As Rebus walked into the Crime Squad office, a paper plane glided past and crashed into the wall. Ormiston had his feet up on the desk. Country and western music was playing softly in the background, its source a tape player on the window ledge behind Claverhouse’s desk. Siobhan Clarke had pulled a chair over beside him. They were poring over some report.

‘Not exactly the “A-Team” in here, is it?’

Rebus retrieved the plane, straightened its crumpled nose, and sent it back to Ormiston, who asked what he was doing there.

‘Liaising,’ Rebus told him. ‘My boss wants a progress report.’

Ormiston glanced towards Claverhouse, who was tipping himself back in his chair, hands behind his head.

‘Want to take a guess at the headway we’ve made?’

Rebus sat down opposite Claverhouse, nodded a greeting to Siobhan.

‘How’s Sammy?’ she asked.

‘Just the same,’ Rebus answered. Claverhouse looked abashed, and Rebus suddenly realised that he could use Sammy as a lever, play on people’s sympathy. Why not? Hadn’t he used her in the past? Wasn’t Ned Farlowe on the nail there? ‘We’ve pulled the surveillance,’ Claverhouse said.

‘Why?’

Ormiston snorted, but it was Claverhouse who answered.

‘High maintenance, low returns.’

‘Orders from above?’

‘It isn’t as if we were close to getting a result.’

‘So we just let him get on with getting on?’

Claverhouse shrugged. Rebus wondered if news would get back to Newcastle. Jake Tarawicz would be happy. He’d think Rebus was fulfilling his part of the bargain. Candice would be safe. Maybe.

‘Any news on that nightclub killing?’

‘Nothing to link it to your chum Cafferty.’

‘He’s not my chum.’

‘Whatever you say. Stick the kettle on, Ormie.’

Ormiston glanced towards Clarke, then rose grudgingly from his chair. Rebus had thought the tension in the office was all to do with Telford. Not a bit of it. Claverhouse and Clarke close together, involved. Ormiston off on his own, a kid making paper planes, seeking attention. An old Status Quo song: ‘Paper Plane’. But the status quo here had been disturbed: Clarke had usurped Ormiston. The office junior was absolved from making the tea.

Rebus could see why Ormiston was pissed off.

‘I hear Herr Lintz was a bit of a swinger,’ Claverhouse said.

‘Now there’s a joke I haven’t heard before.’

Rebus’s pager sounded. The display gave him a number to call.

He used Claverhouse’s phone. It sounded like he was connected to a pay-phone. Street sounds, heavy traffic close by.

‘Mr Rebus?’

Placed the voice at once: the Weasel.

‘What is it?’

‘A couple of questions. The tape player from the car, any idea of the make?’

‘Sony.’

‘The front bit detachable?’

‘That’s right.’

‘So all they got was the front bit?’

‘Yes.’

Claverhouse and Clarke, back at their report, pretending they weren’t listening.

‘What about the tapes? You said some tapes got stolen?’

‘Opera - The Marriage of Figaro and Verdi’s Macbeth.’

Rebus squeezed his eyes shut, thinking. ‘And another tape with film music on it, famous themes. Plus Roy Orbison’s Greatest Hits.’