Hide And Seek

Monday

What a start to the working week.

The housing estate, what he could see of it through the rain-lashed windscreen, was slowly turning back into the wilderness that had existed here before the builders had moved in many years ago. He had no doubt that in the 1960s it, like its brethren clustered around Edinburgh, had seemed the perfect solution to future housing needs. And he wondered if the planners ever learned through anything other than hindsight. If not, then perhaps today’s ‘ideal’ solutions were going to turn out the same way.

The landscaped areas comprised long grass and an abundance of weeds, while children’s tarmacadamed playgrounds had become bombsites, shrapnel glass awaiting a tripped knee or stumbling hand. Most of the terraces boasted boarded-up windows, ruptured drainpipes pouring out teeming rainwater onto the ground, marshy front gardens with broken fences and missing gates. He had the idea that on a sunny day the place would seem even more depressing.

Yet nearby, a matter of a few hundred yards or so, some developer had started building private apartments. The hoarding above the site proclaimed this a LUXURY DEVELOPMENT, and gave its address as MUIR VILLAGE. Rebus wasn’t fooled, but wondered how many young buyers would be. This was Pilmuir, and always would be. This was the dumping ground.

There was no mistaking the house he wanted. Two police cars and an ambulance were already there, parked next to a burnt-out Ford Cortina. But even if there hadn’t been this sideshow, Rebus would have known the house. Yes, it had its boarded-up windows, like its neighbours on either side, but it also had an open door, opening into the darkness of its interior. And on a day like this, would any house have its door flung wide open were it not for the corpse inside, and the superstitious dread of the living who were incarcerated with it?

Unable to park as close to this door as he would have liked, Rebus cursed under his breath and pushed open the car door, throwing his raincoat over his head as he made to dash through the stiletto shower. Something fell from his pocket onto the verge. Scrap paper, but he picked it up anyway, screwing it into his pocket as he ran. The path to the open door was cracked and slick with weeds, and he almost slipped and fell, but reached the threshold intact, shaking the water from him, awaiting the welcoming committee.

A constable put his head around a doorway, frowning.

‘Detective Inspector Rebus,’ said Rebus by way of introduction.

‘In here, sir.’

‘I’ll be there in a minute.’

The head disappeared again, and Rebus looked around the hall. Tatters of wallpaper were the only mementoes of what had once been a home. There was an overpowering fragrance of damp plaster, rotting wood. And behind all that, a sense of this being more of a cave than a house, a crude form of shelter, temporary, unloved.

As he moved further into the house, passing the bare stairwell, darkness embraced him. Boards had been hammered into all the window-frames, shutting out light. The intention, he supposed, had been to shut out squatters, but Edinburgh’s army of homeless was too great and too wise. They had crept in through the fabric of the place. They had made it their den. And one of their number had died here.

The room he entered was surprisingly large, but with a low ceiling. Two constables held thick rubber torches out to illuminate the scene, casting moving shadows over the plasterboard walls. The effect was of a Caravaggio painting, a centre of light surrounded by degrees of murkiness. Two large candles had burnt down to the shapes of fried eggs against the bare floorboards, and between them lay the body, legs together, arms outstretched. A cross without the nails, naked from the waist up. Near the body stood a glass jar, which had once contained something as innocent as instant coffee, but now held a selection of disposable syringes. Putting the fix into crucifixion, Rebus thought with a guilty smile.

The police doctor, a gaunt and unhappy creature, was kneeling next to the body as though about to offer the last rites. A photographer stood by the far wall, trying to find a reading on his light meter. Rebus moved in towards the corpse, standing over the doctor.

‘Give us a torch,’ he said, his hand commanding one from the nearest constable. He shone this down across the body, starting at the bare feet, the bedenimed legs, a skinny torso, ribcage showing through the pallid skin. Then up to the neck and face. Mouth open, eyes closed. Sweat looked to have dried on the forehead and in the hair. But wait…. Wasn’t that moisture around the mouth, on the lips? A drop of water suddenly fell from nowhere into the open mouth. Rebus, startled, expected the man to swallow, to lick his parched lips and return to life. He did not.

‘Leak in the roof,’ the doctor explained, without looking up from his work. Rebus shone the torch against the ceiling, and saw the damp patch which was the source of the drip. Unnerving all the same.

‘Sorry I took so long to get here,’ he said, trying to keep his voice level. ‘So what’s the verdict?’

‘Overdose,’ the doctor said blandly. ‘Heroin.’ He shook a tiny polythene envelope at Rebus. ‘The contents of this sachet, if I’m not mistaken. There’s another full one in his right hand.’ Rebus shone his torch towards where a lifeless hand was half clutching a small packet of white powder.

‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘I thought everyone chased the dragon these days instead of injecting.’

The doctor looked up at him at last.

‘That’s a very naive view, Inspector. Go talk to the Royal Infirmary. They’ll tell you how many intravenous abusers there are in Edinburgh. It probably runs into hundreds. That’s why we’re the AIDS capital of Britain.’

‘Aye, we take pride in our records, don’t we? Heart disease, false teeth, and now AIDS.’

The doctor smiled. ‘Something you might be interested in,’ he said. ‘There’s bruising on the body. Not very distinct in this light, but it’s there.’

Rebus squatted down and shone the torch over the torso again. Yes, there was bruising all right. A lot of bruising.

‘Mainly to the ribs,’ the doctor continued. ‘But also some to the face.’

‘Maybe he fell,’ Rebus suggested.

‘Maybe,’ said the doctor.

‘Sir?’ This from one of the constables, his eyes and voice keen. Rebus turned to him.

‘Yes, son?’

‘Come and look at this.’

Rebus was only too glad of the excuse to move away from the doctor and his patient. The constable was leading him to the far wall, shining his torch against it as he went. Suddenly, Rebus saw why.

On the wall was a drawing. A five-pointed star, encompassed by two concentric circles, the largest of them some five feet in diameter. The whole had been well drawn, the lines of the star straight, the circles almost exact. The rest of the wall was bare.

‘What do you think, sir?’ asked the constable.

‘Well, it’s not just your usual graffiti, that’s for sure.’

‘Witchcraft?’

‘Or astrology. A lot of druggies go in for all sorts of mysticism and hoodoo. It goes with the territory.’

‘The candles….’

‘Let’s not jump to conclusions, son. You’ll never make CID that way. Tell me, why are we all carrying torches?’

‘Because the electric’s been cut off.’

‘Right. Ergo, the need for candles.’

‘If you say so, sir.’

‘I do say so, son. Who found the body?’

‘I did, sir. There was a telephone call, female, anonymous, probably one of the other squatters. They seem to have cleared out in a hurry.’

‘So there was nobody else here when you arrived?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Any idea yet who he is?’ Rebus nodded the torch towards the corpse.

‘No, sir. And the other houses are all squats, too, so I doubt we’ll get anything out of them.’

‘On the contrary. If anyone knows the identity of the deceased, they’re the very people. Take your friend and knock on a few doors. But be casual, make sure they don’t think you’re about to evict them or anything.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The constable seemed dubious about the whole venture. For one thing, he was sure to get an amount of hassle. For another, it was still raining hard.

‘On you go,’ Rebus chided, but gently. The constable shuffled off, collecting his companion on the way.

Rebus approached the photographer.

‘You’re taking a lot of snaps,’ he said.

‘I need to in this light, to make sure at least a few come out.’

‘Bit quick off the mark in getting here, weren’t you?’

‘Superintendent Watson’s orders. He wants pictures of any drugs-related incidents. Part of his campaign.’

‘That’s a bit gruesome, isn’t it?’ Rebus knew the new Chief Superintendent, had met him. Full of social awareness and community involvement. Full of good ideas, and lacking only the manpower to implement them. Rebus had an idea.

‘Listen, while you’re here, take one or two of that far wall, will you?’

‘No problem.’

‘Thanks.’ Rebus turned to the doctor. ‘How soon will we know what’s in that full packet?’

‘Later on today, maybe tomorrow morning at the latest.’

Rebus nodded to himself. What was his interest? Maybe it was the dreariness of the day, or the atmosphere in this house, or the positioning of the body. All he knew was that he felt something. And if it turned out to be just a damp ache in his bones, well, fair enough. He left the room and made a tour of the rest of the house.

The real horror was in the bathroom.

The toilet must have blocked up weeks before. A plunger lay on the floor, so some cursory attempt had been made to unblock it, but to no avail. Instead, the small, splattered sink had become a urinal, while the bath had become a dumping ground for solids, upon which crawled a dozen large and jet-black flies. The bath had also become a skip, filled with bags of refuse, bits of wood…. Rebus didn’t stick around, pulling the door tight shut behind him. He didn’t envy the council workmen who would eventually have to come and fight the good fight against all this decay.

One bedroom was completely empty, but the other boasted a sleeping bag, damp from the drips coming through the roof. Some kind of identity had been imposed upon the room by the pinning of pictures to its walls. Up close, he noticed that these were original photographs, and that they comprised a sort of portfolio. Certainly they were well taken, even to Rebus’s untrained eye. A few were of Edinburgh Castle on damp, misty days. It looked particularly bleak. Others showed it in bright sunshine. It still looked bleak. One or two were of a girl, age indeterminate. She was posing, but grinning broadly, not taking the event seriously.

Next to the sleeping bag was a bin-liner half filled with clothes, and next to this a small pile of dog-eared paperbacks: Harlan Ellison, Clive Barker, Ramsey Camp-bell. Science fiction and horror. Rebus left the books where they were and went back downstairs.

‘All finished,’ the photographer said. ‘I’ll get those photos to you tomorrow.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I also do portrait work, by the way. A nice family group for the grandparents? Sons and daughters? Here, I’ll give you my card.’

Rebus accepted the card and pulled his raincoat back on, heading out to the car. He didn’t like photographs, especially of himself. It wasn’t just that he photographed badly. No, there was more to it than that.

The sneaking suspicion that photographs really could steal your soul.

On his way back to the station, travelling through the slow midday traffic, Rebus thought about how a group photograph of his wife, his daughter and him might look. But no, he couldn’t visualise it. They had grown so far apart, ever since Rhona had taken Samantha to live in London. Sammy still wrote, but Rebus himself was slow at responding, and she seemed to take umbrage at this, writing less and less herself. In her last letter she had hoped Gill and he were happy.

He hadn’t the courage to tell her that Gill Templer had left him several months ago. Telling Samantha would have been fine: it was the idea of Rhona’s getting to hear of it that he couldn’t stand. Another notch in his bow of failed relationships. Gill had taken up with a disc jockey on a local radio station, a man whose enthusing voice Rebus seemed to hear whenever he entered a shop or a filling station, or passed the open window of a tenement block.

He still saw Gill once or twice a week of course, at meetings and in the station-house, as well as at scenes of crimes. Especially now that he had been elevated to her rank.

Detective Inspector John Rebus.

Well, it had taken long enough, hadn’t it? And it was a long, hard case, full of personal suffering, which had brought the promotion. He was sure of that.

He was sure, too, that he wouldn’t be seeing Rian again. Not after last night’s dinner party, not after the fairly unsuccessful bout of lovemaking. Yet another unsuccessful bout. It had struck him, lying next to Rian, that her eyes were almost identical to Inspector Gill Templer’s. A surrogate? Surely he was too old for that.

‘Getting old, John,’ he said to himself.

Certainly he was getting hungry, and there was a pub just past the next set of traffic lights. What the hell, he was entitled to a lunch break.

The Sutherland Bar was quiet, Monday lunchtime being one of the lowest points of the week. All money spent, and nothing to look forward to. And of course, as Rebus was quickly reminded by the barman, the Sutherland did not exactly cater for a lunchtime clientele.

‘No hot meals,’ he said, ‘and no sandwiches.’

‘A pie then,’ begged Rebus, ‘anything. Just to wash down the beer.’

‘If it’s food you want, there’s plenty of cafes around here. This particular pub happens to sell beers, lagers and spirits. We’re not a chippie.’

‘What about crisps?’

The barman eyed him for a moment. ‘What flavour?’

‘Cheese and onion.’

‘We’ve run out.’

‘Well, ready salted then.’

‘No, they’re out too.’ The barman had cheered up again.

‘Well,’ said Rebus in growing frustration, ‘what in the name of God have you got?’

‘Two flavours. Curry, or egg, bacon and tomato.’

‘Egg?’ Rebus sighed. ‘All right, give me a packet of each.’

The barman stooped beneath the counter to find the smallest possible bags, past their sell-by dates if possible.

‘Any nuts?’ It was a last desperate hope. The barman looked up.

‘Dry roasted, salt and vinegar, chilli flavour,’ he said.

‘One of each then,’ said Rebus, resigned to an early death. ‘And another half of eighty-shillings.’

He was finishing this second drink when the bar door shuddered open and an instantly recognisable figure entered, his hand signalling for refreshment before he was even halfway through the door. He saw Rebus, smiled, and came to join him on one of the high stools.

‘Hello, John.’

‘Afternoon, Tony.’

Inspector Anthony McCall tried to balance his prodigious bulk on the tiny circumference of the bar stool, thought better of it, and stood instead, one shoe on the foot-rail, and both elbows on the freshly wiped surface of the bar. He stared hungrily at Rebus.

‘Give us one of your crisps.’

When the packet was offered, he pulled out a handful and stuffed them into his mouth.

‘Where were you this morning then?’ said Rebus. ‘I’d to take one of your calls.’

‘The one at Pilmuir? Ach, sorry about that, John. Heavy night last night. I had a bit of a hangover this morning.’ A pint of murky beer was placed in front of him. ‘Hair of the dog,’ he said, and took four slow gulps, reducing it to a quarter of its former size.

‘Well, I’d nothing better to do anyway,’ said Rebus, sipping at his own beer. ‘Christ, those houses down there are a mess though.’

McCall nodded thoughtfully. ‘It wasn’t always like that, John. I was born there.’

‘Really?’

‘Well, to be exact, I was born on the estate that was there before this one. It was so bad, so they said, that they levelled it and built Pilmuir instead. Bloody hell on earth it is now.’

‘Funny you should say that,’ said Rebus. ‘One of the young uniformed kids thought there might be some kind of occult tie-in.’ McCall looked up from his drink. ‘There was a black-magic painting on the wall,’ Rebus explained. ‘And candles on the floor.’

‘Like a sacrifice?’ McCall offered, chuckling. ‘My wife’s dead keen on all those horror films. Gets them out of the video library. I think she sits watching them all day when I’m out.’

‘I suppose it must go on, devil worship, witchcraft. It can’t all be in the imagination of the Sunday newspaper editors.’

‘I know how you might find out.’

‘How?’

‘The university,’ said McCall. Rebus frowned, disbelieving. ‘I’m serious. They’ve got some kind of department that studies ghosts and all that sort of thing. Set up with money from some dead writer.’ McCall shook his head. ‘Incredible what people will do.’

Rebus was nodding. ‘I did read about that, now you mention it. Arthur Koestler’s money, wasn’t it?’

McCall shrugged.

‘Arthur Daley’s more my style,’ he said, emptying his glass.

Rebus was studying the pile of paperwork on his desk when the telephone rang.

‘DI Rebus.’

‘They said you were the man to talk to.’ The voice was young, female, full of unfocussed suspicion.

‘They were probably right. What can I do for you, miss …?’

‘Tracy….’ The voice fell to a whisper on the last syllable of the name. She had already been tricked into revealing herself. ‘Never mind who I am!’ She had become immediately hysterical, but calmed just as quickly. ‘I’m phoning about that squat in Pilmuir, the one where they found….’ The voice trailed off again.

‘Oh yes.’ Rebus sat up and began to take notice. ‘Was it you who phoned the first time?’

‘What?’

‘To tell us that someone had died there.’

‘Yes, it was me. Poor Ronnie….’

‘Ronnie being the deceased?’ Rebus scribbled the name onto the back of one of the files from his in-tray. Beside it he wrote ‘Tracy — caller’.

‘Yes.’ Her voice had broken again, near to tears this time.

‘Can you give me a surname for Ronnie?’

‘No.’ She paused. ‘I never knew it. I’m not sure Ronnie was even his real name. Hardly anyone uses their real name.’

‘Tracy, I’d like to talk to you about Ronnie. We can do it over the telephone, but I’d rather it was face to face. Don’t worry, you’re not in any trouble — ’

‘But I am. That’s why I called. Ronnie told me, you see.’

‘Told you what, Tracy?’

‘Told me he’d been murdered.’

The room around Rebus seemed suddenly to vanish. There was only this disconnected voice, the telephone, and him.

‘He said that to you, Tracy?’

‘Yes.’ She was crying now, sniffing back the unseen tears. Rebus visualised a frightened little girl, just out of school, standing in a distant callbox. ‘I’ve got to hide,’ she said at last. ‘Ronnie said over and over that I should hide.’

‘Shall I bring my car and fetch you? Just tell me where you are.’

‘No!’

‘Then tell me how Ronnie was killed. You know how we found him?’

‘Lying on the floor by the window. That’s where he was.’

‘Not quite.’

‘Oh yes, that’s where he was. By the window. Lying wrapped up into a little ball. I thought he was just sleeping. But when I touched his arm he was cold…. I went to find Charlie, but he’d gone. So I just panicked.’

‘You say Ronnie was lying in a ball?’ Rebus had begun to draw pencilled circles on the back of the file.

‘Yes.’

‘And this was in the living room?’

She seemed confused. ‘What? No, not in the living room. He was upstairs, in his bedroom.’

‘I see.’ Rebus kept on drawing effortless circles. He was trying to imagine Ronnie dying, but not really dead, crawling downstairs after Tracy had fled, ending up in the living room. That might explain those bruises. But the candles…. He had been so perfectly positioned between them…. ‘And when was this?’

‘Late last night, I don’t know exactly when. I panicked. When I calmed down, I phoned for the police.’

‘What time was it when you phoned?’

She paused, thinking. ‘About seven this morning.’

‘Tracy, would you mind telling this to some other people?’

‘Why?’

‘I’ll tell you when I pick you up. Just tell me where you are.’

There was another pause while she considered this. ‘I’m back in Pilmuir,’ she said finally. ‘I’ve moved into another squat.’

‘Well,’ said Rebus, ‘you don’t want me to come down there, do you? But you must be quite close to Shore Road. What about us meeting there?’

‘Well….’

‘There’s a pub called the Dock Leaf,’ continued Rebus, giving her no time to debate. ‘Do you know it?’

‘I’ve been kicked out of it a few times.’

‘Me too. Okay, I’ll meet you outside it in an hour. All right?’

‘All right.’ She didn’t sound over-enthusiastic, and Rebus wondered if she would keep the appointment. Well, what of it? She sounded straight enough, but she might just be another casualty, making it up to draw attention to herself, to make her life seem more interesting than it was.

But then he’d had a feeling, hadn’t he?

‘All right,’ she said, and the connection was severed.

Shore Road was a fast road around the north coast of the city. Factories, warehouses, and vast DIY and home furnishing stores were its landmarks, and beyond them lay the Firth of Forth, calm and grey. On most days, the coast of Fife was visible in the distance, but not today, with a cold mist hanging low on the water. On the other side of the road from the warehouses were the tenements, four-storey predecessors of the concrete high-rise. There was a smattering of comer shops, where neighbour met neighbour, and information was passed on, and a few small unmodernised pubs, where strangers did not go unnoticed for long.

The Dock Leaf had shed one generation of low-life drinkers, and discovered another. Its denizens now were young, unemployed, and living six to a three-bedroom rented flat along Shore Road. Petty crime though was not a problem: you didn’t mess your own nest. The old community values still held.

Rebus, early for the meeting, just had time for a half in the saloon bar. The beer was cheap but bland, and everyone seemed to know if not who he was then certainly what he was, their voices turned down to murmurs, their eyes averted. When, at three thirty, he stepped outside, the sudden daylight made him squint.

‘Are you the policeman?’

‘That’s right, Tracy.’

She had been standing against the pub’s exterior wall. He shaded his eyes, trying to make out her face, and was surprised to find himself looking at a woman of between twenty and twenty-five. Her age was transparent in her face, though her style marked her out as the perennial rebel: cropped peroxide hair, two stud earrings in her left ear (but none in the right), tie-dye T-shirt, tight, faded denims, and red basketball boots. She was tall, as tall as Rebus. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw the tear-tracks on either cheek, the old acne scars. But there were also crow‘s-feet around her eyes, evidence of a life used to laughter. There was no laughter in those olive-green eyes though. Somewhere in Tracy’s life a wrong turning had been made, and Rebus had the idea that she was still trying to reverse back to that fork in the road.

The last time he had seen her she had been laughing. Laughing as her semblance curled from the wall of Ronnie’s bedroom. She was the girl in the photographs.

‘Is Tracy your real name?’

‘Sort of.’ They had begun to walk. She crossed the road at a zebra crossing, not bothering to check whether any cars were approaching, and Rebus followed her to a wall, where she stopped, staring out across the Forth. She wrapped her arms around herself, examining the lifting mist.

‘It’s my middle name,’ she said.

Rebus leaned his forearms against the wall. ‘How long have you known Ronnie?’

‘Three months. That’s how long I’ve been in Pilmuir.’

‘Who else lived in that house?’

She shrugged. ‘They came and went. We’d only been in there a few weeks. Sometimes I’d go downstairs in the morning, and there’d be half a dozen strangers sleeping on the floor. Nobody minded. It was like a big family.’

‘What makes you think somebody killed Ronnie?’

She turned towards him angrily, but her eyes were liquid. ‘I told you on the phone! He told me. He’d been off somewhere and come back with some stuff. He didn’t look right though. Usually, when he’s got a little smack, he’s like a kid at Christmas. But he wasn’t. He was scared, acting like a robot or something. He kept telling me to hide, telling me they were coming for him.’

‘Who were?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Was this after he’d taken the stuff?’

‘No, that’s what’s really crazy. This was before. He had the packet in his hand. He pushed me out of the door.’

‘You weren’t there while he was fixing?’

‘God no. I hated that.’ Her eyes drilled into his. ‘I’m not a junkie, you know. I mean, I smoke a little, but never…. You know….’

‘Was there anything else you noticed about Ronnie?’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, the state he was in.’

‘You mean the bruises?’

‘Yes.’

‘He often came back looking like that. Never talked about it.’

‘Got in a lot of fights, I suppose. Was he short-tempered?’

‘Not with me.’

Rebus sunk his hands into his pockets. A chill wind was whipping up off the water, and he wondered whether she was warm enough. He couldn’t help noticing that her nipples were very prominent through the cotton of her T-SHIRT.

‘Would you like my jacket?’ he asked.

‘Only if your wallet’s in it,’ she said with a quick smile.

He smiled back, and offered a cigarette instead, which she accepted. He didn’t take one for himself. There were only three left out of the day’s ration, and the evening stretched ahead of him.

‘Do you know who Ronnie’s dealer was?’ he asked casually, helping her to light the cigarette. With her head tucked into his open jacket, the lighter shaking in her hand, she shook her head. Eventually, the windbreak worked, and she sucked hard at the filter.

‘I was never really sure,’ she said. ‘It was something else he didn’t talk about.’

‘What did he talk about?’

She thought about this, and smiled again. ‘Not much, now you mention it. That was what I liked about him. You always felt there was more to him than he was letting on.’

‘Such as?’

She shrugged. ‘Might have been anything, might have been nothing.’

This was harder work than Rebus had anticipated, and he really was getting cold. It was time to speed things up.

‘He was in the bedroom when you found him?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the squat was empty at the time?’

‘Yes. Earlier on, there’d been a few people there, but they’d all gone. One of them was up in Ronnie’s room, but I didn’t know him. Then there was Charlie.’

‘You mentioned him on the telephone.’

‘Yes, well, when I found Ronnie, I went looking for him. He’s usually around somewhere, in one of the other squats or in town doing a bit of begging. Christ, he’s strange.’

‘In what way?’

‘Didn’t you see what was on the living-room wall?’

‘You mean the star?’

‘Yes, that was Charlie. He painted it.’

‘He’s keen on the occult then?’

‘Mad keen.’

‘What about Ronnie?’

‘Ronnie? Jesus, no. He couldn’t even stand to watch horror films. They scared him.’

‘But he had all those horror books in his bedroom.’

‘That was Charlie, trying to get Ronnie interested. All they did was give him more nightmares. And all those did was push him into taking more smack.’

‘How did he finance his habit?’ Rebus watched a small boat come gliding through the mist. Something fell from it into the water, but he couldn’t tell what.

‘I wasn’t his accountant.’

‘Who was?’ The boat was turning in an arc, slipping further west towards Queensferry.

‘Nobody wants to know where the money comes from, that’s the truth. It makes you an accessory, doesn’t it?’

‘That depends.’ Rebus shivered.

‘Well, I didn’t want to know. If he tried to tell me, I put my hands over my ears.’

‘He’s never had a job then?’

‘I don’t know. He used to talk about being a photographer. That’s what he’d set his heart on when he left school. It was the only thing he wouldn’t pawn, even to pay for his habit.’

Rebus was lost. ‘What was?’

‘His camera. It cost him a small fortune, every penny saved out of his social security.’

Social security: now there was a phrase. But Rebus was sure there had been no camera in Ronnie’s bedroom. So add robbery to the list.

‘Tracy, I’ll need a statement.’

She was immediately suspicious. ‘What for?’

‘Just so I’ve got it on record, so we can do something about Ronnie’s death. Will you help me do that?’

It was a long time before she nodded. The boat had disappeared. There was nothing floating in the water, nothing left in its wake. Rebus put a hand on Tracy’s shoulder, but gently.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘The car’s this way.’

After she had made her statement, Rebus insisted on driving her home, dropping her several streets from her destination but knowing her address now.

‘Not that I can swear to be there for the next ten years,’ she had said. It didn’t matter. He had given her his work and home telephone numbers. He was sure she would keep in touch.

‘One last thing,’ he said, as she was about to close the car door. She leaned in from the pavement. ‘Ronnie kept shouting “They’re coming.” Who do you think he meant?’

She shrugged. Then froze, remembering the scene. ‘He was strung out, Inspector. Maybe he meant the snakes and spiders.’

Yes, thought Rebus, as she closed the door and he started the car. And then maybe he meant the snakes and spiders who’d supplied him.

Back at Greater London Road station, there was a message that Chief Superintendent Watson wanted to see him. Rebus called his superior’s office.

‘I’ll come along now, if I may.’

The secretary checked, and confirmed that this would be okay.

Rebus had come across Watson on many occasions since the superintendent’s posting had brought him from the far north to Edinburgh. He seemed a reasonable man, if just a little, well, agricultural for some tastes. There were a lot of jokes around the station already about his Aberdonian background, and he had earned the whispered nickname of ‘Farmer’ Watson.

‘Come in, John, come in.’

The Superintendent had risen from behind his desk long enough to point Rebus in the vague direction of a chair. Rebus noticed that the desk itself was meticulously arranged, files neatly piled in two trays, nothing in front of Watson but a thick, newish folder and two sharp pencils. There was a photograph of two young children to one side of the folder.

‘My two,’ Watson explained. ‘They’re a bit older than that now, but still a handful.’

Watson was a large man, his girth giving truth to the phrase ‘barrel-chested’. His face was ruddy, hair thin and silvered at the temples. Yes, Rebus could picture him in galoshes and a trout-fishing hat, stomping his way across a moor, his collie obedient beside him. But what did he want with Rebus? Was he seeking a human collie?

‘You were at the scene of a drugs overdose this morning.’ It was a statement of fact, so Rebus didn’t bother to answer. ‘It should have been Inspector McCall’s call, but he was … well, wherever he was.’

‘He’s a good copper, sir.’

Watson stared up at him, then smiled. ‘Inspector McCall’s qualities are not in question. That’s not why you’re here. But your being on the scene gave me an idea. You probably know that I’m interested in this city’s drugs problem. Frankly, the statistics appal me. It’s not something I’d encountered in Aberdeen, with the exception of some of the oil workers. But then it was mostly the executives, the ones they flew in from the United States. They brought their habits, if you’ll pardon the pun, with them. But here — ’ He flicked open the folder and began to pick over some of the sheets. ‘Here, Inspector, it’s Hades. Plain and simple.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Are you a churchgoer?’

‘Sir?’ Rebus was shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

‘It’s a simple enough question, isn’t it? Do you go to church?’

‘Not regularly, sir. But sometimes I do, yes.’ Like yesterday, Rebus thought. And here again he felt like fleeing.

‘Someone said you did. Then you should know what I’m talking about when I say that this city is turning into Hades.’ Watson’s face was ruddier than ever. ‘The Infirmary has treated addicts as young as eleven and twelve. Your own brother is serving a prison sentence for dealing in drugs.’ Watson looked up again, perhaps expecting Rebus to look shamed. But Rebus’s eyes were a fiery glare, his cheeks red not with embarrassment.

‘With respect, sir,’ he said, voice level but as taut as a wire, ‘what has this got to do with me?’

‘Simply this.’ Watson closed the folder and settled back in his chair. ‘I’m putting into operation a new anti-drugs campaign. Public awareness and that sort of thing, coupled with funding for discreet information. I’ve got the backing, and what’s more I’ve got the money. A group of the city’s businessmen are prepared to put fifty thousand pounds into the campaign.’

‘Very public-spirited of them, sir.’

Watson’s face became darker. He leaned forward in his chair, filling Rebus’s vision. ‘You better bloody believe it,’ he said.

‘But I still don’t see where I — ’

‘John.’ The voice was anodyne now. ‘You’ve had … experience. Personal experience. I’d like you to help me front our side of the campaign.’

‘No, sir, really — ’

‘Good. That’s agreed then.’ Watson had already risen. Rebus tried to stand, too, but his legs had lost all power. He pushed against the armrests with his hands and managed to heave himself upright. Was this the price they were demanding? Public atonement for having a rotten brother? Watson was opening the door. ‘We’ll talk again, go through the details. But for now, try to tie up whatever you’re working on, casenotes up to date, that sort of thing. Tell me what you can’t finish, and we’ll find someone to take it off your hands.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Rebus clutched at the proffered hand. It was like steel, cool, dry and crushing.

‘Goodbye, sir,’ Rebus said, standing in the corridor now, to a door that had already closed on him.

That evening, still numb, he grew bored with television and left his flat, planning to drive around a bit, no real destination in mind. Marchmont was quiet, but then it always was. His car sat undisturbed on the cobbles outside his tenement. He started it up and drove, entering the centre of town, crossing to the New Town. At Canonmills he stopped in the forecourt of a petrol station and filled the car, adding a torch, some batteries, and several bars of chocolate to his purchases, paying by credit card.

He ate the chocolate as he drove, trying not to think of the next day’s cigarette ration, and listened to the car radio. Gill Templer’s lover, Calum McCallum, began his broadcast at eight thirty, and he listened for a few minutes. It was enough. The mock-cheery voice, the jokes so lame they needed wheelchairs, the predictable mix of old records and telephone-linked chatter…. Rebus turned the tuning knob until he found Radio Three. Recognising the music of Mozart, he turned up the volume.

He had always known that it would end here of course. He drove through the ill-lit and winding streets, threading his way further into the maze. A new padlock had been fitted to the door of the house, but Rebus had in his pocket a copy of the key. Switching on his torch, he walked quietly into the living room. The floor was bare. There was no sign that a corpse had lain there only ten hours before. The jar of syringes had gone, too, as had the candlesticks. Ignoring the far wall, Rebus left the room and headed upstairs. He pushed open the door of Ronnie’s bedroom and walked in, crossing to the window. This was where Tracy said she had found the body. Rebus squatted, resting on his toes, and shone the torch carefully over the floor. No sign of a camera. Nothing. It wasn’t going to be made easy for him, this case. Always supposing there was a case.

He only had Tracy’s word for it, after all.

He retraced his steps, out of the room and towards the stairwell. Something glinted against the top step, right in at the corner of the stairs. Rebus picked it up and examined it. It was a small piece of metal, like the clasp from a cheap brooch. He pushed it into his pocket anyway and took another look at the staircase, trying to imagine Ronnie regaining consciousness and making his way to the ground floor.

Possible. Just possible. But to end up positioned like that …? Much less feasible.

And why bring the jar of syringes downstairs with him? Rebus nodded to himself, sure that he was wandering the maze in something like the right direction. He went downstairs again and into the living room. It had a smell like the mould on an old jar of jam, earthy and sweet at the same time. The earth sterile, the sweetness sickly. He went over to the far wall and shone his torchlight against it.

Then came up short, blood pounding. The circles were still there, and the five-pointed star within them. But there were fresh additions, zodiac signs and other symbols between the two circles, painted in red. He touched the paint. It was tacky. Bringing his fingers away, he shone the torch further up the wall, and read the dripping message:

HELLO RONNIE

Superstitious to his core, Rebus turned on his heels and fled, not bothering to relock the door behind him. Walking briskly towards his car, his eyes turned back in the direction of the house, he fell into someone, and stumbled. The other figure fell awkwardly, and was slow to rise. Rebus switched on his torch, and confronted a teenager, eyes sparkling, face bruised and cut.

‘Jesus, son,’ he whispered, ‘what happened to you?’

‘I got beat up,’ the boy said, shuffling away on a painful leg.

Rebus made the car somehow, his nerves as thin as old shoelaces. Inside, he locked the door and sat back, closing his eyes, breathing hard. Relax, John, he told himself. Relax. Soon, he was even able to smile at his momentary lapse of courage. Tomorrow he’d come back. In daylight.

He’d seen enough for now.