Ian Rankin - Knots And Crosses

‘Hello, Gill.’

Rebus recognized the stocky man before them as the person he had spoken with at the drinks-table.

‘Long time no see.’

The man attempted to peck Gill Templer’s cheek, but succeeded only in falling past her and butting the wall.

‘Had a drop too much to drink, Jim?’ said Gill, coolly.

The man shrugged his shoulders. He was looking at Rebus.

‘We all have our crosses to bear, eh?’

A hand was extended towards Rebus.

‘Jim Stevens,’ said the man.

‘Oh, the reporter?’

Rebus accepted the man’s warm, moist hand for a moment.

‘This is Detective Sergeant John Rebus,’ said Gill.

Rebus noticed the quick flushing in Stevens’ face, the startled eyes of a hare. He recovered quickly though, expertly.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said. Then, motioning with his head, ‘Gill and I go back a long way, don’t we, Gill?’

‘Not as far as you seem to think, Jim.’

He laughed then, glancing towards Rebus.

‘She’s just shy,’ he said. ‘Another girl murdered, I hear.’

‘Jim has spies everywhere.’

Stevens tapped the side of his blood-red nose, grinning towards Rebus.

‘Everywhere,’ he said, ‘and I get everywhere, too.’

‘Yes, spreads himself a little thin, does our Jim,’ said Gill, her voice sharp as a blade’s edge, her eyes suddenly shrouded in glass and plastic, inviolable.

‘Another press briefing tomorrow, Gill?’ said Stevens, searching through his pockets for his cigarettes, lost long before.

‘Yes.’

The reporter’s hand found Rebus’s shoulder.

‘A long way, me and Gill.’

Then he was gone, his hand held back towards them as he retreated, waving without the necessity of acknowledgement, searching out his cigarettes, filing away John Rebus’s face.

Gill Templer sighed, leaning against the wall where Stevens’ failed kiss had landed.

‘One of the best reporters in Scotland,’ she said, matter-of-factly.

‘And your job is dealing with the likes of him?’

‘He’s not so bad.’

An argument seemed to be starting in the living-room.

‘Well,’ said Rebus, all smiles, ‘shall we phone for the police, or would you rather be taken to a little restaurant I know?’

‘Is that a chat-up line?’

‘Maybe. You tell me. After all, you’re the detective.’

‘Well, whatever it is, Detective Sergeant Rebus, you’re in luck. I’m starving. I’ll get my coat.’

Rebus, feeling pleased with himself, remembered that his own coat was lurking somewhere. He found it in one of the bedrooms, along with his gloves, and — a cracking surprise — his unopened bottle of wine. He pocketed this, seeing it as a divine sign that he would be needing it later.

Gill was in the other bedroom, rummaging through the pile of coats on the bed. Beneath the bedcovers, congress seemed to be taking place, and the whole mess of coats and bedclothes seethed and writhed like some gigantic amoeba. Gill, giggling through it all, found her coat at last and came towards Rebus, who smiled conspiratorially in the doorway.

‘Goodbye, Cathy,’ she shouted back into the room, ‘thanks for the party.’

There was a muffled roar, perhaps an acknowledgement, from beneath the bedclothes. Rebus, his eyes wide, felt his moral fibre crumbling like a dry cheese-biscuit.

In the taxi, they sat a little distance apart.

‘So, do you and this Stevens character go back a long way?’

‘Only in his memory.’ She stared past the driver at the sleek wet road beyond. ‘Jim’s memory can’t be what it was. Seriously, we went out together once, and I do mean once.’ She held up a finger. ‘A Friday night, I think it was. A big mistake, it certainly was.’

Rebus was satisfied with that. He began to feel hungry again.

By the time they reached the restaurant, however, it was closed — even to Rebus — so they stayed in the taxi and Rebus directed the driver towards his flat.

‘I’m a dab hand at bacon sandwiches,’ he said.

‘What a pity,’ she said. ‘I’m a vegetarian.’

‘Good God, you mean you eat no vegetables at all?’

‘Why is it,’ acid seeping into her voice, ‘that carnivores always have to make a joke out of it? It’s the same with men and women’s lib. Why is that?’

‘It’s because we’re afraid of them,’ said Rebus, quite sober now.

Gill looked at him, but he was watching from his window as the city’s late-night drunks rolled their way up and down the obstacle-strewn hazard of Lothian Road, seeking alcohol, women, happiness. It was a never-ending search for some of them, staggering in and out of clubs and pubs and take-aways, gnawing on the packaged bones of existence. Lothian Road was Edinburgh’s dustbin. It was also home to the Sheraton Hotel and the Usher Hall. Rebus had visited the Usher Hall once, sitting with Rhona and the other smug souls listening to Mozart’s Requiem Mass. It was typical of Edinburgh to have a crumb of culture sited amidst the fast-food shops. A requiem mass and a bag of chips.

‘So how is the old Press Liaison these days?’

They were seated in his rapidly tidied living-room. His pride and joy, a Nakamichi tape-deck, was tastefully broadcasting one of his collection of late-night-listening jazz tapes; Stan Getz or Coleman Hawkins.

He had rustled up a round of tuna fish and tomato sandwiches, Gill having admitted that she ate fish occasionally. The bottle of wine was open, and he had prepared a pot of freshly ground coffee (a treat usually reserved for Sunday breakfasts). He now sat across from his guest, watching her eat. He thought with a small start that this was his first female guest since Rhona had left him, but then recalled, very vaguely, a couple of other one-nighters.

‘Press Liaison is fine. It’s not really a complete waste of time, you know. It serves a useful purpose in this day and age.’

‘Oh, I’m not knocking it.’

She looked at him, trying to gauge how serious he was being.

‘Well,’ she went on, ‘it’s just that I know a lot of our colleagues who think that a job like mine is a complete waste of time and manpower. Believe me, in a case like this one it’s absolutely crucial that we keep the media on our side, and that we let them have the information that we want made public when it needs to be made public. It saves a lot of hassle.’

‘Hear, hear.’

‘Be serious, you rat.’

Rebus laughed.

‘I’m never anything other than serious. A one-hundred percent policeman’s policeman, that’s me.’

Gill Templer stared at him again. She had a real inspector’s eyes: they worked into your conscience, sniffing out guilt and guile and drive, seeking give.

‘And being a Liaison Officer,’ said Rebus, ‘means that you have to … liaise with the press quite closely, — right?’

‘I know what you’re getting at, Sergeant Rebus, and as your superior, I’m telling you to stop it.’

‘Ma’am!’ Rebus gave her a short salute.

He came back from the kitchen with another pot of coffee.

‘Wasn’t that a dreadful party?’ said Gill.

‘It was the finest party I have ever attended,’ said Rebus. ‘After all, without it, I might never have met you.’

She roared with laughter this time, her mouth filled with a paste of tuna and bread and tomato.

‘You’re a nutter,’ she cried, ‘you really are.’

Rebus raised his eyebrows, smiling. Had he lost his touch? He had not. It was miraculous.

Later, she needed to go to the bathroom. Rebus was changing a tape, and realising how limited his musical tastes were. Who were these groups that she kept referring to?

‘It’s in the hall,’ he said. ‘On the left.’