‘Bloody awful meal it was, too,’ Gates was saying, as though he’d have preferred to lose Conor Leary after a veritable feast. Rebus didn’t doubt Conor would have felt the same.

Outside, Dr Curt was one of the smokers. Rebus joined him.

‘I tried phoning you,’ Curt said, ‘but you were already on your way.’

‘Professor Devlin caught me.’

‘He said as much. I think he sensed some bond between you and Conor.’ Rebus just nodded slowly. ‘He’d been pretty ill, you know,’ Curt continued, in that dry voice that always sounded like dictation. ‘After you’d left us this evening, he talked about you.’

Rebus cleared his throat. ‘What did he say?’

‘He said he sometimes thought of you as a penance.’ Curt flicked ash into the air. A flash of blue lit his face for a moment. ‘He was laughing as he said it.’

‘He was a friend,’ Rebus said. Inwardly he added, and I let him go. So many friendships he’d pushed away, preferring his own company, the chair by the window in the darkened room. He pretended sometimes that he was doing them all a favour. People he’d let get close to him in the past, they had a habit of getting hurt, sometimes even killed. But it wasn’t that. It wasn’t that. He wondered about Jean, and where it might be leading. Was he ready to share himself with someone else? Ready to let her into his secrets, his darkness? He still wasn’t sure. Those conversations with Conor Leary, they’d been like confessionals. He’d probably revealed more of himself to the priest than to anyone before him: wife, daughter, lovers. And now he was gone … up to heaven maybe, though he’d cause havoc there, no doubt about it. He’d be in dispute with the angels, looking for Guinness and a good argument.

‘You okay, John?’ Curt reached out a hand and touched his shoulder.

Rebus shook his head slowly, eyes squeezed shut. Curt didn’t make it out the first time, so Rebus had to repeat what he said next:

‘I don’t believe in heaven.’

That was the horror of it. This life was the only one you got. No redemption afterwards, no chance of wiping the slate clean and starting over.

‘It’s all right,’ Curt was saying, clearly unused to the role of comforter, the hand which touched Rebus’s arm more used to easing human organs from a gaping wound. ‘You’ll be all right.’

‘Will I?’ Rebus said. ‘Then there’s no justice in the world.’

‘You’d know more about that than I would.’

‘Oh, I know all right.’ Rebus took a deep breath, let it out. There was sweat beneath his shirt, the night air chilling him. ‘I’ll be okay,’ he said quietly.