nice.’
Rebus looked at the man more closely. ‘Served time yourself?’
‘A long time ago, son. Back in the fifties. Saughton was a different place then, everything was different. And mind, I’m not saying it was worse.’ Their drinks replenished, he screwed the top back on and passed the bottle to the next man along. Rebus wondered how many more old lags there were in the crush around him. Then he saw someone else coming into the room, and he stopped with his glass half an inch from his mouth.
She was dressed in black, a small woman with a pillbox hat and a short veil which covered her eyes but not her mouth. And behind her, much taller, a younger woman wearing a simple navy suit, low-cut and tight at the hips. It looked the sort of thing you would wear a blouse under, but Maisie Finch wasn’t wearing a blouse, or anything else beneath it that Rebus could see.
For now though, he was more interested in the woman with her. It was Helena Profitt. Rebus turned towards the draining-board, where a rubicund man, hot and jacketless and sporting bright red braces, was dispensing the drinks.
‘Give us a couple of sherries,’ Rebus murmured in the man’s direction. The order was passed along and a few moments later Rebus had his sherries. He left his own whisky on the breakfast-bar and carried them into the living room.
Helena Profitt was having a muted conversation with Tresa McAnally, so Rebus tapped Maisie Finch on the shoulder. When she turned towards him, he handed her the glasses.
‘Thanks.’ She sniffed the contents before handing one glass on to Helena Profitt.
‘Funny,’ Rebus said, ‘you never mentioned knowing Miss Profitt.’
She smiled, then took a sip of sherry and screwed up her face.
‘Too sweet?’
‘It’s loupin’. Is there anything else?’
‘Whisky, dark rum, soft drinks. Maybe some vodka.’
‘A voddy would slip down.’ She surveyed the scrum in the kitchenette and changed her mind, draining the glass.
‘So,’ Rebus said in an undertone, ‘how do you know Helena Profitt?’
‘Same way most folk in this room do.’ She smiled again and turned to the widow. ‘Tresa, hen, mind if I smoke?’ The packet was already out of her pocket.
‘Go ahead, Maisie.’ A pause. ‘It’s what Wee Shug would have wanted. He liked a ciggie himself.’
Taking their signal from this, a lot of hands reached into pockets and handbags. Packs were opened, handed round. Rebus took one from Maisie, and she lit it for him.
‘Nice lighter,’ he said.
‘It was a present.’ She looked at the slim onyx and gold lighter before returning it to her pocket.
‘So,’ Rebus said, ‘Miss Profitt used to live in the tenement?’
‘Floor below this.’
As more people arrived and had to offer their condolences, or else needed to say goodbye before leaving, Rebus and Maisie found themselves moved away from the widow and Miss Profitt. They ended up by the mantelpiece. Rebus picked up a bereavement card. It was signed simply, ‘From all Shug’s pals in Saughton. We shall remember him.’
‘Touching,’ Maisie Finch said.
‘Either that or a bit sick.’
‘How’s that, Inspector?’ He noted she said ‘Inspector’ quite loudly. The nearest mourners looked him up and down, and he knew word would now go around.
‘Depends why he killed himself,’ he said. ‘Maybe it had something to do with Saughton.’
‘Tresa tells me he had the big C.’
‘That’s only one possible reason.’ He found her eyes. ‘I can think of others.’
She looked away, almost casual. ‘Such as?’
‘Guilt, shame, embarrassment.’
She smiled sourly. ‘Not in Shug McAnally’s vocabulary.’
‘Self-pity?’
‘That’d be more like it.’
Rebus saw a pillbox hat and veil moving towards the door. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said.
Helena Profitt was at the front door when he caught her.
‘Miss Profitt?’ She turned to him. ‘I think we’d better talk.’
He led her into the McAnallys’ bedroom.
‘Can’t it wait?’ she asked, looking around her, not liking the surroundings.
Rebus shook his head. The TV was in here sure enough, giving them a narrow aisle to move about in. ‘You’ve been avoiding me,’ he said.
She sighed. ‘Tom told me he’d told you.’
‘You recognised Mr McAnally that night?’
‘Of course I did.’
‘Did he recognise you?’
She nodded. ‘I’m certain he did.’
‘Did he know beforehand that you were close to the councillor?’
Now she stared at him through her veil. ‘What do you mean “close”? I’m his ward secretary, that’s all.’
‘That’s all I meant.’
‘How could he have known? No, I don’t think he knew.’ She suddenly saw what he was getting at. ‘His suicide had nothing to do with
‘We have to check these things. Why didn’t you say anything at the time?’
‘I …’ She sat down on the edge of the bed, hands in her lap, then stood up again abruptly. Rebus watched the bedcover float, finding its level. It was a waterbed. Disconcerted, Helena Profitt patted her hat and tugged at her veil. It didn’t make much of a hiding place.
‘Is it to do with Maisie Finch?’ Rebus asked.
She thought about it, then nodded solemnly before bursting into a fit of loud sobbing. Rebus touched her shoulder, but she spun away from him. A mourner opened the door and looked in. Rebus got the feeling there were others out there, all wanting to see the tears.
‘She’ll be all right,’ he said, closing the door firmly. Helena Profitt had brought a hankie out of her sleeve and was blowing her nose. Rebus offered her his own handkerchief, and she used it to dab at her eyes. There was eyeshadow on the white cotton when she handed it back. The door was pushed open again. The man with the red braces stood there.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing,’ Rebus said.
The man glowered. ‘We know who you are. Maybe you’d better leave.’
‘What are you going to do — throw me out?’
The sweaty face creased in a sneer. ‘You lot are all the same.’
‘And so are you lot.’ Rebus pushed the door hard until it closed. He turned back to Helena Profitt.
‘What is it you’re not saying?’ he asked solicitously. ‘It’ll come out eventually, you know.’
‘I moved out of this tenement four years ago,’ she said. ‘I’ve only been back a couple of times since. I should come more often. Maisie’s mother misses my little visits …’
Four years ago. ‘After McAnally raped Maisie?’ he guessed.
She breathed deeply a few times to calm herself. ‘You know, we didn’t do anything, none of us. We all heard a scream — I know I heard it — but nobody phoned for the police. Not until Maisie ran into Tresa’s. It was Tresa herself who phoned, to say her own husband had just raped their next door neighbour’s girl. We heard the scream, but we just went on minding our own business.’ She wiped her nose again. ‘Isn’t that typical of this bloody city?’
Rebus remembered the words he’d used so recently: guilt, shame, embarrassment.
‘You felt ashamed?’ he offered.
