The two of them looked to be squaring up. Rebus considered brokering the peace – he was St Leonard’s, same as Hood: he should be sticking up for him – but lit another cigarette instead. Hood’s cheeks had reddened. He was a DC, same rank as Hawes, but she had more years behind her. Sometimes you couldn’t argue with experience, which wasn’t stopping Hood from trying.

‘This isn’t helping Philippa Balfour,’ Distant Daniels said at last, stopping the confab dead.

‘Well said, son,’ Rebus added. It was true: big inquiries could blind you to the single essential truth. You became a tiny cog in the machine, and as such you made demands in order to assure yourself of your importance. The ownership of chairs became an issue, because it was an easy argument, something that could be resolved quickly either way. Unlike the case itself, the case which was growing almost exponentially, making you seem ever smaller, until you lost sight of that single essential truth – what Rebus’s mentor Lawson Geddes had called ‘the SET’ – which was that a person or persons needed your help. A crime had to be solved, the guilty brought to justice: it was good to be reminded sometimes.

They split up amicably in the end, Hood noting the gardener’s details and promising to talk to him. After which there was nothing else to do but start climbing stairs again. They’d spent the best part of half an hour at Mrs Jardine’s; already Hawes’ calculations were unravelling, proving another truism: inquiries ate up time, as if the days went into fast forward and you couldn’t show how the hours had been spent, were hard pressed to explain your exhaustion, knowing only the frustration of something left incomplete.

Two more no-one-homes, and then, on the first landing, the door was opened by a face Rebus recognised but couldn’t place.

‘It’s about Philippa Balfour’s disappearance,’ Hawes was explaining. ‘I believe two of my colleagues spoke to you earlier. This is just by way of a follow-up.’

‘Yes, of course.’ The gloss-black door opened a little wider. The man looked at Rebus and smiled. ‘You’re having trouble placing me, but I remember you.’ The smile widened. ‘You always remember the virgins, don’t you?’

As they were shown down the hall, the man introduced himself as Donald Devlin, and Rebus knew him. The first autopsy Rebus had ever attended as a CID officer, Devlin had done the cutting. He’d been Professor of Forensic Medicine at the university, and the city’s chief pathologist at the time. Sandy Gates had been his assistant. Now, Gates was Professor of Forensic Medicine, with Dr Curt as his ‘junior’. On the walls of the hallway were framed photos of Devlin receiving various prizes and awards.

‘The name’s not coming to me,’ Devlin said, gesturing for the two officers to precede him into a cluttered drawing room.

‘DI Rebus.’