‘Bloody hell,’ he said to nobody in particular, rummaging amongst the bottles, ‘this is all a bit fucking grim, isn’t it? Excuse my language.’
‘Yes, it is a bit.’
Rebus thought to himself, well, there it is, I’ve done it now, I’ve spoken to someone. The ice is broken, so I may as well leave while the going’s good.
But he did not leave. He watched as the man weaved his way quite expertly back through the dancers, the drinks as safe as tiny animals in his hands. He watched as another record pounded out of the invisible stereo system, the dancers recommenced their war-dance, and a woman, looking every inch as uncomfortable as he did, squeezed her way into the room and was pointed in the direction of Rebus’s table.
She was about his own age, a little ragged around the edges. She wore a reasonably fashionable dress, he supposed (who was he to talk about fashion? his suit looked downright funereal in the present company), and her hair had been styled recently, perhaps as recently as this afternoon. She wore a secretary’s glasses, but she was no secretary. Rebus could see that much by looking at her, by examining the way she handled herself as she picked her way towards him.
He held a Bloody Mary, newly-prepared, towards her.
‘Is this okay for you?’ he shouted. ‘Have I guessed right or wrong?’
She gulped the drink thankfully, pausing for breath as he refilled the tumbler.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I don’t normally drink, but that was much appreciated.’
Great, Rebus thought to himself, the smile never leaving his eyes, Cathy Jackson’s out of her head (and her morals) on alcohol, and I’m landed with a TT. Oh, but that thought was unworthy of him, and did no justice to his companion. He breathed a quick prayer of contrition.
‘Would you like to dance?’ he asked, for his sins.
‘You’re kidding!’
‘I’m not. What’s wrong?’
Rebus, guilty of a streak of chauvinism, could not believe it. She was a DI. Moreover, she was Press Liaison Officer on the murder case.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘it’s just that I’m working that case, too.’
‘Listen, John, if it keeps on like this, every policeman and policewoman in Scotland is going to be on the case. Believe me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘There’s been another abduction. The girl’s mother reported her missing this evening.’
‘Shit. Excuse my language.’
They had danced, drunk, separated, met again, and were now old friends for the evening, it seemed. They stood in the hallway, a little way from the noise and chaos of the dance-floor. A queue for the flat’s only toilet was becoming unruly at the end of the corridor.
Rebus found himself staring past Gill Templer’s glasses, past all that glass and plastic, to the emerald-green eyes beyond. He wanted to tell her that he had never seen eyes as lovely as hers, but was afraid of being accused of cliche. She was sticking to orange juice now, but he had loosened himself up with a few more whiskies, not expecting anything special from the evening.
‘Hello, Gill.’
Rebus recognized the stocky man before them as the person he had spoken with at the drinks-table.
‘Long time no see.’
The man attempted to peck Gill Templer’s cheek, but succeeded only in falling past her and butting the wall.
‘Had a drop too much to drink, Jim?’ said Gill, coolly.
The man shrugged his shoulders. He was looking at Rebus.
‘We all have our crosses to bear, eh?’
A hand was extended towards Rebus.
‘Jim Stevens,’ said the man.
‘Oh, the reporter?’
Rebus accepted the man’s warm, moist hand for a moment.
‘This is Detective Sergeant John Rebus,’ said Gill.
Rebus noticed the quick flushing in Stevens’ face, the startled eyes of a hare. He recovered quickly though, expertly.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said. Then, motioning with his head, ‘Gill and I go back a long way, don’t we, Gill?’
‘Not as far as you seem to think, Jim.’
He laughed then, glancing towards Rebus.
‘She’s just shy,’ he said. ‘Another girl murdered, I hear.’
‘Jim has spies everywhere.’
Stevens tapped the side of his blood-red nose, grinning towards Rebus.
‘Everywhere,’ he said, ‘and I get everywhere, too.’
‘Yes, spreads himself a little thin, does our Jim,’ said Gill, her voice sharp as a blade’s edge, her eyes suddenly shrouded in glass and plastic, inviolable.
‘Another press briefing tomorrow, Gill?’ said Stevens, searching through his pockets for his cigarettes, lost long before.
‘Yes.’
The reporter’s hand found Rebus’s shoulder.
‘A long way, me and Gill.’
Then he was gone, his hand held back towards them as he retreated, waving without the necessity of acknowledgement, searching out his cigarettes, filing away John Rebus’s face.
Gill Templer sighed, leaning against the wall where Stevens’ failed kiss had landed.
‘One of the best reporters in Scotland,’ she said, matter-of-factly.
‘And your job is dealing with the likes of him?’
‘He’s not so bad.’
An argument seemed to be starting in the living-room.
‘Well,’ said Rebus, all smiles, ‘shall we phone for the police, or would you rather be taken to a little restaurant I know?’
‘Is that a chat-up line?’
‘Maybe. You tell me. After all, you’re the detective.’
‘Well, whatever it is, Detective Sergeant Rebus, you’re in luck. I’m starving. I’ll get my coat.’
Rebus, feeling pleased with himself, remembered that his own coat was lurking somewhere. He found it in one of the bedrooms, along with his gloves, and — a cracking surprise — his unopened bottle of wine. He pocketed this, seeing it as a divine sign that he would be needing it later.
Gill was in the other bedroom, rummaging through the pile of coats on the bed. Beneath the bedcovers, congress seemed to be taking place, and the whole mess of coats and bedclothes seethed and writhed like some gigantic amoeba. Gill, giggling through it all, found her coat at last and came towards Rebus, who smiled conspiratorially in the doorway.
‘Goodbye, Cathy,’ she shouted back into the room, ‘thanks for the party.’
There was a muffled roar, perhaps an acknowledgement, from beneath the bedclothes. Rebus, his eyes wide, felt his moral fibre crumbling like a dry cheese-biscuit.
In the taxi, they sat a little distance apart.
‘So, do you and this Stevens character go back a long way?’
‘Only in his memory.’ She stared past the driver at the sleek wet road beyond. ‘Jim’s memory can’t be what it was. Seriously, we went out together once, and I do mean once.’ She held up a finger. ‘A Friday night, I think it was. A big mistake, it certainly was.’
Rebus was satisfied with that. He began to feel hungry again.
