`Do you approve?'
She thought this question over, too. `Not entirely. Probably not at all, in fact. Genetic inheritance and all that. I'm not sure.' She lifted out another book, and shrieked. `Skinner! The beast of behaviourism! But what made you —?'
He shrugged. `I just recognised some names from those books you loaned me, so I thought I'd—'
Another book was lifted high for him to see. King Ludd. `Have you read the first two?' she asked.
`Oh,' he said, disappointed, `is it part of a trilogy? I just liked the title.'
She turned and gave him a quizzical look, then laughed. Rebus could feel himself going red at the neck. She was making a fool of him, He turned away from her and concentrated on the pattern of the rug, brushing the rough fibres with his hand.
`Oh dear,' she said, starting to crawl back. `I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I'm sorry.' And she placed a hand on either of his legs, kneeling in front of him, angling her head until his eyes were forced to meet hers. She was smiling apologetically. `Sorry,' she mouthed. He managed a smile which said: `that's okay'. She leaned across him and placed her lips on his, one of her hands sliding up his leg towards the thigh, and then a little higher still.
It was evening before he escaped, though `escape' was perhaps putting it too harshly. The effort of easing, himself from beneath Lisa's sleeping limbs was almost too much. Her body perfume, the sweet smell of her hair, the flawless warmth of her belly, her arms, her behind. She did not waken as he slid from the bed and tugged on his clothes. She did not waken as he wrote her another of his notes, picked up his carrier-bag of books, opened the door, cast a glance back towards the bed and then pulled the door, shut after him.
He went to Covent Garden tube station, where he was offered a choice: the queue for the elevator, or the three hundred-odd spiralling stairs. He opted for the stairs. They seemed to go on forever, turning and turning in their gyre. His head became light as he thought of what it must have been like to descend this corkscrew during the war years. White tiled walls like those of public lavatories, Rumble from above. The dull echo of footsteps and voices.
He thought, too, of Edinburgh's Scott Monument, with its own tightly winding stairwell, much more constricted and unnerving than this. And then he was at the bottom, beating the elevator by a matter of seconds. The tube train was as crowded as he had come to expect. Next to a sign proclaiming `Keep your personal stereo personal', a white youth wearing a green parka with matching teeth shared his musical taste with the rest of the carriage. His eyes had a distant, utterly vacant look and from time to time he swigged from a can of strong lager. Rebus toyed with the notion of saying something, but held back. He was only travelling one stop. If the glowering passengers were content to suffer silently, that was how it should be.
He prised himself out of the train at Holborn, only to squeeze into another compartment, this time on the Central Line. Again, someone was playing a Walkman at some dizzying level, but they were somewhere over towards the far end of the carriage, so all Rebus had to suffer was the Schhch-schch-schch of what he took to be drums. He was becoming a seasoned traveller now, setting his eyes so that they focused on space rather than on his fellow passengers, letting his mind empty for the duration of the journey.
God alone knew how these people could do it every day of their working lives.
He had already rung the doorbell before it struck him that he did not have a pretext for coming here. Think quickly, John.
The door was pulled open. `Oh, it's you.' She sounded disappointed.
`Hello, Rhona.'
`To what do we owe the honour?' She was standing her ground, just inside the front door, keeping him on the doorstep. She was wearing a hint of make-up and her clothes were not after work, work, relaxing-at-home clothes. She was going out somewhere. She was waiting for a gentleman.
`Nothing special,' he said. `Just thought I'd pop round. We didn't get much of a chance to talk the other night.' Would he mention that he had seen her in the British Museum? No, he would not.
Besides, she was shaking her head. `Yes we did, it was just that we had nothing to talk about'.' Her voice wasn't bitter; she was simply stating a fact. Rebus looked at the doorstep.
`I've caught you at a bad time,' he said. `Sorry.'
`No need to apologise.'
'Is Sammy in?'
`She's out with Kenny.'
Rebus nodded. `Well,' he said, `enjoy wherever it is you're' going.' My God, he actually felt jealous. He couldn't believe it of himself after all these years. It was the make-up that did it. Rhona had seldom worn make-up. He half turned to leave, then stopped. `I couldn't use your loo, could I?'
She stared at him, seeking some trick or plan, but he smiled back with his best impersonation of a crippled dog and she relented.
`Go on then,' she said. `You know where it is.'
He left his carrier at the door, squeezed past her and began to climb the steep stairs. `Thanks, Rhona,' he said.
She was lingering downstairs, waiting to let him out again. He walked across the landing to the bathroom, opened and closed the door loudly, then opened it again very quietly and crept back across the landing to where the telephone sat on a small and quite grotesque confection of brass, green glass and red hanging tassels. There were London phone books piled beneath this table, but Rebus went straight to the smaller `Telephone & Addresses' book on the top of the table. Some of the entries were in Rhona's writing. Who, he wondered, were Tony, Tim, Ben and Graeme? But most were in Sammy's grander, more confident script. He flipped to the K section and. found what he wanted.
`KENNY', printed in capitals with a seven figure number scribbled below the name, the whole enclosed by a loving ellipse. Rebus took pen and notepad from his pocket and copied down the number, then closed the book and tiptoed back to the bathroom, where he flushed the toilet, gave his hands a quick rinse and boldly started downstairs again. Rhona was looking along the street, no doubt anxious that her beau should not arrive and find him here.
