Their wives, sisters, mothers would be in the living-room with Grace Gallagher. Closed curtains blocking out any light from what was left of the day: handkerchiefs and sweet sherry. The bereaved in an armchair, with someone else perched on an arm of the chair, offering a pat of the hand and well-meant words. Rebus had seen it all, seen it as a child with his own mother, and as a young man with his father, seen it with aunts and uncles, with the parents of friends and more recently with friends themselves. He wasn’t so young now. The odd contemporary was already falling victim to the Big C or an unexpected heart attack. Today was the last day of April. Two days ago, he’d gone to Fife and laid flowers on his father’s grave. Whether it was an act of remembrance or of simple contrition, he couldn’t have said…

His guide pulled him back to the present. ‘Her daughter-in-law’s already here. Came over from Falkirk this afternoon. ’

Rebus nodded, trying to look wise. ‘And the son?’

Eyes looked at him. ‘Dead these past ten years. Don’t you know that?’

There was suspicion now, and Rebus knew that he had either to reveal himself as a policeman, or else become more disingenuous still. These people, authentically mourning the loss of someone they had known, had taken him as a mourner too, had brought him in here to share with them, to be part of the remembering group.

‘I’m just a friend of a friend,’ he explained. ‘They asked me to look in.’

It looked from his guide’s face, however, as though an interrogation might be about to begin. But then somebody else spoke.

‘Terrible crash it was. What was the name of the town again?’

‘Methil. He’d been working on building a rig there.’

‘That’s right,’ said the guide knowledgeably. ‘Pay night it was. They’d been out for a few drinks, like. On their way to the dancing. Next thing…’

‘Aye, terrible smash it was. The lad in the back seat had to have both legs taken off.’