Ian Rankin

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SYNOPSIS The air outside was filled with the yeasty smell of beer-making, vying with the even stronger aromas from the city's other much larger breweries. The Broadsword was a popular watering hole, and like most of Edinburgh's popular pubs, it boasted a mixed clientele: students and low lifes with the occasional businessman. The bar had few pretentions; all it had in its favour were good beer and a good cellar. The weekend had already started, and Rebus was squeezed in at the bar, next to a man whose immense alsatian dog was sleeping on the floor behind the barstools. It took up the standing room of at least two adult men, but nobody was asking it to shift. Further along the bar, someone was drinking with one hand and keeping another proprietorial hand on a coat-stand which Rebus assumed they'd just bought at one of the nearby secondhand shops. Everyone at the bar was drinking the same dark brew.