Rebus glanced towards his defence team – senior counsel and junior counsel in their daft wee wigs, solicitor in a dark buttoned-up suit. Senior counsel wore a gown of silk and a piece of neckwear Rebus now knew was called a fall, though no one seemed to know why. They looked to him like the relative strangers they were, though he’d met them often these past few weeks and days. Junior counsel’s face was impassive, probably thinking about the shopping she had to do on the way home or the games kit to get ready for her kid’s next day at school.

‘Mr Bartleby?’ the judge prompted. Rebus liked the look of the judge. He seemed the type who’d pour you the good whisky, no matter who you were. The senior counsel was giving a nod, satisfied with whatever he’d been checking.

He licked his lips.

Opened his mouth to speak.

Rebus couldn’t help but mimic him, drawing in a lungful of sweet Edinburgh air …

Then

Day One

1

The pubs were opening again, and this time without the need to sign in and order from your table. Standing at a bar seemed a ­novelty, though you were aware of the bottle of hand sanitiser on the corner or over by the door, and the track-and-trace QR code or the old-fashioned clipboard on which you scrawled a name – any name, and contact number – any number. Rebus still hadn’t a clue how the QR code worked. Now and again a savvier customer or one of the bar staff would try showing him, but the information was like a stone skimming across the surface of his brain, soon sinking, never to be retrieved.