A woman: young, drunk, hair falling into her eyes. She stopped and studied the two people on the floor, then smiled and headed for a cubicle.

‘Save some for me,’ she said, sliding the lock.

‘Go, John.’

There was powder at the corners of Candice’s mouth. A tiny piece of tablet had lodged between her front two teeth. ‘Please, go now.’

‘I don’t want you getting hurt.’

He sought her hands, squeezed them.

‘I do not hurt any more.’

She got to her feet and turned from him. Checked her face in the mirror, wiped away the powder and dabbed at her mascara. Blew her nose and took a deep breath.

Walked out of the toilets.

Rebus waited a moment, time enough for her to reach the table. Then he opened the door and made his exit. Walked back to his car on legs that seemed to belong to someone else.

Drove home, not quite crying.

But not quite not.

25

Four in the morning, the blessed telephone pulled him out of a nightmare.

Prison-camp prostitutes with teeth filed to points were kneeling in front of him. Jake Tarawicz, in full SS regalia, held him from behind, telling him resistance was useless. Through the barred window, Rebus could see black berets - the maquis, busy freeing the camp but leaving his billet till last. Alarm bells ringing, everything telling him that salvation was at hand ...

... alarm becoming his telephone ... he staggered from his chair, picked it up.

‘Yes.’

‘John?’

The Chief Super’s voice: Aberdonian, instantly recognisable.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘We’ve got a spot of bother. Get down here.’

‘What kind of bother?’

‘I’ll tell you when you get here. Now shift.’

Night shift, to be precise. The city asleep. St Leonard’s was lit up, the tenements around it dark. No sign of the Farmer’s ‘spot of bother’. The Chief Super’s office: the Farmer in conference with Gill Tempter.

‘Sit down, John. Coffee?’

‘No, thanks, sir.’

While Tempter and the Chief Super were deciding who should speak, Rebus helped them out.

‘Tommy Telford’s businesses have been hit.’

Tempter blinked. ‘Telepathy?’

‘Cafferty’s offices and taxis got firebombed. So did his house.’

Rebus shrugged. ‘We knew there’d be payback.’

‘Did we?’

What could he say? I did, because Cafferty told me. He didn’t think they’d like that. ‘I just put two and two together.’

The Farmer poured himself a mug of coffee. ‘So now we’ve got open war.’

‘What got hit?’

‘The arcade on Flint Street,’ Templer said. ‘Not too much damage: the place has a sprinkler system.’

She smiled: an amusement arcade with a sprinkler system ... not that Telford was careful or anything.

‘Plus a couple of nightclubs,’ the Farmer added. ‘And a casino.’

‘Which one?’

The Chief Super looked to Tempter, who answered: ‘The Morvena’.

‘Any injuries?’

‘The manager and a couple of friends: concussion and bruising.’

‘Which they got . . . ?’

‘Falling over each other as they ran down the stairs.’

Rebus nodded. ‘Funny how some people have trouble with stairs.’