‘His son’s running wild,’ Lumsden explained. He shrugged, as if there were nothing more to say, and told Rebus to try the meatballs.

Afterwards, there was a nightclub, where businessmen vied with young turks for the attentions of the daytime shop-workers turned Lycra vixens. The music was loud and so were the clothes. Lumsden nodded his head to the pulse, but didn’t look like he was enjoying himself. He looked like a tour guide. Ludo: player of games. Rebus knew he was being sold a line, the same line any tourists to the north would be sold – this was the country of Baxter’s soups, men in skirts, and granny’s hieland hame; oil was just another industry, the city and its people had risen above it. There was still a sense of Highland perspective.

There was no down side.

‘I thought you might find this place interesting,’ Lumsden yelled over the music.

‘Why?’

‘It’s where Michelle Strachan met Johnny Bible.’

Rebus tried to swallow, couldn’t. He hadn’t noticed the name of the club. He looked with new eyes, saw dancers and drinkers, saw proprietorial arms around unwilling necks. Saw hungry eyes and money used for mating. He imagined Johnny Bible standing quietly by the bar, ticking off possibles in his mind, narrowing the options down to one. Then asking Michelle Fifer for a dance …

When Rebus suggested they move on, Lumsden didn’t disagree. So far, they’d paid for one round of drinks: the restaurant meal had been ‘taken care of, and the bouncer on the door of the club had nodded them through, bypassing the cash desk.

As they left, a man escorted a young woman past them. Rebus half-turned his head.

‘Someone you know?’ Lumsden asked.

Rebus shrugged. ‘Thought I recognised the face.’ He’d seen it only that afternoon: dark curly hair, glasses, olive complexion. Hayden Fletcher, Major Weir’s ‘PR guru’. He was looking like he’d had a good day. Fletcher’s companion glanced back at Rebus and smiled.

Outside, there were still slants of purple light in the sky. In a cemetery across the road, starlings were mobbing a tree.

‘Where now?’ Lumsden said.

Rebus stretched his spine. ‘Actually, Ludo, I think I’ll just head back to the hotel. Sorry to wimp out like this.’

Lumsden tried not to look relieved. ‘So what’s your itinerary tomorrow?’

Suddenly Rebus didn’t want him to know. ‘Another meeting with the deceased’s employer.’ Lumsden seemed satisfied.

‘And then home?’

‘In a couple of days.’

Lumsden tried not to let his disappointment show. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘get a good night’s sleep. You know your way back?’

Rebus nodded and they shook hands. Lumsden headed off one way, Rebus the other. He kept walking in the direction of the hotel, taking his time, window-shopping, checking behind him. Then he stopped and consulted his map, saw that the harbour area was almost walking distance. But the first taxi that came along, he flagged it down.

‘Where to?’ the driver asked.

‘Somewhere I can get a good drink. Somewhere down by the docks.’ He thought: ‘Down Where the Drunkards Roll.’