Black And Blue by Ian Rankin

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 thirdvictim’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 paperworkon 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