'Nice neighbours?'

Pond shrugged. 'Hardly ever seen them. The place next door is a holiday home, too. Half the houses in the village are.' He shrugged again.

'What about Mrs Heggarty?'

'Lives the other side of the main drag.'

'So whoever's been living here…?'

'They could have come and gone without anyone noticing, no doubt about that.'

Pond left his headlights on while he opened the front door of the house. Suddenly, hallway and porch were illuminated. Rebus, freed from the cage, was stretching and trying to stop his knees from folding in on him.

'Is that the stone?'

'That's the one,' Pond said. It was a huge pebble-shaped piece of pinkish rock. He lifted it, showing that the spare key was still there. 'Nice of them to leave it when they went. Come on, I'll show you around.'

'Just a second. Mr Pond. Could you try not to touch anything? We might want to check for fingerprints later on.'

Pond smiled. 'Sure, but my prints'll be everywhere anyway.'

'Of course, but all the same…'

'Besides, if Mrs Heggarty's tidied up after our "guests", the place'll be polished and tidied from ceiling to floor.'

Rebus's heart sank as he followed Pond into the cottage. There was certainly a smell of furniture polish, mingling with air-freshener. In the living room, not a cushion or an executive toy looked to be out of place.

'Looks the same as when I left it,' Pond said.

'You're sure?'

'Pretty sure. I'm not like Liz and her crew, Inspector. I don't go in for parties. I don't mind other people's, but the last thing I want to have to do is clean salmon mousse off the ceiling or explain to the village that the woman with her arse hanging out of a Bentley back window is actually an Hon.'

'You wouldn't be thinking of the Hon. Matilda Merriman?'

'The same. Christ, you know them all, don't you?'

'I've yet to meet the Hon. Matilda actually.'

'Take my advice: defer the moment. Life's too short.'

And the hours too long, thought Rebus. Today's hours had certainly been way too long. The kitchen was neat. Glasses sat sparkling on the draining board.

'Shouldn't think you'll get many prints off them, Inspector.'

'Mrs Heggarty's very thorough, isn't she?'

'Not always so thorough upstairs. Come on, let's see.'

Well, someone had been thorough. The beds in both bedrooms had been made. There were no cups or glasses on display, no newspapers or magazines or unfinished books. Pond made show of sniffing the air.

'No,' he said, 'it's no good, I can't even smell her perfume.'

'Whose?'

'Liz's. She always wore the same brand, I forget what it was. She always smelt beautiful. Beautiful. Do you think she was here?'

'Someone was here. And we think she was in this area.'

'But who was she with – that's what you're wondering?'

Rebus nodded.

'Well, it wasn't me, more's the pity. I was having to make do with call girls. And get this – they want to check your medical certificate before they start.'

'AIDS?'

'AIDS. Okay, finished up here? Beginning to look like a wasted journey, isn't it?'

'Maybe. There's still the bathroom…'

Pond pushed open the bathroom door and ushered Rebus inside. 'Ah-ha,' he said, 'looks like Mrs Heggarty was running out of time.' He nodded towards where a towel lay in a heap on the floor. 'Usually, that would go straight in the laundry.' The shower curtain had been pulled across the bath. Rebus drew it back. The bath was drained, but one or two long ' hairs were sticking to the enamel. Rebus was thinking: We can check those. A hair's enough for an ID. Then he noticed the two glasses, sitting together on a corner of the bath. He leaned over and sniffed. White wine. Just a trickle of it left in one glass.

Two glasses! For two people. Two people in the bath and enjoying a drink. 'Your telephone's downstairs, isn't it?'

'That's right.'

'Come on then. This room's out of bounds until further notice. And I'm about to become a forensic scientist's nightmare.'

Sure enough, the person Rebus ended up speaking to on the telephone did not sound pleased.

'We've been working our bums off on that car and that other cottage.'

'I appreciate that, but this could be just as important. It could be more important.' Rebus was standing in the small dining room. He couldn't quite tie up these furnishings to Pond's personality. But then he saw a framed photograph of a couple young and in love, captured some time in the 1950s. Then he understood: Pond's parents. The furniture here had once belonged to them. Pond had probably inherited it but decided it didn't go with his fast women/slow horses lifestyle. Perfect, though, for filling the spaces in his holiday home.

Pond himself, who had been sitting on a dining chair, rose to his feet. Rebus placed a hand over the receiver.

'Where are you going?'

'For a pee. Don't panic, I'll go out the back.'

'Just don't go upstairs, okay?'

'Fine.'

The voice on the telephone was still complaining. Rebus shivered. He was cold. No, he was tired. Body temperature dropping. 'Look,' he said, 'bugger off back to bed then, but be here first thing in the morning. I'll give you the address. And I mean first thing. All right?'

'You're a generous man, Inspector.'

'They'll put it on my gravestone: he gave.'

Pond slept, with Rebus's envious blessing, in the master bedroom, while Rebus himself kept vigil outside the bathroom door. Once bitten… He didn't want a repetition of the Deer Lodge 'break-in'. This evidence, if evidence it was, would stay intact. So he sat in the upstairs hallway, his back against the bathroom door, a blanket wrapped around him, and dozed. Then he slid down the door, so that he was lying in front of it on the carpet, curled into a foetus. He dreamed that he was drunk… that he was being driven around in a Bentley. The chauffeur was managing to drive and at the same time stick his backside out of the window. There was a party in the back of the Bentley. Holmes and Nell were there, copulating discreetly and hoping for a boy. Gill Templer was there, and attempting to undo Rebus's zip, but he didn't want Patience to catch them… Lauderdale seemed to be there, too. Watching, just watching. Someone opened the drinks cabinet, but it was full of books. Rebus picked one out and started to read it. It was the best book he'd ever read. He couldn't put it down. It had everything…

In the morning, when he awoke, stiff and cold, he couldn't recall a line or a word of the book. He rose and stretched, twisting himself back into human shape. Then he opened the bathroom door and stepped inside, and looked towards where the glasses should be.

The glasses were still there. Rebus, despite his aches, almost smiled.

He stood in the shower for a long time, letting the water trampoline on his head, his chest and his shoulders. Where was he? He was in the Oxford Terrace flat. He should be at work by now, but that could be explained away. He felt rough, but not as rough as he'd feared. Amazingly, he'd been able to sleep on the journey back, a journey taken at a more sedate pace than that of the previous night.

'Clutch trouble,' Pond had said, only twenty miles out of Kingussie. He'd pulled into the side of the road and had a look under the bonnet. There was a lot of engine under the bonnet. 'I wouldn't know where to start looking,' he'd admitted. The trouble with these fancy cars was that capable mechanics were few and far between. In fact, he had to take the car to London for every service. So they'd ambled, an early-morning amble, having left the cottage under the stewardship of a bemused Detective Sergeant Knox and two overworked forensics people.

And Rebus had slept. Not enough, admittedly, which was why he'd resisted the temptation to run a bath and had opted for the shower instead. Difficult to nod off in a shower; all too easy in a hot morning bath. And he had chosen Patience's flat over his own – an easy choice, since Oxford Terrace was the right side of Edinburgh after the drive. They'd had a hellish crossing of the Forth Bridge: commuter traffic crawling citywards. Sales reps in Astras gave the Italian car the once-over, and comforted themselves with the thought that its crew looked like crooks of some kind, pimps or moneylenders…