10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (28 page)

‘Yes.’

‘And this was in the living room?’

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

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

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

‘What time was it when you phoned?’

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

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

‘Why?’

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

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

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

‘Well. . . .’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Are you the policeman?’

‘That’s right, Tracy.’

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

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

‘Is Tracy your real name?’

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

‘It’s my middle name,’ she said.

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

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

‘Who else lived in that house?’

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

‘What makes you think somebody killed Ronnie?’

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

‘Who were?’

‘I don’t know.’

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

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

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

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

‘Was there anything else you noticed about Ronnie?’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, the state he was in.’

‘You mean the bruises?’

‘Yes.’

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

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

‘Not with me.’

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

‘Would you like my jacket?’ he asked.

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

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

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

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

‘What did he talk about?’

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

‘Such as?’

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

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

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

‘Yes.’

‘And the squat was empty at the time?’

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

‘You mentioned him on the telephone.’

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

‘In what way?’

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

‘You mean the star?’

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

‘He’s keen on the occult then?’

‘Mad keen.’

‘What about Ronnie?’

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

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

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

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

‘I wasn’t his accountant.’

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

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

‘That depends.’ Rebus shivered.

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

‘He’s never had a job then?’

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

Rebus was lost. ‘What was?’

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

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

‘Tracy, I’ll need a statement.’

She was immediately suspicious. ‘What for?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘I’ll come along now, if I may.’

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

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

‘Come in, John, come in.’

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

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

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

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

‘He’s a good copper, sir.’

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

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Are you a churchgoer?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Very public-spirited of them, sir.’

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

‘But I still don’t see where I –’