Morton took a gulp of beer.
‘Thank God we’re off duty,’ he said. Then: ‘Fancy a curry?’
Morton finished the chicken vindaloo and threw his fork down on to the plate.
‘I reckon I ought to have a word with the Health Department boys,’ he said, still chewing. ‘Either that or the Trading Standards. Whatever that was, it wasn’t chicken.’
They were in a small curry-house near Haymarket Station. Purple lighting, red flock wallpaper, a churning wall of sitar-music.
‘You looked as if you were enjoying it,’ said Rebus, finishing his beer.
‘Oh yes, I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t chicken.’
‘Well, there’s nothing to complain about if you enjoyed it.’ Rebus sat slant-wise on his chair, his legs straight out before him, an arm along the chair’s back while he smoked his umpteenth cigarette that day.
Morton leaned unsteadily towards his partner.
‘John, there’s
He winked at Rebus, sat back, burped, and reached into his pocket for a cigarette.
‘Garbage,’ he said.
Rebus tried to count the number of cigarettes he himself had smoked that day, but his brain told him that such calculations were not to be attempted.
‘I wonder what our friend the murderer is up to at this exact moment?’ he said.
‘Finishing a curry?’ suggested Morton. ‘Trouble is, John, he could be one of these Joe Normal types, clean on the surface, married with kids, your average suburban hard-working chap, but underneath a nutter, pure and simple.’
‘There’s nothing simple about our man.’
‘True.’
‘But you could well be right. You mean that he’s a sort of Jekyll and Hyde, right?’
‘Exactly.’ Morton flicked ash onto the table-top, already splashed with curry sauce and beer. He was peering at his empty plate as though wondering where all the food had gone. ‘Jekyll and Hyde. You’ve got it in a nutshell. I’ll tell you, John, I’d lock these bastards up for a million years, a million years of solitary in a cell the size of a shoebox. That’s what I’d do.’
Rebus was staring at the flock wallpaper. He thought back to his own days in solitary, days when the SAS were trying to crack him, days of the ultimate testing, of sighs and silence, starvation and filth. No, he wouldn’t want that again. And yet they had not beaten him, not really beaten him. The others had not been so lucky.
‘John? Are you okay there? If you’re going to be sick, the toilet’s behind the kitchen. Listen, when you’re passing, do me a favour and see if you can notice what it is that they’re chopping up and throwing into the pot …’
Rebus walked smartly to the toilet with the over-cautious gait of the tremendously drunk, yet he did not feel drunk, not that drunk. His nostrils filled with the smells of curry, disinfectant, shit. He washed his face. No, he was not going to be sick. It wasn’t too much to drink, for he had felt the same shudder at Michael’s, the same momentary horror. What was happening to him? It was as if his insides were concretizing, slowing him down, allowing the years to catch up on him. It felt a little like the nervous breakdown which he had been awaiting, yet it was no nervous breakdown. It was nothing. It had passed.
‘Can I give you a lift, John?’
‘No thanks, I’ll walk. Clear my head.’
They parted at the door of the restaurant. An office-party, loosened neckties and strong, sickly perfume, made its way towards Haymarket Station. Haymarket was the last station into Edinburgh before the much grander Waverley. Rebus remembered that the premature withdrawal of the penis during intercourse for contraceptive reasons was often referred to as ‘getting off at Haymarket.’ Who said the people in Edinburgh were dour? A smile, a song, and a strangulation. Rebus wiped sweat from his forehead. He felt weak still, and leaned against a lamp-post. He knew vaguely what it was. It was a rejection by his whole being of the past, as though his vital organs were rejecting a donor heart. He had pushed the horror of the training so far to the back of his mind that any echo of it at all was now to be violently fought against. And yet it was in that same confinement that he had found friendship, brotherhood, camaraderie, call it what you like. And he had learned more about himself than human beings ever do. He had learned so much.
His spirit had not been broken. He had come out of the training on top. And then had come the nervous breakdown.
Enough. He began to walk, steadying himself with thoughts of his day off tomorrow. He would spend the day reading and sleeping and readying himself for a party, Cathy Jackson’s party.
And the day after that, Sunday, he would be spending a rare day with his daughter. Then, perhaps, he would find out who was behind the crank letters.
8
The girl woke up with a dry, salty taste in her mouth. She felt sleepy and numb and wondered where she was. She had fallen asleep in his car. She had not felt sleepy before then, before he had given her a piece of his chocolate-bar. Now she was awake, but not in her bedroom at home. This room had pictures on its walls, pictures cut out of colour magazines. Some were photographs of soldiers with fierce expressions on their faces, others were of girls and women. She looked closely at some self-developing photographs grouped together on one wall. There was a picture of her there, asleep on the bed with her arms spread wide. She opened her mouth in a slight gasp.
Outside, in the living-room, he heard her movements as he prepared the garotte.
That night, Rebus had one of his nightmarish dreams again. A long, lingering kiss was followed by an ejaculation, both in the dream and in reality. He woke up immediately afterwards and wiped himself down. The breath of the kiss was still around him, hanging to him like an aura. He shook his head clear of it. He needed a woman. Remembering the party to come, he relaxed a little. But his lips were dry. He padded into the kitchen and found a bottle of lemonade. It was flat, but served the purpose. Then he remembered that he was still drunk, and would have a hangover if he wasn’t careful. He poured himself three glassfuls of water and forced them down.
He was pleased to find that the pilot-light was still on. It was like a good omen. When he slipped back into bed, he even remembered to say his prayers. That would surprise the Big Man upstairs. He would note it in his muckle book: Rebus remembered me tonight. May give him a nice day tomorrow.
Amen.
9
Michael Rebus loved his BMW as dearly as he loved life itself, perhaps more so. As he sped down the motorway, the traffic to his left hardly appearing to move at all, he felt that his car was life in a strange, satisfying sort of way. He pointed its nose towards the bright point of the horizon and let it forge towards that future, revving it hard, making no concessions to anyone or anything.
That was the way he liked it; hard, fast luxury, push-button and on-hand. He drummed his fingers on the leather of the steering-wheel, toyed with the radio-cassette, eased his head back onto the padded headrest. He
