“Never really got to grips with the roads here,” Fox commented, as his Scotch broth was delivered.

“Join the club.” Rebus sat back a little, so that the waiter could place the steak pie in front of him. It came with chips, salad and a roll and butter.

“Help me out,” Rebus said to Fox.

“You’re on your own, pal,” Fox replied, tucking his napkin into his waistband. Then, after a glance at the wall clock: “And you’ve got about twenty minutes before we need to be elsewhere.” Having said which, he picked up his spoon and got to work.

“Did you always think you’d end up in the Complaints?” Rebus asked.

“Does anybody?”

“Maybe not, but you seem to be good at it—judging by the number of cops who hate your guts.”

“Yourself included?”

“Maybe less so than before.”

Fox added some white pepper to the soup. “Somebody’s got to make sure we don’t take liberties—pun intended.”

“And used many times before, I don’t doubt.” Rebus removed some gristle from between his teeth. “But now that we’re getting to know one another, would that make you feel any worse if you had to bust me?”

Fox glanced up at him. “Maybe,” he conceded.

“You’d bust me anyway, though?”

“If I needed to.”

“Some bloody job that. Say I was trying to get some bawbag to confess, and they did end up confessing but I’d had to finesse a procedure or two…?”

Fox smiled. “You think that puts you on the side of the angels?”

“And you don’t?”

“I’m not some bean-counter, John. Every situation is different, and circumstances are taken into account.”

“Sounds like bean-counter talk to me.” But Rebus was smiling too.

Fox checked the clock again.

“You don’t think Stefan will grant us a few minutes’ leeway?” Rebus asked.

“Would you?”

“Good point,” Rebus was forced to agree, digging into the steak pie again.

“Hey, take a look.” Fox was gesturing towards the TV. Rebus saw the media outside Torphichen police station becoming restive as a man maneuvered his way past them to get inside. The shot then cut to the same man leaving the building, while the newsreader explained that he was “businessman Owen Traynor from southwest London, whose daughter Jessica is the girlfriend of Patrick McCuskey’s son…”

“Good for you, Siobhan,” Rebus muttered under his breath, before giving up on the pie and starting on the chips instead.