10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (302 page)
Read 10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) Online
Authors: Ian Rankin
‘If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.’
‘I went to Scotland and found nothing
there that looks like Scotland’
Brigadoon
INTRODUCTION
Having lived in France for six years, in the autumn of 1996 I moved back to Edinburgh with my family. I had left Scotland ten years previously, newly married and fresh from university. I was returning with two children and a full-time career as a novelist. Okay, so I wasn’t earning enough for the mortgage on a three-bedroom flat, but some of the uncertainties of the past had gone. I felt like a proper, grown-up writer, able to take on big moral themes under the guise of writing whodunits. Academe and literary circles might not take the form seriously, but I knew that the crime novel could say as much about human nature and the state of the world as any other branch of writerly endeavour. My next project was already well under way as we unpacked and started coming to terms with driving on the left (in our French-registered Peugeot). The genesis of this project had been a day-trip I’d made to a place called Oradour – a town which had, quite literally, died.
All the six years I’d spent in France, I’d heard of this place, knew it was just over an hour’s drive away from our home in north-east Dordogne. Friends’ children went there on school trips, but I’d never made the effort. Then I remembered London. We’d lived there for four years before making the move to France. After we’d left, I’d thought with regret of all the things I hadn’t done, places I hadn’t bothered to visit. So, towards the end of our time in France, I took the drive north to Oradour.
And was stunned.
The town has been kept as a shrine to its victims. No one knows how many died there, the day the 3rd Company of the SS ‘Der Führer’ Regiment marched in and started rounding people up. Not far short of a thousand, the histories say. Corpses were set alight, or dropped down wells. Men, women, children: almost no one escaped the slaughter. During my time there, peering through windows into kitchens and living rooms, passing burned-out cars and the rusty carcass of the local tram, the overcast sky gave way to steady rain. I sought shelter in the church, but its roof was missing – torched by the Nazis. I got in close to one of its walls, and realised there were bullet-holes in the plaster all around me. This was where the women had been brought, a machine-gun pointed at them. So I headed for the small museum instead, with its displays of everyday objects: hairbrushes, pairs of spectacles . . . mementoes of the dead.
But what really affected me about Oradour was the fact that the man responsible – the general who’d given the order for the massacre – had been captured by the Allies, but was then sent back to Germany to live out the rest of his days in industry and comfort. What sort of justice was that? There would be reasons for it, of course: probably to do with politics, with diplomacy, with secret deals and information traded. There were usually reasons for these things. I started doing some research, and along the way learned of a network called the Rat-Line (which you’ll read about in this book). I also became intrigued that the lessons of the past had not been learned. Atrocities were a daily occurrence in ex-Yugoslavia at this time. The West knew the identities of the men responsible, the men in charge – they were on our TV screens nightly, going about their butchers’ business. Yet little or nothing was being done to stop them.
This sense of history repeating would form the basis for
The Hanging Garden
. Most of the book was written in France, but when I arrived in Edinburgh I knew I needed to do some final research on war criminals and how we have dealt with them in the past. So I went to the National Library on Edinburgh’s George IV Bridge – a place I’d haunted as a student, back when I’d been writing my first two novels – and did a search.
And found something.
Having decided, months before, that I wanted to write about Oradour, I’d scratched my head for a while. The sticking point was: how could I do so from the point of view of Detective Inspector John Rebus? The answer came eventually: I would have Rebus investigate an alleged Nazi war criminal who has been living quietly in Edinburgh for forty years or more. In this way, I could question the validity of prosecuting old men for their crimes of half a century before.
Perfect, I thought.
But that day in the National Library, I found information on an alleged war criminal . . . a real one . . . living quietly in Edinburgh. A TV documentary had been made about him, and he’d taken legal action against the producers. And though he hadn’t been successful, I knew I would have to be careful that he couldn’t see himself in
my
portrait of a suspected monster . . .
The book went on to win the Cognac Prix du Roman Policier – not bad, considering I hadn’t managed to find a French publisher during my long sojourn in that country! It also sneaked on to the margins of the bestseller lists in the UK, and was the third biggest-selling title in Scotland in 1999 (after two of the Harry Potter instalments). Having managed critical success with
Black & Blue
, I was now beginning to see some sales success, too. The mortgage on
that three-bedroom flat couldn’t be too far away . . .
Having borrowed from a song by The Cure for the title of
The Hanging Garden
, I decided I wanted to preface each section of my book with a couple of lines from the song. I had no idea how to go about seeking permission, so turned to the band’s fan club for help. Eventually, I received a phone call from someone on the management side. They had, they told me, talked it over with Robert – meaning Robert Smith, the band’s lyricist. Robert said it would be okay, but of course there would be a fee. I sucked in some air and asked how much.
‘A few signed copies when the book comes out.’
I laughed – from relief, but also because it showed what a gentleman Mr Smith was – and was quick to accept. Only later did it dawn on me that I had no address to send the books to, and no record of the name of the person who’d phoned me. So if anyone out there knows Robert Smith, tell him to get in touch. There’s a first edition waiting here with his name on. I’d like him to see the book some time, if only for the smile it might raise when he finds out what I’ve done with other songs of his – most notably ‘Fascination Street’ and ‘Mr Pink Eyes’ . . .
Now read on . . .
May 2005Book One
They were arguing in the living-room
.
‘
Look, if your bloody job’s so precious
. . .’
‘
What do you want from me?
’
‘
You know bloody well!
’
‘
I’m working my arse off for the three of us!
’
‘
Don’t give me that crap
.’
And then they saw her. She was holding her teddy bear, Pa Broon, by one well-chewed ear. She was peering round the doorway, thumb in her mouth. They turned to her
.
‘
What is it, sweetie?
’
‘
I had a bad dream
.’
‘
Come here.’ The mother crouched down, opening her arms. But the girl ran to her father, wrapped herself around his legs
.
‘
Come on, pet, I’ll take you back to bed
.’
He tucked her in, started to read her a story
.
‘
Daddy,’ she said, ‘what if I fall asleep and don’t wake up? Like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty?
’
‘
Nobody sleeps forever, Sammy. All it takes to wake them up is a kiss. There’s nothing the witches and evil queens can do about that
.’
He kissed her forehead
.
‘
Dead people don’t wake up,’ she said, hugging Pa Broon. ‘Not even when you kiss them
.’
John Rebus kissed his daughter.
‘Sure you don’t want a lift?’
Samantha shook her head. ‘I need to walk off that pizza.’
Rebus put his hands in his pockets, felt folded banknotes beneath his handkerchief. He thought of offering her some money – wasn’t that what fathers did? – but she’d only laugh. She was twenty-four and independent; didn’t need the gesture and certainly wouldn’t take the money. She’d even tried to pay for the pizza, arguing that she’d eaten half while he’d chewed on a single slice. The remains were in a box under her arm.
‘Bye, Dad.’ She pecked him on the cheek.
‘Next week?’
‘I’ll phone you. Maybe the three of us . . .?’ By which she meant Ned Farlowe, her boyfriend. She was walking backwards as she spoke. One final wave, and she turned away from him, head moving as she checked the evening traffic, crossing the road without looking back. But on the opposite pavement she half-turned, saw him watching her, waved her hand in acknowledgement. A young man almost collided with her. He was staring at the pavement, the thin black cord from a pair of earphones dribbling down his neck. Turn round and look at her, Rebus commanded. Isn’t she incredible? But the youth kept shuffling along the pavement, oblivious to her world.
And then she’d turned a corner and was gone. Rebus could only imagine her now: making sure the pizza box was
secure beneath her left arm; walking with eyes fixed firmly ahead of her; rubbing a thumb behind her right ear, which she’d recently had pierced for the third time. He knew that her nose would twitch when she thought of something funny. He knew that if she wanted to concentrate, she might tuck the corner of one jacket-lapel into her mouth. He knew that she wore a bracelet of braided leather, three silver rings, a cheap watch with black plastic strap and indigo face. He knew that the brown of her hair was its natural colour. He knew she was headed for a Guy Fawkes party, but didn’t intend staying long.
He didn’t know nearly enough about her, which was why he’d wanted them to meet for dinner. It had been a tortuous process: dates rejigged, last-minute cancellations. Sometimes it was her fault, more often his. Even tonight he should have been elsewhere. He ran his hands down the front of his jacket, feeling the bulge in his inside breast pocket, his own little time-bomb. Checking his watch, he saw it was nearly nine o’clock. He could drive or he could walk – he wasn’t going far.
He decided to drive.
Edinburgh on firework night, leaves blown into thick lines down the pavement. One morning soon he would find himself scraping frost from his car windscreen, feeling the cold like jabs to his kidneys. The south side of the city seemed to get the first frost earlier than the north. Rebus, of course, lived and worked on the south side. After a stint in Craigmillar, he was back at St Leonard’s. He could make for there now – he was still on shift after all – but he had other plans. He passed three pubs on his way to his car. Chat at the bar, cigarettes and laughter, a fug of heat and alcohol: he knew these things better than he knew his own daughter. Two out of the three bars boasted ‘doormen’. They didn’t seem to be called bouncers these days. They were doormen or front-of-house managers, big guys with
short hair and shorter fuses. One of them wore a kilt. His face was all scar tissue and scowl, the scalp shaved to abrasion. Rebus thought his name was Wattie or Wallie. He belonged to Telford. Maybe they all did. Graffiti on the wall further along: Won’t Anyone Help? Three words spreading across the city.
Rebus parked around the corner from Flint Street and started walking. The street was in darkness at ground level, except for a café and amusement arcade. There was one lamppost, its bulb dead. The council had been asked by police not to replace it in a hurry – the surveillance needed all the help it could get. A few lights were shining in the tenement flats. There were three cars parked kerbside, but only one of them with people in it. Rebus opened the back door and got in.
A man sat in the driver’s seat, a woman next to him. They looked cold and bored. The woman was Detective Constable Siobhan Clarke, who had worked with Rebus at St Leonard’s until a recent posting to the Scottish Crime Squad. The man, a Detective Sergeant called Claverhouse, was a Crime Squad regular. They were part of a team keeping twenty-four-hour tabs on Tommy Telford and all his deeds. Their slumped shoulders and pale faces bespoke not only tedium but the sure knowledge that surveillance was futile.
It was futile because Telford owned the street. Nobody parked here without him knowing who and why. The other two cars parked just now were Range Rovers belonging to Telford’s gang. Anything but a Range Rover stuck out. The Crime Squad had a specially adapted van which they usually used for surveillance, but that wouldn’t work in Flint Street. Any van parked here for longer than five minutes received close and personal attention from a couple
of Telford’s men. They were trained to be courteous and menacing at the same time.
