Photographic Studios.’
‘That sounds reasonable,’ said Holmes.
‘So it bloody well should,’ said Rebus. ‘I’m the one with the brains, Brian. You’re the one with the shoeleather. Call me later on to let me know how you get on. Meantime, bugger off.’
Rebus didn’t mean to be unkind. But there had been something just too cosy and conspiratorial in the younger man’s tone towards the end, and he’d felt the need to reestablish boundaries. His own mistake, he realised as the door closed behind Holmes. His own mistake, for coming on so chattily, for telling all, for confiding, and for using Holmes’s first name. That bloody lunch had been to blame. Call me Finlay, call me James, call me Tommy. . . . Never mind, it would all work out. They had begun well,
then less well. Things could only get worse, which was fine by Rebus. He enjoyed a measure of antagonism, of competition. They were distinct bonuses in this line of work.
So Rebus was a bastard after all.
Brian Holmes stalked out of the station with hands in pockets tightened to fists. Knuckles red. You’re the one with the shoeleather. That had really brought him down with a thump, just when he’d thought they were getting on so well. Almost like human beings rather than coppers. Should’ve known better, Brian. And as for the reason behind all this work. . . . Well, it hardly bore thinking about. It was so flimsy, so personal to Rebus. It wasn’t police work at all. It was an inspector with nothing to do for a while, trying to fill the time by playing at being Philip Marlowe. Jesus, they both had better things they could be doing. Well, Holmes did anyway. He wasn’t about to head some cushy anti-drugs campaign. And what a choice Rebus was for that! Brother inside Peter-head, doing time for pushing. Biggest dealer in Fife, he’d been. That should have screwed up Rebus’s career forever and anon, but instead they’d given him promotion. A naughty world, all right.
He had to visit a photographer. Maybe he could get some passport shots done at the same time. Pack his bags and fly off to Canada, Australia, the States. Sod his flat hunting. Sod the police force. And sod Detective Inspector John Rebus and his witch hunt.
There, it was done.
Rebus found some aspirin in one of his chaotic drawers, and crunched them to a bitter powder as he made his way downstairs. Bad mistake. They removed every fleck of saliva from his mouth, and he couldn’t even swallow.
couldn’t speak. The desk sergeant was sipping a polystyrene beaker of tea. Rebus grabbed it from him and gulped at the tepid liquid. Then squirmed.
‘How much sugar did you put in that, Jack?’
‘If I’d known you were coming to tea, John, I’d have made it just the way you like it.’
The desk sergeant always had a smart answer, and Rebus could never think of a smarter rejoinder. He handed back the cup and walked away, feeling the sugar cloy inside him.
I’ll never touch another drop, he was thinking as he started his car. Honest to God, only the occasional glass of wine. Allow me that. But no more indulgence, and no more mixing wine and spirits. Okay? So give me a break, God, and lift this hangover. I only drank the one glass of cognac, maybe two glasses of claret, one of Chablis. One gin and tonic. It was hardly the stuff of legend, hardly a case for the detox ward.
The roads were quiet though, which was a break. Not enough of a break, but a break. So he made good time to Pilmuir, and then remembered that he didn’t know where Charlie boy lived. Charlie, the person he needed to talk to if he was going to find an address for a coven. A white coven. He wanted to double-check the witchcraft story. He wanted to double-check Charlie, too, come to that. But he didn’t want Charlie to know he was being checked.
The witchcraft thing niggled. Rebus believed in good and evil, and believed stupid people could be attracted towards the latter. He understood pagan religions well enough, had read about them in books too thick and intense for their own good. He didn’t mind people worshipping the Earth, or whatever. It all came down to the same thing in the end. What he did mind was people worshipping Evil as a force, and as more than a force: as an entity. Especially, he disliked the idea of people doing it
for ‘kicks’ without knowing or caring what it was they were involved in.
People like Charlie. He remembered that book of Giger prints again. Satan, poised at the centre of a pair of scales, flanked by a naked woman left and right. The women were being penetrated by huge drills. Satan was a goat’s head in a mask.. ..
But where would Charlie be now? He’d find out. Stop and ask. Knock on doors. Hint at retribution should information be withheld. He’d act the big bad policeman if that was what it took.
He didn’t need to do anything, as it happened. He just had to find the police constables who were loitering outside one of the boarded-up houses, not too far from where Ronnie had died. One of the constables held a radio to his mouth. The other was writing in a notebook. Rebus stopped his car, stepped out. Then remembered something, leaned back into the car and drew his keys from out of the ignition. You couldn’t be too careful around here. A second later, he actually locked his driver’s side door, too.
He knew one of the constables. It was Harry Todd, one of the men who had found Ronnie. Todd straightened when he saw Rebus, but Rebus waved this acknowledgment aside, so Todd continued with his radio conversation. Rebus concentrated on the other officer instead.
‘What’s the score here?’ The constable turned from his writing to give Rebus that suspicious, near-hostile look almost unique to the constabulary. ‘Inspector Rebus,’ Rebus explained. He was wondering where Todd’s Irish sidekick O’Rourke was.
‘Oh,’ said the constable. ‘Well . ..’ He started to put away his pen. ‘We were called to a domestic, sir. In this house. A real screaming match. But by the time we got here, the man had fled. The woman is still inside. She’s got herself a black eye, nothing more. Not really your territory, sir.’
‘Is that right?’ said Rebus. ‘Well, thank you for telling me, sonny. It’s nice to be told what is and isn’t my “territory”. Thank you so much. Now, may I have your permission to enter the premises?’
The constable was blushing furiously, his cheeks an almighty red against his bloodless face and neck. No: even his neck was blushing now. Rebus enjoyed that. He didn’t even mind that behind the constable, but in full view of Rebus himself, Todd was smirking at this encounter.
‘Well?’ Rebus prompted.
