The door opened and the doctor stepped out, pulling a shawl around her shoulders. Perfume wafted out with her: nothing too overbearing.
‘Sorry I’ve kept you,’ she said, pulling the door closed and making for the steps.
‘I’d double-lock it if I were you,’ he suggested.
‘What?’
‘Yales,’ he explained, shaking his head. ‘A kid could be inside in ten seconds flat.’
She thought about it, shrugged her shoulders. ‘What’s life without a bit of a risk?’
‘As long as you’re insured,’ he said, studying her ankles as he climbed the steps after her.
Jim Stevens lay on his bed, one hand covering his eyes, the other holding the telephone receiver to his ear. He was listening to Matt Lewin, who had just told him how good the weather was in Seattle. Stevens had faxed him portions of Cary Oakes’s ‘confession’, and Lewin was giving his views.
‘Well, Jim, bits of it seem to tally all right. The truck driver story is new, and frankly, I don’t think it’s worth chasing.’
‘You think he made it up?’
‘Not my problem, thank God. I tell you, Jim, no disrespect, but I wouldn’t trust anything that bastard told me, and I sure as hell wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing it in print.’
Which seemed to be Stevens’ boss’s view, too. The projected eight-parter had been cut to just five.
‘I’m sure as hell glad he’s your problem now and not ours,’ Lewin went on.
‘Thanks.’
‘He giving you any trouble?’
Stevens didn’t see the point in telling Lewin that Oakes was proving more awkward by the day. He’d slipped away from the hotel again that afternoon, stayed out the best part of three hours and wouldn’t say where he’d been.
‘It’s nearly over anyway,’ Stevens said, rubbing his hand over his brow.
‘Good riddance, that’s my advice.’
‘Yes.’ But Stevens couldn’t help but worry. He worried about what Oakes would do with himself afterwards, once he was out on the street. No way was Stevens’ paper going to come up with ten K, not for the scraps Oakes had given them. Stevens still had to break that news to Oakes.
He worried for himself too. He was part of Oakes’s sphere now, and was just hoping Oakes would let him go.
He got the feeling, God help him, that it might not be all that easy...
Cary Oakes watched the taxi leave. Dr P, he presumed. Getting on a bit, but then the state Rebus was in, he doubted he’d be complaining. Basement apartment too: perfect for what he had in mind. He came out from behind the parked car and looked up and down the street. The place was dead. Half of Edinburgh seemed dead to him: you could wander around for ages and not go noticed, never mind raise suspicion.
Jim Stevens had been in a foul mood, watching the Cary Oakes story relegated as the editor decided to run a special on vigilanteism. Stevens blamed the paedophile murder.
‘Bloody Rebus again,’ he’d muttered, and Oakes had asked him to explain.
Stevens’ theory: Rebus had outed Darren Rough, raised the mob against him. And now one of them had taken it too far. Everything Oakes learned about the detective made Rebus seem more interesting, more complicated.
‘What sort of code does he live by, do you think?’ he’d asked.
Stevens had snorted. ‘Could be Morse or Highway for all I know.’
‘Some people make up their own rules,’ Oakes had mused.
‘You mean like the serial killer?’
‘Hmm?’
‘The one who picked you up in his truck.’
‘Oh, him... Well, yes, of course.’
And Stevens had looked at him. And Cary Oakes had stared back.
He crossed the road now. No houses across the street from where he’d be working, just a wrought-iron fence, a bank of grass behind it. No neighbours to spot him as he went about his business.
He expected no interruptions at all.
The batteries were fading anyway, Rebus rationalised, and he didn’t have the recharger with him. So he switched off his mobile.
‘The weekend starts here,’ he said, as they crossed the Forth Road Bridge into Fife.
Later: ‘Roads have changed,’ as they came off the dual carriageway outside Kirkcaldy. But the old Kirkcaldy — Cardenden road seemed much the same, same twists and turns, potholes and bumps.
‘Remember we walked to Kirkcaldy once to go to the pictures?’ Janice said.
Rebus smiled. ‘I’d forgotten that. Why didn’t we just take the bus?’
‘I think we didn’t have enough money.’
He frowned. ‘Was it just us?’
‘Mitch and his girlfriend too. Can’t remember who he was dating at the time.’
‘He went through them, all right.’
‘Maybe they got fed up of him.’
‘Maybe.’ They sat in silence for a minute. ‘What was the film?’
‘Which film?’
‘The one we walked six miles to see.’
‘I don’t recall watching much of it.’
They glanced at one another, burst out laughing.
Brian Mee heard the car, came out to meet them.
‘This is a surprise,’ he said, shaking Rebus’s hand.
‘I need to talk to Damon’s pals,’ Rebus explained.
Janice touched her husband’s arm. ‘He said he wanted to go to the hotel.’
‘Rubbish, you can stay with us. Damon’s room’s...’
‘I thought maybe the sofa,’ Janice interjected.
Brian recovered well. ‘Oh aye, it’s not that old. Comfy too. I should know: I nod off on it most nights myself.’
‘That’s settled then,’ Janice said. She had a man on either arm as she walked up the front path.
They ordered Chinese from the takeaway, opened a couple of bottles of wine. Old stories, rekindled memories. Half-remembered names; the exploits of those who’d grown old in the town; changes to the fabric of the place. Rebus had phoned Damon’s friends, the ones who’d been with him at Gaitano’s, but neither of them was in. He’d left messages, saying he had to see them in the morning.
‘We could go out for a drink,’ he told his hosts. His eyes were on Janice as he spoke. ‘Be the first time we had a drink together in the Goth without being underage.’
‘The Goth’s shut, John,’ Brian said.
‘Since when?’
‘They’re turning it into a centre for the unemployed.’
‘Isn’t that what it always was?’
They smiled at that. The Goth closed: his dad’s watering-hole; the first place John Rebus had ever bought a round.
‘Railway Tavern’s still going,’ Brian added. ‘We’ll be there tomorrow night for the karaoke.’
‘You’ll stay for that, won’t you?’ Janice asked.
‘I’m kind of allergic to karaokes, actually.’ Rebus was once again in the ‘seat by the fire’, the one he’d been made to sit in on his first visit. The TV was playing, sound turned down. It was like a magnet, their eyes sliding towards it throughout the conversation. Janice cleared away the dishes — they’d eaten with the plates on their laps. He helped her take the things through to the kitchen, saw it was too small for three people to eat in. There was a dining table in front of the living room window, but set with ornaments, its leaves folded. Used for special occasions only. With the leaves opened, it would all but fill the room. They ate all their meals on their laps, in front of the TV. He imagined the three of them — mother, father, son — staring at the screen, using it to excuse the lengthening gaps in conversation.