Ian Rankin: Hide And Seek

‘Sir?’ This from one of the constables, his eyes and voice keen. Rebus turned to him.

‘Yes, son?’

‘Come and look at this.’

Rebus was only too glad of the excuse to move away from the doctor and his patient. The constable was leading him to the far wall, shining his torch against it as he went. Suddenly, Rebus saw why.

On the wall was a drawing. A five-pointed star, encompassed by two concentric circles, the largest of them some five feet in diameter. The whole had been well drawn, the lines of the star straight, the circles almost exact. The rest of the wall was bare.

‘What do you think, sir?’ asked the constable.

‘Well, it’s not just your usual graffiti, that’s for sure.’

‘Witchcraft?’

‘Or astrology. A lot of druggies go in for all sorts of mysticism and hoodoo. It goes with the territory.’

‘The candles….’

‘Let’s not jump to conclusions, son. You’ll never make CID that way. Tell me, why are we all carrying torches?’

‘Because the electric’s been cut off.’

‘Right. Ergo, the need for candles.’

‘If you say so, sir.’

‘I do say so, son. Who found the body?’

‘I did, sir. There was a telephone call, female, anonymous, probably one of the other squatters. They seem to have cleared out in a hurry.’

‘So there was nobody else here when you arrived?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Any idea yet who he is?’ Rebus nodded the torch towards the corpse.

‘No, sir. And the other houses are all squats, too, so I doubt we’ll get anything out of them.’

‘On the contrary. If anyone knows the identity of the deceased, they’re the very people. Take your friend and knock on a few doors. But be casual, make sure they don’t think you’re about to evict them or anything.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The constable seemed dubious about the whole venture. For one thing, he was sure to get an amount of hassle. For another, it was still raining hard.

‘On you go,’ Rebus chided, but gently. The constable shuffled off, collecting his companion on the way.

Rebus approached the photographer.

‘You’re taking a lot of snaps,’ he said.

‘I need to in this light, to make sure at least a few come out.’

‘Bit quick off the mark in getting here, weren’t you?’

‘Superintendent Watson’s orders. He wants pictures of any drugs-related incidents. Part of his campaign.’

‘That’s a bit gruesome, isn’t it?’ Rebus knew the new Chief Superintendent, had met him. Full of social awareness and community involvement. Full of good ideas, and lacking only the manpower to implement them. Rebus had an idea.

‘Listen, while you’re here, take one or two of that far wall, will you?’

‘No problem.’

‘Thanks.’ Rebus turned to the doctor. ‘How soon will we know what’s in that full packet?’

‘Later on today, maybe tomorrow morning at the latest.’

Rebus nodded to himself. What was his interest? Maybe it was the dreariness of the day, or the atmosphere in this house, or the positioning of the body. All he knew was that he felt something. And if it turned out to be just a damp ache in his bones, well, fair enough. He left the room and made a tour of the rest of the house.

The real horror was in the bathroom.

The toilet must have blocked up weeks before. A plunger lay on the floor, so some cursory attempt had been made to unblock it, but to no avail. Instead, the small, splattered sink had become a urinal, while the bath had become a dumping ground for solids, upon which crawled a dozen large and jet-black flies. The bath had also become a skip, filled with bags of refuse, bits of wood…. Rebus didn’t stick around, pulling the door tight shut behind him. He didn’t envy the council workmen who would eventually have to come and fight the good fight against all this decay.

One bedroom was completely empty, but the other boasted a sleeping bag, damp from the drips coming through the roof. Some kind of identity had been imposed upon the room by the pinning of pictures to its walls. Up close, he noticed that these were original photographs, and that they comprised a sort of portfolio. Certainly they were well taken, even to Rebus’s untrained eye. A few were of Edinburgh Castle on damp, misty days. It looked particularly bleak. Others showed it in bright sunshine. It still looked bleak. One or two were of a girl, age indeterminate. She was posing, but grinning broadly, not taking the event seriously.

Next to the sleeping bag was a bin-liner half filled with clothes, and next to this a small pile of dog-eared paperbacks: Harlan Ellison, Clive Barker, Ramsey Camp-bell. Science fiction and horror. Rebus left the books where they were and went back downstairs.

‘All finished,’ the photographer said. ‘I’ll get those photos to you tomorrow.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I also do portrait work, by the way. A nice family group for the grandparents? Sons and daughters? Here, I’ll give you my card.’

Rebus accepted the card and pulled his raincoat back on, heading out to the car. He didn’t like photographs, especially of himself. It wasn’t just that he photographed badly. No, there was more to it than that.

The sneaking suspicion that photographs really could steal your soul.

On his way back to the station, travelling through the slow midday traffic, Rebus thought about how a group photograph of his wife, his daughter and him might look. But no, he couldn’t visualise it. They had grown so far apart, ever since Rhona had taken Samantha to live in London. Sammy still wrote, but Rebus himself was slow at responding, and she seemed to take umbrage at this, writing less and less herself. In her last letter she had hoped Gill and he were happy.

He hadn’t the courage to tell her that Gill Templer had left him several months ago. Telling Samantha would have been fine: it was the idea of Rhona’s getting to hear of it that he couldn’t stand. Another notch in his bow of failed relationships. Gill had taken up with a disc jockey on a local radio station, a man whose enthusing voice Rebus seemed to hear whenever he entered a shop or a filling station, or passed the open window of a tenement block.

He still saw Gill once or twice a week of course, at meetings and in the station-house, as well as at scenes of crimes. Especially now that he had been elevated to her rank.

Detective Inspector John Rebus.

Well, it had taken long enough, hadn’t it? And it was a long, hard case, full of personal suffering, which had brought the promotion. He was sure of that.

He was sure, too, that he wouldn’t be seeing Rian again. Not after last night’s dinner party, not after the fairly unsuccessful bout of lovemaking. Yet another unsuccessful bout. It had struck him, lying next to Rian, that her eyes were almost identical to Inspector Gill Templer’s. A surrogate? Surely he was too old for that.

‘Getting old, John,’ he said to himself.

Certainly he was getting hungry, and there was a pub just past the next set of traffic lights. What the hell, he was entitled to a lunch break.

The Sutherland Bar was quiet, Monday lunchtime being one of the lowest points of the week. All money spent, and nothing to look forward to. And of course, as Rebus was quickly reminded by the barman, the Sutherland did not exactly cater for a lunchtime clientele.

‘No hot meals,’ he said, ‘and no sandwiches.’

‘A pie then,’ begged Rebus, ‘any thing. Just to wash down the beer.’

‘If it’s food you want, there’s plenty of cafes around here. This particular pub happens to sell beers, lagers and spirits. We’re not a chippie.’

‘What about crisps?’

The barman eyed him for a moment. ‘What flavour?’