The Falls

13

Wednesday morning, there was still no sign of Ranald Marr. His wife Dorothy had called Junipers and spoken to John Balfour’s PA. She was reminded in no uncertain terms that the family had a funeral to see to, and that the PA didn’t feel able to disturb either Mr or Mrs Balfour further until some time thereafter.

‘They’ve lost a daughter, you know,’ the PA said haughtily.

‘And I’ve lost my fucking husband, you bitch!’ Dorothy Marr spat back, recoiling ever so slightly afterwards as she realised it was probably the first time she’d used a swearword in her adult life. But it was too late to apologise: the PA had already put down the phone and was informing a lesser member of the Balfour staff not to accept any further calls from Mrs Marr.

Junipers itself was full of people: family members and friends were gathering there. Some, having travelled far, had stayed the previous night, and were now wandering the many corridors in search of something resembling breakfast. Mrs Dolan the cook had decided that hot food would not be seemly on such a day, so her usual vapour trail of sausage, bacon and eggs or pungent kedgeree could not be followed. In the dining room sat an array of cereal packets and preserves, the latter home-made but not including Mrs Dolan’s blackcurrant and apple, which had been Flip’s favourite since childhood. She’d left that particular jar back in the pantry. Last time anyone had eaten some, it had been Flip herself on one of her infrequent visits.

Mrs Dolan was telling her daughter Catriona as much, as Catriona comforted her and handed over another paper handkerchief. One of the guests, sent to inquire whether coffee and cold milk might be available, put his head round the kitchen door, but withdrew again, embarrassed to be witnessing the indomitable Mrs Dolan brought low like this.

In the library, John Balfour was telling his wife that he didn’t want ‘any bloody police thickos’ at the cemetery.

‘But, John, they’ve all worked so hard,’ his wife was saying, ‘and they’ve asked to be there. Surely they’ve as much right as...’ Her voice died away.

‘As who?’ His voice had grown less angry, but suddenly colder.

‘Well,’ his wife said, ‘all these people we don’t know...’

‘You mean people I know? You’ve met them at parties, functions. Jackie, for Christ’s sake, they want to pay their respects.’

His wife nodded and stayed quiet. After the funeral, there would be a buffet lunch back at Junipers, not just for close family but for all her husband’s associates and acquaintances, nearly seventy of them. Jacqueline had wanted a much smaller affair, something that could be accommodated in the dining room. As it was, they’d had to order a marquee, which had been installed on the back lawn. An Edinburgh firm — run by another of her husband’s clients, no doubt — was doing the catering. The lady owner was busy out there now, supervising the unloading of tables, cloths, crockery and cutlery from what seemed a never-ending series of small vans. Jacqueline’s small victory so far had been to widen the circle of invitees to include Flip’s own friends, though this had not been without its awkward moments. David Costello, for example, would have to be invited, along with his parents, though she’d never liked David and felt he held the family in mild distaste. She was hoping they would either fail to turn up, or would not linger.

‘Silver lining, in a way,’ John was droning on, hardly aware of her presence in the room. ‘Something like this, it binds them all to Balfour’s, makes it harder for them to make a move elsewhere...’

Jacqueline rose shakily to her feet.

‘We’re burying our daughter, John! This isn’t about your bloody business! Flip’s not part of some... commercial transaction!’

Balfour glanced towards the door, making sure it was closed. ‘Keep your voice down, woman. It was only a... I didn’t mean...’ He slumped on to the sofa suddenly, face in his hands. ‘You’re right, I wasn’t thinking... God help me.’

His wife sat down next to him, took his hands and lowered them from his face. ‘God help both of us, John,’ she said.

Steve Holly had managed to persuade his boss at the paper’s Glasgow HQ that he needed to be on the scene as early as possible. He’d also, knowing the geographical illiteracy rampant in Scotland, managed to persuade him that Falls was a lot further away from Edinburgh than was actually the case, and that Greywalls Hotel would make an ideal overnight stop. He hadn’t bothered explaining that Greywalls was in Gullane, and consequently wasn’t much more than a half-hour’s drive from Edinburgh, or that Gullane, as the crow flew, wasn’t exactly between Falls and Edinburgh. But what did it matter? He’d had his overnighter, joined by his girlfriend Gina, who wasn’t really his girlfriend but just someone he’d dated a few times over the previous three months. Gina had been keen, but had worried about getting to work the next morning, so then Steve had fixed a taxi for her. He knew how he’d wing it, too: he’d say his car broke down and he’d used the taxi himself to get back to town...

After a fabulous dinner and a walk around the garden — designed by someone called Jekyll apparently — Steve and Gina had made ample use of their ample bed before sleeping like logs, so that the first they knew of it, Gina’s cab was waiting and Steve had to tuck into breakfast alone, which would have been his preference anyway. But then the first disappointment: the newspapers... all of them broadsheets. He’d stopped in Gullane and bought the competition on his way out to Falls, leaving them on the passenger seat and flicking through them as he drove, cars flashing and tooting at him as he took more than his share of road.

‘Bollocks!’ he’d yelled from his window, giving each sheep-shagger and country bumpkin the finger as he got on the mobile, wanting to make sure Tony the photographer was primed for the cemetery shoot. He knew Tony had been out to Falls a couple of times to see Bev, or ‘the Potty Potter’ as Steve had come to call her. He thought Tony reckoned he was in there. His advice had been simple: ‘She’s a nutter, mate — you might get a shag, but two-to-one you wake up with your old wotsit sliced off and lying beside you in the bed.’ To which Tony had laughed and said he just wanted to persuade Bev into some ‘art poses’ for his ‘portfolio’. So when Steve got through to Tony this morning, his first words, as usual, were:

‘Got her on your potter’s wheel yet, mate?’

Then, also as usual, he started laughing at his own joke, which was what he was doing when he happened to glance in the rearview and caught the cop car up his bahooky, lights flashing. No idea how long it had been there.

‘Have to call you back, Tony,’ he said, braking and pulling on to the verge. ‘Just make sure you get to the church on time.’

‘Morning, officers,’ he said, stepping out of the car.

‘And a good morning to you, Mr Holly,’ one of the uniforms said.

Which was when Steve Holly remembered he wasn’t exactly flavour of the month with the Lothian and Borders Police.

Ten minutes later, he was back on the road, the cops tailing him to prevent, as they’d put it themselves, ‘further infractions’. When his mobile went, he thought about not answering, but it was Glasgow, so he mirror-signal-manoeuvred back on to the verge and took the call, watching the cops stop ten yards back.

‘Yes?’ he said.

‘Think you’re a clever little bastard, don’t you, Stevie Boy?’

His boss.

‘Not right this second, no,’ Steve Holly said.

‘Friend of mine plays golf in Gullane. It’s practically in Edinburgh, you turd. And the same goes for Falls. So any notion you had of turning that little trip round as expenses can now be stuck well and truly up your arse.’

‘No problem.’

‘Where are you anyway?’

Holly looked around at fields and dry-stane dykes. There was the distant drone of a tractor.

‘I’m scoping out the cemetery, waiting for Tony to turn up. I’ll head to Junipers in a couple of mins, follow them to the church.’

‘Oh aye? Care to confirm that?’

‘Confirm what?’

‘That outright fucking lie that just tripped off your tongue!’

Holly licked his lips. ‘I don’t follow.’ What was it, did the paper have a tracking device fixed to his car?

‘Tony phoned the picture editor not five minutes ago. The picture editor who happened to be standing next to my bloody desk. Guess where your missing photographer was calling from?’

Holly said nothing.

‘Go on, take a wild stab, because that’s what I’m going to take at you next time I see you.’

‘The cemetery?’ Holly said.

‘That your final answer? Maybe you want to phone a friend.’

Holly felt his anger rise: best defence was attack, right? ‘Look,’ he hissed, ‘I’ve just given your paper the story of the year, scooped every competitor you’ve got, bar none. And this is how you go and treat me? Well, stuff your miserable paper and stuff you. Get someone else out here to cover the funeral, someone who knows the story the way I do. Meantime I think maybe I’ll be making a couple of calls to the competition — on my time, my phone bill. If that’s okay with you, you chiselling bastard. And if you want to know why I’m not at the cemetery, I’ll tell you. It’s because I’ve been stopped by a couple of Lothian’s finest. They won’t let me shake them off now I’ve gone and shat on them in print. You want the patrol car’s licence plate? Give me a second, maybe they’ll speak to you themselves!’

Holly shut up, but made sure he was breathing hard into the mouthpiece.

‘For once,’ the voice from Glasgow eventually said, ‘and maybe they should carve this on my tombstone, I think I may actually have heard Steve Holly tell the truth.’ There was another pause, and then a chuckle. ‘We’ve got them worried then?’

We... Steve Holly knew he was home and dry.

‘I’ve got what looks like a permanent escort, just in case I’m thinking of taking a hand off the wheel to pick my nose.’

‘So you’re not driving as we speak?’

‘Up on the verge, indicators going. And, with all due respect, boss, that’s another five minutes I’ve just wasted talking to you... Not that I don’t always enjoy our little tête-à-têtes.’

Another chuckle. ‘Ah, fuck it, bit of steam needs to be let off now and then, eh? Tell you what, put that hotel through to accounts, okay?’

‘Right, boss.’

‘And get your raggedy arse back on the road.’

‘Ten-four, boss. This is the shining sword of truth, signing off.’ Holly cut the call, exhaled heavily, and did what he’d been told to do: got his raggedy arse back on that road...

The village of Falls had neither church nor cemetery, but there was a small, little-used church — more the size of a chapel, really — just off the road between Falls and Causland. The family had picked the spot and arranged everything, but secretly those friends of Flip’s who’d been able to attend thought the tranquillity and isolation out of keeping with Flip’s character. They couldn’t help feeling she’d have wanted something livelier, somewhere in the city itself, where people walked their dogs or went for a Sunday stroll, and where, in darkness, lively biker parties and furtive couplings might take place.

The graveyard here was too neat and compact, the graves too old and looked after. Flip would have wanted wild, straggling creepers and mosses, briar bushes and long wet grass. But then, when they considered, they realised she wouldn’t care one way or the other, because she was dead and that was the end of it. At that moment, perhaps for the first time, they were able to separate loss from numb shock, and to feel the pangs of a life left incomplete.

There were too many people for the church. The doors were left open so that the short service could be heard outside. The day was cool, the ground heavy with dew. Birds played in the trees, agitated at this unique invasion. Cars lined the main road, the hearse having discreetly pulled away, heading back to Edinburgh. Liveried drivers stood beside several of the vehicles, cigarettes in hands. Rollers, Mercs, Jags...

Nominally, the family had worshipped in a city church, and the minister had been persuaded to lead the service, though he was used to seeing the Balfours only at Christmas, and then not for the past two or three years. He was a thorough man, who had checked his script with the mother and father, asking solicitous questions whose answers would help him bulk out Flip’s biography, but he was also bemused by the attentions of the media. Being used to encountering cameras only at weddings and christenings, when one was pointed in his direction for the first time, he gave a beaming smile, only afterwards realising the inappropriateness of his action. These were not carnationed relatives but journalists, keeping their distance from the solemnities and their lenses trained only so far. Though the graveyard itself could be viewed clearly from the roadway, there’d be no photos of the coffin being lowered, or the parents by the graveside. Permission had been granted for one photograph only: of the coffin being carried from the church.

Of course, once the mourners were off church property, they would be reckoned fair game again.

‘Parasites,’ one of the guests, a Balfour’s client of long standing, had hissed. All the same, he knew he’d be buying more than one paper next morning, just to see if he figured in any of the spreads.

With the pews and side aisles being crammed, the police officers present kept their own distance, to the back of the crowd at the church doors. Assistant Chief Constable Colin Carswell stood with hands clasped in front of him, head slightly bowed. Detective Chief Superintendent Gill Templer was next to Detective Inspector Bill Pryde, just behind Carswell. Other officers were further off still, patrolling what grounds there were. Flip’s killer was still out there, and so, if the two could be differentiated, was Ranald Marr. Inside the church, John Balfour kept turning his head, examining each face as if looking for someone. Only those who knew the workings of Balfour’s Bank guessed who this missing face belonged to...

John Rebus was standing by the far wall, dressed in his good suit and a long green raincoat, its collar up. He kept thinking how bleak the surroundings were: typical bare hillside dotted with sheep; dull yellow gorse bushes. He’d read the noticeboard just inside the churchyard gate. It told him the building dated back to the seventeenth century, and that local farmers had raised the contributions necessary for its construction. At least one Templar grave had been found inside the low stone wall, leading historians to believe that a former chapel and burying place must have rested on this site.

‘The headstone from this Templar grave,’ he’d read, ‘can now be seen in the Museum of Scotland.’

He’d thought then of Jean, who, walking in a place like this, would notice things he couldn’t see, telltale signs from the past. But then Gill had come towards him, face set, hands deep in pockets, and had asked what he thought he was doing there.

‘Paying my respects.’

He’d noticed Carswell move his head slightly, noting Rebus’s presence.

‘Unless there’s a law against it,’ he’d added, walking away.

Siobhan was about fifty yards from him, but so far had acknowledged his presence only with a wave of her gloved hand. Her eyes were on the hillside, as if she thought the killer might suddenly reveal himself there. Rebus had his doubts. As the service ended, the coffin was carried out, and the cameras began their short work. The journalists present were studying the scene carefully, jotting mental paragraphs, or else speaking very quietly into mobile phones. Idly, Rebus wondered which service they were using: he still couldn’t get a signal out here on his.

The TV cameras, which had recorded the exit of the pall-bearers from the church, switched off and hung from their cameramen’s arms. There was silence outside the churchyard walls as within, broken only by the slow crunching of feet over gravel and the occasional sob from a mourner.

John Balfour had one arm around his wife. Some of Flip’s student friends were hugging each other, faces buried in shoulders and chests. Rebus recognised faces: Tristram and Tina, Albert and Camille... No sign of Claire Benzie. He spotted some of Flip’s neighbours, too, including Professor Devlin, who had come bustling up to talk to him earlier, asking about the coffins, whether there’d been any progress. When Rebus had shaken his head, Devlin had asked how he was feeling.

‘Only, I sense a certain frustration,’ the old man had said.

‘That’s how it is sometimes.’

Devlin had studied him. ‘I wouldn’t have taken you for a pragmatist, Inspector.’

‘I’ve always found pessimism a great comforter,’ Rebus had told him, moving away.

Now, Rebus watched the rest of the procession. There was a smattering of politicians, including the MSP Seona Grieve. David Costello preceded his parents out of the church, blinking at the sudden light, digging sunglasses from his breast pocket and slipping them on.

Victim’s eyes catching the likeness of the killer...

Anyone looking at David Costello would see only their own reflection. Was that precisely what Costello wanted them to see? Behind him, his mother and father walked their separate and very distinct walks, more like nodding acquaintances than spouses. As the crowd lost its shape, David found himself next to Professor Devlin. Devlin stuck out a hand for David to shake, but the young man just stared at it, until Devlin withdrew and patted his arm instead.

But now something was happening... A car arriving, door slamming, and a man dressed casually — woollen V-neck and grey slacks — jogging up the road and in through the churchyard gates. Rebus recognised an unshaven and bleary-eyed Ranald Marr, guessed at once that Marr had slept in his Maserati, saw Steve Holly’s face crease as he wondered what was going on. The procession had just reached the graveside when Marr caught it up. He walked straight to the front and stood in front of John and Jacqueline Balfour. Balfour released his grip on his wife, hugged Marr instead, the gesture returned. Templer and Pryde were looking to Colin Carswell, who made a motion with his hands, palms down. Easy, he was saying. We go easy.

Rebus didn’t think any of the reporters had noticed Carswell; too busy trying to make sense of this curious interruption. And then he saw that Siobhan was staring into the grave, eyes flickering to the coffin and back, as if she could see something there. All at once, she turned her back on proceedings and started walking between the tombstones, as if searching for something she’d dropped.

‘For I am the Resurrection and the Life,’ the minister was saying. Marr was standing beside John Balfour now, eyes on the coffin and nothing else. Off to one side, Siobhan was still moving between the graves. Rebus didn’t think any of the reporters could see her: the mourners formed a barrier between her and them. She crouched down in front of one stubby gravestone, seemed to be reading its inscription. Then she rose to her feet again and moved off, but more slowly now, without the same sense of urgency. When she turned, she saw that Rebus was watching her. She flashed him a quick smile, which for some reason he didn’t find reassuring. Then she was on the move again, round to the rear of the mourning party, and out of his immediate sight.

Carswell was muttering something to Gill Templer: instructions on how to deal with Marr. Rebus knew they’d probably let him leave the churchyard, but insist on accompanying him immediately afterwards. Maybe they’d head to Junipers, do the questioning there; more likely, Marr wouldn’t be seeing the marquee and the finger buffet. Instead, it would be an interview room at Gayfield and a mug of greyish tea.

‘Ashes to ashes...’

Rebus couldn’t help it; found the first few bars of the Bowie tune bouncing through his head.

A couple of the reporters were already preparing to head off, either back to the city or up the road to Junipers, where they could make a tally of the invited guests. Rebus slipped his hands into the pockets of the raincoat, started a slow patrol of the churchyard’s perimeter. Earth was raining on to Philippa Balfour’s coffin, the last rain the polished wood would ever feel. Her mother sent a cry up into the sky. It was carried by the breeze towards the surrounding hills.

Rebus found himself standing in front of a small headstone. Its owner had lived from 1876 to 1937. Not quite sixty-one when he died, missing the worst of Hitler, and maybe just too old to have fought in the First World War. He’d been a carpenter, probably serving the surrounding farms. For a second, Rebus remembered the coffin-maker. Then he went back to the name on the headstone — Francis Campbell Finlay — and had to suppress a smile. Siobhan had looked at the box in which lay the remains of Flip Balfour, and she’d thought: boxing. Then she’d looked at the grave itself and realised that it was a place where the sun didn’t shine. Quizmaster’s clue had been leading her right here, but it was only once she’d arrived that she’d been able to work it out. She’d gone looking for Frank Finlay, and found him. Rebus wondered what else she’d found when she crouched in front of the headstone. He glanced back to where the mourners were departing the churchyard, the chauffeurs stubbing out their cigarettes and preparing to open car doors. He couldn’t see Siobhan, but Carswell himself had taken Ranald Marr to one side so they could have a discussion, Carswell doing the talking, Marr responding with resigned nods of the head. When Carswell put out his hand, Marr dropped his car keys into it.

Rebus was the last to leave. Some of the cars were making three-point turns. A tractor-trailer was waiting to get past. Rebus didn’t recognise the driver. Siobhan was standing on the verge, leaning her arms on her car roof, in no hurry. Rebus crossed the road, nodded a greeting.

‘Thought we might see you here,’ was all she said. Rebus leaned one of his own arms on the roof. ‘Get a bollocking, did you?’

‘Like I told Gill, it’s not against the law.’

‘You saw Marr arriving?’

Rebus nodded. ‘What’s the story?’

‘Carswell’s driving him up to the house. Marr wants a couple of minutes with Balfour to explain things.’

‘What things?’

‘We’re next in line.’

‘Doesn’t sound to me like he’s about to confess to murder.’

‘No,’ she said.

‘I was wondering...’ Rebus let the utterance fade.

She tore her eyes away from the spectacle of Carswell attempting a three-pointer in the Maserati. ‘Yes?’

‘The latest clue: Stricture. Any more ideas?’ Stricture, he was thinking, as in confinement. There was nothing in life quite as confining as a coffin...

She blinked a couple of times, then shook her head. ‘What about you?’

‘I did wonder if “boxing” might mean putting things in boxes.’

‘Mmm.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘Maybe.’

‘Want me to keep trying?’

‘Can’t do any harm.’ The Maserati was roaring down the road, Carswell having applied just too much pressure to the accelerator.

‘I suppose not.’ Rebus turned to face her. ‘You heading on to Junipers?’

She shook her head. ‘Back to St Leonard’s.’

‘Things to do, eh?’

She took her arms off the car roof, slid her right hand into the pocket of her black Barbour jacket. ‘Things to do,’ she agreed.

Rebus noticed that she held the car keys in her left hand. He wondered what was in that right-hand pocket.

‘Ca’ canny then, eh?’ he said.

‘See you back at the ranch.’

‘I’m still on the blacklist, remember?’

She took her hand out of her pocket, opened her driver’s-side door. ‘Right,’ she said, getting in. He leaned down to peer through the window. She offered him a brief smile and nothing more. He took a step back as the car came to life, wheels sliding before finding tarmac.

She’d done just what he’d have done: kept to herself whatever it was she’d found. Rebus jogged to where his own car was parked and made set to follow.

Driving back through Falls, Rebus slowed a little outside Bev Dodds’s cottage. He’d half expected to see her at the funeral. The interment had brought with it a number of sightseers, though police cars each end of the road had dissuaded the casual intruder. Parking space was at a premium in the village, too, though most Wednesdays he had the feeling there’d be room to spare. The potter’s makeshift sign had been replaced with something more eye-catching and professionally made. Rebus pushed a little harder on the accelerator, keeping Siobhan’s car in view. The coffins were still in the bottom drawer of his desk. He knew Dodds wanted the one from Falls back in her possession. Maybe he’d be charitable, pick it up this afternoon and drop it off Thursday or Friday. One more excuse to visit the ranch, where he could have another go at Siobhan — always supposing that was where she was headed...

He remembered there was a half-bottle of whisky under his driver’s seat. He really did feel like a drink — it was what you did after funerals. The alcohol washed away death’s inevitability. ‘Tempting,’ he said to himself, slotting home a cassette tape. Early Alex Harvey: ‘The Faith Healer’. Problem was, early Alex Harvey wasn’t too far removed from late Alex Harvey. He wondered how big a part alcohol had played in the Glasgow singer’s demise. You started making a line of booze deaths, it would just refuse ever to come to an end...

‘You think I killed her, don’t you?’

Three of them in the interview room. An unnatural hush outside the door: whispers and tippy-toes and phones snatched up almost before they could ring. Gill Templer, Bill Pryde, and Ranald Marr.

‘Let’s not jump to conclusions, Mr Marr,’ Gill said.

‘Isn’t that what you’re doing?’

‘Just a few follow-up questions, sir,’ Bill Pryde said.

Marr snorted, not inclined to grace such a remark with anything more.

‘How long did you know Philippa Balfour, Mr Marr?’

He looked to Gill Templer. ‘Since she was born. I was her godfather.’

Gill made a note of this. ‘And when did the two of you start feeling a physical attraction for one another?’

‘Who says we did?’

‘Why did you leave home like that, Mr Marr?’

‘It’s been a very stressful time. Look,’ Marr shifted in his chair, ‘should I have a lawyer present, do you think?’

‘As you were informed earlier, that’s entirely up to you.’

Marr thought about it, then shrugged. ‘Proceed,’ he said.

‘Were you having a relationship with Philippa Balfour?’

‘What sort of relationship?’

Bill Pryde’s voice was a bear-growl. ‘The sort her dad would string you up by the balls for.’

‘I think I take your meaning.’ Marr looked as though he was thinking through his answer. ‘Here’s what I will say: I’ve spoken to John Balfour and he has taken a responsible attitude to that conversation. The talk we had — whatever I said to him — has no bearing on this case. And that’s pretty much it.’ He sat back in his chair.

‘Fucking your own goddaughter,’ Bill Pryde said disgustedly.

‘DI Pryde!’ Gill Templer said by way of warning. Then, to Marr: ‘I apologise for my colleague’s outburst.’

‘Apology accepted.’

‘It’s just that he has a bit more trouble hiding his revulsion and contempt than I do.’

Marr almost smiled.

‘And as to whether something does or does not have “bearing” on a case is up to us to decide, wouldn’t you say, sir?’

Colour rose to Marr’s cheeks, but he wasn’t going to take the bait. He shrugged merely, and folded his arms to let them know that, so far as he was concerned, the discussion was now at an end.

‘A moment of your time, DI Pryde,’ Gill said, angling her head towards the door. As they stepped out of the room, two uniforms stepped in to stand guard. Officers were already homing in, so Gill pushed Pryde through the door marked ‘Ladies’, and stood with her back against the door to deter the curious.

‘Well?’ she asked.

‘Nice place,’ Pryde said, looking around. He walked over to the washbasin and fished the waste-bin out from beneath, spitting his venerable collection of gum into it and pulling two fresh sticks from their packet.

‘They’ve stitched something up between them’ he said at last, admiring his features in the mirror.

‘Yes,’ Gill agreed. ‘We should have brought him straight here.’

‘Carswell’s blooper,’ Pryde said, ‘yet again.’

Gill nodded. ‘You think he confessed to Balfour?’

‘I think he probably said something. He’s had all night to come up with the right way of saying it: “John, it just happened... it was a long time ago and just the once... I’m so sorry.” Spouses say it all the time.’

Gill almost smiled. Pryde spoke as if from experience.

‘And Balfour didn’t string him up by the balls?’

Pryde shook his head slowly. ‘The more I hear about John Balfour, the less I like him. Bank’s looking like going down the toilet, house filled with account-holders... his best friend walks up and says, in so many words, that he’s been getting his end away with the daughter, and what does Balfour do? He does a deal.’

‘The pair of them keeping quiet, keeping the lid on it?’

It was Pryde’s turn to nod. ‘Because the alternative is scandal, resignation, public fisticuffs and the collapse of all they hold dearest: namely, cold hard cash.’

‘Then we’ll be hard pushed to get anything out of him.’

Pryde looked at her. ‘Unless we push him really hard.’

‘I’m not sure Mr Carswell would like that.’

‘With respect, DCS Templer, Mr Carswell couldn’t find his own arse if it didn’t come with a label marked “Insert tongue here”.’

‘That’s not the sort of language I can countenance,’ Gill said with something approaching a grin. There was pressure on the door from outside, and she yelled for whoever was there to stop it.

‘I’m desperate!’ a female voice called back.

‘Me too,’ Bill Pryde said with a wink, ‘but maybe I should head for the more rudimentary shores of the Gents’.’ As Gill nodded and began to open the door, he took a final, wistful look round. ‘Though it’ll be in my thoughts from now on, believe me. A man could get used to luxury like this...’

Back in the interview room, Ranald Marr had the look of someone who knew he’d soon be back behind the wheel of his Maserati. Gill, unable to bear such palpable smugness, decided to play her last card.

‘Your affair with Philippa, it lasted quite a while, didn’t it?’

‘God, are we back to that again,’ Marr said, rolling his eyes.

‘Fairly common knowledge, too. Philippa told Claire Benzie all about it.’

‘Is that what Claire Benzie says? I seem to have been here before. That little madam would say anything to hurt Balfour’s.’

Gill was shaking her head. ‘I don’t think so, because knowing what she did, she could have used it at any time: one call to John Balfour, and she’d have blown the whole secret wide open. She didn’t do that, Mr Marr. I can only assume it’s because Claire has some principles.’

‘Or she was biding her time.’

‘Maybe so.’

‘Is that what this boils down to: my word against hers?’

‘There’s the fact that you were keen to explain to Philippa how to erase e-mails.’

‘Which I’ve also explained to your officers.’

‘Yes, but now we know the real reason why you did it.’

Marr tried staring her out, but it wasn’t going to work. He couldn’t know that Gill had interviewed more than a dozen killers in the course of her CID career. She’d been stared at by eyes filled with fire, eyes turned insane. He dropped his gaze and his shoulders slumped.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘there’s one thing...’

‘We’re waiting, Mr Marr,’ Bill Pryde said, sitting as straight in his chair as a kirk elder.

‘I... didn’t tell the whole truth about the game Flip was involved in.’

‘You haven’t told the whole truth about anything,’ Pryde interrupted, but Gill quietened him with a look. Not that it mattered; Marr hadn’t been listening.

‘I didn’t know it was a game,’ he was saying, ‘not back then. It was just a question... maybe a crossword clue, that’s what I thought.’

‘So she did bring one of the clues to you?’

Marr nodded. ‘The mason’s dream. She thought I might know what it meant.’

‘And why would she think that?’

He managed the ghost of a smile. ‘She was always overestimating me. She was... I don’t think you’ve been getting anything like the whole picture of the kind of person Flip was. I know what you saw at first: spoilt little rich kid, spending her university days gazing at a few paintings, then graduating and marrying someone with even more money.’ He was shaking his head. ‘That wasn’t Flip at all. Maybe it was one side to her, but she was complex, always capable of surprising you. Like with this puzzle thing, on the one hand I was dumbstruck when I heard about it, but on the other... in many ways it’s so much like Flip. She would take these sudden interests, passions in things. For years, she’d been going to the zoo once a week on her own, just about every week, and I only found out by chance, a few months back. I was leaving a meeting at the Posthouse Hotel and she was coming out of the zoo, practically next door.’ He looked up at them. ‘Do you see?’

Gill wasn’t at all sure that she did, but she nodded anyway. ‘Go on,’ she said. But it was as though her words had broken the spell. Marr paused for breath, then seemed to lose some of his animation.

‘She was...’ His mouth opened and closed, but soundlessly. Then he shook his head. ‘I’m tired and I want to go home. I have some things I need to talk about with Dorothy.’

‘Are you okay to drive?’ Gill asked.

‘Perfectly.’ He took a deep breath. But when he looked at her again, tears were welling in his eyes. ‘Oh, Christ,’ he said, ‘I’ve made such an utter balls-up, haven’t I? And I’d do it again and again and again if it meant I had those same moments with her.’

‘Rehearsing what you’re going to say to the missus?’ Pryde said coolly. Only then did Gill realise that she alone had been affected by Marr’s story. As if to stress his point, Pryde blew out something approaching a bubble, which popped with an audible clack.

‘My God,’ Marr said, almost with a sense of awe, ‘I hope and pray I never grow a skin as thick as yours.’

‘You’re the one shagging his pal’s daughter all these years. Compared to me, Mr Marr, you’re a fucking armadillo.’

This time, Gill had to draw her colleague from the interview room by his arm.

Rebus walked through St Leonard’s like the spectre at the feast. The feeling was, between Marr and Claire Benzie, they’d get something. Surely to hell they’d get something.

‘Not if you haven’t worked for it,’ Rebus muttered. Not that anyone was listening. He found the coffins in his drawer, along with some paperwork and a used coffee beaker someone too lazy to find a bin had placed there. Easing himself into the Farmer’s chair, he drew the coffins out and laid them on his desk, pushing aside more paperwork to make room. He could feel a killer slipping through his fingers. Problem was, for Rebus to get a second chance would mean some new victim turning up, and he wasn’t sure he wanted that. The evidence he’d taken home, the notes pinned to his wall — he couldn’t fool himself, it didn’t amount to evidence at all. It was a jumble of coincidence and speculation, a thin gossamer pattern created almost from air, the merest flutter of breath beginning to snap its tensed threads. For all he knew, Betty-Anne Jesperson had eloped with her secret lover, while Hazel Gibbs had staggered drunkenly on the bank of White Cart Water and slipped in, knocking herself unconscious. Maybe Paula Gearing had hidden her depression well, walking into the sea of her own volition. And the schoolgirl Caroline Farmer, could she have started a new life in some English city, far from small-town Scottish teenage blues?

So what if someone had left coffins nearby? He couldn’t even be sure it was the same person each time; only had the carpenter’s word for it. And with the autopsy evidence, there was no way to prove any crime had been committed at all... not until the Falls coffin. Another break in the pattern: Flip Balfour was the first victim who could definitely be said to have perished at the hands of an attacker.

He held his head in his hands, felt that if he took them away it might explode. Too many ghosts, too many ifs and buts. Too much pain and grieving, loss and guilt. It was the sort of thing he’d have taken to Conor Leary once upon a night. Now, he didn’t think he had anyone to turn to...

But it was a male voice which answered Jean’s extension. ‘Sorry,’ the man said, ‘she’s been keeping her head down lately.’

‘You’re busy over there then?’

‘Not particularly. Jean’s off on one of her little mystery trips.’

‘Oh?’

The man laughed. ‘I don’t mean a bus tour or anything. She gets these projects going from time to time. They could set off a bomb in the building and Jean would be the last to know.’

Rebus smiled: the man could have been talking about him. But Jean hadn’t mentioned that she was busy with anything outside her normal work. Not that it was any of his business...

‘So what’s she up to this time?’ he asked.

‘Mmm, let me see... Burke and Hare, Dr Knox and all that period.’

‘The Resurrectionists?’

‘Curious term that, don’t you think? I mean, they didn’t do much resurrecting, did they, not as any good Christian would understand it?’

‘True enough.’ The man was annoying Rebus; something about his manner, his tone of voice. It even annoyed him that the man was giving information away so easily. He hadn’t even asked who Rebus was. If Steve Holly ever managed to contact this guy, he’d have everything he could possibly want on Jean, probably down to her home address and phone number.

‘But she really seemed to be focusing on this doctor who carried out the post-mortem on Burke. What’s his name again...?’

Rebus remembered the portrait in Surgeons’ Hall. ‘Kennet Lovell?’ he said.

‘That’s right.’ The man seemed slightly put out that Rebus knew. ‘Are you helping Jean? Want me to leave her a message.’

‘You don’t happen to know where she is?’

‘She doesn’t always confide in me.’

Just as well, Rebus felt like saying. Instead he told the man there was no message, and put down the phone. Devlin had told Jean about Kennet Lovell, expounding his theory that Lovell had left the coffins on Arthur’s Seat. Obviously she was following this up. All the same, he wondered why she hadn’t said anything...

He stared at the desk opposite, the one Wylie had been using. It was piled high with documents. Narrowing his eyes, he rose from his desk and walked over, started lifting piles of paper from the top.

Right at the bottom were the autopsy notes from Hazel Gibbs and Paula Gearing. He’d meant to send them back. In the back room of the Ox, Professor Devlin had specified that they should be returned. Quite right, too. They weren’t doing anyone any good here, and might be lost forever or mis-filed if allowed to be smothered by the paperwork generated by Flip Balfour’s murder.

Rebus placed them on his own desk, then cleared all the extraneous paperwork on to the desk one along. The coffins went back into his bottom drawer, all except the one from Falls, which he placed in a Haddow’s carrier bag. Over at the photocopier, he lifted a sheet of A4 from the tray — it was the only place in the whole CID suite you could ever find spare paper. On it he wrote: COULD SOMEONE PLEASE SEND THESE ON AS SPECIFIED, PREFERABLY BY FRIDAY? CHEERS, J.R.

Looking around, it struck him that although he’d followed Siobhan’s car into the car park, there was no sign of her now.

‘Said she was headed down Gayfield Square,’ a colleague explained.

‘When?’

‘Five minutes ago.’

While he’d been on the phone, listening to gossip.

‘Thanks,’ he said, sprinting out to his car.

There was no quick route to Gayfield Square, so Rebus took a few liberties with traffic lights and junctions. Parking, he couldn’t see her car. But when he dashed indoors, she was standing right there, talking to Grant Hood, who was wearing what looked like another new suit and looking suspiciously tanned.

‘Been out in the sun, Grant?’ Rebus asked. ‘Thought that office of yours at the Big House didn’t have so much as a window?’

Self-consciously, Grant put a hand to his cheek. ‘I might have caught a few rays.’ He made a show of spotting someone across the room. ‘Sorry, got to...’ And he was off.

‘Our Grant’s beginning to worry me,’ Rebus said.

‘What do you reckon: fake tan or one of those sun bed studios?’

Rebus shook his head slowly, unable to decide. Glancing back, catching them watching him, Grant butted into another conversation, as if these were the people he’d wanted to speak to. Rebus eased himself up on to a desk.

‘Anything happening?’ he asked.

‘Ranald Marr’s already been released. All we got out of him was that Flip did ask him about that masonic clue.’

‘And his excuse for lying to us...?’

She shrugged. ‘I wasn’t there, so I can’t say.’ She seemed jumpy.

‘Why don’t you sit down?’ She shook her head. ‘Things to do?’ he guessed.

‘That’s right.’

‘Such as?’

‘What?’

He repeated the question. She fixed her eyes on him. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘but for an officer under suspension, aren’t you spending an awful lot of time in the office?’

‘Something I forgot, I came to retrieve it.’ As the words came out, he realised he had forgotten something: the Falls coffin, still in its carrier bag at St Leonard’s. ‘Is there maybe anything you’ve forgotten, Siobhan?’

‘Such as?’

‘Forgetting to share your find with the rest of the team.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You did find something then? At Francis Finlay’s grave?’

‘John...’ Her eyes were avoiding his now. ‘You’re off the case.’

‘Maybe so. You, on the other hand, are on the case but off your trolley.’

‘You’ve no right to say that.’ She still wasn’t looking at him.

‘I think I have.’

‘Then prove it.’

‘DI Rebus!’ The voice of authority: Colin Carswell, standing twenty yards away in the doorway. ‘If you’d be so kind as to spare me a moment...’

Rebus looked at Siobhan. ‘To be continued,’ he said. Then he got up and left the room. Carswell was waiting for him in Gill Templer’s cramped office. Gill was there too, standing with arms folded. Carswell was already making himself comfortable behind the desk, eyes showing dismay at the amount of clutter accumulated since his last visit.

‘So, DI Rebus, what can we do for you?’ he asked.

‘Just something I had to pick up.’

‘Nothing contagious, I trust.’ Carswell offered a thin smile.

‘That’s a good one, sir,’ Rebus said coldly.

‘John,’ Gill interrupted, ‘you’re supposed to be at home.’

He nodded. ‘It’s hard though, with all these exciting developments.’ His eyes stayed on Carswell. ‘Like warning Marr he was about to be picked up, and now I hear he was allowed ten minutes with John Balfour before we interviewed him. Good calls, sir.’

‘Sticks and stones, Rebus,’ Carswell said.

‘You name the time and place.’

‘John...’ Gill Templer again. ‘I don’t think this is going to get us anywhere, do you?’

‘I want back on the case.’

Carswell just snorted. Rebus turned to Gill.

‘Siobhan’s playing a wild card. I think she’s back in touch with Quizmaster, maybe for a meet.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Call it an educated guess.’ He glanced towards Carswell. ‘And before you make some gag about intelligence not being my strong point, let me agree with you. But on this, I think I’m right.’

‘He’s sent another clue?’ Gill was hooked.

‘At the churchyard this morning.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘One of the mourners?’

‘It could have been left any time. Thing is, Siobhan’s been wanting a meeting.’

‘And?’

‘And she’s standing around in the Inquiry Room, just biding her time.’

Gill nodded slowly. ‘If it was a new clue, she’d be busy trying to work it out...’

‘Hang on, hang on,’ Carswell broke in. ‘How do we know any of this? You saw her pick up some clue?’

‘The last one was leading us to a particular grave. She crouched in front of the headstone...’

‘And?’

‘And that’s when I think she picked up the clue.’

‘You didn’t see her do it?’

‘She crouched down...’

‘But you didn’t see her do it?’

Sensing another confrontation brewing, Gill stepped in. ‘Why don’t we just bring her in here and ask her?’

Rebus nodded. ‘I’ll fetch her.’ He paused. ‘With your permission, sir?’

Carswell sighed. ‘Go on then.’

But out in the Inquiry Room, there was no sign of Siobhan. Rebus walked the corridors, asking for her. At the drinks machine, someone said she’d just gone past. Rebus quickened his pace, hauled open the doors to the outside world. No sign of her on the pavement; no sign of her car. He wondered if she’d parked further away, looked to left and right. Busy Leith Walk one way, and the narrow streets of the New Town’s east end the other. If he headed into the New Town, her flat was five minutes away, but instead he went back indoors.

‘She’s gone,’ he told Gill. Catching his breath, he noticed Carswell was missing. ‘Where’s the ACC?’

‘Summoned to the Big House. I think the Chief Constable wanted a word.’

‘Gill, we’ve got to find her. Get some bodies out there.’ He nodded towards the Inquiry Room. ‘It’s not like they’re setting the world on fire in here.’

‘Okay, John, we’ll find her, don’t worry. Maybe Brains knows where she’s gone.’ She lifted the receiver. ‘We’ll start with him...’

But Eric Bain seemed as elusive as Siobhan. He was known to be somewhere in the Big House, but nobody knew exactly where. Meantime, Rebus tried Siobhan’s home number and mobile. He got her answering machine at the former, a recorded message at the latter, telling him the phone was in use. When he tried five minutes later, it was still in use. By that time, he was using his own mobile, walking downhill to Siobhan’s street. He tried her buzzer, with no response. Crossed the road and stared at her window for so long that passers-by started looking up too, wondering what he could see that they couldn’t. Her car wasn’t parked kerbside, nor was it in any of the surrounding streets.

Gill had already left a message with Siobhan’s pager, asking for an urgent call-back, but Rebus had wanted more, and eventually she’d agreed: patrols would be on the lookout for her car.

But now, standing outside her flat, it struck Rebus that she could be anywhere, not just inside the city boundary. Quizmaster had taken her to Hart Fell and Rosslyn Chapel. No telling where he’d choose for a rendezvous. The more isolated it was, the more danger Siobhan was in. He felt like punching himself in the face: he should have dragged her into that meeting with him, not given her the chance to do a runner... He tried her mobile again: still engaged. Nobody made a call that long on their mobile, way too expensive. Then, suddenly, he knew what it was: her mobile was hooked to Grant Hood’s laptop. Even now, she could be telling Quizmaster she was on her way...

Siobhan had parked her car. Two hours yet till the time Quizmaster had suggested. She reckoned she could lie low till then. The pager message from Gill Templer had told her two things: one was that Rebus had told Gill everything; two, that if she ignored Gill’s order, she’d have some explaining to do.

Explaining? She was having trouble doing that even to herself. All she knew was that the game — and she knew it wasn’t just a game; was something potentially much more dangerous — but all the same it had gotten to her. Quizmaster, whoever he or she turned out to be, had gotten to her, to the extent that she could think of little else. The daily clues and puzzles, she missed them, would gladly take on more of them. But more than that, she wanted to know, know everything there was to know about Quizmaster and the game. Stricture had impressed her, because Quizmaster had to have suspected that she would be present at the funeral, and that the clue would only start making sense to her at Flip’s graveside. Stricture indeed... but she felt the word applied to her, too, because she felt bound by the game, tied to it and to identifying its creator. And at the same time she felt almost smothered by it. Was Quizmaster present at the funeral? Had he — or she (remembering Bain’s advice to keep an open mind) — seen Siobhan pick up the note? Maybe... The thought made her shiver. But then, the funeral had been announced in the media. Maybe Quizmaster had found out that way. It was the nearest cemetery to Flip’s home; a good chance she’d be interred there...

None of which explained why she was doing what she was doing, going out on her own fragile limb like this. It was the sort of stupid thing she regularly chastised Rebus for. Maybe Grant had decided it for her, Grant who had shown himself a ‘company player’, with his suits and his tan, looking good on TV — good PR for the force.

One game she knew she didn’t want to play.

Many times she’d crossed the line, but always crossing back again. She’d break a rule or two, but nothing important, nothing career-threatening, and then hop back into the fold. She wasn’t a born outsider in the way she sensed John Rebus was, but she’d learned that she liked it on his side of the fence, liked it better than becoming a Grant or a Derek Linford... people who played their own games, doing anything it took to keep in with the men who mattered, men like Colin Carswell.

At one time, she’d thought maybe she could learn from Gill Templer, but Gill had become just like the others. She had her own interests to protect, whatever that took. In order to rise, she’d had to take on the worst attributes of someone like Carswell, while wrapping her own feelings inside some sort of reinforced box.

If rising through the ranks meant losing a part of herself, Siobhan didn’t want it. She’d known as much back at the dinner in Hadrian’s, when Gill had hinted at things to come.

Maybe that was what she was doing out here, out on her limb — proving something to herself. Maybe it wasn’t really about the game and Quizmaster so much as it was about her.

She moved in her seat so she was facing the laptop. The line was already open, had been since she’d got into the car. No new messages, so she typed in one of her own.

Meeting accepted. See you there. Siobhan.

And clicked on ‘send’.

After which, she shut down the computer, disconnected the phone and powered it down — battery needed a boost anyway. She placed both beneath the passenger seat, making sure they weren’t visible to pedestrians: didn’t want someone breaking in. When she got out of the car, she made sure all the doors were locked, and that the little red alarm button was flashing.

Just under two hours to go now; a little time to kill...

Jean Burchill had tried calling Professor Devlin, but no one ever answered. So finally she wrote him a note, asking him to contact her, and decided to deliver it by hand. In the back of the taxi, she wondered what the sense of urgency was, and realised it was because she wanted to be rid of Kennet Lovell. He was taking up too much of her waking time, and last night he’d even infected her dreams, slicing the meat from cadavers only to reveal planed wood beneath, while her colleagues from work watched and applauded, the performance turning into a stage show.

If her research into Lovell was to progress, she needed some kind of proof of his interest in woodwork. Without that, she was at a dead end. Having paid the driver, she stood in front of the Professor’s tenement, note in hand. But there was no letter-box. Each flat would have its own, the postman gaining entry by pressing the buzzers until someone let him in. She supposed she could slip the note under the door, but reckoned it would lie there ignored, along with all the junk mail. So instead, she looked at the array of buzzers. Professor Devlin’s just said ‘D. Devlin’. She wondered if he might be back from his wanderings, and pressed the buzzer. When there was no answer, she looked at the remaining buttons, wondering which one to pick. Then the intercom crackled.

‘Hello?’

‘Dr Devlin? It’s Jean Burchill from the Museum. I wonder if I can have a word...’

‘Miss Burchill? This is somewhat of a surprise.’

‘I’ve tried phoning...’

But the door was already signalling that it was no longer locked.

Devlin was waiting for her on his landing. He wore a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up, with thick braces holding up his trousers.

‘Well, well,’ he said, taking her hand.

‘I’m sorry to bother you like this.’

‘Not at all, young lady. Now just you come in. I’m afraid you’ll find my housekeeping somewhat lacking...’ He led her into the living room, cluttered with boxes and books.

‘Separating the wheat from the chaff,’ he informed her.

She picked up a case and opened it. It contained old surgical instruments. ‘You’re not throwing it out? Perhaps the Museum would be interested...’

He nodded. ‘I’m in contact with the bursar at Surgeons’ Hall. He thinks perhaps the exhibition there might have room for one or two pieces.’

‘Major Cawdor?’

Devlin’s eyebrows lifted. ‘You know him?’

‘I was asking him about the portrait of Kennet Lovell.’

‘So you’re taking my theory seriously?’

‘I thought it was worth pursuing.’

‘Excellent.’ Devlin clapped his hands together. ‘And what have you found?’

‘Not a great deal. That’s really why I’m here. I can’t find any reference in the literature to Lovell having an interest in carpentry.’

‘Oh, it’s a matter of record, I assure you, though it’s many years since I came across it.’

‘Came across it where?’

‘Some monograph or dissertation... I really can’t recall. Could it have been a university thesis?’

Jean nodded slowly. If it had been a thesis, only the university itself would hold a copy; there’d be no record in any other library. ‘I should have thought of that,’ she admitted.

‘But don’t you agree he was a remarkable character?’ Devlin asked.

‘He certainly lived a very full life... unlike his wives.’

‘You’ve been to his graveside?’ He smiled at the idiocy of the question. ‘Of course you have. And you took note of his marriages. What did you think?’

‘At first, nothing... but then later, when I thought about it...’

‘You began to speculate as to whether or not they had been assisted on their final journey?’ He smiled again. ‘It’s obvious, really, isn’t it?’

Jean became aware of a smell in the room: stale sweat. Perspiration was shining on Devlin’s forehead, and the lenses of his spectacles looked smeared. She was amazed he could see her through them.

‘Who better,’ he was saying, ‘than an anatomist to get away with murder?’

‘You’re saying he murdered them?’

He shook his head. ‘Impossible to tell after all this time. I’m merely speculating.’

‘But why would he do that?’

Devlin shrugged, his shoulders stretching the braces. ‘Because he could? What do you think?’

‘I’ve been wondering... he was very young when he assisted at Burke’s autopsy; young and impressionable maybe. That might explain why he fled to Africa...’

‘And God alone knows what horrors he encountered out there,’ Devlin added.

‘It would help if we had his correspondence.’

‘Ah, the letters between himself and the Reverend Kirkpatrick?’

‘You don’t happen to know where they might be?’

‘Consigned to oblivion, I’d wager. Tossed on to the pyre by some descendant of the good minister...’

‘And here you are doing the same thing.’

Devlin looked around him at the mess. ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘Selecting that by which history shall judge my small endeavours.’

Jean picked up a photograph. It showed a middle-aged woman, dressed for some formal function.

‘Your wife?’ she guessed.

‘My dear Anne. She passed away in the summer of nineteen seventy-two. Natural causes, I assure you.’

Jean looked at him. ‘Why should you have to assure me?’

Devlin’s smile faded. ‘She meant the world to me... more than the world...’ He clapped his hands together again. ‘What can I be thinking of, not offering you something to drink. Tea perhaps?’

‘Tea would be wonderful.’

‘I can’t promise any sense of wonder from PG tea-bags.’ His smile was fixed.

‘And afterwards, maybe I could see Kennet Lovell’s table.’

‘But of course. It’s in the dining room. Bought from a reputable dealer, though I admit they couldn’t be categorical about its provenance — caveat emptor, as they say, but they were fairly persuasive, and I was willing to believe.’ He had taken his glasses off to give them a polish with his handkerchief. When he slipped them on again, his eyes seemed magnified. ‘Tea,’ he repeated, making for the hallway. She followed him out.

‘Have you lived here long?’ she asked.

‘Ever since Anne passed on. The house held too many memories.’

‘That’s thirty years then?’

‘Almost.’ He was in the kitchen now. ‘Won’t be a minute,’ he said.

‘Fine.’ She started to retrace her steps back to the living room. The summer of ’72, his wife had died... She passed an open doorway: the dining room. The table filled almost the whole space. A completed jigsaw lay on top of it... no, not quite complete: missing just the one piece. Edinburgh, an aerial photograph. The table itself was a plain enough design. She walked into the room, studied the table’s surface of polished wood. The legs were sturdy, lacking any ornamental flourishes. Utilitarian, she thought. The incomplete jigsaw must have taken hours... days. She crouched down, seeking the missing piece. There it was: almost completely hidden beneath one of the legs. As she reached for it, she saw that the table boasted one nice, secretive touch. Where the two leaves met in the middle, there was a central element, and into this a small cupboard had been inserted. She’d seen similar designs before, but not from as far back as the nineteenth century. She wondered if Professor Devlin had been duped into buying something from much later than Lovell’s period... She squeezed into the narrow confines so that she could open the cupboard. It was stiff, and she almost gave up, but then it clicked open, revealing its contents.

A plane, set-square and chisels.

A small saw and some nails.

Woodwork tools.

When she looked up, Professor Devlin was filling the doorway.

‘Ah, the missing piece,’ was all that he said...

Ellen Wylie had heard reports of the funeral, how Ranald Marr had suddenly turned up and been embraced by John Balfour. The talk at West End was that Marr had been brought in for questioning but then released.

‘Stitch-up,’ Shug Davidson had commented. ‘Somebody somewhere’s pulling strings.’

He hadn’t looked at her as he’d said it, but then he hadn’t needed to. He knew... and she knew. Pulling strings: wasn’t that what she’d thought she was doing when she met with Steve Holly? But somehow he’d become the puppeteer, making her the marionette. Carswell’s speech to the troops had cut into her like a knife, not just nicking the skin but radiating pain through her whole body. When they’d all been called into the office, she’d half hoped her silence would give her away. But then Rebus had stepped in, taken the whole thing upon himself, leaving her feeling worse than ever.

Shug Davidson knew it... and though Shug was a colleague and mate, he was also a friend of Rebus’s. The pair of them went way back. Now, every time he made some remark she found herself analysing it, seeking the sub-text. She couldn’t concentrate, and her home station, which she’d seen so recently as a refuge, had become inhospitable and alien.

Which was why she’d made the trip to St Leonard’s, only to find the CID suite all but deserted. A suit-carrier, hanging from one of the coat pegs, told her that at least one officer had been at the funeral, returning here to change back into work clothes. She guessed Rebus, but couldn’t be certain. There was a plastic bag beside his desk, one of the coffins inside. All that work, and no case to show for it. The autopsy notes were sitting on the desk, waiting for someone to follow the instructions left on them. She lifted the note from the top, sat down in Rebus’s chair. Without really meaning to, she found herself untying the ribbon which held the notes together. Then she opened the first file and started to read.

She’d done this before, of course; or rather, Professor Devlin had, while she’d sat by his side taking note of his findings. Slow work, yet she realised now that she’d enjoyed it — the notion that there might be some case hidden in the midst of those typewritten pages; the sense of working on the edge of things, a not-quite-investigation; and Rebus himself, as driven as the rest of them put together, biting down on a pen as he concentrated, or furrowing his brow, or stretching suddenly, unlocking his neck. He had this reputation as a loner, yet he’d been happy to delegate, happy to share the work with her. She’d accused him of pitying her, but she didn’t really believe that. He did have a martyr complex, but it seemed to work for him... and for everyone else.

Skimming the pages now, she realised finally why she’d come: she wanted to apologise in some way he’d understand... And then she looked up and he was standing not four yards away, watching her.

‘How long have you been there?’ she asked, dropping a couple of the pages.

‘What are you up to?’

‘Nothing.’ She picked up the sheets. ‘I was just... I don’t know, maybe one final look before it all went back into the storeroom. How was the funeral?’

‘A funeral’s a funeral, no matter who they’re burying.’

‘I heard about Marr.’

He nodded, walked into the room.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

‘I was hoping Siobhan might be here.’ He walked over to her desk, hoping for some clue... something, anything.

‘I wanted to see you,’ Ellen Wylie said.

‘Oh?’ He turned away from Siobhan’s desk. ‘Why’s that then?’

‘Maybe to thank you.’

Their eyes met, communicating without words.

‘Don’t worry about it, Ellen,’ Rebus said at last. ‘I mean it.’

‘But I got you into trouble.’

‘No, you didn’t. I got myself into trouble, and maybe made things worse for you too. If I’d stayed quiet, I think you’d have spoken up.’

‘Maybe,’ she admitted. ‘But I could have spoken up anyway.’

‘I didn’t make it any easier, for which I apologise.’

She had to stifle a smile. ‘There you go again, turning the tables. It’s me who’s supposed to be saying sorry.’

‘You’re right; I can’t help it.’ There was nothing on or in Siobhan’s desk.

‘So what do I do now?’ she asked. ‘Talk it through with DCS Templer?’

He nodded. ‘If that’s what you want. Of course, you could just keep quiet about it.’

‘And let you take the flak?’

‘Who says I don’t like it?’ The phone rang and he snatched at it. ‘Hello?’ Suddenly his face relaxed. ‘No, he’s not here right now. Can I take a...?’ He put the receiver down. ‘Someone for Silvers; no message.’

‘You’re expecting a call?’

He rubbed a hand against the grain of the day’s stubble. ‘Siobhan’s gone walkabout.’

‘In what sense?’

So he told her. Just as he was finishing, a phone on one of the other desks started ringing. He got up and answered it. Another message. He got a pen and a scrap of paper and started writing it down.

‘Yes... yes,’ he was saying, ‘I’ll stick it on his desk. No promises when he’ll see it though.’ While he’d been on the phone, Ellen Wylie had been flicking through the autopsy stuff again. As he put the receiver down, he saw her lower her face towards one of the files, as though trying to read something.

‘Old Hi-Ho’s popular today,’ he said, placing the telephone message on Silvers’s desk. ‘What’s the matter?’

She pointed to the bottom of the page. ‘Can you read this signature?’

‘Which one?’ There were two, at the foot of an autopsy report. Date to the side of the signatures: Monday 26 April, 1982 — Hazel Gibbs, the Glasgow ‘victim’. She’d died on the Friday night...

Typed beneath the signature were the words ‘Deputising Pathologist’. The other signature — marked ‘Chief Pathologist, City of Glasgow’ — wasn’t much clearer.

‘I’m not sure,’ Rebus said, examining the squiggle. ‘The names should be typed on the cover-sheet.’

‘That’s just it,’ Wylie said. ‘No cover-sheet.’ She turned back a few pages to confirm this. Rebus came around the desk so he was standing next to her, then bent down a little closer.

‘Maybe the pages got out of order,’ he suggested.

‘Maybe.’ She started going through them. ‘But I don’t think so.’

‘Was it missing when the files arrived?’

‘I don’t know. Professor Devlin didn’t say anything.’

‘I think the Chief Pathologist for Glasgow back then was Ewan Stewart.’

Wylie flicked back to the signatures. ‘Yep,’ she said, ‘I’ll go with that. But it’s the other one that interests me.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, maybe it’s just me, sir, but if you sort of screw your eyes shut a little and take another look, isn’t it just possible it says Donald Devlin?’

‘What?’ Rebus looked, blinked, looked again. ‘Devlin was in Edinburgh back then.’ But his voice dropped off. The word Deputising floated into view. ‘Did you look through the report before?’

‘That was Devlin’s job. I was more like a secretary, remember?’

Rebus put his hand to the back of his neck, rubbed at the knot of muscle there. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘Why wouldn’t Devlin say...?’ He grabbed the phone, hit 9 and punched a local number. ‘Professor Gates, please. It’s an emergency. Detective Inspector Rebus here.’ A pause as the secretary put him through. ‘Sandy? Yes, I know I always say it’s an emergency, but this time I might not be stretching the truth. April nineteen eighty-two, we think we’ve got Donald Devlin assisting an autopsy in Glasgow. Is that possible?’ He listened again. ‘No, Sandy, eighty-two. Yes, April.’ He nodded, making eye contact with Wylie, started relaying what he was hearing. ‘Glasgow crisis... shortage of staff... gave you your first chance at being in charge here. Mm-hm, Sandy... is that your way of saying Devlin was in Glasgow in April nineteen eighty-two? Thanks, I’ll talk to you later.’ He slammed the phone down. ‘Donald Devlin was there.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Wylie said. ‘Why didn’t he say something?’

Rebus was flicking through the other report, the one from Nairn. No, neither pathologist was Donald Devlin on that occasion. All the same...

‘He didn’t want us to know,’ he said at last, answering Wylie’s question. ‘Maybe that’s why he removed the cover-sheet.’

‘But why?’

Rebus was thinking... the way Devlin had returned to the back room of the Ox, anxious to see the autopsies consigned once more to history... the Glasgow coffin, made of balsa wood, cruder than the others, the sort of thing you might make if you didn’t have access to your usual supplier, or your usual tools... Devlin’s interest in Dr Kennet Lovell and the Arthur’s Seat coffins...

Jean!

‘I’m getting a bad feeling,’ Ellen Wylie said.

‘I’ve always been one for trusting a woman’s instincts...’ But that was just what he hadn’t done: all those times women had reacted badly to Devlin... ‘Your car or mine?’ he said.

Jean was rising to her feet. Donald Devlin still filled the doorway, his blue eyes as cold as the North Sea, pupils reduced to black pinpoints.

‘Your tools, Professor Devlin?’ she guessed.

‘Well, they’re not Kennet Lovell’s, dear lady, are they?’

Jean swallowed. ‘I think I’d better be going.’

‘I don’t think I can let you do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I think you know.’

‘Know what?’ She was looking around her, seeing nothing helpful...

‘You know that I left those coffins,’ the old man stated. ‘I can see it in your eyes. No use pretending.’

‘The first one was just after your wife died, wasn’t it? You killed that poor girl in Dunfermline.’

He raised a finger. ‘Untrue: I merely read about her disappearance and went there to leave a marker, a memento mori. There were others after that... God knows what happened to them.’ She watched him take a step forward into the room. ‘It took some time, you see, for my sense of loss to turn into something else.’ The smile trembled on his lips, which glistened with moisture. ‘Anne’s life was just... taken... after whole months of agony. That seemed so unfair: no motive, no one to be found guilty... All those bodies I’d worked on... all the ones after Anne died... eventually I wanted some suffering to go with them.’ His own hands stroked the table’s edge. ‘I should never have let slip about Kennet Lovell... a good historicist would naturally be unable to resist looking into my claim further, finding disturbing parallels between past and present, eh, Miss Burchill? And it was you... the only one who made the connection... all those coffins over all that time...’

Jean had been working hard at controlling her breathing. Now she felt strong enough not to hang on to the table. She released her grip on its edge. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘You were helping the inquiry...’

‘Hindering, rather. And who could resist the opportunity? After all, I was investigating myself, watching others do the same...’

‘You killed Philippa Balfour?’

Devlin’s face creased in disgust. ‘Not a bit of it.’

‘But you left the coffin...?’

‘Of course I didn’t!’ he snapped.

‘Then it’s been five years since you last...’ She sought the right words. ‘Last did anything.’

He’d taken another step towards her. She thought she could hear music, and realised suddenly that it was him. He was humming some tune.

‘You recognise it?’ he asked. The corners of his mouth were flecked white. ‘“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”. The organist played it at Anne’s funeral.’ He bowed his head a little and smiled. ‘Tell me, Miss Burchill: what do you do when the chariot won’t swing low enough?’

She ducked, reached into the cupboard for one of the chisels. Suddenly he had hold of her hair, pulling her back up. She screamed, hands still scrabbling for a weapon. She felt a cool wooden handle. Her head felt like it was on fire. As she lost her balance and started to fall, she stabbed the chisel into his ankle. He didn’t so much as flinch. She stabbed again, but now he was dragging her towards the door. She half rose to her feet and added her momentum to his, the pair of them colliding with the edge of the door, spinning out of the room and into the hall. The chisel had fallen from her grasp. She was on her hands and knees when the first blow came, spinning white lights across her vision. The whorls in the carpet seemed to form a pattern of question marks.

How ridiculous, she thought, that this was happening to her... She knew she had to get back on to her feet, start fighting back. He was an old man... Another blow made her flinch. She could see the chisel... only twelve feet to the front door... Devlin had her by the legs now, hauling her towards the living room... His grasp of her ankles was like a vice. Oh, Christ, she thought. Oh, Christ, oh, Christ... Her hands flailed, seeking purchase, or any instrument she could use... She screamed again. The blood was roaring in her ears; she couldn’t be sure she was making any noise at all. One of Devlin’s braces had come free, and his shirt-tail was hanging out.

Not like this... not like this...

John would never forgive her...

The area around Canonmills and Inverleith was an easy enough beat: no housing schemes, plenty of discreet wealth. The patrol car always made a point of stopping at the gates to the Botanics, just across from Inverleith Park. Arboretum Place was a double-width road which saw little traffic: perfect for the officers’ mid-shift break. PC Anthony Thompson always provided the flask of tea, while his partner, Kenny Milland, brought the chocolate biscuits — either Jacob’s Orange Club or, as today, Tunnock’s Caramel Wafers.

‘Magic,’ Thompson said, though his teeth told him otherwise: there was a dull ache from one of his molars whenever it came into contact with sugar. Having not been near a dentist since the 1994 World Cup, Thompson wasn’t enthusiastic about any future encounter.

Milland took sugar in his tea; Thompson didn’t. That was why Milland always brought a couple of little sachets and a spoon with him. The sachets came from a burger chain where Milland’s elder son worked. Not much of a job, but it had its perks, and there was talk of a significant step-up for Jason.

Thompson loved American cop films, everything from Dirty Harry to Seven, and when they stopped for their break he sometimes imagined that they were parked outside a doughnut stand, in baking heat and searing glare, with the radio about to burst into life. They’d have to leave their coffee and burn some rubber, giving chase to bank robbers or gangland killers...

Not much chance of either in Edinburgh. A couple of pub shootings, some pre-teen car-jackers (one of them a friend’s son), and a body in a skip, these comprised the highlights of Thompson’s two decades on the force. So when the radio did burst into life, detailing a car and driver, Anthony Thompson did a double-take.

‘Here, Kenny, doesn’t that one fit the bill?’

Milland turned and looked out of his window at the car parked next door. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘Wasn’t really listening, Tony.’ He took another bite of biscuit. Thompson, however, was on the blower, asking for a repeat of the licence plate. He then opened his door and walked around the patrol car, staring down at the front of the neighbouring vehicle.

‘We’re only parked bloody next to it,’ he told his partner. Then he got on the blower again.

The message was relayed to Gill Templer, who sent half a dozen officers from the Balfour team out to the area, then spoke to PC Thompson.

‘What do you reckon, Thompson: is she in the Botanic Gardens or Inverleith Park?’

‘It’s for a meeting, you say?’

‘We think so.’

‘Well, the park’s just this big flat space, easy to spot someone. The Botanics has its nooks and crannies, places you could sit down for a chat.’

‘You’re saying the Botanics?’

‘But it’ll be closing soon... so maybe not.’

Gill Templer expelled breath. ‘You’re being a big help.’

‘The Botanics is a big place, ma’am. Why not send the officers in there, get some of the staff to help? Meantime my partner and me can take the park.’

Gill considered the offer. She didn’t want Quizmaster scared off... or Siobhan Clarke for that matter. She wanted both of them back at Gayfield Square. The officers who were already on their way would pass for civvies from a distance; uniforms would not.

‘No,’ she said, ‘that’s okay. We’ll start with the Botanics. You stay put, in case she comes back to her car...’

Back in the patrol car, Milland gave a resigned shrug. ‘You can’t say you didn’t try, Tony.’ He finished his biscuit and screwed up the wrapper.

Thompson didn’t say anything. His moment had come and gone.

‘That mean we’re stuck here?’ his partner asked. Then he held his cup out. ‘Any more tea in that flask...?’

They didn’t call it tea in the Du Thé café. It was a ‘herbal infusion’: blackcurrant and ginseng to be precise. Siobhan thought it tasted all right, though she was tempted to add a spot of milk to cut the sharpness. Herbal tea and a finger of carrot cake. She’d bought an early edition of the evening paper from the newsagent’s next door. There was a photo of Flip’s coffin on page three, held aloft by the pall-bearers as they left the church. Smaller photos of the parents and a couple of celebs whose presence Siobhan had failed to notice at the time.

All of this after her walk through the Botanics. She hadn’t meant to walk the entire length, but somehow had found herself at the eastern gate, next to Inverleith Row. Shops and cafés just along to the right, by Canonmills. Still time to spare... She’d thought of fetching her car, but had decided to leave it where it was. She didn’t know what parking was like where she was headed. Then she remembered that her phone was tucked under the passenger seat. But by then it was too late: if she walked back through the Botanics, then either drove or walked back here, she’d have missed the meeting time. And she couldn’t be sure how patient Quizmaster would be.

Her decision made, she left the paper on her table at the café and headed back towards the Botanics, but passing the entrance, staying on Inverleith Row. Just before the rugby ground at Goldenacre she took a right, the path turning into more of a track. Dusk was fast arriving as she turned a corner and approached the gates of Warriston Cemetery.

No one was answering Donald Devlin’s buzzer, so Rebus hit all the others at random until someone responded. Rebus identified himself, and was buzzed into the tenement, Ellen Wylie right behind him. She actually passed him on the stairs and was first at Devlin’s door, thumping it, kicking, pressing his bell, and rattling the letter-box.

‘Not promising,’ she admitted.

Rebus, who had caught his breath, crouched in front of the letter-box and pushed it open. ‘Professor Devlin?’ he called. ‘It’s John Rebus. I need to talk to you.’ On the downstairs landing, one of the doors opened and a face peered up.

‘It’s okay,’ Wylie assured the nervous neighbour. ‘We’re police officers.’

‘Ssh!’ Rebus hissed. He put his ear to the open letter-box.

‘What is it?’ Wylie whispered.

‘I can hear something...’ It sounded like the low mewling of a cat. ‘Devlin didn’t have any pets, did he?’

‘Not that I know of.’

Rebus put his eyes to the letter-box again. The hallway was deserted. The door to the living room was at the far end, open a few inches. The curtains looked to be closed, so that he couldn’t see into the room. Then his eyes widened.

‘Holy Christ,’ he said, getting to his feet. He stood back and launched a kick at the door, then another. The wood complained, but didn’t give. He slammed his shoulder into it. No effect.

‘What?’ Wylie said.

‘There’s someone in there.’

He was about to take another run at the door when Wylie stopped him. ‘Together,’ she said. So that was what they did. Counted to three and hit the door at the same time. The jamb made a cracking sound. Their second assault split it, and the door opened inwards, Wylie falling through it so that she landed on all fours. When she looked up, she saw what Rebus had seen. Almost at floor level, a hand had attached itself to the living-room door and was trying to open it.

Rebus ran forward, pushed through the gap into the living room. It was Jean, bruised and beaten, her face a smear of blood and mucus, hair matted with sweat and more blood. One eye had swollen and was completely closed. Flecks of pink saliva flew from her mouth as she breathed.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Rebus said, dropping to his knees in front of her, eyes running over the visible damage. He didn’t want to touch her, thought there might be bones broken. He didn’t want her to hurt more than she already did.

Wylie was in the room now, too, surveying the scene. It looked like half the contents of the flat lay strewn across the floor, a bloody trail showing where Jean Burchill had crawled her way to the door.

‘Get an ambulance,’ Rebus said, voice trembling. Then: ‘Jean, what did he do to you?’ And watched her one good eye fill with tears.

Wylie made the call. Halfway through, she thought she heard a noise out in the hall: the nervous neighbour grown nosy perhaps. She stuck her head out, but couldn’t see anything. She gave the address and stressed again that it was an emergency, then cut the call. Rebus’s ear was close to Jean’s face. Wylie realised she was trying to say something. Her lips were swollen, and teeth looked to have been dislodged.

Rebus looked up at Wylie, eyes widening. ‘She says, did we catch him?’

Wylie caught the meaning at once, ran to the window and pulled the curtains back. Donald Devlin was scurrying across the road, dragging one leg and holding his bleeding left hand out in front of him.

‘Bastard!’ Wylie yelled, making for the door.

‘No!’ Rebus’s voice was a roar. He got to his feet. ‘He’s mine.’

As he bounded downstairs two at a time, he realised Devlin must have been hiding in one of the other rooms. Waited till they were busy in the living room and then slipped out. They’d interrupted him. He tried not to think of what Jean’s fate would have been if they hadn’t...

By the time he reached the pavement, Devlin had disappeared from view, but the splashes of bright blood were as clear a trail as Rebus could wish for. He caught sight of him crossing Howe Street, making for St Stephen Street. Rebus was gaining, until the uneven pavement caught him, sending him over on one ankle. Devlin might be in his seventies, but that didn’t mean much: he’d have the strength and determination of the possessed. Rebus had seen it before during a chase. Desperation and adrenaline made for a fearful mix...

Still the drops of blood showed the way. Rebus had slowed, trying to keep the weight off his twisted ankle, pictures of Jean’s face filling his mind. He punched numbers into his mobile, got the sequence wrong the first time and had to start again. When the call was answered, he yelled for assistance.

‘I’m keeping the line open,’ he said. That way, he could let them know if Devlin suddenly flagged a taxi or boarded a bus.

He could see Devlin again now, but then he turned the corner into Kerr Street. By the time Rebus got to the corner, he’d lost him again. Deanhaugh Street and Raeburn Place were straight ahead, busy with pedestrians and traffic: the evening trawl home. With so many people around, the trail was harder to follow. Rebus crossed the road at the traffic lights and found himself on the road-bridge which crossed the Water of Leith... There were several routes Devlin could have taken, and the trail seemed to have stopped. Had he crossed towards Saunders Street, or maybe doubled back along Hamilton Place? Resting one arm on the parapet, taking the weight off his ankle, Rebus happened to look down at the river flowing sluggishly below.

And saw Devlin on the footpath, heading down-river towards Leith.

Rebus lifted the phone and called in his position. As he was doing so, Devlin looked back and saw him. The old man’s pace quickened, but then suddenly slowed. He came to a stop, the other people on the path making a detour round him. One seemed solicitous, but Devlin shook away the offer of help. He turned back and stared at Rebus, who was walking to the end of the bridge, taking the steps down. Devlin hadn’t moved. Rebus called in his position again, then put the phone in his pocket, wanting both hands free.

As he walked towards Devlin, he saw the scratches on his face, and realised that Jean had been giving almost as good as she got. Devlin was studying his bloodied hand as Rebus stopped six feet away.

‘The human bite can be quite poisonous, you know,’ Devlin told him. ‘But at least with Miss Burchill I’m sure I needn’t be concerned about hepatitis and HIV.’ He looked up. ‘Something struck me, seeing you on that bridge. I suddenly thought: they don’t have anything.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Any evidence.’

‘Well, we can always make a start with attempted murder.’ Rebus slipped a hand into his pocket, brought out the phone.

‘Who are you going to call?’ Devlin asked.

‘Don’t you want an ambulance?’ Rebus held the phone up, took a step forwards.

‘Just a couple of stitches,’ Devlin commented, examining the wound again. Sweat dripped from his hair and the sides of his face. He was breathing hard, wheezily.

‘You don’t make the grade as a serial killer any more, do you, Professor?’

‘It’s been some time,’ he agreed.

‘Was Betty-Anne Jesperson the last?’

‘I’d nothing to do with young Philippa, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘Someone stealing your idea?’

‘Well, it wasn’t exactly mine in the first place.’

‘Are there any others?’

‘Others?’

‘Victims we don’t know about.’

Devlin’s smile broke open some of the cuts on his face. ‘Isn’t four enough?’

‘You tell me.’

‘It seemed... satisfactory. No pattern, you see. Two bodies not even found.’

‘Just the coffins.’

‘Which might never have been connected...’

Rebus nodded slowly, didn’t say anything.

‘Was it the autopsy?’ Devlin asked at last. Rebus nodded again. ‘I knew it was a risk.’

‘If you’d told us at the start you’d carried out the Glasgow post-mortem, we wouldn’t have thought anything of it.’

‘But back then, I couldn’t know what else you might find. Other connections, I mean. And by the time I saw you weren’t going to come up with anything, it was too late. I could hardly say “Oh, incidentally, I was one of the pathologists”, not after we’d already been through the notes...’

He dabbed at his face with his fingers, finding blood issuing from the cuts. Rebus held the phone a little closer.

‘That ambulance...?’ he offered.

Devlin shook his head. ‘In good time.’ A middle-aged woman made to pass them, eyes widening in horror as she saw Devlin. ‘A stumble down the steps,’ he reassured her. ‘Help is on its way.’

She quickened her pace away from the scene.

‘I think I’ve said more than enough, don’t you, DI Rebus?’

‘Not for me to say, sir.’

‘I do hope DS Wylie doesn’t get into trouble.’

‘For what?’

‘Not keeping a closer eye on me when I was studying the autopsy reports.’

‘I don’t think she’s the one that’s in trouble here.’

‘Uncorroborated evidence, isn’t that what we’re dealing with, Inspector? One woman’s word against mine? I’m sure I can find some plausible motive for my fight with Miss Burchill.’ He studied his hand. ‘One might almost call me the victim. And let us be honest, what else do you have? Two drownings, two missing persons, no evidence.’

‘Well,’ Rebus corrected him, ‘no evidence apart from this.’ He held the phone a little higher. ‘It was already on when I took it from my pocket, connected to our comms centre down in Leith.’ He put the phone to his ear. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw that uniformed officers were making their way down the steps from the bridge. ‘Did you get all that?’ he asked into the mouthpiece. Then he looked at Devlin and smiled.

‘We record every call, you see.’

The animation left Devlin’s face, his shoulders slumping. Then he turned on his heels, preparing to run. But Rebus’s arm snaked out, gripping him hard by the shoulder. Devlin tried to wrestle free. One foot slipped off the walkway and he started to fall, his weight pulling Rebus with him. The two men landed heavily in the Water of Leith. It wasn’t deep, and Rebus felt his own shoulder connect with a rock. When he tried standing up, his feet sank to the ankles in mud. He was still holding on to Devlin, and as the bald head appeared from below the surface, missing its spectacles, Rebus saw again the monster who had battered Jean. He reached out his free hand to the Professor’s neck and forced him back under. Hands flew up, splashing, wrestling air. Fingers clawing at Rebus’s arm, clutching at his jacket lapel.

He felt as calm as he ever had in his life. The water lapped around him, icy but somehow soothing, too. There were people on the bridge, staring down, and officers wading into the water nearby, and a pale lemon sun spectating from above a bruised cloud. The water seemed cleansing to him. He couldn’t feel his twisted ankle any more, couldn’t feel anything much. Jean would recover, and so would he. He’d move out of Arden Street, find somewhere else, somewhere nobody knew about... maybe near water.

His arm was wrenched from behind: one of the uniforms.

‘Let go of him!’

The cry broke the spell. Rebus released his grip, and Donald Devlin rose spluttering and choking into the daylight, watery vomit dribbling from his chin...

They were loading Jean Burchill into the ambulance when Rebus’s mobile started ringing. One of the green-suited paramedics was explaining that they couldn’t rule out spinal or neck damage, which was why they’d strapped her to a stretcher and placed braces around her head and neck.

Rebus was staring at Jean, trying to take in what was being said.

‘Shouldn’t you answer that?’ the paramedic asked.

‘What?’

‘Your phone.’

Rebus lifted the mobile to his ear. When he’d struggled with Devlin, it had dropped on to the walkway. It was scratched and chipped, but at least still working. ‘Hello?’

‘DI Rebus?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Eric Bain here.’

‘Yes?’

‘Is something the matter?’

‘Quite a lot, yes.’ As the trolley slid home into the back of the ambulance, Rebus looked down at his sodden clothes. ‘Any sign of Siobhan?’

‘That’s why I’m calling.’

‘What’s happened?’

‘Nothing’s happened. It’s just that I can’t reach her. They think she’s in the Botanics. There are half a dozen men out there looking for her.’

‘So?’

‘So there’s news about Quizmaster.’

‘And you’re bursting to tell someone?’

‘I suppose so, yes.’

‘I’m not sure you’ve got the right person, Bain, I’m a bit tied up right now.’

‘Oh.’

Rebus was inside the ambulance now, seated across from the trolley. Jean had her eyes closed, but when he reached for her hand, his pressure was returned.

‘Sorry?’ he said, having missed what Bain had just said.

‘Who should I tell then?’ Bain repeated.

‘I don’t know.’ Rebus sighed. ‘Okay, tell me what it is.’

‘It’s Special Branch,’ Bain said, the words streaming out. ‘One of the e-mail addresses Quizmaster was using, it traces back to Philippa Balfour’s account.’

Rebus didn’t understand: was Bain trying to say that Flip Balfour had been Quizmaster...?

‘I think it makes sense,’ Bain was saying now. ‘Taken with Claire Benzie’s account.’

‘I’m not getting you.’ Jean’s eyelids were fluttering. A sudden jolt of pain, Rebus guessed. He lessened the pressure on her hand.

‘If Benzie did lend her laptop to Philippa Balfour, we’ve got two computers in the same place, both used by Quizmaster.’

‘Yes?’

‘And if we rule out Ms Balfour as a suspect...’

‘We’re left with someone who had access to both?’

Silence for a moment, and then Bain: ‘I think the boyfriend’s back in the frame, don’t you?’

‘I don’t know.’ Rebus was having trouble concentrating. He ran the back of his hand across his forehead, feeling perspiration there.

‘We could always ask him...’

‘Siobhan’s gone to meet Quizmaster,’ Rebus said. Then he paused. ‘She’s at the Botanics, you say?’

‘Yes.’

‘How do we know?’

‘Her car’s parked right outside.’

Rebus thought for a second: Siobhan would know they were looking for her. Leaving the car in full view was too big a giveaway...

‘What if she’s not there?’ he said. ‘What if she’s meeting him somewhere else?’

‘How can we find out?’

‘Maybe Costello’s flat...’ He looked down at Jean. ‘Look, Bain, I really can’t do this... not right now.’

Jean’s eye opened. She mouthed something.

‘Hang on, Bain,’ Rebus said. Then he lowered his head to Jean’s.

‘Fine...’ he heard her slur.

She was telling him she’d be okay; that he had to help Siobhan now. Rebus turned his head, his eyes meeting those of Ellen Wylie, who was standing on the roadway, waiting for the doors to close. She nodded slowly, letting him know she’d stay with Jean.

‘Bain?’ he said into the mobile. ‘I’ll meet you outside Costello’s flat.’

By the time Rebus got there, Bain had climbed the winding stairs and was standing outside Costello’s door.

‘I don’t think he’s home,’ Bain was saying, crouching down to look through the letter-box. A chill ran up Rebus’s spine, remembering what he’d seen when he’d peered into Devlin’s flat. Bain got to his feet again. ‘No sign of... Jesus Christ, man, what happened to you?’

‘Swimming lessons. I didn’t have time to change.’ Rebus looked at the door, then at Bain. ‘Together?’ he said.

Bain stared back at him. ‘Isn’t that illegal?’

‘For Siobhan,’ Rebus said simply.

They hit the door together on the count of three.

Inside, Bain knew what he was looking for: a computer. He found two in the bedroom, both of them laptops.

‘Claire Benzie’s,’ Bain guessed, ‘and either his own or someone else’s.’

The screen-saver had been activated on one computer. Bain accessed Costello’s ISP and opened the filing cabinet.

‘No time to try for a password,’ he said, almost to himself more than Rebus. ‘So all we can read are the old messages.’ But there were none to or from Siobhan. ‘Looks like he wipes as he goes,’ Bain said.

‘Or else we’re barking up the wrong tree.’ Rebus was looking around the room: unmade bed, books scattered across the floor. Notes for an essay on the desk next to the PC. Socks, pants and T-shirts spilled from the chest of drawers, but not from the top drawer. Rebus limped over, opened it slowly. Inside: maps and guidebooks, including one about Arthur’s Seat. A postcard of Rosslyn Chapel and another guidebook.

‘Right tree,’ he remarked simply. Bain got up, came to look.

‘Everything the well-dressed Quizmaster could need.’ Bain went to reach into the drawer, but Rebus slapped his hand away. ‘No touching.’ He tried sliding the drawer out further. Something was sticking. He took a pen from his pocket and dislodged it: an Edinburgh A — Z.

‘Open at the Botanics,’ Bain said, sounding relieved. If that’s where David Costello was, they’d have cornered him by now.

But Rebus wasn’t so sure. He was examining the rest of the page. Then he looked over towards Costello’s bed. Postcards of old gravestones... a small framed photo of Costello with Flip Balfour, with another headstone just coming into the frame. They’d met at a dinner party... breakfast next morning and then a walk in Warriston Cemetery. That was what Costello had told him. Warriston Cemetery was just across the road from the Botanic Gardens. Same page of the A — Z.

‘I know where he is,’ Rebus said quietly. ‘I know where she’s meeting him. Come on.’ He ran from the room, hand already reaching for his mobile. The detectives who were wandering around the Botanics, they could be at Warriston in two minutes...

‘Hello, David.’

He still had his funeral clothes on, including the sunglasses. He grinned as she walked towards him. He was just sitting there, legs swinging from the wall. He slid down and was suddenly standing in front of her.

‘You guessed,’ he said.

‘Sort of.’

He looked at his watch. ‘You’re early.’

‘You’re earlier.’

‘I had to recce, see if you were lying.’

‘I said I’d be on my own.’

‘And here you are.’ He looked around again.

‘Plenty of escape routes,’ Siobhan said, surprised by how calm she was. ‘Is that why you chose it?’

‘It’s where I first realised I loved Flip.’

‘Loved her so much you went and killed her?’

His face fell. ‘I didn’t know that was going to happen.’

‘No?’

He shook his head. ‘Right up until the moment I had my hands round her throat... even then I don’t think I knew.’

She drew in a deep breath. ‘But you did it anyway.’

He nodded. ‘I suppose I did, yes.’ Looked up at her. ‘That’s what you wanted to hear, isn’t it?’

‘I wanted to meet Quizmaster.’

He opened his arms. ‘At your command.’

‘I also want to know why.’

‘Why?’ He framed his lips into an O. ‘How many reasons do you want? Her yah friends? Her pretensions? The way she kept teasing and picking fights, looking to break us up just so she could watch me crawling back?’

‘You could have walked away.’

‘But I loved her.’ When he laughed, it was as if acknowledging his own foolishness. ‘I kept telling her that, and you know what she told me back?’

‘What?’

‘That I wasn’t the only one.’

‘Ranald Marr?’

‘That old goat, yes. Since before she left school. And still at it, even when we were together!’ He stopped, swallowed. ‘Enough motivation for you, Siobhan?’

‘You vented your anger on Marr by disfiguring that toy soldier, and yet Flip... Flip you had to kill?’ She felt calm, almost numb. ‘That doesn’t seem quite fair to me.’

‘You wouldn’t understand.’

She looked at him. ‘But I think I do, David. You’re a coward, pure and simple. You say you didn’t know you were going to murder Flip that night — that’s a lie. You had it planned all along... and afterwards you were Mr Calm, speaking to her worried friends not much more than an hour after you’d killed her. You knew exactly what you were doing, David. You were Quizmaster.’ She paused. He was staring into the middle distance, soaking up every word. ‘Something I don’t understand... you sent Flip a message after she died?’

He smiled. ‘That day at her flat, while Rebus was watching me and you were working on her computer... he told me something, said I was the only suspect.’

‘You thought you’d try throwing us off the scent?’

‘It was just supposed to be that one message... but when you replied, I couldn’t resist. I was as hooked as you were, Siobhan. The game had us both.’ His eyes sparkled. ‘Isn’t that something?’

He seemed to expect an answer, so she nodded slowly. ‘Are you thinking of killing me, David?’

He shook his head briskly, irritated by the assumption. ‘You know the answer to that,’ he spat. ‘You wouldn’t have come otherwise.’ He walked over to a low headstone and rested against it. ‘Maybe none of it would have happened,’ he said, ‘without the Professor.’

Siobhan thought she must have misheard. ‘Which one?’

‘Donald Devlin. First time he saw me afterwards, he guessed I’d done it. That’s why he came up with that story, someone loitering outside. He was trying to protect me.’

‘Why would he do that, David?’ It felt strange using his name. She wanted to call him Quizmaster.

‘Because of everything we talked about... committing murder, getting away with it.’

‘Professor Devlin?’

He looked at her. ‘Oh yes, he’s killed too, you know. Old bugger as good as said so, daring me to be like him... maybe he was just too good a teacher, eh?’ He ran his hands over the headstone. ‘We had these long talks on the stairwell. He wanted to know all about me, my early days, the angry days. I went to his flat once. He showed me these cuttings... people who’d disappeared or drowned. There was even one about a German student...’

‘That’s where you got the idea?’

‘Maybe.’ He shrugged. ‘Who knows where ideas come from?’ He paused. ‘I helped her, you know. She was dead impressed, all those clues... pulling her hair out until I came along...’ He laughed. ‘Flip was never much good with computers. I gave her the name Flipside, then sent the first clue.’

‘You turned up at the flat, told her you’d solved Hellbank...’

Costello nodded, remembering. ‘She wasn’t going to go with me until I promised to drop her off afterwards... She’d just kicked me out again — final this time, she’d piled my clothes on a chair — and after Hellbank she was heading off for a drink with all those bloody friends of hers...’ He screwed his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them and blinked, turning his head to face Siobhan. ‘Once you’re there, it’s hard to go back...’ He shrugged.

‘There never was a Stricture?’

He shook his head slowly. ‘That clue was all for you, Siobhan...’

‘I don’t know why you kept going back to her, David, or what you thought the game would prove, but one thing I do know: you never loved her. What you wanted was to control her.’ She nodded at the truth of this.

‘Some people like to be controlled, Siobhan.’ His eyes were staring into hers. ‘Don’t you?’

She thought for a moment... or tried to think. Opened her mouth and was about to speak, but a noise interrupted. He snapped his head round: two men approaching. And two more fifty yards beyond them. He turned slowly back to Siobhan.

‘I’m disappointed in you.’

She was shaking her head. ‘Not my doing.’

He leaped from the headstone, hurtled towards the wall, his hands reaching the top, feet scrabbling for purchase. The detectives were running now, one yelling, ‘Stop him!’ Siobhan just watched, rooted to the spot. Quizmaster... she’d given him her word... One of his feet had found a half-inch of ledge, pushing up...

Siobhan threw herself at the wall, grabbed the other leg with both hands and pulled. He tried kicking her off, but she held on, one hand reaching up towards his jacket, trying to haul him back. Then they were both flying backwards, his the only cry. His sunglasses seemed to float past her in slow motion. She was watching them when she hit the ground. He landed heavily on top of her, the air exploding from her lungs. She felt pain as her head connected with the grass. Costello was on his feet and running, but two of the officers had him, wrestled him back on to the ground. He managed to slide his head round so he was looking at Siobhan, the two of them only a couple of yards apart. Hatred filled his face, and he spat in her direction. The saliva hit her on the chin and hung there. Suddenly she didn’t have the strength to wipe it off...

Jean was asleep, but the doctor assured Rebus she’d be fine: cuts and bruises, ‘nothing time can’t heal’.

‘I very much doubt that,’ he told the doctor.

Ellen Wylie was there by the bedside. Rebus walked over and stood beside her. ‘I wanted to say thanks,’ he told her.

‘For what?’

‘Helping break down Devlin’s door, for one thing. I’d never have done it on my own.’

Her reply was a shrug. ‘How’s the ankle?’ she asked.

‘Ballooning nicely, thank you.’

‘A week or two on the sick,’ she said.

‘Maybe more, if I swallowed any of the Water of Leith.’

‘I hear Devlin took a good few gulps himself.’ She stared at him. ‘Got a good story prepared?’

He smiled. ‘You offering to tell a lie or two on my behalf?’

‘Just say the word.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Problem is, a dozen witnesses could say otherwise.’

‘But will they?’

‘We’ll just have to wait and see,’ Rebus said.

He limped along to A&E, where Siobhan was having a couple of stitches put into a head wound. Eric Bain was there. The conversation stopped as Rebus approached.

‘Eric here,’ Siobhan said, ‘was just explaining how you worked out where I’d be.’ Rebus nodded. ‘And how you gained entry to David Costello’s flat.’

Rebus made an O with his lips.

‘Mr Strongarm,’ she went on, ‘kicking in a suspect’s door without authority or any sniff of a warrant.’

‘Technically,’ Rebus told her, ‘I was on suspension. That means I wasn’t a serving officer.’

‘Making it even worse.’ She turned to Bain. ‘Eric, you’re going to have to cover for him.’

‘Door was open when we got there,’ Bain recited. ‘Botched break-in, probably...’

Siobhan nodded and smiled at him. Then she gave Bain’s hand a squeeze...

Donald Devlin was under police guard in one of the Western General’s private rooms. He’d half drowned in the river and was now in what the doctors were calling a coma.

‘Let’s hope he stays there,’ ACC Colin Carswell had said. ‘Save us the expense of a prosecution.’

Carswell hadn’t said anything at all to Rebus. Gill said not to worry: ‘He’s ignoring you because he hates making apologies.’

Rebus nodded. ‘I’ve just seen a doctor,’ he told her.

She looked at him. ‘So?’

‘Does that count as my check-up...?’

David Costello was in custody at Gayfield Square. Rebus didn’t go near. He knew they’d be cracking open a few bottles of whisky and cans of beer, sounds of celebration drifting into the room where Costello was being questioned. He thought of the time he’d asked Donald Devlin whether his young neighbour was capable of killing: not cerebral enough for David. Well, Costello had found his method all the same, and Devlin had protected him... the old man sheltering the young.

When Rebus went home, he took a tour of his flat. It represented, he realised, the only fixed point of his life. All the cases he’d worked, the monsters he’d encountered... he dealt with them here, seated in his chair, staring out of his window. He found room for them in the bestiary of his mind, and there they stayed.

If he gave this up, what would be left? No still centre to his world, no cage for his demons...

Tomorrow he’d call the solicitor, tell her he wasn’t moving.

Tomorrow.

For tonight, he had new cages to fill...