Black and Blue

1

‘Tell me again why you killed them.’

‘I’ve told you, it’s just this urge.’

Rebus looked back at his notes. ‘The word you used was “compulsion”.’

The slumped figure in the chair nodded. Bad smells came off him. ‘Urge, compulsion, same thing.’

‘Is it?’ Rebus stubbed out his cigarette. There were so many butts in the tin ashtray, a couple spilled over on to the metal table. ‘Let’s talk about the first victim.’

The man opposite him groaned. His name was William Crawford Shand, known as ‘Craw’. He was forty years old, single, and lived alone in a council block in Craigmillar. He had been unemployed six years. He ran twitching fingers through dark greasy hair, seeking out and covering a large bald spot at the crown of his head.

‘The first victim,’ Rebus said. ‘Tell us.’

‘Us’ because there was another CID man in the biscuit-tin. His name was Maclay, and Rebus didn’t know him very well. He didn’t know anyone at Craigmillar very well, not yet. Maclay was leaning against the wall, arms folded, eyes reduced to slits. He looked like a piece of machinery at rest.

‘I strangled her.’

‘What with?’

‘A length of rope.’

‘Where did you get the rope?’

‘Bought it at some shop, I can’t remember where.’

Three-beat pause. ‘Then what did you do?’

‘After she was dead?’ Shand moved a little in the chair. ‘I took her clothes off and was intimate with her.’

‘With a dead body?’

‘She was still warm.’

Rebus got to his feet. The grating of his chair on the floor seemed to unnerve Shand. Not difficult.

‘Where did you kill her?’

‘A park.’

‘And where was this park?’

‘Near where she lived.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Polmuir Road, Aberdeen.’

‘And what were you doing in Aberdeen, Mr Shand?’

He shrugged, running his fingers now along the rim of the table, leaving traces of sweat and grease.

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ Rebus said. ‘The edges are sharp, you might get cut.’

Maclay snorted. Rebus walked over towards the wall and stared at him. Maclay nodded briefly. Rebus turned back to the table.

‘Describe the park.’ He rested against the edge of the table, got himself another cigarette and lit it.

‘It was just a park. You know, trees and grass, a play park for the kids.’

‘Were the gates locked?’

‘What?’

‘It was late at night, were the gates locked?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘You don’t remember.’ Pause: two beats. ‘Where did you meet her?’

Quickly: ‘At a disco.’

‘You don’t seem the disco type, Mr Shand.’ Another snort from the machine. ‘Describe the place to me.’

Shand shrugged again. ‘Like any other disco: dark, flashing lights, a bar.’

‘What about victim number two?’

‘Same procedure.’ Shand’s eyes were dark, face gaunt. But for all that he was beginning to enjoy himself, easing into his story again. ‘Met her at a disco, offered to take her home, killed her and fucked her.’

‘No intimacy then. Did you take a souvenir?’

‘Eh?’

Rebus flicked ash on to the floor, flakes landed on his shoes. ‘Did you remove anything from the scene?’

Shand thought it over, shook his head.

‘And this was where exactly?’

‘Warriston Cemetery.’

‘Close to her home?’

‘She lived on Inverleith Row.’

‘What did you strangle her with?’

‘The bit of rope.’

‘The same piece?’ Shand nodded. ‘What did you do, keep it in your pocket?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Do you have it with you now?’

‘I chucked it.’

‘You’re not making it easy for us, are you?’ Shand squirmed with pleasure. Four beats. ‘And the third victim?’

‘Glasgow,’ Shand recited. ‘Kelvingrove Park. Her name was Judith Cairns. She told me to call her Ju-Ju. I did her same as the others.’ He sat back in the chair, drawing himself up and folding his arms. Rebus reached out a hand until it touched the man’s forehead, faith-healer style. Then he pushed, not very hard. But there was no resistance. Shand and the chair toppled backwards on to the floor. Rebus was kneeling in front of him, hauling him up by the front of his shirt.

‘You’re a liar!’ he hissed. ‘Everything you know you got straight from the papers, and what you had to make up was pure dross!’ He let go and got to his feet. His hands were damp where he’d been holding the shirt.

‘I’m not lying,’ Shand pleaded, still prone. ‘That’s gospel I’m telling you!’

Rebus stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette. The ashtray tipped more butts on to the table. Rebus picked one up and flicked it at Shand.

‘Are you not going to charge me?’

‘You’ll be charged all right: wasting police time. A spell in Saughton with an arse-bandit for a roomie.’

‘We usually just let him go,’ Maclay said.

‘Stick him in a cell,’ Rebus ordered, leaving the room.

‘But I’m him!’ Shand persisted, even as Maclay was picking him off the floor. ‘I’m Johnny Bible! I’m Johnny Bible!’

‘Not even close, Craw,’ Maclay said, quietening him with a punch.

Rebus needed to wash his hands, splash some water on his face. Two woolly suits were in the toilets, enjoying a story and a cigarette. They stopped laughing when Rebus came in.

‘Sir,’ one asked, ‘who did you have in the biscuit-tin?’

‘Another comedian,’ Rebus said.

‘This place is full of them,’ the second constable commented. Rebus didn’t know if he meant the station, Craigmillar itself, or the city as a whole. Not that there was much comedy in Craigmillar police station. It was Edinburgh’s hardest posting; a stint of duty lasted two years max, no one could function longer than that. Craigmillar was about as tough an area as you could find in Scotland’s capital city, and the station fully merited its nickname — Fort Apache, the Bronx. It lay up a cul-de-sac behind a row of shops, a low-built dour-faced building with even dourer-faced tenements behind. Being up an alley meant a mob could cut it off from civilisation with ease, and the place had been under siege numerous times. Yes, Craigmillar was a choice posting.

Rebus knew why he was there. He’d upset some people, people who mattered. They hadn’t been able to deal him a death blow, so had instead consigned him to purgatory. It couldn’t be hell because he knew it wasn’t for ever. Call it a penance. The letter telling him of his move had explained that he would be covering for a hospitalised colleague. It had also stated that he would help oversee the shutting down of the old Craigmillar station. Everything was being wound down, transferred to a brand new station nearby. The place was already a shambles of packing cases and pillaged cupboards. Staff weren’t exactly expending great energy solving ongoing cases. Nor had they put any energy into welcoming Detective Inspector John Rebus. The place felt more like a hospital ward than a cop-shop, and the patients were tranquillised to the hilt.

He wandered back to the CID room — the ‘Shed’. On the way, he passed Maclay and Shand, the latter still protesting his guilt as he was dragged to the cells.

‘I’m Johnny Bible! I fucking am and all!’

Not even close.

It was nine p.m. on a Tuesday in June and the only other person in the Shed was Detective Sergeant ‘Dod’ Bain. He glanced up from his magazine — Offbeat, the L&B newsletter — and Rebus shook his head.

‘Thought not,’ Bain said, turning a page. ‘Craw’s notorious for grassing himself up, that’s why I left him to you.’

‘You’ve as much heart as a carpet tack.’

‘But I’m as sharp as one, too. Don’t forget that.’

Rebus sat at his desk and considered writing his report of the interview. Another comedian, another waste of time. And still Johnny Bible was out there.

First there had been Bible John, terrorising Glasgow in the late 1960s. A well-dressed young man with reddish hair, who knew his Bible and frequented the Barrowland Ballroom. He picked up three women there, beat them, raped them, strangled them. Then he disappeared, right in the middle of Glasgow’s biggest manhunt, and never resurfaced, the case open to this day. Police had a cast-iron description of Bible John from the sister of his last victim. She’d spent close on two hours in his company, shared a taxi with him even. They’d dropped her off; her sister had waved goodbye through the back window... Her description hadn’t helped.

And now there was Johnny Bible. The media had been quick with the name. Three women: beaten, raped, strangled. That was all they’d needed to make the comparison. Two of the women had been picked up at nightclubs, discos. There were vague descriptions of a man who’d been seen dancing with the victims. Well-dressed, shy. It clicked with the original Bible John. Only Bible John, supposing he were still alive, would be in his fifties, while this new killer was described as mid-to-late twenties. Therefore: Johnny Bible, spiritual son of Bible John.

There were differences, of course, but the media didn’t dwell on those. For one thing, Bible John’s victims had all been dancing at the same dancehall; Johnny Bible ranged far and wide through Scotland in his hunt for victims. This had led to the usual theories: he was a long-distance lorry driver; a company rep. Police were ruling nothing out. It might even be Bible John himself, back after a quarter century away, the mid-to-late twenties description flawed — it had happened before with apparently watertight eyewitness testimony. They were also keeping a few things quiet about Johnny Bible — just as they had with Bible John. It helped rule out the dozens of fake confessions.

Rebus had barely started his report when Maclay swayed into the room. That was the way he walked, from side to side, not because he was drunk or drugged but because he was seriously overweight, a metabolism thing. There was something wrong with his sinuses too; his breathing often came in laboured wheezes, his voice a blunt plane against the grain of the wood. His station nickname was ‘Heavy’.

‘Escorted Craw from the premises?’ Bain asked.

Maclay nodded towards Rebus’s desk. ‘Wants him charged for wasting our time.’

‘Now that’s what I call a waste of time.’

Maclay swayed in Rebus’s direction. His hair was jet black, ringed with slick kiss-curls. He’d probably won Bonniest Bairn prizes, but not for a while.

‘Come on,’ he said.

Rebus shook his head and kept typing.

‘Fuck’s sake.’

‘Fuck him,’ Bain said, getting to his feet. He unhooked his jacket from the back of the chair. To Maclay: ‘Drinkie?’

Maclay wheezed out a long sigh. ‘Just the job.’

Rebus held his breath until they’d gone. Not that he’d been expecting to be asked along. That was their whole point. He stopped typing and reached into his bottom drawer for the Lucozade bottle, unscrewed the cap, sniffed forty-three percent malt and poured in a mouthful. With the bottle back in its drawer, he popped a mint into his mouth.

Better. ‘I can see clearly now’: Marvin Gaye.

He yanked the report from the typewriter and crumpled it into a ball, then called the desk, told them to hold Craw Shand an hour, then release him. He’d just put down the phone when it started ringing.

‘DI Rebus.’

‘It’s Brian.’

Brian Holmes, Detective Sergeant, still based at St Leonard’s. They kept in touch. His voice tonight was toneless.

‘Problem?’

Holmes laughed, no humour. ‘I’ve got the world’s supply.’

‘So tell me the latest.’ Rebus opened the packet one-handed, in mouth and lit.

‘I don’t know that I can, with you being in shit.’

‘Craigmillar’s not so bad.’ Rebus looked around the stale office.

‘I meant the other thing.’

‘Oh.’

‘See, I’m... I might have gotten myself into something...’

‘What’s happened?’

‘A suspect, we had him in custody. He was giving me a shit load of grief.’

‘You smacked him.’

‘That’s what he’s saying.’

‘Filed a complaint?’

‘In the process. His solicitor wants to take it all the way.’

‘Your word against his?’

‘Right.’

‘The rubber-heels will kick it out.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Or get Siobhan to cover your arse.’

‘She’s on holiday. My partner for the interview was Glamis.’

‘No good then, he’s as yellow as a New York cab.’

A pause. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me if I did it?’

‘I don’t ever want to know, understood? Who was the suspect?’

‘Mental Minto.’

‘Christ, that brewhead knows more law than the procurator-fiscal. OK, let’s go talkies.’

It was good to be out of the station. He had the car windows rolled down. The breeze was almost warm. The station-issue Escort hadn’t been cleaned in a while. There were chocolate wrappers, empty crisp bags, crushed bricks of orange juice and Ribena. The heart of the Scottish diet: sugar and salt. Add alcohol and you had heart and soul.

Minto lived in one of the tenement flats on South Clerk Street, first floor. Rebus had been there on occasions past, none of them savoury to the memory. Kerbside was solid with cars, so he double-parked. In the sky, fading roseate was fighting a losing battle with encroaching dark. And below it all, halogen orange. The street was noisy. The cinema up the road was probably emptying, and the first casualties were tearing themselves away from still-serving pubs. Night-cooking in the air: hot batter, pizza topping, Indian spice. Brian Holmes was standing outside a charity shop, hands in pockets. No car: he’d probably walked from St Leonard’s. The two men nodded a greeting.

Holmes looked tired. Just a few years ago he’d been young, fresh, keen. Rebus knew home life had taken its toll: he’d been there in his own marriage, annulled years back. Holmes’s partner wanted him out of the force. She wanted someone who spent more time with her. Rebus knew all too well what she wanted. She wanted someone whose mind was on her when he was at home, who wasn’t immersed in casework and speculation, mind games and promotion strategies. Often as a police officer you were closer to your working partner than your partner for life. When you joined CID they gave you a handshake and a piece of paper.

The piece of paper was your decree nisi.

‘Do you know if he’s up there?’ Rebus asked.

‘I phoned him. He picked up. Sounded halfway to sober.’

‘Did you say anything?’

‘Think I’m stupid?’

Rebus was looking up at the tenement windows. Ground level was shops; Minto lived above a locksmith’s. There was irony there for those who wanted it.

‘OK, you come up with me, but stay on the landing. Only come in if you hear trouble.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m only going to speak to the man.’ Rebus touched Holmes’s shoulder. ‘Relax.’

The main door was unlocked. They climbed the winding stairs without speaking. Rebus pushed at the bell and took a deep breath. Minto started to pull the door open, and Rebus shouldered it, propelling Minto and himself into the dimly lit hallway. He slammed the door shut behind him.

Minto was ready for violence until he saw who it was. Then he just snarled and strode back to the living room. It was a tiny room, half kitchenette, with a narrow floor-to-ceiling cupboard Rebus knew held a shower. There was one bedroom, and a toilet with a doll-house sink. They made igloos bigger.

‘Fuck do you want?’ Minto was reaching for a can of lager, high-alcohol. He drained it, standing.

‘A word.’ Rebus looked around the room, casually as it were. But his hands were by his sides, ready.

‘This is unlawful entry.’

‘Keep yapping, I’ll show you unlawful entry.’

Minto’s face creased: not impressed. He was mid-thirties but looked fifteen years older. He’d done most of the major drugs in his time: Billy Whizz, skag, Morningside speed. He was on a meth programme now. On dope, he was a small problem, an irritation; off dope, he was pure radge. He was Mental.

‘Way I hear, you’re fucked anyway,’ he said now.

Rebus took a step closer. ‘That’s right, Mental. So ask yourself: what have I got to lose? If I’m fucked, might as well make it good and.’

Minto held up his hands. ‘Easy, easy. What’s your problem?’

Rebus let his face relax. ‘You’re my problem, Mental. Making a charge against a colleague of mine.’

‘He laid into me.’

Rebus shook his head. ‘I was there, didn’t see a thing. I’d called in with a message for DS Holmes. I stuck around. So if he’d assaulted you, I’d’ve known, wouldn’t I?’

They stood facing one another silently. Then Minto turned and slumped into the room’s only armchair. He looked like he was going to sulk. Rebus bent down and picked something off the floor. It was the city’s tourist accommodation brochure.

‘Going somewhere nice?’ He flicked through the lists of hotels, B&Bs, self-catering. Then he waved the magazine at Minto. ‘If one single place in here gets turned, you’ll be our first stop.’

‘Harassment,’ Minto said, but quietly.

Rebus dropped the brochure. Minto didn’t look so mental now; he looked done in and done down, like life was sporting a horseshoe in one of its boxing gloves. Rebus turned to go. He walked down the hall and was reaching for the door when he heard Minto call his name. The small man was standing at the other end of the hall, only twelve feet away. He had pulled his baggy black T-shirt up to his shoulders. Having shown the front, he turned to give Rebus a view of the back. The lighting was poor — forty-watt bulb in a flyblown shade — but even so Rebus could see. Tattoos, he thought at first. But they were bruises: ribs, sides, kidneys. Self-inflicted? It was possible. It was always possible. Minto dropped the shirt and stared hard at Rebus, not blinking. Rebus let himself out of the flat.

‘Everything all right?’ Brian Holmes said nervously.

‘The story is, I came by with a message. I sat in on the interview.’

Holmes exhaled noisily. ‘That’s it then?’

‘That’s it.’

Perhaps it was the tone of voice that alerted Holmes. He met John Rebus’s stare, and was the first to break contact. Outside, he put out a hand and said, ‘Thanks.’

But Rebus had turned and walked away.

He drove through the streets of the empty capital, six-figure housing huddled either side of the road. It cost a fortune to live in Edinburgh these days. It could cost you everything you had. He tried not to think about what he’d done, what Brian Holmes had done. The Pet Shop Boys inside his head: ‘It’s a Sin’. Segue to Miles Davis: ‘So What?’

He headed in the vague direction of Craigmillar, then thought better of it. He’d go home instead, and pray there were no reporters camped outside. When he went home, he took the night home with him, and had to soak and scrub it away, feeling like an old paving slab, walked on daily. Sometimes it was easier to stay on the street, or sleep at the station. Sometimes he drove all night, not just through Edinburgh: down to Leith and past the working girls and hustlers, along the waterfront, South Queensferry sometimes, and then up on to the Forth Bridge, up the M90 through Fife, past Perth, all the way to Dundee, where he’d turn and head back, usually tired by then, pulling off the road if necessary and sleeping in his car. It all took time.

He remembered he was in a station car, not his own. If they needed it, they could come fetch it. When he reached Marchmont, he couldn’t find a parking space on Arden Street, ended up on a double yellow. There were no reporters; they had to sleep some time, too. He walked along Warrender Park Road to his favourite chip shop — huge portions, and they sold toothpaste and toilet-rolls too, if you needed them. He walked back slowly, nice night for it, and was halfway up the tenement stairs when his pager went off.

2

His name was Allan Mitchison and he was drinking in a hometown bar, not ostentatiously, but with a look on his face that said he wasn’t worried about money. He got talking to these two guys. One of them told a joke. It was a good joke. They bought the next round, and he bought one back. They wiped tears from their eyes when he told his only gag. They ordered three more. He was enjoying the company.

He didn’t have many pals left in Edinburgh. Some of his one-time friends resented him, the money he still made. He didn’t have any family, hadn’t had for as long as he could remember. The two men were company. He didn’t quite know why he came home, or even why he called Edinburgh ‘home’. He had a flat with a mortgage on it, but hadn’t decorated it yet or put in any furniture. It was just a shell, nothing worth coming back for. But everyone went home, that was the thing. The sixteen days straight that you worked, you were supposed to think about home. You talked about it, spoke of all the things you’d do when you got there — the booze, the minge, clubbing. Some of the men lived in or near Aberdeen, but a lot still had homes further away. They couldn’t wait for the sixteen days to end, the fourteen-day break to begin.

This was the first night of his fourteen days.

They passed slowly at first, then more quickly towards the end, until you were left wondering why you hadn’t done more with your time. This, the first night, this was the longest. This was the one you had to get through.

They moved on to another bar. One of his new friends was carrying an old-style Adidas bag, red plastic with a side pocket and a broken strap. He’d had one just like it at school, back when he was fourteen, fifteen.

‘What have you got in there,’ he joked, ‘your games kit?’

They laughed and slapped him on the back.

At the new place, they moved to shorts. The pub was heaving, wall-to-wall minge.

‘You must think about it all the time,’ one of his friends said, ‘on the rigs. Me, I’d go off my head.’

‘Or blind,’ said the other.

He grinned. ‘I get my share.’ Downed another Black Heart. He didn’t used to drink dark rum. A fisherman in Stonehaven had introduced him to the stuff. OVD or Black Heart, but he liked Black Heart best. He liked the name.

They needed a carry-out, keep the party going. He was tired. The train from Aberdeen had taken three hours, and there’d been the paraffin budgie before that. His friends were ordering over the bar: a bottle of Bell’s and one of Black Heart, a dozen cans, crisps and smokes. It cost a fortune, buying that way. They split it three ways even, so they weren’t after his cash.

Outside, there was trouble finding a taxi. Plenty about, but already taken. They had to pull him out of the road when he tried to flag one down. He stumbled a bit and went down on one knee. They helped him back up.

‘So what do you do exactly on the rigs?’ one of them asked.

‘Try to stop them falling down.’

A taxi had stopped to let a couple out.

‘Is that your mother or are you just desperate?’ he asked the male passenger. His friends told him to shut up, and pushed him into the back. ‘Did you see her?’ he asked them. ‘Face like a bag of marbles.’ They weren’t going to his flat, there was nothing there.

‘We’ll go back to our place,’ his friends had said. So there was nothing to do but sit back and watch all the lights. Edinburgh was like Aberdeen — small cities, not like Glasgow or London. Aberdeen had more money than style, and it was scary, too. Scarier than Edinburgh. The trip seemed to take for ever.

‘Where are we?’

‘Niddrie,’ someone said. He couldn’t remember their names, and was too embarrassed to ask. Eventually the taxi stopped. Outside, the street was dark, looked like the whole fucking estate had welshed on the lecky bill. He said as much.

More laughter, tears, hands on his back.

Three-storey tenements, pebble-dashed. Most of the windows were blocked with steel plates or had been infilled with breeze blocks.

‘You live here?’ he said.

‘We can’t all afford mortgages.’

True enough, true enough. He was lucky in so many ways. They pushed hard at the main door and it gave. They went in, one friend either side of him with a hand on his back. Inside, the place was damp and rotten, the stairs half-blocked with torn mattresses and lavatory seats, runs of piping and lengths of broken skirting-board.

‘Very salubrious.’

‘It’s all right once you get up.’

They climbed two storeys. There were a couple of doors off the landing, both open.

‘In here, Allan.’

So he walked in.

There was no electricity, but one of his friends had a torch. The place was a midden.

‘I wouldn’t have taken youse for down and outs, lads.’

‘The kitchen’s OK.’

So they took him through there. He saw a wooden chair which had once been padded. It sat on what was left of the linoleum floor. He was sobering up fast, but not fast enough.

They hauled him down on to the chair. He heard tape being ripped from a roll, binding him to the chair, around and around. Then around his head, covering his mouth. His legs next, all the way down to the ankles. He was trying to cry out, gagging on the tape. A blow landed on the side of his head. His eyes and ears went fuzzy for a moment. The side of his head hurt, like it had just connected with a girder. Wild shadows flew across the walls.

‘Looks like a mummy, doesn’t he?’

‘Aye, and he’ll be crying for his daddy in a minute.’

The Adidas bag was on the floor in front of him, unzipped.

‘Now,’ one of them said, ‘I’ll just get out my games kit.’

Pliers, claw-hammer, staple-gun, electric screwdriver, and a saw.

Night sweat, salt stinging his eyes, trickling in, trickling out again. He knew what was happening, but still didn’t believe it. The two men weren’t saying anything. They were laying a sheet of heavy-duty polythene out on the floor. Then they carried him and the chair on to the sheet. He was wriggling, trying to scream, eyes screwed shut, straining against his bonds. When he opened his eyes, he saw a clear polythene bag. They pulled it down over his head and sealed it with tape around his neck. He breathed in through his nostrils and the bag contracted. One of them picked up the saw, then put it down and picked up the hammer instead.

Somehow, fuelled by sheer terror, Allan Mitchison got to his feet, still tied to the chair. The kitchen window was in front of him. It had been boarded up, but the boards had been torn away. The frame was still there, but only fragments of the actual window panes remained. The two men were busy with their tools. He stumbled between them and out of the window.

They didn’t wait to watch him fall. They just gathered up the tools, folded the plastic sheet into an untidy bundle, put everything back in the Adidas bag, and zipped it shut.

‘Why me?’ Rebus had asked when he’d called in.

‘Because,’ his boss had said, ‘you’re new. You haven’t been around long enough to make enemies on the estate.’

And besides, Rebus could have added, you can’t find Maclay or Bain.

A resident walking his greyhound had called it in. ‘A lot of stuff gets chucked on to the street, but not like this.’

When Rebus arrived, there were a couple of patrol cars on the scene, creating a sort of cordon, which hadn’t stopped the locals gathering. Someone was making grunting noises in imitation of a pig. They didn’t go much for originality around here; tradition stuck hard. The tenements were mostly abandoned, awaiting demolition. The families had been relocated. In some of the buildings, there were still a few occupied flats. Rebus wouldn’t have wanted to stick around.

The body had been pronounced dead, the circumstances suspicious to say the least, and now the forensic and photography crews were gathering. A Fiscal Depute was in conversation with the pathologist, Dr Curt. Curt saw Rebus and nodded a greeting. But Rebus had eyes only for the body. An old-fashioned spike-tipped set of railings ran the length of the tenement, and the body was impaled on the fence, still dripping blood. At first, he thought the body grossly deformed, but as he stepped closer he saw what it was. A chair, half of it smashed in the fall. It was attached to the body by runs of silver tape. There was a plastic bag over the corpse’s head. The bag, once translucent, was now half-filled with blood.

Dr Curt walked over. ‘I wonder if we’ll find an orange in his mouth.’

‘Is that supposed to be funny?’

‘I’ve been meaning to phone. I was sorry to hear about your... well...’

‘Craigmillar’s not so bad.’

‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘I know you didn’t.’ Rebus looked up. ‘How many storeys did he fall?’

‘Looks like a couple. That window there.’

There was a noise behind them. One of the woolly suits was vomiting on to the road. A colleague had an arm around his shoulders, encouraging the flow.

‘Let’s get him down,’ Rebus said. ‘Get the poor bastard into a body bag.’

‘No electricity,’ someone said, handing Rebus a torch.

‘Are the floors safe to walk on?’

‘Nobody’s fallen through yet.’

Rebus moved through the flat. He’d been in dens like it a dozen times. Gangs had been in and sprayed their names and their urine around the place. Others had stripped out anything with even a whiff of monetary value: floor coverings, interior doors, wiring, ceiling roses. A table, missing one leg, had been turned upside down in the living room. There was a crumpled blanket lying on it, and some sheets of newspaper. A real home from home. There was nothing in the bathroom, just holes where the fittings had been. There was a large hole, too, in the bedroom wall. You could look right through into the adjoining flat, and see an identical scene.

The SOCOs were concentrating on the kitchen.

‘What have we got?’ Rebus asked. Someone shone their torch into a corner.

‘Bag full of booze, sir. Whisky, rum, some tinnies and nibbles.’

‘Party time.’

Rebus walked to the window. A woolly suit was standing there, looking down on to the street, where a team of four were trying to manoeuvre the body from the railings.

‘That’s just about as potted heid as you can get.’ The young constable turned to Rebus. ‘What’s the odds, sir? Alky commits suicide?’

‘Get used to that uniform, son.’ Rebus turned back into the room. ‘I want prints from the bag and its contents. If it’s from an off-licence, you’ll probably find price stickers. If not, could be from a pub. We’re looking for one, more likely two people. Whoever sold them the hooch might give a description. How did they get here? Their own transport? Bus? Taxi? We need to know. How did they know about this place? Local knowledge? We need to ask the neighbours.’ He was walking through the room now. He recognised a couple of junior CID from St Leonard’s, plus Craigmillar uniforms. ‘We’ll split the tasks later. It could all be some hideous accident or joke gone wrong, but whatever it was the victim wasn’t here on his tod. I want to know who was here with him. Thank you and good night.’

Outside, they were taking final photographs of the chair and the bonds around it, before separating chair from body. The chair would be bagged, too, along with any splinters they found. Funny how orderly it all became; order out of chaos. Dr Curt said he’d do the post mortem in the morning. That was fine by Rebus. He got back into the patrol car, wishing it were his own: the Saab had a half bottle of whisky tucked under the driver’s seat. Many of the pubs would still be open: midnight licences. Instead, he drove back to the station. It was less than a mile away. Maclay and Bain looked like they’d just got in, but they’d already heard the news.

‘Murder?’

‘Something like it,’ Rebus said. ‘He was tied to a chair with a plastic bag over his head, mouth taped shut. Maybe he was pushed, maybe he jumped or fell. Whoever was with him left in a rush — forgot to take their carry-out.’

‘Junkies? Dossers?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘New jeans by the look of them, and new Nikes on his feet. Wallet with plenty of cash, bank card and credit card.’

‘So we’ve got a name?’

Rebus nodded. ‘Allan Mitchison, address off Morrison Street.’ He shook a set of keys. ‘Anybody want to tag along?’

Bain went with Rebus, leaving Maclay to ‘hold the fort’ — a phrase overused at Fort Apache. Bain said he didn’t make a good passenger, so Rebus let him drive. DS ‘Dod’ Bain had a rep; it had followed him from Dundee to Falkirk and from there to Edinburgh. Dundee and Falkirk weren’t exactly spa towns either. He sported a nick in the skin beneath his right eye, souvenir of a knife attack. Every so often, his finger strayed to the spot; it wasn’t something he was conscious of. At five-eleven he was a couple of inches shorter than Rebus, maybe ten pounds lighter. He used to box middleweight amateur, southpaw, leaving him one ear which hung lower than the other and a nose which covered half his face. His shorn hair was salt-and-pepper. Married, three sons. Rebus hadn’t seen much at Craigmillar to justify Bain’s hardman rep; he was a regular soldier, a form-filler and by-the-book investigator. Rebus had just dispatched one nemesis — DI Alister Flower, promoted to some Borders outpost, chasing sheep-shaggers and tractor racers — and wasn’t looking to fill the vacancy.

Allan Mitchison’s flat was in a designer block in what wanted to be called ‘the Financial District’. Scrapland off Lothian Road had been transformed into a conference centre and ‘apartments’. A new hotel was in the offing, and an insurance company had grafted its new headquarters on to the Caledonian Hotel. There was room for more expansion, more road-building.

‘Desperate,’ Bain said, parking the car.

Rebus tried to remember the way the area had looked before. He only had to think back a year or two, but found the process difficult nonetheless. Was it just a big hole in the ground, or had they knocked things down? They were half a mile, maybe less, from Torphichen cop-shop; Rebus thought he knew this whole hunting-ground. But now he found that he didn’t know it at all.

There were half a dozen keys on the chain. One of them opened the main door. In the well-lit lobby there was a whole wall of letter-boxes. They found the name Mitchison — flat 312. Rebus used another key to open the box and remove the mail. There was some junk — ‘Open Now! You Could Have Scooped Life’s Jackpot!’ — and a credit-card statement. He opened the statement. Aberdeen HMV, an Edinburgh sports shop — £56.50, the Nikes — and a curry house, also in Aberdeen. A gap of just under two weeks, then the curry house again.

They took the narrow lift to the third floor, Bain shadow-boxing the full-length mirror, and found flat 12. Rebus unlocked the door, saw that an alarm panel was flashing on the wall in the small hallway, and used another key to disable it. Bain found the light-switch and closed the door. The flat smelled of paint and plaster, carpets and varnish — new, uninhabited. There wasn’t a stick of furniture in the place, just a telephone on the floor beside an unrolled sleeping-bag.

‘The simple life,’ Bain said.

The kitchen was fully equipped — washing machine, cooker, dishwasher, fridge — but the seal was still across the door of the washer-drier and the fridge contained only its instruction manual, a spare lightbulb, and a set of risers. There was a swing-bin in the cupboard beneath the sink. When you opened the door, the lid of the bin opened automatically. Inside, Rebus saw two crushed beer cans and the red-stained wrappings from what smelled like a kebab. The flat’s solitary bedroom was bare, no clothes in the built-in wardrobe, not even a coat-hanger. But Bain was dragging something out of the tiny bathroom. It was a blue rucksack, a Karrimor.

‘Looks like he came in, had a wash, changed clothes and buggered off out again pronto.’

They started emptying the rucksack. Apart from clothing, they found a personal stereo and some tapes — Soundgarden, Crash Test Dummies, Dancing Pigs — and a copy of Iain Banks’s Whit.

‘I meant to buy that,’ Rebus said.

‘Take it now. Who’s watching?’

Rebus looked at Bain. The eyes seemed innocent, but he shook his head anyway. He couldn’t go handing anyone any more ammunition. He pulled a carrier bag out of one of the side pockets: new tapes — Neil Young, Pearl Jam, Dancing Pigs again. The receipt was from HMV in Aberdeen.

‘My guess,’ Rebus said: ‘he worked in Furry Boot town.’

From the other side pocket, Bain produced a pamphlet, folded in four. He unfolded it, opened it, and let Rebus see what it was. There was a colour photograph of an oil platform on the front, beneath a headline: ‘T-BIRD OIL — STRIKING THE BALANCE’, and a sub-head: ‘Decommissioning Offshore Installations — A Modest Proposal’. Inside, besides a few paragraphs of writing, there were colour charts, diagrams and statistics. Rebus read the opening sentence:

‘“In the beginning there were microscopic organisms, living and dying in the rivers and seas many millions of years ago.”’ He looked up at Bain. ‘And they gave their lives so that millions of years on we can tank around in cars.’

‘I get the feeling Spike maybe worked for an oil company.’

‘His name was Allan Mitchison,’ Rebus said quietly.

It was getting light when Rebus finally arrived home. He turned the hi-fi on so that it was just audible, then rinsed a glass in the kitchen and poured an inch of Laphroaig, adding a dribble of water from the tap. Some malts demanded water. He sat down at the kitchen table and looked at the newspapers laid out there, cuttings from the Johnny Bible case, photocopies of old Bible John stuff. He’d spent a day in the National Library, fast-tracking the years 1968–70, winding a blur of microfilm through the machine. Stories had leapt out at him. Rosyth was to lose its Royal Navy Commander; plans were announced for a £50 million petrochemical complex at Invergordon; Camelot was showing at the ABC.

A booklet was advertised for sale — ‘How Scotland Should be Governed’ — and there were letters to the editor concerning Home Rule. A Sales and Marketing Manager was wanted, salary of £2,500 p.a. A new house in Strathalmond cost £7,995. Frogmen were searching for clues in Glasgow, while Jim Clark was winning the Australian Grand Prix. Meantime, members of the Steve Miller Band were being arrested in London on drug charges, and car parking in Edinburgh had reached saturation point...

1968.

Rebus had copies of the actual newspapers — purchased from a dealer for considerably more than their sixpenny cover price. They continued into ’69. August. The weekend that Bible John claimed his second victim, the shit was hitting the fan in Ulster and 300,000 pop fans were turning up (and on) at Woodstock. A nice irony. The second victim was found by her own sister in an abandoned tenement... Rebus tried not to think of Allan Mitchison, concentrated on old news instead, smiled over an August 20 headline: ‘Downing Street Declaration’. Trawler strikes in Aberdeen... an American film company seeking sixteen sets of bagpipes... dealings in Robert Maxwell’s Pergamon suspended. Another headline: ‘Big drop in Glasgow crimes of violence’. Tell that to the victims. By November, it was reported that the murder rate in Scotland was twice that of England and Wales — a record fifty-two indictments in the year. A debate on capital punishment was taking place. There were anti-war demos in Edinburgh, while Bob Hope entertained the troops in Vietnam. The Stones did two shows in Los Angeles — at £71,000 the most lucrative one-night stand in pop.

It was November 22 before an artist’s impression of Bible John appeared in the press. By then he was Bible John: the media had come up with the name. Three weeks between the third murder and the artist’s impression: the trail grown good and cold. There’d been an artist’s drawing after the second victim too, but only after a delay of almost a month. Big, big delays. Rebus wondered about them...

He couldn’t quite explain why Bible John was getting to him. Perhaps he was using one old case as a way of warding off another — the Spaven case. But he thought it went deeper than that. Bible John meant the end of the sixties for Scotland; he’d soured the end of one decade and the beginning of another. For a lot of people, he’d all but killed whatever dribble of peace and love had reached this far north. Rebus didn’t want the twentieth century to end the same way. He wanted Johnny Bible caught. But somewhere along the road, his interest in the present case had taken a turning. He’d started to concentrate on Bible John, to the point where he was dusting off old theories and spending a small fortune on period newspapers. In 1968 and ’69, Rebus had been in the army. They’d trained him how to disable and kill, then sent him on tours — including, eventually, Northern Ireland. He felt he’d missed an important part of the times.

But at least he was still alive.

He took glass and bottle through to the living room and sank into his chair. He didn’t know how many bodies he’d seen; he just knew it didn’t get any easier. He’d heard gossip about Bain’s first post mortem, how the pathologist had been Naismith up in Dundee, a cruel bastard at the best of times. He’d probably known it was Bain’s first, and had really done a job on the corpse, like a scrap merchant stripping a car, lifting out organs, sawing the skull open, hands cradling a glistening brain — you didn’t do that so lightly these days, fear of hepatitis C. When Naismith had started unpeeling the genitals, Bain had dropped deadweight to the floor. But credit where due, he’d stuck around, hadn’t bolted or hughied. Maybe Rebus and Bain could work together, once friction had smoothed their edges. Maybe.

He looked out of the bay window, down on to the street. He was still parked on a double yellow. There was a light on in one of the flats across the way. There was always a light on somewhere. He sipped his drink, not wanting to rush it, and listened to the Stones: Black and Blue. Black influences, blues influences; not great Stones, but maybe their mellowest album.

Allan Mitchison was in a fridge in the Cowgate. He’d died strapped to a chair. Rebus didn’t know why. Pet Shop Boys: ‘It’s a Sin’. Segue to the Glimmer Twins: ‘Fool to Cry’. Mitchison’s flat hadn’t been so different from Rebus’s own in some respects: under-used, more a base than a home. He downed the rest of his drink, poured another, downed that too, and pulled the duvet off the floor and up to his chin.

Another day down.

He awoke a few hours later, blinked, got up and went to the bathroom. A shower and shave, change of clothes. He’d been dreaming of Johnny Bible, getting it all mixed up with Bible John. Cops on the scene wearing tight suits and thin black ties, white bri-nylon shirts, pork-pie hats. 1968, Bible John’s first victim. To Rebus it meant Van Morrison, Astral Weeks. 1969, victims two and three; the Stones, Let It Bleed. The hunt went on into 1970, John Rebus wanting to go to the Isle of Wight Festival, not managing it. But of course Bible John had disappeared by then... He hoped Johnny Bible would just sod off and die.

There was nothing in the kitchen to eat, nothing but newspapers. The nearest corner shop had closed down; it wasn’t much more of a walk to the next grocer’s along. No, he’d stop somewhere on route. He looked out of the window and saw a light-blue estate double parked outside, blocking three resident cars. Equipment in the back of the estate, two men and a woman standing on the pavement, supping coffee from take-away beakers.

‘Shit,’ Rebus said, knotting his tie.

Jacketed, he walked outside and into questions. One of the men was hoisting a video camera up to his shoulder. The other man was speaking.

‘Inspector, could we have a word? Redgauntlet Television, The Justice Programme.’ Rebus knew him: Eamonn Breen. The woman was Kayleigh Burgess, the show’s producer. Breen was writer/presenter, loved himself, RPIA: Royal Pain in Arse.

‘The Spaven case, Inspector. A few minutes of your time, that’s all we need really, help everybody get to the bottom —’

‘I’m already there.’ Rebus saw the camera wasn’t ready yet. He turned quickly, his nose almost touching the reporter’s. He thought of Mental Minto breathing the word ‘harassment’, not knowing what harassment was, not the way Rebus had grown to know.

‘You’ll think you’re in childbirth,’ he said.

Breen blinked. ‘Sorry?’

‘When the surgeons are taking that camera out of your arse.’ Rebus tore a parking ticket from his windscreen, unlocked the car, and got in. The video camera was finally up and running, but all it got was a shot of a battered Saab 900 reversing at speed from the scene.

Rebus had a morning meeting with his boss, Chief Inspector Jim MacAskill. The boss’s office looked as chaotic as any other part of the station: packing cases still waiting to be filled and labelled, half-empty shelves, ancient green filing cabinets with their drawers open, displaying acre upon acre of paperwork, all of which would have to be shipped out in some semblance of order.

‘The world’s hardest jigsaw puzzle,’ MacAskill said. ‘If everything gets to the other end unscathed, it’ll be a miracle on a par with Raith Rovers winning the UEFA Cup.’

The boss was a Fifer like Rebus, born and raised in Methil, back when the shipyard had been making boats rather than rigs for the oil industry. He was tall and well-built and younger than Rebus. His handshake was not masonic, and he’d not yet married, which had caused the usual gossip that maybe the boss was a like-your-loafers. It didn’t worry Rebus — he never wore loafers himself — but he hoped that if his boss was gay there was no guilt involved. It was when you wanted a secret kept that you fell prey to blackmailers and shame merchants, destructive forces both interior and exterior. Jesus, and didn’t Rebus know about that.

Whatever, MacAskill was handsome, with plenty of thick black hair — no grey, no sign of dyeing — and a chiselled face, all angles, the geometry of eyes, nose and chin making it look like he was smiling even when he wasn’t.

‘So,’ the boss said, ‘how does it read to you?’

‘I’m not sure yet. A party gone wrong, a falling out — literally in this case? They hadn’t started on the booze.’

‘Question one in my mind: did they come together? The victim could have come alone, surprised some people doing something they shouldn’t —’

Rebus was shaking his head. ‘Taxi driver confirms dropping off a party of three. Gave descriptions, one of which matches the deceased pretty well. The driver paid him most attention, he was behaving the worst. The other two were quiet, sober even. Physical descriptions aren’t going to get us far. He picked up the fare outside Mal’s Bar. We’ve had a word with the staff. They sold them the carry-out.’

The boss ran a hand down his tie. ‘Do we know anything more about the deceased?’

‘Only that he had Aberdeen connections, maybe worked in the oil business. He didn’t use his Edinburgh flat much, makes me think he used to work heavy shifts, two weeks on, two off. Maybe he didn’t always come home between times. He was earning enough to pay off a mortgage in the Financial District, and there’s a two-week gap between his latest credit-card transactions.’

‘You think he could have been offshore during that time?’

Rebus shrugged. ‘I don’t know if that’s the way it still works, but in the early days I had friends who went to seek their fortune on the rigs. The stints lasted two weeks, seven days a week.’

‘Well, it’s worth following up. We need to check family, too, next of kin. Priority for the paperwork and formal ID. Question one in my mind: motive. Are we sticking with an argument?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘There was too much premeditation, way too much. Did they just happen to find sealing-tape and a polythene bag in that tip? I think they brought them. Do you remember how the Krays got to Jack “the Hat” McVitie? No, you’re too young. They invited him to a party. He’d been paid to do a contract, but bottled it and couldn’t pay them back. It was in a basement, so down he comes crying out for birds and booze. No birds, no booze, just Ronnie grabbing him and Reggie stabbing him to death.’

‘So these two men lured Mitchison to the derelict flat?’

‘Maybe.’

‘To what end?’

‘Well, first thing they did was tie him up and wrap a bag around his head, so they didn’t have any questions to ask. They just wanted him crapping himself and then dead. I’d say it was straight assassination, with a bit of malicious cruelty thrown in.’

‘So was he thrown or did he jump?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Very much, John.’ MacAskill stood up, leaned against the filing cabinet with his arms folded. ‘If he jumped, that’s tantamount to suicide, even if they had been planning to kill him. With the bag over his head and the way he was trussed up, we’ve got maybe culpable homicide. Their defence would be that they were trying to scare him, he got too scared and did something they hadn’t been expecting — jumped through a window.’

‘To do which he must have been scared out of his wits.’

MacAskill shrugged. ‘Still not murder. The crux is, were they trying to scare him, or kill him?’

‘I’ll be sure to ask them.’

‘It’s got a gang feel to it: drugs maybe, or a loan he’d stopped repaying, somebody he’d ripped off.’ MacAskill returned to his chair. He opened a drawer and took out a can of Irn-Bru, opened it and started to drink. He never went to the pub after work, didn’t share the whisky when the team got a result. Soft drinks only: more ammo for the like-your-loafers brigade. He asked Rebus if he wanted a can.

‘Not while I’m on duty, sir.’

MacAskill stifled a burp. ‘Get a bit more background on the victim, John, let’s see if it leads anywhere. Remember to chase forensics for fingerprint ID on the carry-out, and pathology for the PM results. Did he do drugs, that’s question one in my mind. Make things easier for us if he did. Unsolved, and we don’t even know how to frame it — not the sort of case I want to drag to the new station. Understood, John?’

‘Unquestionably, sir.’

He turned to go, but the boss hadn’t quite finished. ‘That trouble over... what was the name again?’

‘Spaven?’ Rebus guessed.

‘Spaven, yes. Quietened down yet, has it?’

‘Quiet as the grave,’ Rebus lied, making his exit.

3

That evening — a long-standing engagement — Rebus was at a rock concert at Ingliston Showground, an American headliner with a couple of biggish-name British acts supporting. Rebus was part of a team of eight, four different city stations represented, providing back-up (meaning protection) for Trading Standards sniffers. They were looking for bootleg gear — T-shirts and programmes, tapes and CDs — and had the full support of the bands’ management. This meant backstage passes, liberal use of the hospitality marquee, a lucky-bag of official merchandising. The lackey passing out the bags smiled at Rebus.

‘Maybe your kids or grandkids...’ Thrusting the bag at him. He’d bitten back a remark, passed straight to the booze tent, where he couldn’t decide between the dozens of hooch bottles, so settled for a beer, then wished he’d taken a nip of Black Bush, so eased the unopened bottle into his lucky-bag.

They had two vans parked outside the arena, way back behind the stage, filling with counterfeiters and their merchandise. Maclay weaved back to the vans nursing a set of knuckles.

‘Who did you pop, Heavy?’

Maclay shook his head, wiping sweat from his brow, a Michelangelo cherub turned bad.

‘Some choob was resisting,’ he said. ‘Had a suitcase with him. I punched a hole right through it. He didn’t resist after that.’

Rebus looked into the back of a van, the one holding bodies. A couple of kids, hardening already to the system, and two regulars, old enough to know the score. They’d be fined a day’s wages, the loss of their stock just another debit. The summer was young, plenty festivals to come.

‘Fucking awful racket.’

Maclay meant the music. Rebus shrugged; he’d been getting into it, thought maybe he’d take home a couple of the bootleg CDs. He offered Maclay the bottle of Black Bush. Maclay drank from it like it was lemonade. Rebus offered him a mint afterwards, and he threw it into his mouth with a nod of thanks.

‘Post mortem results came in this afternoon,’ the big man said.

Rebus had meant to phone, hadn’t got round to it. ‘And?’

Maclay crushed the mint to powder. ‘The fall killed him. Apart from that, not much.’

The fall killed him: little chance of a straight murder conviction. ‘Toxicology?’

‘Still testing. Professor Gates said when they cut into the stomach, there was a strong whiff of dark rum.’

‘There was a bottle in the bag.’

Maclay nodded. ‘The decedent’s tipple. Gates said no initial signs of drug use, but we’ll have to wait for the tests. I went through the phone book for Mitchisons.’

Rebus smiled. ‘So did I.’

‘I know, one of the numbers I called, you’d already been on to them. No joy?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘I got a number for T-Bird Oil in Aberdeen. Their personnel manager’s going to call me back.’

A Trading Standards officer was coming towards them, arms laden with T-shirts and programmes. His face was red from exertion, his thin tie hanging loose at the neck. Behind him, an officer from ‘F Troop’ — Livingston Division — was escorting another prisoner.

‘Nearly done, Mr Baxter?’

The Trading Standards officer dumped the T-shirts, lifted one and wiped his face with it.

‘That should about do it,’ he said. ‘I’ll round up my soldiers.’

Rebus turned to Maclay. ‘I’m starving. Let’s see what they’ve laid on for the superstars.’

There were fans trying to breach security, teenagers mostly, split half and half, boys and girls. A few had managed to inveigle their way in. They wandered around behind the barriers looking for faces they would recognise from the posters on their bedroom walls. Then when they did spot one, they’d be too awed or shy to talk.

‘Any kids?’ Rebus asked Maclay. They were in hospitality, nursing bottles of Beck’s taken from a coolbox Rebus hadn’t noticed first time round.

Maclay shook his head. ‘Divorced before it became an issue, if you’ll pardon the pun. You?’

‘One daughter.’

‘Grown up?’

‘Sometimes I think she’s older than me.’

‘Kids grow up faster than in our day.’ Rebus smiled at that, Maclay a good ten years his junior.

A girl, squealing resistance, was being hauled back to the perimeter by two burly security men.

‘Jimmy Cousins,’ Maclay said, pointing out one of the security bears. ‘Do you know him?’

‘He was stationed at Leith for a while.’

‘Retired last year, only forty-seven. Thirty years in. Now he’s got his pension and a job. Makes you think.’

‘Makes me think he misses the force.’

Maclay smiled. ‘It can turn into a habit.’

‘That why you divorced?’

‘I dare say it played a part.’

Rebus thought of Brian Holmes, feared for him. Stress getting to the younger man, affecting work and personal life both. Rebus had been there.

‘You know Ted Michie?’

Rebus nodded: the man he’d replaced at Fort Apache.

‘Doctors think it’s terminal. He won’t let them cut, says knives are against his religion.’

‘I hear he was handy with a truncheon in his day.’

One of the support bands entered the marquee to scattered applause. Five males, mid-twenties, stripped to the waist with towels around their shoulders, high on something — maybe just from performing. Hugs and kisses from a group of girls at a table, whoops and roars.

‘We fucking killed them out there!’

Rebus and Maclay drank their drinks in silence, tried not to look like promoters, succeeded.

When they walked back outside, it was dark enough for the light-show to be worth watching. There were fireworks, too, reminding Rebus that it was the tourist season. Not long till the nightly Tattoo, fireworks you could hear from Marchmont, even with the windows closed. A camera crew, stalked by photographers, was itself stalking the main support band who were ready to go on. Maclay watched the procession.

‘You’re probably surprised they’re not after you,’ he said, mischief in his voice.

‘Fuck off,’ Rebus replied, making for the side of the stage. The passes were colour-coded. His was yellow, and it got him as far as the stage-wings, where he watched the entertainment. The sound system was a travesty, but there were monitors nearby and he concentrated on those. The crowd seemed to be having fun, bobbing up and down, a sea of disembodied heads. He thought of the Isle of Wight, of other festivals he’d missed, headliners who weren’t around any more.

He thought of Lawson Geddes, his one-time mentor, boss, protector, his memory rippling back through two decades.

John Rebus, mid-twenties, a detective constable, looking to put army years behind him, ghosts and nightmares. A wife and infant daughter trying to be his life. And Rebus maybe seeking out a surrogate father, finding one in Lawson Geddes, Detective Inspector, City of Edinburgh Police. Geddes was forty-five, ex-army, served in the Borneo conflict, told stories of jungle war versus The Beatles, no one back in Britain very interested in a last spasm of colonial muscle. The two men found they shared common values, common night sweats and dreams of failure. Rebus was new to CID, Geddes knew everything there was to know. It was easy to recall the first year of growing friendship, easy now to forgive the few hiccups: Geddes making a pass at Rebus’s young wife, almost succeeding; Rebus passing out at a Geddes party, waking in the dark and pissing into a dresser-drawer, thinking he’d found the toilet; a couple of fist-fights after last orders, the fists not connecting, turning into wrestling matches instead.

Easy to forgive so much. But then they landed a murder inquiry, Leonard Spaven Geddes’ chief suspect. Geddes and Lenny Spaven had been playing cat-and-mouse for a couple of years — aggravated assault, pimping, the hijacking of a couple of cigarette lorries. Even whispers of a murder or two, gangster stuff, trimming the competition. Spaven had been in the Scots Guards same time as Geddes, maybe the bad blood started there, neither man ever said.

Christmas 1976, a gruesome find on farmland near Swanston: a woman’s body, decapitated. The head turned up almost a week later, New Year’s Day, in another field near Currie. The weather was sub-zero. From the rate of decay, the pathologist was able to say that the head had been kept indoors for some time after being severed from the body, while the body itself had been dumped fresh. Glasgow police semi-interested, the file on Bible John still open six years on. Identification from clothing initially, a member of the public coming forward to say the description sounded like a neighbour who hadn’t been seen for a couple of weeks. The milkman had kept on delivering until he decided no one was home, that she had gone away for Christmas without telling him.

Police forced the front door. Unopened Christmas cards on the hall carpet; a pot of soup on the stove, speckled with mould; a radio playing quietly. Relatives were found, identified the body — Elizabeth Rhind, Elsie to her friends. Thirty-five years old, divorced from a sailor in the merchant navy. She’d worked for a brewery, shorthand and typing. She’d been well liked, the outgoing type. The ex-husband, suspect one, had a steel-toecapped alibi: his ship was in Gib at the time. Lists of the victim’s friends, especially boyfriends, and a name came up: Lenny. No surname, someone Elsie had gone out with for a few weeks. Drinking companions provided a description, and Lawson Geddes recognised it: Lenny Spaven. Geddes formed his theory quickly: Lenny had zeroed in on Elsie when he learned she worked at the brewery. He was probably looking for inside gen, maybe thinking of a truck hijack or a simple break-in. Elsie refused to help, he got angry, and he killed her.

It sounded good to Geddes, but he found it hard to convince anyone else. There was no evidence either. They couldn’t determine a time of death, leaving a twenty-four-hour margin of error, so Spaven didn’t need to provide an alibi. A search of his home and those of his friends showed no bloodstains, nothing. There were other strands they should have been following, but Geddes couldn’t stop thinking about Spaven. It nearly drove John Rebus demented. They argued loudly, more than once, stopped going for drinks together. The brass had a word with Geddes, told him he was becoming obsessed to the detriment of the inquiry. He was told to take a holiday. They even had a collection for him in the Murder Room.

Then one night he’d come to Rebus’s door, begging a favour. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week, or changed his clothes over that time. He said he’d been following Spaven, and had tracked him to a lock-up in Stockbridge. He was probably still there if they hurried. Rebus knew it was wrong; there were procedures. But Geddes was shivering, wild-eyed. All idea of search warrants and the like evaporated. Rebus insisted on driving, Geddes giving directions.

Spaven was still in the garage. So were brown cardboard boxes, piled high: the proceeds from a South Queensferry warehouse break-in back in November. Digital clock-radios: Spaven was fitting plugs to them, preparing to hawk them around the pubs and clubs. Behind one pile of boxes, Geddes discovered a plastic carrier bag. Inside were a woman’s hat and a cream shoulder-bag, both later identified as having belonged to Elsie Rhind.

Spaven protested his innocence from the moment Geddes lifted up the carrier bag and asked what was inside. He protested all the way through the rest of the investigation, the trial, and as he was being hauled back to the cells after being handed down a life sentence. Geddes and Rebus were in court, Geddes back to normal, beaming satisfaction, Rebus just a little uneasy. They’d had to concoct a story: an anonymous tip-off on a consignment of stolen goods, a chance find... It felt right and wrong at the same time. Lawson Geddes hadn’t wanted to talk about it afterwards, which was strange: usually they dissected their cases — successful or not — over a drink. Then, to everyone’s surprise, Geddes had resigned from the force, with promotion only a year or two away. Instead, he’d gone to work in his father’s off-sales business — there was always a discount waiting for serving officers — made some money, and retired at a youthful fifty-five. For the past ten years, he’d been living with his wife Etta in Lanzarote.

Ten years ago Rebus had received a postcard. Lanzarote had ‘not much fresh water, but enough to temper a glass of whisky, and the Torres wines need no adulteration’. The landscape was almost lunar, ‘black volcanic ash, so an excuse not to garden!’, and that was about it. He hadn’t heard anything since, and Geddes hadn’t furnished his address on the island. That was OK, friendships came and went. Geddes had been a useful man to know at the time, he’d taught Rebus a lot.

Dylan: Don’t Look Back.

The here and now: light-show stinging Rebus’s eyes. He blinked back tears, stepped away from the stage, retreated to hospitality. Pop stars and entourage, loving the media interest. Flash-bulbs and questions. A spume of champagne. Rebus brushed flecks from his shoulder, decided it was time to find his car.

The Spaven case should have remained closed, no matter how loudly the prisoner himself protested. But in jail, Spaven had started writing, his writings smuggled out by friends or bribed jailers. Pieces had started to see publication — fiction at first, an early story picking up first prize in some newspaper competition. When the winner’s true identity and where-abouts were revealed, the newspaper got itself a bigger news story. More writing, more publication. Then a TV drama, penned by Spaven. It won an award somewhere in Germany, another in France, it was shown in the USA, an estimated audience of twenty million worldwide. There was a follow-up. Then a novel, and then the non-fiction pieces started appearing — Spaven’s early life at first, but Rebus knew where the story would lead.

By this time there was loud support in the media for an early release, nullified when Spaven assaulted another prisoner severely enough to cause brain damage. Spaven’s pieces from jail became more eloquent than ever — the man had been jealous of all the attention, had attempted to murder Spaven in the corridor outside his cell. Self-defence. And the crunch: Spaven would not have been placed in this invidious position were it not for a gross miscarriage of justice. The second instalment of Spaven’s autobiography ended with the Elsie Rhind case, and with mention of the two police officers who’d framed him — Lawson Geddes and John Rebus. Spaven reserved his real loathing for Geddes, Rebus just a bit-player, Geddes’ lackey. More media interest. Rebus saw it as a revenge fantasy, planned over long incarcerated years, Spaven unhinged. But whenever he read Spaven’s work, he saw powerful manipulation of the reader, and he thought back to Lawson Geddes on his doorstep that night, to the lies they told afterwards...

And then Lenny Spaven died, committed suicide. Took a scalpel to his throat and opened it up, a gash you could fit your hand inside. More rumour: he’d been murdered by jailers before he could complete volume three of his autobiography, detailing his years and depredations in several Scottish prisons. Or jealous prisoners had been allowed access to his cell.

Or it was suicide. He left a note, three drafts crumpled on the floor, maintaining to the end his innocence in the Elsie Rhind killing. The media started sniffing their story, Spaven’s life and death big news. And now... three things.

One: the incomplete third volume of autobiography had been published — ‘heart-breaking’ according to one critic, ‘a massive achievement’ for another. It was still on the bestseller list, Spaven’s face staring out from bookshop windows all along Princes Street. Rebus tried to avoid the route.

Two: a prisoner was released, and told reporters he was the last person to see or speak to Spaven alive. According to him, Spaven’s last words were: ‘God knows I’m innocent, but I’m so tired of saying it over and over.’ The story earned the ex-offender £750 from a newspaper; easy to see it as flannel waved at a gullible press.

Three: a new TV series was launched, The Justice Programme, a hard-hitting look at crime, the system, and miscarriages of justice. High ratings for its first series — attractive presenter Eamonn Breen scooping women viewers — so now a second series was on the blocks, and the Spaven case — severed head, accusations, and suicide of a media darling — was to be the showcase opener.

With Lawson Geddes out of the country, address unknown, leaving John Rebus to carry the film-can.

Alex Harvey: ‘Framed’. Segue to Jethro Tull: ‘Living in the Past’.

He went home by way of the Oxford Bar — a long detour, always worthwhile. The gantry and optics had a quietly hypnotic effect, the only possible explanation as to why the regulars could stand and stare at them for hours at a stretch. The barman waited for an order; Rebus did not have a ‘usual’ drink these days, variety the spice of life and all that.

‘Dark rum, and a half of Best.’

He hadn’t touched dark rum in years, didn’t think of it as a young man’s drink. Yet Allan Mitchison had drunk it. A seaman’s drink, another reason to think he worked offshore. Rebus handed over money, downed the short in one sour swallow, rinsed his mouth with the beer, found himself finishing it too quickly. The barman turned with his change.

‘Make it a pint this time, Jon.’

‘And another rum?’

‘Jesus, no.’ Rebus rubbed his eyes, bummed a cigarette from his drowsy neighbour. The Spaven case... it had dragged Rebus backwards through time, forcing him to confront memory, then to wonder if his memory was playing tricks. It remained unfinished business, twenty years on. Like Bible John. He shook his head, tried to clear it of history, and found himself thinking of Allan Mitchison, of falling headlong on to spiked rails, watching them rise towards you, arms held fast to a chair so there was only one choice left: did you confront doom open-eyed or closed? He walked around the bar to use the telephone, put money in and then couldn’t think who to call.

‘Forgotten the number?’ a drinker asked as Rebus got his coin back.

‘Aye,’ he said, ‘what’s the Samaritans’ again?’

The drinker surprised him, knew the number pat.

Four blinks from his answering machine meant four messages. He lifted the instruction manual. It was open at page six, the ‘Playback’ section boxed with red pen, paragraphs underlined. He followed the instructions. The machine decided to work.

‘It’s Brian.’ Brian Holmes. Rebus opened the Black Bush and poured, listening. ‘Just to say... well, thanks. Minto’s recanted, so I’m off the hook. Hope I can return the favour.’ No energy in the voice, a mouth tired of words. End message. Rebus savoured the whiskey.

Blip: message two.

‘I was working late and thought I’d give you a call, Inspector. We spoke earlier, Stuart Minchell, personnel manager at T-Bird Oil. I can confirm that Allan Mitchison was in our employ. I can fax through the details if you have a number. Call me at the office tomorrow. Bye.’

Goodbye and bingo. A relief to know something about the deceased other than his taste in music. Rebus’s ears were roaring: the concert and the alcohol, blood pounding.

Message three: ‘It’s Howdenhall here, thought you were in a hurry but I can’t find you. Typical CID.’ Rebus knew the voice: Pete Hewitt at the police lab, Howdenhall. Pete looked fifteen, but was probably early twenties, smart-mouthed with a brain to match. Fingerprints a speciality. ‘I got mostly partials, but a couple of beauties, and guess what? Their owner’s on the computer. Past convictions for violence. Phone me back if you want a name.’

Rebus checked his watch. Pete doing his usual tease. It was gone eleven, he’d be home or out on the ran-dan, and Rebus didn’t have a home number for him. He kicked the sofa, wished he’d stayed home: carting off bootleggers a pure waste of time. Still, he had the Black Bush and a bagful of CDs, T-shirts he’d never wear, a poster of four tykes with acne close-ups. He’d seen their faces before, couldn’t think where...

One message to go.

‘John?’

A woman’s voice, one he recognised.

‘If you’re home, pick up, please. I hate these things.’ Pause, waiting. A sigh. ‘OK then, look, now that we’re not... I mean, now I’m not your boss, how about some socialising? Dinner or something. Give me a call at home or office, OK? While there’s time. I mean, you won’t be at Fort Apache for ever. Take care.’

Rebus sat down, staring at the machine as it clicked off. Gill Templer, Chief Inspector, one-time ‘significant other’. She’d become his boss only recently, frost on the surface, no sign of anything but iceberg beneath. Rebus took another drink, toasted the machine. A woman had just asked him for a date: when had that last happened? He got up and went to the bathroom, examined his reflection in the cabinet mirror, rubbed his chin and laughed. Twilit eyes, lank hair, hands that trembled when he lifted them level.

‘Looking good, John.’ Yes, and he could fib for Scotland. Gill Templer, looking as good these days as when they’d first met, asking him out? He shook his head, still laughing. No, there had to be something... A hidden agenda.

Back in the living room, he emptied his lucky-bag, found that the poster of the four tykes matched the cover of one of the CDs. He recognised it: The Dancing Pigs. One of Mitchison’s tapes, their latest recording. He recalled a couple of the faces from the hospitality tent: We fucking killed them out there! Mitchison had owned at least two of their albums.

Funny he hadn’t had a ticket to the gig...

His front door bell: short, two rings. He walked back down the hall, checking the time. Eleven twenty-five. Put his eye to the spy-hole, didn’t believe what he saw, opened the door wide.

‘Where’s the rest of the crew?’

Kayleigh Burgess stood there, heavy bag hanging from her shoulder, hair tucked up under an oversized green beret, strands curling down past both ears. Cute and cynical at the same time: Don’t-Muck-Me-About-Unless-I-Want-You-To. Rebus had seen the model and year before.

‘In their beds, most likely.’

‘You mean Eamonn Breen doesn’t sleep in a coffin?’

A guarded smile; she adjusted the weight of the bag on her shoulder. ‘You know,’ not looking at him, fussing with the bag instead, ‘you’re doing yourself no favours refusing to even discuss this with us. It doesn’t make you look good.’

‘I was no pin-up to start with.’

‘We’re not taking sides, that’s not what The Justice Programme’s about.’

‘Really? Well, much as I enjoy a blether on the doorstep last thing at night...’

‘You haven’t heard, have you?’ Now she looked at him. ‘No, I didn’t think so. Too soon. We’ve had a unit out in Lanzarote, trying to interview Lawson Geddes. I got a phone call this evening...’

Rebus knew the face and tone of voice; he’d used them himself on many grim occasions, trying to break the news to family, to friends...

‘What happened?’

‘He committed suicide. Apparently he’d been suffering from depression since his wife died. He shot himself.’

‘Aw, Christ.’ Rebus swivelled from the door, legs heavy as he made for the living room, the whiskey bottle. She followed him, placed her bag on the coffee table. He motioned with the bottle and she nodded. They chinked glasses.

‘When did Etta die?’

‘About a year ago. Heart attack, I think. There’s a daughter, lives in London.’

Rebus remembered her: a cheeky-faced pre-teen with braces. Her name was Aileen.

‘Did you hound Geddes the way you’ve hounded me?’

‘We don’t “hound”, Inspector. We just want everyone to have their say. It’s important to the programme.’

‘The programme.’ Rebus shook his head. ‘Well, you’ve not got a programme now, have you?’

The drink had brought colour to her face. ‘On the contrary, Mr Geddes’ suicide could be construed as an admission of guilt. It makes a hell of a punch-line.’ She’d recovered well; Rebus wondered how much of her earlier timidity had been an act. He realised she was standing in his living room: records, CDs, empty bottles, books piled high on the floor. He couldn’t let her see the kitchen: Johnny Bible and Bible John spread across the table, evidence of an obsession. ‘That’s why I’m here... partly. I could have given you the news over the telephone, but I thought it was the sort of thing best done face to face. And now that you’re alone, the only living witness so to speak...’ She reached into the bag, produced a professional-looking tape deck and microphone. Rebus put down his glass and walked over to her, hands out.

‘May I?’

She hesitated, then handed over the equipment. Rebus walked down the hall with it. The front door was still open. He stepped into the stairwell, reached a hand over the guard-rail, and let go the recorder. It fell two flights, case splintering on impact with the stone floor. She was right behind him.

‘You’ll pay for that!’

‘Send me the bill and we’ll see.’

He walked back inside and closed the door after him, put the chain on as a hint, and watched through the spy-hole till she’d gone.

He sat in his chair by the window, thinking of Lawson Geddes. Typical Scot, he couldn’t cry about it. Crying was for football defeats, animal bravery stories, ‘Flower of Scotland’ after closing time. He cried about stupid things, but tonight his eyes remained stubbornly dry.

He knew he was in shit. They only had him now, and they’d redouble their efforts to salvage a programme. Besides, Burgess was right: prisoner suicide, policeman suicide — it was a hell of a punch-line. But Rebus didn’t want to be the man to feed them it. Like them, he wanted to know the truth — but not for the same reasons. He couldn’t even say why he wanted to know. One course of action: start his own investigation. The only problem was, the further he dug, the more he might be creating a pit for his own reputation — what was left of it — and, more importantly, that of his one-time mentor, partner, friend. Problem connected to the first: he wasn’t objective enough; he couldn’t investigate himself. He needed a stand-in, an understudy.

He picked up the telephone, pressed seven numbers. A sleepy response.

‘Yeah, hello?’

‘Brian, it’s John. Sorry to phone so late, I need that favour repaid.’

They met in the car park at Newcraighall. Lights were on in the UCI cinema complex, some late showing. The Mega Bowl was closed; so was McDonald’s. Holmes and Nell Stapleton had moved into a house just off Duddingston Park, looking across Portobello Golf Course and the Freightliner Terminal. Holmes said the freight traffic didn’t keep him awake through the night. They could have met at the golf course, but it was too close to Nell for Rebus’s liking. He hadn’t seen her in a couple of years, not even at social functions — each had a gift for knowing when the other would or wouldn’t be in attendance. Old scrapes; Nell picking at the scabs, obsessive.

So they met a couple of miles away, in a gully, surrounded by closed shops — DIY store, shoe emporium, Toys R Us — still cops, even off duty.

Especially off duty.

Their eyes darted, using wing mirrors and rearview, looking for shadows. Nobody in sight, they still talked in an undertone. Rebus explained exactly what he wanted.

‘This TV programme, I need some ammo before I talk to them. But it’s too personal with me. I need you to go back over the Spaven case — case notes, trial proceedings. Just read through them, see what you think.’

Holmes sat in the passenger seat of Rebus’s Saab. He looked what he was: a man who’d got undressed and gone to bed, only to have to get up too shortly thereafter and put dayshift clothes on again. His hair was ruffled, shirt open two buttons, shoes but no socks. He stifled a yawn, shaking his head.

‘I don’t get it. What am I looking for?’

‘Just see if anything jars. Just... I don’t know.’

‘You’re taking this seriously then?’

‘Lawson Geddes just killed himself.’

‘Christ.’ But Holmes didn’t even blink; beyond compassion for men he didn’t know, figures from history. He had too much on his own mind.

‘Something else,’ Rebus said. ‘You might track down an ex-con who says he was the last person to talk to Spaven. I forget the name, but it was reported in all the papers at the time.’

‘One question: do you think Geddes framed Lenny Spaven?’

Rebus made a show of thinking it over, then shrugged. ‘Let me tell you the story. Not the story you’ll find in my written notes on the case.’

Rebus began to talk: Geddes turning up at his door, the too-easy finding of the bag, Geddes frantic before, unnaturally calm after. The story they manufactured, anonymous tip-off. Holmes listened in silence. The cinema began to empty, young couples hugging, air-hopping towards their cars, walking like they’d rather be lying down. A gathering of engine-noise, exhaust fumes and headlights, tall shadows on the canyon walls, the car park emptying. Rebus finished his version.

‘Another question.’

Rebus waited, but Holmes was having trouble forming the words. He gave up finally and shook his head. Rebus knew what he was thinking. He knew Rebus had put the squeeze on Minto, while believing Minto to have a case against Holmes. And now he knew that Rebus had lied to protect Lawson Geddes and to secure the conviction. The question in his mind a double strand — was Rebus’s version the truth? How dirty was the copper sitting behind the steering wheel?

How dirty would Holmes allow himself to get before he left the force?

Rebus knew Nell nagged him every day, quiet persuasion. He was young enough for another career, any career, something clean and risk-free. There was still time for him to get out. But maybe not much time.

‘OK,’ Holmes said, opening the car door. ‘I’ll start a.s.a.p.’ He paused. ‘But if I find any dirt, anything concealed in the margins...’

Rebus turned on his lights, high-beam. He started the car and drove off.

4

Rebus woke up early. There was a book open on his lap. He looked at the last paragraph he’d read before falling asleep, didn’t recall any of it. Mail lying inside the door: who’d be a postman in Edinburgh, all those tenement stairs? His credit-card bill: two supermarkets, three off-licences, and Bob’s Rare Vinyl. Impulse buys one Saturday afternoon, after a lunchtime sesh in the Ox — Freak Out on single vinyl, mint; The Velvet Underground, peel-off banana intact; Sergeant Pepper in mono with the sheet of cut-outs. He’d yet to play any of them, already had scratchy copies of the Velvets and Beatles.

He shopped on Marchmont Road, ate breakfast at the kitchen table with the Bible John/Johnny Bible material for a cloth. Johnny Bible headlines: ‘Catch This Monster!’; ‘Baby-Faced Killer Claims Third Victim’; ‘Public Warned: Be Vigilant’. Much the same banners Bible John was earning a quarter century before.

Johnny Bible’s first victim: Duthie Park, Aberdeen. Michelle Strachan came from Pittenweem in Fife, so of course all her Furry Boot pals called her Michelle Fifer. She didn’t look like her near-namesake: short and skinny, mousy shoulder-length hair, front teeth prominent. She was a student at Robert Gordon University. Raped, strangled, one shoe missing.

Victim two, six weeks later: Angela Riddell, Angie to her friends. In her time she’d worked at an escort agency, been arrested in a slapper sweep near Leith docks, and fronted a blues band, husky-voiced but trying too hard. A record company had now released the band’s only demo as a CD single, making money from ghouls and the curious. Edinburgh CID had spent a lot of hours — thousands of man hours — trawling through Angie Riddell’s past, seeking out old clients, friends, fans of the band, looking for a prozzy punter turned killer, an obsessed blues fan, whatever. Warriston Cemetery, where the body was found, was a known haunt of Hell’s Angels, amateur black magicians, perverts and loners. In the days following the discovery of the body, at dead of night you were more likely to trip over a snoozing surveillance team than a crucified cat.

A month-long gap, during which the first two murders had been connected — Angie Riddell not only raped and strangled, but missing a distinctive necklace, a row of two-inch metal crosses, bought in Cockburn Street — then a third killing, this time in Glasgow. Judith Cairns, ‘Ju-Ju’, was on the dole, which hadn’t stopped her working in a chip shop late evenings, a pub some lunchtimes, and as a hotel chambermaid weekend mornings. When she was found dead, there was no sign of her backpack, which friends swore she took everywhere, even to clubs and warehouse raves.

Three women, aged nineteen, twenty-four and twenty-one, murdered within three months. It was two weeks since Johnny Bible had struck. A six-week gap between victims one and two had been whittled to a calendar month between two and three. Everyone was waiting, waiting for the worst possible news. Rebus drank his coffee, ate his croissant, and examined photos of the three victims, culled from the newspapers, blown-up grainy, all the young women smiling, the way you only usually did for a photographer. The camera always lied.

Rebus knew so much about the victims, so little about Johnny Bible. Though no police officer would admit it in public, they were impotent, all but going through the motions. It was his play; they were waiting for him to slip up: overconfidence, or boredom, or a simple desire to be caught, the knowledge of what was right and wrong. They were waiting for a friend, a neighbour, a loved one to come forward, maybe an anonymous call — one that would prove not merely malicious. They were all waiting. Rebus ran a finger over the biggest photo of Angie Riddell. He’d known her, had been part of the team that had arrested her and a lot of other working girls that night in Leith. The atmosphere had been good, a lot of jokes, jibes at married officers. Most of the prostitutes knew the routine, those who did calming those who were new to the game. Angie Riddell had been stroking the hair of a hysterical teenager, a druggie. Rebus had liked her style, had interviewed her. She’d made him laugh. A couple of weeks later, he’d driven down Commercial Street, asked how she was doing. She’d told him time was money, and talk didn’t come cheap, but offered him a discount if he wanted anything more substantial than hot air. He’d laughed again, bought her tea and a bridie at a late-opening café. A fortnight later, he found himself down in Leith again, but according to the girls she hadn’t been around, so that was that.

Raped, beaten, strangled.

It all reminded him of the World’s End killings, of other murders of young women, so many of them left unsolved. World’s End: October ’77, the year before Spaven, two teenagers drinking in the World’s End pub on the High Street. Their bodies turned up next morning. Beaten, hands tied, strangled, bags and jewellery missing. Rebus hadn’t worked the case, but knew men who had: they carried with them the frustration of a job left undone, and would carry it to the grave. The way a lot of them saw it, when you worked a murder investigation, your client was the deceased, mute and cold, but still screaming out for justice. It had to be true, because sometimes if you listened hard enough you could hear them screaming. Sitting in his chair by the window, Rebus had heard many a despairing cry. One night, he’d heard Angie Riddell and it had pierced his heart, because he’d known her, liked her. In that instant it became personal for him. He couldn’t not be interested in Johnny Bible. He just didn’t know what he could do to help. His curiosity about the original Bible John case was probably no help at all. It had sent him back in time, spending less and less time in the present. Sometimes it took all his strength to pull him back to the here and now.

Rebus had telephone calls to make. First: Pete Hewitt at Howdenhall.

‘Morning, Inspector, and isn’t she a beauty?’

Voice dripping irony. Rebus looked out at milky sunshine. ‘Rough night, Pete?’

‘Rough? You could shave a yak with it. I take it you got my message?’ Rebus had pen and paper ready. ‘I got a couple of decent prints off the whisky bottle: thumb and forefinger. Tried lifting from the polythene bag and the tape binding him to the chair, but only a few partials, nothing to build a case on.’

‘Come on, Pete, get to the ID.’

‘Well, all that money you complain we spend on computers... I got a match within quarter of an hour. The name is Anthony Ellis Kane. He has a police record for attempted murder, assault, reset. Ring any bells?’

‘Not a one.’

‘Well, he used to operate out of Glasgow. No convictions these past seven years.’

‘I’ll look him up when I get to the station. Thanks, Pete.’

Next call: the personnel office at T-Bird Oil. A long-distance call; he’d wait and make it from Fort Apache. A glance out of the window: no sign of the Redgauntlet crew. Rebus put his jacket on and made for the door.

He stopped in at the boss’s office. MacAskill was guzzling Irn-Bru.

‘We have a fingerprint ID, Anthony Ellis Kane, previous convictions for violence.’

MacAskill tossed the empty can into his waste-basket. His desk was stacked with old paperwork — drawer one of the filing cabinet. There was an empty packing case on the floor.

‘What about the decedent’s family, friends?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘Deceased worked for T-Bird Oil. I’m going to call the personnel manager for details.’

‘Make that job one, John.’

‘Job one, sir.’

But when he got to the Shed and sat at his desk, he thought about phoning Gill Templer first, decided against it. Bain was at his desk; Rebus didn’t want an audience.

‘Dod,’ he said, ‘run a check on Anthony Ellis Kane. Howdenhall found his prints on the carry-out.’ Bain nodded and started typing. Rebus phoned Aberdeen, gave his name and asked to be put through to Stuart Minchell.

‘Good morning, Inspector.’

‘Thanks for leaving a message, Mr Minchell. Do you have Allan Mitchison’s employment details?’

‘Right in front of me. What do you want to know?’

‘A next of kin.’

Minchell shuffled paper. ‘There doesn’t appear to be one. Let me check his CV.’ A long pause, Rebus happy not to be making the call from home. ‘Inspector, it seems Allan Mitchison was an orphan. I have details of his education, and there’s a children’s home mentioned.’

‘No family?’

‘No mention of a family.’

Rebus had written Mitchison’s name on a sheet of paper. He underlined it now, the rest of the page a blank. ‘What was Mr Mitchison’s position within the company?’

‘He was... let’s see, he worked for Platform Maintenance, specifically as a painter. We have a base in Shetland, maybe he worked there.’ More paper shuffling. ‘No, Mr Mitchison worked on the platforms themselves.’

‘Painting them?’

‘And general maintenance. Steel corrodes, Inspector. You’ve no idea how fast the North Sea can strip paint from steel.’

‘Which rig did he work on?’

‘Not a rig, a production platform. I’d have to check that.’

‘Could you do that, please? And could you fax me through his personnel file?’

‘You say he’s dead?’

‘Last time I looked.’

‘Then there should be no problem. Give me your number there.’

Rebus did so, and terminated the call. Bain was waving him over. Rebus crossed the room and stood by Bain’s side, the better to see the computer screen.

‘This guy’s pure mental,’ Bain said. His phone rang. Bain picked up, started a conversation. Rebus read down the screen. Anthony Ellis Kane, known as ‘Tony El’, had a record going back to his youth. He was now forty-four years old, well known to Strathclyde police. The bulk of his adult life had been spent in the employ of Joseph Toal, a.k.a. ‘Uncle Joe’, who practically ran Glasgow with muscle provided by his son and by men like Tony El. Bain put down the receiver.

‘Uncle Joe,’ he mused. ‘If Tony El is still working for him, we could have a very different case.’

Rebus was remembering what the boss had said: it’s got a gang feel to it. Drugs or a default on a loan. Maybe MacAskill was right.

‘You know what this means?’ Bain said.

Rebus nodded. ‘A trip to weegie-land.’ Scotland’s two main cities, separated by a fifty-minute motorway trip, were wary neighbours, as though years back one had accused the other of something and the accusation, unfounded or not, still rankled. Rebus had a couple of contacts in Glasgow CID, so went to his desk and made the calls.

‘If you want info on Uncle Joe,’ he was told during the second call, ‘best talk to Chick Ancram. Wait, I’ll give you his number.’

Charles Ancram, it turned out, was a Chief Inspector based in Govan. Rebus spent a fruitless half hour trying to find him, then went for a walk. The shops in front of Fort Apache were the usual metal shutters and mesh grille affairs, Asian owners mostly, even if the shops were staffed with white faces. Men hung around on the street outside, T-shirted, sporting tattoos, smoking. Eyes as trustworthy as a weasel in a hen-house.

Eggs? Not me, pal, can’t stand them.

Rebus bought cigarettes and a newspaper. Walking out of the shop, a baby buggy caught his ankles, a woman told him to mind where he was fucking going. She bustled away, hauling a toddler behind her. Twenty, maybe twenty-one, hair dyed blonde, two front teeth missing. Her bared forearms showed tattoos, too. Across the road, an advertising hoarding told him to spend £20k on a new car. Behind it, the discount supermarket was doing no business, kids using its car park as a skateboard rink.

Back in the Shed, Maclay was on the telephone. He held the receiver out to Rebus.

‘Chief Inspector Ancram, returning your call.’ Rebus rested against the desk.

‘Hello?’

‘Inspector Rebus? Ancram here, I believe you want a word.’

‘Thanks for getting back to me, sir. Two words really: Joseph Toal.’

Ancram snorted. He had a west coast drawl, nasal, always managing to sound a little condescending. ‘Uncle Joe Corleone? Our own dear Godfather? Has he done something I don’t know about?’

‘Do you know one of his men, a guy called Anthony Kane?’

‘Tony El,’ Ancram confirmed. ‘Worked for Uncle Joe for years.’

‘Past tense?’

‘He hasn’t been heard of in a while. Story is he crossed Uncle Joe, and Uncle Joe got Stanley to see to things. Tony El was all cut up about it.’

‘Who’s Stanley?’

‘Uncle Joe’s son. It’s not his real name, but everyone calls him Stanley, on account of his hobby.’

‘Which is?’

‘Stanley knives, he collects them.’

‘You think Stanley topped Tony El?’

‘Well, the body hasn’t turned up, which is usually proof enough in a perverse way.’

‘Tony El’s very much alive. He was through here a few days ago.’

‘I see.’ Ancram was quiet for a moment. In the background Rebus could hear busy voices, radio transmissions, police station sounds. ‘Bag over the head?’

‘How did you know?’

‘Tony El’s trademark. So he’s back in circulation, eh? Inspector, I think you and me better have a talk. Monday morning, can you find Govan station? No, wait, make it Partick, 613 Dumbarton Road. I’ve a meeting there at nine. Can we say ten?’

‘Ten’s fine.’

‘See you then.’

Rebus put down the telephone. ‘Monday morning at ten,’ he told Bain. ‘I’m off to Partick.’

‘You poor bastard,’ Bain replied, sounding like he meant it.

‘Want us to put out Tony El’s description?’ Maclay asked.

‘Pronto. Let’s see if we can lassoo him before Monday.’

Bible John flew back into Scotland on a fine Friday morning. The first thing he did at the airport was pick up some newspapers. In the kiosk, he saw that a new book had been published on World War Two, so bought that too. Sitting in the concourse, he flicked through the newspapers, finding no new stories concerning the Upstart. He left the papers on his seat and went to the carousel, where his luggage was waiting.

A taxi took him into Glasgow. He had already decided not to stay in the city. It wasn’t that he had anything to fear from his old hunting-ground, but that a stay there would bring little profit. Of necessity, Glasgow brought back bittersweet memories. In the late sixties, it had been reinventing itself: knocking down old slums, building their concrete equivalents on the outskirts. New roads, bridges, motorways — the place had been an enormous building site. He got the feeling the process was still ongoing, as if the city still hadn’t acquired an identity it could be comfortable with.

A problem Bible John knew something about.

From Queen Street station, he took a train to Edinburgh, and used his cellphone to reserve a room at his usual hotel, placing it on his corporate account. He called his wife to tell her where he’d be. He had his laptop with him, and did some work on the train. Work soothed him; a busy brain was best. Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks. The Book of Exodus. The media back then had done him a favour, and so had the police. They’d issued a description saying his first name was John and he was ‘fond of quoting from the Bible’. Neither was particularly true: his middle name was John, and he had only occasionally quoted aloud from the good book. In recent years, he’d started attending church again, but now regretted it, regretted thinking he was safe.

There was no safety in this world, just as there would be none in the next.

He left the train at Haymarket — in summer it was easier to catch a taxi there — but when he stepped out into sunshine, he decided to walk to the hotel: it was only five or ten minutes away. His case had wheels, and his shoulder-bag was not particularly heavy. He breathed deeply: traffic fumes and a hint of brewery hops. Tired of squinting, he paused to put on sunglasses, and immediately liked the world better. Catching his reflection in a shop window he saw just another businessman tired of travelling. There was nothing memorable about either face or figure, and the clothes were always conservative: a suit from Austin Reed, shirt by Double 2. A well-dressed and successful businessman. He checked the knot of his tie, and ran his tongue over the only two false teeth in his head — necessary surgery from a quarter-century before. Like everyone else, he crossed the road at the lights.

Check-in at his hotel took a matter of moments. He sat at the room’s small circular table and opened his laptop, plugging it into the mains, changing the adaptor from 110v to 240. He used his password, then double-clicked on the file marked UPSTART. Inside were his notes on Johnny Bible so-called, his own psychological profile of the killer. It was building nicely.

Bible John reflected that he had something the authorities didn’t have: inside knowledge of how a serial killer worked, thought and lived, the lies he had to tell, the guile and disguises, the secret life behind the everyday face. It put him ahead in the game. With any luck, he’d get to Johnny Bible before the police did.

He had avenues to follow. One: from his working habits, it was clear the Upstart had prior knowledge of the Bible John case. How did he gain this knowledge? The Upstart was in his twenties, too young to remember Bible John. Therefore he’d heard about it somewhere, or read about it, and then had gone on to research it in some detail. There were books — some of them recent, some not — about the Bible John killings or with chapters on them. If Johnny Bible were being meticulous, he would have consulted all the available literature, but with some of the material long out of print he must have been searching secondhand bookshops, or else must have used libraries. The search was narrowing nicely.

Another connected avenue: newspapers. Again, it was unlikely the Upstart had open access to papers from a quarter century ago. That meant libraries again, and very few libraries held newspapers for that length of time. Search narrowing nicely.

Then there was the Upstart himself. Many predators made errors early on, mistakes executed due to a lack either of proper planning or of simple nerve. Bible John himself was unusual: his real mistake had come with victim three, with sharing a taxi with her sister. Were there victims around who had escaped the Upstart? That meant looking through recent newspapers, seeking out attacks on women in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, tracking down the killer’s false starts and early failures. It would be time-consuming work. But therapeutic, too.

He stripped and had a shower, then put on a more casual outfit: navy blazer and khaki trousers. He decided not to risk using the telephone in his room — the numbers would be logged by reception — so headed out into the sunshine. No phone boxes these days held directories, so he walked into a pub and ordered tonic water, then asked for the phone book. The barmaid — late teens, nose-stud, pink hair — handed it over with a smile. At his table, he took out notebook and pen and jotted down some numbers, then went to the back of the bar where the telephone was kept. It was next to the toilets — private enough for the purpose, especially just now with the pub all but empty. His calls were to a couple of antiquarian booksellers and three libraries. The results were, to his mind, satisfactory if by no means revelatory, but then he’d decided weeks back that this might be a drawn-out process. After all, he had self-knowledge on his side, but the police had hundreds of men and computers and a publicity machine. And they could investigate openly. He knew his own investigation into the Upstart had to be undertaken with more discretion. But he also knew he needed help, and that was risky. Involving others was always a risk. He’d considered the dilemma over long days and nights — on one side of the scales, his wish to track down the Upstart; on the other, the risk that in so doing, he would be putting himself — his identity — in danger.

So he’d asked himself a question: how badly did he want the Upstart?

And had answered it: very badly. Very badly indeed. He spent the afternoon on and around George IV Bridge — the National Library of Scotland and the Central Lending Library. He had a reader’s card for the National Library, had done research there in the past — business; plus some reading on the Second World War, his main hobby these days. He browsed in local secondhand bookshops too, asking if they had any true-life crime. He told staff the Johnny Bible murders had kindled his interest.

‘We only have half a shelf of true crime,’ the assistant in the first shop said, showing him where it was. Bible John feigned interest in the books, then returned to the assistant’s desk.

‘No, nothing there. Do you also search for books?’

‘Not as such,’ the assistant said. ‘But we keep requests...’ She pulled out a heavy old-style ledger and opened it. ‘If you put down what you’re looking for, your name and address, if we happen across the book we’ll get in touch.’

‘That’s fine.’

Bible John took out his pen, wrote slowly, checking recent requests. He flicked back a page, eyes running down the list of titles and subjects.

‘Don’t people have such varied interests?’ he said, smiling at the assistant.

He tried the same ploy at three further shops, but found no evidence of the Upstart. He then walked to the National Library’s annexe on Causewayside, where recent newspapers were kept, and browsed through a month’s worth of Scotsmans, Heralds and Press and Journals, taking notes from certain stories: assaults, rapes. Of course, even if there was an early, failed victim, it didn’t mean the attempt had gone reported. The Americans had a word for what he was doing. They called it shitwork.

Back in the National Library proper, he studied the librarians, looking for someone special. When he thought he’d found what he was looking for, he checked the library’s opening hours, and decided to wait.

At closing time, he was standing outside the National Library, sunglasses on in the mid-evening light, crawling lines of traffic separating him from the Central Library. He saw some of the staff leave, singly and in groups. Then he spotted the young man he was looking for. When the man headed down Victoria Street, Bible John crossed the road and followed. There were a lot of pedestrians about, tourists, drinkers, a few people making their way home. He became just another of them, walking briskly, his eyes on his quarry. In the Grassmarket, the young man turned into the first available pub. Bible John stopped and considered: a quick drink before heading home? Or was the librarian going to meet friends, maybe make an evening of it? He decided to go inside.

The bar was dark, noisy with office workers: men with their suit jackets draped over their shoulders, women sipping from long glasses of tonic. The librarian was at the bar, alone. Bible John squeezed in beside him and ordered an orange juice. He nodded to the librarian’s beer glass.

‘Another?’

When the young man turned to look at him, Bible John leaned close, spoke quietly.

‘Three things I want to tell you. One: I’m a journalist. Two: I want to give you £500. Three: there’s absolutely nothing illegal involved.’ He paused. ‘Now, do you want that drink?’

The young man was still staring at him. Finally he nodded.

‘Is that yes to the drink or yes to the cash?’ Bible John was smiling too.

‘The drink. You better tell me a little more about the other.’

‘It’s a boring job or I’d do it myself. Does the library keep a record of books consulted and borrowed?’

The librarian thought about it, then nodded. ‘Some computerised, some still on cards.’

‘Well, the computer will be quick, but the cards may take you a while. It’ll still be easy money, believe me. What about if someone came in to consult old newspapers?’

‘Should be on record. How long ago are we talking about?’

‘It would be in the past three to six months. The papers they’d be looking at would be from 1968 to ’70.’

He paid for two drinks with a twenty, opened his wallet so the librarian could see plenty more.

‘It might take a while,’ the young man said. ‘I’ll have to cross-reference between Causewayside and George IV Bridge.’

‘There’s another hundred if you can hurry things along.’

‘I’ll need details.’ Bible John nodded, handed over a business card. It stated name and a phony address, but no phone number.

‘Don’t try to get in touch. I’ll phone you. What’s your name?’

‘Mark Jenkins.’

‘OK, Mark.’ Bible John lifted out two fifties, tucked them into the young man’s breast pocket. ‘Here’s something on account.’

‘What’s it all about anyway?’

Bible John shrugged. ‘Johnny Bible. We’re checking a possible connection with some old cases.’

The young man nodded. ‘So what books are you interested in?’

Bible John handed him a printed list. ‘Plus newspapers. Scotsmans and Glasgow Heralds, February ’68 to December ’69.’

‘And what do you want to know?’

‘People who’ve been looking at them. I’ll need names and addresses. Can you do it?’

‘Actual newspapers are held at Causewayside, we only stock microfilm.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I may need to ask a colleague at Causewayside to help.’

Bible John smiled. ‘My paper’s not short of a bob or two, as long as we get results. How much would your friend want...?’