Ian Rankin - Knots And Crosses

‘Look at this,’ he said, lifting his leg. Rebus saw the foot-long gash in the material.

‘What happened to you then?’

‘What do you think? I got chased by a great fucking alsatian, that’s what happened to me. Will I get a penny for this? Will I hell.’

‘You could try claiming for it anyway.’

‘What’s the point? I’d just be made to look stupid.’

Morton dragged a chair across to the table.

‘What are you working on?’ he asked, seating himself with visible relief.

‘Cars. Lots of them.’

‘Fancy a drink later on?’

Rebus looked at his watch, considering.

‘Might do, Jack. Thing is, I’m hoping to make a date for tonight.’

‘With the ravishing Inspector Templer?’

‘How did you know that?’ Rebus was genuinely surprised.

‘Come on, John. You can’t keep that sort of thing a secret — not from policemen. Better watch your step, mind. Rules and regulations, you know.’

‘Yes, I know. Does Anderson know about this?’

‘Has he said anything?’

‘No.’

‘Then he can’t, can he?’

‘You’d make a good policeman, son. You’re wasted in this job.’

‘You’re telling me, dad.’

Rebus busied himself with lighting cigarette number twelve. It was true, you couldn’t keep anything secret in a police station, not from the lower ranks anyway. He hoped Anderson and the Chief wouldn’t find out about it though.

‘Any luck with the door-to-door?’ he asked.

‘What do you think?’

‘Morton, you have an annoying habit of answering a question with another question.’

‘Have I? It must be all this work then, spending my days asking questions, mustn’t it?’

Rebus examined his cigarettes. He found he was smoking number thirteen. This was becoming ridiculous. Where had number twelve gone?

‘I’ll tell you, John, there’s nothing to be had out there, not a sniff of a lead. No one’s seen anything, no one knows anything. It’s almost like a conspiracy.’

‘Maybe that’s what it is then, a conspiracy.’

‘And has it been established that all three murders were the work of a single individual?’

‘Yes.’

The Chief Inspector did not believe in wasting words, especially with the press. He sat like a rock behind the table, his hands clasped before him, Gill Templer on his right. Her glasses — an affectation really, her vision was near-perfect — were in her bag. She never wore them while on duty, unless the occasion demanded it. Why had she worn them to the party? They were like jewellery to her. She found it interesting, too, to gauge different reactions towards her when she was and was not wearing them. When she explained this to her friends, they looked at her askance as if she were joking. Perhaps it all went back to her first true love, who had told her that girls who wore glasses seemed, in his experience, to be the best fucks. That had been fifteen years ago, but she still saw the look on his face, the smile, the glint. She saw, too, her own reaction — shock at his use of the word ‘fuck’. She could smile at that now. These days she swore as much as her male colleagues; again gauging their reaction. Everything was a game to Gill Templer, everything but the job. She had not become an Inspector through luck or looks, but through hard, efficient work and the will to climb as high as they would let her go. And now she sat with her Chief Inspector, who was a token presence at these gatherings. It was Gill who made up the handouts, who briefed the Chief Inspector, who handled the media afterwards, and they all knew it. A Chief Inspector might add weight of seniority to the proceedings, but Gill Templer it was who could give the journalists their ‘extras’, the useful snippets left unsaid.

Nobody knew that better than Jim Stevens. He sat to the back of the room, smoking without removing the cigarette from his mouth once. He took little of the Chief Inspector’s words in. He could wait. Still, he jotted down a sentence or two for future use. He was still a newsman after all. Old habits never died. The photographer, a keen teenager, nervously changing lenses every few minutes, had departed with his roll of film. Stevens looked around for someone he might have a drink with later on. They were all here. All the old boys from the Scottish press, and the English correspondents too. Scottish, English, Greek — it didn’t matter, pressmen always looked like nothing other than pressmen. Their faces were robust, they smoked, their shirts were a day or two old. They did not look well-paid, yet were extremely well-paid, and with more fringe benefits than most. But they worked for their money, worked hard at building up contacts, squeezing into nooks and crannies, stepping on toes. He watched Gill Templer. What would she know about John Rebus? And would she be willing to tell? They were still friends after all, her and him. Still friends.

Maybe not good friends, certainly not good friends — though he had tried. And now she and Rebus … Wait until he nailed that bastard, if there was anything there to nail. Of course there was something there to nail. He could sense it. Then her eyes would be opened, truly opened. Then they would see what they would see. He was already preparing the headline. Something to do with ‘Brothers in Law — Brothers in Crime!’ Yes, that had a nice ring to it. The Rebus brothers put behind bars, and all his own work. He turned his attention back to the murder case. But it was all too easy, too easy to sit down and write about police inefficiency, about the conjectured maniac. Still, it was bread and butter for the moment. And there was always Gill Templer to stare at.

‘Gill!’

He caught her as she was getting into her car.

‘Hello, Jim.’ Cold, businesslike.

‘Listen, I just wanted to apologise for my behaviour at the party.’ He was out of breath after a brief jog across the car park, and the words came slowly from his burning chest. ‘I mean, I was a bit pissed. Anyway, sorry.’

But Gill knew him too well, knew that this was merely a prelude to a question or request. Suddenly she felt a little sorry for him, sorry for his fair thick hair which needed a wash, sorry for his short, stocky — she had once thought it powerful — body, for the way he trembled now and again as though cold. But the pity soon wore off. It had been a hard day.

‘Why wait till now to tell me? You could have said something at Sunday’s briefing.’

He shook his head.

‘I didn’t make Sunday’s briefing. I was a bit hungover. You must have noticed I wasn’t there?’

‘Why should I have noticed that? Plenty of other people were there, Jim.’

That cut him, but he let it pass.

‘Well, anyway,’ he said, ‘sorry. Okay?’

‘Fine.’ She made to step into her car.

‘Can I buy you a drink or something? To cement the apology, so to speak.’

‘Sorry, Jim, I’m busy.’

‘Meeting that man Rebus?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Look after yourself, Gill. That one might not be what he seems.’

She straightened up again.

‘I mean,’ said Stevens, ‘just take care, all right?’

He wouldn’t say any more just yet. Having planted a seed of suspicion, he would give it time to grow. Then he would question her closely, and perhaps then she would be willing to tell. He turned away from her and walked, hands in pockets, towards the Sutherland Bar.

At Edinburgh’s Main Public Lending Library, a large, unstuffy old building sandwiched between a bookshop and a bank, the tramps were settling down for a day’s snoozing. They came here, as though waiting out fate itself, to see through the few days of absolute poverty before their next amount of state benefit was due. This money they would then spend in a day (perhaps, if stretched, two days) of festivity: wine, women, and songs to an unappreciative public.