Hide & Seek

‘If I’d known you were coming to tea, John, I’d have made it just the way you like it.’

The desk sergeant always had a smart answer, and Rebus could never think of a smarter rejoinder. He handed back the cup and walked away, feeling the sugar cloy inside him.

I’ll never touch another drop, he was thinking as he started his car. Honest to God, only the occasional glass of wine. Allow me that. But no more indulgence, and no more mixing wine and spirits. Okay? So give me a break, God, and lift this hangover. I only drank the one glass of cognac, maybe two glasses of claret, one of Chablis. One gin and tonic. It was hardly the stuff of legend, hardly a case for the detox ward.

The roads were quiet though, which was a break. Not enough of a break, but a break. So he made good time to Pilmuir, and then remembered that he didn’t know where Charlie boy lived. Charlie, the person he needed to talk to if he was going to find an address for a coven. A white coven. He wanted to double-check the witchcraft story. He wanted to double-check Charlie, too, come to that. But he didn’t want Charlie to know he was being checked.

The witchcraft thing niggled. Rebus believed in good and evil, and believed stupid people could be attracted towards the latter. He understood pagan religions well enough, had read about them in books too thick and intense for their own good. He didn’t mind people worshipping the Earth, or whatever. It all came down to the same thing in the end. What he did mind was people worshipping Evil as a force, and as more than a force: as an entity. Especially, he disliked the idea of people doing it

for ‘kicks’ without knowing or caring what it was they were involved in.

People like Charlie. He remembered that book of Giger prints again. Satan, poised at the centre of a pair of scales, flanked by a naked woman left and right. The women were being penetrated by huge drills. Satan was a goat’s head in a mask.. ..

But where would Charlie be now? He’d find out. Stop and ask. Knock on doors. Hint at retribution should information be withheld. He’d act the big bad policeman if that was what it took.

He didn’t need to do anything, as it happened. He just had to find the police constables who were loitering outside one of the boarded-up houses, not too far from where Ronnie had died. One of the constables held a radio to his mouth. The other was writing in a notebook. Rebus stopped his car, stepped out. Then remembered something, leaned back into the car and drew his keys from out of the ignition. You couldn’t be too careful around here. A second later, he actually locked his driver’s side door, too.

He knew one of the constables. It was Harry Todd, one of the men who had found Ronnie. Todd straightened when he saw Rebus, but Rebus waved this acknowledgment aside, so Todd continued with his radio conversation. Rebus concentrated on the other officer instead.

‘What’s the score here?’ The constable turned from his writing to give Rebus that suspicious, near-hostile look almost unique to the constabulary. ‘Inspector Rebus,’ Rebus explained. He was wondering where Todd’s Irish sidekick O’Rourke was.

‘Oh,’ said the constable. ‘Well . ..’ He started to put away his pen. ‘We were called to a domestic, sir. In this house. A real screaming match. But by the time we got here, the man had fled. The woman is still inside. She’s got herself a black eye, nothing more. Not really your territory, sir.’

‘Is that right?’ said Rebus. ‘Well, thank you for telling me, sonny. It’s nice to be told what is and isn’t my “territory”. Thank you so much. Now, may I have your permission to enter the premises?’

The constable was blushing furiously, his cheeks an almighty red against his bloodless face and neck. No: even his neck was blushing now. Rebus enjoyed that. He didn’t even mind that behind the constable, but in full view of Rebus himself, Todd was smirking at this encounter.

‘Well?’ Rebus prompted.

‘Sorry, sir,’ said the constable.

‘Right,’ said Rebus, walking towards the door. But before he reached it, it was opened from the inside, and there stood Tracy, both eyes reddened from crying, one eye bruised a deep blue. She didn’t seem surprised to see Rebus standing in front of her; she seemed relieved, and threw herself at him, hugging him, her head against his chest, the tears beginning all over again.

Rebus, startled and embarrassed, returned the embrace only lightly, with a patting of his hands on her back: a father’s ‘there, there’ to a frightened child. He turned his head to look at the constables, who were pretending to have noticed nothing. Then a car drew up beside his own, and he saw Tony McCall put on his handbrake before pushing open the driver’s door, stepping out and seeing Rebus there, and the girl.