‘You want to stay the night?’

‘I want you to ask me to.’

‘It’s only a mattress on the floor.’

She laughed, squeezed his hand. ‘Are you doing this on purpose?’

‘What?’

‘Trying to put me off.’

‘No, it’s just …’ He shrugged. ‘I just don’t want you—’

She interrupted him with a kiss. ‘I won’t be,’ she said.

He ran a hand up her arm, let it rest on her shoulder. ‘Still want that drink first?’

‘I think so. How far is it?’

‘Just up the Bridges. Pub’s called the Royal Oak.’

‘Then lead me to it.’

They walked hand in hand, Rebus trying his best not to feel awkward. Still he found himself scanning faces they passed, looking for ones he recognised: colleagues or ex-cons, he couldn’t have said which he’d like to meet the least.

‘Do you ever relax?’ Jean asked at one point.

‘I thought I was doing a pretty good imitation.’

‘I felt it at the concert, bits of you were elsewhere.’

‘Comes with the job.’

‘I don’t think so. Gill manages to switch off. I’d guess most of the rest of CID do too.’

‘Maybe not as much as you think.’ He thought of Siobhan, imagined her sitting at home, staring into the laptop … and Ellen Wylie festering somewhere … and Grant Hood, his bed strewn with paperwork, memorising names and faces. And the Farmer, what would he be doing? Running a cloth slowly over surfaces already clean? There were some – Hi-Ho Silvers; Joe Dickie – who barely switched on when they went to work, never mind switched off at day’s end. Others like Bill Pryde and Bobby Hogan worked hard, but left the job in the office, managed the magic of separating their personal lives from their careers.

Then there was Rebus himself, who for so long had put the job first … because it saved him having to face some home truths.

Jean broke his reverie with a question. ‘Is there a twenty-four-hour shop somewhere on the route?’

‘More than one. Why?’

‘Breakfast: something tells me your fridge won’t exactly be an Aladdin’s Cave.’