Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 102, No. 4 & 5. Whole No. 618 & 619, October 1993

Castle Dangerous by Ian Rankin

© 1993 by Ian Rankin

Good news for fans of Ian Rankin’s Inspector John Rebus: the latest Rebus novel, Strip Jack, will soon be available in the U.S. from St. Martin’s Press. Here’s an outing for Rebus that the author says “takes a slightly tongue-in-cheek look at the relationship between American tourists and their British hosts...”

Sir Walter Scott was dead.

He’d been found at the top of his namesake’s monument in Princes Street Gardens, dead of a heart attack and with a new and powerful pair of binoculars hanging around his slender, mottled neck.

Sir Walter had been one of Edinburgh’s most revered QCs until his retirement a year ago. Detective Inspector John Rebus, climbing the hundreds (surely it must be hundreds) of spiralling steps up to the top of the Scott Monument, paused for a moment to recall one or two of his run-ins with Sir Walter, both in and out of the courtrooms on the Royal Mile. He had been a formidable character, shrewd, devious, and subtle. Law to him had been a challenge rather than an obligation. To John Rebus, it was just a day’s work.

Rebus ached as he reached the last incline. The steps here were narrower than ever, the spiral tighter. Room for one person only, really. At the height of its summer popularity, with a throng of tourists squeezing through it like toothpaste from a tube, Rebus reckoned the Scott Monument might be very scary indeed.

He breathed hard and loud bursting through the small doorway at the top, and stood there for a moment, catching his breath. The panorama before him was, quite simply, the best view in Edinburgh. The castle close behind him, the New Town spread out in front of him, sloping down towards the Firth of Forth, with Fife, Rebus’s birthplace, visible in the distance. Calton Hill... Leith... Arthur’s Seat... and round to the castle again. It was breathtaking, or would have been had the breath not already been taken from him by the climb.

The parapet upon which he stood was incredibly narrow; again, there was hardly room enough to squeeze past someone. How crowded did it get in the summer? Dangerously crowded? It seemed dangerously crowded just now, with only four people up here. He looked over the edge upon the sheer drop to the gardens below, where a massing of tourists, growing restless at being barred from the monument, stared up at him. Rebus shivered.

Not that it was cold. It was early June. Spring was finally late-blooming into summer, but that cold wind never left the city, that wind which never seemed to be warmed by the sun. It bit into Rebus now, reminding him that he lived in a northern climate. He looked down and saw Sir Walter’s slumped body, reminding him why he was here.

“I thought we were going to have another corpse on our hands there for a minute.” The speaker was Detective Sergeant Brian Holmes. He had been in conversation with the police doctor, who himself was crouching over the corpse.

“Just getting my breath back,” Rebus explained.

“You should take up squash.”

“It’s squashed enough up here.” The wind was nipping Rebus’s ears. He began to wish he hadn’t had that haircut at the weekend. “What have we got?”

“Heart attack. The doctor reckons he was due for one anyway. A climb like that in an excited state. One of the witnesses says he just doubled over. Didn’t cry out, didn’t seem in pain...”

“Old mortality, eh?” Rebus looked wistfully at the corpse. “But why do you say he was excited?”

Holmes grinned. “Think I’d bring you up here for the good of your health? Here.” He handed a polythene bag to Rebus. Inside the bag was a badly typed note. “It was found in the binocular case.”

Rebus read the note through its clear polythene window: GO TO TOP OF SCOTT MONUMENT. TUESDAY MIDDAY. I’LL BE THERE. LOOK FOR THE GUN.

“The gun?” Rebus asked, frowning.

There was a sudden explosion. Rebus started, but Holmes just looked at his watch, then corrected its hands. One o’clock. The noise had come from the blank charge fired every day from the castle walls at precisely one o’clock.

“The gun,” Rebus repeated, except now it was a statement. Sir Walter’s binoculars were lying beside him. Rebus lifted them — “He wouldn’t mind, would he?” — and fixed them on the castle. Tourists could be seen walking around. Some peered over the walls. A few fixed their own binoculars on Rebus. One, an elderly Asian, grinned and waved. Rebus lowered the binoculars. He examined them. “These look brand new.”

“Bought for the purpose, I’d say, sir.”

“But what exactly was the purpose, Brian? What was he supposed to be looking at?” Rebus waited for an answer. None was forthcoming. “Whatever it was,” Rebus went on, “it as good as killed him. I suggest we take a look for oursfelves.”

“Where, sir?”

Rebus nodded towards the castle. “Over there, Brian. Come on.”

“Er, Inspector...?” Rebus looked towards the doctor, who was upright now, but pointing downwards with one finger. “How are we going to get him down?”

Rebus stared at Sir Walter. Yes, he could see the problem. It would be hard graft taking him all the way back down the spiral stairs. What’s more, damage to the body would be unavoidable. He supposed they could always use a winch and lower him straight to the ground... Well, it was a job for ambulancemen or undertakers, not the police. Rebus patted the doctor’s shoulder.

“You’re in charge, Doc,” he said, exiting through the door before the doctor could summon up a protest. Holmes shrugged apologetically, smiled, and followed Rebus into the dark. The doctor looked at the body, then over the edge, then back to the body again. He reached into his pocket for a mint, popped it into his mouth, and began to crunch on it. Then he, too, made for the door.

Splendour was falling on the castle walls. Wrong poet, Rebus mused, but right image. He tried to recall if he’d ever read any Scott, but drew a blank. He thought he might have picked up Waverley once. As a colleague at the time had said, “Imagine calling a book after the station.” Rebus hadn’t bothered to explain; and hadn’t read the book either, or if he had it had left no impression...

He stood now on the ramparts, looking across to the Gothic exaggeration of the Scott Monument. A cannon was almost immediately behind him. Anyone wanting to be seen from the top of the monument would probably have been standing right on this spot. People did not linger here though. They might wander along the walls, take a few photographs, or pose for a few, but they would not stand in the one spot for longer than a minute or two.

Which meant, of course, that if someone had been standing here longer, they would be conspicuous. The problem was twofold: first, conspicuous to whom? Everyone else would be in motion, would not notice that someone was lingering. Second, all the potential witnesses would by now have gone their separate ways, in tour buses or on foot, down the Royal Mile or onto Princes Street, along George the Fourth Bridge to look at Greyfriars Bobby... The people milling around just now represented a fresh intake, new water flowing down the same old stream.

Someone wanted to be seen by Sir Walter, and Sir Walter wanted to see him — hence the binoculars. No conversation was needed, just the sighting. Why? Rebus couldn’t think of a single reason. He turned away from the wall and saw Holmes approaching. Meeting his eyes, Holmes shrugged his shoulders.

“I’ve talked to the guards on the gate. They don’t remember seeing anyone suspicious. As one of them said, ‘All these bloody tourists look the same to me.’ ”

Rebus smiled at this, but then someone was tugging at his sleeve, a small handbagged woman with sunglasses and thick lipstick.

“Sorry, could I ask you to move over a bit?” Her accent was American, her voice a nasal sing-song. “Lawrence wants a picture of me with that gorgeous skyline behind me.”

Rebus smiled at her, even made a slight bow, and moved a couple of yards out of the way, Holmes following suit.

“Thanks!” Lawrence called from behind his camera, freeing a hand so that he could wave it towards them. Rebus noticed that the man wore a yellow sticker on his chest. He looked back to the woman, now posing like the film star she so clearly wasn’t, and saw that she too had a badge, her name — Diana — felt-tipped beneath some package company’s logo.

“I wonder...” Rebus said quietly.

“Sir?”

“Maybe you were asking the wrong question at the gate, Brian. Yes, the right idea but the wrong question. Come on, let’s go back and ask again. We’ll see how eagle-eyed our friends really are.”

They passed the photographer — his badge called him Larry rather than Lawrence — just as the shutter clicked.

“Great,” he said to nobody in particular. “Just one more, sweetheart.” As he wound the film, Rebus paused and stood beside him, then made a square from the thumb and forefinger of both hands and peered through it towards the woman Diana, as though assessing the composition of the picture. Larry caught the gesture.

“You a professional?” he asked, his tone just short of awe.

“Only in a manner of speaking, Larry,” said Rebus, turning away again. Holmes was left standing there, staring at the photographer. He wondered whether to shrug and smile again, as he had done with the doctor. What the hell. He shrugged. He smiled. And he followed Rebus towards the gate.

Rebus went alone to the home of Sir Walter Scott, just off the Corstorphione Road near the zoo. As he stepped out of his car, he could have sworn he detected a faint wafting of animal dung. There was another car in the driveway, one which, with a sinking heart, he recognised. As he walked up to the front door of the house, he saw that the curtains were closed in the upstairs windows, while downstairs, painted wooden shutters had been pulled across to block out the daylight.

The door was opened by Superintendent “Farmer” Watson.

“I thought that was your car, sir,” Rebus said as Watson ushered him into the hall. When he spoke, the superintendent’s voice was a whispered growl.

“He’s still up there, you know.”

“Who?”

“Sir Walter, of course!” Flecks of saliva burst from the corners of Watson’s mouth. Rebus thought it judicious to show not even the mildest amusement.

“I left the doctor in charge.”

“Dr. Jameson couldn’t organise a brewery visit. What the hell did you think you were doing?”

“I had... have an investigation on my hands, sir. I thought I could be more usefully employed than playing undertaker.”

“He’s stiff now, you know,” Watson said, his anger having diminished. He didn’t exactly know why it was that he could never stay angry with Rebus; there was something about the man. “They don’t think they can get him down the stairs. They’ve tried twice, but he got stuck both times.”

Rebus pursed his lips, the only way he could prevent them spreading into a wide grin. Watson saw this and saw, too, that the situation was not without a trace of humour.

“Is that why you’re here, sir? Placating the widow?”

“No, I’m here on a personal level. Sir Walter and Lady Scott were friends of mine. That is, Sir Walter was, and Lady Scott still is.”

Rebus nodded slowly. Christ, he was thinking, the poor bugger’s only been dead a couple of hours and here’s old Farmer Watson already trying to... But no, surely not. Watson was many things, but not callous, not like that. Rebus rebuked himself silently, and in so doing missed most of what Watson was saying.

“—in here.”

And a door from the hallway was being opened. Rebus was being shown into a spacious living room — or were they called drawing rooms in houses like this? Walking across to where Lady Scott sat by the fireside was like walking across a dance hall.

“This is Inspector Rebus,” Watson was saying. “One of my men.”

Lady Scott looked up from her handkerchief. “How do you do?” She offered him a delicate hand, which he lightly touched with his own, in place of his usual firm handshake. Lady Scott was in her mid fifties, a well-preserved monument of neat lines and precise movements. Rebus had seen her accompanying her husband to various functions in the city, had come across her photograph in the paper when he had received his knighthood. He saw, too, from the corner of his eye, the way Watson looked at her, a mixture of pity and something more than pity, as though he wanted at the same time to pat her hand and hug her to him.

Who would want Sir Walter dead? That was, in a sense, what he had come here to ask. Still, the question itself was valid. Rebus could think of adversaries — those Scott had crossed in his professional life, those he had helped put behind bars, those, perhaps, who resented everything from his title to the bright blue socks that had become something of a trademark after he admitted on a radio show that he wore no other colour on his feet...

“Lady Scott, I’m sorry to intrude on you at a time like this. I know it’s difficult, but there are a couple of questions...”

“Please, ask your questions.” She gestured for him to sit on the sofa — the sofa on which Farmer Watson had already made himself comfortable. Rebus sat down awkwardly. This whole business was awkward. He knew the chess player’s motto: if in doubt, play a pawn. Or as the Scots themselves would say, ca’ canny. But that had never been his style, and he couldn’t change now. As ever, he decided to sacrifice his queen.

“We found a note in Sir Walter’s binocular case.”

“He didn’t own a pair of binoculars.” Her voice was firm.

“He probably bought them this morning. Did he say where he was going?”

“No, just out. I was upstairs. He called that he was ‘popping out for an hour or two,’ and that was all.”

“What note?” This from Watson. What note indeed. Rebus wondered why Lady Scott hadn’t asked the same thing.

“A typed note, telling Sir Walter to be at the top of the Scott Monument at midday.” Rebus paused, his attention wholly on Sir Walter’s widow. “There have been others, haven’t there? Other notes?”

She nodded slowly. “Yes. I found them by accident. I wasn’t prying, I’m not like that. I was in Walter’s office — he always called it that, his ‘office,’ never his study — looking for something, an old newspaper I think. Yes, there was an article I wanted to reread, and I’d searched high and low for the blessed paper. I was looking in Walter’s office, and I found some... letters.” She wrinkled her nose. “He’d kept them quiet from me. Well, I suppose he had his reasons. I never said anything to him about finding them.” She smiled ruefully. “I used to think sometimes that the unsaid was what kept our marriage alive. That may seem cruel. Now he’s gone, I wish we’d told one another more...”

She dabbed at a liquid eye with the corner of her handkerchief, wrapped as it was around one finger, her free hand twisting and twisting the comers. To Rebus, it looked as if she were using it as a tourniquet.

“Do you know where these other notes are?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Walter may have moved them.”

“Shall we see?”

The office was untidy in the best legal tradition: any available flat surface, including the carpet, seemed to be fair game for stacks of brown folders tied with ribbon, huge bulging manilla envelopes, magazines and newspapers, books and learned journals. Two walls consisted entirely of bookcases, from floor to near the ornate but flaking ceiling. One bookcase, glass-fronted, contained what Rebus reckoned must be the collected works of the other Sir Walter Scott. The glass doors looked as though they hadn’t been opened in a decade; the books themselves might never have been read. Still, it was a nice touch — to have one’s study so thoroughly infiltrated by one’s namesake.

“Ah, they’re still here.” Lady Scott had slid a concertina-style folder out from beneath a pile of similar such files. “Shall we take them back through to the morning room?” She looked around her. “I don’t like it in here... not now.”

Her Edinburgh accent, with its drawn vowels, had turned “morning” into “mourning.” Either that, thought Rebus, or she’d said “mourning room” in the first place. He would have liked to have stayed a little longer in Sir Walter’s office, but was compelled to follow. Back in her chair, Lady Scott untied the ribbon around the file and let it fall open. The file itself was made up of a dozen or more compartments, but only one seemed to contain any paperwork. She pulled out the letters and handed them to Watson, who glanced through them wordlessly before handing them to Rebus.

Sir Walter had taken each note from its envelope, but had paper-clipped the envelopes to the backs of their respective notes. So Rebus was able to ascertain that the notes had been posted between three weeks and one week ago, and all bore a central London postmark. He read the three notes slowly to himself, then reread them. The first came quickly to its point.

The second fleshed out the blackmail.

The third, posted a week ago, finalised things.

Rebus looked up at Lady Scott. “Did he pay?”

“I’ve really no idea.”

“But you could check?”

“If you like, yes.”

Rebus nodded. “I’d like to be sure.” The first note said that a letter was enclosed, obviously a letter concerning Sir Walter — but what kind of letter? Of the letter itself there was no sign. Twelve apparently incriminating or embarrassing letters for £2,000. A small price to pay for someone of Sir Walter’s position in society. What’s more, it seemed to Rebus a small price to ask. And if the exchange had taken place as arranged, what was the point of the last note, the one found in Sir Walter’s binocular case? Yes, that was a point.

“Did you see the mail this morning, Lady Scott?”

“I was first to the door, yes.”

“And was there an envelope like these others?”

“I’m sure there wasn’t.”

Rebus nodded. “Yes, if there had been, I think Sir Walter would have kept it, judging by these.” He shook the notes — all with envelopes attached.

“Meaning, John?” Superintendent Watson sounded puzzled. To Rebus’s ears, it was his natural voice.

“Meaning,” he explained, “that the last note, the one we found on Sir Walter, was as it arrived at the house. No envelope. It must have been pushed through the letter box. I’d say sometime yesterday or this morning. The blackmail started in London, but the blackmailer came up here for the payoff. And he or she is still here — or was until midday. Now, I’m not so certain. If Sir Walter paid the money—” he nodded towards Lady Scott “— and I would like you to check on that, please, today if possible. If, as I say, Sir Walter paid, if he got the letters back, then what was this morning’s little game all about?”

Watson nodded, arms folded, looking down into his lap as though seeking answers. Rebus doubted they’d be found so close to home. He rose to his feet.

“We could do with finding those letters, too. Perhaps, Lady Scott, you might have another look in your husband’s... office.”

She nodded slowly. “I should tell you, Inspector, that I’m not sure I want to find them.”

“I can understand that. But it would help us track down the blackmailer.”

Her voice was as low as the light in the room. “Yes, of course.”

“And in the meantime, John?” Watson tried to sound like a man in charge of something. But there was a pleading edge to his voice.

“Meantime,” said Rebus, “I’ll be at the Castellain Hotel. The number will be in the book. You can always have me paged.”

Watson gave Rebus one of his dark looks, the kind that said: I don’t know what you’re up to, but I can’t let anyone else know that I don’t know. Then he nodded and almost smiled.

“Of course,” he said. “Yes, off you go. I may stay on a little longer...” He looked to Lady Scott for her assent. But she was busy with the handkerchief again, twisting and twisting and twisting...

The Castellain Hotel, a minute’s walk from Princes Street, was a chaos of tourists. The large pot-planted lobby looked as though it was on someone’s tour itinerary, with one large organised party about to leave, milling about as their luggage was taken out to the waiting bus by hard-pressed porters. At the same time, another party was arriving, the holiday company’s representative conspicuous by being the only person who looked like he knew what was going on.

Seeing that a group was about to leave, Rebus panicked. But their lapel badges assured him that they were part of the Seascape Tours package. He walked up to the reception desk and waited while a harassed young woman in tartan two-piece tried to take two telephone calls at the same time. She showed no little skill in the operation, and all the time she was talking her eyes were on the scrum of guests in front of her. Finally, she found a moment and a welcoming smile for him. Funny how at this time of year there were so many smiles to be found in Edinburgh...

“Yes, sir?”

“Detective Inspector Rebus,” he announced. “I’d like a word with the Grebe Tours rep if she’s around.”

“She’s a he,” the receptionist explained. “I think he might be in his room, hold on and I’ll check.” She had picked up the telephone. “Nothing wrong, is there?”

“No, nothing, just want a word, that’s all.”

Her call was answered quickly. “Hello, Tony? There’s a gentleman in reception to see you.” Pause. “Fine, I’ll tell him. ’Bye.” She put down the receiver. “He’ll be down in a minute.”

Rebus nodded his thanks and, as she answered another telephone call, moved back into the reception hall, dodging the bags and the worried owners of the bags. There was something thrilling about holidaymakers. They were like children at a party. But at the same time there was something depressing, too, about the herd mentality. Rebus had never been on a package holiday in his life. He mistrusted the production-line cheerfulness of the reps and the guides. A walk along a deserted beach: now that was a holiday. Finding a pleasant out-of-the-way pub... playing pinball so ruthlessly that the machine “tilted”... wasn’t he due for a holiday himself?

Not that he would take one: the loneliness could be a cage as well as a release. But he would never, he hoped, be as caged as these people around him. He looked for a Grebe Tours badge on any passing lapel or chest, but saw none. The Edinburgh Castle gatekeepers had been eagle-eyed all right, or one of them had. He not only recalled that a Grebe Tours bus had pulled in to the car park at around half-past eleven that morning, but also that the rep had mentioned where the tour party was staying — the Castellain Hotel.

A small, balding man came out of the lift and fairly trotted to the reception desk, then, when the receptionist pointed towards Rebus, trotted over towards him, too. Did these reps take pills? potions? laughing gas? How the hell did they manage to keep it up?

“Tony Bell at your service,” the small man said. They shook hands. Rebus noticed that Tony Bell was growing old. He had a swelling paunch and was a little breathless after his jog. He ran a hand over his babylike head and kept grinning.

“Detective Inspector Rebus.” The grin subsided. In fact, most of Tony Bell’s face seemed to subside.

“Oh Jesus,” he said, “what is it? A mugger, pickpocket, what? Is somebody hurt? Which hospital?”

Rebus raised a hand. “No need to panic,” he reassured him. “Your charges are all quite safe.”

“Thank Christ for that.” The grin returned. Bell nodded towards a door, above which was printed the legend Dining Room and Bar. “Fancy a drink?”

“Anything to get out of this war zone,” Rebus said.

“You should see the bar after dinner,” said Tony Bell, leading the way, “now that’s a war zone...”

As Bell explained, the Grebe Tours party had a free afternoon. He checked his watch and told Rebus that they would probably start returning to the hotel fairly soon. There was a meeting arranged for before dinner, when the next day’s itinerary would be discussed. Rebus told the rep what he wanted, and Bell himself suggested he stay put for the meeting. Yes, Rebus agreed, that seemed sensible, and meantime would Tony like another drink?

This particular Grebe Tours party was American. They’d flown in almost a month ago for what Bell called the “Full British Tour” — Canterbury, Salisbury, Stonehenge, London, Stratford, York, the Lake District, Trossachs, Highlands, and Edinburgh.

“This is just about the last stop,” he said. “For which relief much thanks, I can tell you. They’re nice people mind, I’m not saying they’re not, but... demanding. Yes, that’s what it is. If a Brit doesn’t quite understand what’s been said to him, or if something isn’t quite right, or whatever, they tend to keep their gobs shut. But Americans...” He rolled his eyeballs. “Americans,” he repeated, as though it explained all.

It did. Less than an hour later, Rebus was addressing a packed, seated crowd of forty American tourists in a room off the large dining room. He had barely given them his rank when a hand shot into the air.

“Er... yes?”

The elderly woman stood up. “Sir, are you from Scotland Yard?”

Rebus shook his head. “Scotland Yard’s in London.”

She was still standing. “Now why is that?” she asked. Rebus had no answer to this, but someone else suggested that it was because that part of London was called Scotland Yard. Yes, but why was it called Scotland Yard in the first place? The woman had sat down now, but all around her was discussion and conjecture. Rebus looked towards Tony Bell, who rose from his own seat and succeeded in quietening things down.

Eventually, Rebus was able to make his point. “We’re interested,” he said, “in a visitor to Edinburgh Castle this morning. You may have seen someone while you were there, someone standing by the walls, looking towards the Scott Monument. He or she might have been standing there for some time. If that means something to anybody, I’d like you to tell me about it. At the same time, it’s possible that those of you who took photographs of your visit may have by chance snapped the person we’re looking for. If any of you have cameras, I’d like to see the photos you took this morning.”

He was in luck. Nobody remembered seeing anyone suspicious — they were too busy looking at the sights. But two photographers had used Polaroids, and another had taken his film into a same-day processor at lunchtime and so had the glossy photographs with him. Rebus studied these while Tony Bell went over the next day’s arrangements with the group. The Polaroid photos were badly taken, often blurry, with people in the background reduced to matchstick men. But the same-day photos were excellent, sharply focused thirty-five-millimetre jobs. As the tour party left the room, en route for dinner, Tony Bell came over to where Rebus was sitting and asked the question he knew he himself would be asked more than once over dinner.

“Any joy?”

“Maybe,” Rebus admitted. “These two people keep cropping up.” He spread five photographs out in front of him. In two, a middle-aged woman was caught in the background, staring out over the wall she was leaning on. Leaning on, or hiding behind? In another two, a man in his late twenties or early thirties stood in similar pose, but with a more upright stance. In one photo, they could both be seen half-turning with smiles on their faces towards the camera.

“No.” Tony Bell was shaking his head. “They might look like wanted criminals, but they’re in our party. I think Mrs. Eglinton was sitting in the back row near the door, beside her husband. You probably didn’t see her. But Shaw Berkely was in the second row, over to one side. I’m surprised you didn’t see him. Actually, I take that back. He has this gift of being innocuous. Never asks questions or complains. Mind you, I think he’s seen most of this before.”

“Oh?” Rebus was gathering the photos together.

“He told me he’d been to Britain before on holiday.”

“And there’s nothing between him and—?” Rebus was pointing to the photograph of man and woman together.

“Him and Mrs. Eglinton?” Bell seemed genuinely amused. “I don’t know — maybe. She certainly mothers him a bit.”

Rebus was still studying the print. “Is he the youngest person on the tour?”

“By about ten years. Sad story really. His mother died, and after the funeral he said he just had to get away. Went into the travel agent’s and we were offering a reduction for late bookings.”

“His father’s dead too, then?”

“That’s right. I got his life story one night late in the bar. On a tour, I get everyone’s story sooner or later.”

Rebus flipped through the sheaf of photos a final time. Nothing new presented itself to him. “And you were at the castle between about half-past eleven and quarter to one?”

“Just as I told you.”

“Oh well.” Rebus sighed. “I don’t think—”

“Inspector?” It was the receptionist, her head peering around the door. “There’s a call for you.”

It was Superintendent Watson. He was concise, factual. “Withdrew five hundred pounds from each of four accounts, all on the same day, and in plenty of time for the rendezvous at the Cafe Royal.”

“So presumably he paid up.”

“But did he get the letters back?”

“Mmm. Has Lady Scott had a look for them?”

“Yes, we’ve been through the study — not thoroughly, there’s too much stuff in there for that. But we’ve had a look.” That “we” sounded comfortable, sounded as though Watson had already got his feet under the table. “So what now, John?”

“I’m coming over, if you’ve no objection, sir. With respect, I’d like a look at Sir Walter’s office for myself...”

He went in search of Tony Bell, just so he could say thanks and goodbye. But he wasn’t in the musty conference room, and he wasn’t in the dining room. He was in the bar, standing with one foot on the bar rail as he shared a joke with the woman he had called Mrs. Eglinton. Rebus did not interrupt, but he did wink at the phone-bound receptionist as he passed her, then pushed his way out of the Castellain Hotel’s double doors just as the wheezing of a bus’s air brakes signalled the arrival of yet more cargo.

There was no overhead lighting in Sir Walter Scott’s study, but there were numerous floor lamps, desk lamps, and angle-poises. Rebus switched on as many as worked. Most were antiquated, with wiring to match, but there was one newish angle-poise attached to the bookcase, pointing inwards towards the collection of Scott’s writings. There was a comfortable chair beside this lamp, and an ashtray on the floor between chair and bookcase.

When Watson put his head around the door, Rebus was seated in this chair, elbows resting on his knees, and chin resting between the cupped palms of both hands.

“Margaret — that is, Lady Scott — she wondered if you wanted anything.”

“I want those letters.”

“I think she meant something feasible — like tea or coffee.”

Rebus shook his head. “Maybe later, sir.”

Watson nodded, made to retreat, then thought of something. “They got him down in the end. Had to use a winch. Not very dignified, but what can you do? I just hope the papers don’t print any pictures.”

“Why don’t you have a word with the editors, just to be on the safe side?”

“I might just do that, John.” Watson nodded. “Yes, I might just do that.”

Alone again, Rebus rose from his chair and opened the glass doors of the bookcase. The position of chair, ashtray, and lamp was interesting. It was as though Sir Walter had been reading volumes from these shelves, from his namesake’s collected works. Rebus ran a finger over the spines. A few he had heard of; the vast majority he had not. One was titled Castle Dangerous. He smiled grimly at that. Dangerous, all right; or in Sir Walter’s case, quite lethal. He angled the light farther into the bookcase. The dust on a row of books had been disturbed. Rebus pushed with one finger against the spine of a volume, and the book slid a good two inches back until it rested against the solid wall behind the bookcase. Two uniform inches of space for the whole of this row. Rebus reached a hand down behind the row of books and ran it along the shelf. He met resistance, and drew the hand out again, now clutching a sheaf of papers. Sir Walter had probably thought it as good a hiding place as any — a poor testament to Scott the novelist’s powers of attraction. Rebus sat down in the chair again, brought the angle-poise closer, and began to sift through what he’d found.

There were, indeed, twelve letters, ornately fountain-penned promises of love with honour, of passion until doomsday. As with all such youthful nonsense, there was a lot of poetry and classical imagery. Rebus imagined it was standard private boys’ school stuff, even today. But these letters had been written half a century ago, sent from one schoolboy to another a year younger than himself. The younger boy was Sir Walter, and from the correspondence it was clear that Sir Walter’s feelings for the writer had been every bit as inflamed as those of the writer himself.

Ah, the writer. Rebus tried to remember if he was still an MP. He had the feeling he had either lost his seat, or else had retired. Maybe he was still on the go; Rebus paid little attention to politics. His attitude had always been: don’t vote, it only encourages them. So, here was the presumed scandal. Hardly a scandal, but just about enough to cause embarrassment. At worst a humiliation. But then Rebus was beginning to suspect that humiliation, not financial profit, was the price exacted here.

And not even necessarily public humiliation, merely the private knowledge that someone knew of these letters, that someone had possessed them. Then the final taunt, the taunt Sir Walter could not resist: come to the Scott Monument, look across to the castle, and you will see who has been tormenting you these past weeks. You will know.

But now that same taunt was working on Rebus. He knew so much, yet in effect he knew nothing at all. He now possessed the “what,” but not the “who.” And what should he do with the old love letters? Lady Scott had said she wasn’t sure she wanted to find them. He could take them away with him — destroy them. Or he could hand them over to her, tell her what they were. It would be up to her either to destroy them unread or to discover this silly secret. He could always say: It’s all right, it’s nothing really... Mind you, some of the sentences were ambiguous enough to disturb, weren’t they? Rebus read again. “When you scored 50 n.o. and afterwards we showered...” “When you stroke me like that...” “After rugger practice...”

Ach. He got up and opened the bookcase again. He would replace them. Let time deal with them; he could not. But in placing his hand back down behind the line of books, he brushed against something else, not paper but stiff card. He hadn’t noticed it before because it seemed stuck to the wall. He peeled it carefully away and brought it into the light. It was a photograph, black and white, ten inches by eight and mounted on card. A man and woman on an esplanade, arm in arm, posing for the photographer. The man looked a little pensive, trying to smile but not sure he actually wanted to be caught like this. The woman seemed to wrap both her arms round one of his, restraining him; and she was laughing, thrilled by this moment, thrilled to be with him.

The man was Sir Walter. A Sir Walter twenty years older than the schoolboy of the love letters, mid thirties perhaps. And the woman? Rebus stared long and hard at the woman. Put the photograph down and paced the study, touching things, peering through the shutters. He was thinking and not thinking. He had seen the woman before somewhere... but where? She was not Lady Scott, of that he was certain. But he’d seen her recently, seen that face... that face.

And then he knew. Oh yes, he knew.

He telephoned the Castellain, half-listening as the story was given to him. Taken ill suddenly... poorly... decided to go home... airport... flying to London and catching a connection tonight... Was there a problem? Well, of course there was a problem, but no one at the hotel could help with it, not now. The blackmail over, Rebus himself had inadvertently caused the blackmailer to flee. He had gone to the hotel hoping — such a slim hope — for help, not realising that one of the Grebe Tours party was his quarry. Once again, he had sacrificed his queen too early in the game.

He telephoned Edinburgh Airport, only to be told that the flight had already taken off. He asked to be rerouted to Security, and asked them for the name of the security chief at Heathrow. He was calling Heathrow when Watson appeared in the hall.

“Making quite a few calls, aren’t you, John? Not personal, I hope.”

Rebus ignored his superior as his call was connected. “Mr. Masterson in Security, please,” he said. And then: “Yes, it is urgent. I’ll hold.” He turned to Watson at last. “Oh, it’s personal all right, sir. But it’s nothing to do with me. I’ll tell you all about it in a minute. Then we can decide what to tell Lady Scott. Actually, seeing as you’re a friend of the family and all, you can tell her. That’d be best, wouldn’t it, sir? There are some things only your friends can tell you, after all, aren’t there?”

He was through to Heathrow Security, and turned away from Watson the better to talk with them. The superintendent stood there, dimly aware that Rebus was going to force him to tell Margaret something she would probably rather not hear. He wondered if she would ever again have time for the person who would tell her...? And he cursed John Rebus, who was so good at digging yet never seemed to soil his own hands. It was a gift, a terrible, destructive gift. Watson, a staunch believer in the Christian God, doubted Rebus’s gift had come down from on high. No, not from on high.

The phone call was ending. Rebus put down the receiver and nodded towards Sir Walter’s study.

“If you’ll step into the office, sir,” he said, “there’s something I’d like to show you...”

Shaw Berkely was arrested at Heathrow, and despite protestations regarding his health and cries for consular aid, was escorted back to Edinburgh, where Rebus was waiting, brisk and definitive, in Interview Room A of Great London Road Police Station.

Berkely’s mother had died two months before. She had never told him the truth about his birth, spinning instead some story about his father being dead. But in sorting through his mother’s papers, Shaw discovered the truth — several truths, in fact. His mother had been in love with Walter Scott, had become pregnant by him, but had been, as she herself put it in her journal, “discarded” in favour of the “better marriage” provided by Margaret Winton-Addams.

Shaw’s mother accepted some money from Scott and fled to the United States, where she had a younger sister. Shaw grew up believing his father dead. The revelation not only that he was alive, but that he had prospered in society after having caused Shaw’s mother misery and torment, led to a son’s rage. But it was impotent rage, Shaw thought, until he came across the love letters. His mother must at some point have stolen them from Scott, or at least had come out of the relationship in possession of them. Shaw decided on a teasing revenge, knowing Scott would deduce that any black-mailer in possession of the letters was probably also well informed about his affair and the bastard son.

He used the tour party as an elaborate cover (and also, he admitted, because it was a cheap travel option). He brought with him to Britain not only the letters, but also the series of typed notes. The irony was that he had been to Edinburgh before, had studied there for three months as part of some exchange with his American college. He knew now why his mother, though proud of the scholarship, had been against his going. For three months he had lived in his father’s city, yet hadn’t known it.

He sent the notes from London — the travel party’s base for much of its stay in England. The exchange — letters for cash — had gone ahead in the Cafe Royal, the bar having been a haunt of his student days. But he had known his final note, delivered by hand, would tempt Sir Walter, would lead him to the top of the Scott Monument. No, he said, he hadn’t just wanted Sir Walter to see him, to see the son he had never known. Shaw had much of the money on him, stuffed into a money belt around his waist. The intention had been to release wads of money, Sir Walter’s money, down onto Princes Street Gardens.

“I didn’t mean for him to die... I just wanted him to know how I felt about him... I don’t know. But Jesus,” — he grinned — “I still wish I’d let fly with all that loot.”

Rebus shuddered to think of the ramifications. Stampede in Princes Street! Hundreds dead in lunchtime spree! Biggest scooroot ever! No, best not to think about it. Instead, he made for the Cafe Royal himself. It was late morning, the day after Berkely’s arrest. The pub was quiet as yet, but Rebus was surprised to see Dr. Jameson standing at the bar, fortifying himself with what looked suspiciously like a double whisky. Remembering how he had left the doctor in the lurch regarding Sir Walter’s body, Rebus grinned broadly and offered a healthy slap on the back.

“Morning, Doc, fancy seeing you in here.” Rebus leaned his elbows on the bar. “We mustn’t be keeping you busy enough.” He paused. There was a twinkle in his eye as he spoke. “Here, let me get you a stiff one...” And he laughed so hard even the waiters from the Oyster Bar came to investigate. But all they saw was a tall, well-built man leaning against a much smaller, more timid man, and saying as he raised his glass: “Here’s to mortality, to old mortality!” So all in all it was just another day in the Cafe Royal.