‘You’ll want to see the Barrowland next, eh?’ his driver said. Rebus shook his head. He’d had enough. The Barrowland wouldn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know.

‘Do you know a bar called The Lobby?’ he said instead. The driver nodded. ‘Let’s go there then.’

He paid off the cabbie, adding a fiver as a tip, and asked for a receipt.

‘No receipts, sorry, pal.’

‘You don’t happen to work for Joe Toal, do you?’

The man glared at him. ‘Never heard of him.’ Then he shifted into first and sped off.

Inside The Lobby, Ancram was standing at the bar, looking relaxed, the focus of a lot of attention: two men and two women in a huddle around him. The bar was full of after-work suits, careerists plotting furtively, women on the scent.

‘Inspector, what’ll it be?’

‘My shout.’ He pointed to Ancram’s glass, then to the others, but Ancram laughed.

‘You don’t buy them drinks, they’re journos.’

‘It’s my round anyway,’ one of the women said. ‘What’ll you have?’

‘My mother told me never to accept drinks from strangers.’

She smiled: lip gloss, eye-shadow, tired face trying for enthusiasm. ‘Jennifer Drysdale.’ Rebus knew why she was tired: it was hard work acting like ‘one of the boys’. Mairie Henderson had told him about it – the pattern was changing only slowly; a lot of surface gloss about equality sloshed over the same old wallpaper.

Jeff Beck on the sound system: ‘Hi-Ho Silver Lining’. Stupid lyric, and a hook that had lasted two decades and more. It comforted him that a place with The Lobby’s pretensions should still cling to old hooks.

‘Actually,’ Ancram was saying, ‘we should be making tracks. Right, John?’

‘Right.’ The use of his first name a hint: Ancram wanted out.

The reporters didn’t look so happy any more. They flung questions at Ancram: Johnny Bible. They wanted a story, any story.

‘I would if I could, but there’s nothing to give.’ Ancram had his hands up, trying to placate the foursome. Rebus saw that someone had placed a recording Walkman on top of the bar.

‘Anything,’ one of the men said. He even glanced towards Rebus, but Rebus was staying out of it.

‘If you want a story,’ Ancram said, pushing through the bodies, ‘get yourselves a psychic detective. Thanks for the drinks.’

Outside, the smile fell from Ancram’s face. An act, it had been no more than that. ‘Bastards are worse than leeches.’

‘And like leeches, they have their uses.’

‘True, but who would you rather have a drink with? I’ve no car, do you mind walking?’

‘Where to?’

‘The next bar we find.’

But in fact they had to walk past three pubs – not places a policeman could drink in safely – until they hit one Ancram liked the look of. It was still raining, but mild. Rebus could feel sweat glueing his shirt to his back. Despite the rain, Big Issue sellers were out in force, not that anyone was buying: good-cause fatigue.