Applause, cheering. Rebus watched two figures walk onstage, still dressed in orange oilskins: he recognised their faces from Bannock. He waited, but there was no sign of braid-hair. When they started their speeches, he turned to go. There was one last collecting tin to be avoided, but he thought better of it, folded a fiver in through the slot. And decided to treat himself to dinner in his hotel: putting it on the room, of course.

Insistent noise.

Rebus folded it into his dream, then gave up. One eye open: chinks of light through the heavy curtains. What fucking time was it? Bedside lamp: on. He clawed at his watch, blinked. Six a.m. What? Did Lumsden want rid of him that badly?

He swung out of bed, walked stiff-legged to the door, working his muscles. He’d washed a great dinner down with a bottle of wine. In itself the wine would have posed no problem, but as a digestif he’d put away four malts, in flagrant disregard of the drinker’s rule: never mix the grape and the grain.

Thump, thump, thump.

Rebus pulled open the door. Two woolly suits stood there, looking like they’d been up for hours.

‘Inspector Rebus?’

‘Last time I looked.’

‘Will you get dressed, please, sir?’

‘You don’t like the outfit?’ Y-fronts and a T-shirt.

‘Just get dressed.’

Rebus looked at them, decided to comply. When he walked back into the room, they followed, looked around the way cops always do.

‘What have I done?’

‘Tell them at the station.’

Rebus looked at him. ‘Tell me you’re fucking joking.’

‘Language, sir,’ the other uniform said.

Rebus sat on the bed, pulled on clean socks. ‘I’d still like to know what this is all about. You know, on the q.t., officer to officer.’

‘Just a few questions, sir. Quick as you can.’

The second uniform tugged open the curtains, light stabbing Rebus’s eyeballs. He seemed impressed by the view.

‘We had a brawl in the gardens a few nights ago. Remember, Bill?’

His colleague joined him at the window. ‘And someone jumped off the bridge a fortnight back. Whee, smack on to Denburn Road.’

‘Woman in the car got an awful fright.’

They smiled at the memory.

Rebus stood up, looked around him, wondering what to take.

‘Shouldn’t be too long, sir.’

They were smiling at him now. Rebus’s stomach did a back-flip. He tried not to think about timbale of haggis … cranachan with a fruit coulis … wine and whisky …

‘Feeling a bit rough, sir?’

The uniform looked about as solicitous as a razor blade.

20

‘My name’s Chief Inspector Edward Grogan. We’ve a few questions for you, Inspector Rebus.’

So everyone keeps telling me, Rebus thought. But he didn’t say anything, just sat there with arms folded and a wronged man’s smouldering look. Ted Grogan: Rebus had heard of him. Hard bastard. He looked it, too: bull-necked and bald, his physique more Frazier than Ali. Thin eyes and thick lips; a street-taught fighter. Jutting forehead; simian.