Ronnie McGrath’s death is presented as a suspicious overdose whose apparent simplicity is unsettled by signs that the scene was altered. Rebus finds evidence of a fatal injection, but the moved body, a second packet of heroin and the discovery of rat poison complicate any straightforward account of what happened.

Scene and Initial Suspicions

Rebus tells Matthew Vanderhyde that he is investigating either a murder or, at minimum, tampering with evidence at a death scene. Ronnie’s shirtless body had been found with his arms outstretched and his legs together. Candles had burned on either side, a pentagram had been painted on a wall, and syringes were in a jar beside him. These details make the death scene appear arranged, but they do not by themselves establish who altered it or why.

Rebus’s Reconstruction

Rebus proposes that Ronnie, after going without drugs for some time, obtained heroin and injected it in an empty house. He reasons that the substance was lethal and that Tracy found Ronnie in his room and fled in panic. Charlie challenges her account, so Rebus treats this sequence as provisional rather than verified.

The reconstruction becomes less straightforward after Ronnie’s death. Someone moved his body downstairs, and a second packet of white powder appeared. Tracy had reported seeing only one packet. Rebus also notes that Ronnie’s camera disappeared and later turned up in Charlie’s room at the squat. Together, the moved body and the changing evidence suggest interference, while leaving the purpose and perpetrator unresolved.

Evidence and Uncertainty

When Rebus sets out the known facts at his desk, he recognizes how difficult it would be to prove a crime. There is no evidence that Ronnie did not inject himself. Although drugs were plentiful in the city, Ronnie had been deprived of his supply; a packet of apparently clean heroin was left with the body, perhaps in the hope that testing would lead to a finding of death by misadventure. But rat poison was found, undermining that simple explanation.

Rebus’s own account remains unsettled: the suggestion that someone wanted the clean packet tested is a conjecture, not a demonstrated motive. He considers whether Ronnie knew the heroin was impure and took it anyway, but that possibility does not make the evidence cohere. The death therefore remains suspended between an apparent overdose and a possible killing concealed by alterations to the scene.