Knots and Crosses: An Inspector Rebus Novel (Inspector Rebus Novels)

John, there’s consistently whatever to whinge approximately, specifically should you imagine you will get off with no longer paying the invoice through doing so. ’ He winked at Rebus, sat again, burped, and reached into his pocket for a cigarette. ‘Garbage,’ he acknowledged. Rebus attempted to count number the variety of cigarettes he himself had smoked that day, yet his mind instructed him that such calculations weren't to be tried. ‘I ask yourself what our buddy the assassin is as much as at this specified second? ’ he acknowledged. ‘Finishing a curry? ’ advised Morton. ‘Trouble is, John, he can be the sort of Joe general kinds, fresh at the floor, married with teenagers, your usual suburban hardworking chap, yet beneath a nutter, natural and straightforward. ’ ‘There’s not anything uncomplicated approximately our guy. ’ ‘True. ’ ‘But you'll good be correct. You suggest that he’s a type of Jekyll and Hyde, correct? ’ ‘Exactly. ’ Morton flicked ash onto the table-top, already splashed with curry sauce and beer. He was once peering at his empty plate as if pondering the place all of the meals had long past. ‘Jekyll and Hyde. You’ve bought it in a nutshell. I’ll let you know, John, I’d lock those bastards up for 1000000 years, one million years of solitary in a cellphone the dimensions of a shoebox. That’s what I’d do. ’ Rebus was once observing the flock wallpaper. He proposal again to his personal days in solitary, days whilst the SAS have been attempting to crack him, days of the last word trying out, of sighs and silence, hunger and grime. No, he wouldn’t wish that back. And but they'd now not crushed him, not likely crushed him. The others had now not been so fortunate. Trapped in its cellphone, the face screaming allow me out enable me out enable me out … ‘John? Are you ok there? If you’re going to be ailing, the toilet’s in the back of the kitchen. pay attention, while you’re passing, do me a favour and spot in the event you can realize what it's that they’re slicing up and throwing into the pot …’ Rebus walked well to the lavatory with the over-cautious gait of the greatly under the influence of alcohol, but he didn't consider inebriated, no longer that inebriated. His nostrils choked with the smells of curry, disinfectant, shit. He washed his face. No, he used to be unlikely to be ailing. It wasn’t an excessive amount of to drink, for he had felt a similar shudder at Michael’s, a similar non permanent horror. What was once occurring to him? It was once as though his insides have been concretizing, slowing him down, permitting the years to atone for him. It felt a bit just like the anxious breakdown which he were expecting, but it used to be no apprehensive breakdown. It used to be not anything. It had handed. ‘Can I offer you a boost, John? ’ ‘No thank you, I’ll stroll. transparent my head. ’ They parted on the door of the eating place. An office-party, loosened neckties and robust, sickly body spray, made its approach in the direction of Haymarket Station. Haymarket used to be the final station into Edinburgh earlier than the a lot grander Waverley. Rebus remembered that the untimely withdrawal of the penis in the course of sex for contraceptive purposes was once sometimes called ‘getting off at Haymarket. ’ Who acknowledged the folk in Edinburgh have been dour? a grin, a tune, and a strangulation. Rebus wiped sweat from his brow. He felt susceptible nonetheless, and leaned opposed to a lamp-post.