by Ian Rankin
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Reviews for Ian Rankin
EXIT MUSIC
‘Rankin has an unparalleled ability to draw in the reader and make us feel every knock and setback in Inspector Rebus’s red-raw life. Rarely has that talent been better displayed than in Exit Music which sees the flawed but redeemingly honest central character staggering towards the finishing line of an inglorious career that has utterly defined his life.’
Scotland on Sunday
‘The main theme of the book is civic corruption by the power of money, money from whatever source. Always up to the minute, Rankin has Russian oligarchs or something similar lurking on the streets of Edinburgh and the murder of a Russian poet is directly counterpointed to the death throes of the real life Russian, Litvinenko . . . As Rankin percipiently observes, the problem is the overworld not the underworld - words which might well sum up the philosophy of Rankin’s whole oeuvre.’
The Spectator
‘The last scene bringing together Rebus and Cafferty, is a sly, ingenious reworking of Holmes’s apparently fatal tussle with Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls - another Scottish author attempting to retire his detective but failing, you can’t help but notice. The possibility of Rebus returning is conspicuously left open.’ Sunday Times
‘The title Exit Music serves a dual meaning - not just Rebus’s exit from the police but also the possibility of Scotland’s wishing to leave the Union with England after the recent election results . . . Exit Music is a fitting end to the career of one of the most beguiling characters in the history of crime fiction - not because the lowering of the final curtain finds the audience satisfied but because it leaves them gasping for more.’ The Times
‘It would, of course, be criminally bad form to reveal the precise manner of John Rebus’s final exit - but I think most readers will find the music more or less note-perfect.’ Daily Mail
THE NAMING OF THE DEAD
‘Masterly . . . Ian Rankin’s finest novel. It is more than a crime novel, or rather, Rankin’s achievement is to show, convincingly, how crime permeates society.’ Scotsman
‘Rebus may seem to be running on something very near empty, but there is no sign that Rankin has lost any of the energy to continue this consistently impressive series.’ Sunday Times
‘Rankin deftly inserts Rebus into the true story of that week, culminating, as it did, in the London bombings of July 7. An excellent performance, for a cop on the verge of extinction.’ Marcel Berlins, The Times
‘Politics crashes head on into Inspector Rebus’s usual interests (solving grisly murders and supping pints) in the latest of this award-winning series. The Naming of the Dead, set against the 2005 G8 Summit, is yet another irresistible page-turner from the UK’s best crime novelist.’
Mail on Sunday
‘The plot is another Rankin corker, complex yet convincing, and played out on this occasion over only nine days against the backdrop of last year’s G8 summit at Gleneagles, with its retinue of concerts and marches against poverty . . . The best crime novel you’ll read this year.’
Sunday Telegraph
FLESHMARKET CLOSE
‘Rankin’s best novel yet and that’s saying something.’ Observer
‘As always, Rankin proves himself the master of his own milieu. He brings the dark underside of Edinburgh deliciously to life . . . Rankin never puts a foot wrong.’ Daily Mail
‘Rankin at his best, recalling Dickens both in the vigour and ambition of their social portraiture and in their campaigning thrust.’ Sunday Times
‘No one writes more gripping stories than Rankin; his imagination peoples Edinburgh the way Balzac’s fantasy did Paris. The scenes which emerge ... are the product of a troubling imagination and a probing intellect which uses the crime genre to examine aspects of life, especially contemporary Scottish life, that politicians prefer to ignore.’
Times Literary Supplement
‘Another year and another surefire bestseller for Britain’s No.1 crime writer, Ian Rankin.’ Daily Mirror
‘Ironic, exciting and immediate. The plot is resourceful; characterisation sharp; humour as unexpected as a rug jerked from under your feet. Despite the wear and tear, Rebus has never looked in better shape; a long, long way, I’d have thought, from retirement.’ Literary Review
A QUESTION OF BLOOD
‘He writes with a natural rhythm which exerts an almost hypnotic effect.’
Independent
‘Exemplifies the enhanced craftsmanship of the author’s recent work; the sheer number of handicaps Rebus overcomes and of the puzzles he solves evinces a relishable virtuosity.’ Sunday Times
‘A rich absorbing narrative in which the focus is not on who did it - that we know - but why. Artful, moving and entertaining.’ Observer
‘An exceptionally well-plotted book, which is guaranteed to hook you and keep you hooked.’ Sunday Telegraph
‘Recent crime writers ... have at their disposal all the openings for alienation afforded by the modern world - and, if one of them has to be singled out as being especially attuned to contemporary murder and social malaise, it is Ian Rankin.’ Times Literary Supplement
RESURRECTION MEN
‘What is impressive in Resurrection Men is not just the deftness of the links between disparate crimes, but the fluency of the fugue-like counterpoint between investigations … On this form, nothing is beyond him.’
Sunday Times
‘Rankin’s Rebus novels should be required reading for anyone whose knowledge of Edinburgh has been derived from visits to the festival … Rankin conveys the visceral fears and hatreds lurking just below the smart Georgian surface of the “you’ll have your tea” New Town.’
Sunday Telegraph
‘Bears all the qualities that have established Rankin as one of Britain’s leading novelists in any genre: a powerful sense of place; a redefinition of Scotland and its past; persuasive characters and a growing compassion among its characters.’ New Statesman
THE FALLS
‘Rankin masterfully pulls his fascinating plot together, and his sense of place casts a powerful shadow over this subtle tale of the recurrence of evil.’ Guardian
‘The Falls pulses with vitality. Suspense vigorously propels you through its pages. Rankin’s prose is crisp, laconic and witty. So is his tangy dialogue.’
Sunday Times
‘An extraordinarily rich addition to crime literature.’
Independent on Sunday
‘The Falls is an inventive and absorbing book which lives up to the technical term of a rebus as an enigmatic puzzle.’ Scotsman
‘The Falls, the 12th full-length Inspector Rebus story, finds his creator, Ian Rankin, at his brilliant, mordant best, with the dark heart of the
city featuring almost as strongly as Rebus himself.’ Sunday Telegraph
SET IN DARKNESS
‘Rankin is a master of his craft, handling each twist and turn of the plot with consummate skill as he takes us by the hand and leads us from the sparkling edifices of New Labour-controlled Scotland to the misty, mysterious Edinburgh alleyways, and from hip and trendy restaurants to dank pubs and bars without missing a step … Rankin is streets ahead in the British procedural writing field … our top crime writer.’
Independent on Sunday
‘The book sets off at a cracking rate, with bodies piling up in the first few chapters … Running parallel to the excellently paced plot is the theme of Scotland’s national identity, its past and future, its regeneration and re-evaluation … Set in Darkness sees Rankin in impeccable form and will undoubtedly please his legions of fans and increase his appeal even further.’ The List
‘This is, astonishingly, the eleventh Inspector Rebus novel by a writer who is still not yet 40, but whose consistent level of excellence is unmatched in the field of British crime fiction.’ The Times
‘Rankin’s particular skill is in producing a highly complex plot whose different strands cleverly come together at the end, a setting which brings to life the grim back streets of Edinburgh and a well-drawn cast of characters.’ Sunday Telegraph
DEAD SOULS
‘Rebus resurgent … A brilliantly meshed plot which delivers on every count on its way to a conclusion as unexpected as it is inevitable.’
Literary Review
‘Rankin weaves his plot with a menacing ease … His prose is understated, yet his canvas of Scotland’s criminal underclass has a panoramic breadth. His ear for dialogue is as sharp as a switchblade. This is, quite simply, crime writing of the highest order.’ Daily Express
‘A series that shows no sign of flagging … Assured, sympathetic to contemporary foibles, humanistic, this is more than just a police procedural as the character of Rebus grows in moral stature … Rankin is the head capo of the MacMafia.’ Time Out
‘An atmospheric and cleverly plotted tale well up to Rankin’s CWA Gold Dagger standard.’ Books Magazine
‘My favourite gritty page-turner was Ian Rankin’s Dead Souls.’
Independent
‘No one captures the noirish edge of the city as well as Rankin.’
Daily Telegraph
‘His fiction buzzes with energy … His prose is as vivid and terse as the next man’s yet its flexibility and rhythm give it potential for lyrical expression which is distinctively Rankin’s own.’ Scotland on Sunday
‘Rankin strips Edinburgh’s polite façade to its gritty skeleton.’
The Times
Also by Ian Rankin
The Inspector Rebus Series
Knots & Crosses
Hide & Seek
Tooth & Nail
Strip Jack
The Black Book
Mortal Causes
Let it Bleed
Black & Blue
The Hanging Garden
Death is Not the End
Dead Souls
Set in Darkness
The Falls
Resurrection Men
A Question of Blood
Fleshmarket Close
The Naming of the Dead
Exit Music
Other Novels
The Flood
Watchman
Westwind
Witch Hunt
Bleeding Hearts
Blood Hunt
Short Stories
A Good Hanging and Other Stories
Beggars Banquet
Non-Fiction
Rebus’s Scotland
Doors Open
IAN RANKIN
Orion
www.orionbooks.co.uk
An Orion ebook
First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Orion Books,
an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House, 5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane,
London WC2H 9EA
An Hachette Livre UK Company
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © 2008 John Rebus Ltd.
The moral right of Ian Rankin to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior
permission of both the copyright owner and the
above publisher of this book.
All the characters in this book are fictitious,
and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead
is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 4091 0674 6
www.orionbooks.co.uk
This ebook produced by Jouve, France
The open door was only yards away, and beyond it lay the outside world, eerily unaffected by anything happening inside the abandoned snooker hall. Two thickset men had slumped bloodily to the floor. Four more figures were seated on chairs, hands tied behind them, ankles bound. A fifth was wriggling like a snake towards the doorway, straining with the effort. His girlfriend was yelling encouragement as the man called Hate stepped forward and slammed the door shut on all their hopes and dreams, hauling the chair and its occupant back to the original line.
‘I’m going to kill you all,’ the man spat, face smeared with his own blood. Mike Mackenzie didn’t doubt him for a second. What else was someone called Hate going to do? Mike was staring at the door, reminded that this chain of events had begun - so innocently - with a party and with friends.
And with greed.
And desire.
But above all, with doors opening and closing.
A few weeks earlier
1
Mike saw it happen. There were two doors next to one another. One of them seemed to be permanently ajar by about an inch, except when someone pushed at its neighbour. As each liveried waiter brought trays of canapés into the saleroom, the effect was the same. One door would swing open, and the other would slowly close. It said a lot about the quality of the paintings, Mike thought, that he was paying more attention to a pair of doors. But he knew he was wrong: it was saying nothing about the actual artworks on display, and everything about him.
Mike Mackenzie was thirty-seven years old, rich and bored. According to the business pages of various newspapers, he remained a ‘self-made software mogul’, except that he was no longer a mogul of anything. His company had been sold outright to a venture capital consortium. Rumour had it that he was a burn-out, and maybe he was. He’d started the software business fresh from university with a friend called Gerry Pearson. Gerry had been the real brains of the operation, a genius programmer, but shy with it, so that Mike quickly became the public face of the company. After the sale, they’d split the proceeds fifty-fifty and Gerry then surprised Mike by announcing that he was off to start a new life in Sydney. His emails from Australia extolled the virtues of nightclubs, city life and surfing (and not, for once, the computer kind). He would also send Mike JPEGs and mobile-phone snaps of the ladies he encountered along the way. The quiet, reserved Gerry of old had disappeared, replaced by a rambunctious playboy - which didn’t stop Mike from feeling like a bit of a fraud. He knew that without Gerry, he’d have failed to make the grade in his chosen field.
Building the business had been exciting and nerve-racking - existing on three or four hours’ sleep a night, often in hotel rooms far away from home, while Gerry preferred to pore over circuit boards and programming issues back in Edinburgh. Ironing the glitches out of their best-known software application had given both of them a buzz that had lasted for weeks. But as for the money
. . . well, the money had come flooding in, bringing with it lawyers and accountants, advisers and planners, assistants, diary secretaries, media interest, social invites from bankers and portfolio managers . . . and not much else. Mike had grown tired of supercars (the Lambo had lasted barely a fortnight; the Ferrari not much longer - he drove a second-hand Maserati these days, bought on impulse from the small ads). Tired, too, of jet travel, five-star suites, gadgets and gizmos. His penthouse apartment had featured in a style magazine, much being made of its view - the city skyline, all chimneypots and church spires until you reached the volcanic plug on top of which sat Edinburgh Castle. But occasional visitors could tell that Mike hadn’t made much of an effort to adjust his life to fit his new surroundings: the sofa was the same one he’d brought from his previous home; ditto the dining table and chairs. Old magazines and newspapers sat in piles either side of the fireplace, and there was little evidence that the vast flat-screen television with its surround-sound speakers ever got much use. Instead, guests would fix their attention on the paintings.