Hide And Seek

Saturday

In fact, he didn’t dream at all. And when he woke up, it was the weekend, the sun was shining, and his telephone was ringing.

‘Hello?’

‘John? It’s Gill.’

‘Oh, hello, Gill. How are you?’

‘I’m fine. What about you?’

‘Great.’ This was not a lie. He hadn’t slept so well in weeks, and there was not a trace of hangover within him.

‘Sorry to ring so early. Any progress on the smear?’

‘Smear?’

‘The things that kid was saying about you.’

‘Oh, that. No, I haven’t heard anything yet.’ He was thinking about lunch, about a picnic, about a drive in the country. ‘Are you in Edinburgh?’ he asked.

‘No, Fife.’

‘Fife? What are you doing there?’

‘Calum’s here, remember.’

‘Of course I remember, but I thought you were steering clear of him?’

‘He wanted to see me. Actually, that’s why I’m calling.’

‘Oh?’ Rebus wrinkled his brow, curious.

‘Calum wants to talk to you.’

‘To me? Why?’

‘He’ll tell you that himself, I suppose. He just asked me to tell you.’

Rebus thought for a moment. ‘Do you want me to talk to him?’

‘Can’t say I’m much bothered either way. I told him I’d pass on the message, and I told him it was the last favour he could expect from me.’ Her voice was as slick and cool as a slate roof in the rain. Rebus felt himself sliding down that roof, wanting to please her, wanting to help. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘and he said that if you sounded dubious, I was to tell you it’s to do with Hyde’s.’

‘Hydes?’ Rebus stood up sharply.

‘H-y-d-e-apostrophe-s.’

‘Hyde’s what?’

She laughed. ‘I don’t know, John. But it sounds as if it means something to you.’

‘It does, Gill. Are you in Dunfermline?’

‘Calling from the station’s front desk.’

‘Okay. I’ll see you there in an hour.’

‘Fine, John.’ She sounded unconcerned. ‘Bye.’

He cut the connection, put his jacket on, and left the flat. The traffic was busy towards Tollcross, busy all the way down Lothian Road and winding across Princes Street towards Queensferry Road. Since the deregulation of public transport, the centre of the city had become a black farce of buses: double deckers, single deckers, even mini-buses, all vying for custom. Locked behind two claret-coloured LRT double deckers and two green single deckers, Rebus began to lose his tiny cache of patience. He slammed his hand down hard on the horn and pulled out, revving past the line of stalled traffic. A motorcycle messenger, squeezing through between the two directions of slower traffic, had to swerve to avoid the imminent accident, and slewed against a Saab. Rebus knew he should stop. He kept on going.

If only he’d had one of those magnetic flashing sirens, the kind CID used on the roofs of their cars whenever they were late for dinner or an engagement. But all he had were his headlights — full-beam — and the horn. Having cleared the tailback, he eased his hand off the horn, switched off the lamps, and cruised into the outside lane of the widening road.

Despite a pause at the dreaded Barnton roundabout, he made good time to the Forth Road Bridge, paid the toll, and drove across, not too fast, wanting, as ever, to take in the view. Rosyth Naval Dockyard was below him on the left. A lot of his schoolfriends (‘lot’ being relative: he’d never made that many friends) had slipped easily into jobs at Rosyth, and were probably still there. It seemed to be about the only place in Fife where work was still available. The mines were closing with enforced regularity. Somewhere along the coast in the other direction, men were burrowing beneath the Forth, scooping out coal in a decreasingly profitable curve….

Hyde! Calum McCallum knew something about Hyde! Knew, too, that Rebus was interested, so word must have got around. His foot pressed down further on the accelerator. McCallum would want a trade, of course: charges dropped, or somehow jigged into a shape less damning. Fine, fine, he’d promise him the sun and the moon and the stars.

Just so long as he knew. Knew who Hyde was; knew where Hyde was. Just so long as he knew….

The main police station in Dunfermline was easy to find, situated just off a roundabout on the outskirts of the town. Gill was easy to find, too. She was sitting in her car in the spacious car park outside the station. Rebus parked next to her, got out of his car and into the passenger side of hers.

‘Morning,’ he said.

‘Hello, John.’

‘Are you okay?’ This was, on reflection, perhaps the most unnecessary question he had ever posed. Her face had lost colour and substance, and her head seemed to be shrinking into her shoulders, while her hands gripped the steering wheel, fingernails rapping softly against the top of the dashboard.

‘I’m fine,’ she said, and they both smiled at the lie. ‘I told them at the desk that you were coming.’

‘Anything you want me to tell our friend?’

Her voice was resonant. ‘Nothing.’

‘Okay.’

Rebus pushed open the car door and closed it again, but softly, then he headed towards the station entrance.

She had wandered the hospital corridors for over an hour. It was visiting time, so no one much minded as she walked into this and that ward, passing the beds, smiling down occasionally on the sick old men and women who stared up at her with lonely eyes. She watched families decide who should and should not take turns at grandpa’s bedside, there being two only at a time allowed. She was looking for one woman in particular, though she wasn’t sure she would recognise her. All she had to go on was the fact that the librarian would have a broken nose.

Maybe she hadn’t been kept in. Maybe she’d already gone home to her husband or boyfriend or whatever. Maybe Tracy would be better off waiting and going to the library again. Except that they’d be watching and waiting for her. The guard would know her. The librarian would know her.

But would she know the librarian?

A bell rang out, drilling into her the fact that visiting hours were coming to an end. She hurried to the next ward, wondering: what if the librarian’s in a private room? Or in another hospital? Or….

No! There she was! Tracy stopped dead, turned in a half-circle, and walked to the far end of the ward. Visitors were saying their goodbyes and take cares to the patients. Everybody looked relieved, both visitors and visited. She mingled with them as they put chairs back into stacks and donned coats, scarves, gloves. Then she paused and looked back towards the librarian’s bed. There were flowers all around it, and the single visitor, a man, was leaning over the librarian to kiss her lingeringly on the forehead. The librarian squeezed the man’s hand and…. And the man looked familiar to Tracy. She’d seen him before…. At the police station! He was some friend of Rebus’s, and he was a policeman! She remembered him checking on her while she was being held in the cells.

Oh Jesus, she’d attacked a policeman’s wife!

She wasn’t sure now, wasn’t sure at all. Why had she come? Could she go through with it now? She walked with one family out of the ward, then rested against the wall in the corridor outside. Could she? Yes, if her nerve held. Yes, she could.

She was pretending to examine a drinks vending machine when Holmes sauntered through the swinging ward doors and walked slowly down the corridor away from her. She waited a full two minutes, counting up to one hundred and twenty. He wasn’t coming back. He hadn’t forgotten anything. Tracy turned from the vending machine and made for the swing doors.

For her, visiting time was just beginning.

She hadn’t even reached the bed when a young nurse stopped her.

‘Visiting hour’s finished now,’ the nurse said.

Tracy tried to smile, tried to look normal; it wasn’t easy for her, but lying was.

‘I just lost my watch. I think I left it at my sister’s bed.’ She nodded in Nell’s direction. Nell, hearing the conversation, had turned towards her. Her eyes opened wide as she recognised Tracy.

‘Well, be as quick as you can, eh?’ said the nurse, moving away. Tracy smiled at the nurse, and watched her push through the swing doors. Now there were only the patients in their beds, a sudden silence, and her. She approached Nell’s bed.

‘Hello,’ she said. She looked at the chart attached to the end of the iron bedstead. ‘Nell Stapleton,’ she read.

‘What do you want?’ Nell’s eyes showed no fear. Her voice was thin, coming from the back of her throat, her nose having no part in the process.

‘I want to tell you something,’ Tracy said. She came close to Nell, and crouched on the floor, so that she would be barely visible from the doors of the ward. She thought this made her look as though she were searching for a lost watch.

‘Yes?’

Tracy smiled, finding Nell’s imperfect voice amusing. She sounded like a puppet on a children’s programme. The smile vanished quickly, and she blushed, remembering that the reason she was here was because she was responsible for this woman being here at all. The plasters across the nose, the bruising under the eyes: all her doing.

‘I came to say I’m sorry. That’s all, really. just, I’m sorry.’

Nell’s eyes were unblinking.

‘And,’ Tracy continued, ‘well … nothing.’

‘Tell me,’ said Nell, but it was too much for her. She’d done most of the talking while Brian Holmes had been in, and her mouth was dry. She turned and reached for the jug of water on the small cupboard beside the bed.

‘Here, I’ll do that.’ Tracy poured water into a plastic beaker, and handed it to Nell, who sipped, coating the inside of her mouth. ‘Nice flowers,’ said Tracy.

‘From my boyfriend,’ said Nell, between sips.

‘Yes, I saw him leaving. He’s a policeman, isn’t he? I know he is, because I’m a friend of Inspector Rebus’s.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘You do?’ Tracy seemed shocked. ‘So you know who I am?’

‘I know your name’s Tracy, if that’s what you mean.’

Tracy bit her bottom lip. Her face reddened again.

‘It doesn’t matter, does it?’ Nell said.

‘Oh no.’ Tracy tried to sound nonchalant. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘I was going to ask …’

‘Yes?’ Tracy seemed keen for a change of subject.

‘What were you going to do in the library?’

This wasn’t quite to Tracy’s liking. She thought about it, shrugged, and said: ‘I was going to find Ronnie’s photographs.’

‘Ronnie’s photographs?’ Nell perked up. What little Brian had said during visiting hour had been limited to the progress of Ronnie McGrath’s case, and especially the discovery of some pictures at the dead boy’s house. What was Tracy talking about?

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Ronnie hid them in the library.’

‘What were they exactly? I mean, why did he need to hide them?’

Tracy shrugged. ‘All he told me was that they were his life insurance policy. That’s exactly what he said, “life insurance policy”.’

‘And where exactly did he hide them?’

‘On the fifth floor, he said. Inside a bound volume of something called the Edinburgh Review. I think it’s a magazine.’

‘That’s right,’ said Nell, smiling, ‘it is.’

Brian Holmes was made light-headed by Nell’s telephone call. His first reaction, however, was pure shock, and he chastised her for being out of bed.

‘I’m still in bed,’ she said, her voice becoming indistinct in her excitement. ‘They brought the payphone to my bedside. Now listen….’

Thirty minutes later, he was being shown down an aisle on the fifth floor of Edinburgh University Library. The member of staff checked complicated decimal numbers exhibited at each stack, until, satisfied, she led him down one darkened row of large bound titles. At the end of the aisle, seated at a study desk by a large window, a student stared disinterestedly towards Holmes, a pencil crunching in his mouth. Holmes smiled sympathetically towards the student, who stared right through him.

‘Here we are,’ said the librarian. ‘Edinburgh Review and New Edinburgh Review. It becomes “New” in 1969, as you can see. Of course, we keep the earlier editions in a closed environment. If you want those years specifically, it will take a little time — ’

‘No, these are fine, really. These are just what I need. Thank you.’

The librarian bowed slightly, accepting his thanks. ‘You will remember us all to Nell, won’t you?’ she said.

‘I’ll be talking to her later today. I won’t forget.’

With another bow, the librarian turned and walked back to the end of the stack. She paused there, and pressed a switch. Strip lighting flickered above Holmes, and stayed on. He smiled his thanks, but she was gone, her rubber heels squeaking briskly towards the lift.

Holmes looked at the spines of the bound volumes. The collection was not complete, which meant that someone had borrowed some of the years. A stupid place to hide something. He picked up 1971-72, held its spine by the forefingers of both his right and left hands, and rocked it. No scraps of paper, no photographs were shaken free. He put the volume back on the shelf and selected its neighbour, shook it, then replaced it.

The student at the study desk was no longer looking through him. He was looking at him, and doing so as if Holmes were mad. Another volume yielded nothing, then another. Holmes began to fear the worst. He’d been hoping for something with which to surprise Rebus, something to tie up all the loose ends. He’d tried contacting the Inspector, but Rebus wasn’t to be found, wasn’t anywhere. He had vanished.

The photos made more noise than he’d expected as they slid from the sheaves and hit the polished floor, hit it with their glossy edges, producing a sharp crack. He bent and began to gather them up, while the student looked on in fascination. From what he could see of the images strewn across the floor, Holmes already felt disappointment curdling his elation. They were copies of the boxing match pictures, nothing more. There were no new prints, no revelations, no surprises.

Damn Ronnie McGrath for giving him hope. All they were was life insurance. On a life already forfeit.

He waited for the lift, but it was busy elsewhere, so he took the stairs, winding downwards steeply, and found himself on the ground floor, but in a part of the library he didn’t know, a sort of antiquarian bookshop corridor, narrow, with mouldering books stacked up against both walls. He squeezed through, feeling a sudden chill he couldn’t place, and found himself opening a door onto the main concourse. The librarian who had shown him around was back behind her desk. She saw him, and waved frantically. He obeyed the command and hurried forward. She picked up a telephone and pressed a button.

‘Call for you,’ she said, stretching across the desktop to hand him the receiver.

‘Hello?’ He was quizzical: who the hell knew he was here?

‘Brian, where in God’s name have you been?’ It was Rebus, of course. ‘I’ve been trying to find you everywhere. I’m at the hospital.’

Holmes’s heart deflated within his chest. ‘Nell?’ he said, so dramatically that even the librarian’s head shot up.

‘What?’ growled Rebus. ‘No, no, Nell’s fine. It’s just that she told me where to find you. I’m phoning from the hospital, and it’s costing me a fortune.’ In confirmation, the pips came, and were followed by the chankling of coins in a slot. The connection was re-established.

‘Nell’s okay,’ Brian told the librarian. She nodded, relieved, and turned back to her work.

‘Of course she is,’ said Rebus, having caught the words. ‘Now listen, there are a few things I want you to do. Have you got a pen and paper?’

Brian found them on the desk. He smiled, remembering the first telephone conversation he’d ever had with John Rebus, so similar to this, a few things to be done. Christ, so much had been done since….

‘Got that?’

Holmes started. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘My mind was elsewhere. Could you repeat that?’

There was an audible sound of mixed anger and excitement from the receiver. Then Rebus started again, and this time Brian Holmes heard every word.

Tracy couldn’t say why it was that she’d visited Nell Stapleton, or why she’d told Nell what she had. She felt some kind of bond, not merely because of what she’d done. There was something about Nell Stapleton, something wise and kind, something Tracy had lacked in her life until now. Maybe that’s why she was finding it so hard to leave the hospital. She had walked the corridors, drunk two cups of coffee in a cafe across the road from the main building, wandered in and out of Casualty, X-Ray, even some clinic for diabetics. She’d tried to leave, had walked as far as the city’s art college before turning round and retreading the two hundred paces to the hospital.

And she was entering the side gates when the men grabbed her.

‘Hey!’

‘If you’ll just come with us, miss.’

They sounded like security men, policemen even, so she didn’t resist. Maybe Nell Stapleton’s boyfriend wanted to see her, to give her a good kicking. She didn’t care. They were taking her towards the hospital entrance, so she didn’t resist. Not until it was too late.

At the last moment, they stopped short, turned her, and pushed her into the back of an ambulance.

‘What’s —! Hey, come on!’ The doors were closing, locking, leaving her alone in the hot, dim interior. She thumped on the doors, but the vehicle was already moving off. As it pulled away, she was thrown against the doors, then back onto the floor. When she had recovered herself, she saw that the ambulance was an old one, no longer used for its original purpose. Its insides had been gutted, making it merely a van. The windows had been boarded over, and a metal panel separated her from the driver. She clawed her way to this panel and began hitting it with her fists, teeth gritted, yelling from time to time as she remembered that the two men who had grabbed her at the gates were the same two men who’d been following her that day on Princes Street, that day she’d run to John Rebus.

‘Oh God,’ she murmured, ‘oh God, oh God.’

They’d found her at last.

The evening was sticky with heat, the streets quiet for a Saturday.

Rebus rang the doorbell and waited. While he waited, he looked to left and right. An immaculate double row of Georgian houses, stone frontages dulled black through time and car fumes. Some of the houses had been turned into offices for Writers to the Signet, chartered accountants, and small, anonymous finance businesses. But a few — a precious few — were still very comfortable and well-appointed homes for the wealthy and the industrious. Rebus had been to this street before, a long time ago now in his earliest CID days, investigating the death of a young girl. He didn’t remember much about the case now. He was too busy getting ready for the evening’s pleasures.

He tugged at the black bow tie around his throat. The whole outfit, dinner jacket, shirt, bow tie and patent shoes, had been hired earlier in the day from a shop on George Street. He felt like an idiot, but had to admit that, examining himself in his bathroom mirror, he looked pretty sharp. He wouldn’t be too out of place in an establishment like Finlay’s of Duke Terrace.

The door was opened by a beaming woman, young, dressed exquisitely, and greeting him as though wondering why he didn’t come more often.

‘Good evening,’ she said. ‘Will you come in?’

He would, he did. The entrance hall was subtle. Cream paint, deep pile carpeting, a scattering of chairs which might have been designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, high backs and looking extraordinarily uncomfortable to sit in.

‘I see you’re admiring our chairs,’ the woman said.

‘Yes,’ Rebus answered, returning her smile. ‘The name’s Rebus, by the way. John Rebus.’

‘Ah yes. Finlay told me you were expected. Well, as this is your first visit, would you like me to show you around?’

‘Thank you.’

‘But first, a drink, and the first drink is always on the house.’

Rebus tried not to be nosey, but he was a policeman after all, and not being nosey would have gone against all that he held most dear. So he asked a few questions of his hostess, whose name was Paulette, and pointed to this and that part of the gaming club, being shown the direction of the cellars (‘Finlay has their contents insured for quarter of a million’), kitchen (‘our chef is worth his weight in Beluga’), and guest bedrooms (‘the judges are the worst, there are one or two who always end up sleeping here, too drunk to go home’). The lower ground floor housed the cellars and kitchen, while the ground floor comprised a quiet bar area, and the small restaurant, with cloakrooms and an office. On the first floor, up the carpeted staircase and past the collection of eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Scottish paintings by the likes of Jacob More and David Allan, was the main gaming area: roulette, blackjack, a few other tables for card games, and one table given over to dice. The players were businessmen, their bets discreet, nobody losing big or winning big. They held their chips close to them.

Paulette pointed out two closed rooms.

‘Private rooms, for private games.’

‘Of what?’

‘Poker mainly. The serious players book them once a month or so. The games can go on all night.’

‘Just like in the movies.’

‘Yes,’ she laughed. ‘Just like the movies.’

The second floor consisted of the three guest bedrooms, again locked, and Finlay Andrews’ own private suite.

‘Off limits, of course,’ Paulette said.

‘Of course,’ Rebus concurred, as they started downstairs again.

So this was it: Finlay’s Club. Tonight was quiet. He had seen only two or three faces he recognised: an advocate, who did not acknowledge him, though they’d clashed before in court, a television presenter, whose dark tan looked fake, and Farmer Watson.

‘Hello there, John.’ Watson, stuffed into suit and dress shirt, looked like nothing more than a copper out of uniform. He was in the bar when Paulette and Rebus went back in, his hand closed around a glass of orange juice, trying to look comfortable but instead looking distinctly out of place.

‘Sir.’ Rebus had not for one moment imagined that Watson, despite the threat he had made earlier, would turn up here. He introduced Paulette, who apologised for not being around to greet him at the door.

Watson waved aside her apology, revolving his glass. ‘I was well enough taken care of,’ he said. They sat at a vacant table. The chairs here were comfortable and well padded, and Rebus felt himself relax. Watson, however, was looking around keenly.

‘Finlay not here?’ he asked.

‘He’s somewhere around,’ said Paulette. ‘Finlay’s always around.’

Funny, thought Rebus, that they hadn’t bumped into him on their tour.

‘What’s the place like then, John?’ Watson asked.

‘Impressive,’ Rebus answered, accepting Paulette’s smile like praise from a teacher to a doting pupil. ‘Very impressive. It’s much bigger than you’d think. Wait till you see upstairs.’

‘And there’s the extension, too,’ said Watson.

‘Oh yes, I’d forgotten.’ Rebus turned to Paulette.

‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘We’re building out from the back of the premises.’

‘Building?’ said Watson. ‘I thought it was a fait accompli?’

‘Oh no.’ She smiled again. ‘Finlay is very particular. The flooring wasn’t quite right, so he had the workmen rip it all up and start again. Now we’re waiting on some marble arriving from Italy.’

‘That must be costing a few bob,’ Watson said, nodding to himself.

Rebus wondered about the extension. Towards the back of the ground floor, past toilets, cloakroom, offices, walk-in cupboards, there must be another door, ostensibly the door to the back garden. But now the door to the extension, perhaps.

‘Another drink, John?’ Watson was already on his feet, pointing at Rebus’s empty glass.

‘Gin and fresh orange, please,’ he said, handing over the glass.

‘And for you, Paulette?’

‘No, really.’ She was rising from the chair. ‘Work to do. Now that you’ve seen a bit of the club, I’d better get back to door duties. If you want to play upstairs, the office can supply chips. A few of the games accept cash, but not the most interesting ones.’

Another smile, and she was gone in a flurry of silk and a glimpse of black nylon. Watson saw Rebus watching her leave.

‘At ease, Inspector,’ he said, laughing to himself as he headed for the bar where the barman explained that if he wanted drinks, he only had to signal, and an order would be taken at the gentlemen’s table and brought to them directly. Watson slumped back into his chair again.

‘This is the life, eh, John?’

‘Yes, sir. What’s happening back at base?’

‘You mean the little sodomite who made the complaint? He’s buggered off. Disappeared. Gave us a false address, the works.’

‘So I’m off the butcher’s hook?’

‘Just about.’ Rebus was about to remonstrate. ‘Give it a few more days, John, that’s all I’m asking. Time for it to die a natural death.’

‘You mean people are talking?’

‘A few of the lads have had a laugh about it. I don’t suppose you can blame them. In a day or so, there’ll be something else for them to joke about, and it’ll all be forgotten.’

‘There’s nothing to forget!’

‘I know, I know. It’s all some plot to keep you out of action, and this mysterious Mr Hyde’s behind it all.’

Rebus stared at Watson, his lips clamped shut. He could yell, could scream and shout. He breathed hard instead, and snatched at the drink when the waiter placed the tray on the table. He’d taken two gulps before the waiter informed him that he was drinking the other gentleman’s orange juice. His own gin and orange was the one still on the tray. Rebus reddened as Watson, laughing again, placed a five-pound note on the tray. The waiter coughed in embarrassment.

‘Your drinks come to six pounds fifty, sir,’ he told Watson.

‘Ye gods!’ Watson searched in his pocket for some change, found a crumpled pound note and some coins, and placed them on the tray.

‘Thank you, sir.’ The waiter lifted the tray and turned away before Watson had the chance to ask about any change that might be owing. He looked at Rebus, who was smiling now.

‘Well,’ Watson said, ‘I mean, six pounds fifty! That would feed some families for a week.’

‘This is the life,’ Rebus said, throwing the Superintendent’s words back at him.

‘Yes, well said, John. I was in danger of forgetting there can be more to life than personal comfort. Tell me, which church do you attend?’

‘Well, well. Come to take us all in, have you?’ Both men turned at this new voice. It was Tommy McCall. Rebus checked his watch. Eight thirty. Tommy looked as though he’d been to a few pubs en route to the club. He sat down heavily in what had been Paulette’s chair.

‘What’re you drinking?’ He snapped his fingers, and the waiter, a frown on his face, came slowly towards the table.

‘Sirs?’

Tommy McCall looked up at him. ‘Hello, Simon. Same again for the constabulary, and I’ll have the usual.’

Rebus watched the waiter as McCall’s words sank in. That’s right, son, Rebus thought to himself, we’re the police. Now why should that fact frighten you so much? The waiter turned, seeming to read Rebus’s mind, and headed stiffly back to the bar.

‘So what brings you two here?’ McCall was lighting a cigarette, glad to have found some company and ready to make a night of it.

‘It was John’s idea,’ Watson said. ‘He wanted to come, so I fixed it with Finlay, then reckoned I might as well come along, too.’

‘Quite right.’ McCall looked around him. ‘Nobody much in tonight though, not yet leastways. The place is usually packed to the gunnels with faces you’d recognise, names you’d know like you know your own. This is tame tonight.’

He had offered round his pack of cigarettes, and Rebus had taken one, which he now lit, inhaling gratefully, regretting it immediately as the smoke mixed with the alcohol fumes in his chest. He needed to think fast and hard. Watson and now McCall: he had planned on dealing with neither.

‘By the way, John,’ Tommy McCall said, ‘thanks for the lift last night.’ His tone made the subtext clear to Rebus. ‘Sorry if it was any trouble.’

‘No trouble, Tommy. Did you sleep well?’

‘I never have trouble sleeping.’

‘Me neither,’ interrupted Farmer Watson. ‘The benefits of a clear conscience, eh?’

Tommy turned to Watson. ‘Shame you couldn’t get to Malcolm Lanyon’s party. We had a pretty good time, didn’t we, John?’

Tommy smiled across at Rebus, who smiled back. A group at the next table were laughing at some joke, the men drawing on thick cigars, the women playing with their wrist jewellery. McCall leaned across towards them, hoping perhaps to share in the joke, but his shining eyes and uneven smile kept him apart from them.

‘Had many tonight, Tommy?’ Rebus asked. McCall, hearing his name, turned back to Rebus and Watson.

‘One or two,’ he said. ‘A couple of my trucks didn’t deliver on time, drivers on the piss or something. Lost me two big contracts. Drowning my sorrows.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Watson said with sincerity. Rebus nodded agreement, but McCall shook his head theatrically.,

‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking of selling the business anyway, retiring while I’m still young. Barbados, Spain, who knows. Buy a little villa.’ His eyes narrowed, his voice dropping to a whisper. ‘And guess who’s interested in buying me out? You’ll never guess in a million years. Finlay.’

‘Finlay Andrews?’

‘The same.’ McCall sat back, drew on his cigarette, blinking into the smoke. ‘Finlay Andrews.’ He leaned forward again confidentially. ‘He’s got a finger in quite a few pies, you know. It’s not just this place. He’s got this and that directorship, shares here there and everywhere, you name it.’

‘Your drinks.’ The waiter’s voice had more than a note of disapproval in it. He seemed to want to linger, even after McCall had pitched a ten-pound note onto the tray and waved him away.

‘Aye,’ McCall continued after the waiter had retreated. ‘Fingers in plenty of pies. All strictly above board, mind. You’d have a hellish job proving otherwise.’

‘And he wants to buy you out?’ Rebus asked.

McCall shrugged. ‘He’s made a good price. Not a great price, but I won’t starve.’

‘Your change, sir.’ It was the waiter again, his voice cold as a chisel. He held the salver out towards McCall, who stared up at him.

‘I didn’t want any change,’ he explained. ‘It was a tip. Still,’ he winked at Rebus and Watson, scooping the coins from the tray, ‘if you don’t want it, son, I suppose I might as well have it back.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Rebus loved this. The waiter was giving McCall every kind of danger signal there was, but McCall was too drunk or too naive to notice. At the same time, Rebus was aware of complications which might be about to result from the presence of Superintendent Watson and Tommy McCall at Finlay’s, on the night Finlay’s erupted.

There was a sudden commotion from the entrance hall, raised voices, boisterous rather than angry. And Paulette’s voice, too, pleading, then remonstrative. Rebus glanced at his watch again. Eight fifty. Right on time.

‘What’s going on?’ Everybody in the bar was interested, and a few had risen from their seats to investigate. The barman pushed a button on the wall beside the optics, then made for the hall. Rebus followed. Just inside the front door Paulette was arguing with several men, dressed in business suits but far the worse for wear. One was telling her that she couldn’t refuse him, because he was wearing a tie. Another explained that they were in town for the evening and had heard about the club from someone in a bar.

‘Philip, his name was. He told us to say Philip had said it was okay and we could come in.’

‘I’m sorry, gentlemen, but this is a private club.’ The barman was joining in now, but his presence was unwanted.

‘Talking to the lady here, pal, okay? All we want is a drink and maybe a wee flutter, isn’t that right?’

Rebus watched as two more ‘waiters’, hard young men with angular faces, came quickly down the stairs from the first floor.

‘Now look — ’

‘Just a wee flutter — ’

‘In town for the night — ’

‘I’m sorry — ’

‘Watch the jacket, pal — ’

‘Hey! — ’

Neil McGrath struck the first blow, catching one of the heavies with a solid right to the gut, doubling the man over. People were gathering in the hallway now, leaving the bar and the restaurant untended. Rebus, still watching the fight, began to move backwards through the crowd, past the door to the bar, past the restaurant, towards the cloakroom, the toilets, the office door, and the door behind that.

‘Tony! Is that you?’ It had to happen. Tommy McCall had noticed his brother Tony as one of the apparent out-of-town drunks. Tony, his attention diverted, received a blow to the face which sent him flying back against the wall. ‘That’s my brother you’re punching!’ Tommy was in there now too, mixing it with the best of them. Constables Neil McGrath and Harry Todd were fit and healthy young men, and they were holding their own. But when they saw Superintendent Watson, they automatically froze, even though he could have no idea who they were. Each was caught with a sickening blow, which woke them to the fact that this was for real. They forgot about Watson and struck out for all they were worth.

Rebus noticed that one of the fighters was hanging back just a little, not really throwing himself into it. He stayed near the door, too, ready to flee when necessary, and he kept glancing towards the back of the hallway, where Rebus stood. Rebus waved an acknowledgment. Detective Constable Brian Holmes did not wave back. Then Rebus turned and faced the door at the end of the hallway, the door to the club’s extension. He closed his eyes, screwed up his courage, made a fist of his right hand, and brought it flying up into his own face. Not full strength, some self-protection circuit wouldn’t let him do that, but hard. He wondered how people managed to slit their wrists, then opened his watering eyes and checked his nose. There was blood smeared over his top lip, dripping from both nostrils. He let it drip, and hammered on the door.

Nothing. He hammered again. The noise of the fight was at its height now. Come on, come on. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it below his nostrils, catching droplets of brightest crimson. The door was unlocked from within. It opened a couple of inches and eyes peered out at Rebus.

‘Yeah?’

Rebus pulled back a little so the man could see the commotion at the front door. The eyes opened wide with surprise, and the man glanced back at Rebus’s bloody face before opening the door wider. The man was hefty, not old, but with hair unnaturally thin for his age. As if to compensate for this, he had a copious moustache. Rebus remembered Tracy’s description of the man who had followed her the night she’d come to his flat. This man would fit that description.

‘We need you out here,’ Rebus said. ‘Come on.’

The man paused, thinking it over. Rebus thought he was about to close the door again, and was getting ready to kick out with all his might, but the man pulled open the door and stepped out, passing Rebus. Rebus slapped the man’s muscular back as he went.

The door was open. Rebus stepped through, sought the key, and locked it behind him. There were bolts top and bottom. He slid the top one across. Let nobody in, he was thinking, and nobody out. Then, and only then, did he look around him. He was at the top of a narrow flight of stairs, concrete, uncarpeted. Maybe Paulette had been right. Maybe the extension wasn’t finished after all. It didn’t look like it was meant to be part of Finlay’s Club though, this staircase. It was too narrow, almost furtive. Slowly, Rebus moved downwards, the heels of his hired shoes making all-too-audible sounds against the steps.

Rebus counted twenty steps, and figured that he was now below the level of the building’s lower ground floor, somewhere around cellar level or a bit below that even. Maybe planning restrictions had got Finlay Andrews after all. Unable to build up, he had built down. The door at the bottom of the stairs looked fairly solid. Again, a utilitarian-looking construction, rather than decorative. It would take a good twenty-pound hammer to break through this door. Rebus tried the handle instead. It turned, and the door opened.

Utter darkness. Rebus shuffled through the door, using what light there was from the top of the stairs to make out what he could. Which was to say, nothing. It looked like he was in some kind of storage area. Some big empty space. Then the lights came on, four rows of strip lights on the ceiling high above him. Their wattage low, they still gave enough illumination to the scene. A small boxing ring stood in the centre of the floor, surrounded by a few dozen stiff-backed chairs. This was the place then. The disc jockey had been right.

Calum McCallum had needed all the friends he could get. He had told Rebus all about the rumours he’d heard, rumours of a little club within a club, where the city’s increasingly jaded begetters of wealth could place some ‘interesting bets’. A bit out of the ordinary, McCallum had said. Yes, like betting on two rent boys, junkies paid handsomely to knock the daylights out of one another and keep quiet about it afterwards. Paid with money and drugs. There was no shortage of either now that the high rollers had spun north.

Hyde’s Club. Named after Robert Louis Stevenson’s villain, Edward Hyde, the dark side of the human soul. Hyde himself was based on the city’s Deacon Brodie, businessman by day, robber by night. Rebus could smell guilt and fear and rank expectation in this large room. Stale cigars and spilt whisky, splashes of sweat. And amongst it all moved Ronnie, and the question which still needed to be answered. Had Ronnie been paid to photograph the influential and the rich — without their knowing they were being snapped, of course? Or had he been freelancing, summoned here only as a punchbag, but stealthy enough to bring a hidden camera with him? The answer was perhaps unimportant. What mattered was that the owner of this place, the puppet-master of all these base desires, had killed Ronnie, had starved him of his fix and then given him some rat poison. Had sent one of his minions along to the squat to make sure it looked like a simple case of an overdose. So they had left the quality powder beside Ronnie. And to muddy the water, they had moved the body downstairs, leaving it in candlelight. Thinking the tableau shockingly effective. But by candlelight they hadn’t seen the pentagram on the wall, and they hadn’t meant anything by placing the body the way they had.

Rebus had made the mistake of reading too much into the situation, all along. He had blurred the picture himself, seeing connections where there were none, seeing plot and conspiracy where none existed. The real plot was so much bigger, the size of a haystack to his needle.

‘Finlay Andrews!’ The shout echoed around the room, hanging emptily in air. Rebus hauled himself up into the boxing ring and looked around at the chairs. He could almost see the gleaming, gloating faces of the spectators. The canvas floor of the ring was pockmarked with brown stains, dried blood. It didn’t end here, of course. There were also the ‘guest bedrooms’, the locked doors behind which ‘private games’ were played. Yes, he could visualise the whole Sodom, held on the third Friday of the month, judging by James Carew’s diary. Boys brought back from Calton Hill to service the clients. On a table, in bed, wherever. And Ronnie had perhaps photographed it all. But Andrews had found out that Ronnie had some insurance, some photos stashed away. He couldn’t know, of course, that they were next to useless as weapons of blackmail or evidence. All he knew was that they existed.

So Ronnie had died.

Rebus climbed out of the ring and walked past one row of chairs. At the back of the hall, lurking in shadow, were two doors. He listened outside one, then outside the other. No sounds, yet he was sure…. He was about to open the door on the left, but something, some instinct, made him choose the right-hand door instead. He paused, turned the handle, pushed.

There was a light switch just inside the door. Rebus found it, and two delicate lamps either side of the bed came on. The bed was against the side wall. There wasn’t much else in the room, apart from two large mirrors, one against the wall opposite the bed, and one above the bed. The door clicked shut behind Rebus as he walked over to the bed. Sometimes he had been accused by his superiors of having a vivid imagination. Right now, he shut his imagination out altogether. Stick to the facts, John. The fact of the bed, the fact of the mirrors. The door clicked again. He leapt forwards and yanked at the handle, but it was fast, the door locked tight.

‘Shit!’ He stood back and kicked out, hitting the belly of the door with the heel of his shoe. The door trembled, but held. His shoe did not, the heel flapping off. Great, bang went his deposit on the dress hire. Hold on though, think it through. Someone had locked the door, therefore someone was down here with him, and the only other place they could have been hiding was the other room, the room next to this. He turned again and studied the mirror opposite the bed.

‘Andrews!’ he yelled to the mirror. ‘Andrews!’

The voice was muffled by the wall, sounding distant, but still lucid.

‘Hello, Inspector Rebus. Nice to see you.’

Rebus almost smiled, but managed to hide it.

‘I wish I could say the same.’ He stared into the mirror, visualising Andrews standing directly behind it, watching him. ‘A nice idea,’ he said, making conversation, needing time to gather his strength and his thoughts. ‘People screwing in one room, while everyone else is free to watch through a two-way mirror.’

‘Free to watch?’ The voice seemed closer. ‘No, not free, Inspector. Everything costs.’

‘I suppose you set the camera up in there too, did you?’

‘Photographed and framed. Framed being quite apt under the circumstances, don’t you think?’

‘Blackmail.’ It was an observation, nothing more.

‘Favours merely. Often given without question. But a photograph can be a useful tool when favours are being withheld.’

‘That’s why James Carew committed suicide?’

‘Oh no. That was your doing really, Inspector. James told me you’d recognised him. He thought you might be able to follow your nose from him back to Hyde’s.’

‘You killed him?’

‘We killed him, John. Which is a pity. I liked James. He was a good friend.’

‘Well, you have lots of friends, don’t you?’

There was laughter now, but the voice was level, elegiac almost. ‘Yes, I suppose they’d have a job finding a judge to try me, an advocate to prosecute me, fifteen good men and true to stand as jury. They’ve all been to Hyde’s. All of them. Looking for a game with just a little more edge than those played upstairs. I got the idea from a friend in London. He runs a similar establishment, though perhaps with a less sharp edge than Hyde’s. There’s a lot of new money in Edinburgh, John. Money for all. Would you like money? Would you like a sharper edge to your life? Don’t tell me you’re happy in your little flat, with your music and your books and your bottles of wine.’ Rebus’s face showed surprise. ‘Yes, I know quite a bit about you, John. Information is my edge.’ Andrews’ voice fell. ‘There’s a membership available here if you want it, John. I think maybe you do want it. After all, membership has its privileges.’

Rebus leaned his head against the mirror. His voice was a near whisper.

‘Your fees are too high.’

‘What’s that?’ Andrews’ voice seemed closer than ever, his breathing almost audible. Rebus’s voice was still a whisper.

‘I said your fees are too high.’

Suddenly, he pulled back an arm, made a fist, and pushed straight through the mirror, shattering it. Another trick from his SAS training. Don’t punch at something; always punch through, even if it’s a brick wall you’re attacking. Glass splintered around him, digging into the sleeve of his jacket, seeking flesh. His fist uncurled, became a claw. Just through the mirror, he found Andrews’ throat, clamped it, and hauled the man forward. Andrews was shrieking. Glass was in his face, flakes of it in his hair, his mouth, prickling his eyes. Rebus held him close, teeth gritted.

‘I said,’ he hissed, ‘your fees are too high.’ Then he brought his other hand into a fresh new fist and placed a blow on Andrews’ chin, releasing him so that the unconscious figure fell back into the room.

Rebus pulled off the useless shoe and tapped away the shards of glass which still clung around the edges of the frame. Then, carefully, he hauled himself through into the room, went to the door, and opened it.

He saw Tracy immediately. She was standing hesitantly in the middle of the boxing ring, arms hanging by her sides.

‘Tracy?’ he said.

‘She may not hear you, Inspector Rebus. Heroin can do that, you know.’

Rebus watched as Malcolm Lanyon stepped out from the shadows. Behind him were two men. One was tall, well built for a man of his mature years. He had thick black eyebrows and a thick moustache tinged with silver. His eyes were deep-set, his whole face louring. He was the most Calvinist-looking thing Rebus had ever seen. The other man was stouter, less justified in his sinning. His hair was curly but thinning, his face scarred like a knuckle, a labourer’s face. He was leering.

Rebus stared at Tracy again. Her eyes were like pinpoints. He went to the ring and climbed in, hugging her to him. Her body was totally compliant, her hair damp with sweat. She might have been a life-sized rag doll for all the impetus in her limbs. But when Rebus held her face so that she had to look back at him, her eyes glimmered, and he felt her body twitch.

‘My edge,’ Lanyon was saying. ‘It seems I needed it.’ He glanced towards the room where Andrews was lying unconscious. ‘Finlay said he could handle you himself. Having seen you last night, I doubted that.’ He beckoned to one of the men. ‘See if Finlay’s going to be all right.’ The man headed off. Rebus liked the way the odds were going.

‘Would you care to step into my office and talk?’ he said.

Lanyon considered this, saw that Rebus was a strong man, but that he had his hands full with the girl. Also, of course, Lanyon had his men, while Rebus was alone. He walked to the ring, grabbed onto a rope, and hauled himself up and in. Now, face to face with Rebus, he saw the cuts on Rebus’s arm and hand.

‘Nasty,’ he said. ‘If you don’t get those seen to….’

‘I might bleed to death?’

‘Exactly.’

Rebus looked down at the canvas, where his own blood was making fresh stains beside those of nameless others. ‘How many of them died in the ring?’ he asked.

‘I really don’t know. Not many. We’re not animals, Inspector Rebus. There may have been the occasional … accident. I seldom came to Hyde’s. I merely introduced new members into it.’

‘So when do they make you a judge?’

Lanyon smiled. ‘Not for a considerable time yet. But it will happen. I once attended a club similar to Hyde’s in London. Actually, that’s where I met Saiko.’ Rebus’s eyes widened. ‘Oh yes,’ Lanyon said, ‘she’s a very versatile young woman.’

‘I suppose Hyde’s has given you and Andrews carte blanche throughout Edinburgh?’

‘It has helped with the odd planning application, the odd court case just happening to go the right way, that sort of thing.’

‘So what happens now that I know all about it?’

‘Ah, well, you needn’t worry there. Finlay and I see a long-term future for you in the development of Edinburgh as a great city of commerce and industry.’ The guard below chuckled.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Rebus. He could feel Tracy’s body tensing, growing strong again. How long it would last he couldn’t know.

‘I mean,’ Lanyon was saying, ‘that you could be preserved in concrete, supporting one of the new orbital roads.’

‘You’ve done that before, have you?’ The question was rhetorical; the goon’s chuckle had already answered it.

‘Once or twice, yes. When there was something that needed clearing away.’

Rebus saw that Tracy’s hands were slowly closing into fists. Then the goon who had gone to see Andrews came back.

‘Mr Lanyon!’ he called. ‘I think Mr Andrews is pretty bad!’

Just then, as Lanyon turned from them, Tracy flew from Rebus with a terrifying shriek and swung her fists in a low arc, catching Lanyon with a sickening thump between his legs. He didn’t so much fall as deflate, gagging as he went, while Tracy stumbled, the effort having been too great, and fell to the canvas.

Rebus was quick, too. He grabbed Lanyon and pulled him upright, locking his arm behind his back with one hand while the other hand went to his throat. The two heavies made a move towards the ring, but Rebus dug his fingers into Lanyon’s flesh just a little deeper, and they hesitated. There was a moment’s stalemate before one of them made a dash for the stairs, closely followed by his partner. Rebus was breathing heavily. He released his grip on Lanyon and watched him crumple to the floor. Then, standing in the centre of the ring, he counted softly to ten — referee style — before raising one arm high into the air.

Upstairs, things had quietened down. The staff were tidying themselves up, but held their heads high, having acquitted themselves well. The drunks — Holmes, McCall, McGrath and Todd — had been seen off, and Paulette was smoothing the rumpled atmosphere with offers of free drinks all round. She saw Rebus coming through the door of Hyde’s, and froze momentarily, then turned back into the perfect hostess, but with her voice slightly less warm than before, and her smile counterfeit.

‘Ah, John.’ It was Superintendent Watson, glass still in hand. ‘Wasn’t that a tussle? Where did you disappear to?’

‘Is Tommy McCall around, sir?’

‘Somewhere around, yes. Heard the offer of a free drink and headed in the direction of the bar. What have you done to your hand?’

Rebus looked down and saw that his hand was still bleeding in several places.

‘Seven years bad luck,’ he said. ‘Do you have a minute, sir? There’s something I’d like to show you. But first I need to phone for an ambulance.’

‘But why, for God’s sake? The rumpus is over, surely?’

Rebus looked at his superior. ‘I wouldn’t bet on that, sir,’ he said. ‘Not even if the chips were on the house.’

Rebus made his way home wearily, not from any real physical tiredness, but because his mind felt abused. The stairwell almost defeated him. He paused on the first floor, outside Mrs Cochrane’s door, for what seemed minutes. He tried not to think about Hyde’s, about what it meant, what it had been, what emotions it had serviced. But, not consciously thinking of it, bits of it flew around inside his head anyway, little jagged pieces of horror.

Mrs Cochrane’s cats wanted out. He could hear them on the other side of the door. A cat-flap would have been the answer, but Mrs Cochrane didn’t believe in them. Like leaving your door open to strangers, she had said. Any old moggie could just waltz in.

How true. Somehow, Rebus found that little unwrapped parcel of strength which was necessary to climb the extra flight. He unlocked his door and closed it again behind him. Sanctuary. In the kitchen, he munched on a dry roll while he waited for the kettle to boil.

Watson had listened to his story with mounting unease and disbelief. He had wondered aloud just how many important people were implicated. But then only Andrews and Lanyon could answer that. They’d found some video film as well as an impressive selection of still photographs. Watson’s lips had been bloodless, though many of the faces meant nothing to Rebus. Still, a few of them did. Andrews had been right about the judges and the lawyers. Thankfully, there were no policemen on display. Except one.

Rebus had wanted to clear up a murder, and instead had stumbled into a nest of vipers. He wasn’t sure any of it would come to light. Too many reputations would fall. The public’s faith in the beliefs and institutions of the city, of the country itself would be shattered. How long would it take to pick up the pieces of that broken mirror? Rebus examined his bandaged wrist. How long for the wounds to heal?

He went into the living room, carrying his tea. Tony McCall was seated in a chair, waiting.

‘Hello, Tony,’ Rebus said.

‘Hello, John.’

‘Thanks for your help back there.’

‘What are friends for?’

Earlier in the day, when Rebus had asked for Tony McCall’s help, McCall had broken down.

‘I know all about it, John,’ he had confessed. ‘Tommy took me along there once. It was hideous, and I didn’t stick around. But maybe there are pictures of me … I don’t know … Maybe there are.’

Rebus hadn’t needed to ask any more. It had come spilling out like beer from a tap: things bad at home, bit of fun, couldn’t tell anyone about it because he didn’t know who already knew. Even now he thought it best to keep quiet about it. Rebus had accepted the warning.

‘I’m still going ahead,’ he had said. ‘With you or without. Your choice.’

Tony McCall had agreed to help.

Rebus sat down, placed the tea on the floor, and reached into his pocket for the photograph he had lifted from the files at Hyde’s. He threw it in McCall’s direction. McCall lifted it, stared at it with fearful eyes.

‘You know,’ Rebus said, ‘Andrews was after Tommy’s haulage company. He’d have had it, too, and at a bargain-basement price.’

‘Rotten bastard,’ McCall said, tearing the photograph methodically into smaller and smaller pieces.

‘Why did you do it, Tony?’

‘I told you, John. Tommy took me along. Just a bit of fun — ’

‘No, I mean why did you break into the squat and plant that powder on Ronnie?’

‘Me?’ McCall’s eyes were wider than ever now, but the look in them was still fear rather than surprise. It was all guesswork, but Rebus knew he was guessing right.

‘Come on, Tony. Do you think Finlay Andrews is going to let any names stay secret? He’s going down, and he’s got no reason to let anyone’s head stay above water.’

McCall thought about this. He let the bits of the photograph flutter into the ashtray, then set light to them with a match. They dissolved to blackened ash, and he seemed satisfied.

‘Andrews needed a favour. It was always “favours” with him. I think he’d seen The Godfather too many times. Pilmuir was my beat, my territory. We’d met through Tommy, so he thought to ask me.’

‘And you were happy to oblige.’

‘Well, he had the picture, didn’t he?’

‘There must’ve been more.’

‘Well …’ McCall paused again, crushed the ash in the ashtray with his forefinger. A fine dust was all that was left. ‘Yes, hell, I was happy enough to do it. The guy was a junkie after all, a piece of rubbish. And he was already dead. All I had to do was place a little packet beside him, that’s all.’

‘You never questioned why?’

‘Ask no questions and all that.’ He smiled. ‘Finlay was offering me membership, you see. Membership of Hyde’s. Well, I knew what that meant. I’d be on nodding terms with the big boys, wouldn’t I? I even started to dream about career advancement, something I hadn’t done in quite some time. Let’s face it, John, we’re tiny fish in a small pool.’

‘And Hyde was offering you the chance to play with the sharks?’

McCall smiled sadly. ‘I suppose that was it, yes.’

Rebus sighed. ‘Tony, Tony, Tony. Where would it have ended, eh?’

‘Probably with you having to call me “sir”,’ McCall answered, his voice firming up. ‘Instead of which, I suppose the trial will see me on the front of the scum sheets. Not quite the kind of fame I was looking for.’

He rose from the chair.

‘See you in court,’ he said, leaving John Rebus to his flavourless tea and his thoughts.

Rebus slept fitfully, and was awake early. He showered, but without any of his usual vocal accompaniment. He telephoned the hospital, and ascertained that Tracy was fine, and that Finlay Andrews had been patched up with the loss of very little blood. Then he drove to Great London Road, where Malcolm Lanyon was being held for questioning.

Rebus was still officially a non-person, and DS Dick and DC Cooper had been assigned to the interrogation. But Rebus wanted to be close by. He knew the answers to all their questions, knew the sorts of trick Lanyon was capable of pulling. He didn’t want the bastard getting away with it because of some technicality.

He went to the canteen first, bought a bacon roll, and, seeing Dick and Cooper seated at a table, went to join them.

‘Hello, John,’ Dick said, staring into the bottom of a stained coffee mug.

‘You lot are early birds,’ Rebus noted. ‘You must be keen.’

‘Farmer Watson wants it out of the way as soon as poss, sooner even.’

‘I’ll bet he does. Look, I’m going to be around today, if you need me to back up anything.’

‘We appreciate that, John,’ said Dick, in a voice which told Rebus his offer was as welcome as a dunce’s cap.

‘Well…’ Rebus began, but bit off the sentence, and ate his breakfast instead. Dick and Cooper seemed dulled by the enforced early rise. Certainly, they were not the most vivacious of table companions. Rebus finished quickly and rose to his feet.

‘Mind if I take a quick look at him?’

‘Not at all,’ said Dick. ‘We’ll be there in five minutes.’

Passing through the ground-floor reception area, Rebus almost bumped into Brian Holmes.

‘Everyone’s after the worm today,’ Rebus said. Holmes gave him a puzzled, sleepy look. ‘Never mind. I’m off to take a peek at Lanyon-alias-Hyde. Fancy a bit of voyeurism?’

Holmes didn’t answer, but fell in stride with Rebus.

‘Actually,’ Rebus said, ‘Lanyon might appreciate that image.’ Holmes gave him a more puzzled look yet. Rebus sighed. ‘Never mind.’

‘Sorry, sir, bit of a late night yesterday.’

‘Oh, yes. Thanks for that, by the way.’

‘I nearly died when I saw the bloody Farmer staring at the lot of us, him in his undertaker’s suit and us pretending to be pissed Dundonians.’

They shared a smile. Okay, the plan had been lame, conceived by Rebus during the course of his fifty-minute drive back from Calum McCallum’s cell in Fife. But it had worked. They’d got a result.

‘Yes,’ Rebus said. ‘I thought you looked a bit nervy last night.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well. you were doing your Italian army impression, weren’t you? Advancing backwards, and all that.’

Holmes stopped dead, his jaw dropping. ‘Is that the thanks I get? We put our careers on the line for you last night, all four of us. You’ve used me as your gofer — go find this, go check that — as a bit of bloody shoeleather, half the time for jobs that weren’t even official, you’ve had my girlfriend half killed — ’

‘Now wait just one second — ’

‘ — and all to satisfy your own curiosity. Okay, so there are bad guys behind bars, that’s good, but look at the scales. You’ve got them, the rest of us have got sod all except a few bruises and no bloody soles on our shoes!’

Rebus stared at the floor, almost contrite. The air flew from his nostrils as from a Spanish bull’s.

‘I forgot,’ he said at last. ‘I meant to take that bloody suit back this morning. The shoes are ruined. It was you talking about shoeleather that reminded me.’

Then he set off again, along the corridor, towards the cells, leaving Holmes speechless in his wake.

Outside the cell, Lanyon’s name had been printed in chalk on a board. Rebus went up to the steel door and pulled aside the shutter, thinking how it reminded him of the shutter on the door of some prohibition club. Give the secret knock and the shutter opened. He peered into the cell, started, and groped for the alarm bell situated beside the door. Holmes, hearing the siren, forgot to be angry and hurt and hurried forward. Rebus was pulling at the edge of the locked door with his fingernails.

‘We’ve got to get in!’

‘It’s locked, sir.’ Holmes was afraid: his superior looked absolutely manic. ‘Here they come.’

A uniformed sergeant came at an undignified trot, keys jangling from his chain.

‘Quick!’

The lock gave, and Rebus yanked open the door. Inside, Malcolm Lanyon lay slumped on the floor, head resting against the bed. His feet were splayed like a doll’s. One hand lay on the floor, some thin nylon wire, like a fishing-line, wrapped around the knuckles, which were blackened. The line was attached to Lanyon’s neck in a loop which had embedded itself so far into the flesh that it could hardly be seen. Lanyon’s eyes bulged horribly, his swollen tongue obscene against the blood-darkened face. It was like a last macabre gesture, and Rebus watched the tongue protruding towards him, seeming to take it as a personal insult.

He knew it was way too late, but the sergeant loosened the wire anyway and laid the corpse flat on the floor. Holmes was resting his head against the cold metal door, screwing shut his eyes against the parody inside the cell.

‘He must’ve had it hidden on him,’ the sergeant said, seeking excuses for the monumental blunder, referring to the wire which he now held in his hands. ‘Jesus, what a way to go.’

Rebus was thinking: he’s cheated me, he’s cheated me. I wouldn’t have had the guts to do that, not slowly choke myself…. I could never do it, something inside would have stopped me….

‘Who’s been in here since he was brought in?’

The sergeant stared at Rebus, uncomprehending.

‘The usual lot, I suppose. He had a few questions to answer last night when you brought him in.’

‘Yes, but after that?’

‘Well, he had a meal when you lot went. That’s about it.’

‘Sonofabitch,’ growled Rebus, stalking out of the cell and back along the corridor. Holmes, his face white and slick, was a few steps behind, and gaining.

‘They’re going to bury it, Brian,’ Rebus said, his voice an angry vibrato. ‘They’re going to bury it, I know they are, and there’ll be no cross marking the spot, nothing. A junkie died of his own volition. An estate agent committed suicide. Now a lawyer tops himself in a police cell. No connection, no crime committed.’

‘But what about Andrews?’

‘Where do you think we’re headed?’

They arrived at the hospital ward in time to witness the efficiency of the staff in a case of emergency. Rebus hurried forward, pushing his way through. Finlay Andrews, lying on his bed, chest exposed, was being given oxygen while the cardiac apparatus was installed. A doctor held the pads in front of them, then pushed them slowly against Andrews’ chest. A moment later, a jolt went through the body. There was no reading from the machine. More oxygen, more electricity…. Rebus turned away. He’d seen the script; he knew how the film would end.

‘Well?’ said Holmes.

‘Heart attack.’ Rebus’s voice was bland. He began to walk away. ‘Let’s call it that anyway, because that’s what the record will say.’

‘So what next?’ Holmes kept pace with him. He, too, was feeling cheated. Rebus considered the question.

‘Probably the photos will disappear. The ones that matter at any rate. And who’s left to testify? Testify to what?’

‘They’ve thought of everything.’

‘Except one thing, Brian. I know who they are.’

Holmes stopped. ‘Will that matter?’ he called to his superior’s retreating figure. But Rebus just kept walking.

There was a scandal, but it was a small one, soon forgotten. Shuttered rooms in elegant Georgian terraces soon became light again, in a great resurrection of spirit. The deaths of Finlay Andrews and Malcolm Lanyon were reported, and journalists sought what muck and brass they could. Yes, Finlay Andrews had been running a club which was not strictly legitimate in all of its dealings, and yes, Malcolm Lanyon had committed suicide when the authorities had begun to close in on this little empire. No, there were no details of what these ‘activities’ might have been.

The suicide of local estate agent James Carew was in no way connected to Mr Lanyon’s suicide, though it was true the two men were friends. As for Mr Lanyon’s connection with Finlay Andrews and his club, well, perhaps we would never know. It was no more than a sad coincidence that Mr Lanyon had been appointed Mr Carew’s executor. Still, there were other lawyers, weren’t there?

And so it ended, the story petering out, the rumours dying a little less slowly. Rebus was pleased when Tracy announced that Nell Stapleton had found her a job in a cafe/deli near the University Library. One evening, however, having spent some time in the Rutherford Bar, Rebus decided to opt for a takeaway Indian meal before home. In the restaurant, he saw Tracy, Holmes and Nell Stapleton at a corner table, sharing a joke with their meal. He turned and left without ordering.

Back in his flat, he sat at the kitchen table for the umpteenth time, writing a rough draft of his letter of resignation. Somehow, the words failed to put across any of his emotions adequately. He crumpled the paper and tossed it towards the bin. He had been reminded in the restaurant of just how much Hyde’s had cost in human terms, and of how little justice there had been. There was a knock at the door. He had hope in his heart as he opened it. Gill Templer stood there, smiling.

In the night, he crept through to the living room, and switched on the desk lamp. It threw light guiltily, like a constable’s torch, onto the small filing cabinet beside the stereo. The key was hidden under a comer of the carpet, as secure a hiding place as a granny’s mattress. He opened the cabinet and lifted out a slim file, which he carried to his chair, the chair which had for so many months been his bed. There he sat, composed, remembering the day at James Carew’s flat. Back then he had been tempted to lift Carew’s private diary and keep it for himself. But he had resisted temptation. Not the night at Hyde’s though. There, alone in Andrews’ office for a moment, he had filched the photograph of Tony McCall. Tony McCall, a friend and colleague with whom, these days, he had nothing in common. Except perhaps a sense of guilt.

He opened the file and took out the photographs. He had taken them along with the one of McCall. Four photographs, lifted at random. He studied the faces again, as he did most nights when he found sleep hard to come by. Faces he recognised. Faces attached to names, and names to handshakes and voices. Important people. Influential people. He’d thought about this a lot. Indeed, he had thought about little else since that night in Hyde’s club. He brought out a metal wastepaper bin from beneath the desk, dropped the photographs into it, and lit a match, holding it over the bin, as he had done so many times before.

The End