Hide & Seek

‘Stay here,’ he whispered. Then he went to the top of the stairs. ‘Who’s there?’ A shadow appeared below him. He switched on the torch, and shone it into Tony McCall’s squinting face.

‘Christ, Tony.’ Rebus started downstairs. ‘What a fright.’

‘I knew I’d find you here,’ said McCall. ‘I just knew it.’ His voice was nasal, and Rebus reckoned that since the

time they’d parted some three hours before. McCall had kept on drinking. He stopped on the staircase, then turned and headed back up.

‘Where are you going now?’ called McCall.

‘Just shutting the door,’ said Rebus, closing the bedroom door, leaving Neil inside. ‘Don’t want the ghosts to catch cold, do we?’

McCall was chuckling as Rebus headed downstairs again.

‘Thought we might have a wee snifter,’ he said. ‘And none of that bloody alcohol-free stuff you were quaffing before.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Rebus, expertly manoeuvring McCall out of the front door. ‘Let’s do that.’ And he locked the door behind him, figuring that Ronnie’s brother would know of the many easy ways in and out of the house. Everybody else seemed to know them, after all.

Everybody.

‘Where’ll it be?’ said Rebus. ‘I hope you didn’t drive here, Tony.’

‘Got a patrol car to drop me off.’

‘Fine. We’ll take my car then.’

‘We could drive down to Leith.’

‘No, I fancy something more central. There are a few good pubs in Regent Road.’

‘By Calton Hill?’ McCall was amazed. ‘Christ, John, I can think of better places to go for a drink.’

‘I can’t,’ said Rebus. ‘Come on.’

Nell Stapleton was Holmes’s girlfriend. Holmes had always preferred tall women, tracing the fixation back to his mother who had been five foot ten. Nell was nearly three quarters of an inch taller than Holmes’s mother, but he still loved her.

Nell was more intelligent than Holmes. Or, as he liked to think, they were more intelligent than one another in

different ways. Nell could crack the Guardian cryptic crossword in under quarter of an hour on a good day. But she had trouble with arithmetic and remembering names: both strengths possessed by Holmes. People said they looked good together in public, looked comfortable with one another, which was probably true. They felt good together, too, living as they did by several simple rules: no talk of marriage, no thoughts of children, no hinting at living together, and definitely no cheating.

Nell worked as a librarian at Edinburgh University, a vocation Holmes found handy. Today, for example, he had asked her to find him some books on the occult. She had done even better, locating a thesis or two which he could read on the premises if he wished. She also had a printed bibliography of relevant materials, which she handed to him in the pub when they met that evening.

The Bridge of Sighs was at a mid-week and mid-evening cusp, as were most of the city centre bars. The just-one-after-work brigade had slung their jackets over their arms and headed off, while the revitalised night-time crowd had yet to catch their buses from the housing estates into the middle of town. Nell and Holmes sat at a corner table, away from the video games, but a bit too close to one of the hi-fi system’s loudspeakers. Holmes, at the bar to buy another half for himself, an orange juice and Perrier for Nell, asked if the volume could be turned down.

‘Sorry, can’t. The customers like it.’

‘We are the customers,’ Holmes persisted.

‘You’ll have to speak to the manager.’

‘Fine.’

‘He’s not in yet.’

Holmes shot the young barmaid a filthy look before turning towards his table. What he saw made him pause. Nell had opened his briefcase and was examining the photograph of Tracy.

‘Who is she?’ Nell said, closing the case as he placed her drink on the table.

‘Part of a case I’m working on,’ he said frostily, sitting down. ‘Who said you could open my briefcase?’

‘Rule seven, Brian. No secrets.’

‘All the same -’

‘Pretty, isn’t she?’

‘What? I haven’t really -’

‘I’ve seen her around the university.’

He was interested now. ‘You have?’

‘Mmm. In the library cafeteria. I remember her because she always seemed a little bit older than the other students she was with.’

‘She’s a student then?’

‘Not necessarily. Anybody can go into the cafe. It’s students only in the library itself, but I can’t recall having seen her there. Only in the cafe. So what’s she done?’

‘Nothing, so far as I know.’

‘So why is there a nude photo of her in your briefcase?’

‘It’s part of this thing I’m doing for Inspector Rebus.’

‘You’re collecting dirty pictures for him.’

She was smiling now, and he smiled too. The smile vanished as Rebus and McCall walked into the pub, laughing at some shared joke as they made for the bar. Holmes didn’t want Rebus and Nell to meet. He tried very hard to leave his police life behind him when he was spending the evening with her - favours such as the occult booklist notwithstanding. He was also planning to keep Nell very much up his sleeve, so that he could have a booklist ready to hand should Rebus ever need such a thing.