‘Bumped into him once or twice in the pub after the match.’

‘Nice guy?’

‘Nice family guy.’ She laughed. ‘When are you going to stop trying to marry me off ?’

‘I was only asking,’ he said with a grin. He’d noticed that TV cameras were covering the game. They would concentrate on the players, the spectators a background blur or piece of half-time filler. But it was the fans who really interested Rebus. He wondered what stories they could tell, what lives they’d led. He wasn’t alone: around him other spectators seemed equally interested in the antics of the crowd rather than anything happening on the pitch. But Siobhan, knuckles white as she clenched either end of her supporter’s scarf, brought the same concentration to the game as she did to police work, yelling out advice to the players, arguing each refereeing decision with fans nearby. The man on Rebus’s other side was equally fevered. He was overweight, red-faced and sweating. To Rebus’s eyes, he seemed on the verge of a coronary. He’d mutter to himself, the noise growing in intensity until there was a final defiant hurl of abuse, after which he’d look around, smile sheepishly, and begin the whole process again.

‘Easy … take it easy, son,’ he was now telling one of the players.

‘Anything happening your end of the case?’ Rebus asked Siobhan.

‘Day off, John.’ Her eyes never left the pitch.

‘I know, I was just asking …’

‘Easy now … go on, son, on you go.’ The sweating man was gripping the back of the seat in front of him.

‘We can have a drink after,’ Siobhan said.

‘Try and stop me,’ Rebus told her.

‘That’s it, son, that’s the way!’ The voice growing the way a wave would. Rebus took out another cigarette. The day might be bright, but it wasn’t warm. The wind was whipping in from the North Sea, the gulls overhead working hard to stay airborne.

‘Go on now!’ the man was yelling. ‘Go on! Get right into that fat Hun bastard!’

Then the look around, the sheepish grin. Rebus got his cigarette lit at last and offered one to the man, who shook his head.

‘It relieves stress, you know, the shouting.’

‘Might relieve yours, pal,’ Rebus said, but anything after that was drowned out as Siobhan joined a few thousand others in rising up to scream their reasoned and objective judgement concerning some infringement Rebus – along with the referee – had missed.

Her usual pub was heaving. Even so, people were still piling in. Rebus took one look and suggested somewhere else. ‘It’s a five-minute walk, and it’s got to be quieter.’

‘Okay then,’ she said, but her tone was one of disappointment. The after-match drink was a time for analysis, and she knew Rebus’s abilities in this field were somewhat lacking.

‘And tuck that scarf away,’ he ordered. ‘Never know where you’ll bump into a blue-nose.’