Knots And Crosses tirs-1

by Ian Rankin

  Rebus made himself some coffee, thought about going out for milk, but decided in the end to have the coffee bitter and black, the taste and the colour of his thoughts. He thought over Gill’s idea. Reeve as a librarian? It seemed improbable, unthinkable, but then everything that had happened to him of late had been unthinkable. Rationality could be a powerful enemy when you were faced with the irrational. Fight fire with fire. Accept that Gordon Reeve might have secured a job in the library; something innocuous yet essential to his plan. And suddenly, for John Rebus as for Gill, it all seemed to fit. ‘For those who read between the times.’ For those who are involved with books between one time (The Cross) and another (the present). My God, was nothing arbitrary in this life? No, nothing at all. Behind the seemingly irrational lay the clear golden path of the design. Behind this world there was another. Reeve was in the library: Rebus felt sure of that. It was five o’clock. He could reach the library just as it was closing. But would Gordon Reeve still be there, or would he have moved on now that he had his final victim?

  But Rebus knew that Sammy was not Reeve’s final victim. She was not a ‘victim’ at all. She was merely another device. There could be only one victim: Rebus himself. And for that reason Reeve would still be nearby, still within Rebus’s reach. For Reeve wanted to be found, but slowly, a sort of cat-and-mouse game in reverse. Rebus thought back to the game of cat-and-mouse as played in his schooldays. Sometimes the boy being chased by a girl, or the girl being chased by a boy, would want to be caught, because he or she felt something for the chaser. And so the whole thing became something other than it seemed. That was Reeve’s game. Cat and mouse, and he the mouse with the sting in his tail, the bite in his teeth, and Rebus as soft as milk, as pliant as fur and contentment. There had been no contentment for Gordon Reeve, not for many years, not since he had been betrayed by one whom he had come to call brother.

  Just a kiss

  The mouse caught.

  The brother I never had

  Poor Gordon Reeve, balancing on that slender pipe, the piss trickling down his legs, and everybody laughing at him.

  And poor John Rebus, shunned by his father and his brother, a brother who had turned to crime now and who must be punished eventually.

  And poor Sammy. She was the one he should be thinking of. Think only of her, John, and everything will turn out all right.

  But if this was a serious game, a game of life and death, then he had to remember that it was still a game. Rebus knew now that he had Reeve. But having caught him, what would happen? The roles would switch in some way. He did not yet know all the rules. There was one way and only the one way to learn them. He left the coffee to go cold on his coffee-table, beside all the other waste. There was bitterness enough in his mouth as it was.

  And out there, out in the iron-grey drizzle, there was a game to be finished.

  27

  From his flat in Marchmont to the library could be a delightful walk, showing the strengths of Edinburgh as a city. He passed through a verdant open area called The Meadows, and on the skyline before him stood the great grey Castle, a flag blowing in the fine rain over its ramparts. He passed the Royal Infirmary, home of discoveries and famous names, part of the University, Greyfriars Kirkyard and the tiny statue of Greyfriars Bobby. How many years had that little dog lain beside its master’s grave? How many years had Gordon Reeve gone to sleep at night with burning thoughts of John Rebus on his mind? He shuddered. Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. He hoped that he would get to know his daughter better. He hoped that he would be able to tell her that she was beautiful, and that she would find great love in her life. Dear God, he hoped she was alive.

  Walking along George IV Bridge, which took tourists and others over the city’s Grassmarket, safely away from that area’s tramps and derelicts, latter-day paupers with nowhere to turn, John Rebus’s mind churned a few facts. For one, Reeve would be armed. For another, he might be in disguise. He remembered Sammy talking about the down-and-outs who sat around all day in the library. He could be one of them. He wondered what he would do if and when he met Reeve face to face. What would he say? Questions and theories began to disturb him, frightened him almost as much as did the recognition that Sammy’s fate at the hands of Reeve would be painful and protracted. But she was more important to him than memory: she was the future. And so he stalked towards the Gothic facade of the library with determination, not fear, on his face.

  A news vendor outside, his coat wrapped around him like damp tissue-paper, cried out the latest news, not of the Strangler today but of some disaster at sea. News did not last for long. Rebus swerved past the man, eyeing his face carefully. He noticed that his own shoes were letting in water as usual, then he entered the oak swing-doors.

  At the main desk a security man flicked through a newspaper. He did not resemble Gordon Reeve, not in any way at all. Rebus breathed deeply, trying to stop himself from shaking.

  ‘We’re closing, sir,’ said the guard from behind his newspaper.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you are.’ The guard did not appear to like the sound of Rebus’s voice; it was a hard, icy voice, used like a weapon. ‘My name’s Rebus. Detective Sergeant Rebus. I’m looking for a man called Reeve who works here. Is he around?’

  Rebus hoped that he sounded calm. He did not feel calm. The guard left his newspaper on the chair and came up to face him. He studied Rebus, as though wary of him. Good: Rebus wanted it that way.

  ‘Can I see your identification?’

  Clumsily, his fingers not ready to be delicate, Rebus fished out his ID card. The guard looked at it for some time, glancing up at him.

  ‘Reeve did you say?’ He handed Rebus’s card back and brought out a list of names attached to a yellow plastic clip-board. ‘Reeve, Reeve, Reeve, Reeve. No, there’s nobody called Reeve works here.’

  ‘Are you sure? He may not be a librarian. He could be a cleaner or something, anything.’

  ‘No, everybody’s on my list, from the Director down to the porter. Look, that’s my name there. Simpson. Everybody’s on this list. He’d be on this list if he worked here. You must have made a mistake.’

  Staff were beginning to leave the building, calling out their ‘goodnight’s’ and their ‘see you’s’. He might lose Reeve if he didn’t hurry. Always supposing that Reeve still worked here. It was such a slender straw, such a tenuous hope, that Rebus began to panic again.

  ‘Can I see that list?’ He put out his hand, making his eyes burn with authority. The guard hesitated, then handed over the clip-board. Rebus searched it furiously, looking for anagrams, clues, anything.

  He didn’t have to look far.

  ‘Ian Knott,’ he whispered to himself. Ian Knott. Gordian knot. Reef knot. Gordian reef. It’s just like my name. He wondered if Gordon Reeve could smell him. He could smell Reeve. He was as close as a short walk, perhaps a flight of stairs. That was all.

  ‘Where does Ian Knott work?’

  ‘Mister Knott? He works part-time in the children’s section. Nicest man you could hope to meet. Why? What’s he done?’

  ‘Is he in today?’

  ‘I think so. I think he comes in for two hours at the end of the afternoon. Look, what’s this all about?’

  ‘The children’s section, you said? That’s downstairs, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right.’ The guard was really flustered now. He knew trouble when he saw it. ‘I’ll just phone down and let him …’

  Rebus leaned across the desk so that his nose touched that of the guard. ‘You’ll do nothing, understand? If you buzz down to him, I’ll come back up and kick that telephone so far up your arse that you really will be able to make internal calls. Do you get my drift?’

  The guard started to nod slowly and carefully, but Rebus had already turned his back on him and was heading for the gleaming stairwell.

  The library smelled of used books, of damp, of brass and polish. In Rebus’s nostrils it was the smell of confrontation, a smell that would remain with him. Walking down t
he stairs, down into the heart of the library, it became the smell of a hosing down in the middle of the night, of wrenching a gun away from its owner, of lonely marches overland, of wash-houses, of that whole nightmare. He could smell colours and sounds and sensations. There was a word for that feeling, but he could not remember it for the moment.

  He counted the steps down, using the exercise to calm himself. Twelve stairs, then around a corner, then twelve more. And he found himself at a glass door with a small painting on it: a teddy bear and a skipping-rope. The bear was laughing at something. To Rebus, it was smiling at him. Not a pleasant smile, but a gloating one. Come in, come in, whoever you are. He studied the room’s interior. There was nobody about, not a soul. Quietly, he pushed open the door. No children, no librarians. But he could hear someone placing books on a shelf. The sound came from a partition behind the lending-desk. Rebus tiptoed over to the desk and pressed a little bell there.

  From behind the partition, humming, brushing invisible dust from his hands, came an older, chubbier, smiling Gordon Reeve. He look a bit like a teddy bear himself. Rebus’s hands were gripping the edge of the desk.

  Gordon Reeve stopped humming when he saw Rebus, but the smile still played games with his face, making him seem innocent, normal, safe.

  ‘Good to see you, John,’ he said. ‘So you’ve tracked me down at last, you old devil. How are you?’ He was holding out a hand for Rebus to shake. But John Rebus knew that if he lifted his fingers from the edge of the desk, he would crumple to the floor.

  He remembered Gordon Reeve now, recalled every detail of their time together. He remembered the man’s gestures and his jibes and his thoughts. Blood brothers they had been, enduring together, able to read the other’s mind almost. Blood brothers they would be again. Rebus could see it in the mad, clear eyes of his smiling tormentor. He felt the sea rushing through him, stinging his ears. This was it then. This was — what had been expected of him.

  ‘I want Samantha,’ he enunciated. ‘I want her alive and I want her now. Then we can settle this any way you like. Where is she, Gordon?’

  ‘Do you know how long it is since anyone called me that? I’ve been Ian Knott for so long I can hardly bring myself to think of me as a “Gordon Reeve”.’ He smiled, looking behind Rebus’s back. ‘Where’s the cavalry, John? Don’t tell me you’ve come along here on your own? That’s against procedure, isn’t it?’

  Rebus knew better than to tell him the truth. ‘They’re outside, don’t worry. I’ve come in here to talk, but I’ve got plenty of friends outside. You’re finished, Gordon. Now tell me where she is.’

  But Gordon Reeve only shook his head, chuckling. ‘Come on, John. It wouldn’t be your style to bring anyone with you. You forget that I know you.’ He looked tired suddenly. ‘I know you so well.’ His disguise was slipping away, piece by careful piece. ‘No, you’re alone all right. All alone. Just like I was, remember?’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Not telling.’

  There could be no doubt that the man was insane; perhaps he always had been. He looked the way he had looked on the days just before the bad days in their cell, on the edge of an abyss, an abyss created in his own mind. But fearful all the same, for the very reason that it was outwith any physical control. He was, smiling, surrounded by colourful posters, glossy drawings and picture-books, the most dangerous-looking man Rebus had met in his entire life.

  ‘Why?’

  Reeve looked at him as though he could not have asked a more infantile question. He shook his head, smiling still, the whore’s smile, the cool, professional smile of the killer.

  ‘You know why,’ he said. ‘Because of everything. Because you left me in the lurch, just as surely as if we had been in the hands of the enemy. You deserted, John. You deserted me. You know what the sentence is for that, don’t you? You know what the sentence is for desertion?’

  Reeve’s voice had become hysterical. He chuckled again, trying to calm himself. Rebus steadied himself for violence, pumping adrenaline through his body, knotting his fists and his muscles.

  ‘I know your brother.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your brother Michael, I know him. Did you know that he’s a drugs pusher? Well, more of a middle-man really. Anyway, he’s up to his neck in trouble, John. I’ve been his supplier for a while. Long enough to find out about you. Michael was very keen to reassure me that he wasn’t a plant, a police informer. He was keen to spill the beans about you, John, so that we’d believe him. He always thought of the set-up as a “we”, but it was just little me. Wasn’t that clever of me? I’ve already fixed your brother. His head’s in a noose, isn’t it? You could call it a contingency plan.’

  He had John Rebus’s brother, and he had his daughter. There was only one more person he wanted, and Rebus had walked straight into this trap. He needed time to think.

  ‘How long have you been planning all this?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ He laughed, growing in confidence. ‘Ever since you deserted, I suppose. Michael was the easiest part, really. He wanted easy money. It was simple enough to persuade him that drugs were the answer. He’s in it up to his neck, your brother.’ The last word was spat out at Rebus as though it were venom. ‘Through him I found out a little more about you, John. And that made everything easier in its turn.’ Reeve shrugged his shoulders. ‘So you see, if you turn me in, I’ll turn him in.’

  ‘It won’t work. I want you too badly.’

  ‘So you’ll let your brother rot in jail? Fair enough. Either way, I win. Can’t you see that?’

  Yes, Rebus could see it, but dimly, as though it were a difficult equation in a hot classroom.

  ‘What happened to you anyway?’ he asked now, unsure why he was playing for time. He had come charging in here without a self-protective thought or a plan in his head. And now he was stuck, awaiting Reeve’s move, which must surely come. ‘I mean, what happened after I … deserted?’

  ‘Oh, they cracked me quite quickly after that.’ Reeve was nonchalant. He could afford to be. ‘I was out on my ear. They put me into a hospital for a while, then let me go. I heard that you’d gone ga-ga. That cheered me up a little. But then I heard a rumour that you’d joined the police force. Well, I couldn’t stand the thought of you having a cosy life of it. Not after what we’d been through and what you’d done.’ His face began to jerk a little. His hands rested on the desk, and Rebus could smell the vinegary sweat coming from him. He spoke as though drifting off to sleep, but with each word Rebus knew that he was becoming more dangerous still, and yet he could not make himself move, not yet.

  ‘It took you long enough to get to me.’

  ‘It was worth the wait.’ Reeve rubbed at his cheek. ‘Sometimes I thought I might die before it was all finished, but I think I always knew that I wouldn’t.’ He smiled. ‘Come on, John, I’ve got something to show you.’

  ‘Sammy?’

  ‘Don’t be fucking stupid.’ The smile disappeared again, only for a second. ‘Do you think I’d keep her here? No, but I’ve got something else that will interest you. Come on.’

  He led Rebus behind the partition. Rebus, his nerves jangling, studied Reeve’s back, the muscles covered in a layer of easy living. A librarian. A children’s librarian. And Edinburgh’s own mass murderer.

  Behind the partition were shelves and shelves of books, some piled haphazardly, others in neat rows, their spines matching.

  ‘These are all waiting to be reshelved,’ said Reeve, waving a custodial hand around him. ‘It was you that got me interested in books, John. Do you remember?’

  ‘Yes, I told you stories.’ Rebus had started to think about Michael. Without him, Reeve might never have been found, might never have been suspected even. And now he would go to jail. Poor Mickey.

  ‘Now where did I put it? I know it’s here somewhere. I put it aside to show you, if you ever found me. God knows, it’s taken you long enough. You’ve not been very bright, have you, John?’

  It
was easy to forget that the man was insane, that he had killed four girls in a game and had another at his mercy. It was so easy.

  ‘No,’ said Rebus, ‘I’ve not been very bright.’

  He could feel himself tightening. The very air around him seemed to be getting thinner. Something was about to happen. He could feel it. And to stop it from happening, all he had to do was punch Reeve in the kidneys, chop him behind the neck, restrain him and bundle him out of here.

  So why didn’t he do just that? He did not know himself. All he knew was that whatever would happen would happen, and that it had been set out like the plan of a building or a game of noughts and crosses many years before. Reeve had started the game. That left Rebus in a no-win situation. But he could not leave it unfinished. There had to be this rummaging in the shelves, this find.

  ‘Ah, here it is. It’s a book I’ve been reading …’

  But, John Rebus realised, if Reeve had been reading it, then why was it so well hidden?

  ‘Crime and Punishment. You told me the story, do you remember?’

  ‘Yes, I remember. I told it to you more than once.’

  ‘That’s right, John, you did.’

  The book was a quality leather edition, quite old. It did not seem like a library copy. Reeve handled it as though he were handling money or diamonds. It was as though he had owned nothing so precious in all his life.

  ‘There’s one illustration in here that I want you to see, John. Do you recall what I said about old Raskolnikov?’

  ‘You said he should have shot the lot of them …’

  Rebus caught the under-meaning a second too late. He had misread this clue as he had misread so many of Reeve’s clues. Meantime, Gordon Reeve, his eyes shining, had opened the book and brought out a small snub-nosed revolver from its hollowed-out interior. The gun was being raised to meet Rebus’s chest when he sprang forward and butted Reeve on the nose. Planning was one thing, but sometimes dirty inspiration was needed. Blood and mucus came crashing from the suddenly broken bones. Reeve gasped, and Rebus’s hand pushed the gun-arm away from him. Reeve was screaming now, a scream from the past, from so many living nightmares. It set Rebus off balance, plunging him back into his act of betrayal. He could see the guards, the open door, and he with his back to the screams of the trapped man. The scene before him blurred, and was replaced by an explosion.