`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.'
Flight was nodding. `I'll do it myself,' he said. `Have you seen him yet?'
`I went this morning.'
`And?'
`And I was just in time. But I reckon he'll be all right.'
Flight studied the face next to him. `I think I believe you,' he said.
`Just one thing.'
`Yes?'
`Kenny told me one of your men is involved. The baby faced redneck.'
`Lamb?'
`That's the one. He's on Tommy Watkiss's payroll, according to Kenny.'
Flight pursed his lips' and was silent for a moment. `I think I believe that, too,' he said at last, very quietly. `Don't worry, John. I'll deal with it.'
Rebus said nothing. He was still staring out at the windows of Rhona's flat, willing Sammy to come to one of them and see him. No, not see him, just so that he might see her. But there was no one at home. The ladies were out for the day with Tim or Tony or Graeme or Ben.
