‘Exactly.’

‘I’m not sure I follow you?’

‘In the restaurant ... Lintz and a young woman.’

Hogan shrugged. ‘It’s a long shot.’

Rebus saw it. ‘Talking business?’

Hogan nodded. ‘Pretty-Boy runs Telford’s stable.’

‘And takes a personal interest in the higher-price models. It’s worth a try, Bobby.’

‘What do you think - bring him in?’

‘Definitely. Beef up the restaurant angle. Say there’s a positive ID. See what he says to that.’

‘Same gag we pulled with Colquhoun? Pretty-Boy’s bound to deny it.’

‘Doesn’t mean it ain’t so.’

Rebus patted Hogan on the shoulder.

‘What about your call?’

‘My call?’

Rebus looked at his scrawled notes. Gangsters preparing to carve up Scotland.

‘It wasn’t the worst news I’ve ever had.’

‘And is that saying much?’

‘Afraid not, Bobby,’ Rebus said, putting on his jacket. ‘Afraid not.’

30

By the end of play, Rebus still hadn’t received the files on the Crab, but he had fielded a frank and foul-mouthed call from Abernethy, accusing him of everything from obstruction which was pretty rich, considering - to racism, which Rebus thought nicely ironic.

They’d given him back his car. Someone had run their finger through the dirt crusted on the boot, creating two messages: TERMINAL CASE, arid WASHED BY STEVIE WONDER. The Saab, affronted, started first time and seemed to have shrugged off some of its repertoire of clanks and thunks. On the drive home, Rebus kept the windows open so he wouldn’t smell the whisky that had soaked into the upholstery.

The evening had turned out fine, the sky clear, temperature dropping sharply. The low red sun, curse of the city’s drivers, had disappeared behind the rooftops. Rebus left his coat unbuttoned as he walked down to the chip shop. He bought a fish supper, two buttered rolls, and a couple of cans of Irn-Bru, then returned to the flat. Nothing on the TV, so he put on a record. Van Morrison: Astral Weeks. The record had more scratches than a dog with eczema.

The opening track contained the refrain ‘To be born again’. Rebus thought of Father Leary, shored up by a fridge full of medicine. Then he thought of Sammy, crowned with electrodes, machines rising either side of her, like she was being offered to them in sacrifice. Leary often talked of faith, but it was hard to have faith in a human race that never learned, that seemed ready to accept torture, murder, destruction. He opened his newspaper: Kosovo, Zaire, Rwanda. Punishment beatings in Northern Ireland. A young girl found murdered in England, another girl’s disappearance termed ‘a cause for concern’. The predators were out there, no doubt about it. Strip the veneer, and the world had moved only a couple of steps from the cave.

To be born again ... But sometimes only after a baptism of fire.

Belfast, 1970. A sniper’s bullet blew open the skull of a British squaddie. The victim was nineteen, came from Glasgow. Back in the barracks, there’d been little mourning, just an overspill of anger. The assassin would never be caught. He’d slipped back into the shadows of a tower-block, and from there deep into the Catholic housing estate.