Set in Darkness Read online

  Praise for Ian Rankin

  ‘Rankin weaves his plots with a menacing ease . . . His prose is understated, yet his canvas of Scotland’s criminal underclass has a panoramic breadth. His ear for dialogue is as sharp as a switchblade. This is, quite simply, crime writing of the highest order’

  Daily Express

  ‘A series that shows no signs of flagging . . . Assured, sympathetic to contemporary foibles, humanistic, this is more than just a police procedural as the character of Rebus grows in moral stature . . . Rankin is the head capo of the MacMafia’

  Time Out

  ‘Rankin has followed one success with another. Sardonic and assured, the novel has a powerful and well-paced narrative. What is striking is the way Rankin uses his laconic prose as a literary paint stripper, scouring away pretensions to reveal the unwholesome reality beneath’

  Independent

  ‘Rankin strips Edinburgh’s polite façade to its gritty skeleton’

  The Times

  ‘A teeming Ellroy-esque evocation of life at the sharp end in modern Scotland . . . Rankin is the finest Scottish crime writer to emerge since William McIlvanney’

  GQ

  ‘Rebus resurgent . . . A brilliantly meshed plot which delivers on every count on its way to a conclusion as unexpected as it is inevitable. Eleventh in the series. Still making waves’

  Literary Review

  ‘His fiction buzzes with energy . . . Essentially, he is a romantic storyteller in the tradition of Robert Louis Stevenson . . . His prose is as vivid and terse as the next man’s yet its flexibility and rhythm give it potential for lyrical expression which is distinctly Rankin’s own’

  Scotland on Sunday

  ‘Top notch . . . the bleakness is unrelenting, but it quite suits Mr Rankin who does his best work in the dark’

  New York Times

  ‘The internal police politics and corruption in high places are both portrayed with bone-freezing accuracy. This novel should come with a wind-chill factor warning’

  Daily Telegraph

  ‘Detective Inspector Rebus makes the old-style detectives with their gentle or bookish backgrounds, Alleyn, Morse, Dalgliesh, look like wimps . . . Rankin is brilliant at conveying the genuine stench of seedy places on the dark side of Scotland’

  Sunday Telegraph

  ‘It’s the banter and the energy, the immense carnival of scenes and characters, voices and moods that set Rankin apart. His stories are like a transmission forever in the red zone, at the edge of burnout. This is crime ficiton at its best’

  Washington Post

  Born in the Kingdom of Fife in 1960, Ian Rankin graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1982, and then spent three years writing novels when he was supposed to be working towards a PhD in Scottish Literature. His first Rebus novel, Knots and Crosses, was published in 1987, and the Rebus books are now translated into over thirty languages and are bestsellers worldwide.

  Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow, and is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award. He is the recipient of four Crime Writers’ Association Dagger Awards including the prestigious Diamond Dagger in 2005 and in 2009 was inducted into the CWA Hall of Fame. In 2004, Ian won America’s celebrated Edgar award for Resurrection Men. He has also been shortlisted for the Anthony Awards in the USA, and won Denmark’s Palle Rosenkrantz Prize, the French Grand Prix du Roman Noir and the Deutscher Krimipreis. Ian Rankin is also the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Abertay, St Andrews, Edinburgh, Hull and the Open University.

  A contributor to BBC2’s Newsnight Review, he also presented his own TV series, Ian Rankin’s Evil Thoughts. He has received the OBE for services to literature, opting to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh. He has also recently been appointed to the rank of Deputy Lieutenant of Edinburgh, where he lives with his partner and two sons. Visit his website at www.ianrankin.net.

  By Ian Rankin

  The Inspector Rebus series

  Knots & Crosses – paperback – ebook

  Hide & Seek – paperback – ebook

  Tooth & Nail – paperback – ebook

  Strip Jack – paperback – ebook

  The Black Book – paperback – ebook

  Mortal Causes – paperback – ebook

  Let it Bleed – paperback – ebook

  Black & Blue – paperback – ebook

  The Hanging Garden – paperback – ebook

  Death Is Not The End (novella)

  Dead Souls – paperback – ebook

  Set in Darkness – paperback – ebook

  The Falls – paperback – ebook

  Resurrection Men – paperback – ebook

  A Question of Blood – paperback – ebook

  Fleshmarket Close – paperback – ebook

  The Naming of the Dead – paperback – ebook

  Exit Music – paperback – ebook

  Other Novels

  The Flood – paperback – ebook

  Watchman – paperback – ebook

  Westwind

  A Cool Head (Quickread) – paperback – ebook

  Doors Open – paperback – ebook

  The Complaints – paperback – ebook

  Writing as Jack Harvey

  Witch Hunt – paperback – ebook

  Bleeding Hearts – paperback – ebook

  Blood Hunt – paperback – ebook

  Short Stories

  A Good Hanging and Other Stories – paperback – ebook

  Beggars Banquet – paperback – ebook

  Non-Fiction

  Rebus’s Scotland – paperback

  Ian Rankin

  Set in Darkness

  For my son Kit, with all my hopes, dreams and love

  Though my soul may set in darkness

  It will rise in perfect light,

  I have loved the stars too fondly

  To be fearful of the night.

  Sarah Williams, ‘The Old Astronomer to his Pupil’

  Contents

  Cover

  Title

  Dedication

  Praise for Ian Rankin

  About the Author

  By Ian Rankin

  Introduction

  Part One: The Sense of an Ending

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part Two: Fitful and Dark

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Part Three: Beyond This Mist

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Acknowledgements

  Reading Group Notes

  Copyright

  Serendipity.

  According to the dictionary, it means the ability to make ‘happy chance finds’. Serendip was the old name for Ceylon. Horace Walpole is credited with coining the term, after the fairy tale ‘The Three Princes of
Serendip’, whose titular heroes were always stumbling across things they weren’t looking for.

  Serendipity.

  It’s one of my favourite words. Several of the Rebus novels have depended upon serendipity – most notably The Falls and Set in Darkness. Here’s how it worked with Set in Darkness: I was on a promotional tour of the USA. Another day, another internal flight, this time from Philadelphia . . . I don’t recall the destination. Lacking reading material, I reached for the in-flight magazine. It featured a walking guide to Edinburgh. Hmm, I thought to myself, won’t be anything here I don’t already know.

  I was wrong.

  One of the sites mentioned was Queensberry House. I knew it to be situated at the foot of Holyrood Road, not far from the Queen’s residence and across from where they were building a new HQ for the Scotsman newspaper. Queensberry House was going to be home to the new Scottish parliament building. I had scant knowledge of the place, thought it had been a barracks at one time, and latterly a hospital. At one time, that area of Edinburgh had boasted the city’s finest homes, but when the ‘New Town’ had been constructed in the 1790s, a lot of the wealthier inhabitants had fled the ‘Old Town’. Many of the abandoned buildings fell into disrepair and were eventually demolished. Queensberry House was a rare survivor. It had been home to the Duke of Queensberry, who had been responsible for the Act of Union between Scotland and England. (This had made him rather unpopular in Edinburgh: he was chased through the streets at one point and had to take refuge in the cathedral.)

  But then the article told me something I didn’t know: a member of the duke’s family had one night killed, cooked and eaten one of the servants. Citizens saw this as a bad omen for the ‘marriage’ with England. The duke was chased through the streets again.

  Like I say, news to me. I tore the article out and folded it into my pocket.

  Back home in Edinburgh, I did some further research, and was able to arrange a tour of Queensberry House, thanks to a contact at Historic Scotland (who were involved in archaeological work on the site, prior to remodelling). A TV crew were shadowing me for a documentary about my working methods, which means I have proof that the following is not just a novelist’s fancy. We were near the end of our private tour when I happened to mention the act of cannibalism. My guide was sceptical.

  ‘Probably something for the tourists,’ he said.

  But then there was a shout from the basement. We headed down into the bowels of the house, to a room which had been stripped of its floorboards. The plaster and panelling had been removed from one wall, revealing a large stone arch, blocked by a metal plate.

  ‘The original kitchen,’ the shouter told us excitedly. Then she tapped the fireplace. ‘This must’ve been where he roasted the servant.’

  Turned out she knew the story. It was documented in several history books. I asked if we could perhaps remove the metal plate, opening up the fireplace. This we did, revealing the space to the world for the first time in decades. I shone a torch into the furthest corner. Nothing there but cobwebs, of course, but still . . . I was getting an idea. It was so extraordinary to me that I should have found out about this place from a magazine article picked up a thousand feet above Philadelphia, and be here on the very day when it was opened up again.

  It was as if the story wanted to be told.

  I’d had a similar experience with Mortal Causes, when a visit to Mary King’s Close, buried beneath the City Chambers, had gifted me the opening to my novel. Now it seemed that I had the first scene of a new story, and this story would be about the nascent parliament, Scotland’s first in three hundred years.

  I had just signed a three-book deal, and I remember thinking that all three novels might share a political theme. I would invent a Member of the Scottish Parliament. He would be running for office in book one, elected in book two, and the parliament would be well under way in book three. I don’t want to spoil Set in Darkness for new readers, so let’s just say this plan never came to fruition: my narrative had other ideas. It works like that sometimes: characters to whom you assign minor roles demand a bigger part; projected major characters turn out to be unnecessary. Each story seems to shape itself, sometimes against the author’s better judgement.

  Until this book, Rebus had done most of his drinking at the Oxford Bar. In Set in Darkness I actually name some of that pub’s real-life regulars, but also let Rebus off the leash, so he can drink in other real bars such as the Royal Oak and Swany’s. Having returned to Edinburgh in 1996 (after ten years away), I’d been introduced to Swany’s by a local bookseller. The first time he took me there, we sat down with a few of his cronies, including a gentleman called Joe Rebus. When told his name, I really did need a drink. He said he’d always been amused by the coincidence.

  ‘And here’s another,’ he said. ‘I live in a house on Rankin Drive.’

  Serendipity isn’t a big enough word for this. Joe and his family are the only Rebuses he knows of in Scotland; Rankin Drive is one of three streets in Edinburgh to feature my surname. What are the chances of a meeting of the two? You could run a Douglas Adams improbability drive on less.

  When Set in Darkness was published, a BBC radio programme asked Donald Dewar – First Minister of the new Scottish Parliament – to review it. He found the book overly cynical about political process, and didn’t like some of the writing. My phrase ‘eyes like a frigate’s hull’ had him especially bemused. (I could have told him: grey and cold . . . think grey, steely and cold.) One thing, however, did impress the urbane Mr Dewar: my access to the parliament site. He couldn’t figure out how I knew so much. A few weeks later, I was heading north from London on the overnight train. Walking along the platform, I saw Dewar and his advisers seated around a table in the lounge car, so I took the table next to them. Eventually they fell silent, and started drifting off to bed. Donald came over and sat down across from me. We got talking. I asked how he knew who I was. Turned out one of his retinue had recognised me and warned against further chat, lest I use it in any future projects . . .

  Sadly, Donald died a few weeks later, tripping over a kerbstone outside his office, falling and striking his head. His library was bequeathed to the parliament, which is how Set in Darkness ended up there, back where it all started.

  Might just be coincidence, of course.

  May 2005

  Part One

  The Sense of

  an Ending

  And this long narrow land

  Is full of possibility . . .

  Deacon Blue, ‘Wages Day’

  1

  Darkness was falling as Rebus accepted the yellow hard hat from his guide.

  ‘This will be the admin block, we think,’ the man said. His name was David Gilfillan. He worked for Historic Scotland and was coordinating the archaeological survey of Queensberry House. ‘The original building is late seventeenth century. Lord Hatton was its original owner. It was extended at the end of the century, after coming into the ownership of the first Duke of Queensberry. It would have been one of the grandest houses on Canongate, and only a stone’s throw from Holyrood.’

  All around them, demolition work was taking place. Queensberry House itself would be saved, but the more recent additions either side of it were going. Workmen crouched on roofs, removing slates, tying them into bundles which were lowered by rope to waiting skips. There were enough broken slates underfoot to show that the process was imperfect. Rebus adjusted his hard hat and tried to look interested in what Gilfillan was saying.

  Everyone told him that this was a sign, that he was here because the chiefs at the Big House had plans for him. But Rebus knew better. He knew his boss, Detective Chief Superintendent ‘Farmer’ Watson, had put his name forward because he was hoping to keep Rebus out of trouble and out of his hair. It was as simple as that. And if – if – Rebus accepted without complaining and saw the assignment through, then maybe – maybe – the Farmer would receive a chastened Rebus back into the fold.

  Four o’clock on a
December afternoon in Edinburgh; John Rebus with his hands in his raincoat pockets, water seeping up through the leather soles of his shoes. Gilfillan was wearing green wellies. Rebus noticed that DI Derek Linford was wearing an almost identical pair. He’d probably phoned beforehand, checked with the archaeologist what the season’s fashion was. Linford was Fettes fast-stream, headed for big things at Lothian and Borders Police HQ. Late twenties, practically deskbound, and glowing from a love of the job. Already there were CID officers – mostly older than him – who were saying it didn’t do to get on the wrong side of Derek Linford. Maybe he’d have a long memory; maybe one day he’d be looking down on them all from Room 279 in the Big House.

  The Big House: Police HQ on Fettes Avenue; 279: the Chief Constable’s office.

  Linford had his notebook out, pen clenched between his teeth. He was listening to the lecture. He was listening.

  ‘Forty noblemen, seven judges, generals, doctors, bankers . . .’ Gilfillan was letting his tour group know how important Canongate had been at one time in the city’s history. In doing so, he was pointing towards the near future. The brewery next door to Queensberry House was due for demolition the following spring. The parliament building itself would be built on the cleared site, directly across the road from Holyrood House, the Queen’s Edinburgh residence. On the other side of Holyrood Road, facing Queensberry House, work was progressing on Dynamic Earth, a natural history theme park. Next to it, a new HQ for the city’s daily newspaper was at present a giant monkey-puzzle of steel girders. And across the road from that, another site was being cleared in preparation for the construction of a hotel and ‘prestige apartment block’. Rebus was standing in the midst of one of the biggest building sites in Edinburgh’s history.