‘Sure.’ She wound it back, and they listened together. Then she excused herself – ‘to powder my nose’ – and Rebus listened twice more. When she returned, she was carrying two plastic beakers of coffee.
‘Thought I might tempt you,’ she said. ‘Milk, no sugar… I hope that’s all right.’
‘Thank you, yes, that’s just the job.’
‘So, Inspector, what do you think?’
He sipped the lukewarm liquid. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘you’ve got an anonymous phone-caller.’
She raised her cup, as though to toast him. ‘God bless CID,’ she said. ‘What would we do without you?’
‘The problem is that he’s probably mobile, not sticking to the same telephone kiosk every time. That’s supposing he’s as clever as he seems. We can get BT to put a trace on him, but for that you’d have to keep him talking. Or, if he gives his number, we can trace him from that. But it takes time.’
‘And meanwhile he could be slipping off into the night?’
‘I’m afraid so. Still, apart from continuing to fend him off and hoping he gets fed up, I can’t see what else can be done. You don’t recognise the voice? Someone from your past… an ex-lover… someone with a grudge?’
‘I don’t make enemies, Inspector.’
Looking at her, listening to her voice, he found that easy to believe. Maybe not personal enemies…
‘What about the other radio stations? They can’t be too thrilled about your ratings.’
Her laughter was loud. ‘You think they’ve put out a contract on me, is that it?’
Rebus smiled and shrugged. ‘Just a thought. But yours is the most popular show Lowland has got, isn’t it?’
‘I think I’m still just about ahead of Hamish, yes. But then Hamish’s show is just… well, Hamish. My show’s all about the people themselves, the ones who call in. Human interest, you could say.’
‘And there’s plenty of interest.’
‘Suffering is always interesting, isn’t it? It appeals to the voyeur. We do get our fair share of crank calls. Maybe that’s why. All those lonely, slightly deranged people out there… listening to me. Me, pretending I’ve got all the answers.’ Her smile this time was rueful. ‘The calls recently have been getting… I don’t know whether to say “better” or “worse”. Worse problems, better radio.’
‘Better for your ratings, you mean?’
‘Most advertisers ignore the late-night slots. That’s common knowledge. Not a big enough audience. But it’s never been a problem on my show. We did slip back for a little while, but the figures picked up again. Up and up and up… Don’t ask me what sort of listeners we’re attracting. I leave all that to market research.’
Rebus finished his coffee and clasped both knees, preparing to rise. ‘I’d like to take the tape with me, is that possible?’
‘Sure.’ She ejected the tape.
‘And I’d like to have a word with… Sue, is it?’
She checked her watch. ‘Sue, yes, but she won’t be in for a few hours yet. Night shift, you see. Only us poor disc jockeys have to be here twenty-four hours. I exaggerate, but it feels like it sometimes.’ She patted a tray on the ledge beside the cassette player. The tray was filled with correspondence. ‘Besides, I have my fan mail to deal with.’
Rebus nodded, glanced at the cassette tape he was now holding. ‘Let me have a think about this, Miss Cook. I’ll see what we can do.’
‘OK, Inspector.’
‘Sorry I can’t be more constructive. You were quite right to contact us.’
‘I didn’t suppose there was much you could-’
‘We don’t know that yet. As I say, give me a little time to think about it.’
She rose from her chair. ‘I’ll see you out. This place is a maze, and we can’t have you stumbling in on the Afternoon Show, can we? You might end up doing your Laughing Policeman routine after all…’
As they were walking down the long, hushed corridor, Rebus saw two men in conversation at the bottom of the stairwell. One was a beefy, hearty-looking man with a mass of rumpled hair and a good growth of beard. His cheeks seemed veined with blood. The other man proved a significant contrast, small and thin with slicked-back hair. He wore a grey suit and white shirt, the latter offset by a bright red paisley-patterned tie.
‘Ah,’ said Penny Cook quietly, ‘a chance to kill two birds. Come on, let me introduce you to Gordon Prentice – he’s the station chief – and to the infamous Hamish MacDiarmid.’
Well, Rebus had no trouble deciding which man was which. Except that, when Penny did make the introductions, he was proved utterly wrong. The bearded man pumped his hand.
‘I hope you’re going to be able to help, Inspector. There are some sick minds out there.’ This was Gordon Prentice. He wore baggy brown cords and an open-necked shirt from which protruded tufts of wiry hair. Hamish MacDiarmid’s hand, when Rebus took it, was limp and cool, like something lifted from a larder. No matter how hard he tried, Rebus couldn’t match this… for want of a better word, yuppie… couldn’t match him to the combative voice. But then MacDiarmid spoke.
‘Sick minds is right, and stupid minds too. I don’t know which is worse, a deranged audience or an educationally subnormal one.’ He turned to Penny Cook. ‘Maybe you got the better bargain, Penelope.’ He turned back to Prentice. So that’s what a sneer looks like, Rebus thought. But MacDiarmid was speaking again. ‘Gordon, how about letting Penny and me swap shows for a day? She could sit there agreeing with every bigoted caller I get, and I could get stuck in about her social cripples. What do you think?’
Prentice chuckled and placed a hand on the shoulder of both his star DJs. ‘I’ll give it some thought, Hamish. Penny might not be too thrilled though. I think she has a soft spot for her “cripples”.’
Penny Cook certainly didn’t look ‘too thrilled’ by the time Rebus and she were out of earshot.
‘Those two,’ she hissed. ‘Sometimes they act like I’m not even there! Men…’ She glanced towards Rebus. ‘Present company excluded, of course.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘I shouldn’t be so hard on Gordon actually. I know I joke about being here twenty-four hours a day, but I really think he does spend all day and all night at the station. He’s here from early morning, but each night he comes into the studio to listen to a bit of my show. Beyond the call of duty, wouldn’t you say?’
Rebus merely shrugged.
‘I bet,’ she went on, ‘when you saw them you thought it was Hamish with the beard.’
Rebus nodded. She giggled. ‘Everybody does,’ she said. ‘Nobody’s what they seem in this place. I’ll let you into a secret. The station doesn’t keep any publicity shots of Hamish. They’re afraid it would hurt his image if everyone found out he looks like a wimp.’
‘He’s certainly not quite what I expected.’
She gave him an ambiguous look. ‘No, well, you’re not quite what I was expecting either.’ There was a moment’s stillness between them, broken only by some coffee commercial being broadcast from the ceiling: ‘… but Camelot Coffee is no myth, and mmm… it tastes so good.’ They smiled at one another and walked on.
Driving back into Edinburgh, Rebus listened, despite himself, to the drivel on Lowland Radio. Advertising was tight, he knew that. Maybe that was why he seemed to hear the same dozen or so adverts over and over again. Lots of airtime to fill and so few advertisers to fill it…
‘… and mmm… it tastes so good.’
That particular advert was beginning to get to him. It careered around in his head, even when it wasn’t being broadcast. The actor’s voice was so… what was the word? It was like being force-fed a tablespoon of honey. Cloying, sickly, altogether too much.
‘Was Camelot a myth or is it real? Arthur and Guinevere, Merlin and Lancelot. A dream, or-’
Rebus switched off the radio. ‘It’s only a jar of bloody coffee,’ he told his radio set. Yes, he thought, a jar of coffee… and mmm… it tastes so good. Come to think of it, he needed coffee for the flat. He’d stop off at the corner shop, and whatever he bought it wouldn’t be Camelot.