Rebus held up his hands. ‘Don’t look at me. Cranks and desperadoes are for the L-plates, surely?’

Pryde smiled. ‘Already allocated,’ he admitted, nodding towards where two DCs, recently promoted out of uniform, were looking dismayed at the workload. Cold calls constituted the most thankless task around. Any high-profile case threw up its share of fake confessions and false leads. Some people craved attention, even if it meant becoming a suspect in a police investigation. Rebus knew of several such offenders in Edinburgh.

‘Craw Shand?’ he guessed.

Pryde tapped the sheet of paper. ‘Three times so far, ready to admit to the murder.’

‘Bring him in,’ Rebus said. ‘It’s the only way to get rid of him.’

Pryde brought his free hand to the knot in his tie, as if checking for defects. ‘Neighbours?’ he suggested.

Rebus nodded. ‘Neighbours it is,’ he said.

He gathered together the notes from initial interviews. Other officers had been assigned the far side of the street, leaving Rebus and three others – working teams of two – to cover the flats either side of Philippa Balfour’s. Thirty-five in total, three of them empty, leaving thirty-two. Sixteen addresses per team, maybe fifteen minutes at each … four hours total.

Rebus’s partner for the day, DC Phyllida Hawes, had done the arithmetic for him as they climbed the steps of the first tenement. Actually, Rebus wasn’t sure you could call them ‘tenements’, not down in the New Town, with its wealth of Georgian architecture, its art galleries and antique emporia. He asked Hawes for advice.

‘Blocks of flats?’ she suggested, raising a smile. There were one or two flats per landing, some adorned with brass nameplates, others ceramic. A few went so low as to boast just a piece of sellotaped card or paper.

‘Not sure the Cockburn Association would approve,’ Hawes remarked.

Three or four names listed on the bit of card: students, Rebus guessed, from backgrounds less generous than Philippa Balfour’s.

The landings themselves were bright and cared for: welcome mats and tubs of flowers. Hanging baskets had been placed over banisters. The walls looked newly painted, the stairs swept. The first stairwell went like clockwork: two flats with nobody home, cards dropped through either letterbox; fifteen minutes in each of the other flats – ‘just a few back-up questions … see if you’ve thought of anything to add …’ The householders had shaken their heads, had professed themselves still shocked. Such a quiet little street.

There was a main door flat at ground level, a much grander affair, with a black-and-white-chequered marble entrance hall, Doric columns either side. The occupier was renting it long term, worked in ‘the financial sector’. Rebus saw a pattern emerging: graphic designer; training consultant; events organiser … and now the financial sector.

‘Does no one have real jobs any more?’ he asked Hawes.

‘These are the real jobs,’ she told him. They were back on the pavement, Rebus enjoying a cigarette. He noticed her staring at it.