Hide & Seek

The man smiled, nodded, then jerked his head in the

direction of a much younger man. Everyone, uniformeds, plain-clothes, even the SSPCA Judas, was smiling, enjoying Holmes’s mistake. He felt a rush of blood to his face, and was rooted to the spot. The young man saw his discomfort and stuck out a hand.

‘I’m DS Hendry, Brian. Sometimes I’m in charge here.’ There were more smiles. Holmes joined in this time.

‘Sorry, sir.’

‘I’m flattered actually. Nice to think I’m so young-looking, and Harry here’s so old.’ He nodded towards the man Holmes had mistaken for the senior officer. ‘Right, Brian. I’ll just tell you what I’ve been telling the lads. We have a good tip that there’s going to be a dog fight here tonight. It’s secluded, half a mile from the main road, a mile from the nearest house. Perfect, really. There’s a track the lorries take from the main road up to the site here. That’s the way they’ll come in, probably three or four vans carrying the dogs, and then who knows how many cars with the punters. If it gets to Ibrox proportions, we’ll call in reinforcements. As it is, we’re not bothered so much about nabbing punters as about catching the handlers themselves. The word is that Davy Brightman’s the main man. Owns a couple of scrap yards in Kirkcaldy and Methil. We know he keeps a few pit bulls, and we think he fights them.’

There was a blast of static from one of the radios, then a call sign. DS Hendry responded.

‘Do you have a Detective Constable Holmes with you?’ came the message. Hendry stared at Holmes as he handed him the radio. Holmes could only look apologetic.

‘DC Holmes speaking.’

‘DC Holmes, we’ve a message for you.’

‘Go ahead,’ said Holmes.

‘It’s to do with a Miss Nell Stapleton.’

Sitting in the hospital waiting room, eating chocolate

from a vending machine, Rebus went over the day’s events in his mind. Remembering the incident with Tracy in the car, his scrotum began to rise up into his body in an act of self-protection. Painful still. Like a double hernia, not that he’d ever had one.

But the afternoon had been very interesting indeed. Vanderhyde had been interesting. And Charlie, well, Charlie had sung like a bird.

‘What is it you want to ask me?’ he had said, bringing more tea into the living room.

‘I’m interested in time, Charlie. Your uncle has already told me that he’s not interested in time. He isn’t ruled by it, but policemen are. Especially in a case like this. You see, the chronology of events isn’t quite right in my mind. That’s what I want to clear up, if possible.’

‘All right,’ Charlie said. ‘How can I help?’

‘You were at Ronnie’s that night?’

‘Yes, for a while.’

‘And you left to look for some party or other?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Leaving Neil in the house with Ronnie?’

‘No, he’d left by then.’

‘You didn’t know, of course, that Neil was Ronnie’s brother?’

The look of surprise on Charlie’s face seemed authentic, but then Rebus knew him for an accomplished actor, and was taking nothing for granted, not any more.

“No, I didn’t know that. Shit, his brother. Why didn’t he want any of us to meet him?’

‘Neil and I are in the same profession,’ Rebus explained. Charlie just smiled and shook his head. Vanderhyde was leaning back thoughtfully in his chair, like a meticulous juror at some trial.

Now,’ Rebus continued, ‘Neil says he left quite early. lonnie was being uncommunicative.’

‘I can guess why.’

‘Why?’

‘Easy. He’d just scored, hadn’t he? He hadn’t seen any stuff for ages, and suddenly he’d scored.’ Charlie suddenly remembered that his aged uncle was listening, and stopped short, looking towards the old man. Vanderhyde, shrewd as ever, seemed to sense this, and waved his hand regally before him, as if to say, I’ve been too long on this planet and can’t be shocked any more.

‘I think you’re right,’ Rebus said to Charlie. ‘One hundred percent. So, in an empty house, Ronnie shoots up. The stuffs lethal. When Tracy comes in, she finds him in his room -’

‘So she says,’ interrupted Charlie. Rebus nodded, acknowledging his scepticism.

‘Let’s accept for the moment that’s what happened. He’s dead, or seems so to her. She panics, and runs off. Right. So far so good. Now it begins to get hazy, and this is where I need your help, Charlie. Thereafter, someone moves Ronnie’s body downstairs. I don’t know why. Maybe they were just playing silly buggers, or, as Mr Vanderhyde put it so succinctly, trying to muddy the water. Anyway, around this stage in the chronology, a second packet of white powder appears. Tracy only saw one -’ Rebus saw that Charlie was about to interrupt again - so she says. So, Ronnie had one packet and shot up with it. When he died, his body came downstairs and another packet magically appeared. This new packet contains good stuff, not the poison Ronnie used on himself. And, to add a little more to the concoction, Ronnie’s camera disappears, to turn up later in your squat, Charlie, in your room, and in your black polythene bag.’