Paterson seemed to have no answer to this. He lifted his glass again, but put it down without drinking. “We’re old men, John. You think I’d do any of the stuff I did in Summerhall, knowing what I do now? Every night I lie in my bed and think back on the people we were. But you won’t find those versions of us anymore.”

“Except for whoever killed Billy Saunders. And it wasn’t Frazer Spence.”

“Stefan isn’t going to own up to it.”

“The meeting with Saunders had to be arranged—somewhere traces will exist. Maybe on CCTV, maybe on a phone. Siobhan Clarke won’t rest till she’s peered into every last corner.”

“Good luck to her.” Paterson was rising to his feet. “Next time I see you might be Dod’s funeral—you realize that?” He took one last look at the contents of Rebus’s glass. “Soft drinks and playing things by the book. Who’d have thought it?”

Rebus watched as his one-time colleague left the pub. There was a slight limp—maybe his hip was playing up. And a stoop to the spine, too. But at one time Paterson had struck a fearsome figure—using his heft to intimidate suspects, hardening his face to suggest violence was not out of the question. Rebus could well visualize him tipping Phil Kennedy out of his chair. Maybe that was as far as it had gone. Then again, with Kennedy’s head resting against the cold concrete floor, the temptation would have been to haul it up by the hair and thump it down again. Rebus remembered Stefan Gilmour rubbing his hands together as if washing them clean. He had glimpses of entering the CID office and the conversation ending, or changing.

The less you knew, the better…

Still the apprentice…

“Not anymore,” Rebus said to himself, heading to the bar for a whisky.

23

23

Good of you to meet me,” Rebus said, shaking John McGlynn’s hand. McGlynn was younger than he’d expected and wore a black V-neck T-shirt below the jacket of his tailored suit. They were in the foyer of the Balmoral Hotel on Princes Street.

“I can only offer a few minutes,” McGlynn apologized.

“Probably all I’ll need.”

There were some chairs by the reception desk, so they sat down. McGlynn exuded restless energy, his eyes alive to possibilities. “Stefan said you’re interested in Rory Bell,” he began.

“I don’t know much about him.”

“Am I allowed to ask why he’s on your radar?”

“I’m afraid not.”

McGlynn digested this. “Well I can’t say it surprises me. A few businesses got on the wrong side of him when he tried selling them his services.”

“I’ve heard the rumors. Is that what happened to you?”