And God.

God above all else.

The bottle seemed to be swelling in size, or maybe it was that he was growing smaller. He thought of some lines in a Jackie Leven song: But my boat is so small, and your sea is so immense. Immense, yes, but why did it have to be so full of bloody sharks? When the phone started ringing, he considered not answering. Considered for all of ten seconds. It was Ellen Wylie.

“Any news?” he asked. Then he barked out a short laugh and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Apart from the obvious, I mean.”

“State of shock here,” she told him. “Nobody’s about to figure out that you copied all that stuff and took it home. I doubt anyone’s going to look twice at anything until this week’s over. I thought I might head back to Torphichen, see how my team is doing.”

“Good idea.”

“London contingent are being sent home. Could be we’ll need all available hands.”

“I won’t be holding my breath.”

“Actually, even the anarchists seem to be stunned. Word from Gleneagles is, it’s all gone quiet. A lot of them just want to go home.”

Rebus had risen from his chair. He was standing by the mantelpiece. “Time like this, you want to be near your loved ones.”

“John, are you all right?”

“Just dandy, Ellen.” He drew a finger down the bottle’s length. It was Dewar’s, pale gold in color. “You get yourself back to Torphichen.”

“Do you want me to drop by later?”

“I don’t think we’ll have accomplished much.”

“Tomorrow then?”

“Sounds good. Talk to you then.” He cut the connection, leaned both hands against the edge of the mantelpiece.

Could have sworn the bottle was staring back at him.

20

There were buses heading south, and Siobhan’s parents had decided to catch one of them.

“We’d have been leaving tomorrow anyway,” her father had said, giving her a hug.

“You never did get to Gleneagles,” she’d told him. He’d pecked her on the cheek, right on the line of her jaw, and for a few seconds she’d been a kid again. Always the same spot, be it Christmas or a birthday, good grades at school, or just because he was feeling happy.

And then another embrace from her mother, and whispered words: “It doesn’t matter.” Meaning the damage to her face; meaning finding the culprit. And then, pulling free of the embrace but still holding her at arm’s length: “Come see us soon.”

“Promise,” Siobhan had said.

The apartment seemed empty without them. She realized that she lived most of her time there in silence. Well, not silence-there was always music or the radio or TV. But not many visitors, nobody whistling as they walked down the hall, or humming as they washed up.

Nobody but her.

She’d tried calling Rebus, but he wasn’t answering. The TV was on; she couldn’t bring herself to switch it off. Thirty dead…forty dead…maybe fifty. The mayor of London had made a good speech. Al-Qaeda had claimed responsibility. The queen was “deeply shocked.” London’s commuters were starting the long march home from work. Commentators were asking why the terror alert had been downgraded from severe general to substantial. She wanted to ask them: What difference would it have made?

She went to the fridge. Her mother had been busy at the local shops: duck fillets, lamb chops, a slab of cheese, organic fruit juice. Siobhan tried the freezer compartment and hauled out a frosted tub of Mackie’s vanilla ice cream. Got herself a spoon and went back through to the living room. For want of anything else to do, she booted up her computer. Fifty-three e-mails. A quick glance told her she could delete the vast bulk of them. Then she remembered something, reached into her pocket. The CD-ROM. She slotted it into her hard drive. A few clicks of the mouse and she was studying a screen’s worth of thumbnails. Stacey Webster had taken a few of the young mother and her pink-clad baby. Siobhan had to smile. The woman was obviously using her child as a prop, enacting the same diaper-changing scenario in different locations, always directly in front of police lines. A great photo op, and a potential flash point. There was even an image of the various press cameramen, Mungo included. But Stacey had been concentrating on the demonstrators, putting together a nice little dossier for her masters at SO12. Some of the cops would be from the Met. They’d be on their way south now, to help in the aftermath, to check on loved ones, maybe eventually to attend the funerals of colleagues. If her mother’s attacker turned out to be from London…she didn’t know what she’d do.

Her mother’s words: It doesn’t matter…

She shook the notion away. It was fifty or sixty pictures in before Siobhan spotted her mum and dad-Teddy Clarke trying to drag his wife away from the front line. A complete melee around them. Batons raised, mouths open in a roar or a grimace. Trash bins flying. Dirt and uprooted flowers flying.

And then the stick connecting with the front of her mother’s face. Siobhan almost flinched, but forced herself to look. A stick, looked like something picked up off the ground. Not a baton. And swung from the protesters’ side of the trouble. The person holding it, he retreated fast. And suddenly Siobhan knew. It was just like she’d been told by Mungo the photographer: you strike out at the cops, and when they retaliate you make sure innocent civilians are in the firing line. Maximum PR, make the cops look like thugs. Her mother flinched as contact was made. Her face was blurred with movement, but the pain was evident. Siobhan rubbed her thumb over the screen, as if to take away the hurt. Followed the stick back to its owner’s bare arm. His shoulder was in the shot, but not his head. She went back a few frames, then forward a few past the actual blow.

There.

He’d placed a hand behind his back, hiding the stick, but it was still there. And Stacey had caught him full-face, caught the glee in his eyes, the crooked grin. A few more frames and he was up on his toes, chanting. Baseball cap low down on his forehead, but unmistakable.

The kid from Niddrie, the leader of the pack. Heading down to Princes Street like many of his kind-just for the pure hell of it.

Last seen by Siobhan emerging from the sheriff court, where Councilman Gareth Tench waited. Tench’s words: A couple of my constituents got caught up in all that trouble…Tench returning the culprit’s salute as he walked free from court. Siobhan’s hand was trembling slightly as she tried Rebus again. Still no answer. She got up and walked around the apartment, in and out of every room. The towels in the bathroom had been neatly folded and left in a pile. There was an empty soup carton in the bin in the kitchen. It had been rinsed out so that it wouldn’t smell. Her mother’s little touches…She stood in front of her bedroom’s full-length mirror, trying to see any resemblance. She thought she looked more like her father. They’d be on the A1 by now, making steady progress south. She hadn’t told them the truth about Santal, probably never would. Back at the computer she went through all the other photos, then started again from the beginning, this time on the lookout for just the one figure, one skinny little troublemaker in his baseball cap, T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Tried printing some of them off, but got a warning that her ink levels were low. There was a computer shop on Leith Walk. She grabbed her keys and purse.

The bottle was empty and there was no more in the house. Rebus had found a half bottle of Polish vodka in the freezer, but its contents had been reduced to a single measure. Couldn’t be bothered walking to the shops, so he made himself a mug of tea instead and sat down at the dining table, skimming through the case notes. Ellen Wylie had been impressed by Ben Webster’s CV, and so was Rebus. He went through it again. The world’s trouble spots: some people were drawn to them-adventurers, newsmen, mercenaries. Rebus had been told a while back that Mairie Henderson’s boyfriend was a cameraman and had traveled to Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Iraq…But Rebus got the feeling Ben Webster hadn’t gone to any of these places from the need for a thrill, or even because he’d felt them particularly worthy causes. He’d gone because that was his job.