‘Yeah? What is it?’ Sounding authentically groggy.
‘Tommy, is that you?’ Mock-Glaswegian. ‘We’re having a bit of a bevvy in my room. Thought you were coming up.’
Silence for a moment. Then: ‘What room is it again?’
Rebus pondered an answer, cut the connection instead. ‘At least we know he’s there.’
‘And awake now.’
Rebus checked his watch. ‘Your shift ends at six.’
‘If Bill Pryde doesn’t sleep in.’
‘I’ll give him an alarm call for you.’ Rebus made to leave the car again.
‘Look, sir.’ Clarke was nodding towards the hotel.
Rebus looked: second-floor window, right at the far end. No light on, but curtains open and a face at the window, peering out. Looking straight at them. Rebus gave Cary Oakes a wave as he made for his own car.
No need to be subtle.
At eight sharp he was in the office, typing up details of Damon Mee, preparing a blitz on charities, hostels and organisations for the homeless. At nine there was a message from the front desk. Someone to see him.
Janice.
‘You must be psychic,’ Rebus told her. ‘I was just working on Damon. Any news?’
He was guiding her down Rankeillor Street. They’d find a café on Clerk Street. He didn’t want to talk to her in the cop-shop. A bundle of motives: didn’t want anyone to suspect he was working on a case that wasn’t official L&B business; didn’t want her seeing some of the stuff in St Leonard’s — photos of MisPers and suspects, cases dealt with without emotion or (often) enthusiasm; and maybe, just maybe, he didn’t want to share her. Didn’t want the part of her that belonged to his past intruding on his here and now, his workplace.
‘No news,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d spend the day in Edinburgh, see if I couldn’t... I don’t know. I have to do something.’
Rebus nodded. There were dark half-moons beneath her eyes. ‘Are you getting much sleep?’ he asked.
‘The doctor gave me some pills.’
Rebus remembered the way her replies to questions could sometimes only seem to be answers.
‘Do you take them?’ She smiled, glanced at him. ‘Thought not,’ he said. It wasn’t that Janice would lie to you, but you had to know how to phrase a question to make sure of getting a truthful response.
‘We used to have these conversations all the time, didn’t we?’
She was right, they did. Rebus wondering if she fancied any of his friends, trying to find ways of asking without seeming jealous. She telling him versions of her life before they’d started dating. Dialogues of the left-unsaid.
He guided her into the café. They took a corner table. The owner, recently arrived, had only unlocked the door because he recognised Rebus.
‘I can’t cook anything,’ he warned them.
‘Coffee’s fine for me,’ Rebus said. He looked to Janice, who nodded. Their eyes stayed on one another as the café owner walked away.
‘Have you ever forgiven me?’ she asked.
‘For what?’
‘I think you know.’
He nodded. ‘But I want to hear you say it.’
She smiled. ‘For knocking you out.’
He looked around. ‘Keep your voice down, someone might hear.’
She laughed, the way he’d meant her to. ‘You were always the joker, Johnny.’
‘Was I’ He tried to remember.
‘Did you keep in touch with Mitch?’
He puffed out his cheeks. ‘Now there’s a name from the past.’
‘The two of you were like this.’ She twisted two fingers together.
‘I’m not sure that’s legal these days.’
She smiled, looked down at the tabletop. ‘Always the joker.’ There were spots of red high on her cheeks. Yes, he’d been able to make her blush back then too.
‘What about you?’ he asked.
‘What about me?’
‘You and Barney.’
‘Nobody calls him Barney these days.’ She sat back in her chair. ‘We were just friendly, stayed that way for a few years. One night he asked me out. Started seeing one another.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s how it works sometimes. No Cupid’s arrow, no fireworks. Just... nice.’ She looked up at him, smiled again. ‘As for the rest of the crew... Billy and Sarah are still around. They got married but split up, three kids. Tom’s still around, got some industrial injury, hasn’t been back to work in years. Cranny — you remember her?’ Rebus nodded. ‘Some moved away... a few died.’
‘Died?’
‘Car smashes, accidents. Wee Paula got cancer. Midge had a heart attack.’ She paused as their coffees arrived, topped with a froth of milk.
‘I’ve got some biscuits...?’ the café owner suggested. They shook their heads.
Janice blew on the coffee, sipped. ‘Then there was Alec...’
‘Never turned up?’ Alec Chisholm, who’d gone to play football. Alec, who’d never reached the park.
‘His mum’s still alive, you know. She’s in her eighties. Still wonders what happened to him.’
Rebus said nothing. He could see what she was thinking: maybe that’s my future too. He leaned across the table, squeezed her hand. It was warm, pliant.
‘You can help me,’ he said.
She looked in her bag for a handkerchief. ‘How?’
Rebus took out the list he’d printed that morning. ‘Hostels and charities,’ he told her. She blew her nose and examined the list. ‘They all need contacting. I was going to do it myself, but we’d save time if you made a start.’
‘OK.’
‘Then there are the taxis. That means putting the word out, visiting each rank and letting them know what we need. Damon and the blonde, across the road from The Dome.’
Janice was nodding. ‘I can do that,’ she said.
‘I’ll give you a list of where to find them.’
The café owner was standing by the counter, smoking a breakfast cigarette and opening the morning’s paper. Rebus caught a headline, knew he had to buy the paper for himself. Janice was checking in her purse.
‘I’ll get these,’ Rebus told her.
‘I’ll need coins for the phone,’ she said.
Rebus thought for a moment. ‘Why not use my flat as a base? It’s not that much more comfortable than most phone boxes, but at least you can sit down, have a cup of coffee...’ He held out a bunch of keys to her. She looked at him.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure I’m sure.’ He wrote his address on a page of his notebook, added his work and mobile phone numbers, tore the page out and handed it to her. She studied it.
‘No secrets there you don’t want anyone to see?’
He smiled. ‘I don’t use the place much, to be honest. There’s a couple of local shops if you need—’
‘So where do you usually stay?’
He cleared his throat. ‘With a friend.’
Her turn to smile. ‘That’s nice.’
Why had he said ‘friend’ rather than ‘lover’? Rebus wondered if they sounded as awkward as he felt: kids again, language the clumsiest form of communication.
‘I’ll give you a lift,’ he said.
‘Remember the list of taxi ranks,’ she told him. ‘And an A to Z if you’ve got one.’
Rebus went to pay. The owner rang it up on the till. His paper was open at a court headline: previous day’s testimony from the Shiellion case. KIDS’ BOSS BRANDED MONSTER. There was a photograph of Harold Ince being led to a police van by the court guard Rebus had shared a smoke with. Ince looked tired, ordinary.
That was the trouble with monsters. They could be every bit as ordinary as anyone else.
Jim Stevens couldn’t hide the relief on his face when he walked into the dining room. He made for one of the window tables. A couple of guests nodded and smiled at him as he passed them. He got the idea they’d been in the bar last night.