‘You’d be quicker driving them to the warehouse yourself,’ he suggested, leaving the paper on the counter and heading for the door.

He gave the laundromat and nail salon a miss, found the barber’s closed, so tried the bookie’s instead. There was only a smattering of customers, and again he was reminded that times were changing. Like the news, betting had moved online. As a child, Rebus had found betting shops intriguing and mysterious. His father would meet pals there and could spend half a Saturday studying form and listening to the races over a distorted loudspeaker, a stub of pencil in one hand, cigarette in the other. Rebus sensed that no one lingered long in this modern equivalent. There were no chairs and tables, no stove to keep the place heated. Just banks of TV monitors and a scattering of slot machines, plus a long shelf you could lean against while filling in a slip.

As he showed Oram’s photo to the few punters, there were wary shakes of the head. No one asked him why he was there, because no one wanted to know. The female cashier, still in her teens, was equally dismissive, hardly raising her eyes from her phone. As Rebus stepped outside, he realised he only had one real option left. But before he could enter the Moorfoot, there were shuffling footsteps behind him. A small, hunched man had followed him from the betting shop, cheeks sunken and teeth largely absent from his gaping mouth.

‘Might’ve seen him,’ the man said, his voice croaky. ‘Not for a month or so, though.’ He looked around to check no one was unduly interested in him or the stranger he was talking to. ‘Not calling himself Jack these days, though. Davie Loach, he’s going by.’

‘But this Davie Loach is Jack Oram – you’re sure of that?’

‘Looked a lot like him, that’s all I’m saying. You’re Rebus, aren’t you?’

Rebus was beginning to think the man seemed familiar. He gave a slow nod.

‘I’m Ralph. I used to work nights at the baker’s on Nicolson Street. You’d drop by sometimes when the rolls were just out of the oven.’

Rebus couldn’t help but smile at the memory. He dug a five-pound note from his pocket and pressed it on the man.

‘No need,’ Ralph said, not looking like he was about to refuse.

Rebus gestured towards the betting shop. ‘Have a flutter on me.’ Then, ‘Davie Loach, you’re positive?’

Ralph nodded definitively.

‘Did you speak to him at all?’

‘Always kept his head down.’

‘And where was it you last saw him?’

Ralph gestured once more towards the door he’d just left. ‘You need to give a name when you place a bet. I asked Debs what he’d called himself.’

‘Debs being the cashier? And she just told you?’