`Obviously.’
`And meantime he'll want to even the score.’
`Definitely.’
She caught Rebus's eyes. `I thought he was a bit out of order back there.’
Meaning Claverhouse, but not wanting to name names in front of a uniform.
Rebus nodded. `Thanks.’
Meaning: you did right not to say as much at the time. Claverhouse and Clarke were partners now. It wouldn't do for her to upset him.
A door slid open and a doctor appeared. She was young, and looked exhausted. Behind her in the room, Rebus could see a bed, a figure on the bed, staff milling around the various machines. Then the door slid closed.
`We're going to do a brain scan,' the doctor was telling Redpath. `Have you contacted her family?’
`I don't have a name.’
`Her effects are inside.’
The doctor slid open the door again and walked in. There was clothing folded on a chair, a bag beneath it. As the doctor pulled out the bag, Rebus saw something. A flat white cardboard box.
A white cardboard pizza box. Clothes: black denims, black bra, red satin shirt. A black duffel-coat.
`John?’
And black shoes with two-inch heels, square-toed, new-looking except for the scuff marks, like they'd been dragged along the road.
He was in the room now. They had a mask over her face, feeding her oxygen. Her forehead was cut and bruised, the hair pushed away from it. Her fingers were blistered, the palms scraped raw. The bed she lay on wasn't really a bed but a wide steel trolley.
`Excuse me, sir, you shouldn't be in here.’
`What's wrong?’
`It's this gentleman -' `John? John, what is it?’
Her earrings had been removed. Three tiny pin-pricks, one of them redder than its neighbours. The face above the sheet: puffy blackened eyes, a broken nose, abrasions on both cheeks. Split lip, a graze on the chin, eyelids which didn't even flutter. He saw a hit and run victim. And beneath it all, he saw his daughter.
And he screamed.
Clarke and Redpath had to drag him out, helped by Claverhouse who'd heard the noise.
`Leave the door open! I'll kill you if you close that door!' They tried to sit him down. Redpath rescued his book from the chair. Rebus tore it from him and threw it down the hall.
`How could you read a fucking book?’ he spat. `That's Sammy in there! And you're out here reading a book!' Clarke's cup of coffee had been kicked over, the floor slippy, Redpath going down as Rebus pushed at him.
`Can you jam that door open?’ Claverhouse was asking the doctor. `And what about a sedative?’
Rebus was clawing his hands through his hair, bawling dry-eyed, his voice hoarse and uncomprehending. Staring down at himself, he saw the ludicrous t-shirt and knew that's what he'd take away from this night: the image of an Iron Maiden t-shirt and its grinning bright-eyed demon. He hauled off his jacket and started tearing at the shirt.
She was behind that door, he thought, and I was out here chatting as casual as you like. She'd been in there all the time he'd been here. Two things clicked: a hit and run; the car speeding away from Flint Street.
He grabbed at Redpath. `Top of Minto Street. You're sure?’
`What?’
'Sammy… top of Minto Street?’
Redpath nodded. Clarke knew straight away what Rebus was thinking.
`I don't think so, John. They were headed the opposite way.’
`Could have doubled back.’
Claverhouse had caught some of the exchange. `I just got off the phone. The guys who did Danny Simpson, we picked up the car. White Escort abandoned in Argyle Place.’
Rebus looked at Redpath. `White Escort?’
Redpath was shaking his head. `Witnesses say dark-coloured.’
Rebus turned to the wall, stood there with his palms pressed to it. Staring at the paintwork, it was like he could see inside the paint.
Claverhouse put a hand on his shoulder. `John, I'm sure she's going to be fine. The doctor's gone to fetch you a couple of tablets, but meantime what about one of these?’
Claverhouse with Rebus's jacket folded in the crook of his arm, the quarter-bottle in his hand.
The little suicide bomb.
He took the bottle from Claverhouse. Unscrewed its top, his eyes on the open doorway. Lifted the bottle to his lips.
Drank.
Book Two
`In the Hanging Garden/No one sleeps'
A seaside holiday: caravan park, long walks and sandcastles. He sat in a deck-chair, trying to read. Cold mind blowing, despite the sun. Rhona rubbed suntan lotion on Sammy, said you couldn't be too careful. Told him to keep an eye open, she was going back to the caravan for her book. Sammy was burying her father's feet in the sand.
He was trying to read, but thinking about work. Every day of the holiday, he sneaked off to a phone-box and called the station. They kept telling him to go and enjoy himself, forget about everything. He was halfway through a spy thriller. The plot had already lost him.
Rhona was doing her best. She'd wanted somewhere foreign, a bit of glamour and heat to go with the sunshine. Finances, however, mere on his side. So here they mere on the Fife coast, where he'd first met her. Was he hoping for something? Some memory rekindled? He'd come here with his own parents, played with Mickey, met other kids, then lost them again at the end of the fortnight.
He tried the spy novel again, but case-work got in the may. And then a shadow fell over him.
`Where is she?’
`What?’ He looked down. His feet mere buried in sand, but Sammy wasn't there. How long had she been gone? He stood up, scanned the seashore. A few tentative bathers, going in no further than their knees.
`Christ, John, where is she?’
He turned round, looked at the sand dunes in the distance.
`The dunes…?’
They warned her. There mere hollows in the dunes where the sand was eroding. Small dens had been created – a magnet for kids. Only they were prone to collapse. Earlier in the season, a ten-year-old boy had been dug out by frantic parents. He hadn't quite choked on the sand…
They were running now. The dunes, the grass, no sign of her.
'Sammy!' `Maybe she went into the water.’
`You mere supposed to be keeping an eye on her!'
`I'm sorry. I…’
`Sammy!' A small shape in one of the dens. Hopping on its hands and knees. Rhona reached in, pulled her out, hugged her.
'Sweetie, we told you not to!'
`I was a rabbit. ' Rebus looked at the fragile roof sand meshed with the roots of plants and grasses. Punched it with a fist. The roof collapsed. Rhona was looking at him. End of holiday.
