She managed a thin smile. ‘He’s persistent. Wants to know what “others” I was talking about in Bev Dodds’s kitchen. That was my fault, sorry.’ She seemed to have regained some composure. ‘I should be getting back. I can probably find a taxi if …’

‘I said I’d run you home.’ He signalled for their waitress to bring the bill.

He’d parked the Saab on North Bridge. There was a cold wind blowing, but Jean stopped to look at the view: the Scott Monument, the Castle, and Ramsay Gardens.

‘Such a beautiful city,’ she said. Rebus tried to agree. He hardly saw it any more. To him, Edinburgh had become a state of mind, a juggling of criminal thoughts and baser instincts. He liked its size, its compactness. He liked its bars. But its outward show had ceased to impress him a long time ago. Jean wrapped her coat tightly around her. ‘Everywhere you look, there’s some story, some little piece of history.’ She looked at him and he nodded agreement, but he was remembering all the suicides he’d dealt with, people who’d jumped from North Bridge maybe because they couldn’t see the same city Jean did.

‘I never tire of this view,’ she said, turning back towards the car. He nodded again, disingenuously. To him, it wasn’t a view at all. It was a crime scene waiting to happen.

When he drove off, she asked if they could have some music. He switched on the cassette-player and the car filled to bursting with Hawkwind’s In Search of Space.

‘Sorry,’ he said, ejecting the tape. She found cassette boxes in the glove compartment. Hendrix, Cream and the Stones. ‘Probably not your style,’ he said.

She waved the Hendrix at him. ‘You haven’t got Electric Ladyland by any chance?’

Rebus looked at her and smiled.

Hendrix was the soundtrack for their drive to Portobello.

‘So what made you a policeman?’ she asked at one point.

‘Is it such a strange career choice?’

‘That doesn’t answer my question.’

‘True.’ He glanced at her and smiled. She took the hint, nodding her understanding. Then she concentrated on the music.

Portobello was on Rebus’s short-list come the move from Arden Street. It had a beach, and a main street of small local shops. At one time, it had been a fairly grand location, a place the gentry flocked to for reviving air and healthy doses of chill seawater. It wasn’t quite so grand now, but the housing market dictated its rebirth. Those who couldn’t afford the smart homes in the city centre were moving to ‘Porty’, which still had big Georgian houses, but without the premium. Jean had a house on a narrow street near the promenade. ‘You own the whole thing?’ he said, peering through the windscreen.

‘I bought it years back. Porty wasn’t so fashionable.’ She hesitated. ‘Do you want to come in for coffee this time?’