Before leaving, Gilmour slapped his fist against the interview room door. It was only afterwards that Clarke realized what he’d done. She pointed out the sticker to Fox. BETTER TOGETHER, it read. VOTE NO.

“The man has a sense of humor,” Fox said, peeling it off with a fingernail. “I wonder how big a bill he’s just run up with that lawyer of his.”

“Whatever it is, it won’t be funny. And by the way, that parting shot of yours?”

“Yes?”

“Worthy of Rebus himself.”

“Is that a good thing, do you think?”

They returned to the office and watched as a taxi drew up, lawyer and client fighting their way through the melee and the questions before clambering into the back. One particularly stubborn photographer ran down the road after the cab, firing off a few more shots through its rear window.

“Those private investigators will only give us whatever story Gilmour tells them to,” Fox cautioned.

Clarke nodded her agreement. “Do you think we let him off too lightly?” she asked.

“No,” Fox reassured her. “But is he right about the others—will they merit the same attention?”

“None of them spoke to Billy Saunders,” Clarke stated.

“Not on his phone, at any rate,” Fox added by way of qualification. “But whoever met him on the canal path that night, they didn’t just stumble upon him. It was an arrangement.”

“Arranged how?”

“I suppose a few of the public phone boxes in the city still work.”

“Needle-in-a-haystack stuff,” Clarke said.

“Needle in a haystack,” Fox agreed.

An hour later, the team crammed into the office so Clarke could inform them of the initial findings regarding the firearm found in the canal. She was reading from a printed e-mail, sent from the ballistics unit in Glasgow. A rush job had been ordered, so the report was not comprehensive. But it did include the crucial information that the bullet removed from Billy Saunders’s spine had been fired from the gun.

“The gun itself,” Clarke intoned, “is a Browning L9A1 nine-millimeter pistol, probably dating back to the early 1980s. Standard British Army issue from the 1950s until just recently. Apparently a lot of them went walkies after the Falklands War. The serial number has been filed off, and no usable prints have been found on the grip or barrel. Three bullets remain in the clip and again these seem to date back a few decades. The gun hasn’t been kept in the best condition, and probably hadn’t been used in quite some time. Accurate only at short range.” Clarke looked up from the sheet and realized Fox had ducked out of the room at some point. The other members of the team were jotting notes to themselves or frowning in a show of concentration.

“Thoughts, please,” she said, scanning the faces in front of her.

“We need to trace the gun back…”

“Someone must know where it came from…”