Ian Rankin: Saints of the Shadow Bible

‘Where are we going?’

‘We’re just driving.’

‘Driving where, though?’

Rebus turned to look at his passenger. The man’s name was Peter Meikle. He had served almost half his adult life in various Scottish and English prisons and had the pallor and bearing common to ex-cons. His face needed a shave and his sunken eyes were black, wary pinholes. Rebus had picked him up from outside a betting shop on Clerk Street. A few sets of lights and they were heading past the Commonwealth Pool and into Holyrood Park.

‘It’s been a while,’ Rebus said. ‘What are you up to these days?’

‘Nothing you lot need worry about.’

‘Do I look worried?’

‘You look the same way you did when you laid me out in 1989.’

‘That far back?’ Rebus made show of shaking his head in surprise. ‘But be fair, Peter, you were resisting arrest — and you had a temper on you.’

‘You’re saying you didn’t?’ When Rebus made no answer, Meikle resumed staring through the windscreen. The Saab was on Queen’s Drive now, skirting the cliff-like Salisbury Crags on the approach to St Margaret’s Loch. A few tourists were trying to feed bread to the ducks and swans, though a troop of swooping gulls seemed to be winning more than its fair share. Rebus was signalling right, beginning the climb that would snake around Arthur’s Seat. They passed joggers and walkers, the city vanishing from view.

‘Could be in the middle of the Highlands,’ Rebus commented. ‘Hard to believe Edinburgh’s somewhere down below.’ He turned again towards his passenger. ‘Didn’t you live around here at one time?’

‘You know I did.’

‘Northfield, I seem to think.’ The car was slowing, Rebus pulling over and stopping. He nodded in the direction of a wall with an open gate. ‘That’s the short cut, isn’t it? If you were coming into the park on foot? From Northfield?’

Meikle just shrugged. He was wearing a padded nylon jacket. It made noises when he twitched. He watched Rebus break open a new pack of cigarettes and light one with a match. Rebus exhaled a plume of smoke before offering the pack to Meikle.

‘I stopped last year.’

‘News to me, Peter.’

‘Aye, I’ll bet it is.’

‘Well, if I can’t tempt you, let’s just get out for a minute.’ Rebus turned off the ignition, undid his seat belt and pushed open his door.

‘Why?’ Meikle wasn’t budging.

Rebus leaned back into the car. ‘Something to show you.’

‘What if I’m not interested?’

But Rebus just winked and closed the door, heading around the car and across the grass towards the gateway. The keys were still in the ignition, and Meikle studied them for a good twenty or thirty seconds before cursing under his breath, composing himself and opening the passenger-side door.

Rebus was the other side of the park’s perimeter wall, the eastern suburbs of the city laid out below him.

‘It’s a steep climb,’ he was saying, shading his eyes with his free hand. ‘But you were younger then. Or maybe you weren’t on foot — bound to be a mate’s car you could borrow. All you had to tell them was you had something needed shifting.’

‘This is about Dorothy,’ Meikle stated.

‘What else?’ Rebus gave a thin smile. ‘Almost two weeks before she was reported missing.’

‘It was eleven years ago. .’

‘Two weeks,’ Rebus repeated. ‘Your story was you thought she’d gone to stay with her sister. Bit of a falling-out between the two of you. Well, there was no way you could deny that — neighbours couldn’t help hearing the shouting matches. So you might as well turn it to your advantage.’ Only now did Rebus turn towards the man. ‘Two weeks, and even then it was her sister who had to contact us. Never a trace of Dorothy leaving the city — we asked at the train and bus stations. It was like you were a magician and you’d put her in one of those boxes. Open it up and she’s not there.’ He paused and took half a step towards Meikle. ‘But she is there, Peter. She’s somewhere in this city.’ He stamped his left foot against the ground. ‘Dead and buried.’

‘I was questioned at the time, remember?’

‘Chief suspect,’ Rebus added with a slow nod.

‘She could have gone out drinking, met the wrong man. .’

‘Hundreds of pubs we visited, Peter, showing her picture, asking the regulars.’

‘Tried thumbing a lift then — you can lose yourself in London.’

‘Where she had no friends? Never touching her bank account?’ Rebus was shaking his head now.

‘I didn’t kill her.’

Rebus made show of wincing. ‘This is just the two of us, Peter. I’m not wearing a wire or anything; it’s for my own peace of mind, that’s all. Once you’ve told me you brought her up here and buried her, that’ll be the end of it.’

‘I thought you weren’t working cold cases any more.’

‘Where did you hear that?’

‘Edinburgh’s being shut down, transferred.’

‘True enough. But not everyone would be as informed as you seem to be.’

Meikle gave a shrug. ‘I read the papers.’

‘Paying particular attention to police stories?’

‘I know there’s a reorganisation.’

‘Why so interested, though?’

‘You forgetting that I’ve a history with you lot? Come to that, why aren’t you retired — you must be on full pension by now?’

‘I was retired — that’s what the Cold Case Unit was, a bunch of old hands still itching for answers. And you’re right that our caseload has gone elsewhere.’ Rebus’s face was by now only a couple of inches from Meikle’s. ‘But I’ve not gone, Peter. I’m right here, and I was just getting started on reopening your case when it was taken away from me. Well, you know me, I like to finish what I start.’

‘I’ve got nothing to say.’

‘Sure about that?’

‘You going to slam me into a wall, knock me out cold again? That’s the way you and your lot always liked to operate. .’

But Rebus wasn’t listening. His attention had shifted to the mobile phone gripped in Meikle’s right hand. He snatched at it and saw that its recording function was on. With a grim smile, he tossed it into a thicket of gorse. Meikle gave a little yelp of complaint.

‘This the way you want it to go, Peter?’ Rebus asked, stubbing the remains of his cigarette against the wall. ‘Always watching over your shoulder for someone like me? Waiting for the day a dog goes sniffing where it shouldn’t and starts to dig?’

‘You’ve got nothing and you are nothing,’ Meikle spat.

‘You couldn’t be more wrong. See, I’ve got you .’ A finger was stabbed into Meikle’s chest. ‘And as long as you’re unfinished business, that makes me something you need to worry about.’

He turned and headed back through the gateway. Meikle watched him climb into the Saab and start the engine. The car sped off with a burst of smoke from its exhaust. Swearing under his breath, Meikle began trampling down the gorse in search of his phone.

The Chief Constable’s leaving party took place at the canteen of Lothian and Borders Police HQ on Fettes Avenue. He was heading to a new post south of the border and no one seemed to know whether anyone would take over his role. The eight regional Scottish forces were soon to be amalgamated into something called Police Scotland. The Chief Constable of Strathclyde had been given the top job, leaving seven of his colleagues scratching around for fresh opportunities.