Ian Rankin - Dead Souls

‘I bet when you were his age you knew what you wanted.’

‘Maybe,’ Brady conceded after a moment’s thought. ‘But I’ll give you odds-on I didn’t get it.’ He laughed. ‘Maybe I’m still not getting it. Know what I think about that?’

‘What?’

‘Just watch.’

And Rebus did watch, as Cal Brady unzipped his fly, took out his penis, and began to urinate off the edge of Radical Road. Standing well back from the performance, it seemed to Rebus that he was pissing on Holyrood and Greenfield and St Leonard’s, pissing in a giant arc over the whole city.

And if Rebus had been able, at that exact moment he might have joined him.

Returning to St Leonard’s with Siobhan Clarke after a call-out, Rebus made a detour to the New Town. Clarke knew better than to ask why: he’d tell her in his own good time and not before.

It was late afternoon, and he sat kerbside, indicators flashing, wondering about Nicky Petrie. To pay a visit, or not to pay a visit? Would the girlfriend be there? Would Petrie string together another series of lies and half-truths? Clarke was about to open her mouth to say something when she saw his hands tighten on the steering-wheel.

A woman was coming down the steps from Petrie’s building. Rebus saw for the first time that a taxi was waiting. She stepped into it. He’d caught only a glimpse of her: tall, willowy. A blonde pageboy cut. Black dress and tights beneath a billowing black wool coat. Rebus switched off the indicators, made to follow the cab, started explaining the situation to Clarke.

‘Where do you think she’s going?’

‘Only one way to find out.’

The taxi headed towards Princes Street, crossed it and crawled up The Mound. Through traffic lights at the top and took a right down Victoria Street. Grassmarket was the destination. Nicola paid the driver, got out. She looked around, somewhat uncertainly. Her face was like a mask.

‘Bit heavy on the make-up,’ Clarke commented. Rebus was trying to find a parking space. Finding none, he left the car on a single yellow line. If he got a ticket, it could join the others in the glove compartment.

‘Where did she go?’ he asked, getting out of the car.

‘Down Cowgate, I think,’ Clarke said.

‘Hell does she want down there?’

While Grassmarket itself had been gentrified, the area immediately to the east was still Hostel City: a place the city’s dispossessed could, for the moment, call its own. Things would doubtless be different once the politicians moved in down the road.

They stood on street corners, or sat on the steps of disused churches — baggy-trousered and grim-bearded, with too few teeth, and stooped backs. As Rebus and Clarke rounded the corner, they saw that the woman was walking with exaggerated slowness through a phalanx of admirers, only a smattering of whom bothered asking her for spare change and cigarettes.

‘Likes to show off,’ Clarke said.

‘And not too fussy with it.’

‘Just one thing bothering me, sir...’

But Nicola had turned to acknowledge a wolf-whistle, and as she did so she saw them. She turned again quickly and upped her pace, keeping a tight hold of her zebra-skin shoulder-bag.

‘Not the world’s greatest surveillance,’ Clarke said.

‘She knows us,’ Rebus hissed. They broke into a trot, ran along the pavement below George IV Bridge. She wore flat-heeled shoes, ran well despite the tangle of her long coat. She found a gap in the traffic and darted across the road. Cowgate was horrible: a narrow canyon, with high-sided buildings. When traffic built up, the carbon monoxide had no place to go. The stitches in Rebus’s chest slowed him down.

‘Guthrie Street,’ Clarke said. That was where Nicola was headed. It would bring her up on to Chambers Street, where she could more easily lose her pursuers. But as she turned into the steep wynd, she bumped into someone. The collision sent her spinning. Something fell to the ground, but she kept running. Rebus paused to scoop it up. A short blonde wig.

‘What the hell?’

‘That’s what I was trying to tell you, sir,’ Clarke said. Ahead of them, Nicola was tiring, holding the wall for support as she hauled herself up the incline. Limping, too, an ankle twisted in the collision. Eventually, just as she reached Chambers Street, her hair short and merely fair now rather than blonde, she gave up, stood with her back to the wall, panting noisily. Perspiration was streaking the make-up. Behind the mask, Rebus saw someone he knew only too well.

Not Nicola, Nicky. Nicky Petrie.

Petrie’s words: Straitlaced old town, how else are we going to get our thrills...?

Rebus’s heart was on fire as he stopped in front of him. He could hardly get the words out.

‘It’s story time, Mr Petrie.’ He slapped the wig down on Nicky Petrie’s head. Petrie, with a show of disgust, removed the wig, held it to his face. It was hard to make out now what was sweat and what was tears.

‘Oh God, oh God, oh God,’ he kept saying.

‘Where’s Damon Mee?’

‘Oh God, oh God, oh God.’

‘I don’t think He’s in a position to help you, Nicky.’

Rebus looked at the clothes. They could belong to Ama Petrie: brother and sister were of similar build, Nicky slightly taller and broader. The black dress looked tight on him.

‘This is what you like to do, Nicky? Dress up as a woman?’

‘No harm in it,’ Clarke added quickly. ‘We’re all different.’

Nicky looked at her, blinking to refocus his eyes.

‘You could do with a makeover, sweetheart,’ he said.

She smiled. ‘You’re probably right.’

‘Who does your make-up, Nicky?’ Rebus asked. ‘Ama?’

He straightened up. ‘All my own work.’

‘And then you head for this side of town? Walk up and down and soak up the admiration?’

‘I don’t expect you to—’

‘Nobody’s asking what you expect, Mr Petrie.’ He turned to Clarke. ‘Go fetch the car.’ Handed her the keys. ‘We’ll need to take Mr Petrie here to the station.’

Petrie’s eyes widened with fear. ‘Why?’

‘To answer a few questions about Damon Mee. And to explain why you’ve been lying to us all along.’

Petrie made to say something, then bit his lip.

‘Suit yourself,’ Rebus told him. Then, to Clarke: ‘Go get the car.’

Rebus questioned Nicky Petrie for half an hour. He made sure that anyone who wanted to gawp had the chance to come into the interview room. Petrie sat there with his head in his hands, not looking up, while a parade of CID and uniforms commented on his shoes, tights and dress.

‘I can get you some trousers and a shirt,’ Rebus offered.

‘I know what you’re trying to do,’ Petrie said when they were alone. ‘Humiliate me all you like, this lady’s not for talking.’ He managed a small defiant smile.

‘I’m sure your dad will come riding to the rescue anyway,’ Rebus commented, pleased to see some of the colour leave the young man’s lips.

‘I don’t need my father.’

‘That’s as may be, but we’ll need to contact him. Best for us to do it rather than the papers.’

‘Papers?’

Rebus barked a laugh. ‘Think they’ll let something like this pass them by? No, sir, you’re going to be cover-boy for a day, Nicky. Congratulations. Bit of pan-stick and a wig, they might even pay you for the privilege.’

‘They don’t need to know,’ Petrie said quietly.

Rebus shrugged. ‘Cop-shops are like sieves, Nicky. All these people who’ve seen you here... I can’t promise they won’t talk.’

‘Bastard.’

‘If you like, Nicky.’ Rebus leaned forward. ‘All I want to know is where I can find Damon Mee.’