This last the wife’s. Rebus knew what the Weasel was thinking: whoever took the stuff, they’d try flogging it round the pubs or at a car boot sale. Car boot sales were clearing houses for knock-off. But getting whoever had lifted the stuff from the unlocked car wasn’t going to nail the driver ... Unless the kid - the one who’d lifted the stuff, whose prints were on the car - had seen something: been hanging around on the street, watched the car screeching to a stop, a man getting out and hoofing it ...

An eye witness, someone who could describe the driver.

‘The only prints we got were small, maybe a kid’s.’

‘That’s interesting.’

‘Anything else I can do,’ Rebus said, ‘just let me know.’

The Weasel hung up.

‘Sony’s a good make,’ Claverhouse said, fishing.

‘Some stuff lifted from a car,’ Rebus told him. ‘It might have turned up.’

Ormiston had made the tea. Rebus went to fetch himself a chair, saw someone walk past the open doorway. He dropped the chair and ran into the corridor, grabbed at an arm.

Abernethy spun quickly, saw who it was and relaxed.

‘Nice one, son,’ he said. ‘You almost had knuckles for teeth.’

He was working on a piece of chewing gum.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Visiting.’

Abernethy looked back at the open door, walked towards it. ‘What about you?’

‘Working.’

Abernethy read the sign on the door. ‘Crime Squad,’ he said, sounding amused, taking in the office and the people in it. Hands in pockets, he sauntered in, Rebus following.

‘Abernethy, Special Branch,’ the Londoner said by way of introduction. ‘That music’s a good idea: play it at interrogations, sap the suspect’s will to live.’

He was smiling, surveying the premises like he was thinking of moving in. The mug meant for Rebus was on the corner of the desk. Abernethy picked it up and slurped, made a face, started chewing again. The three Crime Squad officers were like a frozen tableau. Suddenly they looked like a unit: it had taken Abernethy to do that.

Had taken him all of ten seconds.

‘What you working on?’

No one answered. ‘Must’ve got the sign on the door wrong,’ Abernethy said. ‘Should be Mime Squad.’

‘Is there something we can do for you?’ Claverhouse asked, his voice level, hostility in his eyes.

‘I don’t know. It was John pulled me in here.’

‘And I’m pulling you out again,’ Rebus said, taking his arm.

Abernethy shrugged free, bunched his fists. ‘A word in the corridor ... please.’

Abernethy smiled. ‘Manners maketh the man, John.’

‘What does that maketh you?’

Abernethy turned his head slowly, looked at Siobhan Clarke who’d just spoken.

‘I’m just a regular guy with a heart of gold and twelve big inches of ability.’

He grinned at her.

‘To go with your twelve big points of IQ,’ she said, going back to the report. Ormiston and Claverhouse weren’t trying too hard to conceal their laughter as Abernethy stormed out of the room. Rebus hung back long enough to watch Ormiston pat Clarke on the back, then headed off after the Special Branch man.