‘Which will happen at Gayfield Square in the morning. What do you think’s going on?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

‘I really doubt that.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I had Gaby Mackenzie pegged as the owner of the car – either her or her ­parents. We had the father in the station earlier today.’

‘Can I ask why?’

‘He told us Francis Haggard got a cheap rent as an act of ­charity.’

‘The man’s all heart.’

She was silent for almost half a minute. The only sound was muffled laughter from the front room. Eventually she breathed deeply. ‘Everything’s fucked, isn’t it? I mean, that’s how it feels to me. Brexit and COVID and Christ knows what’s coming at us next.’

‘Alien invasion?’

‘They’d take one look and do a U-turn.’ She watched him drain his glass. ‘Can I fetch you a real drink?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘Things to do,’ he told her.

‘Things like going straight home for a quiet night with the dog?’

‘What else?’

‘Right now, I can think of about a dozen alternative scenarios, most of them ending messily.’

‘Maybe in times past, Siobhan, but not these days.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

‘That’s not a real promise, though, is it?’

He was studying her face. ‘Professional Standards, eh, and you’re minded to say yes? Well, why the hell not? You’ve not ended up in anybody’s pocket, and I can’t recall you lying too baldly in court. Maybe you could even disappear my files for me?’

‘Don’t joke about it, John.’

‘Who said I was joking?’ he enquired, raising his empty glass in a toast.

As he drove towards Calder Road, Rebus thought about Clarke’s words: Everything’s fucked, isn’t it? Very often you’d be hard pressed to deny it. Yet he had the new Dean Owens CD on the car hi-fi, and a bottle of Caol Ila and Brillo waiting for him at home, plus a daughter and granddaughter who’d invited him to lunch on Sunday. Sometimes you had to focus on the small victories. Maybe that was what he would have told her in answer to her question. Those unseen consequences could be minor or tangential, but what mattered was that they were lying in wait. Malcolm Fox might not get Alan Fleck this time, but Fleck couldn’t forget that he was out there, continually trying. The little cabal at Tynecastle would melt away too, in time, now that the sarge wasn’t on hand to hold it together.

And meantime, Dean Owens was still singing.