Ian Rankin: Black and Blue

Spaven was still in the garage. So were brown cardboard boxes, piled high: the proceeds from a South Queensferry warehouse break-in back in November. Digital clock-radios: Spaven was fitting plugs to them, preparing to hawk them around the pubs and clubs. Behind one pile of boxes, Geddes discovered a plastic carrier bag. Inside were a woman’s hat and a cream shoulder-bag, both later identified as having belonged to Elsie Rhind.

Spaven protested his innocence from the moment Geddes lifted up the carrier bag and asked what was inside. He protested all the way through the rest of the investigation, the trial, and as he was being hauled back to the cells after being handed down a life sentence. Geddes and Rebus were in court, Geddes back to normal, beaming satisfaction, Rebus just a little uneasy. They’d had to concoct a story: an anonymous tip-off on a consignment of stolen goods, a chance find... It felt right and wrong at the same time. Lawson Geddes hadn’t wanted to talk about it afterwards, which was strange: usually they dissected their cases — successful or not — over a drink. Then, to everyone’s surprise, Geddes had resigned from the force, with promotion only a year or two away. Instead, he’d gone to work in his father’s off-sales business — there was always a discount waiting for serving officers — made some money, and retired at a youthful fifty-five. For the past ten years, he’d been living with his wife Etta in Lanzarote.

Ten years ago Rebus had received a postcard. Lanzarote had ‘not much fresh water, but enough to temper a glass of whisky, and the Torres wines need no adulteration’. The landscape was almost lunar, ‘black volcanic ash, so an excuse not to garden!’, and that was about it. He hadn’t heard anything since, and Geddes hadn’t furnished his address on the island. That was OK, friendships came and went. Geddes had been a useful man to know at the time, he’d taught Rebus a lot.

Dylan: Don’t Look Back .

The here and now: light-show stinging Rebus’s eyes. He blinked back tears, stepped away from the stage, retreated to hospitality. Pop stars and entourage, loving the media interest. Flash-bulbs and questions. A spume of champagne. Rebus brushed flecks from his shoulder, decided it was time to find his car.

The Spaven case should have remained closed, no matter how loudly the prisoner himself protested. But in jail, Spaven had started writing, his writings smuggled out by friends or bribed jailers. Pieces had started to see publication — fiction at first, an early story picking up first prize in some newspaper competition. When the winner’s true identity and where-abouts were revealed, the newspaper got itself a bigger news story. More writing, more publication. Then a TV drama, penned by Spaven. It won an award somewhere in Germany, another in France, it was shown in the USA, an estimated audience of twenty million worldwide. There was a follow-up. Then a novel, and then the non-fiction pieces started appearing — Spaven’s early life at first, but Rebus knew where the story would lead.

By this time there was loud support in the media for an early release, nullified when Spaven assaulted another prisoner severely enough to cause brain damage. Spaven’s pieces from jail became more eloquent than ever — the man had been jealous of all the attention, had attempted to murder Spaven in the corridor outside his cell. Self-defence. And the crunch: Spaven would not have been placed in this invidious position were it not for a gross miscarriage of justice. The second instalment of Spaven’s autobiography ended with the Elsie Rhind case, and with mention of the two police officers who’d framed him — Lawson Geddes and John Rebus. Spaven reserved his real loathing for Geddes, Rebus just a bit-player, Geddes’ lackey. More media interest. Rebus saw it as a revenge fantasy, planned over long incarcerated years, Spaven unhinged. But whenever he read Spaven’s work, he saw powerful manipulation of the reader, and he thought back to Lawson Geddes on his doorstep that night, to the lies they told afterwards...

And then Lenny Spaven died, committed suicide. Took a scalpel to his throat and opened it up, a gash you could fit your hand inside. More rumour: he’d been murdered by jailers before he could complete volume three of his autobiography, detailing his years and depredations in several Scottish prisons. Or jealous prisoners had been allowed access to his cell.

Or it was suicide. He left a note, three drafts crumpled on the floor, maintaining to the end his innocence in the Elsie Rhind killing. The media started sniffing their story, Spaven’s life and death big news. And now... three things.

One: the incomplete third volume of autobiography had been published — ‘heart-breaking’ according to one critic, ‘a massive achievement’ for another. It was still on the bestseller list, Spaven’s face staring out from bookshop windows all along Princes Street. Rebus tried to avoid the route.

Two: a prisoner was released, and told reporters he was the last person to see or speak to Spaven alive. According to him, Spaven’s last words were: ‘God knows I’m innocent, but I’m so tired of saying it over and over.’ The story earned the ex-offender £750 from a newspaper; easy to see it as flannel waved at a gullible press.

Three: a new TV series was launched, The Justice Programme , a hard-hitting look at crime, the system, and miscarriages of justice. High ratings for its first series — attractive presenter Eamonn Breen scooping women viewers — so now a second series was on the blocks, and the Spaven case — severed head, accusations, and suicide of a media darling — was to be the showcase opener.

With Lawson Geddes out of the country, address unknown, leaving John Rebus to carry the film-can.

Alex Harvey: ‘Framed’. Segue to Jethro Tull: ‘Living in the Past’.

He went home by way of the Oxford Bar — a long detour, always worthwhile. The gantry and optics had a quietly hypnotic effect, the only possible explanation as to why the regulars could stand and stare at them for hours at a stretch. The barman waited for an order; Rebus did not have a ‘usual’ drink these days, variety the spice of life and all that.

‘Dark rum, and a half of Best.’

He hadn’t touched dark rum in years, didn’t think of it as a young man’s drink. Yet Allan Mitchison had drunk it. A seaman’s drink, another reason to think he worked offshore. Rebus handed over money, downed the short in one sour swallow, rinsed his mouth with the beer, found himself finishing it too quickly. The barman turned with his change.

‘Make it a pint this time, Jon.’

‘And another rum?’

‘Jesus, no.’ Rebus rubbed his eyes, bummed a cigarette from his drowsy neighbour. The Spaven case... it had dragged Rebus backwards through time, forcing him to confront memory, then to wonder if his memory was playing tricks. It remained unfinished business, twenty years on. Like Bible John. He shook his head, tried to clear it of history, and found himself thinking of Allan Mitchison, of falling headlong on to spiked rails, watching them rise towards you, arms held fast to a chair so there was only one choice left: did you confront doom open-eyed or closed? He walked around the bar to use the telephone, put money in and then couldn’t think who to call.

‘Forgotten the number?’ a drinker asked as Rebus got his coin back.

‘Aye,’ he said, ‘what’s the Samaritans’ again?’

The drinker surprised him, knew the number pat.

Four blinks from his answering machine meant four messages. He lifted the instruction manual. It was open at page six, the ‘Playback’ section boxed with red pen, paragraphs underlined. He followed the instructions. The machine decided to work.