‘What can they see round the back?’
One of Grogan’s men radioed to ask. ‘Curtains are closed upstairs and down, no sign of life.’
Just like at the front.
‘Buzz a JP, say we need a warrant.’
‘Right, sir.’
‘And meantime, take a sledgehammer to that bloody door.’
The officer nodded, gave a signal, and a car boot was opened. Inside was like the back of a builder’s van. Out came the sledgehammer. Three blows and the door was open. Ten seconds later there were cries for an ambulance. Ten seconds after that, someone suggested a hearse instead.
Jack was a good copper: the boot of his car held scene of crime equipment, including overshoes and gloves, and the all-over plastic boilersuits which made you look like a walking condom. Officers were being kept out of the house so as not to contaminate the scene. They stood crammed in the doorway, trying to see what they could. When Rebus and Jack stepped forward, no one recognised them, so took them for forensics. The crowd parted for a moment, and both men were inside.
The rules on contamination didn’t seem to extend to senior officers and their flunkeys: Grogan stood in the living room, hands in pockets, examining the scene. The body of a young man lay on the black leather sofa. His fair hair was matted over a deep cut. More blood had dried on his face and neck. There were signs of a struggle: the glass and chrome coffee table overturned, magazines crumpled underfoot. A black leather jacket had been thrown over the man’s chest, a gentle act after the bloodshed. Stepping closer, Rebus saw marks on the neck, visible below the blood-lines. On the floor in front of the body sat a large green holdall, the sort you took to the gym or for a weekend trip. Rebus peered inside, saw a backpack, a single shoe, Angie Riddell’s necklace... and a length of plastic-covered clothes-line.
‘I think we can rule out suicide,’ Grogan muttered.
‘Knocked unconscious, then strangled,’ Rebus guessed.
‘You reckon it’s him?’
‘That bag isn’t just sitting there for fun. Whoever did this, they knew who he was, and wanted us to know, too.’
‘An accomplice?’ Grogan asked. ‘A mate, someone he blabbed to?’
Rebus shrugged again. He was intent on the corpse’s face, felt cheated by it: the closed eyes, the repose. I’ve come all this way, thanks to you, you bastard... He stepped closer, lifted the jacket a couple of inches and peered beneath. A black slip-on shoe had been stuffed into Martin Davidson’s left armpit.
‘Oh, Christ,’ Rebus said, turning to Grogan and Jack. ‘Bible John did this.’ He saw disbelief mingled with horror in their faces. Rebus lifted the jacket a little higher so they could see the shoe. ‘He’s been here all the time,’ he said. ‘He never went away...’
The Scene of Crime team did their business, photographing and videoing, bagging and taping potential evidence. The pathologist examined the body, then said it could be removed and taken to the mortuary. There were reporters outside, kept at a distance by police cordons. Once the SOC team had finished upstairs, Grogan took Rebus and Jack up for a look. He didn’t seem to mind them being there, probably wouldn’t have minded if he’d had Jack the Ripper himself for an audience: Grogan was the man who’d be on TV tonight, the man who tracked down Johnny Bible. Only he hadn’t, of course — someone had beaten them to it.
‘Tell me again,’ Grogan said, as they climbed the stairs.
‘Bible John took souvenirs — shoes, clothes, handbags. But he also placed a sanitary towel in the left armpit. Downstairs... that was him letting us know who did this.’
Grogan shook his head. He would take some convincing. Meantime, he had things to show them. The main bedroom was just that, but beneath the bed were boxes of magazines and videos — hard core S&M, similar to the stuff in Tony El’s bedroom, text in English and several other languages. Rebus wondered if one of the American gangs had brought it to Aberdeen.
There was a small guest bedroom with a padlock on it. Crowbarred open, it gave the lie to one area of speculation. A couple of the CID men had been wondering if Johnny Bible were tricking them — killing an innocent man and setting him up to look like the killer. The guest bedroom said Martin Davidson was Johnny Bible. It had been turned into a shrine to Bible John and other killers: dozens of scrapbooks, cuttings and photos pinned to the cork boards which lined the walls, videos of documentaries about serial killers, paperback books, heavily annotated, and at the centre of it all a blow-up of one of the Bible John flyers: the face almost smiling, a kindly face, and above it the same basic question: Have You Seen This Man?
Rebus almost answered yes; there was something about the shape of the face, he’d seen it before somewhere... somewhere recently. He took the Borneo photo from his pocket, looked at Ray Sloane, then back at the poster. They were very alike, but that wasn’t the similarity that was niggling Rebus. There was something else, someone else...
Then Jack asked him something from the doorway, and Rebus lost it.
They followed everyone back to Queen Street. Rebus and Jack had, by association, become part of the team. There was quiet jubilation, tempered with the knowledge that another murderer was in their midst. But as at least one officer put it, ‘If he did for that bastard, good luck to him.’
Which, Rebus guessed, would be the reaction Bible John would be hoping for. He’d be hoping they wouldn’t try too hard to find him. If he’d come out of retirement, then it had been to one end only — the killing of his impersonator. Johnny Bible had taken the glory, the achievement away from his predecessor; now there’d come the revenge.
Rebus sat in the CID office, staring into space, thinking. When someone handed him a cup, he raised it to his lips. But then Jack’s hand stopped him.
‘It’s whisky,’ he warned. Rebus looked down, saw sweet liquid the colour of honey, gazed at it for a moment, then put the cup down on the desk. There was laughter in the office, cheering and singing, like a football crowd after a result: same songs, same chants.
‘John,’ Jack said, ‘remember Lawson.’ It sounded like a warning.
‘What about him?’
‘He became obsessed.’
Rebus shook his head. ‘This is different. I know it was Bible John.’
‘What if it was?’
Rebus shook his head slowly. ‘Come on, Jack, after everything I told you? After Spaven and everything else? You know better than to ask that.’
Grogan was waving Rebus over to a telephone. Smiling, with whisky breath, he handed Rebus the receiver.
‘Someone wants a word.’
‘Hello?’
‘What in God’s name are you doing there?’
‘Oh, hello, Gill. Congratulations, looks like everything’s coming right for once.’
She melted a little. ‘Siobhan’s doing, not mine. I only passed the info along.’
‘Make sure that goes on record.’
‘I will.’
‘I’ll talk to you later.’
‘John... when are you coming back?’ Not what she’d wanted to ask.
‘Tonight, maybe tomorrow.’
‘OK.’ She paused. ‘See you then.’
‘Fancy doing something on Sunday?’
She sounded surprised by the question. ‘What sort of thing?’
‘I don’t know. A drive, a walk, somewhere down the coast?’
‘Yes, OK.’
‘I’ll call you. Bye, Gill.’