by Ian Rankin
‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘I needed it as much as you did,’ said Rebus. ‘Come on, let’s get you home.’
Friday
The inhabitants were all doing well, it seemed, and all emulously hoping to do better still, and laying out the surplus of their grains in coquetry.
Someone was knocking on his door. An authoritarian knock, using the old brass knocker that he never cleaned. Rebus opened his eyes. The sun was streaming into his living room, a record’s run-out track crackling. Another night spent in the chair, fully clothed. He’d be as well selling the mattress in the bedroom. Would anyone buy a mattress without a bed-frame?
Knockity knock knock again. Still patient. Still waiting for him to answer. His eyes were gummy, and he pushed his shirt back into his trousers as he walked from the living room to the door. He felt not too bad, considering. Not stiff, no tightness in the neck. A wash and a shave, and he might even feel human.
He opened the door, just as Holmes was about to knock again.
‘Brian.’ Rebus sounded genuinely pleased.
‘Morning. Mind if I come in?’
‘Not at all. Is Nell okay?’
‘I phoned this morning. They say she had a good night.’
They were walking in the direction of the kitchen, Rebus leading. Holmes had imagined the flat would smell of beer and cigarettes, a typical bachelor pad. In fact, it was tidier than he’d expected, furnished with a modicum of taste. There were a lot of books. Rebus had never struck him as a reader. Mind you, not all the books looked as though they’d been read: bought with a rainy, dead weekend in mind. The weekend that never came.
Rebus pointed vaguely in the direction of kettle and cupboards.
‘Make us some coffee, will you? I’ll just take a quick shower.’
‘Right.’ Holmes thought that his news could probably wait. At least until Rebus was fully awake. He sought in vain for instant coffee, but found, in one cupboard, a vacuum pack of ground coffee, several months past its sell-by date. He opened it and spooned some into the teapot while the kettle was boiling. Sounds of running water came from the bathroom, and above these the tinny sound of a transistor radio. Voices. Some talk show, Holmes supposed.
While Rebus was in the bathroom, he took the opportunity to wander through the flat. The living room was huge, with a high corniced ceiling. Holmes felt a pang of jealousy. He’d never be able to buy a place like this. He was looking around Easter Road and Gorgie, near the football grounds of Hibs and Hearts respectively. He could afford a flat in both these parts of the city, a decent-sized flat, too, three bedrooms. But the rooms were small, the areas mean. He was no snob. Hell, yes he was. He wanted to live in the New Town, in Dean Village, here in Marchmont, where students philosophised in pretty coffee shops.
He wasn’t overcareful with the stylus when he lifted the arm off the record. The record itself was by some jazz combo. It looked old, and he sought in vain for its sleeve. The noises from the bathroom had stopped. He walked stealthily back to the kitchen and found a tea strainer in the cutlery drawer. So he was able to keep the grounds out of the coffee he now poured into two mugs. Rebus came in, wrapped in a bath-towel, rubbing at his head with another, smaller towel. He needed to lose weight, or to exercise what weight he had. His chest was beginning to hang, pale like a carcass.
He picked up a mug and sipped.
‘Mmm. The real McCoy.’
‘I found it in the cupboard. No milk though.’
‘Never mind. This is fine. You say you found it in the cupboard? We might make a detective of you yet. I’ll just put on some togs.’ And he was off again, for only two minutes this time. The clothes he came back wearing were clean, but unironed. Holmes noticed that though there was plumbing in the kitchen for a washing machine, there was no machine. Rebus seemed to read his mind.
‘My wife took it when she moved out. Took a lot of stuff. That’s why the place looks so bare.’
‘It doesn’t look bare. It looks planned.’
Rebus smiled. ‘Let’s go into the living room.’
Rebus motioned for Holmes to sit, then sat down himself. The chair was still warm from his night’s sleep. ‘I see you’ve already been in here.’
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 V12 was 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 stra
ight 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.…
Who was he kidding? AIDS had squeezed homosexuality back into the darker corners of society, and by keeping the truth a secret Carew had laid himself open to feelings of shame, and, therefore, to blackmail of all kinds.
Yes, blackmail. Suicides were occasionally victims of blackmail who could see no way out of their dilemma. Just maybe there would be some evidence, a letter or a note or something. Anything. Just so Rebus could prove to himself he wasn’t completely paranoid.
Then he found it.
In a drawer. A locked drawer, to be sure, but the keys were in Carew’s trousers. He had died in his pyjamas, and his other clothes had not been taken away with the corpse. Rebus got the keys from the bedroom and headed back to the desk in the living room. A gorgeous writing desk, antique for sure: its surface was barely large enough to accommodate a sheet of A4 paper and an elbow. What had been once a useful piece of furniture now found itself an ornament in a rich man’s apartment. Rebus opened the drawer carefully and drew out a leather-bound desk diary. A page a day, the pages large. Not a diary for appointments, not locked away in darkness like that. A personal diary then. Eagerly, Rebus flipped it open. His disappointment was immediate. The pages were blank for the most part. A line or two of pencil per page was as much as there was.
Rebus cursed.
All right, John. It’s better than nothing. He rested at one of the pages with some writing on it. The pencil marking was faint, neatly written. ‘Jerry. 4pm’. A simple appointment. Rebus flipped to the day on which they had all met for lunch at The Eyrie. The page was blank. Good. That meant the appointments weren’t of the business lunch variety. There weren’t many of them. Rebus felt sure that Carew’s diary at his office would be crammed. This was a much more private affair.
‘Lindsay, 6.30.’
‘Marks, 11am.’ An early start that day, and what about that name: two individuals, each named Mark? Or one individual whose surname was Marks? Maybe even the department store …? The other names – Jerry, Lindsay – were androgynous, anonymous. He needed a telephone number, a location.
He turned another page. And had to look twice at what was written there. His finger ran along the letters.
‘Hyde, 10pm.’
Hyde. What had Ronnie said to Tracy the night he’d died? Hide, he’s after me? Yes, and James had given him the name, too: not hide but H-y-d-e.
Hyde!
Rebus whooped. Here was a connection, no matter how tenuous. A connection between Ronnie and James Carew. Something more than a fleeting business transaction on Calton Hill. A name. He hurried through the other pages. There were three more mentions of Hyde, always in the late evening (when Calton Hill was starting its trade), always on a Friday. Sometimes the second Friday of the month, sometimes the third. Four mentions in the course of six months.
‘Anything?’ It was McCall, leaning over Rebus’s shoulder for a peek.
‘Yes,’ Rebus said. Then he changed his mind. ‘No, not really, Tony. Just an old diary, but the bugger wasn’t much of a writer.’
McCall nodded and moved away. He was more interested in the hi-fi system.
‘The old guy had taste,’ McCall said, scrutinising it. ‘Linn turntable. Know how much one of those costs, John? Hundreds. They’re not showy. They’re just bloody good at what they do.’
‘A bit like us then,’ said Rebus. He was thinking of pushing the diary into his trousers. It wasn’t allowed, he knew. And what good would it do him? But with Tony McCall’s back turned so conveniently…. No, no, he couldn’t. He threw it noisily back into its drawer, shut the drawer again and locked it. He handed the key to McCall, who was still squatting in front of the hi-fi.
‘Thanks, John. Nice piece of equipment this, you know
.’
‘I didn’t know you were interested in all that stuff.’
‘Since I was a kid. Had to get rid of my system when we got married. Too noisy.’ He straightened. ‘Are we going to find any answers here, do you think?’
Rebus shook his head. ‘I think he kept all his secrets in his head. He was a very private man, after all. No, I think he’s taken the answers with him to the grave.’
‘Oh, well. Makes it nice and clear-cut then, doesn’t it?’
‘Clear as crystal, Tony,’ said Rebus.
What was it the old man, Vanderhyde, had said? Something about muddying the water. Rebus had the gnawing feeling that the solution to these many conundrums was a simple one, as crystal clear as one could wish. The problem was that extraneous stories were being woven into the whole. Do I mix my metaphors? Very well then, I mix my metaphors. All that counted was getting to the bottom of the pool, muddied or no, and bringing up that tiny cache of treasure called the truth.
He knew, too, that the problem was one of classification. He had to break the interlinked stories into separate threads, and work from those. At the moment, he was guilty of trying to weave them all into a pattern, a pattern that might not be there. By separating them all, maybe he’d be in with a chance of solving each.
Ronnie committed suicide. So did Carew. That gave them a second thing in common to add to the name of Hyde. Some client of Carew’s perhaps? Buying a substantial piece of property with money made through the dealing of hard drugs? That would be a link, for sure. Hyde. The name couldn’t be real. How many Hydes were there in the Edinburgh directory? It could always be an assumed name. Male prostitutes seldom used their own names, after all. Hyde. Jekyll and Hyde. Another coincidence: Rebus had been reading Stevenson’s book the night Tracy had visited. Maybe he should be looking for someone called Jekyll? Jekyll, the respectable doctor, admired by society; Hyde, his alter ego, small and brutish, a creature of the night. He remembered the shadowy forms he’d encountered by Calton Hill.… Could the answer be so obvious?
He parked in the only vacant bay left outside Great London Road station and climbed the familiar steps. They seemed to grow larger with the passing years, and he could swear there were more of them now than there had been when he’d first come to this place, all of – what was it? – six years ago? That wasn’t so long in the span of a man’s life, was it? So why did it feel so bloody Sisyphean?
