They had colonised the back room’s top table. The place wasn’t busy, and the TV in the opposite corner meant they were unlikely to be overheard.

‘Some sort of pow-wow?’ Jean asked, after Rebus had gone.

‘Or maybe a wake,’ Wylie guessed.

‘It’s her then?’ Jean asked. Their silence was answer enough.

‘You work on witchcraft and stuff, don’t you?’ Siobhan asked Jean.

‘Belief systems,’ Jean corrected her, ‘but, yes, witchcraft falls into it.’

‘It’s just that with the coffins, and Flip’s body being found in a place called Hellbank … You said yourself there might be some connection with witchcraft.’

Jean nodded. ‘It’s true that Hellbank may have come by its name that way.’

‘And true that the little coffins on Arthur’s Seat might have been to do with witchcraft?’

Jean looked to Donald Devlin, who was following the dialogue intently. She was still debating what to say when Devlin spoke up.

‘I very much doubt there’s any element of witchcraft involved in the Arthur’s Seat coffins. But you do propose an interesting hypothesis, in that, enlightened though we might think ourselves, we are always ready to invite such mumbo-jumbo.’ He smiled at Siobhan. ‘I’m impressed that a police detective should be so minded.’

‘I didn’t say I was,’ Siobhan snapped back.

‘Clutching at straws then, perhaps?’

When Rebus returned with Jean’s lime and soda, he couldn’t help but note the silence which had fallen over the table.

‘Well,’ Wylie said impatiently, ‘now we’re all here … ?’

‘Now we’re all here …’ Rebus echoed, lifting his pint, ‘cheers!’

He waited till they’d lifted their own glasses before putting his own to his mouth. Scotland: you couldn’t refuse a toast.

‘All right,’ he said, putting the glass back down, ‘there’s a murder case needs solving, and I just want to be sure in my own mind where we all stand.’

‘Isn’t that what the morning briefings are for?’

He looked at Wylie. ‘Then call this an unofficial briefing.’

‘With the booze as a bribe?’

‘I’ve always been a fan of incentive schemes.’ He managed to force a smile from her. ‘Right, here’s what I think we’ve got so far. We’ve got Burke and Hare – taking things chronologically – and soon after them we’ve got lots of little coffins found on Arthur’s Seat.’ He looked towards Jean, noticing for the first time that though there was a space on the bench next to Devlin, she’d pulled a chair over from one of the other tables so she was next to Siobhan instead. ‘Then, connected or not, we’ve got a series of similar coffins turning up in places where women happen to have disappeared or turned up dead. One such coffin is found in Falls, just after Philippa Balfour goes missing. She then turns up dead on Arthur’s Seat, location of the original coffins.’