10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  He was still chuckling to himself as his lawyer was led out of the room.

  7

  Younger runaways tended to take the same few routes: by bus, train or hitching, and to London, Glasgow or Edinburgh. There were organisations who would keep an eye open for runaways, and even if they wouldn’t always reveal their whereabouts to the anxious families, at least they could confirm that someone was alive and unharmed.

  But a nineteen-year-old, someone with money to hand . . . could be anywhere. No destination was too distant – his passport hadn’t turned up. He took it with him to clubs as proof of age. Damon had a current account at the local bank, complete with cashcard, and an interest-bearing account with a building society in Kirkcaldy. The bank might be worth trying. Rebus picked up the telephone.

  The manager at first insisted that he’d need something in writing, but relented when Rebus promised to fax him later. Rebus held while the manager went off to check, and had doodled half a village, complete with stream, parkland and pit-head, by the time the man came back.

  ‘The most recent withdrawal was a cash machine in Edinburgh’s West End. One hundred pounds on the fifteenth.’

  The night Damon had gone to Gaitano’s. A hundred seemed a lot to Rebus, even for a good night out.

  ‘Nothing since then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How up to date is that?’

  ‘Up to the close of play yesterday.’

  ‘Could I ask you a favour, sir? I’d like tabs kept on that account. Any new withdrawals, I’d like to know about them pronto.’

  ‘I’d need that in writing, Inspector. And I’d probably also need the approval of my head office.’

  ‘I’d appreciate it, Mr Brayne.’

  ‘It’s Bain,’ the bank manager said coldly, putting down the phone.

  Rebus called the building society and endured the same rigmarole before learning that Damon hadn’t touched his account in more than a fortnight. He made one last call to Gayfield police station and asked for DC Hawes. She didn’t sound too thrilled when he identified himself.

  ‘What’s the word on Gaitano’s?’ he asked.

  ‘Everyone calls it Guiser’s. Pretty choice establishment. Two stabbings last year, one in the club itself, one in the alley out back. Been quieter this year, which is probably down to a stricter door policy.’

  ‘You mean bigger bouncers.’

  ‘Front-of-house managers, if you please. Locals still complain about the noise at chucking-out time.’

  ‘Who owns it?’

  ‘Charles Mackenzie, nicknamed “Charmer”.’

  A couple of uniforms had talked to Mackenzie about Damon Mee, and he’d offered up the security tape which had languished in Gayfield ever since.

  ‘Know how many MisPers there are every year?’ Hawes said with a sigh.

  ‘You told me.’

  ‘Then you should know that if there’s no suspicion of foul play, they’re not exactly a white-hot priority. God knows there are times I’ve felt like doing a runner myself.’

  Rebus thought of his night-time car-rides, long, directionless hours, just filling in the blank spaces of his life. ‘Haven’t we all?’ he said.

  ‘Look, I know you’re doing this as a favour . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘But we’ve done all we can, haven’t we?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘So what’s the point?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Rebus could have told her that it had to do with the past, with some debt he felt he owed to Janice Playfair and Barney Mee – and to the memory of a friend he’d once had called Mitch. Somehow, he didn’t think explaining it to an outsider would help. ‘One last thing,’ he asked instead. ‘Did you get me a still of that woman?’

  Gaitano’s was little more than a solid black door with a neon sign above it, flanked either side by pubs and with a hi-fi shop across the road. There were valve amplifiers and an outsized record deck in the shop window. The deck had an outsized price-tag to match. One of the pubs was called The Headless Coachman. It had changed its name a couple of years back and was touting for tourists.

  Rebus pushed the door-buzzer to Gaitano’s and a woman opened it for him. She was the cleaner, and Rebus didn’t envy her the job. Glasses had been cleared from the tables, but the place still looked like a wreck. There was an industrial vacuum cleaner on the carpet which encircled the dance floor. The floor was littered with cigarette stubs, cellophane, the occasional empty bottle. She’d finished cleaning the foyer, but was only halfway through the main dance area. There were mirrors on all the walls, and in the right light the place would look many times its actual size. In bare white light and with no music, no punters, it looked and felt desolate. There was a fug of stale sweat and beer in the air. Rebus saw a security camera in one corner and gave it a wave.

  ‘Inspector Rebus.’

  The man walking towards him across the dancefloor was about five feet four inches and as thin as a swizzle-stick. Rebus placed him in his mid-fifties. He wore a powder-blue suit and open-necked white shirt to show off his suntan and gold jewellery. His hair was silver and thinning, but as well-cut as the suit. They shook hands.

  ‘Do you want a drink?’

  He was leading Rebus towards the bar. Rebus looked at the row of optics.

  ‘No thank you, sir.’

  Charmer Mackenzie went behind the bar and poured himself a cola.

  ‘Sure?’ he said.

  ‘Same as you’re having,’ Rebus said. He examined one of the bar stools for cigarette ash, then pulled himself up on to it. They faced one another across the bar.

  ‘Not your normal tipple?’ Mackenzie guessed. ‘In my trade, you get a nose for these things.’ And he tapped his nose for effect. ‘The kid hasn’t turned up then?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Sometimes they get a notion . . .’ He shrugged, dismissing the foibles of a generation.

  ‘I’ve got a photograph.’ Rebus reached into his pocket, handed it over. ‘The missing person is second row.’

  Mackenzie nodded, not really interested.

  ‘See just behind him?’

  ‘Is that his doll?’

  ‘Do you know her?’

  Mackenzie snorted. ‘Wish I did.’

  ‘You haven’t seen her before?’

  ‘Picture’s not the best, but I don’t think so.’

  ‘What time do the staff clock on?’

  ‘Not till tonight.’

  Rebus took the photo back, put it in his pocket.

  ‘Any chance of getting my video back?’ Mackenzie asked.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Those things cost money. Overheads, that’s what can cripple a business like this, Inspector.’

  Rebus wondered how he’d merited the nickname ‘Charmer’. He had all the charm of sandpaper. ‘We wouldn’t want that now, would we, Mr Mackenzie?’ he said, getting to his feet.

  Back at the office, he played the tape again, watching the blonde. The way her head was angled, strong jawline, mouth open slightly. Could she be saying something to Damon? A minute later, he was gone. Had she said she’d meet him somewhere? After he’d gone, she’d stayed at the bar, ordering a drink for herself. At dead on midnight, fifteen minutes after Damon had vanished, she’d left the nightclub. The final shot was from a camera mounted on the club’s exterior wall. It showed her turning left along Rose Street, watched by a few drunks who were trying to get into Gaitano’s.

  Someone put their head round the door and told him he had a call. It was Mairie Henderson.

  ‘Thanks for getting back to me,’ he said.

  ‘I take it you’ve a favour to ask?’

  ‘Quite the reverse.’

  ‘In that case, lunch is on me. I’m in the Engine Shed.’

  ‘How convenient.’ Rebus smiled: the Engine Shed was just behind St Leonard’s. ‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’

  ‘Make it two, or all the meatballs will have gone.’

  Which w
as a joke of sorts, in that there was no meat in the meatballs. They were savoury balls of mushroom and chickpea with a tomato sauce. Though a one-minute walk from his office, Rebus had never eaten in the Engine Shed. Everything about it was too healthy, too nutritious. The drink of the day was organic apple juice, and smoking was strictly forbidden. He knew it was run by some sort of charity, and staffed by people who needed a job more than most. Typical of Mairie to choose it for a meeting. She was seated by a window, and Rebus joined her with his tray.

  ‘You look well,’ he said.

  ‘It’s all this salad.’ She nodded towards her plate.

  ‘Lifestyle still suit you?’

  He meant her decision to quit the local daily paper and go freelance. They’d helped one another out on occasion, but Rebus was aware he owed her more brownie points than she owed him. Her face was all clean, sharp lines, her eyes quick and dark. She’d restyled her hair to early Cilia Black. On the table beside her sat her notebook and cellphone.

  ‘I get the occasional story picked up by the London papers. Then my old paper has to run its own version the next day.’

  ‘That must annoy them.’

  She beamed. ‘Have to let them know what they’re missing.’

  ‘Well,’ Rebus said, ‘they’ve been missing a story that’s right under their noses.’ He pushed another forkful of food into his mouth, having to admit to himself that it wasn’t at all bad. Looking around the other tables, he realised all the other diners were women. Some of them were tending to kids in high chairs, some were involved in quiet gossip. The restaurant wasn’t big, and Rebus kept his voice down when he spoke.

  ‘What story’s that?’ Mairie said.

  Rebus’s voice went lower. ‘Paedophile living in Greenfield.’

  ‘Convicted?’

  Rebus nodded. ‘Served his time, now they’ve plonked him in a flat with a lovely view of a kids’ play-park.’

  ‘What’s he been up to?’

  ‘Nothing yet, nothing I can pin him for. Thing is, his neighbours don’t know what’s living next door to them.’

  She was staring at him.

  ‘What is it?’ he said.

  ‘Nothing.’ She munched on more salad, chewing slowly. ‘So where’s the story?’

  ‘Come on, Mairie . . .’

  ‘I know what you want me to do. She pointed her fork at him. ‘I know why you want it.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what has he done?’

  ‘Christ, Mairie, do you know what the reoffending rate is? It’s not something you cure by slapping them in prison for a few years.’

  ‘We’ve got to take a chance.’

  ‘We? It’s not us he’ll be after.’

  ‘All of us, we’ve all got to give them a chance.’

  ‘Look, Mairie, it’s a good story.’

  ‘No, it’s your way of getting to him. Does this all come back to Shiellion?’

  ‘It’s got bugger all to do with Shiellion.’

  ‘I hear they’ve got you down to give evidence.’ She stared at him again, but all he did was shrug. ‘Only,’ she went on, ‘the knives are out as it is. If I do a story on a paedophile living in Greenfield of all places . . . it’d be incitement to murder.’

  ‘Come on, Mairie . . .’

  ‘Know what I think, John?’ She put down her knife and fork. ‘I think something’s gone bad inside you.’

  ‘Mairie, all I want . . .’

  But she was on her feet, unhooking her coat from the back of the chair, collecting her phone, notebook, bag.

  ‘I don’t have much of an appetite any more,’ she said.

  ‘Time was, you’d have gnawed a story like this to the bone.’

  She looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said. ‘I hope to God you’re not, but maybe you are.’

  She walked the length of the restaurant’s wooden floorboards on noisy heels. Rebus looked down at his lunch, at the untouched glass of juice. There was a pub not three minutes away. He pushed the plate away. He told himself Mairie was wrong: it had nothing to do with Shiellion. It was down to Jim Margolies, to the fact that Darren Rough had once made a complaint against him. Now Jim was dead, and Rebus wanted something back. Could he lay Jim’s ghost to rest by tormenting Jim’s tormentor? He reached into his pocket, found the sliver of paper there, the telephone number still perfectly legible.

  I think something’s gone bad inside you.

  Who was he to disagree?

  8

  Four years before, Jim Margolies had been passing through St Leonard’s, seconded to help with a staff shortfall. Three of the CID were down with flu, and another was in hospital for a minor op. Margolies, whose usual beat was Leith, came highly recommended, which made his new colleagues wary. Sometimes a recommendation was made so a station could offload dead weight elsewhere. But Margolies had proved himself quickly, handling a paedophile inquiry with dedication and tact. Two boys had been interfered with on The Meadows during, of all things, a children’s festival. Darren Rough was already in police files. At twelve, he’d interfered with a neighbour’s son, aged six at the time. He’d had counselling, and spent time in a children’s home. At fifteen, he’d been caught peeping in at windows at the student residences in Pollock Halls. More counselling. Another mark in his police file.

  The schoolboys’ description of their attacker had taken police to the house Rough shared with his father. At nine in the morning, the father was drunk at the kitchen table. The mother had died the previous summer, which looked to be the last time the house had been cleaned. Soiled clothes and mouldy dishes were everywhere. It looked like nothing ever got thrown out: burst and rotting binbags stood inside the kitchen door; mail was piled high in a corner of the front hall, where damp had turned it into a single sodden mass. In Darren Rough’s bedroom, Jim Margolies found clothing catalogues, crude penned additions made to the child models. There were collections of teen magazines under the bed, stories about – and pictures of – teenage girls and boys. And best of all from the police point of view, tucked under a corner of rotting carpet was Darren’s ‘Fantasy League’, detailing his sexual proclivities and wish lists, with his Meadows exploit dated and signed.

  For all of which the Procurator Fiscal was duly grateful. Darren Rough, by now twenty years old, was found guilty and sent to jail. A crate of beer was opened at St Leonard’s, and Jim Margolies sat at the top of the table.

  Rebus was there, too. He’d been part of the shift team interviewing Rough. He’d spent enough time with the prisoner to know that they were doing the right thing locking him up.

  ‘Not that it ever helps with those bastards,’ DI Alistair Flower had said. ‘Reoffend as soon as they’re out.’

  ‘You’re suggesting treatment replaces incarceration?’ Margolies had asked.

  ‘I’m suggesting we throw away the fucking key!’ To which there had been cheers of agreement. Siobhan Clarke had been too canny to add her own view, but Rebus knew what she’d been thinking. Nothing was said of the complaint Rough had made. Bruising to his face and body: he’d told his solicitor Jim Margolies had given him a beating. No witnesses. Self-inflicted was the consensus. Rebus knew he’d felt like giving Rough a couple of slaps himself, but Margolies had no history of aggression against suspects.

  There’d been an internal inquiry. Margolies had denied the accusation. A medical examination had been unable to determine whether Rough’s bruises were self-inflicted. And that’s where it had ended, with the faintest of blots on Margolies’ record, the faintest doubt hanging over the rest of his career.

  Rebus closed the case file and walked back to the vault with it.

  Mairie: I think something’s gone bad inside you.

  Rough’s social worker: Your lot wanted him here.

  Rebus went to the Farmer’s office, knocked on the door, entered when told.

  ‘What can I do for you, John?’

  ‘I had a word with Darren Rough’s social worker, sir.’


  The Farmer looked up from his paperwork. ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘Just wanted to know why Rough had been given a flat with a view of a kiddies’ playground.’

  ‘I bet they loved you for that.’ Not sounding disapproving. Social workers rated only a rung or two above paedophiles on the Farmer’s moral stepladder.

  ‘They told me that we wanted him here in the first place.’

  The Farmer’s face furrowed. ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘They suggested I ask you.’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’ The Farmer sat back in his chair. ‘We wanted him here?’

  ‘That’s what they said.’

  ‘Meaning Edinburgh?’

  Rebus nodded. ‘I’ve just been through the file on Rough. He was in a children’s home for a while.’

  ‘Not Shiellion?’ The Farmer was looking interested.

  Rebus shook his head. ‘Callstone House, other side of the city. Just for a short spell. Both parents were alcoholic, neglecting him. There was nowhere else for him to go.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Mother dried out, Rough went back home. Then, later on, she was diagnosed with liver disease, only nobody bothered moving Rough.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because by that time, he was looking after his father.’

  The Farmer looked towards his collection of family snaps. ‘The way some people live . . .’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Rebus agreed.

  ‘So where’s this leading?’

  ‘Only this: Rough comes back to Edinburgh, apparently because we want him here. Next thing, the officer who put him away ends up walking off Salisbury Crags.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting a connection?’

  Rebus shrugged. ‘Jim goes out to dinner at some friends’ with his wife and kid. Drives home. Goes to bed. Next morning he’s dead. I’m looking for reasons why Jim Margolies would take his own life. Thing is, I’m not finding any. And I’m also wondering who’d want Darren Rough back here and why.’

  The Farmer was thoughtful. ‘You want me to talk to Social Work?’

  ‘They wouldn’t talk to me.’

  The Farmer reached for paper and a pen. ‘Give me a name.’