‘To hell, of course. Come on.’
It was turning cold. The sun had just about tired itself out, and was retiring from the contest. The clouds were sticking-plaster pink. Two great final sunbeams shone down like torchlight upon Pilmuir, and picked out just the one building, leaving the other houses in the street untouched. Rebus sucked in breath. He had to admit, it was quite a sight.
‘Like the stable at Bethlehem,’ said Holmes.
‘A damned queer stable,’ Rebus retorted. ‘God’s got a funny sense of humour if this is His idea of a joke.’
‘You did say we were going to hell.’
‘I wasn’t expecting Cecil B. DeMille to be in on it though. What’s going on there?’
Almost hidden by the day’s last gasp of sunlight, a van and a hire skip were parked directly in front of Ronnie’s house.
‘The council?’ Holmes suggested. ‘Probably cleaning the place up.’
‘Why, in God’s name?’
‘There’s plenty that need housing,’ Holmes replied. Rebus wasn’t listening. As the car pulled to a stop, he was out and walking briskly towards the skip. It was filling up with the detritus of the squat’s interior. There were sounds of hammering from within. In the back of the van, a workman supped from a plastic cup, his thermos clutched in his other hand.
‘Who’s in charge here?’ Rebus demanded.
The workman blew on the contents of his cup, then took another swig before replying. ‘Me, I suppose.’ His eyes were wary. He could smell authority a mile off. ‘This is a legitimate tea-break.’
‘Never mind that. What’s going on?’
‘Who wants to know.’
‘CID wants to know.’
He looked hard at Rebus’s harder face, and made up his mind instantly. ‘Well, we got word to come and clean this place up. Make it habitable.’
‘On whose orders?’
‘I don’t know. Somebody’s. We just take the chitty and go do the job.’
‘Right.’ Rebus had turned from the man and was walking up the path to the front door. Holmes, having smiled apologetically at the foreman, followed. In the living room, two workmen in overalls and thick red rubber gloves were whitewashing the walls. Charlie’s pentagram had already been covered, its outline barely visible through the drying layer of paint. The men looked towards Rebus, then to the wall.
‘We’ll cover it up next coat,’ said one. ‘Don’t worry yourself about that.’
Rebus stared at the man, then marched past Holmes out of the room. He started to climb the stairs, and turned into Ronnie’s bedroom. Another workman, much younger than the two downstairs, was gathering Ronnie’s few belongings together into a large black plastic bag. As Rebus entered the room, the boy was caught, frozen, stuffing one of the paperbacks into the pocket of his overalls.
Rebus pointed to the book.
‘There’s a next of kin, son. Put it in the bag with the rest.’
Something about his tone persuaded the teenager to obey.
‘Come across anything else interesting?’ Rebus asked now, hands in pockets, approaching the teenager.
‘Nothing,’ the boy said, guiltily.
‘In particular,’ Rebus went on, as though the teenager had not spoken, ‘photographs. Maybe just a few, maybe a whole packet. Hmm?’
‘No. Nothing like that.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Sure.’
‘Right. Get down to the van and bring up a crowbar or something. I want these floorboards up.’
‘Eh?’
‘You heard me, son. Do it.’
Holmes just stood and watched in silent appreciation. Rebus seemed to have grown in physical stature, becoming broader, taller. Holmes couldn’t quite fathom the trick: maybe it had something to do with the hands in the pockets, the way the elbows jarred outwards, lending apparent substance to the frame. Whatever it was, it worked. The young workman stumbled out of the door and down the stairs.
‘You’re sure they’ll be here?’ said Holmes quietly. He tried to keep his tone level, not wishing to sound too sceptical. But Rebus was way past that stage. In Rebus’s mind, the photographs were already in his hand.
‘I’m certain, Brian. I can
‘You’re sure that’s not just the bathroom?’
Rebus turned and looked at him, as though seeing him for the very first time. ‘You might have a point, Brian. You just might.’
Holmes followed Rebus to the bathroom. As Rebus kicked open the door, the stench embraced both men, arching them forward in a convulsive fit of gagging. Rebus brought a handkerchief from his pocket, pushed it to his face, and leaned towards the door handle, pulling the door shut again.
‘I’d forgotten about that place,’ he said. Then: ‘Wait here.’
He returned with the foreman, a plastic dustbin, a shovel, and three small white face-masks, one of which he handed to Holmes. An elasticated band held the cardboard snout in place, and Holmes breathed deeply, testing the apparatus. He was just about to say something about the smell still being noticeable, when Rebus toed open the door again, and, as the foreman angled an industrial lamp into the bathroom, walked over the threshold.
Rebus pulled the dustbin to the rim of the bath and left it there, gesturing for the lamp to be shone into the bath itself. Holmes nearly fell backwards out of the room. A fat rat, caught in the act of feasting upon the rotten contents of the bath, squealed, red eyes burning directly into the light. Rebus swung the shovel down and cut the animal in two neat halves. Holmes spun from the room and, lifting the mask, retched against the damp wall. He tried taking gulps of air, but the smell was overpowering, the nausea returning in quickening floods.
Back inside the room, the foreman and Rebus exchanged a smile which wrinkled their eyes above the face- masks. They had seen worse than this — much worse — in their time. Then, neither man naive enough to want to linger, they set to work, the foreman holding the lamp while Rebus shovelled the contents of the bath slowly into the dustbin. The mess of raw sewage ran slickly from the shovel, spattering Rebus’s shirt and trousers. He ignored it, ignored everything but the task at hand. He had done dirtier jobs in the Army, dirtier jobs by far during his failed training in the SAS. This was routine. And at least here there was some purpose to the task, some end in view.
Or so he hoped.
Holmes meantime was wiping his moist eyes with the back of his hand. Through the open door he could see the progress being made, eerie shadows cast across the wall and ceiling by the lamp, as one silhouette shovelled shit into a bin, filling it noisily. It was like a scene from some latter-day
But the last thing he felt like doing was smiling.
Then he heard the cackle of laughter, and, looking around him, it took several moments to realise that it was coming from the bathroom, that it was John Rebus’s laugh, and that Rebus was dipping his hand into the mess, drawing it out again with something clinging to it. Holmes didn’t even notice the thick rubberised gloves which protected Rebus up to his elbows. He simply turned and walked downstairs on brittle legs.
‘Got you!’ Rebus cried.
‘There’s a hose outside,’ the foreman said.
‘Lead on,’ said Rebus, shaking the packet free of some of its clots. ‘Lead on, Macduff.’
‘The name’s MacBeth,’ the foreman called back, heading for the stairway.
In the cool, fresh air, they hosed down the package, standing it up against the front wall of the house as they did so. Rebus peered at it closely. A red plastic bag, like the carrier from a record shop, had been wrapped around
