Dead Souls by Ian Rankin Read Free Book Online Page A

picture of Damon, and hadn’t been there the night he’d vanished. She’d been out with friends. It was a Friday ritual: Damon went out with ‘the lads’, she went out with ‘the girls’. He’d spoken with one of Damon’s companions; the other had been out. He’d learned nothing helpful.
    As he crossed the Forth Road Bridge, he thought about the symbol Fife had decided upon for its ‘Welcome to Fife’ signs: the Forth Rail Bridge. Not an identity so much as an admission of failure, recognition that Fife was for many people a conduit or mere adjunct to Edinburgh.
    Helen Cousins had worn black eyeliner and crimson lipstick and would never be pretty. Acne had carved cruel lines into her sallow face. Her hair had been dyed black and fell to a gelled fringe. When asked what she thought had happened to Damon, she’d just shrugged and folded her arms, crossing one leg over the other in a refusal to take any blame he might be trying to foist on her.
    Joey, who’d been at Guiser’s that night, had been similarly reticent.
    ‘Just a night out,’ he’d said. ‘Nothing unusual about it.’
    ‘And nothing different about Damon?’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘I don’t know. Was he maybe preoccupied? Did he look nervous?’
    A shrug: the apparent extent of Joey’s concern for his friend …
    Rebus knew he was headed home, meaning Patience’s flat. But as he stop-started between the lights on Queens-ferry Road, he thought maybe he’d go to the Oxford Bar. Not for a drink, maybe just for a cola or a coffee, and some company. He’d drink a soft drink and listen to the gossip.
    So he drove past Oxford Terrace, stopped at the foot of Castle Street. Walked up the slope towards the Ox. Edinburgh Castle was just over the rise. The best view you could get of it was from a burger place on Princes Street. He pushed open the door to the pub, feeling heat and smelling smoke. He didn’t need cigarettes in the Ox: breathing was like killing a ten-pack. Coke or a coffee, he was having trouble making up his mind. Harry was on duty tonight. He lifted an empty pint glass and waved it in Rebus’s direction.
    ‘Aye, OK then,’ Rebus said, like it was the easiest decision he’d ever made.
    He got in at quarter to midnight. Patience was watching TV. She didn’t say much about his drinking these days: silence every bit as effective as lectures had ever been. But she wrinkled her nose at the cigarette smoke clinging to his clothes, so he dumped them in the washing basket and took a shower. She was in bed by the time he got out. There was a fresh glass of water his side of the bed.
    ‘Thanks,’ he said, draining it with two paracetamol.
    ‘How was your day?’ she asked: automatic question, automatic response.
    ‘Not so bad. Yours?’
    A sleepy grunt in reply. She had her eyes closed. There were things Rebus wanted to say, questions he’d like to ask. What are we doing here? Do you want me out? He thought maybe Patience had the same questions or similar. Somehow they never got asked; fear of the answers, perhaps, and what those answers would mean. Who in the world relished failure?
    ‘I went to a funeral,’ he told her. ‘A guy I knew.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘I didn’t really know him that well.’
    ‘What did he die of?’ Head still on the pillow, eyes closed.
    ‘A fall.’
    ‘Accident?’
    She was drifting away from him. He spoke anyway. ‘His widow, she’d dressed their daughter to look like an angel. One way of dealing with it, I suppose.’ He paused, listening to Patience’s breathing grow regular. ‘I went to Fife tonight, back to the old town. Friends I haven’t seen in years.’ He looked at her. ‘An old flame, someone I could have ended up married to.’ Touched her hair. ‘No Edinburgh, no Dr Patience Aitken.’ His eyes turned towards the window. No Sammy … maybe no job in the police either.
    No ghosts.
    When she was asleep, he went back through to the living room and plugged headphones into the hi-fi.