They were on Teviot Place now, at the entrance to her building. She held out her hand and he shook it. The hand was slender, and he could feel the bones beneath the skin. Then she headed through the archway and was gone.

“Fucking mummies now,” Rebus muttered to himself, readying to retrace his route. His phone rang and he answered it.

“Why is nothing ever simple with you, John?” Page asked.

“I didn’t ask for the assignment.”

“From what Professor Quant tells me, we have a suspicious death at the very least.”

“She told me that too.”

“You saw her, then? I hear she’s a fine-looking specimen.”

“You’re misinformed,” Rebus responded, ending the call and searching his pockets for his cigarettes.

He met Eamonn Paterson at a lunchtime pub on Raeburn Place. Rebus was seated at a corner table when Paterson arrived. Paterson got himself a pint of lager, Rebus shaking away the offer.

“What the hell is that?” the older man asked, nodding towards the bright green drink in front of Rebus.

“Lime juice and soda—Siobhan Clarke swears by it.”

“I’d swear too if you plonked one in front of me.” Paterson picked up the menu and studied it. “You eating?”

“I’m fine,” Rebus said.

“Just want to get down to business, eh?” Paterson put the menu back and took a mouthful of lager.

“The thing is, Porkbelly, I know about Phil Kennedy.”

“Oh aye?”

Rebus nodded slowly, his eyes on his old friend. “You had him on a chair in the cell, giving him a doing. He smacks his head and that’s that. To cover your arse, the body’s taken back to his house and arranged at the foot of the stairs. The relevant bit of the custody ledger is torn out so no one’s any the wiser—except Billy Saunders, who heard everything from the cell next door.”

Paterson stared at the table, as if committing to memory the pattern of its grain. He was holding his glass but not drinking from it. Eventually he sniffed and rubbed at his nose. But still he failed to make eye contact with Rebus, finding the window, the walls and the bar staff more interesting.

“Aye,” he said at last, stretching the single syllable as far as he could. Then he risked meeting Rebus’s gaze. “You found out from Saunders? He wrote it down somewhere?”

“Doesn’t matter how I found out.”

“It can always be denied, you know. There’s no actual proof.”

“You’re right.”

“And it really was an accident, if it was anything.”

“The cover-up was no accident, though. It was planned to almost the last detail.”

“Almost?”