“John,” he said.

“Tommy,” Rebus replied, with another nod.

“Got to be us one of these days, eh?”

“Not yet, though.”

The two men started walking towards the cemetery gates.

“Need a lift?”

Rebus shook his head. “Car’s outside.”

“Traffic’s a nightmare—as per.”

Rebus offered a cigarette, but Tommy Beamish told him he’d stopped a couple of years back. “Doctor advised me they stunt your growth.”

Rebus lit up and inhaled. “How long have you been out of the game now?” he asked.

“Twelve years and counting. One of the lucky ones. Too many like Jimmy—get the gold watch, and soon after they’re on a slab.”

“A cheery prospect.”

“Is that why you keep working? I heard you were in Cold Case.”

Rebus nodded slowly. They were almost at the gates now. The first of the cars was passing them, family members in the back, eyes fixed on the road ahead. He couldn’t think what else to say to Beamish. Different ranks, different cop shops. He tried to conjure up the names of colleagues they might both have known.

“Ach, well…” Perhaps Beamish shared his difficulty. He was holding out his hand. Rebus shook it. “Till the next time, eh?”

“So long as it’s not one of us in the wooden suit.”

With a snort, Beamish was gone, turning his collar up against the falling rain. Rebus stubbed the cigarette out beneath his heel, waited a couple of moments, then headed for his car.

The traffic in Edinburgh was indeed a nightmare. Temporary lights, road closures, diversions. Long tailbacks everywhere. Most of it to accommodate the construction of a single tramline between airport and city center. While stationary, he checked his phone for messages, unsurprised to find there were none. No urgent cases required his attention: he worked with the long dead, murder victims forgotten by the world at large. There were eleven investigations on the books of the Serious Crime Review Unit. They went as far back as 1966, the most recent dating from 2002. Where there were graves to visit, Rebus had visited them. Families and friends still left flowers at a few, and the names on any cards had been jotted into his notebook and added to the file—to what end he wasn’t entirely sure. When he turned on the car’s CD player, Jackie Leven’s voice—deep and visceral—emerged from the speakers. He was singing about standing in another man’s grave. Rebus’s eyes narrowed. For a moment he was back in the cemetery, content to be staring at heads and shoulders. He reached over to the passenger seat and managed to wrest the lyric booklet from its case. The track was called “Another Man’s Rain.” That was what Jackie was singing about: standing in another man’s rain.

“Time to get your ears checked,” Rebus muttered to himself. Jackie Leven was dead, too. A year or so younger than Rebus. They shared a Fife background. Rebus wondered if his school had ever played the singer’s at football—almost the only time kids from different schools might meet. It wouldn’t have mattered: Rebus had never been picked for the first team, consigned instead to offering encouragement from the frozen sidelines as tackles and goals went in and insults were traded.