Exit Music Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title PageCopyright Page

  Day One - Wednesday 15 November 2006

  Chapter 1Chapter 2

  Day Two - Thursday 16 November 2006

  Chapter 3Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Day Three - Friday 17 November 2006

  Chapter 7Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Day Four - Monday 20 November 2006

  Chapter 11Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Day Five - Tuesday 21 November 2006

  Chapter 16Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Day Six - Wednesday 22 November 2006

  Chapter 21Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Day Seven - Thursday 23 November 2006

  Chapter 27Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Day Eight - Friday 24 November 2006

  Chapter 35Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Day Nine - Saturday 25 November 2006

  Chapter 43Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Monday 27 November 2006

  Praise for Exit Music

  ‘Whatever he writes, it will be worth reading . . . What his Edinburgh neighbour achieved in children’s fantasy - redefining the genre and changing publishing expectations - Rankin has achieved in detective fiction’ Guardian

  ‘This may be Rebus’s swansong but every page crackles with energy. Ian’s skill and pawky wit make even the most routine interview a pleasure to read . . . After 20 years and 17 novels, the old bastard will be missed. Rebus, that is. Rankin will no doubt go on to even greater things’ Daily Mail

  ‘A classic Rankin’ Daily Mirror (five stars)

  ‘In Rebus novels Rankin has not only produced the most sustained body of fiction devoted to modern Edinburgh, but has made it once again a city of the mind as Dickens made London and Chandler Los Angeles. He has changed the way people imagine the city’ Scotsman

  ‘Exit Music is a fitting end to the career of one of the most beguiling characters in the history of crime fiction - not because the lowering of the final curtain finds the audience satisfied but because it leaves them gasping for more’ The Times

  ‘Rankin has an unparalleled ability to draw in the reader and make us feel every knock and setback in Inspector Rebus’s red-raw life. Rarely has that talent been better displayed than in Exit Music, which sees the flawed but redeemingly honest central character staggering towards the finishing line of an inglorious career that has utterly defined his life’Scotland on Sunday

  ‘The main theme of the book is civic corruption by the power of money, money from whatever source . . . As Rankin percipiently observes, the problem is the overworld not the underworld - words which might well sum up the philosophy of Rankin’s whole oeuvre’ Spectator

  ‘The last scene, bringing together Rebus and Cafferty, is a sly, ingenious reworking of Holmes’s apparently fatal tussle with Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls . . . The possibility of Rebus returning is conspicuously left open’ Sunday Times

  ‘Throughout the entire series, Rankin’s strength has been his ability to get under the skin of Edinburgh’s psycho-geography: he vividly describes “a city . . . of banking and brothels, virtue and vitriol” where underworld meets overworld. Deftly plotted and awash with sarky one-liners Exit Music is no exception’ Metro

  ‘Rankin’s understanding of the man in the street gives special weight to the thread of nationalism which recurs throughout the book. It is exactly because Rebus is non-political - his complaints about the cost of the Parliament Building in Exit Music are as unreflective and herd-minded as the average cab driver’s - that his acceptance of the inevitability of independence carries such conviction’ Glasgow Herald

  ‘An elegiac tone pervades Exit Music, a timely wistfulness designed to put you off your guard. Hard to say much else without giving the game away - just brace yourself for a stoater of a cliffhanger ending’ Sunday Telegraph‘Rebus’s final case - a satisfying enjoyable farewell’

  Sunday Times

  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 & 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. 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.

  Visit the ORION READING Room for

  FEATURES * INTERVIEWS * READING GUIDES *

  READER REVIEWS * COMPETITIONS * EXTRACTS

  WWW.ORIONBOOKS.CO. UK/READINGROOM

  By Ian Rankin

  The Inspector Rebus series

  Knots & Crosses

  Hide & Seek

  Tooth & Nail

  Strip Jack

  The Black Book

  Mortal Causes

  Let It Bleed

  Black & Blue

  The Hanging Garden

  Death Is Not the End (novella)

  Dead Souls

  Set in Darkness

  The Falls

  Resurrection Men

  A Question of Blood

  Fleshmarket Close

  The Naming of the Dead

  Exit Music

  Other novels

  The Flood

  Watchman

  Westwind

  Writing as Jack Harvey

  Witch Hunt

  Bleeding Hearts

  Blood Hunt

  Short stories

  A Good Hanging and Other

  Stories

  Beggars Banquet

  Omnibus editions

  Rebus: The Early Years

  (Knots & Crosses, Hide &

  Seek, Tooth & Nail)

  Rebus: The St Leonard’s Years

  (Strip Jack, The Black Book,

  Mortal Causes)

  Rebus: The Lost Years

  (Let It Bleed, Black & Blue,

  The Hanging Garden)

  Rebus: Capital Crimes

  (Dead Souls, Set in Darkness,

  The Falls)

  Non-fiction

  Rebus’s Scotland

  All Ian Rankin’s titles are available on audio.

  Also available: Jackie Leven Said by Ian Rankin and Jackie Leven.

  Exit Music

  IAN RANKIN

  Orion

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  A
n Orion paperback

  First published in Great Britain in 2007

  by Orion

  This paperback edition published in 2008

  by Orion Books Ltd,

  Orion House, 5 Upper St Martin’s Lane,

  London WC2H 9EA

  An Hachette Livre UK company

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © John Rebus Limited 2007

  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 1 4091 0745 3

  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.

  Extract from ‘Hotel Room, 12th Floor’, taken from

  The Poems of Norman MacCaig, third edition © 2005 Birlinn Ltd.

  Reproduced by kind permission of Birlinn Ltd on behalf of

  the Estate of Norman MacCaig.

  Extract from Be Near Me © Andrew O’Hagan, 2007.

  Reproduced by kind permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  Day One

  Wednesday 15 November 2006

  1

  The girl screamed once, only the once, but it was enough. By the time the middle-aged couple arrived at the foot of Raeburn Wynd, she was kneeling on the ground, hands over her face, shoulders heaving with sobs. The man studied the corpse for a moment, then tried shielding his wife’s eyes, but she had already turned away. He took out his phone and called the emergency number. It was ten minutes before the police car arrived, during which time the girl tried to leave, the man explaining calmly that she should wait, his hand rubbing her shoulder. His wife was seated kerbside, despite the nighttime chill. November in Edinburgh, not quite cold enough for a frost but heading that way. King’s Stables Road wasn’t the busiest of thoroughfares. A No Entry sign prevented vehicles using it as a route from the Grassmarket to Lothian Road. At night it could be a lonely spot, with not much more than a multistorey car park on one side, Castle Rock and a cemetery on the other. The street lighting seemed underpowered, and pedestrians kept their wits about them. The middle-aged couple had been to a carol service in St Cuthbert’s Church, helping raise money for the city’s children’s hospital. The woman had bought a holly wreath, which now lay on the ground to the left of the corpse. Her husband couldn’t help thinking: a minute either way and we might not have heard, might be heading home in the car, the wreath on the back seat and Classic FM on the radio.‘I want to go home,’ the girl was complaining between sobs. She was standing, knees grazed. Her skirt was too short, the man felt, and her denim jacket was unlikely to keep out the cold. She looked familiar to him. He had considered - briefly considered - lending her his coat. Instead, he reminded her again that she needed to stay put. Suddenly, their faces turned blue. The police car was arriving, lights flashing.

  ‘Here they come,’ the man said, placing his arm around her shoulders as if to comfort her, removing it again when he saw his wife was watching.

  Even after the patrol car drew to a halt, its roof light stayed on, engine left running. Two uniformed officers emerged, not bothering with their caps. One of them carried a large black torch. Raeburn Wynd was steep and led to a series of mews conversions above garages which would once have housed the monarch’s carriages and horses. It would be treacherous when icy.

  ‘Maybe he slipped and banged his head,’ the man offered. ‘Or he was sleeping rough, or had had a few too many . . .’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ one of the officers said, meaning the opposite. His colleague had switched the torch on, and the middle-aged man realised that there was blood on the ground, blood on the slumped body’s hands and clothes. The face and hair were clotted with it.

  ‘Or someone smashed him to a pulp,’ the first officer commented. ‘Unless, of course, he slipped repeatedly against a cheese-grater.’

  His young colleague winced. He’d been crouching down, the better to shine light on to the body, but he rose to his feet again. ‘Whose is the wreath?’ he asked.

  ‘My wife’s,’ the man stated, wondering afterwards why he hadn’t just said ‘mine’.

  ‘Jack Palance,’ Detective Inspector John Rebus said.‘I keep telling you, I don’t know him.’

  ‘Big film star.’

  ‘So name me a film.’

  ‘His obituary’s in the Scotsman.’

  ‘Then you should be clued up enough to tell me what I’ve seen him in.’ Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke got out of the car and slammed shut the door.

  ‘He was the bad guy in a lot of Westerns,’ Rebus persisted.

  Clarke showed her warrant card to one of the uniforms and took a proffered torch from the younger of the two. The Scene-of-Crime unit was on its way. Spectators had started gathering, drawn to the scene by the patrol car’s blue beacon. Rebus and Clarke had been working late at Gayfield Square police station, hammering out a theory - but no prime suspect - in an unsolved investigation. Both had been glad of the break provided by the summons. They’d arrived in Rebus’s wheezing Saab 900, from the boot of which he was now fetching polythene overshoes and latex gloves. It took him half a dozen noisy attempts to slam shut the lid.

  ‘Need to trade it in,’ he muttered.

  ‘Who’d want it?’ Clarke asked, pulling on the gloves. Then, when he didn’t answer: ‘Were those hiking boots I glimpsed?’

  ‘As old as the car,’ Rebus stated, heading towards the corpse. The two detectives fell silent, studying the figure and its surroundings.

  ‘Someone’s done a job on him,’ Rebus eventually commented. He turned towards the younger constable. ‘What’s your name, son?’

  ‘Goodyear, sir . . . Todd Goodyear.’

  ‘Todd?’

  ‘Mum’s maiden name, sir,’ Goodyear explained.

  ‘Ever heard of Jack Palance, Todd?’

  ‘Wasn’t he in Shane?’

  ‘You’re wasted in uniform.’

  Goodyear’s colleague chuckled. ‘Give young Todd here half a chance and it’s you he’ll be grilling rather than any suspects.’

  ‘How’s that?’ Clarke asked.

  The constable - at least fifteen years older than his partner and maybe three times the girth - nodded towards Goodyear. ‘I’m not good enough for Todd,’ he explained. ‘Got his eyes set on CID.’

  Goodyear ignored this. He had his notebook in his hand. ‘Want us to start taking details?’ he asked. Rebus looked towards the pavement. A middle-aged couple were seated kerbside, holding hands. Then there was the teenage girl, arms wrapped around herself as she shivered against a wall. Beyond her the crowd of onlookers was starting to shuffle forward again, warnings forgotten.

  ‘Best thing you can do,’ Rebus offered, ‘is hold that lot back till we can secure the scene. Doctor should be here in a couple of minutes.’

  ‘He’s not got a pulse,’ Goodyear said. ‘I checked.’

  Rebus glowered at him.

  ‘Told you they wouldn’t like it,’ Goodyear’s partner said with another chuckle.

  ‘Contaminate
s the locus,’ Clarke told the young constable, showing him her gloved hands and overshoes. He looked embarrassed.

  ‘Doctor still has to confirm death,’ Rebus added. ‘Meantime, you can start persuading that rabble to get themselves home.’

  ‘Glorified bouncers, that’s us,’ the older cop told his partner as they moved off.

  ‘Which would make this the VIP enclosure,’ Clarke said quietly. She was checking the corpse again. ‘He’s well enough dressed; probably not homeless.’

  ‘Want to look for ID?’

  She took a couple of steps forward and crouched beside the body, pressing a gloved hand against the man’s trouser and jacket pockets. ‘Can’t feel anything,’ she said.

  ‘Not even sympathy?’

  She glanced up at Rebus. ‘Does the suit of armour come off when you collect the gold watch?’

  Rebus managed to mouth the word ‘ouch’. Reason they’d been staying late at the office so often - Rebus only ten days from retirement, wanting loose ends tied.

  ‘A mugging gone wrong?’ Clarke suggested into the silence.

  Rebus just shrugged, meaning he didn’t think so. He asked Clarke to shine the torch down the body: black leather jacket, an open-necked patterned shirt which had probably started out blue, faded denims held up with a black leather belt, black suede shoes. As far as Rebus could tell, the man’s face was lined, the hair greying. Early fifties? Around five feet nine or ten. No jewellery, no wristwatch. Bringing Rebus’s personal body-count to ... what? Maybe thirty or forty over the course of his three-decades-plus on the force. Another ten days and this poor wretch would have been somebody else’s problem - and still could be. For weeks now he’d been feeling Siobhan Clarke’s tension: part of her, maybe the best part of her, wanted Rebus gone. It was the only way she could start to prove herself. Her eyes were on him now, as if she knew what he was thinking. He offered a sly smile.