“Maybe if I’d bought the actual bloody guitar,” he muttered to himself, before rising to his feet in search of a pen.

Cafferty’s house was a detached Victorian mansion on a leafy street off Colinton Road. It sat in half an acre of grounds with its own coach house. There were plenty of public rooms, but Cafferty usually retreated to his study with its view of the back garden. There was a big old chair there that he’d owned since he was in his twenties. He sat in it to read books, and to think. Tonight he was thinking about Darryl Christie. Christie had invited him to Annette’s funeral. Cafferty had duly turned up at the chapel, noting that the young man had brought some muscle with him—half a dozen faces Cafferty didn’t know. Young but toughened—maybe army vets who’d bailed from Iraq or Afghanistan. They stood apart from the main phalanx of mourners and followed at a distance when the procession headed for the graveside, Darryl and his two younger brothers acting as pallbearers with three other men.

No Frank Hammell. No Derek Christie.

The cop from up north was there. Cafferty didn’t know her name, but he’d seen her on TV. He’d thought he might see Rebus, but that was another no-show. One of the thickset young men had made his way through the mourners towards Cafferty, leaning in to mutter in his ear that “Mr. Christie would like a word before you go.” Cafferty had hung back, watching people as they readied to go to the reception. Darryl had helped his mother into the limo, pecking her on the cheek and closing the door. Then he’d straightened his jacket and tie and headed for Cafferty. Cafferty held out a hand but Christie ignored it.

“You holding up?” Cafferty had felt it polite to ask.

“That’s not the question you really want an answer to.”

“All right then—where’s Frank Hammell?”

“He’s out of the game. Signed all his businesses over to me.” Christie’s eyes had come to rest on Cafferty’s. “Is that okay with you?”

“Why shouldn’t it be?”

“Because you still want to feel like a player. But we both know that’s not going to happen now. I’ve seen the way you operate, and that means I’m armed for any fight you want to start.”

“I’m past all that.”

“Those are the right words, but your brain needs to start believing them. I’ve studied hard, Cafferty, and I know which bits of this city Hammell controlled. As things stand, I’m not looking for a war—what’s yours is still yours. Only thing that’ll change that is if you decide this is a good time to try a bit of poaching or border-crossing. Do we understand one another?”

And only then had Christie reached out his hand towards Cafferty. The kid was eighteen! Eighteen! At eighteen, Cafferty had been no more than a foot soldier. And now he was being told what was what by a skinny waif with a Napoleon complex and a handful of paid minders to stop him coming to harm.