Resurrection Men (2002) by Ian Rankin Read Free Book Online Page B

solve the crime until they had a motive? The area’s prostitutes had been reluctant to come forward. No one had claimed Eric Lomax as a client. It didn’t help that there had been a series of murders of Glasgow prostitutes and that the police had been accused of not caring. Nor did it help that Lomax — known to his associates as Rico — had operated on the fringes of the city’s criminal community.
    In short, Rico Lomax was a lowlife. And even on this morning’s evidence, Rebus could see that some of the officers on the original inquiry had felt that all his demise did was erase another name from the game. One or two of the Resurrection Men had mooted similar feelings.
    “Why give us a scumbag to work on?” Stu Sutherland had asked. “Give us a case we want to see solved.”
    Which remark had earned him a roasting from DCI Tennant. They had to want to see all their cases solved. Rebus had watched Tennant throughout, wondering why the Lomax case had been chosen. Could it be random chance, or something altogether more threatening?
    There was a box of newspapers from the time. A lot of interest had been shown in them, not least because they brought back memories. Rebus sat himself down now and leafed through a couple. The official opening of the Skye Road Bridge . . . Raith Rovers in the UEFA Cup . . . a bantamweight boxer killed in the ring in Glasgow . . .
    “Old news,” a voice intoned. Rebus looked up. Francis Gray was standing in the open doorway, feet apart, hands in pockets.
    “Thought you were down the pub,” Rebus said.
    Gray sniffed as he came in, rubbed a hand across his nose. “We just ended up discussing all this.” He tapped one of the empty box-files. “The lads are on their way over, but looks like you beat us all to it.”
    “It was all right when it was just tests and lectures,” Rebus said, leaning back in his chair so he could stretch his spine.
    Gray nodded. “But now there’s something for us to take seriously, eh?” He pulled out the chair next to Rebus’s, sat down and concentrated on the open newspaper. “But you seem to be taking it more seriously than most.”
    “I just got here first, that’s all.”
    “That’s what I mean.” Gray still wasn’t looking at him. He wet a thumb and turned back a page. “You’ve got a bit of a rep, haven’t you, John? Sometimes you get too involved.”
    “Oh aye? And you’re here for always toeing the line?”
    Gray allowed himself a smile. Rebus could smell beer and nicotine from his clothes. “We’ve all crossed the line sometime, haven’t we? It happens to good cops as well as bad. Maybe you could even say it’s what makes the good cops good. ”
    Rebus studied the side of Gray’s head. Gray was at Tulliallan because he’d disobeyed one order too many from a senior officer. Then again, as Gray had said: “My boss was, is, and will forever be a complete and utter arsehole.” A pause. “With respect.” That final phrase had cracked the table up. The problem with most of the Resurrection Men was, they didn’t respect those above them in the pecking order, didn’t trust them to do a good job, make the right decision. Gray’s “Wild Bunch” would be returned to duty only when they’d learned to accept and respond to the hierarchy.
    “See,” Gray was saying now, “give me a boss like DCI Tennant any day of the week. Guy like that’s going to call a spade a shovel. You know where you stand with him. He’s old school.”
    Rebus was nodding. “At least he’s going to give you a bollocking to your face.”
    “And not go shafting you from behind.” Now Gray found himself at the newspaper’s front page. He held it up for Rebus to see: ROSYTH BID BRINGS HOPE OF 5,000 JOBS  . . . “Yet we’re still here,” Gray said quietly. “We haven’t quit and they haven’t made us. Why do you think that is?”
    “We’d cause too much trouble?” Rebus guessed.
    Gray shook his head. “It’s because deep down they