‘It’s been hosed down,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘They hosed away the blood.’
He began to walk back towards the car.
Barry Hutton wasn’t home. His girlfriend hadn’t seen him since the previous evening. His car was parked outside his office block, locked and with the alarm set, no sign of the keys. No sign of Barry Hutton either.
They found Cafferty at the hotel. He was enjoying morning coffee in the lounge. Hutton’s man – now Cafferty’s, if he hadn’t been all along – was reading a paper at a neighbouring table.
‘I’ve just found out what they’re charging come the millennium,’ Cafferty said of the hotel. ‘Shysters, the lot of them. Wrong line of work, you and me.’
Rebus sat down opposite his nemesis. Siobhan Clarke introduced herself, stayed standing.
‘Two of you,’ Cafferty mused. ‘That means corroboration.’
Rebus turned to Siobhan. ‘Go wait outside.’ She didn’t move. ‘Please.’ She hesitated, then turned and stomped off.
‘A fiery one that.’ Cafferty laughed, sitting forward, face suddenly showing concern. ‘How are you, Strawman? Thought I was going to lose you there.’
‘Where’s Hutton?’
‘Christ, man, how should I know?’
Rebus turned to the bodyguard. ‘Go to Warriston Crem, check the name Robert Hill. Cafferty’s minders tend to live short lives.’ The man stared at him blankly.
‘Has Barry not turned up, then?’ Cafferty was feigning amazement.
‘You killed him. Now you step into his shoes.’ Rebus paused. ‘Which was the plan all along?’
Cafferty just smiled.
‘What’s Bryce Callan going to say?’ Rebus watched the smile broaden still further. He began nodding. ‘Bryce okayed it? This was where it was always headed?’
Cafferty spoke in an undertone. ‘You can’t go around bumping off people like Roddy Grieve. It’s bad for everyone.’
‘But you can murder Barry Hutton?’
‘I saved your neck, Strawman. You owe me.’
Rebus pointed a finger. ‘You took me there. You set the whole trap, and Hutton walked into it.’
‘You both walked into it.’ Cafferty was almost preening. Rebus wanted to stick a fist in his face, and Cafferty knew it. He looked around at the elegant surroundings. Chintz and antimacassars, chandeliers and sound-deadening carpets. ‘Wouldn’t do, really now, would it?’
‘I’ve been thrown out of better places than this.’ Rebus glowered. ‘Where is he?’
Cafferty sat back. ‘You know the story about the Old Town? Reason it’s so narrow and steep, there’s some big serpent buried under it.’ He waited for Rebus to get it; decided to supply the punchline himself. ‘Room for more than one snake under the Old Town, Strawman.’
The Old Town: the building works around Holyrood – Queensberry House, Dynamic Earth, Scotsman offices . . . hotels and apartments. So many building sites. Lots of good, deep holes, filling with concrete . . .
‘We’ll look for him,’ Rebus said. Cafferty’s words in the garden of remembrance: where there’s no body, there’s no crime.
Cafferty shrugged. ‘You do that. And be sure to hand your clothes in as evidence. Maybe his blood’s mixed in there with yours. Maybe it’ll be you who has to do some explaining. Me, I was here all evening.’ He waved an arm casually. ‘Ask around. It was a hell of a party, a hell of a night. By next Hogmanay . . . well, who knows what we’ll all be doing? We’ll have our parliament by then, and this . . . this will all be history.’
‘I don’t care how long it takes,’ Rebus warned. But Cafferty just laughed. He was back, and in charge of his Edinburgh, and that was all that mattered . . .
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank the following: Historic Scotland, for providing a tour of Queensberry House; The Scottish Office Constitution Group; Professor Anthony Busuttil, University of Edinburgh; the staff at Edinburgh Mortuary; staff at St Leonard’s police station and Lothian and Borders Police HQ; the Old Manor Hotel, Lundin Links (especially Alistair Clark and George Clark).
The following books and guides were helpful: ‘Who’s Who in the Scottish Parliament’ (a supplement provided with Scotland on Sunday, the issue of 16 May 1999); Crime and Criminal Justice in Scotland by Peter Young (Stationery Office, 1997); A Guide to the Scottish Parliament edited by Gerry Hassan (Stationery Office, 1999); The Battle for Scotland by Andrew Marr (Penguin, 1992).
The lyrics to ‘Wages Day’ are by Ricky Ross. The track can be found on the Deacon Blue albums Raintown and Our Town: the Greatest Hits.
I’d also like to thank Angus Calder for permission to quote from his poem ‘Love Poem’, and Alison Hendon, who brought another poem to my attention and gifted me the title of this book.
For further information on the remarkable Rosslyn Chapel, visit its website at www.ROSSLYNCHAPEL.org.uk
© Rankin
ABOUT IAN RANKIN
Ian Rankin, OBE, writes a huge proportion of all the crime novels sold in the UK and has won numerous prizes, including in 2005 the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger. His work is available in over 30 languages, home sales of his books exceed one million copies a year, and several of the novels based around the character of Detective Inspector Rebus – his name meaning ‘enigmatic puzzle’ – have been successfully transferred to television.
Introduction to DI John Rebus
The first novels to feature Rebus, a flawed but resolutely humane detective, were not an overnight sensation, and success took time to arrive. But the wait became a period that allowed Ian Rankin to come of age as a writer, and to develop Rebus into a thoroughly believable, flesh-and-blood character straddling both industrial and post-industrial Scotland; a gritty yet perceptive man coping with his own demons. As Rebus struggled to keep his relationship with daughter Sammy alive following his divorce, and to cope with the imprisonment of brother Michael, while all the time trying to strike a blow for morality against a fearsome array of sinners (some justified and some not), readers began to respond in their droves. Fans admired Ian Rankin’s re-creation of a picture-postcard Edinburgh with a vicious tooth-and-claw underbelly just a heartbeat away, his believable but at the same time complex plots and, best of all, Rebus as a conflicted man trying always to solve the unsolvable, and to do the right thing.
As the series progressed, Ian Rankin refused to shy away from contentious issues such as corruption in high places, paedophilia and illegal immigration, combining his unique seal of tight plotting with a bleak realism, leavened with brooding humour.
In Rebus the reader is presented with a rich and constantly evolving portrait of a complex and troubled man, irrevocably tinged with the sense of being an outsider and, potentially, unable to escape being a ‘justified sinner’ himself. Rebus’s life is intricately related to his Scottish environs too, enriched by Ian Rankin’s attentive depiction of locations, and careful regard to Rebus’s favourite music, watering holes and books, as well as his often fraught relationships with colleagues and family. And so, alongside Rebus, the reader is taken on an often painful, sometimes hellish journey to the depths of human nature, always rooted in the minutiae of a very recognisable Scottish life.
The Oxford Bar – Rebus and many of the characters who appear in the novels are regulars of the Ox – as is Ian Rankin himself. The pub is now synonymous with the Rebus novels to the extent that one of the regular medical examiners called in to assist with investigations is named after the pub’s owner, John Gates.
Edinburgh plays an important role throughout the Rebus novels; a character itself, as brooding and as volatile as Rebus. The Edinburgh depicted in the novels is far short of the beautiful city that tourists in their thousands flood to visit. Hidden behind the historic buildings and elegant facades is the world that Rebus inhabits.
For general discussion
regarding the Rebus series
How does Ian Rankin reveal himself as an author i
nterested in using fiction to ‘tell the truths the real world can’t’?
There are similarities between the lives of the author and his protagonist – for instance, both Ian Rankin and Rebus were born in Fife, lost their mothers at an early age, have children with physical problems – so is it useful therefore to think of John Rebus and Ian Rankin as each other’s alter egos?
Could it be said that Rebus is trying to make sense in a general way of the world around him, or is he seeking answers to the ‘big questions’? And is it relevant therefore that he is a believer in God and comes from a Scottish Presbyterian background? Would Rebus see confession in both the religious and the criminal sense as similar in any way?
How does Ian Rankin explore notions of Edinburgh as a character in its own right? In what way does he contrast the glossy public and seedy private faces of the city with the public and private faces of those Rebus meets? How does Ian Rankin use musical sources – the Elvis references in The Black Book, for instance, or the Rolling Stones allusions in Let It Bleed – as a means of character development through the series? What does Rebus’s own taste in music and books say about him as a person?
What do you think about Rebus as a character? If you have read several or more novels from the series, discuss how his character is developed.
If Rebus has a problem with notions of ‘pecking order’ and the idea of authority generally, what does it say about him that he chose careers in hierarchical institutions such as the Army and then the police?
How does Rebus relate to women: as lovers, flirtations, family members and colleagues?
Do the flashes of gallows humour as often shown by the pathologists but sometimes also in Rebus’s own comments increase or dissipate narrative tension? Does Rebus use black comedy for the same reasons the pathologists do?
Do Rebus’s personal vulnerabilities make him understanding of the frailties of others?
How does the characterisation of Rebus compare to other long-standing popular detectives from British authors such as Holmes, Poirot, Morse or Dalgleish? And are there more similarities or differences between them?
SET IN DARKNESS
The discovery of a desiccated corpse, quickly nicknamed Skelly, during the refurbishment of the new Scottish parliament building doesn’t bode well, especially as it was here, centuries earlier, that there occurred a grisly incident of cannibalism, and now Queensberry House comes complete with the ghost of a weeping woman. Rebus’s reluctant membership of the PPLC (the Policing of Parliament Liaison Committee) ensures he’s right on hand when the body is found, rubbing shoulders with representatives of MI5 and the Scottish Office. And soon his social net is cast still wider, into the influential Grieve clan, when Roddy Grieve, prospective MSP, turns up just as dead as Skelly, and soon Rebus discovers there’s yet another lost Grieve.
DC Siobhan Clarke is otherwise engaged investigating an unpleasant case of serial rape with escalating violence, each attack connected to singles clubs, the rapist working with an accomplice. Added to the mix are the suicide of a tramp who turns out to be worth E400,000; a mystery to do with Bryce Callan, the man who ran Edinburgh before Big Ger Cafferty; some shady land deals and a council mole; and Big Ger himself, determined not to let a small thing like a Barlinnie prison sentence stand in the way of his domination of Edinburgh.
As Siobhan and Rebus try to make sense of a seemingly random series of incidents, is Skelly going to prove to be the key to unravelling what has been going on?
Ian Rankin looks at various family dynasties against the panorama of a new Edinburgh – although, as Big Ger points out, ‘The city might be changing but it still works the same old way’ – suggesting that all must experience the pleasure before the pain, the ‘Calvinist thing’ – while, alongside, Siobhan comes of age in making her own connections.
Discussion points for Set in Dailness
Ian Rankin claims he came to write this book through serendipity, stumbling across something he wasn’t looking for. Could it be said that Rebus and Siobhan each experience different forms of serendipity themselves?
DI Derek Linford is thought of as the lapdog of Colin Carswell, Assistant Chief Constable (Crime): are Rebus’s instincts correct about him?
How has Rebus’s drinking started to affect his work?
The reader learns a lot about Rebus’s attitude to the machinations of politics. Could the reader go on to make assumptions about Ian Rankin’s own political opinions?
Ian Rankin gives away very early who the rapists are. How does this affect the narrative tension? Does this give an opportunity to show the process by which Siobhan carries out an investigation?
Siobhan comes under an obvious physical threat – but is this in fact the biggest threat to her?
‘Everything in its place – the body in the fireplace; Roddy Grieve in the summer house – for a reason. There had to be an explanation; it was just that they couldn’t see it yet.’ Would Rebus think this true of all investigations? In Set in Darkness there are a lot of sexual undercurrents in the workplace. What conclusions might the reader draw?
One man’s retirement was another man’s redundancy’ Which side of the equation does Rebus favour?
Siobhan’s relationship with Rebus is evolving. Would she think now that she understands him?
And what kind of job was it that could make you feel so bad about yourself . . .?’ Siobhan thinks this; is the reader meant to infer that she is becoming like Rebus?
She was saying that the past was a different place, that it could not be revisited. The town had tricked him by seeming unchanged. But he had changed: that was what mattered.’ Considering the emphasis in Set in Darkness on different types of history and ‘past’, what exactly is Ian Rankin trying to get the reader to think about?
‘A city which seemed defined by its past as much as by its present, and only now, with the parliament coming, looking towards the future.’ Is this a new dimension to the way Edinburgh has been characterised in the past by Ian Rankin?
What is the reader supposed to make of Rebus’s behaviour years earlier when a girlfriend had chucked him?
What audacious stunt does Big Ger pull to get himself out of prison? What is Rebus’s response? And how has their relationship developed?
AN ORION EBOOK
First published in Great Britain in 2000 by Orion Books.
First published in ebook form in 2009 by Orion Books.
This updated ebook published in 2011 by Orion Books.
Copyright © John Rebus Limited 2000
Introduction © John Rebus Limited 2005
The right of Ian Rankin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the copyright, designs and patents act 1988.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 4091 0761 3
Orion Books
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
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Ian Rankin, Set in Darkness
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