Strip Jack

Patience, too, was full of promise. She was keen for him to move more of his things in, to 'make himself at home'. And she had given him a key. So, beer finished, and car persuaded to make the five-minute trip, he was able to let himself in. His suit, newly cleaned, was lying on the bed in the spare bedroom. So was Lucky. In fact. Lucky was lying on the suit, was rolling on it, plucking at it with his claws, was shedding on it and marking it. Rebus saw Rasputin in his mind's eye as he swiped the cat off the bed. Then he picked up the suit and took it to the bathroom, where he locked the door behind him before running a bath.

The parliamentary constituency of North and South Esk was large but not populous. The population, however, was growing. New housing estates grew in tight clusters on the outskirts of the mining towns and villages. Commuter belt. Yes, the region was changing. New roads, new railway stations even. New kinds of people doing new kinds of jobs. Brian Holmes and Nell Stapleton, however, had chosen to buy an old terraced house in the heart of one of the smallest of the villages, Eskwell. Actually, it was all about Edinburgh in the end. The city was growing, spreading out. It was the city that swallowed villages and spawned new estates. People weren't moving into Edinburgh; the city was moving into them.

But by the time Rebus reached Eskwell he was in no mood to contemplate the changing face of country living. He'd had trouble starting the car. He was always having trouble starting the car. But wearing a suit and shirt and tie had made it that bit more difficult to tinker beneath the bonnet. One fine weekend he'd strip the engine down. Of course he would. Then he'd give up and phone for a tow truck.

The house was easy to find, Eskwell boasting one main street and only a few back roads. Rebus walked up the garden path and stood on the doorstep, a bottle of wine gripped in one hand. He clenched his free fist and rapped on the door. It opened almost at once.

'You're late,' said Brian Holmes.;

'Prerogative of rank, Brian. I'm allowed to be late.'

Holmes ushered him into the hall. 'I did say informal, didn't I?'

Rebus puzzled for a moment, then saw that this was a comment on his suit. He noticed now that Holmes himself was dressed in open-necked shirt and denims, with a pair of moccasins covering his bare feet.

'Ah,' said Rebus.

'Never mind, I'll nip upstairs and change.'

'Not on my account. This is your house, Brian. You do as you please.'

Holmes nodded to himself, suddenly looking pleased. Rebus was right: this was his house. Well, the mortgage was his… half the mortgage. 'Go on through,' he said, gesturing to a door at the end of the hall.

'I think I'll nip upstairs myself first,' Rebus said, handing over the bottle. He spread his hands out palms upwards, then turned them over. Even Holmes could see the traces of oil and dirt.

'Car trouble,' he said, nodding. 'The bathroom's to the right of the landing.'

'Right.'

'And those are nasty scratches, too. I'd see a doctor about them.' Holmes' tone told Rebus that the young man assumed a certain doctor had been responsible for them in the first place.

'A cat,' Rebus explained. 'A cat with eight lives left.'

Upstairs, he felt particularly clumsy. He rinsed the wash-hand-basin after him, then had to rinse the muck off the soap, then rinsed the basin again. A towel was hanging over the bath, but when he started to dry his hands he found he was drying them not on a towel but on a foot-mat. The real towel was on a hook behind the door. Relax, John, he told himself. But he couldn't. Socializing was just one more skill. he'd never really mastered.

He peered round the door downstairs.

'Come in, come in.'

Holmes was holding out a glass of whisky towards him. 'Here you go, cheers.'

'Cheers.'

They drank, and Rebus felt the better for it.

I'll give you the tour of the house later,' Holmes said. 'Sit down.'

Rebus did so, and looked around him. 'A real Holmes from home,' he commented. There were good smells in the air, and cooking and clattering noises from the kitchen, which seemed to be through another door off the living room. The living room was almost cuboid, with a table in one corner set with three places for dinner, a chair in another corner, a TV in the third, and a standard lamp in the fourth.

'Very nice,' commented Rebus. Holmes was sitting on a two-person sofa against one wall. Behind him was a decent-sized window looking on to the back garden. He shrugged modestly.

'It'll do us,' he said.

'I'm sure it will.'

Now Nell Stapleton strode into the room. As imposing as ever, she seemed almost too tall for her surroundings, Alice after the 'Eat Me' cake. She was wiping her hands on a dishcloth, and smiled at Rebus.

'Hello there.'

Rebus had risen to his feet. She came over and pecked him on his cheek.

'Hello, Nell.'