“You didn’t even get her name,” she said.

“I won’t be buying her a drink either.” Rebus placed the file on a desk and sat down, making room so that Siobhan could slide a chair across to join him.

“Still seeing Jean?” she asked as he opened the file. Then she screwed up her face. Sitting on top of the sheets of paper was a glossy color photograph of the accident scene. The dead teenager had been wrenched from the driving seat, so that the upper half of his body was sprawled across the car hood. There were more photos underneath: autopsy shots. Rebus slid them beneath the file and started to read.

Two friends: Derek Renshaw, sixteen, and Stuart Cotter, seventeen. They’d decided to borrow Stuart’s dad’s car, a nippy Audi TT. The father was on a business trip, due back later that night, flying in and taking a taxi home. The boys had plenty of time, and decided to drive into Edinburgh. They had a drink at one of the shoreside bars in Leith, then headed for Salamander Street. The plan had been to hit the A1, put the car through its paces, then head for home. But Salamander Street looked to them like a nice racing straight. It was calculated that they’d probably been doing seventy when Stuart Cotter lost control. The car had tried braking for the light, spun across the road, up onto the sidewalk and into a brick wall. Head-on. Derek had been wearing a seat belt and survived. Stuart, despite the airbag, had not.

“Do you remember this?” Rebus asked Siobhan. She shook her head. He didn’t remember it either. Maybe he’d been away, or involved in a case of his own. If he’d come across the report… well, it was nothing he hadn’t seen too many times before. Young men confusing thrills with stupidity, adulthood with risk. The name Renshaw might have clicked with him, but there were a lot of Renshaws out there. He sought the name of the officer in charge. Detective Sergeant Calum McLeod. Rebus knew him vaguely: a good cop. Meaning the report would be scrupulous.