Ian Rankin
A Song for the Dark Times
In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.
We love making damaged people our playthings.
Prologue
i
Siobhan Clarke walked through the emptied flat. Not that it was empty; rather the life had been sucked from it. Packing crates sat the length of the hallway. The kitchen cupboards gaped, as did the door to the tenement stairwell. The window in the main bedroom had been opened to air the place. It looked bigger, of course, without the furniture and the restless figure of John Rebus himself. Bare light bulbs dangled from each ceiling. Some curtains had been left, as had most of the carpeting. (She’d run a vacuum cleaner over all the bedrooms the previous day.) In the hall, she studied the boxes. She knew what they held, each one written on in her own hand. Books; music; personal papers; case notes.
Case notes: one bedroom had been filled with them — investigations John Rebus had worked on, solved and unsolved, plus other cases that had held an interest for him, helping keep him busy in his retirement. She heard footsteps on the stairs. One of the movers gave a nod and a smile as he hefted a crate, turning to go. She followed him, squeezing past his colleague.
‘Nearly there,’ the second man said, puffing out his cheeks. He was perspiring and she hoped he was all right. Probably in his mid fifties and carrying too much weight around his middle. Edinburgh tenements could be murder. She herself wouldn’t be sorry not to have to climb the two storeys again after today.
The main door to the tenement had been wedged open with a folded triangle of thick cardboard — the corner of a packing case, she guessed. The first mover, tattooed arms bared, had reached the pavement and was making a sharp turn, left and left again, passing through a gateway. Beyond the small paved area — probably a neat garden in the distant past — stood another open door, this one leading to the ground-floor flat.
‘Living room?’ he asked.
‘Living room,’ Siobhan Clarke confirmed.
John Rebus had his back to them as they entered. He was standing in front of a row of brand-new bookcases, bought at IKEA the previous weekend. That trip — and the clash of wills during the shelves’ assembly — had put more strain on the friendship between Rebus and Clarke than any operation they’d worked on during their joint time in CID. Now he turned and frowned at the box.
‘More books?’
‘More books.’
‘Where the hell do they keep coming from? Didn’t we make a dozen trips to the charity shop?’
‘I’m not sure you factored in how much smaller this flat is than your old one.’ Clarke had crouched to give some attention to Rebus’s dog Brillo.
‘They’ll have to go in the spare room,’ Rebus muttered.
‘I told you to ditch those old case notes.’
‘They’re sensitive documents, Siobhan.’
‘Some are so old they’re written on vellum.’ The mover had made his exit. Clarke tapped one of the books Rebus had shelved. ‘Didn’t take you for a Reacher fan.’
‘I sometimes need a break from all the philosophy and ancient languages.’
Clarke studied the shelves. ‘Not going to alphabetise them?’
‘Life’s too short.’
‘What about your music?’
‘Same goes.’
‘So how will you find anything?’
‘I just will.’
She took a couple of steps back and spun around. ‘I like it,’ she said. Wallpaper had been removed, the walls and ceiling freshly painted, though Rebus had drawn the line at the skirting boards and window frames. The heavy drapes from his old living room’s bay window fitted the near-identical window here. His chair, sofa and hi-fi had been placed as he wanted them. The dining table had had to go — too large for the remaining space. In its place stood a modern drop-leaf, courtesy of IKEA again. The kitchen was a narrow galley-style affair. The bathroom, too, was long and narrow but perfectly adequate. Rebus had baulked at the idea of a refit: ‘maybe later’. Clarke had grown used to that refrain these past few weeks. She’d had to bully him into decluttering. Thinning out the books and music had taken the best part of a fortnight, and even then she would sometimes catch him lifting an item from one of the boxes or bags destined for the charity shop. It struck her that he didn’t have much in the way of family mementoes or what could be termed ‘heirlooms’ — no bits and pieces that had belonged to his parents; a handful of framed photos of his ex-wife and his daughter. Clarke had suggested he might want to contact his daughter so she could help him move.
‘I’ll be fine.’
So she had applied for a week’s leave and rented a small van, big enough for runs to IKEA, the charity shop and the dump.
‘Cornicing’s the same as your old place,’ she said, studying the ceiling.
‘We’ll make a detective of you yet,’ Rebus said, hefting more books onto a shelf. ‘But let’s save the next lesson for after we’ve had that mug of tea you’re about to brew...’
At the end of the kitchen was a door leading out to the enclosed rear garden, a large expanse of lawn with an ornamental border. Clarke let Brillo out before filling the kettle. Opening cupboards, she noted that Rebus had rearranged her work of the previous day — obviously there was some system he preferred: pots, tins and packets lower down; crockery higher up. He had even swapped around the cutlery in the two drawers. She popped tea bags into two mugs and lifted the milk from the fridge. It was the old fridge from the upstairs flat — same went for the washing machine. Neither fitted quite right, jutting out into the room. If it were her kitchen, she’d always be bruising a knee or stubbing a toe. She’d told him they wouldn’t fit, that he should replace them.
‘Maybe later,’ had come the reply.
The two movers did not require tea — they seemed to work on a supply of fizzy drinks and vaping. Besides which, they were almost done. She heard them fetching more boxes.
‘Living room?’ one asked.
‘If you must,’ Rebus answered.
‘One more trip, I reckon. You’ll want to lock up after us.’
‘Just pull the door shut when you’re finished.’
‘No last wee sentimental look-see?’
‘I’ve got the meter readings, what else do I need?’
The mover seemed to have no answer to this. Clarke watched him retreat as she took the mugs through.
‘Forty years of your life, John,’ she said, handing him his tea.
‘Fresh start, Siobhan. Keys are going to the buyer’s solicitor. Post’s being redirected.’ He seemed to be wondering if he’d forgotten anything. ‘Just bloody lucky this place fell vacant when it did. Mrs Mackay had been here almost as long as me. Son living in Australia, so that’s her twilight years taken care of.’
‘Whereas you couldn’t bear to move even fifty yards.’
He fixed her with a look. ‘I can still surprise you, though.’ He jabbed a finger towards the ceiling. ‘You reckoned they’d be carrying me out of there in a box.’
‘Is everyone this cheery when they move house?’
‘Maybe you’re forgetting why I’m moving.’
No, she hadn’t forgotten. COPD: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. He was finding stairs too much of a chore. So when the For Sale sign appeared in the downstairs front garden...