Rebus considered this. “If he looks hard enough, there might be a skeleton or two. Thing is, a lot of the supporting cast have left the stage—gone walkies or been fitted for the wooden suit. So while he might find stuff, he’ll have the devil’s own job making it stick.”

Clarke was staring at him. “How dirty was Summerhall?”

He studied the surface of his tea. “Dirty enough. You ever see that program Life on Mars? It felt like a documentary…”

“Beating a confession out of someone? Planting evidence? Making sure the bad guys got done for something?”

“You thinking of writing my biography?”

“This isn’t a joke, John. Tell me what happened to Billy Saunders.”

Rebus blew on the tea, took a sip, then shrugged. “It probably went down the way everyone seems to think.”

“Botching the case so he’d stay out of jail and useful?”

Rebus nodded.

“And that’s all going to have to come out in the wash for the Solicitor General to get her second prosecution,” Clarke stated. “Though there is another scenario.”

“I know,” Rebus said. “Saunders cuts a deal. For a lesser charge, he grasses up Summerhall.”

“Which would reflect badly on Stefan Gilmour.”

“It would be like giving a cow a machine gun—bullets could go anywhere.”

“You might take a ricochet?”

Rebus shrugged again. “I wasn’t there but I was sort of there—you see what I’m saying?”

“You were in the team but not the room?”

Rebus rose slowly to his feet, walked over to the stereo and stared at the record as it revolved, the pickup arm traveling almost imperceptibly towards the center of the vinyl. “It was thirty years ago, Siobhan. Everything was…” He turned towards her. “Is it fair to bring it all up?”

She looked at him. “There’s something else, isn’t there? I mean, okay, the guy was a snitch, but he’d just pummeled someone to death. I’m guessing even back then your instinct would have been to wash your hands of him. A lesser crime…maybe you’d have asked for leniency…but murder?”

He returned to his chair, slumping into it.

“You know I’m right, don’t you?” she asked quietly. “I think you knew it then too. Saunders had to have something on Stefan Gilmour. When you saw Gilmour the other night, how was he? When Blantyre told him about reopening the case, how did he react?”

“He was fine; he acted fine.”

“Maybe acting is one of those things he does well. Have you seen him on TV, campaigning for Scotland to stay in the union?”

“I doubt that’s an act.”

“But it’s a role he’s playing.”

“He resigned over the Saunders case.”

“I know.”

“He did the right thing.”

“Does he still have any contact with Saunders?”

“Why would he?”