The Hanging Garden

`In the Hanging Garden/No one sleeps'

A seaside holiday: caravan park, long walks and sandcastles. He sat in a deck-chair, trying to read. Cold mind blowing, despite the sun. Rhona rubbed suntan lotion on Sammy, said you couldn't be too careful. Told him to keep an eye open, she was going back to the caravan for her book. Sammy was burying her father's feet in the sand.

He was trying to read, but thinking about work. Every day of the holiday, he sneaked off to a phone-box and called the station. They kept telling him to go and enjoy himself, forget about everything. He was halfway through a spy thriller. The plot had already lost him.

Rhona was doing her best. She'd wanted somewhere foreign, a bit of glamour and heat to go with the sunshine. Finances, however, mere on his side. So here they mere on the Fife coast, where he'd first met her. Was he hoping for something? Some memory rekindled? He'd come here with his own parents, played with Mickey, met other kids, then lost them again at the end of the fortnight.

He tried the spy novel again, but case-work got in the may. And then a shadow fell over him.

`Where is she?’

`What?’ He looked down. His feet mere buried in sand, but Sammy wasn't there. How long had she been gone? He stood up, scanned the seashore. A few tentative bathers, going in no further than their knees.

`Christ, John, where is she?’

He turned round, looked at the sand dunes in the distance.

`The dunes…?’

They warned her. There mere hollows in the dunes where the sand was eroding. Small dens had been created – a magnet for kids. Only they were prone to collapse. Earlier in the season, a ten-year-old boy had been dug out by frantic parents. He hadn't quite choked on the sand…

They were running now. The dunes, the grass, no sign of her.

'Sammy!' `Maybe she went into the water.’

`You mere supposed to be keeping an eye on her!'

`I'm sorry. I…’

`Sammy!' A small shape in one of the dens. Hopping on its hands and knees. Rhona reached in, pulled her out, hugged her.

'Sweetie, we told you not to!'

`I was a rabbit. ' Rebus looked at the fragile roof sand meshed with the roots of plants and grasses. Punched it with a fist. The roof collapsed. Rhona was looking at him. End of holiday.

3

John Rebus kissed his daughter.

`See you later,' he said, watching her as she left the coffee shop. Espresso and a slice of caramel shortbread – that's all she'd had time for – but they'd fixed another date for dinner. Nothing fancy, just a pizza.

It was October 30th. By mid-November, if Nature were feeling bloody, it would be winter. Rebus had been taught at school that there were four distinct seasons, had painted pictures of them in bright and sombre colours, but his native country seemed not to know this. Winters were long, outstaying their welcome. The warm weather came suddenly, people stripping to t-shirts as the first buds appeared, so that spring and summer seemed entwined into a single season. And no sooner had the leaves started turning brown than the first frost came again.

Sammy waved at him through the cafe window then was gone. She seemed to have grown up all right. He'd always been on the lookout for evidence of instability, hints of childhood traumas or a genetic predisposition towards self destruction. Maybe he should phone Rhona some day and thank her, thank her for bringing Samantha up on her own. It couldn't have been easy: that was what people always said. He knew it would be nice if he could feel some responsibility for the success, but he wasn't that hypocritical. The truth was, while she'd been growing up, he'd been elsewhere. It was the same with his marriage: even when in the same room as his wife, even out at the pictures or around the table at a dinner party… the best part of him had been elsewhere, fixed on some case or other, some question that needed answering before he could rest.

Rebus lifted his coat from the back of his chair. Nothing left for it but to go back to the office. Sammy was headed back to her own office; she worked with ex-convicts. She had refused his offer of a lift. Now that it was out in the open, she'd wanted to talk about her man, Ned Farlowe. Rebus had tried to look interested, but found that his mind was half on Joseph Lintz – in other words, same problem as always. When he'd been given the Lintz case, he'd been told he was well-suited to it: his Army background for one thing; and his seeming affinity for historical cases – by which Farmer Watson, Rebus's chief superintendent, had meant Bible John for another.

`With respect, sir,' Rebus had said, `that sounds like a load of balls. Two reasons for me getting lumbered with this: one, no other bugger will touch it with a barge-pole; two, it'll keep me out of the way for a while.’

`Your remit,' the Farmer had said, unwilling to let Rebus rile him, `is to sift through what there is, see if any of it amounts to evidence. You can interview Mr Lintz if it'll help. Do whatever you think necessary, and if you find enough to warrant a charge…’

`I won't. You know I won't.’ Rebus sighed. `Sir, we've been through this before. It's the whole reason the War Crimes section was shut down. That case a few years back – lot of hoo-has about bugger all.’

He was shaking his head. `Who wants it all dragged up, apart from the papers?’

`I'm taking you off the Mr Taystee case. Let Bill Pryde handle that.’

So it was settled: Lintz belonged to Rebus.

It had started with a news story, with documents handed over to a Sunday broadsheet. The documents had come from the Holocaust Investigation Bureau based in Tel Aviv. They had passed on to the newspaper the name of Joseph Lintz, who had, they said, been living quietly in Scotland under an alias since the end of the war, and who was, in fact, Josef Linzstek, a native of Alsace. In June 1944, Lieutenant Linzstek had led the 3rd Company of an SS regiment, part of the 2nd Panzer Division, into the town of Villefranche d'Albarede in the Correze region of France. 3rd Company had rounded up everyone in the town – men, women, children. The sick were carried from their beds, the elderly pulled from their armchairs, babies hoisted from their cots.

A teenage girl – an evacuee from Lorraine – had seen what the Germans were capable of. She climbed into the attic of her house and hid there, watching from a small window in the roof-tiles. Everyone was marched into the village square. The teenager saw her school friends find their families. She hadn't been in school that day: a throat infection. She wondered if anyone would tell the Germans…

There was a commotion as the mayor and other dignitaries remonstrated with the officer in charge. While machine guns were aimed at the crowd, these men – among them the priest, lawyer, and doctor – were set upon with rifle butts. Then ropes were produced, and strung over half a dozen of the trees which lined the square. The men were hauled to their feet, their heads pushed through the nooses. An order was given, a hand raised then dropped, and soldiers pulled on each rope, until six men were hanging from the trees, bodies writhing, legs kicking uselessly, the movements slowing by degrees.

As the teenager remembered it, it took an age for them to die. Stunned silence in the square, as if the whole village knew now, knew that this was no mere check of identity papers. More orders were barked. The men, separated from the women and children, were marched off to Prudhomme's barn, everyone else shepherded into the church. The square grew empty, except for a dozen or so soldiers, rifles slung over their shoulders. They chatted, kicked up dust and stones, shared jokes and cigarettes. One of them went into the bar and switched the radio on. Jazz music filled the air, competing with the rustle of leaves as a breeze twisted the corpses in the trees.

`It was strange,' the girl later said. `I stopped seeing them as dead bodies. It was as if they'd become something else, parts of the trees themselves.’

Then the explosion, smoke and dust billowing from the church. A moment's silence, as though a vacuum had been created in the world, then screams, followed immediately by machine-gun fire. And when it finally stopped, she could still hear it. Because it wasn't just inside the church: it was in the distance, too.

Prudhomme's barn.

When she was finally found – by people from surrounding villages – she was naked except for a shawl she had found in a trunk. The shawl had belonged to her grandmother, dead the previous year. But she was not alone in escaping the massacre. When the soldiers had opened fire in Prudhomme's barn, they'd aimed low. The first row of men to fall had been wounded in the lower body, and the bodies which fell on them shielded them from further fire.

When straw was strewn over the mound and set alight, they'd waited as long as they could before starting to claw their way out from beneath, expecting at any moment to be shot. Four of them made it, two with their hair and clothes on fire, one dying later from his wounds.

Three men, one teenage girl: the only survivors.

The death toll was never finalised. No one knew how many visitors had been in Villefranche that day, how many refugees could be added to the count. A list was compiled of over seven hundred names, people who had most likely been killed.

Rebus sat at his desk and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. The teenage girl was still alive, a pensioner now. The male survivors were all dead. But they'd been alive for the Bordeaux trial in 1953. He had summaries of their evidence. The summaries were in French. A lot of the material sitting on his desk was French, and Rebus didn't speak French. That was why he'd gone to the Modern Languages department at the university and found someone who could. Her name was Kirstin Mede, and she lectured in French, but also had a working knowledge of German, which was handy: the documents which weren't in French were in German. He had a onepage English summary of the trial proceedings, passed on from the Nazi hunters. The trial had opened in February 1953 and lasted just under a month. Of seventy five men identified as having been part of the German force at Villefranche, only fifteen were present – six Germans and nine French Alsatians. Not one of them was an officer. One German received the death sentence, the others jail terms of between four and twelve years, but they were all released as soon as the trial finished. Alsace hadn't been enjoying the trial, and in a bid to unite the nation, the government had passed an amnesty. The Germans, meantime, were said to have already served their sentences.

The survivors of Villefranche had been horrified.

Even more extraordinary to Rebus's mind, the British had apprehended a couple of German officers involved in the massacre, but had refused to hand them over to the French authorities, returning them to Germany instead, where they lived long and prosperous lives. If Linzstek had been captured then, there would have been none of the present commotion.

Politics: it was all down to politics. Rebus looked up and Kirstin Mede was standing there. She was tall, deftly constructed, and immaculately dressed. She wore make-up the way women usually did only in fashion adverts. Today she was wearing a check twopiece, the skirt just touching her knees, and long gold-coloured earrings. She had already opened her briefcase and was pulling out a sheaf of papers.

`Latest translations,' she said.

`Thanks.’ Rebus looked down at a note he'd made to himself `Correze trip necessary??’

Well, the Farmer had said he could have whatever he wanted. He looked up at Kirstin Mede and wondered if the budget would stretch to a tour guide. She was sitting opposite him, putting on half-moon reading glasses.

`Can I get you a coffee?’ he asked.

`I'm a bit pushed today. I just wanted you to see these.’

She laid two sheets of paper on his desk so that they faced him. One sheet was the photocopy of a typed report, in German. The second sheet was her translation. Rebus looked at the German.

`- Der Beginn der Vergeltungsmassnahmen hat ein merkbares Aufatmen hervorgerufen and die Stimmung sehr gunstig beeinflusst.’

`The beginning of reprisals,' he read, `has brought about a marked improvement in morale, with the men now noticeably more relaxed.’

`It's supposed to be from Linzstek to his commander,' she explained.

`But no signature?’

`Just the typed name, underlined.’

`So it doesn't help us identify Linzstek.’

`No, but remember what we were talking about? It gives a reason for the assault.’

`A touch of R amp;R for the lads?’

Her look froze him. `Sorry,' he said, raising his hands. `Far too glib. And you're right, it's almost like the Lieutenant is trying to justify the whole thing in print.’

`For posterity?’

`Maybe. After all, they'd just started being the losing side.’

He looked at the other papers. `Anything else?’

`Some further reports, nothing too exciting. And some of the eyewitness testimony.’

She looked at him with pale grey eyes. `It gets to you after a while, doesn't it?’

Rebus looked at her and nodded.

The female survivor of the massacre lived in Juillac, and had been questioned recently by local police about the man in charge of the German troops. Her story hadn't changed from the one she'd told at the trial: she'd seen his face only for a few seconds, and looking down from the attic of a three storey house. She'd been shown a recent photo of Joseph Lintz, and had shrugged.

`Maybe,' she'd said. `Yes, maybe.’

Which would, Rebus knew, be turfed out by the Procurator Fiscal, who knew damned well what any defence lawyer with half a brain would do with it.

`How's the case coming?’

Kirstin Mede asked. Maybe she'd seen some look cross his face.

`Slowly. The problem is all this stuff.’

He waved towards the strewn desk. `On the one hand I've got all this, and on the other I've got a wee old man from the New Town. The two don't seem to go together.’

`Have you met him?’

`Once or twice.’

`What's he like?’

What was Joseph Lintz like? He was cultured, a linguist. He'd even been a Professor at the university, back in the early 70s. Only for a year or two. His own explanation: `I was filling a vacuum until they could find someone of greater standing'. He'd been Professor of German. He'd lived in Scotland since 1945 or 46 – he was vague about exact dates, blaming his memory. His early life was vague, too. He said papers had been destroyed. The Allies had had to create a duplicate set for him. There was only Lintz's word that these new papers were anything but an official record of lies he'd told and which had been believed. Lintz's story – birth in Alsace; parents and relatives all dead; forced enlistment in the SS. Rebus liked the touch about joining the SS. It was the sort of admission that would make officials decide: he's been honest about his involvement with that, so he's probably being honest about the other details. There was no actual record of a Joseph Lintz serving with any SS regiment, but then the SS had destroyed a lot of their own records once they'd seen the way the war was headed. Lintz's war record was vague, too. He mentioned shell-shock to explain the gaps in his memory. But he was vehement that he had never been called Linzstek and had never served in the Correze region of France.

`I was in the east,' he would say. `That's where the Allies found me, in the east.’

The problem was that there was no convincing explanation as to how Lintz had found himself in the United Kingdom. He said he'd asked if he could go there and start a new life. He didn't want to return to Alsace, wanted to be as far away from the Germans as possible. He wanted water between him and them. Again, there was no documentation to back this up, and meantime the Holocaust investigators had come up with their own `evidence', which pointed to Lintz's involvement in the `Rat Line'.

`Have you ever heard of something called the Rat Line?’ Rebus had asked at their first meeting.

`Of course,' Joseph Lintz had said. `But I never had anything to do with it.’

Lintz: in the drawing-room of his Heriot Row home. An elegant four-storey Georgian edifice. A huge house for a man who'd never married. Rebus had said as much. Lintz had merely shrugged, as was his privilege. Where had the money come from? `I've worked hard, Inspector.’

Maybe so, but Lintz had purchased the house in the late-1950s on a lecturer's salary. A colleague from the time had told Rebus everyone in the department suspected Lintz of having a private income. Lintz denied this.

`Houses were cheaper back then, Inspector. The fashion was for country properties and bungalows.’

Joseph Lintz: barely five foot tall, bespectacled. Parchment hands with liver spots. One wrist sported a pre-war Ingersoll watch. Glass fronted bookcases lining his drawing-room. Charcoal-coloured suits. An elegant way about him, almost feminine: the way he lifted a cup to his lips; the way he flicked specks from his trousers.

`I don't blame the Jews,' he'd said. `They'd implicate everyone if they could. They want the whole world feeling guilty. Maybe they're right.’

`In what way, sir?’

`Don't we all have little secrets, things we're ashamed of?’

Lintz had smiled. `You're playing their game, and you don't even know it.’

Rebus had pressed on. `The two names are very similar, aren't they? Lintz, Linzstek.’

`Naturally, or they'd have absolutely no grounds for their accusations. Think, Inspector: wouldn't I have changed my name more radically? Do you credit me with a modicum of intelligence?’

`More than a modicum.’

Framed diplomas on the walls, honorary degrees, photos taken with university chancellors, politicians. When the Farmer had learned a little more about Joseph Lintz, he'd cautioned Rebus to `ca' canny'. Lintz was a patron of the arts opera, museums, galleries – and a great giver to charities. He was a man with friends. But also a solitary man, someone who was happiest when tending graves in Warriston Cemetery. Dark bags under his eyes, pushing down upon the angular cheeks. Did he sleep well? `Like a lamb, Inspector.’

Another smile. `Of the sacrificial kind. You know, I don't blame you, you're only doing your job.’

`You seem to have no end of forgiveness, Mr Lintz.’

A careful shrug. `Do you know Blake's words, Inspector? "And through all eternity/ I forgive you, you forgive me.” I'm not so sure I can forgive the media.’ This last word voiced with a distaste which manifested itself as a twist of facial muscles.

`Is that why you've set your lawyer on them?’

‘"Set" makes me sound like a hunter, Inspector. This is a newspaper, with a team of expensive lawyers at its beck and call. Can an individual hope to win against such odds?’

`Then why bother trying?’

Lintz thumped both arms of his chair with clenched fists. `For the principle, man!' Such outbursts were rare and shortlived, but Rebus had experienced enough of them to know that Lintz had a temper…

`Hello?’ Kirstin Mede said, angling her head to catch his gaze.

`What?’

She smiled. `You were miles away.’

`Just across town,' he replied.

She pointed to the papers. `I'll leave these here, okay? If you've any questions…’

`Great, thanks.’

Rebus got to his feet.

`It's okay, I know my way out.’

But Rebus was insistent. `Sorry, I'm a bit…’

He waved his hands around his head.

`As I said, it gets to you after a while.’

As they walked back through the CID office, Rebus could feel eyes following them. Bill Pryde came up, preening, wanting to be introduced. He had curly fair hair and thick blond eyelashes, his nose large and freckled, mouth small and topped with a ginger moustache – a fashion accessory he could well afford to lose.

`A pleasure,' he said, taking Kirstin Mede's hand. Then, to Rebus: `Makes me wish we'd swopped.’

Pryde was working on the Mr Taystee case: an ice-cream man found dead in his van. Engine left running in a lock-up, looking initially like suicide.

Rebus steered Kirstin Mede past Pryde, kept them moving. He wanted to ask her out. He knew she wasn't married, but thought there might be a boyfriend in the frame. Rebus was thinking: what would she like to eat – French or Italian? She spoke both those languages. Maybe stick to something neutral: Indian or Chinese. Maybe she was vegetarian. Maybe she didn't like restaurants. A drink then? But Rebus didn't drink these days.

`… So what do you think?’

Rebus started. Kirstin Mede had asked him something.

`Sorry?’

She laughed, realising he hadn't been listening. He began to apologise, but she shook it off. `I know,' she said, `you're a bit…’

And she waved her hands around her head. He smiled. They'd stopped walking. They were facing one another. Her briefcase was tucked under one arm. It was the moment to ask her for a date, any kind of date – let her choose.

`What's that?’ she said suddenly. It was a shriek, Rebus had heard it, too. It had come from behind the door nearest them, the door to the women's toilets. They heard it again. This time it was followed by some words they understood.

`Help me, somebody!' Rebus pushed open the door and ran in. A WPC was pushing at a cubicle door, trying to force it with her shoulder. From behind the door, Rebus could hear choking noises.

`What is it?’ he said.

`Picked her up twenty minutes ago, she said she needed the loo.’

The policewoman's cheeks wore a flush of anger and embarrassment.

Rebus grabbed the top of the door and hauled himself up, peering over and down on to a figure seated on the pan. The woman there was young, heavily made-up. She sat with her back against the cistern, so that she was staring up at him, but glassily. And her hands were busy. They were busy pulling a streamer of toilet-paper from the roll, stuffing it into her mouth.

`She's gagging,' Rebus said, sliding back down. `Stand back'. He shouldered the door, tried again. Stood back and hit the lock with the heel of his shoe. The door flew open, catching the seated woman on the knees. He pushed his way in. Her face was turning purple.

`Grab her hands,' he told the WPC. Then he started pulling the stream of white paper from her mouth, feeling like nothing so much as a cheap stage-show magician. There seemed to be half a roll in there, and as Rebus caught the WPC's eye, both of them let out a near-involuntary laugh. The woman had stopped struggling. Her hair was mousy brown, lank and greasy. She wore a black skiing jacket and a tight black skirt. Her bare legs were mottled pink, bruising at one knee where the door had connected. Her bright red lipstick was coming off on Rebus's fingers. She had been crying, was crying still. Rebus, feeling guilty about the sudden laughter, crouched down so that he could look into her makeup-streaked eyes. She blinked, then held his gaze, coughing as the last of the paper was extracted.

`She's foreign,' the policewoman was explaining. `Doesn't seem to speak English.’

`So how come she told you she needed the toilet?’

`There are ways, aren't there?’

`Where did you find her?’

`Down the Pleasance, brazen as you like.’

`That's a new patch on me.’

`Me, too.’

`Nobody with her?’

`Not that I saw.’

Rebus took the woman's hands. He was still crouching in front of her, aware of her knees brushing his chest.

`Are you all right?’

She just blinked. He made his face show polite concern. `Okay now?’

She nodded slightly. `Okay,' she said, her voice husky. Rebus felt her fingers. They were cold. He was thinking: junkie? A lot of the working girls were. But he'd never come across one who couldn't speak English. Then he turned her hands, saw her wrists. Recent zigzag scar tissue. She didn't resist as he pushed up one sleeve of her jacket. The arm was a mass of similar inflictions.

`She's a cutter.’

The woman was talking now, babbling incoherently. Kirstin Mede, who had been standing back from proceedings, stepped forward. Rebus looked to her.

`It's not anything I understand… not quite. Eastern European.’

`Try her with something.’

So Mede asked a question in French, repeating it in three or four other languages. The woman seemed to understand what they were trying to do.

`There's probably someone at the uni who could help,' Mede said.

Rebus started to stand up. The woman grabbed him by the knees, pulled him to her so that he nearly lost his balance. Her grip was tight, her face resting against his legs. She was still crying and babbling.

`I think she likes you, sir,' the policewoman said. They wrested her hands free, and Rebus stepped back, but she was after him at once, throwing herself forwards, like she was begging, her voice rising. There was an audience now, half a dozen officers in the doorway. Every time Rebus moved, she came after him on all fours. Rebus looked to where his exit was blocked by bodies. The cheap magician had become straight man in a comedy routine. The WPC grabbed her, pulled her back on to her feet, one arm twisted behind her back.

`Come on,' she said through gritted teeth. `Back to the cell. Show's over, folks.’

There was scattered applause as the prisoner was marched away. She looked back once, seeking Rebus, her eyes pleading. For what, he did not know. He turned towards Kirstin Mede instead.

`Fancy a curry some time?’

She looked at him like he was mad.

`Two things: one, she's a Bosnian Muslim. Two, she wants to see you again.’

Rebus stared at the man from the Slavic Studies department, who'd come here at Kirstin Mede's request. They were talking in the corridor at St Leonard 's.

`Bosnian?’

Dr Colquhoun nodded. He was short and almost spherical, with long black hair which was swept back either side of a bald dome. His puffy face was pockmarked, his brown suit worn and stained. He wore suede Hush Puppies – same colour as the suit. This, Rebus couldn't help feeling, was how dons were supposed to look. Colquhoun was a mass of nervous twitches, and had yet to make eye contact with Rebus.

`I'm not an expert on Bosnia,' he went on, `but she says she's from Sarajevo.’

`Does she say how she ended up in Edinburgh?’

`I didn't ask.’

`Would you mind asking her now?’

Rebus gestured back along the corridor. The two men walked together, Colquhoun's eyes on the floor.

` Sarajevo was hit hard in the war,' he said. `She's twenty-two, by the way, she told me that.’

She'd looked older. Maybe she was; maybe she was lying. But as the door to the Interview Room opened and Rebus saw her again, he was struck by how unformed her face was, and he revised her age downwards. She stood up abruptly as he came in, looked like she might rush forward to him, but he held up a hand in warning, and pointed to the chair. She sat down again, hands cradling the mug of sweetened black tea. She never took her eyes off him.

`She's a big fan,' the WPC said. The policewoman – same one as the toilet incident – was called Ellen Sharpe. She was sitting on the room's other chair. There wasn't much space in the Interview Room: a table and two chairs just about filled it. On the table were twin video recorders and a twin cassette-machine. The video camera pointed down from one wall. Rebus gestured for Sharpe to give her seat to Colquhoun.

`Did she give you a name?’ he asked the academic.

`She told me Candice,' Colquhoun said.

`You don't believe her?’

`It's not exactly ethnic, Inspector.’

Candice said something. `She's calling you her protector.’

`And what am I protecting her from?’

The dialogue between Colquhoun and Candice was gruff, guttural.

`She says firstly you protected her from herself. And now she says you have to continue.’

`Continue protecting her?’

`She says you own her now.’

Rebus looked at the academic, whose eyes were on Candice's arms. She had removed her skiing jacket. Underneath she wore a ribbed, short-sleeved shirt through which her small breasts were visible. She had folded her bare arms, but the scratches and slashes were all too apparent.

`Ask her if those are self-inflicted.’

Colquhoun struggled with the translation. `I'm more used to literature and film than… um…’

`What does she say?’

`She says she did them herself.’

Rebus looked at her for confirmation, and she nodded slowly, looking slightly ashamed.

`Who put her on the street?’

`You mean…?’

'Who's running her? Who's her manager?’

Another short dialogue.

`She says she doesn't understand.’

`Does she deny working as a prostitute?’

`She says she doesn't understand.’

Rebus turned to WPC Sharpe. `Well?’

`A couple of cars stopped. She leaned in the window to talk with the drivers. They drove off again. Didn't like the look of the goods, I suppose.’

`If she can't speak English, how did she manage to "talk" to the drivers?’

`There are ways.’

Rebus looked at Candice. He began to speak to her, very softly. `Straight fuck, fifteen, twenty for a blow job. Unprotected is an extra fiver.’

He paused. `How much is anal, Candice?’

Colour flooded her cheeks. Rebus smiled.

`Maybe not university tuition, Dr Colquhoun, but someone's taught her a few words of English. Just enough to get her working. Ask her again how she got here.’

Colquhoun mopped his face first. Candice spoke with her head lowered.

`She says she left Sarajevo as a refugee. Went to Amsterdam, then came to Britain. The first thing she remembers is a place with lots of bridges.’

`Bridges?’

`She stayed there for some time.’

Colquhoun seemed shaken by the story. He handed her a handkerchief so she could wipe her eyes. She rewarded him with a smile. Then she looked at Rebus.

`Burger chips, yes?’

`Are you hungry?’ Rebus rubbed his stomach. She nodded and smiled. He turned to Sharpe. `See what the canteen can come up with, will you?’

The WPC gave him a hard stare, not wanting to leave. `Would you like anything, Dr Colquhoun?’

He shook his head. Rebus asked for another coffee. As Sharpe left, Rebus crouched down by the table and looked at Candice. `Ask her how she got to Edinburgh.’

Colquhoun asked, then listened to what sounded like a long tale. He scratched some notes on a folded sheet of paper.

`The city with the bridges, she says she didn't see much of it. She was kept inside. Sometimes she was driven to some rendezvous… You'll have to forgive me, Inspector. I may be a linguist, but I'm no expert on colloquialisms.’

`You're doing fine, sir.’

`Well, she was used as a prostitute, that much I can infer. And one day they put her in the back of a car, and she thought she was going to another hotel or office.’

`Office?’

`From her descriptions, I'd say some of her… work… was done in offices. Also private apartments and houses. But mostly hotel rooms.’

`Where was she kept?’

`In a house. She had a bedroom, they kept it locked.’

Colquhoun pinched the bridge of his nose. `They put her in the car one day, and next thing she knew she was in Edinburgh.’

`How long was the trip?’

`She's not sure. She slept part of the way.’

`Tell her everything's going to be all right.’

Rebus paused. `And ask her who she works for now.’

The fear returned to Candice's face. She stammered, shaking her head. Her voice sounded more guttural than ever. Colquhoun looked like he was having trouble with the translation.

`She can't tell you,' he said.

`Tell her she's safe.’

Colquhoun did so. `Tell her again,' Rebus said. He made sure she was looking at him while Colquhoun spoke. His face was set, a face she could trust. She reached a hand out to him. He took it, squeezed.

`Ask her again who she works for.’

`She can't tell you, Inspector. They'd kill her. She's heard stories.’

Rebus decided to try the name he'd been thinking of, the man who ran half the city's working girls.

'Cafferty,' he said, watching for a reaction. There was none. `Big Ger. Big Ger Cafferty.’

Her face remained blank. Rebus squeezed her hand again. There was another name… one he'd been hearing recently.

` Telford,' he said. `Tommy Telford.’

Candice pulled her hand away and broke into hysterics, just as WPC Sharpe pushed open the door.

Rebus walked Dr Colquhoun out of the station, recalling that just such a walk had got him into this in the first place.

`Thanks again, sir. If I need you, I hope you won't mind if I call?’

`If you must, you must,' Colquhoun said grudgingly.

`Not too many Slavic specialists around,' Rebus said. He had Colquhoun's business card in his hand, a home phone number written on its back. `Well,' Rebus put out his free hand, `thanks again.’

As they shook, Rebus thought of something.

`Were you at the university when Joseph Lintz was Professor of German?’

The question surprised Colquhoun. `Yes,' he said at last.

`Did you know him?’

`Our departments weren't that close. I met him at a few social functions, the occasional lecture.’

`What did you think of him?’

Colquhoun blinked. He still wasn't looking at Rebus. `They're saying he was a Nazi.’

`Yes, but back then…?’

`As I say, we weren't close. Are you investigating him?’

`Just curious, sir. Thanks for your time.’

Back in the station, Rebus found Ellen Sharpe outside the Interview Room door.

`So what do we do with her?’ she asked.

`Keep her here.’

`You mean charge her?’

Rebus shook his head. `Let's call it protective custody.’

`Does she know that?’

`Who's she going to complain to? There's only one bugger in the whole city can make out what she's saying, and I've just packed him off home.’

`What if her man comes to get her?’

`Think he will?’

She thought about it. `Probably not.’

`No, because as far as he's concerned, all he, has to do is wait, and we'll release her eventually. Meantime, she doesn't speak English, so what can she give us? And she's here illegally no doubt, so if she talks, all we'd probably do is kick her out of the country. Telford 's clever… I hadn't realised it, but he is. Using illegal aliens as prossies. It's sweet.’

`How long do we keep her?’

Rebus shrugged.

`And what do I tell my boss?’

`Direct all enquiries to DI Rebus,' he said, going to open the door.

`I thought it was exemplary, sir.’

He stopped. `What?’

'Your knowledge of the charge-scale for prostitutes.’

`Just doing my job,' he said, smiling.

`One last question, sir…?’

`Yes, Sharpe?’

`Why? What's the big deal?’

Rebus considered this, twitched his nose. `Good question,' he said finally, opening the door and going in.

And he knew. He knew straight away. She looked like Sammy. Wipe away the make-up and the tears, get some sensible clothes on her, and she was the spitting image.

And she was scared.

And maybe he could help her.

`What can I call you, Candice? What's your real name?’

She took hold of his hand, put her face to it. He pointed to himself.

‘John,' he said.

`Don.’

‘John.’

`Shaun.’

‘John.’

He was smiling; so was she. ‘John.’

‘John.’

He nodded. `That's it. And you?’

He pointed at her now. `Who are you?’

She paused. 'Candice,' she said, as a little light died behind her eyes.

4

Rebus didn't know Tommy Telford by sight, but he knew where to find him.

Flint Street was a passageway between Clerk Street and Buccleuch Street, near the university. The shops had mostly closed down, but the games arcade always did good business, and from Flint Street Telford leased gaming machines to pubs and clubs across the city. Flint Street was the centre of his eastern empire.

The franchise had until recently belonged to a man called Davie Donaldson, but he'd suddenly retired on `health grounds'. Maybe he'd been right at that: if Tommy Telford wanted something from you and you weren't forthcoming, predictions of your future health could suddenly change. Donaldson was now in hiding somewhere: hiding not from Telford but from Big Ger Cafferty, for whom he had been holding the franchise `in trust' while Cafferty bided his time in Barlinnie jail. There were some who said Cafferty ran Edinburgh as effectively from inside as he ever had done outside, but the reality was that gangsters, like Nature, abhorred a vacuum, and now Tommy Telford was in town.

Telford was a product of Ferguslie Park in Paisley. At eleven he'd joined the local gang; at twelve a couple of woolly suits had visited him to ask about a spate of tyre slashings. They'd found him surrounded by other gang members, nearly all of them older than him, but he was at the centre, no doubt about it.

His gang had grown with him, taking over a sizeable chunk of Paisley, selling drugs and running prostitutes, doing a bit of extortion. These days he had shares in casinos and video shops, restaurants and a haulage firm, plus a property portfolio which made him landlord to several hundred people. He'd tried to make his mark in Glasgow, but had found it sealed down tight, so had gone exploring elsewhere. There were stories he'd become friendly with some big villain in Newcastle. Nobody could remember anything like it since the days when London 's Krays had rented their muscle from `Big Arthur' in Glasgow.

He'd arrived in Edinburgh a year ago, moving softly at first, buying a casino and hotel. Then suddenly he was inescapably there, like the shadow from a raincloud. With the chasing out of Davie Donaldson he'd given Cafferty a calculated punch to the gut. Cafferty could either fight or give up. Everyone was waiting for it to get messy…

The games arcade called itself Fascination Street. The machines were all flashing insistence, in stark contrast to the dead facial stares of the players. Then there were shoot-'em-ups with huge video screens and digital imprecations.

`Think you're tough enough, punk?’ one of them challenged as Rebus walked past. They had names like Harbinger and NecroCop, this latter reminding Rebus of how old he felt. He looked at the faces around him, saw a few he recognised, kids who'd been pulled into St Leonard 's. They'd be on the fringes of Telford 's gang, awaiting the call-up, hanging around like foster children, hoping The Family would take them. Most of them came from families who weren't families, latchkey kids grown old before their time.

One of the staff came in from the cafe.

`Who ordered the bacon sarnie?’

Rebus smiled as the faces turned to him. Bacon meant pig meant him. A moment's examination was all he warranted. There were more pressing demands on their attention. At the far end of the arcade were the really big machines: half-size motorbikes you sat astride as you negotiated the circuit on the screen in front of you. A small appreciative coterie stood around one bike, on which sat a young man dressed in a leather jacket. Not a market-stall jacket, something altogether more special. Quality goods. Shiny sharp-toed boots. Tight black denims. White polo neck. Surrounded by fawning courtiers. Steely Dan: `Kid Charlemagne'. Rebus found a;mace for himself in the midst of the glaring onlookers.

'"No takers for that bacon sarnie?’ he asked.

`Who are you?’ the man on the machine demanded.

`DI Rebus.’

'Cafferty's man.’ Said with conviction.

`What?’

`I hear you and him go back.’

`I put him inside.’

`Not every cop gets visiting rights though.’

Rebus realised that though Telford 's gaze was fixed on the screen, he was watching Rebus in its reflection. Watching him, talking to him, yet still managing to control the bike through hairpin bends.

`So is there some problem, Inspector?’

`Yes, there's a problem. We picked up one of your girls.’

`My what?’

`She calls herself Candice. That's about as much as we know. But foreign lassies are a new one on me. And you're fairly new around here, too.’

`I'm not getting your drift, Inspector. I supply goods and services to the entertainment sector. Are you accusing me of being a pimp?’

Rebus stuck out a foot and pushed the bike sideways. On the screen, it spun and hit a crash barrier. A moment later, the screen changed. Back to the start of the race.

`See, Inspector,' Telford said, still not turning round. `That's the beauty of games. You can always start again after an accident. Not so easy in real life.’

`What if I cut the power? Game over.’

Slowly, Telford swivelled from the hips. Now he was looking at Rebus. Close up, he looked so young. Most of the gangsters Rebus had known, they'd had a worn look, undernourished but overfed. Telford had the look of some new strain of bacteria, not yet tested or understood.

`So what is it, Rebus? Some message from Cafferty?’

'Candice,' Rebus said quietly, the slight tremor in his voice betraying his anger. With a couple of drinks in him, he'd have had Telford on the floor by now. `From tonight, she's off the game, understood?’

`I don't know any Candice.’

`Understood?’

`Hang on, let's see if I've got this. You want me to agree with you that a woman I've never met should stop touting her hole?’

Smiles from the spectators. Telford turned back to his game. `Where's this woman from anyway?’ he asked, almost casually.

`We're not sure,' Rebus lied. He didn't want Telford knowing any more than was necessary.

`Must have been a great little chat the two of you had.’

`She's scared shitless.’

`Me, too, Rebus. I'm scared you're going to bore me to death. This Candice, did she give you a taste of the goods? I'm betting it's not every scrubber would get you this het up.’

Laughter, Rebus its brunt.

`She's off the game, Telford. Don't think about touching her.’

`Not with a bargepole, pal. Myself, I'm a clean-living sort of individual. I say my prayers last thing at night.’

`And kiss your cuddly bear?’

Telford looked at him again. `Don't believe all the stories, Inspector. Here, grab a bacon sarnie on your way out, I think there's one going spare.’

Rebus stood his ground a few moments longer, then turned away. `And tell the mugs out front I said hello.’

Rebus walked back through the arcade and out into the night, heading for Nicolson Street. He was wondering what he was going to do with Candice. Simple answer: let her go, and hope she had the sense to keep moving. As he made to pass a parked car, its window slid down.

`Fucking well get in,' a voice ordered from the passenger seat. Rebus stopped, looked at the man who'd spoken, recognised the face.

'Ormiston,' he said, opening the back door of the Orion. `Now I know what he meant.’

`Who?’

`Tommy Telford. I'm to tell you he said hello.’

The driver stared at Ormiston. `Rumbled again.’

He didn't sound surprised. Rebus recognised the voice.

`Hello, Claverhouse.’

DS Claverhouse, DC Ormiston: Scottish Crime Squad, Fettes's finest. On surveillance. Claverhouse: as thin as `twa ply o' reek', as Rebus's father would have said. Ormiston: freckle-faced and with Mick McManus's hair – slick, puddingbowl cut, unfeasibly black.

`You were blown before I walked in there, if that's any consolation.’

`What the fuck were you doing?’

`Paying my respects. What about you?’

`Wasting our time,' Ormiston muttered.

The Crime Squad were out for Telford: good news for Rebus.

`I've got someone,' he said. `She works for Telford. She's frightened. You could help her.’

`The frightened ones don't talk.’

`This one might.’

Claverhouse stared at him. `And all we'd have to do is…?’

'Get her out of here, set her up somewhere.’

`Witness relocation?’

`If it comes to that.’

`What does she know?’

`I'm not sure. Her English isn't great.’

Claverhouse knew when he was being sold something. `Tell us,' he said.

Rebus told them. They tried not to look interested.

`We'll talk to her,' Claverhouse said.

Rebus nodded. `So how long has this been going on?’

`Ever since Telford and Cafferty squared off.’

`And whose side are we on?’

`We're the UN, same as always,' Claverhouse said. He spoke slowly, measuring each word and phrase. A careful man, D S Claverhouse. `Meantime, you go charging in like some bloody mercenary.’

`I've never been a great one for tactics. Besides, I wanted to see the bastard close up.’

`And?’

`He looks like a kid.’

`And he's as clean as a whistle,' Claverhouse said. `He's got a dozen lieutenants who'd take the fall for him.’

At the word `lieutenants', Rebus's mind flashed to Joseph Lintz. Some men gave orders, some carried them out: which group was the more culpable? `Tell me something,' he said, `the teddy bear story… is it true?’

Claverhouse nodded. `In the passenger seat of his Range Rover. A fucking huge yellow thing, sort they raffle in the pub Sunday lunchtime.’

`So what's the story?’

Ormiston turned in his seat. `Ever hear of Teddy Willocks? Glasgow hardman. Carpentry nails and a claw-hammer.’

Rebus nodded. `You welched on someone, Willocks came to see you with the carpentry bag.’

`But then,' Claverhouse took over, `Teddy got on the wrong side of some Geordie bastard. Telford was young, making a name for himself, and he very badly wanted an in with this Geordie, so he took care of Teddy.’

`And that's why he carries a teddy around with him,' Ormiston said. `A reminder to everyone.’

Rebus was thinking. Geordie meant someone from Newcastle. Newcastle, with its bridges over the Tyne…, ` Newcastle,' he said softly, leaning forward in his seat.

`What about it?’

`Maybe Candice was there. Her city of bridges. She might link Telford to this Geordie gangster.’

Ormiston and Claverhouse looked at one another.

`She'll need a safe place to stay,' Rebus told them. `Money, somewhere to go afterwards.’

`A first-class flight home if she helps us nail Telford.’

`I'm not sure she'll want to go home.’

`That's for later,' Claverhouse said. `First thing is to talk to her.’

`You'll need a translator.’

Claverhouse looked at him. `And of course you know just the man…?’

She was asleep in her cell, curled under the blanket, only her hair visible. The Mothers of Invention: `Lonely Little Girl'. The cell was in the women's block. Painted pink and blue, a slab to sleep on, graffiti scratched into the walls.

'Candice,' Rebus said quietly, squeezing her shoulder. She started awake, as if he'd administered an electric shock. `It's okay, it's me, John.’

She looked round blindly, focused on him slowly. `John,' she said. Then she smiled.

Claverhouse was off making phone calls, squaring things.,Ormiston stood in the doorway, appraising Candice. Not that Ormiston was known to be choosy. Rebus had tried Colquhoun at home, but there'd been no answer. So now Rebus was gesturing, letting her know they wanted to take her somewhere.

`A hotel,' he said.

She didn't like that word. She looked from him to Ormiston and back again.

`It's okay,' Rebus said. `It's just a place for you to sleep, that's all, somewhere safe. No Telford, nothing like that.’

She seemed to soften, came off the bed and stood in front of him. Her eyes seemed to say, I'll trust you, and if you let me down I won't be surprised.

Claverhouse came back. `All fixed,' he said, his examination falling on Candice. `She doesn't speak any English?’

`Not as practised in polite society.’

`In that case,' Ormiston said, `she should be fine with us.’

Three men and a young woman in a dark blue Ford Orion, heading south out of the city. It was late now, past midnight, black taxis cruising. Students were spilling from pubs.

`They get younger every year.’

Claverhouse was never short of a cliche.

`And more of them end up joining the force,' Rebus commented.

Claverhouse smiled. `I meant prossies, not students. We pulled one in last week, said she was fifteen. Turned out she was twelve, on the run. All grown up about it.’

Rebus tried to remember Sammy at twelve. He saw her scared, in the clutches of a madman with a grievance against Rebus. She'd had lots of nightmares afterwards, till her mother had taken her to London. Rhona had phoned Rebus a few years later. She just wanted to let him know he'd robbed Sammy of her childhood.

`I phoned ahead,' Claverhouse said. `Don't worry, we've used this place before. It's perfect.’

`She'll need some clothes,' Rebus said.

'Siobhan can fetch her some in the morning.’

`How is Siobhan?’

`Seems fine. Hasn't half cut into the jokes and the language though.’

`Ach, she can take a joke,' Ormiston said. `Likes a drink, too.’

This last was news to Rebus. He wondered how much Siobhan Clarke would change in order to blend with her new surroundings.

`It's just off the bypass,' Claverhouse said, meaning their destination. `Not far now.’

The city ended suddenly. Green belt, plus the Pentland Hills. The bypass was quiet, Ormiston doing the ton between exits. They came off at Colinton and signalled into the hotel. It was a motorist's stop, one of a nationwide chain: same prices, same rooms. The cars which crowded the parking area were salesmen's specials, cigarette packets littering the passenger seats. The reps would be sleeping, or lying in a daze with the TV remote to hand.

Candice seemed reluctant to get out of the car, until she saw that Rebus was coming, too.

`You light up her life,' Ormiston offered.

At reception, they signed her in as one half of a couple – Mrs Angus Campbell. The two Crime Squad cops had the routine off pat. Rebus watched the hotel clerk, but a wink from Claverhouse told him the man was okay.

`Make it the first floor, Malcolm,' Ormiston said. `Don't want anyone peeking in the windows.’

Room number 20. `Will someone be with her?’

Rebus asked as they climbed the stairs.

`Right there in the room,' Claverhouse said. `The landing's too obvious, and we'd freeze our bums off in the car. Did you give me Colquhoun's number?’

'Ormiston has it.’

Ormiston was unlocking the door. `Who's on first watch?’

Claverhouse shrugged. Candice was looking towards Rebus, seeming to sense what was being discussed. She snatched at his arm, jabbering in her native tongue, looking first to Claverhouse and then to Ormiston, all the time waving Rebus's arm.

`It's okay, Candice, really. They'll take care of you.’

She kept shaking her head, holding him with one hand and pointing at him with the other, prodding his chest to make her meaning clear.

`What do you say, John?’

Claverhouse asked. `A happy witness is a willing witness.’

`What time's Siobhan expected?’

`I'll hurry her up.’

Rebus looked at Candice again, sighed, nodded. `Okay.’

He pointed to himself, then to the room. `Just for a little while, okay?’

Candice seemed satisfied with this, and went inside. Ormiston handed Rebus the key.

`I don't want you young things waking the neighbours now…’

Rebus closed the door on his face.

The room was exactly as expected. Rebus filled the kettle and switched it on, dumped a tea-bag into a cup. Candice pointed to the bathroom, made turning motions with her hands.

`A bath?’

He gestured with his arm. `Go ahead.’

The curtain over the window was closed. He parted it and looked out. A grassy slope, occasional lights from the bypass. He made sure the curtains were closed tight, then tried adjusting the heating. The room was stifling. There didn't seem to be a thermostat, so he went back to the window and opened it a fraction. Cold night air, and the swish of nearby traffic. He opened the pack of custard creams, two small biscuits. Suddenly he felt ravenous. He'd seen a snack machine in -the lobby. Plenty of change in his pockets. He made the tea, added milk, sat down on the sofa. For want of any other distractions, he turned the TV on. The tea was fine. The tea was absolutely fine, no complaints there. He picked up the phone and called Jack Morton.

`Did I wake you?’

`Not really. How's it going?’

`I wanted a drink today.’

`So what's new?’

Rebus could hear his friend making himself comfortable. Jack had helped Rebus get off the booze. Jack had said he could phone any time he liked.

`I had to talk to this scumbag, Tommy Telford.’

`I know the name.’

Rebus lit a cigarette. `I think a drink would have helped.’

`Before or after?’

`Both.’

Rebus smiled. `Guess where I am now?’

Jack couldn't, so Rebus told him the story.

`What's your angle?’ Jack asked.

`I don't know.’ Rebus thought about it. `She seems to need me. It's been a long time since anyone's felt like that.’

As he said the words, he feared they didn't tell the whole story. He remembered another argument with Rhona, her screaming that he'd exploited every relationship he'd ever had.

`Do you still want that drink?’ Jack was asking.

`I'm a long way from one.’

Rebus stubbed out his cigarette. `Sweet dreams, Jack.’

He was on his second cup of tea when she came back in, wearing the same clothes, her hair wet and hanging in ratstails.

`Better?’ he asked, making the thumbs-up sign. She nodded, smiling. `Do you want some tea?’

He pointed to the kettle. She nodded again, so he made her a cup. Then he suggested a trip to the snack machine. Their haul included crisps, nuts, chocolate, and a couple of cans of Coke. Another cup of tea finished off the tiny cartons of milk. Rebus lay along the sofa, shoes off, watching soundless television. Candice lay on the bed, fully-clothed, sliding the occasional crisp from its packet, flicking channels. She seemed to have forgotten he was there. He took this as a compliment.

He must have fallen asleep. The touch of her fingers on his knee brought him awake. She was standing in front of him, wearing the tshirt and nothing else. She stared at him, fingers still resting on his knee. He smiled, shook his head, led her back to bed. Made her lie down. She lay on her back, arms stretched. He shook his head again and pulled the duvet over her.

`That's not you any more,' he told her. `Goodnight, Candice.’

Rebus retreated to the sofa, lay down again, and wished she would stop saying his name.

The Doors: `Wishful Sinful'…

A tapping at the door brought him awake. Still dark outside. He'd forgotten to close the window, and the room was cold. The TV was still playing, but Candice was asleep, duvet kicked off, chocolate wrappers strewn around her bare legs and thighs. Rebus covered her up, then tiptoed to the door, peered through the spyhole, and opened up.

`For this relief, much thanks,' he whispered to Siobhan Clarke.

She was carrying a bulging polythene bag. `Thank God for the twenty-four-hour shop.’

They went inside. Clarke looked at the sleeping woman, then went over to the sofa and started unpacking the bag.

`For you,' she whispered, `a couple of sandwiches.’

`God bless the child.’

`For sleeping beauty, some of my clothes. They'll do till the shops open.’

Rebus was already biting into the first sandwich. Cheese salad on white bread had never tasted finer.

`How am I getting home?’ he asked.

`I called you a cab.’

She checked her watch. `It'll be here in two minutes., 'What would I do without you?’

`It's a toss-up: either freeze to death or starve.’

She closed the window. `Now go on, get out of here.’

He looked at Candice one last time, almost wanting to wake her to let her know he wasn't leaving for good. But she was sleeping so soundly, and Siobhan could take care of everything.

So he tucked the second sandwich into his pocket, tossed the room-key on to the sofa, and left.

Four-thirty. The taxi was idling outside. Rebus felt hungover. He went through a 'mental list of all the places he could get a drink at this time of night. He didn't know how many days it had been since he'd had a drink. He wasn't counting.

He gave his address to the cabbie, and settled back, thinking again of Candice, so soundly asleep, and protected for now. And of Sammy, too old now to need anything from her father. She'd be asleep too, snuggling into Ned Farlowe. Sleep was innocence. Even the city looked innocent in sleep. He looked at the city sometimes and saw a beauty his cynicism couldn't touch. Someone in a bar recently? years back? – had challenged him to define romance. How could he do that? He'd seen too much of love's obverse: people killed for passion and from lack of it. So that now when he saw beauty, he could do little but respond to it with the realisation that it would fade or be brutalised. He saw lovers in Princes Street Gardens and imagined them further down the road, at the crossroads where betrayal and conflict met. He saw valentines in the shops and imagined puncture wounds, real hearts bleeding.

Not that he'd voiced any of this to his public bar inquisitor.

`Define romance,' had been the challenge. And Rebus's response? He'd picked up a fresh pint of beer and kissed the glass.

He slept till nine, showered and made some coffee. Then he phoned the hotel, and Siobhan assured him all was well.

`She was a bit startled when she woke up and saw me instead of you. Kept saying your name. I told her she'd see you again.’

`So what's the plan?’

`Shopping – one quick swoop on The Gyle. After that, Fettes. Dr Colquhoun's coming in at noon for an hour. We'll see what we get.’

Rebus was at his window, looking down on a damp Arden Street. `Take care of her, Siobhan.’

`No problem.’

Rebus knew there'd be no problem, not with Siobhan. This was her first real action with the Crime Squad, she'd be doing her damnedest to make it a success. He was in the kitchen when the phone rang.

`Is that Inspector Rebus?’

`Who's speaking?’

A voice he didn't recognise.

`Inspector, my name is David Levy. We've never met. I apologise for calling you at home. I was given this number by Matthew Vanderhyde.’

Old man Vanderhyde: Rebus hadn't seen him in a while.

`Yes?’

`I must say, I was astonished when it transpired he knew you.’

The voice was tinged with a dry humour. `But by now nothing about Matthew should surprise me. I went to him because he knows Edinburgh.’

`Yes?’

Laughter on the line. `I'm sorry, Inspector. I can't blame you for being suspicious when I've made such a mess of the introductions. I am a historian by profession. I've been contacted by Solomon Mayerlink to see if I might offer assistance.’

Mayerlink… Rebus knew the name. Placed it: Mayerlink ran the Holocaust Investigation Bureau.

`And exactly what "assistance" does Mr Mayerlink think I need?’

`Perhaps we could discuss it in person, Inspector. I'm staying in a hotel on Charlotte Square.’

`The Roxburghe?’

`Could we meet there? This morning, ideally.’

Rebus looked at his watch. `An hour?’

he suggested.

`Perfect. Goodbye, Inspector.’

Rebus called into the office, told them where he'd be.

5

They sat in the Roxburghe's lounge, Levy pouring coffee. An elderly couple in the far corner, beside the window, pored over sections of newspaper. David Levy was elderly, too. He wore black-rimmed glasses and had a small silver beard. His hair was a silver halo around a scalp the colour of tanned leather. His eyes seemed constantly moist, as if he'd just chewed on an onion. He sported a dun-coloured safari suit with blue shirt and tie beneath. His walking-stick rested against his chair. Now retired, he'd worked in Oxford, New York State, Tel Aviv itself, and several other locations around the globe.

`I never came into contact with Joseph Lintz, however. No reason why I should, our interests being different.’

`So why does Mr Mayerlink think you can help me?’

Levy put the coffee pot back on its tray. `Milk? Sugar?’

Rebus shook his head to both, then repeated his question.

`Well, Inspector,' Levy said, tipping two spoonfuls of sugar into his own cup, `it's more a matter of moral support.’

`Moral support?’

`You see, many people before you have been in the same position in which you now find yourself. I'm talking about objective people, professionals with no axe to grind, and no real stake in the investigation.’

Rebus bristled. `If you're suggesting I'm not doing my job…’

A pained look crossed Levy's face. `Please, Inspector, I'm not making a very good job of this, am I? What I mean is that there will be times when you will doubt the validity of what you are doing. You'll doubt its worth.’

His eyes gleamed. `Perhaps you've already had doubts?’

Rebus said nothing. He had a drawerful of doubts, especially now that he had a real, living, breathing case – Candice. Candice, who might lead to Tommy Telford.

`You could say I'm here as your conscience, Inspector.’

Levy winced again. `No, I didn't put that right, either. You already have a conscience, that's not under debate.’

He sighed. `The question you've no doubt been pondering is the same one I've asked myself on occasions: can time wash away responsibility? For me, the answer would have to be no. The thing is this, Inspector.’

Levy leaned forward. `You are not investigating the crimes of an old man, but those of a young man who now happens to be old. Focus your mind on that. There have been investigations before, halfhearted affairs. Governments wait for these men to die rather than have to try them. But each investigation is an act of remembrance, and remembrance is never wasted. Remembrance is the only way we learn.’

`Like we've learned with Bosnia?’

`You're right, Inspector, as a race we've always been slow to take in lessons. Sometimes they have to be hammered home.’

`And you think I'm your carpenter? Were there Jews in Villefranche?’

Rebus couldn't remember reading of any.

`Does it matter?’

`I'm just wondering, why the interest?’

`To be honest, Inspector, there is a slight ulterior motive.’

Levy sipped coffee, considering his words. `The Rat Line. We'd like to show that it existed, that it operated to save Nazis from possible tormentors.’

He paused. `That it worked with the tacit approval the more than tacit approval – of several western governments and even the Vatican. It's a question of general complicity.’

`What you want is for everyone to feel guilty?’

`We want recognition, Inspector. We want the truth. Isn't that what you want? Matthew Vanderhyde would have me believe it is your guiding principle.’

`He doesn't know me very well.’

`I wouldn't be so sure of that. Meantime, there are people out there who want the truth to stay hidden.’

`The truth being…?’

'That known war criminals were brought back to Britain – and elsewhere – and offered new lives, new identities.’

`In exchange for what?’

`The Cold War was starting, Inspector. You know the old saying: My enemy's enemy is my friend. These murderers were protected by the secret services. Military Intelligence offered them jobs. There are people who would rather this did not become general knowledge.’

`So?’

`So a trial, an open trial, would expose them.’

`You're warning me about spooks?’

Levy put his hands together, almost in an attitude of prayer. `Look, I'm not sure this has been a completely satisfactory meeting, and for that I apologise. I'll be staying here for a few days, maybe longer if necessary. Could we try this again?’

`I don't know.’

`Well, think about it, won't you?’

Levy extended his right hand. Rebus took it. `I'll be right here, Inspector. Thank you for seeing me.’

`Take care, Mr Levy.’

`Shalom, Inspector.’

At his desk, Rebus could still feel Levy's handshake. Surrounded by the Villefranche files, he felt like the curator of some museum visited only by specialists and cranks. Evil had been done in Villefranche, but had Joseph Lintz been responsible? And even if he had, had he perhaps atoned during the past half-century? Rebus phoned the ProcuratorFiscal's office to let them know how little progress he was making. They thanked him for calling. Then he went to see the Farmer.

`Come in, John, what can I do for you?’

`Sir, did you know the Crime Squad had set up a surveillance on our patch?’

`You mean Flint Street?’

`So you know about it?’

`They keep me informed.’

`Who's acting as liaison?’

The Farmer frowned. `As I say, John, they keep me informed.’

`So there's no liaison at street level?’

The Farmer stayed silent. `By rights there should be, sir.’

`What are you getting at, John?’

`I want the job.’

The Farmer stared at his desk. `You're busy on Villefranche.’

`I want the job, sir.’

`John, liaison means diplomacy. It's never been your strongest suit.’

So Rebus explained about Candice, and how he was already tied into the case. `And since I'm already in, sir,' he concluded, `I might as well act as liaison.’

`What about Villefranche?’

`That remains a priority, sir.’

The Farmer looked into his eyes. Rebus didn't blink. `All right then,' he said at last.

`You'll let Fettes know?’

`I'll let them know.’

`Thank you, sir.’

Rebus turned to leave.

`John…?’

The Farmer was standing behind his desk. `You know what I'm going to say.’

`You're going to tell me not to tread on too many toes, not to go off on my own little crusade, to keep in regular contact with you, and not betray your trust in me. Does that just about do it, sir?’

The Farmer shook his head, smiling. `Bugger off,' he said.

Rebus buggered off.

When he walked into the room, Candice rose so quickly from her chair that it fell to the floor. She came forward and gave him a hug, while Rebus looked at the faces around them – Ormiston, Claverhouse, Dr Colquhoun, and a WPC.

They were in an Interview Room at Fettes, Lothian and Borders Police HQ Colquhoun was wearing the same suit as the previous day and the same nervous look. Ormiston was picking up Candice's chair. He'd been standing against one wall. Claverhouse was seated at the table beside Colquhoun, a pad of paper in front of him, pen poised above it.

`She says she's happy to see you,' Colquhoun translated.

`I'd never have guessed.’

Candice was wearing new clothes: denims too long for her and turned up four inches at the ankle; a black woollen v-neck jumper. Her skiing jacket was hanging over the beck of her chair.

'Get her to sit down again, will you?’ Claverhouse said. `We're pushed for time.’

There was no chair for Rebus, so he stood next to Ormiston and WPC. Candice went back to the story she'd been telling, but glanced regularly towards him. He noticed that beside Claverhouse's pad of paper sat a brown folder and an A4-sized envelope. On top of the envelope sat a black and white surveillance shot of Tommy Telford.

`This man,' Claverhouse asked, tapping the photo, `she knows him?’

Colquhoun asked, then listened to her answer. `She…’

He cleared his throat. `She hasn't had any direct dealings with him.’

Her two-minute commentary reduced to this. Claverhouse dipped into the envelope, spread more photos before her. Candice tapped one of them.

`Pretty-Boy,' Claverhouse said. He picked up the photo of Telford again. `But she's had dealings with this man, too?’

`She's…’

Colquhoun mopped his face. `She's saying something about Japanese people… Oriental businessmen.’

Rebus shared a look with Ormiston, who shrugged.

`Where was this?’

Claverhouse asked.

`In a car… more than one car. You know, a sort of convoy.’

`She was in one of the cars?’

`Yes.’

`Where did they go?’

`They headed out of town, stopping once or twice.’

`Juniper Green,' Candice said, quite clearly.

`Juniper Green,' Colquhoun repeated.

`They stopped there?’

`No, they stopped before that.’

`To do what?’

Colquhoun spoke with Candice again. `She doesn't know. She thinks one of the drivers went into a shop for some cigarettes. The others all seemed to be looking at a building, as if they were interested in it, but not saying anything.’

`What building?’

`She doesn't know.’

Claverhouse looked exasperated. She wasn't giving him much of anything, and Rebus knew that if there was nothing she could trade, Crime Squad would dump her straight back on the street. Colquhoun was all wrong for this job, completely out of his depth.

`Where did they go after Juniper Green?’

`Just drove around the countryside. For two or three hours, she thinks. They would stop sometimes and get out, but just to look at the scenery. Lots of hills and…’

Colquhoun checked something. 'Hills and flags.’

`Flags? Flying from buildings?’

`No, stuck into the ground.’

Claverhouse gave Ormiston a look of hopelessness.

`Golf courses,' Rebus said. `Try describing a golf course to her, Dr Colquhoun.’

Colquhoun did so, and she nodded agreement, beaming at Rebus. Claverhouse was looking at him, too.

`Just a guess,' Rebus said with a shrug. `Japanese businessmen, it's what they like about Scotland.’

Claverhouse turned back to Candice. `Ask her if she… accommodated any of these men.’

Colquhoun cleared his throat again, colour flooding his cheeks as he spoke. Candice looked down at the table, moved her head in the affirmative, started to speak.

`She says that's why she was there. She was fooled at first. She thought maybe they just wanted a pretty woman to look at. They had a nice lunch… the beautiful drive… But then they came back into town, dropped the Japanese off at a hotel, and she was taken up to one of the hotel rooms. Three of them… she, as you put it yourself, D S Claverhouse, she "accommodated" three of them.’

`Does she remember the name of the hotel?’

She didn't.

`Where did they have lunch?’

`A restaurant next to flags and…’

Colquhoun corrected himself. `Next to a golf course.’

`How long ago was this?’

`Two or three weeks.’

`And how many of them were there?’

Colquhoun checked. `The three Japanese, and maybe four other men.’

`Ask her how long she's been in Edinburgh,' Rebus asked.

Colquhoun did so. `She thinks maybe a month.’

`A month working the street… funny we haven't picked her up.’

`She was put there as a punishment.’

`For what?’ Claverhouse asked.

Rebus had the answer.

`For making herself ugly.’

He turned to Candice. `Ask her why she cuts herself.’

Candice looked at him and shrugged.

`What's your point?’ Ormiston asked.

`She thinks the scars will deter punters. Which means she doesn't like the life she's been leading.’

`And helping us is her only sure ticket out?’

`Something like that.’

So Colquhoun asked her again, then said: `They don't like that she does it. That's why she does it.’

`Tell her if she helps us, she won't ever have to do anything like that again.’

Colquhoun translated, glancing at his watch.

`Does the name Newcastle mean anything to her?’

Claverhouse asked.

Colquhoun tried the name. `I've explained to her that it's a town in England, built on a river.’

`Don't forget the bridges,' Rebus said.

Colquhoun added a few words, but Candice only shrugged. She looked upset that she was failing them. Rebus gave her another smile.

`What about the man she worked for?’

Claverhouse asked. `The one before she came to Edinburgh.’

She seemed to have plenty to say about this, and kept touching her face with her fingers while she talked. Colquhoun nodded, made her stop from time to time so he could translate.

`A big man… fat. He was the boss. Something about his skin… a birthmark maybe, certainly something distinctive. And glasses, like sunglasses but not quite.’

Rebus saw Claverhouse and Ormiston exchange another look. It was all too vague to be much use. Colquhoun checked his watch again. `And cars, a lot of cars. This man crashed them.’

`Maybe he got a scar on his face,' Ormiston offered.

`Glasses and a scar aren't going to get us very far,' Claverhouse added.

`Gentlemen,' Colquhoun said, while Candice looked towards Rebus, `I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave.’

`Any chance of coming back in later, sir?’ Claverhouse asked.

`You mean today?’

`I thought maybe this evening…?’

'Look, I do have other commitments.’

`We appreciate that, sir. Meantime, DC Ormiston will run you back into town.’

`My pleasure,' Ormiston said, all charm. They needed Colquhoun, after all. They had to keep him sweet.

`One thing,' Colquhoun said. `There's a refugee family in Fife. From Sarajevo. They'd probably take her in. I could ask.’

`Thank you, sir,' Claverhouse said. `Maybe later on, eh?’

Colquhoun seemed disappointed as Ormiston led him away.

Rebus walked over to Claverhouse, who was shuffling his photos together.

`Bit of an oddball,' Claverhouse commented.

`Not used to the real world.’

`Not much help either.’

Rebus looked towards Candice. `Mind if I take her out?’

`What?’

`Just for an hour.’

Claverhouse stared at him.

`She's been cooped up here, and only her hotel room to look forward to. I'll drop her back there in an hour, hour and a half.’

`Bring her back in one piece, preferably with a smile on her face.’

Rebus motioned for Candice to join him.

`Japanese and golf courses,' Claverhouse mused. `What do you think?’

` Telford 's a businessman, we know that. Businessmen do deals with other businessmen.’

`He runs bouncers and slot machines: what's the Japanese Connection?’

Rebus shrugged. `I leave the hard questions to the likes of you.’

He opened the door.

`And, John?’

Claverhouse warned, nodding towards Candice. `she's Crime Squad property, okay? And remember, you came to us.’

'No bother, Claverhouse. And by the way, I'm your B Division liaison.’

'Since when?’

`With immediate effect. If you don't believe me, ask your boss. This might be your case, but Telford works out of my territory.’

He took Candice by the arm and marched her from the room.

He stopped the car on the corner of Flint Street.

`It's okay, Candice,' he said, seeing her agitation. `We're staying in the car. Everything's all right.’

Her eyes were darting around, looking for faces she didn't want to see. Rebus started the car again and drove off. `Look,' he told her, `we're leaving.’

Knowing she couldn't understand. `I'm guessing this is where you started from that day.’

He looked at her. `The day you went to Juniper Green. The Japanese would be staying in a central hotel, somewhere pricey. You picked them up, then headed east. Along Dalry Road maybe?’

He was speaking for his own benefit. `Christ, I don't know. Look, Candice, anything you see, anything that looks familiar, just let me know, okay?’

`Okay.’

Had she understood? No, she was smiling. All she'd heard was that final word. All she knew was that they were heading away from Flint Street. He took her down on to Princes Street first.

`Was it a hotel here, Candice? The Japanese? Was it here?’

She gazed from the window with a blank look.

He headed up Lothian Road. `Usher Hall,' he said. `Sheraton… Any of it ring a bell?’

Nothing did. Out along the Western Approach Road, Slateford Road, and on to Lanark Road. Most of the lights were against them, giving her plenty of time to study the buildings. Each newsagent's they passed, Rebus pointed it out, just in case the convoy had paused there to buy cigarettes. Soon they were out of town and entering juniper Green.

`Juniper Green!' she said, pointing at the signpost, delighted to have something to show him. Rebus attempted a smile. There were plenty of golf courses around the city. He couldn't hope to take her to every one of them, not in a week never mind an hour. He stopped for a few moments by the side of a field. Candice got out, so he followed, lit a cigarette. There were two stone gateposts next to the road, but no sign of a gate between them, or any sort of path behind them. Once there might have been a track, and a house at the end of it. Atop one of the pillars sat the badly worn representation of a bull. Candice pointed towards the ground behind the other pillar, where another lump of carved stone lay, half-covered by weeds and grass.

`Looks like a serpent,' Rebus said. `Maybe a dragon.’ He looked at her. `It'll all mean something to somebody.’

She looked back at him blankly. He saw Sammy's features, reminded himself that he wanted to help her. He was in danger of letting that slip, of focusing on how she might help them get to Telford.

Back in the car, he branched off towards Livingston, intending to head for Ratho and from there back into town. Then he noticed that Candice had turned to look out of the back window.

`What 1S It?’

She came out with a stream of words, her tone uncertain. Rebus turned the car anyway, and drove slowly back the way they'd just come. He stopped at the side of the road, opposite a low dry-stone wall, beyond which lay the undulations of a golf course.

`Recognise it?’

She mumbled more words. Rebus pointed. `Here? Yes?’

She turned to him, said something which sounded apologetic.

`It's okay,' he told her. `Let's take a closer look anyway.’

He drove to where a vast iron double-gate stood open. A sign to one side read POYNTINGHAME GOLF AND COUNTRY CLUB. Beneath it: `Bar Lunches and A La Carte, Visitors Welcome'. As Rebus drove through the gates, Candice started nodding again, and when an oversized Georgian house came into view she almost bounced in her seat, slapping her hands against her thighs.

`I think I get the picture,' Rebus said.

He parked outside the main entrance, squeezing between a Volvo estate and a low-slung Toyota. Out on the course, three men were finishing their round. As the final putt went in, hands went to wallets and money changed hands.

Two things Rebus knew about golf: one, to some people it was a religion; two, a lot of players liked a bet. They'd bet on final tally, each hole, even every shot if they could.

And didn't the Japanese have a passion for gambling? He took Candice's arm as he escorted her into the main building. Piano music from the bar. Panatella smoke and oakpanelling. Huge portraits of self-important unknowns. A few old wooden putters, framed behind glass. A poster advertised a Halloween dinner-dance for that evening. Rebus walked up to reception, explained who he was and what he wanted. The receptionist made a phone call, then led them to the Chief Executive's office.

Hugh Malahide, bald and thin, mid-forties, already had a slight stammer, which intensified when Rebus asked his first question. By throwing it back at the questioner, he seemed to be playing for time.

`Have we had any Japanese visitors recently? Well, we do get a few golfers.’

`These men came to lunch. Maybe a fortnight, three weeks back. There were three of them, plus three or four Scottish men. Probably driving Range Rovers. The table may have been reserved in the name of Telford.’

` Telford?’

`Thomas Telford.’

`Ah, yes…’

Malahide wasn't enjoying this at all.

`You know Mr Telford?’

`In a manner of speaking.’

Rebus leaned forward in his chair. `Go on.’

`Well, he's… look, the reason I seem so reticent is because we don't want this made common knowledge.’

`I understand, sir.’

`Mr Telford is acting as go-between.’

`Go-between?’

`In the negotiations.’

Rebus saw what Malahide was getting at. `The Japanese want to buy Poyntinghame?’

`You understand, Inspector, I'm just the manager here. I mean, I run the day-to-day business.’

`But you're the Chief Executive.’

`With no personal share in the club. The actual owners were set against selling at first. But an offer has been made, and I believe it's a very good one. And the potential buyers… well, they're persistent.’

`Have there been any threats, Mr Malahide?’

He looked horrified. `What sort of threats?’

`Forget it.’

`The negotiations haven't been hostile, if that's what you mean.’

`So these Japanese, the ones who had lunch here…?’

`They were representing the consortium.’

`The consortium being…?’

`I don't know. The Japanese are always very secretive. Some big company or corporation, I'd guess.’

`Any idea why they want Poyntinghame?’

`I've wondered that myself.’

`And?’

`Everyone knows the Japanese love golf. It might be a prestige thing. Or it could be that they're opening a plant of some kind in Livingston.’

`And Poyntinghame would become the factory social club?’

Malahide shivered at the thought. Rebus got to his feet.

`You've been very helpful, sir. Anything else you can tell me?’

`Look, this has been off the record, Inspector.’

`I've no problem with that. I don't suppose you've got any names?’

`Names?’

`Of the diners that day.’

Malahide shook his head. `I'm sorry, not even credit card details. Mr Telford paid cash as usual.’

`Did he leave a big tip?’

`Inspector,' smiling, `some secrets are sacrosanct.’

`Let's keep this conversation that way, too, sir, all right?’

Malahide looked at Candice. `She's a prostitute, isn't she? I thought as much the day they were here.’

There was revulsion in his voice. `Tarty little thing, aren't you?’

Candice stared at him, looked to Rebus for help, said a few words neither man understood.

`What's she saying?’ Malahide asked.

`She says she once had a punter who looked just like you. He dressed in plus-fours and made her whack him with a mashie-niblick.’

Malahide showed them out.

6

Rebus telephoned Claverhouse from Candice's room.

`Could be something or nothing,' Claverhouse said, but Rebus could tell he was interested, which was good: the longer he stayed interested, the longer he'd want to hang on to Candice. Ormiston was on his way to the hotel to resume babysitting duties.

`What I want to know is, how the hell did Telford land something like this?’

`Good question,' Claverhouse said.

`It's way out of his previous sphere, isn't it?’

`As far as we know.’

`A chauffeur service for Jap companies…’

`Maybe he's after the contract to supply their gaming machines.’

Rebus shook his head. `I still don't get it.’

`Not your problem, John, remember that.’

`I suppose so.’

There was a knock at the door. `Sounds like Ormiston.’

`I doubt it. He's just left.’

Rebus stared at the door. 'Claverhouse, wait on the line.’

He left the receiver on the bedside table. The knock was repeated. Rebus motioned for Candice, who'd been flicking through a magazine on the sofa, to move into the bathroom. Then he crept up to the door and put his eye to the spyhole. A woman: the day-shift receptionist. He unlocked the door.

`Yes?’

`Letter for your wife.’

He stared at the small white envelope which she was trying to hand him.

`Letter,' she repeated.

There was no name or address on the envelope, no stamp. Rebus took it and held it to the light. A single sheet of paper inside, and something flat and square, like a photograph.

`A man handed it in at reception.’

`How long ago?’

`Two, three minutes.’

`What did he look like?’

She shrugged. `Tallish, short brown hair. He was wearing a suit, took the letter out of a briefcase.’

`How do you know who it's for?’

`He said it was for the foreign woman. He described her to a T.’

Rebus was staring at the envelope. `Okay, thanks,' he mumbled. He closed the door, went back to the telephone.

`What is it?’ Claverhouse asked.

`Someone's just dropped off a letter for Candice.’

Rebus tore open the envelope, holding the receiver between shoulder and chin. There was a Polaroid photo and a single sheet, handwritten in small capitals. Foreign words.

`What does it say?’ Claverhouse asked.

`I don't know.’

Rebus tried a couple of words aloud. Candice had emerged from the bathroom. She snatched the paper from him and read it quickly, then fled back into the bathroom.

`It means something to Candice,' Rebus said. `There's a photo, too.’

He looked at it. `She's on her knees gamming some fat bloke.’

`Description?’

`The camera's not exactly interested in his face. Claverhouse, we've got to get her away from here.’

`Hang on till Ormiston arrives. They might be trying to panic you. If they want to snatch her, one cop in a car isn't going to cause much of a problem. Two cops just might.’

`How did they know?’

`We'll think about that later.’

Rebus was staring at the bathroom door, remembering the locked cubicle at St Leonard 's. `I've got to go.’

`Be careful.’

Rebus put down the receiver.

'Candice?’

He tried the door. It was locked. 'Candice?’

He stood back and kicked. The door wasn't as strong as the one in St Leonard 's; he nearly took it off its hinges. She was seated on the toilet, a plastic safety razor in her hand, slashing it across her arms. There was blood on her t-shirt, blood spraying the white tiled floor.

She started screaming at him, the words collapsing into monosyllables. Rebus grabbed the razor, nicked his thumb in the process. He pulled her off the toilet, flushed the razor, and started wrapping towels around her arms. The note was lying in the bath. He waved it in her face.

`They're trying to scare you, that's all.’

Not even half-believing it himself. If Telford could find her this quickly, if he had the means of writing to her in her own language, then he was much stronger, much cleverer than Rebus had suspected.

`It's going to be okay,' he went on. `I promise. It's all okay. We'll look after you. We'll get you out of here, take you somewhere he can't get to you. I promise, Candice. Look, this is me talking.’

But she was bawling, tears dripping from her cheeks, head shaking from side to side. For a time, she'd actually believed in knights on white chargers. Now, she was realising how stupid she'd been…

The coast seemed to be clear.

Rebus took her in his car, Ormiston tucked in behind. No other way to play it. It was a trade-off: a speedy exit versus hanging around for a cavalry escort. And the way Candice was bleeding, they couldn't afford to wait. The drive to the hospital was nerve-tingling, then there was the wait while her wounds were checked and some of them sewn up. Rebus and Ormiston waited in A amp;E, drinking coffee from beakers, asking one another questions they couldn't answer.

`How did he know?’

`Who did he get to write the note?’

`Why give us a warning? Why not just grab her?’

`What does the note say?’

It struck Rebus that they were near the university. He took Dr Colquhoun's card from his pocket and phoned his office. Colquhoun was in. Rebus read the message out to him, spelling some of the word…

`They sound like addresses,' Colquhoun said. `Untranslatable.’

`Addresses? Are any towns named?’

`I don't think so.’

`Sir, we'll be taking her to Fettes if she's well enough… any chance you could meet us there? It's important.’

`Everything with you chaps is important.’

`Yes, sir, but this is important. Candice's life may be in danger.’

Colquhoun took time answering. `I suppose in that case…’

`I'll send a car for you.’

After an hour, she was well enough to leave. `The cuts weren't too deep,' the doctor said. `Not life-threatening.’

`They weren't meant to be.’

Rebus turned to Ormiston. `She thinks she's going back to Telford, that's why she did it. She knows she's going back to him.’

Candice looked as though all the blood had been drained from her. Her face seemed more skeletal than before, and her eyes darker. Rebus tried to recall what her smile looked like. He doubted he'd be seeing one for a while. She kept her arms folded protectively in front of her, and wouldn't meet his eyes. Rebus had seen suspects act that way in custody: people for whom the world had become a trap.

At Fettes, Claverhouse and Colquhoun were already waiting. Rebus handed over the note and photo.

`As I said, Inspector,' Colquhoun stated, `addresses.’

`Ask her what they mean,' Claverhouse demanded. They were in the same room as before. Candice knew her place, and was already seated, her arms still folded, showing cream-coloured bandages and pink plasters. Colquhoun asked, but it was as though he'd ceased to exist. Candice stared at the wall in front of her, unblinking, her only motion a slight rocking to and fro.

`Ask her again,' Claverhouse said. But Rebus interrupted before Colquhoun could start.

`Ask her if people she knows live there, people who are important to her.’

As Colquhoun formed the question, the rocking grew slightly in intensity. There were fresh tears in her eyes.

`Her mother and father? Brothers and sisters?’

Colquhoun translated. Candice tried to stop her mouth trembling.

`Maybe she left a kid behind…’

As Colquhoun asked, Candice flew from her chair, shouting and screaming. Ormiston tried to grab her, but she kicked out at him. When she'd calmed, she subsided in a corner of the room, arms over her head.

`She's not going to tell us anything,' Colquhoun translated. `She was stupid to believe us. She just wants to go now. There's nothing she can help us with.’

Rebus and Claverhouse shared a look.

`We can't hold her, John, not if she wants to leave. It's been dodgy enough keeping her away from a lawyer. Once she starts asking to go…’

He shrugged.

`Come on, man,' Rebus hissed, `she's shit-scared, and with good reason. And now you've got all you're going to get out of her, you're just going to hand her back to Telford?’

`Look, it's not a question of -'

`He'll kill her, you know he will.’

`If he was going to kill her, she'd be dead.’ Claverhouse paused. `He's cleverer than that. He knows damned well all he had to do was give her a fright. He knows her. It sticks in my craw, too, but what can we do?’

`Just keep her a few days, see if we can't…’

`Can't what? You want to hand her over to Immigration?’

`It's an idea. Get her the hell away from here.’

Claverhouse pondered this, then turned to Colquhoun. `Ask her if she wants to go back to Sarajevo.’

Colquhoun asked. She slurred some answer, choking back tears.

`She says if she goes back, they'll kill everyone.’

Silence in the room. They were all looking at her. Four men, men with jobs, family ties, men with lives of their own. In the scheme of things, they seldom realised how well off they were. And now they realised something else: how helpless they were.

`Tell her,' Claverhouse said quietly, `she's free to walk out of here at any time, if that's what she really wants. If she stays, we'll do our damnedest to help her…’

So Colquhoun spoke to her, and she listened, and when he'd finished she pushed herself back on to her feet and looked at them. Then she wiped her nose on her bandages, pushed the hair out of her eyes, and walked to the door.

`Don't go, Candice,' Rebus said.

She half-turned towards him. `Okay,' she said.

Then she opened the door and was gone.

Rebus grabbed Claverhouse's arm. `We've got to pull Telford in, warn him not to touch her.’

`You think he needs telling?’

`You think he'd listen?’

Ormiston added.

`I can't believe this. He scared her half to death, and as a result we let her walk? I really can't get my head round this.’

`She could always have gone to Fife,' Colquhoun said. With Candice out of the room, he seemed to have perked up a bit.

`Bit late now,' Ormiston said.

`He beat us this time, that's all,' Claverhouse said, his eyes on Rebus. `But we'll take him down, don't worry.’

He managed a thin, humourless smile. `Don't think we're giving up, John. It's not our style. Early days yet, pal. Early days…’

She was waiting for him out in the car park, standing by the passenger-door of his battered Saab 900.

`Okay?’ she said.

`Okay,' he agreed, smiling with relief as he unlocked the car. He could think of only one place to take her. As he drove through The Meadows, she nodded, recognising the tree-lined playing fields.

`You've been here before?’

She said a few words, nodded again as Rebus turned into Arden Street. He parked the car and turned to her.

`You've been here?’

She pointed upwards, fingers curled into the shape of binoculars.

`With Telford?’

` Telford,' she said. She made a show of writing something down, and Rebus took out his notebook and pen, handed them over. She drew a teddy bear.

`You came in Telford 's car?’

Rebus interpreted. `And he watched one of the flats up there?’

He pointed to his own flat.

`Yes, Yes.’

`When was this?’

She didn't understand the question. `I need a phrasebook,' he muttered. Then he opened his door, got out and looked around. The cars around him were all empty. No Range Rovers. He signalled for Candice to get out and follow him.

She seemed to like his living-room, went straight to the record collection but couldn't find anything she recognised. Rebus went into the kitchen to make coffee and to think. He couldn't keep her here, not if Telford knew about the place. Telford… why had he been watching Rebus's flat? The answer was obvious: he knew the detective was linked to Cafferty, and therefore a potential threat. He thought Rebus was in Cafferty's pocket. Know your enemy: it was another rule Telford had learned.

Rebus phoned a contact from the Scotland on Sunday business section.

`Japanese companies,' Rebus said. `Rumours pertaining to.’

`Can you narrow that down?’

`New sites around Edinburgh, maybe Livingston.’

Rebus could hear the reporter shuffling papers on his desk. `There's a whisper going round about a microprocessor plant.’

`In Livingston?’

`That's one possibility.’

`Anything else?’

`Nope. Why the interest?’

`Cheers, Tony.’

Rebus put down the receiver, looked across at Candice. He couldn't think where else to take her. Hotels weren't safe. One place came to mind, but it would be risky… Well, not so very risky. He made the call.

'Sammy?’ he said. `Any chance you could do me a favour…?’

Sammy lived in a `colonies' flat in Shandon. Parking was almost impossible on the narrow street outside. Rebus got as close as he could.

Sammy was waiting for them in the narrow hallway, and led them into the cramped living-room. There was a guitar on a wicker chair and Candice lifted it, setting herself on the chair and strumming a chord.

'Sammy,' Rebus said, `this is Candice.’

`Hello there,' Sammy said. `Happy Halloween.’

Candice was putting chords together now. `Hey, that's Oasis.’

Candice looked up, smiled. `Oasis,' she echoed.

`I've got the CD somewhere…’

Sammy examined a tower of CDs next to the hi-fi. `Here it is. Shall I put it on?’

`Yes, yes.’

Sammy switched the hi-fi on, told Candice she was going to make some coffee, and beckoned for Rebus to follow her into the kitchen.

`So who is she?’

The kitchen was tiny. Rebus stayed in the doorway.

`She's a prostitute. Against her will. I don't want her pimp getting her.’

`Where's she from again?’

` Sarajevo.’

`And she doesn't have much English?’

`How's your Serbo-Croat?’

`Rusty.’

Rebus looked around. `Where's your boyfriend?’

`Out working.’

`On the book?’

Rebus didn't like Ned Farlowe. Partly it was that name: `Neds' were what the Sunday Post called hooligans. They robbed old ladies of their pension books and walking-frames. Those were the Neds of this world. And Farlowe meant Chris Farlowe: `Out of Time', a number one that should have belonged to the Stones. Farlowe was researching a history of organised crime in Scotland.

`Sod's law,' Sammy said. `He needs money to buy the time to write the thing.’

`So what's he doing?’

`Just some freelance stuff. How long am I babysitting?’

`A couple of days at most. Just till I find somewhere else.’

`What will he do if he finds her?’

`I'm not that keen to find out.’

Sammy finished rinsing the mugs. `She looks like me, doesn't she?’

`Yes, she does.’

`I've got some time off coming. Maybe I'll phone in, see if I can stay here with her. What's her real name?’

`She hasn't told me.’

`Has she any clothes?’

`At a hotel. I'll get a patrol car to bring them.’

`She's really in danger?’

`She might be.’

Sammy looked at him. `But I'm not?’

`No,' her father said. `Because it'll be our secret.’

`And what do I tell Ned?’

`Keep it short, just say you're doing your dad a favour.’

`You think a journalist's going to be content with that?’

`If he loves you.’

The kettle boiled, clicked off. Sammy poured water into three mugs. Through in the living-room, Candice's interest had shifted to a pile of American comic books.

Rebus drank his coffee, then left them to their music and their comics. Instead of going home, he made for Young Street and the Ox, ordering a mug of instant. Fifty pee. Pretty good deal, when you thought about it. Fifty pence for… what, half a pint? A pound a pint? Cheap at twice the price. Well, one-point-seven times the price, which would take it to the price of a beer… give or take.

Not that Rebus was counting.

The back room was quiet, just somebody scribbling away at the table nearest the fire. He was a regular, a journalist of some kind. Rebus thought of Ned Farlowe, who would want to know about Candice, but if anyone could keep him at bay, Sammy could. Rebus took out his mobile, phoned Colquhoun's office.

`Sorry to bother you again,' he said.

`What is it now?’

The lecturer sounded thoroughly exasperated. `Those refugees you mentioned. Any chance you could have a word with them?’

`Well, I…’

Colquhoun cleared his throat. `Yes, I suppose I could talk to them. Does that mean…?’

'Candice is safe.’

`I don't have their number here.’

Colquhoun sounded fuddled again. `Can it wait till I go home?’

`Phone me when you've talked to them. And thanks.’

Rebus rang off, finished his coffee, and called Siobhan Clarke at home.

`I need a favour,' he said, feeling like a broken record.

`How much trouble will it get me in?’

`Almost none.’

`Can I have that in writing?’

`Think I'm stupid?’

Rebus smiled. `I want to see the files on Telford.’

`Why not just ask Claverhouse?’

`I'd rather ask you.’

`It's a lot of stuff. Do you want photocopies?’

`Whatever.’

`I'll see what I can do.’

Voices were raised in the front bar. `You're not in the Ox, are you?’

`As it happens, yes.’

`Drinking?’

`A mug of coffee.’

She laughed in disbelief and told him to take care. Rebus ended the call and stared at his mug. People like Siobhan Clarke, they could drive a man to drink.

7

It was 7 a.m. when the buzzer sounded, telling him there Was someone at his tenement's main door. He staggered along was all to the intercom, and asked who the bloody hell it was, he `The croissant man,' a rough English voice replied.

`The what?’

`Come on, dick-brain, wakey-wakey. Memory's not so hot the e days, eh?’

A name tilted into Rebus's head. 'Abernethy?, 'Now open up, it's perishing down here.’

Rebus pushed the buzzer to let Abernethy in, then jogged back the bedroom to put on some clothes. His mind felt numb Abernethy was a DI in Special Branch, London. The last time he) d been in Edinburgh had been to chase terrorists. Rebus wondered what the hell he was doing here now.

When the doorbell sounded, Rebus tucked in his shirt and walked back down the hall. True to his word, Abernethy was carrying a bag of croissants. He hadn't changed much: same faded denims and black leather bomber, same cropped brown hair spiked with gel. His face was heavy, pockmarked, and his eyes an unnerving, psycho, path's blue.

`How've you been, mate?’

Abernethy slapped Rebus's shoulder and marched past him into the kitchen. `Get the kettle on.’ Like they did this every day of the week. Like they didn't live four hundred miles apart.

'Abernethy, what the hell are you doing here?’

`Feeding you, of course, same thing the English have always done for the Jocks. Got any butter?’

`Try the butter-dish.’

`Plates?’

Rebus pointed to a cupboard.

`Bet you drink instant: am I right?’

'Abernethy…’

`Let's get this ready first, then talk; okay?’

`The kettle boils quicker if you switch it on at the plug.’

`Right.’

`And I think there's some jam.’

`Any honey?’

`Do I look like a bee?’

Abernethy smirked. `Old Georgie Flight sends his love, by the way. Word is, he'll be retiring soon.’

George Flight: another ghost from Rebus's past. Abernethy had unscrewed the top from the coffee jar and was sniffing the granules.

`How fresh is this?’

He wrinkled his nose. `No class, John.’

`Unlike you, you mean? When did you get here?’

`Hit town half an hour ago.’

`From London?’

`Stopped a couple of hours in a lay-by, got my head down. That A1 is murder though. North of Newcastle, it's like coming into a third-world country.’

`Did you drive four hundred miles just to insult me?’

They took everything through to the table in the living-room, Rebus shoving aside books and notepads, stuff about the Second World War.

`So,' he said, as they sat down, `I'm assuming this isn't a social call?’

`Actually it is, in a way. I could have just telephoned, but I suddenly thought: wonder how the old devil's getting on? Next thing I knew, I was in the car and heading for the North Circular.’

`I'm touched.’

`I've always tried to keep track of what you're up to.’

'Why?’

`Because last time we met… well, you're different, aren't you?’

`Am I?’

`I mean, you're not a team player. You're a loner, bit like me. Loners can be useful.’

`Useful?’

`For undercover, jobs that are a bit out of the ordinary.’

`You think I'm Special Branch material?’

`Ever fancied moving to London? It's where the action is.’

`I get action enough up here.’

Abernethy looked out of the window. `You couldn't wake this place with a fifty-megaton warhead.? 'Look, Abernethy, not that I'm not enjoying your company or anything, but why are you here?’

Abernethy brushed crumbs from his hands. `So much for the social niceties.’

He took a gulp of coffee, squirmed at its awfulness. `War Crimes,' he said. Rebus stopped chewing. `There's a new list of names. You know that, because you've got one of them living on your doorstep.’

`So?’

`So I'm heading up the London HQ. We've established a temporary War Crimes Unit. My job's to collate gen on the various investigations, create a central register.’

`You want to know what I know?’

`That's about it.’

`And you drove through the night to find out? There's got to be more to it.’

Abernethy laughed. `Why's that?’

`There just has. A collator's job is for someone good at office work. That's not you, you're only happy in the field.’

`What about you? I'd never have taken you for a historian.’

Abernethy tapped one of the books on the table.

`It's a penance.’

`What makes you think it's any different with me? So, what's the score with Herr Lintz?’

`There's no score. So far all the darts have missed the board. How many cases are there?’

`Twenty-seven originally, but eight of those are deceased.’

`Any progress?’

Abernethy shook his head. `We got one to court, trial collapsed first day. Can't prosecute if they're ga-ga.’

`Well, for your information, here's where the Lintz case stands. I can't prove he was and is Josef Linzstek. I can't disprove his story of his participation in the war, or how he came to Britain.’

Rebus shrugged.

`Same tale I've been hearing up and down the country.’

`What did you expect?’

Rebus was picking at a croissant.

`Shame about this coffee,' Abernethy said. `Any decent Gaffs in the neighbourhood?’

So they went to a cafe, where Abernethy ordered a double espresso, Rebus a decaf. There was a story on the front of the Record about a fatal stabbing outside a nightclub. The man reading the paper folded it up when he'd finished his breakfast and took it away with him.

`Any chance you'll be talking to Lintz today?’Abernethy asked suddenly.

'Why?’

`Thought I might tag along. It's not often you get to meet someone who might have killed seven hundred Frenchies.’

`Morbid attraction?’

`We're all a bit that way inclined, aren't we?’

`I've nothing new to ask him,' Rebus said, `and he's already been muttering to his lawyer about harassment.’

`He's well-connected?’

Rebus stared across the table. `You've done your reading.’

'Abernethy the Conscientious Cop.’

`Well, you're right. He has friends in high places, only a lot of them have been hiding behind the curtains since this all started.’

`Sounds like you think he's innocent.’

`Until proven guilty.’

Abernethy smiled, lifted his cup. `There's a Jewish historian been going around. Has he contacted you?’

`What's his name?’

Another smile. `How many Jewish historians have you been in touch with? His name's David Levy.’

`You say he's been going around?’

`A week here, a week there, asking how the cases are going.’

`He's in Edinburgh just now.’

Abernethy blew on his coffee. `So you've spoken with him?’

`Yes, as it happens.’

`And?’

`And what?’

`Did he try his "Rat Line" story?’

`Again, why the interest?’

`He's tried it with everyone else.’

`What if he has?’

`Jesus, do you always answer a question with a question? Look, as collator, this guy Levy's name has popped up on my computer screen more than once. That's why I'm interested.’

'Abernethy the Conscientious Cop.’

`That's right. So shall we go see Lintz?’

`Well, seeing you've come all this way…’

On the way back to the flat, Rebus stopped at a newsagent's and bought the Record. The stabbing had taken place outside Megan's Nightclub, a new establishment in Portobello. The fatality had been a `doorman', William Tennant, aged 25. The story had made the front page because a Premier League footballer had been on the periphery of the incident. A friend who'd been with him had received minor cuts. The attacker had fled on a motorbike. The footballer had offered no comment to reporters. Rebus knew him. He lived in Linlithgow and a year or so back had been caught speeding in Edinburgh, with – in his own words – a `wee bitty Charlie', meaning cocaine, on his person.

`Anything interesting?’ Abernethy asked.

`Someone killed a bouncer. Quiet little backwater, eh?’

`A story like that, in London it wouldn't rate a column inch.’

`How long are you staying here?’

`I'll be off today, want to drop in on Carlisle. They're supposed to have another old Nazi. After that, it's Blackpool and Wolverhampton before home.’

`A sucker for punishment.’

Rebus drove them the tourist route: down The Mound and across Princes Street. He double parked in Heriot Row, but Joseph Lintz wasn't home.

`Never mind,' he said. `I know where he'll probably be.’

He took them down Inverleith Row and turned right into Warriston Gardens, stopping at the cemetery gates.

`What is he, a gravedigger?’ Abernethy got out of the car and zipped his jacket.

`He plants flowers.’

`Flowers? What for?’

`I'm not sure.’

A cemetery should have been about death, but Warriston didn't feel that way to Rebus. Much of it resembled a rambling park into which some statuary had been dropped. The newer section, with stone driveway, soon gave way to an earthen path between fading inscriptions. There were obelisks and Celtic crosses, lots of trees and birds, and the electric movements of squirrels. A tunnel beneath a walkway took you to the oldest part of the cemetery, but between tunnel and driveway sat the heart of the place, with its roll-call of Edinburgh 's past. Names like Ovenstone, Cleugh, and Flockhart, and professions such as actuary, silk merchant, ironmonger. There were people who'd died in India, and some who'd died in infancy. A sign at the gate informed visitors that the place had been the subject of a compulsory purchase by the City of Edinburgh, because previous private owners had let it fall into neglect. But that same neglect was at least part of its charm. People walked their dogs here, or came to practise photography, or just mused among the tombstones. Gays came looking for company, others for solitude.

After dark, of course, the place had another reputation entirely. A Leith prostitute – a woman Rebus had known and liked – had been found murdered here earlier in the year. Rebus wondered if Joseph Lintz knew about that…

`Mr Lintz?’

He was trimming the grass around a headstone, doing so with a half-sized pair of garden shears. There was a sheen of sweat on his face as he forced himself upright.

`Ah, Inspector Rebus. You have brought a colleague?’

`This is D I Abernethy.’

Abernethy was examining the headstone, which belonged to a teacher called Cosmo Merriman.

`They let you do this?’ he asked, his eyes finally finding Lintz's. `No one has tried to stop me.’

`Inspector Rebus tells me you plant flowers, too.’

`People assume I am a relative.’

`But you're not, are you?’

`Only in so far as we are the family of man, Inspector Abernethy.’

`You're a Christian then?’

`Yes, I am.’

`Born and bred?’

Lintz took out a handkerchief and wiped his nose. `You're wondering if a Christian could commit an atrocity like Villefranche. It's perhaps not in my interest to say this, but I think it entirely possible. I've been explaining this to Inspector Rebus.’

Rebus nodded. `We've had a couple of talks.’

`Religious belief is no defence, you see. Look at Bosnia, plenty of Catholics involved in the fighting, plenty of good Muslims, too. "Good" in that they are believers. And what they believe is that their faith gives them the right to kill.’

Bosnia: Rebus saw a sharp image of Candice escaping the terror, only to end up more terrified still, and more trapped than ever.

Lintz was stuffing the large white handkerchief into the pocket of his baggy brown cord trousers. In the outfit – green rubber overshoes, green woollen jersey, tweed jacket – he did look like a gardener. Little wonder he attracted so little attention in the cemetery. He blended in. Rebus wondered how artful it was, how deeply he'd learned the skill of invisibility. – `You look impatient, Inspector Abernethy. You're not a man for theories, am I right?’

`I wouldn't know about that, sir.’

`In that case, you must not know very much. Now Inspector Rebus, he listens to what I have to say. More than that, he looks interested. Whether he is or not, I can't judge, but his performance if performance it be – is exemplary.’

Lintz always spoke like this, like he'd been rehearsing each line. `Last time he visited my home, we discussed human duality. Would you have any opinion on that, Inspector Abernethy?’

The look on Abernethy's face was cold. `No, sir.’

Lintz shrugged: case against the Londoner proven. `Atrocities, Inspector, occur by an effort of the collective will.’

Spelling it out; sounding like the lecturer he had once been. `Because sometimes all it takes to turn us into devils is the fear of being an outsider.’

Abernethy sniffed, hands in pockets. `Sounds like you're justifying war crimes, sir. Sounds to me like you might even have been there yourself.’

`Do I need to be a spaceman to imagine Mars?’

He turned to Rebus, gave him the fraction of a smile.

`Well, maybe I'm just a bit too simple, sir,' Abernethy said. `I'm also a bit parky. Let's walk back to the car and carry on our discussion there, all right?’

While Lintz packed his few small tools into a canvas bag, Rebus looked around, saw movement in the distance, between headstones. The crouched figure of a man. Split-second glimpse of a face he recognised.

`What is it?’

Abernethy asked.

Rebus shook his head. `Nothing.’

The three men walked in silence back to the Saab. Rebus opened the back door for Lintz. To his surprise, Abernethy got into the back, too. Rebus took the driver's seat, felt warmth returning slowly to his toes. Abernethy had his arm along the back of the seat, his body twisted towards Lintz.

`Now, Herr Lintz, my role in all this is quite straightforward. I'm collating all the information on this latest outbreak of alleged old Nazis. You understand that with allegations such as these, very serious allegations, we have a duty to investigate?’

`Spurious allegations rather than "serious" ones.’

`In which case you've nothing to worry about.’

`Except my reputation.’

`When you're exonerated, we'll take care of that.’

Rebus was listening closely. None of this sounded like Abernethy. The hostile graveside tone had been replaced by something much more ambiguous.

`And meantime?’

Lintz seemed to be picking up whatever the Londoner was saying between the lines. Rebus felt deliberately excluded from the conversation, which was why Abernethy had got into the back seat in the first place. He'd placed a physical barrier between himself and the officer investigating Joseph Lintz. There was something going on.

`Meantime,' Abernethy said, `cooperate as fully as you can with my colleague. The sooner he's able to reach his conclusions, the sooner this will all be over.’

`The problem with conclusions is that they should be conclusive, and I have so little proof. This was wartime, Inspector Abernethy, a lot of records destroyed…’

`Without proof either way, there's no case to answer.’

Lintz was nodding. `I see,' he said.

Abernethy hadn't voiced anything Rebus himself didn't feel; the problem was, he'd voiced it to the suspect.

`It would help if your memory improved,' Rebus felt obliged to add.

`Well, Mr Lintz,' Abernethy was saying, `thanks for your time.’

His hand was on the elderly man's shoulder: protective, comforting. `Can we drop you somewhere?’

`I'll stay here a little longer,' Lintz said, opening the door and easing himself out. Abernethy handed the bag of tools to him.

`Take care now,' he said.

Lintz nodded, gave a small bow to Rebus, and shuffled back towards the gate. Abernethy climbed into the passenger seat.

`Rum little bugger, isn't he?’

`You as good as told him he was off the hook.’

'Bollocks,' Abernethy said. `I told him where he stands, let him know the score. That's all.’

He saw the look on Rebus's face. `Come on, do you really want to see him in court? An old professor who keeps cemeteries tidy?’

`It doesn't make it any easier if you sound like you're on his side.’

`Even supposing he did order that massacre – you think a trial and a couple of years in clink till he snuffs it is the answer? Better to just give them all a bloody good scare, stuff the trial, and save the taxpayer millions.’

`That's not our job,' Rebus said, starting the engine.

He took Abernethy back to Arden Street. They shook hands, Abernethy trying to sound like he wanted to stay a little longer.

`One of these days,' he said. And then he was gone. As his Sierra drew away, another car pulled into the space he'd just vacated. Siobhan Clarke got out, bringing with her a supermarket carrier bag.

`For you,' she said. `And I think I'm owed a coffee.’

She wasn't as fussy as Abernethy, accepted the mug of instant with thanks and ate a spare croissant. There was a message on the answering machine, Dr Colquhoun telling him the refugee family could take Candice tomorrow. Rebus jotted down the details, then turned his attention to the contents of Siobhan's carrier-bag. Maybe two hundred sheets of paper, photocopies.

`Don't get them out of order,' she warned. `I didn't have time to staple them.’

`Fast work.’

`I went back into the office last night. Thought I'd get it done while no one was about. I can summarise, if you like.’

`Just tell me who the main players are.’

She came to the table and pulled a chair over beside him, found a sequence of surveillance shots. Put names to the faces.

`Brian Summers,' she said, `better known as "Pretty-Boy". He runs most of the working girls.’

Pale, angular face, thick black lashes, a pouting mouth. Candice's pimp.

`He's not very pretty.’

Clarke found another picture. `Kenny Houston.’

`From Pretty-Boy to Plug-Ugly.’

`I'm sure his mother loves him.’

Prominent teeth, jaundiced skin. – `What does he do?’

`He runs the doormen. Kenny, Pretty-Boy and Tommy Telford grew up on the same street. They're at the heart of The Family.’

She sifted through more photos. `Malky Jordan… he keeps the drugs flowing. Sean Haddow… bit of a brainbox, runs the finances. Ally Cornwell… he's muscle. Deek McGrain… There's no religious divide in The Family, Prods and Papes working together.’

`A model society.’

`No women though. Telford 's philosophy: relationships get in the way.’

Rebus picked up a sheaf of paper. `So what have we got?’

`Everything but the evidence.’

`And surveillance is supposed to provide that?’

She smiled over the top of her mug. `You don't agree?’

`It's not my problem.’

`And yet you're interested.’

She paused. 'Candice?’

`I don't like what happened to her.’

`Well, just remember: you didn't get this stuff from me.’

`Thanks, Siobhan.’

He paused. `Everything going all right?’

`Fine. I like Crime Squad.’

`Bit livelier than St Leonard 's.’

`I miss Brian.’

Meaning her one-time partner, now out of the force.

`You ever see him?’

`No, do you?’

Rebus shook his head, got up to show her out.

He spent about an hour sifting through the paperwork, learning more about The Family and its convoluted workings. Nothing about Newcastle. Nothing about Japan. The core of The Family – eight or nine of them – had been at school together. Three of them were still based in Paisley, taking care of the established business. The rest were now in Edinburgh, and busy prying the city away from Big Ger Cafferty.

He went through lists of nightclubs and bars in which Telford had an interest. There were incident reports attached: arrests in the vicinity. Drunken brawls, swings taken at bouncers, cars and property damaged. Something caught Rebus's eye: mention of a hotdog van, parked outside a couple of the clubs. The owner questioned: possible witness. But he'd never seen anything worth the recall. Name: Gavin Tay.

Mr Taystee.

Recent dodgy suicide. Rebus gave Bill Pryde a bell, asked how that investigation was going.

`Dead end street, pal,' Pryde said, not, sounding too concerned. Pryde: too long the same rank, and not going anywhere. Beginning the long descent into retirement.

`Did you know he ran a hot-dog stall on the side?’

`Might explain where he got the cash from.’

Gavin Tay was an ex-con. He'd been in the ice-cream business a little over a year. Successful, too: new Mere parked outside his house. His financial records hadn't hinted at money to spare. His widow couldn't account for the Mere. And now: evidence of a job on the side, selling food and drink to punters stumbling out of nightclubs.

Tommy Telford's nightclubs.

Gavin Tay: previous convictions for assault and reset. A persistent offender who'd finally gone straight… The room began to feel stuffy, Rebus's head clotted and aching. He decided to get out.

Walked through The Meadows and down George IV Bridge, took the Playfair Steps down to Princes Street. A group was sitting on the stone steps of the Scottish Academy: unshaven, dyed hair, torn clothes. The city's dispossessed, trying their best not to be ignored. Rebus knew he had things in common with them. In the course of his life, he'd failed to fit several niches: husband, father, lover. He hadn't fit in with the Army's ideas of what he should be, and wasn't exactly `one of the lads' in the police. When one of the group held out a hand, Rebus offered a fiver, before crossing Princes Street and heading for the Oxford Bar.

He settled into a corner with a mug of coffee, got out his mobile, and called Sammy's flat. She was home, all was well with Candice. Rebus told her he had a place for Candice, she could move out tomorrow.

`That's fine,' Sammy said. `Hold on a second.’

There was a rustling sound as the receiver was passed along.

`Hello, John, how are you?’

Rebus smiled. `Hello, Candice. That's very good.’

`Thank you. Sammy is… uh… I am teaching how to…’

She broke into laughter, handed the receiver back.

`I'm teaching her English,' Sammy said.

`I can tell.’

`We started with some Oasis lyrics, just went from there.’

`I'll try to come round later. What did Ned say?’

`He was so shattered when he came home, I think he barely noticed.’

`Is he there? I'd like to talk to him.’

`He's out working.’

`What did you say he was doing again?’

`I didn't.’

`Right. Thanks again, Sammy. See you later.’

He took a swig of coffee, washed it around his mouth. Abernethy: he couldn't just let it go. He swallowed the coffee and called the Roxburghe, asked for David Levy's room.

`Levy speaking.’

`It's John Rebus.’

`Inspector, how good to hear from you. Is there something I can do?’

`I'd like to talk to you.’

`Are you in your office?’

Rebus looked around. `In a manner of speaking. It's a two-minute walk from your hotel. Turn right out of the door, cross George Street, and walk down to Young Street. Far end, the Oxford Bar. I'm in the back room.’

When Levy arrived, Rebus bought him a half of eighty-bob. Levy eased himself into a chair, hanging his walking-stick on the back of it. `So what can I do for you?’

`I'm not the only policeman you've spoken to.’

`No, you're not.’

`Someone from Special Branch in London came to see me today.’

`And he told you I'd been travelling around?’

`Yes.’

`Did he warn you against speaking to me?’

`Not in so many words.’

Levy took off his glasses, began polishing them. `I told you, there are people who'd rather this was all relegated to history. This man, he came all the way from London just to tell you about me?’

`He wanted to see Joseph Lintz.’

`Ah.’

Levy was thoughtful. `Your interpretation, Inspector?’

`I was hoping for yours.’

`My utterly subjective interpretation?’

Rebus nodded. `He wants to be sure of Lintz. This man works for Special Branch, and as everyone knows Special Branch is the public arm of the secret services.’

`He wanted to be confident I wasn't going to get anything out of Lintz?’

Levy nodded, staring at the smoke from Rebus's cigarette. This case was like that: one minute you could see it, the next you couldn't. Like smoke.

`I have a little book with me,' Levy said, reaching into his pocket. `I'd like you to read it. It's in English, translated from the Hebrew. It's about the Rat Line.’

Rebus took the book. `Does it prove anything?’

`That depends on your terms.’

`Concrete proof.’

`Concrete proof exists, Inspector.’

`In this book?’

Levy shook his head. `Under lock and key in Whitehall, kept from scrutiny by the Hundred Year Rule.’

`So there's no way to prove anything.’

`There's one way…’

`What?’

`If someone talks. If we can get just one of them to talk…’

`That's what this is all about: wearing down their resistance? Looking for the weakest link?’

Levy smiled again. `We have learned patience, Inspector.’

He finished his drink. `I'm so grateful you called. This has been a much more satisfactory meeting.’

`Will you send your bosses a progress report?’

Levy chose to ignore this. `We'll talk again, when you've read the book.’

He stood up. `The Special Branch officer… I've forgotten his name?’

`I didn't give it.’

Levy waited a moment, then said, `Ah, that explains it then. Is he still in Edinburgh?’

He watched Rebus shake his head. `Then he's probably on his way to Carlisle, yes?’

Rebus sipped coffee, offered no comment.

`My thanks again, Inspector,' Levy said, undeterred.

`Thanks for dropping by.’

Levy took a final look around. `Your office,' he said, shaking his head.

The Rat Line was an 'underground railway', delivering Nazis – sometimes with the help of the Vatican – from their Soviet persecutors. The end of the Second World War meant the start of the Cold War. Intelligence was necessary, as were intelligent, ruthless individuals who could provide a certain level of expertise. It was said that Klaus Barbie, the `Butcher of Lyons', had been offered a job with British Intelligence. It was rumoured that high-profile Nazis had been spirited away to America. It wasn't until 1987 that the United Nations released its full list of fugitive Nazi and Japanese war criminals, forty thousand of them.

Why so late in releasing the list? Rebus thought he could understand. Modern politics had decreed that Germany and Japan were part of the global brotherhood of capitalism. In whose interests would it be to reopen old wounds? And besides, how many atrocities had the Allies themselves hidden? Who fought a war with clean hands? Rebus, who'd grown to adulthood in the Army, could comprehend this. He'd done things… He'd served time in Northern Ireland, seen trust disfigured, hatred replace fear.

Part of him could well believe in the existence of a Rat Line.

The book Levy had given him went into the mechanics of how such an operation might have worked. Rebus wondered: was it really possible to disappear completely, to change identity? And again, the recurring question: did any of it matter? There did exist sources of identification, and there had been court cases – Eichmann, Barbie, Demjanjuk with others ongoing. He read about war criminals who, rather than being tried or extradited, were allowed to return home, running businesses, growing rich, dying of old age. But he also read of criminals who served their sentences and became `good people', people who had changed. These men said war itself was the real culprit. Rebus recalled one of his first conversations with Joseph Lintz, in the drawing-room of Lintz's home. The old man's voice was hoarse, a scarf around his throat.

`At my age, Inspector, a simple throat infection can feel like death.’

There didn't seem to be many photographs around. Lintz had explained that a lot had gone missing during the war.

`Along with other mementoes. I do have these photos though.’

He'd shown Rebus half a dozen framed shots, dating back to the 1930s. As he'd explained who the subjects were, Rebus had suddenly thought: what if he's making it up? What if these are just a bunch of old photos he picked up somewhere and had framed? And the names, the identities he now gave to the faces – had he invented them? He'd seen in that instant, for the first time, how easy it might be to construct another life.

And then, later in their conversation that day, Lintz, sipping honeyed tea, had started discussing Villefranche.

`I've been thinking a lot about it, Inspector, as you might imagine. This Lieutenant Linzstek, he was in charge on the day?’

`Yes.’

`But presumably under orders from above. A lieutenant is not so very far up the pecking order.’

`Perhaps.’

`You see, if a soldier is under orders… then they must carry out those orders, no?’

`Even if the order is insane?’

`Nevertheless, I'd say the person was at the very least coerced into committing the crime, and a crime that very many of us would have carried out under similar circumstances. Can't you see the hypocrisy of trying someone, when you'd probably have done the same thing yourself? One soldier standing out from the crowd… saying no to the massacre: would you have made that stand yourself?’

'I hope so.’

Rebus thinking back to Ulster and the `Mean Machine'…

Levy's book didn't prove anything. All Rebus knew was that Josef Linzstek's name was on a list as having used the Rat Line, posing as a Pole. But where had the list originated? In Israel. Again, it was highly speculative. It wasn't proof.

And if Rebus's instincts told him Lintz and Linzstek were one and the same, they were still failing to tell him whether it mattered.

He dropped the book back to the Roxburghe, asked the receptionist to see that Mr Levy got it.

`I think he's in his room, if you'd like to…’

Rebus shook his head. He hadn't left any message with the book, knowing Levy might interpret this as a message in itself. He went home for his car, drove down to Haymarket and along to Shandon. As usual, parking near Sammy's flat was a problem. Everyone was home from work and tucked in front of their televisions. He climbed the stone steps, wondering how treacherous they'd get when the frosts came, and rang the bell. Sammy herself led him into the living room, where Candice was watching a game show.

`Hello, John,' she said. `Are you my wonderwall?’

`I'm nobody's wonderwall, Candice.’

He turned to Sammy. `Everything all right?’

`Just fine.’

At that moment, Ned Farlowe walked in from the kitchen. He was eating soup from a bowl, dunking a folded slice of brown bread into it.

`Mind if I have a word?’ Rebus said.

Farlowe shook his head, then jerked it in the direction of the kitchen.

`Can I eat while we talk? I'm starving.’

He sat down at the foldaway table, got another slice of bread from the packet and spread margarine on it. Sammy put her head round the doorway, saw the look on her father's face, and made a tactical retreat. The kitchen was about seven foot square and too full of pots and appliances. Swinging a cat, you could have done a lot of damage.

`I saw you today,' Rebus said, `skulking in Warriston Cemetery. Coincidence?’

`What do you think?’

`I'm asking you.’

Rebus leaned his back against the sink unit, folded his arms.

'I'm watching Lintz.’

'Why?’

`Because I'm being paid to.’

`By a newspaper?’

'Lintz's lawyer has interim interdicts flying around. Nobody can afford to be seen near him.’

`But they still want him watched?’

`If there's a court case coming, they want to know as much as possible, stands to reason.’

By court case, Farlowe didn't mean any trial of Lintz, but rather of the newspapers themselves, for libel.

`If he catches you…’

`He doesn't know me from Adam. Besides, there'd always be somebody to take my place. Now do I get to ask a question?’

`Let me say something first. You know I'm investigating Lintz?’

Farlowe nodded. `That means we're too close. If you find out anything, people might think it came from me.’

`I haven't told Sammy what I'm doing, specifically so there's no conflict of interests.’

`I'm just saying others might not believe it.’

`A few more days, I'll have enough money to fund the book for another month.’

Farlowe had finished his soup. He carried the empty bowl over to the sink, stood next to Rebus.

`I don't want this to be a problem, but the bottom line is: what can you do about it?’

Rebus stared at him. His instinct was to stuff Farlowe's head into the sink, but how would that look with Sammy? `Now,' Farlowe said, `do I get to ask my question?’

`What is it?’

`Who's Candice?’

`A friend of mine.’

`So what's wrong with your flat?’

Rebus realised he was no longer dealing with his daughter's boyfriend. He was confronted with a journalist, someone with a nose for a story.

`Tell you what,' said Rebus, `say I didn't see you in the cemetery. Say we didn't just have this little chat.’

`And I don't ask about Candice?’

Rebus stayed quiet. Farlowe considered the deal. `Say I get to ask you a few questions for my book.’

`What sort of questions?’

`About Cafferty.’

Rebus shook his head. `I could talk about Tommy Telford though.’

`When?’

`When we've got him behind bars.’

Farlowe smiled. `I could be on the pension by then.’

He waited, saw Rebus was going to give him nothing.

`She's only here till tomorrow anyway,' Rebus said.

`Where's she off to?’

Rebus just winked. Left the kitchen, returned to the living-room. Talked to Sammy while Candice's game show reached its climax. Whenever she heard audience laughter, she joined in. Rebus made arrangements for the following day, then left. There was no sign of Farlowe. He'd either hidden himself in the bedroom or else gone back out. It took Rebus a few moments to remember where he'd parked his car. He drove home carefully; stopped for all the lights. The parking spaces were all taken in Arden Street. He left the Saab on a yellow line. As he approached his tenement door, he heard a car door open and spun towards the sound.

It was Claverhouse. He was on his own. `Mind if I come in?’

Rebus thought of a dozen reasons for saying yes. But he shrugged and made for the door. `Any news of the stabbing at Megan's?’ he asked.

`How did you know we'd be interested?’

`A bouncer gets stabbed, the attacker flees on a waiting motorbike. It was premeditated. And the majority of the bouncers work for Tommy Telford.’

They were climbing the stairs. Rebus's flat was on the second floor.

`Well, you're right,' Claverhouse said. `Billy Tennant worked for Telford. He controlled the traffic in and out of Megan's.’

`Traffic as in dope?’

`The footballer's friend, the one who got wounded, he's a known dealer. Works out of Paisley.’

`Therefore connected to Telford, too.’

`We're speculating he was the target, Tennant just got in the way.’

`Leaving only one question: who was behind it?’

`Come on, John. It was Cafferty, obviously.’

`Not Cafferty's style,' Rebus said, unlocking his door.

`Maybe he's learned a thing or two from the Young Pretender.’

`Make yourself at home,' Rebus said, walking down the hall. The breakfast things were still on the dining table. Siobhan's bag of goodies was down the side of a chair.

`A guest.’

Claverhouse had noticed the two mugs, two plates. He looked around. `She's not here now though?’

`She wasn't here for breakfast either.’

`Because she's at your daughter's.’

Rebus froze.

`I went to settle up with the hotel. They said a police car had come and taken all her things away. So then I asked around, and the driver gave me Samantha's address as the drop-off.’

Claverhouse sat down on the sofa, crossed one leg over the other. `So what's the game, John, and how come you've seen fit to leave me on the bench?’

He sounded calm now, but Rebus could tell there'd been a storm.

`Do you want a drink?’

`I want an answer.’

`When she walked out… she waited beside my car. I couldn't think where to take her, so I brought her here. But she recognised the street. Telford had been watching my flat.’

Claverhouse looked interested. `Why?’

`Maybe because I know Cafferty. I couldn't let Candice stay here, so I took her to Sammy's.’

`Is she still there?’

Rebus nodded. `So what happens now?’

`There's a place she can go, the refugee family.’

`For how long?’

`What do you mean?’

Claverhouse sighed. `John, she's… the only life she's known here is prostitution.’

Rebus went over to the hi-fi for something to do, looked through his tapes. He needed to do something.

`What's she going to do for money? Are you going to provide? What does that make you?’

Rebus dropped a CD, turned on his heels. `Nothing like that,' he spat.

Claverhouse had his hands up, palms showing. `Come on, John, you know yourself there's -'

`I don't know anything.’

`John…’

`Look, get out, will you?’

It wasn't just that it had been a long day, more that it felt like the day would never end. He could feel the evening stretch to infinity, no rest available to him. In his head, bodies were swaying gently from trees while smoke engulfed a church. Telford was on his arcade motorbike, cannoning off spectators. Abernethy was touching an old man's shoulder. Soldiers were rifle-butting civilians. And John Rebus… John Rebus was in every frame, trying hard to remain an onlooker.

He put Van Morrison on the hi-fi: Hardnose the Highway. He'd played this music on East Neuk beaches and tenement stakeouts. It always seemed to heal him, or at least patch the wounds. When he turned back into the room, Claverhouse was gone. He looked out of his window. Two kids lived in the second-Moor flat across from his. He'd watched them often from this window, and they never once saw him, for the simple reason that they never so much as glanced outside. Their world was complete and all-absorbing, anything outside their window an irrelevance. They were in bed now, their mother closing the shutters. Quiet city. Abernethy was right about that. There were large chunks of Edinburgh where you could live your whole life and never encounter a spot of bother. Yet the murder rate in Scotland was double that of its southern neighbour, and half those murders took place in the two main cities.

Not that the statistics mattered. A death was a death. Something unique had disappeared from the world. One murder or several hundred… they all meant something to the survivors. Rebus thought of Villefranche's sole existing survivor. He hadn't met her, probably never would. Another reason it was hard to get passionate about a historical case. In a contemporary one, you had many of the facts to hand, and could talk to witnesses. You could gather forensic evidence, question people's stories. You could measure guilt and grief. You became part of the whole story. This was what interested Rebus. The people interested him; their stories fascinated him. When part of their lives, he could forget his own.

He noticed the answering-machine was flashing: one message.

`Oh, hello there. I'm… um, I don't know how to put this…’

Placed the voice: Kirstin Mede. She sighed. `Look, I can't do this any more. So please don't… I'm sorry, I just can't. There are other people who can help you. I'm sure one of them…’

End of message. Rebus stared down at the machine. He didn't blame her. I can't do this any more. That makes two of us, Rebus thought. The only thing was, he had to keep going. He sat down at his table and pulled the Villefranche paperwork towards him: lists of names and occupations, ages and dates of birth. Picat, Mesplede, Rousseau, Deschamps. Wine merchant, china painter, cartwright, housemaid. What did any of it mean to a middle-aged Scot? He pushed it aside and lifted Siobhan's paperwork on to the table.

Off with Van the Man; on with side one of Wish You Were Here. Scratched to hell. He remembered it had come in a black polythene wrapper. When opened, there'd been this smell, which afterwards he'd learned was supposed to be burning flesh…

`I need a drink,' he said to himself, sitting forward in his chair. `I want a drink. A few beers, maybe with whiskies attached.’

Something to smooth the edges…

He looked at his watch; not even near to closing time. Not that it mattered much in Edinburgh, the land that closing time forgot. Could he make it to the Ox before they shut up shop? Yes, too easily. It was nicer to have a challenge. Wait an hour or so and then repeat the debate.

Or call Jack Morton.

Or go out, right now.

The telephone rang. He picked it up.

`Hello?’

`John?’

Making it sound like `Sean'.

`Hello, Candice. What's up?’

'Up?’

`Is there a problem?’

`Problem, no. I just wanting… I say to you, see you tomorrow.’

He smiled. `Yes, see you tomorrow. You speak very good English.’

`I was chained to a razor blade.’

`What?’

`Line from song.’

`Oh, right. But you're not chained to it now?’

She didn't seem to understand. `I'm… uh…’

`It's okay, Candice. See you tomorrow.’

`Yes, see you.’

Rebus put down the receiver. Chained to a razor blade… Suddenly he didn't want a drink any more.

9

He picked Candice up the next afternoon. She had two carrier bags, her worldly belongings. She gave Sammy as much of a hug as her bandaged arms would allow.

`See you again, Candice,' Sammy said.

`Yes, see you. Thanks…’

Lost for an ending to the sentence, Candice opened her arms wide, bags swinging.

They stopped off at McDonald's (her choice) for something to eat. Zappa and the Mothers: `Cruising for Burgers'. The day was bright and crisp, just right for crossing the Forth Bridge. Rebus took it slowly, so Candice could take in the view. He was heading towards Fife's East Neuk, a cluster of fishing villages popular with artists and holidaymakers. Out of season, Lower Largo seemed practically deserted. Though Rebus had an address, he stopped to ask directions. Finally, he parked in front of a small terraced house. Candice stared at the red door until he gestured for her to follow him. He hadn't been able to make her understand what they were doing here. Hoped Mr and Mrs Petrec would make a better job of it.

The door was opened by a woman in her early-forties. She had long black hair, and peered at him over half-moon glasses. Then her attention shifted to Candice, and she said something in a language both women understood. Candice replied, looking a little shy, not sure what was going on.

`Come in, please,' Mrs Petrec said. `My husband is in the kitchen.’

They sat around the kitchen table. Mr Petrec was heavily built, with a thick brown moustache and wavy brown and silver hair. A pot of tea was produced, and Mrs Petrec drew her chair beside Candice's and began talking again.

`She's explaining to the girl,' Mr Petrec said.

Rebus nodded, sipped the strong tea, listened to a conversation he could not understand. Candice, cautious at first, grew more animated as she told her story, and Mrs Petrec was a skilled listener, sympathising, showing shared horror and exasperation.

`She was taken to Amsterdam, told there would be a job there for her,' Mr Petrec explained. `I know this has happened to other young women.’

`I think she left a child behind.’

`A son, yes. She's telling my wife about him.’

`What about you?’ Rebus asked. `How did you end up here?’

`I was an architect in Sarajevo. No easy decision, leaving your whole life behind.’

He paused. `We went to Belgrade first. A refugee bus brought us to Scotland.’

He shrugged. `That was nearly five years ago. Now I am a house painter.’

A smile. `Distance no object.’

Rebus looked at Candice, who had started crying, Mrs Petrec comforting her.

`We will look after her,' Mrs Petrec said, staring at her husband.

Later, at the door, Rebus tried to give them some money, but they wouldn't take it.

`Is it all right if I come and see her sometime?’

`But of course.’

He stood in front of Candice.

`Her real name is Dunya,' Mrs Petrec said quietly.

`Dunya.’

Rebus tried out the word. She smiled, her eyes softer than Rebus remembered them, as if some transformation. were beginning. She bent forward.

`Kiss the girl,' she said.

A peck on both cheeks. Her eyes filling with tears again. Rebus nodded, to let her know he understood everything.

At his car, he waved once, and she blew him another kiss. Then he drove around the corner and stopped, gripping the steering-wheel herd. He wondered if she'd cope. If she'd learn to forget. He thought again of his ex-wife's words. What would she think of him now? Had he exploited Dunya? No, but he wondered if that was only because she hadn't been able to give him anything on Telford. He felt he had somehow failed to do the right thing. So far, the only choice she'd had to make was when she'd waited for him by his car rather than going back to Telford. Before then and after, all the decisions had been taken for her. In a sense, she was still as trapped as ever, because the locks and chains were in her mind; they were what she expected from life. It would take time for her to change, to begin trusting the world again. The Petrecs would help her.

Heading south down the coast, thinking about families, he decided to visit his brother.

Mickey lived on an estate in Kirkcaldy, his red BMW parked in the driveway. He was just home from work and suitably surprised to see Rebus.

`Chrissie and the kids are at her mum's,' he said. `I was going to grab a curry for dinner. How about a beer?’

`Maybe just a coffee,' Rebus said. He sat in the lounge until Mickey returned, toting a couple of old shoe-boxes.

`Look what I dug out of the attic last weekend. Thought you might like a look. Milk and sugar?’

`A spot of milk.’

While Mickey went to the kitchen to fetch the coffee, Rebus examined the boxes. They were filled with packets of photographs. The packets had dates on them, some with questionmarks. Rebus opened one at random. Holiday snaps. A fancy dress parade. A picnic. Rebus didn't have any pictures of his parents, and the photos startled him. His mother had thicker legs than he remembered, but a tidy body, too. His father used the same grin in every shot, a grin Rebus shared with Mickey. Digging further into the box, he found one of himself with Rhona and Sammy. They were on a beach somewhere, the wind playing havoc. Peter Gabriel: `Family Snapshot'. Rebus couldn't place it at all. Mickey came back through with a mug of coffee and a bottle of beer.

`There are some,' he said, `I don't know who the people are. Relatives maybe? Grandma and Granddad?’

`I'm not sure I'd be much help.’

Mickey handed over a menu. `Here,' he said, `best Indian in town. Pick what you want.’

So Rebus chose, and Mickey phoned the order in. Twenty minutes till delivery. Rebus was on to another packet. These photos were older still, the 1940s. His father in uniform. The soldiers wore hats like McDonald's counter staff. They also wore long khaki shorts. `Malaya' written on the backs of some, ` India ' on the others.

`Remember, the old man got himself wounded in Malaya?’ Mickey said.

`No, he didn't.’

`He showed us the wound. It was in his knee.’

Rebus was shaking his head. `Uncle Jimmy told me it was a cut Dad got playing football. He kept picking the scab off, ended with a scar.’

`He told us it was a war wound.’

`He was fibbing.’

Mickey had started on the other box. `Here, look at these…’

Handing over an inch-thick collection of postcards and photographs, secured with an elastic band. Rebus pulled the band off, turned the cards over, saw his own writing. The photos were of him, too: posed snaps, badly taken.

`Where did you get these?’

`You always used to send me a card or a photo, don't you remember?’

They were all from Rebus's own Army days. `I'd forgotten,' he said.

`Once a fortnight, usually. A letter to Dad, a card for me.’

Rebus sat back in his chair and started to go through them. Judging by the postmarks, they were in chronological sequence. Training, then service in Germany and Ulster, more exercises in Cyprus, Malta, Finland, and the desert of Saudi Arabia. The tone of each postcard was breezy, so that Rebus failed to recognise his own voice. The cards from Belfast consisted of almost nothing but jokes, yet Rebus remembered that as one of the most nightmarish periods of his life.

`I used to love getting them,' Mickey said, smiling. `I'll tell you, you almost had me joining up.’

Rebus was still thinking of Belfast: the closed barracks, the whole compound a fortress. After a shift out on the streets, there was no way to let off steam. Booze, gambling and fights – all taking place within the same four walls. All culminating in the Mean Machine… And here were these postcards, here was the image of Rebus's past life that Mickey had lived with these past twenty-odd years.

And it was all a lie.

Or was it? Where did the reality lie, other than in Rebus's own head? The postcards were fake documents, but they were also the only ones in existence. There was nothing to contradict them, nothing except Rebus's word. It was the same with the Rat Line, the same with Joseph Lintz's story. Rebus looked at his brother and knew he could break the spell right now. All he had to do was tell him the truth.

`What's the matter?’ Mickey asked.

`Nothing.’

`Ready for that beer yet? The food'll be here any second.’

Rebus stared at the cooling mug of coffee. `More than ready,' he said, putting the rubber band back around his past. `But I'll stick to this.’

He lifted the mug, toasted his brother.

10

Next morning, Rebus went to St Leonard's, telephoned the NCIS centre at Prestwick and asked if they had anything connecting British criminals to European prostitution. His reasoning: someone had brought Candice – she was still Candice to him – from Amsterdam to Britain, and he didn't think it was Telford. Whoever it was, Rebus would get to them somehow. He wanted to show Candice her chains could be broken.

He got NCIS to fax him what information they had. Most of it concerned the `Tippelzone', a licensed car park where drivers went for sex. It was worked by foreign prostitutes mainly, most of them lacking work permits, many smuggled in from Eastern Europe. The main gangs seemed to be from former Yugoslavia. NCIS had no names for any of these kidnappers-cum-pimps. There was nothing about prostitutes making the trip from Amsterdam to Britain.

Rebus went into the car park to smoke his second cigarette of the day. There were a couple of other smokers out there, a small brotherhood of social pariahs. Back in the office, the Farmer wanted to know if there was any progress on Lintz.

`Maybe if I brought him in and slapped him around a bit,' Rebus suggested.

`Be serious, will you?’ the Farmer growled, stalking back to his office.

Rebus sat down at his desk and pulled forward a file.

`Your problem, Inspector,' Lintz had said to him once, `is that you're afraid of being taken seriously. You want to give people what you think they expect. I mention the Ishtar gate, and you talk of some Hollywood movie. At first I thought this was meant to rouse me to some indiscretion, but now it seems more a game you are playing against yourself.’

Rebus: seated in his usual chair in Lintz's drawing-room. The view from the window was of Queen Street Gardens. They were kept locked: you had to pay for a key.

`Do educated people frighten you?’

Rebus looked at the old man. `No.’

`Are you sure? Don't you perhaps wish you were more like them?’

Lintz grinned, showing small, discoloured teeth. `Intellectuals like to see themselves as history's victims, prejudiced against, arrested for their beliefs, even tortured and murdered. But Karadzic thinks himself an intellectual. The Nazi hierarchy had its thinkers and philosophers. And even in Babylon…’

Lintz got up, poured himself more tea. Rebus declined a refill.

`Even in Babylon, Inspector,' Lintz continued, getting comfortable again, `with its opulence and its artistry, with its enlightened king… do you know what they did? Nebuchadnezzar held the Jews captive for seventy years. This splendid, awe-inspiring civilisation… Do you begin to see the madness, Inspector, the flaws that run so deep in us?’

`Maybe I need glasses.’

Lintz threw his cup across the room. `You need to listen and to learn! You need to understand!' The cup and saucer lay on the carpet, still intact. Tea was soaking into the elaborate design, where it would become all but invisible…

He parked on Buccleuch Place. The Slavic Studies department was housed in one of the tenements. He tried the secretary's office first, asked if Dr Colquhoun was around.

`I haven't seen him today.’

When Rebus explained what he wanted, the secretary tried a couple of numbers but didn't find anyone. Then she suggested he take a look in their library, which was one floor up and kept locked. She handed him a key.

The room was about sixteen feet by twelve, and smelled stuffy. The shutters across the windows were closed, giving the place no natural light. A No Smoking sign sat on one of four desks. On another sat an ashtray with three butts in it. One entire wall was shelved, filled with books, pamphlets, magazines. There were boxes of press cuttings, and maps on the walls showing Yugoslavia 's changing demarcation lines. Rebus lifted down the most recent box of cuttings.

Like a lot of people he knew, Rebus didn't know much about the war in ex-Yugoslavia. He'd seen some of the news reports, been shocked by the pictures, then had got on with his life. But if the cuttings were to be believed, the whole region was being run by war criminals. The Implementation Force seemed to have done its damnedest to avoid confrontation. There had been a few arrests recently, but nothing substantial: out of a meagre seventy-four suspects charged, only seven had been apprehended.

He found nothing about slave traders, so thanked the secretary and gave her back her key, then crawled through the city traffic. When the call came on his mobile, he nearly went off the road.

Candice had disappeared.

Mrs Petrec was distraught. They'd had dinner last night, breakfast this morning, and Dunya had seemed fine.

`There was a lot she said she couldn't tell us,' Mr Petrec said, standing behind his seated wife, hands stroking her shoulders. `She said she wanted to forget.’

And then she'd gone out for a walk down to the harbour, and hadn't returned. Lost maybe, though the village was small. Mr Petrec had been working; his wife had gone out, asking people if they'd seen her.

`And Mrs Muir's son,' she said, `he told me she'd been taken away in a car.’

`Where was this?’ Rebus asked.

`Just a couple of streets away,' Mr Petrec said.

`Show me.’

Outside his home on Seaford Road, Eddie Muir, aged eleven, told Rebus what he'd seen. A car stopping beside a woman. A bit of chat, though he couldn't hear it. The door opening, the woman getting in.

`Which door, Eddie?’

`One of the back ones. Had to be, there were two of them in the car already.’

`Men?’

Eddie nodded.

`And the woman got in by herself? I mean, they didn't grab her or anything?’

Eddie shook his head. He was straddling his bike, keen to be going. One foot kept testing a pedal.

`Can you describe the car?’

`Big, a bit flash. Not from round here.’

`And the men?’

`Didn't really get a good look. Driver was wearing a Pars shirt.’

Meaning a football shirt, Dunfermline Athletic. Which would mean he was from Fife. Rebus frowned. A pick-up? Could that be it? Candice back to her old ways so soon? Not likely, not in a place like this, on a street like this. It was no chance encounter. Mrs Petrec was right: she'd been snatched. Which meant someone had known where to find her. Had Rebus been followed yesterday? If he had, they'd been invisible. Some device on his car? It seemed unlikely, but he checked wheel-arches and the underbody: nothing. Mrs Petrec had calmed a little, her husband having administered medicinal vodka. Rebus could use a shot himself, but turned down the offer.

`Did she make any phone calls?’ he asked. Petrec shook his head. `What about strangers hanging around the street?’

`I would have noticed. After Sarajevo, it's hard to feel safe, Inspector.’

He opened his arms. `And here's the proof nowhere's safe.’

`Did you tell anyone about Dunya?’

`Who would we tell?’

Who knew? That was the question. Rebus did. And Claverhouse and Ormiston knew about the place, because Colquhoun had mentioned it.

Colquhoun knew. The nervy old Slavic Studies specialist knew… On the way back to Edinburgh, Rebus tried phoning him at office and home: no reply. He'd told the Petrecs to let him know if Candice came back, but he didn't think she'd be coming back. He remembered the look she'd given him early on when he'd asked her to trust him. I won't be surprised if you let me down. Like she'd known back then that he'd fail. And she'd given him a second chance, waiting for him beside his car. And he'd let her down. He got back on his mobile and called Jack Morton.

`Jack,' he said, `for Christ's sake, talk me out of having a drink.’

He tried Colquhoun's home address and the Slavic Studies office: both locked up tight. Then he drove to Flint Street and looked for Tommy Telford in the arcade. But Telford wasn't there. He was in the cafe's back office, surrounded as usual by his men.

`I want to talk to you,' Rebus said.

`So talk.’

`Without the audience.’

Rebus pointed to Pretty-Boy. `That one can stay.’

Telford took his time, but finally nodded, and the room began to empty. Pretty-Boy stood against a wall, hands behind his back. Telford had his feet up on his desk, leaning back in his chair. They were relaxed, confident. Rebus knew what he looked like: a caged bear.

`I want to know where she is.’

`Who?’

'Candice.’

Telford smiled. `Still on about her, Inspector? How should I know where she is?’

`Because a couple of your boys grabbed her.’

But as he spoke, Rebus realised he was making a mistake. Telford's gang was a family: they'd grown up together in Paisley. Not many Dunfermline supporters that distant from Fife. He stared at Pretty-Boy, who ran Telford 's prostitutes. Candice had arrived in Edinburgh from a city of bridges, maybe Newcastle. Telford had Newcastle connections. And the Newcastle United strip – vertical black and white lines was damned close to Dunfermline 's. Probably only a kid in Fife could make the mistake.

A Newcastle strip. A Newcastle car.

Telford was talking, but Rebus wasn't listening. He walked straight out of the office and back to the Saab. Drove to Fettes – the Crime Squad offices – and started looking. He found a contact number for a DS Miriam Kenworthy. Tried the number but she wasn't there.

`Fuck it,' he told himself, getting back into his car.

The A1 was hardly the country's fastest road – Abernethy was right about that. Still, without the daytime traffic Rebus made decent time on his way south. It was late evening when he arrived in Newcastle, pubs emptying, queues forming outside clubs, a few United shirts on display, looking like prison bars. He didn't know the city. Drove around it in circles, passing the same signs and landmarks, heading further out, just cruising.

Looking for Candice. Or for girls who might know her.

After a couple of hours, he gave up, headed back into the centre. He'd had the idea of sleeping in his car, but when he found a hotel with an empty room, the thought of en-suite facilities suddenly seemed too good to miss.

He made sure there was no mini-bar.

A long soak with his eyes closed, mind and body still racing from the drive. He sat in a chair by his window and listened to the night: taxis and yells, delivery lorries. He couldn't sleep. He lay on the bed, watching soundless TV, remembering Candice in the hotel room, asleep under sweet wrappers. Deacon Blue: `Chocolate Girl.’

He woke up to breakfast TV. Checked out of the hotel and had breakfast in a cafe, then called Miriam Kenworthy's office, relieved to find she was an early starter.

`Come right round,' she said, sounding bemused. `You're only a couple of minutes away.’

She was younger than her telephone voice, face softer than her attitude. It was a milkmaid's face, rounded, the cheeks pink and plump. She studied him, swivelling slightly in her chair as he told her the story.

`Tarawicz,' she said when he'd finished. `Jake Tarawicz. Real name Joachim, probably.’

Kenworthy smiled. `Some of us around here call him Mr Pink Eyes. He's had dealings – meetings anyway with this guy Telford.’

She opened the brown folder in front of her. `Mr Pink Eyes has a lot of European connections. You know Chechnia?’

`In Russia?’

`It's Russia 's Sicily, if you know what I mean.’

`Is that where Tarawicz comes from?’

`It's one theory. The other is that he's Serbian. Might explain why he set up the convoy.’

`What convoy?’

`Running aid lorries to former Yugoslavia. A real humanitarian, our Mr Pink.’

`But also a way of smuggling people out?’

Kenworthy looked at him. `You've been doing your homework.’

`Call it an educated guess.’

`Well, it gets him noticed. He got a papal blessing six months ago. Married to an Englishwoman – not for love. She was one of his girls.’

`But it gives him residency here.’

She nodded. `He hasn't been around that long, five or six years…’

Like Telford, Rebus thought.

`But he's built himself a rep, muscled in where there used to be Asians, Turks… Story is, he started with a nice line in stolen icons. A ton of stuff has been lifted out of the Soviet bloc. And when that operation started drying, he moved into prossies. Cheap girls, and he could keep them docile with a bit of crack. The crack comes up from London – the Yardies control that particular scene. Mr Pink spreads their goods around the north-east. He also deals heroin for the Turks and sells some girls to Triad brothels.’

She looked at Rebus, saw she had his attention. `No racial barriers when it comes to business.’

`So I see.’

`Probably also sells drugs to your friend Telford, who distributes them through his nightclubs.’

"`Probably"?’

`We've no hard proof. There was even a story going around that Pink wasn't selling to Telford, he was buying.’

Rebus blinked. ` Telford 's not that big.’

She shrugged.

`Where would he get the stuff?’

'It was a story, that's all.’

But it had Rebus thinking, because it might help explain the relationship between Tarawicz and Telford…

`What does Tarawicz get out of it?’ he asked, making his thoughts flesh.

`You mean apart from money? Well, Telford trains a good bouncer. Jock bouncers get respect down here. Then, of course, Telford has shares in a couple of casinos.’

`A way for Tarawicz to launder his cash?’

Rebus thought about this. `Is there anything Tarawicz doesn't have a finger in?’

`Plenty. He likes businesses which are fluid. And he's still a relative newcomer.’

Eagles: `New Kid in Town'.

`We think he's been dealing arms: a lot of stuff crossing into Western Europe. The Chechens seem to have weaponry to spare.’

She sniffed, gathered her thoughts.

`Sounds like he's one step ahead of Tommy Telford.’

Which would explain why Telford was so keen to do business with him. He was on a learning curve, learning how to fit into the bigger picture. Yardies and Asians, Turks and Chechens, and all the others. Rebus saw them as spokes on a huge wheel which was trundling mercilessly across the world, breaking bones as it went.

`Why "Mr Pink Eyes"?’ he asked.

She'd been awaiting the question, slid a colour photo towards him.

It was the close-up of a face, the skin pink and blistered, white lesions running through it. The face was puffy, bloated, and in its midst sat eyes hidden by blue-tinted glasses. There were no eyebrows. The hair above the jutting forehead was thin and yellow. The man looked like some monstrous shaved pig.

`What happened to him?’ he asked.

`We don't know. That's the way he looked when he arrived.’

Rebus remembered the description Candice had given: sunglasses, looks like a car-crash victim. Dead ringer.

`I want to talk to him,' Rebus said.

But first, Kenworthy gave him a guided tour. They took her car, and she showed him where the street girls worked. It was mid-morning, no action to speak of. He gave her a description of Candice, and she promised she'd put the word out. They spoke with the few women they met. They all seemed to know Kenworthy, weren't hostile towards her.

`They're the same as you or me,' she told him, driving away. `Working to feed their kids.’

`Or their habit.’

`That too, of course.’

`In Amsterdam, they've got a union.’

`Doesn't help the poor sods who're shipped there.’

Kenworthy signalled at a junction. `You're sure he has her?’

`I don't think Telford does. Someone knew addresses back in Sarajevo, addresses that were important to her. Someone shipped her out of there.’

`Sounds like Mr Pink all right.’

`And he's the only one who can send her back.’

She looked at him. `Why would he do a thing like that?’

Just as Rebus was thinking their surroundings couldn't get any grimmer – all industrial decay, gutted buildings and potholes Kenworthy signalled to turn in at the gates of a scrapyard.

`You're kidding?’ he said.

Three Alsatians, tethered by thirty-foot chains, barked and bounded towards the car. Kenworthy ignored them, kept driving. It was like being in a ravine. Either side of them stood precarious canyon walls of car wrecks.

`Hear that?’

Rebus heard it: the sound of a collision. The car entered a wide clearing, and he saw a yellow crane, dangling a huge grab from its arm, pluck up the car it had dropped and lift it high, before dropping it again on to the carcass of another. A few men were standing at a safe distance, smoking cigarettes and looking bored. The grab dropped on to the roof of the top car, denting it badly. Glass shimmered on the oily ground, diamonds against black velvet.

Jake Tarawicz – Mr Pink Eyes – was in the crane, laughing and roaring as he picked up the car again, worrying it the way a cat might play with a mouse without noticing it was dead. If he'd seen the new additions to his audience, it didn't show. Kenworthy hadn't got out of her car immediately. First, she'd fixed on a face from her repertoire. When finally she was ready, she nodded to Rebus and they opened their doors simultaneously.

As Rebus stood upright, he saw that the grab had dropped the car and was swinging towards them. Kenworthy folded her arms and stood her ground. Rebus was reminded of those arcade games where you had to pick up a prize. He could see Tarawicz in the cab, manipulating the controls like a kid with a toy. He remembered Tommy Telford on his arcade bike, and saw at once something the two men had in common: neither had ever really grown up.

The motorised hum stopped suddenly, and Tarawicz dropped from the cab. He was wearing a cream suit and emerald shirt, open at the neck. He'd borrowed a pair of green wellies from somewhere, so as to keep his trousers clean. As he walked towards the two detectives, his men stepped into line behind him.

'Miriam,' he said, `always a pleasure.’

He paused. `Or so the rumour goes.’

A couple of his men grinned. Rebus recognised one face: `The Crab', that's what he'd been called in central Scotland. His grip could crush bones. Rebus hadn't seen him in a long time, and had never seen him so smartly groomed and dressed.

`All right, Crab?’

Rebus said.

This seemed to disconcert Tarawicz, who half-turned towards his minion. The Crab stayed quiet, but colour had risen, to his neck.

Up close, it was hard not to stare at Mr Pink Eyes's face. His eyes demanded that you meet them, but you really wanted to study the flesh in which they sat.

He was looking at Rebus now.

`Have we met?’

`No.’

`This is Detective Inspector Rebus,' Kenworthy explained. `He's come all the way from Scotland to see you.’

`I'm flattered.’

Tarawicz's grin showed small sharp teeth with gaps between them.

`I think you know why I'm here,' Rebus said.

Tarawicz made a show of astonishment. `Do I?’

' Telford needed your help. He needed a home address for Candice, a note to her in Serbo-Croat…’

`Is this some sort of riddle?’

`And now you've taken her back.’

`Have I?’

Rebus took a half-step forward. Tarawicz's men fanned out either side of their boss. There was a sheen on Tarawicz's face which could have been sweat or some medical cream.

`She wanted out,' Rebus told him. `I promised I'd help her. I never break a promise.’

`She wanted out? She told you that?’

Tarawicz's voice was teasing.

One of the men behind cleared his throat. Rebus had been wondering about this man, so much smaller and more reticent than the others, better dressed and with sad drooping eyes and sallow skin. Now he knew: lawyer. And the cough was his way of warning Tarawicz that he was saying too much.

`I'm going to take Tommy Telford down,' Rebus said quietly. `That's my promise to you. Once he's in custody, who knows what he'll say?’

`I'm sure Mr Telford can look after himself, Inspector. Which is more than can be said for Candice.’

The lawyer coughed again.

`I want her kept off the streets,' Rebus said.

Tarawicz stared at him, tiny black pupils like spots of absolute darkness.

`Can Thomas Telford go about his daily business unfettered?’ he said at last. Behind him, the lawyer almost choked.

`You know I can't promise that,' Rebus said. `It's not me he has to worry about.’

`Take a message to your friend,' Tarawicz said. `And afterwards, stop being his friend.’

Rebus realised then: Tarawicz was talking about Cafferty. Telford had told him that Rebus was Cafferty's man.

`I think I can do that,' Rebus said quietly.

`Then do it.’

Tarawicz turned away.

`And Candice?’

`I'll see what I can do.’

He stopped, slid his hands into his jacket pockets. `Hey, Miriam,' he said, his back still to them, `I like you better in that red two-piece.’

Laughing, he walked away.

`Get in the car,' Kenworthy said through gritted teeth. Rebus got into the car. She looked nervous, dropped her keys, bent to retrieve them.

`What's wrong?’

`Nothing's wrong,' she snapped.

`The red two-piece?’

She glared at him. `I don't have a red two-piece.’

She did a three point-turn, hitting brakes and accelerator with a little more force than necessary.

`I don't get it.’

`Last week,' she said, `I bought some red underwear… bra and pants.’

She revved the engine. `Part of his little game.’

`So how does he know?’

`That's what I'm wondering.’

She shot past the dogs and out of the gate. Rebus thought of Tommy Telford, and how he'd been watching Rebus's flat.

`Surveillance isn't always one-way,' he said, knowing now who'd taught Telford the skill. A little later he asked about the scrapyard.

`He owns it. He's got a compacter, but before the cars get squashed he likes to play with them. And if you cross him, he welds your seatbelt shut.’

She looked at him. `You become part of his game.’

Never get personally involved: it was the golden rule. And practically every case he worked, Rebus broke it. He sometimes felt that the reason he became so involved in his cases was that he had no life of his own. He could only live through other people.

Why had he become so involved with Candice? Was it down to her physical resemblance to Sammy? Or was it that she had seemed to need him? The way she'd clung to his leg that first day… Had he wanted – just for a little while – to be someone's knight in shining armour, the real thing, not some mockery? John Rebus: complete bloody sham. He phoned Claverhouse from his car, filled him in. Claverhouse told him not to worry. `Thanks for that,' Rebus said. `I feel a whole lot better now. Listen, who's Telford 's supplier?’

`For what? Dope?’

`Yes.’

`That's the real joker in the pack. I mean, he does business with Newcastle, but we can't be certain who's dealing and who's buying.’

`What if Telford 's selling?’

`Then he's got a line from the continent.’

`What do Drugs Squad say?’

`They say not. If he's landing the stuff from a boat, it means transporting it from the coast. Much more likely he's buying from Newcastle. Tarawicz has the contacts in Europe.’

`Makes you wonder why he needs Tommy Telford at all…’

`John, do yourself a favour, switch off for five minutes.’

'Colquhoun seems to be keeping his head down…’

`Did you hear me?’

`I'll talk to you soon.’

`Are you heading back?’

`In a manner of speaking.’

Rebus cut the call and drove.

11

'Strawman.,' said Morris Gerald Cafferty, as he was escorted into the room by two prison guards.

Earlier in the year, Rebus had promised Cafferty he would put a Glasgow gangster, Uncle Joe Toal, behind bars. It hadn't worked, despite Rebus's best efforts. Toal, pleading old age and illness, was still a free man, like a war criminal excused for senility. Ever since then, Cafferty had felt Rebus owed him.

Cafferty sat down, rolled his neck a few times, loosening it.

`So?’ he asked.

Rebus nodded for the guards to leave, waited in silence until they'd gone. Then he slipped a quarter-bottle of Bell 's from his pocket.

`Keep it,' Cafferty told him. `From the look of you, I'd say your need was greater than mine.’

Rebus put the bottle back in his pocket. `I've brought a message from Newcastle.’

Cafferty folded his arms. `Jake Tarawicz?’

Rebus nodded. `He wants you to lay off Tommy Telford.’

`What does he mean?’

`Come on, Cafferty. That bouncer who got stabbed, the dealer wounded… There's war breaking out.’

Cafferty stared at the detective. `Not my doing.’

Rebus snorted, but looking into Cafferty's eyes, he found himself almost believing.

`So who was it?’ he asked quietly.

`How do I know?’

`Nevertheless, war is breaking out.’

`That's as may be. What's in it for Tarawicz?’

`He does business with Tommy.’

`And to protect that, he needs to have me warned off by a cop?’

Cafferty was shaking his head. `You really buy that?’

`I don't know,' Rebus said.

`One way to finish this.’

Cafferty paused. `Take Telford out of the game.’

He saw the look on Rebus's face. `I don't mean top him, I mean put him away. That should be your job, Strawman.’

`I only came to deliver a message.’

`And what's in it for you? Something in Newcastle?’

`Maybe.’

`Are you Tarawicz's man now?’

`You know me better than that.’

`Do I?’

Cafferty sat back in his chair, stretched out his legs. `I wonder about that sometimes. I mean, it doesn't keep me awake at night, but I wonder all the same.’

Rebus leaned on the table. `You must have a bit salted away. Why can't you just be content with that?’

Cafferty laughed. The air felt charged; there might have been only the two of them left in the world. `You want me to retire?’

`A good boxer knows when to stop.’

`Then neither of us would be much cop in the ring, would we? Got any plans to retire, Strawman?’

Despite himself, Rebus smiled.

`Thought not. Do I have to say something for you to take back to Tarawicz?’

Rebus shook his head. `That wasn't the deal.’

`Well, if he does come asking, tell him to get some life insurance, the kind with death benefits.’

Rebus looked at Cafferty. Prison might have softened him, but only physically.

`I'd be a happy man if someone took Telford out of the game,' Cafferty went on. `Know what I mean, Strawman? It'd be worth a lot to me.’

Rebus stood up. `No deal,' he said. `Personally, I'd be happy if you wiped one another out. I'd be jumping for joy at ring-side.’

`Know what happens at ring-side?’

Cafferty rubbed at his temples. `You tend to get spattered with blood.’

`As long as it's someone else's.’

The laughter came from deep within Cafferty's chest. `You're not a spectator, Strawman. It's not in your nature.’

`And you're some kind of psychologist?’

`Maybe not,' said Cafferty. `But I know what gets people excited.’