She pointed to the papers. `I'll leave these here, okay? If you've any questions…’
`Great, thanks.’
Rebus got to his feet.
`It's okay, I know my way out.’
But Rebus was insistent. `Sorry, I'm a bit…’
He waved his hands around his head.
`As I said, it gets to you after a while.’
As they walked back through the CID office, Rebus could feel eyes following them. Bill Pryde came up, preening, wanting to be introduced. He had curly fair hair and thick blond eyelashes, his nose large and freckled, mouth small and topped with a ginger moustache – a fashion accessory he could well afford to lose.
`A pleasure,' he said, taking Kirstin Mede's hand. Then, to Rebus: `Makes me wish we'd swopped.’
Pryde was working on the Mr Taystee case: an ice-cream man found dead in his van. Engine left running in a lock-up, looking initially like suicide.
Rebus steered Kirstin Mede past Pryde, kept them moving. He wanted to ask her out. He knew she wasn't married, but thought there might be a boyfriend in the frame. Rebus was thinking: what would she like to eat – French or Italian? She spoke both those languages. Maybe stick to something neutral: Indian or Chinese. Maybe she was vegetarian. Maybe she didn't like restaurants. A drink then? But Rebus didn't drink these days.
`… So what do you think?’
Rebus started. Kirstin Mede had asked him something.
`Sorry?’
She laughed, realising he hadn't been listening. He began to apologise, but she shook it off. `I know,' she said, `you're a bit…’
And she waved her hands around her head. He smiled. They'd stopped walking. They were facing one another. Her briefcase was tucked under one arm. It was the moment to ask her for a date, any kind of date – let her choose.
`What's that?’ she said suddenly. It was a shriek, Rebus had heard it, too. It had come from behind the door nearest them, the door to the women's toilets. They heard it again. This time it was followed by some words they understood.
`Help me, somebody!' Rebus pushed open the door and ran in. A WPC was pushing at a cubicle door, trying to force it with her shoulder. From behind the door, Rebus could hear choking noises.
`What is it?’ he said.
`Picked her up twenty minutes ago, she said she needed the loo.’
The policewoman's cheeks wore a flush of anger and embarrassment.
Rebus grabbed the top of the door and hauled himself up, peering over and down on to a figure seated on the pan. The woman there was young, heavily made-up. She sat with her back against the cistern, so that she was staring up at him, but glassily. And her hands were busy. They were busy pulling a streamer of toilet-paper from the roll, stuffing it into her mouth.
`She's gagging,' Rebus said, sliding back down. `Stand back'. He shouldered the door, tried again. Stood back and hit the lock with the heel of his shoe. The door flew open, catching the seated woman on the knees. He pushed his way in. Her face was turning purple.
`Grab her hands,' he told the WPC. Then he started pulling the stream of white paper from her mouth, feeling like nothing so much as a cheap stage-show magician. There seemed to be half a roll in there, and as Rebus caught the WPC's eye, both of them let out a near-involuntary laugh. The woman had stopped struggling. Her hair was mousy brown, lank and greasy. She wore a black skiing jacket and a tight black skirt. Her bare legs were mottled pink, bruising at one knee where the door had connected. Her bright red lipstick was coming off on Rebus's fingers. She had been crying, was crying still. Rebus, feeling guilty about the sudden laughter, crouched down so that he could look into her makeup-streaked eyes. She blinked, then held his gaze, coughing as the last of the paper was extracted.
`She's foreign,' the policewoman was explaining. `Doesn't seem to speak English.’
`So how come she told you she needed the toilet?’
`There are ways, aren't there?’
`Where did you find her?’
`Down the Pleasance, brazen as you like.’
`That's a new patch on me.’
`Me, too.’
`Nobody with her?’
`Not that I saw.’
Rebus took the woman's hands. He was still crouching in front of her, aware of her knees brushing his chest.
`Are you all right?’
She just blinked. He made his face show polite concern. `Okay now?’
She nodded slightly. `Okay,' she said, her voice husky. Rebus felt her fingers. They were cold. He was thinking: junkie? A lot of the working girls were. But he'd never come across one who couldn't speak English. Then he turned her hands, saw her wrists. Recent zigzag scar tissue. She didn't resist as he pushed up one sleeve of her jacket. The arm was a mass of similar inflictions.
`She's a cutter.’
The woman was talking now, babbling incoherently. Kirstin Mede, who had been standing back from proceedings, stepped forward. Rebus looked to her.
`It's not anything I understand… not quite. Eastern European.’
`Try her with something.’
So Mede asked a question in French, repeating it in three or four other languages. The woman seemed to understand what they were trying to do.
`There's probably someone at the uni who could help,' Mede said.
Rebus started to stand up. The woman grabbed him by the knees, pulled him to her so that he nearly lost his balance. Her grip was tight, her face resting against his legs. She was still crying and babbling.
`I think she likes you, sir,' the policewoman said. They wrested her hands free, and Rebus stepped back, but she was after him at once, throwing herself forwards, like she was begging, her voice rising. There was an audience now, half a dozen officers in the doorway. Every time Rebus moved, she came after him on all fours. Rebus looked to where his exit was blocked by bodies. The cheap magician had become straight man in a comedy routine. The WPC grabbed her, pulled her back on to her feet, one arm twisted behind her back.
`Come on,' she said through gritted teeth. `Back to the cell. Show's over, folks.’
There was scattered applause as the prisoner was marched away. She looked back once, seeking Rebus, her eyes pleading. For what, he did not know. He turned towards Kirstin Mede instead.
`Fancy a curry some time?’
She looked at him like he was mad.
`Two things: one, she's a Bosnian Muslim. Two, she wants to see you again.’
Rebus stared at the man from the Slavic Studies department, who'd come here at Kirstin Mede's request. They were talking in the corridor at St Leonard 's.
`Bosnian?’
Dr Colquhoun nodded. He was short and almost spherical, with long black hair which was swept back either side of a bald dome. His puffy face was pockmarked, his brown suit worn and stained. He wore suede Hush Puppies – same colour as the suit. This, Rebus couldn't help feeling, was how dons were supposed to look. Colquhoun was a mass of nervous twitches, and had yet to make eye contact with Rebus.
`I'm not an expert on Bosnia,' he went on, `but she says she's from Sarajevo.’
`Does she say how she ended up in Edinburgh?’
`I didn't ask.’
`Would you mind asking her now?’
Rebus gestured back along the corridor. The two men walked together, Colquhoun's eyes on the floor.
` Sarajevo was hit hard in the war,' he said. `She's twenty-two, by the way, she told me that.’
