Then someone walked in. Someone Rebus knew. Dr Colquhoun. He saw Rebus immediately and fear jumped into his face. Colquhoun: with his sick line to the university; his enforced holiday; no forwarding address. Colquhoun: who'd known Rebus was-taking Candice to the Petrecs.
Rebus watched him back towards the doors. Watched him turn and run.
Options: go after him, or stay with Matsumoto? Which was the more important to him now, Candice or Telford? Rebus stayed. But now Colquhoun was back in town, he'd track him down.
For definite.
After an hour and a quarter's play, he was considering cashing a cheque for more chips. Twenty quid down in a little over an hour, and Candice fighting for some space in his crowded head. He took a break, moved to a row of fruit machines, but the lights and buttons defeated him. He wasted three nudges and ran out of time on some accumulator. Another two quid gone – this time in a couple of minutes. Little wonder clubs and pubs wanted slot machines. Tommy Telford was in the right business. His hostess came to see him again, asked if he wanted another drink.
`I'm fine,' he said. `Not much action tonight.’
`It's early,' she told him. `Wait till after midnight…’
No way was he sticking around that long. But Matsumoto surprised him, threw up his hands and came out with another rush of Japanese, nodding and grinning, gathering up his chips. He cashed them and left the casino. Rebus waited all of thirty seconds, then followed. He said a breezy goodnight to the security men, felt their eyes on him all the way back down the stairs.
Matsumoto was buttoning his coat, wrapping the scarf tight around his neck. He was headed back in the direction of the hotel. Rebus, suddenly bone-tired, stopped in his tracks. He was thinking of Sammy and Lintz and the Weasel, thinking of all the time he seemed to be wasting.
`Fuck this for a game of soldiers.’
Turned on his heels and went to collect his car.
Ten Years After: `Goin' Home'.
It was a twenty-minute walk to Flint Street, a lot of it uphill and with the wind doing nobody any favours. The city was quiet: people huddled at bus stops; students munching on baked potatoes, chips with curry sauce. A few souls marching home with the concentrated tread of the sozzled. Rebus stopped, frowned, looked around. This was where he'd left the Saab. He was positive… no, not 'positive' the word had taken on malign overtones. He was sure, yes, sure he'd left the Saab right here. Where now a black Ford Sierra was parked, and behind that a Mini. But no sign of Rebus's car.
`Aw, Christ,' he exploded. There were no signs of glass by the roadside, which meant they hadn't taken a brick to one of his windows. Oh, there'd be jokes in the office about this though, whether he got the car back or not. A taxi came along and he flagged it down, then remembered he'd no cash, so waved it off again.
His flat in Arden Street wasn't that far off, but had he been a camel, he'd have been keeping well clear of any straw.
20
He was asleep in his chair by the living-room window, duvet pulled up to his neck, when the buzzer sounded. He couldn't remember setting the alarm. Consciousness brought the dawning realisation that it was his door. He staggered to his feet, found his trousers and put them on.
`All right, all right,' he called, heading for the hall. `Keep your hair on.’
He opened the door and saw Bill Pryde.
`Jesus, Bill, is this some sort of twisted revenge?’
Rebus looked at his watch: two-fifteen.
`Afraid not, John,' Pryde said. His face and voice told Rebus something bad had happened.
Something very bad indeed.
`I've been off the booze for weeks.’
`Sure about that?’
`Definite.’
Rebus's eyes burned into those of DO Gill Templer. They were in her office at St Leonard's. Pryde was there, too. His jacket was off and his sleeves rolled up. Gill Templer looked bleary from interrupted sleep. Rebus was pacing what floor there was, unable to stay seated.
`I've had nothing to drink all day but coffee and Coke.’
`Really?’
Rebus ran his hands through his hair. He felt groggy, and his head was throbbing. But he couldn't ask for Paracetamol and water: they'd assume hangover. `Come on, Gill,' he said, `I'm being shafted here.’
`Who authorised your surveillance?’
`Nobody. I did it in my own time.’
`How do you work that out?’
`The Chief Super said I could take a bit of time off.’
`He meant so you could visit your daughter.’
She paused. `Is that what this was all about?’
`Maybe.’
`This Mr…’ she checked her notes `… Matsumoto, he was connected to Thomas Telford. And your theory is that Telford was behind the attack on your daughter?’
Rebus thumped the wall with his fists. `It's a set-up, oldest trick in the book. I've yet to see one perfected. There's got to be something at the scene… something out of kilter.’
He turned to his colleagues. `You've got to let me go there, take a look around.’
Templer looked to Bill Pryde. Pryde folded his arms, shrugged assent. But it was Templer's play, she was the senior officer here. She tapped her pen against her teeth, then dropped it on to the desk.
`Will you submit to a blood test?’
Rebus swallowed. `Why not?’ he said at last.
`Come on then,' she said, getting to her feet.
The story was: Matsumoto had been on his way back to his hotel. Crossing the road, he'd been hit by a car travelling at speed. The driver hadn't stopped, not right away. But the car had travelled only another couple of hundred yards before mounting the pavement with its front wheels. It had been abandoned there, driver's door open.
A Saab 900, its identity known to half the Lothian and Borders force.
The interior reeked of whisky, the screw-top from a bottle lying on the passenger seat. No sign of the bottle, no sign of the driver. Just the car, and two hundred yards further back, the body of the Japanese businessman, growing cold by the roadside.
Nobody had seen anything. Nobody had heard anything. Rebus could believe it: never one of the city centre's busier routes, at this hour the place was dead.
`When I followed him from his hotel, he didn't come this way,' Rebus told Templer. She stood with shoulders hunched, hands deep in her coat pockets, keeping out the cold.
`So?’ she asked.
`Long way round for a short-cut.’
`Maybe he wanted to see the sights,' Pryde suggested.
`What time's this supposed to have happened?’ Rebus asked.
Templer hesitated. `There's a margin of error.’
`Look, Gill, I know this is awkward. You shouldn't have brought me here, you shouldn't answer my questions. I'm the number one suspect, after all.’
Rebus knew how much she had to lose. Over two hundred male Chief Inspectors in Scotland; only five women. Bad odds, and a lot of people waiting for her to fail. He held up his hands. `Look, if I was blind drunk and I hit somebody, think I'd leave the car at the scene?’
`You might not know you'd hit anyone. You hear a thunk, lose control and mount the kerb, and some survival instinct tells you it's time to get out and walk.’
`Only I hadn't been drinking. I left the car near Flint Street, and that's where they took it from. Any signs it was broken into?’
She didn't say anything.
`I'll guess not,' Rebus went on. `Because professionals don't leave marks. But to get it started, they must have wired it or got into the steering column. That's what you should be looking for.’
The car had been towed. First thing in the morning, forensics would be all over it.