10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (166 page)
Read 10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) Online
Authors: Ian Rankin
‘
Despite being English, there was something of the Scottish Protestant in Siobhan Clarke
.’ What does this mean, and is this perhaps why she and Rebus get on? What distinction does Rebus make between a Protestant work ethic and Calvinist guilt?
How does Siobhan feel that Rebus draws one into a case?
Why does Rebus find his visit to Auntie Ena so touching?
Big Ger Cafferty recognises that there are similarities between him and Rebus; why does Rebus not see this? How does Big Ger manipulate the meeting he and Rebus have?
What effect is Rebus’s behaviour having on his relationship with Patience?
Where does Rebus stand on the potential of ‘rehabilitation’ for offenders?
‘
The bullets shook in the box like a baby’s toy
.’ How does this simile work? And how does Rebus justify to himself the fact that he has acquired a gun?
Even though his faith is different, Rebus visits the church of Our Lady of Perpetual Hell (Help) where he has his first meeting with an unnamed Catholic priest who will reappear in later books. What does Rebus find so thought-provoking about the conversation?
MORTAL CAUSESContents
Perhaps Edinburgh’s terrible inability to speak out,
Edinburgh’s silence with regard to all it should be saying,
Is but the hush that precedes the thunder,
The liberating detonation so oppressively imminent now?
We’re all gonna be just dirt in the ground.
INTRODUCTION
I grew up in a small coal-mining town in east-central Scotland, a long way from the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Yet each Saturday night of my childhood I would be awakened by some drunk at the end of our cul-de-sac, pausing on his route home in order to offer up a tuneless rendition of ‘The Sash’. As far as I know, no one ever left their home to remonstrate with him. Even now I wonder: was it the same man every time? Who was he? When sober, did he share his workplace with Catholics, and were they aware of his hatred? Did that hatred even exist during his periods of sobriety, or did it only come bubbling up after a long night’s imbibing? There were only one or two Catholic families in our whole street. One of the kids was my best friend until we started our separate educations, after which we drifted apart, finding other friends who shared our daily routines.
I met my future wife at university. She had grown up in Belfast during the worst of the Troubles. Over time I got to know the place, visiting her family two or three times a year, but still not fully comprehending the soul of the conflict there. It is hard to grow up working-class in many parts of Scotland without taking sides. In fact, you don’t even have to take sides: they’re pretty much preordained. Now that I had five Rebus novels under my belt, I decided it was time to tackle some of my own questions about sectarianism and religious division in Scotland. But to make things interesting, I decided that this new story would take as its backdrop the Edinburgh Festival. That way, I could show the Scots at play, as opposed to the uglier truths about my home nation’s tribal instincts.
One of my favourite jobs as a writer is coming up with titles. Previous books had been easy, but I struggled with
Mortal Causes
. The thing is, I need to have a title down on paper before I can start writing the story. It was my wife Miranda who came up with
Mortal Causes
, after a brainstorming session and countless dismissed suggestions on both sides. I liked the pun inherent in the title. The Scottish vernacular is rich in colourful euphemisms for inebriation: stocious, stotting, guttered, steaming, steamboats, wellied and hoolit are just a few. Another is ‘mortal’, as in: ‘I was fair mortal last night’ (meaning ‘I was very drunk indeed’). So
Mortal Causes
evoked, in my mind, the demon drink, just as surely as it did any darker and more violent imagery.
In this book, the relationship between Rebus and Edinburgh’s premier gangster, ‘Big Ger’ Cafferty, would become more complex, partly as a result of my fondness for New York writer Lawrence Block’s Matt Scudder novels. I’d discovered these during a six-month stint in the USA in the latter half of 1992. I liked the way Scudder (an ex-cop and a man with his own strict moral code) related to a tough-guy hoodlum called Mick Ballou. It was as if they understood one another, maybe even respected one another . . . yet if either got in the other’s way, only one of them would emerge standing. If you’ve yet to read
Mortal Causes
, I won’t spoil it for you, but suffice to say, by the end of the book the relationship between Rebus and Cafferty has changed markedly, and in ways which would continue to resonate throughout the series.
I’d moved to France in 1990 and was still living there when I wrote
Mortal Causes
. I visited Edinburgh several times a year for research purposes (and because there wasn’t a decent pub anywhere near my dilapidated farmhouse). Thanks to a couple of friends called Pauline and David, I was able to stay in the city during the Festival in 1993. On a previous trip that year, however, I’d decided to visit a street known as Mary King’s Close. I’d heard about the place from locals down the years, and knew that to gain entry you had to ask at the council headquarters on the High Street and hope that a tour would be forthcoming. This is because Mary King’s Close exists underground – the City Chambers has been built on top of it. These days, Mary King’s Close has been revivified as a successful tourist amenity, but back then the only way to get access was to ask the council and then wait patiently for news of a day and time when you’d be allowed in.