`Like Pontius Pilate,' he mumbled to himself as he made for the main road. Standing by a lamppost, waiting and praying for a black cab to come along, he saw Kenny Watkiss emerge from the flats, a duffel-bag slung across his shoulder, and, looking around him, start to jog towards the far end of the estate. Rebus nodded to himself. `That's my boy,' he said, as, with protesting brakes, a cab slowed to a halt beside him.
You're in luck mate,' said the driver. `I'm just starting my shift.' Rebus, clambered in and gave the name of his hotel, then settled back, enjoying the city at this quiet hour. The driver, though, was in practice for the day ahead.
`Here,' he said, `did you hear about that rumpus yesterday at Trafalgar Square? I was in a queue for an hour and a half. I mean, I'm all for law and order, but there must've been another way of going about it, mustn't there?' John Rebus shook his head and laughed.
His suitcase sat closed on the bed beside the little-used briefcase and the bag of books. He was squeezing the last few items, into his sports bag when there was a soft tapping at his door.
`Come in.'
She did. She was wearing a solid-foam neck-brace, but grinned it away.
`Isn't it stupid? They want me to wear, it for the next few days, but I—' She saw the cases on, the bed. `You're not leaving already?'
Rebus nodded. `I came here to help with the Wolfman case. The Wolfman case is finished.'
`But what about—'
He, turned to her. `What about us?' he guessed. She lowered her eyes. `That's a good question, Lisa. You lied to me. You weren't trying to help. You were trying to get your bloody Ph.D.'
`I'm sorry,' she said.
`Me too. I mean, 'I can understand why you did it, why you think you had to do it. Really I can. But that doesn't make it any better.'
She straightened her back and nodded. `Fair enough then,' she said. `So, Inspector Rebus, if all I was doing was using you, why did I come here straight from the hospital?'
He zipped shut the bag. It was a good question. 'Because you got found out,' he said.
`No,' she said. `That was bound to happen eventually. Try again.' He shrugged his shoulders. `Oh,' she said, sounding disappointed. 'I was hoping you could tell me. I'm not really sure myself.'
He turned towards her again and saw that she was smiling. She looked so stupid in the neck-brace that he had to return the smile eventually. And when she came towards him he returned her hug, too.
`Ouch!' she said. `Not too hard, John.'
So he relaxed his muscles a little, and they kept on hugging. He was actually feeling mellow, the painkillers had seen to that.
`Anyway,' he said at last, `you weren't much help.'
She pulled away from him. He was still smiling, but archly. `What do you mean?'
`I mean all that stuff we talked about in the restaurant. All those index cards.' Rebus recited the list. `Thwarted ambition. Victims from a social class above the killer. No confrontation . . . ' He scratched his chin. `None of it fits Malcolm' Chambers.'
`I wouldn't say that. We've still got to look at his home life, his background.' She sounded defiant rather than merely defensive. `And I was right about the schizophre?nia.
`So you'll still do your project?'
She tried to nod: it wasn't easy. `Of course,' she said. `There's plenty of work to be done on Chambers, believe me. There must be clues there somewhere in his past. He must have left something.'
`Well, let me know what you find out.'
`John. Before he died, did he say anything?'
Rebus smiled. `Nothing important,' he said. `Nothing important.'
After she'd gone, after the promises of return trips and of weekends in Edinburgh, promises of postcards and phone calls, he took his luggage down to reception. George Flight was at the desk. Rebus put his key down next to where Flight was signing his name to several forms.
'Do you realise how much this hotel costs?' Flight said, not looking up. 'Next time you visit, you really will have to bunk at my place.' Then he glanced towards Rebus. `But I suppose you were worth it.' He finished with the forms and handed them to the receptionist, who checked them before nodding that everything was in order. `You know the address to send them to,' Flight called back as the two men started towards the hotel's swing-doors.
'I really must get the lock on the boot fixed,' Flight said, shutting the car's back door on Rebus's luggage. Then `Where to? King's Cross?'
Rebus nodded. `With one slight detour,' he said.
The detour, in Flight's words, turned out to be more than slight. They parked across from Rhona's flat in Gideon Park and Flight pulled on the handbrake.
'Going in?' he said. Rebus had been thinking about it, but shook his head. What could he tell Sammy? Nothing that would help. If he said he'd seen Kenny, she'd only accuse him of scaring him off. No, best leave it.
`George,' he said, `could you maybe have someone drop in and tell her Kenny's left London. But stress that he's okay, that he's not in trouble. I don't want him lingering too long in her memory.'
