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Ian Rankin: A Good Hanging and other stories

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Ian Rankin A Good Hanging and other stories

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Edinburgh is a city steeped in history and tradition, a seat of learning, of elegant living, known as the ‘Athens of the North’. But here are twelve stories which will open your eyes to another Edinburgh, a city of grudges, blackmail, violence, greed and fear: a city where past and present clash. A student, hanging, from a gallows in Parliament Square... A telephone summons to murder... An arson attack on a bird-watcher... The witnessing of a miracle... Plus Five Nations Cup, Hogmanay, the Auld Alliance, the Festival and more - all in the company of the popular and redoubtable Inspector John Rebus. If you like whodunnits, whydunnits or howdunnits, if you like your crime with a twist of wry, if you’re the kind of traveller who likes to step off the tourist trail... then this is the collection you’re been waiting for.

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‘Go on.’ Rebus was looking at Thomson, who was sitting, hands clasping knees, on the arm of the chair.

‘The call we received last night,’ said Holmes, ‘the one from John MacFarlane admitting to the murder of Moira Bitter, originated from a portable telephone.’

‘Interesting,’ said Rebus, his eyes on Thomson. ‘And what about the other one?’

‘Well, the tape you gave me seems to be twice-removed.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means,’ said Holmes, ‘that according to Costain it’s not just a recording, it’s the recording of a recording.’ Rebus nodded, satisfied.

‘Okay, thanks, Brian.’ He put down the receiver.

‘Good news or bad?’ Thomson asked.

‘A bit of both,’ answered Rebus thoughtfully. Thomson had risen to his feet.

‘I feel like a drink, Inspector. Can I get you one?’

‘It’s a bit early for me, I’m afraid,’ Rebus said, looking at his watch. It was eleven o‘clock: opening time. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘just a small one.’

‘The whisky’s in the kitchen,’ Thomson explained. ‘I’ll just be a moment.’

‘Fine, sir, fine.’

Rebus listened as Thomson left the room and headed off towards the kitchen. He stood beside the desk, thinking through what he now knew. Then, hearing Thomson returning from the kitchen, floor-boards bending beneath his weight, he picked up the wastepaper basket from below the desk, and, as Thomson entered the room, proceeded to empty the contents in a heap on the sofa.

Thomson stood in the doorway, a glass of whisky in each hand, dumbstruck. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ he spluttered at last. But Rebus ignored him and started to pick through the now strewn contents of the bin, talking as he searched.

‘It was pretty close to being fool-proof, Mr Thomson. Let me explain. The killer went to Moira Bitter’s flat and talked her into letting him in despite the late hour. He murdered her quite callously, let’s make no mistake about that. I’ve never seen so much premeditation in a case before. He cleaned the knife and returned it to its drawer. He was wearing gloves, of course, knowing John MacFarlane’s fingerprints would be all over the flat, and he cleaned the knife precisely to disguise the fact that he had worn gloves. MacFarlane, you see, had not.’

Thomson took a gulp from one glass, but otherwise seemed rooted to the spot. His eyes had become vacant, as though picturing Rebus’s story in his mind.

‘MacFarlane,’ Rebus continued, still rummaging, ‘was summoned to Moira’s flat. The message did come from her. He knew her voice well enough not to be fooled by someone else’s voice. The killer sat outside Moira’s flat, sat waiting for MacFarlane to arrive. Then the killer made one last call, this one to the police, in the guise of an hysterical MacFarlane. We know this last call was made on a car phone. The lab boys are very clever that way. The police are hoarders, too, you see, Mr Thomson. We make recordings of emergency calls made to us. It won’t be hard to voice-print that call and try to match it to John MacFarlane. But it won’t be John MacFarlane, will it?’ Rebus paused for effect. ‘It’ll be you.’

Thomson gave a thin smile, but his grip on the two glasses had grown less steady, and whisky was dribbling from the angled lip of one of them.

‘Ah-ha.’ Rebus had found what he was looking for in the contents of the bin. With a pleased-as-punch grin on his unshaven, sleepless face, he pinched forefinger and thumb together and lifted them for his own and Thomson’s inspection. He was holding a tiny sliver of brown recording tape.

‘You see,’ he continued, ‘the killer had to lure MacFarlane to the murder scene. Having killed Moira, he went to his car, as I’ve said. There he had his portable telephone and a cassette recorder. He was a hoarder. He had kept all his answering machine tapes, including messages left by Moira at the height of their affair. He found the message he needed and he spliced it. He played this message to John MacFarlane’s answering machine. All he had to do after that was wait. The message MacFarlane received was “Hello. I need to see you.” There was a pause after the “hello”. And that pause was where the splice was made in the tape, excising this.’ Rebus looked at the sliver of tape. ‘The one word “Kenneth”. “Hello, Kenneth, I need to see you.” It was Moira Bitter talking to you, Mr Thomson, talking to you a long time ago.’

Thomson hurled both glasses at once, so that they arrowed in towards Rebus, who ducked. The glasses collided above his head, shards raining down on him. Thomson had reached the front door, had hauled it open even, before Rebus was on him, lunging, pushing the younger man forwards through the doorway and onto the tenement landing. Thomson’s head hit the metal rails with a muted chime and he let out a single moan before collapsing. Rebus shook himself free of glass, feeling one or two tiny pieces nick him as he brushed a hand across his face. He brought a hand to his nose and inhaled deeply. His father had always said whisky would put hairs on his chest. Rebus wondered if the same miracle might be effected on his temples and the crown of his head...

It had been the perfect murder.

Well, almost. But Kenneth Thomson had reckoned without Rebus’s ability actually to believe someone innocent despite the evidence against him. The case against John MacFarlane had been overwhelming. Yet Rebus, feeling it to be wrong, had been forced to invent other scenarios, other motives and other means to the fairly chilling end. It wasn’t enough that Moira had died - died at the hands of someone she knew. MacFarlane had to be implicated in her murder. The killer had been out to tag them both. But it was Moira the killer hated, hated because she had broken a friendship as well as a heart.

Rebus stood on the steps of the police station. Thomson was in a cell somewhere below his feet, somewhere below ground level. Confessing to everything. He would go to jail, while John MacFarlane, perhaps not realising his luck, had already been freed.

The streets were busy now. Lunchtime traffic, the reliable noises of the everyday. The sun was even managing to burst from its slumber. All of which reminded Rebus that his day was over. Time, all in all he felt, for a short visit home, a shower and a change of clothes, and, God and the Devil willing, some sleep.

The Dean Curse

The locals in Barnton knew him either as ‘the Brigadier’ or as ‘that Army type who bought the West Lodge’. West Lodge was a huge but until recently neglected detached house set in a walled acre and a half of grounds and copses. Most locals were relieved that its high walls hid it from general view, the house itself being too angular, too gothic for modern tastes. Certainly, it was very large for the needs of a widower and his unsmiling daughter. Mrs MacLennan, who cleaned for the Brigadier, was pumped for information by curious neighbours, but could say only that Brigadier-General Dean had had some renovations done, that most of the house was habitable, that one room had become a library, another a billiard-room, another a study, another a makeshift gymnasium and so on. The listeners would drink this in deeply, yet it was never enough. What about the daughter? What about the Brigadier’s background? What happened to his wife?

Shopkeepers too were asked for their thoughts. The Brigadier drove a sporty open-topped car which would pull in noisily to the side of the road to allow him to pop into this or that shop for a few things, including, each day at the same time, a bottle of something or other from the smarter of the two off-licences.

The grocer, Bob Sladden, reckoned that Brigadier-General Dean had been born nearby, even that he had lived for a few childhood years in West Lodge and so had retired there because of its carefree connections. But Miss Dalrymple, who at ninety-three was as old as anyone in that part of Barnton, could not recall any family named Dean living at West Lodge. Could not, indeed, recall any Deans ever living in this ‘neck’ of Barnton, with the exception of Sam Dean. But when pressed about Sam Dean, she merely shook her head and said, ‘He was no good, that one, and got what he deserved. The Great War saw to him.’ Then she would nod slowly, thoughtfully, and nobody would be any further forward.

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