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a lucky-bag of official merchandising. The lackey passing out the bags smiled at Rebus.
    ‘Maybe your kids or grandkids …’ Thrusting the bag at him. He’d bitten back a remark, passed straight to the booze tent, where he couldn’t decide between the dozens of hooch bottles, so settled for a beer, then wished he’d taken a nip of Black Bush, so eased the unopened bottle into his lucky-bag.
    They had two vans parked outside the arena, way back behind the stage, filling with counterfeiters and their merchandise. Maclay weaved back to the vans nursing a set of knuckles.
    ‘Who did you pop, Heavy?’
    Maclay shook his head, wiping sweat from his brow, a Michelangelo cherub turned bad.
    ‘Some choob was resisting,’ he said. ‘Had a suitcase with him. I punched a hole right through it. He didn’t resist after that.’
    Rebus looked into the back of a van, the one holdingbodies. A couple of kids, hardening already to the system, and two regulars, old enough to know the score. They’d be fined a day’s wages, the loss of their stock just another debit. The summer was young, plenty festivals to come.
    ‘Fucking awful racket.’
    Maclay meant the music. Rebus shrugged; he’d been getting into it, thought maybe he’d take home a couple of the bootleg CDs. He offered Maclay the bottle of Black Bush. Maclay drank from it like it was lemonade. Rebus offered him a mint afterwards, and he threw it into his mouth with a nod of thanks.
    ‘Post mortem results came in this afternoon,’ the big man said.
    Rebus had meant to phone, hadn’t got round to it. ‘And?’
    Maclay crushed the mint to powder. ‘The fall killed him. Apart from that, not much.’
    The fall killed him: little chance of a straight murder conviction. ‘Toxicology?’
    ‘Still testing. Professor Gates said when they cut into the stomach, there was a strong whiff of dark rum.’
    ‘There was a bottle in the bag.’
    Maclay nodded. ‘The decedent’s tipple. Gates said no initial signs of drug use, but we’ll have to wait for the tests. I went through the phone book for Mitchisons.’
    Rebus smiled. ‘So did I.’
    ‘I know, one of the numbers I called, you’d already been on to them. No joy?’
    Rebus shook his head. ‘I got a number for T-Bird Oil in Aberdeen. Their personnel manager’s going to call me back.’
    A Trading Standards officer was coming towards them, arms laden with T-shirts and programmes. His face was red from exertion, his thin tie hanging loose at the neck. Behind him, an officer from ‘F Troop’ – Livingston Division – was escorting another prisoner.
    ‘Nearly done, Mr Baxter?’
    The Trading Standards officer dumped the T-shirts, lifted one and wiped his face with it.
    ‘That should about do it,’ he said. ‘I’ll round up my soldiers.’
    Rebus turned to Maclay. ‘I’m starving. Let’s see what they’ve laid on for the superstars.’
    There were fans trying to breach security, teenagers mostly, split half and half, boys and girls. A few had managed to inveigle their way in. They wandered around behind the barriers looking for faces they would recognise from the posters on their bedroom walls. Then when they did spot one, they’d be too awed or shy to talk.
    ‘Any kids?’ Rebus asked Maclay. They were in hospitality, nursing bottles of Beck’s taken from a coolbox Rebus hadn’t noticed first time round.
    Maclay shook his head. ‘Divorced before it became an issue, if you’ll pardon the pun. You?’
    ‘One daughter.’
    ‘Grown up?’
    ‘Sometimes I think she’s older than me.’
    ‘Kids grow up faster than in our day.’ Rebus smiled at that, Maclay a good ten years his junior.
    A girl, squealing resistance, was being hauled back to the perimeter by two burly security men.
    ‘Jimmy Cousins,’ Maclay said, pointing out one of the security bears. ‘Do you know him?’
    ‘He was stationed at Leith for a while.’
    ‘Retired last year, only forty-seven. Thirty years in. Now he’s got his pension