A Heart Full of Headstones

Now

John Rebus had been in court plenty of times, but this was his first time in the dock. As the charge was being read out for the jury’s benefit, he took it all in. Things hadn’t yet recovered from COVID. Apart from the judge and Rebus, everyone was masked, and there were cameras and monitors everywhere. The jury were being housed elsewhere — a cinema on Lothian Road — as a health precaution. He could see them courtesy of one of the large monitors, just as they could see him.

He tried to remember his first time giving evidence in a case, but couldn’t. It would have been the 1970s, not quite half a century ago. The lawyers, court officials and judge had probably looked much the same. Today Rebus was flanked by two uniformed guards, as would have been the case back then. He’d been in the witness box once when the accused had tried barging his way out of the dock to have a go at him, one of the guards hauling him back. What was the accused’s name? Short and skinny, with curly hair. Began with an M, maybe. Ach, everybody’s memory started going eventually, didn’t it? It wasn’t just him. An age thing, like the COPD that meant he was allowed to keep an inhaler in his pocket along with his face mask.

He wondered how his dog was doing. His daughter, Samantha, had taken Brillo to hers. Rebus’s granddaughter doted on the mutt. He was glad the public gallery was empty — meant he hadn’t had to fight with Sam to stop her attending. There was a simplicity to life in custody. Other people took the decisions for you. He didn’t have to think about meals or dog walks or what to do with his day. Being an ex-cop, he even found himself popular with the prison guards. They liked to linger in his cell, sharing stories. They kept an eye open, too — not everyone inside would have his best interests at heart, which was why he had the luxury of unshared accommodation, even as HMP Edinburgh was bursting at the seams. Not that anyone outside of a few pen-pushers referred to it as HMP Edinburgh — it was Saughton, sited at the westernmost end of Gorgie Road. If you headed into town from there, you soon passed the Hearts football stadium and then Tynecastle police station. In a roundabout way, it was the latter that had brought Rebus here.

Malone, that was the skinny guy’s name. A career housebreaker who didn’t at all mind terrorising any occupants he found on the premises. One of his victims had suffered a coronary and died on the spot, which was why Rebus had made sure Malone wouldn’t get away with it. That had entailed a bit of embroidery from the witness box, which was what had caused Malone to fly into a rage — and that never looked good to a jury. Rebus had tried to look shaken by the outburst. The judge had asked if he needed a minute.

‘Maybe a glass of water, Your Honour,’ Rebus had said, trying to summon up a few beads of nervous sweat. All of this while Malone was being taken from the courtroom, cursing Rebus and his corrupt kind to the rafters.

‘The jury will ignore what they’ve just heard from the accused,’ the judge intoned. Then, to the advocate depute, ‘You may continue, if Detective Inspector Rebus is ready.’

Detective Inspector Rebus was ready.

He tried to recall the first time he’d set foot in Tynecastle cop shop. Would he have been a DI or a detective sergeant? Probably a DS. He had never been based there himself, though for a time he’d worked out of nearby Torphichen. But Torphichen was practically Edinburgh’s salubrious West End. Tynecastle — Tynie to those acquainted with it — was a tougher proposition altogether. Rebus reckoned there was a thesis to be written about the proximity of football grounds to areas of high deprivation. The land around Tynecastle stadium comprised tenements mostly, separated by wasteland and industrial units. Further west the tenements gave way to estates such as Burnhill, with its ugly concrete blocks from the 1960s and ’70s, whose condensation-heavy windows resembled cataracts in a crumbling face. For at least some of the people who lived their lives there, allegiance to the local football team provided distraction and even occasionally an all-too-brief euphoria.

Not that Rebus had ever followed any one team.

‘Come on, John,’ he’d often been teased, ‘Hearts or Hibs, it must be one or the other.’ To which he would always shake his head, just as he found himself shaking his head now as he happened to catch a few of the clerk’s words. Seemed to be taking for ever to get through the charge sheet.

‘You are indicted at the instance of... and the charge against you is that you did... on the fifteenth of... at... against... and did...’

Rebus was trying not to let the jury know he was absolutely aware of them. He knew which camera was trained on him and his eyes never met it. The polished wood of the courtroom; the slate-coloured carpet; the little ledge on which he could rest his hands — these were his apparent focus. Then there was the witness box. A screen stood near it — not a TV monitor, but an actual physical screen so that a witness could testify without eye contact being possible with the defendant. The whole thing was on wheels so it could be rolled into position as and when needed, rolled up the temporary ramp...

Hang on, why had it gone quiet?

Rebus looked to the judge, who was staring at his QC. The clerk of court was staring too, from above the charge sheet.

‘Apologies, Your Honour,’ the QC said, rifling through his papers.

The clerk gave a theatrical sigh. The whole thing was bloody theatre, something Rebus had come to realise all those decades back. Well, theatre to the various professions involved anyway. Anything but theatre to everyone else.

‘This is the point in proceedings where you inform of us how the accused intends to plead,’ the judge admonished the QC.

Rebus glanced towards his defence team — senior counsel and junior counsel in their daft wee wigs, solicitor in a dark buttoned-up suit. Senior counsel wore a gown of silk and a piece of neckwear Rebus now knew was called a fall, though no one seemed to know why. They looked to him like the relative strangers they were, though he’d met them often these past few weeks and days. Junior counsel’s face was impassive, probably thinking about the shopping she had to do on the way home or the games kit to get ready for her kid’s next day at school.

‘Mr Bartleby?’ the judge prompted. Rebus liked the look of the judge. He seemed the type who’d pour you the good whisky, no matter who you were. The senior counsel was giving a nod, satisfied with whatever he’d been checking.

He licked his lips.

Opened his mouth to speak.

Rebus couldn’t help but mimic him, drawing in a lungful of sweet Edinburgh air...