Knots And Crosses

Europe. The son of a Chief Inspector murdered and the daughter of a Detective Sergeant abducted, possibly murdered already.

What could he do but sit and wait for another letter? He was better off in his flat, no matter how dark and barren it seemed, no matter how like a cell. Gill promised to visit him later, after the press conference. An unmarked car would be outside his tenement as a matter of course, for who knew how personal the Strangler wanted this to become?

Meantime, unknown to Rebus, his file was being checked back at HQ, his past dusted off and examined. There had to be the Strangler in there somewhere. There had to be.

Of course there had to be. Rebus knew that he alone held the key. But it seemed locked in a drawer to which it itself was the key. He could only rattle that locked away history.

Gill Templer had telephoned Rebus’s brother, and though John would hate her for doing so, she had told Michael to come across to Edinburgh at once to be with his brother. He was Rebus’s only family after all. He sounded nervous on the phone, nervous but concerned. And now she puzzled over the matter of the acrostic. The Professor had been correct. They were trying to locate him this evening in order to interview him. Again, as a matter of course. But if the Strangler had planned this, then surely he must have been able to get his hands on a list of people whose names would fit the bill, and how would he have done that? A civil servant perhaps? A teacher? Someone working away quietly at a computer-terminal somewhere? There were many possibilities, and they would go through them one by one. First, however, Gill was going to suggest that everyone in Edinburgh called Knott or Cross be interviewed. It was a wild card, but then everything about this case so far had been wild.

And then there was the press conference. Held, since it was convenient, in the hospital’s administration building. There was standing room only at the back of the hall. Gill Templer’s face, human but unsmiling, was becoming well known to the British public, as well known, certainly, as that of any newscaster or reporter. Tonight, however, the Superintendent would be doing the talking. She hoped he would not take long. She wanted to see Rebus. And more urgently, perhaps, she wanted to talk with his brother. Someone had to know about John’s past. He had never, apparently, spoken to any of his friends on the force about his Army years. Did the key lie there? Or in his marriage? Gill listened to the Super saying his piece. Cameras clicked and the large hall grew smoky.

And there was Jim Stevens, smiling from the corner of his mouth, as if he knew something. Gill grew nervous. His eyes were on her, though his pen worked away at its notepad. She recalled that disastrous evening they had spent together, and her much less disastrous evening with John Rebus. Why had none of the men in her life ever been uncomplicated? Perhaps because complications interested her. The case was not becoming more complex. It was becoming simpler.

Jim Stevens, half-listening to the police statement, thought of how complex this story was becoming. Rebus and Rebus, drugs and murder, anonymous messages followed by abduction of daughter. He needed to get behind the police’s public face on this one, and knew that the best way forward lay with Gill Templer, with a little trading of knowledge. If the drugs and the abduction were linked, as they probably were, then perhaps one or other of the Rebus brothers had not been playing the game according to the set rules. Maybe Gill Templer would know.

He came up behind her as she left the building. She knew it was him, but for once she wanted to speak with him.

‘Hello, Jim. Can I give you a lift somewhere?’

He decided that she could. She could drop him off at a bar, unless, of course, he could see Rebus for a moment? He could not. They drove.

‘This story is becoming more and more bizarre by the second, don’t you think?’

She concentrated her eyes on the road, seeming to mull over his question. Really, she was hoping he would open up a little more and that her silence would lead him to believe that she was holding back on him, that there was something there between them to swop.

‘Rebus seems to be the main actor though. Interesting that.’

Gill sensed that he was about to play a card.

‘I mean,’ he went on, lighting a cigarette, ‘don’t mind if I smoke, do you?’

‘No,’ she said slowly, though inside she was jarring with electricity.

‘Thanks. I mean, it’s interesting because I’ve got Rebus pencilled into another story I’m working on.’

She pulled the car up at a red light, but her eyes still gazed through the windscreen.

‘Would you be interested in hearing about this other story, Gill?’

Would she? Of course she would. But what in return …

‘Yes, a very interesting man, Mister Rebus. And his brother.’

‘His brother?’

‘Yes, you know, Michael Rebus, the hypnotist. An interesting pair of brothers.’

‘Oh?’

‘Listen, Gill, let’s cut the crap.’

‘I was hoping you would.’ She put the car into gear and started off again.

‘Are you lot investigating Rebus for anything? That’s what I want to know. I mean, do you really know who’s behind all this but aren’t saying?’

She turned to him now.

‘That’s not the way it works, Jim.’

He snorted.

‘It may not be the way you work, Gill, but don’t pretend it doesn’t happen. I just wondered if you’d heard anything, any rumbles from higher up. Maybe to the effect that someone had made a botch-up in allowing things to come to this.’

Jim Stevens was watching her face very closely indeed, throwing out ideas and vague theories in the hope that one of them would catch her. But she didn’t seem to be taking the bait. Very well. Maybe she didn’t know anything. That didn’t mean his theories were wrong necessarily. It could just mean that things started at a higher plane than that on which Gill Templer and he operated.

‘Jim, what is it you think you know about John Rebus? It could be important, you know. We could bring you in if we thought you were withholding …’

Stevens began to make tutting sounds, shaking his head.

‘We know that’s not on, don’t we though? I mean, that is just not on.’

She looked at him again.

‘I could make a precedent,’ she said.

He stared at her. Yes, maybe she could at that.

‘This’ll do just here,’ he said, pointing out of the window. Some ash fell from his cigarette onto his tie. Gill stopped the car and watched him climb out. He leaned back in before shutting the door.

‘A swop can be arranged if you’d like one. You know my phone number.’

Yes, she knew his phone number. He had written it down for her a very long time ago, so long ago that they were on different sides of a wall now, so that she could hardly understand him at all. What did he know about John? About Michael? As she drove off towards Rebus’s flat, she hoped that she would find out there.

21

John Rebus read a few pages from his Good News Bible, but put it down when he realised that he was taking none of it in. He prayed instead, screwing up his eyes into tiny fists. Then he walked around the flat, touching things. This he had done before that first breakdown. He was not afraid now though. Let it come if it would, let everything come. He had no resilience left. He was passive to the will of his malevolent creator.

There was a ring at the door. He did not answer. They would go away, and he would be alone again with his