Ian Rankin - Dead Souls

‘That you, sir?’ he asked, tapping the scowling child.

‘That’s me.’

‘Brave of you to let us see you in shorts.’

But the Farmer was not to be deflected. Rebus could think of three explanations for the red veins highlighted on Watson’s face: exertion, spirits, or anger. No sign of breathlessness, so rule out the first. And when the Farmer drank whisky, it didn’t just affect his cheeks: his whole face took on a roseate glow and seemed to contract until it became puckish.

Which left anger.

‘Let’s get down to it,’ Watson said, glancing at his watch. Neither man had much time. The Farmer opened the envelope and shook a packet of photographs on to his desk, then opened the packet and tossed the photos towards Rebus.

‘Look for yourself.’

Rebus looked. They were the photos from Darren Rough’s camera. The Farmer reached into his drawer to pull out a file. Rebus kept looking. Zoo animals, caged and behind walls. And in some of the shots — not all of them, but a fair proportion — children. The camera had focused on these children, involved in conversations among themselves, or chewing sweets, or making faces at the animals. Rebus felt immediate relief, and looked to the Farmer for a confirmation that wasn’t there.

‘According to Mr Rough,’ the Farmer was saying, studying a sheet from the file, ‘the photos comprise part of a portfolio.’

‘I’ll bet they do.’

‘Of a day in the life of Edinburgh Zoo.’

‘Sure.’

The Farmer cleared his throat. ‘He’s enrolled in a photography night-class. I’ve checked and it’s true. It’s also true that his project is the zoo.’

‘And there are kids in almost every shot.’

‘In fewer than half the shots, actually.’

Rebus slid the photos across the desk. ‘Come on, sir.’

‘John, Darren Rough has been out of prison the best part of a year and has yet to show any sign of reoffending.’

‘I heard he’d gone south.’

‘And moved back again.’

‘He ran for it when he saw me.’

The Farmer just stared the comment down. ‘There’s nothing here, John,’ he said.

‘A guy like Rough, he doesn’t go to the zoo for the birds and the bees, believe me.’

‘It wasn’t even his choice of project. His tutor assigned it.’

‘Yes, Rough would have preferred a play-park.’ Rebus sighed. ‘What does his lawyer say? Rough was always good at roping in a lawyer.’

‘Mr Rough just wants to be left in peace.’

‘The way he left those kids in peace?’

The Farmer sat back. ‘Does the word “atonement” mean anything to you, John?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘Not applicable.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Ever seen a leopard change its spots?’

The Farmer checked his watch. ‘I know the two of you have a history.’

‘I wasn’t the one he made the complaint against.’

‘No,’ the Farmer said, ‘Jim Margolies was.’

They left that in the air for a moment, lost in their own thoughts.

‘So we do nothing?’ Rebus queried at last. The word “atonement” was flitting about inside his skull. His friend the priest had been known to use it: reconciliation of God and man through Christ’s life and death. A far cry from Darren Rough. Rebus wondered what Jim Margolies had been atoning for when he’d pitched himself off Salisbury Crags...

‘His sheet’s clean.’ The Farmer reached into his desk’s deep bottom drawer, pulled out a bottle and two glasses. Malt whisky. ‘I don’t know about you,’ he said, ‘but I need one of these before a funeral.’

Rebus nodded, watching the man pour. Cascading sound of mountain streams. Usquebaugh in the Gaelic. Uisge : water; beatha : life. Water of life. Beatha sounding like ‘birth’. Each drink was a birth to Rebus’s mind. But as his doctor kept telling him, each drop was a little death, too. He lifted the glass to his nose, nodded appreciation.

‘Another good man gone,’ the Farmer said.

And suddenly there were ghosts swirling around the room, just on the periphery of Rebus’s vision, and chief amongst them Jack Morton. Jack, his old colleague, now three months dead. The Byrds: ‘He Was a Friend of Mine’. A friend who refused to stay buried. The Farmer followed Rebus’s eyes, but saw nothing. Drained his glass and put the bottle away again.

‘Little and often,’ he said. And then, as though the whisky had opened some bargain between them: ‘There are ways and means, John.’

‘Of what, sir?’ Jack had melted into the windowpanes.

‘Of coping.’ Already the whisky was working on the Farmer’s face, turning it triangular. ‘Since what happened to Jim Margolies... well, it’s made some of us think more about the stresses of the job.’ He paused. ‘Too many mistakes, John.’

‘I’m having a bad patch, that’s all.’

‘A bad patch has its reasons.’

‘Such as?’

The Farmer left the question unanswered, knowing perhaps that Rebus was busy answering it for himself: Jack Morton’s death; Sammy in a wheelchair.

And whisky a therapist he could afford, at least in monetary terms.

‘I’ll manage,’ he said at last, not even managing to convince himself.

‘All by yourself?’

‘That’s the way, isn’t it?’

The Farmer shrugged. ‘And meantime we all live with your mistakes?’

Mistakes: like pulling men towards Darren Rough, who wasn’t the man they wanted. Allowing the poisoner open access to the meerkats — an apple tossed into their enclosure. Luckily a keeper had walked past, picked it up before the animals could. He’d known about the scare, handed it in for testing.

Positive for rat poison.

Rebus’s fault.

‘Come on,’ the Farmer said, after a final glance at his watch, ‘let’s get moving.’

So that once again Rebus’s speech had gone unspoken, the one about how he’d lost any sense of vocation, any feeling of optimism about the role — the very existence — of policing. About how these thoughts scared him, left him either sleepless or scarred by bad dreams. About the ghosts which had come to haunt him, even in daytime.

About how he didn’t want to be a cop any more.

Jim Margolies had had it all.

Ten years younger than Rebus, he was being tipped for accelerated advancement. They were waiting for him to learn the final few lessons, after which the rank of detective inspector would have been shed like a final skin. Bright, personable, a canny strategist with an eye to internal politics. Handsome, too, keeping fit playing rugby for his old school, Boroughmuir. He came from a good background and had connections to the Edinburgh establishment, his wife charming and elegant, his young daughter an acknowledged beauty. Liked by his fellow officers, and with an enviable ratio of arrests to convictions. The family lived quietly in The Grange, attended a local church, seemed the perfect little unit in every way.

The Farmer kept the commentary going, voice barely audible. He’d started on the drive to the church, kept it up during the service, and was closing with a graveside peroration.

‘He had it all, John. And then he goes and does something like that. What makes a man... I mean, what goes through his head? This was someone even older officers looked up to — I mean the cynical old buggers within spitting distance of their pension. They’ve seen everything in their time, but they’d never seen anyone quite like Jim Margolies.’

Rebus and the Farmer — their station’s representatives — were towards the back of the crowd. And it was a good crowd, too. Lots of brass, alongside rugby players, churchgoers, and neighbours. Plus extended family. And standing by the open grave, the widow dressed in black, managing to look composed. She’d lifted her daughter off the ground. The daughter in a white lace dress, her hair thick and long and ringlet-blonde, face shining as she waved bye-bye to the wooden casket. With the blonde hair and white dress, she looked like an angel. Perhaps that had been the intention. Certainly, she stood out from the crowd.