10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘She died, man.’ His eyes bored into the reporter’s. ‘But then everybody dies.’

  ‘You played these games by yourself?’

  Oakes shook his head. ‘The other kids got to know me. I joined a gang, rose through the ranks.’

  ‘See much action?’

  Oakes shrugged. ‘There were a few fights. Mostly we just played football and glowered at strangers. Offed a few of the neighbourhood cats too.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Sprayed them with lighter fluid, torched them.’ Oakes’s eyes fixed on Stevens. ‘Typical start to your basic serial killer. I read about it in jail. Loner who torches animals.’

  ‘But you weren’t alone, you were with your gang.’

  Oakes smiled again. ‘But I was the one with the lighter, Jim. And that made all the difference.’

  When they took a break, Stevens returned to his own room. Two sachets of coffee into a cup of boiling water. He’d been wakened at four that morning by the telephone. His boss had worked a miracle, and Stevens found himself speaking to a Seattle journalist who’d followed the Oakes case all the way along. The journalist, Matt Lewin, confirmed that Oakes had attended regular Sunday services in the Walla Walla penitentiary.

  ‘A lot of them do, doesn’t mean they’ve seen the light.’

  Now Stevens lay back on the bed and sipped his coffee. He wanted to track down Oakes’s teenage gang. It would be good background, another insight into Cary Oakes. If they ran the story, maybe someone from the gang would read it and come forward. Then Stevens could interview them for the book. He’d asked Matt Lewin if any American publishers would be interested.

  ‘Not when he’s not one of ours. We like home-grown product. Besides, Jim, serial killers went out of fashion a while back.’

  Stevens was hoping for a fashion revival. The book deal would be his gold watch, a little retirement gift to himself. He knew he should do some research, try to check the stories Oakes had been telling. But he felt so tired, and his boss had told him: get the story first, confirm it later. He finished his coffee and reached for a cigarette. Swung his legs off the bed.

  Showtime.

  Janice Mee took a break, ate at the restaurant at the top of John Lewis’s. From one window, the view was of Calton Hill. They’d climbed it with Damon one day, back when he was seven or eight. She had photos of the trip in one of her albums: Calton Hill, the Castle, Museum of Childhood . . . There were dozens of albums. She kept them in the bottom of the wardrobe. She’d taken them out recently, brought the whole lot downstairs so she could go through them, reviving memories of holiday camps and days at the seaside, birthday parties and sports days. From one of the restaurant’s other windows, she had a good view of the Fife coastline. She couldn’t see as far inland as her home town. There were times in the course of her life when she’d contemplated a move: south to Edinburgh, north to Dundee. But there was something comfortable about the place where you were born, where your family and friends were. Her parents and grandparents had been born in Fife, the history of the place inextricably linked to her own. Her mother had been a little girl at the time of the General Strike, but remembered them putting up barricades around Lochgelly. Her father had clung to a lamp-post to watch Johnny Thomson’s funeral. The way a family stretched back in time could be measured. But that sense of history misled you into thinking the future would be the same. As Janice was finding out, the thread of continuity could be snapped at any point along the way.

  She ate the roll, filled with prawn mayonnaise, without any pleasure or sense of taste. She knew she’d drunk her coffee only because the cup was empty. One pale prawn sat on the rim of the plate, where it had fallen from the roll. She left it where it was and got up from the table.

  Outside the St James’ Centre she crossed Princes Street and headed for Waverley Station. A line of taxi cabs snaked from the underground concourse back up on to Waverley Bridge. The drivers sat behind their wheels, some reading or eating or listening to their radios. Others staring into space or sharing news with fellow drivers. She started at the back of the queue and worked her way forwards. John Rebus had given her some names. One of them was Henry Wilson. The drivers all seemed to know him, called him ‘The Lumberjack’. They put out a call to him. Meantime, she showed them her pictures of Damon and explained that he’d been picked up on George Street.

  ‘Anyone with him, love?’ one driver asked.

  ‘A woman . . . short blonde hair.’

  The driver shook his head. ‘I’ve a good memory for blondes,’ he said, handing back the flyer.

  The problem was, a couple of trains had just arrived – London and Glasgow. The taxis were moving faster than she could, heading down to where their passengers waited. She looked back up the slope. More taxis were joining the back of the queue. She couldn’t tell who she’d talked to and who was new. Engines were starting, fumes getting into her lungs. Cars sounding their horns as they moved past her, heading down into the station, wondering what she was doing on the roadway when there was a pavement the other side. Day-trippers looked at her, too. They knew she’d never get a taxi here, knew the system: you queued at the rank.

  Her mouth felt sour and gritty. The coffee had been strong: she could feel her heart pounding. And then another car sounded its horn.

  ‘All right, all right,’ she said, passing down the line to the next taxi, which was already moving off. The car-horn sounded again: right behind her. She turned on it, glowering, saw it was another black cab, window open. Nobody in the back, just the driver, leaning towards her. Short black hair, long black beard, green tartan shirt.

  ‘Lumberjack?’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘That’s what they call me.’

  She smiled. ‘John Rebus gave me your name.’ Cars were held up behind him. One flashed its lights.

  ‘You better get in,’ he said. ‘Before they have my licence off me for obstruction.’

  Janice Mee got in.

  The taxi went down into the station, and took the exit ramp back up, then turned right and crossed the traffic, settling at the back of the queue of cabs. Henry Wilson pulled on the handbrake and turned in his seat.

  ‘So what does the Inspector want this time?’

  And Janice Mee told him.

  It had to be serious: instead of summoning him, the Farmer had come looking for Rebus, who was out in the car park having a cigarette and thinking about Janice Playfair aged fifteen . . .

  ‘Is it the surveillance?’ Rebus asked, thinking maybe something had happened.

  ‘No, it bloody well isn’t.’ The Farmer stuck his hands in his pockets: he meant business.

  ‘What have I done this time?’

  ‘The press have got hold of Darren Rough. One paper printed the story this morning, the rest are busy catching up. My secretary’s fielded so many calls, she doesn’t know if she’s in St Leonard’s or St Pancras.’

  ‘How did they get the story?’ Rebus asked, ditching his cigarette.

  The Farmer narrowed his eyes. ‘That’s what Rough’s social worker wants to know. He’s ready to make a formal complaint.’

  Rebus rubbed at his nose. ‘He thinks I did it?’

  ‘John, I know bloody well you did it.’

  ‘With respect, sir—’

  ‘John, just shut up, will you? The reporter you spoke to, first thing he did when you’d put the phone down was hit 1471. He got the number you were calling from.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And it was The Maltings.’ Public house: almost directly across the street from St Leonard’s. ‘But better than that, our intrepid reporter asked the punter who answered about the person who’d last used the phone. Want me to read you the description?’

  ‘Male, white, middle-aged?’ Rebus guessed. ‘Could be a thousand blokes.’

  ‘Could be. Which hasn’t stopped Rough’s social worker thinking it’s you.’

  Rebus looked out towards Salisbury Crags. ‘I’m gla
d somebody shopped him.’ He paused. ‘If that was what it was going to take.’

  ‘Take to do what? To run him out of town? To get a mob baying for his blood? John, I’d hate to see what you’d do to Ince and Marshall.’

  Ince and Marshall: the Shiellion accused.

  ‘You wouldn’t have to watch,’ Rebus said. He squared up to his boss. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Steer clear of Rough, that’s number one. Stay on the Oakes surveillance, at least that way you’ll keep out of trouble for six hours at a stretch. And give Jane Barbour a bell.’ He handed Rebus a slip of paper with a phone number on it.

  ‘Barbour? What does she want?’

  ‘No idea. Probably something to do with Shiellion House.’

  Rebus stared at the phone number. ‘Probably,’ he said.

  The Farmer left him to it, and instead of going back into the station, Rebus walked down the lane towards the main road, checked for traffic and walked briskly across. Stepped into The Maltings. It was quiet most daytimes. When he’d made the call, there’d only been one other drinker in the place. A minute after opening time, the same man was alone at the bar with a half-pint and a whisky in front of him.

  ‘Alexander,’ Rebus said, ‘a word with you, please.’ He pulled the drinker by his arm towards the gents’ toilets: didn’t want the barmaid listening in.

  ‘Christ, man, what is it?’ The drinker’s name was Alexander Jessup. He didn’t like Alex or Alec or Sandy or Eck: it had to be Alexander. He’d run his own business at one time: a printer’s. Did headed paper, account books, raffle tickets and the like. Sold it on and was quietly drinking the proceeds away. As a man about town, he heard things, but never gave Rebus much that proved useful. He did like to talk though; he’d talk to anyone who’d listen.

  ‘Any reporters been after you?’ Rebus asked.

  Jessup looked at him with rheumy eyes, like those of an old dog. He shook his head. His face was a mess of puffiness and burst capillaries.

  ‘You spoke to one on the phone,’ Rebus reminded him.

  ‘Was he a reporter?’ Jessup looked stung. ‘He never said.’

  ‘You gave him my description.’

  ‘I might’ve done.’ He thought about it, nodded, then held up a finger. ‘But no names, you know me, John. I never gave him your name.’

  Rebus kept his voice low. ‘If anyone comes looking, keep the description as vague as you can, understood? You never saw the guy on the phone before, he’s not a regular.’ He waited for the message to sink in. Jessup gave him an enormous wink.

  ‘Message received.’

  ‘And understood?’

  ‘And understood,’ Jessup confirmed. ‘I didn’t get you into trouble, did I?’ Dying to know. ‘You know I’d never do something like that.’

  Rebus patted his shoulder. ‘I know, Alexander. Just remember who brings you your breakfast when they’ve put you in the cells for the night.’

  ‘Right enough, John.’ Jessup gave an ‘OK’ sign with his hand. ‘Sorry if I got you into any bother.’

  Rebus pulled open the door. ‘Here, let me buy you one, eh?’

  ‘Only if you’ll take one back.’

  ‘It’s tempting,’ Rebus said, as they headed for the bar. ‘I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t.’

  ‘Have you been drinking?’ Janice Mee asked.

  Rebus didn’t reply straight away; he was too busy looking around his living room. Janice laughed.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Couldn’t help myself.’

  The place had been tidied: newspapers and magazines now took up space on the bottom bookshelf. Books which had been scattered across the floor were on the second and third shelves up. Mugs and plates had vanished into the kitchen, takeaway wrappers and beer cans deposited in the bin. Even the ashtray had been cleaned. Rebus picked it up.

  ‘I think that’s the first time I’ve been able to make out what it says.’

  It was lifted from a pub, advertising some new beer which hadn’t made the grade.

  Janice smiled. ‘It’s something I do when I’m nervous.’

  ‘You should be nervous round here more often.’

  She gave him a punch.

  ‘Careful,’ he said, ‘last time you tried that, I was out cold for ten minutes.’

  ‘I bought teabags and milk while I was out,’ she told him, making for the kitchen. ‘Do you want a cup?’

  ‘Please.’ He followed the trail of her perfume. He hadn’t brought Patience here in over a year; had never entertained many women here. ‘So how did it go?’

  ‘I liked The Lumberjack.’

  ‘But was he any help?’

  She made herself busy with the kettle. ‘Oh, you know . . .’

  ‘Did you get round all the cab ranks?’

  ‘Your friend said I didn’t need to. He’d do it for me.’

  ‘Which left you feeling useless again?’

  She tried to smile. ‘I thought . . . I thought coming here I could . . .’ She bowed her head, voice dropping to a whisper. ‘I’d have been better off staying at home.’

  ‘Janice.’ He turned her so she was facing him. ‘You’re doing your best.’ Her height, her softness and slenderness. They stood as close together now as they had done when they’d danced at the school leaving party, their last night as a couple. Formal dances: waltzes and military two-steps and the Gay Gordons. She wanting each dance to last; he wanting to take her round the back of the school, to their secret place – the same secret place everyone else used.

  ‘You’re doing your best,’ he repeated.

  ‘But it’s not helping. Know what I found myself thinking today? I thought: I’ll kill him for putting me through this.’ Bitter twist of a smile. ‘Then I thought: what if he’s already dead?’

  ‘He’s not dead,’ Rebus said. ‘Trust me on this. He’s not.’

  They took the tea through to the living room, sat at the dining table.

  ‘What time are you headed back?’ he asked.

  ‘I thought six. There’s a train around then.’

  ‘I’ll drive you.’

  She shook her head. ‘Even a country girl like me knows what the traffic’s like that time of day. I’d be quicker on the train.’

  Which was true. ‘I’ll run you to the station then.’ What else had he to do before his shift started, other than try to doze for a while?

  She placed her hands around the mug. ‘Why a policeman, Johnny?’

  ‘Why?’ He tried to form an answer she’d accept. ‘I’d been in the army, didn’t like it, didn’t know what I wanted to do.’

  ‘It’s not exactly the kind of job you drift into.’

  ‘For some of us it is. See, I really got into it.’

  ‘And you’re good at what you do?’

  He shrugged. ‘I get results.’

  ‘Is that not the same thing?’

  ‘Not exactly. Keeping your head down and your nose clean, being good at the office politics . . . I fall down there.’ He shifted in his chair. ‘You always said you were going to be a teacher.’

  ‘I was a teacher . . . for a while.’

  Rebus refrained from saying that his ex-wife had been a teacher too.

  ‘Then you married Brian?’ he asked instead.

  ‘The two aren’t connected.’ She looked down into her tea, seemed relieved when the phone rang. Rebus picked it up.

  ‘Evening, Mr Rebus.’

  ‘Henry,’ Rebus said for Janice’s benefit, ‘got anything for us?’

  ‘Might have. Two fares, picked up on George Street. Driver remembered the blonde. Distinctive face, he said. Kind of hard. Cold eyes. He thought maybe she was a pro.’

  ‘Where did he take them?’ Rebus looking at Janice, who had stood up, still clutching the mug.

  ‘Down to Leith, dropped them by The Shore.’

  Leith: where the city’s working girls plied their trade. The Shore: where Cary Oakes’s hotel was.

  ‘Did he see where they went?’ />
  ‘The lad wasn’t a big tipper. My mate got straight back on the road. Someone had tried flagging him down on Bernard Street. Not many places they could have been going. That time of night, the pubs would be on last orders if they weren’t already shut. There are flats down there, though.’

  Rebus agreed. Flats . . . and the hotel.

  ‘Unless they were going to that boat,’ Wilson said.

  ‘What boat?’

  “The one that’s tied up down there.’ Yes: Rebus had seen it, looked like a semi-permanent mooring. ‘They use it for parties,’ Wilson was saying. ‘Not that I’ve ever been to one . . .’

  He dropped Janice off at Waverley’s concourse. They’d arranged to meet the next afternoon, go look at the boat.

  ‘May be something or nothing,’ Rebus had felt obliged to warn her.

  ‘I’ll settle for that,’ she’d said.

  As she made to leave the car, she hesitated, then leaned towards him and planted a kiss on his cheek.

  ‘What, no tongues?’ he said, smiling. She made to thump his arm, thought better of it. ‘Say hello to Brian from me.’

  ‘I will. If he’s not out with his pals.’ Something in her tone made Rebus want to pursue the subject, but she was out of the car, closing the door. She waved, blew him a kiss, turned and walked towards her platform with the look of a woman who knows she’s being watched. Rebus realised he had one hand on his door handle.

  ‘Forget it,’ he told himself. Instead, he picked up his mobile, told Patience’s machine that he was on night shift and was headed back to his own flat for a bit of kip.

  But first, a pit-stop at the Oxford Bar: whisky with plenty of water. Just the one: responsible car-driver. He caught up on the gossip, adding little to the conversation. George Klasser chastised him for a lapse of faith.

  ‘You’re becoming an irregular regular, John.’

  ‘I always was, Doc.’

  Further along the bar, a rugby argument was developing, drawing other drinkers in. Everyone had an opinion, everyone but Rebus himself. He stared at a print on the wall: portrait of Robert Burns. There was another on the far wall: Burns meeting a young Walter Scott. It looked like a fairly awkward affair, the artist working with benefit of hindsight. It was as if Burns knew the child before him was destined to outsell him, knew the runt would get a knighthood, build Abbotsford and cosy up to the King.