Ian Rankin: Knots And Crosses

Rebus was noticing that the usual pecking-order was in play: inspectors near the front of the room, sergeants and the rest to the back. Even in the midst of murder, there is a pecking-order. The British Disease. And he was at the bottom of the pile, because he had arrived late. Another black mark against him on someone’s mental sheet.

He had always been one of the top men while he had been in the Army. He had been a Para. He had trained for the SAS and come out top of his class. He had been chosen for a crack Special Assignments group. He had his medal and his commendations. It had been a good time, and yet it had been the worst of times, too, a time of stress and deprivation, of deceit and brutality. And when he had left, the police had been reluctant to take him. He understood now that it was something to do with the pressure applied by the Army to get him the job that he wanted. Some people resented that, and they had thrown down banana skins ever since for him to slide on. But he had sidestepped their traps, had performed the job, and had grudgingly been given his commendations here also. But there was precious little promotion, and that had caused him to say a few things out of line, a few things that were always to be held against him. And then he had cuffed an unruly bastard one night in the cells. God forgive him, he had simply lost his head for a minute. There had been more trouble over that. Ah, but it was not a nice world this, not a nice world at all. It was an Old Testament land that he found himself in, a land of barbarity and retribution.

‘We will, of course, have more information for you to work on come tomorrow, after the post-mortems. But for the moment I think that will do. I’m going to hand you over to Chief Inspector Anderson, who will assign you to your tasks for the present.’

Rebus noticed that Jack Morton had nodded off in the corner and, if left unattended, would begin snoring soon. Rebus smiled, but the smile was short-lived, killed by a voice at the front of the room, the voice of Anderson. This was all Rebus needed. Anderson, the man at the centre of his out-of-line remarks. It felt for one sickening moment like predestination. Anderson was in charge. Anderson was doling out their tasks. Rebus reminded himself to stop praying. Perhaps if he stopped praying, God would take the hint and stop being such a bastard to one of his few believers on this near-godforsaken planet.

‘Gemmill and Hartley will be assigned to door-to-door.’

Well, thank God he’d not been landed with that one. There was only one thing worse than door-to-door …

‘And for an initial check on the MO files, Detective Sergeants Morton and Rebus.’

… and that was it.

Thank you, God, oh, thank you. That’s just what I wanted to do with my evening: read through the case histories of all the bloody perverts and sex-offenders in east central Scotland. You must really hate my guts. Am I Job or something? Is that it?

But there was no ethereal voice to be heard, no voice at all save that of the satanic, leering Anderson, whose fingers slowly turned the pages of the roster, his lips moist and full, his wife a known adulteress and his son — of all things — an itinerant poet. Rebus heaped curse after curse upon the shoulders of that priggish, stick-thin superior officer, then kicked Jack Morton’s leg and brought him snorting and chaffing into consciousness.

One of those nights.

‘One of those nights,’ said Jack Morton. He sucked luxuriously on his short, tipped cigarette, coughed loudly, brought his handkerchief from his pocket and deposited something into it from his mouth. He studied the contents of the handkerchief. ‘Ah ha, some vital new evidence,’ he said. All the same, he looked rather worried.

Rebus smiled. ‘Time to stop smoking, Jack,’ he said.

They were seated together at a desk upon which were piled about a hundred and fifty files on known sex-offenders in central Scotland. A smart young secretary, doubtless relishing the overtime that came with a murder inquiry, kept bringing more files into the office, and Rebus stared at her in mock outrage every time she entered. He was hoping to scare her away, and if she came back again, the outrage would become real.

‘No, John, it’s these tipped bastards. I can’t take to them, really I can’t. Sod that bloody doctor.’

So saying, Morton took the cigarette from his lips, broke off the filter, and replaced the cigarette, now ridiculously short, between thin, bloodless lips.

‘That’s better. That’s more like a fag.’

Rebus had always found two things remarkable. One was that he liked, and in return was liked by, Jack Morton. The other was that Morton could pull so hard on a cigarette and yet release so little smoke. Where did all that smoke go? He could not figure it out.

‘I see you’re abstaining this evening, John.’

‘Limiting myself to ten a day, Jack.’

Morton shook his head.

‘Ten, twenty, thirty a day. Take it from me, John, it makes no difference in the end. What it comes down to is this: you either stop or you don’t, and if you can’t stop, then you’re as well smoking as many as you like. That’s been proven. I read about it in a magazine.’

‘Aye, but we all know the magazines you read, Jack.’

Morton chuckled, gave another tremendous cough, and searched for his handkerchief.

‘What a bloody job,’ said Rebus, picking up the first of the files.

The two men sat in silence for twenty minutes, flicking through the facts and fantasies of rapists, exhibitionists, pederasts, paedophiles, and procurers. Rebus felt his mouth filling with silt. It was as if he saw himself there, time after time after time, the self that lurked behind his everyday consciousness. His Mister Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, Edinburgh-born. He felt ashamed of his occasional erection: doubtless Jack Morton had one too. It came with the territory, as did the revulsion, the loathing and the fascination.

Around them, the station whirled in the business of the night. Men in shirtsleeves walked purposefully past their open door, the door of their assigned office, cut off from everyone else so that no one would be contaminated by their thoughts. Rebus paused for a moment to reflect that his own office back in Great London Road was in need of much of this equipment: the modern desk (unwobbly, with drawers that could be opened easily), the filing-cabinets (ditto), the drinks-dispenser just outside. There were carpets even, rather than his own liver-red linoleum with its curled, dangerous edges. It was a very palatable environment this in which to track down the odd pervert or killer.

‘What exactly are we looking for, Jack?’

Morton snorted, threw down a slender brown file, looked at Rebus, shrugged his shoulders, and lit a cigarette.

‘Garbage,’ he said, picking up another folder, and whether or not it was meant as an answer Rebus was never to know.

‘Detective Sergeant Rebus?’

A young constable, acne on his throat, cleanly-shaven, stood at the open door.

‘Yes.’

‘Message from the Chief, sir.’

He handed Rebus a folded piece of blue notepaper.

‘Good news?’ asked Morton.

‘Oh, the best news, Jack, the very best news. Our boss sends us the following fraternal message: “Any leads from the files?” End of message.’

‘Will there be any reply, sir?’ asked the constable.

Rebus crumpled the note and tossed it into a new aluminium bin.

‘Yes, son, there will be,’ he said, ‘but I very much doubt whether you’d want to deliver it.’

Jack Morton, wiping ash from his tie, laughed.

It was one of those nights. Jim Stevens, walking home at long last, had not found anything interesting since his conversation with Mac Campbell all of four hours ago. He had told Mac then that he was not about to drop his own investigation into Edinburgh’s burgeoning drugs racket, and that had been the whole truth. It was becoming a private obsession, and though his boss might move him on to a murder case, still he would follow up his old investigation in his free, spare and private time, time found late at night when the presses were rolling, time spent in lower and lower dives further and further out of town. For he was close, he knew, to a big fish, and yet not close enough to be able to enlist the help of the forces of law and order. He wanted the story to be watertight before he called for the cavalry.