Moral duty to raid brothels, Edinburgh: Ian Rankin and Inspector Rebus

Ian Rankin’s crime novels are sometimes sympathetic to sex workers and occasionally reveal how police think about the sex industry. In Strip Jack (1992) Inspector Rebus and other police participate in a raid on an upscale Edinburgh brothel at the instigation of a senior officer with a sense of moral duty. Note no mention of need to rescue workers.

. . . an invisible somebody had whispered in his ear the word ‘brothel’. Sin and debauchery! Watson’s hard Presbyterian heart had been stirred to righteous indignation. He was the kind of Highland Christian who found sex within marriage just about acceptable – his son and daughter were proof – but who baulked at anything and everything else. If there was an active brothel in Edinburgh, Watson wanted it shut down with prejudice.

But then the informer had provided an address, and this caused a certain hesitation. The brothel was in one of the better streets of the New Town, quiet Georgian terraces, lined with trees and Saabs and Volvos, the houses filled with professional people: lawyers, surgeons, university professors. This was no seaman’s bawdy-house, no series of damp, dark rooms above a dockside pub. . .

Watch had been kept for several days and nights, courtesy of unmarked cars and unremarkable plainclothes men. Until there could be little doubt: whatever was happening inside the shuttered rooms, it was happening after midnight and it was happening briskly. Interestingly, few of the many men arrived by car. But a watchful detective constable, taking a leak in the dead of night, discovered why. The men were parking their cars in side streets and walking the hundred yards or so to the front door of the four-storey house. Perhaps this was house policy: the slamming of after-hours car doors would arouse suspicion in the street. Or perhaps it was in the visitors’ own interests not to leave their cars in broad streetlight, where they might be recognised . . .

Registration numbers were taken and checked, as were photographs of visitors to the house. The owner of the house itself was traced. He owned half a French vineyard as well as several properties in Edinburgh, and lived in Bordeaux the year through. His solicitor had been responsible for letting the house to a Mrs Croft, a very genteel lady in her fifties. According to the solicitor, she paid her rent promply and in cash. Was there any problem . . . ?

Meantime, the car owners had turned out to be businessmen, some local, but the majority visiting the city from south of the border. Heartened by this, Watson had started planning the raid. . .

The house, it was reckoned, would be doing good business by midnight. One o’clock Saturday morning was chosen as the time of the raid. The warrants were ready. Every man in the team knew his place. And the solicitor had even come up with plans of the house, which had been memorized by the officers. ‘It’s a bloody warren.’ Watson had said. ‘No problem, sir, so long as we’ve got enough ferrets.’

In truth, Rebus wasn’t looking forward to this evening’s work. Brothels might be illegal, but they fulfilled a need and if they veered towards respectability, as this one certainly did, then what was the problem? He could see some of this doubt reflected in Watson’s eyes. But Watson had been enthusiastic from the first, and to pull back now was unthinkable, would seem a sign of weakness. . . pp 2-3, Strip Jack, 1998

Lawrence Block’s Matt Scudder is another fictional detective (private, not police) with more than a little sympathy for sex workers.

–Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist

2 thoughts on “Moral duty to raid brothels, Edinburgh: Ian Rankin and Inspector Rebus

  1. xeoncat

    Great blog. It is not everyday that I see someone not have objective opinions on such subjects and still find them very interesting. Many props, you are a great scholar.

    Reply

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