‘Yes.’

‘Well, I have a location for her. She’s in Ratho, at some restaurant.’

Rebus slammed down the phone, cursing himself for not thinking of it sooner.

The wooden walkway where McLure’s body had lain had been blown dry by the wind, leaving nothing to indicate that a death had occurred so recently. The ducks were skimming the water; one of the boats had just left with half a dozen passengers; diners in the restaurant chewed on their food and stared out at the two figures on the canal bank.

‘I was in meetings half the day,’ Gill said. ‘I didn’t hear about it until an hour ago. What happened?’

She had her hands deep in coat pockets, the coat a cream Burberry. She looked sad.

‘Ask the pathologist. There was a cut on McLure’s head, but that doesn’t tell us a lot. He could have hit it when he slipped.’

‘Or he could have been whacked and pushed in.’

‘Or he could have jumped.’ Rebus shivered; the death reminded him of the Mitchison options. ‘My guess is, all the autopsy will tell us is whether he was alive when he hit the water. Right now I’ll tell you he was probably alive, which still doesn’t answer the question: accident, suicide, or a whack and a push?’ He watched Gill turn away, begin to walk the towpath. He caught up with her. It was starting to rain again, small drops, sparse. He watched them land on her coat, darkening it by degrees.

‘Bang goes my big collar,’ she said, an edge to her voice. Rebus turned up the collar of her coat, and she caught the joke, smiled.

‘There’ll be others,’ he told her. ‘Meantime, a man’s dead – don’t forget that.’ She nodded. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘the ACC had me on the carpet this afternoon.’

‘The Spaven case?’

He nodded. ‘Plus he wanted to know what I was doing out here this morning.’

She glanced towards him. ‘What did you say?’

‘I didn’t say anything. But the thing is … McLure ties in to Spaven.’

‘What?’ He had her full attention now.

‘They palled around years back.’

‘Jesus, why didn’t you tell me?’

Rebus shrugged. ‘It didn’t seem an issue.’

Gill was thinking hard. ‘But if Carswell links McLure to Spaven …?’

‘Then my being out here on the very morning Feardie Fergie met the big cheerio is going to look just a tad suspicious.’

‘You have to tell him.’

‘I don’t think so.’

She turned to him, her hands gripping his lapels. ‘You’re protecting me from the fallout.’

The rain was growing heavier, drops sparkling in her hair. ‘Let’s just say I’m radiation-proof,’ he said, leading her by the hand into the bar.

They ate a snack, neither of them bringing an appetite with them. Rebus’s came with a whisky; Gill’s with Highland spring water. They sat facing one another at an alcove table. The place was a third full, nobody near enough to overhear.

‘Who else knew?’ Rebus said.