Ian Rankin: Let It Bleed

‘How’s my chief inspector?’ Rebus asked when the nurse returned.

‘They’re taking X-rays,’ she told him.

‘Car chases at your age,’ Dr Klasser muttered. ‘I blame television.’

Rebus took a good look at him, and realised he hadn’t ever really looked at the man before, not properly. Klasser was in his early forties, steel-haired with a tanned and prematurely ageing face. If you only had head and shoulders to go on, you’d guess he was taller than was actually the case. He looked quite distinguished, which was why Rebus had pegged him for a senior consultant, something like that.

‘I thought only lackeys and L-plates worked nights,’ Rebus commented, while Klasser shone a light in his eyes.

Klasser put down the light and started to squeeze Rebus’s back, prodding it like he was plumping up a cushion.

‘Any pain there?’

‘No.’

‘What about there?’

‘No more than usual.’

‘Hmm … In answer to your question, John, I notice you’re working nights. Does that make you lackey or L-PLATE?’

‘That hurts.’

Dr Klasser smiled.

‘So,’ Rebus said, easing his shirt back on, ‘what’ve I got?’

Klasser found a pen that worked and scribbled something on his clipboard. ‘By my estimate, the way you’re going, you’ve got a year, maybe two.’

The two men stared at one another. Rebus knew precisely what the doctor was talking about.

‘I’m serious, John. You smoke, you drink like a fish, and you don’t exercise. Since Patience stopped feeding you, your diet’s gone to hell. Starch and carbohydrate, saturated fat …’

Rebus tried to stop listening. He knew his drinking was a problem these days precisely because he’d learned self-control. As a result, few people noticed that he had a problem. He was well dressed at work, alert when the occasion demanded, and even visited the gym some lunchtimes. He ate lazily, and maybe too much, and yes, he was back on the cigs. But then nobody was perfect.

‘An uncanny prognosis, Doctor.’ He finished buttoning his shirt, started tucking it into his waistband, then thought better of it. He felt more comfortable with the shirt outside his trousers. He knew he’d feel even more comfortable with his trouser button undone. ‘And you can tell that just by prodding my back?’

Dr Klasser smiled again. He was folding up his stethoscope. ‘You can’t hide that sort of thing from a doctor, John.’

Rebus eased into his jacket. ‘So,’ he said, ‘see you in the pub later?’

‘I’ll be there around six.’

‘Fine.’

Rebus walked out of the hospital and took a deep breath.

It was two-thirty in the morning, about as cold and dark as the night could get. He thought about checking on Lauderdale, but knew it could wait till morning. His flat was just across The Meadows, but he didn’t fancy the walk. The sleet was still falling, beginning to turn to snow, and there was that stabbing wind, like a thug you meet in a narrow lane, one who won’t let you go.

Then a car horn sounded. Rebus saw a cherry-red Renault 5, and inside it DC Siobhan Clarke, waving towards him. He almost danced to the car.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I heard,’ she said.

‘How come?’ He opened the passenger-side door.

‘I was curious. I wasn’t on shift, but I kept in touch with the station, just to find out what happened at the meet. When I heard about the crash, I got dressed and came down here.’

‘Well, you’re a sight for sore teeth.’

‘Teeth?’

Rebus rubbed his jaw. ‘Sounds crazy, but I think that dunt has given me toothache.’

She started the car. It was lovely and warm. Rebus could feel himself drifting off.

‘Bit of a disaster then?’ she said.

‘A bit.’ They turned out of the gates, heading left towards Tollcross.

‘How’s the CI?’

‘I don’t know. They’re X-raying him. Where are we going?’

‘I’m taking you home.’

‘I should go back to the station.’

She shook her head. ‘I called in. They don’t want you till morning.’

Rebus relaxed a little more. Maybe the painkillers were kicking in. ‘When’s the post-mortem?’

‘Nine-thirty.’ They were on Lauriston Place.

‘There was a shortcut you could have taken back there,’ Rebus told her.

‘It was a one-way street.’

‘Yes, but nobody uses it this time of night.’ He realised what he’d said. ‘Jesus,’ he whispered, rubbing his eyes.

‘So what was it?’ Siobhan Clarke asked. ‘I mean, was it an accident, or were they looking to escape?’

‘Neither,’ Rebus said quietly. ‘If I’d to put money on it, I’d say suicide.’

She looked at him. ‘Both of them?’

He shrugged, then shivered.

At the Tollcross lights they waited in silence until red turned to green. A couple of drunks were walking home, bodies tilted into the wind.

‘Horrible night,’ Clarke said, moving off. Rebus nodded, saying nothing. ‘Will you attend the post-mortem?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can’t say I’d fancy it.’

‘Do we know who they were yet?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘I keep forgetting, you’re off-duty.’

‘That’s right, I’m off-duty.’

‘What about the car, have we traced that?’

She turned towards him and laughed. It sounded odd to him, there in that stuffy overheated car, that time of night, with all that had gone before. Sudden laughter, as strange a sound as you’d ever hear. He rubbed his jaw and pushed an exploratory finger into his mouth. The teeth he touched seemed solid enough.

Then he saw feet suddenly sweeping out from under two young bodies, the bodies leaning back into space and disappearing. They hadn’t made a sound. No accident, no escape attempt; something fatalistic, something agreed between them.

‘Cold?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m not cold.’

She signalled to turn off Melville Drive. To the left, what he could see of The Meadows was covered in a fresh glaze of slow. To the right was Marchmont, and Rebus’s flat.

‘She wasn’t in the car,’ he said flatly.

‘There was always that possibility,’ Siobhan Clarke said. ‘We don’t even know she’s missing, not for a fact.’

‘No,’ he agreed, ‘we don’t.’

‘Just two daft laddies.’ She’d picked up the expression, but it sounded awkward given her English accent. Rebus smiled in the dark.

And then he was home.

She dropped him outside his tenement door, and refused a half-hearted offer of coffee. Rebus didn’t want her to see the dump he called home. The students had moved out in October, leaving the place not quite his. There were things not quite right, not quite the way he remembered. Cutlery was missing, and had been replaced with stuff he hadn’t seen before. It was the same with the crockery. When he’d moved back here from Patience’s, he’d brought his stuff back in boxes. Most of the boxes were in the hall, still waiting to be unpacked.

Exhausted, he climbed the stairs, opened his door, and walked past the boxes, making straight for the living room and his chair.

His chair was much the same as ever. It had remoulded itself quickly to his shape. He sat down, then got up again and checked the radiator. The thing was barely warm, and there was a racking noise from within. He needed a special key, some tool that would open the valve and let it bleed. The other radiators were the same.

He made himself a hot drink, put a tape into the cassette deck, and got the duvet off his bed. Back at his chair he took off some of his clothes and covered himself with the duvet. He reached down, unscrewed the top from a bottle of Macallan, and poured some into his coffee. He drank the first half of the mug, then added more whisky.