Hide And Seek

Home. To McCall’s wife, it was a palace. ‘Home’ didn’t quite cover it. And the two children, son and daughter, had been brought up to tiptoe through the interior, not leaving crumbs or fingerprints, no mess, no breakages. McCall, who had lived a bruising childhood with his brother Tommy, thought it unnatural. His children had grown up in fear and in a swaddling of love — a bad combination. Now Craig was fourteen, Isabel eleven. Both were shy, introspective, maybe even a bit strange. Bang had gone McCall’s dream of a professional footballer for a son, an actress for a daughter. Craig played chess a lot, but no physical sports. (He had won a small plaque at school after one tournament. McCall had tried to learn to play after that, but had failed.) Isabel liked knitting. They sat in the too-perfect living room created by their mother, and were almost silent. The clack-clack of needles; the soft movement of chess pieces.

Christ, was it any wonder he kept away?

So here he was in Pilmuir, not checking on anything exactly, just walking. Taking some air. From his own ultra-modern estate, all detached shoeboxes and Volvos, he had to cross some waste ground, avoid the traffic on a busy arterial road, pass a school playing-field and manoeuvre between some factory units to find himself in Pilmuir. But it was worth the effort. He knew this place; knew the minds that festered here.

He was one of them, after all.

‘Hello, Tony.’

He swirled, not recognising the voice, expecting hassle. John Rebus stood there, smiling at him, hands in pockets.

‘John! Christ, you made me jump.’

‘Sorry. Stroke of luck bumping into you though.’ Rebus checked around them, as though looking for someone. ‘I tried phoning, but they said it was your day off.’

‘Aye, that’s right.’

‘So what are you doing here?’

‘Just walking. We live over that way.’ He jerked his head towards the south-west. ‘It’s not far. Besides, this is my patch, don’t forget. Got to keep an eye on the boys and girls.’

‘That’s why I wanted to speak to you actually.’

‘Oh?’

Rebus had begun to walk along the pavement, and McCall, still rattled by his sudden appearance, followed.

‘Yes,’ Rebus was saying. ‘I wanted to ask if you know someone, a friend of the deceased’s. The name is Charlie.’

‘That’s all? Charlie?’ Rebus shrugged. ‘What does he look like?’

Rebus shrugged again. ‘I’ve no idea, Tony. It was Ronnie’s girlfriend Tracy who told me about him.’

‘Ronnie? Tracy?’ McCall’s eyebrows met. ‘Who the hell are they?’

‘Ronnie is the deceased. That junkie we found on the estate.’

Everything was suddenly clear in McCall’s mind. He nodded slowly. ‘You work quickly,’ he said.

‘The quicker the better. Ronnie’s girlfriend told me an interesting story.’

‘Oh?’

‘She said Ronnie was murdered.’ Rebus kept on walking, but McCall had stopped.

‘Wait a minute!’ He caught Rebus up. ‘Murdered? Come on, John, you saw the guy.’

‘True. With a needle’s worth of rat poison scuppering his veins.’

McCall whistled softly. ‘Jesus.’

‘Quite,’ said Rebus. ‘And now I need to talk to Charlie. He’s young, could be a bit scared, and interested in the occult.’

McCall sorted through a few mental files. ‘I suppose there are one or two places we could try looking,’ he said at last. ‘But it’d be a slog. The concept of neighbourhood policing hasn’t quite stretched this far yet.’

‘You’re saying we won’t be made very welcome?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Well, just give me the addresses and point me in the right direction. It’s your day off after all.’

McCall looked slighted. ‘You’re forgetting, John. This is my patch. By rights, this should be my case, if there is a case.’

‘It would’ve been your case if you hadn’t had that hangover.’ They smiled at this, but Rebus was wondering whether, in Tony McCall’s hands, there would have been anything to investigate. Wouldn’t Tony just have let it slip? Should he, Rebus, let it slip, too?

‘Anyway,’ McCall was saying on cue, ‘surely you must have better things to do?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘Nothing. All my work’s been farmed out, with the emphasis on “farmed”.’

‘You mean Superintendent Watson?’

‘He wants me working on his anti-drugs campaign. Me, for Christ’s sake.’

‘That could be a bit embarrassing.’

‘I know. But the idiot thinks I’ve got “personal experience”.’

‘He’s got a point, I suppose.’ Rebus was about to argue, but McCall got in first. ‘So you’ve nothing to do?’

‘Not until summoned by Farmer Watson, no.’

‘You jammy bugger. Well, that does change things a bit, but not enough, I’m sorry to say. You’re my guest here, and you’re going to have to put up with me. Until I get bored, that is.’

Rebus smiled. ‘I appreciate it, Tony.’ He looked around them. ‘So, where to first?’

McCall inclined his head back the way they had just come. They turned around and walked.

‘So tell me,’ said Rebus, ‘what’s so awful at home that you’d think of coming here on your day off?’

McCall laughed. ‘Is it so obvious then?’

‘Only to someone who’s been there himself.’

‘Ach, I don’t know, John. I seem to have everything I’ve never wanted.’

‘And it’s still not enough.’ It was a simple statement of belief.

‘I mean, Sheila’s a wonderful mother and all that, and the kids never get into trouble, but….’

‘The grass is always greener,’ said Rebus, thinking of his own failed marriage, of the way his flat was cold when he came home, the way the door would close with a hollow sound behind him.

‘Now Tommy, my brother, I used to think he had it made. Plenty of money, house with a jacuzzi, automatic- opening garage….’ McCall saw that Rebus was smiling, and smiled himself.

‘Electric blinds,’ Rebus continued, ‘personalised number plate, car phone…’

‘Time share in Malaga,’ said McCall, close to laughter, ‘marble-topped kitchen units.’

It was too ridiculous. They laughed out loud as they walked, adding to the catalogue. But then Rebus saw where they were, and stopped laughing, stopped walking. This was where he’d been heading all along. He touched the torch in his jacket pocket.

‘Come on, Tony,’ he said soberly. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’

‘He was found here,’ Rebus said, shining the torch over the bare floorboards. ‘Legs together, lying on his back, arms outstretched. I don’t think he got into that position by accident, do you?’

McCall studied the scene. They were both professionals now, and acting almost like strangers. ‘And the girlfriend says she found him upstairs?’

‘That’s right.’

‘You believe her?’

‘Why would she lie?’

‘There could be a hundred reasons, John. Would I know the girl?’

‘She hasn’t been in Pilmuir long. Bit older than you’d imagine, midtwenties, maybe more.’

‘So this Ronnie’s already dead, and he’s brought downstairs and laid out with the candles and everything.’

‘That’s right.’

‘I’m beginning to see why you need to find the friend who’s into the occult.’

‘Right. Now come and look at this.’ Rebus led McCall to the far wall and shone the torch onto the pentagram, then further up the wall.