Hide & Seek by Ian Rankin

Author:Ian Rankin [Rankin, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780752837994
Published: 1973-08-15T23:00:00+00:00

Ian Rankin - Rebus 02 - Hide An

All foam. Now there was another idea. He would put some foaming bath oil in the water. Bubblebath. Who the hell had given him this stuff? Oh. Yes. Gill Templer. He remembered now. Remembered the occasion, too. She had

been gently chiding him about how he never cleaned the bath. Then had presented him with this bath oil.

‘It cleans you and your bath,’ she had said, reading from the bottle. ‘And puts the fun back into bathtime.’

He had suggested that they test this claim together, and they had. .. . Jesus, John, you’re getting morbid again. Just because she’s gone off with some vacuum-headed disc jockey with the unlikely name of Calum McCallum. It wasn’t the end of anybody’s world. The bombs weren’t falling. There were no sirens in the sky.

Nothing but . .. Ronnie, Tracy, Charlie, James and the rest. And now Hyde. Rebus was beginning to know now the meaning of the term ‘dead beat’. He rested his naked limbs in the near-scalding water and closed his eyes.

Thursday

That house of voluntary bondage its inscrutable recluse.

. with

Dead beat: Holmes yawned again, dead on his feet. For once, he had actually beaten the alarm, so that he was returning to bed with instant coffee when the radio blared into action. What a way to wake up every day. When he had a spare half hour, he’d retune the bloody thing to Radio Three or something. Except he knew Radio Three would send him straight back to sleep, whereas the voice of Calum McCallum and the grating records he played in between hoots and jingles and enthusiastic bad jokes brought him awake with a jolt, ready, teeth gritted, to face another day.

This morning, he had beaten the smug little voice. He switched the radio off.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Coffee, and time to get up.’

Nell turned her head from the pillow, squinting up at him.

‘Has it gone nine?’

‘Not quite.’

She turned back into the pillow again, moaning softly.

‘Good. Wake me up again when it does.’

‘Drink your coffee,’ he chided, touching her shoulder. Her shoulder was warm, tempting. He allowed himself a wistful smile, then turned and left the bedroom. He had gone ten paces before he paused, turned, and went back. Nell’s arms were long, tanned, and open in welcome.

Despite the breakfast he had brought her in the cell, Tracy

was furious with Rebus, and especially when he explained to her that she could leave whenever she wanted, that she wasn’t under arrest.

‘This is called protection,’ he told her. ‘Protection from the men who were chasing you. Protection from Charlie.’

‘Charlie. . . .’ She calmed a little at the sound of his name, and touched her bruised eye. ‘But why didn’t you come to see me sooner?’ she complained. Rebus shrugged.

‘Things to do,’ he said.

He stared at her photograph now, while Brian Holmes sat on the other side of the desk, warily sipping coffee from a chipped mug. Rebus wasn’t sure whether he hated Holmes or loved him for bringing this into the office, for laying it flat on the desktop in front of him.

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