Ian Rankin: Hide And Seek

The Dock Leaf had shed one generation of low-life drinkers, and discovered another. Its denizens now were young, unemployed, and living six to a three-bedroom rented flat along Shore Road. Petty crime though was not a problem: you didn’t mess your own nest. The old community values still held.

Rebus, early for the meeting, just had time for a half in the saloon bar. The beer was cheap but bland, and everyone seemed to know if not who he was then certainly what he was, their voices turned down to murmurs, their eyes averted. When, at three thirty, he stepped outside, the sudden daylight made him squint.

‘Are you the policeman?’

‘That’s right, Tracy.’

She had been standing against the pub’s exterior wall. He shaded his eyes, trying to make out her face, and was surprised to find himself looking at a woman of between twenty and twenty-five. Her age was transparent in her face, though her style marked her out as the perennial rebel: cropped peroxide hair, two stud earrings in her left ear (but none in the right), tie-dye T-shirt, tight, faded denims, and red basketball boots. She was tall, as tall as Rebus. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw the tear-tracks on either cheek, the old acne scars. But there were also crow‘s-feet around her eyes, evidence of a life used to laughter. There was no laughter in those olive-green eyes though. Somewhere in Tracy’s life a wrong turning had been made, and Rebus had the idea that she was still trying to reverse back to that fork in the road.

The last time he had seen her she had been laughing. Laughing as her semblance curled from the wall of Ronnie’s bedroom. She was the girl in the photographs.

‘Is Tracy your real name?’

‘Sort of.’ They had begun to walk. She crossed the road at a zebra crossing, not bothering to check whether any cars were approaching, and Rebus followed her to a wall, where she stopped, staring out across the Forth. She wrapped her arms around herself, examining the lifting mist.

‘It’s my middle name,’ she said.

Rebus leaned his forearms against the wall. ‘How long have you known Ronnie?’

‘Three months. That’s how long I’ve been in Pilmuir.’

‘Who else lived in that house?’

She shrugged. ‘They came and went. We’d only been in there a few weeks. Sometimes I’d go downstairs in the morning, and there’d be half a dozen strangers sleeping on the floor. Nobody minded. It was like a big family.’

‘What makes you think somebody killed Ronnie?’

She turned towards him angrily, but her eyes were liquid. ‘I told you on the phone! He told me. He’d been off somewhere and come back with some stuff. He didn’t look right though. Usually, when he’s got a little smack, he’s like a kid at Christmas. But he wasn’t. He was scared, acting like a robot or something. He kept telling me to hide, telling me they were coming for him.’

‘Who were?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Was this after he’d taken the stuff?’

‘No, that’s what’s really crazy. This was before. He had the packet in his hand. He pushed me out of the door.’

‘You weren’t there while he was fixing?’

‘God no. I hated that.’ Her eyes drilled into his. ‘I’m not a junkie, you know. I mean, I smoke a little, but never…. You know….’

‘Was there anything else you noticed about Ronnie?’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, the state he was in.’

‘You mean the bruises?’

‘Yes.’

‘He often came back looking like that. Never talked about it.’

‘Got in a lot of fights, I suppose. Was he short-tempered?’

‘Not with me.’

Rebus sunk his hands into his pockets. A chill wind was whipping up off the water, and he wondered whether she was warm enough. He couldn’t help noticing that her nipples were very prominent through the cotton of her T-SHIRT.

‘Would you like my jacket?’ he asked.

‘Only if your wallet’s in it,’ she said with a quick smile.

He smiled back, and offered a cigarette instead, which she accepted. He didn’t take one for himself. There were only three left out of the day’s ration, and the evening stretched ahead of him.

‘Do you know who Ronnie’s dealer was?’ he asked casually, helping her to light the cigarette. With her head tucked into his open jacket, the lighter shaking in her hand, she shook her head. Eventually, the windbreak worked, and she sucked hard at the filter.

‘I was never really sure,’ she said. ‘It was something else he didn’t talk about.’

‘What did he talk about?’

She thought about this, and smiled again. ‘Not much, now you mention it. That was what I liked about him. You always felt there was more to him than he was letting on.’

‘Such as?’

She shrugged. ‘Might have been anything, might have been nothing.’

This was harder work than Rebus had anticipated, and he really was getting cold. It was time to speed things up.

‘He was in the bedroom when you found him?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the squat was empty at the time?’

‘Yes. Earlier on, there’d been a few people there, but they’d all gone. One of them was up in Ronnie’s room, but I didn’t know him. Then there was Charlie.’

‘You mentioned him on the telephone.’

‘Yes, well, when I found Ronnie, I went looking for him. He’s usually around somewhere, in one of the other squats or in town doing a bit of begging. Christ, he’s strange.’

‘In what way?’

‘Didn’t you see what was on the living-room wall?’

‘You mean the star?’

‘Yes, that was Charlie. He painted it.’

‘He’s keen on the occult then?’

‘Mad keen.’

‘What about Ronnie?’

‘Ronnie? Jesus, no. He couldn’t even stand to watch horror films. They scared him.’

‘But he had all those horror books in his bedroom.’

‘That was Charlie, trying to get Ronnie interested. All they did was give him more nightmares. And all those did was push him into taking more smack.’

‘How did he finance his habit?’ Rebus watched a small boat come gliding through the mist. Something fell from it into the water, but he couldn’t tell what.

‘I wasn’t his accountant.’

‘Who was?’ The boat was turning in an arc, slipping further west towards Queensferry.

‘Nobody wants to know where the money comes from, that’s the truth. It makes you an accessory, doesn’t it?’

‘That depends.’ Rebus shivered.

‘Well, I didn’t want to know. If he tried to tell me, I put my hands over my ears.’

‘He’s never had a job then?’

‘I don’t know. He used to talk about being a photographer. That’s what he’d set his heart on when he left school. It was the only thing he wouldn’t pawn, even to pay for his habit.’

Rebus was lost. ‘What was?’

‘His camera. It cost him a small fortune, every penny saved out of his social security.’

Social security: now there was a phrase. But Rebus was sure there had been no camera in Ronnie’s bedroom. So add robbery to the list.

‘Tracy, I’ll need a statement.’

She was immediately suspicious. ‘What for?’

‘Just so I’ve got it on record, so we can do something about Ronnie’s death. Will you help me do that?’

It was a long time before she nodded. The boat had disappeared. There was nothing floating in the water, nothing left in its wake. Rebus put a hand on Tracy’s shoulder, but gently.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘The car’s this way.’

After she had made her statement, Rebus insisted on driving her home, dropping her several streets from her destination but knowing her address now.

‘Not that I can swear to be there for the next ten years,’ she had said. It didn’t matter. He had given her his work and home telephone numbers. He was sure she would keep in touch.