Thompson turned to Ancram. ‘We’re taking Mr Zane along to have another look at some of the physical evidence.’
‘Not just a look,’ Zane corrected. ‘I need to touch it.’
Thompson’s left eye twitched. Obviously he was as sceptical as Ancram. ‘Right, well, this way, Mr Zane.’
The three men walked off.
‘Who was the silent one?’ Rebus asked.
Ancram shrugged. ‘Zane’s minder, he’s from the newspaper. They want to be in on everything Zane does.’
Rebus nodded. ‘I know him,’ he said. ‘Or I used to, years back.’
‘I think his name’s Stevens.’
‘Jim Stevens,’ Rebus said, still nodding. ‘By the way, there’s another difference between the two killers.’
‘What?’
‘Bible John’s victims were all menstruating.’
Rebus was left alone at a desk with the available files on Joseph Toal. He didn’t learn much more from them except that Uncle Joe seldom saw the inside of a court. Rebus wondered about that. Toal always seemed to know when police had him or his operations under surveillance, when the shit was heading fanwards. That way, they never found any evidence, or not enough to put him away. A couple of fines, that was about the sum total. Several big pushes had been made, but they’d always been abandoned for lack of hard evidence or because a surveillance was blown. As if Uncle Joe had a psychic of his own. But Rebus knew there was a more likely explanation: someone in CID was feeding gen back to the gangster. Rebus thought of the fancy suits everyone seemed to be wearing, the good watches and shoes, the general air of prosperity and superiority.
It was west coast dirt, let them sweep it up or push it into the corner. There was a hand-written notation towards the end of the file; he guessed it was Ancram’s writing:
‘Uncle Joe doesn’t need to kill people any more. His rep is weapon enough, and the bastard’s getting stronger all the time.’
He found a spare telephone, made a call to Barlinnie Prison, then, no sign of Chick Ancram, went walkabout.
As he’d known he would, he ended up back in the musty-smelling room dominated by the old monster, Bible John. People in Glasgow still talked about him, had done even before Johnny Bible had come along. Bible John was the bedtime bogeyman made flesh, a generation’s scare story. He was your creepy next-door neighbour; the quiet man who lived two flights up; he was the parcel courier with the windowless van. He was whoever you wanted him to be. Back in the early seventies, parents had warned their children, ‘Behave, or Bible John will get you!’
Bogeyman made flesh. Now reproducing.
The shift of detectives looked to have taken a collective break. Rebus was alone in the room. He left the door open, not sure why, and pored over the documents. Fifty thousand statements had been taken. Rebus read a couple of the newspaper headlines: ‘The Dance Hall Don Juan With Murder on his Mind’; ‘100 Day Hunt for Ladykiller’. In the first year of the hunt, over five thousand suspects had been interviewed and eliminated. When the third victim’s sister gave her detailed description, police knew so much about the killer: blue-grey eyes; straight teeth except for one on the upper-right which overlapped its neighbour; his preferred brand of cigarette was Embassy; he spoke of a strict upbringing, and he quoted passages from the Bible. But by then it was too late. Bible John was history.
Another difference between Bible John and Johnny Bible: the gaps between the killings. Johnny was killing every few weeks, while Bible John had killed to no pattern of weeks or even months. His first victim had been February ’68. There followed a gap of nearly eighteen months — August ’69, victim number two. And then two and a half months later, his third and final outing. Victims one and three had been killed on a Thursday night, the second victim on a Saturday. Eighteen months was a hell of a gap — Rebus knew the theories: that he’d been overseas, perhaps as a merchant seaman or navy sailor, or on some army or RAF posting; that he’d been in jail, serving time for some lesser offence. Theories, that’s all they were. All three of his victims were mothers of children: so far, none of Johnny Bible’s was. Was it important that Bible John’s victims had been menstruating, or that they had children? He’d tucked a sanitary towel under his third victim’s armpit — a ritual act. A lot had been read into that action by the various psychologists involved in the case. Their theory: the Bible told Bible John that women were harlots, and he was offered proof when married women left a dancehall with him. The fact that they were menstruating angered him somehow, fed his bloodlust, so he killed them.
Rebus knew there were those out there — always had been — who believed there to be no connection, other than pure circumstance, between the three killings. They posited three murderers, and it was true that only strong coincidences connected the murders. Rebus, no great champion of coincidence, still believed in a single, driven killer.
Some great policemen had been involved: Tom Goodall, the man who’d gone after Jimmy Boyle, who’d been there when Peter Manuel confessed; then when Goodall died, there’d been Elphinstone Dalgliesh and Joe Beattie. Beattie had spent hours staring at photos of suspects, using a magnifying glass sometimes. He’d felt that if Bible John walked into a crowded room, he would know him. The case had obsessed some officers, sent them spiralling downwards. All that work, and no result. It made a mockery of them, their methods, their system. He thought of Lawson Geddes again...
Rebus looked up, saw he was being watched from the doorway. He got up as the two men walked into the room.
Aldous Zane, Jim Stevens.
‘Any luck?’ Rebus asked.
Stevens shrugged. ‘Early days. Aldous came up with a couple of things.’ He put out his hand. Rebus took it. Stevens smiled. ‘You remember me, don’t you?’ Rebus nodded. ‘I wasn’t sure, back there in the hallway.’
‘I thought you were in London.’
‘I moved back three years ago. I’m mainly freelance now.’
‘And doing guard duty, I see.’
Rebus glanced towards Aldous Zane, but the American wasn’t listening. He was moving his palms over the paperwork on the nearest desk. He was short, slender, middle-aged. He wore steel-framed glasses with blue-tint lenses, and his lips were slightly parted, showing small, narrow teeth. He reminded Rebus a little of Peter Sellers playing Dr Strange-love. He wore a cagoule over his jacket, and made swishing sounds when he moved.
‘What is this?’ he said.
‘Bible John. Johnny Bible’s ancestor. They brought in a psychic on his case, too, Gerard Croiset.’
‘The paragnost,’ Zane said quietly. ‘Was there any success?’
‘He described a location, two shopkeepers, an old man who could help the inquiry.’
‘And?’
‘And,’ Jim Stevens interrupted, ‘a reporter found what looked like the location.’
‘But no shopkeepers,’ Rebus added, ‘and no old man.’
Zane looked up. ‘Cynicism is not helpful.’
‘Call me par-agnostic’
Zane smiled, held out his hand. Rebus took it, felt tremendous heat in the man’s palm. A tingle ran up his arm.
‘Creepy, isn’t it?’ Jim Stevens said, as though he could read Rebus’s mind.
Rebus waved a hand over the material on all four desks. ‘So, Mr Zane, do you feel anything?’
‘Only sadness and suffering, an incredible amount of both.’ He picked up one of the later photofits of Bible John. ‘And I thought I could see flags.’
‘Flags?’
‘The Stars and Stripes, a swastika. And a trunk filled with objects...’ He had his eyes shut, the lids fluttering. ‘In the attic of a modern house.’ The eyes opened. ‘That’s all. There’s a lot of distance, a lot of distance.’