Hide And Seek

was bright, and some students were lying in George Square Gardens, sharing bottles of wine, their text books forgotten.

Rebus felt uncomfortable. Institutes of higher education, from the simplest college up to the present confines of the University of Edinburgh, made him feel stupid. He felt that his every movement, every utterance, was being judged and interpreted, marking him down as a clever man who could have been cleverer, given the breaks.

‘When I returned to the house,’ he said, ‘someone had drawn some symbols between the two circles. Signs of the zodiac, that sort of thing.’

Rebus watched as the psychologist went over to the bookshelves and began to browse. It had been easy to find this man. Making use of him might be more difficult.

‘Probably the usual arcana,’ Dr Poole was saying, finding the page he wanted and bringing it back to the desk to show Rebus. ‘This sort of thing?’

‘Yes, that’s it.’ Rebus studied the illustration. The pentagram was not identical to the one he had seen, but the differences were slight. ‘Tell me, are many people interested in the occult?’

‘You mean in Edinburgh?’ Poole sat down again, pushing his glasses back up his nose. ‘Oh yes. Plenty. Look at how well films about the devil do at the box office.’

Rebus smiled. ‘Yes, I used to like horror films myself. But I mean an active interest.’

The lecturer smiled. ‘I know you do. I was being facetious. So many people think that’s what the occult is about — bringing Old Nick back to life. There’s much more to it, believe me, Inspector. Or much less to it, depending on your point of view.’

Rebus tried to work out what this meant. ‘You know occultists?’ he said meantime.

‘I know of occultists, practising covens of white and black witches.’

‘Here? In Edinburgh?’

Poole smiled again. ‘Oh yes. Right here. There are six working covens in and around Edinburgh.’ He paused, and Rebus could almost see him doing a recount. ‘Seven, perhaps. Fortunately, most of these practise white magic.’

‘That’s using the occult as a supposed force for good, right?’

‘Quite correct.’

‘And black magic …?’

The lecturer sighed. He suddenly became interested in the scene from his window. A summer’s day. Rebus was remembering something. A long time ago, he’d bought a book of paintings by H.R. Giger, paintings of Satan flanked by vestal whores…. He couldn’t say why he’d done it, but it must still be somewhere in the flat. He remembered hiding it from Rhona….

‘There is one coven in Edinburgh,’ Poole was saying. ‘A black coven.’

‘Tell me, do they … do they make sacrifices?’

Dr Poole shrugged. ‘We all make sacrifices.’ But, seeing that Rebus was not laughing at his little joke, he straightened in his chair, his face becoming more serious. ‘Probably they do, some token. A rat, a mouse, a chicken. It may not even go that far. They could use something symbolic, I really don’t know.’

Rebus tapped one of the photographs which were spread across the desk. ‘In the house where we found this pentagram, we also found a body. A dead body, in case you were wondering.’ He brought these photographs out now. Dr Poole frowned as he glanced at them. ‘Dead from a heroin overdose. Laid out with legs together, arms apart. The body was lying between two candles, which had burned down to nothing. Mean anything to you?’

Poole looked horror-struck. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But you think that Satanists….’

‘I don’t think anything, sir. I’m just trying to piece things together, going through all the possibilities.’

Poole thought for a moment. ‘One of our students might be of more use to you than I can. I’d no idea we were talking about a death….’

‘A student?’

‘Yes. I only know him vaguely. He seems very interested in the occult, wrote rather a long and knowledgeable essay this term. Wants to do some project on demonism. He’s a second-year student. They have to do a project over the summer. Yes, maybe he can give you more help than I’m able to.’

‘And his name is …?’

‘Well, his surname escapes me for the moment. He usually just calls himself by his first name. Charles.’

‘Charles?’

‘Or maybe Charlie. Yes, Charlie, that’s it.’

Ronnie’s friend’s name. The hair on Rebus’s neck began to prickle.

‘That’s right, Charlie,’ Poole confirmed to himself, nodding. ‘Bit of an eccentric. You can probably find him in one of the student union buildings. I believe he’s addicted to these video machines….’

No, not video machines. Pinball machines. The ones with all the extras, all the little tricks and treats that made a game a game. Charlie loved them with a vengeance. It was the kind of love which was all the more fervent for having come to him late in life. He was nineteen after all, life was streaming past, and he wanted to hang on to any piece of driftwood he could. Pinball had played no part in his adolescence. That had belonged to books and music. Besides, there had been no pinball machines at his boarding school.

Now, released into university, he wanted to live. And to play pinball. And do all the other things he had missed out on during the years of prep, sensitive essay-writing, and introspection. Charlie wanted to run faster than anyone had ever run, to live not one life, but two or three or four. As the silver ball made contact with the left flipper, he threw it back up the table with real ferocity. There was a pause while the ball sat in one of the bonus craters, collecting another thousand points. He picked up his lager, took a gulp of it, and then returned his fingers to the buttons. In another ten minutes, he’d have the day’s high score.

‘Charlie?’

He turned at the sound of his name. A bad mistake, a naive mistake. He turned back to the game again, but too late. The man was striding towards him. The serious man. The unsmiling man.

‘I’d like a word, Charlie.’

‘Okay, how about carbohydrate. That was always one of my favourites.’

John Rebus’s smile lasted less than a second.

‘Very clever,’ he said. ‘Yes, that’s what we call a smart answer.’

‘We?’

‘Lothian CID. My name’s Inspector Rebus.’

‘Pleased to meet you.’

‘Likewise, Charlie.’

‘No, you’re mistaken. My name’s not Charlie. He comes in here sometimes though. I’ll tell him you called.’

Charlie was just about to hit the high score, five minutes ahead of schedule, when Rebus gripped his shoulder and spun him around. There were no other students in the games room, so he kept squeezing the shoulder while he spoke.

‘You’re about as funny as a maggot sandwich, Charlie, and patience isn’t my favourite card game. So you’ll excuse me if I become irritable, short-tempered, that sort of thing.’

‘Hands off.’ Charlie’s face had taken on a new sheen, but not of fear.

‘Ronnie,’ Rebus said, calmly now, releasing his grip on the young man’s shoulder.

The colour drained from Charlie’s face. ‘What about him?’

‘He’s dead.’

‘Yes.’ Charlie’s voice was quiet, his eyes unfocussed. ‘I heard.’

Rebus nodded. ‘Tracy tried to find you.’

‘Tracy.’ There was venom in the word. ‘She’s no idea, no idea at all. Have you seen her?’ Rebus nodded. ‘Yeah, what a loser that woman is. She never understood Ronnie. Never even tried.’

As Charlie spoke, Rebus was learning more about him. His accent was Scottish private school, which was the first surprise. Rebus didn’t know what he had expected. He knew he hadn’t expected this. Charlie was well built, too, a product of the rugby-playing classes. He had curly dark brown hair, cut not too long, and was dressed in traditional student summer wear: training shoes, denims, and a T-shirt. The T-shirt was black, torn loose at the