‘I won’t have malicious comments made about my men.’

‘Surveillance on Eve and Stanley,’ Rebus stressed. ‘And if it’s blown, you know where to look.’ Same place he was looking now.

Lumsden flew at him, hands at his throat. Rebus threw him off.

‘You’re as dirty as bilge-water, Lumsden, and don’t think I don’t know it!’

Lumsden swung a punch; it didn’t connect. Ancram and Grogan pulled the two of them apart. Grogan pointed to Rebus, but spoke to Ancram.

‘Maybe we’d better keep him here after all.’

‘I’m taking him back with me.’

‘I’m not so sure about that.’

‘I said I’m taking him back, Ted.’

‘Long time since I had two men fighting over me,’ Rebus said with a smile.

The two Aberdeen officers were looking ready to plough a field with him. Ancram slapped a proprietorial hand on to his shoulder.

‘Inspector Rebus,’ he said, ‘I think we’d best be going, don’t you?’

‘Do me one favour,’ Rebus said.

‘What?’ They were in the back of Ancram’s car, heading for Rebus’s hotel, where they’d pick up his car.

‘A quick detour down to the docks.’

Ancram glanced at him. ‘Why?’

‘I want to see where she died.’

Ancram looked at him again. ‘What for?’

Rebus shrugged. ‘To pay my respects,’ he said.

Ancram had only a vague idea where the body had been found, but it didn’t take long to find the runs of bright police tape which were there to secure the scene. The docks were quiet, no sign of the crate in which the body had been discovered. It would be in a police lab somewhere. Rebus kept the right side of the cordon, looked around him. Huge white gulls strutted at a safe distance. The wind was fresh. He couldn’t tell how close this was to the spot where Lumsden had dropped him off.

‘What do you know about her?’ he asked Ancram, who stood, hands in pockets, studying him.

‘Name’s Holden, I think. Twenty-seven, twenty-eight.’

‘Did he take a souvenir?’

‘Just one of her shoes. Listen, Rebus … all this interest is because you once bought a prostitute a cup of tea?’

‘Her name was Angie Riddell.’ Rebus paused. ‘She had beautiful eyes.’ He gazed towards a rusting hulk chained dockside. ‘There’s a question I’ve been asking myself. Do we let it happen, or do we make it happen?’ He looked at Ancram. ‘Any idea?’

Ancram frowned. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

‘Me neither,’ Rebus admitted. ‘Tell your driver to be careful with my car. The steering’s a bit loose.’

The Panic of Dreams

21

They were chasing him up and down monkey-puzzle ladders, the tumorous sea raging beneath, buckling weakened metal. Rebus lost his grip, tumbled down steel steps, gashed his side and dabbed a hand there, finding oil instead of blood. They were twenty feet above him and laughing, taking their time: where was there for him to go? Maybe he could fly, flap his arms and leap into space. The only thing to fear was the drop.