A dozen faces glaring at him. And Tommy Telford down on his knees. ‘Get your boss to the hospital,’ Rebus said. ‘I’m taking this one to St Leonard’s ...’

Ned Farlowe sat on the ledge in one of the cells. The walls were blue, smeared brown near the toilet-pan. Farlowe was looking pleased with himself.

‘Acid?’

Rebus said, pacing the cell. ‘Acid? All this research must have gone to your head.’

‘It’s what he deserved.’

Rebus glared at him. ‘You don’t know what you’ve done.’

‘I know exactly what I’ve done.’

‘He’ll kill you.’

Farlowe shrugged. ‘Am I under arrest?’

‘You’d better believe it, son. I want you kept out of harm’s way. If I hadn’t been there ...’

But he didn’t want to think about that. He looked at Farlowe. Looked at Sammy’s lover, who’d just staged a full-frontal assault on Telford, the kind of assault Rebus knew wouldn’t work.

Now Rebus would have to redouble his efforts. Because otherwise, Ned Farlowe was a dead man ... and when Sammy came round, he didn’t want news like that to be waiting for her.

He drove back towards Flint Street, parked at a distance from it, and headed there on foot. Telford had the place sewn up, no doubt about it. Letting his flats to old folk might have been a charitable act but he’d made damned sure it served its purpose. Rebus wondered if, given the same circumstances, Cafferty would have been clever enough to think of panic-buttons. He suspected not. Cafferty wasn’t thick, but most of what he did he did by instinct. Rebus wondered if Tommy Telford had ever made a rash move in his life.

He was staking out Flint Street because he needed an in, needed to find the weak link in the chain around Telford. After ten minutes of wind chill, he thought of a better idea. On his mobile, he called one of the city’s taxi firms. Identified himself and asked if Henry Wilson was on shift. He was. Rebus told the switchboard to put a call out to Henry. It was as simple as that.

Ten minutes later, Wilson turned up. He drank in the Ox occasionally, which was his problem really. Drunk in charge of a taxi-cab. Luckily Rebus had been around to smooth things over, as a result of which Wilson owed him a lifetime of favours. He was tall, heavily built, with short black hair and a long black beard. Ruddy faced, and he always wore check shirts. Rebus thought of him as ‘The Lumberjack’. ‘Need a lift?’

Wilson said, as Rebus got into the front passenger seat.

‘First thing I need is a blast of the heater.’

Wilson obliged. ‘Second thing I need is to use your taxi as cover.’

‘You mean, sit here?’

‘That’s what I mean.’

‘With the meter running?’

‘You’ve got an engine problem, Henry. Your cab’s out of the game for the rest of the afternoon.’

‘I’m saving up for Christmas,’ Wilson complained. Rebus stared him out. The big man sighed and lifted a newspaper from the side of his seat. ‘Help me pick a few winners then,’ he said, turning to the racing pages.