“Have you been somewhere? Can’t say I’d noticed.” Peter Bliss was hauling files and folders from a large plastic container. Some sheets fell free, sliding across the floor. Elaine Robison helped pick them up.

“How are things at Gayfield Square?” she asked.

“Coffee’s not a patch on here.”

“I meant the case.”

Rebus shrugged. “I’m not sure anyone’s convinced about the links to the other MisPers.”

“It was always going to be a hard sell, John.”

“I seem to be in luck here, though—no Cowan to speak of.”

“He’s at some meeting,” Bliss explained, seating himself at his desk. “Huckling for a move.”

“To the CCU,” Robison added, resting her hands on her hips. “Seems there’s a vacancy at the top table.”

“I was under the impression our dear leader hates cold cases.”

“But the one thing he does like is advancement. They’d have to promote him DI.”

“Fast track to DCI and above,” Bliss said with a shake of his head.

“Well, his wardrobe’s good and ready, even if he’s not.” Rebus turned to leave.

“Not staying for some of that famous coffee?” Robison asked.

“Places to go, people to see,” Rebus said by way of apology.

“Don’t be a stranger,” she called to him as he headed out of the door.

ETHICS AND STANDARDS was what it said on the wall next to the office, but everyone called them the Complaints. Rebus tried the handle. It didn’t budge. Combination lock. He knocked, pressed his ear to the door, knocked again. Further along the corridor was the Deputy Chief Constable’s office, and the Chief Constable’s beyond that. Rebus hadn’t been hauled up here for a carpeting in quite some time. His years on the force, he’d seen the pen-pushers come and go. They were always full of new ideas, tweaks they were keen to make, as if you could change the job by means of strategy meetings and focus groups. The Complaints was part of that—every year or two, their name seemed to change—Complaints and Conduct; Professional Standards; Ethics and Standards. One cop Rebus had known, the Complaints had gone after him because a neighbor had complained about the height of his leylandii. The whole process had taken the best part of a year, after which the cop had decided he didn’t like the job anymore.

Another result for the Complaints.

Rebus gave up and took the lift down to the cafeteria. Bottle of Irn-Bru and a caramel wafer. He walked over to a table by the window. The window looked onto the sports field, where you could sometimes see off-duty officers playing rugby. Not today, though. The chair made plenty of noise as Rebus pulled it out from the table. He sat down and returned the stare of the man sitting there.

“Malcolm Fox,” he stated.

Fox didn’t deny it. He was twenty years younger than Rebus, and a stone and a half lighter. A bit less gray in his hair. Most cops looked like cops, but Fox could have been middle management in a plastics company or Inland Revenue.