Dead Souls Read Online Free Page A

means, John.’
    ‘Of what, sir?’ Jack had melted into the windowpanes.
    ‘Of coping.’ Already the whisky was working on the Farmer’s face, turning it triangular. ‘Since what happened to Jim Margolies … well, it’s made some of us think more about the stresses of the job.’ He paused. ‘Too many mistakes, John.’
    ‘I’m having a bad patch, that’s all.’
    ‘A bad patch has its reasons.’
    ‘Such as?’
    The Farmer left the question unanswered, knowing perhaps that Rebus was busy answering it for himself: Jack Morton’s death; Sammy in a wheelchair.
    And whisky a therapist he could afford, at least in monetary terms.
    ‘I’ll manage,’ he said at last, not even managing to convince himself.
    ‘All by yourself?’
    ‘That’s the way, isn’t it?’
    The Farmer shrugged. ‘And meantime we all live with your mistakes?’
    Mistakes: like pulling men towards Darren Rough, who wasn’t the man they wanted. Allowing the poisoner open access to the meerkats – an apple tossed into their enclosure. Luckily a keeper had walked past, picked it up before the animals could. He’d known about the scare, handed it in for testing.
    Positive for rat poison.
    Rebus’s fault.
    ‘Come on,’ the Farmer said, after a final glance at his watch, ‘let’s get moving.’
    So that once again Rebus’s speech had gone unspoken, the one about how he’d lost any sense of vocation, any feeling of optimism about the role – the very existence – of policing. About how these thoughts scared him, left him either sleepless or scarred by bad dreams. About the ghosts which had come to haunt him, even in daytime.
    About how he didn’t want to be a cop any more.
*
    Jim Margolies had had it all.
    Ten years younger than Rebus, he was being tipped for accelerated advancement. They were waiting for him to learn the final few lessons, after which the rank of detective inspector would have been shed like a final skin. Bright, personable, a canny strategist with an eye to internal politics. Handsome, too, keeping fit playing rugby for his old school, Boroughmuir. He came from a good background and had connections to the Edinburgh establishment, his wife charming and elegant, his young daughter an acknowledged beauty. Liked by his fellow officers, and with an enviable ratio of arrests to convictions. The family lived quietly in The Grange, attended a local church, seemed the perfect little unit in every way.
    The Farmer kept the commentary going, voice barely audible. He’d started on the drive to the church, kept it up during the service, and was closing with a graveside peroration.
    ‘He had it all, John. And then he goes and does something like that. What makes a man … I mean, what goes through his head? This was someone even older officers looked up to – I mean the cynical old buggers within spitting distance of their pension. They’ve seen everything in their time, but they’d never seen anyone quite like Jim Margolies.’
    Rebus and the Farmer – their station’s representatives – were towards the back of the crowd. And it was a good crowd, too. Lots of brass, alongside rugby players, churchgoers, and neighbours. Plus extended family. And standing by the open grave, the widow dressed in black, managing to look composed. She’d lifted her daughter off the ground. The daughter in a white lace dress, her hair thick and long and ringlet-blonde, face shining as she waved bye-bye to the wooden casket. With the blonde hair and white dress, she looked like an angel. Perhaps that had been the intention. Certainly, she stood out from the crowd.
    Margolies’ parents were there, too. The father looking ex-forces, stiff-backed as a grandfather clock but with both trembling hands gripping the silver knob of a walking-stick. The mother teary-eyed, fragile, a veil falling to her wet mouth. She’d lost both her children. According to the Farmer, Jim’s sister had killed herself too, years back. History of mental instability,