10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (32 page)

‘I didn’t have anything to do with it, honest.’

‘Sit down,’ said Rebus, a kindly uncle now. ‘Let’s talk some more.’

But Charlie didn’t like uncles. Never had. He placed his hands on the desk and leaned down, looming over Rebus. Something had hardened somewhere within him. His teeth when he spoke glistened with venom.

‘Go to hell, Rebus. I see what you’re up to, and I’m damned if I’m going to play along. Arrest me if you like, but don’t insult me with cheap tricks. I did those in my first term.’

Then he walked, and this time opened the door, and left it open behind him. Rebus got up from the desk, switched off the recorder, took out the tape and, pushing it into his pocket, followed. By the time he reached the entrance hall, Charlie had gone. He approached the desk. The duty sergeant looked up from his paperwork.

‘You just missed him,’ he said.

Rebus nodded. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘He didn’t look too happy.’

‘Would I be doing my job if they all left here laughing and holding their sides?’

The sergeant smiled. ‘I suppose not. So what can I do for you?’

‘The Pilmuir overdose. I’ve got a name for the corpse. Ronnie McGrath. Originally from Stirling. Let’s see if we can find his parents, eh?’

The sergeant scribbled the name onto a pad. ‘I’m sure they’ll be delighted to hear how their son is doing in the big city.’

‘Yes,’ said Rebus, staring towards the front door of the police station. ‘I’m sure they will.’

John Rebus’s flat was his castle. Once through the door, he would pull up the drawbridge and let his mind go blank, emptying himself of the world for as long as he
could. He would pour himself a drink, put some tenor sax music on the cassette machine, and pick up a book. Many weeks ago, in a crazed state of righteousness, he had put up shelves along one wall of the living room, intending his sprawling collection of books to rest there. But somehow they managed to crawl across the floor, getting under his feet, so that he used them like stepping-stones into the hallway and the bedroom.

He walked across them now, on his way to the bay window where he pulled down the dusty venetian blinds. The slats he left open, so that strawberry slants of evening light came pouring through, reminding him of the interview room. . . .

No, no, no, that wouldn’t do. He was being sucked back into work again. He had to clear his mind, find some book which would pull him into its little universe, far away from the sights and smells of Edinburgh. He stepped firmly on the likes of Chekhov, Heller, Rimbaud and Kerouac as he made his way to the kitchen, seeking out a bottle of wine.

There were two cardboard boxes beneath the kitchen worktop, taking up the space where the washing machine had once been. Rhona had taken the washing machine, which was fair enough. He called the resultant space his wine cellar, and now and then would order a mixed case from a good little shop around the corner from his flat. He put a hand into one of the boxes and brought out something called Château Potensac. Yes, he’d had a bottle of this before. It would do.

He poured a third of the bottle into a large glass and returned to the living room, plucking one of the books from the floor as he went. He was seated in his armchair before he looked at its cover:
The Naked Lunch
. No, bad choice. He threw the book down again and groped for another.
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
. Fair enough, he’d been meaning to reread it for ages, and it was blissfully short.
He took a mouthful of wine, sloshed it around before swallowing, and opened the book.

With the timing of a stage-play, there was a rapping at the front door. The noise Rebus made was somewhere between a sigh and a roar. He balanced the book, its covers open, on the arm of the chair, and rose to his feet. Probably it was Mrs Cochrane from downstairs, telling him that it was his turn to wash the communal stairwell. She would have the large, imperative card with her: IT IS YOUR TURN TO WASH THE STAIRS. Why she couldn’t just hang it on his door like everyone else seemed to do . . .?

He tried to arrange a neighbourly smile on his face as he opened the door, but the actor in him had left for the evening. So there was something not unlike pain rippling his lips as he stared at the visitor on his doormat.

It was Tracy.

Her face was red, and there were tears in her eyes, but the redness was not from crying. She looked exhausted, her hair cloying with sweat.

‘Can I come in?’ There was an all too visible effort in her voice. Rebus hadn’t the heart to say no. He pushed the door open wide and she stumbled in past him, walking straight through to the living room as though she’d been here a hundred times. Rebus checked that the stairwell was empty of inquisitive neighbours, then closed the door. He was tingling, not a pleasant feeling: he didn’t like people visiting him here.

Especially, he didn’t like work following him home.

By the time he reached the living room, Tracy had drained the wine and was exhaling with relief, her thirst quenched. Rebus felt the discomfort in him increase until it was almost unbearable.

‘How the hell did you find this place?’ he asked, standing in the doorway as though waiting for her to leave.

‘Not easy,’ she said, her voice a little more calm. ‘You told me you lived in Marchmont, so I just wandered around looking for your car. Then I found your name on the bell downstairs.’

He had to admit it, she’d have made a good detective. Footwork was what it was all about.

‘Somebody’s been following me,’ she said now. ‘I got scared.’

‘Following you?’ He stepped into the room now, curious, his sense of encroachment easing.

‘Yes, two men. I think there were two. They’ve been following me all afternoon. I was up Princes Street, just walking, and they were always there, a little way behind me. They must’ve known I could see them.’

‘What happened?’

‘I lost them. Went into Marks and Spencer, ran like hell for the Rose Street exit, then dived into the ladies’ in a pub. Stayed in there for an hour. That seemed to do the trick. Then I headed here.’

‘Why didn’t you telephone me?’

‘No money. That’s why I was up Princes Street in the first place.’

She had settled in his chair, her arms hanging over its sides. He nodded towards the empty glass.

‘Do you want another?’

‘No thanks. I don’t really like plonk, but I was thirsty as hell. I could manage a cup of tea though.’

‘Tea, right.’ Plonk, she had called it! He turned and walked through to the kitchen, his mind half on the idea of tea, half on her story. In one of his sparsely populated cupboards he found an unopened box of teabags. There was no fresh milk in the flat, but an old tin yielded a spoonful or two of powdered substitute. Now, sugar. . . . Music came suddenly from the living room, a loud rendering of
The White Album
. God, he’d forgotten he still had that old tape. He opened the cutlery drawer, looking
for nothing more than a teaspoon, and found several sachets of sugar, stolen from the canteen at some point in his past. Serendipity. The kettle was beginning to boil.

‘This flat’s huge!’

She startled him, he was so unused to other voices in this place. He turned and watched her lean against the door-jamb, her head angled sideways.

‘Is it?’ he said, rinsing a mug.

‘Christ, yes. Look how high your ceilings are! I could just about touch the ceiling in Ronnie’s squat.’ She stood on tiptoe and stretched an arm upwards, waving her hand. Rebus feared that she had taken something, some pills or powders, while he’d been on the trail of the furtive teabag. She seemed to sense his thoughts, and smiled.

‘I’m just relieved,’ she said. ‘I feel light-headed from the running. And from being scared, I suppose. But now I feel safe.’

‘What did the men look like?’

‘I don’t know. I think they looked a bit like you.’ She smiled again. ‘One had a moustache. He was sort of fat, going thin on top, but not old. I can’t remember the other one. He wasn’t very memorable, I suppose.’

Rebus poured water into the mug and added the teabag. ‘Milk?’

‘No, just sugar if you’ve got it.’

He waved one of the sachets at her.

‘Great.’

Back in the living room, he went to the stereo and turned it down.

‘Sorry,’ she said, back in the chair now, sipping tea, her legs tucked under her.

‘I keep meaning to find out whether my neighbours can hear the stereo or not,’ Rebus said, as if to excuse his action. ‘The walls are pretty thick, but the ceiling isn’t.’

She nodded, blew onto the surface of the drink, steam covering her face in a veil.

‘So,’ said Rebus, pulling his director’s foldaway chair out from beneath a table and sitting down. ‘What can we do about these men who’ve been following you?’

‘I don’t know. You’re the policeman.’

‘It all sounds like something out of a film to me. I mean,
why
should anyone want to follow you?’

‘To scare me?’ she offered.

‘And why should they want to scare you?’

She thought about this, then shrugged her shoulders.

‘By the way, I saw Charlie today,’ he said.

‘Oh?’

‘Do you like him?’

‘Charlie?’ Her laughter was shrill. ‘He’s horrible. Always hanging around, even when it’s obvious nobody wants him anywhere near. Everybody hates him.’

‘Everybody?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did Ronnie hate him?’

She paused. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘But then Ronnie didn’t have much sense that way.’

‘What about this other friend of Ronnie’s? Neil, or Neilly. What can you tell me about him?’

‘Is that the guy who was there last night?’

‘Yes.’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I never saw him before.’ She seemed interested in the book on the arm of the chair, picked it up and flipped its pages, pretending to read.

‘And Ronnie never mentioned a Neil or a Neilly to you?’

‘No.’ She waved the book at Rebus. ‘But he did talk about someone called Edward. Seemed angry with him about something. Used to shout the name out when he was alone in his room, after a fix.’

Rebus nodded slowly. ‘Edward. His dealer maybe?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. Ronnie got pretty crazy sometimes after he fixed. He was like a different person. But he
was so sweet at times, so gentle. . . .’ Her voice died away, eyes glistening.

Rebus checked his watch. ‘Okay, what about if I drive you back to the squat now? We can check that there’s no one watching.’

‘I don’t know. . . .’ The fear had returned to her face, erasing years from her, turning her into a child again, afraid of shadows and ghosts.

‘I’ll be there,’ Rebus added.

‘Well. . . . Can I do something first?’

‘What?’

She pulled at her damp clothes. ‘Take a bath,’ she said. Then she smiled. ‘I know it’s a bit brassnecked, but I really could use one, and there’s no water at all in the squat.’

Rebus smiled too, nodding slowly. ‘My bathtub is at your disposal,’ he said.

While she was in the bath, he hung her clothes over the radiator in the hall. Turning the central heating on made a sauna of the flat, and Rebus struggled with the sash windows in the living room, trying without success to open them. He made more tea, in a pot this time, and had just carried it into the living room when he heard her call from the bathroom. When he came out into the hall, she had her head around the bathroom door, steam billowing out around her. Her hair, face and neck were gleaming.

‘No towels,’ she explained.

‘Sorry,’ said Rebus. He found some in the cupboard in his room, and brought them to her, pushing them through the gap in the door, feeling awkward despite himself.

‘Thanks,’ she called.

He had swopped
The White Album
for some jazz – barely audible – and was sitting with his tea when she came in. One large red towel was expertly tied around her body, another around her head. He had often wondered how
women could be so good at wearing towels. . . . Her arms and legs were pale and thin, but there was no doubting that her shape was pleasing, and the glow from the bath gave her a kind of nimbus. He remembered the photographs of her in Ronnie’s room. Then he recalled the missing camera.

‘Was Ronnie still keen on photography? I mean, of late.’ The choice of words was accidentally unsubtle, and he winced a little, but Tracy appeared not to notice.

‘I suppose so. He was quite good, you know. He had a good eye. But he didn’t get the breaks.’

‘How hard did he try?’

‘Bloody hard.’ There was resentment in her voice. Perhaps Rebus had allowed too much professional scepticism to creep into his tone.

‘Yes, I’m sure. Not an easy profession to get into, I’d imagine.’

‘Too true. And there were some who knew how good Ronnie was. They didn’t want the competition. Put obstacles in his way whenever and wherever they could.’

‘You mean other photographers?’

‘That’s right. Well, when Ronnie was going through his really keen spell, before disillusionment set in, he didn’t know quite how to get the breaks. So he went to a couple of studios, showed some of his work to the guys who worked there. He had some really inspired shots. You know, everyday things seen from weird angles. The Castle, Waverley Monument, Calton Hill.’

‘Calton Hill?’

‘Yes, the whatsit.’

‘The folly?’

‘That’s it.’ The towel was slipping a little from around her shoulders, and as Tracy sat with her legs tucked beneath her, sipping tea, it also fell away to reveal more than enough thigh. Rebus tried to concentrate his eyes on her face. It wasn’t easy. ‘Well,’ she was saying, ‘a couple
of his ideas got ripped off. He’d see a photo in one of the local rags, and it’d be exactly the angle he’d used, the same time of day, same filters. Those bastards had copied his ideas. He’d see their names beneath the pictures, the same guys he’d shown his portfolio to.’

‘What were their names?’

‘I don’t remember now.’ She readjusted the towel. There seemed something defensive in the action. Was it so hard to remember a name? She giggled. ‘He tried to get me to pose for him.’

‘I saw the results.’

‘No, not those ones. You know, nude shots. He said he could sell them for a fortune to some of the magazines. But I wasn’t having it. I mean, the money would’ve been all well and good, but these mags get passed around, don’t they? I mean, they never get thrown away. I’d always be wondering if anybody could recognise me on the street.’ She waited for Rebus’s reaction, and when it was one of thoughtful bemusement, laughed throatily. ‘So, it’s not true what they say. You
can
embarrass a copper.’