Rebus nodded, eyes boring into hers. “You can take that to Fox if you like. Bound to get his antennae twitching—a panicky reunion of the Saints.”

“Is that what it was?”

Rebus scratched at his jaw. “I’m not sure,” he confided. “The pretext was we wanted to catch up with Blantyre.”

“Because he’s had a stroke?”

“But he knew about Macari. And they wanted me to see what I could find out.”

Clarke nodded her understanding. “Which is why you agreed to meet Fox? And that phone call you just made…”

“Was me reporting back to Paterson,” Rebus confirmed. He had started to walk again, Clarke eventually catching up.

“You’re trying to play both sides?” she guessed. “Meaning you really don’t know what happened with Billy Saunders.”

“I’m not sure it’s as straightforward as Fox thinks.”

“So tell him that.”

“And drop the others in it?” Rebus shook his head. “Not until I’m certain.”

“You’re going to do some digging of your own? You know how that will look to Fox, don’t you?”

“I don’t give a damn how it looks to your friend Fox.”

Clarke grabbed his arm. “You know whose friend I really am.”

Rebus had stopped walking again. He looked down at his forearm, her hand clamped around it. “Of course I do,” he said, almost gently. “You’re Malcolm Fox’s friend.”

She looked furious for the two or three seconds before he burst into a grin.

“You’re an absolute prick sometimes,” she said, releasing her grip so she could curl her hand into a fist with which to punch him on the shoulder. Rebus winced and rubbed at the spot.

“You been training with weights?” he asked.

“More than you have,” she snapped back.

“Same gym as your lawyer friend? Any more cheap dinners planned?”

“You’re really not funny.”

“Then why are you smiling?” Rebus asked as they set off again.

“Fox is taking charge of the files on the case,” Clarke eventually commented.

“Yes, he is,” Rebus agreed.

“So if you want to go digging…”

“All it’ll cost is my dignity,” Rebus told her.

“But back in the bar…”

“If I’d kowtowed straightaway, he’d have suspected something.” He glanced in her direction. “Some people might mistake that look for grudging admiration.”

“They might,” Clarke acknowledged. But she kept on looking.

The comms center had gone through their logs for the night of the crash and found nothing from the western side of the city, other than the motorist who had called to report the crash itself. Rebus asked for those details anyway and jotted them down. He remembered the driver had been on her way home from her supermarket job in Livingston. He phoned her mobile and caught her at work. She asked how Jessica Traynor was doing.