She was smiling as she ended the call. Picked up her glass and took a sip.

“I think I got the gist of that,” Rebus muttered.

“I’m to call him ‘Bobby.’ He says I’m a good officer.”

“Jesus…”

“And he’s invited me for a meal, once the case is finished.”

“He’s a married man.”

“He’s not.”

“Okay, his wife left him. He’s old enough to be your dad, though.” Rebus paused. “What did he say about me?”

“Nothing.”

“You laughed when he said it.”

“I was winding you up.”

Rebus glowered at her. “I buy the drinks and you do the winding up? Is that the basis of our relationship?”

“I offered to cook you a meal.”

“So you did.”

“Bobby knows a nice restaurant in Leith.”

“Wonder which kebab shop he’s meaning…”

She thumped his arm. “Go get us another round.”

“After what I’ve just been through?” Rebus shook his head. “Your shout.” He sat back in his chair, as if getting comfortable.

“If that’s the way you want to play it…” Siobhan got to her feet. She wanted a closer look at the woman anyway. But the blonde was leaving, tucking cigarettes and lighter into her shoulder bag, head dipped so that Siobhan could make out only part of her face.

“See you later!” the woman called.

“Aye, see you,” McAllister called back. He was wiping the bartop with a damp cloth. The smile slid from his face at Siobhan’s approach. “Same again, is it?” he asked.

She nodded. “Friend of yours?”

He’d turned away to measure out Rebus’s whiskey. “In a way.”

“I seem to know her from somewhere.”

“Oh, aye?” He placed the drink in front of her. “You want the half as well?”

She nodded. “And another lime juice and…”

“… and soda. I remember. Nothing in the whiskey, ice in the lime.” Another order was already coming from farther down the bar: two lagers and a rum and black. He rang up Siobhan’s drinks, was brisk with her change, and started on the lagers, making a show of being too busy for chitchat. Siobhan stood her ground a few moments longer, then decided it wasn’t worth it. She was halfway back to the table when she remembered. Brought up short, some of Rebus’s beer trickled down the side of the glass, dripping onto the scuffed wooden floor.

“Whoa there,” Rebus cautioned, watching from his chair. She got the drinks to the table and set them down. Went to the window and looked out, but there was no sign of the blonde.

“I know who she was,” she said.

“Who?”

“The woman who just left. You must have seen her.”

“Long blond hair, tight pink T-shirt, short leather jacket? Black ski pants and heels slightly too high for their own good?” Rebus took a sip of beer. “Can’t say I noticed.”

“But you didn’t recognize her?”

“Any reason I should?”

“Well, according to today’s front page, you only went and torched her boyfriend.” Siobhan sat back, holding her own glass in front of her, waiting for her words to sink in.

“Fairstone’s girlfriend?” Rebus said, eyes narrowing.

Siobhan nodded. “I only saw her the once, the day Fairstone walked free.”

Rebus was looking towards the bar. “You’re sure it was her?”

“Fairly sure. When I heard her speak… Yes, I’m positive. I saw her outside the court, when the trial finished.”

“Just that once?”

Siobhan nodded again. “I wasn’t the one who interviewed her about the alibi she gave her boyfriend, and she wasn’t in court when I gave my evidence.”

“What’s her name?”

Siobhan narrowed her eyes in concentration. “Rachel something.”

“Where does Rachel something live?”

Siobhan shrugged. “I’d guess not too far from her boyfriend.”

“Making this not exactly her local.”

“Not exactly.”

“Ten miles from her local, to be precise.”

“More or less.” Siobhan was still holding the glass; had yet to take her first sip.

“You had any more of those letters?”

She shook her head.

“Think she could be following you?”

“Not every minute of the day. I’d’ve spotted her.” Now Siobhan looked towards the bar, too. McAllister’s flurry of activity had ended and he was back to washing glasses. “Of course, it might not be me she came here to see…”

Rebus got Siobhan to drop him off at Allan Renshaw’s house. He told her she should go home; he’d take a taxi back into town or get a patrol car to pick him up.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be,” he’d said. Not an official visit, just family. She’d nodded, driven off. He’d rung the doorbell with no success. Peered through the window. The boxes of snapshots were still spread out across the living room. No sign of life. He tried the door handle, and it turned. The door was unlocked.

“Allan?” he called. “Kate?”

He closed the door behind him. There was a buzzing noise from upstairs. He called out again, but without answer. Cautiously, he climbed the stairs. There was a metal stepladder in the middle of the upstairs hall, leading up through an open hatch in the ceiling. Rebus took each rung slowly.

“Allan?”

There was a light on in the attic and the buzzing was louder. Rebus stuck his head through the hatch. His cousin was seated cross-legged on the floor, a control panel in his hand, mimicking the sound the toy racing car made as it sped around the figure-eight track.

“I always let him win,” Allan Renshaw said, giving the first sign that he was aware of Rebus’s appearance. “Derek, I mean. We got him this for Christmas one year…”

Rebus saw the open box, lengths of unused track spilling from it. Packing boxes had been emptied, suitcases opened. Rebus saw women’s dresses, children’s clothes, a stack of old 45s. He saw magazines with long-forgotten TV stars on the front. He saw plates and ornaments, peeled from their protective newsprint. Some might have been wedding gifts, dispatched to darkness by changing fashions. A folded stroller waited to be claimed by the generation to come. Rebus had reached the top of the ladder, and settled his weight against the edge of the hatch. Somehow, amidst the clutter, Allan Renshaw had negotiated room for the racetrack, his eyes following the red plastic car as it completed its endless circuits.

“Never saw the attraction myself,” Rebus commented. “Same with train sets.”

“Cars are different. You’ve got that illusion of speed… and you can race against everyone else. Plus…” Renshaw pushed his finger down harder on the accelerator button, “if you take a bend too fast and crash…” His car spun from the track. He reached out for it, slid its guiding front brush into the slot on the roadway. Pressed the button and sent it on its renewed journey. “You see?” he said, glancing towards Rebus.

“You can always start again?” Rebus guessed.

“Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s broken,” Renshaw said, nodding. “It’s as if nothing happened.”

“It’s an illusion then,” Rebus intimated.

“A comforting illusion,” his cousin agreed. He paused. “Did I have a race set when I was a kid? I don’t remember…”

Rebus shrugged. “I know I didn’t. If they were around, they were probably too expensive.”

“The money we spend on our kids, eh, John?” Renshaw produced the glimmer of a smile. “Always wanting the best for them, never begrudging anything.”

“Must’ve been expensive, putting your two through Port Edgar.”

“Wasn’t cheap. You’ve just got the one, is that right?”

“She’s all grown now, Allan.”

“Kate’s growing, too… moving on to another life.”

“She’s got a head on her shoulders.” Rebus watched as the car tripped from the track again. It ended up near him, so he reached forwards to replace it. “That crash Derek was in,” he said. “It wasn’t his fault, was it?”

Renshaw shook his head. “Stuart was a wild one. We’re lucky Derek was all right.” He set the car moving again. Rebus had noticed a blue car in the box, and a spare controller sitting by his cousin’s left shoe.