The discovery of the package containing Ronnie McGrath’s hidden photographs turns the clearing of Ronnie McGrath’s house into a renewed search for evidence. John Rebus retrieves a carefully sealed parcel during the cleanup, only to find that its contents are boxing photographs rather than an obvious record of Hyde. The episode shifts the investigation from the apparent security of a recovered object to the uncertainty of what an image can actually prove: the photographs may still contain a clue, but only if someone in the crowd can be identified.

A house being cleared

At the day’s end, a van and a hired skip stand directly in front of Ronnie McGrath’s house. Brian Holmes supposes that the council has arranged to clean the place, but the foreman can offer no meaningful account of the order behind the work. The workmen have simply been given a job to do. That uncertainty matters to Rebus: the house is being cleared of its marks and belongings before he understands what might still be important there.

Inside, two workmen in overalls and heavy gloves are whitewashing the living-room walls. Charlie’s pentagram has already been covered, its outline still faintly visible beneath the fresh paint. The scene makes the cleanup more than a change of appearance: a sign associated with the investigation is being obscured as part of routine work. Rebus leaves the room and goes upstairs, where a younger worker is gathering Ronnie’s few possessions into a large black plastic bag. Rebus catches him putting a paperback into his pocket. The belongings are being reduced to waste or carried away, and the incident gives the clearing a practical urgency: anything overlooked may disappear along with the rest.

The bathroom also requires work. Rebus returns with the foreman and equipment to remove its contents, while Holmes accompanies him. The contrast between the house’s ordinary domestic rooms and the task in the bathroom underlines how much the cleanup involves more than repainting. Rebus treats the unpleasant work as a job with a purpose, though the narrative leaves that purpose uncertain. It is during this process of clearing, rather than through a formal search staged around a known hiding place, that the package comes to light.

The package recovered

Outside in the cooler air, Rebus and the workmen hose down the parcel. Its construction is deliberate and layered: a red plastic bag like one from a record shop has been wrapped around cloth, then secured with a large amount of tape and tied with string in a firm central knot. These materials make the object look less like an item casually lost among Ronnie’s belongings than something intentionally bundled and protected. Rebus recognizes the care involved and connects it to Ronnie, thinking that he had been more resourceful than others might have expected.

The package’s condition links its recovery to the work inside the house: Rebus is shaking clots from it before it is rinsed, and he carries it away only after it has been cleaned enough to inspect. Yet the scene does not establish exactly where Ronnie placed it or how long it remained there. What it does show is the transition from obscured parcel to tangible lead. Rebus takes it with him, while the foreman and Rebus exchange a handshake and talk about local places to drink. The exchange gives the discovery an unceremonious setting: evidence emerges amid manual labor and ordinary arrangements, not in a controlled evidentiary search.

Brian Holmes follows Rebus back to his flat. He does not suggest opening a window during the journey, but the parcel’s significance becomes clear only when it is opened. In the kitchen, Rebus stands bowed over the worktop, hands braced against it. The package has not produced the expected answer. His reaction registers the disappointment before Holmes can inspect the contents, and the moment marks a sharp reversal: the carefully recovered object promises a connection to the case, then appears to offer nothing beyond sports images.

Boxing photographs and an unresolved lead

The photographs inside show a boxing match. Rebus initially treats that fact as the end of their importance, calling them merely sports photographs. That conclusion is understandable: the package’s careful wrapping had raised the possibility that it contained something more directly useful, while the revealed subject seems ordinary and unrelated to the investigation. The change from a concealed, laboriously secured parcel to apparently commonplace pictures deflates the immediate expectation of a decisive discovery.

Holmes resists closing the question. He suggests that someone in the audience might be Hyde. His proposal does not establish that Hyde is present, nor does the episode confirm that any spectator can be identified. Instead, it changes the photographs’ possible value: the boxing match may matter not as an event in itself, but as a setting in which a person of interest might have been captured. The images remain evidence whose significance depends on looking beyond their obvious subject.

The episode therefore ends with a lead reopened rather than solved. The package confirms that Ronnie had concealed photographs with enough care to protect them, but the contents do not immediately disclose why. Rebus’s disappointment and Holmes’s tentative suggestion leave the investigation balanced between a dead end and a new possibility. A mundane set of sports pictures may still contain the face they need, but the evidence supplied here stops at that possibility. The recovered parcel becomes significant precisely because its apparent answer is incomplete.