Siobhan grinned. ‘It was pretty bloody corny, wasn’t it?’ She looked around. ‘Where are you going to go when you sell this place?’

‘Got a spare room, have you?’

‘Depends for how long.’

‘I’m just joking, Siobhan. I’ll be fine.’ He took a gulp of tea. ‘So what exactly does bring you here?’

‘You mean apart from checking up on you?’

‘I’m guessing that wasn’t all.’

She reached down to place her mug on the floor. ‘I got another message.’

‘Quizmaster?’ She nodded. ‘Saying what exactly?’

She unfolded some sheets from her pocket, reached over towards him with them. Their fingers touched as he took them. The first was an e-mail from Siobhan:

Still awaiting Stricture.

‘I sent that first thing this morning,’ she said. ‘Thought maybe he wouldn’t have heard.’

Rebus turned to the second sheet. It was from Quizmaster.

I’m disappointed in you, Siobhan. I’m taking my ball home now.

Then Siobhan:

Don’t believe everything you read. I still want to play.

Quizmaster:

And go yapping to your bosses?

Siobhan:

You and me this time, that’s a promise.

Quizmaster:

How can I trust you?

Siobhan:

I’ve been trusting you, haven’t I? And you always know where to find me. I still don’t have the first clue about you.

‘I had to wait a while after that. The final sheet came in about’ – she checked her watch – ‘forty minutes ago.’

‘And you came straight here?’

She shrugged. ‘More or less.’

‘You didn’t show it to Brains?’

‘He’s off on some errand for Crime Squad.’

‘Anyone else?’ She shook her head. ‘Why me?’

‘Now that I’m here,’ she said, ‘I don’t really know.’

‘Grant’s the one with the puzzle mind.’

‘Right now he’s too busy puzzling over how to keep his job.’

Rebus nodded slowly and re-read the final sheet:

Add Camus to ME Smith, they’re boxing where the sun don’t shine, and Frank Finlay’s the referee.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘you’ve shown me it …’ He made to hand the sheets back. ‘And it doesn’t mean a thing to me.’

‘No?’

He shook his head. ‘Frank Finlay was an actor – might still be, for all I know. I think he played Casanova on TV, and he was in something called Barbed Wire and Bouquets … something like that.’

‘Bouquet of Barbed Wire?’

‘Could have been.’ He glanced at the clue a final time. ‘Camus was a French writer. I used to think it was pronounced “came as” until I heard it mentioned on the radio or the box.’

‘Boxing – that’s something you know about.’

‘Marciano, Dempsey, Cassius Clay before he became Ali …’ He shrugged.

‘Where the sun don’t shine,’ Siobhan said. ‘That’s an American expression, isn’t it?’

‘It means out your arse,’ Rebus confirmed. ‘You think suddenly Quizmaster’s American?’

She smiled, but there was no humour to it.