Hide & Seek

Rebus watched him go, walking slowly, purposefully, turning from time to time at the sign of an approaching car. A hundred yards or so on, he crossed the road and began- walking back, paying Rebus no attention, his mind on other things. It struck Rebus that the boy was sad, lonely, certainly no hustler. But no victim either.

Rebus stared at the wall of Calton Cemetery, broken only by its metal gates. He’d taken his daughter in there once to show her the graves of the famous - David Hume, the publisher Constable, the painter David Allan — and the statue of Abraham Lincoln. She’d asked him about the men who walked briskly from the cemetery, their heads bowed down. One older man, two teenagers. Rebus had wondered about them, too. But not too much.

No, he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t go in there. It wasn’t that he was afraid. Jesus, no, not that, not for one minute. He was just … he didn’t know what. But he was feeling giddy again, unsteady on his pins. I’ll go back to the car, he thought.

He went back to the car.

He had been sitting in the driver’s seat, smoking another cigarette thoughtfully for about a minute before he caught sight of the figure out of the corner of his eye. He turned and looked towards where the boy was seated; no, not seated, crouching against a low wall. Rebus turned away and resumed smoking. Only then did the boy rise to his feet and walk towards the car. He tapped on the

passenger side window. Rebus took a deep breath before unlocking the door. The boy got in without a word, closing the door solidly behind him. He sat there, staring out through the windscreen, silent. Rebus, unable to think of a single sensible thing to say, stayed silent, too. The boy cracked first.

‘Hiya.’

It was a man’s voice. Rebus turned to examine the boy. He was maybe sixteen. Dressed in leather jacket, open-necked shirt. Torn jeans.

‘Hello,’ he said in reply.

‘Got a cigarette?’

Rebus handed over the packet. The boy took one and swopped the packet for a box of matches. He inhaled the cigarette smoke deeply, holding it for a long time, then exhaling almost nothing of it back into the atmosphere. Take without give, thought Rebus. The creed of the street.

‘So what are you up to tonight then?’ The question had been on Rebus’s own lips, but the boy had given voice to it.

‘Just killing time,’ said Rebus. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’

The boy laughed harshly. ‘Yeah, couldn’t sleep, so you came for a drive. Got tired driving so you just happened to stop here. This particular street. This time of night. Then you went for a walk, a stretch of the legs, and came back to the car. Right?’

‘You’ve been watching me,’ Rebus admitted.

‘I didn’t need to watch you. I’ve seen it all before.’

‘How often?’

‘Often enough, James.’

The words were tough, the voice was tough. Rebus had no cause to doubt the teenager. Certainly he was as dissimilar to the first boy as chalk to cheese.

‘The name’s not James,’ he said.

‘Of course it is. Everybody’s called James. Makes it easier to remember a name, even if you can’t recall the face.’

‘I see.’

The boy finished the cigarette in silence, then flicked it out of the window.

‘So what’s it to be?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Rebus sincerely. ‘A drive maybe?’

‘Fuck that.’ He paused, seeming to change his mind. ‘Okay, let’s drive to the top of Calton Hill. Take a look out over the water, eh?’

‘Fine,’ said Rebus, starting the car.

They drove up the steep and winding road to the top of the hill, where the observatory and the folly - a copy of one side of Greece’s Parthenon - sat silhouetted against the sky. They were not alone at the top. Other darkened cars had parked, facing across the Firth of Forth towards the dimly lit coast of Fife. Rebus, trying not to look too closely at the other cars, decided to park at a discreet distance from them, but the boy had other ideas.

‘Stop next to that Jag,’ he ordered. ‘What a great-looking car.’

Rebus felt his own car take the insult with as much, pride as it could muster. The brakes squealed in protest as he pulled to a halt. He turned off the ignition.

‘What now?’ he asked.

‘Whatever you want,’ said the boy. ‘Cash on delivery, of course.’

‘Of course. What if we just talk?’

‘Depends on the kind of talk you want. The dirtier it is, the more it’ll cost.’

‘I was just thinking about a guy I met here once. Not so long ago. Haven’t seen him around. I was wondering what happened to him.’

The boy suddenly placed his hand on Rebus’s crotch, rubbing hard and fast against the material. Rebus stared at the hand for a full second before calmly, but with a deliberate grip, removing it. The boy grinned, leaning back in his seat.

‘What’s his name, James?’

Rebus tried to stop himself trembling. His stomach was filling with bile. ‘Ronnie,’ he said at last, clearing his throat. ‘Not too tall. Dark hair, quite short. Used to take a few pictures. You know, keen on photography.’