BARMAN Aye. Right.
REBUS So you remember her? Maggie Towler?
The BARMAN is on the move again, laboriously hefting up his boxes.
REBUS And you saw her in here that night? You were working?
BARMAN The fuck you’re not polis. You want to know the answers you should have tried harder at the time.
REBUS We should. You’re not wrong.
BARMAN No wonder you never caught the bastard.
REBUS Which bastard.
BARMAN The one that killed her.
REBUS So who’s that then?
A beat.
BARMAN I don’t need this kind of trouble any more.
REBUS What kind of trouble?
BARMAN We’re closed and I’m busy.
The BARMAN is nearly away.
REBUS You think you know who did it.
BARMAN No. I don’t. But I know she was scared of him. And I know you bastards didny even ask the right questions.
REBUS So what would be the right question?
BARMAN Maggie didny scare easy.
REBUS So who scared her?
BARMAN Wasny just a random guy leaping on her in the dark. It was someone she knew. She ran out of here because she saw someone who’d already scared her. Seventeen years and you still don’t know why? Guy like you wrote it all down. Go and ask him.
REBUS Where did she die?
BARMAN Building site just across the street there. It’s a high rise now, dockside redevelopment. You can’t even see the ground where they found her.
BARMAN leaves.
Granton high rise
REBUS is looking up. MAGGIE joins him. As always she’s only in his mind’s eye.
MAGGIE So you do care. I’m touched. You think you know the stones to turn over, John?
REBUS starts to climb.
MAGGIE In seventeen years most of the stones have been dug up. They’ve had concrete poured over them, car parks built on them, glass towers and gentrified tenements squeezing out the dark underworld that scuttled under the surface of the douce capital’s streets... Oh but the dark’s still there, isn’t it John?
REBUS is climbing up.
MAGGIE They marked my grave with great towers. High rises with balconies in the clouds, sold to dreamers that believed they’d sit in the sky watching the sparkling silver sea laid out below... And the sharp east wind drives the grey Forth onto the glass.
REBUS is looking out over the view.
REBUS What scared you Maggie? Someone you knew you couldny handle.
MAGGIE I’m seventeen John, I think I can take on the world.
REBUS Someone we never even questioned, because we didny do our job. We didny know he was there. Why was he there? And why did no-one see him?
REBUS is going quickly downstairs again. MAGGIE follows him.
MAGGIE What makes you think you’ll see it now?
REBUS Because it’s in here. All in my head. I don’t forget.
ANGELA is suddenly there too, talking to MAGGIE.
ANGELA He does forget. He’s forgetting me.
MAGGIE He’s only doing this to forget you.
ANGELA I know.
REBUS is trying to think, stopped at the foot of the stairs.
ANGELA Siobhan will nail my killer and you’ll find Maggie’s. That’d be nice.
MAGGIE That’d be very nice.
ANGELA Except he hasn’t told Siobhan everything.
MAGGIE And no-one saw me fall John... Except the man that pushed me down. What are you trying to remember?
REBUS A name...
MAGGIE You better hope it’s the name of a man that’s still alive. You spend too much time talking to the dead these days, eh John?
REBUS Got it!
Quick transition into—
A pub
Scuzzy, old — school drinking dive. A small man in a bunnet is nursing a pint and chaser. He startles as he sees REBUS moving towards him but REBUS blocks him before he can leave. REBUS is already carrying drinks.
REBUS You running off with half your drink still on the bar Charlie? That’s no like you.
CHARLIE What do you want Rebus?
REBUS (offering glass) To buy you the other half of that.
CHARLIE I’m no talking to you. You’re no even a policeman anymore. I don’t have to tell you anything.
REBUS (the drink) So you don’t want this?
CHARLIE What are you doing in here?
REBUS Just looking for a bar that’s no been turned into a bistro. You canny get a drink in this town any more without some floppy haired article offering you a tapas menu.
CHARLIE Aye you’re no wrong there.
CHARLIE accepts the drink.
REBUS This place is holding out though.
CHARLIE Just about.
REBUS The Hebrides isny too bad.
CHARLIE (snorts) You’re joking eh? Full of foreigners and fucking backpackers.
REBUS Oh I’ll tell you where’s ruined. The Jackdaw, down in Newhaven.
CHARLIE (not really interested) That right? No been down there in years.
REBUS Did you no used to drink down there?