‘Oh?’
Rebus had begun to walk along the pavement, and McCall, still rattled by his sudden appearance, followed.
‘Yes,’ Rebus was saying. ‘I wanted to ask if you know someone, a friend of the deceased’s. The name is Charlie.’
‘That’s all? Charlie?’ Rebus shrugged. ‘What does he look like?’
Rebus shrugged again. ‘I’ve no idea, Tony. It was Ronnie’s girlfriend Tracy who told me about him.’
‘Ronnie? Tracy?’ McCall’s eyebrows met. ‘Who the hell are they?’
‘Ronnie is the deceased. That junkie we found on the estate.’
Everything was suddenly clear in McCall’s mind. He nodded slowly. ‘You work quickly,’ he said.
‘The quicker the better. Ronnie’s girlfriend told me an interesting story.’
‘Oh?’
‘She said Ronnie was murdered.’ Rebus kept on walking, but McCall had stopped.
‘Wait a minute!’ He caught Rebus up. ‘Murdered? Come on, John, you saw the guy.’
‘True. With a needle’s worth of rat poison scuppering his veins.’
McCall whistled softly. ‘Jesus.’
‘Quite,’ said Rebus. ‘And now I need to talk to Charlie. He’s young, could be a bit scared, and interested in the occult.’
McCall sorted through a few mental files. ‘I suppose there are one or two places we could try looking,’ he said at last. ‘But it’d be a slog. The concept of neighbourhood policing hasn’t quite stretched this far yet.’
‘You’re saying we won’t be made very welcome?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Well, just give me the addresses and point me in the right direction. It’s your day off after all.’
McCall looked slighted. ‘You’re forgetting, John. This is my patch. By rights, this should be my case, if there is a case.’
‘It would’ve been your case if you hadn’t had that hangover.’ They smiled at this, but Rebus was wondering whether, in Tony McCall’s hands, there would have been anything to investigate. Wouldn’t Tony just have let it slip? Should he, Rebus, let it slip, too?
‘Anyway,’ McCall was saying on cue, ’surely you must have better things to do?’
Rebus shook his head. ‘Nothing. All my work’s been farmed out, with the emphasis on “farmed”.’
‘You mean Superintendent Watson?’
‘He wants me working on his anti-drugs campaign. Me. for Christ’s sake.’
‘That could be a bit embarrassing.’
‘I know. But the idiot thinks I’ve got “personal experience”.’
‘He’s got a point, I suppose.’ Rebus was about to argue, but McCall got in first. ‘So you’ve nothing to do?’
‘Not until summoned by Fanner Watson, no.’
‘You jammy bugger. Well, that does change things a bit, but not enough, I’m sorry to say. You’re my guest here, and you’re going to have to put up with me. Until I get bored, that is.’
Rebus smiled. ‘I appreciate it, Tony.’ He looked around them. ‘So, where to first?’
McCall inclined his head back the way they had just come. They turned around and walked.
‘So tell me,’ said Rebus, ‘what’s so awful at home that you’d think of coming here on your day off?’
McCall laughed. ‘Is it so obvious then?’
‘Only to someone who’s been there himself.’
‘Ach, I don’t know, John. I seem to have everything I’ve never wanted.’
‘And it’s still not enough.’ It was a simple statement of belief.
‘I mean, Sheila’s a wonderful mother and all that, and the kids never get into trouble, but….’
‘The grass is always greener,’ said Rebus, thinking of his own failed marriage, of the way his flat was cold when he came home, the way the door would close with a hollow sound behind him.
‘Now Tommy, my brother, I used to think he had it made. Plenty of money, house with a Jacuzzi, automatic- opening garage. . . .’ McCall saw that Rebus was smiling, and smiled himself.
‘Electric blinds,’ Rebus continued, ‘personalised number plate, car phone. ..’
‘Time share in Malaga,’ said McCall, close to laughter, ‘marble-topped kitchen units.’
It was too ridiculous. They laughed out loud as they walked, adding to the catalogue. But then Rebus saw where they were, and stopped laughing, stopped walking.
This was where he’d been heading all along. He touched the torch in his jacket pocket.
