“Callis?” Siobhan’s eyebrows creased. She was trying to remember where she’d heard that name… Then it hit her.

“Andy Callis,” she said, almost to herself.

The detective had heard her. “You know him?”

She shook her head. “But I know someone who might. If it’s the same guy, he lives in Alnwickhill.” She was reaching for her mobile. “Oh, and one other thing… if it is him, he’s one of us.”

“A cop?”

She nodded. The detective from Craigmillar sucked air through his teeth and stared up at the spectators on the bridge with a new sense of purpose.

There was nobody home. Rebus had been watching Miss Teri’s room for almost an hour. Dark, dark, dark. Just like his memories. He could not even recall which friends he’d met with that day in the park. Yet the scene had stayed with Allan Renshaw these past thirty-odd years. Indelible. It was funny, the things you couldn’t help remembering, the ones you chose to forget. The little tricks your brain could play on you, sudden scents or sensations reviving the long-forgotten. Rebus wondered if perhaps Allan was angry with him because such anger was possible. After all, what point was there in getting angry with Lee Herdman? Herdman wasn’t there to bear the brunt, while Rebus conspicuously was, as if conjured up for the very purpose.

The laptop kicked into screen-saver mode, shooting stars moving out of the far darkness. He hit the RETURN key and was back in Teri Cotter’s bedroom. What was he watching for? Because it satisfied the voyeur in him? He’d always enjoyed surveillances for the same reason: glimpses into secret lives. He wondered what Teri herself got out of it. She wasn’t making money. There was no interaction as such, no way for the viewer to make contact with her or for her to communicate with her audience. Why then? Because she felt the need to be on display? Like hanging out on Cockburn Street, stared at and sometimes set upon. She had accused her mother of spying on her, yet had made straight for her mother’s door when the Lost Boys had attacked. Hard to know what to think about that particular relationship. Rebus’s own daughter had lived her teenage years in London with her mother, remaining a mystery to him. His ex-wife would call him to complain about Samantha’s “attitude” or her “moods,” would let off steam at him and then put down the phone.

The phone.

His phone was ringing. His mobile phone. It was plugged into the wall, recharging. He picked it up. “Hello?”

“I tried ringing your home phone.” Siobhan’s voice. “It was engaged.”

Rebus looked at the laptop, the laptop that was hooked up to his phone line. “What’s up?”

“Your friend, the one you were visiting that night you bumped into me…” She was on her mobile, sounded like she was out- doors.

“Andy?” he said. “Andy Callis?”

“Can you describe him?”

Rebus froze. “What’s happened?”

“Look, it might not be him…”

“Where are you?”

“Describe him for me… that way you’re not headed all the way out here for nothing.”

Rebus squeezed his eyes shut, saw Andy Callis in his living room, feet up in front of the TV. “Early forties, dark brown hair, five-eleven, probably a hundred and sixty-five pounds or thereabouts…”

She was silent for a moment. “Okay,” she sighed. “Maybe you should come after all.”

Rebus was already looking for his jacket. He remembered the laptop, broke the Internet connection.

“So where are you?” he asked.

“How are you going to get here?”

“My problem,” he told her, looking around for his car keys. “Just give me the address.”

She was waiting for him curbside, watched him pull on the hand brake and get out of the driver’s seat.

“How are the hands?” she asked.

“They were fine before I got behind the wheel.”

“Painkillers?”

He shook his head. “I can do without.” He was looking around at the scene. A couple of hundred yards or so up the road was the bus stop where his taxi had stopped for the Lost Boys. They started walking towards the bridge.

“He’d been stalking the place for a couple of hours,” Siobhan explained. “Two or three people reported seeing him.”

“And did we do anything about it?”

“There wasn’t a patrol car available,” she said quietly.

“If there had been, he might not be dead,” Rebus stated starkly. She nodded slowly.

“One of the neighbors heard shouts. She thinks some kids had started chasing him.”

“Did she see anyone?”

Siobhan shook her head. They were on the bridge now. The onlookers had started drifting away. The body had been wrapped in a blanket and loaded onto a stretcher, hitched to a length of rope with which to haul it up the embankment. A van from the morgue had pulled up next to the stile. Silvers was standing there, chatting to the driver and smoking a cigarette.

“We’ve checked the Callises in the phone book,” he told Rebus and Siobhan. “No sign of him.”

“Unlisted,” Rebus said. “Same as you and me, George.”

“You sure it’s the same Callis?” Silvers inquired. There was a yell from below, the driver flicking away his cigarette so he could concentrate on his end of the rope. Silvers kept on smoking, not offering a hand until the driver asked for one. Rebus kept his own hands in his pockets. They felt like they were on fire.

“Heave away!” came the call. In under a minute, the stretcher was being carried over the fence. Rebus stepped forwards, unwrapped the face. Stared at it, noting how peaceful Andy Callis looked in death.

“It’s him,” he said, standing back again so the body could be loaded into the van. Dr. Curt was at the top of the incline, having been helped by the Craigmillar detective. He was breathing hard, climbing over the stile with difficulty. When someone stepped forwards to help, he spluttered that he could manage, his speech thick with effort.

“It’s him,” Silvers was telling the new arrivals. “According to DI Rebus, that is.”

“Andy Callis?” someone asked. “Is he the guy from Firearms?”

Rebus nodded.

“Any witnesses?” the Craigmillar detective was asking.

One of the uniforms answered. “People heard voices, nobody seems to’ve seen anything.”

“Suicide?” someone else asked.

“Or he was trying to escape,” Siobhan commented, noting that Rebus wasn’t adding anything to the conversation, even though he’d known Andy Callis best. Or maybe because…

They watched the morgue van bump over the uneven ground on its way back to the road. Silvers asked Siobhan if she was headed back. She looked at Rebus and shook her head.

“John’ll give me a lift,” she said.

“Please yourself. Looks like Craigmillar’ll be handling it anyway.”

She nodded, waiting for Silvers to leave. Then, left alone with Rebus: “You okay?”

“I keep thinking of the patrol car that never came.”

“And?” He looked at her. “There’s more to it, isn’t there?”

Eventually, he nodded slowly.

“Care to share it?” she asked.

He kept on nodding. When he moved off, she followed, back over the bridge, across the grass to where the Saab was sitting. It wasn’t locked. He opened the driver’s door, thought better of it and handed her the keys. “You drive,” he said. “I don’t think I’m up to it.”

“Where are we going?”

“Just cruising around. Maybe we’ll get lucky, find ourselves in Never-Never Land.”

It took her a moment to decode the reference. “The Lost Boys?” she said.

Rebus nodded, walked around the car to the passenger side.

“And while I’m driving, you’ll be telling me the story?”

“I’ll tell you the story,” he agreed.

And he did.

What it boiled down to was: Andy Callis and his partner on patrol in their car. Called to a nightclub on Market Street, just behind Waverley Station. It was a popular spot, people queuing to get in. One of them had called the police, reporting someone brandishing a handgun. Vague description. Teenager, green parka, three mates with him. Not in the queue as such, just walking past, pulling open his coat so people could see what was tucked into his waistband.