Rebus smiled, shook his head and ordered his drink. ‘Do you want another, or does that count as a chat-up line?’

‘It does and I will.’ She saw him looking at her cigarette. ‘Sobranie.’

‘Does the black paper make them taste any better?’

‘The tobacco makes them taste better.’

Rebus got out his own pack. ‘I’m a wood-shavings man myself.’

‘So I see.’

The drinks arrived. Rebus signed the chit to charge them to his room.

‘Are you here on business?’ Her voice was deep, west coast or thereabouts, working-class educated.

‘Sort of. What about you?’

‘Business. So what do you do?’

World’s worst reply to a chat-up: ‘I’m a police officer.’

She raised one eyebrow, interested. ‘CID?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you working on the Johnny Bible case?’

‘No.’

‘The way the papers tell it, I thought every policeman in Scotland was.’

‘I’m the exception.’

‘I remember Bible John,’ she said, sucking on the cigarette. ‘I was brought up in Glasgow. For weeks my mum wouldn’t let me out of the house. It was like being in the clink.’

‘He did that to a lot of women.’

‘And now it’s all happening again.’ She paused. ‘When I said I remembered Bible John, your line should have been, “You don’t look old enough”.’

‘Which proves I’m not chatting you up.’

She stared at him. ‘Pity,’ she said, reaching for her drink. Rebus used his own glass as a prop, too, buying time. She’d given him all the information he needed. He had to decide whether to act on it or not. Ask her up to his room? Or plead … what exactly? Guilt? Fear? Self-loathing?

Fear.

He saw the way the night could go, trying to extract beauty from need, passion from a certain despair.

‘I’m flattered,’ he said at last.

‘Don’t be,’ she said quickly. His move again, an amateur chess player thrown against a pro.

‘So what do you do?’

She turned to him. Her eyes said that she knew every tactic in this game. ‘I’m in sales. Products for the oil industry.’ She angled her head towards the rest of the men in the bar. ‘I may have to work with them, but nobody says I have to share my time off with them.’

‘You live in Aberdeen?’

She shook her head. ‘Let me get you another.’

‘I’ve an early start tomorrow.’

‘One more won’t hurt.’

‘It might,’ Rebus said, holding her gaze.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘bang goes the perfect end to a perfectly shitty day.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

He felt her eyes on him as he walked out of the bar towards reception. He had to force his feet up the stairs towards his room. Her pull was strong. He realised he didn’t even know her name.

He switched on the TV while he got undressed. Some sub-Hollywood garbage: the women looked like skeletons with lipstick; the men acted with their necks – he’d seen barbers with more Method. He thought of the woman again. Was she on the game? Definitely not. But she’d hit on him quick. He’d told her he was flattered; in truth, he was bemused. Rebus had always found relationships with the opposite sex difficult. He’d grown up in a mining village, a bit behind the times when it came to things like promiscuity. You stuck your hand in a girl’s blouse and next thing her father was after you with a leather belt.