Ian Rankin: Knots And Crosses

‘It won’t work. I want you too badly.’

‘So you’ll let your brother rot in jail? Fair enough. Either way, I win. Can’t you see that?’

Yes, Rebus could see it, but dimly, as though it were a difficult equation in a hot classroom.

‘What happened to you anyway?’ he asked now, unsure why he was playing for time. He had come charging in here without a self-protective thought or a plan in his head. And now he was stuck, awaiting Reeve’s move, which must surely come. ‘I mean, what happened after I … deserted?’

‘Oh, they cracked me quite quickly after that.’ Reeve was nonchalant. He could afford to be. ‘I was out on my ear. They put me into a hospital for a while, then let me go. I heard that you’d gone ga-ga. That cheered me up a little. But then I heard a rumour that you’d joined the police force. Well, I couldn’t stand the thought of you having a cosy life of it. Not after what we’d been through and what you’d done.’ His face began to jerk a little. His hands rested on the desk, and Rebus could smell the vinegary sweat coming from him. He spoke as though drifting off to sleep, but with each word Rebus knew that he was becoming more dangerous still, and yet he could not make himself move, not yet.

‘It took you long enough to get to me.’

‘It was worth the wait.’ Reeve rubbed at his cheek. ‘Sometimes I thought I might die before it was all finished, but I think I always knew that I wouldn’t.’ He smiled. ‘Come on, John, I’ve got something to show you.’

‘Sammy?’

‘Don’t be fucking stupid.’ The smile disappeared again, only for a second. ‘Do you think I’d keep her here? No, but I’ve got something else that will interest you. Come on.’

He led Rebus behind the partition. Rebus, his nerves jangling, studied Reeve’s back, the muscles covered in a layer of easy living. A librarian. A children’s librarian. And Edinburgh’s own mass murderer.

Behind the partition were shelves and shelves of books, some piled haphazardly, others in neat rows, their spines matching.

‘These are all waiting to be reshelved,’ said Reeve, waving a custodial hand around him. ‘It was you that got me interested in books, John. Do you remember?’

‘Yes, I told you stories.’ Rebus had started to think about Michael. Without him, Reeve might never have been found, might never have been suspected even. And now he would go to jail. Poor Mickey.

‘Now where did I put it? I know it’s here somewhere. I put it aside to show you, if you ever found me. God knows, it’s taken you long enough. You’ve not been very bright, have you, John?’

It was easy to forget that the man was insane, that he had killed four girls in a game and had another at his mercy. It was so easy.

‘No,’ said Rebus, ‘I’ve not been very bright.’

He could feel himself tightening. The very air around him seemed to be getting thinner. Something was about to happen. He could feel it. And to stop it from happening, all he had to do was punch Reeve in the kidneys, chop him behind the neck, restrain him and bundle him out of here.

So why didn’t he do just that? He did not know himself. All he knew was that whatever would happen would happen, and that it had been set out like the plan of a building or a game of noughts and crosses many years before. Reeve had started the game. That left Rebus in a no-win situation. But he could not leave it unfinished. There had to be this rummaging in the shelves, this find.

‘Ah, here it is. It’s a book I’ve been reading …’

But, John Rebus realised, if Reeve had been reading it, then why was it so well hidden?

‘Crime and Punishment. You told me the story, do you remember?’

‘Yes, I remember. I told it to you more than once.’

‘That’s right, John, you did.’

The book was a quality leather edition, quite old. It did not seem like a library copy. Reeve handled it as though he were handling money or diamonds. It was as though he had owned nothing so precious in all his life.

‘There’s one illustration in here that I want you to see, John. Do you recall what I said about old Raskolnikov?’

‘You said he should have shot the lot of them …’

Rebus caught the under-meaning a second too late. He had misread this clue as he had misread so many of Reeve’s clues. Meantime, Gordon Reeve, his eyes shining, had opened the book and brought out a small snub-nosed revolver from its hollowed-out interior. The gun was being raised to meet Rebus’s chest when he sprang forward and butted Reeve on the nose. Planning was one thing, but sometimes dirty inspiration was needed. Blood and mucus came crashing from the suddenly broken bones. Reeve gasped, and Rebus’s hand pushed the gun-arm away from him. Reeve was screaming now, a scream from the past, from so many living nightmares. It set Rebus off balance, plunging him back into his act of betrayal. He could see the guards, the open door, and he with his back to the screams of the trapped man. The scene before him blurred, and was replaced by an explosion.

The soft thump in his shoulder turned quickly to a spreading numbness and then to an intense pain, seeming to fill his entire body. He clutched at his jacket, feeling blood soak through the padding, through the lightweight material. Jesus Christ, so that was what it was like to be shot. He felt as though he would be sick, would faint clean away, but then he felt an onrush of something, coming up from his soul. It was the blinding force of anger. He was not about to lose this one. He saw Reeve wiping the mess from his face, trying to stop his eyes from watering, the gun still wavering before him. Rebus picked up a heavy-looking book and swiped at Reeve’s hand, sending the gun flying into a pile of books.

And then Reeve was gone, staggering through the shelves, pulling them down after him. Rebus ran back to the desk and telephoned for help, his eyes wary for. Gordon Reeve’s return. There was silence in the room. He sat down on the floor.

Suddenly the door opened and William Anderson came through it, dressed in black like some cliched avenging angel. Rebus smiled.

‘How the hell did you find me?’

‘I’ve been following you for quite a while.’ Anderson bent down to examine Rebus’s arm. ‘I heard the shot. I take it you’ve found our man?’

‘He’s still in here somewhere, unarmed. The gun’s back there.’

Anderson tied a handkerchief around Rebus’s shoulder.

‘You need an ambulance, John.’ But Rebus was already rising to his feet.

‘Not yet. Let’s get this finished. How come I didn’t spot you trailing me?’

Anderson allowed himself a smile. ‘It takes a very good copper to know when I’m trailing them, and you’re not very good, John. You’re just good.’

They went behind the partition and began to move carefully further and further into the shelves. Rebus had picked up the gun. He pushed it deep into his pocket. There was no sign of Gordon Reeve.

‘Look.’ Anderson was pointing to a half open door at the very back of the stacks. They moved towards it, slowly still, and Rebus pushed it open. He confronted a steep iron stairwell, badly lit. It seemed to twist down into the foundations of the library. There was nowhere to go but down.

‘I’ve heard about this, I think,’ whispered Anderson, his whispers echoing around the deep shaft as they descended. ‘The library was built on the site of the old Sheriff Court, and the cells which used to be beneath the courthouse are still there. The library stores old books in them. A whole maze of cells and passageways, leading right under the city.’

Smooth plaster walls gave way to ancient brickwork as they descended. Rebus could smell fungus, an old bitter smell left over from a previous age.