Ian Rankin - A Cool Head

I was going to miss Celine.

‘I’ve only just learned to say your name the right way,’ I told her.

She was emptying the red bag into a suitcase. It was one of those posh ones with wheels and a handle. When she came back from the shops with it, she brought me a present: one of Celine Dion’s CDs.

‘That who you’re named after?’ I asked.

‘Suppose so,’ she said, busy with the suitcase again. She was going to go on a train. It was a special train that left Edinburgh last thing at night and arrived in London next morning. She’d explained that you got a bed and you could sleep all the way there.

‘Sounds nice, Celine. Why can’t I come?’

But she shook her head. ‘Safer for you if you stay here.’

‘You said they’d be watching the stations.’

‘That’s a chance I’ve got to take.’

‘There’s always the car.’

‘It’s Don Empson’s car, Gravy. Do you think they won’t be looking for it?’

Then she folded some of the money and stuck it in my trouser pocket. ‘You’ve been a good friend, Gravy,’ she said, and that made me blush. She’d paid for another night at the hotel, both rooms. It meant she wouldn’t be noticed as missing. She wanted me to stay the night, and in the morning I could do anything I wanted.

‘Breakfast’s included,’ she told me.

‘And after that I can go home?’ I watched her nod. ‘You think I should leave the car here?’

‘Up to you.’ She looked up at me. ‘Time you started taking some decisions, Gravy.’

‘I will,’ I said. The TV in her room had a clock on it. ‘Your train’s not for hours.’

‘I know.’

‘But you’re leaving just now?’

She nodded. ‘I’m fed up hanging around.’

‘We could go to a film,’ I blurted out. She gave me a look and a smile.

‘I’ve got a taxi coming.’

‘I could run you to the station.’

But she shook her head again. ‘Better this way,’ she said.

‘Why? Why is it better?’

‘It just is.’ She was beginning to sound irritated. I know that happens with people. It happens with the people in my house. I ask one question too many and they sound like that. How does the moon shine? What happens when we die?

‘Celine,’ I said, but she was zipping the case shut.

‘Got to go,’ she told me. She slipped into her jacket. It was brand new. Everything about her looked new. She tucked her hair into a beret. ‘I’m trying for the foreign tourist look,’ she explained.

‘I’ve never been to London.’

‘I’ll send you my address.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’ And then she kissed me on the cheek, and I went redder than ever. I could see myself in the mirror. My face was on fire. Not exactly a cool head, Gravy. The door clicked after her. The room was silent, but I could still smell her perfume. It took me a minute to realise that she didn’t have my address! I opened the door, but she wasn’t in the corridor. Well, I’d told her about the graveyard, a letter would always find me there. I lay on her bed for a while, staring at myself in the TV screen. She had taken all the stuff from the minibar and her bathroom. Supplies for the journey, she’d said. There was a price list for the minibar. It was on the bedside table. Would I have to pay for it in the morning? Maybe that was why she’d given me the money.

I took the notes out of my pocket and tried counting them. Fifteen, or nearly fifteen. Times twenty. That was a lot. The red bag was on the carpet, empty now. In my own room I had the blue carrier bag. It was on the top shelf in the wardrobe. I could put the Celine Dion CD in there. So that was what I did. Then I made myself a cup of tea, using the last of the tea bags and milk. I lay on my own bed, one foot crossed over the other, three big pillows behind my head. There wasn’t much on the TV. On one of the channels, they all spoke a language I didn’t know. But I recognised the show. I was sure I’d seen it in English.

The minutes crept by. Maybe she would come back. Maybe she would miss me, or miss her train. Maybe she’d forgotten something. I looked again in her room, but didn’t find anything. I knew where her cousin lived, and that was a start. She would phone her cousin. Blood was blood, my mum used to say. She would phone her cousin and I’d be there visiting and the cousin would hand the phone over to me. And that would be us, friends again.

The phone in her room rang and I ran through to pick it up. Who else could it be but her?

‘Hello?’

But then the phone went dead. I listened for a while longer, but it stayed dead. Well, at least she’d tried calling. I stared out of the window at the evening. The castle was lit up. There were people on the street. They looked like they were having fun. Life was all about fun, wasn’t it? That was when I realised I was bored.

‘Never mind the breakfast,’ I said to myself. On the other hand, what if she did come back and I wasn’t there? See, I was thinking about heading home. But I’d promised I would stay, just one last night. Yes, but I was bored and I needed some fresh air. I could go for a drive and still come back. Or a walk. I could walk, same as the people outside were doing. Celine had teased me that there were bars on the street where naked girls danced, but I wouldn’t go there. I looked around her room and then mine, and decided to take my blue carrier bag. What else did I have?

Oh, my room key. I couldn’t forget that.

When I went into the corridor, there was a man standing there. He was standing outside Celine’s door. He looked at me.

‘Hello,’ I said. He just nodded. ‘Do you work here?’

‘That’s right, sir,’ he said with a smile.

‘She’s not in.’

He stared at me. ‘And how do you know that, sir?’

‘Connecting rooms,’ I explained.

‘And your name is?’

‘Everyone calls me Gravy. That’s because I work at the graveyard.’

‘And you’re here with…?’

‘Celine. She’s named after Celine Dion.’

The man nodded. He was coming towards me. He stopped just short. ‘Well, Don was telling the truth for once. Do you know when she’s coming back? I’ve got a message for her.’

‘I can take it, if you like,’ I offered.

‘It’s really for her, sir.’

I looked him up and down. He didn’t look like he worked for the hotel. Everyone wore a kind of uniform and a name badge. And he’d used the name Don. I’d heard that name just recently.

He had leaned forward, so his face was right next to mine. ‘Where’s my money?’ he hissed.

I stared at him. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I think you do, Gravy. The red bag.’

‘It’s empty.’

‘So she’s got the cash?’

‘The money belongs to Benjy, and Benjy wanted her to have it. She’s nice.’

He glared at me. ‘I’m going to ask you one last time… Where’s Benjy? Where’s the car? And where’s that tart gone with my money?’

I managed not to blink. Everything was blurry at the edges, but then it wasn’t. It was really sharp instead. ‘The car park,’ I said.

‘Take me.’ He gave me a little shove in the direction of the lifts. Well, what else could I do? He wanted me to, so I took him.

‘The Mansion Park Hotel,’ Jane said into her phone. She was parked outside. The taxi was about twenty yards away, the driver chatting away on his own phone, paying no mind to anything else.

‘In Edinburgh?’ Bob’s voice asked.

‘That’s the one.’

‘His idea of hiding out?’

‘Who knows.’ Jane shifted in the driver’s seat. As soon as she’d got word that George Renshaw was on the move, she’d set off after him. And as soon as she had caught up with the car tailing him, she’d radioed to tell the other car it could pull back. A two-car tail was perfect, meant you could keep swapping, meaning less chance of the car you were following spotting you. The two CID men were parked around the other side of the hotel, just in case.