“They’ll be back,” Deano said. “Are we done here?”

“Just one last thing.” Rebus lit a cigarette, offering one but receiving a shake of the head. “Cab driver called Billy Saunders had a pickup here four nights back. That was the last anyone saw of him until he turned up with a bullet in his chest, floating in the canal.”

“I heard.”

“And I’m guessing by now you’ve been interviewed?” Rebus watched as the bouncer nodded. “What did you tell them?”

“I said I’d no idea who it was got picked up that night—or even if a cab ever arrived.”

“As I thought,” Rebus said. “But now you’re going to tell me the truth. See, Darryl already told me you were on the door that night. And a cab was ordered from here to go to Niddrie—and Niddrie is where the car ended up. So someone from this pub was in the back of that cab and they had to walk right past you when they left.”

“Maybe I was on my break.”

Rebus squinted through a cloud of cigarette smoke, leaning back a little in a show of disbelief. “Lying might be in your job description, Deano, but you’re really bad at it. Care to try again?” “What if the cab was for someone I know? Would they be in the frame for the driver’s murder?” Rebus shook his head. “Saunders was a worried man. He abandoned the cab and slept rough for a couple of nights. Nobody thinks it had anything to do with his passenger. We just need to know if he said anything, or seemed edgy, or maybe took a call on his mobile…”

“The answer is no,” Deano said. The door of the bar burst open and a man and woman stumbled out, arms around one another, giggling like the teenagers they no longer were. Ignoring Rebus and the bouncer, they headed off towards the flats behind the Gimlet, the woman pausing to remove her high heels, hanging on to the man for support as she did so.

“You were the passenger?” Rebus asked quietly. Deano eventually nodded.

“An urgent delivery, maybe?” Rebus guessed. “Or maybe stocks were low and you needed a top-up?”

“He was supposed to wait. I told him I’d be five minutes, maybe ten. Handed him a twenty as down payment. But when I came out, he was nowhere to be seen.”

“Did he know what was going on?”

“No.”

“You hadn’t used him before?”

“Not that I know of.”

“And he seemed fine?”

“I was texting most of the way.”

“When you handed him the money and told him to wait…”