Rebus - Naughts And Crosses Part 10

She admitted defeat when her head started to hurt. Besides, 92 she had reached John's street and had other things to think about. He had sent her here to collect some clean clothes for his release, and to see if there were any mail, as well as checking that the central heating was working still. He had given her his key, and as she climbed the stairs, pinching her nose against the pervasive smell of cats, she felt a bond between John Rebus and herself. She wondered if the relationship were about to turn serious. He was a nice man, but a little hung-up, a little secretive. Maybe that was what she liked.

She opened his door, scooped up the few letters lying on the hall-carpet, and made a quick tour of the flat. Standing by the bedroom door, she recalled the pa.s.sion of that night, the odour of which seemed to cling in the air still.

The pilot-light was lit. He would be surprised to learn that. What a lot of books he had, but then his wife had been an English teacher. She lifted some of them off the floor and arranged them on the empty shelves of the wall-unit. In the kitchen, she made herself some coffee and sat down to drink it black, looking over the mail. One bill, one circular, and one typed letter, posted in Edinburgh and three days ago at that. She stuffed the letters into her bag and went to inspect the wardrobe. Samantha's room, she noted, was still locked. More memories pushed safely away. Poor John.

Jim Stevens had far too much work to do. The Edinburgh Strangler was proving himself a meaty individual. You couldn't ignore the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, even if you felt you had better things to do. Stevens had a staff of three working with him on the newspaper 5 daily reports and features. Child abuse in Britain today was the flavour of tomorrow's piece. The figures were horrifying enough, but more horrifying yet was the sense of biding time, waiting for the dead girl to turn up. Waiting for the next one to go missing. Edinburgh was a ghost town. Children were kept indoors, those allowed out scuttiing through the streets like creatures under chase. Stevens wanted to turn his attentions to the drugs case, the mounting evidence, the police connection. He wanted to, but there simply was not the time. Tom Jameson was on his back every hour of the day, roaming through the office. Where's that copy, Jim? It's about time you earned your keep, Jim. When's the next briefing, Jim? Stevens was burned 93 out by the end of each and every day. He decided that his work on the Rebus case had to stop for the moment. Which was a pity, because with the police at full stretch working on the murders, the field was left wide open for any and all other crimes, including pushing drugs. The Edinburgh Mafia must be having a field-day. He had used the story of the Leith 'bordello', hoping for some information in return, but the big boys appeared not to be playing. Well, sod them. His time would come.

When she arrived in the ward, Rebus was reading through a Bible, courtesy of the hospital. When the Sister had found out about his request, she had asked him if he wished to speak to a priest or a minister, but this offer he had declined strenuously. He was quite content-more than content-to ifick through some of the better pa.s.sages in the Old Testament, refreshing his memory of their power and their moral strength. He read the stories of Moses, Samson, and David, before coming to the Book of Job. Here he found a power he could not remember having encountered before: When an innocent man suddenly dies, G.o.d laughs.

G.o.d gave the world to the wicked.

He made all the judges blind.

And if G.o.d didn't do it, who did?

If I smile and try to forget my pain, All my suffering comes back to haunt me; I know that G.o.d does hold me guilty.

Since I am held guilty, why should I bother?

No soap can wash away my sins.

Rebus felt his spine shiver, though the ward itself was oppressively warm, and his throat cried out for water. As he poured some of the tepid liquid into a plastic beaker, he saw Gill coming towards him on quieter heels than previously. She was smiling, bringing what joy there was into the ward with her. A few of the men eyed her appreciatively. Rebus felt glad, all of a sudden, to be leaving this place today. He put the Bible aside and greeted her with a kiss on the nape of her neck.

'What have you got there?'

94 He took the parcel from her and found it to contain his change of clothes.

'Thanks,' he said. 'I didn't think this shirt was clean though.'

'It wasn't.' She laughed and pulled across a chair. 'Nothing was. I'd to wash and iron all your clothes. They const.i.tuted a health hazard.'

'You're an angel,' he said, putting the parcel aside. 'Speaking of which, what were you reading in the book?' She tapped the red, fake-leather binding of the Bible.

'Oh,~nothing much. Job, actually. I read it once a long time ago. It seems more frightening now though. The man who begins to doubt, who shouts out against his G.o.d, looking for a response, and who gets one. "G.o.d gave the world to the wicked," he says at one point, and "Why should I bother?" at another.'

'It sounds interesting. But he goes on bothering?'

'Yes, that's the incredible thing.'

Tea arrived, the young nurse handing Gill her cup. There was a plate of biscuits for them.

'I've brought you some letters from the flat, and here's your key.' She held the small Yale key towards him, but he shook his head.

'Keep it,' he said, 'please. I've got a spare one.'

They studied one another.

'All right,' Gill said finally. 'I will. Thanks.' With that, she handed him the three letters. He sorted through them in a second.

'He's started sending them by mail, I see.' Rebus tore open the latest bulletin. 'This guy,' he said, 'is haunting me. Mister Knot, I call him. My own personal anonymous crank.'

Gill looked interested, as Rebus read through the letter. It was longer than usual.

YOU STILL HAVEN'T GUESSED, HAVE YOU?.

YOU'VE NO IDEAS. NOT AN IDEA IN YOUR HEAD.

AND IT'S ALMOST OVER NOW, ALMOST OVER.

DON'T SAY I'VE NOT GIVEN YOU A CHANCE. YOU.

CAN NEVER SAY THAT. SIGNED.

Rebus pulled a small matchstick cross out of the envelope. 'Ah, Mister Cross today, I see. Well, thank G.o.d he's nearly finished. Getting bored, I suppose.'

95 'What is all this, John?'

'Haven't I told you about my anonymous letters? It's not a very exciting story.'

'How long has this been going on?' Gill, having studied the letter, was now examining the envelope.

'Six weeks. Maybe a little longer. Why?'

'Well, it's just that this letter was posted on the day Helen Abbot went missing.'

'Oh?' Rebus reached for the envelope and looked at its postmark. 'Edinburgh, Lothian, Fife, Borders', it read. A big enough area. He thought again of Michael.

'I don't suppose you can remember when you received the other letters?'

'What are you getting at, Gill?' He looked up at her, and saw a professional policewoman suddenly staring back at him. 'For Christ's sake, Gill. This case is getting to all of us. We're all beginning to see ghosts.'

'I'm just curious, that's all.' She was reading the letter again. It was not the usual crank's voice, nor a crank's style. That was what worried her. And now that Rebus thought about it, the notes had seemed to appear around the time of each abduction, hadn't they? Had there been a connection of some kind staring him in the face all this time? He had been very myopic indeed, had been wearing a,carthorse's blinkers. Either that or it was all a monstrous coincidence.

'It's just a coincidence, Gill.'

'So tell me when the other notes arrived.'

'I can't remember.'

She bent over him, her eyes huge behind her gla.s.ses. She said calmly, 'Are you hiding anything from me?'

'No!'

The whole ward turned to his cry, and he felt his cheeks flush.

'No,' he whispered, 'I'm not hiding anything. At least . .

But how could he be sure? All those years of arrests, of charge-sheets, of forgettings, so many enemies made. But none would torment him like this, surely. Surely.

With pen, paper, and a lot of thought on his part, they went over the arrival of each note: dates, contents, style of delivery. Gill took off her gla.s.ses, rubbing between her eyes, sighing.

96 'It's just too big a coincidence, John.'

And he knew that she was right, way down inside him. He knew that nothing was ever what it seemed, that nothing was arbitrary. 'Gill,' he said at last, pulling at the bedcover, 'I've got to get out of here.'

In the car she goaded him, spurred him on. Who could it be? What was the connection? Why?

'What is this?' he roared at her. 'Am I a suspect now or something?'

She studied his eyes, trying to pierce them, trying to bite right into the truth behind them. Oh, she was a detective at heart, and a good detective trusts n.o.body. She gazed at him as though he were a scolded schoolboy, with secrets still to spill, with sins to confess. Confess.

Gill knew that all this was only a hunch, insupportable. Yet she could feel something there, something perhaps behind those burning eyes. Stranger things had happened during her time on the force. Strange things were always happening. Truth was always stranger than fiction, and n.o.body was ever wholly innocent. Those guilty looks when you questioned somebody, anybody. Everyone had something to hide. Mostly, though, it was small time, and covered by the intervening years. You would need Thought Police to get at those kinds of crime. But if John . . . If John Rebus proved to be part of this whole caboodle, then that . . . That was too absurd to think about.

'Of course you're not a suspect, John,' she said. 'But it could be important, couldn't it?'

'We'll let Anderson decide,' he said, falling silent, but shaking.

It was then that Gill had the thought: what if he sent the letters to himself?

XVIII.

He felt his arms ache and, looking down, saw that the girl had stopped struggling. There came that point, that sudden, bliss- ful point, when it was useless to go on living, and when the 97 mind and body came to accept that such was the case. That was a beautiful, peaceful moment, the most relaxed moment of one's life. He had, many years ago, tried to commit suicide, savouring that very moment. But they had done things to him in hospital and in the clinic afterwards. They had given him back the will to live, and now he was repaying them, repaying all of them. He saw this irony in his life and chuckled, peeling the tape from Helen Abbot's mouth, using the little scissors to snip away her bonds. He brought out a neat little camera from his trouser pocket and took another instant snap of her, a memento mori of sorts. If they ever caught him, they'd kick the s.h.i.t out of him for this, but they would never be able to brand him a s.e.x-killer. s.e.x had nothing to do with it; these girls were p.a.w.ns, fated by their christenings. The next and last one was the one that really mattered, and he would do that one today if possible. He chuckled again. This was a better game than noughts and crosses. He was a winner at both.

XIX.

Chief Inspector William Anderson loved the feel of the chase, the battle between instinct and plodding detection. He liked to feel, too, that he had the support of his Division behind him. Dispenser of orders, of wisdom, of strategies, he was in his element.

He would rather have caught the Strangler already-that went without saying. He was no s.a.d.i.s.t. The law had to be upheld. All the same, the longer an investigation like this went on, the greater became the feel of nearing the kill, and to relish that extended moment was one of the great perks of responsibility.

The Strangler was making an occasional slip, and that was what mattered to Anderson at this stage. The blue Ford Escort, and now the interesting theory that the killer had been or was still an Army man, suggested by the tying of a knot in the garotte. Snippets like that would culminate eventually in a name, an address, an arrest. And at that moment, Anderson would lead his officers physically as well as spiritually. There would be another interview on the television, another rather 98 flattering photograph in the press (he was quite photogenic). Oh yes, victory would be sweet. Unless, of course, the Strangler vanished in the night as so many before him had done. That possibility was not to be considered; it made his legs turn into paper.

He did not dislike Rebus, not exactly. The man was a reasonable enough copper, a bit loud in his methods perhaps. And he understood that Rebus's personal life had experienced an upheaval. Indeed, he had been told that Rebus's ex-wife was the woman with whom his own son was co-habiting. He tried not to think about it. When Andy had slammed the front door on his leaving, he had walked right out of his father's life. How could anyone these days spend their time writing poetry? It was ludicrous. And then moving in with Rebus's wife. . . No, he did not dislike Rebus, but watching Rebus come towards him with that pretty Liaison Officer, Anderson felt his stomach cough, as though his insides suddenly wanted to become his outsides. He leaned back on the edge of a vacant desk. The officer a.s.signed to it had gone off for a break.

'Nice to have you back, John. Feeling fit?'

Anderson had shot out his hand, and Rebus, stunned, was forced to take it and return the grip.

'I'm fine, sir,' he said.

'Sir,' interrupted Gill Templer, 'can we speak to you for a minute? There's been a new development.'

'The mere hint of a development, sir,' corrected Rebus, staring at Gill.

Anderson looked from one to the other.

'You'd better come into my office then.'

Gill explained the situation as she saw it to Anderson, and he, wise and safe behind his desk, listened, glancing occasionally towards Rebus, who smiled apologetically at him. Sorry to be wasting your time, Rebus's smile said.

'Well, Rebus?' said Anderson when Gill had finished. 'What do you say to all this? Could someone have a reason for informing you of their plans? I mean, could the Strangler know you?'

Rebus shrugged his shoulders, smiling, smiling, smiling.

99 Jack Morton, sitting in his car, jotted down some remarks on his report-sheet. Saw suspect. Interviewed same. Casual, helpful. Another dead end, he wanted to say. Another dead f.u.c.king end. A parking warden was looking at him, trying to scare him as she neared his car. He sighed, putting down the pen and paper and reaching for his I.D. One of those days.

Rhona Phillips wore her raincoat, it being the end of May, and the rain slashing through the skyline as though painted upon an artist's canvas. She kissed her curly-headed poet-lover goodbye, as he watched afternoon TV, and left the house, feeling for the car-keys in her handbag. She picked Sammy up from school these days, though the school was only a mile and a quarter away. She also went with her to the library at lunchtimes, not allowing her any escape. With that maniac still on the loose, she was taking no chances. She rushed to her car, got in, and slammed shut the door. Edinburgh rain was like a judgement. It soaked into the bones, into the structures of the buildings, into the memories of the tourists. It lingered for days, splashing up from puddles by the roadside, breaking up marriages, chilling, killing, omnipresent. The typical postcard home from an Edinburgh boarding-house: 'Edinburgh is lovely. The people rather reserved. Saw the Casfie yesterday, and the Scott Monument. It's a very small city, almost a town really. You could fit it inside New York and never notice it. Weather could be better.'

Weather could be better. The art of euphemism. s.h.i.tty, s.h.i.tty rain. It was so typical when she had a free day. Typical, too, that Andy and she should have argued. And now he was sulking in his chair, legs tucked beneath him. One of those days. And she had reports to write out this evening. Thank G.o.d the exams had started. The kids seemed more subdued at schoo~ these days, the older ones gripped by exam-fever or exam-apathy, and the younger ones seeing their ineluctable future mapped out for them in the faces of their doomed superiors. It was an interesting time of year. Soon the fear would be Sammy's, called Samantha to her face now that she was so nearly a woman. There were other fears there, too, for a parent. The fear of adolescence, of experiment.

'00 As she reversed the car out of the driveway, he watched her from his Escort. Perfect. He had about fifteen minutes to wait. When her car had disappeared, he drove his car to the front of the house and stopped. He examined the windows of the house. Her man would be in there alone. He left his car and walked to the front door.

Back in the Incident Room after the inconclusive meeting, Rebus could not know that Anderson was arranging to have him put under surveillance. The Incident Room looked like an incident itself. Paper covered every surface, a small computer was crammed into a spare corner, charts and rotas and the rest covered every available inch of wall-s.p.a.ce.

'I've got a briefing,' said Gill. 'I'll see you later. Listen, John, I do think there's a link. Call it female intuition, call it a detective's "nose", call it what you like, but take me seriously. Think it over. Think about possible grudges. Please.'

He nodded, then watched her leave, making for her own~ office in her own part of the building. Rebus wasn't sure which desk was his any more. He surveyed the room. It all seemed different somehow, as though a few of the desks had been changed around or put together. A telephone rang on the desk next to him. And though there were officers and telephonists nearby, he picked it up himself, making an attempt to get back into the investigation. He prayed that he was not himself the investigation. He prayed, forgetting what prayer was.

'Incident Room,' he said. 'Detective Sergeant Rebus speaking.'

'Rebus? What a curious name that is.' The voice was old but lively, certainly well-educated. 'Rebus,' it said again, as though jotting it down onto a piece of paper. Rebus studied the telephone.

'And your name, sir?'

'Oh, I'm Michael Eiser, that's E-I-S-E-R, Professor of English Literature at the University.'

'Oh, yes, sir?' Rebus grabbed a pencil and jotted down the name. 'And what can I do for you, sir?'

'Well, Mister Rebus, it's more a case of what I think I can do for you, though of course I may be mistaken.' Rebus had a picture of the man, if this were not a hoax call: frizzy-haired, '01 bow-tied, wearing crushed tweeds and old shoes, and waving his hands about as he spoke. 'I'm interested in word-play, you see. In fact I'm writing a book on the subject. It's called Reading Exercises and Directed Exegetic Responses. Do you see the word-play there? It's an acrostic. The first letter of each word makes up another word-reader, in this case. It's a game as old at literature itself. My book, however, concentrates on its manifestation in more recent works. Nabokov and Burgess and the like. Of course, acrostics are a small part of the overall set of ploys used by the author to entertain, direct or persuade his audience.' Rebus tried to interrupt the man, but it was like trying to interrupt a bull. So he was forced to listen, wondering all the time if it were a crank call, if he should-strictly against procedure-simply put down the telephone. He had 'more important things to think about. The back of his head ached.

and the point is, Mister Rebus, that I have noticed, quite by chance, a kind of pattern in this murderer's choice of victims.'

Rebus sat down on the edge of the desk. He clasped the pencil as though trying to crush it.

'Oh, yes?' he said.

'Yes. I have the names of the victims here in front of me on a piece of paper. Perhaps one would have noticed it sooner, but it was only today that I saw a report in one newspaper which grouped the poor girls together. I usually take The Times, you see, but I quite simply couldn't find one this morning, so I bought another paper, and there it was. It may be nothing at all, mere coincidence, but then again it may not. I'll leave that for you chaps to decide. I merely offer it as a proposition.

Jack Morton, puffing smoke all around him, entered the office and, noticing Rebus, waved. Rebus jerked his head in response. Jack looked worn out. Everyone looked worn out, and here he was, fresh from a period of rest and relaxation, dealing with a lunatic on the telephone.

'Offer what exactly, Professor Eiser?'

'Well, don't you see? In order, the victims' names were Sandra Adams, Mary Andrews, Nicola Turner, and Helen Abbot.' Jack slouched towards Rebus's table. 'Taken as an acrostic,' continued the voice, 'their names make up another name-Samantha. The murderer's next victim perhaps? Or it 102 may be simple coincidence, a game where no game really exists.'

Rebus slammed down the telephone, was off the desk in a second, and pulled Jack Morton around by his neck-tie. Morton gasped and his cigarette flew from his mouth.