“How about a furious widow?” The young woman tapped the screen and a video began to play. Rebus had got up from the table and come around to see. The footage was shaky, presumably taken with a passerby’s mobile phone. Looked to Rebus like the university buildings on Buccleuch Place, the uglier edifices of George Square in the background. The clip lasted only fifteen or twenty seconds, but the widow was recognizably Bethany McCuskey. With the sound turned up, her expletives came with a distinct American accent. She was lashing out at a young woman, whose bag of textbooks fell to the ground during the attack.

“Filthy whore! Little goddamned slut!”

Followed by squeals from the victim as she attempted to defend herself from the blows. Then a glower from McCuskey in the direction of whoever was filming, before she turned and marched towards a small silver sports car.

The clip ended and Laura Smith looked at Rebus with widening eyes. “The Justice Minister’s widow,” she stated.

Rebus could only nod.

“But who was she attacking?” the assistant asked.

“No idea,” Smith said.

Rebus cleared his throat. “Maybe that red light you were complaining of has just changed,” he said. “She’s Jessica Traynor’s flatmate.”

“Jessica Traynor? You mean Forbes McCuskey’s girlfriend?” The crime reporter’s eyes widened further. “My God, do you think…?” She had turned towards the screen again. Without looking at Rebus, she asked him if he had a name.

“No name,” he lied. Rory Bell and Alice Bell within two minutes of each other—Laura Smith would have sniffed something, something Rebus still wasn’t sure was actually there.

“If Pat McCuskey was sleeping with a friend of his son’s,” the assistant was speculating, “could make the story interesting all over again.”

“It could,” Laura Smith agreed, getting to her feet and readying to leave.

“You won’t forget,” Rebus told her. “Rory Bell’s background?” He nodded towards the card she was still holding. “My e-mail’s on there.”

She nodded distractedly and thanked him for the coffee.

“It was DI Clarke’s treat,” Rebus reminded her, but she was already on her way back to the office, acolyte following in her wake. Rebus sat down again and tapped Clarke’s number into his phone.

“I’ve heard,” she said, picking up. “I spoke to Nick Ralph last night and told him about Alice Bell.”

“And he took it straight to the widow?” Rebus stared at the ceiling and sighed.

“I know what you’re thinking, John—you would have kept it to yourself. But we can’t know what’s pertinent to an inquiry…”

“Sometimes we can guess, though. This was Malcolm, wasn’t it? He persuaded you?”

“He didn’t need to—it was the right thing to do. Look, I’ve got to go.”