‘Are you okay?’ she said.

‘Bastard took my phone.’

She padded towards her sister on bare feet and held her in an embrace.

‘You can’t go near him, Cheryl,’ Stephanie Pelham stated.

‘I just wanted him to leave. It worked, didn’t it?’

Pelham, her chin resting on her sister’s shoulder, looked up towards a corner of the ceiling. The CCTV camera stared back at her. She managed a thin determined smile.

5

Rebus had just finished eating an early dinner of microwaved haggis when he heard the doorbell. Brillo trotted with him to the door. Siobhan Clarke was standing on the step.

‘Well, well,’ Rebus said, while Brillo’s welcome was more effusive. ‘In you come then.’

Rebus had been in his new home a while, but there were still boxes waiting to be unpacked. Clarke, who had helped with the move, noted them stacked in the narrow hall.

‘I said I’d get round to it, and I will,’ Rebus told her. ‘On the other hand, if I’ve done without whatever’s in them this far, maybe they don’t need emptying at all.’ He had retreated to the living room. A CD was playing, John Lee Hooker. He turned the volume down. Clarke was sniffing the air.

‘Stovies?’ she guessed.

‘Haggis,’ Rebus corrected her.

‘With brown sauce, right?’

‘Right,’ he acknowledged. ‘Join me in a beer?’ Two empty cans stood on the dining table, with four unopened brethren lined up on the bookcase.

‘I shouldn’t.’

‘Another way of saying you will.’ He yanked the ring pull and handed her the drink. ‘Not your first of the day?’

‘Nor yours, despite doctor’s orders.’ She made show of sniffing the air again. ‘No cigarettes, though, so that’s something.’

Rebus sat himself at the table and gestured for her to join him. She slung her shoulder bag over the back of the chair.

‘Haggard case getting to you?’ he enquired.

‘Just a bit.’ She took a slurp of the beer. ‘Any chance of a glass?’

‘Makes for more washing-up.’

‘Or else you’ve no clean glasses.’

‘Busted,’ he said, raising his can towards her in a toast.

‘I remember I mentioned Haggard to you on the phone,’ Clarke said. ‘You made it sound like you didn’t know him.’ She watched Rebus nod while he drank. ‘He seems to know you, though.’

Rebus took his time swallowing the mouthful. ‘Is that so?’ he eventually said.

‘Every copper in Edinburgh knows Tynecastle is a cesspit and probably always has been.’

‘I was never based there.’

‘Your pal was, though – Alan Fleck.’

‘Alan’s long retired.’

‘Only three or so years, actually. You used to pay him visits at Tynecastle. He liked to showcase the unofficial training new officers were put through. Lessons in racism and sexism, lying under oath, cooperating with criminals …’

‘Hang on, Siobhan.’