Black And Blue by Ian Rankin Page B

John.’
    Rebus was thinking up a comeback when CI Ancram entered the room.
    ‘DI Rebus?’ They shook hands. The Chief Inspector didn’t seem keen to let go. His eyes were soaking up Rebus. ‘Sorry to keep you.’
    Ancram was in his early fifties, and every bit as well-dressed as Jack Morton. He was bald mostly, but with Sean Connery’s style and a thick dark moustache to match.
    ‘Has Jack been giving you the tour?’
    ‘Not exactly, sir.’
    ‘Well, this is the Glasgow end of the Johnny Bible operation.’
    ‘Is this the nearest station to Kelvingrove?’
    Ancram smiled. ‘Proximity to the locus was just one consideration. Judith Cairns was his third victim, by then the media had already hit on the Bible John connection. And this is where all the Bible John files are stored.’
    ‘Any chance I can see them?’
    Ancram studied him, then shrugged. ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’
    Rebus followed Ancram along the corridor to another suite of offices. There was a musty smell in the air, more library than cop-shop. Rebus saw why: the room was full of old cardboard boxes, box-files with spring hinges, packets of curl-edged paper bound with string. Four CID officers – two male, two female – were working their way through everything and anything to do with the original Bible John case.
    ‘We had this lot stashed in a storeroom,’ Ancram said. ‘You should have seen the stoor that came off when we brought them out.’ He blew on a folder, fine powder rising from it.
    ‘You do think there’s a connection then?’
    It was a question every police officer in Scotland had asked every other police officer, for there was always the chance that the two cases, the two killers, had nothing in common, in which event hundreds of man-hours were being wasted.
    ‘Oh yes,’ Ancram said. Yes: it was what Rebus felt, too. ‘I mean, the modus operandi is close enough to start with, then there are the souvenirs he takes from the scene. The description of Johnny Bible may be a fluke, but I’m sure he’s copying his hero.’ Ancram looked at Rebus. ‘Aren’t you?’
    Rebus nodded. He was looking at all the material, thinking how he’d like to have a few weeks with it, how he might find something no one else had spotted … It was a dream, of course, a fantasy, but on slow nights sometimes it was motivation enough. Rebus had his newspapers, but they told only as much of the story as the police had wanted made public. He walked over to a row of shelves, read the spines of the box-files: Door to Door; Taxi Firms; Hairdressers; Tailors’ Shops; Hairpiece Suppliers.
    ‘Hairpiece suppliers?’
    Ancram smiled. ‘His short hair, they thought maybe it was a wig. They talked to hairdressers to see if anyone recognised the cut.’
    ‘And to tailors because of his Italian suit.’
    Again Ancram stared at him.
    Rebus shrugged. ‘The case interests me. What’s this?’ He pointed to a wall chart.
    ‘Similarities and dissimilarities between the two cases,’ Ancram said. ‘Dancehalls versus the club scene. And the descriptions: tall, skinny, shy, auburn hair, well dressed … I mean, Johnny could almost be Bible John’s son.’
    ‘That’s something I’ve been asking myself. Supposing Johnny Bible is basing himself on his hero, and supposing Bible John’s still out there somewhere …’
    ‘Bible John’s dead.’
    Rebus kept his eyes on the chart. ‘But just supposing he isn’t. I mean, is he flattered? Is he pissed off? What?’
    ‘Don’t ask me.’
    ‘The Glasgow victim hadn’t been to a club,’ Rebus said.
    ‘Well, she wasn’t last seen in a club. But she’d been to one earlier that evening, he could have followed her from there to the concert.’
    Victims one and two had been picked up by Johnny Bible in nightclubs, the nineties equivalent of a sixties dancehall: louder, darker, more dangerous. They’d been in parties, who were able to furnish only the vaguest descriptions of the man who had walked off into the