Hide And Seek

Thursday

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 roofs 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.’

‘Nice day for a drive.’

Tracy was doing her best to ignore him. She stared from her passenger side window, seemingly interested in the passing parade of shops and shoppers, tourists, kids with nothing to do now the schools had broken up for summer.

She’d been keen enough to get out of the station though. He’d held the car door open for her, dissuading her from just walking away. And she’d complied, but silently, sullenly. Okay, she was in the huff with him. He’d get over it. So would she.

‘Point taken,’ he said. ‘You’re pissed off. But how many times do I have to tell you? It was for your own safety, while I was doing some checking up.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Do you know this part of town?’

She was silent. There was to be no conversation. Only questions and answers: her questions.

‘We’re just driving,’ he said. ‘You must know this side of town. A lot of dealing used to go on around here.’

‘I’m not into that!’

It was Rebus’s turn to be silent. He wasn’t too old to play a game or two himself. He took a left, then another, then a right.

‘We’ve been here already,’ she commented. She’d noticed then, clever girl. Still, that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that slowly, by degrees, by left and right then left and right again, he was guiding them towards the destination.

He pulled into the kerb abruptly and yanked on the handbrake.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘We’re here.’

‘Here?’ She looked out of the side window, up at the tenement building. The red stone had been cleaned in the past year, giving it the look of a child’s plasticine, pinky ochre and malleable. ‘Here?’ she repeated, the word choking off as she recognised the exact address, and then tried not to let that recognition show.

The photograph was on her lap when she turned from the window. She flicked it from her with a squeal, as though it were an insect. Rebus plucked the photo from the floor of the car and held it out to her.

‘Yours, I believe.’

‘Where the hell did you get that?’

‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

Her face was as red as the stonework now, her eyes flitting in panic like a bird’s. She fumbled with the seatbelt, desperate to be out of the car, but Rebus’s hand on the catch was rock hard.

‘Let me go!’ she yelled, thumping down on his fist. Then she pushed open the door, but the camber of the road pulled it shut again. There was not enough give in the seatbelt anyway. She was securely bound.

‘I thought we’d pay Mr Hutton a call,’ Rebus was saying, his voice like a blade. ‘Ask him about this photo. About how he paid you a few quid to model for him. About how you brought him Ronnie’s pictures. Looking for a few bob more maybe, or just to spite Ronnie. Is that how it was, Tracy? I’ll bet Ronnie was pissed off when he saw Hutton had stolen his ideas. Couldn’t prove it though, could he? And how was he to know how the hell Hutton got them in the first place? I suppose you put the blame on Charlie, and that’s why the two of you aren’t exactly on speaking terms. Some friend to Ronnie you were, sweet-heart. Some friend.’

She broke down at that, and gave up trying to free herself from the seatbelt. Her head angled forward into her hands, and she wept, loudly and at length. While Rebus caught his breath. He wasn’t proud of himself, but it had needed saying. She had to stop hiding from the truth. It was all conjecture, of course, but Rebus was sure Hutton could confirm the details if pressed. She had modelled for money, maybe happened to mention that her boyfriend was a photographer. Had taken the photos to Hutton, giving away Ronnie’s glimmer of a chance, his creativity, for a few more pound notes. If you couldn’t trust your friends, who could you trust?

He had left her overnight in the cells to see if she would crack. She hadn’t, so he supposed she must be clean. But that didn’t mean she didn’t have some kind of habit. If not needles, then something else. Everybody needed a little something, didn’t they? And the money was needed, too. So she had ripped off her boyfriend….

‘Did you plant that camera in Charlie’s squat?’

‘No!’ It was as though, after all that had gone before, the accusation still hurt. Rebus nodded. So Charlie had taken the camera, or someone else had planted it there. For him to find. No … not quite, because he hadn’t found it: McCall had. And very easily at that, the way he had blithely found the dope in the sleeping bag. A true copper’s nose? Or something else? A little information perhaps, inside information? If you can’t trust your friends….

‘Did you see the camera the night Ronnie died?’

‘It was in his room, I’m sure it was.’ She blinked back the tears and wiped her nose on the handkerchief Rebus gave her. Her voice was cracked still, her throat a little clogged, but she was recovering from the shock of the photo, and the greater shock that Rebus knew now of her betrayal.

‘That guy who came to see Ronnie, he was in Ronnie’s room after me.’

‘You mean Neil?’

‘I think that was his name, yes.’

Too many cooks, Rebus was thinking. He was going to have to revise his definition of ‘circumstantial’. He had very little so far that wasn’t circumstantial. It felt like the spiral was widening, taking him further and further away from the central, crucial point, the point where Ronnie lay dead on a damp, bare floor, flanked by candles and dubious friends.

‘Neil was Ronnie’s brother.’

‘Really?’ Her voice was disinterested. The safety curtain between her and the world was coming down again. The matinee was over.

‘Yes, really.’ Rebus felt a sudden chill. If nobody, nobody cares what happened to Ronnie except Neil and me, why am I bothering?

‘Charlie always thought they had some kind of gay thing going. I never asked Ronnie. I don’t suppose he would have told me.’ She rested her head against the back of the seat, seeming to relax again. ‘Oh God.’ She released a whistle of breath from her lungs. ‘Do we have to stick around here?’

Her hands were rising slowly, ready to clasp her head, and Rebus was beginning to answer in the negative, when he saw those same hands come swiftly down, curling into tiny fists. There was no room to escape them, and so they hit him full in the groin. A flashgun exploded somewhere behind his eyes, the world turning into nothing but sound and blinding pain. He was roaring, doubled up in agony, head coming to rest on the steering wheel, which was also the car’s horn. It was blaring lazily as Tracy undid her seatbelt, opened the door, and swivelled out of the car. She left the door wide open as she ran. Rebus watched through eyes brimming with tears, as if he were in a swimming pool, watching her running along the edge of the pool away from him, chlorine stinging his pupils.

‘Jesus Almighty Christ,’ he gasped, still hunched over the wheel, and not about to move for some considerable time.

Think like Tarzan, his father had told him once: one of the old man’s few pieces of advice. He was talking about fights. About one-to-one scrapes with the lads at school. Four o‘clock behind the bike shed, and all that. Think like Tarzan. You’re strong, king of the jungle, and above all else you’re going to protect your nuts. And the old boy had raised a bent knee towards young John’s crotch….

‘Thanks, Dad,’ Rebus hissed now. ‘Thanks for reminding me.’ Then the reaction hit his stomach.

By lunchtime he could just about walk, so long as he kept his feet close to the ground, moving as though he had wet himself. People stared, of course, and he tried to improvise a limp specially for them. Ever the crowd pleaser.

The thought of the stairs to his office was too much, and driving the car had been excruciating, the foot pedals impossible to operate. So he had taken a taxi to the Sutherland Bar. Three quarter-gill measures of whisky later, he felt the pain replaced by a drowsy numbness.

‘“As though of hemlock …”,’ he muttered to himself.

He wasn’t worried about Tracy. Anyone with a punch like that could look after herself. There were probably kids on the street harder than half the bloody police force. Not that Tracy was a kid. He still hadn’t found out anything about her. That was supposed to be Holmes’s department, but Holmes was off on a wild dog chase in Fife. No, Tracy would be all right. Probably there had been no men chasing her. But then why come to him that night? There could be a hundred reasons. After all, she’d conned a bed, the best part of a bottle of wine, a hot bath and breakfast out of him. Not bad going that, and him supposed to be a hardened old copper. Too old maybe. Too much the ‘copper’, not enough the police officer. Maybe.

Where to next? He already had the answer to that, legs permitting and pray God he could drive.

He parked at a distance from the house, not wanting to scare off anyone who might be there. Then he simply walked up to the door and knocked. Standing there, awaiting a response, he remembered Tracy opening that door and running into his arms, her face bruised, her eyes welling with tears. He didn’t think Charlie would be here. He didn’t think Tracy would be here. He didn’t want Tracy to be here.

The door opened. A bleary teenage boy squinted up at Rebus. His hair was lank, lifeless, falling into his eyes.

‘What is it?’

‘Is Charlie in? I’ve got a bit of business with him.’

‘Naw. Havenae seen him the day.’

‘All right if I wait a while?’

‘Aye.’ The boy was already closing the door on Rebus’s face. Rebus stuck a hand up against the door and peered round it.

‘I meant, wait indoors.’

The boy shrugged, and slouched back inside, leaving the door ajar. He slipped back into his sleeping bag and pulled it over his head. Just passing through, and catching up on lost sleep. Rebus supposed the boy had nothing to lose by letting a stranger into this way station. He left him to his sleep, and, after a cursory check that there was no one else in the downstairs rooms, climbed the steep staircase.

The books were still slewed like so many felled dominoes, the contents of the bag McCall had emptied still lying in a clutter on the floor. Rebus ignored these and went to the desk, where he sat, studying the pieces of paper in front of him. He had flicked on the light switch beside the door of Charlie’s room, and now switched on the desk lamp, too. The walls were miraculously free from posters, postcards and the like. It wasn’t like a student’s room. Its identity had been left suspended, which was probably exactly the way Charlie wanted it. He didn’t want to look like a student to his drop-out friends; he didn’t want to look like a drop-out to his student friends. He wanted to be all things to all people. Chameleon, then, as well as tourist.

The essay on Magick was Rebus’s main interest, but he gave the rest of the desk a good examination while he was here. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to suggest that Charlie was pushing bad drugs around the city streets. So Rebus picked up the essay, opened it, and began to read.

Nell liked the library when it was quiet like this. During term time, a lot of the students used it as a meeting place, a sort of glorified youth club. Then, the first-floor reading room was filled with noise. Books tended to be left lying everywhere, or to go missing, to be shifted out of their proper sections. All very frustrating. But during the summer months, only the most determined of the students came in: the ones with a thesis to write, or work to catch up on, or those precious few who were passionate about their chosen fields, and who were giving up sunshine and freedom to be here, indoors, in studied silence.

She got to know their faces, and then their names. Conversations could be struck up in the deserted coffee shop, authors’ names swopped. And at lunchtime, one could sit in the gardens, or walk behind the library building onto The Meadows, where more books were being read, more faces rapt in thought.

Of course, summer was also the time for the library’s most tedious jobs. The check on stock, the rebinding of misused volumes. Reclassification, computer updating, and so on. The atmosphere more than made up for all this. All traces of hurry and haste were gone. No more complaints about there being too few copies of this or that title, desperately needed by a class of two hundred for some overdue essay. But after the summer there would be a new intake, and with every year’s fresh intake, she felt that whole year older, and more distanced from the students. They already seemed hopelessly young to her, a glow surrounding them, reminding her of something she could never have.

She was sorting through request forms when the commotion began. The guard on the library entrance had stopped someone who was trying to get in without any identification. Normally, Nell knew, the guard wouldn’t have worried, but the girl was so obviously distraught, so obviously not a reader, not even a student. She was loudly argumentative, where a real student would have quietly explained that they had forgotten to bring their matriculation card with them. There was something else, too … Nell frowned, trying to place the girl. Catching her profile, she remembered the photograph in Brian’s briefcase. Yes, it was the same girl. No girl, really, but a fully grown, if youthful, woman. The lines around the eyes were the giveaway, no matter how slender the body, how fashionably young the clothes. But why was she making this fuss? She’d always gone to the coffee shop, had never, to Nell’s knowledge, tried to get into the library proper before now. Nell’s curiosity was aroused.

The guard was holding Tracy by the arm, and she was shrieking abuse at him, her eyes frantic. Nell tried to be authoritarian in her walk as she approached the pair of them.

‘Is there some problem, Mr Clarke?’

‘I can handle it, miss.’ His eyes betrayed his words. He was sweating, past retirement age, neither used to this sort of physical struggle nor knowing what to do about it. Nell turned to the girl.

‘You can’t just barge in here, you know. But if you want a message passed on to one of the students inside, I’ll see what I can do.’

The girl struggled again. ‘I just want to come in!’ All reasoning had gone now. She knew only that if someone was stopping her getting in, then she had to get in somehow.

‘Well you can’t,’ Nell said angrily. She should not have interfered. She was used to dealing with quiet, sane, rational people. Okay, some of them might lose their tempers momentarily when frustrated in their search for a book. But they would always remember their place. The girl stared at her, and the stare seemed absolutely malevolent. There was no trace of human kindness in it at all. Nell felt the hairs on her neck bristle. Then the girl gave a banshee wail, throwing herself forward, loosing the guard’s grip. Her forehead smashed into Nell’s face, sending the librarian flying, feet rooted to the spot, so that she fell like so much timber. Tracy stood there for a moment, seeming to come to herself. The guard made to grab her, but she gave another yell, and he backed off. Then she pushed past him out of the library doors and started running again, head down, arms and legs uncoordinated. The guard watched her, fearful still, then turned his attention to the bloody and unconscious face of Nell Stapleton.

The man who answered the door was blind.

‘Yes?’ he asked, holding the door, sightless eyes discernible behind the dark green lenses of his glasses. The hallway behind him was in deep shadow. What need had it of light?

‘Mr Vanderhyde?’

The man smiled. ‘Yes?’ he repeated. Rebus couldn’t take his own eyes off those of the elderly man. Those green lenses reminded him of claret bottles. Vanderhyde would be sixty-five, maybe seventy. His hair was silvery yellow, thick, well groomed. He was wearing an open-necked shirt, brown waistcoat, a watch chain hanging from one pocket. And he was leaning ever so slightly on a silver-topped stick. For some reason, Rebus had the idea that Vanderhyde would be able to handle that cane swiftly and effectively as a weapon, should anyone unpleasant ever come calling.

‘Mr Vanderhyde, I’m a police officer.’ Rebus was reaching for his wallet.

‘Don’t bother with identification, unless it’s in braille.’ Vanderhyde’s words stopped Rebus short, his hand frozen in his inside jacket pocket.

‘Of course,’ he mumbled, feeling ever so slightly ridiculous. Funny how people with disabilities had that special gift of making you seem so much less able than them.

‘You’d better come in, Inspector.’

‘Thank you.’ Rebus was in the hall before it hit him. ‘How did you —?’

Vanderhyde shook his head. ‘A lucky guess,’ he said, leading the way. ‘A shot in the dark, you might say.’ His laughter was abrasive. Rebus, studying what he could see of the hall, was wondering how even a blind man could make such a botched job of interior decoration. A stuffed owl stared down from its dusty pedestal, next to an umbrella stand which seemed to consist of a hollowed elephant’s foot. An ornately carved occasional table boasted a pile of unread mail and a cordless telephone. Rebus gave this latter item most attention.

‘Technology has made such progress, don’t you agree?’ Vanderhyde was saying. ‘Invaluable for those of us who have lost one of the senses.’

‘Yes,’ Rebus replied, as Vanderhyde opened the door to another room, almost as dark to Rebus’s eyes as the hall.

‘In here, Inspector.’

‘Thank you.’ The room was musty, and smelled of old people’s medicaments. It was comfortably furnished, with a deep sofa and two robust armchairs. Books lay behind glass along one wall. Some uninspired watercolours stopped the other walls from seeming bare. There were ornaments everywhere. Those on the mantelpiece caught Rebus’s eye. There wasn’t a spare centimetre of space on the deep wooden mantelpiece, and the ornaments were exotic. Rebus could identify African, Caribbean, Asian and Oriental influences, without being able to pinpoint any one country for any one piece.

Vanderhyde flopped into a chair. It struck Rebus that there were no occasional tables scattered through the room, no extraneous furniture into which the blind man might bump.

‘Nick-nacks, Inspector. Gewgaws collected on my travels as a younger man.’

‘Evidence of a lot of travel.’

‘Evidence of a magpie mind,’ Vanderhyde corrected. ‘Would you care for some tea?’

‘No, thank you, sir.’

‘Something a little stronger perhaps?’

‘Thank you, but no.’ Rebus smiled. ‘I’d a bit too much last night.’

‘Your smile comes over in your voice.’

‘You don’t seem curious as to why I’m here, Mr Vanderhyde.’

‘Perhaps that’s because I know, Inspector. Or, perhaps it’s because my patience is limitless. Time doesn’t mean as much to me as to most people. I’m in no hurry for your explanations. I’m not a clock watcher, you see.’ He was smiling again, eyes fixed somewhere just right of Rebus and above him. Rebus stayed silent, inviting further speculation. ‘Then again,’ Vanderhyde continued, ‘since I no longer go out, and have few visitors, and since I have never to my knowledge broken the laws of the land, that certainly narrows the possible reasons for your visit. You’re sure you won’t have some tea?’

‘Don’t let me stop you making some for yourself.’ Rebus had spotted the near-empty mug sitting on the floor beside the old man’s chair. He looked down around his own chair. Another mug sat on the muted pattern of the carpet. He reached a silent arm down towards it. There was a slight warmth on the base of the mug, a warmth on the carpet beneath.

‘No,’ Vanderhyde said. ‘I had one just recently. As did my visitor.’

‘Visitor?’ Rebus sounded surprised. The old man smiled, giving a slight and indulgent shake of his head. Rebus, feeling caught, decided to push on anyway. ‘I thought you said you didn’t get many visitors?’

‘No, I don’t recall quite saying that. Still, it happens to be true. Today is the exception that proves the rule. Two visitors.’

‘Might I ask who the other visitor was?’

‘Might I ask, Inspector, why you’re here?’

It was Rebus’s turn to smile, nodding to himself. The blood was rising in the old man’s cheeks. Rebus had succeeded in riling him.

‘Well?’ There was impatience in Vanderhyde’s voice.

‘Well, sir.’ Rebus deliberately pulled himself out of the chair and began to circuit the room. ‘I came across your name in an undergraduate essay on the occult. Does that surprise you?’

The old man considered this. ‘It pleases me slightly. I do have an ego that needs feeding, after all.’

‘But it doesn’t surprise you?’ Vanderhyde shrugged. ‘This essay mentioned you in connection with the workings of an Edinburgh-based group, a sort of coven, working in the nineteen sixties.’

‘ “Coven” is an inexact term, but never mind.’

‘You were involved in it?’

‘I don’t deny the fact.’

‘Well, while we’re dealing in fact, you were, more correctly, its guiding light. “Light” may be an inexact term.’

Vanderhyde laughed, a piping, discomfiting sound. ‘Touche, Inspector. Indeed, touche. Do continue.’

‘Finding your address wasn’t difficult. Not too many Vanderhydes in the phone book.’

‘My kin are based in London.’

‘The reason for my visit, Mr Vanderhyde, is a murder, or at the very least a case of tampering with evidence at the scene of a death.’

‘Intriguing.’ Vanderhyde put his hands together, fingertips to his lips. It was hard to believe the man was sightless. Rebus’s movements around the room were failing to have any effect on Vanderhyde at all.

‘The body was discovered lying with arms stretched wide, legs together — ’

‘Naked?’

‘No, not quite. Shirtless. Candles had been burning either side of the body, and a pentagram had been painted on one wall.’

‘Anything else?’

‘No. There were some syringes in a jar by the body.’

‘The death was caused by an overdose of drugs?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hmm.’ Vanderhyde rose from his chair and walked unerringly to the bookcase. He did not open it, but stood as though staring at the titles. ‘If we’re dealing with a sacrifice, Inspector — I take it that’s your theory?’

‘One of many, sir.’

‘Well, if we are dealing with a sacrifice, then the means of death are quite unusual. No, more than that, are unheard of. To begin with, very few Satanists would ever contemplate a human sacrifice. Plenty of psychopaths have carried out murder and then excused it as ritual, but that’s something else again. But in any case, a human sacrifice — a sacrifice of any kind — requires blood. Symbolic in some rites, as in the blood and body of Christ. Real in others. A sacrifice without blood? That would be original. And to administer an overdose…. No, Inspector, surely the more plausible explanation is that, as you say, someone muddied the water as it were, after the life had expired.’

Vanderhyde turned into the room again, picking out Rebus’s position. He raised his arms high, to signal that this was all he had to offer.

Rebus sat down again. The mug when he touched it was no longer warm. The evidence had cooled, dissipated, vanished.

He picked up the mug and looked at it. It was an innocent thing, patterned with flowers. There was a single crack running downwards from its rim. Rebus felt a sudden surge of confidence in his own abilities. He got to his feet again and walked to the door.

‘Are you leaving?’

He did not reply to Vanderhyde’s question, but walked smartly to the bottom of the dark oak staircase. Halfway up, it twisted in a ninety-degree angle. From the bottom, Rebus’s view was of this halfway point, this small landing. A second before, there had been someone there, someone crouching, listening. He hadn’t seen the figure so much as sensed it. He cleared his throat, a nervous rather than necessary action.

‘Come down here, Charlie.’ He paused. Silence. But he could still sense the young man, just beyond that turning on the stairs. ‘Unless you want me to come up. I don’t think you want that, do you? Just the two of us, up there in the dark?’ More silence, broken by the shuffling of Vanderhyde’s carpet-slippered feet, the walking cane tapping against the floor. When Rebus looked round, the old man’s jaw was set defiantly. He still had his pride. Rebus wondered if he felt any shame.

Then the single creak of a floorboard signalled Charlie’s presence on the stair landing.

Rebus broke into a smile: of conquest, of relief. He had trusted himself, and had proved worthy of that trust.

‘Hello, Charlie,’ he said.

‘I didn’t mean to hit her. She had a go at me first.’

The voice was recognisable, but Charlie seemed rooted to the landing. His body was slightly hunched, his face in silhouette, his arms hanging by his side. The educated voice seemed discorporate, somehow not part of this shadow-puppet.

‘Why don’t you join us?’

‘Are you going to arrest me?’

‘What’s the charge?’ The question was Rebus’s, his voice tinged with amusement.

‘That should be your question, Charles,’ Vanderhyde called out, making it sound like an instruction.

Rebus was suddenly bored with these games. ‘Come on down,’ he commanded. ‘Let’s have another mug of Earl Grey.’

Rebus had pulled open the crimson velvet curtains in the living room. The interior seemed less cramped in what was left of the daylight, less overpowering, and certainly a lot less gothic. The ornaments on the mantelpiece were revealed as just that: ornaments. The books in the bookcase were revealed as by and large works of popular fiction: Dickens, Hardy, Trollope. Rebus wondered if Trollope was still popular.

Charlie had made tea in the narrow kitchen, while Vanderhyde and Rebus sat in silence in the living room, listening to the distant sounds of cups chinking and spoons ringing.

‘You have good hearing,’ Vanderhyde stated at last. Rebus shrugged. He was still assessing the room. No, he couldn’t live here, but he could at least imagine visiting some aged relative in such a place.

‘Ah, tea,’ said Vanderhyde as Charlie brought in the unsteady tray. Placing it on the floor between chairs and sofa, his eyes sought Rebus’s. They had an imploring look. Rebus ignored it, accepting his cup with a curt nod of the head. He was just about to say something about how well Charlie seemed to know his way around his chosen bolt-hole, when Charlie himself spoke. He was handing a mug to Vanderhyde. The mug itself was only half filled — a wise precaution — and Charlie sought out the old man’s hand, guiding it to the large handle.

‘There you go, Uncle Matthew,’ he said.

‘Thank you, Charles,’ said Vanderhyde, and if he had been sighted, his slight smile would have been directed straight at Rebus, rather than a few inches over the detective’s shoulder.

‘Cosy,’ Rebus commented, sipping the dry perfume of Earl Grey.

Charlie sat on the sofa, crossing his legs, almost relaxed. Yes, he knew this room well, was slipping into it the way one slipped into an old, comfortable pair of trousers. He might have spoken, but Vanderhyde seemed to want to put his points forward first.

‘Charles has told me all about it, Inspector Rebus. Well, when I say that, I mean he has told me as much as he deems it necessary for me to know.’ Charlie glared at his uncle, who merely smiled, knowing the frown was there. ‘I’ve already told Charles that he should talk to you again. He seems unwilling. Seemed unwilling. Now the choice has been taken away from him.’

‘How did you know?’ asked Charlie, so much more at home here, Rebus was thinking, than in some ugly squat in Pilmuir.

‘Know?’ said Rebus.

‘Know where to find me? Know about Uncle Matthew?’

‘Oh, that.’ Rebus picked at invisible threads on his trousers. ‘Your essay. It was sitting on your desk. Handy that.’

‘What?’

‘Doing an essay on the occult, and having a warlock in the family.’

Vanderhyde chuckled. ‘Not a warlock, Inspector. Never that. I think I’ve only ever met one warlock, one true warlock, in my whole life. Local he is, mind.’

‘Uncle Matthew,’ Charlie interrupted, ‘I don’t think the Inspector wants to hear — ’

‘On the contrary,’ said Rebus. ‘It’s the reason I’m here.’

‘Oh.’ Charlie sounded disappointed. ‘Not to arrest me then?’

‘No, though you deserve a good slap for that bruise you gave Tracy.’

‘She deserved it!’ Charlie’s voice betrayed petulance, his lower lip filling out like a child’s.

‘You struck a woman?’ Vanderhyde sounded aghast. Charlie looked towards him, then away, as if unable to hold a stare that didn’t — couldn’t — exist.

‘Yes,’ Charlie hissed. ‘But look.’ He pulled the polo-necked jumper down from around his neck. There were two huge weals there, the result of prising fingernails.

‘Nice scratches,’ Rebus commented for the blind man’s benefit. ‘You got the scratches, she got a bruise on her eye. I suppose that makes it neck and neck in the eye-for-an-eye stakes.’

Vanderhyde chuckled again, leaning forward slightly on his cane.

‘Very good, Inspector,’ he said. ‘Yes, very good. Now — ’ he lifted the mug to his lips and blew. ‘What can we do for you?’

‘I saw your name in Charlie’s essay. There was a footnote quoting you as an interview source. I reckoned that made you local and reasonably extant, and there aren’t too many — ’

‘- Vanderhydes in the phone book,’ finished the old man. ‘Yes, you said.’

‘But you’ve already answered most of my questions. Concerning the black magic connection, that is. However, I would just like to clear up a few points with your nephew.’

‘Would you like me to —?’ Vanderhyde was already rising to his feet. Rebus waved for him to stay, then realised the gesture was in vain. However, Vanderhyde had already paused, as though anticipating the action.

‘No, sir,’ Rebus said now, as Vanderhyde seated himself again. ‘This’ll only take a couple of minutes.’ He turned to Charlie, who was almost sinking into the deep padded cushions of the sofa. ‘So, Charlie,’ Rebus began. ‘I’ve got you down this far as thief, and as accessory to murder. Any comments to make?’

Rebus watched with pleasure as the young man’s face lost its tea-like colour and became more like uncooked pastry. Vanderhyde twitched, but with pleasure, too, rather than discomfort. Charlie looked from one man to the other, seeking friendly eyes. The eyes he saw were blind to his pleas.

‘I–I — ’

‘Yes?’ Rebus prompted.

‘I’ll just fill my cup,’ Charlie said, as though only these five meagre words were left in his vocabulary. Rebus sat back patiently. Let the bugger fill and refill and boil another brew. But he’d have his answers. He’d make Charlie sweat tannin, and he’d have his answers.

‘Is Fife always this bleak?’

‘Only the more picturesque bits. The rest’s no’ bad at a’.’

The SSPCA officer was guiding Brian Holmes across a twilit field, the area around almost completely flat, a dead tree breaking the monotony. A fierce wind was blowing, and it was a cold wind, too. The SSPCA man had called it an ‘aist wind’. Holmes assumed that ‘aist’ translated as ‘east’, and that the man’s sense of geography was somewhat askew, since the wind was clearly blowing from the west.

The landscape proved deceptive. Seeming flat, the land was actually slanting. They were climbing a slope, not steep but perceptible. Holmes was reminded of some hill somewhere in Scotland, the ‘electric brae’, where a trick of natural perspective made you think you were going uphill when in fact you were travelling down. Or was it vice versa? Somehow, he didn’t think his companion was the man to ask.

Soon, over the rise, Holmes could see the black, grainy landscape of a disused mineworking, shielded from the field by a line of trees. The mines around here were all worked out, had been since the 1960s. Now, money had appeared from somewhere, and the long-smouldering bings were being levelled, their mass used to fill the chasms left by surface mining. The mine buildings themselves were being dismantled, the landscape reseeded, as though the history of mining in Fife had never existed.

This much Brian Holmes knew. His uncles had been miners. Not here perhaps, but nevertheless they had been great deep workings of information and anecdote. The child Brian had stored away every detail.

‘Grim,’ he said to himself as he followed the SSPCA officer down a slight slope towards the trees, where a cluster of half a dozen men stood, shuffling, turning at the sound of approach. Holmes introduced himself to the most senior-looking of the plain-clothes men.

‘DC Brian Holmes, sir.’

The man smiled, nodded, then jerked his head in the direction of a much younger man. Everyone, uniformeds, plain-clothes, even the SSPCA Judas, was smiling, enjoying Holmes’s mistake. He felt a rush of blood to his face, and was rooted to the spot. The young man saw his discomfort and stuck out a hand.

‘I’m DS Hendry, Brian. Sometimes I’m in charge here.’ There were more smiles. Holmes joined in this time.

‘Sorry, sir.’

‘I’m flattered actually. Nice to think I’m so young-looking, and Harry here’s so old.’ He nodded towards the man Holmes had mistaken for the senior officer. ‘Right, Brian. I’ll just tell you what I’ve been telling the lads. We have a good tip that there’s going to be a dog fight here tonight. It’s secluded, half a mile from the main road, a mile from the nearest house. Perfect, really. There’s a track the lorries take from the main road up to the site here. That’s the way they’ll come in, probably three or four vans carrying the dogs, and then who knows how many cars with the punters. If it gets to Ibrox proportions, we’ll call in reinforcements. As it is, we’re not bothered so much about nabbing punters as about catching the handlers themselves. The word is that Davy Brightman’s the main man. Owns a couple of scrap yards in Kirkcaldy and Methil. We know he keeps a few pit bulls, and we think he fights them.’

There was a blast of static from one of the radios, then a call sign. DS Hendry responded.

‘Do you have a Detective Constable Holmes with you?’ came the message. Hendry stared at Holmes as he handed him the radio. Holmes could only look apologetic.

‘DC Holmes speaking.’

‘DC Holmes, we’ve a message for you.’

‘Go ahead,’ said Holmes.

‘It’s to do with a Miss Nell Stapleton.’

Sitting in the hospital waiting room, eating chocolate from a vending machine, Rebus went over the day’s events in his mind. Remembering the incident with Tracy in the car, his scrotum began to rise up into his body in an act of self-protection. Painful still. Like a double hernia, not that he’d ever had one.

But the afternoon had been very interesting indeed. Vanderhyde had been interesting. And Charlie, well, Charlie had sung like a bird.

‘What is it you want to ask me?’ he had said, bringing more tea into the living room.

‘I’m interested in time, Charlie. Your uncle has already told me that he’s not interested in time. He isn’t ruled by it, but policemen are. Especially in a case like this. You see, the chronology of events isn’t quite right in my mind. That’s what I want to clear up, if possible.’

‘All right,’ Charlie said. ‘How can I help?’

‘You were at Ronnie’s that night?’

‘Yes, for a while.’

‘And you left to look for some party or other?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Leaving Neil in the house with Ronnie?’

‘No, he’d left by then.’

‘You didn’t know, of course, that Neil was Ronnie’s brother?’

The look of surprise on Charlie’s face seemed authentic, but then Rebus knew him for an accomplished actor, and was taking nothing for granted, not any more.

‘No, I didn’t know that. Shit, his brother. Why didn’t he want any of us to meet him?’

‘Neil and I are in the same profession,’ Rebus explained. Charlie just smiled and shook his head. Vanderhyde was leaning back thoughtfully in his chair, like a meticulous juror at some trial.

‘Now,’ Rebus continued, ‘Neil says he left quite early. Ronnie was being uncommunicative.’

‘I can guess why.’

‘Why?’

‘Easy. He’d just scored, hadn’t he? He hadn’t seen any stuff for ages, and suddenly he’d scored.’ Charlie suddenly remembered that his aged uncle was listening, and stopped short, looking towards the old man. Vanderhyde, shrewd as ever, seemed to sense this, and waved his hand regally before him, as if to say, I’ve been too long on this planet and can’t be shocked any more.

‘I think you’re right,’ Rebus said to Charlie. ‘One hundred percent. So, in an empty house, Ronnie shoots up. The stuffs lethal. When Tracy comes in, she finds him in his room — ’

‘So she says,’ interrupted Charlie. Rebus nodded, acknowledging his scepticism.

‘Let’s accept for the moment that’s what happened. He’s dead, or seems so to her. She panics, and runs off. Right. So far so good. Now it begins to get hazy, and this is where I need your help, Charlie. Thereafter, someone moves Ronnie’s body downstairs. I don’t know why. Maybe they were just playing silly buggers, or, as Mr Vanderhyde put it so succinctly, trying to muddy the water. Anyway, around this stage in the chronology, a second packet of white powder appears. Tracy only saw one — ’ Rebus saw that Charlie was about to interrupt again ‘- so she says. So, Ronnie had one packet and shot up with it. When he died, his body came downstairs and another packet magically appeared. This new packet contains good stuff, not the poison Ronnie used on himself. And, to add a little more to the concoction, Ronnie’s camera disappears, to turn up later in your squat, Charlie, in your room, and in your black polythene bag.’

Charlie had stopped looking at Rebus. He was looking at the floor, at his mug, at the teapot. His eyes still weren’t on Rebus when he spoke.

‘Yes, I took it.’

‘You took the camera?’

‘I just said I did, didn’t I?’

‘Okay.’ Rebus’s voice was neutral. Charlie’s smouldering shame might at any moment catch light and ignite into anger. ‘When did you take it?’

‘Well, I didn’t exactly stop to look at my watch.’

‘Charles!’ Vanderhyde’s voice was loud, the word coming from his mouth like a bite. Charlie took notice. He straightened in his chair, reduced to some childhood fear of this imposing creature, his uncle the magician.

Rebus cleared his throat. The taste of Earl Grey was thick on his tongue. ‘Was there anyone in the house when you got back?’

‘No. Well, yes, if you’re counting Ronnie.’

‘Was he upstairs or down?’

‘He was at the top of the stairs, if you must know. Just lying there, like he’d been trying to come down them. I thought he was crashed out. But he didn’t look right. I mean, when someone’s sleeping, there’s some kind of movement. But Ronnie was … rigid. His skin was cold, damp.’

‘And he was at the top of the stairs?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you do then?’

‘Well, I knew he was dead. And it was like I was dreaming. That sounds stupid, but it was like that. I know now that I was just trying to shut it out. I went into Ronnie’s room.’

‘Was the syringe jar there?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘Never mind. Go on.’

‘Well, I knew that when Tracy got back — ’

‘Yes?’

‘God, this is going to make me sound like a monster.’

‘What is it?’

‘Well, I knew that when she came back, she’d see Ronnie was dead and grab what she could of his. I knew she would, I just felt it. So I took something I thought he’d have wanted me to have.’

‘For sentimental reasons then?’ asked Rebus archly.

‘Not totally,’ Charlie admitted. Rebus had a sudden cooling thought: this is going too easily. ‘It was the only thing Ronnie had that was worth any money.’

Rebus nodded. Yes, that was more like it. Not that Charlie was short of a few bob; he could always rely on Uncle Matthew. But it was the illicit nature of the act that appealed. Something Ronnie would have wanted him to have. Some chance.

‘So you lifted the camera?’ Rebus said. Charlie nodded. ‘Then you left?’

‘Went straight back to my squat. Somebody said Tracy had come looking for me. Said she’d been in a right state. So I assumed she already knew about Ronnie.’

‘And she hadn’t made off with the camera. She’d come looking for you instead.’

‘Yes.’ Charlie seemed almost contrite. Almost. Rebus wondered what Vanderhyde was making of all this.

‘What about the name Hyde, does it mean anything to you?’

‘A character in Robert Louis Stevenson.’

‘Apart from that.’

Charlie shrugged.

‘What about someone called Edward?’

‘A character in Robert Louis Stevenson.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Sorry, I’m being facetious. Edward is Hyde’s first name in Jekyll and Hyde. No, I don’t know anyone called Edward.’

‘Fair enough. Do you want to know something, Charlie?’

‘What?’

Rebus looked to Vanderhyde, who sat impassively. ‘Actually, I think your uncle already knows what I’m going to say.’

Vanderhyde smiled. ‘Indeed. Correct me if I’m wrong, Inspector Rebus, but you were about to say that, the young man’s corpse having moved from the bedroom to the stairs, you can only assume that the person who moved the body was actually in the house when Charles arrived.’

Charlie’s jaw dropped open. Rebus had never witnessed the effect in real life before.

‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘I’d say you were lucky, Charlie. I’d say that someone was moving the body downstairs and heard you arrive. Then they hid in one of the other rooms, maybe even that stinking bathroom, until you’d left. They were in the house all the time you were.’

Charlie swallowed. Then closed his mouth. Then let his head fall forward and began to weep. Not quite silently, so that his uncle caught the action, and smiled, nodding towards Rebus with satisfaction.

Rebus finished the chocolate. It had tasted of antiseptic, the same strong flavour of the corridor outside, the wards themselves, and this waiting room, where anxious faces buried themselves in old colour supplements and tried to look interested for more than a second or two. The door opened and Holmes came in, looking anxious and exhausted. He’d had the distance of a forty-minute car journey in which to mentally live his worst fears, and the result was carved into his face. Rebus knew that swift treatment was needed.

‘She’s fine. You can see her whenever you like. They’re keeping her in overnight for no good reason at all, and she’s got a broken nose.’

‘A broken nose?’

‘That’s all. No concussion, no blurred vision. A good old broken nose, curse of the bare-knuckle fighter.’

Rebus thought for one moment that Holmes was about to take offence at his levity. But then relief flooded the younger man and he smiled, his shoulders relaxing, head dropping a little as though from a sense of anticlimax, albeit a welcome one.

‘So,’ Rebus said, ‘do you want to see her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Come on, I’ll take you.’ He placed a hand on Holmes’s shoulder and guided him out of the door again.

‘But how did you know?’ Holmes asked as they walked up the corridor.

‘Know what?’

‘Know it was Nell? Know about Nell and me?’

‘Well now, you’re a detective, Brian. Think about it.’

Rebus could see Holmes’s mind take on the puzzle. He hoped the process was therapeutic. Finally, Holmes spoke.

‘Nell’s got no family, so she asked for me.’

‘Well, she wrote asking for you. The broken nose makes it hard to understand what she’s saying.’

Holmes nodded dully. ‘But I couldn’t be located, and you were asked if you knew where I was.’

‘That’s close enough. Well done. How was Fife anyway? I only get back there once a year.’ April 28th, he thought to himself.

‘Fife? It was okay. I’d to leave before the bust. That was a shame. And I don’t think I exactly impressed the team I was supposed to be part of.’

‘Who was in charge?’

‘A young DS called Hendry.’

Rebus nodded. ‘I know him. I’m surprised you don’t, at least by reputation.’

Holmes shrugged. ‘I just hope they nab those bastards.’

Rebus had stopped outside the door of a ward.

‘This it?’ Holmes asked. Rebus nodded.

‘Want me to come in with you?’

Holmes stared at his superior with something approaching gratitude, then shook his head.

‘No, it’s all right. I won’t stay if she’s asleep. One last thing though.’

‘Yes?’

‘Who did it?’

Who did it. That was the hardest part to understand. Walking back along the corridor, Rebus saw Nell’s puffy face, saw her distress as she tried to talk, and couldn’t. She had signalled for some paper. He had taken a notebook from his pocket, and handed her his pen. Then she had written furiously for a full minute. He stopped now and took out the notebook, reading it through for the fourth or fifth time that evening.

‘I was working at the library. A woman tried to push her way into the building, past the guard. Talk to him if you want to check. This woman then butted me on the face. I was trying to help, to calm her down. She must have thought I was interfering. But I wasn’t. I was trying to help. She was the girl in that photograph, the nude photograph Brian had in his briefcase last night in the pub. You were there, weren’t you, in the same pub as us? Not easy not to notice — the place was empty, after all. Where’s Brian? Out chasing more salacious pictures for you, Inspector?’

Rebus smiled now, as he had smiled then. She had guts, that one. He rather liked her, her face taped, eyes blackened. She reminded him a lot of Gill.

So, Tracy was leaving a silvery snail’s trail of chaos by which to follow her. Little bitch. Had she simply flipped, or was there a real motive for her trip to the University Library? Rebus leaned against the wall of the corridor. God, what a day. He was supposed to be between cases. Supposed to be ‘tidying things up’ before starting full time on the drugs campaign. He was supposed, for the sake of Christ, to be having things easy. That’d be the day.

The ward doors swung shut, alerting him to the figure of Brian Holmes in the corridor. Holmes seemed lacking direction, then spotted his superior and came walking briskly up the hall. Rebus wasn’t sure yet whether Holmes was invaluable, or a liability. Could you be both things at once?

‘Is she all right?’ he asked solicitously.

‘Yes. I suppose so. She’s awake. Face looks a bit of a mess though.’

‘Just bruises. They say the nose will heal. You’ll never know it was broken.’

‘Yes, that’s what Nell said.’

‘She talking? That’s good.’

‘She also told me who did it.’ Holmes looked at Rebus, who looked away. ‘What’s this all about? What’s Nell got to do with it?’

‘Nothing, so far as I know. She just happened to be in the wrong place, et cetera. Chalk it down to coincidence.’

‘Coincidence? That’s a nice easy word to say. Put it down to “coincidence” and then we can forget all about it, is that it? I don’t know what your game is, Rebus, but I’m not going to play it any longer.’

Holmes turned and stalked off along the hall. Rebus almost warned him that there was no exit at that end of the building, but favours weren’t what Holmes wanted. He needed a bit of time, a break. So did Rebus, but he had some thinking to do, and the station was the best place for that.

By taking them slowly, Rebus managed the stairs to his office. He had been at his desk fully ten minutes before a craving for tea had him reaching for the telephone. Then he sat back, holding in front of him a piece of paper on which he had attempted to set out the ‘facts’ of the ‘case’. He was chilled by the thought that he might be wasting time and effort. A jury would have to work hard to see any crime there at all. There was no suggestion that Ronnie had not injected himself. However, he had been starved of his supply, despite there being no shortage of dope in the city, and someone had moved his body, and left behind a packet of good heroin, hoping, perhaps, that this would be tested, found clean, and therefore death by misadventure would be recorded: a simple overdose. But the rat poison had been found.

Rebus looked at the paper. Already ‘perhapses’ and conjecture had entered the picture. Maybe the frame wasn’t right. So, turn the picture another way round, John, and start again.

Why had someone gone to the trouble of killing Ronnie? After all, the poor bugger would have topped himself given time. Ronnie had been starved of a fix, then given some, but had known this stuff to be less than pure. So doubtless he had known that the person who supplied it wanted him dead. But he had taken it anyway…. No, viewed this way round it was making even less sense. Start again.

Why would someone want Ronnie dead? There were several obvious answers. Because he knew something he shouldn’t. Because he possessed something he shouldn’t. Because he didn’t possess something he should. Which was correct? Rebus didn’t know. Nobody seemed to know. The picture still lacked meaning.

There was a knock on the door, and the door itself was pushed open by a constable carrying a mug of tea. The constable was Harry Todd. Rebus recognised him.

‘You get around a bit, son.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Todd, placing the tea on a corner of the desk, the only three square inches of wood visible from beneath a surface covering of paperwork.

‘Is it quiet tonight?’

‘The usual, sir. A few drunks. Couple of break-ins. Nasty car crash down near the docks.’

Rebus nodded, reaching for the tea. ‘Do you know another constable, name of Neil McGrath?’ Raising the mug to his lips, Rebus stared up at Todd, who had begun to blush.

‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘I know him.’

‘Mm-hm.’ Rebus tested the tea, seeming to relish the bland flavour of milk and hot water. ‘Told you to keep an eye on me, did he?’

‘Sir?’

‘If you happen to see him, Todd, tell him everything’s fine.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Todd was turning to leave.

‘Oh, and Todd?’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Don’t let me see you near me again, understood?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Todd was clearly downhearted. At the door, he paused, seeming to have a sudden plan that would ingratiate himself with his superior. Smiling, he turned back to Rebus.

‘Did you hear about the action across in Fife, sir?’

‘What action?’ Rebus sounded uninterested.

‘The dog fight, sir.’ Rebus tried hard to still look unmoved. ‘They broke up some dog fight. Guess who got arrested?’

‘Malcolm Rifkind?’ guessed Rebus. This deflated Todd totally. The smile left his face.

‘No, sir,’ he said, turning again to leave. Rebus’s patience was short.

‘Well who then?’ he snapped.

‘That disc jockey, Calum McCallum,’ Todd said, closing the door after him. Rebus stared at the door for a count of five before it struck home: Calum McCallum … Gill Templer’s lover!

Rebus raised his head and let out a roar which mixed laughter with a kind of twisted victory cry. And when he had stopped laughing, and was wiping his eyes with a handkerchief, he looked towards the door again and saw that it was open. There was someone standing in the doorway, watching his performance with a look of puzzlement on their face.

It was Gill Templer.

Rebus checked his watch. It was nearly one in the morning.

‘Working the late shift, Gill?’ he said to cover his confusion.

‘I suppose you’ve heard,’ she said, ignoring him.

‘Heard what?’

She walked into the room, pushed some papers off the chair onto the floor, and sat down, looking exhausted. Rebus looked at all that paper slewed across the floor.

‘The cleaners come in in the morning anyway,’ he said. Then: ‘I’ve heard.’

‘Is that what all the screaming was about?’

‘Oh, that.’ Rebus tried to shrug it off, but could feel the blood tingling in his cheeks. ‘No,’ he said, ‘that was just something … well, something else….’

‘Not very convincing, Rebus, you bastard.’ Her words were tired. He wanted to buoy her up, tell her she was looking well or something. But it wouldn’t have been true and she would just scowl at him again. So he left it. She was looking drawn, not enough sleep and no fun left any more. She’d just had her world locked up in a cell somewhere in Fife. They would be photographing and fingerprinting it perhaps, ready to file it away. Her life, Calum McCallum.

Life was full of surprises.

‘So what can I do for you?’

She looked up at him, studying his face as though she wasn’t sure who he was or why she was here. Then she shook herself awake with a twitch of the shoulders.

‘It sounds corny, but I really was just passing. I dropped into the canteen for a coffee before going home, and then I heard — ’ She shivered again; the twitch which wasn’t quite a twitch. Rebus could see how fragile she was. He hoped she wasn’t going to shake apart. ‘I heard about Calum. How could he do that to me, John? Keep a secret like that? I mean, where’s the fun in watching dogs ripping each other — ’

‘That’s something you’ll have to ask him yourself, Gill. Can I get you some more coffee?’

‘Christ no, I’m going to find it hard enough getting to sleep as it is. Tell you what I would like though, if it’s not too much trouble.’

‘Name it.’

‘A lift home.’ Rebus was already nodding agreement. ‘And a hug.’

Rebus got up slowly, donned his jacket, put the pen and piece of paper in his pocket, and met her in the middle of the room. She had already risen from her chair, and, standing on reports to be read, paperwork to be signed, arrest statistics and the rest, they hugged, their arms strong. She buried her head in his shoulder. He rested his chin on her neck, staring at the closed door, rubbing her back with one hand, patting with the other. Eventually, she pulled away, head first, then chest, but still holding him with her arms. Her eyes were moist, but it was over now. She was looking a little better.

‘Thanks,’ she said.

‘I needed it as much as you did,’ said Rebus. ‘Come on, let’s get you home.’