Rebus antagonises the survivor's father, an aggressive local MP who dislikes the police and is trying to make political capital out of the shooting.

Two secretive security service personnel appear and begin asking awkward questions, and Rebus traces their interest to the gunman's involvement in a classified military helicopter crash on Jura years before.

He killed his fellow-students himself, driven by motives including an angry relationship with his MP father, who faces personal and political ruin because of his son's actions.

With the shooting resolved, the complex web linking many of those they have been investigating becomes clear to Rebus and Clarke: there has been drug-smuggling and money-laundering, the illegal reactivation of weapons, and the theft of diamonds intended to fund a covert government deal with Irish paramilitaries.

He revisits the scalding of his hands, and the reader learns that the accident happened at home during a blackout after his previous drinking bout, explaining why he has avoided alcohol during the events of the novel.