A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin (Orion 2022)

 

'Are you quite sure?’ Bartleby had asked him on more than one occasion.

‘I’ve a life’s worth of mitigation,’ Rebus had assured him.

‘Then not guilty it is,’ Bartleby had agreed.

Doors were being opened to allow access to the Crown’s first witness. Andrew, who had handed police the CCTV from Cafferty’s penthouse, strode in. He wore an expensive suit and sported a new haircut. Dapper and ready for bigger things, he locked eyes with Rebus, and grinned.

A Song for the Dark Times by Ian Rankin (Orion 2020)

 

But it wasn’t his need to pee that woke him at 5 a.m. It was a call. He fumbled for both his phone and the bedside lamp, waking Brillo in the process. He couldn’t quite focus on the screen but pressed the phone to his ear anyway.

‘Dad?’ His daughter Samantha’s urgent voice.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, sitting up, growing more awake by the second.

‘Your landline – it’s been cut off.’

‘I meant to tell you about that … '

'About what?’

‘My landline’s not the reason you’re calling at this hour. Is it Carrie?’

‘She’s fine.’

‘What then? Are you all right?’

‘It’s Keith.’

Her partner; Carrie’s father. Rebus swallowed. ‘What’s happened?’ He listened as Samantha began to sob quietly. Her voice cracked when she spoke.

‘He’s gone.’

‘The bastard … ’

‘Not like that … I don’t think so anyway.’ She sniffed. ‘I mean, I don’t really know. He’s disappeared. It’s been two days.’

‘And things were all right at home?’

‘No worse than usual.’

‘But you don’t think he’s just – I don’t know – maybe gone on a bender somewhere?’

‘He’s not like that.’

‘You’ve reported him missing?’

‘They’re sending someone to talk to me.’

‘They probably told you two days isn’t long?’

‘Yes. But his phone just goes to voicemail.’

‘And he didn’t pack a bag or anything?’

‘No. We’ve got a joint bank account – I looked online and he’s not bought anything or taken money out. His car was left in the lay-by near the church.'

 

In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin (Orion Books 2018)

Sutherland nodded. ‘Not much of an accent left, except when I visit family. I notice you’re English.’

She shook her head. ‘Born here; grew up there – I blame the parents. So where else have you been other than Inverness?’

‘Aberdeen, Glasgow, even Skye for a while.’

‘They have crime on Skye?’

‘I like to think I eradicated it.’ He made a little toast to himself. ‘You ever been anywhere other than Edinburgh?’

‘I was on secondment in Glenrothes when Stuart Bloom disappeared.’

‘That was lucky – if you’d been attached to the case, you couldn’t be on my team now. Conflict of interest, et cetera.

Clarke nodded distractedly. ‘So where do you live these days?’ she eventually asked.

‘Shettleston, in Glasgow.’

‘Can you see Barlinnie from there?’

‘More or less. How about you?’

‘Five minutes from here. Just off Broughton Street.

Even Dogs In The Wild by Ian Rankin (Orion Books 2015)

Darryl Christie wasn’t a huge fan of Glasgow. It sprawled in a way his own city didn’t. And there were still traces of the old enmity between Catholic and Protestant – of course that existed in Edinburgh too, but it had never quite defined the place the way it did Glasgow. The people spoke differently here, and had a garrulousness to them that spilled over into physical swagger. They were, as they chanted on the football terraces, ‘the people’. But they were not Darryl Christie’s people. Edinburgh could seem tame by comparison, head always below the parapet, keeping itself to itself. In the independence referendum, Edinburgh had voted No and Glasgow Yes, the latter parading its saltired allegiance around George Square night after night, or else protesting media bias outside the BBC headquarters. The political debate had melted into a blend of carnival and stairheid rammy, so that you never knew if people were joyous or furious.

Darryl Christie had considered all the implications for his various business interests and come to the conclusion that either outcome would probably suit him just fine, so in the end he hadn’t voted at all.

Standing in Another Man's Grave by Ian Rankin (Orion Books 2012)

“Bert Jansch was dead, too. Rebus had seen him play a few solo gigs in Edinburgh down the years. Jansch had been born in the city but made his name in London. After work that evening, alone in his flat, Rebus played a couple of Pentangle albums. He was no expert, but he could tell Jansch’s playing from the other guitarist in the band, John Renbourn. As far as he knew, Renbourn was still around – maybe living in the Borders. Or was that Robin Williamson? He had taken his colleague Siobhan Clarke to a Renbourn/Williamson concert once, driving her all the way to Biggar Folk Club without telling her why. When the two musicians stepped on to the stage – looking as though they’d just roused themselves from armchairs by a roaring fire – he’d leaned in towards her.

‘One of them played Woodstock, you know,’ he’d whispered.”

A Question of Blood by Ian Rankin (Back Bay Books 2003)

Jack Bell nodded, and the two men's eyes met for the first time, then both heads turned to face James, who was seated across the table.
"Well, James?" the lawyer said. "What do you think?"
The teenager seemed to be considering the offer. He returned his father's stare as if it were all the nourishment he needed and he had a hunger that would never be stilled.

Hide and Seek by Ian Rankin (St Martin's Paperbacks 1990)

Hyde's Club. Named after Robert Louis Stevenson's villain, Edward Hyde, the dark side of the human soul. Hyde himself was based on the city's Deacon Brodie, businessman by day, robber by night. Rebus could smell guilt and fear and rank expectation in this large room. Stale cigars and spilt whisky, splashes of sweat. And amongst it all moved Ronnie, and the question which still needed to be answered. Had Ronnie been paid to photograph the influential and the rich - without their knowing they were being snapped, of course? Or had he been freelancing, summoned here only as a punchbag, but stealthy enough to bring a hidden camera with him? The answer was perhaps unimportant. What mattered was that the owner of this place, the puppet-master of all these base desires, had killed Ronnie, had starved him of his fix and then given him some rat poison. Had sent one of his minions along to the squat to make sure it looked like a simple case of an overdose. So they had left the quality powder beside Ronnie. And to muddy the water, they had moved the body downstairs, leaving it in candlelight. Thinking the tableau shockingly effective. But by candlelight they hadn't seen the pentagram on the wall, and they hadn't meant anything by placing the body the way they had.
Rebus had made the mistake of reading too much into the situation, all along. He had blurred the picture himself, seeing connections where there were none, seeing plot and conspiracy where none existed. The real plot was so much bigger, the size of a haystack to his needle.

Let It Bleed by Ian Rankin (St Martin's Paperbacks 1996)

"Mr. Haldayne has a point, Inspector." Mathieson was sitting down again, in his big Chief Executive chair at the end of the table. Tables without corners were supposed to make everyone equal, but Mathieson's chair was a leather throne. He looked and sounded completely unruffled by events thus far, while Rebus felt his head would explode.

Hundreds of jobs . . . spin-offs . . . happy, smiling faces. People like Salty Dougary, pride restored, given another chance. Did Rebus have the gall to think he could pronounce sentence on the future of people like that? People who wouldn't care who got away with what, so long as they had a paycheck at the end of the month?

Gillespie had died, but Rebus knew these men hadn't killed him, not directly. At the same time he hated them, hated their confidence and their indifference, hated their certainty that what they did was "for the good." They knew the way the world worked; they knew who - or, rather, what - was in charge. It wasn't anyone stupid enough to place themselves in the front line. It was secret quiet men who got on with their work the world over, bribing where necessary, breaking the rules, but quietly, in the name of progress, in the name of the system.

Shug McAnally was dead, but no one was grieving: Tresa was spending his money, and having a good time with Maisie Finch. Audrey Gillespie, too, might start enjoying life for the first time in years, maybe with her lover. A man had died - cruelly and in terror - but he was all there was on Rebus's side of the balance sheet. And on the other . . . everything else.

The Hanging Garden by Ian Rankin (St Martin's Press 1998)

Rebus knew his own criteria came cheaply: his flat, books, music and clapped-out car. And he realised that he had reduced his life to a mere shell in recognition that he had completely failed at the important things: love, relationships, family life. He'd been accused of being in thrall to his career, but that had never been the case. His work sustained him only because it was an easy option. He dealt every day with strangers, with people who didn't mean anything to him in the wider scheme. He could enter their lives, and leave again just as easily. He got to live other people's lives, or at least portions of them, experiencing things at one remove, which wasn't nearly as challenging as the real thing.

Knots & Crosses by Ian Rankin (Orion 1987)

'Fight Imperialism, fight Racism,'

A young girl wearing a mock-leather coat and little round glasses stood behind Rebus. He turned to her. She had a collecting tin in one hand and a pile of newspapers in the other.

'Fight Imperialism, fight Racism,'

'So you said,' Even now he could feel the alcohol working on his jaw muscles, freeing them of stiffness. 

'Who are you from?'

'Workers Revolutionary Party. The only way to smash the Imperialist system is for the workers to unite and smash racism. Racism is the backbone of repression.'

'Oh? Aren't you confusing two entirely different arguments there, love?'

She bristled, but was ready to argue. They always were.

'The two are inextricable. Capitalism was built on slave labour and is maintained by slave labour.'

'You don't sound much like a slave, dear. Where did you get that accent? Cheltenham?'

'My father was a slave to capitalist ideology. He didn't know what he was doing.'

'You mean you went to an expensive school?'

She was bristling now all right. Rebus lit a cigarette. He offered her one, but she shook her head. A capitalist product, he supposed, the leaves picked by slaves in South America. She was quite pretty though. Eighteen, nineteen. Funny Victorian shoes on, tight pointed little things. A long, straight black shirt. Black, the colour of dissent. He was all for dissent.

'You're a student, I suppose?'

'That's right,' she said, shuffling uncomfortably. She knew a buyer when she saw one. This was not a buyer.

'Edinburgh University?'

'Yes.'

'Studying what?'

'English and politics.'

'English? Have you heard of a guy called Eiser? He teaches there.'

She nodded.

'He's an old fascist,' she said. 'His theory of reading is a piece of right-wing propaganda to pull the wool over the eyes of the proletariat.'

Rebus nodded.

'What was your party again?'

'Workers Revolutionary.'

'But you're a student, eh? Not a worker, not one of the proletariat either by the sound of you.' Her face was red, her eyes burning fire. Come the revolution, Rebus would be the first against the wall. But he had not yet played his trump card. 'So really, you're contravening the Trades Description Act, aren't you? Do you have a licence from the proper authority to collect money in that tin?'

The tin was old, its old job-description torn from it. It was a plain, red cylinder, the kind used on poppy-day. But this was no poppy-day.

'Are you a cop?'

'Got it in one, love. Have you got a licence? I may have to pull you in otherwise.'

'Fucking pig!'

Feeling this was a fitting exit line, she turned from Rebus and walked to the door. Rebus, chuckling, finished his whisky. Poor girl. She would change. The idealism would vanish once she saw how hypocritical the whole games was, and what luxuries lay outside university. When she left, she'd want it all: the executive job in London, the flat, car, salary, wine-bar. She would chuck it all in for a slice of pie. But she wouldn't that just now. Now was for the reaction against upbringing. That was what university was about. They all thought they could change the world once they got away from their parents. Rebus had thought that too. He had thought to return home from the Army with a row of medals and a list of commendations, just to show them. It had not been that way, though . . .

Exit Music by Ian Rankin (Orion Books 2007)

'No one's about to poison me, Rebus. Sergei and me, we see things the same way. Few years from now, Scotland's going to be independent - not a shred of doubt about that. Sitting on thirty years' worth of North Sea oil and God alone knows how much more in the Atlantic. Worst-case scenario, we do a deal with Westminster and end up with eighty or ninety per cent of the cut.' Cafferty gave a slow shrug. 'And then we'll goand spend the money on our usual leisure pursuits - booze, drugs and gambling. Put a supercasino in every city, and watch the profits stack up . . .'
'Another of your silent invasions, eh?'
'Soviets always did think there'd be revolution in Scotland. Won't matter to you, though, will it? You'll be out of the game for good.' Cafferty gave a little wave of the hand and turned his back.

Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin (Little Brown 2002)

- "Where will you be working from?"
- "I thought we might find a spare office at St Leonard's . . . "
- Siobhan's eyes widened. "You think Gill's going to go for that?"
- "I hadn't really thought about it," he lied. "But I can't see a problem . . . can you?"
- "Do the words 'tea,' 'mug' and 'lob' mean anything to you?"
- "Tea mug lob? Is that a Cocteau Twins track?" He won a smile from her. "So you really were just driving around?"
- She nodded. "It's something I do when I can't sleep. Why are you shaking your head?"
- "It's just that I do the same thing. Or I used to. I'm that bit older and lazier these days."

The Naming of the Dead by Ian Rankin (Little Brown 2007)

"The barriers were going up. Down George IV Bridge and all along Princes Street, workmen were busy putting them in place. Road repairs and building projects had been put on hold, scaffolding removed so it couldn't be taken apart and used as missiles. Mailboxes had been sealed shut and some shops boarded up. Financial institutions had been warned, staff advised not to wear formal clothing - it would make them easy targets. For a Friday evening, the town was quiet. Police vans cruised the central streets, metal grilles fixed to their windshields. More vans were parked out of sight in unlit side roads. The cops on board wore riot gear and laughed among themselves, swapping stories from previous engagements. A few veterans had seen action during the last wave of miners' strikes. Others tried to match these memories with stories of soccer battles, poll-tax demonstrations, the Newbury Bypass. They exchanged rumors about the expected size of the Italian anarchist contingent".