'I wish that bullet had done some damage to your thick fucking skull.'

Cafferty paused at the front door and thought for a moment.

'No you don't,' he said, pulling open the door and ushering Rebus outside. The terrier was at the gate, watching both men, its tail wagging.

11.

Fox was in the back of the Audi A4, Bell driving and Compston in the passenger seat. Bell and Compston were readying to relieve Hastie and Hughes. They hadn't wanted to bring Fox, but he'd insisted, threatening to take it to Doug Maxtone. And he had proved useful, since the satnav seemed singularly ill-equipped to deal with traffic snarl-ups, roadworks, and prospective short cuts.

'Piece of shit,' Compston had decided, flicking a finger against its screen.

Now they were driving along a road on an industrial estate. Car dealerships, a scrapyard and a self-storage facility.

'Where are you?' Compston asked into his phone. Then he cursed. 'We just passed them,' he told Bell. Fox turned to look through the rear window. Hastie and Hughes were in the parked Vauxhall Insignia. Opposite stood CC Self Storage, an anonymous slab of a building. Dennis Stark and his team were somewhere within, presumably talking to the boss.

'We'll do a circuit and come round again,' Compston was telling his phone. 'You pull out, we pull into your space, and you give Fox a ride back to base.' Then, turning towards Fox: 'CC Self Storage belongs to Chick Carpenter. It's his Aston parked behind the fence. Pulled some information on him from the system. Bit too chummy with your pal Darryl Christie. Christ knows who's got stuff hidden away in that unit.'

'Makes sense for the Starks to be paying a visit,' Fox commented. They were approaching a T-junction, Bell signalling left.

'Plenty other storage units in the city,' Compston continued, 'not all of them owned by Carpenter. The Starks have already visited two that are, on the face of it at least, more legit than this.'

'I'd have thought this a more obvious target.'

'You and me both. Maybe they were stocking up on info from Carpenter's competitors.'

'Plus, if he's friends with Christie and the Starks know it...'

'Softly softly,' Compston agreed with a nod.

Left and left again... more industrial facilities, some with vans and lorries outside. A fast-food kiosk selling burgers and hot drinks. Kerbside was busy with parked vehicles, which was goodless chance of the surveillance being noticed.

'How long will they keep at it?' Fox asked. 'In Edinburgh, I mean?'

'They do seem to be lingering.'

'Meaning they've got a whiff of something?'

'Maybe.' Compston had an incoming call. He put it on speakerphone. 'What is it, Beth?'

'Bit of an argument in the car park. Pointed fingers getting pointier.' Alec Bell pressed his foot more firmly on the accelerator. 'Carpenter has a mate with him, but it's two against five.'

'We're just about back with you.'

'Do we intervene if things get-'

'We do nothing,' Compston stressed. 'The pair of you are bystanders. You stay in the carunderstood?'

'Yes, sir.'

Compston turned towards Bell. 'Slow down. Don't want to draw attention.'

They were almost at the storage unit.

'Try not to gawp,' Compston warned. 'Eyes front.'

But Fox couldn't help himself. He watched as the argument turned suddenly physical, Dennis Stark aiming a kick and a punch at one of the men, at which point his posse made sure the second man didn't do anything stupid. The punched man had dropped to one knee. He wore a suit and tie, and Fox assumed this was Carpenter. His companion, the one being cautioned by Stark's men, was a couple of decades younger and dressed in a T-shirt and denim jacket. Jackie Dyson hauled Carpenter back to his feet and smacked his forehead into Carpenter's unprotected nose. The man's knees buckled and he was on all fours as Dennis Stark squatted in front of him, grabbing him by the hair and yelling into his bloodied face. Dyson meantime had unzipped himself and was aiming a stream of urine over the Aston Martin's driver's-side door.

'We can't just do nothing,' Fox said.

'Watch us,' Compston told him. They were past the altercation, heading for the T-junction again. 'U-turn this time, Alec,' Compston ordered. Then, into his phone: 'Everything okay there?'

'We're sitting tight.'

'Well done.'

'Broad daylight,' Fox offered. 'Not exactly low-profile any more.'

'Joe will be furious,' Compston agreed.

'Smacking of desperation?'

'Old man's back in Glasgow. That means two things: Dennis wants a result, so he can brag about it to his dad. But he's also off the leash, and this is the kind of thing that happens when he's given his freedom. Take it nice and easy, Alec...'

They were passing the altercation again, but it was winding down. The prone and blood-spattered Carpenter was being tended to by the younger man, while Dennis and crew walked nonchalantly in the direction of their people carrier. Fox was getting his first real look at them in the flesh. He still wouldn't put money on spotting the undercover cop. Simpson, Andrews, Dyson, Raenone of them looked in the least fazed by what had just come to pass. Stark walked slightly ahead of them, clenching and unclenching his fists.

'Any idea where they'll be headed next?' Compston asked into his phone.

'We think a pub called the Gimlet.'

'I know that place,' Fox interrupted. 'Used to be owned by Darryl Christie.'

'Well,' Hastie's voice continued, 'it's now owned by a man called Davie Dunn, who used to drive long-distance lorries.'

'For Hamish Wright?'

'Back in the day.'

'Okay, Beth,' Compston said. 'Alec and me will park at the end of the road here. You come and get Fox.'

'Running surveillance needs more than just the four of us.'

'I knowhopefully the Glasgow contingent won't be much longer.' Compston ended the call.

'We could phone for an ambulance,' Fox suggested. 'There's an injured man back there.'

'Fuck him,' Compston said. 'If he needs sorting out, his stooge is there with him.'

Alec Bell's eyes met Fox's in the rear-view mirror. Bell shook his head almost imperceptiblywarning Fox to drop the subject? Or ashamed of his boss's reaction? Fox couldn't tell.

'A surveillance is just that,' Compston was saying airily. 'Don't tell me you wouldn't have said the same when you were in Complaints.'

'Never had cause to find out,' Fox replied, as Bell pulled the car over.

'So the Gimlet used to be owned by Darryl Christie, eh?' Compston mused, rubbing a hand across his chin. 'Problem with a wee town like thiseveryone's connected.'

'Meaning Christie won't be happy if Dennis starts kicking off anywhere in the vicinity.'

Compston nodded slowly as the people carrier roared past. They watched it round a corner.

'Out you get then,' Compston said. Fox did as he was told, watching the Audi head off. The Vauxhall Insignia drew level with him and he climbed into the back.

'I'm not happy about what just happened back there,' he commented.

'We're not in the business of keeping you happy,' Beth Hastie said from the passenger seat.

Peter Hughes gave a dry chuckle as he signalled right at the junction. Fox sat back and admired the view, wondering how long it would take Hughes to work out they were headed in the wrong direction.

Clarke had reported to James Page in person, delivering both note and bullet. Afterwards, he had folded his arms and, transfixed by the two items on his desk, told her to give him ten minutes, which was why she was back in the body of the kirk with Esson, Ogilvie and the rest of the team. There was no sign of DS Charlie Sykes, and Clarke said as much.

'The Invisible Man,' Esson commented.

'He had something he needed to do in Leith,' Ogilvie added. He had pulled his chair over to Esson's desk so she could give him the news, having been briefed by Clarke on the drive back from Cafferty's house.

'Boss is deciding the next steps,' Clarke told them now.

'Changes things a bit, doesn't it?' Ogilvie offered.

'MaybeJohn Rebus isn't sure there's a solid connection. I mean, the notes, yes, but not the murder and the shooting.'

'What's Rebus got to do with it?' Ogilvie queried with a frown.

'Nothing,' Clarke conceded. 'He's just the one who persuaded Cafferty to come to us rather than start enquiries of his own.' Clarke rubbed at her eyes. 'Did Christine mention Linlithgow?'

Ogilvie nodded. 'Though again...'

'I know: barely any connection worth the name.'

'Tea would cheer us up,' Esson declared. 'And I'm buying.'

'That would be great,' Clarke said.

Esson grabbed her purse and headed off to the canteen, Clarke taking her seat next to Ogilvie. She asked him what he'd been working on.

'Not much. Collating various reports and interviews, looking at the crime scene stuff.'

'Anything I need to know?'

'Well...'

'No matter how fanciful or thin it's going to sound,' Clarke assured him.

'I was reading through the scene of crime report, plus the two interviews conducted with Lord Minton's housekeeper.'

'Jean Marischal? More of a cleaner, wasn't she?'

'If you like. But here's the thing.' Ogilvie pulled out photos from the crime scene. 'First officers to arrive state that the desk drawer was open a couple of inches.'

'Yes, Deborah Quant said the same,' Clarke remembered.

'You can see it here.' Ogilvie slid a photo towards her. 'Then later, the SOCOs pulled the drawer all the way open to get shots of the contents. Mrs Marischal tells us she cleaned in the den but that the desk drawer was seldom unlocked. Lord Minton kept the key on himand it was found in his pocket after his death. What does a locked drawer suggest to you?'

'That there was something he didn't want her to see.'

'And you'd guess that to be...?'

'Well, he was seated at the desk paying bills, so maybe his chequebook?'

'That's what I thought too. But look at the contents of the drawer again.'

Clarke saw stationery, a second chequebook, correspondence, various paper clips and bulldog clips and even a bottle of Tippex.

'What is it I'm not seeing?'

'Something that isn't there. I'm guessing he was the tidy sort, and that the chequebook he'd taken out of the drawer usually sat on top of the other one.' Ogilvie traced a finger over an empty section of the drawer. 'But what was it that used to be in this space here?'

'Stuff could have shifted around when the SOCOs pulled it open.'

'Except they tell me they used extreme care.'

'You're saying the intruder took something?'

'Desk drawer was open a couple of inches. I doubt that would have been comfortable for anyone sitting there trying to do some work.'

'True,' Clarke said.

'So either the intruder took it, or Lord Minton had opened it himself and was taking something out when he heard a noise.'

Clarke was peering more closely at the photo. 'Couldn't just have been the other chequebook?'

'No way of telling for sure.'