Ian Rankin - Black and Blue

He picked up the telephone, pressed seven numbers. A sleepy response.

‘Yeah, hello?’

‘Brian, it’s John. Sorry to phone so late, I need that favour repaid.’

They met in the car park at Newcraighall. Lights were on in the UCI cinema complex, some late showing. The Mega Bowl was closed; so was McDonald’s. Holmes and Nell Stapleton had moved into a house just off Duddingston Park, looking across Portobello Golf Course and the Freightliner Terminal. Holmes said the freight traffic didn’t keep him awake through the night. They could have met at the golf course, but it was too close to Nell for Rebus’s liking. He hadn’t seen her in a couple of years, not even at social functions — each had a gift for knowing when the other would or wouldn’t be in attendance. Old scrapes; Nell picking at the scabs, obsessive.

So they met a couple of miles away, in a gully, surrounded by closed shops — DIY store, shoe emporium, Toys R Us — still cops, even off duty.

Especially off duty.

Their eyes darted, using wing mirrors and rearview, looking for shadows. Nobody in sight, they still talked in an undertone. Rebus explained exactly what he wanted.

‘This TV programme, I need some ammo before I talk to them. But it’s too personal with me. I need you to go back over the Spaven case — case notes, trial proceedings. Just read through them, see what you think.’

Holmes sat in the passenger seat of Rebus’s Saab. He looked what he was: a man who’d got undressed and gone to bed, only to have to get up too shortly thereafter and put dayshift clothes on again. His hair was ruffled, shirt open two buttons, shoes but no socks. He stifled a yawn, shaking his head.

‘I don’t get it. What am I looking for?’

‘Just see if anything jars. Just... I don’t know.’

‘You’re taking this seriously then?’

‘Lawson Geddes just killed himself.’

‘Christ.’ But Holmes didn’t even blink; beyond compassion for men he didn’t know, figures from history. He had too much on his own mind.

‘Something else,’ Rebus said. ‘You might track down an ex-con who says he was the last person to talk to Spaven. I forget the name, but it was reported in all the papers at the time.’

‘One question: do you think Geddes framed Lenny Spaven?’

Rebus made a show of thinking it over, then shrugged. ‘Let me tell you the story. Not the story you’ll find in my written notes on the case.’

Rebus began to talk: Geddes turning up at his door, the too-easy finding of the bag, Geddes frantic before, unnaturally calm after. The story they manufactured, anonymous tip-off. Holmes listened in silence. The cinema began to empty, young couples hugging, air-hopping towards their cars, walking like they’d rather be lying down. A gathering of engine-noise, exhaust fumes and headlights, tall shadows on the canyon walls, the car park emptying. Rebus finished his version.

‘Another question.’

Rebus waited, but Holmes was having trouble forming the words. He gave up finally and shook his head. Rebus knew what he was thinking. He knew Rebus had put the squeeze on Minto, while believing Minto to have a case against Holmes. And now he knew that Rebus had lied to protect Lawson Geddes and to secure the conviction. The question in his mind a double strand — was Rebus’s version the truth? How dirty was the copper sitting behind the steering wheel?

How dirty would Holmes allow himself to get before he left the force?

Rebus knew Nell nagged him every day, quiet persuasion. He was young enough for another career, any career, something clean and risk-free. There was still time for him to get out. But maybe not much time.

‘OK,’ Holmes said, opening the car door. ‘I’ll start a.s.a.p.’ He paused. ‘But if I find any dirt, anything concealed in the margins...’

Rebus turned on his lights, high-beam. He started the car and drove off.

Rebus woke up early. There was a book open on his lap. He looked at the last paragraph he’d read before falling asleep, didn’t recall any of it. Mail lying inside the door: who’d be a postman in Edinburgh, all those tenement stairs? His credit-card bill: two supermarkets, three off-licences, and Bob’s Rare Vinyl. Impulse buys one Saturday afternoon, after a lunchtime sesh in the Ox — Freak Out on single vinyl, mint; The Velvet Underground , peel-off banana intact; Sergeant Pepper in mono with the sheet of cut-outs. He’d yet to play any of them, already had scratchy copies of the Velvets and Beatles.

He shopped on Marchmont Road, ate breakfast at the kitchen table with the Bible John/Johnny Bible material for a cloth. Johnny Bible headlines: ‘Catch This Monster!’; ‘Baby-Faced Killer Claims Third Victim’; ‘Public Warned: Be Vigilant’. Much the same banners Bible John was earning a quarter century before.

Johnny Bible’s first victim: Duthie Park, Aberdeen. Michelle Strachan came from Pittenweem in Fife, so of course all her Furry Boot pals called her Michelle Fifer. She didn’t look like her near-namesake: short and skinny, mousy shoulder-length hair, front teeth prominent. She was a student at Robert Gordon University. Raped, strangled, one shoe missing.

Victim two, six weeks later: Angela Riddell, Angie to her friends. In her time she’d worked at an escort agency, been arrested in a slapper sweep near Leith docks, and fronted a blues band, husky-voiced but trying too hard. A record company had now released the band’s only demo as a CD single, making money from ghouls and the curious. Edinburgh CID had spent a lot of hours — thousands of man hours — trawling through Angie Riddell’s past, seeking out old clients, friends, fans of the band, looking for a prozzy punter turned killer, an obsessed blues fan, whatever. Warriston Cemetery, where the body was found, was a known haunt of Hell’s Angels, amateur black magicians, perverts and loners. In the days following the discovery of the body, at dead of night you were more likely to trip over a snoozing surveillance team than a crucified cat.

A month-long gap, during which the first two murders had been connected — Angie Riddell not only raped and strangled, but missing a distinctive necklace, a row of two-inch metal crosses, bought in Cockburn Street — then a third killing, this time in Glasgow. Judith Cairns, ‘Ju-Ju’, was on the dole, which hadn’t stopped her working in a chip shop late evenings, a pub some lunchtimes, and as a hotel chambermaid weekend mornings. When she was found dead, there was no sign of her backpack, which friends swore she took everywhere, even to clubs and warehouse raves.

Three women, aged nineteen, twenty-four and twenty-one, murdered within three months. It was two weeks since Johnny Bible had struck. A six-week gap between victims one and two had been whittled to a calendar month between two and three. Everyone was waiting, waiting for the worst possible news. Rebus drank his coffee, ate his croissant, and examined photos of the three victims, culled from the newspapers, blown-up grainy, all the young women smiling, the way you only usually did for a photographer. The camera always lied.

Rebus knew so much about the victims, so little about Johnny Bible. Though no police officer would admit it in public, they were impotent, all but going through the motions. It was his play; they were waiting for him to slip up: overconfidence, or boredom, or a simple desire to be caught, the knowledge of what was right and wrong. They were waiting for a friend, a neighbour, a loved one to come forward, maybe an anonymous call — one that would prove not merely malicious. They were all waiting. Rebus ran a finger over the biggest photo of Angie Riddell. He’d known her, had been part of the team that had arrested her and a lot of other working girls that night in Leith. The atmosphere had been good, a lot of jokes, jibes at married officers. Most of the prostitutes knew the routine, those who did calming those who were new to the game. Angie Riddell had been stroking the hair of a hysterical teenager, a druggie. Rebus had liked her style, had interviewed her. She’d made him laugh. A couple of weeks later, he’d driven down Commercial Street, asked how she was doing. She’d told him time was money, and talk didn’t come cheap, but offered him a discount if he wanted anything more substantial than hot air. He’d laughed again, bought her tea and a bridie at a late-opening café. A fortnight later, he found himself down in Leith again, but according to the girls she hadn’t been around, so that was that.