“I’m guessing booze, card games and porn.”

“You’d know better than me,” Clarke was echoing as the metal door shuddered open. A grizzled man in his early forties stood there, eyes hooded and with a week’s worth of stubble on his chin and cheeks. His gaze met that of Rebus.

“Hiya, Stefan,” Rebus said to him. “Keeping your nose clean, I hope?”

Stefan Skiladz had lived in Scotland for more than half his life, spending three of those years in prison for a serious assault after a day’s heavy drinking at a friend’s flat in Tollcross. Rebus had been CID at the time and had given evidence in court, Skiladz having pleaded not guilty despite the blood on his clothing and his fingerprints on the kitchen knife.

Clarke listened to Rebus explain all of this as the three of them sat around the table. When he had finished, Skiladz broke the silence with a question:

“What the hell is this all about?”

Clarke responded by pushing the photo of Annette McKie across the table towards him.

“She’s gone missing. Last seen in Pitlochry getting ready to hitchhike north.”

“So what?” Skiladz had picked the photo up, his face showing no emotion whatsoever.

“Your guys must go into Pitlochry,” Rebus answered. “Someone has to do the tobacco-and-vodka run.”

“Sometimes.”

“So maybe they took pity on her.”

“And dropped her here? Better to wait for someone to take her further.” Skiladz looked up from the photograph. “No?”

“I suppose so.”

“Could you keep the photo, show it around?” Clarke suggested.

“Sure.” He took another look. “Pretty girl. I have a daughter, not so very different.”

“Has that helped keep you out of trouble?”

Skiladz stared at Rebus. “I stopped with the drink. I got my head together.” He tapped a blackened finger to his brow. “And I stopped getting into arguments.”

Rebus thought for a moment. “Any of the other lads got form?”

“Trouble with the law, you mean? Why would I tell you?”

“Because then we wouldn’t have to come back here with immigration officers and maybe the tax man too. And while we checked every person’s ID and history, we’d make sure your name was mentioned in dispatches…”

Skiladz’s eyes drilled into Rebus. “You were a bastard back then, too. Just not so fat and old.”

“Hard to disagree.”

“So what’s your answer?” Clarke added.

Skiladz turned his attention towards her. “One or two,” he said eventually.

“One or two what?”

“Have had some trouble in the past.”

She got up and found a pad of lined paper, placing it in front of him, making sure not to obscure the photograph lying there.

“Write them down,” she said.

“This is crazy.”

She held out a pen and made him take it from her. When she retrieved the pad a minute later, it contained three names.

“Day shift?” she asked.

“Only the first.”

“Thomas Robertson,” she read out. “Doesn’t sound very Polish.”

“He’s Scottish.”

The door opened again. Bill Soames was standing there. He watched as Clarke tore the sheet from the pad, folded it in half and slipped it into her pocket.