It was November 22 before an artist’s impression of Bible John appeared in the press. By then he was Bible John: the media had come up with the name. Three weeks between the third murder and the artist’s impression: the trail grown good and cold. There’d been an artist’s drawing after the second victim too, but only after a delay of almost a month. Big, big delays. Rebus wondered about them …

He couldn’t quite explain why Bible John was getting to him. Perhaps he was using one old case as a way of warding off another – the Spaven case. But he thought it went deeper than that. Bible John meant the end of the sixties for Scotland; he’d soured the end of one decade and the beginning of another. For a lot of people, he’d all but killed whatever dribble of peace and love had reached this far north. Rebus didn’t want the twentieth century to end the same way. He wanted Johnny Bible caught. But somewhere along the road, his interest in the present case had taken a turning. He’d started to concentrate on Bible John, to the point where he was dusting off old theories and spending a small fortune on period newspapers. In 1968 and ’69, Rebus had been in the army. They’d trained him how to disable and kill, then sent him on tours – including, eventually, Northern Ireland. He felt he’d missed an important part of the times.

But at least he was still alive.

He took glass and bottle through to the living room and sank into his chair. He didn’t know how many bodies he’d seen; he just knew it didn’t get any easier. He’d heard gossip about Bain’s first post mortem, how the pathologist had been Naismith up in Dundee, a cruel bastard at the best of times. He’d probably known it was Bain’s first, and had really done a job on the corpse, like a scrap merchant stripping a car, lifting out organs, sawing the skull open, hands cradling a glistening brain – you didn’t do that so lightly these days, fear of hepatitis C. When Naismith had started unpeeling the genitals, Bain had dropped deadweight to the floor. But credit where due, he’d stuck around, hadn’t bolted or hughied. Maybe Rebus and Bain could work together, once friction had smoothed their edges. Maybe.

He looked out of the bay window, down on to the street. He was still parked on a double yellow. There was a light on in one of the flats across the way. There was always a light on somewhere. He sipped his drink, not wanting to rush it, and listened to the Stones: Black and Blue. Black influences, blues influences; not great Stones, but maybe their mellowest album.

Allan Mitchison was in a fridge in the Cowgate. He’d died strapped to a chair. Rebus didn’t know why. Pet Shop Boys: ‘It’s a Sin’. Segue to the Glimmer Twins: ‘Fool to Cry’. Mitchison’s flat hadn’t been so different from Rebus’s own in some respects: under-used, more a base than a home. He downed the rest of his drink, poured another, downed that too, and pulled the duvet off the floor and up to his chin.