She smiled. ‘Do you know anything about that raid last night?’

Rebus blinked, still sucking. ‘What raid?’

‘I heard the police raided a brothel.’

‘Oh?’

‘I heard they caught an MP, Gregor Jack.’

‘Oh?’

She smiled again. ‘Word gets about.’ Rebus thought, not for the first time, I don’t live in a city, I live in a bloody village . . .

‘I just wondered,’ the girl was saying, ‘if you knew anything about it. I mean, if it’s true. I mean, if it is . . .’ she sighed. ‘Poor Beggar.’

Rebus frowned now.

‘That’s his nickname,’ she explained. ‘Beggar. That’s what Ronald calls him.’

‘Your boss knows Mr Jack then?’

‘Oh yes, they were at school together. Beggar owns half of this. She waved a hand around her, as though she were proprietress of some Princes Street department store. She saw that the policeman didn’t seem impressed. ‘We do a lot of business behind the scenes,’ she said defensively. ‘A lot of buying and selling. It might not look much, but this place is a goldmine.’

Rebus nodded. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘now that you mention it, it does look a bit like a mine.’ His wrist was crackling now, as though stung by nettles. Bloody cat. ‘Right, keep an eye out for those books, won’t you?’

She didn’t answer. Hurt, he didn’t doubt, by the ‘mine’ jibe. She was opening a book, ready to pencil in a price. Rebus nodded to himself, walked to the door, and rubbed his feet noisily on the mat before leaving the shop. The cat was back in the window, licking its tail.

‘Fuck you too, pal,’ muttered Rebus. Pets, after all, were his pet hate.

Dr Patience Aitken had pets. Too many pets. Tiny tropical fish . . . a tame hedgehog in the back garden . . . two budgies in a cage in the living room . . . and, yes, a cat. A stray which, to Rebus’s relief, still liked to spend much of its time on the prowl. It was a tortoiseshell and it was called Lucky. It liked Rebus.

‘It’s funny,’ Patience had said, ‘how they always seem to go for the people who don’t like them, don’t want them, or are allergic to them. Don’t ask me why.’

As she said this, Lucky was climbing across Rebus’s shoulders. He snarled and shrugged it off. It fell to the floor, landing on its feet.

‘You’ve got to have patience, John.’

Yes, she was right. If he did not have patience, he might lose Patience. So he’d been trying. He’d been trying. Which was perhaps why he’d been tricked into trying to stroke Rasputin. Rasputin! Why was it pets always seemed to be called either Lucky, Goldie, Beauty, Flossie, Spot, or else Rasputin, Beelzebub, Fang, Nirvana, Bodhisattva? Blame the breed of owner.

Rebus was in the Rutherford, nursing a half of eight-shilling and watching the full-time scores on TV, when he remembered that he was expected at Brian Holmes’ new house this evening, expected for a meal with Holmes and Nell Stapleton. He groaned. Then remembered that his only clean suit was at Patience Aitken’s flat. It was a worrying fact. Was he really moving in with Patience? He seemed to be spending an awful lot of time there these days. Well, he liked her, even if she did treat him like yet another pet. And he liked her flat. He even liked the fact that it was underground.