Rebus groaned. He lay back on his hotel bed with the receiver pressed to his ear and checked his watch. Eight thirty. He'd slept soundly last night, waking at seven, dressed quietly so as not to disturb Lisa and had left her a note before making his exit. His nose had led him to the hotel with only a couple of wrong turnings along the way and now he had walked into this telephone call.
`They brought it forward,' the voice is saying. `It starts today. They need your testimony, Inspector.'
As if Rebus didn't know. He knows that all he has to do is go into the witness box and say he saw Morris Gerald Cafferty (known in the protection game as `Big Ger') accept one hundred pounds from the landlord of the City Arms pub in Grangemouth. It's as easy as that, but he needs to be there to say it. The case against Cafferty, boss of a thuggish protection and gaming racket, is not airtight. In fact, it's got more punctures than a blind dressmaker's thumb.
He resigns himself to it. Must it be? Yes, it must be. But there was still the problem of logistics.
`It's all been taken care of,' says the voice. `We did try phoning you last night, but you were never there. Catch the first available shuttle from Heathrow. We'll have a car meet you and bring you into Glasgow. The prosecution reckons he'll call you about half past three, so there's time enough. With any luck, you can be back in London by tonight.'
`Gee, thanks,' says Rebus, voice so thick with irony the words hardly escape into the air.
`You're welcome,' says the voice.
He found that the Piccadilly Line went to Heathrow, and Piccadilly Circus tube was right outside the hotel. So things started well enough, though the tube ride itself was slow and stifling. At Heathrow, he picked up his ticket and had just enough time for a dash into the Skyshop. He picked, up a Glasgow Herald, then saw the row of tabloids on another shelf: SECRET LIFE OF GAY WOLFMAN; SICK KILLER `NEEDS HELP' SAY POLICE; CATCH THIS MADMAN
Cath Farraday had done well. He bought a copy of all three papers as well as the Herald and made for the Departure Lounge. Now that his mind was working, he saw all around him people reading the same headlines and the stories below them. But would the Wolfman see the stories? And if so, would he or she make some kind of move? Hell, the whole thing might be about to crack open, and here he was heading four hundred miles north. Damn the judicial system, the judges and advocates and solicitors and all. The Cafferty case had probably been brought forward so that it would not interfere with a golf game or a school sports day. Some spoilt child's involvement with an egg-and-spoon race might be behind this whole breathless journey. Rebus tried to calm down, sucking in gulps of air and releasing them slowly. He didn't like flying as it was. Never since his days in the SAS, when they had dropped him from a helicopter. Jesus! That was no way to calm yourself.
'Will passengers for British Airways Super Shuttle flight —'
The voice was cool and precise, triggering a mass movement. People rose to their feet, checked their baggage and made for the gate just mentioned. Which gate? He'd missed the announcement. Was it his flight?' Maybe he should phone ahead so they would have the car waiting. He hated flying. That was why he had come down by train on Sunday. Sunday? And today was Wednesday. It felt like over. a week had passed. In fact, he'd been in London only two full days.
Boarding. Oh, Christ. Where was his ticket? He'd no luggage, nothing to worry about there. The newspapers wriggled beneath his arm, trying to break free and fall in a mess on the floor. He pushed them back together again, squeezing them tightly with his elbow. He had to calm down, had, to think about Cafferty, had to get everything straight in his mind, so that the defence could find no chink in his story. Keep to the facts, forget about the Wolfman, forget about Lisa, Rhona, Sammy, Kenny, Tommy Watkiss, George Flight . . . Flight! He hadn't notified Flight. They would wonder where he was. He'd have to phone when he landed. He should phone now, but then he might miss the shuttle. Forget it. Concentrate on Cafferty. They would have his notes ready for him when he arrived, so he could go through them before he entered the witness box. There were only the two witnesses, weren't there? The frightened publican, whom they had more or less coerced into giving evidence and Rebus himself. He had to be strong, confident and believable. He caught sight of himself in a full-length mirror as he made for the Departure Gate. He looked like he'd spent a night on the tiles. The memory of the night made him smile. Everything would be all right.
He should phone Lisa, too, just to say . . . what? Thank you, he supposed. Up the ramp now, the narrow doorway in front of him, flanked by smiling steward and stewardess.
`Good morning, sir.'
`Good morning.' He saw they were standing by a stack of complimentary newspapers. Christ, he could have saved himself a few bawbees.
The aisle was narrow too. He had to squeeze past businessmen who were stuffing coats, briefcases and bags into the luggage lockers above their seats. He found his own window seat and fell into it, wrestling with the seatbelt and securing it. Outside, the groundcrew were still working. A plane took off smoothly in the distance, the dull roar perceptible even from here. A plump middle-aged woman sat beside him, spread her newspaper out so that half of it fell onto Rebus's right leg, and began to read. She had offered no greeting, no acknowledgment of his existence.
FYT, madam, he thought to himself, still staring out of the window. But then she gave a loud 'tsk', prompting him to turn towards her. She was staring at him through thick-lensed spectacles, staring and at the same time rapping a finger against the newspaper.
`Nobody's safe these days,' she said, as Rebus examined the news story and saw that it was some fanciful piece about the Wolfman. `Nobody, I won't let my daughter out these nights. A nine o'clock curfew I told her, until they catch him. Even then you can never be sure. I mean, he could be anybody.'
Her look told Rebus that he, too, was not beyond suspicion. He smiled reassuringly.
`I wasn't going to go,' she went on, `but Frank—that's my husband—he said it was all booked so I should.'
`Visiting Glasgow, are you?'
'Not exactly visiting. My son lives there. He's an accountant in the oil industry. He paid for my ticket, so I could, see how he's getting on. I worry about him, what with being so far away and everything. I mean, it's a rough place Glasgow, isn't it? You read about it in the papers. Anything could happen up there.'
Yes, thought Rebus, his smile fixed, so unlike London, There was a sound like an electronic doorbell, and the Fasten Seatbelts sign came on, next to where the No Smoking sign was already lit. Jesus,' Rebus could kill for a cigarette. Was he in Smoking or No Smoking? He couldn't make out, and couldn't remember which he'd plumped for
