Hide & Seek

‘How the hell did you find this place?’ he asked, standing in the doorway as though waiting for her to leave.

‘Not easy,’ she said, her voice a little more calm. ‘You told me you lived in Marchmont, so I just wandered around looking for your car. Then I found your name on the bell downstairs.’

He had to admit it, she’d have made a good detective. Footwork was what it was all about.

‘Somebody’s been following me,’ she said now. ‘I got scared.’

‘Following you?’ He stepped into the room now, curious, his sense of encroachment easing.

‘Yes, two men. I think there were two. They’ve been following me all afternoon. I was up Princes Street, just walking, and they were always there, a little way behind me. They must’ve known I could see them.’

‘What happened?’

‘I lost them. Went into Marks and Spencer, ran like hell for the Rose Street exit, then dived into the ladies’ in a pub. Stayed in there for an hour. That seemed to do the trick. Then I headed here.’

‘Why didn’t you telephone me?’

‘No money. That’s why I was up Princes Street in the first place.’

She had settled in his chair, her arms hanging over its sides. He nodded towards the empty glass.

‘Do you want another?’

‘No thanks. I don’t really like plonk, but I was thirsty as hell. I could manage a cup of tea though.’

‘Tea, right.’ Plonk, she had called it! He turned and walked through to the kitchen, his mind half on the idea of tea, half on her story. In one of his sparsely populated cupboards he found an unopened box of teabags. There was no fresh milk in the flat, but an old tin yielded a spoonful or two of powdered substitute. Now, sugar. . . . Music came suddenly from the living room, a loud rendering of The White Album. God, he’d forgotten he still had that old tape. He opened the cutlery drawer, looking

for nothing more than a teaspoon, and found several sachets of sugar, stolen from the canteen at some point in his past. Serendipity. The kettle was beginning to boil.

‘This flat’s huge!’

She startled him, he was so unused to other voices in this place. He turned and watched her lean against the door-jamb, her head angled sideways.

‘Is it?’ he said, rinsing a mug.

‘Christ, yes. Look how high your ceilings are! I could just about touch the ceiling in Ronnie’s squat.’ She stood on tiptoe and stretched an arm upwards, waving her hand. Rebus feared that she had taken something, some pills or powders, while he’d been on the trail of the furtive teabag. She seemed to sense his thoughts, and smiled.

‘I’m just relieved,’ she said. ‘I feel light-headed from the running. And from being scared, I suppose. But now I feel safe.’

‘What did the men look like?’

‘I don’t know. I think they looked a bit like you.’ She smiled again. ‘One had a moustache. He was sort of fat, going thin on top, but not old. I can’t remember the other one. He wasn’t very memorable, I suppose.’

Rebus poured water into the mug and added the teabag. ‘Milk?’

‘No, just sugar if you’ve got it.’

He waved one of the sachets at her.

‘Great.’

Back in the living room, he went to the stereo and turned it down.

‘Sorry,’ she said, back in the chair now, sipping tea, her legs tucked under her.

‘I keep meaning to find out whether my neighbours can hear the stereo or not,’ Rebus said, as if to excuse his action. ‘The walls are pretty thick, but the ceiling isn’t.’

She nodded, blew onto the surface of the drink, steam covering her face in a veil.

‘So,’ said Rebus, pulling his director’s foldaway chair out from beneath a table and sitting down. ‘What can we do about these men who’ve been following you?’

‘I don’t know. You’re the policeman.’

‘It all sounds like something out of a film to me. I mean. why should anyone want to follow you?’

‘To scare me?’ she offered.

‘And why should they want to scare you?’

She thought about this, then shrugged her shoulders.

‘By the way, I saw Charlie today,’ he said.

‘Oh?’

‘Do you like him?’

‘Charlie?’ Her laughter was shrill. ‘He’s horrible. Always hanging around, even when it’s obvious nobody wants him anywhere near. Everybody hates him.’

‘Everybody?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did Ronnie hate him?’

She paused. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘But then Ronnie didn’t have much sense that way.’

‘What about this other friend of Ronnie’s? Neil, or Neilly. What can you tell me about him?’

‘Is that the guy who was there last night?’

‘Yes.’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I never saw him before.’ She seemed interested in the book on the arm of the chair, picked it up and flipped its pages, pretending to read.

‘And Ronnie never mentioned a Neil or a Neilly to you?’

‘No.’ She waved the book at Rebus. ‘But he did talk about someone called Edward. Seemed angry with him about something. Used to shout the name out when he was alone in his room, after a fix.’

Rebus nodded slowly. ‘Edward. His dealer maybe?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. Ronnie got pretty crazy sometimes after he fixed. He was like a different person. But he

was so sweet at times, so gentle..: .’ Her voice died away, eyes glistening.