`Wakey-wakey, John.’
Rebus's boss was shaking him gently. Rebus blinked, straightened in his chair.
`Sorry, sir.’
Chief Superintendent Watson went around the desk and sat down. `Hellish sorry to hear about Sammy. I don't really know what to say, except that she's in my prayers.’
`Thank you, sir.’
`Do you want some coffee?’
The Farmer's coffee had a reputation throughout the station, but Rebus accepted a mug gladly. `How is she anyway?’
`Still unconscious.’
`No sign of the car?’
`Not the last I heard.’
`Who's handling it?’
`Bill Pryde started the ball rolling last night. I don't know who's taken it from him.’
`I'll find out.’
The Farmer made an internal call, Rebus watching him over the rim of his mug. The Farmer was a big man, imposing behind a desk. His cheeks were a mass of tiny red veins and his thin hair lay across the dome of his head like the lines of a well-furrowed field. There were photos on his desk: grandchildren. The photos had been taken in a garden. There was a swing in the background. One of the children was holding a teddy bear. Rebus felt his throat start to ache, tried to choke it back.
The Farmer put down the receiver. `Bill's still on it,' he said. `Felt if he worked straight through we might get a quicker result.’
`That's good of him.’
`Look, we'll let you know the minute we get something, but meantime you'll probably want to go home…’
`No, sir.’
`Or to the hospital.’
Rebus nodded slowly. Yes, the hospital. But not right this minute. He had to talk to Bill Pryde first.
`And meantime, I'll reassign your cases.’
The Farmer started writing. `There's this War Crimes thing, and your liaison on Telford. Are you working on anything else?’
`Sir, I'd prefer it if you… I mean, I want to keep working.’
The Farmer looked at him, then leaned back in his chair, pen balanced between his fingers.
'Why?’
Rebus shrugged. `I want to keep busy.’
Yes, there was that. And `Sure you're okay? There's a cafe up the road.’
`I'm fine, Bill.’
He looked around, took a deep breath. `Looks like offices behind the Spar, doubtful anyone would have been there. But there are flats above Remnant Kings and the bank.’
`Want to talk to them?’
`And the Spar and the kebab shop. You take the B amp;Bs and the houses, meet back here in half an hour.’
Rebus talked to everyone he could find. In the Spar, there was a new shift on, but he got home phone numbers from the manager and called up the workers from the previous night. They hadn't seen or heard anything. First they'd known had been the flashing lights of the ambulance. The kebab shop was closed, but when Rebus banged on the door a woman came through from the back, wiping her hands on a tea-towel. He pressed his warrant card to the glass door, and she let him in. The shop had been busy last night. She didn't see the accident – she called it that, `the accident'. And that's what it was: the word really hadn't sunk in until she said it. Elvis Costello: `Accidents Will Happen'. Was the next line really `It's only hit and run'?
`No,' the woman said, `the first thing that caught my attention was the crowd. I mean, only three or four people, but I could see they were standing around something. And then the ambulance came. Will she be all right?’
The look in her eyes was one Rebus had encountered before. It almost wanted the victim dead, because then there was a story to be told.
`She's in hospital,' he said, unable to look at the woman any longer.
`Yes, but the paper said she's in a coma.’
`What paper?’
She brought him the first edition of the day's Evening News. There was a paragraph on one of the inside pages – `Hit and Run Coma Victim'.
It wasn't a coma. She was unconscious, that was all. But Rebus was thankful for the story. Maybe someone would read it and come forward. Maybe guilt would begin to press down on the driver. Maybe there'd been a passenger… It was hard to keep secrets, usually you told someone.
He tried Remnant Kings, but of course they had been closed last night, so he climbed to the flats above. There was no one home at the first flat. He wrote a brief message on the back of a business card and pushed it through the letterbox, then jotted down the surname on the door. If they didn't call him, he'd call them. A young man answered the second door. He was just out of his teens and pushed a thick lock of black hair away from his eyes. He wore Buddy Holly glasses and had acne scars around his mouth. Rebus introduced himself. The hand went to the hair again, a backward glance into the flat.
`Do you live here?’ Rebus asked.
`Mm, yeah. Like, I'm not the owner. We rent it.’
There were no names on the door. `Anyone else in at the moment?’
`Nope.’
`Are you all students?’
The young man nodded. Rebus asked his name.
`Rob. Robert Renton. What's this about?’
`There was an accident last night, Rob. A hit and run.’
So many times he'd been in this situation, passing on the bland news of another changed life. It was a whole hour since he'd telephoned the hospital. In the end, they'd taken his mobile number, said it might be easier if they phoned him whenever there was news. They meant easier for them, not him.
`Oh, yes,' Renton was saying, `I saw it.’
Rebus blinked. `You saw it?’
Renton was nodding, hair bobbing in front of his eyes. `From the window. I was up changing a CD, and -'
`Is it okay if I come in for a minute? I want to see what kind of view you had.’
Renton puffed out his cheeks, exhaled. `Well, I suppose…’
And Rebus was in.
The living-room was fairly tidy. Renton went ahead of him, crossed to where a hi-fi rack sat between two windows. `I was putting on a new CD, and I looked out of the window. You can see the bus stop, and I wondered if I might catch Jane coming off a bus.’
He paused. `Jane's Eric's girlfriend.’
The words washed over Rebus. He was looking down on the street, where Sammy had been walking. `Tell me what you saw.’
`This girl was crossing the road. She was nice-looking… I thought so anyway. Then this car came through the lights, swerved and sent her flying.’
Rebus closed his eyes for a second.
`She must have gone ten feet in the air, hit that hedge, bounced back on to the pavement. She didn't move after that.’
Rebus opened his eyes. He was at the window, Renton standing just behind his left shoulder. Down on the street, people were crossing the road, walking over the spot where Sammy had been hit, the spot where she'd landed. Flicking ash on to the pavement where she'd lain.
`I don't suppose you saw the driver?’
`Not from this angle.’
`Any passengers?’
`Couldn't tell.’
He wears glasses, Rebus thought. How reliable is he? `When you saw it happen, you didn't go down?’
`I'm not a medical student or anything.’
He nodded towards an easel in the corner, and Rebus noticed a shelf of paints and brushes. `Someone ran to the phone box, so I knew help was coming.’
Rebus nodded. `Anyone else see it?’
`They were in the kitchen.’
Renton paused. `I know what you're thinking.’
Rebus doubted it. `You're thinking I wear specs, so maybe I didn't see it right. But he definitely swerved. You know… deliberately. I mean, like he was aiming for her.’
He nodded to himself.
`Aiming for her?’
Renton made a movement with his hand, imitating a car gliding off one course and on to another. `He steered straight for her.’
`The car didn't lose control?’
`That would have been jerkier, wouldn't it?’
`What colour was the car?’
`Dark green.’
`And the make?’
Renton shrugged. `I'm hopeless with cars. Tell you what though…’