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Epigraph

The saints of the shadow bible following me

From bar to bar into eternity…

Jackie Leven, “One Man, One Guitar”

Prologue

Prologue

Prologue

Where are we going?”

“We’re just driving.”

“Driving where, though?”

Rebus turned to look at his passenger. The man’s name was Peter Meikle. He had served almost half his adult life in various Scottish and English prisons and had the pallor and bearing common to excons. His face needed a shave and his sunken eyes were black, wary pinholes. Rebus had picked him up from outside a betting shop on Clerk Street. A few sets of lights and they were heading past the Commonwealth Pool and into Holyrood Park.

“It’s been a while,” Rebus said. “What are you up to these days?”

“Nothing you lot need worry about.”

“Do I look worried?”

“You look the same way you did when you laid me out in 1989.”

“That far back?” Rebus made show of shaking his head in surprise. “But be fair, Peter, you were resisting arrest—and you had a temper on you.”

“You’re saying you didn’t?” When Rebus made no answer, Meikle resumed staring through the windscreen. The Saab was on Queen’s Drive now, skirting the cliff-like Salisbury Crags on the approach to St. Margaret’s Loch. A few tourists were trying to feed bread to the ducks and swans, though a troop of swooping gulls seemed to be winning more than its fair share. Rebus was signaling right, beginning the climb that would snake around Arthur’s Seat. They passed joggers and walkers, the city vanishing from view.

“Could be in the middle of the Highlands,” Rebus commented. “Hard to believe Edinburgh’s somewhere down below.” He turned again towards his passenger. “Didn’t you live around here at one time?”

“You know I did.”

“Northfield, I seem to think.” The car was slowing, Rebus pulling over and stopping. He nodded in the direction of a wall with an open gate. “That’s the shortcut, isn’t it? If you were coming into the park on foot? From Northfield?”

Meikle just shrugged. He was wearing a padded nylon jacket. It made noises when he twitched. He watched Rebus break open a new pack of cigarettes and light one with a match. Rebus exhaled a plume of smoke before offering the pack to Meikle.

“I stopped last year.”

“News to me, Peter.”

“Aye, I’ll bet it is.”