Dead Souls Read online

  Dead Souls

  An Inspector Rebus Novel

  IAN RANKIN

  An Orion paperback

  First published in Great Britain in 1999 by Orion

  This paperback edition published in 1999 by Orion Books Ltd,

  Orion House, 5 Upper St Martin’s Lane London WC2H 9EA

  An Hachette UK company

  20

  Reissued 2008

  Copyright (c) John Rebus Limited 199

  Introduction copyright (c) 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 rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-0-7528-8362-5

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

  The Orion Publishing Group’s policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  To my long-suffering editor, Caroline Oakley

  The world is full of missing persons, and their numbers increase all the time. The space they occupy lies somewhere between what we know about the ways of being alive and what we hear about the ways of being dead. They wander there, unaccompanied and unknowable, like shadows of people.

  Andrew O’Hagan, The Missing

  Once I caught a train to Cardenden by mistake ... When we reached Cardenden we got off and waited for the next train back to Edinburgh. I was very tired and if Cardenden had looked more promising, I think I would have simply stayed there. And if you’ve ever been to Cardenden you’ll know how bad things must have been.

  Kate Atkinson, Behind the Scenes at the Museum

  INTRODUCTION

  Dead Souls was wholly conceived and written in Edinburgh - the first time this had happened since Rebus’s initial outing in Knots & Crosses. The intervening novels had been written during my four-year stint in London, or else in the further six years spent in rural France. Now I was back in Edinburgh ... and worried that I would no longer be able to write about the place. This was a realistic fear, too: I had used geographical distance to help me recreate Edinburgh as a fictionalised city. How would I cope now that I could take a short stroll and see what I’d been getting wrong all those years?

  I needn’t have worried.

  Dead Souls is named after a song by Joy Division. As its title might suggest, it’s not a number you would dance to at weddings, unless you count the Addams Family among your in-laws. I was aware, of course, of Joy Division’s source material - the unfinished novel Dead Souls by Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. The phrase ‘tortured genius’ might have been coined with Gogol in mind. Having published the first half of Dead Souls, he ended up burning the drafts of its second half. Later on, he started work on the book again, until his religious teacher persuaded him to renounce literature altogether. So the latest version of the second half went up in flames again, and Gogol died ten days later.

  My own book is divided into two parts, entitled ‘Lost’ and ‘Found’. Both begin with an italicised quotation from Gogol’s work, the one accompanying ‘Found’ being the last words recorded by him. The title of the book came to me early. I knew I wanted to write about MisPers – missing persons. I had become interested in them when doing research for Black & Blue. In a non-fiction work entitled The Missing (which I had read because it contained passages about the Bible John murders), journalist Andrew O’Hagan had discussed the phenomenon of loss and the hole left in the fabric of our lives when someone vanishes. Inspired by O’Hagan’s work, I’d written a seventy-page novella called Death Is Not The End (itself a Bob Dylan title, but known to me through a contemporary reworking by Nick Cave). This novella had been written at the behest of an American publisher, who then seemed to find no immediate market for it. Worried that it might never see the light of day, I decided to ‘cannibalise’ parts of the story for my next full-length novel - which is why two versions of the story exist, albeit with different outcomes.

  Okay, so I was ready to rework my novella into a novel. But another real-life story had caught my eye in the interim. On a rough housing estate in Stirling, the locals had been roused by news that a convicted paedophile was living quietly in their midst. The vigilante instinct took over, and the man was chased out. Two things struck me about this. One was that it continued the theme I’d touched on in my previous novel The Hanging Garden - namely, how do we begin to measure right and wrong? The other was that Rebus’s knee-jerk reaction to news of a ‘hidden’ paedophile would be the same as that of many people of his generation, class and philosophy: he’d ‘out’ the bugger, and damn the consequences. Well, I’ve seldom shirked a challenge: I wanted to see if I could change his mind about a few things ...

  I also wanted to take him home, back to where he grew up in central Fife. Although many of my books have had cause to send Rebus to Fife, Dead Souls is my most personal investigation of my own background. When high-school ‘flame’ Janice reminisces with Rebus, she is using my own memories and anecdotes. We learn more, too, about Rebus’s childhood, including that he was born in a pre-fab (as I was) but soon moved to a terraced house in a cul-de-sac (as I did). We find out that, like me, he drank in his home town’s Goth pub (Goth being short for Gothenburg), and that his father brought a silk scarf back from World War II (as did mine). Much of this is reflected in the names I give to Rebus’s school friends: Brian and Janice Mee. They’re ‘me’, you see, as are characteristics of many of my other creations, Rebus chief among them.

  There are plenty of in-jokes in the book, despite the sombre tone of its material. We meet Harry, ‘the rudest barman in Edinburgh’ (who, in real life, is now landlord of the Oxford Bar and can afford to be rude only to a select few of us who expect no less of him). The nightclub in the book is called Gaitano’s, after the American crime writer Nick Gaitano, who also wrote under his real name of Eugene Izzi. He’d been found dead shortly before I started work on the book, in what appeared, at least initially, to be mysterious circumstances. The headless coachman mentioned at the start of the book (and later on, as the name of a pub) is actually Major Weir, a real-life character from Edinburgh’s dark side. Weir and his sister were accused in 1678 of being warlock and witch. Both were eventually executed, despite having lived lives of exemplary piety, and with only the Major’s rambling and befuddled confession as ‘proof’.

  The modern equivalent of a witch-hunt? Look no further than the popular media’s treatment of suspected paedophiles ...

  Dead Souls was a landmark of sorts for me, being the first time I had allowed a charity to auction off the right for someone to appear as a character in one of my books. These days, I do this up to six times per book, but there was just the one instance in Dead Souls. The prize was won by a friend, but she didn’t want the honour for herself. Oh no, she wanted it for another of her friends in the USA, a woman called Fern Bogot.

  ‘It doesn’t sound very Scottish,’ I complained.

  In the end, I decided that ‘Fern’ sounded like an assumed name. Who might not want to use their real name as they went about their business? Of course: a prostitute! So it was, and with some little reluctance on her part, that c
lean-living Fern Bogot became an Edinburgh hooker …

  One last thing about Dead Souls. A fan at a question-and- answer session once picked me up on my use of the phrase ‘trellis tables’ when what I actually meant was ‘trestle tables’. She was right, and I’ve left the error intact for your enjoyment. But she also told me that I use trestle tables a lot in my books ... and in rereading the series as preparation for writing all the new introductions, I can confirm that she was right in this particular also. Don’t ask me what it is about them; I just can’t stop writing the words down ...

  Trestle tables.

  There, I did it again.

  May 2005

  Prologue

  From this height, the sleeping city seems like a child’s construction, a model which has refused to be constrained by imagination. The volcanic plug might be black Plasticine, the castle balanced solidly atop it a skewed rendition of crenellated building bricks. The orange street lamps are crumpled toffee-wrappers glued to lollipop sticks.

  Out in the Forth, the faint bulbs from pocket torches illuminate toy boats resting on black crepe paper. In this universe, the jagged spires of the Old Town would be angled matchsticks, Princes Street Gardens a Fuzzy-Felt board. Cardboard boxes for the tenements, doors and windows painstakingly detailed with coloured pens. Drinking straws could become guttering and downpipes, and with a fine blade—maybe a scalpel—those doors could be made to open. But peering inside … peering inside would destroy the effect.

  Peering inside would change everything.

  He shoves his hands in his pockets. The wind is stropping his ears. He can pretend it is a child’s breath, but the reality chides him. I amthe last cold wind you’ll feel.

  He takes a step forward, peers over the edge and into darkness. Arthur’s Seat crouches behind him, humped and silent as though offended by his presence, coiled to pounce. He tells himself it is papier-mache. He smooths his hands over strips of newsprint, not reading the stories, then realises he is stroking the air and withdraws his hands, laughing guiltily. Somewhere behind him, he hears a voice.

  In the past, he’d climbed up here in daylight. Years back, it would have been with a lover maybe, climbing hand in hand, seeing the city spread out like a promise. Then later, with his wife and child, stopping at the summit to take photos, making sure no one went too close to the edge. Father and husband, he would tuck his chin into his collar, seeing Edinburgh in shades of grey, but getting it into perspective, having risen above it with his family. Digesting the whole city with a slow sweep of his head, he would feel that all problems were containable.

  But now, in darkness, he knows better.

  He knows that life is a trap, that the jaws eventually spring shut on anyone foolish enough to think they could Cheat their way to a victory. A police car blares in the distance, but it’s not coming for him. A black coach is waiting for him at the foot of Salisbury Crags. Its headless driver is becoming impatient. The horses tremble and whinny. Their flanks will lather on the ride home.

  ‘Salisbury Crag’ has become rhyming slang in the city. It means skag, heroin. ‘Morningside Speed’ is cocaine. A snort of coke just now would do him the world of good, but wouldn’t be enough. Arthur’s Seat could be made of the stuff: in the scheme of things, it wouldn’t matter a damn.

  There is a figure behind him in the darkness, drawing nearer. He half-turns to confront it, then quickly looks away, suddenly fearful of meeting the face. He begins to say something.

  ‘I know you’ll find it hard to believe, but I’ve …’

  He never finishes the sentence. Because now he’s sailing out across the city, jacket flying up over his head, smothering a final, heartfelt cry. As his stomach surges and voids, he wonders if there really is a coachman waiting for him.

  And feels his heart burst open with the knowledge that he’ll never see his daughter again, in this world or any other.

  Part One

  Lost

  We commit all sorts of injustices at every step without the slightest evil intention. Every minute we are the cause of someone's unhappiness ...

  1

  John Rebus was pretending to stare at the meerkats when he saw the man, and knew he wasn’t the one.

  For the best part of an hour, Rebus had been trying to blink away a hangover, which was about asmuch exercise ashe could sustain. He’d planted himself on benches and against walls, wiping his brow even though Edinburgh’s early spring was a blood relative of midwinter. His shirt was damp against his back, uncomfortably tight every time he rose to his feet. The capybara had looked at him almost with pity, and there had seemed a glint of recognition and empathy behind the long-lashed eye of the hunched white rhino, standing so still it might have been a feature in a shopping mall, yet somehow dignified in its very isolation.

  Rebus felt isolated, and about as dignified as a chimpanzee. He hadn’t been to the zoo in years; thought probably the last time had been when he’d brought his daughter to see Palango the gorilla. Sammy had been so young, he’d carried her on his shoulders without feeling the strain.

  Today, he carried nothing with him but a concealed radio and set of handcuffs. He wondered how conspicuous he looked, walking such a narrow ambit while shunning the attractions further up and down the slope, stopping now and then at the kiosk to buy a can of Irn-Bru. The penguin parade had come and gone and seen him not leaving his perch. Oddly, it was when the visitors moved on, seeking excitement, that the first of the meerkats appeared, rising on its hind legs, body narrow and wavering, scouting the territory. Two more had appeared from their burrow, circling, noses to the ground. They paid little attention to the silent figure seated on the low wall of their enclosure; passed him time and again as they explored the same orbit of hard-packed earth, jumping back only when he lifted a handkerchief to his face. He was feeling the poison fizz in his veins: not the booze, but an early-morning double espresso from one of the converted police boxes near The Meadows. He’d been on his way to work, on his way to learning that today was zoo patrol. The mirror in the cop-shop toilet had lacked any sense of diplomacy.

  Greenslade: ‘Sunkissed You’re Not’. Segue to Jefferson Airplane: ‘If You Feel Like China Breaking.

  But it could always be worse, Rebus had reminded himself, applying his thoughts instead to the day’s central question: who was poisoning the zoo animals of Edinburgh? The fact of the matter was, some individual was to blame. Somebody cruel and calculating and so far missed by surveillance cameras and keepers alike. Police had a vague description, and spot-checks were being made of visitors’ bags and coat pockets, but what everyone really wanted—except perhaps the media—was to have someone in custody, preferably with the tainted tidbits locked away as evidence.

  Meantime, as senior staff had indicated, the irony was that the poisoner had actually been good for business. There’d been no copycat offences yet, but Rebus wondered how long that would last …

  The next announcement concerned feeding the sea-lions. Rebus had sauntered past their pool earlier, thinking it not overly large for afamily of three. The meerkat den was surrounded by children now, and the meerkats themselves had disappeared, leaving Rebus strangely pleased to have been accorded their company.

  He moved away, but not too far, and proceeded to untie and tie a shoelace, which was his way of marking the quarter-hours. Zoos and the like had never held any fascination for him. As a child, his roll-call of pets had seen more than its fair share of those listed ‘Missing in Action’ or ‘Killed in the Line of Duty’. His tortoise had absconded, despite having its owner’s name painted on its shell; several budgies had failed to reach maturity; and ill-health had plagued Ins only goldfish (won at the fair in Kirkcaldy). Living as he did in a tenement flat, he’d never been tempted in adulthood by the thought of a cat or dog. He’d tried horse-riding exactly once, rubbing his inside legs raw in the process and vowing afterwards that the closest he’d come in future to the noble beast would be on a betting slip.

  But he’d l
iked the meerkats for a mixture of reasons: the resonance of their name; the low comedy of their rituals; their instinct for self-preservation. Kids were dangling over the wall now, legs kicking in the air. Rebus imagined a role reversal—cages filled with children, peered at by passing animals as they capered and squealed, loving the attention. Except the animals wouldn’t share a human’s curiosity. They would be unmoved by any display of agility or tenderness, would fail to comprehend that some game was being played, or that someone had skinned a knee. Animals would not build zoos, would have no need of them. Rebus was wondering why humans needed them.

  The place suddenly became ridiculous to him, a chunk of prime Edinburgh real estate given over to the unreal … And then he saw the camera.

  Saw it because it replaced the face that should have been there. The man was standing on a grassy slope sixty-odd feet away, adjusting the focus on a sizeable telescopic lens. The mouth below the camera’s body was a thin line of concentration, rippling slightly as forefinger and thumb fine-tuned the apparatus. He wore a black denim jacket, creased chinos, and running shoes. He’d removed a faded blue baseball cap from his head. It dangled from a free finger as he took his pictures. His hair was thinning and brown, forehead wrinkled. Recognition came as soon as he lowered the camera. Rebus looked away, turning in the direction of the photographer’s subjects: children. Children leaning into the meerkat enclosure. All you could see were shoe-soles and legs, girls’ skirts and the smalls of backs where T-shirts and jerseys had ridden up.

  Rebus knew the man. Context made it easier. Hadn’t seen him in probably four years but couldn’t forget eyes like that, the hunger shining on cheeks whose suffused redness highlighted old acne scars. The hair had been longer four years ago, curling over misshapen ears. Rebus sought for a name, at the same time reaching into his pocket for his radio. The photographer caught the movement, eyes turning to match Rebus’s gaze, which was already moving elsewhere. Recognition worked both ways. The lens came off and was stuffed into a shoulder-bag. A lens-cap was clipped over the aperture. And then the man was off, walking briskly downhill. Rebus yanked out his radio.