Ian Rankin: The Beat Goes On

‘Until after the body was dug up,’ Rebus said.

Gilmour half-turned towards him. ‘On you go then, hot-shot. The stage is all yours.’

‘The evidence against Blay was flimsy. Yes, he was owed money by Jim Chivers, but he was by no means the only enemy Chivers had. You could have filled the courtroom with them. Blay’s fingerprints were found in the victim’s home, but then he’d been a regular visitor, so they couldn’t be said to be conclusive. Added to which, the knife was never found and there didn’t seem to be any traces of blood on Blay’s clothes or shoes. His story was that he’d spent the evening of the stabbing at the flicks in Morningside, seeing The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance . Problem was, no one could verify it. Staff at the picture house knew him for a regular but weren’t able to say which shows he’d been to. He hadn’t gone with anyone or spoken to anyone — took the bus home straight after, and again, no driver would admit to seeing him. One thing I did glean was that there was history between Blay and your old boss. Cruikshank had tried a few times to put Blay away and had always fallen short.’

‘We all end up with at least one of those.’

‘If we stay in the job long enough,’ Rebus agreed.

‘Having second thoughts, John? That would be a pity. Seems to me you’re shaping up to be a good detective.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘Meaning someone who goes the extra mile. Someone who’s conscientious.’ Gilmour paused. ‘And someone with a clear sense of good guys and bad.’

‘You could have gone to Saughton alone. That would have been the safe move. But instead you took me. You needed to see what I’d do, how I’d react.’

‘I had no idea there’d be anything worth a reaction.’

‘But there was.’ Rebus nodded towards the pocket watch, still resting in Gilmour’s hand.

‘It’s just a keepsake, John.’

‘A keepsake with a little scrap of cardboard hidden inside. You know what they told me at the forensics lab? They told me it’s a cinema ticket, one of those old-fashioned stubs they used to give you. They can’t make out any of the details. My guess is, the date and time would have been legible at one time, maybe even the title of the film.’

‘You’re thinking Liberty Valance ?’

‘Seems to fit the bill. A tiny bit of evidence that would have helped Joseph Blay’s case. Probably emptied out his pockets when he was arrested, and Charlie Cruikshank palmed it. Knew he couldn’t have it being found. So Blay’s found guilty and Cruikshank is there to watch him hanged. He still has the ticket stub so he hides it inside the watch, just because he can. That’s why he needed you to keep an eye on Joseph Blay — because that stub could have proved a man’s innocence. Your boss was content to see someone go to the scaffold, no matter whether they’d committed the crime or not.’

‘We can’t know that, John. Who’s to say how that stub ended up where it did?’

‘You know I’m right though.’

‘Good luck proving it.’

Rebus shook his head. ‘We both know I can’t do that.’

‘But do you want to do it? See, being a cop isn’t just about getting to the truth — it’s knowing what to do with it when you arrive. Making judgement calls, some of them at a moment’s notice.’

‘That’s not what Cruikshank did though, is it?’

‘Maybe it is. He knows Blay’s guilty. That ticket could have come from anywhere — Blay could have picked it up off the pavement or from the floor of a bus. Charlie took it out of circulation so as not to confuse the jury.’

‘He wanted a guilty verdict at all costs.’

‘He didn’t want a guilty man to get off, John. That’s the story here.’

‘And you’d do the exact same thing, Stefan? That’s what your old mentor taught you?’

‘He gave his whole life to the job, John, heart and soul.’ Gilmour rose to his feet and stood in front of Rebus. He held out the pocket watch. ‘Do you want this?’ he asked.

‘What would I do with it?’

‘You’d take it to The Complaints, lay out your version of events.’

‘And what good would that do?’ Rebus stared at the watch, then averted his gaze and shook his head. Gilmour waited a few more beats, then stuffed the watch into his coat.

‘That’s us then,’ he said, reaching out his hand. ‘Welcome to the Saints of the Shadow Bible, John.’

After only a moment’s hesitation, Rebus stood up and returned the handshake.

It was the perfect murder.

Perfect, that is, so far as the Lothian and Borders Police were concerned. The murderer had telephoned in to confess, had then panicked and attempted to flee, only to be caught leaving the scene of the crime. End of story.

Except that now he was pleading innocence. Pleading, yelling and screaming it. And this worried Detective Inspector John Rebus, worried him all the way from his office to the four-storey tenement in Leith’s trendy dockside area. The tenements here were much as they were in any working-class area of Edinburgh, except that they boasted colour-splashed roller blinds or Chinese-style bamboo affairs at their windows, and their grimy stone façades had been power-cleaned, their doors now boasting intruder-proof intercoms. A far cry from the greasy Venetian blinds and kicked-in passageways of the tenements in Easter Road or Gorgie, or even in nearby parts of Leith itself, the parts the developers were ignoring as yet.

The victim had worked as a legal secretary, this much Rebus knew. She had been twenty-four years old. Her name was Moira Bitter. Rebus smiled at that. It was a guilty smile, but at this hour of the morning any smile he could raise was something of a miracle.

He parked in front of the tenement, guided by a uniformed officer who had recognised the badly dented front bumper of Rebus’s car. It was rumoured that the dent had come from knocking down too many old ladies, and who was Rebus to deny it? It was the stuff of legend and it gave him prominence in the fearful eyes of the younger recruits.

A curtain twitched in one of the ground-floor windows and Rebus caught a glimpse of an elderly lady. Every tenement, it seemed, tarted up or not, boasted its elderly lady. Living alone, with one dog or four cats for company, she was her building’s eyes and ears. As Rebus entered the hallway, a door opened and the old lady stuck out her head.

‘He was going to run for it,’ she whispered. ‘But the bobby caught him. I saw it. Is the young lass dead? Is that it?’ Her lips were pursed in keen horror. Rebus smiled at her but said nothing. She would know soon enough. Already she seemed to know as much as he did himself. That was the trouble with living in a city the size of a town, a town with a village mentality.

He climbed the four flights of stairs slowly, listening all the while to the report of the constable who was leading him inexorably towards the corpse of Moira Bitter. They spoke in an undertone: stairwell walls had ears.

‘The call came at about 5 a.m., sir,’ explained PC MacManus. ‘The caller gave his name as John MacFarlane and said he’d just murdered his girlfriend. He sounded distressed by all accounts, and I was radioed to investigate. As I arrived, a man was running down the stairs. He seemed in a state of shock.’

‘Shock?’

‘Sort of disorientated, sir.’

‘Did he say anything?’ asked Rebus.

‘Yes, sir, he told me, “Thank God you’re here. Moira’s dead.” I then asked him to accompany me upstairs to the flat in question, called in for assistance, and the gentleman was arrested.’

Rebus nodded. MacManus was a model of efficiency, not a word out of place, the tone just right. Everything by rote and without the interference of too much thought. He would go far as a uniformed officer, but Rebus doubted the young man would ever make CID. When they reached the fourth floor, Rebus paused for breath then walked into the flat.