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“We could get a taxi,” said Siobhan, nibbling the knuckle of a finger suggestively. “Or we could use a squad car and turn on the flashing blue light . . .”

“And another thing,” said Rebus. “Why does this Rankin bloke always have me solving crimes in the ancient catacombs of olde Edinburgh? How many crazed Victorian poisoners do you see wandering the streets? I’ll tell you . . . none. Modern police work is a holistic programme of outreach into the hearts of damaged communities.

It’s not just a question of chasing nutters in capes up the Royal Mile. And I’ll tell you something else . . .”

Clarke stood up suddenly: “Look, I’ve got an early start,” she said. “Let me know how the house-hunting goes.” She left The Oxford Bar in a hurry. Rebus watched sadly as the doors swung behind her then, as moody saxophone music swelled in his head, he signalled to the barman for another cocktail.

II. The day dawned grey and bitter for Precious Ramotswe. When she’d operated her No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in Botswana her front garden had contained acacia trees, scrub bush, lush grasses and stray goats. The dry winds from the Kalahari played beneath the colourful wings of the Go-Away birds as they swooped towards the distant Notwane river. The vast, bewitching tapestry of Africa had unfurled all around her, day and night.

In Dalry, however, Ramotswe’s rented council house looked onto a branch of Kwik-Fit and a needle exchange. Her huge earrings clanking in a breeze from the broken window pane, she looked down to watch four tramps fight over a torn catalogue from Argos.

But she was not daunted. Her No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency had been a huge success at home. It had handled all types of cases, no matter how twee or moronic. Be it a missing scorpion, a minah bird with a sore ankle or an aged aunt who’d mislaid her spectacles, the agency would investigate and sort the whole thing out, guaranteed. “If you are a good person,” Ramotswe often said, “then you are a good person and good things will happen to you. That is my philosophy.”

So she had moved to Edinburgh and established her latest venture, the No 1 Ladies’ Criminal Injuries Compensation Agency. “When bad things happen,” Mme Ramotswe remarked frequently, “good things must happen to balance them out. That is my philosophy. My second philosophy, I should say.”

In Edinburgh she had handled a variety of difficult cases. A 19-year-old shop girl in Greggs claimed she had been scarred for life by a leaky steak bake. An employee in a massage parlour complained of facial injuries after “smiling too energetically” at a High Court judge.

They were difficult cases, but Ramotswe enjoyed her work very much. The people of Edinburgh may not have shared the philosophical Botswanan mindset (“When I tell them of my philosophies,” Mme Ramotswe often said, “they look at me like they want to saw my face off.”) but they knew how to make her mobile phone and cable television work without her having to pay for them. “It is indeed true,” Mme Ramotswe often said joyfully. “The best things in life are free.”

III. The house-hunting Siobhan Clarke had mentioned to Rebus in The Oxford Bar the detective’s continuing search for a new flat. This became necessary when Rebus’s neighbours began complaining at his habit of screaming “Hibs for the cup!” into the small hours. His search had so far been fruitless. What Rebus craved was an elegant, three-floor New Town apartment in a curving Georgian crescent, set around a lush private garden and preferably close to a branch of Oddbins. In short, the kind of house in which virtually every Edinburgh-based novel is set. But such a house was out of Rebus’s league.

His eye had been caught, however, by an advert in The Scotsman for a three-bedroomed flat in Clarence Street, a snip at the price. Rebus knew the area well. It was crammed with grammar school Tories, none of whom were willing to accept that their street belonged technically to Stockbridge rather than New Town. This was a sore point locally. Dare to argue with any resident that he didn’t live in New Town and he’d get his wife to sing opera at you. Rebus turned up for the viewing at the appointed time to find a large African woman wearing what appeared to be a multicoloured bivouac. She was ringing the doorbell. They established both were there to view the same flat.

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