Jack came to help him drag the unresisting figure out. ‘You all right?’ he asked.

‘The kid hurt me more than he did.’

The boy’s mother was hugging her son, checking he was all right. She gave Rebus a dirty look. The boy was complaining he still had ten minutes left. The attendant came after Rebus.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘could I have our ball back?’

St Leonard’s being so close, they took Shankley there, asked for and were given an empty biscuit-tin, only recently vacated by the smell of it.

‘Sit there,’ Rebus told Shankley. Then he took Jack outside, spoke in an undertone.

‘To fill you in, Tony El killed Allan Mitchison – I still don’t know why exactly. Tony had local help.’ He tilted his head towards the door. ‘I want to know what Hank knows.’

Jack nodded. ‘Do I stay dumb, or is there a part for me?’

‘You’re the good guy, Jack.’ Rebus patted his shoulder. ‘Always have been.’

They went back into the room as a team, like in the old days.

‘Well, Mr Shankley,’ Rebus opened, ‘so far we’ve got resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. Plenty of witnesses, too.’

‘I haven’t done nothing.’

‘Double negative.’

‘Eh?’

‘If you haven’t done nothing, you must have done something.’

Shankley just looked glum. Rebus had him pegged already: Bain’s ‘no scruples attached’ had given him the clue. Shankley lived to no code whatsoever, except perhaps ‘Look after number one’. He didn’t give a toss for anything or anyone. There was no intelligence other than a root instinct to survive. Rebus knew he could play on that.

‘You don’t owe Tony El anything, Hank. Who do you think grassed you up?’

‘Tony who?’

‘Anthony Ellis Kane. Glasgow hardman relocated to Aberdeen. He was down here to do a job. He needed an associate. Somehow he ended up with you.’

‘Not your fault,’ Jack chipped in, hands in pockets, ‘you’re an accessory. We’re not doing you for murder.’

‘Murder?’

‘That young guy Tony El was after,’ Rebus explained. ‘You scouted out somewhere to take him. That was about the sum of your part, wasn’t it? The rest was down to Tony.’

Shankley bit his top lip, showing a bottom row of narrow uneven teeth. His eyes were pale blue with dark flecks in them, his pupils contracted to pencil dots.

‘Of course,’ Rebus said, ‘there’s another way we can play it. We could say you tossed him out that window.’

‘I don’t know nothing.’

‘Don’t know anything,’ Rebus reminded him. Shankley folded his arms, spread his long legs.

‘I want a lawyer.’

‘Been watching the Kojak repeats, Hank?’ Jack asked. He looked to Rebus, who nodded: no more Mr Nice Guy.

‘I’m bored with this, Hank. Know what? We’re going to take you for fingerprinting now. You left prints all over that squat. You even left behind the carry-out. Prints all over it. You remember touching the bottles? The cans? The bag they were in?’ Shankley was trying hard to remember. Rebus’s voice grew quieter. ‘We’ve got you, Hank. You’re fucked. I’ll give you ten seconds to start talking, and that’s it – promise. Don’t think you can talk to us later, we won’t be listening. The judge will have his hearing-aid switched off. You’ll be on your own. Know why?’ He waited till he had Shankley’s attention. ‘Because Tony El croaked. Someone sliced him open in a bathtub. Could be you next.’ Rebus nodded. ‘You need friends, Hank.’