Rebus moved one of the empty crates from his chair and sat down at his desk. “I’ll have to check my diary,” he said.

“How was Inverness? TV made it look like a bit of a circus.”

“Nothing the media likes more than a new Sawney Bean to scare us with.”

“Who?”

“Cannibal—probably mythical.”

“Did you call in on Gregor Magrath?” Bliss asked.

Rebus nodded. “And I passed along the news.”

“How did he take it?”

“Philosophically.”

“Picked a nice spot for himself up there, hasn’t he?”

“Might be all right on a calm day…”

Bliss chuckled. “Aye, before he retired, Gregor was always chasing the sun. Him and Margaret used to come back from Tenerife brown as berries.”

“Margaret was his wife?” Rebus guessed, remembering the photos on the bookcase. “When did she die?”

“Couple of years before he took retirement. Bloody shame—he used to bring cruise brochures in, tell everyone where he and Margaret were going to go when he got the gold watch. How’s he keeping?”

“Seems fine. You didn’t work here when Nina Hazlitt met him, did you?”

“Don’t think so. He’d have mentioned her.”

“It would have been 2004.”

“Just before my time, then.”

“He never discussed her with you?”

Bliss shook his head.

Someone rapped their knuckles against the open door. Rebus looked up and saw Malcolm Fox standing there.

“Can we have a word?” Fox asked.

“If you must,” Rebus responded.

“Maybe along the corridor…”

Rebus followed him to the Complaints’ lair. Fox punched in the code for the lock, making sure to shield the combination from the visitor. The room was much the same size as SCRU, with an almost identical layout: desks and laptops and a window with a view on to Fettes Avenue. There was another suit waiting for them. He was Fox’s age, but wirier, with ancient acne scars on one cheek. Rebus got the feeling this man would happily play bad cop to Fox’s good—or vice versa. Fox introduced him as Tony Kaye, then asked Rebus to take a seat.

“I’m fine standing.”

Fox gave a shrug, then eased his backside onto the corner of Tony Kaye’s desk.

“Thought you might still have been up north,” Fox said. “That’s why I phoned Inverness first, only to be told you’d been given the heave-ho.” His eyes drilled into Rebus’s. “Mind telling me why?”

“I was showing them up as amateurs. You know how prickly other forces get when that happens.”

“So it had nothing to do with Frank Hammell, then?”

“Why should it?”

“That photo of you and him enjoying a friendly drink,” Tony Kaye suggested.

“Just a coincidence.”

“Don’t take us for mugs.”

Rebus switched his attention to Fox, waiting for the man to speak.

“Morris Gerald Cafferty,” Fox obliged, “and now Francis Hammell. You don’t half pick your friends, Rebus.”

“They’re as much my friends as you are.”

“Funny, that,” said Kaye, “because we’ve not been to any pubs with you, while you’ve been spotted drinking with both of them.”