“And standing in every bastard’s rain,” he said aloud. The horn was sounding from the car behind. Its driver was in a hurry. He had meetings waiting for him, important people he was letting down. The world would crash and burn if this traffic didn’t start moving. Rebus wondered how many hours of his own life he had wasted like this. Or sitting on a surveillance. Or filling in forms, requisitions and time sheets. When his phone pinged with a message, he saw it was from his boss.

Thought you said 3!

Rebus glanced at his watch. It was five minutes past the hour. Twenty more minutes would see him at the office, more or less. In days gone by, he might have had a siren and flashing light. He might have pulled out into the oncoming lane and trusted to the fates that he wouldn’t end up in A&E. But these days he didn’t even have a proper warrant card, because he wasn’t a cop. He was a retired cop who happened to work for Lothian and Borders Police in a civilian capacity. His boss was the only member of the unit who was still a serving officer. A serving officer and not at all happy about his latest posting nursing the geriatrics. Not happy either about the three p.m. meeting and Rebus’s tardiness.

What’s the rush?

Rebus texted back, just to be annoying. Then he turned up the music, repeating the same track as before. Jackie Leven still seemed to be standing in another man’s grave.

As if rain wasn’t bad enough…

ii

He shook himself free of his overcoat and let it drip across the floor of the office to the hook on the far wall.

“Thanks for taking the trouble,” Cowan said.

“Apologies, Danny.”

“Daniel,” Cowan corrected him.

“Sorry, Dan.”

Cowan was seated on one of the desks, his feet not quite reaching the floor, exposing a pair of red paisley-pattern socks above gleaming black leather shoes. He kept polish and brushes in the bottom drawer of his desk. Rebus knew this because he’d opened the drawer one day when Cowan was out of the room, having already checked the two drawers above it.

“What are you looking for?” Elaine Robison had asked.

“Clues,” Rebus had replied.

Robison was standing in front of him now, handing him a mug of coffee. “How did it go?” she asked.

“It was a funeral,” Rebus answered, placing the mug to his lips.

“If we can get started,” Cowan snapped. The gray suit didn’t look right on him. Its shoulders seemed over-padded and the lapels too wide. He pushed a hand defiantly through his hair.

Rebus and Robison took their seats alongside Peter Bliss, whose breathing sounded labored even when at rest. But he’d had the same wheeze twenty years ago, and maybe the twenty before that, too. He was just a shade older than Rebus and had been in the unit longer than any of them. He sat with his hands clasped across his prodigious stomach, as if daring the universe to spring on him something he hadn’t seen before. He’d certainly seen plenty like Detective Sergeant Daniel Cowan, and had told Rebus as much on Rebus’s first day with the unit: “Thinks we’re beneath his station. Reckons he’s too good, and the bosses know it and have shunted him here to take him down a peg or three.”