Ian Rankin - Hide And Seek

Holmes looked surprised. Caught. He remembered that he’d lifted the stylus off the record.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘That’s what I like to see,’ Rebus said. ‘Yes, we’ll make a detective of you yet, Brian.’

Holmes wasn’t sure whether Rebus was being flattering or condescending. He let it go.

‘Something I thought you might like to know,’ he began.

‘I already know,’ said Rebus. ‘Sorry to spoil the surprise, but I was at the station late last night, and somebody told me.’

‘Last night?’ Holmes was confused. ‘But they only found the body this morning.’

‘The body? You mean he’s dead?’

‘Yes. Suicide.’

‘Jesus, poor Gill.’

‘Gill?’

‘Gill Templer. She was going out with him.’

‘Inspector Templer?’ Holmes was shocked. ‘I thought she was living with that disc jockey?’

Now Rebus was confused. ‘Isn’t that who we’re talking about?’

‘No,’ said Holmes. The surprise was still intact. He felt real relief.

‘So who are we talking about?’ asked Rebus with a growing sense of dread. ‘Who’s committed suicide?’

‘James Carew.’

‘Carew?’

‘Yes. Found him in his flat this morning. Overdose apparently.’

‘Overdose of what?’

‘I don’t know. Some kind of pills.’

Rebus was stunned. He recalled the look on Carew’s face that night atop Calton Hill.

‘Damn,’ he said. ‘I wanted a word with him.’

‘I was wondering …’ said Holmes.

‘What?’

‘I don’t suppose you ever got round to asking him about getting me a flat?’

‘No,’ said Rebus. ‘I never got the chance.’

‘I was only joking,’ Holmes said, realising that Rebus had taken his comment literally. ‘Was he a friend? I mean, I know you met him for lunch, but I didn’t realise — ’

‘Did he leave a note?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well who would know?’

Holmes thought for a second. ‘I think Inspector McCall was at the scene.’

‘Right, come on.’ Rebus was up on his feet.

‘What about your coffee?’

‘Sod the coffee. I want to see Tony McCall.’

‘What was all that about Calum McCallum?’ said Holmes, rising now.

‘You mean you haven’t heard?’ Holmes shook his head. ‘I’ll tell you on the way.’

And then Rebus was on the move, grabbing jacket, getting out his keys to lock the front door. Holmes wondered what the secret was. What had Calum McCallum done? God, he hated people who hung on to secrets.

Rebus read the note as he stood in Carew’s bedroom. It was elegantly written with a proper nib pen, but in one or two of the words fear could be clearly read, the letters trembling uncontrollably, scribbled out to be tried again. Good-quality writing paper too, thick and watermarked. The V 12was in a garage behind the flat. The flat itself was stunning, a museum for art deco pieces, modern art prints, and valuable first editions, locked behind glass.

This is the flipside of Vanderhyde’s home, Rebus had thought as he moved through the flat. Then McCall had handed him the suicide note.

‘If I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also.’ Was that a quote from somewhere? Certainly, it was a bit prolix for a suicide note. But then Carew would have gone through draft upon draft until satisfied. It had to be exact, had to stand as his monument. ‘Some day you may perhaps come to learn the right and wrong of this.’ Not that Rebus needed to seek too hard. He had the queasy feeling, reading the note, that Carew’s words were directed straight at him, that he was saying things only Rebus could fully understand.

‘Funny sort of note to leave behind,’ said McCall.

‘Yes,’ said Rebus.

‘You met him recently, didn’t you?’ said McCall. ‘I remember you saying. Did he seem okay then? I mean, he wasn’t depressed or anything?’

‘I’ve seen him since then.’

‘Oh?’

‘I was sniffing around Calton Hill a couple of nights back. He was there in his car.’

‘Ah-ha.’ McCall nodded. Everything was starting to make a little bit of sense.

Rebus handed back the note and went over to the bed. The sheets were rumpled. Three empty pill bottles stood in a neat line on the bedside table. On the floor lay an empty cognac bottle.

‘The man went out in style,’ McCall said, pocketing the note. ‘He’d gone through a couple of bottles of wine before that.’

‘Yes, I saw them in the living room. Lafite sixty-one. The stuff of a very ‘special occasion’.

‘They don’t come more special, John.’

Both men turned as a third presence became evident in the room. It was Farmer Watson, breathing heavily from the effort of the stairs.

‘This is bloody awkward,’ he said. ‘One of the linchpins of our campaign tops himself, and by taking a bloody overdose. How’s that going to look, eh?’

‘Awkward, sir,’ replied Rebus, ‘just as you say.’

‘I do say. I do say.’ Watson thrust a finger out towards Rebus. ‘It’s up to you, John, to make sure the media don’t make a meal of this, or of us.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Watson looked over towards the bed. ‘Waste of a bloody decent man. What makes someone do it? I mean, look at this place. And there’s an estate somewhere on one of the islands. Own business. Expensive car. Things we can only dream about. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Right.’ Watson took a last glance towards the bed, then slapped a hand on Rebus’s shoulder. ‘I’m depending on you, John.’

‘Yes, sir.’

McCall and Rebus watched their superior go.

‘Bloody hell!’ whispered McCall. ‘He didn’t look at me, not once. I might as well have not been there.’

‘You should thank your lucky stars, Tony. I wish I had your gift of invisibility.’

Both men smiled. ‘Seen enough?’ McCall asked.

‘Just one more circuit,’ said Rebus. ‘Then I’ll get out of your hair.’

‘Whatever you say, John. Just one thing.’

‘What’s that?’

‘What the hell were you doing up Calton Hill in the middle of the night?’

‘Don’t ask,’ said Rebus, blowing a kiss as he headed for the living area.

It would be big news locally, of course. There was no getting away from the fact. The radio stations and newspapers would have trouble deciding which headline deserved most prominence: Disc Jockey Arrested at Illegal Dog Fight or Suicide Shock of Estate Agent Giant. Well, something along those lines. Jim Stevens would have loved it, but then Jim Stevens was in London and married, by all accounts, to some girl half his age.

Rebus admired that kind of dangerous move. He had no admiration for James Carew: none. Watson was right in at least one respect: Carew had everything going for him, and Rebus was finding it difficult to believe that he would commit suicide solely because he had been spotted by a police officer on Calton Hill. No, that might have been the trigger, but there had to be something more. Something, perhaps, in the flat, or in the offices of Bowyer Carew on George Street.

James Carew owned a lot of books. A quick examination showed that they were for the most part expensive, impressive titles, but unread, their spines crackling as they were opened by Rebus for the first time. The top right hand section of the bookcase held several titles which interested him more than the others. Books by Genet and Alexander Trocchi, copies of Forster’s Maurice and even Last Exit to Brooklyn. Poems by Walt Whitman, the text of Torchlight Trilogy. A mixed bag of predominantly gay reading. Nothing wrong in that. But their positioning in the bookshelves — right at the top and separated from the other titles — suggested to Rebus that here was a man ashamed of himself. There was no reason for this, not these days….