10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus)

by Ian Rankin

  ‘I did have a party that night,’ she agreed. ‘Not that I remember it too well. Bit too much to drink, too many people . . . as per. Word gets around, I do get the occasional gatecrasher. I don’t mind, so long as they’re interesting, but the boat’s owner goes on about overcrowding. He’s always asking me if I know this or that person, did I invite them?’ She drained her second glass of orange. ‘Christ knows why I bother.’

  ‘Why do you bother?’

  A smirk. ‘Because it’s fun, I suppose. And because while I’m doing it, I’m somebody.’ She thought about this, shrugged the thought aside as if it were the wrong jacket. ‘You’re sure he was coming to my party?’

  ‘It’s the last time he was seen,’ Janice confirmed.

  Rebus got out the photographs: Damon; Damon and the mystery blonde. As Ama studied them, he asked casually if she’d ever been to Gaitano’s.

  ‘Do people call it Guiser’s?’ He nodded confirmation. ‘Yes, once or twice. Lots of sweaty job-creation-schemers and dole-fiddlers. Off their faces on happy-hour cocktails, dropping E in the lavs.’ She smiled. ‘Not my scene, I’m afraid.’ She handed back the photos. ‘Sorry, don’t mean a thing to me.’

  ‘Not even the woman?’

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘Looks a bit tarty.’

  ‘It couldn’t be someone you know?’

  ‘Inspector.’ A throaty laugh. ‘That’s hardly narrowing things down. I know everybody.’

  ‘But you don’t know my son,’ Janice said grimly.

  ‘No,’ Ama said, face making a show of contrition. ‘I’m very much afraid I don’t.’ She sprang to her feet. ‘I’d better get back. They’ll have started the judging.’

  Rebus and Janice followed her, stood in the doorway as the prizes were handed out. Hannah was runner-up. As the winner was announced, and went forward to receive a sparkling tiara, everyone clapped and cheered. Everyone except Ama Petrie, who bounced on her toes, booing at the top of her voice as she gave an enthusiastic thumbs-down to the little girl With voluminous black hair, shimmering with glitter.

  Katherine Margolies tried to stop Ama making a scene, but to Rebus’s eyes she didn’t try very hard . . .

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  Stevens found Cary Oakes in the bar, where he was drinking orange juice and talking to the staff.

  ‘Walking, thinking.’ Oakes looked at him. ‘Want to make sure I don’t forget anything.’

  Stevens picked up Oakes’s glass. ‘Then don’t forget this: that’s my juice you’re drinking, my money paying for it. We’ve lost a whole session.’

  ‘I’ll make it up to you.’ Oakes blew Stevens a kiss, grinned and winked at the barman. Turned back to Stevens. ‘Look at you, man, all trembling and sweating. A cardiac arrest’s having your name paged as we speak. You got to slow down, Jim. Go with the flow.’

  ‘My editor wants better copy.’

  ‘You could give him Kennedy’s assassin, he’d say he wanted better copy. You and I know, Jim, the best stuff has to wait for the book, right? The book’s what’s going to make us rich.’

  ‘If I find a publisher.’

  ‘It’ll happen, trust me. Now sit down here beside me and let me buy you one. Hell, I don’t mind putting my hand in my pocket for a friend.’ He wrapped an arm around Stevens’ shoulders. ‘You’re with Cary now, Jim. You’re part of my exclusive circle. Nothing bad’s going to happen.’ Oakes made eye contact, held it. ‘You can depend on that,’ he said. ‘Cross my heart.’

  ‘Just drop me off at Haymarket,’ Janice said. They were back in the car, heading into town.

  ‘You sure? I could drive you—’

  She was shaking her head.

  ‘Look, Janice, a trail like this . . . we’re bound to run into dead ends. Maybe a lot of them. It’s something you’ll have to accept.’

  She shook her head. ‘I was thinking of all those kids . . . wondering what they’ll be like when they grow up. If I’d had a daughter . . .’ She shook her head again.

  ‘It was pretty ghastly,’ Rebus agreed.

  She looked at him. ‘Did you think so? I thought so too, at first. But then I kept looking . . . and they all looked so beautiful.’ She took out a handkerchief, dabbed at her eyes.

  ‘I think I’d better drive you home,’ he said.

  ‘No, I don’t want that.’ She paused, put a hand on his arm. ‘I just mean . . . I don’t want to put you . . . Oh Christ, I don’t know what I want any more.’

  ‘You want Damon back.’

  ‘Yes, I want that.’

  ‘What else?’

  She seemed to consider the question. But in the end she made no answer, just turned to him again and smiled, eyes shiny from crying.

  ‘In a funny way, it’s like you’ve never been away,’ she told him.

  He nodded. ‘Just the thirty-odd years. What’s that between friends?’

  They shared the laughter; he touched the back of her hand with his fingers. Parked outside Haymarket station, they sat in silence for a while. Then she opened the door, got out. Smiled one last time and walked away.

  Rebus sat for another minute or two, imagining himself running down to the platform, seeking her amongst the crowds . . . Like in a film. Real life was never like that. In films, there was nothing you couldn’t do; in the real world . . . in the real world it always got messy.

  He went back to Oxford Terrace. Patience wasn’t home. They’d passed beyond the stage of leaving notes. He soaked in a bath for half an hour, drifting off to sleep, startling himself awake as his chin dipped beneath the water. He saw the headline: dog-tired cop in bathtime tragedy. One for Jim Stevens to relish.

  He lay on the sofa, put some music on. Pete Hammill: ‘Two or Three Spectres’. He knew they were there, his ghosts, settling around him, getting comfortable. More comfortable than he could ever be. Patience, Sammy, Janice . . . A point was coming, between Patience and him. A crisis point maybe, but then they’d been there before. But was there some point coming between Janice and him too? Something very different . . .? He picked up a book, covered his eyes with it.

  Slept.

  21

  Ama Petrie wasn’t the only one who’d thought the mystery blonde looked ‘tarty’ or a bit like a pro. On his way down to The Shore that evening, Rebus decided on a slight detour.

  A few of the working girls still plied their trade dockside. Most of the city’s prostitutes worked in licensed premises masquerading as saunas, but a few still took risks by walking the streets. Sometimes it was because they were desperate or unemployable – which meant they had an obvious drug habit – while others just liked to do their own thing, despite the dangers. Over in Glasgow, there were fewer saunas and more girls on the street. Result: seven murders in as many years.

  Rebus’s thinking: street girls worked Leith; the blonde looked ‘tarty’; the taxi had brought her and Damon to Leith. It was another possibility. Say they hadn’t been making for the Clipper. Say they’d been heading for her room.

  Her room, or maybe a hotel . . .

  There were only three women out this evening on Coburg Street, but he knew one of them. Stopped the car and called her over. She got into the passenger seat, bringing waves of perfume with her.

  ‘Long time no see,’ she said. Her name was Fern. Punters assumed it was made up, but Rebus knew from her records that she’d been born Fern Bogot. He knew too that she worked the streets because she liked to be her own boss. In saunas, the proprietor was always taking a cut. She had her regulars; didn’t often go with strangers. Mature gentlemen preferred. She found them less aggressive.

  Her mane of red hair was a wig, though it looked natural enough. Rebus put the car into gear and signalled to move off. She took her punters to some waste ground in Granton. If Rebus stuck around, he wasn’t a punter, and that made everyone uneasy. Looking in his rearview, he saw one of the remaining women peering at the car, then turning to scrawl something on a wall.

  ‘What’s she doing?’ he ask
ed.

  Fern turned back. ‘Good old Lesley,’ she said. ‘She’s taking your registration. That way, if my body turns up, there’s something for the cops to go on. We call it our insurance policy. Can’t be too careful these days.’

  Rebus nodded agreement, drove them around the streets, asking his questions. She studied the photographs in detail, but was forced to shake her head.

  ‘Nobody like that works down here.’

  ‘What about the lad?’

  ‘Sorry.’ She handed the photos back. Rebus exchanged them for one of Janice’s flyers.

  ‘Just in case,’ he said.

  When he dropped her back at her patch, he got out of the car and went to look at the wall. Sure enough, there were rows of car registration numbers scrawled there, most of them in various shadings of lipstick, some worn away by the elements. His own was at the bottom of the last column. He looked up the column, started to frown. At the top was a number he thought he recognised. Where did he know it from . . .?

  Suddenly it dawned on him: he’d seen it in a file at Leith police station. Leith: where Jim Margolies had been stationed. It was mentioned in the file on Jim’s suicide.

  It was the registration number of his car.

  ‘What is it?’ Fern asked.

  Rebus tapped the wall. ‘This one. Belongs to a guy called Jim. A cop.’

  She frowned in concentration, then shrugged. ‘Not one of mine,’ she said. ‘But it’s orange lipstick.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Lesley has a code, her way of telling who’s gone in which car.’

  ‘And who does orange lipstick mean?’

  She was shaking her head. ‘Not a who so much as a what. Orange means whoever it was, he liked them young . . .’

  Roy Frazer wasn’t the only one waiting for Rebus down at The Shore. Sitting in the car alongside him was the Farmer.

  ‘Checking up on us, sir?’ said Rebus, getting into the back seat. As he got in, Frazer got out, closing the door after him.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ the Farmer said. ‘I’ve spent half the day trying to find you.’ He handed Rebus the day’s surveillance notes. ‘First entry,’ he snapped.

  Rebus looked. Bill Pryde recorded himself taking over from Rebus at 0600. His next entry: ‘Cary Oakes entered hotel at 0745.’

  ‘Which means,’ the Farmer said, ‘he left the hotel at some point, and one of you missed him.’

  ‘I saw his bedroom light go off,’ Rebus said.

  ‘That’s right, you did. It’s in the log.’

  ‘Which means he sneaked out on my shift?’ Rebus’s fingernails dug into his palms.

  ‘Or during the first hour of Bill Pryde’s.’

  ‘Either’s possible. We’re only covering the front of the building. Plenty of access points at the rear.’

  The Farmer turned to face him. ‘Access isn’t our problem, John. Our problem is that he seems to be able to leave whenever he likes.’

  ‘Yes, sir. But a single-officer surveillance . . .’

  ‘Is no bloody use at all if we’re not keeping tabs on him.’

  ‘I thought the point was to needle him, let him know we can make things difficult.’

  ‘And does it look to you like we’re succeeding, Inspector?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Rebus conceded. ‘Thing is, if he’s got a way of getting out undetected, why not go back the same way?’

  ‘Because the doors at the back can only be opened from within.’

  ‘That’s one possibility, sir.’

  ‘And the other?’

  ‘He’s playing with us, having a little joke at our expense. He wants us to know what he’s been doing.’

  ‘And what has he been doing, all the time he’s been out roaming?’

  Rebus shook his head. ‘I don’t know, sir. Why don’t we ask him?’

  When Frazer and the Farmer had left, Rebus decided to follow his own advice. He found Cary Oakes in the bar: no sign of Jim Stevens. Oakes was sitting on a stool, chatting with the two barmen. There were a few other drinkers scattered round the tables, business types, discussing deals even in their cups.

  Oakes waved for Rebus to join him, asked him what he was drinking.

  ‘Whisky,’ Rebus said. ‘A malt.’

  ‘Take your pick, Mr Stevens is paying.’ Oakes allowed himself a little chuckle, chin tucked into his neck. He looked like he’d had a few, but Rebus saw he was drinking cola. ‘What about something to chase it down?’

  Rebus shook his head. ‘And I pay for my own,’ he said.

  There was plenty of choice behind the bar. Rebus decided on something fiery: Laphroaig, with a splash of water to damp the flames. Cary Oakes tried signing for the drink, but Rebus was insistent.

  ‘Your good health then,’ Oakes said, lifting his own glass.

  ‘You like playing games, don’t you?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘Not much else to do in jail. I taught myself chess.’

  ‘I don’t mean board games.’

  ‘What then?’ Oakes’ eyes were heavy-lidded.

  ‘Well, you’re playing a game right now.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Bar-room raconteur. A couple too many, telling stories to anyone who’ll listen.’ He nodded towards the barmen, who’d moved to the far end to wash glasses. ‘Just another piece of play-acting.’

  ‘You could go on TV with this stuff. No, I mean it. You’re so shrewd. Guess you have to be in your profession.’

  ‘Is Jim Stevens falling for it?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘The stories you’re telling him. How much of the truth are you giving him?’

  Oakes narrowed his eyes. ‘How much truth do you think he can take? If I went into details, think his newspaper would publish them?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘People can only take so much truth, John.’ He leaned towards Rebus. ‘Want me to tell you about it, John? Want me to tell you how many I really did kill?’

  ‘Tell me about Deirdre Campbell.’

  Oakes sat back, took a sip of his drink. ‘Alan Archibald thinks I killed her.’

  ‘And did you?’ Rebus tried to keep the question casual. Lifted his glass to his lips.

  ‘Does it matter?’ Oakes smiled. ‘It matters to Alan, doesn’t it? Why else would he have come running when I called?’

  ‘He wants the truth – all of it.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right. And what do you want, John? What brought you running in here? Shall I tell you?’ He made himself comfortable on the stool. ‘The morning shift saw me coming back. I wasn’t sure he was awake: arms folded, head over on one shoulder. I thought he’d nodded off.’ He tutted. ‘I’m not sure his heart’s in it. The job, I mean, police work. He looks the type who’s coasting to retirement.’

  Which just about summed up Bill Pryde; not that Rebus was about to admit it.

  ‘I think you have problems with your job, too, but not in the same way.’

  ‘Taught yourself psychology along with the chess?’

  ‘When there were no new books to read, I started reading people.’

  ‘You killed Deirdre Campbell, didn’t you?’

  Oakes put a finger to his lips. Then: ‘Did you kill Gordon Reeve?’

  Gordon Reeve: another ghost; a case from years back . . . Jim Stevens had been shooting his mouth off.

  ‘Tell me,’ Rebus said, ‘do you trade with Stevens? You tell him a story, he has to tell you one?’

  ‘I’m just interested in you.’

  ‘Then you’ll know I killed Gordon Reeve.’

  ‘Did you mean to?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure about that? You stabbed a drug-dealer . . . he died.’

  ‘Self-defence.’

  ‘Yes, but did you want him dead?’

  ‘Let’s talk about you, Oakes. What made you pick Deirdre Campbell?’

  Oakes gave another wry smile. Rebus wanted to rip his lips from his face. ‘See, John? See how easy it is to play the game? Stories, that’s all they are.
Way back in the past, things we’d like to think we can forget.’ He slipped off the stool. ‘I’m going to my room now. A nice hot bath, I think, then maybe one of the in-room movies. I might call down for a sandwich later. Would you like something sent out to the car?’

  ‘I don’t know, what’s the menu like?’

  ‘No menu, you just order what you like.’

  ‘Then I’ll have your head on a plate, no garnish required.’

  Cary Oakes was laughing as he left the bar.

  There was someone in the car.

  Rebus started forward, saw they were in the passenger seat. As he got close, he saw it was Alan Archibald. Rebus opened the driver’s-side door and got in.

  ‘Car wasn’t locked,’ Archibald said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Didn’t think you’d mind.’

  Rebus shrugged, lit a cigarette.

  ‘Have you been talking to him?’ Archibald needed no confirmation. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He’s playing a game with you, Alan. That’s all it is to him.’

  ‘He told you that?’

  ‘He didn’t need to. It’s what he does. Stevens, you, me . . . we’re how he gets his kicks.’

  ‘You’re wrong there, John. I’ve seen how he gets his kicks.’ He leaned down to the floor, brought out a green folder. ‘Thought you might like something to read.’

  Alan Archibald’s file on Cary Dennis Oakes.

  Cary Oakes had travelled to the USA on a tourist visa. His biography prior to this time was sketchy: a father who’d died when he was young; a mother who’d had psychological problems. Cary had been born in Nairn, where his father had worked as a green-keeper at one of the local golf courses, and his mother as a maid at a hotel in the town. Rebus knew Nairn as a windswept coastal resort, the kind of destination that had lost out as cheap foreign holidays had prospered.

  When Oakes’s father had died following a stroke, the mother had experienced a breakdown. Her employers had let her go, and she’d headed south with her son, finally stopping in Edinburgh, where she had a half-sister. They’d never been particularly close, but there was no one else, no other family, so mother and son had been squeezed into a room in the house in Gilmerton. Soon afterwards, Cary had started running away. His school had notified his mother that his attendance was irregular at best. There were nights and weekends when he just didn’t bother going home at all. His mother was beyond caring, and her half-sister preferred him out of the house anyway, since her husband had taken a furious dislike to the boy.