Ian Rankin - Hide And Seek

‘That’s right.’

‘Leaving Neil in the house with Ronnie?’

‘No, he’d left by then.’

‘You didn’t know, of course, that Neil was Ronnie’s brother?’

The look of surprise on Charlie’s face seemed authentic, but then Rebus knew him for an accomplished actor, and was taking nothing for granted, not any more.

‘No, I didn’t know that. Shit, his brother. Why didn’t he want any of us to meet him?’

‘Neil and I are in the same profession,’ Rebus explained. Charlie just smiled and shook his head. Vanderhyde was leaning back thoughtfully in his chair, like a meticulous juror at some trial.

‘Now,’ Rebus continued, ‘Neil says he left quite early. Ronnie was being uncommunicative.’

‘I can guess why.’

‘Why?’

‘Easy. He’d just scored, hadn’t he? He hadn’t seen any stuff for ages, and suddenly he’d scored.’ Charlie suddenly remembered that his aged uncle was listening, and stopped short, looking towards the old man. Vanderhyde, shrewd as ever, seemed to sense this, and waved his hand regally before him, as if to say, I’ve been too long on this planet and can’t be shocked any more.

‘I think you’re right,’ Rebus said to Charlie. ‘One hundred percent. So, in an empty house, Ronnie shoots up. The stuffs lethal. When Tracy comes in, she finds him in his room — ’

‘So she says,’ interrupted Charlie. Rebus nodded, acknowledging his scepticism.

‘Let’s accept for the moment that’s what happened. He’s dead, or seems so to her. She panics, and runs off. Right. So far so good. Now it begins to get hazy, and this is where I need your help, Charlie. Thereafter, someone moves Ronnie’s body downstairs. I don’t know why. Maybe they were just playing silly buggers, or, as Mr Vanderhyde put it so succinctly, trying to muddy the water. Anyway, around this stage in the chronology, a second packet of white powder appears. Tracy only saw one — ’ Rebus saw that Charlie was about to interrupt again ‘- so she says. So, Ronnie had one packet and shot up with it. When he died, his body came downstairs and another packet magically appeared. This new packet contains good stuff, not the poison Ronnie used on himself. And, to add a little more to the concoction, Ronnie’s camera disappears, to turn up later in your squat, Charlie, in your room, and in your black polythene bag.’

Charlie had stopped looking at Rebus. He was looking at the floor, at his mug, at the teapot. His eyes still weren’t on Rebus when he spoke.

‘Yes, I took it.’

‘You took the camera?’

‘I just said I did, didn’t I?’

‘Okay.’ Rebus’s voice was neutral. Charlie’s smouldering shame might at any moment catch light and ignite into anger. ‘When did you take it?’

‘Well, I didn’t exactly stop to look at my watch.’

‘Charles!’ Vanderhyde’s voice was loud, the word coming from his mouth like a bite. Charlie took notice. He straightened in his chair, reduced to some childhood fear of this imposing creature, his uncle the magician.

Rebus cleared his throat. The taste of Earl Grey was thick on his tongue. ‘Was there anyone in the house when you got back?’

‘No. Well, yes, if you’re counting Ronnie.’

‘Was he upstairs or down?’

‘He was at the top of the stairs, if you must know. Just lying there, like he’d been trying to come down them. I thought he was crashed out. But he didn’t look right. I mean, when someone’s sleeping, there’s some kind of movement. But Ronnie was … rigid. His skin was cold, damp.’

‘And he was at the top of the stairs?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you do then?’

‘Well, I knew he was dead. And it was like I was dreaming. That sounds stupid, but it was like that. I know now that I was just trying to shut it out. I went into Ronnie’s room.’

‘Was the syringe jar there?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘Never mind. Go on.’

‘Well, I knew that when Tracy got back — ’

‘Yes?’

‘God, this is going to make me sound like a monster.’

‘What is it?’

‘Well, I knew that when she came back, she’d see Ronnie was dead and grab what she could of his. I knew she would, I just felt it. So I took something I thought he’d have wanted me to have.’

‘For sentimental reasons then?’ asked Rebus archly.

‘Not totally,’ Charlie admitted. Rebus had a sudden cooling thought: this is going too easily. ‘It was the only thing Ronnie had that was worth any money.’

Rebus nodded. Yes, that was more like it. Not that Charlie was short of a few bob; he could always rely on Uncle Matthew. But it was the illicit nature of the act that appealed. Something Ronnie would have wanted him to have. Some chance.

‘So you lifted the camera?’ Rebus said. Charlie nodded. ‘Then you left?’

‘Went straight back to my squat. Somebody said Tracy had come looking for me. Said she’d been in a right state. So I assumed she already knew about Ronnie.’

‘And she hadn’t made off with the camera. She’d come looking for you instead.’

‘Yes.’ Charlie seemed almost contrite. Almost. Rebus wondered what Vanderhyde was making of all this.

‘What about the name Hyde, does it mean anything to you?’

‘A character in Robert Louis Stevenson.’

‘Apart from that.’

Charlie shrugged.

‘What about someone called Edward?’

‘A character in Robert Louis Stevenson.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Sorry, I’m being facetious. Edward is Hyde’s first name in Jekyll and Hyde. No, I don’t know anyone called Edward.’

‘Fair enough. Do you want to know something, Charlie?’

‘What?’

Rebus looked to Vanderhyde, who sat impassively. ‘Actually, I think your uncle already knows what I’m going to say.’

Vanderhyde smiled. ‘Indeed. Correct me if I’m wrong, Inspector Rebus, but you were about to say that, the young man’s corpse having moved from the bedroom to the stairs, you can only assume that the person who moved the body was actually in the house when Charles arrived.’

Charlie’s jaw dropped open. Rebus had never witnessed the effect in real life before.

‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘I’d say you were lucky, Charlie. I’d say that someone was moving the body downstairs and heard you arrive. Then they hid in one of the other rooms, maybe even that stinking bathroom, until you’d left. They were in the house all the time you were.’

Charlie swallowed. Then closed his mouth. Then let his head fall forward and began to weep. Not quite silently, so that his uncle caught the action, and smiled, nodding towards Rebus with satisfaction.

Rebus finished the chocolate. It had tasted of antiseptic, the same strong flavour of the corridor outside, the wards themselves, and this waiting room, where anxious faces buried themselves in old colour supplements and tried to look interested for more than a second or two. The door opened and Holmes came in, looking anxious and exhausted. He’d had the distance of a forty-minute car journey in which to mentally live his worst fears, and the result was carved into his face. Rebus knew that swift treatment was needed.

‘She’s fine. You can see her whenever you like. They’re keeping her in overnight for no good reason at all, and she’s got a broken nose.’

‘A broken nose?’

‘That’s all. No concussion, no blurred vision. A good old broken nose, curse of the bare-knuckle fighter.’

Rebus thought for one moment that Holmes was about to take offence at his levity. But then relief flooded the younger man and he smiled, his shoulders relaxing, head dropping a little as though from a sense of anticlimax, albeit a welcome one.