A Good Hanging and other Stories (12 page)

It was sometimes hard to believe that the place was in Edinburgh, that the main entrance to the Hermitage was just off the busy Comiston Road at the southern reach of Morningside. The protesters - such as they were - had held vigil at these gates for a couple of days, singing songs and handing out their ‘No Popery’ pamphlets. Occasionally a megaphone would appear, so that they could deliver their rant. A seller of religious nick-nacks and candles had set up his pitch across the road from the protesters, and at a canny distance along the road from them. The megaphone was most often directed towards him, there being no other visible target.

A rant was occurring as Inspector John Rebus arrived. Would the day of judgment be like this, he wondered, accepting a leaflet. Would the loudest voices belong to the saved?
Megaphones will be provided
, he thought to himself as he passed through the gates. He studied the leaflet. No Popery, indeed.

‘Why ever not?’ And so asking, he crumpled the paper and tossed it into the nearest wastepaper-bin. The voice followed him as though it had a mission and he was it.

‘There must be NO idolatry! There is but ONE God and it is HE ye should worship! Do not turn YOUR face to graven IMAGES! The Good Book is the ONLY truth ye NEED!’

Rave on ...

They were a minority of course, far outweighed by the curious who came to see. But they in their turn looked as though they might be outnumbered very soon by the shrine-builders. Rebus liked to think of himself as a Christian, albeit with too many questions and doubts to ally himself with either side, Catholic or Protestant. He could not escape the fact that he had been born a Protestant; but his mother, a religious woman, had died young, and his father had been indifferent.

Rebus hadn’t even been aware of any difference between Catholic and Protestant until he’d started school. His preschooldays best friend was a Catholic, a boy called Miles Skelly. Come their first day at school, the boys had been split up, sent to schools on different sides of town. Parted like this daily, they soon grew to have new friends and stopped playing together.

That had been Rebus’s first lesson in ‘the divide’. But he had nothing against Catholics. The Protestant community might call them ‘left-footers’, but Rebus himself kicked a ball with his left foot. He did, however, mistrust the shrine mentality. It made him uneasy: statues which wept or bled or moved. Sudden visions of the Virgin Mary. A face imprinted on a shroud.

A faith should be just that, Rebus reasoned. And if you held belief, what need had you of miracles, especially ones that seemed more the province of the Magic Circle than of the divine? So the closer he came to the spot itself, the shakier became his legs. There was a tangle of undergrowth, and in front of it a stunted tree. Around this tree had been arranged candles, small statues, photographs, written prayers, flowers, all in the last two or three days. It was quite a transformation. A knot of people knelt nearby, but at a respectful distance. Their heads were bowed in prayer. Others sat, arms out behind them, supporting themselves on the grass. They wore beatific smiles, as though they could hear or see something Rebus couldn’t. He listened hard, but heard only whispers of prayer, the distant barking of dogs. He looked, but saw only a tree, though it had to be admitted that the sunlight seemed to catch it in a particularly striking way, picking it out from the undergrowth behind it.

There was a rustling from beyond the tree itself. Rebus moved around the congregation - there was no other word for the gathering — towards the undergrowth, where several police cadets were on their hands and knees, not in worship this time but searching the ground.

‘Anything?’

One of the figures straightened up, pressing his fingers into his spine as he exhaled. Rebus could hear the vertebrae crackling.

‘Nothing, sir, not a blasted thing.’

‘Language, Holmes, language. Remember, this is a holy site.’

Detective Constable Brian Holmes managed a wry smile. He’d been smiling a lot this morning. For once he’d been put in charge and it didn’t matter to him that he was in a damp copse, or that he was in charge of a shower of disgruntled cadets, or that he had twigs in his hair. He was in charge. Not even John Rebus could take that away from him.

Except that he could. And did.

‘All right,’ Rebus said, ‘that’s enough. We’ll have to make do with what we’ve got. Or rather, what the lab boys have got.’

The cadets rose mercifully to their feet. One or two brushed white chalky powder from their knees, others scraped at dirt and grass stains. ‘Well done, lads,’ Rebus admitted. ‘Not very exciting, I know, but that’s what police work is all about. So if you’re joining for thrills and spills, think again.’

That should have been
my
speech, Holmes thought to himself as the cadets grinned at Rebus’s words. They would agree with anything he said, anything he did. He was an Inspector. He was
the
Inspector Rebus. Holmes felt himself losing height and density, becoming like a patch of low mist or a particularly innocuous shadow. Rebus was in charge now. The cadets had all but forgotten their former leader. They had eyes for only one man, and that man was ordering them to go and drink some tea.

‘What’s up, Brian?’

Holmes, watching the cadets shuffle away, realised Rebus was speaking to him. ‘Sorry?’

‘You look like you’ve found a tanner and lost a shilling.’

Holmes shrugged. ‘I suppose I’m thinking about how I could have had one-and-six. No news yet on the blood?’

‘Just that it’s every bit as messianic as yours and mine.’

‘What a surprise.’

Rebus nodded towards the clearing. ‘Try telling them that. They’ll have an answer for you.’

‘I know. I’ve already been ticked off for desecration. You know they’ve started posting an all-night guard?’

‘What for?’

‘In case the Wee Frees chop down the tree and run away with it.’

They stared at one another, then burst out laughing. Hands quickly went to mouths to stifle the sound. Desecration upon desecration.

‘Come on,’ said Rebus, ‘you look like you could do with a cuppa yourself. My treat.’

‘Now that is a miracle,’ said Holmes, following his superior out of the trees. A tall, muscled man was approaching. He wore denims and a white T-shirt. A large wooden cross swung from his neck, around which was also tied a red kerchief. His beard was as thick and black as his hair.

‘Are you police officers?’

‘Yes,’ Rebus said.

‘Then I think you should know, they’re trying to steal the tree.’

‘Steal it, sir?’

‘Yes, steal it. We’ve got to keep watch twenty-four hours. Last night, one of them had a knife, but there were too many of us, thank God.’

‘And you are?’

‘Steven Byrne.’ He paused. ‘Father Steven Byrne.’

Rebus paused too, digesting this new information. ‘Well, Father, would you recognise this man again? The one with the knife?’

‘Yes, probably.’

‘Well, we could go down to the station and have a look at some photographs.’

Father Byrne seemed to be appraising Rebus. Acknowledging that he was being taken seriously, he nodded slowly. ‘Thank you, I don’t think that’ll be necessary. But I thought you ought to know. Things might turn nasty.’

Rebus bit back a comment about turning the other cheek. ‘Not if we can help it,’ he said instead. ‘If you see the man again, Father, let us know straight away. Don’t try anything on your own.’

Father Byrne looked around him. ‘There aren’t so many telephones around here.’ His eyes were twinkling with humour. An attractive man, thought Rebus. Even a touch charismatic.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’ll try to make sure a patrol car comes by and checks on things. How would that be?’

Father Byrne nodded. Rebus made to move away. ‘Bless you,’ he heard the man saying. Rebus kept walking, but for some reason his cheeks had turned deep red. But it was right and proper, after all, wasn’t it? Right that he should be blessed.

‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ he quoted, as the megaphone came back into range.

The story was a simple one. Three girls had been in the Hermitage one late afternoon. School over, they’d decided to cut through the park, climb Blackford Hill and come down the other side towards their homes. A long way round for a short-cut, as Rebus had put it at the time.

They were sensible girls, from good Catholic homes. They were fifteen and all had future plans that included university and a career as well as marriage. They didn’t seem inclined to fantasy or exaggeration. They stuck to the same story throughout. They’d been about thirty yards or so from the tree when they’d seen a man. One second he wasn’t there, the next he was. Dressed in white and with a glow all around him. Long wavy dark hair and a beard. A very pale face, they were definite about that. He leaned with one hand against the tree, the other to his side. His right side - again, all three concurred on this. Then he took the hand away, and they saw that there was blood on his side. A dark red patch. They gasped. They looked to each other for confirmation that they’d seen what they had seen. When they looked again, the figure had vanished.

They ran to their separate homes, but over dinner the story came out in each of the three households. Disbelieved, perhaps, for a moment. But then why would the girls lie? The parents got together and went to the Hermitage. They were shown the place, the tree. There was no sign of anyone. But then one of the mothers shrieked before crossing herself.

‘Look at that!’ she cried. ‘Just look at it!’

It was a smeared red mark, still wet on the bark of the tree. Blood.

The parents went to the police and the police made an initial search of the area, but in the meantime, the neighbour of one of the families telephoned a friend who was a stringer on a Sunday newspaper. The paper ran the story of the ‘Hermitage Vision’ and the thing began to grow. The blood, it was said, hadn’t dried. And this was true, though as Rebus knew it could well have something to do with the reaction of blood and bark. Footprints were found, but so many and so varied that it was impossible to say when they’d been made or by whom. The parents, for example, had searched the area thoroughly, destroying a lot of potential evidence. There were no bloodstains on the ground. No patients with side wounds had been treated in any of the city’s hospitals or by any doctor.

The description of the figure was vague: tallish, thinnish, the long hair and beard of course - but was the hair brown or black? The girls couldn’t be sure. Dressed in white - ‘like a gown’, one of them remembered later. But by then the story had become public property; how far would that distort her memories of the evening? And as for the glow. Well, Rebus had seen how the sun hit that particular spot. Imagine a lowish sun, creeping towards evening. That would explain the glow - to a rational man.

But then the zealous - of both sides - appeared. The believers and the doubters, carrying candles or toting megaphones. It was a quiet time for news: the media loved it. The girls photographed well. When they appeared on TV, the trickle of visitors to the site became a flood. Coach-loads headed north from Wales and England. Organised parties were arriving from Ireland. A Parisian magazine had picked up on the mystery; so, it was rumoured, had a Bible-thumping cable channel from the USA.

Rebus wanted to raise his hands and turn back the tide. Instead of which that tide rolled straight over him. Superintendent Watson wanted answers.

‘I don’t like all this hocus-pocus,’ he said, with Presbyterian assuredness and an Aberdonian lilt. ‘I want something tangible. I want an explanation, one I can believe. Understood?’

Understood. Rebus understood it; so did Chief Inspector Lauderdale. Chief Inspector Lauderdale understood that he wanted Rebus to do something about it. Rebus understood that hands were being washed; that his alone were to work on the case. If in doubt, delegate. That was where Brian Holmes and his cadets entered the picture. Having found no new clues - no clues
period
— Rebus decided to back off. Media interest was already dying. Some local historian would now and again come up with a ‘fact’ or a ‘theory’ and these would revive the story for a while - the hermit who’d lived in the Hermitage, executed for witchcraft in 1714 and said still to haunt the place, that sort of thing, but it couldn’t last. It was like poking at embers without feeding them. A momentary glow, no more. When the media interest died, so would that of the fringe lunatics. There had already been copycat ‘visions’ in Cornwall, Caerphilly and East Croydon. The Doubting Thomases were appearing. What’s more, the blood had gone, washed away in an overnight deluge which also extinguished the candles around the tree.

A recurrence of the ‘vision’ was needed if the thing were not to die. Rebus prayed each night for a quick and merciful release. It didn’t come. Instead there was a 4 a.m. phone call.

‘This better be worth it.’

‘It is.’

‘Go on then.’

‘How soon can you get to the Hermitage?’

Rebus sat up in bed. ‘Talk to me.’

‘They’ve found a body, Well, that’s putting it a bit strongly. Let’s say they’ve found a trunk.’

A trunk it was, and not the sort you stuck travel labels on either.

‘Dear God in heaven,’ Rebus whispered, staring at the thing. ‘Who found it?’

Holmes didn’t look too good himself. ‘One of the tree people,’ he said. ‘Wandered over here looking for a place to do his number twos. Had a torch with him. Found this. I think you could say he’s in a state of shock. Apparently, so are his trousers.’

‘I can’t say I blame them.’ A generator hummed in the background, providing juice for the three tall halogen lamps which lit the clearing. Some uniformed officers were cordoning off the area with strips of orange tape. ‘So nobody’s touched it?’

‘Nobody’s been near it.’

Rebus nodded, satisfied. ‘Better keep it that way till forensics get here. Where the hell’s the pathologist?’

Holmes nodded over Rebus’s shoulder. ‘Speak of the devil,’ he said.

Rebus turned. Two men in sombre Crombie-style coats were walking briskly towards the scene. One carried a black surgeon’s bag, the other had his hands firmly in his pockets, protection from the chill air. The halogen had fooled a few of the local birds, who were chirping their hearts out. But morning wasn’t far away.