Ian Rankin - Resurrection Men

'All men have secrets ...'

(The Smiths, 'What Difference Does It Make?')

Durate et vosmet rebus servate secundis

(Aeneid, I, 207)

Then why are you here?'

"Depends what you mean,' Rebus said.

"Mean?' The woman frowned behind her glasses.

"Mean by "here",' he explained. 'Here in this room? Here in this career? Here on the planet?'

She smiled. Her name was Andrea Thomson. She wasnt a doctor - she'd made that clear at their first meeting, Nor was she a 'shrink' or a 'therapist'. 'Career Analysis was what it had said on Rebus's daily sheet.

2.30-3.15: Career Analysis, Rm 3.16.

With Ms Thomson. Which had become Andrea at the moment of introduction. Which was yesterday, Tuesday. Aget to know' session, she'd called it.

She was in her late thirties, short and large-hipped. Her hair was a thick mop of blond with some darker streaks showingthrough. Her teeth were slightly oversized. She self-employed, didn't work for the police full-time.

Do any of us?' Rebus had asked yesterday. She'd looked puzzled. 'I mean, do any of us work full-time... thats why we're here, isn't it?' He'd waved a hand in the m of the closed door. 'We're not pulling our weight. need a smack on the wrists.'

Is that what you think you need, Detective Inspector?'

He'd wagged a finger. 'Keep calling me that and I'll keep calling you "Doc".' In not a doctor,' she'd said. 'Nor am I a shrink, a or any other word you've probably been g in connection with me.'

Then what are you?'

'I deal with Career Analysis.'

Rebus had snorted. 'Then you should be wearing a seat-belt.'

She'd stared at him. 'Am I in for a bumpy ride?'

'You could say that, seeing how my career, as you call it, has just careered out of control.'

So much for yesterday.

Now she wanted to know about his feelings. How did he feel about being a detective?

'I like it.'

'Which parts?'

'All of me.' Fixing her with a smile.

She smiled back. 'I meant'

'I know what you meant.' He looked around the room. It was small, utilitarian. Two chrome-framed chairs either side of a teak-veneered desk. The chairs were covered in some lime-coloured material. Nothing on the desk itself but her A4-sized lined pad and her pen. There was a heavy-looking satchel in the corner; Rebus wondered if his file was in there. A clock on the wall, calendar below it. The calendar had come from the local fire brigade. A length of net curtaining across the window.

It wasn't her room. It was a room she could use on those occasions when her services were required. Not quite the same thing.

'I like my job,' he said at last, folding his arms. Then, wondering if she'd read anything into the action -defensiveness, say - he unfolded them again. Couldn't seem to find anything to do with them except bunch his fists into his jacket pockets. 'I like every aspect of it, right down to the added paperwork each time the office runs out of staples for the staple-gun.'

'Then why did you blow up at Detective Chief Superintendent Templer?'

'I don't know.'

'She thinks maybe it has something to do with professional jealousy.'

The laugh burst from him. 'She said that?'

'You don't agree?'

'Of course not."

'You've known her some years, haven't you?'

'More than I care to count.'

'And she's always been senior to you?'

'It's never bothered me, if that's what you're thinking.'

'It's only recently that she's become your commanding officer.'

'So?'

'You've been at DI level for quite some time. No thoughts of improvement?' She caught his look. 'Maybe "improvement" is the wrong word. You've not wanted promotion?'

'No.'

'Why not?'

'Might be I'm afraid of responsibility.'

She stared at him. 'That smacks of a prepared answer.'

'Be prepared, that's my motto.'

'Oh, you were a Boy Scout?'

'No,' he said. She stayed quiet, picking up her pen and studying it. It was one of those cheap yellow Bics. 'Look,' he said into the silence, 'I've got no quarrel with Gill Templer. Good luck to her as a DCS. It's not a job I could do. I like being where I am.' He glanced up. 'Which doesn't mean here in this room, it means out on the street, solving crimes. The reason I lost it is ... well, the way the whole inquiry's being handled.'

'You must have had similar feelings before in the middle of a case?' She had taken her glasses off so she could rub the reddened skin either side of her nose.

'Many a time,' he admitted.

She slid the glasses back on. 'But this is the first time you've thrown a mug?'

'I wasn't aiming for her.'

'She had to duck. A full mug, too.'

'Ever tasted cop-shop tea?'

She smiled again. 'So you've no problem then?' 'None.' He folded his arms in what he hoped was a sign of confidence.

'Then why are you here?'

Time up, Rebus walked back along the corridor and straight into the men's toilets, where he splashed water on his face, dried off with a paper towel. Watched himself in the mirror above the sink as he pulled a cigarette from his packet and lit it, blowing the smoke ceilingwards.

One of the lavatories flushed; a door clicked its lock off. Jazz McCullough came out.

'Thought that might be you,' he said, turning on the tap.

'How could you tell?'

'One long sigh followed by the lighting of a cigarette. Had to be a shrink session finishing.'

'She's not a shrink.'

'Size of her, she looks like she's shrunk.' McCullough reached for a towel. Tossed it in the bin when he'd finished. Straightened his tie. His real name was James, but those who knew him seemed never to call him that. He was Jamesy, or more often Jazz. Tall, mid-forties, cropped black hair with just a few touches of grey at the temples. He was thin. Patted his stomach now, just above the belt, as if to emphasise his lack of a gut. Rebus could barely see his own belt, even in the mirror.

Jazz didn't smoke. Had a family back home in Broughty Ferry: wife and two sons about his only topic of conversation. Examining himself in the mirror, he tucked a stray hair back behind one ear.

'What the hell are we doing here, John?'

'Andrea was just asking me the same thing.'

'That's because she knows it's a waste of time. Thing is, we're paying her wages.'

'We're doing some good then.'

Jazz glanced at him. 'You dog! You think you're in there!'

Rebus winced. 'Give me a break. All I meant was...' But what was the point? Jazz was already laughing. He slapped Rebus on the shoulder.

'Back into the fray,' he said, pulling open the door. 'Three thirty, "Dealing with the Public".'

It was their third day at Tulliallan: the Scottish Police College. The place was mostly full of recent recruits, learning their lessons before being allowed out on to public streets. But there were other officers there, older and wiser. They were on refresher courses, or learning new skills.

And then there were the Resurrection Men.

The college was based at Tulliallan Castle, not in itself a castle but a mock-baronial home to which had been added a series of modern buildings, connected by corridors. The whole edifice sat in huge leafy grounds on the outskirts of the village of Kincardine, to the northern side of the Firth of Forth, almost equidistant between Glasgow and Edinburgh. It could have been mistaken for a university campus, and to some extent that was its function. You came here to learn.

Or, in Rebus's case, as punishment.

There were four other officers in the seminar room when Rebus and McCullough arrived. 'The Wild Bunch', DI Francis Gray had called them, first time they'd been gathered together. A couple of faces Rebus knew - DS Stu Sutherland from Livingston; DI Tam Barclay from Falkirk. Gray himself was from Glasgow, and Jazz worked out of Dundee, while the final member of the party, DC Allan Ward, was based in Dumfries. 'A gathering of nations,' as Gray had put it. But to Rebus they acted more like spokesmen for their tribes, sharing the same language but with different outlooks. They were wary of each other. It was especially awkward with officers from the same region. Rebus and Sutherland were both Lothian and Borders, but the town of Livingston was F Division, known to anyone in Edinburgh as F Troop'. Sutherland was just waiting for Rebus to say something to the others, something disparaging. He had the look of a haunted man.