Ian Rankin - Dead Souls

‘And the brainboxes in London decided not to pass the message on?’

‘Their version is, they got their wires crossed, thought Oakes was only travelling as far as their patch. In fact, his ticket only goes as far as London.’

‘So he’s their problem.’ But the Farmer was shaking his head. ‘Don’t tell me,’ Rebus said, ‘they’ve had a whip-round and added the fare to Edinburgh?’

‘Bingo.’

‘So when does he get here?’

‘Later on today.’

‘And what do we do?’

The Farmer stared at Rebus. He liked that we . A problem shared — even if with a thorn like Rebus — was a problem that could be dealt with. ‘What would you suggest?’

‘High-visibility surveillance, let him know we’re watching. With any luck he’ll get fed up and slope off somewhere else.’

The Farmer rubbed at his eyes. ‘Take a look,’ he said, sliding a folder across the desk. Rebus looked: sheets of fax paper, about twenty of them. ‘The Met took pity on us at the last, sent what they’d been sent by the Americans.’

Rebus started reading. ‘How come he’s been released? I thought in America “life” meant till death.’

‘Some technicality to do with the original trial. So arcane, even the American authorities aren’t sure.’

‘But they’re letting him go?’

‘A retrial would cost a fortune, plus there’s the problem of tracing the original witnesses. They offered him a deal. If he gave it up, signed away the right to any retrial or compensation, they’d fly him home.’

‘In the news story, “home” had inverted commas.’

‘He hasn’t spent much time in Edinburgh.’

‘So why here?’

‘His choice, apparently.’

‘But why?’

‘Maybe the fax will tell you.’

The message of the fax was clear and simple. It said Cary Oakes would kill again.

The psychologist had warned the authorities of this. The psychologist said, Cary Oakes has little concept of right and wrong. There were lots of psychological terms applied to this. The word ‘psychopath’ wasn’t used much any more by the experts, but reading between the lines and the jargon, Rebus knew that was what they were dealing with. Anti-social tendencies... deep-seated sense of betrayal...

Oakes was thirty-eight years old. There was a grainy photo of him included with the file. His head had been shaved. The forehead was large and jutting, the face thin and angular. He had small eyes, like little black beads, and a narrow mouth. He was described as above-average intelligence (self-taught in prison), interested in health and fitness. He’d made no friends during his incarceration, kept no pictures on his walls, and his only correspondence was with his team of lawyers (five different sets in total).

The Farmer was on the telephone, finding out Oakes’s flight schedule, liaising with the Assistant Chief Constable at Fettes. When he’d finished, Rebus asked what the ACC thought.

‘He thinks we should ca’ canny.’

Rebus smiled: it was a typical response.

‘He’s right in a way,’ the Farmer continued. ‘The media will be all over this. We can’t be seen to be harassing the man.’

‘Maybe we’ll get lucky and the reporters will scare him off.’

‘Maybe.’

‘It says here he was originally questioned about another four murders.’

The Farmer nodded, but seemed distracted. ‘I don’t need this,’ he said at last, staring at his desk. The desk was a measure of the man: always carefully ordered, reflecting the room as a whole. No piles of paperwork, no mess or clutter, not so much as a single stray paperclip on the carpet.

‘I’ve been at this job too long, John.’ The Farmer sat back in his chair. ‘You know the worst kind of officers?’

‘You mean ones like me, sir?’

The Farmer smiled. ‘Quite the opposite. I mean the ones who’re biding their time till pension day. The clock-watchers. Recently, I’ve been turning into one. Another six months, that’s what I was giving myself. Six more months till retirement.’ He smiled again. ‘And I wanted them quiet. I’ve been praying for them to be quiet.’

‘We don’t know this guy’s going to be a problem. We’ve been here before, sir.’

The Farmer nodded: so they had. Men who’d done time in Australia and Canada, and hardmen from Glasgow’s Bar-L, all of them settling in Edinburgh, or just passing through. All of them with pasts carved into their faces. Even when they weren’t a problem, they were still a problem. They might settle down, live quietly, but there were people who knew who they were, who knew the reputation they carried with them, something they’d never shake off. And eventually, after too many beers down the pub, one of these people would decide it was time to test himself, because what the hardman brought with him was a parameter, something you could measure yourself against. It was pure Hollywood: the retired gunslinger challenged by the punk kid. But to the police, all it was was trouble.

‘Thing is, John, can we afford to play a waiting game? The ACC says we can have funding for partial surveillance.’

‘How partial?’

‘Two teams of two, maybe a fortnight.’

‘That’s big of him.’

‘The man likes a nice tight budget.’

‘Even when this guy might kill again?’

‘Even murder has a budget these days, John.’

‘I still don’t get it.’ Rebus picked up the fax. ‘According to the notes, Oakes wasn’t born here, doesn’t have family here. He lived here for, what, four or five years. Went to the States at twenty, he’s been almost half his life there. What’s for him back here?’

The Farmer shrugged. ‘A fresh start?’

A fresh start: Rebus was thinking of Darren Rough.

‘There has to be more to it than that, sir,’ Rebus said, picking up the file again. ‘There has to be.’

The Farmer looked at his watch. ‘Aren’t you due in court?’

Rebus nodded agreement. ‘Waste of time, sir. They won’t call me.’

‘All the same, Inspector...’

Rebus got up. ‘Mind if I take this stuff?’ Waving the sheets of fax paper. ‘You told me I should take something to read.’

Rebus sat with other witnesses, other cases, all of them waiting to be called to give evidence. There were uniforms, attentive to their notebooks, and CID officers, arms folded, trying to be casual about the whole thing. Rebus knew a few faces, held quiet conversations. The members of the public sat there with hands clasped between knees, or with heads angled to the ceiling, bored out of their minds. Newspapers — already read, crosswords finished — lay strewn around the room. A couple of dog-eared paperbacks had attracted interest, but not for long. There was something about the atmosphere that sucked all the enthusiasm out of you. The lighting gave you a headache, and all the time you were wondering why you were here.

Answer: to serve justice.

And one of the court officers would wander in and, looking at a clipboard, call your name, and you’d creak your way to the court, where your numbed memory would be poked and prodded by strangers playing to a judge, jury, and public gallery.

This was justice.

There was one witness, seated directly across from Rebus, who kept bursting into tears. He was a young man, maybe mid-twenties, corpulent and with thin strands of black hair plastered to his head. He kept emptying his nose loudly into a stained handkerchief. One time, when he looked up, Rebus gave him a reassuring smile, but that only started him off again. Eventually, Rebus had to get out. He told one of the uniforms that he was going for a ciggie.

‘I’ll join you,’ the uniform said.

Outside, they smoked furiously and in silence, watching the ebb and flow of people from the building. The High Court was tucked in behind St Giles’ Cathedral, and occasionally tourists would wander towards it, wondering what it was. There were few signs about, just Roman numerals above the various heavy wooden doors. A guard on the car park would sometimes point them back towards the High Street. Though members of the public could enter the court building, tourists were actively discouraged. The Great Hall was enough of a cattle market as it was. But Rebus liked it: he liked the carved wooden ceiling, the statue of Sir Walter Scott, the huge stained-glass window. He liked peering through the glass door into the library where the lawyers sought precedents in large dusty tomes.