The Falls

12

By the time Assistant Chief Constable Colin Carswell arrived at Gayfield Square police station on that underlit Tuesday morning, he was out for blood.

John Balfour had bawled him out; Balfour’s lawyer had done his damage more subtly, the voice never wavering in its professional and well-educated tones. Still, Carswell felt bruised, and he wanted some measure of revenge. The Chief Constable was remaining aloof — his position, his unassailability, had to be maintained at all costs. This was Carswell’s mess, one he’d spent all the previous evening busy surveying. He might as well have been exploring a landscape of shrapnel and broken glass, armed only with a dustpan and some tweezers.

The best minds in the Procurator Fiscal’s office had pored over the problem and had concluded, in an annoyingly bland and objective way (letting Carswell know that it was no skin off their noses) that there was little chance of blocking the story. After all, they couldn’t prove that either the dolls or the German student had anything to do with the Balfour case — most senior officers seemed to agree that a connection was unlikely at best — and so would find it difficult to persuade a judge that Holly’s information could, once published, be detrimental to the inquiry.

What Balfour and his lawyer wanted to know was why the police hadn’t seen fit to share with them the story of the dolls, or the information about the German student and the Internet game.

What the Chief Constable wanted to know was what Carswell intended doing about it.

And what Carswell himself wanted was blood.

His official car, driven by his acolyte DI Derek Linford, drew up in front of a station already crowded with officers. Everyone who had worked or was currently working on the Balfour case — uniforms, CID, even the forensic team from Howdenhall — had been ‘requested’ to attend the morning meeting. Consequently, the briefing room was packed and stifling. Outside, the morning was still recovering from overnight sleet, the pavement damp and chilling to the feet as Carswell’s leather-shod soles stamped across it.

‘Here he comes,’ someone said, watching as Linford, having opened Carswell’s door for him, now closed it and, showing a slight limp, walked back round to the driver’s side. There was a sound of folding paper as the fresh tabloids — each copy the same title, each open at the same gathering of pages — were closed and put out of sight. DCS Templer, dressed as though for a funeral, dark lines under her eyes, came into the room first. She whispered something into the ear of DI Bill Pryde, who nodded and tore the corner from a notepad, spitting into it the wad of chewing gum he’d been gnawing for the past half-hour. When Carswell himself walked in, there was a ripple of movement as officers subconsciously corrected their posture or checked their attire for obvious blemishes.

‘Is anyone missing?’ Carswell called out. No ‘good morning’, no ‘thank you all for coming’, the usual protocols forgotten. Templer had a few names for him — minor ailments and complaints. Carswell nodded, didn’t seem interested in what he was being told, and didn’t wait for her to finish the roll-call.

‘We’ve got ourselves a mole,’ he bawled, loud enough to be heard down the corridor. He nodded slowly, eyes trying to take in every face in front of him. When he saw that there were people at the back, out of staring range, he walked up the aisle between the desks. Officers had to shift so he could get through, but left enough room so that there was no possibility he might brush against them.

‘A mole’s always an ugly little thing. It lacks vision. Sometimes it has big greedy paws. It doesn’t like to be exposed.’ There were flecks of saliva either side of his mouth. ‘I find a mole in my garden, I put down poison. Now, some of you will say that moles can’t help it. They don’t know they’re in someone’s garden, a place of order and calm. They don’t know they’re making everything ugly. But they are, whether they know it or not. And that’s why they have to be eradicated.’ He paused, the silence lingering as he walked back down the aisle. Derek Linford had entered the room as if by stealth and was standing by the door, eyes searching out John Rebus, the two of them recent enemies...

The presence of Linford seemed only to spur Carswell on. He spun on his heels, facing his subjects again.

‘Maybe it was a mistake. We all make slip-ups, can’t be helped. But, by Christ, a lot of information seems to have been pushed to the surface!’ Another pause. ‘Maybe it was blackmail.’ And now a shrug. ‘Someone like Steven Holly, he’s lower than a mole on the evolutionary ladder. He’s pond-life. He’s the scum you sometimes see there.’ He waved a hand slowly in front of him, as if skimming water. ‘He thinks he’s made us dirty, but he hasn’t. Game’s not near over, we all know that. We’re a team. That’s how we work! Anyone who doesn’t like that can always ask to be transferred back to normal duties. It’s that simple, ladies and gentlemen. But just think of this, will you?’ He dropped his voice. ‘Think of the victim, think of her family. Think of all the upset this is going to cause them. They’re the ones we’re slogging our guts out for here, not the newspaper readers or the scribes who provide them with their daily gruel.

‘You might have some grievance against me, or someone else on the team, but why the hell would you want to put them — the family and friends, getting ready for tomorrow’s funeral — why would anyone want to do something like this to people like them?’ He let the question hang, saw faces bow in collective shame as he scanned them. Took another deep breath, his voice rising again.

‘I’m going to find whoever did this. Don’t think I won’t. Don’t think you can trust Mr Steven Holly to protect you. He doesn’t care a damn for you. If you want to stay buried, you’ll have to feed him more stories, and more, and more! He’s not going to let you rise back up to the world you knew before. You’re different now. You’re a mole. His mole. And he’ll never let you rest, never let you forget it.’

A glance in Gill Templer’s direction. She was standing by the wall, arms folded, her own eyes scanning the room.

‘I know this probably all sounds like the headmaster’s warning. Some pupil’s smashed a window or daubed graffiti on the bike sheds.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m talking to all of you like this because it’s important we’re clear on what’s at stake. Talk might not cost lives, but that doesn’t mean it should be squandered. Careful what you say, who you say it to. If the person responsible wants to come forward, that’s fine. You can do it now, or later. I’ll be here for an hour or so, and I can always be reached at my office. Think what’s at stake if you don’t. Not part of a team any more, not on the side of the angels. But in a journalist’s pocket. For as long as he wants you there.’ This final pause seemed to last an eternity, nobody coughed or cleared their throat. Carswell slid his hands into his pockets, head angled as though inspecting his shoes. ‘DCS Templer?’ he said.

And now Gill Templer stepped forward, and the room relaxed a little.

‘Don’t go getting the holiday mood just yet!’ she called out. ‘Okay, there’s been a leak to the press, and what we need now is some damage limitation. Nobody talks to anybody unless they run it past me first, understood?’ There were murmurs of assent.

Templer went on, but Rebus wasn’t listening. He hadn’t wanted to listen to Carswell either, but it had been hard to block the man out. Impressive stuff really. He’d even put some thought into the image of the garden mole, almost making it work without becoming laughable.

But mostly Rebus’s attention had been on the people around him. Gill and Bill Pryde were distant figures, whose discomfort he could almost ignore. Bill’s big chance to shine; Gill’s first major inquiry as a DCS. Hardly what either of them would have wanted...

And closer to home: Siobhan, concentrating hard on the ACC’s speech, maybe learning something from it. She was always on the lookout for a new lesson. Grant Hood, someone else with everything to lose, dejection written into his face and shoulders, the way he held his arms across chest and stomach, as though to ward off blows. Rebus knew Grant was in trouble. A leak to the press, you looked at liaison first. They were the ones with the contacts: an unwise word; the drunk and friendly banter at the end of a good meal. Even if not to blame, a good liaison officer might have been all that was needed in the way of Gill’s ‘damage limitation’. With experience, you’d know how to bend a journalist’s will to your own, even if it meant a bribe of some kind: first dibs on some later story or stories...

Rebus wondered at the extent of the damage. Quizmaster would now know what he’d probably always suspected: that it wasn’t just him and Siobhan, that she was keeping her colleagues apprised. Her face didn’t give anything away, but Rebus knew she was already wondering how to handle it, how to phrase her next communication with Quizmaster, supposing he wanted to keep playing... The Arthur’s Seat coffins connection annoyed him only because Jean had been mentioned by name in the story, cited as ‘the Museum’s resident expert’ on the case. He recalled that Holly had been persistent, leaving messages for Jean, wanting to speak to her. Could she have said something to him unwittingly? He didn’t think so.

No, he had the culprit in his sights. Ellen Wylie looked like she’d been wrung out. There were tangles in her hair where she hadn’t been concentrating with the brush. Her eyes had a resigned look. She kept staring at the floor during Carswell’s speech, and hadn’t shifted when he’d finished. She was still looking at the floor now, trying to find the will to do anything else. Rebus knew she’d spoken on the phone with Holly yesterday morning. It had been to do with the German student, but afterwards she’d seemed lifeless. Rebus had thought it was because she was working another dead end. Now he knew different. When she’d walked away from the Caledonian Hotel, she’d been heading either for Holly’s office or for some wine bar or café nearby.

He’d got to her.

Maybe Shug Davidson would realise as much; maybe her colleagues at West End would remember how different she’d been after that phone call. But Rebus knew they wouldn’t shop her. It was something you didn’t do. Not to a colleague, a pal.

Wylie had been unravelling for days. He’d taken her into the coffin case thinking maybe he could help. But then maybe she was right — maybe he’d been treating her as just another ‘cripple’, someone else who might be bent to his will, do some of the hard graft on something which would always be his case.

Maybe he’d had ulterior motives.

Wylie had probably seen it as a way of getting back at all of them: Gill Templer, cause of her public humiliation; Siobhan, for whom Templer still had such high hopes; Grant Hood, the new golden boy, coping where Wylie had not... And Rebus, too, the manipulator, the user, grinding her down.

He saw her left with two alternatives: let it all out, or burst with frustration and anger. If he’d accepted her offer of a drink that night... maybe she’d have opened up and he’d have listened. Maybe that was all she’d needed. But he hadn’t been there. He’d sneaked off to a pub by himself.

Nice one, John. Very smoothly played. For some reason an image came to mind: some old blues stalwart, turning up for ‘Ellen Wylie’s Blues’. Maybe John Lee Hooker or B. B. King... He caught himself and snapped out of it. He’d almost retreated into music, almost got to a lyric that would tide him over.

But now Carswell was reading from a list of names, and Rebus caught his own as Carswell snapped it out. DC Hood... DC Clarke... DS Wylie... The coffins; the German student — they’d worked those cases, and now the ACC wanted to see them. Faces turned, curious. Carswell was announcing that he’d see them in the ‘boss’s office’, meaning the station commander’s, commandeered for the occasion.

Rebus tried to catch Bill Pryde’s eye as they trooped out, but with Carswell already having exited, Bill was searching his pockets for more gum, his eyes trying to locate his clipboard. Rebus was the tail of this lethargic snake, Hood in front of him, then Wylie and Siobhan. Templer and Carswell at the head. Derek Linford was standing outside the station commander’s office, opened the door for them and then stood back. He tried to stare Rebus down, but Rebus wasn’t having that. They were still at it when Gill Templer closed the door, breaking the spell.

Carswell was sliding his chair in towards the desk. ‘You’ve already heard my spiel,’ he told them, ‘so I won’t bore you again. If the leak came from anywhere, it came from one of you. That little shit Holly knew way too much.’ As his mouth snapped shut his eyes looked up at them for the first time.

‘Sir,’ Grant Hood said, taking a half-step forward and folding his hands behind his back, ‘as liaison officer it should have been my job to damp the story down. I’d just like to publicly apologise for—’

‘Yes, yes, son, I got all that from you last night. What I want now is a simple confession.’

‘With respect, sir,’ Siobhan Clarke said, ‘we’re not criminals here. We’ve had to ask questions, put out feelers. Steve Holly could just have been putting two and two together...’

Carswell just stared at her, then said: ‘DCS Templer?’

‘Steve Holly,’ Templer began, ‘doesn’t work that way if he can possibly help it. He’s not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but he’s as sneaky as they come, and ruthless with it.’ The way she spoke was telling Clarke something, was saying to her that this had all been gone over already. ‘Some of the other journos, yes, I think they could take what’s out there in the public domain and make something of it, but not Holly.’

‘But he did work the case of the German student,’ Clarke persisted.

‘And shouldn’t have known about the gaming connection,’ Templer said, almost by rote: another argument that the senior officers had tried out between themselves.

‘It was a long night,’ Carswell told them, ‘trust me. We’ve been over it time and again. And it still seems to come down to the four of you.’

‘There’s been outside assistance,’ Grant Hood argued. ‘A museum curator, a retired pathologist...’

Rebus laid a hand on Hood’s arm, silencing him. ‘It was me,’ he said. Heads turned towards him. ‘I think it might have been me.’

He concentrated on not looking in Ellen Wylie’s direction, but was aware of her eyes burning into him.

‘Early on, I was out at Falls talking to a woman called Bev Dodds. She’d found the coffin by the waterfall. Steve Holly had already been sniffing around, and she’d given him the story...’

‘And?’

‘And I let it slip that there’d been more coffins... let slip to her, I mean.’ He was remembering the slip — a slip Jean had in fact made. ‘If she yapped to Holly, he’d have been on a flyer. I had Jean Burchill with me — she’s the curator. That might have given him the Arthur’s Seat connection...’

Carswell was staring at him coldly. ‘And the Internet game?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘That one I can’t explain, but it’s not exactly a well-kept secret. We’ve been shoving the clues at all the victim’s friends, asking if she’d asked them for help... any one of them could have told Holly.’

Carswell was still staring. ‘You’re taking the fall for this?’

‘I’m saying it could be my fault. Just that one slip...’ He turned to the others. ‘I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am. I let all of us down.’ His gaze skirted Wylie’s face, concentrating on her hair.

‘Sir,’ Siobhan Clarke said, ‘what DI Rebus has just admitted could go for any one of us. I’m sure I may have said a little more than I should on occasion...’

Carswell wafted his hand in front of him, quieting her.

‘DI Rebus,’ he said, ‘I’m suspending you from active duty, pending further inquiries.’

‘You can’t do that!’ Ellen Wylie blurted out.

‘Shut up, Wylie!’ Gill Templer hissed.

‘DI Rebus knows the consequences,’ Carswell was saying.

Rebus nodded. ‘Someone needs to be punished.’ He paused. ‘For the sake of the team.’

‘That’s right,’ Carswell said, nodding. ‘Otherwise mistrust begins its corrosive influence. I don’t think any of us wants that, do we?’

‘No, sir.’ Grant Hood’s voice proved a lone one.

‘Go home, DI Rebus,’ Carswell said. ‘Write your version down, leaving nothing out. We’ll talk again later.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Rebus said, turning and opening the door. Linford was directly outside, and smiling with one side of his face. Rebus didn’t doubt he’d been listening. It struck him suddenly that Carswell and Linford might well conspire to make the case against him look as black as possible.

He’d just given them the perfect excuse for getting rid of him for good.

His flat was ready to be put on the market, and he called the selling solicitor and told her so.

‘Thursday evenings and Sunday afternoons for viewing?’ she asked.

‘I suppose so.’ He was sitting in his chair, staring out of the window. ‘Is there any way I can... not be here?’

‘You want someone to show the flat for you?’

‘Yes.’

‘We have people who’ll do that for a small fee.’

‘Good.’ He didn’t want to be around when strangers were opening doors, touching things... He didn’t think he’d make the best salesman for the place.

‘We already have a photograph,’ the solicitor was saying. ‘So the ad could go in the ESPC guide as early as Thursday next.’

‘Not the day after tomorrow?’

‘I’m afraid not...’

When he’d finished the call, he walked into the hall. New light switches, new sockets. The place was a lot brighter, the fresh coats of paint helping. Not much clutter — he’d made three trips to the dump-site on Old Dalkeith Road: a coat-rack he’d inherited from somewhere; boxes of old magazines and newspapers; a two-bar electric fire with frayed cable; the chest of drawers from Samantha’s old room, still decorated with stickers of eighties pop stars... The carpets were back down. A drinking acquaintance from Swany’s Bar had lent a hand, asking if he wanted them nailed at the edges. Rebus hadn’t seen the point.

‘New owners will turf them out anyway.’

‘You should’ve had these floors sanded, John. They’d’ve come up a treat...’

Rebus had whittled his possessions down until they wouldn’t fill a one-bedroom flat, never mind the three he currently possessed. But still he had nowhere to go. He knew what the market was like in Edinburgh. If Arden Street went on the market next Thursday, it could go to a closing date the week after. Two weeks from now, he could find himself homeless.

And, come to that, jobless.

He’d been expecting phone calls, and eventually one came. It was Gill Templer.

Her opening words: ‘You stupid bastard.’

‘Hi there, Gill.’

‘You could have kept your mouth shut.’

‘I suppose I could.’

‘Always the willing martyr, eh, John?’ She sounded angry, tired and under pressure. He could see reasons for all three.

‘I just told the truth,’ he said.

‘That would be a first... not that I believe it for a minute.’

‘No?’

‘Come on, John. Ellen Wylie practically had “guilty” stamped on her forehead.’

‘You think I was shielding her?’

‘I don’t exactly take you for Sir Galahad. You’ll have had your reasons. Maybe it was simply to piss off Carswell; you know he hates your guts.’

Rebus didn’t like to concede that she might be right. ‘How’s everything else?’ he asked.

Her anger was played out. ‘Liaison’s snowed under. I’m giving a helping hand.’

Rebus bet she was busy: all the other papers and media, trying to play catch-up with Steve Holly.

‘What about you?’ she asked.

‘What about me?’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I haven’t really thought about it.’

‘Well...’

‘I’d better let you get back, Gill. Thanks for calling.’

‘Bye, John.’

As he put the phone down, it started ringing again. Grant Hood this time.

‘I just wanted to thank you for getting us off the hook like that.’

‘You weren’t on the hook, Grant.’

‘I was, believe me.’

‘I hear you’re busy.’

‘How...?’ Grant paused. ‘Oh, DCS Templer’s been on to you.’

‘Is she helping out or taking over?’

‘Hard to say at the minute.’

‘She’s not in the room with you, is she?’

‘No, she’s in her own office. When we came out of that meeting with the ACC... she was the one who looked most relieved.’

‘Maybe because she has the most to lose, Grant. You probably can’t see that right now, but it’s true.’

‘I’m sure you’re right.’ But he didn’t sound convinced that his own survival wasn’t more important in the scheme of things.

‘Off you go, Grant, and thanks for finding the time to call.’

‘See you around some time.’

‘You never know your luck...’

Rebus put the phone down and waited, staring at it. But no more calls came. He went to the kitchen to make a mug of tea, and discovered he was out of tea-bags and milk. Without bothering with a jacket, he headed downstairs and out to the local deli, where he added some ham, rolls and mustard to the shopping. Back at the main door to the tenement, someone was trying one of the buzzers.

‘Come on, I know you’re there...’

‘Hello, Siobhan.’

She turned towards him. ‘Christ, you gave me a...’ She put a hand to her throat. Rebus stretched an arm past her and unlocked the door.

‘Because I sneaked up on you, or because you thought I was sitting upstairs with my wrists slashed?’ He held the door open for her.

‘What? No, that’s not what I was thinking.’ But the colour was rising to her cheeks.

‘Well, just to stop you worrying, if I’m ever going to top myself, it’ll be with a lot of drink and some pills. And by “a lot” I mean two or three days’ worth, so you’ll have plenty of warning.’

He preceded her up the stairs, opened his front door.

‘Your lucky day,’ he said. ‘Not only am I not dead, but I can offer tea and rolls with ham and mustard.’

‘Just tea, thanks,’ she said, finally regaining some composure. ‘Hey, the hall looks great!’

‘Take a look around. I may as well get used to it.’

‘You mean it’s on the market?’

‘As from next week.’

She opened a bedroom door, stuck her head round. ‘Dimmer switch,’ she commented, trying it out.

Rebus went into the kitchen and stuck the kettle on, found two clean mugs in the cupboard. One of them said ‘World’s Greatest Dad’. It wasn’t his; one of the sparkies must have left it. He decided Siobhan could have her tea in it, he’d have the taller one with the poppies and the chipped rim.

‘You didn’t paint the living room,’ she said, coming into the kitchen.

‘It was done not so long ago.’

She nodded. There was something he wasn’t saying, but she wasn’t going to force it.

‘You and Grant still an item then?’ he asked.

‘We never were. And that’s the subject closed.’

He got the milk from the fridge. ‘Better be careful, you’ll be getting a rep.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Unsuitable men. One of them was staring daggers at me all morning.’

‘Oh God, Derek Linford.’ She was thoughtful. ‘Didn’t he look awful?’

‘Doesn’t he always?’ Rebus placed a tea-bag in each mug. ‘So, are you here to check up on me or thank me for sticking my neck out?’

‘I’m not about to thank you for that. You could have stayed quiet, and you know it. If you owned up, it was because you wanted to.’ She broke off.

‘And?’ he encouraged her.

‘And you’ll have some agenda going.’

‘Actually I don’t... not particularly.’

‘Then why did you do it?’

‘It was the quickest way, the simplest. If I’d bothered to think for a moment... maybe I’d have kept my mouth shut.’ He poured water and milk into the mugs, handed one over. Siobhan looked at the tea-bag floating there. ‘Spoon it out when it’s strong enough,’ he suggested.

‘Yummy.’

‘Sure I can’t tempt you with a ham roll?’

She shook her head. ‘Don’t let me stop you.’

‘Maybe later,’ he said, leading them through to the living room. ‘Everything calm at base camp?’

‘Say what you like about Carswell, he’s a pretty good motivator. Everyone thinks it was that speech of his that made you feel guilty.’

‘And they’re now working harder than ever?’ He waited till she’d nodded. ‘A team of happy gardeners with no nasty moles to bother them.’

Siobhan grinned. ‘It was pretty bloody corny, wasn’t it?’ She looked around. ‘Where are you going to go when you sell this place?’

‘Got a spare room, have you?’

‘Depends for how long.’

‘I’m just joking, Siobhan. I’ll be fine.’ He took a gulp of tea. ‘So what exactly does bring you here?’

‘You mean apart from checking up on you?’

‘I’m guessing that wasn’t all.’

She reached down to place her mug on the floor. ‘I got another message.’

‘Quizmaster?’ She nodded. ‘Saying what exactly?’

She unfolded some sheets from her pocket, reached over towards him with them. Their fingers touched as he took them. The first was an e-mail from Siobhan:

Still awaiting Stricture.

‘I sent that first thing this morning,’ she said. ‘Thought maybe he wouldn’t have heard.’

Rebus turned to the second sheet. It was from Quizmaster.

I’m disappointed in you, Siobhan. I’m taking my ball home now.

Then Siobhan:

Don’t believe everything you read. I still want to play.

Quizmaster:

And go yapping to your bosses?

Siobhan:

You and me this time, that’s a promise.

Quizmaster:

How can I trust you?

Siobhan:

I’ve been trusting you, haven’t I? And you always know where to find me. I still don’t have the first clue about you.

‘I had to wait a while after that. The final sheet came in about’ — she checked her watch — ‘forty minutes ago.’

‘And you came straight here?’

She shrugged. ‘More or less.’

‘You didn’t show it to Brains?’

‘He’s off on some errand for Crime Squad.’

‘Anyone else?’ She shook her head. ‘Why me?’

‘Now that I’m here,’ she said, ‘I don’t really know.’

‘Grant’s the one with the puzzle mind.’

‘Right now he’s too busy puzzling over how to keep his job.’

Rebus nodded slowly and re-read the final sheet:

Add Camus to ME Smith, they’re boxing where the sun don’t shine, and Frank Finlay’s the referee.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘you’ve shown me it...’ He made to hand the sheets back. ‘And it doesn’t mean a thing to me.’

‘No?’

He shook his head. ‘Frank Finlay was an actor — might still be, for all I know. I think he played Casanova on TV, and he was in something called Barbed Wire and Bouquets... something like that.’

‘Bouquet of Barbed Wire?’

‘Could have been.’ He glanced at the clue a final time. ‘Camus was a French writer. I used to think it was pronounced “came as” until I heard it mentioned on the radio or the box.’

‘Boxing — that’s something you know about.’

‘Marciano, Dempsey, Cassius Clay before he became Ali...’ He shrugged.

‘Where the sun don’t shine,’ Siobhan said. ‘That’s an American expression, isn’t it?’

‘It means out your arse,’ Rebus confirmed. ‘You think suddenly Quizmaster’s American?’

She smiled, but there was no humour to it.

‘Take my advice, Siobhan. Give it to Crime Squad or Special Branch or whoever’s supposed to be tracking this arsehole down. Or just e-mail him back telling him to get stuffed.’ He paused. ‘You said he knows where to find you?’

She nodded. ‘He knows my name, that I’m CID in Edinburgh.’

‘But nothing about where you live? He hasn’t got your phone number?’ She shook her head and Rebus nodded, satisfied. He was thinking of all the numbers pinned to Steve Holly’s office wall.

‘Then let him go,’ he said quietly.

‘Is that what you’d do?’

‘It’s what I’d strongly advise.’

‘Then you don’t want to help me?’

He looked at her. ‘Help you how?’

‘Copy the clue, do some detecting.’

He laughed. ‘You want me in even more trouble with Carswell?’

She looked down at the sheets of paper. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t thinking. Thanks for the tea.’

‘Stay and finish it.’ He watched her get to her feet.

‘I should be heading back. Lots to do.’

‘Starting with handing that clue over?’

She stared at him. ‘You know your advice is always important to me.’

‘Is that a yes or a no?’

‘Take it as a definite maybe.’

He was standing now, too. ‘Thanks for coming, Siobhan.’

She turned towards the doorway. ‘Linford’s out to get you, isn’t he? Him and Carswell both?’

‘Don’t fret over it.’

‘But Linford’s getting stronger. He’ll be Chief Inspector any day.’

‘For all you know, maybe I’m getting stronger too.’

She turned her head to study him, but didn’t say anything, didn’t need to. He followed her out into the hall, opened the door for her.

She was on the stairwell before she spoke again. ‘Know what Ellen Wylie said after that meeting with Carswell?’

‘What?’

‘Nothing at all.’ She looked at him again, one hand on the banister. ‘Strange that. I was expecting a long speech about your martyr complex...’

Back in the flat, Rebus stood in the hall, listening to her footsteps recede. Then he walked to the living-room window and stood on tiptoe, craning his neck to watch her leave the tenement, the door closing with an echo behind her. She’d come here asking for something, and he’d turned her down. How could he tell her that he didn’t want her getting hurt, the way so many people he’d let get close to him had been hurt in the past? How to tell her that she should learn her own lessons, not his, and that she’d be a better cop — as well as a better person — at the end of it?

He turned back into the room. The ghosts were faint, but visible. People he’d hurt and been hurt by, people who’d died painful, unnecessary deaths. Not for much longer. A couple more weeks and maybe he’d be free of them. He knew the phone wasn’t going to ring, nor was Ellen Wylie about to pay him a visit. They understood one another well enough to render any such contact unnecessary. Maybe one day in the future they’d sit down and talk about it. Then again, maybe she’d never speak to him again. He’d stolen the moment from her, and she had stood there and let him. Defeat once again snatched from the jaws of victory. He wondered if she’d stay in Steve Holly’s pocket... wondered just how deep and dark that pocket might be.

He walked through to the kitchen, poured Siobhan’s and the rest of his tea down the sink. An inch of malt into a clean glass and a bottle of IPA from the cupboard. Back in the living room, he sat in his chair, took pen and notebook from his pocket, and jotted down the latest clue as best he could remember it...

Jean Burchill’s morning had consisted of a series of meetings, including one heated debate on funding levels which threatened to turn violent, with one curator walking out, slamming the door after him, and another almost bursting into tears.

By lunchtime, she felt exhausted, the stuffiness of her office contributing to a thumping head. Steve Holly had left two more messages for her, and she just knew that if she sat at her desk with a sandwich, the phone would ring again. Instead, she headed outside, joining the throng of workers released from captivity for the time it took to queue at the baker’s for a filled roll or pie. The Scots had an unenviable record for heart disease and tooth decay, both the result of the national diet: saturated fats, salt and sugar. She’d wondered what it was that made Scottish people reach for the comfort foods, the chocolate, chips and fizzy drinks: was it the climate? Or could the answer lie deeper, within the nation’s character? Jean decided to buck the trend, purchased some fruit and a carton of orange juice. She was heading into town down the Bridges. It was all cheap clothes shops and takeaways, with queues of buses and lorries waiting to crawl through the traffic lights at the Tron kirk. A few beggars sat in doorways, staring at the passing parade of feet. Jean paused at the lights and looked left and right along the High Street, imagining the place in the days before Princes Street: vendors hawking their wares; ill-lit howffs where business was done; the tollbooth and the gates which were closed at nightfall, locking the city into itself... She wondered if someone from the 1770s, somehow transported to the present, would find this part of the city so very different. The lights, the cars might shock them, but not the feel of the place.

She paused again on North Bridge, staring eastwards towards where the new parliament site showed no signs of progress. The Scotsman had moved its offices down to a shiny new building in Holyrood Road, just across from the parliament. She’d been there recently for a function, standing on the large balcony to the rear, staring out at the immensity of Salisbury Crags. Behind her now, the old Scotsman building was being gutted: another new hotel in the making. Further down North Bridge, where it connected with Princes Street, the old Post Office HQ sat dusty and empty, its future apparently still not decided — another hotel, the rumour went. She took a right into Waterloo Place, munching on her second apple and trying not to think of crisps and Kit-Kats. She knew where she was headed: Calton cemetery. As she entered through the wrought-iron gate, she was confronted by the obelisk known as the Martyrs’ Memorial, dedicated to the memory of five men, the ‘Friends of the People’, who had dared in the 1790s to advocate parliamentary reform. This at a time when fewer than forty people in the city had the power to vote in an election. The five were sentenced to transportation: a one-way ticket to Australia. Jean looked at the apple she was eating. She’d just peeled a little sticker from it, announcing its country of origin as New Zealand. She thought of the five convicts, the lives they must have led. But there was to be no counterpart to the French Revolution in Scotland, not in the 1790s.

She was reminded of some communist leader and thinker — was it Marx himself? — who had predicted that the revolution in western Europe would have Scotland as its starting-point. Another dream...

Jean didn’t know much about David Hume, but stood in front of his monument while she attacked her carton of juice. Philosopher and essayist... a friend had once told her that Hume’s achievement had been in making the philosophy of John Locke comprehensible, but then she didn’t know anything much about Locke either.

There were other graves: Blackwood and Constable, publishers, and one of the leaders of ‘the Disruption’, which had led to the founding of the Free Church of Scotland. Just to the east, over the cemetery wall, was a small crenellated tower. This she knew was all that remained of the old Calton Prison. She’d seen drawings of it, taken from Calton Hill opposite: friends and family of the prisoners would gather there to shout messages and greetings. Closing her eyes, she could almost replace the traffic noises with yelps and whoops, the dialogue between loved ones echoing back along Waterloo Place...

When she opened her eyes again, she saw what she’d hoped to find: Dr Kennet Lovell’s grave. The headstone had been set into the cemetery’s eastern wall, and was now cracked and soot-blackened, its edges fallen away to reveal the sandstone beneath. It was a small thing, close to the ground. ‘Dr Kennet Anderson Lovell,’ Jean read, ‘an eminent Physician of this City.’ He’d died in 1863, aged fifty-six. There were weeds rising from ground level, obscuring much of the inscription. Jean crouched down and started pulling them away, encountering a used condom which she brushed aside with a dock leaf. She knew that there were people who used Calton Hill at night, and imagined them coupling against this wall, pressing down on the bones of Dr Lovell. How would Lovell feel about that? For a moment, she formed a picture of another coupling: herself and John Rebus. Not her type at all really. In the past she’d dated researchers, university lecturers. One brief dalliance with a sculptor in the city — a married man. He’d taken her to cemeteries, his favourite places. John Rebus probably liked cemeteries, too. When they’d first met she’d seen him as a challenge and a curiosity. Even now she had to work hard not to think of him in terms of an exhibit. There were so many secrets there, so much of him that he refused to show to the world. She knew there was digging still to be done...

As she cleared the weeds, she found that Lovell had married no fewer than three times, and that each wife had passed away before him. No evidence of any children... she wondered if the offspring might be buried elsewhere. Maybe there were no children. But then hadn’t John said something about a descendant...? As she examined the dates, she saw that the wives had died young, and another thought crossed her mind: they’d died in childbirth, perhaps.

His first wife: Beatrice, née Alexander. Aged twenty-nine.

His second wife: Alice, née Baxter. Aged thirty-three.

His third wife: Patricia, née Addison. Aged twenty-six.

An inscription read: Passed over, to be met again so sweetly in the Lord’s domain.

Jean couldn’t help thinking that it must have been some meeting, Lovell and his three wives. She had a pen in her pocket, but no notepad or paper. She looked around the cemetery, found an old envelope, torn in half. She brushed dirt and dust from it and jotted down the details.

Siobhan was back at her desk, trying to form anagrams from the letters in ‘Camus’ and ‘ME Smith’, when Eric Bain came into the office.

‘All right?’ he asked.

‘I’ll survive.’

‘That good, eh?’ He placed his briefcase on the floor, straightened up and looked around. ‘Special Branch get back to us yet?’

‘Not that I know of.’ She was scoring out letters with her pen. The M and E had no space between them. Did Quizmaster mean them to be read as ‘me’? Was he saying his name was Smith? ME was also a medical condition. She couldn’t recall what the letters stood for... remembered it being called ‘yuppie flu’ in the newspapers. Bain had walked over to the fax machine, picked up some sheets and sifted through them.

‘Ever think to check?’ he said, sliding two sheets out and putting the rest back next to the machine.

Siobhan looked up. ‘What is it?’

He was reading as he approached. ‘Bloody marvellous,’ he gasped. ‘Don’t ask me how they did it, but they did it.’

‘What?’

‘They’ve traced one of the accounts already.’

Siobhan’s chair fell back as she got to her feet, hands grabbing at the fax. As Bain relinquished it, he asked her a simple question.

‘Who’s Claire Benzie?’

‘You’re not in custody, Claire,’ Siobhan said, ‘and if you want a solicitor, that’s up to you. But I’d like your permission to make a tape recording.’

‘Sounds serious,’ Claire Benzie said. They’d picked her up at her flat in Bruntsfield, driven her to St Leonard’s. She’d been compliant, not asking questions. She was wearing jeans and a pale pink turtleneck. Her face looked scrubbed, no make-up. She sat in the interview room with arms folded while Bain fed tapes into both recording machines.

‘There’ll be a copy for you, and one for us,’ Siobhan was saying. ‘Okay?’

Benzie just shrugged.

Bain said ‘okey-dokey’ and set both tapes running, then eased himself into the chair next to Siobhan. Siobhan identified herself and Bain for the record, adding time and place of interview.

‘If you could state your full name, Claire,’ she asked.

Claire Benzie did so, adding her Bruntsfield address. Siobhan sat back for a moment, composing herself, then leaned forward again so her elbows were resting on the edge of the narrow desk.

‘Claire, do you remember when I spoke to you earlier? I was with a colleague, in Dr Curt’s office?’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘I was asking you if you knew anything about the game Philippa Balfour had been playing?’

‘It’s her funeral tomorrow.’

Siobhan nodded. ‘Do you remember?’

‘Seven fins high is king,’ Benzie said. ‘I told you about it.’

‘That’s right. You said Philippa had come up to you at a bar...’

‘Yes.’

‘... and explained it to you.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you didn’t know anything about the game itself?’

‘No. I hadn’t a clue till you told me.’

Siobhan sat back again, folded her own arms so that she was almost a mirror-image of Benzie. ‘Then how come whoever was sending Flip those messages was using your Internet account?’

Benzie stared at her. Siobhan stared back. Eric Bain scratched his nose with his thumb.

‘I want a solicitor,’ Benzie said.

Siobhan nodded slowly. ‘Interview ends, three-twelve p.m.’ Bain switched off the tapes and Siobhan asked if Claire had anyone in mind.

‘The family solicitor, I suppose,’ the student said.

‘And who’s that?’

‘My father.’ When she saw the puzzled look on Siobhan’s face, the corners of Benzie’s mouth curled upwards. ‘I mean my stepfather, DC Clarke. Don’t worry, I’m not about to summon ghosts to fight my corner...’

News had travelled, and there was a scrum in the corridor when Siobhan came out of the interview room, just as the summoned WPC was going in. Whispered questions flew.

‘Well?’

‘Did she do it?’

‘What’s she saying?’

‘Is it her?’

Siobhan ignored everyone except Gill Templer. ‘She wants a solicitor, and as chance would have it there’s one in her family.’

‘That’s handy.’

Siobhan nodded and squeezed her way into the CID office, unplugging the first free phone she came to.

‘She also wants a soft drink, Diet Pepsi for preference.’

Templer looked around, eyes fixing on George Silvers. ‘Hear that, George?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Silvers seemed reluctant to leave, until Gill shooed him out with her hands.

‘So?’ Gill was now blocking Siobhan’s path.

‘So,’ Siobhan said, ‘she’s got some explaining to do. It doesn’t make her the killer.’

‘Be nice if she was though,’ someone said.

Siobhan was remembering what Rebus had said about Claire Benzie. She met Gill Templer’s gaze. ‘Two or three years from now,’ she said, ‘if she sticks with pathology, we could end up working side by side with her. I don’t think we can afford to be heavy-handed.’ She wasn’t sure if she was copying Rebus’s words verbatim, but she knew she was pretty close. Templer was looking at her appraisingly, nodding slowly.

‘DC Clarke’s got a very good point,’ she told the surrounding faces. Then she moved aside to let Siobhan past, murmuring something like ‘Well done, Siobhan’ as they were shoulder to shoulder.

Back in the interview room, Siobhan plugged the telephone into the wall and told Claire it was 9 for an outside line.

‘I didn’t kill her,’ the student said with quiet confidence.

‘Then everything’s going to be okay. We just need to find out what happened.’

Claire nodded, picked up the receiver. Siobhan gestured to Bain, and they left the room together, the WPC taking over the watch.

Out in the corridor, the scrum had melted away, but the hubbub from inside the CID office was loud and excited.

‘Say she didn’t do it.’ Siobhan spoke quietly, her words for Bain’s ears only.

‘Okay,’ he said.

‘Then how could Quizmaster be tapping into her account?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I mean, I suppose it’s possible, but it’s also highly unlikely.’

Siobhan looked at him. ‘So you think it’s her?’

He shrugged. ‘I’d like to know who the other access accounts belong to.’

‘Did Special Branch say how long it would take?’

‘Maybe later today, maybe tomorrow.’

Someone walked past, patted both of them on the shoulder, gave a thumbs-up as he bounced down the corridor.

‘They think we’ve cracked it,’ Bain said.

‘More fool them.’

‘She had the motive, you’ve said so yourself.’

Siobhan nodded. She was thinking of the Stricture clue, trying to imagine it composed by a woman. Yes, it was possible; of course it was possible. The virtual world: you could pretend to be anyone you liked, either gender, any age. The newspapers were full of stories about middle-aged paedophiles who’d infiltrated children’s chat rooms in the guise of teens and pre-teens. The very anonymity of the Net was what attracted people to it. She thought of Claire Benzie, of the long and careful planning it must have taken, the anger fermenting ever since her father’s suicide. Maybe she’d started out wanting to know Flip again, wanting to like and forgive her, but had found rising hatred instead, hatred of Flip’s easy world, her friends with fast cars, the bars and night clubs and dinner parties, the whole lifestyle enjoyed by people who’d never known pain, never lost anything in their lives that couldn’t be bought again.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, running both hands through her hair, pulling so hard that her scalp hurt. ‘I just don’t know.’

‘That’s good,’ Bain said. ‘Approach the interview with an open mind: textbook stuff.’

She smiled tiredly, squeezed his hand. ‘Thanks, Eric.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ he told her. She hoped he was right.

Maybe the Central Library was the right place for Rebus. Many of the customers today seemed to be the dispossessed, the tired, the unemployable. Some sat sleeping in the more comfortable chairs, the books on their laps mere props. One old man, toothless mouth gaping, sat at a desk near the telephone directories, his finger running ponderously down each column. Rebus had asked one of the staff about him.

‘Been coming in here for years, never reads anything else,’ he was informed.

‘He could get a job with Directory Enquiries.’

‘Or maybe that’s where he was fired from.’

Rebus acknowledged that this was a good point, and got back to his own research. So far he’d established that Albert Camus was a French novelist and thinker, the author of novels such as La Chute and La Peste. He’d won the Nobel Prize and then died while still in his forties. The librarian had done a search for him, but this was the only Camus of note to be found.

‘Unless, of course, you’re talking street names.’

‘What?’

‘Edinburgh street names.’

Sure enough, it turned out that the city boasted a Camus Road, along with Camus Avenue, Park and Place. No one seemed to know whether they were named after the French writer; Rebus reckoned the chances were pretty good. He looked up Camus in the phone book — by luck the old man wasn’t using it at the time — and found just the one. Taking a break, he thought about walking home and getting his car, maybe taking a drive out to Camus Road, but when a taxi came by he hailed it instead. Camus Road, Avenue, Park and Place turned out to be a little quartet of quiet residential streets just off Comiston Road in Fairmilehead. The taxi driver seemed bemused when Rebus told him to head back for George IV Bridge. When they hit a traffic hold-up at Greyfriars, Rebus paid the taxi off and got out. He headed straight into Sandy Bell’s pub, where the afternoon crowd hadn’t yet been swollen by workers on their way home. A pint and a nip. The barman knew him, told a few stories. He said that when the Infirmary moved to Petty France, they’d lose half their trade. Not the doctors and nurses, but the patients.

‘Pyjamas and slippers, I’m not joking: they walk straight out the ward and in here. One guy even had the tubes hanging out his arms.’

Rebus smiled, finished his drinks. Greyfriars Kirkyard was just around the corner, so he took a wander in. He reckoned that all those Covenanting ghosts would be pretty miserable, knowing a wee dog had made the place more famous than they had. There were tours up here at night, stories of sudden chill hands clamping shoulders. He recalled that Rhona, his ex, had wanted to be married in the kirk itself. He saw graves covered with iron railings — mortsafes, protecting the deceased from the Resurrection Men. Edinburgh seemed always to have thrived on cruelty, its centuries of barbarism masked by an exterior by turns douce and strict...

Stricture... he wondered what the word had to do with the clue. He thought it meant being tied up, something along those lines, but realised that he wasn’t sure. He left the kirkyard and headed on to George IV Bridge, turning in to the library. The same librarian was still on duty.

‘Dictionaries?’ he asked. She directed him towards the shelf he needed.

‘I did that check you asked for,’ she added. ‘There are some books by a Mark Smith, but nothing by anyone called M. E. Smith.’

‘Thanks anyway.’ He started to turn away.

‘I also printed you out a list of our Camus holdings.’

He took the sheet from her. ‘That’s great. Thank you very much.’

She smiled, as if unused to compliments, then looked more hesitant as she caught the alcohol on his breath. On his way to the shelves, he noticed that the desk by the telephone directories was vacant. He wondered if that was the old guy finished for the day; maybe it was like a nine-to-five for him. He pulled out the first dictionary he found and opened it at ‘stricture’: it meant binding, closure, tightness. ‘Binding’ made him think of mummies, or someone with their hands tied, held captive...

There was a clearing of the throat behind him. The librarian was standing there.

‘Chucking-out time?’ Rebus guessed.

‘Not quite.’ She pointed back towards her desk, where another member of staff was now positioned, watching them. ‘My colleague... Kenny... he thinks maybe he knows who Mr Smith is.’

‘Mr who?’ Rebus was looking at Kenny: barely out of his teens, wearing round metal-framed glasses and a black T-shirt.

‘M. E. Smith,’ the librarian said. So Rebus walked over, nodded a greeting at Kenny.

‘He’s a singer,’ Kenny said without preamble. ‘At least, if it’s the one I’m thinking of: Mark E. Smith. And not everyone would agree with the description “singer”.’

The librarian had gone back around the desk. ‘I’ve never heard of him, I must confess,’ she said.

‘Time to widen your horizons, Bridget,’ Kenny said. Then he looked at Rebus, wondering at the detective’s wide-eyed stare.

‘Singer with The Fall?’ Rebus said quietly, almost to himself.

‘You know them?’ Kenny seemed surprised that someone Rebus’s age would have such knowledge.

‘Saw them twenty years ago. A club in Abbeyhill.’

‘Real noise merchants, eh?’ Kenny said.

Rebus nodded distractedly. Then the other librarian, Bridget, gave voice to his thoughts.

‘Funny really,’ she said. Then she pointed to the sheet of paper in Rebus’s hand. ‘Camus’ novel La Chute translates as “The Fall”. We’ve a copy in the Fiction section if you’d like one...’

Claire Benzie’s stepfather turned out to be Jack McCoist, one of the city’s more able defence solicitors. He asked for ten minutes alone with her before any interview could begin. Afterwards, Siobhan entered the room again, accompanied by Gill Templer who, much to his visible annoyance, had ousted Eric Bain.

Claire’s drink can was empty. McCoist had half a cup of lukewarm tea in front of him.

‘I don’t think we need a recording made,’ McCoist stated. ‘Let’s just talk this through, see where it takes us. Agreed?’

He looked to Gill Templer, who nodded eventually.

‘When you’re ready, DC Clarke,’ Templer said.

Siobhan tried for eye contact with Claire, but she was too busy with the Pepsi can, rolling it between her palms.

‘Claire,’ she said, ‘these clues Flip was getting, one of them came from an e-mail address which we’ve traced back to you.’

McCoist had an A4 pad out, on which he’d already written several pages of notes in handwriting so bad it was like a personal code. Now he turned to a fresh sheet.

‘Can I just ask how you came into possession of these e-mails?’

‘They... we didn’t really. Someone called Quizmaster sent Flip Balfour a message, and it came to me instead.’

‘How so?’ McCoist hadn’t looked up from his pad. All she could see of him were blue pinstriped shoulders and the top of his head, thinning black hair showing plenty of scalp.

‘Well, I was checking Ms Balfour’s computer for anything that might explain her disappearance.’

‘So this was after she’d disappeared?’ He looked up now: thick black rims to his glasses and a mouth which, when not open, was a thin line of doubt.

‘Yes,’ Siobhan admitted.

‘And this is the message you say you’ve traced back to my client’s computer?’

‘To her ISP account, yes.’ Siobhan was noticing that Claire had looked up for the first time: it was that use of “my client”. Claire was looking at her stepfather, studying him. Probably she’d never seen his professional side before.

‘ISP being the Internet service provider?’

Siobhan nodded her answer. McCoist was letting her know that he was up on the jargon.

‘Have there been subsequent messages?’

‘Yes.’

‘And do they belong to the same address?’

‘We don’t know that yet.’ Siobhan had decided he didn’t need to know more than one ISP was involved.

‘Very well.’ McCoist stabbed a full stop on the latest sheet with his pen, then sat back thoughtfully.

‘Do I get to ask Claire a question now?’ Siobhan asked.

McCoist peered at her over the top of his glasses. ‘My client would prefer to make a short statement first.’

Claire reached into the pocket of her jeans and unfolded a sheet of paper which had obviously come from the pad on the table. The writing was different from McCoist’s scrawl, but Siobhan could see scorings-out where the lawyer had suggested changes.

Claire cleared her throat. ‘About a fortnight before Flip went missing, I loaned her my laptop computer. She had some essay she was writing, and I thought it might help her. I knew she didn’t have a laptop of her own. I never got the chance to ask for it back. I was waiting until after the funeral to ask her family if it could be retrieved from her flat.’

‘Is this laptop your only computer?’ Siobhan interrupted.

Claire shook her head. ‘No, but it’s linked to an ISP, same account as my PC.’

Siobhan stared at her; still she didn’t make eye contact. ‘There was no laptop in Philippa Balfour’s flat,’ she said.

Eye contact at last. ‘Then where is it?’ Claire said.

‘I’m assuming you still have the proof of purchase, something like that?’

McCoist spoke up. ‘Are you accusing my daughter of lying?’ She wasn’t just a client any longer...

‘I’m saying maybe it’s something Claire should have told us a bit earlier.’

‘I didn’t know it was...’ Claire began to say.

‘DCS Templer,’ McCoist began haughtily, ‘I didn’t think it was Lothian and Borders Police policy to accuse potential witnesses of duplicity.’

‘Right now,’ Templer shot back, ‘your stepdaughter’s a suspect rather than a witness.’

‘Suspected of what exactly? Running a quiz? Since when was that an offence?’

Gill didn’t have an answer for that. She glanced in Siobhan’s direction, and Siobhan thought she could read at least a few of her boss’s thoughts. He’s right... we still don’t know for sure that Quizmaster has anything to do with anything... this is your hunch I’m going with, just remember that...

McCoist knew the look between the two detectives meant something. He decided to press his point.

‘I can’t see you presenting any of this to the Procurator Fiscal. You’d be laughed back down the ranks... DCS Templer.’ Putting the stress on those three letters. He knew she was newly promoted; knew she’d yet to prove herself...

Gill had already regained her composure. ‘What we need from Claire, Mr McCoist, are some straight answers, otherwise her story’s looking thin and we’ll need to make further inquiries.’

McCoist seemed to consider this. Siobhan, meantime, was busy making a mental list. Claire Benzie had the motive all right — the role of Balfour’s Bank in her father’s suicide. With the role-playing game, she had the means, and luring Flip to Arthur’s Seat would give the opportunity. Now she suddenly invented a loaned laptop, conveniently missing... Siobhan started another list, this time for Ranald Marr, who’d warned Flip early on about how to delete e-mails. Ranald Marr with his toy soldiers, second-in-command at the bank. She still didn’t see what Marr would have gained from Flip’s death...

‘Claire,’ she said quietly, ‘those times you went to Junipers, did you ever meet Ranald Marr?’

‘I don’t see what that’s—’

But Claire interrupted her stepfather. ‘Ranald Marr, yes. I never really knew what she saw in him.’

‘Who?’

‘Flip. She had this crush on Ranald. Schoolgirl stuff, I suppose...’

‘Was it reciprocated? Did it go further than a crush?’

‘I think,’ McCoist said, ‘we’re straying somewhat from the—’

But Claire was smiling at Siobhan. ‘Not until later,’ she was saying.

‘How much later?’

‘I got the feeling she was seeing him pretty much up till she went missing...’

‘What’s all the excitement?’ Rebus asked.

Bain looked up from the desk he was working at. ‘Brought in Claire Benzie for questioning.’

‘Why?’ Rebus leaned down, reached into one of the desk’s drawers.

‘Sorry,’ Bain said, ‘is this your...?’

He was making to get up, but Rebus stopped him. ‘I’m suspended, remember? Just you keep it warm for me.’ He closed the drawer, not having found anything. ‘So what’s Benzie doing here?’

‘One of the e-mails, I got Special Branch to trace it.’

Rebus whistled. ‘Claire Benzie sent it?’

‘Well, it was sent from her account.’

Rebus considered this. ‘Not quite the same thing?’

‘Siobhan’s the sceptical one.’

‘Is she in with Benzie?’ Rebus waited till Bain nodded. ‘But you’re out here?’

‘DCS Templer.’

‘Ah,’ Rebus said, no further explanation needed.

Gill Templer burst into the CID office. ‘I want Ranald Marr brought in for questioning. Who wants to fetch him?’

She got two volunteers straight away — Hi-Ho Silvers and Tommy Fleming. Others were trying to place the name, wondering what it could have to do with Claire Benzie and Quizmaster. When Gill turned round, Siobhan was standing behind her.

‘That was good work in there.’

‘Was it?’ Siobhan asked. ‘I’m not so sure.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘When I talk to her, it’s like I’m asking her things she wants to be asked. It’s as if she’s in control.’

‘I didn’t see that.’ Gill touched Siobhan’s shoulder. ‘Take a break. We’ll let someone else have a shot at Ranald Marr.’ She looked around the room. ‘The rest of you, back to work.’ Her eyes met those of John Rebus. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

Rebus opened another drawer, this time pulling out a pack of cigarettes and shaking them.

‘Just came to collect a few personal items, ma’am.’

Gill pursed her lips, stalked out of the room. McCoist was in the corridor with Claire. The three started a short discussion. Siobhan approached Rebus.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘You look shattered.’

‘I see your silver tongue’s as rusty as ever.’

‘Boss told you to take a break, and as luck would have it, I’m buying. While you’ve been busy scaring wee lassies, I’ve been doing the important stuff...’

Siobhan was sticking to orange juice, and kept playing with her mobile: Bain was under strictest orders to call her if and when there was news.

‘I need to get back,’ she said, not for the first time. Then she checked the mobile’s display again, just in case the battery needed recharging or the signal had been lost.

‘Have you eaten?’ Rebus asked. When she shook her head, he came back from the bar with a couple of packets of Scampi Fries, which she was devouring when she heard him say:

‘That’s when it struck me.’

‘When what struck you?’

‘Christ, Siobhan, wake up.’

‘John, I feel like my head’s about to explode. I honestly think it might.’

‘You don’t think Claire Benzie’s guilty, that much I understand. And now she says Flip Balfour was getting her end away with Ranald Marr.’

‘Do you believe her?’

He lit another cigarette, wafted the smoke away from Siobhan. ‘I’m not allowed an opinion: suspended from duty till further notice.’

She gave him a dirty look, lifted her glass.

‘It’s going to be some conversation, isn’t it?’ Rebus asked.

‘What?’

‘When Balfour asks his trusted compadre what the cops wanted him for.’

‘Think Marr will tell him?’

‘Even if he doesn’t, Balfour’s sure to find out. Funeral tomorrow should be a jolly affair.’ He blew more smoke ceilingwards. ‘You going to be there?’

‘Thinking of it. Templer and Carswell, a few others... they’ll be going.’

‘Might be needed if a fight starts.’

She looked at her watch. ‘I should head back, see what Marr’s been saying.’

‘You were told to take a break.’

‘I’ve had one.’

‘Phone in if you really feel the need.’

‘Maybe I’ll do that.’ She noticed that her mobile was still attached to the connector which, were the laptop not back at St Leonard’s, would have given her access to the Net. She stared at the connector, then up at Rebus. ‘What were you saying?’

‘About what?’

‘About Stricture.’

Rebus’s smile widened. ‘Nice to have you back with us. I was saying that I spent all afternoon in the library, and I’ve worked out the first bit of the puzzle.’

‘Already?’

‘You’re dealing with quality here, Siobhan. So, do you want to hear?’

‘Sure.’ She noticed that his glass was almost empty. ‘Should I...?’

‘Just listen first.’ He pulled her back on to her seat. The pub was maybe half full, and most of the drinkers looked like students. Rebus reckoned he was the oldest face in the place. Standing by the bar, he might have been taken for the owner. At the corner table with Siobhan, he probably looked like a seedy boss trying to get his secretary tipsy.

‘I’m all ears,’ she told him.

‘Albert Camus,’ he began slowly, ‘wrote a book called The Fall.’ He slid a paperback copy from his coat and placed it on the table, tapping it with one finger. It wasn’t from the library; he’d found it in Thin’s Bookshop on his way to St Leonard’s. ‘Mark E. Smith is the singer with a band called The Fall.’

Siobhan frowned. ‘I think I had one of their singles once.’

‘So,’ Rebus went on, ‘we have The Fall and The Fall. Add one to the other and you get...’

‘Falls?’ Siobhan guessed. Rebus nodded. She picked up the book, examined its cover, then turned it to read the blurb on the back. ‘You think maybe that’s where Quizmaster wants to meet?’

‘I think it has to do with the next clue.’

‘But what about the rest of it, the boxing match and Frank Finlay?’

Rebus shrugged. ‘Unlike Simple Minds, I didn’t promise you a miracle.’

‘No...’ She paused, then looked up at him. ‘Come to think of it, I didn’t think you were that interested.’

‘I changed my mind.’

‘Why?’

‘Ever sat at home watching paint dry?’

‘I’ve been on dates where it would have been preferable.’

‘Then maybe you know what I mean.’

She nodded, flicking the pages of the book. Then a frown appeared on her forehead, she stopped nodding, and looked up at him again. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I don’t have the faintest idea what you mean.’

‘Good, that means you’re learning.’

‘Learning what?’

‘John Rebus’s own patented brand of existentialism.’ He wagged a finger at her. ‘That’s a word I didn’t know till today, and I’ve got you to thank.’

‘So what does it mean?’

‘I didn’t say I knew what it meant, but I think it’s got quite a lot to do with choosing not to watch paint dry...’

They went back to St Leonard’s, but there was no news. Officers were practically bouncing off the walls. They needed a breakthrough. They needed a break. A fight had to be broken up in the toilets: two uniforms who couldn’t say how it started. Rebus watched Siobhan for a few minutes. She went from one huddle to another, desperate to know things. He could see she was having trouble holding on: a head full of theories and fancies. She, too, needed the breakthrough, the break. He walked up to her. Her eyes were glistening. Rebus took hold of her arm, escorted her outside. She resisted at first.

‘When did you last eat?’ he asked.

‘You bought me those Scampi Fries.’

‘I mean a hot meal.’

‘You sound like my mum...’

The short walk led them to an Indian restaurant on Nicolson Street. It was dark and up a flight of stairs and mostly empty. Tuesday had become the new Monday: a dead night on the town. The weekend started on Thursday as you planned how to spend your pay, and ended with a quick pint after work on the Monday so you could pick over the highlights just past. Tuesday, the sensible option was to go home, keep what cash you had.

‘You know Falls better than I do,’ she said now. ‘What landmarks are there?’

‘Well, the waterfall itself — you’ve seen that — and maybe Junipers — you’ve been there.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s about it.’

‘There’s a housing scheme, right?’

He nodded. ‘Meadowside. And there’s a petrol station just outside town. Plus Bev Dodds’s cottage and a few dozen commuters. Not even a church or a post office.’

‘No boxing ring then?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘And no bouquets, barbed wire or Frank Finlay House.’

Siobhan seemed to lose interest in her food. Rebus wasn’t too worried: she’d already dispatched a mixed tandoori starter and the bulk of her biryani. He watched her take out her phone and try the station again. She’d called once already: no one had answered. This time someone did.

‘Eric? It’s Siobhan. What’s happening there? Have we got Marr yet? What’s he saying?’ She listened, then her eyes met Rebus’s. ‘Really?’ Her voice had risen slightly in pitch. ‘That was a bit silly, wasn’t it?’

For a second, Rebus thought: suicide. He drew a finger across his throat, but Siobhan shook her head.

‘Okay, Eric. Thanks for that. See you later.’ She ended the call, took her time placing the phone back in her bag.

‘Spit it out,’ Rebus said.

She scooped up another forkful of food. ‘You’re suspended, remember? Off the case.’

‘I’ll suspend you from the ceiling if you don’t cough up.’

She smiled, put the fork down, food untouched. The waiter took a step forward, ready to clear the table, but Rebus waved him back.

‘Well,’ Siobhan said, ‘they went to pick up Mr Marr at his detached home in The Grange, only he wasn’t there.’

‘And?’

‘And the reason he wasn’t there was, he’d been told they’d be coming. Gill Templer called the ACC, said they were picking up Marr for questioning. The ACC “suggested” they phone Mr Marr beforehand, as “a courtesy”.’

She picked up the water jug, tipped the dregs into her glass. The same waiter started forward, ready to replace the jug, but Rebus waved him back again.

‘So Marr did a runner?’

Siobhan nodded. ‘Looks like it. His wife says he took the call, and two minutes later when she went to look for him, he wasn’t there and neither was the Maserati.’

‘Better stick one of the napkins in your pocket,’ Rebus suggested. ‘Looks like some egg needs wiping from Carswell’s face.’

‘I can’t imagine he’ll have fun explaining to the Chief Constable,’ Siobhan agreed. Then she watched a grin light up Rebus’s face. ‘Just what you needed?’ she guessed.

‘Might help take some of the heat off.’

‘Because Carswell will be too busy covering his own arse to find time to kick yours?’

‘Eloquently put.’

‘It’s the college education.’

‘So what’s happening about Marr?’ Rebus nodded towards the waiter, who took a hesitant step forward, unsure if he’d suddenly be expelled again. ‘Two coffees,’ Rebus told him. The man made a little bow and moved off.

‘Not sure,’ Siobhan admitted.

‘Night before the funeral, could be awkward.’

‘High-speed car chase... stop and arrest...’ Siobhan was imagining the scenario. ‘Grieving parents wondering why their best friend is suddenly in custody...’

‘If Carswell’s thinking straight, he’ll do nothing till the funeral’s over. Could be Marr will turn up there anyway.’

‘A fond farewell to his secret lover?’

‘If Claire Benzie’s telling the truth.’

‘Why else would he run?’

Rebus stared at her. ‘I think you know the answer to that one.’

‘You mean if Marr killed her?’

‘I thought you had him in the frame.’

She was thoughtful. ‘That was before this happened. I don’t think Quizmaster would run.’

‘Maybe Quizmaster didn’t kill Flip Balfour.’

Siobhan nodded. ‘That’s my point. I had Marr in the frame for Quizmaster.’

‘Meaning she was killed by someone else?’

The coffees arrived, and with them the ubiquitous mints. Siobhan dunked hers in the hot liquid, quickly hoisting it into her mouth. Without being asked, the waiter had brought the bill with their coffees.

‘Split it down the middle?’ Siobhan suggested. Rebus nodded, took three fivers from his pocket.

Outside, he asked how she was getting home.

‘My car’s at St Leonard’s: need a lift?’

‘Nice night for a walk,’ he said, looking up at the clouds. ‘Just promise me you will go home, take a break...’

‘Promise, Mum.’

‘And now that you’ve convinced yourself that Quizmaster didn’t kill Flip...’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, you don’t have to bother with the game any more, do you?’

She blinked, told him she supposed he was right. But he could see she didn’t believe it. The game was her part of the case. She couldn’t just let it go... He knew he’d have felt the same way.

They parted on the pavement, Rebus heading back to the flat. When he got in, he called Jean, but she wasn’t at home. Maybe another late night at the Museum, but she wasn’t answering there either. He stood in front of his dining table, staring at the case notes there. He’d pinned some sheets to the wall, detailing the four women — Jesperson, Gibbs, Gearing and Farmer. He was trying to answer a question: why would the killer leave the coffins? Okay, they were his ‘signature’, but that signature had not been recognised. It had taken the best part of thirty years for someone to realise that there even was a signature. If the killer had hoped to be identified with his crimes, wouldn’t he have repeated the exercise, or tried some other method: a note to the media or the police? So say they weren’t a signature as such; say his motive had been... what? Rebus saw them as little memorials, holding meaning only for the person who’d left them there. And couldn’t the same be said for the Arthur’s Seat coffins? Why had the person responsible not come forward in some form? Answer: because once found, the coffins had ceased to have meaning for their creator. They’d been memorials, never meant to be found or associated with the Burke and Hare killings...

Yes, there were connections between those coffins and the ones Jean had identified. Rebus was wary of adding the Falls coffin to the list, but he felt a connection there, too — a looser connection, to be sure, but still powerful.

He’d checked his answering machine, just the one message: his solicitor, concerning a retired couple who would show the flat to potential buyers, relieving him of the burden. He knew he’d have to take his little collage down before then, hide everything away, do some tidying...

He tried Jean’s number again, but there was still no answer. Stuck a Steve Earle album on: The Hard Way.

Rebus didn’t know of any other...

‘You’re lucky I didn’t change my name,’ Jan Benzie said. Jean had just explained how she’d called every Benzie in the phone book. ‘I’m married to Jack McCoist these days.’

They were sitting in the drawing room of a three-storey townhouse in the city’s west end, just off Palmerston Place. Jan Benzie was tall and thin, and wore a knee-length black dress with a sparkling brooch just above her right breast. The room reflected her elegance: antiques and polished surfaces, thick walls and floors muffling any sound.

‘Thank you for seeing me at such short notice.’

‘There’s not much I can add to what I told you on the phone.’ Jan Benzie sounded distracted, as if part of her was elsewhere. Maybe that was why she’d agreed to the appointment in the first place... ‘It’s been rather a strange day, Miss Burchill,’ she said now.

‘Oh?’

But Jan Benzie just shrugged one shoulder and asked again if Jean would like something to drink.

‘I don’t want to keep you. You said Patricia Lovell was a relation?’

‘Great-great-grandmother... something like that.’

‘She died very young, didn’t she?’

‘You probably know more about her than I do. I’d no idea she was buried at Calton Hill.’

‘How many children did she have?’

‘Just the one, a girl.’

‘Do you know if she died in childbirth?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ Jan Benzie laughed at the absurdity of the question.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jean said, ‘I know this must all sound a bit ghoulish...’

‘A bit. You say you’re researching Kennet Lovell?’

Jean nodded. ‘Would your family have any of his papers?’

Jan Benzie shook her head. ‘None.’

‘You’ve no relatives who might...?’

‘I really don’t think so, no.’ She moved an arm towards the occasional table next to her chair, lifted her cigarette packet and eased one out. ‘Do you...?’

Jean shook her head and watched Jan Benzie light the cigarette with a slim gold lighter. The woman seemed to do everything in slow motion. It was like watching a film at the wrong speed.

‘It’s just that I’m looking for some correspondence between Dr Lovell and his benefactor.’

‘I didn’t even know there was one.’

‘A kirk minister back in Ayrshire.’

‘Really?’ Jan Benzie said, but Jean could tell she wasn’t interested. Right now, the cigarette between her fingers meant more to her than anything else.

Jean decided to plough on. ‘There’s a portrait of Dr Lovell in Surgeons’ Hall. I think maybe it was executed at the minister’s behest.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Have you ever seen it?’

‘Can’t say that I have.’

‘He had several wives, Dr Lovell, did you know that?’

‘Three, wasn’t it? Not so many, really, in the scheme of things.’ Benzie seemed to grow thoughtful. ‘I’m on my second husband... who’s to say it’ll stop there?’ She examined the ash at the end of her cigarette. ‘My first committed suicide, you know.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘No reason why you should.’ She paused. ‘Don’t suppose I can expect the same of Jack.’

Jean wasn’t sure what she meant, but Jan Benzie was studying her, seeming to expect some reply. ‘I suppose,’ Jean said, ‘it would look a bit suspicious, losing two husbands.’

‘And yet Kennet Lovell can lose three wives...?’

Jean’s thinking exactly...

Jan Benzie had risen to her feet, walked over to the window. Jean took another look around the room. All the artefacts, the paintings and framed photographs, candlesticks and crystal ashtrays... she got the feeling none of it belonged to Benzie. It had come with her marriage to Jack McCoist, part of the baggage he brought.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’d better be going. Sorry again to have...’

‘No trouble,’ Benzie said. ‘I hope you find what you’re looking for.’

Suddenly there were voices out in the hall, and the sound of the front door being closed. The voices began ascending the staircase, coming closer.

‘Claire and my husband,’ Jan said, sitting back down again, arranging herself the way an artist’s model might. The door burst open and Claire Benzie stormed into the room. To Jean’s eye, she bore no physical resemblance to her mother, but perhaps that was partly down to her entrance, the way she crackled with energy.

‘I don’t bloody care,’ she was saying. ‘They can lock me up if they want, throw away the bloody key!’ She was pacing the room as Jack McCoist walked in. He had his wife’s slow movements, but they seemed merely the result of fatigue.

‘Claire, all I’m saying is...’ He leaned down to peck his wife’s cheek. ‘What a bloody awful time we’ve had,’ he informed her. ‘Cops crawling over Claire like lice. Is there any way you can control your daughter, darling?’ His words died as he straightened and saw they had a visitor. Jean was rising to her feet.

‘I really should be going,’ she said.

‘Who the hell’s this?’ Claire snarled.

‘Ms Burchill is from the Museum,’ Jan explained. ‘We’ve been talking about Kennet Lovell.’

‘Christ, not her as well!’ Claire tossed her head back, then dropped on to one of the room’s two sofas.

‘I’m researching his life,’ Jean explained for McCoist’s benefit. He was pouring himself a whisky at the drinks cabinet.

‘At this time of night?’ was all he said.

‘His portrait’s hanging in some hall somewhere,’ Jan Benzie told her daughter. ‘Did you know that?’

‘Of course I bloody did! It’s in the museum at Surgeons’ Hall.’ She looked at Jean. ‘Is that where you’re from?’

‘No, actually...’

‘Well, wherever you’re from, why don’t you piss off back there? I’m just out of police custody and—’

‘You will not speak like that to a guest in this house!’ Jan Benzie yelped, springing from her chair. ‘Jack, tell her.’

‘Look, I really should...’ Jean’s words were swamped as a three-way argument started. She backed away, heading for the door.

‘You’ve no bloody right...!’

‘Christ, anyone would think it was you they interrogated!’

‘That’s still no excuse for...’

‘Just one quiet drink, is that too much to...’

They didn’t seem to notice as Jean opened the door, closing it again behind her. She walked down the carpeted stairs on tiptoe, and opened the front door as quietly as she could, escaping into the street, where, finally, she let out a huge breath of air. Walking away, she glanced back towards the drawing-room window, but couldn’t see anything. The houses here had walls so thick, they could double as padded cells, and it felt like that was just what she’d escaped from.

Claire Benzie’s temper had been something to behold.