Dead Souls Read Online Free PDF

on Buccleuch Street. Now he was back in Edinburgh, and Rebus was keen for him to know just how welcome he was. Besides, he had a couple of questions for Darren Rough, questions about Jim Margolies …
    The only problem was, he got the feeling the flat was empty. He tried one half-hearted thump at both door and window. When there was no response, he leaned down to peer through the letterbox, but found it had been blockedfrom inside. Either Rough didn’t want anyone looking in, or else he’d been getting unwelcome deliveries. Straightening up, Rebus turned and rested his arms on the balcony railing. He found himself staring straight down on to the kids’ playground. Kids: an estate like Greenfield would be full of kids. He turned back to study Rough’s abode. No graffiti on walls or door, nothing to identify the tenant as ‘Pervo Scum’. Down at ground level, the sledge had taken a corner too fast, throwing off its rider. A window below Rebus opened noisily.
    ‘I saw you, Billy Horman! You did that on purpose!’ The same woman, her words aimed at the boy who’d been pulling the sledge.
    ‘Never did!’ he yelled back.
    ‘You fucking did! I’ll murder you.’ Then, tone changing: ‘Are you all right, Jamie? I’ve told you before about playing with that wee bastard. Now get in here!’
    The injured boy rubbed a hand beneath his nose – as close as he was going to get to defiance – then made his way towards the tower block, glancing back at his friend. Their shared look lasted only a second or two, but it managed to convey that they were still friends, that the adult world could never break that bond.
    Rebus watched the sledge-puller, Billy Horman, shuffle away, then walked down three floors. The woman’s flat was easy to find. He could hear her shouting from thirty yards away. He wondered if she constituted a problem tenant; got the feeling few would dare to complain to her face …
    The door was solid, recently painted dark blue, and boasting a spy-hole. Net curtains at the window. They twitched as the woman checked who her caller was. When she opened the door, her son darted back out and along the walkway.
    ‘Just going to the shop, Mum!’
    ‘Come back here, you!’
    But he was pretending not to have heard; disappeared around a corner.
    ‘Give me the strength to wring his neck,’ she said.
    ‘I’m sure you love him really.’
    She stared hard at him. ‘Do we have any business?’
    ‘You never answered my question: husband or boyfriend?’
    She folded her arms. ‘Eldest son, if you must know.’
    ‘And you thought I was here to see him?’
    ‘You’re the police, aren’t you?’ She snorted when he said nothing.
    ‘Should I know him then?’
    ‘Calumn Brady,’ she said.
    ‘You’re Cal’s mum?’ Rebus nodded slowly. He knew Cal Brady by reputation: regal chancer. He’d heard of Cal’s mother, too.
    She stood about five feet eight in her sheepskin slippers. Heavily built, with thick arms and wrists, her face had decided long ago that make-up wasn’t going to cure anything. Her hair, thick and platinum-coloured, brown at the roots, fell from a centre parting. She was dressed in regulation satin-look shell suit, blue with a silver stripe up the arms and legs.
    ‘You’re not here for Cal then?’ she said.
    Rebus shook his head. ‘Not unless you think he’s done something.’
    ‘So what are you doing here?’
    ‘Ever have any dealings with one of your neighbours, youngish lad called Darren Rough?’
    ‘Which flat’s he in?’ Rebus didn’t answer. ‘We get a lot of coming and going. Social Work stuff them in here for a couple of weeks. Christ knows what happens to them, they go AWOL or get shifted.’ She sniffed. ‘What’s he look like?’
    ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Rebus said. Jamie was back down in the playground, no sign of his friend. He ran in circles,pulling the sledge. Rebus got the idea he could run like that all day.
    ‘Jamie’s not in school today?’ he asked, turning