“Editors in cahoots with the upper echelons?”

Stout nodded, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his cardigan.

“But the pieces you wrote about the Merchant killing made it into the Scotsman,” Fox nudged.

“By no means all of them, but some, yes. It was safe by then, you see? A senior officer had already resigned.”

“Stefan Gilmour?” Fox watched the old man nod.

“Did him no harm in the long run, did it?” Stout grumbled. “On his way to a knighthood, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“The officers at Summerhall contend that it was a simple matter of errors being made.”

“Nonsense,” Stout snapped back at Fox. “Billy Saunders had to be protected.”

“Because he was Stefan Gilmour’s snitch? Or do you think there was more to it than that?”

“It did cross my mind. Plenty of men around like Saunders at that time—losing one snitch to jail would hardly have shaken Gilmour’s world.”

“So what do you make of it?”

“Have you tried asking him?” Stout gestured towards Rebus. “I seem to recall you were at Summerhall same time as Gilmour.”

“I’m in the dark as much as anyone,” Rebus commented. “But we’re talking to Eamonn Paterson and George Blantyre.”

“And Gilmour himself, of course,” Fox added.

“Not Frazer Spence, though,” Stout said quietly. “Poor little bugger. He was one of mine, you know.”

“One of the officers who’d take a drink from you?” Fox checked.

Stout was nodding again. “Not until a few years after the Merchant case, but yes…” He seemed lost in thought for a moment. “Reluctant to talk about Summerhall though. And clammed up completely whenever Merchant was mentioned.”

“He knew something?”

“He was scared, or maybe haunted is a better word—like there was something he’d stuffed into a locker and he didn’t ever want it opening.”

“Will Summerhall feature in your memoirs, Mr. Stout?” Rebus asked. Fox looked annoyed at the interruption.

“Maybe as a postscript to be published after my death—that way nobody can sue.” There was a glint in the old journalist’s eye.

“You worked with Frazer Spence, John,” Fox was saying. “Do you know why he’d feel ‘haunted’?”

“No idea.”

“Nobody in that police station was totally clean,” Stout said sourly, his eyes on Rebus.

“And we know that journalists have always been paragons of virtue,” Rebus responded.

“One or two of us were scumbags,” Stout allowed. “But with your lot it was institutionalized lying, institutionalized violence and threats.”

“You’re one to talk, you old—”

“DS Rebus,” Fox broke in, his voice rising. “Maybe you need a breath of air.”

After a staring match of a few seconds, Rebus got to his feet. “Maybe I do at that. The atmosphere in here’s getting a bit too fucking pious for me. I’ll leave you and this old hypocrite to it…”