Hide And Seek

limitless. Time doesn’t mean as much to me as to most people. I’m in no hurry for your explanations. I’m not a clock watcher, you see.’ He was smiling again, eyes fixed somewhere just right of Rebus and above him. Rebus stayed silent, inviting further speculation. ‘Then again,’ Vanderhyde continued, ‘since I no longer go out, and have few visitors, and since I have never to my knowledge broken the laws of the land, that certainly narrows the possible reasons for your visit. You’re sure you won’t have some tea?’

‘Don’t let me stop you making some for yourself.’ Rebus had spotted the near-empty mug sitting on the floor beside the old man’s chair. He looked down around his own chair. Another mug sat on the muted pattern of the carpet. He reached a silent arm down towards it. There was a slight warmth on the base of the mug, a warmth on the carpet beneath.

‘No,’ Vanderhyde said. ‘I had one just recently. As did my visitor.’

‘Visitor?’ Rebus sounded surprised. The old man smiled, giving a slight and indulgent shake of his head. Rebus, feeling caught, decided to push on anyway. ‘I thought you said you didn’t get many visitors?’

‘No, I don’t recall quite saying that. Still, it happens to be true. Today is the exception that proves the rule. Two visitors.’

‘Might I ask who the other visitor was?’

‘Might I ask, Inspector, why you’re here?’

It was Rebus’s turn to smile, nodding to himself. The blood was rising in the old man’s cheeks. Rebus had succeeded in riling him.

‘Well?’ There was impatience in Vanderhyde’s voice.

‘Well, sir.’ Rebus deliberately pulled himself out of the chair and began to circuit the room. ‘I came across your name in an undergraduate essay on the occult. Does that surprise you?’

The old man considered this. ‘It pleases me slightly. I do have an ego that needs feeding, after all.’

‘But it doesn’t surprise you?’ Vanderhyde shrugged. ‘This essay mentioned you in connection with the workings of an Edinburgh-based group, a sort of coven, working in the nineteen sixties.’

‘ “Coven” is an inexact term, but never mind.’

‘You were involved in it?’

‘I don’t deny the fact.’

‘Well, while we’re dealing in fact, you were, more correctly, its guiding light. “Light” may be an inexact term.’

Vanderhyde laughed, a piping, discomfiting sound. ‘Touche, Inspector. Indeed, touche. Do continue.’

‘Finding your address wasn’t difficult. Not too many Vanderhydes in the phone book.’

‘My kin are based in London.’

‘The reason for my visit, Mr Vanderhyde, is a murder, or at the very least a case of tampering with evidence at the scene of a death.’

‘Intriguing.’ Vanderhyde put his hands together, fingertips to his lips. It was hard to believe the man was sightless. Rebus’s movements around the room were failing to have any effect on Vanderhyde at all.

‘The body was discovered lying with arms stretched wide, legs together — ’

‘Naked?’

‘No, not quite. Shirtless. Candles had been burning either side of the body, and a pentagram had been painted on one wall.’

‘Anything else?’

‘No. There were some syringes in a jar by the body.’

‘The death was caused by an overdose of drugs?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hmm.’ Vanderhyde rose from his chair and walked unerringly to the bookcase. He did not open it, but stood as though staring at the titles. ‘If we’re dealing with a sacrifice, Inspector — I take it that’s your theory?’

‘One of many, sir.’

‘Well, if we are dealing with a sacrifice, then the means of death are quite unusual. No, more than that, are unheard of. To begin with, very few Satanists would ever contemplate a human sacrifice. Plenty of psychopaths have carried out murder and then excused it as ritual, but that’s something else again. But in any case, a human sacrifice — a sacrifice of any kind — requires blood. Symbolic in some rites, as in the blood and body of Christ. Real in others. A sacrifice without blood? That would be original. And to administer an overdose…. No, Inspector, surely the more plausible explanation is that, as you say, someone muddied the water as it were, after the life had expired.’

Vanderhyde turned into the room again, picking out Rebus’s position. He raised his arms high, to signal that this was all he had to offer.

Rebus sat down again. The mug when he touched it was no longer warm. The evidence had cooled, dissipated, vanished.

He picked up the mug and looked at it. It was an innocent thing, patterned with flowers. There was a single crack running downwards from its rim. Rebus felt a sudden surge of confidence in his own abilities. He got to his feet again and walked to the door.

‘Are you leaving?’

He did not reply to Vanderhyde’s question, but walked smartly to the bottom of the dark oak staircase. Halfway up, it twisted in a ninety-degree angle. From the bottom, Rebus’s view was of this halfway point, this small landing. A second before, there had been someone there, someone crouching, listening. He hadn’t seen the figure so much as sensed it. He cleared his throat, a nervous rather than necessary action.

‘Come down here, Charlie.’ He paused. Silence. But he could still sense the young man, just beyond that turning on the stairs. ‘Unless you want me to come up. I don’t think you want that, do you? Just the two of us, up there in the dark?’ More silence, broken by the shuffling of Vanderhyde’s carpet-slippered feet, the walking cane tapping against the floor. When Rebus looked round, the old man’s jaw was set defiantly. He still had his pride. Rebus wondered if he felt any shame.

Then the single creak of a floorboard signalled Charlie’s presence on the stair landing.

Rebus broke into a smile: of conquest, of relief. He had trusted himself, and had proved worthy of that trust.

‘Hello, Charlie,’ he said.

‘I didn’t mean to hit her. She had a go at me first.’

The voice was recognisable, but Charlie seemed rooted to the landing. His body was slightly hunched, his face in silhouette, his arms hanging by his side. The educated voice seemed discorporate, somehow not part of this shadow-puppet.

‘Why don’t you join us?’

‘Are you going to arrest me?’

‘What’s the charge?’ The question was Rebus’s, his voice tinged with amusement.

‘That should be your question, Charles,’ Vanderhyde called out, making it sound like an instruction.

Rebus was suddenly bored with these games. ‘Come on down,’ he commanded. ‘Let’s have another mug of Earl Grey.’

Rebus had pulled open the crimson velvet curtains in the living room. The interior seemed less cramped in what was left of the daylight, less overpowering, and certainly a lot less gothic. The ornaments on the mantelpiece were revealed as just that: ornaments. The books in the bookcase were revealed as by and large works of popular fiction: Dickens, Hardy, Trollope. Rebus wondered if Trollope was still popular.

Charlie had made tea in the narrow kitchen, while Vanderhyde and Rebus sat in silence in the living room, listening to the distant sounds of cups chinking and spoons ringing.

‘You have good hearing,’ Vanderhyde stated at last. Rebus shrugged. He was still assessing the room. No, he couldn’t live here, but he could at least imagine visiting some aged relative in such a place.

‘Ah, tea,’ said Vanderhyde as Charlie brought in the unsteady tray. Placing it on the floor between chairs and sofa, his eyes sought Rebus’s. They had an imploring look. Rebus ignored it, accepting his cup with a curt nod of the head. He was just about to say something about how well Charlie seemed to know his way around his chosen bolt- hole, when Charlie himself spoke. He was handing a mug to Vanderhyde. The mug itself was only half filled — a