‘Responsible, sir?’

‘For Liz’s . . . murder. If we’d been together, if we’d been here together, it might never have happened. It wouldn’t have happened. Do you see what I mean?’

‘No good blaming yourself, sir –’

Jack whirled towards him. ‘But that’s just it, I do blame myself.’

‘Why don’t you sit down, Mr Jack –’

‘Gregor, please.’

‘All right . . . Gregor. Now why don’t you sit down and calm down.’

Jack did as he was told. Bereavement affected different people in different ways, the weak becoming strong and the strong becoming weak. Ronald Steele hurled books around, Gregor Jack became . . . pathetic. He was scratching at the finger again. ‘But it’s all so ironic,’ he spat.

‘How’s that?’ Rebus wished the tea would hurry up. Maybe Jack would pull himself together in Urquhart’s presence.

‘That brothel,’ Jack said, fixing Rebus’s eyes with his own. ‘That’s what started it all. And the reason I was there . . .’

Rebus sat forward. ‘Why were you there, Gregor?’

Gregor Jack paused, swallowed, seemed to take a breath while he thought about whether to answer or not. Then he answered.

‘To see my sister.’

There was silence in the room, so profound that Rebus could hear his watch ticking. Then the door flew open.

‘Tea,’ said Ian Urquhart, sidling into the room.

Rebus, who had been so eager for Urquhart’s arrival, now couldn’t wait for the man to leave. He rose from the chair and walked to the mantelpiece. The card from The Pack was still there, but it had been joined by over a dozen condolence cards – some from other MPs, some from family and friends, some from the public.

Urquhart seemed to sense the atmosphere in the room. He left the tray on a table and, without a word, made his exit. The door had barely closed before Rebus said, ‘What do you mean, your sister?’

‘I mean just that. My sister was working in that brothel. Well, I suspected she was, I’d been told she was. I thought maybe it was a joke, a sick joke. Maybe a trap, to get me to a brothel. A trap and a trick. I thought long and hard before I went, but I still went. He’d sounded so confident.’

‘Who had?’

‘The caller. I’d been getting these calls . . .’ Ah yes, Rebus had meant to ask about those. ‘By the time I got to the phone, the caller would have hung up. But one night, the caller got me straight away, and he told me: “Your sister’s working in a brothel in the New Town.” He gave me the address, and said if I went around midnight she’d just be starting her . . . shift.’ The words were like some food he didn’t enjoy, but given him at a banquet so that he didn’t dare spit it out, but had to go on chewing, trying hard not to swallow . . . He swallowed. ‘So along I went, and she was there. The caller had been telling the truth. I was trying to talk to her when the police came in. But it was a trap, too. The newsmen were there . . .’