The Hanging Garden

`Come in, please,' Mrs Petrec said. `My husband is in the kitchen.’

They sat around the kitchen table. Mr Petrec was heavily built, with a thick brown moustache and wavy brown and silver hair. A pot of tea was produced, and Mrs Petrec drew her chair beside Candice's and began talking again.

`She's explaining to the girl,' Mr Petrec said.

Rebus nodded, sipped the strong tea, listened to a conversation he could not understand. Candice, cautious at first, grew more animated as she told her story, and Mrs Petrec was a skilled listener, sympathising, showing shared horror and exasperation.

`She was taken to Amsterdam, told there would be a job there for her,' Mr Petrec explained. `I know this has happened to other young women.’

`I think she left a child behind.’

`A son, yes. She's telling my wife about him.’

`What about you?’ Rebus asked. `How did you end up here?’

`I was an architect in Sarajevo. No easy decision, leaving your whole life behind.’

He paused. `We went to Belgrade first. A refugee bus brought us to Scotland.’

He shrugged. `That was nearly five years ago. Now I am a house painter.’

A smile. `Distance no object.’

Rebus looked at Candice, who had started crying, Mrs Petrec comforting her.

`We will look after her,' Mrs Petrec said, staring at her husband.

Later, at the door, Rebus tried to give them some money, but they wouldn't take it.

`Is it all right if I come and see her sometime?’

`But of course.’

He stood in front of Candice.

`Her real name is Dunya,' Mrs Petrec said quietly.

`Dunya.’

Rebus tried out the word. She smiled, her eyes softer than Rebus remembered them, as if some transformation. were begi

`Kiss the girl,' she said.

A peck on both cheeks. Her eyes filling with tears again. Rebus nodded, to let her know he understood everything.

At his car, he waved once, and she blew him another kiss. Then he drove around the corner and stopped, gripping the steering-wheel herd. He wondered if she'd cope. If she'd learn to forget. He thought again of his ex-wife's words. What would she think of him now? Had he exploited Dunya? No, but he wondered if that was only because she hadn't been able to give him anything on Telford. He felt he had somehow failed to do the right thing. So far, the only choice she'd had to make was when she'd waited for him by his car rather than going back to Telford. Before then and after, all the decisions had been taken for her. In a sense, she was still as trapped as ever, because the locks and chains were in her mind; they were what she expected from life. It would take time for her to change, to begin trusting the world again. The Petrecs would help her.

Heading south down the coast, thinking about families, he decided to visit his brother.

Mickey lived on an estate in Kirkcaldy, his red BMW parked in the driveway. He was just home from work and suitably surprised to see Rebus.

`Chrissie and the kids are at her mum's,' he said. `I was going to grab a curry for di

`Maybe just a coffee,' Rebus said. He sat in the lounge until Mickey returned, toting a couple of old shoe-boxes.

`Look what I dug out of the attic last weekend. Thought you might like a look. Milk and sugar?’

`A spot of milk.’

While Mickey went to the kitchen to fetch the coffee, Rebus examined the boxes. They were filled with packets of photographs. The packets had dates on them, some with questionmarks. Rebus opened one at random. Holiday snaps. A fancy dress parade. A picnic. Rebus didn't have any pictures of his parents, and the photos startled him. His mother had thicker legs than he remembered, but a tidy body, too. His father used the same grin in every shot, a grin Rebus shared with Mickey. Digging further into the box, he found one of himself with Rhona and Sammy. They were on a beach somewhere, the wind playing havoc. Peter Gabriel: `Family Snapshot'. Rebus couldn't place it at all. Mickey came back through with a mug of coffee and a bottle of beer.

`There are some,' he said, `I don't know who the people are. Relatives maybe? Grandma and Granddad?’

`I'm not sure I'd be much help.’

Mickey handed over a menu. `Here,' he said, `best Indian in town. Pick what you want.’

So Rebus chose, and Mickey phoned the order in. Twenty minutes till delivery. Rebus was on to another packet. These photos were older still, the 1940s. His father in uniform. The soldiers wore hats like McDonald's counter staff. They also wore long khaki shorts. `Malaya' written on the backs of some, ` India ' on the others.

`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.