The Falls

2

It was one of those cool, crepuscular days that could have belonged to any of at least three Scottish seasons; a sky like slate roofing and a wind that Rebus’s father would have called ‘snell’. His father had told a story once — many times actually — about walking into a grocer’s in Lochgelly one freezing winter’s morning. The grocer had been standing by the electric fire. Rebus’s father had pointed to the cold cabinet and asked, ‘Is that your Ayrshire bacon?’ to which the grocer had replied, ‘No, it’s my hands I’m heating.’ He’d sworn it was a true story, and Rebus — maybe seven or eight years old — had believed him at the time. But now it seemed an old chestnut of a joke, something he’d heard elsewhere and twisted to his own use.

‘Not often I see you smiling,’ his barista said as she made him a double latte. Those were her words: barista, latte. The first time she’d described her job, she’d pronounced it ‘barrister’, which had led a confused Rebus to ask if she was moonlighting. She worked from a converted police-box at the corner of the Meadows, and Rebus stopped there most mornings on his way to work. ‘Milky coffee’ was his order, which she always corrected to ‘latte’. Then he’d add ‘double shot’. He didn’t need to — she knew the order by heart — but he liked the feel of the words.

‘Smiling’s not illegal, is it?’ he said now, as she spooned froth on to the coffee.

‘You’d know better than me.’

‘And your boss would know better than either of us.’ Rebus paid up, punted the change into the marge tub left for tips, and headed for St Leonard’s. He didn’t think she knew he was a cop: you’d know better than me... it had been said casually, no meaning behind it other than to continue their banter. In turn, he’d made his remark about her boss because the owner of the chain of kiosks had once been a solicitor. But she hadn’t seemed to understand.

At St Leonard’s, Rebus stayed in his car, enjoying a last cigarette with his drink. A couple of vans sat at the station’s back door, waiting for anyone who was being taken to court. Rebus had given evidence in a case a few days ago. He kept meaning to find out what the result had been. When the station door opened, he expected to see the custody line, but it was Siobhan Clarke. She saw his car and smiled, shaking her head at the inevitability of the scene. As she came forwards, Rebus lowered the window.

‘The condemned man ate a hearty breakfast,’ she said.

‘And a good morning to you too.’

‘Boss wants to see you.’

‘He sent the right sniffer dog.’

Siobhan didn’t say anything, just smiled to herself as Rebus got out of the car. They were halfway across the car park before he heard the words: ‘It’s not a “he” any more.’ He stopped in his tracks.

‘I’d forgotten,’ he admitted.

‘How’s the hangover, by the way? Anything else you might have managed to forget?’

As she opened the door for him, he had the sudden image of a gamekeeper opening a trap.

The Farmer’s photos and coffee machine had gone, and there were some Good Luck cards on top of the filing cabinet, but otherwise the room was just as before, down to the paperwork in the in-tray and the solitary potted cactus on the windowsill. Gill Templer looked uncomfortable in the Farmer’s chair, his daily bulk having moulded it in ways which would never fit her slimmer proportions.

‘Sit down, John.’ Then, when he was halfway on to the seat: ‘And tell me what last night was all about.’ Elbows on the desk, she placed the tips of her fingers together. It was something the Farmer had often done when trying to hide irritation or impatience. She’d either picked it up from him, or it was a perk of her new seniority.

‘Last night?’

‘Philippa Balfour’s flat. Her father found you there.’ She looked up. ‘Apparently you’d been drinking.’

‘Hadn’t we all?’

‘Not as much as some.’ Her eyes moved down again to the sheet of paper on her desk. ‘Mr Balfour’s wondering what you were up to. Frankly, I’m more than a little curious myself.’

‘I was on my way home...’

‘Leith Walk to Marchmont? Via the New Town? Sounds like you got bad directions.’

Rebus realised that he was still holding his beaker of coffee. He placed it on the floor, taking his time. ‘It’s just something I do,’ he said at last. ‘When things are quiet, I like to go back.’

‘Why?’

‘In case anything’s been missed.’

She seemed to consider this. ‘I’m not sure that’s the whole story.’

He shrugged, said nothing. Her eyes were on the sheet again.

‘And then you decided to pay Ms Balfour’s boyfriend a call. How wise was that?’

‘That really was on the way home. I stopped to talk to Connolly and Daniels. Mr Costello’s light was on; I thought I’d make sure he was all right.’

‘The caring copper.’ She paused. ‘That’s presumably why Mr Costello felt it necessary to mention your visit to his solicitor?’

‘I don’t know why he did that.’ Rebus shifted a little on the hard chair; disguised it by reaching for his coffee.

‘His lawyer’s talking about “harassment”. We might have to pull the surveillance.’ Her eyes were fixed on him.

‘Look, Gill,’ he said, ‘you and me, we’ve known each other for donkey’s. It’s no secret how I work. I’m sure DCS Watson quoted scripture on the subject.’

‘That was then, John.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘How much did you have to drink last night?’

‘More than I should have, but it wasn’t my fault.’ He watched as Gill raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m positive someone slipped me a Mickey Finn.’

‘I want you to see a doctor.’

‘Christ Almighty...’

‘Your drinking, your diet, your general health... I want you to take a medical, and whatever the doctor says is necessary, I want you to abide by it.’

‘Alfalfa and carrot juice?’

‘You’ll see a doctor, John.’ It was a statement. Rebus just snorted and drained his coffee, then held up the beaker.

‘Half-fat milk.’

She almost smiled. ‘It’s a start, I suppose.’

‘Look, Gill...’ He got up, tipped the beaker into the otherwise pristine waste-bin. ‘My drinking’s not a problem. It doesn’t interfere with my work.’

‘It did last night.’

He shook his head, but her face had hardened. Finally she took a deep breath. ‘Just before you left the club... you remember that?’

‘Sure.’ He hadn’t sat down; was standing in front of her desk, hands by his sides.

‘You remember what you said to me?’ His face told her all she needed to know. ‘You wanted me to go home with you.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He was trying to remember, but nothing was coming. He couldn’t remember leaving the club at all...

‘On you go, John. I’ll make that appointment for you.’

He turned, pulled open the door. He was halfway out when she called him back.

‘I lied,’ she said with a smile. ‘You didn’t say anything. Going to wish me well in the new job?’

Rebus tried for a sneer but couldn’t quite manage one. Gill held her smile until he’d slammed shut the door; after he’d gone, it fell away again. Watson had given her chapter and verse all right, but nothing she hadn’t already known: Enjoys his drink a bit too much, maybe, but he’s a good cop, Gill. He just likes to pretend he can do without the rest of us... Maybe that was true, as far as it went, but maybe, too, the time was coming fast when John Rebus would have to learn that they could do without him.

It was easy to spot the crew from the leaving do: local chemists had probably sold out of aspirin, vitamin C and patented hangover cures. Dehydration seemed a major factor. Rebus had seldom seen so many bottles of Irn-Bru, Lucozade and Coke in the grip of so many pallid hands. The sobersides — who’d either not been to the party or who’d stuck to soft drinks — were gloating, whistling shrilly and slamming drawers and cupboards wherever possible. The main incident room for the Philippa Balfour inquiry was based at Gayfield Square — much closer to her flat — but with so many officers involved, space was an issue, so a corner of the CID room at St Leonard’s had been set aside. Siobhan was there now, busy at her terminal. A spare hard disk sat on the floor, and Rebus realised that she was using Balfour’s computer. She held a telephone receiver between cheek and shoulder, and typed as she talked.

‘No luck there either,’ Rebus heard her say.

He was sharing his own desk with three other officers, and it showed. He brushed the remnants from a bag of crisps on to the floor and deposited two empty Fanta cans in the nearest bin. When the phone rang he picked it up, but it was just the local evening paper trying to pull a flanker.

‘Talk to Press Liaison,’ Rebus told the journalist.

‘Give me a break.’

Rebus was thoughtful. Liaison had been Gill Templer’s speciality. He glanced across towards Siobhan Clarke. ‘Who’s in charge of PL anyway?’

‘DS Ellen Wylie,’ the journalist said.

Rebus said thanks and cut the connection. Liaison would have been a step up for Siobhan, especially on a high-profile case. Ellen Wylie was a good officer based at Torphichen. As a liaison specialist, Gill Templer would have been asked for advice on the appointment, maybe even made the decision herself. She’d chosen Ellen Wylie. He wondered if there was anything in it.

He rose from the desk and studied the paperwork now pinned to the wall behind him. Duty rosters, faxes, lists of contact numbers and addresses. Two photos of the missing woman. One of them had been released to the press, and it was duplicated in a dozen news stories, clipped and displayed. Soon, if she wasn’t found safe and well, space would be at a premium on the wall, and those news stories would be discarded. They were repetitious, inaccurate, sensationalised. Rebus lingered on one phrase: the tragic boyfriend. He checked his watch: five hours until the news conference.

With Gill Templer promoted, they were down a DCI at St Leonard’s. Detective Inspector Bill Pryde wanted the job, and was trying to stamp his authority on the Balfour case. Rebus, newly arrived at the Gayfield Square incident room, could only stand and marvel. Pryde had smartened himself up — the suit looked brand new, the shirt laundered, the tie expensive. The black brogues were immaculately polished and, if Rebus wasn’t mistaken, Pryde had been to the barber’s, too. Not that there was too much to trim, but Pryde had made the effort. He’d been put in charge of assignments, which meant putting teams out on the street for the daily drudgery of doorsteppings and interviews. Neighbours were being questioned — sometimes for the second or third time — as were friends, students and university staff. Flights and ferry crossings were being checked, the official photograph faxed to train operators, bus companies and police forces outwith the Lothian and Borders area. It would be someone’s job to collate information on fresh corpses throughout Scotland, while another team would focus on hospital admissions. Then there were the city’s taxi and car hire firms... It all took time and effort. These comprised the public face of the inquiry, but behind the scenes other questions would be asked of the MisPer’s immediate family and circle of friends. Rebus doubted the background checks would amount to anything, not this time round.

At last, Pryde finished giving instructions to the group of officers around him. As they melted away, he caught sight of Rebus and gave a huge wink, rubbing his hand over his forehead as he approached.

‘Got to be careful,’ Rebus said. ‘Power corrupts, and all that.’

‘Forgive me,’ Pryde said, dropping his voice, ‘but I’m getting a real buzz.’

‘That’s because you can do it, Bill. It’s just taken the Big House twenty years to recognise the fact.’

Pryde nodded. ‘Rumour is, you turned down DCI a while back.’

Rebus snorted. ‘Rumours, Bill. Like the Fleetwood Mac album, best left unplayed.’

The room was a choreography of movement, each participant now working on his or her allotted task. Some were donning coats, picking up keys and notebooks. Others rolled their sleeves as they got comfortable at their computers or telephones. New chairs had appeared from some darkened corner of the budget. Pale blue swivel jobs: those who’d managed to grab one were on the defensive, sliding across the floor on castors rather than getting up to walk, lest someone else snatch the prized possession in the interim.

‘We’re done with babysitting the boyfriend,’ Pryde said. ‘Orders from the new boss.’

‘I heard.’

‘Pressure from the family,’ Pryde added.

‘Won’t do any harm to the operation budget,’ Rebus commented, straightening up. ‘So is there work for me today, Bill?’

Pryde flicked through the sheets of paper on his clipboard. ‘Thirty-seven phone calls from the public,’ he said.

Rebus held up his hands. ‘Don’t look at me. Cranks and desperadoes are for the L-plates, surely?’

Pryde smiled. ‘Already allocated,’ he admitted, nodding towards where two DCs, recently promoted out of uniform, were looking dismayed at the workload. Cold calls constituted the most thankless task around. Any high-profile case threw up its share of fake confessions and false leads. Some people craved attention, even if it meant becoming a suspect in a police investigation. Rebus knew of several such offenders in Edinburgh.

‘Craw Shand?’ he guessed.

Pryde tapped the sheet of paper. ‘Three times so far, ready to admit to the murder.’

‘Bring him in,’ Rebus said. ‘It’s the only way to get rid of him.’

Pryde brought his free hand to the knot in his tie, as if checking for defects. ‘Neighbours?’ he suggested.

Rebus nodded. ‘Neighbours it is,’ he said.

He gathered together the notes from initial interviews. Other officers had been assigned the far side of the street, leaving Rebus and three others — working teams of two — to cover the flats either side of Philippa Balfour’s. Thirty-five in total, three of them empty, leaving thirty-two. Sixteen addresses per team, maybe fifteen minutes at each... four hours total.

Rebus’s partner for the day, DC Phyllida Hawes, had done the arithmetic for him as they climbed the steps of the first tenement. Actually, Rebus wasn’t sure you could call them ‘tenements’, not down in the New Town, with its wealth of Georgian architecture, its art galleries and antique emporia. He asked Hawes for advice.

‘Blocks of flats?’ she suggested, raising a smile. There were one or two flats per landing, some adorned with brass nameplates, others ceramic. A few went so low as to boast just a piece of sellotaped card or paper.

‘Not sure the Cockburn Association would approve,’ Hawes remarked.

Three or four names listed on the bit of card: students, Rebus guessed, from backgrounds less generous than Philippa Balfour’s.

The landings themselves were bright and cared for: welcome mats and tubs of flowers. Hanging baskets had been placed over banisters. The walls looked newly painted, the stairs swept. The first stairwell went like clockwork: two flats with nobody home, cards dropped through either letterbox; fifteen minutes in each of the other flats — ‘just a few back-up questions... see if you’ve thought of anything to add...’ The householders had shaken their heads, had professed themselves still shocked. Such a quiet little street.

There was a main door flat at ground level, a much grander affair, with a black-and-white-chequered marble entrance hall, Doric columns either side. The occupier was renting it long term, worked in ‘the financial sector’. Rebus saw a pattern emerging: graphic designer; training consultant; events organiser... and now the financial sector.

‘Does no one have real jobs any more?’ he asked Hawes.

‘These are the real jobs,’ she told him. They were back on the pavement, Rebus enjoying a cigarette. He noticed her staring at it.

‘Want one?’

She shook her head. ‘Three years I’ve managed so far.’

‘Good for you.’ Rebus looked up and down the street. ‘If this was a net curtain kind of place, they’d be twitching right now.’

‘If they had net curtains, you wouldn’t be able to peer in and see what you’re missing.’

Rebus held the smoke, let it billow out through his nostrils. ‘See, when I was younger, there was always something rakish about the New Town. Kaftans and wacky baccy, parties and ne’er-do-wells.’

‘Not much space left for them these days,’ Hawes agreed. ‘Where do you live?’

‘Marchmont,’ he told her. ‘You?’

‘Livingston. It was all I could afford at the time.’

‘Bought mine years back, two wages coming in...’

She looked at him. ‘No need to apologise.’

‘Prices weren’t as crazy back then, that’s all I meant.’ He was trying not to sound defensive. It was that meeting with Gill: the little joke she’d made, just to unsettle him. And the way his visit to Costello had KO’d the surveillance... Maybe it was time to talk to someone about the drinking... He flicked the stub of his cigarette on to the roadway. The surface was made of shiny rectangular stones called setts. When he’d first arrived in the city he’d made the mistake of calling them cobbles; a local had put him right.

‘Next call,’ he said now, ‘if we’re offered tea, we take it.’

Hawes nodded. She was in her late thirties or early forties, hair brown and shoulder-length. Her face was freckled and fleshed-out, as though she’d never quite lost her puppy fat. Grey trouser-suit and an emerald blouse, pinned at the neck with a silver Celtic brooch. Rebus could imagine her at a ceilidh, being spun during Strip the Willow, her face bearing the same concentration she brought to her work.

Below the main door flat, down a curving set of external steps, was the ‘garden flat’, so called because the garden at the back of the building came with it. At the front, the stone slabs were covered in more tubs of flowers. There were two windows, with two more at ground level — the place boasted a sub-basement. A pair of wooden doors was set into the wall opposite the entrance. They would lead into cellars beneath the pavement. Though they would have been checked before, Rebus tried opening them both, but they were locked. Hawes checked her notes.

‘Grant Hood and George Silvers got there before you,’ she said.

‘But were the doors locked or unlocked?’

‘I unlocked them,’ a voice called out. They turned to see an elderly woman standing just inside the flat’s front door. ‘Would you like the keys?’

‘Yes please, madam,’ Phyllida Hawes said. When the woman had turned back into the flat, she turned to Rebus and made a T shape with the index finger of either hand. Rebus held both his thumbs up in reply.

Mrs Jardine’s flat was a chintz museum, a home for china waifs and strays. The throw which covered the back of her sofa must have taken weeks to crochet. She apologised for the array of tin cans and metal pots which all but covered the floor of her conservatory — ‘never seem to get round to fixing the roof’. Rebus had suggested they take their tea there: every time he turned round in the living room he feared he was about to send some ornament flying. When the rain started, however, their conversation was punctuated by drips and dollops, and the splashes from the pot nearest Rebus threatened to give him the same sort of soaking he’d have had outside.

‘I didn’t know the lassie,’ Mrs Jardine said ruefully. ‘Maybe if I got out a bit more I’d have seen her.’

Hawes was staring out of the window. ‘You manage to keep your garden neat,’ she said. This was an understatement: the long, narrow garden, slivers of lawn and flowerbed either side of a meandering path, was immaculate.

‘My gardener,’ Mrs Jardine said.

Hawes studied the notes from the previous interview, then shook her head almost imperceptibly: Silvers and Hood hadn’t mentioned a gardener.

‘Could we have his name, Mrs Jardine?’ Rebus asked, his voice casually polite. Still, the old woman looked at him with concern. Rebus offered her a smile and one of her own drop scones. ‘It’s just that I might need a gardener myself,’ he lied.

The last thing they did was check the cellars. An ancient hot-water tank in one, nothing but mould in the other. They waved Mrs Jardine goodbye and thanked her for her hospitality.

‘All right for some,’ Grant Hood said. He was waiting for them on the pavement, collar up against the rain. ‘So far we’ve not been offered as much as the time of day.’ His partner was Distant Daniels. Rebus nodded a greeting.

‘What’s up, Tommy? Working a double shift?’

Daniels shrugged. ‘Did a swap.’ He tried to suppress a yawn. Hawes was tapping her sheaf of notes.

‘You,’ she told Hood, ‘didn’t do your job.’

‘Eh?’

‘Mrs Jardine has a gardener,’ Rebus explained.

‘We’ll be talking to the bin-men next,’ Hood said.

‘We already have,’ Hawes reminded him. ‘And been through the bins, too.’

The two of them looked to be squaring up. Rebus considered brokering the peace — he was St Leonard’s, same as Hood: he should be sticking up for him — but lit another cigarette instead. Hood’s cheeks had reddened. He was a DC, same rank as Hawes, but she had more years behind her. Sometimes you couldn’t argue with experience, which wasn’t stopping Hood from trying.

‘This isn’t helping Philippa Balfour,’ Distant Daniels said at last, stopping the confab dead.

‘Well said, son,’ Rebus added. It was true: big inquiries could blind you to the single essential truth. You became a tiny cog in the machine, and as such you made demands in order to assure yourself of your importance. The ownership of chairs became an issue, because it was an easy argument, something that could be resolved quickly either way. Unlike the case itself, the case which was growing almost exponentially, making you seem ever smaller, until you lost sight of that single essential truth — what Rebus’s mentor Lawson Geddes had called ‘the SET’ — which was that a person or persons needed your help. A crime had to be solved, the guilty brought to justice: it was good to be reminded sometimes.

They split up amicably in the end, Hood noting the gardener’s details and promising to talk to him. After which there was nothing else to do but start climbing stairs again. They’d spent the best part of half an hour at Mrs Jardine’s; already Hawes’ calculations were unravelling, proving another truism: inquiries ate up time, as if the days went into fast forward and you couldn’t show how the hours had been spent, were hard pressed to explain your exhaustion, knowing only the frustration of something left incomplete.

Two more no-one-homes, and then, on the first landing, the door was opened by a face Rebus recognised but couldn’t place.

‘It’s about Philippa Balfour’s disappearance,’ Hawes was explaining. ‘I believe two of my colleagues spoke to you earlier. This is just by way of a follow-up.’

‘Yes, of course.’ The gloss-black door opened a little wider. The man looked at Rebus and smiled. ‘You’re having trouble placing me, but I remember you.’ The smile widened. ‘You always remember the virgins, don’t you?’

As they were shown down the hall, the man introduced himself as Donald Devlin, and Rebus knew him. The first autopsy Rebus had ever attended as a CID officer, Devlin had done the cutting. He’d been Professor of Forensic Medicine at the university, and the city’s chief pathologist at the time. Sandy Gates had been his assistant. Now, Gates was Professor of Forensic Medicine, with Dr Curt as his ‘junior’. On the walls of the hallway were framed photos of Devlin receiving various prizes and awards.

‘The name’s not coming to me,’ Devlin said, gesturing for the two officers to precede him into a cluttered drawing room.

‘DI Rebus.’

‘It would have been Detective Constable back then?’ Devlin guessed. Rebus nodded.

‘Moving out, sir?’ Hawes asked, looking around her at the profusion of boxes and black bin-liners. Rebus looked too. Tottering towers of paperwork, drawers which had been wrenched from their chests and now threatened to spill mementoes across the carpet. Devlin chuckled. He was a short, portly man, probably in his mid-seventies. His grey cardigan had lost most of its shape and half its buttons, and his charcoal trousers were held up with braces. His face was puffy and red-veined, his eyes small blue dots behind a pair of metal-framed spectacles.

‘In a manner of speaking, I suppose,’ he said, pushing a few strands of hair back into some semblance of order across the expanse of his domed scalp. ‘Let’s just say that if the Grim Reaper is the ne plus ultra of removers, then I’m acting as his unpaid assistant.’

Rebus recalled that Devlin had always spoken like this, never settling for six words where a dozen would do, and tossing the odd spanner into the dictionary. It had been a nightmare trying to take notes while Devlin worked an autopsy.

‘You’re moving into a home?’ Hawes guessed. The old man chuckled again.

‘Not quite ready for the heave-ho yet, alas. No, all I’m doing is dispensing with a few unwanted items, making it easier for those family members who’ll wish to pick over the carcass of my estate after I’ve shuffled off.’

‘Saving them the trouble of throwing it all out?’

Devlin looked at Rebus. ‘A correct and concise summary of affairs,’ he noted approvingly.

Hawes had reached into a box for a leatherbound book. ‘You’re binning all of it?’

‘By no means,’ Devlin tutted. ‘The volume in your hand, for example, an early edition of Donaldson’s anatomical sketches, I intend to offer to the College of Surgeons.’

‘You still see Professor Gates?’ Rebus asked.

‘Oh, Sandy and I enjoy the occasional tincture. He’ll be retiring himself soon enough, I don’t doubt, making way for the young. We fool ourselves that this makes life cyclical, but of course it’s anything but, unless you happen to practise Buddhism.’ He smiled at what he saw as this little joke.

‘Just because you’re a Buddhist doesn’t mean you’ll come back again though, does it?’ Rebus said, delighting the old man further. Rebus was staring at a framed news report on the wall to the right of the fireplace: a murder conviction dated 1957. ‘Your first case?’ he guessed.

‘Actually, yes. A young bride bludgeoned to death by her husband. They were in the city on honeymoon.’

‘Must cheer the place up,’ Hawes commented.

‘My wife thought it macabre too,’ Devlin admitted. ‘After she died, I put it back up.’

‘Well,’ Hawes said, dropping the book back into its box and looking in vain for somewhere to sit, ‘sooner we’re finished, the sooner you can get back to your clear-out.’

‘A pragmatist: good to see.’ Devlin seemed content to let the three of them stand there, in the middle of a large and threadbare Persian carpet, almost afraid to move for fear that a domino effect would ensue.

‘Is there any order, sir?’ Rebus asked. ‘Or can we move a couple of boxes on to the floor?’

‘Better to take our tête-à-tête into the dining room, I think.’

Rebus nodded and made to follow, his gaze drifting to an engraved invitation on the marble mantelpiece. It was from the Royal College of Surgeons, something to do with a dinner at Surgeons’ Hall. ‘Black/white tie and decorations’ it said along the bottom. The only decorations he had were in a box in his hall cupboard. They went up every Christmas, if he could be bothered.

The dining room was dominated by a long wooden table and six un-upholstered, straight-backed chairs. There was a serving-hatch — what Rebus’s family would have called a ‘bowley-hole’ — through to the kitchen, and a dark-stained sideboard spread with a dusty array of glassware and silver. The few framed pictures looked like early examples of photography: posed studio shots of Venetian boat-life, maybe scenes from Shakespeare. The tall sash window looked out on to gardens at the rear of the building. Down below, Rebus could see that Mrs Jardine’s gardener had shaped her plot — either by accident or design — so that from above it resembled a question mark.

On the table lay a half-finished jigsaw: central Edinburgh photographed from above. ‘Any and all help,’ Devlin said, waving a hand expansively over the puzzle, ‘will be most gratefully received.’

‘Looks like a lot of pieces,’ Rebus said.

‘Just the two thousand.’

Hawes, who had at last introduced herself to Devlin, was having trouble getting comfortable on her chair. She asked how long Devlin had been retired.

‘Twelve... no, fourteen years. Fourteen years...’ He shook his head, marvelling at time’s ability to speed up even as the heartbeat slowed.

Hawes looked at her notes. ‘At the first interview, you said you’d been home that evening.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And you didn’t see Philippa Balfour?’

‘Your information is correct thus far.’

Rebus, deciding against the chairs, leaned back, putting his weight on the windowsill, and folded his arms.

‘But you knew Ms Balfour?’ he asked.

‘We’d exchanged pleasantries, yes.’

‘She’s been your neighbour for the best part of a year,’ Rebus said.

‘You’ll recall that this is Edinburgh, DI Rebus. I’ve lived in this apartment nearly three decades — I moved in when my wife passed away. It takes time to get to know one’s neighbours. Often, I’m afraid, they move on before one has had the opportunity.’ He shrugged. ‘After a while, one ceases trying.’

‘That’s pretty sad,’ Hawes said.

‘And you live where...?’

‘If I could just,’ Rebus interrupted, ‘bring us back to the matter in hand.’ He’d moved off the windowsill, hands now resting on the table-top. His eyes were on the loose pieces of the jigsaw.

‘Of course,’ Devlin said.

‘You were in all evening, and didn’t hear anything untoward?’

Devlin glanced up, perhaps appreciative of Rebus’s final word. ‘Nothing,’ he said after a pause.

‘Or see anything?’

‘Ditto.’

Hawes wasn’t just looking uncomfortable now; she was clearly irritated by these responses. Rebus sat down across from her, trying for eye contact, but she was ready with a question of her own.

‘Have you ever had a falling-out with Ms Balfour, sir?’

‘What is there to fall out about?’

‘Nothing now,’ Hawes stated coldly.

Devlin gave her a look and turned towards Rebus. ‘I see you’re interested in the table, Inspector.’

Rebus realised that he’d been running his fingers along the grain of the wood.

‘It’s nineteenth-century,’ Devlin went on, ‘crafted by a fellow anatomist.’ He glanced towards Hawes, then back to Rebus again. ‘There was something I remembered... probably nothing important.’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘A man standing outside.’

Rebus knew that Hawes was about to say something, so beat her to it. ‘When was this?’

‘A couple of days before she vanished, and the day before that, too.’ Devlin shrugged, all too aware of the effect his words were having. Hawes had reddened; she was dying to scream out something like when were you going to tell us? Rebus kept his voice level.

‘On the pavement outside?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Did you get a good look at him?’

Another shrug. ‘In his twenties, short dark hair... not cropped, just neat.’

‘Not a neighbour?’

‘It’s always possible. I’m merely telling you what I saw. He seemed to be waiting for someone or something. I recall him checking his watch.’

‘Her boyfriend maybe?’

‘Oh no, I know David.’

‘You do?’ Rebus asked. He was still casually scanning the jigsaw.

‘To talk to, yes. We met a few times in the stairwell. Nice young chap...’

‘How was he dressed?’ Hawes asked.

‘Who? David?’

‘The man you saw.’

Devlin seemed almost to relish the glare which accompanied her words. ‘Jacket and trousers,’ he said, glancing down at his cardigan. ‘I can’t be more specific, never having been a follower of fashion.’

Which was true: fourteen years ago, he’d worn similar cardigans under his green surgeon’s smock, along with bowties which were always askew. You could never forget your first autopsy: those sights, smells and sounds which were to become familiar. The scrape of metal on bone, or the whispering of a scalpel as it parted flesh. Some pathologists carried a cruel sense of humour and would put on an especially graphic performance for any ‘virgins’. But never Devlin; he’d always focused on the corpse, as if the two of them were alone in the room, that intimate final act of filleting carried out with a decorum bordering on ritual.

‘Do you think,’ Rebus asked, ‘that if you thought about it, maybe let your mind drift back, you could come up with a fuller description?’

‘I rather doubt it, but of course if you think it important...’

‘Early days, sir. You know yourself, we can’t rule anything out.’

‘Of course, of course.’

Rebus was treating Devlin as a fellow professional... and it was working.

‘We might even try to put together a photofit,’ Rebus went on. ‘That way, if it turns out to be a neighbour or someone anyone knows, we can eliminate him straight away.’

‘Seems reasonable,’ Devlin agreed.

Rebus got on his mobile to Gayfield and made an appointment for the next morning. Afterwards, he asked if Devlin would need a car.

‘Should manage to find my own way. Not utterly decrepit just yet, you know.’ But he got to his feet slowly, his joints seemingly stiff as he showed the two detectives out.

‘Thanks again, sir,’ Rebus said, shaking his hand.

Devlin just nodded, avoiding eye contact with Hawes, who wasn’t about to offer him her own thanks. As they made their way up to the next landing, she muttered something Rebus didn’t catch.

‘Sorry?’

‘I said: bloody men.’ She paused. ‘Present company excluded.’ Rebus didn’t say anything, prepared to let her get it off her chest. ‘Do you suppose for one second,’ she went on, ‘that if it had been two female officers down there, he’d have said anything?’

‘I think that would depend how he was handled.’

Hawes glared at him, seeking levity that wasn’t there.

‘Part of our job,’ Rebus went on, ‘is pretending we like everyone, pretending we’re interested in everything they have to say.’

‘He just—’

‘Got on your nerves? Mine too. Bit pompous, but that’s just his way; you can’t let it show. You’re right: I’m not sure he’d have told us anything. He’d dismissed it as irrelevant. But then he opened up, just to put you in your place.’ Rebus smiled. ‘Good work. It’s not often I get to play “good cop” around here.’

‘It wasn’t just that he got on my nerves,’ Hawes conceded.

‘What then?’

‘He gave me the creeps.’

Rebus looked at her. ‘Not the same thing?’

She shook her head. ‘The old-pal act he played with you, that irritated me a bit, because I wasn’t part of it. But the newspaper clipping...’

‘The one on the wall?’

She nodded. ‘That gave me the creeps.’

‘He’s a pathologist,’ Rebus explained. ‘They’ve thicker skins than most of us.’

She thought about this, and allowed herself a little smile.

‘What?’ Rebus asked.

‘Oh, nothing,’ she said. ‘It’s just that, as I was getting up to leave, I couldn’t help noticing a piece of the jigsaw on the floor under the table...’

‘Where it still sits?’ Rebus guessed, smiling too now. ‘With that kind of eye for detail, we’ll make a detective of you yet...’

He pressed the next door-buzzer, and it was back to work.

The news conference took place at the Big House, with a live feed to the inquiry room at Gayfield Square. Someone was trying to clean fingerprints and smears from the TV monitor with a handkerchief, while others tilted the blinds against the afternoon’s sudden burst of sunshine. With the chairs all filled, officers were sitting two and three to a desk. A few of them were taking a late lunch: sandwiches and bananas. There were mugs of tea and coffee, cans of juice. The conversation was muted. Whoever was in charge of the police camera at the Big House, they were coming in for some stick.

‘Like my eight-year-old with the video-cam...’

‘Seen Blair Witch a couple times too many...’

It was true that the camera seemed to be swooping and diving, picking out bodies at waist height, rows of feet, and the backs of chairs.

‘Show’s not started yet,’ a wiser head counselled. It was true: the other cameras, the ones from TV, were still being set up, the invited audience — journalists clutching mobile phones to their ears — still settling. Hard to make out anything that was being said. Rebus stood at the back of the room. A bit too far from the TV, but he wasn’t about to move. Bill Pryde stood next to him, clearly exhausted and just as clearly trying not to show it. His clipboard had become a comforter, and he held it close to his chest, now and then pulling back to look at it, as though fresh instructions might magically have appeared. With the blinds closed, thin beams of light pierced the room, highlighting motes of dust which would otherwise have remained invisible. Rebus was reminded of cinema trips in childhood, the sense of expectation as the projector came to life and the show began.

On the TV, the crowd was settling. Rebus knew the room — a soulless space used for seminars and occasions such as this. One long table sat at the end, a makeshift screen behind it displaying the Lothian and Borders badge. The police video-cam swung round as a door opened and a file of bodies trooped into the room, quieting the hubbub. Rebus could hear the sudden whirr of camera motors. Flashes of illumination. Ellen Wylie first, then Gill Templer, followed by David Costello and John Balfour.

‘Guilty!’ someone in front of Rebus called out as the camera zoomed in on Costello’s face.

The group sat down in front of a sudden array of microphones. The camera stayed with Costello, panning back a little to take in his upper body, but it was Wylie’s voice that came over the loudspeaker, preceded by a nervous clearing of the throat.

‘Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us. I’ll just go over the format and some of the rules, before we get started...’

Siobhan was over to Rebus’s left. She was sitting on a desk alongside Grant Hood. Hood was staring at the floor. Maybe he was concentrating on Wylie’s voice: Rebus remembered that the pair of them had worked closely together on the Grieve case a few months before. Siobhan was watching the screen, but her gaze kept wandering elsewhere. She held a bottle of water, and her fingers were busy picking off the label.

She wanted that job, Rebus thought to himself. And now she was hurting. He willed her to turn his way, so he could offer something — a smile or shrug, or just a nod of understanding. But her eyes were back on the screen again. Wylie had finished her spiel, and it was Gill Templer’s turn. She was summarising and updating the details of the case. She sounded confident, an old hand at news conferences. Rebus could hear Wylie clearing her throat again in the background. It seemed to be putting Gill off.

The camera, however, showed no interest in the two CID officers. It was there to concentrate on David Costello, and — to a far lesser extent — Philippa Balfour’s father. The two men sat next to one another, and the camera moved slowly between them. Quick shots of Balfour, then back to Costello. The auto-focus was fine until the cameraman decided to zoom in or out. Then, the picture took a few seconds to clear.

‘Guilty,’ the voice repeated.

‘Want a bet?’ someone else called back.

‘Let’s have a bit of shush,’ Bill Pryde barked. The room fell silent. Rebus gave him a round of mimed applause, but Pryde was looking at his clipboard again, then back to the screen, where David Costello was beginning to speak. He hadn’t shaved, and looked to be in the same clothes as the previous night. He’d unfolded and flattened a sheet of paper against the table-top. But when he spoke, he didn’t glance down at what he’d written. His eyes flitted between cameras, never sure where he should be looking. His voice was dry and thin.

‘We don’t know what happened to Flip, and we desperately want to know. All of us, her friends, her family...’ he glanced towards John Balfour ‘... all those who know and love her, we need to know. Flip, if you’re watching this, please get in touch with one of us. Just so we know you’re... you’ve not come to any harm. We’re worried sick.’ His eyes were shining with the onset of tears. He stopped for a second, bowed his head, then drew himself straight again. He picked up the sheet of paper but couldn’t see anything there that hadn’t been said. He half turned, as if seeking guidance from the others. John Balfour put his hand out to squeeze the younger man’s shoulder, then Balfour himself started speaking, his voice booming as if the microphones might somehow be defective.

‘If anyone’s holding my daughter, please get in touch. Flip has the number for my private mobile phone. I can be reached at any time, day or night. I’d like to talk with you, whoever you are, why ever you’ve done what you’ve done. And if anyone knows Flip’s whereabouts, there’ll be a number onscreen at the end of this broadcast. I just need to know Flip’s alive and well. To people watching this at home, please take a second to study Flip’s photograph.’ A further clicking of cameras as he held up the photo. He turned slowly so every camera could capture the moment. ‘Her name’s Philippa Balfour and she’s just twenty. She’s my daughter. If you’ve seen her, or even just think you may have, please get in touch. Thank you.’

The reporters were ready with their questions, but David Costello was already on his feet and making for the exit.

It was Wylie’s voice again: ‘Not appropriate at this time... I’d like to thank you for your continuing support...’ But the questions battered against her. Meantime the video-cam was back on John Balfour. He looked quite composed, hands clasped on the table in front of him, unblinking as the flashguns threw his shadow on to the wall behind.

‘No, I really don’t...’

‘Mr Costello!’ the journalists were yelling. ‘Could we just ask...?’

‘DS Wylie,’ another voice barked, ‘can you tell us something about possible motives for the abduction?’

‘We don’t have any motives yet.’ Wylie was sounding flustered.

‘But you accept that it is an abduction?’

‘I don’t... no, that’s not what I meant.’

The screen showed John Balfour trying to answer someone else’s question. The ranks of reporters had become a scrum.

‘Then what did you mean, DS Wylie?’

‘I just... I didn’t say anything about...’

And then Ellen Wylie’s voice was replaced by Gill Templer’s. The voice of authority. The reporters knew her of old, just as she knew them.

‘Steve,’ she said, ‘you know only too well that we can’t speculate on details like that. If you want to make up lies just to sell a few more papers, that’s your concern, but it’s hardly respectful to Philippa Balfour’s family and friends.’

Further questions were handled by Gill, who insisted on some calm beforehand. Although Rebus couldn’t see her, he imagined Ellen Wylie would be shrinking visibly. Siobhan was moving her feet up and down, as though all of a sudden some adrenalin had kicked in. Balfour interrupted Gill to say that he’d like to respond to a couple of the points raised. He did so, calmly and effectively, and then the conference started to break up.

‘A cool customer,’ Pryde said, before moving off to regroup his troops. It was time to get back to the real work again.

Grant Hood approached. ‘Remind me,’ he said. ‘Which station was giving the longest odds on the boyfriend?’

‘Torphichen,’ Rebus told him.

‘Then that’s where my money’s going.’ He looked to Rebus for a reaction, but didn’t get one. ‘Come on, sir,’ he went on, ‘it was written all over his face!’

Rebus thought back to his night-time meeting with Costello... the story of the eyeballs and how Costello had come up close. Take a good long look...

Hood was shaking his head as he made to pass Rebus. The blinds had been opened, the brief interlude of sun now ended as thick grey clouds rolled back over the city. The tape of Costello’s performance would go to the psychologists. They’d be looking for a glimmer of something, a short outburst of bright illumination. He wasn’t sure they’d find it. Siobhan was standing in front of him.

‘Interesting, wasn’t it?’ she said.

‘I don’t think Wylie’s cut out for liaison,’ Rebus answered.

‘She shouldn’t have been there. A case like this for her first outing... she was as good as thrown to the lions.’

‘You didn’t enjoy it?’ he asked slyly.

She stared at him. ‘I don’t like blood sports.’ She made to move away, but hesitated. ‘What did you think, really?’

‘I thought you were right about it being interesting. Singularly interesting.’

She smiled. ‘You caught that too?’

He nodded. ‘Costello kept saying “we”, while her father used “I”.’

‘As if Flip’s mother didn’t matter.’

Rebus was thoughtful. ‘It might mean nothing more than that Mr Balfour has an inflated sense of his own importance.’ He paused. ‘Now wouldn’t that be a first in a merchant banker? How’s the computer stuff going?’

She smiled — ‘computer stuff’ just about summed up Rebus’s knowledge of hard disks and the like. ‘I got past her password.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning I can check her most recent e-mails... soon as I get back to my desk.’

‘No way to access the older ones?’

‘Already done. Of course, there’s no way of telling what’s been deleted.’ She was thoughtful. ‘At least I don’t think there is.’

‘They’re not stored somewhere on the... mainframe?’

She laughed. ‘You’re thinking of sixties spy films, computers taking up whole rooms.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t worry. You’re doing okay for someone who thinks LOL means Loyal Orange Lodge.’

They’d moved out of the office and into the corridor. ‘I’m heading back to St Leonard’s. Need a lift?’

She shook her head. ‘Got my car with me.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘It looks like we’re getting hooked up to HOLMES.’

This was one piece of new technology Rebus did know something about: the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System. It was a software system that collated information and speeded up the whole process of gathering and sifting. Its application meant that Philippa Balfour’s disappearance was now the priority case in the city.

‘Won’t it be funny if she traipses back from an unannounced shopping spree?’ Rebus mused.

‘It would be a relief,’ Siobhan said solemnly. ‘But I don’t think that’s going to happen, do you?’

‘No,’ Rebus said quietly. Then he went to find himself something to eat on the way back to base.

Back at his desk, he went through the files again, concentrating on family background. John Balfour was the third generation of a banking family. The business had started in Edinburgh’s Charlotte Square in the early 1900s. Philippa’s great-grandfather had handed the running of the bank to her grandfather in the 1940s, and he hadn’t taken a back seat until the 1980s, when John Balfour had taken over. Almost the first thing Philippa’s father had done was open a London office, concentrating his efforts there. Philippa had gone to a private school in Chelsea. The family relocated north in the late eighties after the death of John’s father, Philippa changing to a school in Edinburgh. Their home, Junipers, was a baronial mansion in sixteen acres of countryside somewhere between Gullane and Haddington. Rebus wondered how Balfour’s wife Jacqueline felt. Eleven bedrooms, five public rooms... and her husband down in London a minimum of four days each week. The Edinburgh office, still in its original premises in Charlotte Square, was run by an old friend of John Balfour’s called Ranald Marr. The two had met at university in Edinburgh, heading off together to the States for their MBAs. Rebus had called Balfour a merchant banker, but Balfour’s was really a small private bank geared to the needs of its client list, a wealthy elite requiring investment advice, portfolio management, and the kudos of a leatherbound Balfour’s chequebook.

When Balfour himself had been interviewed, the emphasis had been on the possibility of a kidnapping for profit. Not just the family phone, but those in the Edinburgh and London offices were being monitored. Mail was being intercepted in case any ransom demand arrived that way: the fewer fingerprints they had to deal with, the better. But as yet, all they’d had were a few crank notes. Another possibility was a deal gone sour: revenge the motive. But Balfour was adamant that he had no enemies. All the same, he’d denied the team access to his bank’s client base.

‘These people trust me. Without that trust, the bank’s finished.’

‘Sir, with respect, your daughter’s well-being might depend...’

‘I’m perfectly aware of that!’

After which the interview had never lost its edge of antagonism.

The bottom line: Balfour’s was conservatively estimated to be worth around a hundred and thirty million, with John Balfour’s personal wealth comprising maybe five per cent of the whole. Six and a half million reasons for a professional abduction. But wouldn’t a professional have made contact by now? Rebus wasn’t sure.

Jacqueline Balfour had been born Jacqueline Gil-Martin, her father a diplomat and landowner, the family estate a chunk of Perthshire comprising nearly nine hundred acres. The father was dead now, and the mother had moved into a cottage on the estate. The land itself was managed by Balfour’s Bank, and the main house, Laverock Lodge, had become a setting for conferences and other large gatherings. A TV drama had been filmed there apparently, though the show’s title meant nothing to Rebus. Jacqueline hadn’t bothered with university, busying herself instead with a variety of jobs, mainly as a personal assistant to some businessman or other. She’d been running the Laverock estate when she’d met John Balfour, on a trip to her father’s bank in Edinburgh. They’d married a year later, and Philippa had been born two years after that.

Just the one child. John Balfour himself was an only child, but Jacqueline had two sisters and a brother, none of them currently living in Scotland. The brother had followed in his father’s footsteps and was on a Washington posting with the Foreign Office. It struck Rebus that the Balfour dynasty was in trouble. He couldn’t see Philippa rushing to join Daddy’s bank, and wondered why the couple hadn’t tried for a son.

None of which, in all probability, was pertinent to the inquiry. All the same, it was what Rebus enjoyed about the job: constructing a web of relationships, peering into other people’s lives, wondering and questioning...

He turned to the notes on David Costello. Dublin-born and educated, the family moving just south of the city to Dalkey in the early nineties. The father, Thomas Costello, didn’t seem to have turned a day’s work in his life, his needs supplied by a trust fund set up by his father, a land developer. David’s grandfather owned several prime sites in the centre of Dublin, and made a comfortable living from them. He owned half a dozen racehorses, too, and spent all his time these days concentrating on that side of things.

David’s mother, Theresa, was something else again. Her background could at best be called lower middle class, mother a nurse, father a teacher. Theresa had gone to art school but dropped out and got a job instead, providing for the family when her mother got cancer and her father fell apart. She worked behind the counter in a department store, then moved to window-dressing, and from there to interior design — for shops at first, and then for wealthy individuals. Which was how she met Thomas Costello. By the time they married, both her parents were dead. Theresa probably didn’t need to work, but she worked anyway, building up her one-woman company until it had grown into a business with a turnover in the low millions and a workforce of five, not including herself. There were overseas clients, and the list was still growing. She was fifty-one now, and showing no signs of slacking, while her husband, a year her junior, remained the man about town. Press clippings from the Irish news showed him at racing events, garden parties and the like. In none of the photos did he appear with Theresa. Separate rooms in their Edinburgh hotel... As their son said, it was hardly a crime.

David had been late going to university, having taken a year out to travel the world. He was now in the third year of his MA degree in English Language and Literature. Rebus remembered the books in his living room: Milton, Wordsworth, Hardy...

‘Enjoying the view, John?’

Rebus opened his eyes. ‘Deep in thought, George.’

‘You weren’t dropping off, then?’

Rebus glared at him. ‘Far from it.’

As Hi-Ho Silvers moved away, Siobhan came and rested against the side of Rebus’s desk.

‘So how deep in thought were you?’

‘I was wondering if Rabbie Burns could have murdered one of his lovers.’ She just stared at him. ‘Or whether someone who reads poetry could.’

‘Don’t see why not. Didn’t some death-camp commander listen to Mozart of an evening?’

‘Now there’s a cheery thought.’

‘Always here to make your day that little bit brighter. Now what about doing me a favour?’

‘How can I refuse?’

She handed him a sheet of paper. ‘Tell me what you think that means.’

Rebus looked up at her. ‘Going to give me a clue?’

She took back the sheet of paper. ‘It’s an e-mail printout. Philippa had a couple of dozen messages waiting for her, dating back to the day she went missing. All of them except this one are addressed to her other name.’

‘Her other name?’

‘ISPs—’ she paused — ‘Internet service providers will usually allow you a range of log-on names, as many as five or six.’

‘Why?’

‘So you can be... different people, I suppose. Flipside 1223 is a sort of alias. Her other e-mails all went to Flip-dot-Balfour.’

‘So what does it mean?’

Siobhan expelled air. ‘That’s what I’m wondering. Maybe it means she had a side we don’t know about. There’s not a single saved message from her or to her in the name of Flipside 1223. So either she’s been erasing them as she goes, or else this got to her by mistake.’

‘Doesn’t look like coincidence, does it, though?’ Rebus said. ‘Her nickname’s Flip.’

Siobhan was nodding. ‘Hellbank, Stricture, Pagan Omerta...’

‘Omerta’s the mafia code of silence,’ Rebus stated.

‘And Quizmaster,’ Siobhan said. ‘Signs herself or himself QuiM. Little touch of juvenile humour there.’

Rebus looked at the message again. ‘Beats me, Siobhan. What do you want to do?’

‘I’d like to track down whoever sent this, but that’s not going to be easy. Only way I can think of is to reply.’

‘Let whoever it is know that Philippa’s gone missing?’

Siobhan lowered her voice. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of her replying.’

Rebus was thoughtful. ‘Think it would work? What would you say?’

‘I haven’t decided.’ The way she folded her arms, Rebus knew she was going to do it anyway.

‘Run it past DCS Templer when she gets in,’ he cautioned. Siobhan nodded and made to leave, but he called her back. ‘You went to uni. Tell me, did you ever mix with the likes of Philippa Balfour?’

She snorted. ‘That’s another world. No tutorials or lectures for them. Some of them I only ever saw in the exam hall. And you know what?’

‘What?’

‘The sods always passed...’

That evening, Gill Templer hosted a celebratory gathering at the Palm Court in the Balmoral Hotel. A tuxedoed pianist was playing in the opposite corner. A bottle of champagne sat in an ice-bucket. Bowls of nibbles had been brought to the table.

‘Remember to leave space for supper,’ Gill told her guests. A table in Hadrian’s had been booked for eight-thirty. It had just gone half past seven, and the last arrival was coming through the door.

Slipping off her coat, Siobhan apologised. A waiter appeared and took the coat from her. Another waiter was already pouring champagne into her glass.

‘Cheers,’ she said, sitting down and lifting the glass. ‘And congratulations.’

Gill Templer lifted her own glass and allowed herself a smile. ‘I think I deserve it,’ she said, to enthusiastic agreement.

Siobhan already knew two of the guests. Both were fiscals depute, and Siobhan had worked with them on several prosecutions. Harriet Brough was in her late forties, her black hair permed (and maybe even dyed, too), her figure hidden behind layers of tweed and thick cotton. Diana Metcalf was early forties, with short ash-blonde hair and sunken eyes which, rather than masking, she exaggerated with dark eye-shadow. She always wore brightly coloured clothes, which helped to heighten still further her waif-like, undernourished look.

‘And this is Siobhan Clarke,’ Gill was telling the last member of the party. ‘A detective constable in my station.’ The way she said ‘my station’, it was as if she’d taken on ownership of the place, which, Siobhan supposed, wasn’t so far from the truth. ‘Siobhan, this is Jean Burchill. Jean works at the museum.’

‘Oh? Which one?’

‘The Museum of Scotland,’ Burchill answered. ‘Have you ever been?’

‘I had a meal in The Tower once,’ Siobhan said.

‘Not quite the same thing.’ Burchill’s voice trailed off.

‘No, what I meant was...’ Siobhan tried to find a diplomatic way of putting it. ‘I had a meal there just after it opened. The guy I was with... well, bad experience. It put me off going back.’

‘Understood,’ Harriet Brough said, as though every mishap in life could be explained by reference to the opposite sex.

‘Well,’ Gill said, ‘it’s women only tonight, so we can all relax.’

‘Unless we hit a nightclub later,’ Diana Metcalf said, her eyes glinting.

Gill caught Siobhan’s eye. ‘Did you send that e-mail?’ she asked.

Jean Burchill tutted. ‘No shop talk, please.’

The fiscals agreed noisily, but Siobhan nodded anyway, to let Gill know the message had gone out. Whether anyone would be fooled by it was another matter. It was why she’d been late getting here. She’d spent too long going over Philippa’s e-mails, all the ones she’d sent to friends, trying to work out what sort of tone might be convincing, what words to use and how to order them. She’d gone through over a dozen drafts before deciding to keep it simple. But then some of Philippa’s e-mails were like long chatty letters: what if her previous messages to Quizmaster had been the same? How would he or she react to this curt, out-of-character reply? Problem. Need to talk to you. Flipside. And then a telephone number, the number for Siobhan’s own mobile.

‘I saw the press conference on TV tonight,’ Diana Metcalf said.

Jean Burchill groaned. ‘What did I just say?’

Metcalf turned to her with those big, dark, wary eyes. ‘This isn’t shop, Jean. Everyone’s talking about it.’ Then she turned to Gill. ‘I don’t think it was the boyfriend, do you?’

Gill just shrugged.

‘See?’ Burchill said. ‘Gill doesn’t want to talk about it.’

‘More likely the father,’ Harriet Brough said. ‘My brother was at school with him. A very cold fish.’ She spoke with a confidence and authority that revealed her upbringing. She’d probably wanted to be a lawyer from nursery school on, Siobhan guessed. ‘Where was the mother?’ Brough now demanded of Gill.

‘Couldn’t face it,’ Gill answered. ‘We did ask her.’

‘She couldn’t have made a worse job than those two,’ Brough stated, picking cashews out of the bowl nearest her.

Gill looked suddenly tired. Siobhan decided on a change of subject and asked Jean Burchill what she did at the museum.

‘I’m a senior curator,’ Burchill explained. ‘My main specialism is eighteenth- and nineteenth-century.’

‘Her main specialism,’ Harriet Brough interrupted, ‘is death.’

Burchill smiled. ‘It’s true I put together the exhibits on belief and—’

‘What’s truer,’ Brough cut in, her eyes on Siobhan, ‘is that she puts together old coffins and pictures of dead Victorian babies. Gives me the collywobbles whenever I happen to be on whichever floor it is.’

‘The fourth,’ Burchill said quietly. She was, Siobhan decided, very pretty. Small and slender, with straight brown hair hanging in a pageboy cut. Her chin was dimpled, her cheeks well defined and tinged pink, even in the discreet lighting of the Palm Court. She wore no make-up that Siobhan could see, nor did she need any. She was all muted, pastel shades: jacket and trousers which had probably been called ‘taupe’ in the shop; grey cashmere sweater beneath the jacket, and a russet pashmina fixed at the shoulder with a Rennie Mackintosh brooch. Late forties again. It struck Siobhan that she was the youngest person here by probably fifteen years.

‘Jean and I were at school together,’ Gill explained. ‘Then we lost touch and bumped into one another just four or five years back.’

Burchill smiled at the memory.

‘Wouldn’t want to meet anyone I was at school with,’ Harriet Brough said through a mouthful of nuts. ‘Arseholes, the lot of them.’

‘More champagne, ladies?’ the waiter said, lifting the bottle from its ice-bucket.

‘About bloody time,’ Brough snapped.

Between dessert and coffee, Siobhan headed to the loo. Walking back along the corridor to the brasserie, she met Gill.

‘Great minds,’ Gill said with a smile.

‘It was a lovely meal, Gill. Are you sure I can’t...?’

Gill touched her arm. ‘My treat. It’s not every day I have something worth celebrating.’ The smile melted from her lips. ‘You think your e-mail will work?’ Siobhan just shrugged, and Gill nodded, accepting the assessment. ‘What did you reckon to the press conference?’

‘The usual jungle.’

‘Sometimes it works,’ Gill mused. She’d had three glasses of wine on top of the champagne, but the only sign that she wasn’t stone-cold sober was a slight tilt to her head and heaviness to her eyelids.

‘Can I say something?’ Siobhan asked.

‘We’re off duty, Siobhan. Say what you like.’

‘You shouldn’t have given it to Ellen Wylie.’

Gill fixed her with a stare. ‘It should have been you, eh?’

‘That’s not what I mean. But to give someone that as their first liaison job...’

‘You’d have done it better?’

‘I’m not saying that.’

‘Then what are you saying?’

‘I’m saying it was a jungle and you threw her in there without a map.’

‘Careful, Siobhan.’ Gill’s voice had lost all its warmth. She considered for a moment, then sniffed. When she spoke, her eyes surveyed the hallway. ‘Ellen Wylie’s been bending my ear for months. She wanted liaison, and as soon as I could, I gave it to her. I wanted to see if she was as good as she thinks she is.’ Now her eyes met Siobhan’s. Their faces were close enough for Siobhan to smell the wine. ‘She fell short.’

‘How did that feel?’

Gill held up a finger. ‘Don’t push this, Siobhan. I’ve enough on my plate as it is.’ It seemed she was about to say something more, but she merely wagged the finger and forced a smile. ‘We’ll talk later,’ she said, sliding past Siobhan and pushing open the door to the loos. Then she paused. ‘Ellen’s no longer liaison officer. I was thinking of asking you...’ The door closed behind her.

‘Don’t do me any favours,’ Siobhan said, but she said it to the same closed door. It was as if Gill had hardened overnight, the humiliation of Ellen Wylie an early show of strength. The thing was... Siobhan did want liaison, but at the same time she felt disgusted with herself, because she’d enjoyed watching the press conference. She’d enjoyed Ellen Wylie’s defeat.

When Gill emerged from the toilets, Siobhan was sitting on a chair in the corridor. Gill stood over her, gazing down.

‘The spectre at the feast,’ she commented, turning away.