Ian Rankin - Dead Souls

And maybe someone from St Leonard’s would come to investigate.

It would be too late. Whatever was being played out, he got the feeling it was coming to its conclusion right now. For some reason, it had to do with... no... he knew where they were. The far end of Salisbury Place: they were at the junction with Minto Street.

‘It was here, wasn’t it?’ Oakes asked, stopping because Rebus had stopped too. ‘She was crossing the road or something?’

Sammy... crossing the road when the driver hit her. Twenty yards down Minto Street.

Rebus stared at Oakes. ‘Why?’

Oakes just shrugged. Rebus was trying to focus again on this moment. This was what counted; he could think about Sammy later. He had to stop letting Oakes play with him.

‘He sent her flying, huh?’ Oakes was saying. He had his hands in his pockets, as if they were just stopping to chat. Rebus couldn’t remember which pocket the knife was in. His own weapon hung from his right hand, useless for the moment. Crossing the road and she... she never had a chance.

He realised he hadn’t been here since the day after the collision. He’d been avoiding the place.

And somehow Oakes had known the effect this place would have on him. Rebus blinked a few times, tried clearing his head.

‘You’ve been to check on her, haven’t you?’ Oakes asked.

‘What?’ Rebus narrowed his eyes.

‘You went to your girlfriend’s flat, knew I’d been there. Next thing you did was go to your daughter’s. But you didn’t go in, did you?’

It was like staring into a devil’s eyes. ‘How do you know?’

‘You wouldn’t be here otherwise.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’ve been there, Rebus. Earlier tonight.’

‘You’re lying.’ Rebus’s voice was dry, his throat acrid. Trying to get you off your guard, same trick worked with Archibald ...

Oakes just shrugged. They were at the corner. Diagonally across from them, two cars had drawn up side by side at a red light. Taxi on the inside lane; boy racer revving beside him. The taxi driver was watching what looked like a fight about to break out: nothing he hadn’t seen before.

‘You’re lying,’ Rebus repeated. He slipped his free hand into his pocket, brought out the mobile. Used his thumb to press the digits, holding the phone to his face so he could watch it and Oakes at the same time.

‘She didn’t need her legs anyway,’ Oakes was saying. The phone was ringing. ‘There’s no answer, is there?’

Sweat was trickling into Rebus’s eyes. But if he shook his head to clear the drops, Oakes would think he was answering his question.

The phone stopped ringing.

‘Hello?’ Ned Farlowe’s voice.

‘Ned! Is Sammy there? Is she all right?’

‘What? Is that you, John?’

‘ Is she all right? ’ Knowing the answer; needing to hear it anyway.

‘Of course she’s—’

Oakes flew at him, the knife emerging from his right-hand pocket. Missing Rebus’s chest by centimetres. Rebus stepped back, dropped the phone. He had the longer reach. The taxi driver had his window down.

‘Cut that out, the pair of you!’

‘I’ll cut it out all right,’ Oakes hissed. ‘I’ll dice it and slice it.’ He made another sweep with the knife. Rebus tried to kick it away, almost lost his footing. Oakes laughed at him. ‘You’re no Nureyev, pal.’ A quick thrust took the knife into Rebus’s arm. Rebus felt his nerves go dull: prelude to agony. Finish it .

Rebus took a step forward, feinted with the knife, so that Oakes had to move position. On the edge of the pavement now. Rebus saw the traffic lights behind Oakes were changing. Oakes leaned forward, slashed at his chest. Thin whistling sound as Rebus’s shirt split. Blood warm on his arm, more blood trickling from the fresh wound. Red to red/amber.

To green.

Rebus charged in with his foot up and hit Oakes solid in the chest with his sole. Oakes got in a swipe before he was propelled back into the road, where the boy racer, oblivious to the fight, radio on full-blast and his girl with her arm around him, was showing off his car’s acceleration from a flat start. The car clipped Oakes, sent him flying, breaking his hip and, Rebus hoped, a few more bones to boot. The car screeched to a halt, the young man’s head appeared through the window. He saw knives. He pulled his foot off the clutch and roared off.

Rebus didn’t bother to catch the licence plate. He stood on Oakes’s knife-hand, forcing the fingers open, then lifted the knife and pocketed it. The taxi driver was still at the lights.

‘Phone for police assistance!’ Rebus called to him. He held his injured arm to his chest.

Oakes was rolling on the ground, hand to his thigh and side, teeth bared not in a grin now but in a grimace of pain.

Rebus stood up, took a step back, and kicked him in the groin. As Oakes groaned and retched, Rebus gave him another kick, then crouched down again.

‘I’d like to say that was for Jim Stevens,’ he said. ‘But if I’m being entirely honest with you, really it was for me.’

Rebus spent an hour in the casualty department — four stitches to his arm, eight to his chest. The arm wound was deepest, but both were clean. Oakes was somewhere nearby, being treated for breaks and fractures. Six of Crime Squad’s finest on guard detail.

A patrol car took Rebus back to his flat, where he retrieved his cordless phone — didn’t want any of the students pocketing it — and had a mouthful of whisky. Then another after that.

The rest of the night he spent at St Leonard’s, typing his report one-handed, giving an additional verbal briefing to Chief Superintendent Watson, who’d been summoned from bed and whose hair sported a cow’s-lick which flapped when he moved his head.

There was little certainty that Oakes could be charged with Jim Stevens’ murder. It would depend on forensic evidence: fingerprints, fibres, saliva. Stevens’ cassette had been bagged and handed over to the white-coat brigade.

‘But he’ll go down for the attack on me and Alan Archibald?’ Rebus asked his superior.

Farmer Watson nodded. ‘For the Pentland attack, yes.’

‘What about the attempted murder of three hours ago?’

The Farmer shuffled paperwork. ‘You’ve said yourself, most of the witnesses will have seen you with the knife, not him.’

‘But the taxi driver...’

The Farmer nodded. ‘He’ll be crucial. Let’s hope he gets his story straight.’

Rebus saw what his boss was getting at. ‘Sir, you do believe I acted in self-defence?’

‘Of course, John. Goes without saying.’ But the Farmer wouldn’t meet his eyes.

Rebus tried to think of something to say; decided it wasn’t worth his breath.

‘Crime Squad are pissed off,’ the Farmer added with a smile. ‘They hate an anti-climax.’

‘I might not look it, but inside I’m crying for them.’ Rebus turned to leave the room.

‘No going back to the hospital, John,’ the Farmer warned. ‘Don’t want him falling out of bed and saying he was pushed.’

Rebus snorted, went downstairs and into the car park. It would be growing light soon. He dry-swallowed some more painkillers, lit a cigarette and stared in the direction of Holyrood Park. They were there — Arthur’s Seat, Salisbury Crags — it was just, you couldn’t always see them. It didn’t mean they weren’t there.

Easy to lose your footing in the dark... Easy for someone to come up behind you...

Rebus left the car park and headed into St Leonard’s Bank. Stevens’ car had been taken away for examination at Howdenhall. At the end of the road, there was a gap in the fence, allowing passage into the park itself. Rebus headed down the slope towards Queen’s Drive. Once across it, he started to climb. Away from the street-lighting now, his steps were more tentative. He sensed more than saw the starting-point of Radical Road, above which loomed the irregular rockface of the Crags themselves. Rebus ignored the path, kept climbing until he was on top of the Crags, the city spread out below him in a grid of orange sodium and yellow-white halogen. The beast was definitely beginning to awake: cars heading into the city. Turning round, he saw that the sky was a lighter shade of black than the mass of rock below it. Some people said Arthur’s Seat looked like a crouched lion, ready to pounce. It never did pounce, though. There was a lion on the Scottish flag too — not crouched but rampant...