inclusion in this or that group. He tested the water each time before joining in, all of them nervous as children learning to swim. By months four and five, he had become a Londoner, commuting to the University every day from his digs in Battersea. Suddenly his life had come to be ruled by numbers, by the times of trains and buses and tube connections, the times, too, of late buses and tubes which would whisk him away from coffee-bar politics towards his noisy single room again. Missing a train connection began to be agony, suffering the rush-hour tube, a season spent in hell. Months six and seven he spent isolated in Battersea, studying from his room, hardly attending lectures at all. And in month eight, May, with the sun warming his back, he left London and returned north, back to old friends and a sudden emptiness in his life that had to be filled by work.
But why in the name of God had he chosen the police?
He screwed up the now empty polystyrene cup and
threw it towards a nearby bin. It missed. So what, he thought. Then caught himself, went to the cup, stooped, picked it up, and deposited it in the bin. You’re not in London now, Brian, he told himself. An elderly woman smiled at him.
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
A naughty world all right. Rebus had landed him in a soup of melted humanity. Pilmuir, Hiroshima of the soul; he couldn’t escape quickly enough. Fear of radiation. He had a little list with him, copied down neatly from last night’s scrawled telephone conversation, and he took this from his pocket now to examine it. The constables had been easy to locate. Rebus would have seen them by now. Then he had gone to the house in Pilmuir. In his inside pocket he had the photographs. Edinburgh Castle. Good shots, too. Unusual angles. And the girl. She looked quite pretty, he supposed. Hard to tell her age, and her face seemed tempered by hard living, but she was bonny enough in a rough and ready way. He had no idea how he would find out anything about her. All he had to go on was that name, Tracy. True, there were people he could ask. Edinburgh was his home turf, an enormous advantage in this particular line of work. He had contacts all right, old friends, friends of friends. He’d re-established contact after the London fiasco. They’d all told him not to go. They’d all been pleased to see him again so soon after their warnings, pleased because they could boast of their foresight. That had only been five years ago…. It seemed longer somehow.
Why had he joined the force? His first choice had been journalism. That went way back, back to his schooldays. Well, childhood dreams could come true, if only momentarily. His next stop would be the offices of the local daily. See if he could find some more unusual angles on the Castle. With any luck, he’d get a decent cup of tea, too.
He was about to walk on when he saw an estate agent’s
window across the street. He had always assumed that this particular agency would, because of its name, be expensive. But what the hell: he was a desperate man. He manoeuvred his way through the queue of unmoving traffic and stopped in front of the window of Bowyer Carew. After a minute, his shoulders slightly more hunched than before, he turned away again and stalked towards the Bridges.
‘And this is James Carew, of Bowyer Carew.’
James Carew lifted his well-upholstered bottom a millimetre off his well-upholstered chair, shook Rebus’s hand, then sat again. Throughout the introduction, his eyes had not left Rebus’s tie.
‘Finlay Andrews,’ continued Superintendent Watson, and Rebus shook another firm masonic hand. He didn’t need to know the secret pressure spots to be able to place a freemason. The grip itself told you everything, lasting as it did a little longer than normal, the extra time it took the shaker to work out whether you were of the brotherhood or not.
‘You might know Mr Andrews. He has a gaming establishment in Duke Terrace. What’s it called again?’ Watson was trying too hard: too hard to be the host, too hard to get along with these men, too hard for everyone’s comfort.
‘It’s just called Finlay’s,’ Finlay Andrews supplied, releasing his grip on Rebus.
‘Tommy McCall,’ said the final luncheon guest, making his own introduction, and giving Rebus’s hand a quick, cool shake. Rebus smiled, and sat down, joining them at the table, thankful to be sitting down at last.
‘Not Tony McCall’s brother?’ he asked conversationally.
‘That’s right.’ McCall smiled. ‘You know Tony then?’
‘Pretty well,’ said Rebus. Watson was looking bemused.
‘Inspector McCall,’ Rebus explained. Watson nodded vigorously.
‘So,’ said Carew, shifting in his seat, ‘what will you have to drink, Inspector Rebus?’
‘Not while on duty, sir,’ said Rebus, unfolding his prettily arranged napkin. He saw the look on Carew’s face and smiled. ‘Just a joke. I’ll have a gin and tonic, please.’
They all smiled. A policeman with a sense of humour: it usually surprised people. It would have surprised them even more had they known how seldom Rebus made jokes. But he felt the need to conform here, to ‘mix’, in that unhappy phrase.
There was a waiter at his shoulder.
‘Another gin and tonic, Ronald,’ Carew told the waiter, who bowed and moved off. Another waiter replaced him, and started handing out huge leather-bound menus. The thick cloth napkin was heavy on Rebus’s lap.
‘Where do you live, Inspector?’ The question was Carew’s. His smile seemed more than a smile, and Rebus was cautious.
‘Marchmont,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ Carew enthused, ‘that’s always been a very good area. Used to be a farming estate back in the old days, you know.’
‘Really?’
‘Mmm. Lovely neighbourhood.’
‘What James means,’ interrupted Tommy McCall, ‘is that the houses are worth a few bob.’
‘So they are,’ Carew answered indignantly. ‘Handy for the centre of town, close to The Meadows and the
