10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) Read Online Free PDF

check on the MO files, Detective Sergeants Morton and Rebus.’
    . . . and that was it.
    Thank you, God, oh, thank you. That’s just what I wanted to do with my evening: read through the case histories of all the bloody perverts and sex-offenders in east central Scotland. You must really hate my guts. Am I Job or something? Is that it?
    But there was no ethereal voice to be heard, no voice at all save that of the Satanic, leering Anderson, whose fingers slowly turned the pages of the roster, his lips moist and full, his wife a known adulteress and his son – of all things – an itinerant poet. Rebus heaped curse after curse upon the shoulders of that priggish, stick-thin superior officer, then kicked Jack Morton’s leg and brought him snorting and chaffing into consciousness.
    One of those nights.

4
    ‘One of those nights,’ said Jack Morton. He sucked luxuriously on his short, tipped cigarette, coughed loudly, brought his handkerchief from his pocket and deposited something into it from his mouth. He studied the contents of the handkerchief. ‘Ah ha, some vital new evidence,’ he said. All the same, he looked rather worried.
    Rebus smiled. ‘Time to stop smoking, Jack,’ he said.
    They were seated together at a desk upon which were piled about a hundred and fifty files on known sex-offenders in central Scotland. A smart young secretary, doubtless relishing the overtime that came with a murder inquiry, kept bringing more files into the office, and Rebus stared at her in mock outrage every time she entered. He was hoping to scare her away, and if she came back again, the outrage would become real.
    ‘No, John, it’s these tipped bastards. I can’t take to them, really I can’t. Sod that bloody doctor.’
    So saying, Morton took the cigarette from his lips, broke off the filter, and replaced the cigarette, now ridiculously short, between thin, bloodless lips.
    ‘That’s better. That’s more like a fag.’
    Rebus had always found two things remarkable. One was that he liked, and in return was liked by, Jack Morton. The other was that Morton could pull so hard on a cigarette andyet release so little smoke. Where did all that smoke go? He could not figure it out.
    ‘I see you’re abstaining this evening, John.’
    ‘Limiting myself to ten a day, Jack.’
    Morton shook his head.
    ‘Ten, twenty, thirty a day. Take it from me, John, it makes no difference in the end. What it comes down to is this: you either stop or you don’t, and if you can’t stop, then you’re as well smoking as many as you like. That’s been proven. I read about it in a magazine.’
    ‘Aye, but we all know the magazines you read, Jack.’
    Morton chuckled, gave another tremendous cough, and searched for his handkerchief.
    ‘What a bloody job,’ said Rebus, picking up the first of the files.
    The two men sat in silence for twenty minutes, flicking through the facts and fantasies of rapists, exhibitionists, pederasts, paedophiles, and procurers. Rebus felt his mouth filling with silt. It was as if he saw himself there, time after time after time, the self that lurked behind his everyday consciousness. His Mister Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, Edinburgh-born. He felt ashamed of his occasional erection: doubtless Jack Morton had one too. It came with the territory, as did the revulsion, the loathing and the fascination.
    Around them, the station whirled in the business of the night. Men in shirtsleeves walked purposefully past their open door, the door of their assigned office, cut off from everyone else so that no one would be contaminated by their thoughts. Rebus paused for a moment to reflect that his own office back in Great London Road was in need of much of this equipment: the modern desk (unwobbly, with drawers that could be opened easily), the filing-cabinets (ditto), the drinks-dispenser just outside. There were carpets even, rather than his own liver-red linoleum with its curled, dangerous edges. Itwas a very palatable