He had followed Fraser Mackenzie to the murder scene the morning after it had happened, had seen him meet John Rebus, and had reported back. He’d also gleaned information about Beth and Gaby Mackenzie, and about some of the city’s cops, especially the ones at Tynecastle and Leith. Cafferty wasn’t sure how he did it. He himself had never managed the feat of remaining inconspicuous. It wasn’t just to do with physical heft – Cafferty was nothing if he was not feared, so he had learned to look like someone who merited that fear. Whenever he walked into any situation, he made sure he looked pissed off from the get-go. That way, people were more minded to appease him.

He found himself rubbing one arm of the wheelchair, resenting how it had become such a part of his life. But then what was the point of living in the past when the present was so interesting? He wondered where Andrew was right now. Somewhere out there, stalking streets Cafferty had once controlled, learning them the way an actor learned lines for a role.

When the recording stopped, he started it again from the beginning. And there were Fox and Clarke, looking like a capable enough team. He wondered what they had learned in the nightclub. They would have seen Gaby, but had they spotted anything else? He noticed one of the Tynecastle cops rub at his nose after Clarke had said something to him. Ah yes, of course.

Just for a moment, Cafferty grew wistful. What if he had put his energies into Siobhan Clarke rather than John Rebus? How might things have turned out if he had?

But Rebus remained the prize, dangling just short of him. Maybe not for much longer, though. Maybe the ending he wanted was coming …

‘Why am I not surprised?’ Siobhan Clarke muttered to herself when her phone awoke her. It was three in the morning, according to the screen. She recognised the caller’s name and wrinkled her brow.

‘Ronnie?’ she said, answering. ‘Where are you?’

‘It’s my first night back,’ DC Ronnie Ogilvie said.

‘And you thought that news worth sharing with me? Got the COVID all-clear, I take it?’

‘Despite which, I’m at the Royal Infirmary. A house got firebombed. Owner’s being given the once-over. She wanted you to know.’

‘Who is it?’ Clarke asked, pivoting her legs out from beneath the duvet.

‘Laura Smith.’

‘Tell me she’s all right.’

‘Just a bit of smoke inhalation.’

‘I’ll be there in thirty minutes. And Ronnie?’

‘Yes, boss?’

‘Welcome back.’

The way Laura Smith told it, she’d been lucky, in that she’d still been awake and downstairs rather than upstairs in bed when the petrol bomb came crashing through her living room window. She kept a fire blanket in her kitchen, and had done what she could with it and some pans of cold water while waiting for the fire ­brigade to arrive.