‘That’s right. Anyway, yes, I visited a few times. We stayed up here mostly. He didn’t want the others to see me. He was afraid they’d smell pork.’
It was Rebus’s turn to smile. ‘You didn’t happen to follow Tracy, did you?’
‘Who’s Tracy?’
‘Ronnie’s girlfriend. She turned up at my flat last night. Some men had been following her.’
Neil shook his head. ‘Wasn’t me.’
‘But you were at my flat last night?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you were here the night Ronnie died.’ It was blunt, but necessarily so. Neil stopped playing with the door handle, was silent this time for twenty or thirty seconds, then took a deep breath.
‘For a while I was, yes.’
‘You left this behind.’ Rebus held out the shiny clip, but Neil couldn’t quite make it out in the torchlight. Not that he needed to see it to know what it was.
‘My tie clip? I wondered about that. My tie had broken that day, it was in my pocket.’
Rebus made no attempt to hand over the clip. Instead, he put it back in his pocket. Neil just nodded, understanding.
‘Why did you start following me?’
‘I wanted to talk to you. I just couldn’t pluck up the courage.’
‘You didn’t want news of Ronnie’s death getting back to your parents?’
‘Yes. I thought maybe you wouldn’t be able to trace his identity, but you did. I don’t know what it’ll do to my mum and dad. I think at worst it’ll make them happy, because they’ll know they were right all along, right not to give him a second’s thought.’
‘And at best?’
‘Best?’ Neil stared through the gloom, searching out Rebus’s eyes. ‘There’s no best.’
‘I suppose not,’ said Rebus. ‘But they’ve still got to be told.’
‘I know. I’ve always known.’
‘Then why follow me?’
‘Because now you’re closer to Ronnie than I am. I don’t know why you’re so interested in him, but you are. And that interests me. I want you to find whoever sold him that poison.’
‘I intend to, son, don’t worry.’
‘And I want to help.’
‘That’s the first stupid thing you’ve said, which isn’t bad going for a PC. Truth is, Neil, you’d be the biggest bloody nuisance I could ask for. I’ve got all the help I need for now.’
‘Too many cooks, eh?’
‘Something like that.’ Rebus decided that the confession was ending, that there was little left to be said. He came away from the window and walked to the door, stopping in front of Neil. ‘You’ve already been a bigger nuisance than I needed. It’s not pork I can smell off you, it’s fish. Herrings, to be precise. And guess what colour they are.’
‘What?’
‘Red, son, red.’
There was a noise from downstairs, pressure on floorboards, better than an infra-red alarm anyday. Rebus turned off the torch.
‘Stay here,’ he whispered. Then he went to the top of the stairs. ‘Who’s there?’ A shadow appeared below him. He switched on the torch, and shone it into Tony McCall’s squinting face.
‘Christ, Tony.’ Rebus started downstairs. ‘What a fright.’
‘I knew I’d find you here,’ said McCall. ‘I just knew it.’ His voice was nasal, and Rebus reckoned that since the
time they’d parted some three hours before. McCall had kept on drinking. He stopped on the staircase, then turned and headed back up.
‘Where are you going now?’ called McCall.
‘Just shutting the door,’ said Rebus, closing the bedroom door, leaving Neil inside. ‘Don’t want the ghosts to catch cold, do we?’
McCall was chuckling as Rebus headed downstairs again.
‘Thought we might have a wee snifter,’ he said. ‘And none of that bloody alcohol-free stuff you were quaffing before.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Rebus, expertly manoeuvring McCall out of the front door. ‘Let’s do that.’ And he locked the door behind him, figuring that Ronnie’s brother would know of the many easy ways in and out of the house. Everybody else seemed to know them, after all.
Everybody.
