“What are you saying?” Traynor had taken a step towards Rebus, fists clenching. Rebus held up both hands in a show of surrender.

“Dad, it’s all right,” Jessica Traynor intervened. “The officer’s only doing his job…”

But Rebus was holding Owen Traynor’s stare. “I don’t suppose you know the house, do you?” he asked.

“No.”

“Never been there?”

“No.”

“Not tempted to have a word with young Forbes about the crash? Maybe you couldn’t find him so decided to give his father a piece of your mind instead?”

“No.”

“Only, you’ve not got a car, so I’m guessing it would have been a taxi or a rental, meaning a paper trail…”

Traynor was shaking his head, slowly and at length.

“Dad? What’s he saying?”

“Nothing, Jessica.” Then, to Rebus: “I don’t even know where they live.”

Rebus looked doubtful. “When you looked up your daughter’s boyfriend online, a click or two would have taken you to Pat McCuskey. Such a public figure, I’m guessing his home address is out there somewhere.”

A smile flitted across Traynor’s face. He turned towards the bed. “He thinks maybe my blood was up and I went to give the McCuskey family a piece of my mind.”

“But you didn’t, did you, Dad?”

“I did not,” Traynor confirmed, turning back to face Rebus. “I did not,” he repeated.

“Then it’s just a terrible coincidence, isn’t it, Jessica?” Rebus had his eyes on Traynor’s daughter. She was twisting the TV remote in her hand, staring at it.

“Coincidence,” she echoed.

But Rebus could tell, all of a sudden, that she didn’t believe it.

“He’s in a coma,” Fox said as Rebus walked back into their shared office. “Got him stabilized, though, and not as near to popping his clogs as he was.”

Rebus blinked. “How do you know?”

Fox held up his phone, giving it a little wave. “The wonder of Wi-Fi,” he explained.

“I barely get a signal on mine,” Rebus muttered. He looked at the paperwork piled up on every available surface. “Someone’s been busy.”

“Did DCI Page decide you were surplus to requirements on the McCuskey case?”

“That hurts.” Rebus studied the paperwork again. The two original boxes had been joined by about ten more. “So what have we got here?”

“Summerhall CID in its entirety, late seventies to mideighties.”

“You sure this is everything?”

“You’re saying stuff will have walked?”

“I’m saying filing wasn’t always a priority.”

“Neither was handwriting, judging by what I’ve seen.”

Rebus had opened one file from 1983. He saw his own name at the top of an interview transcript. Domestic abuse at an address in Dumbiedykes. The names of victim and suspect meant nothing to him.

“So much ancient history,” he said.

“Some of the procedures seem not to have changed since the Stone Age,” Fox agreed.

“We’re focusing on the Saunders case, though?”