Rebus waited, but Holmes was having trouble forming the words. He gave up finally and shook his head. Rebus knew what he was thinking. He knew Rebus had put the squeeze on Minto, while believing Minto to have a case against Holmes. And now he knew that Rebus had lied to protect Lawson Geddes and to secure the conviction. The question in his mind a double strand – was Rebus’s version the truth? How dirty was the copper sitting behind the steering wheel?

How dirty would Holmes allow himself to get before he left the force?

Rebus knew Nell nagged him every day, quiet persuasion. He was young enough for another career, any career, something clean and risk-free. There was still time for him to get out. But maybe not much time.

‘OK,’ Holmes said, opening the car door. ‘I’ll start a.s.a.p.’ He paused. ‘But if I find any dirt, anything concealed in the margins …’

Rebus turned on his lights, high-beam. He started the car and drove off.

4

Rebus woke up early. There was a book open on his lap. He looked at the last paragraph he’d read before falling asleep, didn’t recall any of it. Mail lying inside the door: who’d be a postman in Edinburgh, all those tenement stairs? His credit-card bill: two supermarkets, three off-licences, and Bob’s Rare Vinyl. Impulse buys one Saturday afternoon, after a lunchtime sesh in the Ox – Freak Out on single vinyl, mint; The Velvet Underground, peel-off banana intact; Sergeant Pepper in mono with the sheet of cut-outs. He’d yet to play any of them, already had scratchy copies of the Velvets and Beatles.

He shopped on Marchmont Road, ate breakfast at the kitchen table with the Bible John/Johnny Bible material for a cloth. Johnny Bible headlines: ‘Catch This Monster!’; ‘Baby-Faced Killer Claims Third Victim’; ‘Public Warned: Be Vigilant’. Much the same banners Bible John was earning a quarter century before.

Johnny Bible’s first victim: Duthie Park, Aberdeen. Michelle Strachan came from Pittenweem in Fife, so of course all her Furry Boot pals called her Michelle Fifer. She didn’t look like her near-namesake: short and skinny, mousy shoulder-length hair, front teeth prominent. She was a student at Robert Gordon University. Raped, strangled, one shoe missing.

Victim two, six weeks later: Angela Riddell, Angie to her friends. In her time she’d worked at an escort agency, been arrested in a slapper sweep near Leith docks, and fronted a blues band, husky-voiced but trying too hard. A record company had now released the band’s only demo as a CD single, making money from ghouls and the curious. Edinburgh CID had spent a lot of hours – thousands of man hours – trawling through Angie Riddell’s past, seeking out old clients, friends, fans of the band, looking for a prozzy punter turned killer, an obsessed blues fan, whatever. Warriston Cemetery, where the body was found, was a known haunt of Hell’s Angels, amateur black magicians, perverts and loners. In the days following the discovery of the body, at dead of night you were more likely to trip over a snoozing surveillance team than a crucified cat.