Ian Rankin - Hide And Seek

‘This flat’s huge!’

She startled him, he was so unused to other voices in this place. He turned and watched her lean against the door-jamb, her head angled sideways.

‘Is it?’ he said, rinsing a mug.

‘Christ, yes. Look how high your ceilings are! I could just about touch the ceiling in Ronnie’s squat.’ She stood on tiptoe and stretched an arm upwards, waving her hand. Rebus feared that she had taken something, some pills or powders, while he’d been on the trail of the furtive teabag. She seemed to sense his thoughts, and smiled.

‘I’m just relieved,’ she said. ‘I feel light-headed from the running. And from being scared, I suppose. But now I feel safe.’

‘What did the men look like?’

‘I don’t know. I think they looked a bit like you.’ She smiled again. ‘One had a moustache. He was sort of fat, going thin on top, but not old. I can’t remember the other one. He wasn’t very memorable, I suppose.’

Rebus poured water into the mug and added the teabag. ‘Milk?’

‘No, just sugar if you’ve got it.’

He waved one of the sachets at her.

‘Great.’

Back in the living room, he went to the stereo and turned it down.

‘Sorry,’ she said, back in the chair now, sipping tea, her legs tucked under her.

‘I keep meaning to find out whether my neighbours can hear the stereo or not,’ Rebus said, as if to excuse his action. ‘The walls are pretty thick, but the ceiling isn’t.’

She nodded, blew onto the surface of the drink, steam covering her face in a veil.

‘So,’ said Rebus, pulling his director’s foldaway chair out from beneath a table and sitting down. ‘What can we do about these men who’ve been following you?’

‘I don’t know. You’re the policeman.’

‘It all sounds like something out of a film to me. I mean, why should anyone want to follow you?’

‘To scare me?’ she offered.

‘And why should they want to scare you?’

She thought about this, then shrugged her shoulders.

‘By the way, I saw Charlie today,’ he said.

‘Oh?’

‘Do you like him?’

‘Charlie?’ Her laughter was shrill. ‘He’s horrible.

Always hanging around, even when it’s obvious nobody wants him anywhere near. Everybody hates him.’

‘Everybody?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did Ronnie hate him?’

She paused. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘But then Ronnie didn’t have much sense that way.’

‘What about this other friend of Ronnie’s? Neil, or Neilly. What can you tell me about him?’

‘Is that the guy who was there last night?’

‘Yes.’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I never saw him before.’ She seemed interested in the book on the arm of the chair, picked it up and flipped its pages, pretending to read.

‘And Ronnie never mentioned a Neil or a Neilly to you?’

‘No.’ She waved the book at Rebus. ‘But he did talk about someone called Edward. Seemed angry with him about something. Used to shout the name out when he was alone in his room, after a fix.’

Rebus nodded slowly. ‘Edward. His dealer maybe?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. Ronnie got pretty crazy sometimes after he fixed. He was like a different person. But he was so sweet at times, so gentle….’ Her voice died away, eyes glistening.

Rebus checked his watch. ‘Okay, what about if I drive you back to the squat now? We can check that there’s no one watching.’

‘I don’t know….’ The fear had returned to her face, erasing years from her, turning her into a child again, afraid of shadows and ghosts.

‘I’ll be there,’ Rebus added.

‘Well…. Can I do something first?’

‘What?’

She pulled at her damp clothes. ‘Take a bath,’ she said. Then she smiled. ‘I know it’s a bit brassnecked, but I really could use one, and there’s no water at all in the squat.’

Rebus smiled too, nodding slowly. ‘My bathtub is at your disposal,’ he said.

While she was in the bath, he hung her clothes over the radiator in the hall. Turning the central heating on made a sauna of the flat, and Rebus struggled with the sash windows in the living room, trying without success to open them. He made more tea, in a pot this time, and had just carried it into the living room when he heard her call from the bathroom. When he came out into the hall, she had her head around the bathroom door, steam billowing out around her. Her hair, face and neck were gleaming.

‘No towels,’ she explained.

‘Sorry,’ said Rebus. He found some in the cupboard in his room, and brought them to her, pushing them through the gap in the door, feeling awkward despite himself.

‘Thanks,’ she called.

He had swopped The White Album for some jazz — barely audible — and was sitting with his tea when she came in. One large red towel was expertly tied around her body, another around her head. He had often wondered how women could be so good at wearing towels…. Her arms and legs were pale and thin, but there was no doubting that her shape was pleasing, and the glow from the bath gave her a kind of nimbus. He remembered the photographs of her in Ronnie’s room. Then he recalled the missing camera.

‘Was Ronnie still keen on photography? I mean, of late.’ The choice of words was accidentally unsubtle, and he winced a little, but Tracy appeared not to notice.

‘I suppose so. He was quite good, you know. He had a good eye. But he didn’t get the breaks.’

‘How hard did he try?’

‘Bloody hard.’ There was resentment in her voice. Perhaps Rebus had allowed too much professional scepticism to creep into his tone.

‘Yes, I’m sure. Not an easy profession to get into, I’d imagine.’

‘Too true. And there were some who knew how good Ronnie was. They didn’t want the competition. Put obstacles in his way whenever and wherever they could.’

‘You mean other photographers?’

‘That’s right. Well, when Ronnie was going through his really keen spell, before disillusionment set in, he didn’t know quite how to get the breaks. So he went to a couple of studios, showed some of his work to the guys who worked there. He had some really inspired shots. You know, everyday things seen from weird angles. The Castle, Waverley Monument, Calton Hill.’

‘Calton Hill?’

‘Yes, the whatsit.’

‘The folly?’

‘That’s it.’ The towel was slipping a little from around her shoulders, and as Tracy sat with her legs tucked beneath her, sipping tea, it also fell away to reveal more than enough thigh. Rebus tried to concentrate his eyes on her face. It wasn’t easy. ‘Well,’ she was saying, ‘a couple of his ideas got ripped off. He’d see a photo in one of the local rags, and it’d be exactly the angle he’d used, the same time of day, same filters. Those bastards had copied his ideas. He’d see their names beneath the pictures, the same guys he’d shown his portfolio to.’

‘What were their names?’

‘I don’t remember now.’ She readjusted the towel. There seemed something defensive in the action. Was it so hard to remember a name? She giggled. ‘He tried to get me to pose for him.’

‘I saw the results.’

‘No, not those ones. You know, nude shots. He said he could sell them for a fortune to some of the magazines. But I wasn’t having it. I mean, the money would’ve been all well and good, but these mags get passed around, don’t they? I mean, they never get thrown away. I’d always be wondering if anybody could recognise me on the street.’ She waited for Rebus’s reaction, and when it was one of thoughtful bemusement, laughed throatily. ‘So, it’s not true what they say. You can embarrass a copper.’

‘Sometimes.’ Rebus’s cheeks were tingling. He put a hand self-consciously to one of them. He had to do something about this. ‘So,’ he said, ‘was Ronnie’s camera worth much then?’