10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (252 page)

‘I am,’ he said, ‘but they’re short-handed here.’ He looked around the room. ‘Understandably.’

Rebus looked Jack Morton up and down, couldn’t believe what he saw. Last time they’d met, Jack had been a couple of stone overweight, a heavy smoker with a cough that could crack patrol-car windscreens. Now he’d shed the excess weight, and the perennial ciggie was missing from his mouth. More, his hair was professionally groomed and he was dressed in an expensive-looking suit, polished black shoes, crisp shirt and tie.

‘What happened to you?’ Rebus asked.

Morton smiled, patted his near-flat stomach. ‘Just looked at myself one day and couldn’t understand why the mirror didn’t break. Got off the booze and the cigs, joined a health club.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Life and death decisions. You can’t afford to hem and haw.’

‘You look great.’

‘Wish I could say the same, John.’

Rebus was thinking up a comeback when CI Ancram entered the room.

‘DI Rebus?’ They shook hands. The Chief Inspector didn’t seem keen to let go. His eyes were soaking up Rebus. ‘Sorry to keep you.’

Ancram was in his early fifties, and every bit as well-dressed as Jack Morton. He was bald mostly, but with Sean Connery’s style and a thick dark moustache to match.

‘Has Jack been giving you the tour?’

‘Not exactly, sir.’

‘Well, this is the Glasgow end of the Johnny Bible operation.’

‘Is this the nearest station to Kelvingrove?’

Ancram smiled. ‘Proximity to the locus was just one consideration. Judith Cairns was his third victim, by then the media had already hit on the Bible John connection. And this is where all the Bible John files are stored.’

‘Any chance I can see them?’

Ancram studied him, then shrugged. ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’

Rebus followed Ancram along the corridor to another suite of offices. There was a musty smell in the air, more library than cop-shop. Rebus saw why: the room was full of old cardboard boxes, box-files with spring hinges, packets of curl-edged paper bound with string. Four CID officers – two male, two female – were working their way through everything and anything to do with the original Bible John case.

‘We had this lot stashed in a storeroom,’ Ancram said. ‘You should have seen the stoor that came off when we brought them out.’ He blew on a folder, fine powder rising from it.

‘You do think there’s a connection then?’

It was a question every police officer in Scotland had asked every other police officer, for there was always the chance that the two cases, the two killers, had nothing in common, in which event hundreds of man-hours were being wasted.

‘Oh yes,’ Ancram said. Yes: it was what Rebus felt, too. ‘I mean, the
modus operandi
is close enough to start with, then there are the souvenirs he takes from the scene. The description of Johnny Bible may be a fluke, but I’m sure he’s copying his hero.’ Ancram looked at Rebus. ‘Aren’t you?’

Rebus nodded. He was looking at all the material, thinking how he’d like to have a few weeks with it, how he might find something no one else had spotted . . . It was a dream, of course, a fantasy, but on slow nights sometimes it was motivation enough. Rebus had his newspapers, but they told only as much of the story as the police had wanted made public. He walked over to a row of shelves, read the spines of the box-files: Door to Door; Taxi Firms; Hairdressers; Tailors’ Shops; Hairpiece Suppliers.

‘Hairpiece suppliers?’

Ancram smiled. ‘His short hair, they thought maybe it was a wig. They talked to hairdressers to see if anyone recognised the cut.’

‘And to tailors because of his Italian suit.’

Again Ancram stared at him.

Rebus shrugged. ‘The case interests me. What’s this?’ He pointed to a wall chart.

‘Similarities and dissimilarities between the two cases,’ Ancram said. ‘Dancehalls versus the club scene. And the descriptions: tall, skinny, shy, auburn hair, well dressed . . . I mean, Johnny could almost be Bible John’s son.’

‘That’s something I’ve been asking myself. Supposing Johnny Bible
is
basing himself on his hero, and supposing Bible John’s still out there somewhere . . .’

‘Bible John’s dead.’

Rebus kept his eyes on the chart. ‘But just supposing he isn’t. I mean, is he flattered? Is he pissed off? What?’

‘Don’t ask me.’

‘The Glasgow victim hadn’t been to a club,’ Rebus said.

‘Well, she wasn’t last
seen
in a club. But she’d been to one earlier that evening, he could have followed her from there to the concert.’

Victims one and two had been picked up by Johnny Bible in nightclubs, the nineties equivalent of a sixties dancehall: louder, darker, more dangerous. They’d been in parties, who were able to furnish only the vaguest descriptions of the man who had walked off into the night with their friend. But victim three, Judith Cairns, had been picked up at a rock concert in a room above a pub.

‘We’ve had others too,’ Ancram was saying. ‘Three unsolveds in Glasgow in the late seventies, all three missing some personal item.’

‘Like he never went away,’ Rebus muttered.

‘There’s too much to go on, yet not nearly enough.’ Ancram folded his arms. ‘How well does Johnny know the three cities? Did he pick the clubs at random, or did he know them to start with? Was each locus chosen beforehand? Could he be a brewery delivery-man? A DJ? Music journalist? Maybe he writes fucking travel guides for all I know.’ Ancram started a joyless laugh, and rubbed at his forehead.

‘Could always be Bible John himself,’ Rebus said.

‘Bible John’s dead and buried, Inspector.’

‘You really think so?’

Ancram nodded. He wasn’t alone. There were plenty of coppers who thought they knew who Bible John was, and knew him to be dead. But there were others more sceptical, and Rebus was among them. A DNA match probably wouldn’t have been enough to change his mind. There was always the chance that Bible John was out there.

They had a description of a man in his late twenties, but witness evidence was notoriously uneven. As a result, the original photofits and artists’ impressions of Bible John had been dusted off and put back into circulation with the media’s
help. The usual psychological ploys were being used too – pleas in the press for the killer to come forward: ‘You obviously need help, and we’d like you to contact us.’ Bluff, with silence the retort.

Ancram pointed to photos on one wall: a photofit from 1970, aged by computer, beard and glasses added, the hair receding at crown and temples. They’d been made public too.

‘Could be anybody, couldn’t it?’ Ancram stated.

‘Getting to you, sir?’ Rebus was waiting for an invitation to call Ancram by his first name.

‘Of course it’s getting to me.’ Ancram’s face relaxed. ‘Why the interest?’

‘No real reason.’

‘I mean, we’re not here for Johnny Bible, are we? We’re here to talk about Uncle Joe.’

‘Ready when you are, sir.’

‘Come on then, let’s see if we can find two empty chairs in this fucking building.’

They ended up standing in the corridor, with coffee bought from a machine further along.

‘Do we know what he strangles them with?’ Rebus asked.

Ancram’s eyes widened. ‘More Johnny Bible?’ He sighed. ‘Whatever it is, it doesn’t leave much of an impression. The latest theory is a length of washing-line; you know, the nylon stuff, plastic-coated. The forensic labs have tested about two hundred possibles, everything from rope to guitar strings.’

‘What do you think about the souvenirs?’

‘I think we should go public with them. I know keeping them hush-hush helps us rule out the nutters who walk in to confess, but I honestly think we’d be better off asking the public for help. That necklace, I mean, you couldn’t get more distinctive. If someone out there has found it, or seen it . . . housey-housey.’

‘You’ve got a psychic working the case, haven’t you?’

Ancram looked nettled. ‘Not me personally, some arsehole
further up the ranks. It’s a newspaper stunt, but the brass went for it.’

‘He hasn’t helped?’

‘We told him we needed a demonstration, asked him to predict the winner of the two-fifteen at Ayr.’

Rebus laughed. ‘And?’

‘He said he could see the letters S and P, and a jockey dressed in pink with yellow spots.’

‘That’s impressive.’

‘Thing is though, there
was
no two-fifteen at Ayr, or anywhere else for that matter. All this voodoo and profiling, a waste of time if you ask me.’

‘So you’ve nothing to go on?’

‘Not much. No saliva at the locus, not so much as a hair. Bastard uses a johnny, then takes it with him – wrapper included. My bet is, he wears gloves too. We’ve a few threads from a jacket or the like, forensics are still busy with them.’ Ancram raised his cup to his lips, blew on it. ‘So, Inspector, do you want to hear about Uncle Joe or not?’

‘That’s why I’m here.’

‘I’m beginning to wonder.’ Rebus just shrugged, so Ancram took a deep breath. ‘OK, then listen. He controls a lot of the muscle-work – and I mean that literally; he has a share in a couple of bodybuilder gyms. In fact, he has a share in just about everything that’s the least bit dodgy: money-lending, protection, prozzy pitches, betting.’

‘Drugs?’

‘Maybe. There are a lot of maybes with Uncle Joe. You’ll see that when you read the files. He’s as slippery as a Thai bath – he owns massage parlours too. Then he’s got a lot of the taxi cabs, the ones that don’t switch their meters on when you get in; or if they do, the rate-per-mile’s been hiked. The cabbies are all on the broo, claiming benefit. We’ve approached several of them, but they won’t say a word against Uncle Joe. Thing is, if the DSS start sniffing around for scroungers, the investigators receive a letter. It details where
they live, spouse’s name and daily movements, kids’ names, the school they go to . . .’

‘I get the picture.’

‘So they start requesting a transfer to another department, and meantime go to their doctor because they’re having trouble sleeping at night.’

‘OK, Uncle Joe isn’t Glasgow’s Man of the Year. Where does he live?’

Ancram drained his cup. ‘This is a beauty. He lives in a council house. But just remember: Robert Maxwell lived in a council house, too. You have to see this place.’

‘I intend to.’

Ancram shook his head. ‘He won’t talk to you, you won’t get past the door.’

‘Want a bet?’

Ancram narrowed his eyes. ‘You sound confident.’

Jack Morton walked past them, rolling his eyes: a general comment on life. He was searching his pockets for coins. As he waited for the machine to pour his drink, he turned to them.

‘Chick, The Lobby?’

Ancram nodded. ‘One o’clock?’

‘Braw.’

‘What about associates?’ Rebus asked. He noticed Ancram hadn’t yet said he could call him by his nickname.

‘Oh, he has plenty of those. His guards are bodybuilders, hand-picked. Then he has some nutters, real headbangers. The bodybuilders might look the business, but these others
are
the business. There was Tony El, poly-bag merchant with a penchant for power tools. Uncle Joe still has one or two like him. Then there’s Joe’s son, Malky.’

‘Mr Stanley knife?’

‘Emergency rooms all over Glasgow can testify to
that
particular hobby.’

‘But Tony El hasn’t been around?’

Ancram shook his head. ‘But I’ve had my grasses out sniffing on your behalf; I should hear back today.’

Three men pushed open the doors at the end of the hall.

‘Aye, aye,’ Ancram said in an undertone, ‘it’s the man with the crystal balls.’

Rebus recognised one of the men from a magazine photograph: Aldous Zane, the American psychic. He’d helped a US police force in their hunt for Merry Mac, so called because someone passing the scene of one of his murders – without realising what was happening on the other side of the wall – had heard deep gurgling laughter. Zane had given his impressions of where the killer lived. When police finally arrested Merry Mac, the media pointed out that the location bore a striking resemblance to the picture Zane had drawn.

For a few weeks, Aldous Zane was newsworthy all around the world. It was enough to tempt a Scottish tabloid to pay for him to offer his impressions in the Johnny Bible hunt. And the police brass were just desperate enough to offer their cooperation.

‘Morning, Chick,’ one of the other men said.

‘Morning, Terry.’

‘Terry’ was looking at Rebus, awaiting an introduction.

‘DI John Rebus,’ Ancram said. ‘DCS Thompson.’

The man stuck out his hand, which Rebus shook. He was a mason, like every second cop on the force. Rebus wasn’t of the brotherhood, but had learned to mimic the handshake.

Thompson turned to Ancram. ‘We’re taking Mr Zane along to have another look at some of the physical evidence.’

‘Not just a look,’ Zane corrected. ‘I need to touch it.’

Thompson’s left eye twitched. Obviously he was as sceptical as Ancram. ‘Right, well, this way, Mr Zane.’

The three men walked off.

‘Who was the silent one?’ Rebus asked.

Ancram shrugged. ‘Zane’s minder, he’s from the newspaper. They want to be in on everything Zane does.’

Rebus nodded. ‘I know him,’ he said. ‘Or I used to, years back.’

‘I think his name’s Stevens.’

‘Jim Stevens,’ Rebus said, still nodding. ‘By the way, there’s another difference between the two killers.’

‘What?’

‘Bible John’s victims were all menstruating.’

Rebus was left alone at a desk with the available files on Joseph Toal. He didn’t learn much more from them except that Uncle Joe seldom saw the inside of a court. Rebus wondered about that. Toal always seemed to know when police had him or his operations under surveillance, when the shit was heading fanwards. That way, they never found any evidence, or not enough to put him away. A couple of fines, that was about the sum total. Several big pushes had been made, but they’d always been abandoned for lack of hard evidence or because a surveillance was blown. As if Uncle Joe had a psychic of his own. But Rebus knew there was a more likely explanation: someone in CID was feeding gen back to the gangster. Rebus thought of the fancy suits everyone seemed to be wearing, the good watches and shoes, the general air of prosperity and superiority.