“Want to borrow my mobile?” Rebus held it out towards the young man. “I don’t care what the hell you do, Forbes. And I can appreciate you’re scared.” He indicated the paint marks on the floor. “You’ve had a visitor. I think maybe they went to your home too. Expected to find you rather than your dad.” He paused. “Can I come in?”

“We don’t want you here.”

“Maybe not, but I think you need me. How else are you going to be rid of Alice’s Uncle Rory?”

“Christ…”

The utterance came from a doorway beyond.

“Hello there, Alice,” Rebus said, though he couldn’t see her. “You’ve managed to make it up with Forbes and Jessica, then? I suppose you had to—the three of you have to stick together, too much to lose otherwise.” Then, to Forbes McCuskey: “I’ve just been visiting the multistory in Livingston. You took Jessica there for a look. I’m guessing it must have been Alice who let it slip, maybe one night after a party—a couple of drinks or a toke too many. Alice’s scary uncle and some car he’d told her about. Something in its boot? A crowbar would be needed if someone wanted to know what it was.” Rebus paused, his eyes fixed on those of the student. “Am I getting warm, son?”

“Tell him to go away!” A different voice, louder, almost hysterical: Jessica Traynor.

“The gang’s all here,” Rebus said with a smile. “Crisis meeting sort of thing? How come Alice can’t just go have a word with Uncle Rory?”

“It’s too late for that!” Alice Bell cried out. Rebus tried shuffling into the hall, but McCuskey was determined to block him.

“Come back when you’ve got a warrant,” he said, a determined look on his face.

“Might be too late by then, Forbes. You saw what happened to your dad.”

“We don’t know what happened!”

“We can take an educated guess, though,” Rebus argued. “And you three are more educated than me, so I’m guessing you’ve come to a few conclusions.” He paused again. “And they’re scaring the shit out of you even as I stand here. Oh, and by the way, Alice? Nice touch, putting me on the trail of Forbes’s dealer. I’m guessing that was to stop me focusing on the crash, and for a while it actually worked.”

Forbes turned away from Rebus towards Bell. “You told him?”

“I had to!”

Rebus heard the main door downstairs open and close—a neighbor, returning home, their feet sounding like sandpaper against the stone steps.

“You need me,” he persisted. The young man’s resolve was crumbling, his whole world in imminent danger of collapse. “You need to tell me what happened.”

“Just go,” McCuskey said, with something like resignation.