‘Has to keep his office locked,’ Rebus said, ‘to stop people stealing the secret of his terrible coffee.’

‘Actually, it’s been getting better recently.’

‘Maybe your taste buds are being corroded. So, Chief Inspector ...’

Rebus turned his chair to face hers. ‘What about thrashing it out then, eh?’

She smiled. ‘He thinks he’s losing it.’

‘Is he in for a bollocking?’

‘Probably.’

‘So it’s down to us to come to the rescue?’

‘I don’t really see us as the Dynamic Duo, do you?’

‘No.’

‘Then there’s always that part of you that says, let them tear each other apart. So long as no civilians get caught in the crossfire.’

Rebus thought of Sammy, of Candice. ‘Thing is,’ he said, ‘they always do.’

She looked at him. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Same as ever.’

‘As bad as that?’

‘It’s my calling.’

‘You’re done with Lintz though?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘There’s half a chance he ties in to Telford.’

‘You still think Telford was behind the hit-and-run?’

‘Telford or Cafferty.’

‘Cafferty?’

‘Setting up Telford, the way someone tried to set me up for Matsumoto.’

‘You know you’re not out of the woods?’

He looked at’ her. ‘An internal inquiry? The men with rubber soles?’

She nodded. ‘Bring them on.’

He sat forward in his chair, rubbed his temples. ‘No reason they should be left out of the party.’

‘What party?’

‘The one inside my head. The party that never stops.’

Rebus leaned across the desk to answer the phone. ‘No, he’s not here. Can I take a message? This is DI Rebus.’

A pause; he was looking at Gill Tempter. ‘Yes, I’m working that case.’

He found pen and paper, started writing. ‘Mmm, I see. Yes, sounds like. I’ll let him know when he gets back.’

Eyes boring into hers. Then the punchline:

‘How many did you say were dead?’

Just the one. Another fled the scene, holding his arm, all but severed from the shoulder. He turned up at a local hospital later, needing surgery and a huge transfusion of blood.

In broad daylight. Not in Edinburgh, but Paisley. Telford’s hometown, the town he still ruled. Four men, dressed in council work jackets, like a road team. But in place of picks and shovels, they’d toted machetes and a large-calibre revolver. They’d chased two men into a housing scheme. Kids playing on tricycles; kicking a ball up the street. Women hanging out of their windows. And grown men itching to hurt one another. A machete swung overhead, coming down hard. The wounded man kept running. His friend tried hurdling a fence, wasn’t agile enough. Three inches higher and he’d have made it. As it was, his toe caught, and he fell. He was pushing himself back up when the barrel of the gun touched the back of his head. Two shots, a fine drizzle of blood and brain. The children not playing any more, the women screaming for them to run. But something had been satisfied by those two shots. The chase was over. The four men turned and jogged back down the street, towards a waiting van.