‘Remember, the old man got himself wounded in Malaya?’ Mickey said.

‘No, he didn’t.’

‘He showed us the wound. It was in his knee.’

Rebus was shaking his head. ‘Uncle Jimmy told me it was a cut Dad got playing football. He kept picking the scab off, ended with a scar.’

‘He told us it was a war wound.’

‘He was fibbing.’

Mickey had started on the other box. ‘Here, look at these ...’

Handing over an inch-thick collection of postcards and photographs, secured with an elastic band. Rebus pulled the band off, turned the cards over, saw his own writing. The photos were of him, too: posed snaps, badly taken.

‘Where did you get these?’

‘You always used to send me a card or a photo, don’t you remember?’

They were all from Rebus’s own Army days. ‘I’d forgotten,’ he said.

‘Once a fortnight, usually. A letter to Dad, a card for me.’

Rebus sat back in his chair and started to go through them. Judging by the postmarks, they were in chronological sequence. Training, then service in Germany and Ulster, more exercises in Cyprus, Malta, Finland, and the desert of Saudi Arabia. The tone of each postcard was breezy, so that Rebus failed to recognise his own voice. The cards from Belfast consisted of almost nothing but jokes, yet Rebus remembered that as one of the most nightmarish periods of his life.

‘I used to love getting them,’ Mickey said, smiling. ‘I’ll tell you, you almost had me joining up.’

Rebus was still thinking of Belfast: the closed barracks, the whole compound a fortress. After a shift out on the streets, there was no way to let off steam. Booze, gambling and fights - all taking place within the same four walls. All culminating in the Mean Machine ... And here were these postcards, here was the image of Rebus’s past life that Mickey had lived with these past twenty-odd years.

And it was all a lie.

Or was it? Where did the reality lie, other than in Rebus’s own head? The postcards were fake documents, but they were also the only ones in existence. There was nothing to contradict them, nothing except Rebus’s word. It was the same with the Rat Line, the same with Joseph Lintz’s story. Rebus looked at his brother and knew he could break the spell right now. All he had to do was tell him the truth.

‘What’s the matter?’ Mickey asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘Ready for that beer yet? The food’ll be here any second.’

Rebus stared at the cooling mug of coffee. ‘More than ready,’ he said, putting the rubber band back around his past. ‘But I’ll stick to this.’

He lifted the mug, toasted his brother.

10

Next morning, Rebus went to St Leonard’s, telephoned the NCIS centre at Prestwick and asked if they had anything connecting British criminals to European prostitution. His reasoning: someone had brought Candice - she was still Candice to him - from Amsterdam to Britain, and he didn’t think it was Telford. Whoever it was, Rebus would get to them somehow. He wanted to show Candice her chains could be broken.