Very reassuring.

The flunkey who’d handed him the brochure had said he hoped Rebus had brought something to read.

‘Why?’

‘Because the flight can take three hours total, and most of the time it’s too noisy for chit-chat.’

Three hours. Rebus had gone into the terminal’s shop and bought himself a book. He knew the journey comprised two stages – Sumburgh first, and then a Super Puma helicopter out to Bannock. Three hours out, three hours back. He yawned, checked his watch. It wasn’t quite eight o’clock yet. He’d skipped breakfast – didn’t like the idea of boaking it back up on the flight. His total consumption this morning: four paracetamol, one glass of orange juice. He held his hands out in front of him: tremors he could put down to aftershock.

There were two anecdotes he liked in the brochure: he learned that a ‘derrick’ was named after a seventeenth-century hangman; and that the first oil had come ashore at Cruden Bay, where Bram Stoker once took his holidays. From one kind of vampirism to another … only the brochure didn’t put it like that.

There was a television on in front of him, playing a safety video. It told you what to do if your helicopter went down into the North Sea. It all looked very slick on the video: nobody panicked. They slid out of their seats, located the inflatable life-rafts and launched them on to the calm waters of an indoor pool.

‘Holy God, what happened to you?’

He looked up. Ludovic Lumsden was standing there, newspaper folded in his jacket pocket, a beaker of coffee in his hand.

‘Mugged,’ Rebus said. ‘You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?’

‘Mugged?’

‘Two men were waiting for me last night outside the hotel. Threw me over the wall into the gardens, then stuck a gun against my head.’ Rebus rubbed the lump on his temple. It felt worse than it looked.

Lumsden sat down a couple of seats away, looked aghast. ‘Did you get a look at them?’

‘No.’

Lumsden put his coffee on the floor. ‘Did they take anything?’

‘They weren’t after anything. They just had a message for me.’

‘What?’

Rebus tapped his temple. ‘A thumping.’

Lumsden frowned. ‘That was the message?’

‘I think I was supposed to read between the lines. You wouldn’t be any good at translating, would you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing.’ Rebus stared at him hard. ‘What are you doing here?’

Lumsden was staring at the tiled floor, mind elsewhere. ‘I’m coming with you.’

‘Why?’

‘Oil Liaison. You’re visiting a rig. I should be there.’

‘Keeping an eye on me?’

‘It’s procedure.’ He looked towards the television. ‘Don’t worry about ditching, I’ve had the training. What it boils down to is, you’ve got about five minutes from the time you hit the water.’

‘And after five minutes?’

‘Hypothermia.’ Lumsden lifted his coffee cup, drank from it. ‘So pray we don’t hit a storm out there.’