‘Here we are,’ he said on his return. ‘The barman’s slow tonight, sorry.’

Chris Kemp accepted the drink with a thin smile. ‘I’ve just been telling Patience . . .’

Oh God, Rebus thought as he sat down. She looks like a bucketful of ice. I shouldn’t have brought her. But if I’d said I was popping out for the evening on my own . . . well, she’d have been the same. Get this over and done with, maybe the night can be rescued.

‘So, Chris,’ he said, interrupting the young man, ‘what’s the dirt on Gregor Jack?’

Chris Kemp seemed to think there was plenty, and the introduction of Gregor Jack into the conversation perked Patience up a bit, so that she forgot for a time that she wasn’t enjoying herself.

Rebus was interested mostly in Elizabeth Jack, but Kemp started with the MP himself, and what he had to say was interesting. Here was a different Jack, different from the public image, the received opinion, but different too from Rebus’s own ideas having met with the man. He would not, for example, have taken Jack for a drinker.

‘Terrible one for the whisky,’ Kemp was saying. ‘Probably more than half a bottle a day, more when he’s in London by all accounts.’

‘He never looks drunk.’

‘That’s because he doesn’t get drunk. But he drinks all the same.’

‘What else?’

There was more, plenty more. ‘He’s a smooth operator, but cunning. Deep down cunning. I wouldn’t trust him further than I can spit. I know someone who knew him at university. Says Gregor Jack never did anything in his life that wasn’t premeditated. And that goes for capturing Mrs Gregor Jack.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Story is, they met at university, at a party. Gregor had seen her around before, but hadn’t paid much attention. Once he knew she was rich though, that was another matter. He went at it full throttle, charmed the pants off her.’ He turned to Patience. ‘Sorry, poor choice of words.’

Patience, on her second g and t, merely bowed her head a little.

‘He’s calculating, you see. Remember, he was trained as an accountant, and he’s got an accountant’s mind all right. What are you having?’

But Rebus was rising. ‘No, Chris, let me get them.’

But Kemp wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Don’t think I’m telling you all this for the price of a couple of beers, Inspector . . .’

And when the drinks had been bought and brought to the table, it was this train of thought which seemed to occupy Kemp.

‘Why do you want to know anyway?’

Rebus shrugged.

‘Is there a story?’

‘Could be. Early days.’

They were talking now as professionals: the meaning was all in what was left unsaid.

‘But there might be a story?’

‘If there is, Chris, as far as I’m concerned it’s yours.’

Kemp gulped at his beer. ‘I was out there all day, you know. And all we got was a statement. Plain and simple. No further comment to make, et cetera. The story ties in with Jack?’