The young man was shaking his head. “I said I don’t drive, I never said I couldn’t if I have to.”

“You were attempting to mislead us, Mr. McCuskey. And all it’s done is made me even more curious about the night of the smash.”

“You can’t still be going on about that?”

“It’s unfinished business—and with what happened to your dad…” Rebus left the end of the sentence hanging and started on his way. “Number seventeen,” he reminded McCuskey. “My name’s on the bell…”

Once inside his flat, Forbes McCuskey dug his phone from his pocket and made a call.

“It’s me,” he said. Then, in response to a question: “Yeah, I’m all right, I suppose. A bit numb, to be honest. But I’ve just been talking to that guy Rebus.” He listened for a moment, wandering through to the kitchen and opening the fridge, in search of something to drink. “Apparently he lives on my street, which is a nuisance, and he’s still harping on about the crash. But here’s the thing—the thinking seems to be that Jess’s father might have been behind the break-in. That could play well for us, take a bit of the heat off.” He paused again to listen, glugging milk from a carton. “No, not that heat. Speaking of which, I better try ringing Jess…”

He ended the call and went through to his room, falling back onto the bed and staring at the ceiling. There was some dope under the mattress and he would smoke it in a little while. Maybe he’d drink some wine, too, or neat tequila. Anything to stop him thinking about his father and what had happened—what might have happened.

“You dickhead,” he muttered to himself, covering his eyes with his forearm. “What the hell have you gone and done…?”

Slowly, the tears began to come.

“Can I come up?”

“Where are you?” Siobhan Clarke asked.

“Standing outside.”

She went to the window to take a look. Her flat was on the first floor of a utilitarian block just off Broughton Street. Fox was standing in the middle of the road, his phone pressed to his ear.

“What’s going on?” she asked him.

“I’d rather tell you in person.”

She scanned her living room. It was presentable—more than presentable. But still, she didn’t want to share it with Fox. “I’ll come down,” she said into the phone. “There’s a bar around the corner we can go to.”

“I don’t drink,” Fox reminded her. “And this isn’t really a social visit.”

“Two minutes,” she said, ending the call and wondering whether to bother making herself presentable.