by Ian Rankin
‘Depends on the kind of talk you want. The dirtier it is, the more it’ll cost.’
‘I was just thinking about a guy I met here once. Not so long ago. Haven’t seen him around. I was wondering what happened to him.’
The boy suddenly placed his hand on Rebus’s crotch, rubbing hard and fast against the material. Rebus stared at the hand for a full second before calmly, but with a deliberate grip, removing it. The boy grinned, leaning back in his seat.
‘What’s his name, James?’
Rebus tried to stop himself trembling. His stomach was filling with bile. ‘Ronnie,’ he said at last, clearing his throat. ‘Not too tall. Dark hair, quite short. Used to take a few pictures. You know, keen on photography.’
The boy’s eyebrows rose. ‘You’re a photographer, are you? Like to take a few snaps? I see.’ He nodded slowly. Rebus doubted that he did see, but wasn’t about to say more than was necessary. And yes, that Jag was nice. New-looking. Paintwork brightly reflective. Someone with a bit of money. And dear God why did he have an erection?
‘I think I know which Ronnie you mean now,’ said the boy. ‘I haven’t seen him around much myself.’
‘So what can you tell me about him?’
The boy was staring out of the windscreen again. ‘Great view from here, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Even at night. Especially at night. Amazing. I hardly ever come here in the daytime. It all looks so ordinary. You’re a copper, aren’t you?’
Rebus looked towards him, but the boy was still staring out of the windscreen, smiling, unconcerned.
‘Thought you were,’ he went on. ‘Right from the start.’
‘So why did you get in the car?’
‘Curious, I suppose. Besides,’ and now he looked towards Rebus, ‘some of my best customers are officers of the law.’
‘Well, that’s none of my concern.’
‘No? It should be. I’m underage, you know.’
‘I guessed.’
‘Yeah, well.…’ The boy slumped in his seat, putting his feet up on the dashboard. For a moment, Rebus thought he was about to do something, and jerked himself upright. But the boy just laughed.
‘What did you think? Think I was going to touch you again? Eh? No such luck, James.’
‘So what about Ronnie?’ Rebus wasn’t sure whether he wanted to punch this rather ugly little kid in the gut, or take him to a good and a caring home. But he knew, above all, that he wanted answers.
‘Give me another ciggie.’ Rebus obliged. ‘Ta. Why are you so interested in him?’
‘Because he’s dead.’
‘Happens all the time.’
‘He overdosed.’
‘Ditto.’
‘The stuff was lethal.’
The boy was silent for a moment.
‘Now that is bad news.’
‘Has there been any poisoned stuff going around recently?’
‘No.’ He smiled again. ‘Only good stuff. Got any on you?’ Rebus shook his head, thinking: I do want to punch him in the gut. ‘Pity,’ said the boy.
‘What’s your name, by the way?’
‘No names, James, and no pack drill.’ He put out his hand, palm up. ‘I need some money.’
‘I need some answers first.’
‘So give me the questions. But first, a little goodwill, eh?’ The hand was still there, expectant as any father-to-be. Rebus found a crumpled tenner in his jacket and handed it over. The boy seemed satisfied. ‘This gets you the answers to two questions.’
Rebus’s anger ignited. ‘It gets me as many answers as I want, or so help me –’
‘Rough trade? That your game?’ The boy seemed unconcerned. Maybe he’d heard it all before. Rebus wondered.
‘Is there much rough stuff goes on?’ he asked.
‘Not much.’ the boy paused. ‘But still too much.’
‘Ronnie was into it, wasn’t he?’
‘That’s your second question,’ stated the boy. ‘And the answer is, I don’t know.’
‘Don’t knows don’t count,’ said Rebus. ‘And I’ve got plenty of questions left.’
‘Okay, if that’s the way –’ The boy was reaching for the door handle, ready to walk away from it all. Rebus grabbed him by the neck and brought his head down against the dashboard, right between where both feet were still resting.
‘Jesus Christ!’ The boy checked for blood on his forehead. There was none. Rebus was pleased with himself: maximum shock, minimum visible damage. ‘You can’t –’
‘I can do anything I like, son, and that includes tipping you over the edge of the highest point in the city. Now tell me about Ronnie.’
‘I can’t tell you about Ronnie.’ There were tears in his eyes now. He rubbed at his forehead, trying to erase the hurt. ‘I didn’t know him well enough.’
‘So tell me what you do know.’
‘Okay, okay.’ He sniffed, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his jacket. ‘All I know is that a few friends of mine have gotten into a scene.’
‘What scene?’
‘I don’t know. Something heavy. They don’t talk about it, but the marks are there. Bruises, cuts. One of them ended up in the Infirmary for a week. Said he fell down the stairs. Christ, he looked like he fell down a whole high-rise.’
‘But nobody’s talking?’
‘There must be good money in it somewhere.’
‘Anything else?’
‘It may not be important.…’ The kid had broken. Rebus could hear it in his voice. He’d talk from now till judgment day. Good: Rebus didn’t have too many ears in this part of the city. A fresh pair might make all the difference.
‘What?’ he barked, enjoying his role now.
‘Photographs. Somebody’s putting a whisper around that there’s interest in photographs. Not faked ones, either. The real McCoy.’
‘Porn shots?’
‘I suppose so. The rumours have been a bit vague. Rumours get that way when they’ve gone past being second-hand.’
‘Chinese whispers,’ said Rebus. He was thinking: this whole thing is like a game of Chinese whispers, everything at second and third remove, nothing absolutely proof positive.
‘What?’
‘Never mind. Anything else?’
The boy shook his head. Rebus reached into his pocket and, to his own surprise, found yet another tenner. Then he remembered that he’d visited a cashpoint machine somewhere during the drinking session with McCall. He handed the money over.
‘Here. And I’ll give you my name and phone number. I’m always open to bits of information, no matter how small. Sorry about your head, by the way.’
The boy took the money. ‘That’s all right. I’ve seen worse pay.’ Then he smiled.
‘Can I give you a lift?’
‘The Bridges maybe?’
‘No problem. What’s your name?’
‘James.’
‘Really?’ Rebus was smiling.
‘Yes, really.’ The boy was smiling, too. ‘Listen, there is one other thing.’
‘Go ahead, James.’
‘It’s just a name I’ve been hearing. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything.’
‘Yes?’
‘Hyde.’
Rebus frowned. ‘Hide? Hide what?’
‘No, Hyde. H-y-d-e.’
‘What about Hyde?’
‘I don’t know. Like I said, it’s just a name.’
Rebus gripped the steering wheel. Hyde? Hyde? Was that what Ronnie had been telling Tracy? Not just to hide, but to hide from some man called Hyde? Trying to think, he found himself staring at the Jag again. Or rather, staring at the profile of the man in the driver’s seat. The man with his hand up around the neck of the much younger occupant of the passenger seat. Stroking, and all the time talking in a low voice. Stroking, talking. All very innocent.
A wonder then that James Carew of Bowyer Carew Estate Agents should look so startled when, being stared at, he returned the stare and found himself eye to eye with Dectective Inspector John Rebus.
Rebus was taking all this in as Carew fumbled with his ignition key, revved up the new V12 engine and reversed out of the car park as though Cutty Sark herself were after him.
‘He’s in a hurry,’ said James.
‘Have you seen him before?’
‘Didn’t really catch his face. Haven’t seen the car before though.’
‘No, well, it’s a new car, isn’t it?’ said Rebus, lazily starting his own.
The flat was still redolent of Tracy. She lingered in the living room and the bathroom. He saw her with a towel falling down around her head, legs tucked beneath her.… Bringing him breakfast: the dirty dishes were still lying beside his unmade bed. She had laughed to find that he slept on a mattress on the floor. ‘Just like in a squat,’ she had said. The flat seemed emptier now, emptier than it had felt for a while. And Rebus could do with a bath. He returned to the bathroom and turned the hot tap on. He could still feel James’s hand on his leg.… In the living room, he looked at a bottle of whisky for a full minute, but turned his back on it and fetched a low-alcohol lager from the fridge instead.
The bath was filling slowly. An Archimedean screw would have been more efficient. Still, it gave him time to make another telephone call to the station, to check on how they were treating Tracy. The news was not good. She was becoming irritable, refusing to eat, complaining of pains in her side. Appendicitis? More likely cold turkey. He felt a fair amount of guilt at not having gone to see her before now. Another layer of guilt wouldn’t do any harm, so he decided to put off the visit until morning. Just for a few hours he wanted to be away from it all, all the sordid tinkering with other people’s lives. His flat didn’t feel so secure any more, didn’t feel like the castle it had been only a day or two ago. And there was internal damage as well as the structural kind: he was feeling soiled in the pit of his gut, as though the city had scraped away a layer of its surface grime and force-fed him the lot.
To hell with it.
He was caught all right. He was living in the most beautiful, most civilised city in northern Europe, yet every day had to deal with its flipside, with the minor matter of its animus. Animus? Now there was a word he hadn’t used in a while. He wasn’t even sure now what it meant exactly; but it sounded right. He sucked from the beer bottle, holding the foam in his mouth like a child playing with toothpaste. This stuff was all foam. No substance.
All foam. Now there was another idea. He would put some foaming bath oil in the water. Bubblebath. Who the hell had given him this stuff? Oh. Yes. Gill Templer. He remembered now. Remembered the occasion, too. She had been gently chiding him about how he never cleaned the bath. Then had presented him with this bath oil.
‘It cleans you and your bath,’ she had said, reading from the bottle. ‘And puts the fun back into bathtime.’
He had suggested that they test this claim together, and they had.… Jesus, John, you’re getting morbid again. Just because she’s gone off with some vacuum-headed disc jockey with the unlikely name of Calum McCallum. It wasn’t the end of anybody’s world. The bombs weren’t falling. There were no sirens in the sky.
Nothing but … Ronnie, Tracy, Charlie, James and the rest. And now Hyde. Rebus was beginning to know now the meaning of the term ‘dead beat’. He rested his naked limbs in the near-scalding water and closed his eyes.
Thursday
That house of voluntary bondage … with its inscrutable recluse.
Dead beat: Holmes yawned again, dead on his feet. For once, he had actually beaten the alarm, so that he was returning to bed with instant coffee when the radio blared into action. What a way to wake up every day. When he had a spare half hour, he’d retune the bloody thing to Radio Three or something. Except he knew Radio Three would send him straight back to sleep, whereas the voice of Calum McCallum and the grating records he played in between hoots and jingles and enthusiastic bad jokes brought him awake with a jolt, ready, teeth gritted, to face another day.
This morning, he had beaten the smug little voice. He switched the radio off.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Coffee, and time to get up.’
Nell turned her head from the pillow, squinting up at him.
‘Has it gone nine?’
‘Not quite.’
She turned back into the pillow again, moaning softly.
‘Good. Wake me up again when it does.’
‘Drink your coffee,’ he chided, touching her shoulder. Her shoulder was warm, tempting. He allowed himself a wistful smile, then turned and left the bedroom. He had gone ten paces before he paused, turned, and went back. Nell’s arms were long, tanned, and open in welcome.
Despite the breakfast he had brought her in the cell, Tracy was furious with Rebus, and especially when he explained to her that she could leave whenever she wanted, that she wasn’t under arrest.
‘This is called protection,’ he told her. ‘Protection from the men who were chasing you. Protection from Charlie.’
‘Charlie.…’ She calmed a little at the sound of his name, and touched her bruised eye. ‘But why didn’t you come to see me sooner?’ she complained. Rebus shrugged.
‘Things to do,’ he said.
He stared at her photograph now, while Brian Holmes sat on the other side of the desk, warily sipping coffee from a chipped mug. Rebus wasn’t sure whether he hated Holmes or loved him for bringing this into the office, for laying it flat on the desktop in front of him. Not saying a word. No good morning, no hail fellow well met. Just this. This photograph, this nude shot. Of Tracy.
Rebus had stared at it while Holmes made his report. Holmes had worked hard yesterday, and had achieved a result. So why had he snubbed Rebus in the bar? If he’d seen this picture last night, it would not now be ruining his morning, not now be eroding the memory of a good night’s sleep. Rebus cleared his throat.
‘Did you find out anything about her?’
‘No, sir,’ said Holmes. ‘All I got was that.’ He nodded towards the photograph, his eyes unblinking: I’ve given you that. What more do you want from me?
‘I see,’ said Rebus, his voice level. He turned the photo over and read the small label on the back. Hutton Studios. A business telephone number. ‘Right. Well, leave this with me, Brian. I’ll have to give it some thought.’
‘Okay,’ said Holmes, thinking: he called me Brian! He’s not thinking straight this morning.
Rebus sat back, sipping from his own mug. Coffee, milk no sugar. He had been disappointed when Holmes had asked for his coffee the same way. It gave them something in common. A taste in coffee.
‘How’s the househunting going?’ he said conversationally.
‘Grim. How did you …?’ Holmes remembered the Houses for Sale list, folded in his jacket pocket like a tabloid newspaper. He touched it now. Rebus smiled, nodded.
‘I remember buying my flat,’ he said. ‘I scoured those freesheets for weeks before I found a place I liked.’
‘Liked?’ Holmes snorted. ‘That would be a bonus. The problem for me is just finding somewhere I can afford.’
‘That bad, is it?’
‘Haven’t you noticed?’ Holmes was slightly incredulous. So involved was he in the game, it was hard to believe that anyone wasn’t. ‘Prices are going through the roof. In fact, a roof’s about all I can afford near the centre of the city.’
‘Yes, I remember someone telling me about it.’ Rebus was thoughtful. ‘At lunch yesterday. You know I was with the people putting up the money for Farmer Watson’s drugs campaign? One of them was James Carew.’
‘He wouldn’t be anything to do with Carew Bowyers?’
‘The head honcho. Do you want me to have a word? See about a discount on your house?’
Holmes smiled. Some of the glacier between them had been chipped away. ‘That would be great,’ he said. ‘Maybe he could arrange for a summertime sale, bargains in all departments.’ Holmes started this sentence with a grin, but it trailed away with his words. Rebus wasn’t listening, was lost somewhere in thought.
‘Yes,’ Rebus said quietly. ‘I’ve got to have a word with Mr Carew anyway.’
‘Oh?’
‘To do with some soliciting.’
‘Thinking of moving houses yourself?’
Rebus looked at Holmes, not comprehending. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I suppose we need a plan of attack for today.’
‘Ah.’ Holmes looked uncomfortable. ‘I wanted to ask you about that, sir. I had a phone call this morning. I’ve been working for some months on a dog-fighting ring, and they’re about to arrest the gang.’
‘Dog fighting?’
‘Yes, you know. Put two dogs in a ring. Let them tear each other to shreds. Place bets on the result.’
‘I thought that died with the depression.’
‘There’s been a revival of late. Vicious it is, too. I could show you some photos –’
‘Why the revival?’
‘Who knows? People looking for kicks, something less tame than a bet at the bookie’s.’
Rebus was nodding now, almost lost to his own thoughts again.
‘Would you say it was a yuppie pursuit, Holmes?’
Holmes shrugged: he’s getting better. Stopped calling me by my first name.
‘Well, never mind. So you want to be in on the arrest?’
Holmes nodded. ‘If possible, sir.’
‘Entirely possible,’ said Rebus. ‘So where’s it all happening?’
‘I still have to check that out. Somewhere in Fife though.’
‘Fife? Home territory for me.’
‘Is it? I didn’t know. What’s that saying again …?’
‘“Ye need a lang spoon tae sup wi’ a Fifer.”’
Holmes smiled. ‘Yes, that’s it. There’s a similar saying about the devil, isn’t there?’
‘All it means is that we’re close, Holmes, tightly knit. We don’t suffer fools and strangers gladly. Now off you go to Fife and see what I’m on about.’
‘Yes, sir. What about you? I mean, what will you do about…?’ His eyes were on the photograph again. Rebus picked it up and placed it carefully in the inside pocket of his jacket.
‘Don’t worry about me, son. I’ve plenty to keep me busy. Just keeping out of range of Farmer Watson is work enough for a day. Maybe I’ll take the car out. Nice day for a drive.’