Ian Rankin. Standing in another man's grave. Page 13.

Robison to guess how much a car or a house had cost in 1974, and would read out (to read something and say the words aloud so that other people can hear) the football league tables to Peter Bliss, who had a knack (skill or ability to do something easily and well) for remembering the names of players and managers.

But then, eventually, Rebus would be pulled back to the crime itself, to the details, interviews, evidence and family testimony: somebody thinks they got away with (avoid punishment) it… knows they got away with it.

He hoped all these killers were out there somewhere, growing more ill at ease (to be worried and not relaxed) with each passing year as they read about advances in detection and technology. Maybe when their grandkids wanted to watch CSI or Walking the dead, they had to leave the room and sit in the kitchen.

Rebus had posited (to suggest something as a basic fact or principle from which a further idea is formed or developed) the idea to Cowan: get the media to report breakthroughs on regular basis, real or not, just to put the wind up (to make someone feel worried about their situation) the culprits.

'Something might shake loose (reconsider, revise, transform).

He walked over (to move on foot) to the window and stared out at the tenement (a large building divided into apartments, usually in a poor area of a city) opposite.