“Not a him, a her. Clarke, she said her name was.” She turned her face back towards him. “It’s happened again, you see. And it’s going to keep happening.” She paused and screwed her eyes shut. A single tear began to trace its way down her left cheek. “Sally was only the first…”

2

Hey, you,” Rebus said, stepping out of his car.

“What’s wrong?” Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke turned her head slightly to peer at the building from which she’d just emerged. “Bad memories stopping you coming in?”

Rebus took a moment to study the dreary two-story facade of Gayfield Square police station. “Just got here,” he explained, though in fact he’d been sitting in the Saab for a good four or five minutes, hands playing with the steering wheel. “Looks like you’re off out…”

“Well deduced.” She gave a smile and took a couple of steps forward, pecking him on the cheek. “How’ve you been?”

“Still seem to have that old lust for life.”

“Meaning booze and nicotine?”

Rebus gave a shrug, returning her smile but keeping quiet.

“To answer your question,” she said, “I’m taking a late lunch. There’s a café I usually go to on Leith Walk.”

“If you’re asking me to join you, there are certain preconditions.”

“And what might those be?”

“No smoky bacon crisps or prawns.”

She seemed to consider this for a moment. “Could be a deal-breaker.” She gestured towards his Saab. “It’ll get a ticket if you leave it there. There’s pay-parking across the street.”

“At one eighty an hour? I’m on a pension, remember.”

“Want to see if there’s space in the car park?”

“I prefer the whiff of danger.”

“That bay’s for patrol cars—I’ve seen civilians get towed.” She turned and started back up the steps, telling him to give her a minute. He realized his heart was beating a little faster than usual, and placed a hand over it. She’d been right about his reluctance to enter his old station—it was where he’d worked with her, right up until retirement. Half a lifetime as a cop, and suddenly the force apparently had no need of him. He thought of the cemetery again, and Jimmy Wallace’s grave, and gave a small, involuntary shudder. The door in front of him was swinging open, Clarke waving something in his direction. It was a rectangular sign with the words POLICE OFFICIAL BUSINESS printed on it.

“Kept behind the front desk for emergencies,” she explained. He unlocked the Saab and placed it inside the windscreen. “And for that,” she added, “you’re treating me to a baked potato…”

Not just any baked potato either, but one filled with cottage cheese and pineapple. There were sticky Formica-topped tables and plastic cutlery, along with paper cups for the tea, the drawstring hanging over the side of each.

“Classy,” Rebus said, fishing out his tea bag and depositing it on the smallest, thinnest paper napkin he’d ever seen.

“You not eating?” Clarke asked, making a professional job of cutting through the skin of her potato.