`I've already said, I never spoke to him.’

`Funny, the phone company says differently.’

`Maybe they made a mistake.’

`I doubt that, Mr Summers.’

`Look, we've been through this before.’

Summers sat forward in his chair. `Maybe it was a wrong number. Maybe he spoke to one of my associates, and they told him he had a wrong number.’

He opened his arms. `This is going nowhere.’

`I agree with my client, Inspector,' Charles Groal said, scribbling something down. `I mean, is this leading anywhere?’

`It's leading, Mr Groal, to an identification of Mr Summers.’

`Where and by whom?’

`In a restaurant with Mr Lintz. The same Mr Lintz he claims never to have met, never to have spoken to.’

Rebus saw hesitation cross Pretty-Boy's face. Hesitation, rather than surprise. He made no immediate denial.

`An identification made by a member of staff at the restaurant,' Hogan continued. `Corroborated by another diner.’

Groal looked to his client, who wasn't saying anything, but the way he was staring at the table, Rebus wondered a smoking hole didn't start appearing in it.

`Well,' Groal went on, `this is fairly irregular, Inspector.’

Hogan wasn't interested in the lawyer. It was Pretty-Boy and him now.

`What about it, Mr Summers? Care to revise your version of events? What were you talking about with Mr Lintz? Was he looking for female company? I believe that's your particular area of expertise.’

`Inspector, I must insist…’

`Insist away, Mr Groal. It won't change the facts. I'm just wondering what Mr Summers will say in court when he's asked about the phone call, the meeting… when the witnesses identify him. I'm sure he's got a fund of stories, but he'll have to find a bloody good one.’

Summers slapped the desk with both palms, half-rose to his feet. There wasn't an ounce of fat on him. Veins stood out on the backs of his hands.

`I told you, I've never met him, never talked to him. Period, end of story, finito. And if you've got witnesses, they're lying. Maybe you've told them to lie. And that's all I've got to say.’

He sat back down, put his hands in his pockets.

`I've heard,' Rebus said, as though attempting to liven up a flagging conversation between friends, `that you run the more upmarket girls, the three-figure jobs rather than the gam-and-bam merchants.’

Summers snorted and shook his head.

`Inspector,' Groal said, `I can't allow these accusations to continue.’

`Was that what Lintz wanted? Did he have expensive tastes?’

Summers continued shaking his head. He seemed about to say something, but caught himself, laughed instead.

`I would like to remind you,' Groal went on, unheeded by anyone, `that my client has co-operated fully throughout this outrageous…’

Rebus caught Pretty-Boy's eyes, held their stare. There was so much he wasn't telling… so much he very nearly wanted to tell. Rebus thought of the length of rope in Lintz's house.

`He liked to tie them up, didn't he?’ Rebus asked quietly.

Groal stood up, yanking Summers to his feet.

`Brian?’ Rebus asked.

`Thank you, gentlemen,' Groal said. He was stuffing his notepad into his case, closing its brass locks. `If you should find yourselves with any questions worth my client's time, we'll be pleased to assist. But otherwise, I'd advise you to…’

`Brian?’

PC Preston had turned off the tape recorder and gone to open the door. Summers picked up his car keys, slipped his sunglasses on.

`Gentlemen,' he said, `it's been educational.’

`S amp;M,' Rebus persisted, getting in Pretty-Boy's face. `Did he tie them up?’

Pretty-Boy snorted, shook his head again. He paused as his lawyer led him past Rebus.

`It was for him,' he said in an undertone.

It was for him.

Rebus drove to the hospital. Sat with Sammy for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of meditation and head-clearing. Twenty reviving minutes, at the end of which he squeezed his daughter's hand.

`Thanks for that,' he said.

Back at the flat, he thought of ignoring the answering-machine until after he'd had a bath. His shoulders and back were aching from the drive to Inverness. But something made him press the button. Jack Morton's voice: `I'm on for a meeting with TT. Let's meet after. Half-ten at the Ox. I'll aim for that, but can't promise. Wish me luck.’

He walked in at eleven.

There was folk music in the back room. The front would have been quiet if it weren't for two loud-mouths who looked like they'd been at it since their office closed for the night. They still wore work-suits, newspapers rolled in their pockets. They were drinking G amp;T.

Rebus asked Jack Morton what he wanted.

`A pint of orange and lemonade.’

`So how did it go?’

Rebus ordered the drink. In forty minutes, he'd managed to put away two Cokes, and was now on coffee.

`They seem keen.’

`So who was at the meeting?’

`My sponsors from the shop, plus Telford and a couple of his men.’

`The transmitter worked okay?’

`Sound as a pound.’

`Did they search you?’

Morton shook his head. `They were sloppy, seemed really sweaty about something. Want to hear the plan?’

Rebus nodded. `Middle of the night, truck arrives at the factory, and I let it through the gates. My story is, I had a phone call from the boss okaying the delivery. So I wasn't suspicious.’

`Only your boss never made the call?’

`That's right. So I was duped by a voice. And that's all I need to tell the police.’

`We'd sweat the truth out of you.’

`Like I say, John, the whole plan's half-baked. I'll give them this though – they did check my background. Seemed satisfied.’

`Who's going to be in the truck?’

`Ten men, armed to the teeth. I'm to get a rough plan of the place to Telford tomorrow, let him know how many people will be around, what the alarm system's like…’

`What's in it for you?’

`Five grand. He's judged that right: five gets my debts repaid and puts a wedge in my pocket.’

Five grand: the amount Joseph Lintz had taken out of his bank…

`Your story's holding?’

`They've staked out my flat.’

`And they didn't follow you here?’

Morton shook his head, and Rebus filled him in on what he'd learned and what he suspected. While Morton was taking it in, Rebus threw a question at him.

`How does Claverhouse want to play it?’

`The tape evidence is good: Telford talking, me making sure I called him "Mr Telford" and "Tommy" a few times. It's obviously him on the recording. But… Claverhouse wants Telford's crew caught red-handed.’

‘"Got to do it right".’

`That seems to be his catch-phrase.’

`Is there a date?’

`Saturday, all being well.’

`What's the betting we get a tip-off on Friday?’

`If your theory's right.’

`If I'm right,' he agreed.