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
‘Well?’ Rebus prompted.
‘Sorry, sir,’ said the constable.
‘Right,’ said Rebus, walking towards the door. But before he reached it, it was opened from the inside, and there stood Tracy, both eyes reddened from crying, one eye bruised a deep blue. She didn’t seem surprised to see Rebus standing in front of her; she seemed relieved, and threw herself at him, hugging him, her head against his chest, the tears beginning all over again.
Rebus, startled and embarrassed, returned the embrace only lightly, with a patting of his hands on her back: a father’s ‘there, there’ to a frightened child. He turned his head to look at the constables, who were pretending to have noticed nothing. Then a car drew up beside his own, and he saw Tony McCall put on his handbrake before pushing open the driver’s door, stepping out and seeing Rebus there, and the girl.
Rebus laid his hands on Tracy’s arms and pushed her away from him a little, but still retaining that contact between them. His hands, her arms. She looked at him, and began to fight against the tears. Finally, she pulled one arm away so that she could wipe her eyes. Then the other arm relaxed and Rebus’s hand fell from it, the contact broken. For now.
‘John?’ It was McCall, close behind him.
‘Yes, Tony?’
‘Why is it my patch has suddenly become your patch?’
‘Just passing,’ said Rebus.
The interior of the house was surprisingly neat and tidy. There were numerous, if uncoordinated, sticks of furniture — two well-worn settees, a couple of dining chairs, trellis table, half a dozen pouffes, burst at the seams and oozing stuffing — and, most surprising of all, the electricity was connected.
‘Wonder if the electric board know about that,’ said McCall as Rebus switched on the downstairs lights.
For all its trappings, the place had an air of impermanence. There were sleeping bags laid out on the living- room floor, as though ready for any stray waifs and passers-by. Tracy went to one of the settees and sat down, wrapping her hands around her knees.
‘Is this your place, Tracy?’ said Rebus, knowing the answer.
‘No. It’s Charlie’s.’
‘How long have you known?’
‘I only found out today. He moves around all the time. It wasn’t easy tracking him down.’
‘It didn’t take you long.’ She shrugged her shoulders.
‘What happened?’
‘I just wanted to talk to him.’
‘About Ronnie?’ McCall watched Rebus as he said this. McCall was concentrating now, aware that Rebus was trying to fill him in on the situation while at the same time questioning Tracy. Tracy nodded.
‘Stupid, maybe, but I needed to talk to someone.’
‘And?’
‘And we got into an argument. He started it. Told me I was the cause of Ronnie’s death.’ She looked up at them; not pleadingly, but just to show that she was sincere. ‘It’s not true. But Charlie said I should have looked after Ronnie, stopped him taking the stuff, got him away from Pilmuir. How could I have done that? He wouldn’t have listened to me. I thought he knew what he was doing. Nobody could tell him otherwise.’
‘Is that what you told Charlie?’
She smiled. ‘No. I only thought of it just now. That’s what always happens, isn’t it? You only think of the clever comeback after the argument’s finished.’
‘I know what you mean, love,’ said McCall.
‘So you started a slanging match — ’
‘I never started the slanging match!’ she roared at Rebus.
‘Okay,’ he said quietly, ‘Charlie started shouting at you, and you shouted back, then he hit you. Yes?’
‘Yes.’ She seemed subdued.
‘And maybe,’ Rebus prompted, ‘you hit him back?’
‘I gave as good as I got.’
‘That’s my girl,’ said McCall. He was touring the room, turning up cushions on the settees, opening old magazines, crouching to pat each sleeping bag.
