Ian Rankin - Knots And Crosses

‘Got the stuff?’ he said.

‘Of course,’ said the man. He checked in his mirror. Some people, a family of all things, had just come over the rise. ‘We better wait for a minute.’

They paused, staring blankly at the scenery.

‘No hassles across in Fife?’ asked the man.

‘None.’

‘The word’s going round that your brother was over seeing you. Is that correct?’ The man’s eyes were hard; his whole being was hard. But the car he drove was a heap. Michael felt safe for the moment.

‘Yes, but it was nothing. It was just the anniversary of our dad’s death. That was all.’

‘He doesn’t know anything?’

‘Absolutely not. Do you think I’m thick or something?’

The man’s glance silenced Michael. It was a mystery to him how this one man could invoke such fear in him. He hated these meetings.

‘If anything happens,’ the man was saying, ‘if anything goes wrong, you’ll be in for it. I really mean that. Keep well clear of that bastard in future.’

‘It wasn’t my fault. He just dropped in on me. He didn’t even phone first. What could I do?’

His hands were gripping hard to the steering-wheel, cemented there. The man checked in his mirror again.

‘All clear,’ he said, reaching behind him. A small package slipped through Michael’s window. He took a look inside it, brought an envelope out of his pocket, and reached for the ignition.

‘Be seeing you around, Mister Rebus,’ said the man, opening the envelope.

‘Yes,’ said Michael, thinking: not if I can help it. This work was getting a bit too hairy for him. These people seemed to know everything about his movements. He knew, however, that the fear always evaporated, to be replaced by euphoria when he had rid himself of another load, pocketing a nice profit on the deal. It was that moment when fear turned to euphoria that kept him in the game. It was like the fastest piece of acceleration from traffic-lights that you could experience — ever.

Jim Stevens, watching from the hill’s Victorian folly, a ridiculous, never-completed copy of a Greek temple, saw Michael Rebus leave. That much was old news to him; he was more interested in the Edinburgh connection, a man he could not trace and did not know, a man who had lost him twice before and who could doubtless lose him again. Nobody seemed to know who this mysterious figure was, and nobody particularly wanted to know. He looked like trouble. Stevens, feeling suddenly impotent and old, could do nothing other than jot down the car registration number. He thought that perhaps McGregor Campbell could do something with it, but he was wary of being found out by Rebus. He felt trapped in the middle of something which was proving altogether a knottier problem than he had suspected.

Shivering, he tried to persuade himself that he liked it that way.

‘Come in, come in, whoever you are.’

Rebus’s coat, gloves, and bottle of wine were taken from him by complete strangers, and he was plunged into one of those packed, smoky, loud parties where it is easy to smile at people but near impossible to get to know anyone. He moved from the hall into the kitchen, and from there, through a connecting-door, into the living-room itself.

The chairs, table, settee had been pushed back to the walls, and the floor was filled with writhing, whooping couples, the men tieless, their shirts sticking to them.

The party, it appeared, had started earlier than he had anticipated.

He recognized a few faces around and beneath him, stepping over two inspectors as he waded into the room. He could see that the table at the far end had bottles and plastic cups heaped upon it, and it seemed as good a vantage point as any, and safer than some.

Getting to it was the problem however, and he was reminded of some of the assault courses of his Army days.

‘Hi there!’

Cathy Jackson, doing a passable imitation of a rag-doll, reeled into his path for a second before being swept off her feet by the large — the very large — man with whom she was pretending to dance.

‘Hello,’ managed Rebus, his face twisting into a grimace rather than a smile. He achieved the relative safety of the drinks-table and helped himself to a whisky and a chaser. That would do for starters. Then he watched as Cathy Jackson (for whom he had bathed, polished, scraped, adjusted, and sprayed) pushed her tongue into the cavernous mouth of her dancing-partner. Rebus thought that he was going to be sick. His partner for the evening had done a bunk before the evening had begun! That would teach him to be optimistic. So what did he do now? Leave quietly, or try to pull a few words of introduction out of his hat?

A stocky man, not at all a policeman, came from the kitchen, and, cigarette in mouth, approached the table with a couple of empty glasses in his hand.

‘Bloody hell,’ he said to nobody in particular, rummaging amongst the bottles, ‘this is all a bit fucking grim, isn’t it? Excuse my language.’

‘Yes, it is a bit.’

Rebus thought to himself, well, there it is, I’ve done it now, I’ve spoken to someone. The ice is broken, so I may as well leave while the going’s good.

But he did not leave. He watched as the man weaved his way quite expertly back through the dancers, the drinks as safe as tiny animals in his hands. He watched as another record pounded out of the invisible stereo system, the dancers recommenced their war-dance, and a woman, looking every inch as uncomfortable as he did, squeezed her way into the room and was pointed in the direction of Rebus’s table.

She was about his own age, a little ragged around the edges. She wore a reasonably fashionable dress, he supposed (who was he to talk about fashion? his suit looked downright funereal in the present company), and her hair had been styled recently, perhaps as recently as this afternoon. She wore a secretary’s glasses, but she was no secretary. Rebus could see that much by looking at her, by examining the way she handled herself as she picked her way towards him.

He held a Bloody Mary, newly-prepared, towards her.

‘Is this okay for you?’ he shouted. ‘Have I guessed right or wrong?’

She gulped the drink thankfully, pausing for breath as he refilled the tumbler.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I don’t normally drink, but that was much appreciated.’

Great, Rebus thought to himself, the smile never leaving his eyes, Cathy Jackson’s out of her head (and her morals) on alcohol, and I’m landed with a TT. Oh, but that thought was unworthy of him, and did no justice to his companion. He breathed a quick prayer of contrition.

‘Would you like to dance?’ he asked, for his sins.

‘You’re kidding!’

‘I’m not. What’s wrong?’

Rebus, guilty of a streak of chauvinism, could not believe it. She was a DI. Moreover, she was Press Liaison Officer on the murder case.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘it’s just that I’m working that case, too.’

‘Listen, John, if it keeps on like this, every policeman and policewoman in Scotland is going to be on the case. Believe me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There’s been another abduction. The girl’s mother reported her missing this evening.’

‘Shit. Excuse my language.’

They had danced, drunk, separated, met again, and were now old friends for the evening, it seemed. They stood in the hallway, a little way from the noise and chaos of the dance-floor. A queue for the flat’s only toilet was becoming unruly at the end of the corridor.

Rebus found himself staring past Gill Templer’s glasses, past all that glass and plastic, to the emerald-green eyes beyond. He wanted to tell her that he had never seen eyes as lovely as hers, but was afraid of being accused of cliche. She was sticking to orange juice now, but he had loosened himself up with a few more whiskies, not expecting anything special from the evening.