Clarke’s police radio was silent. They had maintained silence since before midnight. Claverhouse’s words: ‘The first person to speak will be me, understood? Anyone uses a radio before me, they’re in farmyard shit. And I won’t utter a sound until the truck’s entered the compound. Is that clear?’

Nods all around. ‘They could be listening in, so this is important. We’ve got to do this right.’

Averting his eyes from Rebus as he said it. ‘I’d wish us all luck, but the less luck’s involved the better I’ll like it. A few hours from now, if we stick to the plan, we should have broken up Tommy Telford’s gang.’

He paused. ‘Just let that sink in. We’ll be heroes.’

He swallowed, realising the immensity of the prize.

Rebus couldn’t get so excited. The whole enterprise had shown him a simple truth: no vacuum. Where you had society, you had criminals. No belly without an underbelly.

Rebus knew his own criteria came cheaply: his flat, books, music and clapped-out car. And he realised that he had reduced his life to a mere shell in recognition that he had completely failed at the important things: love, relationships, family life. He’d been accused of being in thrall to his career, but that had never been the case. His work sustained him only because it was an easy option. He dealt every day with strangers, with people who didn’t mean anything to him in the wider scheme. He could enter their lives, and leave again just as easily. He got to live other people’s lives, or at least portions of them, experiencing things at one remove, which wasn’t nearly as challenging as the real thing.

Sammy had brought home to him these essential truths: that he was not only a failed father but a failed human being; that police work kept him sane, yet was a substitute for the life he could have had, the kind of life everyone else seemed to lead. And if he became obsessed with his case-work, well, that was no different from being obsessed with train numbers or cigarette cards or rock albums. Obsession came easy - especially to men - because it was a cheap way of achieving control, albeit control over something practically worthless. What did it matter if you could reel off the track listing to every ‘60s Stones album? It didn’t matter a damn. What did it matter if Tommy Telford got put away? Tarawicz would take his place, and if he didn’t, there was always Big Ger Cafferty. And if not Cafferty, then someone else. The disease was endemic, no cure in sight.

‘What are you thinking about?’

Clarke asked, switching her rod from left hand to right.

‘My next cigarette.’

Patience’s words: happiest when in denial ...

They heard the truck before they saw it: changing gears noisily. Slid down into their seats, then up again as it made to pull into Maclean’s. A wheeze of air-brakes as it jolted to a stop at the gates. A guard came out to talk to the driver. He carried a clip-board.