Mr Lintz? Was he looking for female company? I believe that’s your particular area of expertise.’

  ‘Inspector, I must insist . . .’

  ‘Insist away, Mr Groal. It won’t change the facts. I’m just wondering what Mr Summers will say in court when he’s asked about the phone call, the meeting . . . when the witnesses identify him. I’m sure he’s got a fund of stories, but he’ll have to find a bloody good one.’

  Summers slapped the desk with both palms, half-rose to his feet. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. Veins stood out on the backs of his hands.

  ‘I told you, I’ve never met him, never talked to him. Period, end of story, finito. And if you’ve got witnesses, they’re lying. Maybe you’ve told them to lie. And that’s all I’ve got to say.’ He sat back down, put his hands in his pockets.

  ‘I’ve heard,’ Rebus said, as though attempting to liven up a flagging conversation between friends, ‘that you run the more upmarket girls, the three-figure jobs rather than the gam-and-bam merchants.’

  Summers snorted and shook his head.

  ‘Inspector,’
Groal said, ‘I can’t allow these accusations to continue.’

  ‘Was that what Lintz wanted? Did he have expensive tastes?’

  Summers continued shaking his head. He seemed about to say something, but caught himself, laughed instead.

  ‘I would like to remind you,’ Groal went on, unheeded by anyone, ‘that my client has co-operated fully throughout this outrageous . . .’

  Rebus caught Pretty-Boy’s eyes, held their stare. There was so much he wasn’t telling . . . so much he very nearly wanted to tell. Rebus thought of the length of rope in Lintz’s house.

  ‘He liked to tie them up, didn’t he?’ Rebus asked quietly.

  Groal stood up, yanking Summers to his feet.

  ‘Brian?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ Groal said. He was stuffing his notepad into his case, closing its brass locks. ‘If you should find yourselves with any questions worth my client’s time, we’ll be pleased to assist. But otherwise, I’d advise you to . . .’

  ‘Brian?’

  DC Preston had turned off the tape recorder and gone to open the door. Summers picked up his car keys, slipped his sunglasses on.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘it’s been educational.’

  ‘S&M,’ Rebus persisted, getting in Pretty-Boy’s face. ‘Did he tie them up?’

  Pretty-Boy snorted, shook his head again. He paused as his lawyer led him past Rebus.

  ‘It was for him,’ he said in an undertone.

  It was for him.

  Rebus drove to the hospital. Sat with Sammy for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of meditation and head-clearing. Twenty reviving minutes, at the end of which he squeezed his daughter’s hand.

  ‘Thanks for that,’ he said.

  Back at the flat, he thought of ignoring the answering-machine until after he’d had a bath. His shoulders and back were aching from the drive to Inverness. But something made him press the button. Jack Morton’s voice: ‘I’m on for a meeting with TT. Let’s meet after. Half-ten at the Ox. I’ll aim for that, but can’t promise. Wish me luck.’

  He walked in at eleven.

  There was folk music in the back room. The front would have been quiet if it weren’t for two loud-mouths who looked like they’d been at it since their office closed for the night. They still wore work-suits, newspapers rolled in their pockets. They were drinking G&T.

  Rebus asked Jack Morton what he wanted.

  ‘A pint of orange and lemonade.’

  ‘So how did it go?’ Rebus ordered the drink. In forty minutes, he’d managed to put away two Cokes, and was now on coffee.

  ‘They seem keen.’

  ‘So who was at the meeting?’

  ‘My sponsors from the shop, plus Telford and a couple of his men.’

  ‘The transmitter worked okay?’

  ‘Sound as a pound.’

  ‘Did they search you?’

  Morton shook his head. ‘They were sloppy, seemed really sweaty about something. Want to hear the plan?’ Rebus nodded. ‘Middle of the night, truck arrives at the factory, and I let it through the gates. My story is, I had a phone call from the boss okaying the delivery. So I wasn’t suspicious.’

  ‘Only your boss never made the call?’

  ‘That’s right. So I was duped by a voice. And that’s all I need to tell the police.’

  ‘We’d sweat the truth out of you.’

  ‘Like I say, John, the whole plan’s half-baked. I’ll give them this though – they did check my background. Seemed satisfied.’

  ‘Who’s going to be in the truck?’

  ‘Ten men, armed to the teeth. I’m to get a rough plan of the place to Telford tomorrow, let him know how many people will be around, what the alarm system’s like . . .’

  ‘What’s in it for you?’

  ‘Five grand. He’s judged that right: five gets my debts repaid and puts a wedge in my pocket.’

  Five grand: the amount Joseph Lintz had taken out of his bank . . .

  ‘Your story’s holding?’

  ‘They’ve staked out my flat.’

  ‘And they didn’t follow you here?’

  Morton shook his head, and Rebus filled him in on what he’d learned and what he suspected. While Morton was taking it in, Rebus threw a question at him.

  ‘How does Claverhouse want to play it?’

  ‘The tape evidence is good: Telford talking, me making sure I called him “Mr Telford” and “Tommy” a few times. It’s obviously him on the recording. But . . . Claverhouse wants Telford’s crew caught red-handed.’

  ‘“Got to do it right”.’

  ‘That seems to be his catch-phrase.’

  ‘Is there a date?’

  ‘Saturday, all being well.’

  ‘What’s the betting we get a tip-off on Friday?’

  ‘If your theory’s right.’

  ‘If I’m right,’ he agreed.

  33

  The tip-off didn’t come until Saturday lunchtime, but when it did, Rebus knew his hunch had been right.

  Claverhouse was the first to congratulate him, which surprised Rebus, because Claverhouse had a lot on his plate and had acted very casually when the call had come. Pinned to the walls of the Crime Squad office were detailed maps of the drugs plant, along with staff rosters. Coloured stickers showed where personnel would be stationed. During the night, it was security only, unless some big order was demanding overtime. Tonight, the usual security staff would be augmented by Lothian & Borders Police. Twenty people inside the plant, with marksmen stationed on roofs and at certain key windows. A dozen cars and vans as back-up. It was the biggest operation of Claverhouse’s career; a lot was expected of him. He kept saying ‘it has to be done right’. He said he would leave ‘nothing to chance’. Those two phrases had become his mantra.

  Rebus had listened to a recording of the snitch call: ‘Be at Maclean’s factory in Slateford tonight. Two in the morning, it’s going to be turned over. Ten men, tooled up, driving a lorry. If you’re canny, you can catch all of them.’

  Scots accent, but sounding long distance. Rebus smiled, looked at the turning spools, and said ‘Hello again, Crab’ out loud.

  No mention of Telford, which was interesting. Telford’s men were loyal: they’d go down without saying a word. And Tarawicz wasn’t grassing up Telford. He couldn’t know the police already had taped evidence of Telford’s involvement. Which meant he was planning on letting Telford go . . . No, think it through. With the plan dead in the water and ten of his best men in custody, Tarawicz didn’t need Telford under lock and key. He wanted him out in the open and worried, Yakuza breathing down his neck, all his frailties exposed. He could be picked off at any time, or made to hand over everything. No blood-letting required; it would be a simple business proposition.

  ‘It has to be . . .’

  ‘Done right,’ Rebus said. ‘Claverhouse, we know, okay?’

  Claverhouse lost it. ‘You’re only here because I tolerate you! So let’s get that straight for a start. I snap my fingers and you’re out of the game, understood?’

  Rebus just stared at him. A line of sweat was running down Claverhouse’s left temple. Ormiston was looking up from his desk. Siobhan Clarke, briefing another officer beside a wall-chart, stopped talking.

  ‘I promise I’ll be a good boy,’ Rebus said quietly, ‘if you’ll promise to stop with the broken record routine.’

  Claverhouse’s jaw was working, but eventually he produced a near-smile of apology.

  ‘Let’s get on with it then.’

  Not that there was much for them to do. Jack Morton was working a double shift, wouldn’t start till three o’clock. They’d be watching the place from then on, just in case Telford changed the game-plan. This meant personnel were going to miss the big match: Hibs against Hearts at Easter Road. Rebus had his money on a 3–2 home win.

  Ormiston’s summing-up: ‘Easiest quid you’ll ever lose.’

  Rebus retired to one of the computers and got back to work. Siobhan Cla
rke had already come round snooping.

  ‘Writing it up for one of the tabloids?’

  ‘No such luck.’

  He tried to keep it simple, and when he was happy with the finished product he printed off two copies. Then he went out to buy a couple of nice, bright folders . . .

  He dropped off one of the folders, then returned home, too restless to be much use at Fettes. Three men were waiting in his tenement stairwell. Two more came in behind him, blocking the only escape route. Rebus recognised Jake Tarawicz and one of his muscle-men from the scrapyard. The others were new to him.

  ‘Up the stairs,’ Tarawicz ordered. Rebus was a prisoner under escort as they climbed the steps.

  ‘Unlock the door.’

  ‘If I’d known you were coming, I’d have got in some beers,’ Rebus said, searching his pockets for keys. He was wondering which was safer: let them in, or keep them out? Tarawicz made the decision for him, nodded some signal. Rebus’s arms were grabbed, hands went into his jacket and trousers, found his keys. He kept his face blank, eyes on Tarawicz.

  ‘Big mistake,’ he said.

  ‘In,’ Tarawicz ordered. They pushed Rebus into the hallway, walked him to the living room.

  ‘Sit.’

  Hands pushed Rebus on to the sofa.

  ‘At least let me make a pot of tea,’ he said. Inside he was trembling, knowing everything he couldn’t afford to give away.

  ‘Nice place,’ Mr Pink Eyes was saying. ‘Lacks the feminine touch though.’ He turned to Rebus. ‘Where is she?’ Two of the men had peeled off to search the place.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I mean, who else would she turn to? Not your daughter . . . not now she’s in a coma.’

  Rebus stared at him. ‘What do you know about that?’ The two men returned, shook their heads.

  ‘I hear things.’ Tarawicz pulled out a dining-chair and sat down. There were two men behind the sofa, two in front.

  ‘Make yourselves at home, lads. Where’s the Crab, Jake?’ Reasoning: a question he might be expected to ask.

  ‘Down south. What’s it to you?’

  Rebus shrugged.

  ‘Shame about your daughter. Going to make a recovery, is she?’ Rebus didn’t answer. Tarawicz smiled. ‘National Health Service . . . I wouldn’t trust it myself.’ He paused. ‘Where is she, Rebus?’