Dead Souls Read Free Page B

plunging into the pool and taking the camera bag with him.
    Two shapes in the pool – mother and child – nosed towards him. The keeper was blowing the whistle strung around her neck, for all the world like the referee at a Sunday kickabout faced with a conflagration. The male sea-lion looked at Rebus a final time and plunged back into its pool, heading for where its mate was prodding the new arrival.
    ‘For Christ’s sake,’ Rebus shouted, ‘chuck in some fish!’
    The keeper got the message and kicked a pail of food into the pool, at which all three sea-lions sped towards the scene. Rebus took his chance and waded in, closing his eyes and diving, grabbing the man and hauling him back towards the rocks. A couple of spectators came to help, followed by two plain-clothes detectives. Rebus’s eyes stung. The scent of raw fish was heavy in the air.
    ‘Let’s get you out,’ someone said, offering a hand. Rebus let himself be reeled in. He snatched the camera from around the drenched man’s neck.
    ‘Got you,’ he said. Then, kneeling on the rocks, starting to shiver, he threw up into the pool.

2
    Next morning, Rebus was surrounded by memories.
    Not his own, but those of his Chief Super: framed photographs cluttering the tight space of the office. The thing with memories was, they meant nothing to the outsider. Rebus could have been looking at a museum display. Children, lots of children. The Chief Super’s kids, their faces ageing over time, and then grandchildren. Rebus got the feeling his boss hadn’t taken the photos. They were gifts, passed on to him, and he’d felt it necessary to bring them here.
    The clues were all in their situation: the photos on the desk faced out from it, so anyone in the office could see them with the exception of the man who used the desk every day. Others were on the window-ledge behind the desk – same effect – and still more on top of a filing cabinet in the corner. Rebus sat in Chief Superintendent Watson’s chair to confirm his theory. The snapshots weren’t for Watson; they were for visitors. And what they told visitors was that Watson was a family man, a man of rectitude, a man who had achieved something in his life. Instead of humanising the drab office, they sat in it with all the ease of exhibits.
    A new photo had been added to the collection. It was old, slightly out of focus as though smeared by a flicker of camera movement. Crimped edges, white border, and the photographer’s illegible signature in one corner. A family group: father standing, one hand proprietorially on the shoulder of his seated wife, who held in her lap a toddler. The father’s other hand gripped the blazered shoulder of ayoung boy, cropped hair and glaring eyes. Some pre-sitting tension was evident: the boy was trying to pull his shoulder from beneath his father’s claw. Rebus took the photo over to the window, marvelled at the starched solemnity. He felt starched himself, in his dark woollen suit, white shirt and black tie. Black socks and shoes, the latter given a decent polish first thing this morning. Outside it was overcast, threatening rain. Fine weather for a funeral.
    Chief Superintendent Watson came into the room, lazy progress belying his temperament. Behind his back they called him ‘the Farmer’, because he came from the north and had something of the Aberdeen Angus about him. He was dressed in his best uniform, cap in one hand, white A4 envelope in the other. He placed both on his desk, as Rebus replaced the photograph, angling it so it faced the Farmer’s chair.
    ‘That you, sir?’ he asked, tapping the scowling child.
    ‘That’s me.’
    ‘Brave of you to let us see you in shorts.’
    But the Farmer was not to be deflected. Rebus could think of three explanations for the red veins highlighted on Watson’s face: exertion, spirits, or anger. No sign of breathlessness, so rule out the first. And when the Farmer drank whisky, it didn’t just affect his cheeks: his whole face