Ian Rankin - Resurrection Men

It was all about how the inquiry was running out of steam, no result in sight. Officers were being sent back to their postings. A core of six officers will continue to sift information and seek out new leads. Those six had eventually dwindled to three, Rebus not among them. There wasn’t much in the story about the assault itself, which was as brutal as anything Rebus had seen in his years on the force. A church manse in Murrayfield — leafy Murrayfield, with its large, expensive homes and pristine avenues. It had started as a break-in, most probably. Silver and valuables had been taken in the raid. The minister himself had been out visiting parishioners, leaving his wife at home. Early evening, and no lights on. That was probably why the man — just the one attacker, according to the victim — had chosen the manse. It was next door to the church, hidden behind a tall stone wall and surrounded by trees, almost in a world of its own. No lights on meant no one home.

Being blind, however, the victim had needed no lights. She’d been in the bathroom upstairs. The clatter of breaking glass. She’d been running a bath, thought maybe she’d misheard. Or it was kids outside, a bottle thrown. The manse had a dog, but her husband had taken it with him to give it a walk.

She felt the breeze from the top of the stairs. There was a telephone in the hall next to the front door, and she put one foot on the first step down, heard the floorboard creak. Decided to use the phone in the bedroom instead. She almost had it in her hand when he struck, snatching her by the wrist and twisting her around so that she fell onto the bed. She thought she remembered the sound of him turning on the bedside lamp.

“I’m blind,” she’d pleaded. “Please don’t . . .”

But he had, giving a little laugh afterwards, a laugh that stayed with her during the months of the inquiry. Laughing because she couldn’t identify him. It was only after the rape that he tore her clothes off, punching her hard in the face when she screamed. He left no fingerprints, just a few fibers and a single pubic hair. He’d swept the phone to the floor with his arm and then stamped on it. He’d taken cash, small heirlooms from the jewelry box on her dressing table. None of the missing items ever turned up.

He hadn’t said anything. She could give little sense of his height or weight, no facial description.

From the start, officers had refused to voice their thoughts. They’d given it their best shot. The business community had put up a £5,000 reward for information. The pubic hair had given police a DNA fingerprint, but there hadn’t been a database around back then. They’d have to catch the attacker first, then make the match.

“It was a bad one,” Rebus conceded.

“Did they ever catch the bastard?” Francis Gray asked.

Rebus nodded. “Just a year or so back. He did another break-in, assaulted a woman in her flat. This was down in Brighton.”

“DNA match?” Jazz guessed. Rebus nodded again.

“Hope he rots in hell,” Gray muttered.

“He’s already there,” Rebus conceded. “His name was Michael Veitch. Stabbed to death his second week in prison.” He shrugged. “It happens, doesn’t it?”

“It certainly does,” Jazz said. “I sometimes think there’s more justice meted out in jails than in the courts.”

Rebus knew he had just been given an opening. You’re right . . . remember that gangster who got stabbed in the Bar-L? Bernie Johns, was that his name? But it felt too obvious. If he said it aloud, it would alert them, put them on their guard. So he held back, wondering if he’d ever take the chance.

“Got what he deserved anyway,” Sutherland stated.

“Not that it did his victim much good,” Rebus added.

“Why’s that, John?” Jazz asked. Rebus looked at him, then held up the sheet of paper.

“If you’d extended your search a few weeks, you’d have found she committed suicide. She’d become a recluse by then. Couldn’t stand the thought of him still being out there . . .”

Weeks, Rebus had worked on the manse inquiry. Chasing leads provided by informants desperate for the cash reward. Chasing bloody shadows . . .

“Bastard,” Gray hissed under his breath.

“Plenty of victims out there,” Ward suggested. “And we’re stuck with a toerag like Rico Lomax . . .”

“Working hard, are we?” It was Tennant, standing in the doorway. “Making lots of lovely progress for your SIO to report to me?”

“We’ve made a start, sir,” Jazz said, his voice full of confidence, but his eyes betraying the truth.

“Plenty of old news stories anyway,” Tennant commented, his eyes on the photocopies.

“I was looking for possible tie-ins, sir,” Jazz explained. “See if anyone else had gone missing, or any unidentified bodies turned up.”

“And?”

“And nothing, sir. Though I think I’ve discovered why DI Rebus didn’t seem overly helpful when Glasgow CID came calling.”

Rebus stared at him. Could he really know? Here Rebus was, supposedly infiltrating the trio, and every move they made seemed calculated to undermine him. First Rico Lomax, now the Murrayfield rape. Because there was a connection between the two . . . and that connection was Rebus himself. No, not just Rebus . . . Rebus and Cafferty . . . and if the truth came out, Rebus’s career would cease to be on the skids.

It would be a car wreck.

“Go on,” Tennant pressed.

“He was involved in another inquiry, sir, one he was loath to take time out from.” Jazz handed the rape story to Tennant.

“I remember this,” Tennant said quietly. “You worked it, John?”

Rebus nodded. “They pulled me off it to look for Dickie Diamond.”

“Hence your reluctance?”

“Hence my perceived reluctance, sir. Like I said, I helped the Glasgow CID as much as I could.”

Tennant made a thoughtful sound. “And does this get us anywhere nearer Mr. Diamond, DI McCullough?”

“Probably not, sir,” Jazz conceded.

“Three of us went down to Leith, sir,” Allan Ward piped up. “Interviewed two individuals who had known him. It seems Diamond may have shared his old lady with Rico Lomax on at least one occasion.”

Tennant just looked at him. Ward fidgeted a little.

“In a caravan,” he went on, eyes darting to Rebus and Barclay for support. “John and Tam were there too, sir.”

Tennant’s eyebrows shot up. “In the caravan?”

Ward reddened as laughter filled the room. “In Leith, sir.”

Tennant turned to Rebus. “A useful trip, DI Rebus?”

“As fishing expeditions go, I’ve been on worse.”

Tennant was thoughtful again. “The caravan angle: is there any mileage in that?”

“Could be, sir,” Tam Barclay said, feeling left out. “It’s something I feel we should follow up.”

“Don’t let me stop you,” Tennant told him. Then he turned to Gray and Sutherland. “And meantime you two were . . . ?”

“Making phone calls,” Gray announced calmly. “Trying to locate more of Diamond’s associates.”

“But still finding enough time to go walkabout, eh, Francis?”

Gray knew he’d been rumbled, decided silence was the best policy.

“DCS Templer tells me you were nosing around her inquiry.”

“Yes, sir.”

“She wasn’t happy about it.”

“And she came crying to you, sir?” Ward said belligerently.

“No, DC Ward . . . she quite properly mentioned it to me, that’s all.”

“There’s us and there’s them, ” Ward went on, his eyes scanning the Wild Bunch. Rebus knew what he meant: it wasn’t so much a team thing, more something approaching a siege mentality.

There’s us . . . and there’s them.