Dead Souls Read Online Free

took on a roseate glow and seemed to contract until it became puckish.
    Which left anger.
    ‘Let’s get down to it,’ Watson said, glancing at his watch. Neither man had much time. The Farmer opened the envelope and shook a packet of photographs on to his desk, then opened the packet and tossed the photos towards Rebus.
    ‘Look for yourself.’
    Rebus looked. They were the photos from Darren Rough’s camera. The Farmer reached into his drawer to pull out a file. Rebus kept looking. Zoo animals, caged andbehind walls. And in some of the shots – not all of them, but a fair proportion – children. The camera had focused on these children, involved in conversations among themselves, or chewing sweets, or making faces at the animals. Rebus felt immediate relief, and looked to the Farmer for a confirmation that wasn’t there.
    ‘According to Mr Rough,’ the Farmer was saying, studying a sheet from the file, ‘the photos comprise part of a portfolio.’
    ‘I’ll bet they do.’
    ‘Of a day in the life of Edinburgh Zoo.’
    ‘Sure.’
    The Farmer cleared his throat. ‘He’s enrolled in a photography night-class. I’ve checked and it’s true. It’s also true that his project is the zoo.’
    ‘And there are kids in almost every shot.’
    ‘In fewer than half the shots, actually.’
    Rebus slid the photos across the desk. ‘Come on, sir.’
    ‘John, Darren Rough has been out of prison the best part of a year and has yet to show any sign of reoffending.’
    ‘I heard he’d gone south.’
    ‘And moved back again.’
    ‘He ran for it when he saw me.’
    The Farmer just stared the comment down. ‘There’s nothing here, John,’ he said.
    ‘A guy like Rough, he doesn’t go to the zoo for the birds and the bees, believe me.’
    ‘It wasn’t even his choice of project. His tutor assigned it.’
    ‘Yes, Rough would have preferred a play-park.’ Rebus sighed. ‘What does his lawyer say? Rough was always good at roping in a lawyer.’
    ‘Mr Rough just wants to be left in peace.’
    ‘The way he left those kids in peace?’
    The Farmer sat back. ‘Does the word “atonement” mean anything to you, John?’
    Rebus shook his head. ‘Not applicable.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    ‘Ever seen a leopard change its spots?’
    The Farmer checked his watch. ‘I know the two of you have a history.’
    ‘I wasn’t the one he made the complaint against.’
    ‘No,’ the Farmer said, ‘Jim Margolies was.’
    They left that in the air for a moment, lost in their own thoughts.
    ‘So we do nothing?’ Rebus queried at last. The word “atonement” was flitting about inside his skull. His friend the priest had been known to use it: reconciliation of God and man through Christ’s life and death. A far cry from Darren Rough. Rebus wondered what Jim Margolies had been atoning for when he’d pitched himself off Salisbury Crags …
    ‘His sheet’s clean.’ The Farmer reached into his desk’s deep bottom drawer, pulled out a bottle and two glasses. Malt whisky. ‘I don’t know about you,’ he said, ‘but I need one of these before a funeral.’
    Rebus nodded, watching the man pour. Cascading sound of mountain streams. Usquebaugh in the Gaelic. Uisge : water; beatha : life. Water of life. Beatha sounding like ‘birth’. Each drink was a birth to Rebus’s mind. But as his doctor kept telling him, each drop was a little death, too. He lifted the glass to his nose, nodded appreciation.
    ‘Another good man gone,’ the Farmer said.
    And suddenly there were ghosts swirling around the room, just on the periphery of Rebus’s vision, and chief amongst them Jack Morton. Jack, his old colleague, now three months dead. The Byrds: ‘He Was a Friend of Mine’. A friend who refused to stay buried. The Farmer followed Rebus’s eyes, but saw nothing. Drained his glass and put the bottle away again.
    ‘Little and often,’ he said. And then, as though the whisky had opened some bargain between them: ‘There are ways and