Rebus shifted his weight a little. ‘Did Beggar say anything else, Mack? Anything about where he was headed or why he was here?’

Macmillan shook his head. Then he sniggered. ‘Headed, did you say? Headed?’ He chuckled to himself for a few moments, then stopped as abruptly as he’d started. ‘He just wanted to let me know we were friends.’ He laughed quietly. ‘As if I needed reminding. And one other thing. Guess what he wanted to know? Guess what he asked? After all these years . . .’

‘What?’

‘He wanted to know what I’d done with her head.’

Rebus swallowed. Forster was licking his lips. ‘And what did you tell him, Mack?’

‘I told him the truth. I told him I couldn’t remember.’ He brought the palms of his hands together as if in prayer and touched the fingertips to his lips. Then he closed his eyes. The eyes were still closed when he spoke. ‘Is it true about Suey?’

‘What about him, Mack?’

‘That he’s emigrated, that he might not be coming back?’

‘Is that what Beggar told you?’

Macmillan nodded, opening his eyes to gaze at Rebus. ‘He said Suey might not be coming back . . .’

The nurses had taken Macmillan back to his ward, and Forster was putting on his coat, getting ready to lock up and see Rebus out to the car park, when the telephone rang.

‘At this time of night?’

‘It might be for me,’ said Rebus. He picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?’

It was DS Knox from Dufftown. ‘Inspector Rebus? I did as you said and had someone stake out Deer Lodge.’

‘And?’

‘A white Saab drove in through the gateway not ten minutes ago.’

There were two cars parked by the side of the road. One of them was blocking the entrance to Deer Lodge’s long driveway. Rebus got out of his own car. DS Knox introduced him to Detective Constable Wright and Constable Moffat.

‘We’ve already met,’ Rebus said, shaking Moffat’s hand.

‘Oh yes,’ said Knox. ‘How could I forget, you’ve been keeping us so busy? So, what do you think, sir?’

Rebus thought it was cold. Cold and wet. It wasn’t raining now, but any minute it might be on again. ‘You’ve called for reinforcements?’

Knox nodded. ‘As many as can be mustered.’

‘Well, we could wait it out till they arrive.’

‘Yes?’

Rebus was sizing Knox up. He didn’t seem the kind of man who enjoyed waiting. ‘Or,’ he said, ‘we could go in, three of us, one standing guard on the gate. After all, he’s either got a corpse or a hostage in there. If Steele’s alive, the sooner we go in, the better chance he’s got.’

‘So what are we waiting for?’

Rebus looked to DC Wright and Constable Moffat, who nodded approval of the plan.

‘It’s a long walk up to the house, mind,’ Knox was saying.

‘But if we take a car, he’s bound to hear it.’

‘We can take one up so far and walk the rest,’ suggested Moffat. ‘That way the exit road’s good and blocked. I wouldn’t fancy wandering up that bloody road in the dark only to have him come racing towards me in that car of his.’