Ian Rankin - Hide And Seek

‘A student?’

‘Yes. I only know him vaguely. He seems very interested in the occult, wrote rather a long and knowledgeable essay this term. Wants to do some project on demonism. He’s a second-year student. They have to do a project over the summer. Yes, maybe he can give you more help than I’m able to.’

‘And his name is …?’

‘Well, his surname escapes me for the moment. He usually just calls himself by his first name. Charles.’

‘Charles?’

‘Or maybe Charlie. Yes, Charlie, that’s it.’

Ronnie’s friend’s name. The hair on Rebus’s neck began to prickle.

‘That’s right, Charlie,’ Poole confirmed to himself, nodding. ‘Bit of an eccentric. You can probably find him in one of the student union buildings. I believe he’s addicted to these video machines….’

No, not video machines. Pinball machines. The ones with all the extras, all the little tricks and treats that made a game a game. Charlie loved them with a vengeance. It was the kind of love which was all the more fervent for having come to him late in life. He was nineteen after all, life was streaming past, and he wanted to hang on to any piece of driftwood he could. Pinball had played no part in his adolescence. That had belonged to books and music. Besides, there had been no pinball machines at his boarding school.

Now, released into university, he wanted to live. And to play pinball. And do all the other things he had missed out on during the years of prep, sensitive essay-writing, and introspection. Charlie wanted to run faster than anyone had ever run, to live not one life, but two or three or four. As the silver ball made contact with the left flipper, he threw it back up the table with real ferocity. There was a pause while the ball sat in one of the bonus craters, collecting another thousand points. He picked up his lager, took a gulp of it, and then returned his fingers to the buttons. In another ten minutes, he’d have the day’s high score.

‘Charlie?’

He turned at the sound of his name. A bad mistake, a naive mistake. He turned back to the game again, but too late. The man was striding towards him. The serious man. The unsmiling man.

‘I’d like a word, Charlie.’

‘Okay, how about carbohydrate. That was always one of my favourites.’

John Rebus’s smile lasted less than a second.

‘Very clever,’ he said. ‘Yes, that’s what we call a smart answer.’

‘We?’

‘Lothian CID. My name’s Inspector Rebus.’

‘Pleased to meet you.’

‘Likewise, Charlie.’

‘No, you’re mistaken. My name’s not Charlie. He comes in here sometimes though. I’ll tell him you called.’

Charlie was just about to hit the high score, five minutes ahead of schedule, when Rebus gripped his shoulder and spun him around. There were no other students in the games room, so he kept squeezing the shoulder while he spoke.

‘You’re about as funny as a maggot sandwich, Charlie, and patience isn’t my favourite card game. So you’ll excuse me if I become irritable, short-tempered, that sort of thing.’

‘Hands off.’ Charlie’s face had taken on a new sheen, but not of fear.

‘Ronnie,’ Rebus said, calmly now, releasing his grip on the young man’s shoulder.

The colour drained from Charlie’s face. ‘What about him?’

‘He’s dead.’

‘Yes.’ Charlie’s voice was quiet, his eyes unfocussed. ‘I heard.’

Rebus nodded. ‘Tracy tried to find you.’

‘Tracy.’ There was venom in the word. ‘She’s no idea, no idea at all. Have you seen her?’ Rebus nodded. ‘Yeah, what a loser that woman is. She never understood Ronnie. Never even tried.’

As Charlie spoke, Rebus was learning more about him. His accent was Scottish private school, which was the first surprise. Rebus didn’t know what he had expected. He knew he hadn’t expected this. Charlie was well built, too, a product of the rugby-playing classes. He had curly dark brown hair, cut not too long, and was dressed in traditional student summer wear: training shoes, denims, and a T-shirt. The T-shirt was black, torn loose at the arms.

‘So,’ Charlie was saying, ‘Ronnie did the big one, eh? Well, it’s a good age to die. Live fast, die young.’

‘Do you want to die young, Charlie?’

‘Me?’ Charlie laughed, a high-pitched squeal like a small animal. ‘Hell, I want to live to be a hundred. I never want to die.’ He looked at Rebus, something sparkling in his eyes. ‘Do you?’

Rebus considered the question, but wasn’t about to answer. He was here on business, not to discuss the death instinct. The lecturer, Dr Poole, had told him about the death instinct.

‘I want to know what you know about Ronnie.’

‘Does that mean you’re going to take me away for questioning?’

‘If you like. We can do it here if you’d prefer….’

‘No, no. I want to go to the police station. Come on, take me there.’ There was a sudden eagerness about Charlie which made him seem much younger than his years. Who the hell wanted to go to a police station for questioning?

On the route to the car park and Rebus’s car, Charlie insisted on walking a few paces ahead of Rebus, and with his hands behind his back, head slumped. Rebus saw that Charlie was pretending to be handcuffed. He was doing a good impersonation too, drawing attention to Rebus and himself. Someone even called out ‘bastard’ in Rebus’s direction. But the word had lost all meaning over the years. They would have disturbed him more by wishing him a pleasant trip.

‘Can I buy a couple of these?’ Charlie asked, examining the photographs of his work, his pentagram.

The interview room was bleak. It was its purpose to be bleak. But Charlie had settled in like he was planning to rent it.

‘No,’ Rebus said, lighting a cigarette. He didn’t offer one to Charlie. ‘So, why did you paint it?’

‘Because it’s beautiful.’ He still studied the photographs. ‘Don’t you think? So full of meaning.’

‘How long had you known Ronnie?’

Charlie shrugged. For the first time, he looked in the direction of the cassette recorder. Rebus had asked if he minded having the dialogue recorded. He had shrugged. Now he seemed a little pensive. ‘Maybe a year,’ he said. ‘Yes, a year. I met him around the time of my first-year exams. That was when I started to get interested in the real Edinburgh.’

‘The real Edinburgh?’

‘Yes. Not just the piper on the ramparts, or the Royal Mile, or the Scott Monument.’ Rebus recalled Ronnie’s photographs of the Castle.

‘I saw some photos on Ronnie’s wall.’ Charlie screwed up his face.

‘God, those. He had the idea he was going to be a professional photographer. Taking bloody tourist snaps for postcards. That didn’t last long. Like most of Ronnie’s schemes.’

‘Nice camera he had though.’

‘What? Oh, yes, his camera. Yes, it was his pride and joy.’ Charlie crossed his legs. Rebus continued to stare into the young man’s eyes, but Charlie was busily studying the photographs of the pentagram.

‘So what was that you were telling me about the “real” Edinburgh?’

‘Deacon Brodie,’ said Charlie, suddenly interested again, ‘Burke and Hare, justified sinners, the lot. But it’s all been cleaned up for the tourists, you see. And I thought, hang on, all this Lowland low-life still exists. That was when I started touring the housing estates, Wester Hailes, Oxgangs, Craigmillar, Pilmuir. And sure enough, it’s all still here, the past replaying itself in the present.’

‘So you started hanging around Pilmuir?’

‘Yes.’

‘In other words, you became a tourist yourself?’ Rebus had seen Charlie’s kind before, though usually the older model, the prosperous businessman debasing himself for kicks, visiting sleazy rooms for a dry cough of pleasure. He didn’t like the species.