“Your decision,” Rebus repeated, sliding his hands into his pockets. Magrath’s eyes seemed to clear. He met Rebus’s gaze.

“What do I do?” he asked. “Tell me.”

“You’re asking my advice?”

Magrath nodded and another tremor ran through him. Rebus gave a glance in Clarke’s direction before seeming to think for a moment.

“I’ll give it, then,” he said, “but on one condition…”

Magrath blinked a couple of times. “Yes?”

“You leave us out of it.”

Magrath’s eyelids fluttered again. “Out of what?”

“Your confession,” Rebus told him.

They dropped him outside the police station on Burnett Road. Rebus had called ahead and Gavin Arnold was waiting. Rebus and Clarke stayed in the car and watched as Arnold led Kenny Magrath inside. Rebus had his window down so he could smoke a cigarette. His hand was shaking, but only a little.

“He might change his mind, you know,” Clarke said quietly.

“He might,” Rebus agreed. “On the other hand, a secure unit’s about as safe from Darryl Christie as he’s likely to get.”

“You definitely got that across to him.” She paused. “Speaking of which…”

Rebus turned to face her. “Christie?” He watched as she nodded. “Depends what Kenny Magrath says in his statement. If he leaves out the forest…”

“Christie was going to kill him.”

“Entrapment, they’d call it in court.” Rebus peered out through the windscreen towards the darkness. “I led him into it, after all.” Then: “We should get going before Dempsey arrives.”

“You’re really planning to let Darryl Christie off the hook?”

“I’m not the cop here, Siobhan.” He turned in her direction again. “Your call rather than mine.”

Clarke focused her attention on the door to the police station and the illuminated POLICE sign above it. “They’ll know someone got to him. Pretty good chance your name will crop up.”

“Just so long as yours doesn’t. Besides, I’m a civilian, remember—I was watching his workshop for want of anything better to do, saw him being abducted and decided to follow, then ended up saving his skin. That’s if he opts to throw my name into the pot.”

There was silence in the car for a moment, until Clarke broke it.

“We didn’t ask him why he did it.”

“The killings or the photos?”

“Both, I suppose.”

“I doubt he knows the answer to that himself.”

More silence. Clarke was still facing away from Rebus when she spoke. “For a moment there, when Christie raised that shovel, it flashed through my mind that you were going to let it happen.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Magrath dead and Christie on a murder charge?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that would have been a result too, I suppose.”

“And it’s results that matter rather than how you get them.”

“Used to be the way.”

“Not now, though?”