Ian Rankin - Dead Souls

She exploded. ‘Christ, you couldn’t be more wrong! It had nothing to do with that. What’s any of this got to do with Shiellion?’

Rebus collected himself. ‘You tell me.’

‘Don’t you see?’ She was crying now. ‘It was Hannah...’

Rebus frowned. ‘Hannah?’

‘Hannah was his sister’s name. Our Hannah was named after her. Jim did it to get back at his father.’

‘Because Dr Margolies had...’ Rebus couldn’t bring himself to say the word. ‘With Hannah?’

She rubbed the back of her hand across her face, smudging mascara. ‘He interfered with his own daughter. God knows whether it was just once. It might have been going on for years. When she killed herself...’

‘She did so knowing who’d be first to find her?’

She nodded. ‘Jim knew what had happened... knew why she’d done it. But of course nobody ever talks about it.’ She looked at him. ‘You just don’t, do you? Not in polite society. Instead he tried shutting it out, accepting that there was no remedy.’

‘I’m not sure I understand.’ But he understood something, knew now why Jim had beaten up Darren Rough. Displaced anger: he hadn’t been hitting Rough; he’d been hitting his father.

She slid down the door until she was crouching, arms hugging her knees. Rebus lowered himself on to the bottom step of the staircase, tried to make sense of it: Joseph Margolies had abused his own daughter... what would have made him turn to a boy like Darren Rough? Ince’s insistence, perhaps; or simple lust and curiosity, the thought of more forbidden fruit...

Katherine Margolies’ voice was calm again. ‘I think Jim joined the police as another way of telling his father something, telling him he’d never forget, never forgive.’

‘But if he knew all along about his father, why did he kill himself?’

‘I’ve told you! Because of Hannah.’

‘His sister?’

She gave a wild, humourless laugh. ‘Of course not.’ Paused for breath. ‘Our daughter, Inspector. I mean Hannah, our daughter. Jim had... he’d been worried for some time.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’d noticed he wasn’t sleeping. I’d wake in the night and he’d be lying there in the darkness, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. One night he told me. He felt I ought to know.’

‘What was he worried about?’

‘That he was turning into his father. That there was some genetic component, something he had no control over.’

‘You mean Hannah?’

She nodded. ‘He said he tried not to have the thoughts, but they came anyway. He looked at her and no longer saw his daughter.’ Her eyes were on the pattern in the floor. ‘He saw something else, something to be desired...’

Finally Rebus saw it. Saw all Jim Margolies’ fears, saw the past which had haunted him and the expectation of recurrence. Saw why the man had turned to young-looking prostitutes. Saw the dread of history. Not in polite society . If families like the Margolies and the Petries represented polite society, Rebus wanted nothing to do with it.

‘He’d been quiet all evening,’ Katherine Margolies went on. ‘Once or twice I caught him looking at Hannah, and I could see how scared he was.’ She rubbed the palm of either hand over her eyes, looked up to the ceiling, demanding something more from it than the comfort of cornice and chandelier. The noise that escaped from her throat was like something from a caged animal.

‘On the way home, he stopped the car and ran. I went after him, and he was just standing there. At first, I didn’t realise he was at the very edge of the Crags. He must have heard me. Next thing, he’d vanished. It was like a stunt, something a stage magician would do. Then I realised what it was. He’d jumped. I felt... well, I don’t know what I felt. Numb, betrayed, shocked.’ She shook her head, unsure even now what her feelings were towards the man who had killed himself rather than give in to his most feral craving. ‘I walked back to the car. Hannah was asking where her daddy was. I said he’d gone for a walk. I drove us home. I didn’t go down to help him. I didn’t do anything. Christ knows why.’ Now she ran her hands through her hair.

Rebus got up, pushed open a door. It led into a formal dining room. Decanters on a polished sideboard. He sniffed one, poured a large glass of whisky. Took it through to the hall and handed it to Katherine Margolies. Went back to fetch another for himself. He saw the sequence now: Jane Barbour telling Jim that Rough was coming back to town; Jim dusting off the case, becoming intrigued by the third man. Knowing his father had been working in children’s homes. Wanting to know, quizzing Darren Rough, his world collapsing in on him...

‘You know,’ his widow was saying, ‘Jim wasn’t scared of dying. He said there was a coachman.’

‘Coachman?’

‘He took you to wherever it was you went when you died.’ She looked up at him. ‘Do you know that story?’

Rebus nodded. ‘An old Edinburgh ghost story, that’s all it is.’

‘You don’t believe in ghosts then?’

‘I wouldn’t say that necessarily.’ He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to Jim,’ he said. When he looked around, there wasn’t a ghost to be seen.

A week later, Rebus received a phone call from Brian Mee.

‘What’s up, Brian?’ Rebus already guessing from the tone of voice.

‘Ah, shite, John, she’s left me.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Brian.’

‘Are you?’ There was a hint of disbelief in the laugh that followed.

‘I really am, I’m sorry.’

‘She told you, though?’

‘In a roundabout sort of way.’ Rebus paused. ‘So do you know where she is?’

‘Cut the crap, John. She’s at your flat.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. She’s biding with you.’

‘First I’ve heard of it.’

‘She doesn’t know anybody else over there.’

‘There are bed and breakfasts, rooms to rent...’

‘You’re not putting her up?’

‘You’ve got my word for it.’

There was a long silence on the line. ‘Christ, man, I’m sorry. I’m off my head with worry here.’

‘Only to be expected, Brian.’

‘Think it’s worth my while coming to look for her?’

Rebus exhaled. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think she used to love me.’

‘But not any more?’

‘She wouldn’t have left otherwise.’

‘True enough.’

‘Even if she finds Damon, I don’t think she’s coming back.’

‘Give her some time, Brian.’

‘Aye, sure.’ Brian Mee sniffed. ‘Know something? I used to like it that folk called me Barney. I know how I got the name, you know.’

‘I thought you said you didn’t?’

‘Oh aye, but I know all the same. Barney Rubble. Because folk thought I was like him. Somebody said it to me once, not just “Barney” but “Barney Rubble”.’

Rebus smiled. ‘But you liked the name anyway?’

‘I didn’t say that. I said I liked that I had a nickname. It was a sort of identity, wasn’t it? And that’s better than nothing.’

Rebus’s smile stretched. He was seeing Barney Mee, the tough little battler, wading in to save Mitch. The years separating the present from that long-ago event seemed to fall away. It was as if the two could live side by side, the past a ghostly presence forever of the here and now. Nothing lost; nothing forgotten; redemption always a possibility.

But if that was true, how could he explain that Dr Margolies would never see a court of law, his crimes known only to the few? And how to explain that the Procurator Fiscal seemed able to prosecute Cary Oakes only for the attempted murder of Alan Archibald? All the forensic evidence connecting him to Jim Stevens could be explained away: fingerprints and fibres in Stevens’ car — Oakes had ridden in it before. Hell, three police officers had watched him being driven away from the airport in it. The Stevens file would be kept open, but no one would be investigating. Everyone knew who’d done it. But short of a confession, there was nothing they could do.