‘Another comedian,’ Rebus said.

‘This place is full of them,’ the second constable commented. Rebus didn’t know if he meant the station, Craigmillar itself, or the city as a whole. Not that there was much comedy in Craigmillar police station. It was Edinburgh’s hardest posting; a stint of duty lasted two years max, no one could function longer than that. Craigmillar was about as tough an area as you could find in Scotland’s capital city, and the station fully merited its nickname – Fort Apache, the Bronx. It lay up a cul-de-sac behind a row of shops, a low-built dour-faced building with even dourer-faced tenements behind. Being up an alley meant a mob could cut it off from civilisation with ease, and the place had been under siege numerous times. Yes, Craigmillar was a choice posting.

Rebus knew why he was there. He’d upset some people, people who mattered. They hadn’t been able to deal him a death blow, so had instead consigned him to purgatory. It couldn’t be hell because he knew it wasn’t for ever. Call it a penance. The letter telling him of his move had explained that he would be covering for a hospitalised colleague. It had also stated that he would help oversee the shutting down of the old Craigmillar station. Everything was being wound down, transferred to a brand new station nearby. The place was already a shambles of packing cases and pillaged cupboards. Staff weren’t exactly expending great energy solving ongoing cases. Nor had they put any energy into welcoming Detective Inspector John Rebus. The place felt more like a hospital ward than a cop-shop, and the patients were tranquillised to the hilt.

He wandered back to the CID room – the ‘Shed’. On the way, he passed Maclay and Shand, the latter still protesting his guilt as he was dragged to the cells.

‘I’m Johnny Bible! I fucking am and all!’

Not even close.

It was nine p.m. on a Tuesday in June and the only other person in the Shed was Detective Sergeant ‘Dod’ Bain. He glanced up from his magazine – Offbeat, the L&B newsletter – and Rebus shook his head.

‘Thought not,’ Bain said, turning a page. ‘Craw’s notorious for grassing himself up, that’s why I left him to you.’

‘You’ve as much heart as a carpet tack.’

‘But I’m as sharp as one, too. Don’t forget that.’

Rebus sat at his desk and considered writing his report of the interview. Another comedian, another waste of time. And still Johnny Bible was out there.

First there had been Bible John, terrorising Glasgow in the late 1960s. A well-dressed young man with reddish hair, who knew his Bible and frequented the Barrowland Ballroom. He picked up three women there, beat them, raped them, strangled them. Then he disappeared, right in the middle of Glasgow’s biggest manhunt, and never resurfaced, the case open to this day. Police had a cast-iron description of Bible John from the sister of his last victim. She’d spent close on two hours in his company, shared a taxi with him even. They’d dropped her off; her sister had waved goodbye through the back window … Her description hadn’t helped.