The place reeked of alcohol. It was a cellar. Bare lightbulbs and aluminium kegs, boxes of bottles and glasses. Half a dozen brick pillars supporting the ceiling. They hadn’t tied Rebus to one of these. Instead, he hung suspended from a hook, the rope fraying his wrists, arms readying to pop from sockets. Rebus shifted more weight on to his feet. The figure from behind tossed the beer-bottle into a crate and came round to stand in front of him. Slick black hair with a kiss-curl at the front, and a large hooked nose in the centre of a face lush with corruption. A diamond glinted in one of the teeth. Dark suit, white T-shirt. Rebus took a wild guess – Judd Fuller – but reckoned the time for introductions was past.

‘Sorry I don’t have Tony El’s ingenuity with power tools,’ Fuller said. ‘But I do what I can.’

‘From where I’m standing, you’re doing fine.’

‘Thanks.’

Rebus looked around. They were alone in the cellar, and nobody’d thought to tie his legs together. He could kick Fuller in the balls and …

The punch came low, hitting him just above the groin. It would have doubled him up, if his arms had been free. As it was, he instinctively raised his knees, lifting his feet off the floor. His shoulder-joints told him this was not the brightest move.

Fuller was walking away, flexing the fingers of his right hand. ‘So, cop,’ he said, his back to Rebus, ‘how do you like it so far?’

‘I’m ready for a break if you are.’

‘Only break you’re going to get is your goddamn neck.’ Fuller turned to him, grinned, then picked up another beer-bottle, smacked it open against a wall and gulped half the contents.

The smell of the alcohol was overpowering, and the few mouthfuls Rebus had swallowed seemed already to be having an effect. His eyes stung; so did his hands where the flames had licked them. His wrists were already blistering.

‘We have a nice club here,’ Fuller was saying. ‘Everybody has fun. You can ask around, it’s a popular spot. What gives you the right to spoil the party?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You made Erik upset the night you talked to him.’

‘Does he know about this?’

‘He’ll never get to know about this. Erik’s happier not knowing. He has an ulcer, you know. He worries.’

‘Can’t think why that is.’ Rebus stared at Fuller. If you caught his face in the right kind of shadow, he resembled a young Leonard Cohen, the Travolta comparison way off.

‘You’re a nuisance, that’s all you are, an itch that needs to be scratched.’

‘You don’t get it, Judd. You’re not in America. You can’t just hide a body here and hope nobody stumbles across it.’

‘Why not?’ Fuller opened his arms wide. ‘Boats head out of Aberdeen all the time. Weight you down and tip you into the North Sea. Know how hungry the fish are out there?’