‘Your coffee’s getting cold,’ Jack said. Rebus took a gulp, turned another page.

Or at least it was until Spaven came back into my life, moving to Edinburgh much the same time I did. It was like he was haunting me, and I couldn’t forgive him for what he’d done. If anything, as time passed I grew to despise him even more. That’s why I wanted him for the Elsie Rhind killing. I admit it, to you and to anyone else reading this, I wanted him so badly it was like a hard ball in my stomach, something only surgery would remove. When I was told to ease off on him, I didn’t. When I was told to steer clear, I steered closer. I followed him – on my own time – I tracked him every day and every night. I went without sleep for the best part of three days. But it was worth it when I saw him make for that lock-up, somewhere we didn’t know about. I was elated, ecstatic. I didn’t know what we’d find inside, but I had the feeling we’d find something. That’s why I came rushing over to your house, why I dragged you back there with me. You asked me about a search warrant, and I told you not to be so stupid. I put a lot of pressure on you, using our long friendship as blackmail – I was feverish, I’d have done anything, and that surely included breaking rules I now saw as being there to punish the police and protect the villains. So in we went, and found the heaps of boxes, all that knock-off from the factory job in Queensferry. Plus the bag. Elsie Rhind’s, as it turned out. I nearly dropped to my knees to thank God for finding it.

I know what a lot of people thought – yourself included. They thought I’d planted it there. Well, I swear on my deathbed (except I’m writing this at the table) that I did not. I found it fair and square, even though I made us break the rules to accomplish it. But you see, that one crucial piece of evidence would have been ruled inadmissible because of the way we’d come to find it, which is why I persuaded you – against your better judgement – to stick to the story I invented. Am I sorry I did it? Yes and no. It can’t be very comfortable for you just now, John, and it can’t have been a nice thing to have lived with all these years. But we got the murderer, and in my mind – and I’ve spent God knows how long thinking about it, reliving it, running through the way I played it – that’s what really counts.

John, I hope all this fuss dies down. Spaven’s not worth it. Nobody’s giving much thought to Elsie Rhind, are they? The victim can never win. Chalk this one up to Elsie Rhind. Just because a villain can write doesn’t make him less of a villain. I read that the commandants at the concentration camps used to put their feet up at night and read the classics while listening to a bit of Beethoven. Monsters can do that. I know this now. I know because of Lenny Spaven.