The Falls

6

On Monday morning, Rebus took Jean’s press cuttings in to work. Waiting for him on his desk were three messages from Steve Holly and a note in Gill Templer’s handwriting, informing him of a doctor’s appointment at eleven o’clock. He went to her office to plead his case, but a sheet of paper on her door stated that she would be spending the day at Gayfield Square. Rebus went back to his chair, grabbed his cigarettes and lighter, and headed for the car park. He’d just got one lit when Siobhan Clarke arrived.

‘Any luck?’ he asked her. Siobhan lifted the laptop she was carrying.

‘Last night,’ she told him.

‘What happened?’

She looked at his cigarette. ‘Soon as you finish that foul thing, come upstairs and I’ll show you.’

The door swung shut behind her. Rebus stared at the cigarette, took one last puff, and flicked it on to the ground.

By the time he got to the CID room, Siobhan had set up the laptop. An officer called over that there was a Steve Holly on the line. Rebus shook his head. He knew damned well what Holly wanted: Bev Dodds had told him about the trip to Falls. He held up a finger, asking Siobhan to wait a second, then got on the phone to the museum.

‘Jean Burchill’s office, please,’ he said. Then he waited.

‘Hello?’ It was her voice.

‘Jean? John Rebus here.’

‘John, I was just thinking of calling you.’

‘Don’t tell me: you’re being hassled?’

‘Well, not exactly hassled...’

‘A reporter called Steve Holly, wanting to talk about the dolls?’

‘He’s been on to you too, then?’

‘Best advice I can give, Jean: don’t say anything. Refuse his calls, and if he does get through, tell him you’ve nothing to say. No matter how hard he pushes...’

‘Understood. Did Bev Dodds blab?’

‘My fault, I should’ve known she would.’

‘I can look after myself, John, don’t worry.’

They said their goodbyes and he put down the receiver, took the short walk to Siobhan’s desk and read the message on the laptop’s screen.

This game is not a game. It’s a quest. You’ll need strength and endurance, not to mention intelligence. But your prize will be great. Do you still wish to play?

‘I sent back an e-mail saying I was interested, but asking how long the game would take.’ Siobhan was moving her finger across the keypad. ‘He told me it could take a few days, or a few weeks. So then I asked if I could start with Hellbank. He came back straight away, telling me Hellbank was the fourth level, and I’d have to play the whole thing. I said okay. At midnight, this arrived.’

There was another message on the screen. ‘He’s used a different address,’ Siobhan said. ‘God knows how many he’s got.’

‘Making him difficult to track down?’ Rebus guessed. Then he read:

How can I be sure you are who you say you are?

‘He means my e-mail address,’ Siobhan explained. ‘I was using Philippa’s before; now I’m using Grant’s.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘I told him he’d have to trust me; either that or we could always meet.’

‘And was he keen?’

She smiled. ‘Not overly. But he did send me this.’ She hit another button.

Seven fins high is king. This queen dines well before the bust.

‘Is that it?’

Siobhan nodded. ‘I asked if he could give me a clue. All he did was send me the message again.’

‘Presumably because it is the clue.’

She ran a hand through her hair. ‘I was up half the night. I don’t suppose it means anything to you?’

He shook his head. ‘You need someone who likes puzzles. Doesn’t young Grant do cryptic crosswords?’

‘Does he?’ Siobhan looked across the room to where Grant Hood was making a phone call.

‘Why don’t you go and ask?’

When Hood came off the phone, Siobhan was waiting. ‘How’s the laptop?’ he asked.

‘Fine.’ She handed him a sheet of paper. ‘I hear you like a puzzle.’

He took the sheet, but didn’t look at it. ‘Saturday night?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘Saturday night was fine.’

And it had been, too: a couple of drinks and then dinner at a decent, small restaurant in the New Town. They’d talked shop mostly, having not much else in common, but it was good to have a laugh, relive a few stories. He’d been quite the gentleman, walking her home afterwards. She hadn’t asked him up for coffee. He’d said he’d find a cab on Broughton Street.

Now, Grant nodded back and smiled. ‘Fine’ was good enough for him. Then he looked at the sheet. ‘“Seven fins high is king”,’ he read aloud. ‘What’s it mean?’

‘I was hoping maybe you’d tell me.’

He studied the message again. ‘Could be an anagram. Unlikely though: not enough vowels, it’s all i’s and e’s. “Before the bust” — drugs bust maybe?’ Siobhan just shrugged. ‘Maybe it would help if you told me a bit about it,’ Hood said.

Siobhan nodded. ‘Over a coffee, if you like,’ she said.

Back at his desk, Rebus watched them leave the room, then picked up the first of the cuttings. There was a conversation going on nearby, something about another press conference. The consensus was, if DCS Templer wanted you to front it, it meant she had the knives out. Rebus’s eyes narrowed. There was a sentence he must have missed first time round. It was the 1995 clipping: Huntingtower Hotel near Perth, a dog finding the coffin and scrap of cloth. Three-quarters of the way through the story, an anonymous member of the hotel staff was quoted as saying, ‘If we’re not careful, Huntingtower’s going to get itself a reputation.’ Rebus wondered what was meant by that. He picked up the phone, thinking maybe Jean Burchill would know. But he didn’t make the call, didn’t want her to think he was... well, what exactly? He’d enjoyed yesterday, and thought she had too. He’d dropped her at her home in Portobello, but had declined the offer of coffee.

‘I’ve taken up too much of your day as it is,’ he’d said. She hadn’t denied it.

‘Maybe another time then,’ was all she’d said.

Driving back to Marchmont, he’d felt that something had been lost between them. He’d almost called her that evening, but had switched on the TV instead, losing himself in a nature programme, unable afterwards to recall anything about it. Until he’d remembered about the reconstruction and headed out to watch it...

His hand was still resting on the receiver. He picked it up and got a number for the Huntingtower Hotel, asked to speak to the manager.

‘I’m sorry,’ the receptionist said. ‘He’s in a meeting at the moment. Can I take a message?’

Rebus explained who he was. ‘I want to speak to someone who was working at the hotel in nineteen ninety-five.

‘What’s their name?’

He smiled at her mistake. ‘No, I mean, anyone will do.’

‘Well, I’ve been here since ninety-three.’

‘Then you might remember the little coffin that was found.’

‘Vaguely, yes.’

‘Only I’ve got a cutting from a newspaper at the time. It says that the hotel might be getting a reputation.’

‘Yes.’

‘And why would that have been?’

‘I’m not sure. Maybe it was that American tourist.’

‘Which one?’

‘The one who disappeared.’

He didn’t say anything for a moment, and when he did it was to ask her to repeat what she’d just said.

Rebus went to the National Library annexe on Causewayside. It wasn’t much more than a five-minute walk from St Leonard’s. When he’d shown his ID and explained what he needed, he was taken to a desk where a microfilm reader sat. This was a large illuminated screen above two spools. The film was placed on one spool and would be wound on to the empty one. Rebus had used the machine before, back when newspapers had been stored at the main building on George IV Bridge. He’d told the staff that today’s was ‘a rush job’. Even so, he sat for the best part of twenty minutes before a librarian arrived with the film boxes. The Courier was Dundee’s daily paper. Rebus’s own family had taken it. He remembered that up until recently it had retained the look of a broadsheet from a previous era, with column-wide ads covering its front page. No news, no photos. The story went that when the Titanic sank, the headline in the Courier had been ‘Dundee Man Lost at Sea’. Not that the paper was parochial or anything.

Rebus had the Huntingtower cutting with him, and wound the tape forward until he was four weeks shy of its appearance. There, on an inside page, was the headline ‘Tourist’s Disappearance a Mystery, Say Police’. The woman’s name was Betty-Anne Jesperson. She was thirty-eight and married. She’d been a member of a tour party from the USA. The tour was called ‘The Mystical Highlands of Scotland’. The photograph of Betty-Anne came from her passport. It showed a heavy-set woman with dark permed hair and thick-rimmed glasses. Her husband, Garry, said she was in the habit of waking early and going for a pre-breakfast walk. No one in the hotel had seen her depart. The countryside was searched, and police went into Perth town centre armed with copies of the photograph. But as Rebus wound the film forward a week, the story was cut down to half a dozen paragraphs. A further week along, and there was just a single paragraph. The story was in the process of vanishing as completely as Betty-Anne had.

According to the hotel receptionist, Garry Jesperson had made several trips back to the area in that first year, with a further month-long trip the year after. But then the last she’d heard, Garry had met someone else and moved from New Jersey to Baltimore.

Rebus copied the details into his notebook, then sat tapping at the page he’d just written on until one of the browsers cleared their throat, warning him that he’d started to make too much noise.

Back at the main desk, he put in a request for more papers: the Dunfermline Press, Glasgow Herald and Inverness Courier. Only the Herald was on microfilm, so he started with that. Nineteen eighty-two, the doll in the churchyard... Van Morrison had released Beautiful Vision early in ’82. Rebus found himself humming ‘Dweller on the Threshold’, then stopped when he remembered where he was. Nineteen eighty-two, he’d been a detective sergeant, working cases with another DS called Jack Morton. They’d been based at Great London Road, back before the station had caught fire. When the Herald film arrived, he spooled it and got to work, the days and weeks a blur across his screen. All the officers above him at Great London Road, they were either dead or retired. He hadn’t kept in touch with any of them. And now the Farmer was gone too. Soon, whether he liked it or not, it would be his turn. He didn’t think he’d go quietly. They’d have to pull him screaming and kicking...

The churchyard doll had been found in May. He started at the beginning of April. Problem was, Glasgow was a big city, more crime than a place like Perth. He wasn’t sure he’d know if and when he found something. And if it was a missing person, would it even make the paper? Thousands of people disappeared each year. Some of them left without being noticed: the homeless, the ones with no family or friends. This was a country where a corpse could sit in a chair by the fire until the smell alerted the neighbours.

By the time he’d searched April, he had no reported MisPers, but six deaths, two of them women. One was a stabbing after a party. A man, it was stated, was helping police with their inquiries. Rebus guessed the boyfriend. He was pretty sure that if he read on, he’d find the case coming to court. The second death was a drowning. A stretch of river Rebus had never heard of: White Cart Water, the body found by its banks on the southern border of Rosshall Park. The victim was Hazel Gibbs, aged twenty-two. Her husband had walked out, leaving her with two kids. Friends said she’d been depressed. She’d been seen out drinking the previous day, while the kids fended for themselves.

Rebus walked outside and got on his mobile, punching in the number for Bobby Hogan at Leith CID.

‘Bobby, it’s John. You know a bit about Glasgow, don’t you?’

‘A bit.’

‘Ever heard of White Cart Water?’

‘Can’t say I have.’

‘What about Rosshall Park?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Got any contacts out west?’

‘I could make a phone call.’

‘Do that, will you?’ Rebus repeated the names and ended the call. He smoked a cigarette, staring across at a new pub on the opposite corner. He knew one drink wouldn’t do him any harm. Then he remembered that he was supposed to be seeing the doctor. Hell, it would have to wait. He could always make another appointment. When, at cigarette’s end, Hogan hadn’t called back, Rebus returned to his desk and started going through the editions for May ’82. When his mobile sounded, the staff and readers gave a look of collective horror. Rebus cursed and put the phone to his ear, getting up from his seat to head outside again.

‘It’s me,’ Hogan said.

‘Go ahead,’ Rebus whispered, moving towards the exit.

‘Rosshall Park’s in Pollok, south-west of the city centre. White Cart Water runs along the top of it.’

Rebus stopped in his tracks. ‘You sure?’ His voice was no longer a whisper.

‘It’s what I’m told.’

Rebus was back at his desk. The Herald cutting was just below the one from the Courier. He eased it out, just to be sure.

‘Thanks, Bobby,’ he said, ending the call. People around him were making exasperated noises, but he didn’t pay them any heed. ‘Church Condemns Sick Joke Find’: the coffin found in the churchyard. The church itself located on Potterhill Road.

In Pollok.

‘I don’t suppose you’d care to explain yourself,’ Gill Templer said.

Rebus had driven to Gayfield Square and asked her for five minutes. They were back in the same stale office.

‘That’s just what I want to do,’ Rebus told her. He placed a hand to his forehead. His face felt like it was burning.

‘You were supposed to be attending a doctor’s appointment.’

‘Something came up. Christ, you’re not going to believe it.’

She stabbed a finger at the tabloid newspaper open on her desk. ‘Any idea how Steve Holly got hold of this?’

Rebus turned the paper so it was facing him. Holly couldn’t have had much time, but he’d patched together a story which managed to mention the Arthur’s Seat coffins, a ‘local expert from the Museum of Scotland’, the Falls coffin, and the ‘persistent rumour that more coffins exist’.

‘What does he mean, “more coffins”?’ Gill asked.

‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you.’ So he told her, laid the whole thing out before her. In the musty, leatherbound sets of Dunfermline Presses and Inverness Couriers he’d found exactly what he’d known and dreaded he would find. In July 1977, a scant week before the Nairn beach coffin had been found, the body of Paula Gearing had been washed ashore four miles further along the coast. Her death could not be explained, and was put down to ‘misadventure’. In October 1972, three weeks before the finding of the coffin in Dunfermline Glen, a teenage girl had been reported missing. Caroline Farmer was a fourth-year student at Dunfermline High. She’d recently been jilted by a long-term boyfriend, and the best guess was that this had led her to leave home. Her family said they wouldn’t rest until they’d heard from her. Rebus doubted they ever had...

Gill Templer listened to his story without comment. When he’d finished, she looked at the cuttings and the notes he’d taken in the library. Finally, she looked up at him.

‘It’s thin, John.’

Rebus jumped from his seat. He needed to be moving, but the room didn’t have enough space. ‘Gill, it’s... there’s something there.’

‘A killer who leaves coffins near the scene?’ She shook her head slowly. ‘I just can’t see it. You’ve got two bodies, no signs of foul play, and two disappearances. Doesn’t exactly make a pattern.’

‘Three disappearances including Philippa Balfour.’

‘And there’s another thing: the Falls coffin turned up less than a week after she went AWOL. No pattern again.’

‘You think I’m seeing things?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Can I at least follow it through?’

‘John...’

‘Just one, maybe two more officers. Give us a few days to see if we can convince you.’

‘We’re stretched as it is.’

‘Stretched doing what? We’re whistling in the dark till she comes back, phones home or turns up dead. Give me two people.’

She shook her head slowly. ‘You can have one. And three or four days, tops. Understood?’

Rebus nodded.

‘And John? Go see the doctor, or I’m reeling you back in. Understood?’

‘Understood. Who will I be working with?’

Templer was thoughtful. ‘Who do you want?’

‘Give me Ellen Wylie.’

She stared at him. ‘Any particular reason why?’

He shrugged. ‘She’ll never make it as a TV presenter, but she’s a good cop.’

Templer was still staring. ‘Okay,’ she said at last. ‘Go ahead.’

‘And is there any chance you can keep Steve Holly away from us?’

‘I can try.’ She tapped the newspaper. ‘I’m assuming the “local expert” is Jean?’ She waited till he’d nodded, then she sighed. ‘I should have known better, bringing the two of you together...’ She started rubbing at her forehead. It was something the Farmer had done, too, whenever he got what he called his ‘Rebus heads’...

‘What exactly are we looking for?’ Ellen Wylie asked. She’d been summoned to St Leonard’s, and didn’t look thrilled at the prospect of working a two-hander with Rebus.

‘The first thing,’ he told her, ‘is to cover our backsides, and that means checking that the MisPers never turned up.’

‘Talking to the families?’ she guessed, writing a note to herself on her pad.

‘Right. As for the two bodies, we need to take another look at the PM results, see if there’s anything the pathologists could have missed.’

‘Nineteen seventy-seven and eighty-two? You think the records won’t have been ditched?’

‘I hope not. In any case, some of those pathologists have long memories.’

She made another note. ‘I’ll ask again: what are we looking for? You think there’s a possibility of proving these women and the coffins are related?’

‘I don’t know.’ But he knew what she meant: it was one thing to believe something, quite another to be able to prove it, especially in a court of law.

‘It might set my mind at rest,’ he said at last.

‘And all of this started with some coffins on Arthur’s Seat?’ He nodded, his own enthusiasm making no impact on her scepticism.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘if I’m seeing things, you’ll get your chance to tell me. But first we do a bit of digging.’

She shrugged, made a show of jotting another note on to her pad. ‘Did you ask for me, or were you given me?’

‘I asked.’

‘And DCS Templer said okay?’

Rebus nodded again. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘I don’t know.’ She gave the question serious consideration. ‘Probably not.’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Then let’s get started.’

It took him the best part of two hours to type up everything he had. What he wanted was a ‘bible’ they could work from. He had dates and page references for each of the newspaper stories, and had arranged with the library for copies to be made. Wylie meantime was busy on the phone, begging favours from police stations in Glasgow, Perth, Dunfermline and Nairn. She wanted case notes if any still existed, plus pathologists’ names. Whenever she laughed, Rebus knew what had just been said to her: ‘You don’t ask for bloody much, do you?’ Hammering away at his keyboard, he listened to her work. She knew when to be coy, when to get tough, and when to flirt. Her voice never betrayed the set features of her face as repetition made her weary.

‘Thank you,’ she said for the umpteenth time, dropping the receiver into its cradle. She scribbled a note on her pad, checked the time and wrote that down too. She was thorough, all right. ‘A promise is one thing,’ she said more than once.

‘It’s better than nothing.’

‘As long as they come through.’ Then she lifted the handset again, took another deep breath, and made the next call.

Rebus was intrigued by the long gaps in the chronology: 1972, 1977, 1982, 1995. Five years, five years, thirteen years. And now, just maybe, another five-year gap. The fives made for a nice pattern, but it was immediately broken by that silence between ’82 and ’95. There were all sorts of explanations: the man, whoever he was, could have been away somewhere, maybe in prison. Who was to say the coffins had only been left dotted around Scotland? It might be worth putting out a more general search, see if any other forces had come across the phenomenon. If he’d done a stretch in prison, well, records could be checked. Thirteen years was a long one: had to be murder, most probably.

There was another possibility, of course: that he hadn’t been anywhere. That he’d gone on with his spree right here, but somehow hadn’t bothered with the coffins, or they hadn’t ever been found. A little wooden box... a dog would chew it to pulp; a kid might take it home; someone might bin it, the better to be rid of the sick joke. Rebus knew that a public appeal would be one way of finding out, but he couldn’t see Templer going for it. She would need convincing first.

‘Nothing?’ he asked as Wylie put down the phone.

‘No one’s answering. Maybe word’s gone round about the crazy cop from Edinburgh.’

Rebus crumpled a sheet of paper and tossed it overarm towards the bin. ‘I think maybe we’re getting a bit stir-crazy,’ he said. ‘Let’s take a break.’

Wylie was heading off to the baker’s for a jam doughnut. Rebus decided he’d just take a walk. The streets around St Leonard’s didn’t offer a great deal of choice. Tenements and housing schemes, or Holyrood Road with its speeding traffic and backdrop of Salisbury Crags. Rebus decided to head into the warren of narrow passages between St Leonard’s and Nicolson Street. He nipped into a newsagent’s and bought a can of Irn-Bru, sipping from it as he walked. They said the stuff was perfect for hangovers, but he was using it to fend off the craving for a proper drink, a pint and a nip, somewhere smoky with the horses on TV... The Southsider was a possibility, but he crossed the road to avoid it. There were kids playing on the pavements, Asians mostly. School was over for the day and here they were with their energy, their imagination. He wondered if maybe his own imagination was putting in some overtime today... It was the final possibility: that he was seeing connections where none existed. He got out his mobile and a scrap of paper with a number on it.

When the call was answered, he asked to be put through to Jean Burchill.

‘Jean?’ He stopped walking. ‘It’s John Rebus. We might have struck gold with your little coffins.’ He listened for a moment. ‘I can’t tell you about it right now.’ He looked around. ‘I’m on my way to a meeting. Are you busy tonight?’ He listened again. ‘That’s a pity. Would you be up for a nightcap?’ He brightened. ‘Ten o’clock? Portobello or in town?’ Another pause. ‘Yes, town makes sense if you’ve been in a meeting. I’ll drive you home after. Ten at the museum then? Okay, bye.’

He looked around. He was in Hill Square, and there was a sign on the railings nearest him. Now he knew where he was: at the back of Surgeons’ Hall. The anonymous door in front of him was the entrance to something called the Sir Jules Thorn Exhibition of the History of Surgery. He checked his watch against the opening times. He had about ten minutes. What the hell, he thought, pushing the door and going inside.

He found himself in an ordinary tenement stairwell. Climbing one flight brought him to a narrow landing with two doors facing. They looked like they led to private flats, so he climbed a further flight. As he passed the museum threshold an alarm sounded, alerting a member of staff that there was a new visitor.

‘Have you been here before?’ she asked. He shook his head. ‘Well, modern-day is upstairs, and just off to the left is the dental display...’ He thanked her and she left him to it. There was no one else around, no one Rebus could see. He lasted half a minute in the dentistry room. It didn’t seem to him that the technology had moved so very far in a couple of centuries. The main museum display took up two floors, and was well presented. The exhibits were behind glass, well lit for the most part. He stood in front of an apothecary’s shop, then moved to a full-size dummy of the physician Joseph Lister, examining his list of accomplishments, chief among them the introduction of carbolic spray and sterile catgut. A little further along, he came across the case containing the wallet made from Burke’s skin. It reminded him of a small leatherbound Bible an uncle had gifted him one childhood birthday. Beside it was a plaster cast of Burke’s head — the marks of the hangman’s noose still visible — and one of an accomplice, John Brogan, who had helped transport the corpses. While Burke looked peaceful, hair groomed, face at rest, Brogan looked to have suffered torments, the skin pulled back from his lower jaw, skull bulbous and pink.

Next along was a portrait of the anatomist Knox, recipient of the still-warm cadavers.

‘Poor Knox,’ a voice behind him said. Rebus looked around. An elderly man, dressed in full evening attire — bowtie, cummerbund and patent shoes. It took Rebus a second to place him: Professor Devlin, Flip’s neighbour. Devlin shuffled forward, staring at the exhibits. ‘There’s been a lot of discussion about how much he knew.’

‘You mean, whether he knew Burke and Hare were killers?’

Devlin nodded. ‘For myself, I think there’s no doubt he knew. At the time, most bodies worked on by the anatomists were cold indeed. They were brought to Edinburgh from all over Britain — some came by way of the Union Canal. The resurrectionists — body-snatchers — pickled them in whisky for transportation. It was a lucrative trade.’

‘But did the whisky get drunk afterwards?’

Devlin chuckled. ‘Economics would dictate that it did,’ he said. ‘Ironically, both Burke and Hare came to Scotland as economic migrants. Their job was to help build the Union Canal.’ Rebus recalled Jean saying something similar. Devlin paused, tucked a finger into his cummerbund. ‘But poor Knox... the man was possessed of a kind of genius. It was never proven that he was complicit in the murders. But the Church was against him, that was the problem. The human body was a temple, remember. Many of the clergy were against exploration — they saw it as desecration. They raised the rabble against Knox.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘He died of apoplexy, according to the literature. Hare, who had turned King’s evidence, had to flee Scotland. Even then he wasn’t safe. He was attacked with lime, and ended his days blind and begging on the streets of London. I believe there’s a pub called the Blind Beggar somewhere in London, but whether it has any connection...’

‘Sixteen murders,’ Rebus said, ‘in an area as confined as the West Port.’

‘We can’t imagine it happening these days, can we?’

‘But these days we’ve got forensics, pathology...’

Devlin unhooked the finger from his cummerbund and wagged it before him. ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘And we’d have had no pathological studies at all had it not been for the resurrectionists and the likes of Messrs Burke and Hare!’

‘Is that why you’re here? Paying homage?’

‘Perhaps,’ Devlin said. Then he checked his watch. ‘There’s a dinner upstairs at seven. I thought I’d arrive early and spend some time amongst the exhibits.’

Rebus recalled the invitation on Devlin’s mantelpiece: black tie and decorations...

‘I’m sorry, Professor Devlin,’ the curator called. ‘It’s time I was locking up.’

‘That’s okay, Maggie,’ Devlin called back. Then, to Rebus: ‘Would you like to see the rest of the place?’

Rebus thought of Ellen Wylie, probably back at her desk by now. ‘I should really...’

‘Come on, come on,’ Devlin insisted. ‘You can’t visit Surgeons’ Hall and miss out on the Black Museum...’

The curator had to let them through a couple of locked doors, after which they entered the main body of the building. The corridors were hushed and lined with portraits of medical men. Devlin pointed out the library, then stopped in a marble-floored circular hall, pointing upwards. ‘That’s where we’ll be eating. Lots of Profs and Docs all dressed to the nines and feasting on rubber chicken.’

Rebus looked up. The ceiling was topped with a glass cupola. There was a circular railing on the first floor, with a doorway just visible beyond. ‘What’s the occasion?’

‘Lord alone knows. I just bung them a cheque whenever an invite arrives.’

‘Will Gates and Curt be there?’

‘Probably. You know Sandy Gates has trouble turning down a square meal.’

Rebus was studying the inside of the large main doors. He’d seen them before, but only ever from the other side, while driving or walking down Nicolson Street. He didn’t think he’d ever seen them open, and said as much to his guide.

‘They’ll be open this evening,’ Devlin told him. ‘Guests march in and straight up the stairs. Come on, this way.’

Along more corridors and up some steps. ‘Probably won’t be locked,’ Devlin said, as they approached another imposing set of doors. ‘The dinner guests like a stroll after their meal. Most of them end up here.’ He tried the doorhandle. He was right; the door opened and they entered a large exhibition hall.

‘The Black Museum,’ Devlin said, gesturing with his arms.

‘I’ve heard of it,’ Rebus said. ‘Never had cause to visit.’

‘Off limits to the public,’ Devlin explained. ‘Never been sure why. The College could make itself a bit of money, open it as a tourist attraction.’

Its given name was Playfair Hall, and it wasn’t, to Rebus’s eye, as grisly as its nickname suggested. It seemed to consist of old surgical tools, looking more fit for a torture chamber than an operating theatre. There were lots of bones and body parts and things floating in hazy jars. A further narrow staircase took them up to a landing, where more jars awaited them.

‘Pity the poor bugger whose job is keeping the formaldehyde topped up,’ Devlin said, panting from the exertion.

Rebus stared at the contents of one glass cylinder. The face of an infant stared back at him, but it looked distorted somehow. Then he realised that it sat atop two distinct bodies. Siamese twins, joined at the head, parts of either face forming a singular whole. Rebus, who’d seen his fair share of horror, was held in grim fascination. But there were other exhibits to explore: further deformed foetuses. Paintings, too, mostly from the nineteenth century: soldiers with bits blown off them by cannonball or musket.

‘This is my favourite,’ Devlin said. Surrounded by obscene images, he had found a still point, the portrait of a young man, almost smiling for the artist. Rebus read the inscription.

‘ “Dr Kennet Lovell, February, eighteen twenty-nine.” ’

‘Lovell was one of the anatomists charged with the dissection of William Burke. It’s even likely that he pronounced Burke dead after the hanging. Less than a month later, he sat for this portrait.’

‘He looks pretty happy with his lot,’ Rebus commented.

Devlin’s eyes sparkled. ‘Doesn’t he? Kennet was a craftsman too. He worked with wood, as did Deacon William Brodie, of whom you will have heard.’

‘Gentleman by day, housebreaker by night,’ Rebus acknowledged.

‘And perhaps the model for Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde. As a child, Stevenson had a wardrobe in his room, one of Brodie’s creations...’

Rebus was still studying the portrait. Lovell had deep black eyes, a cleft chin and a profusion of dark locks of hair. He had no doubt that the painter would have flattered his subject, maybe shaved a few years and pounds from him. Still, Lovell was a handsome man.

‘It’s interesting about the Balfour girl,’ Devlin said. Startled, Rebus turned to him. The old man, his breathing regular now, had eyes only for the painting.

‘What is?’ Rebus asked.

‘The caskets found on Arthur’s Seat... the way the press have brought them up again.’ He turned towards Rebus. ‘One notion is that they represent Burke and Hare’s victims...’

‘Yes.’

‘And now another casket seems to be some memorial for young Philippa.’

Rebus turned back to the portrait. ‘Lovell worked with wood?’

‘The table in my dining room.’ Devlin smiled. ‘He made that.’

‘Is that why you bought it?’

‘A small memento of the early years of pathology. The history of surgery, Inspector, is the history of Edinburgh.’ Devlin sniffed and then sighed. ‘I miss it, you know.’

‘I don’t think I would.’

They were walking away from the portrait. ‘It was a privilege, in its way. Endlessly fascinating, what this animal exterior can contain.’ Devlin slapped his own chest to make the point. Rebus didn’t feel he had anything to add. To him, a body was a body was a body. By the time it was dead, whatever it was that had made it interesting had disappeared. He almost said as much, but knew he’d fail to match the old pathologist’s eloquence.

Back in the main hall, Devlin turned to him. ‘Look here, you really ought to come along tonight. Plenty of time to run home and change.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Rebus said. ‘It’ll be all shop talk, you said as much yourself.’ And besides, he could have added, he didn’t own so much as a dinner jacket, never mind the rest.

‘But you’d enjoy it,’ Devlin persisted. ‘Bearing in mind our conversation.’

‘Why’s that?’ Rebus asked.

‘The speaker is a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. He’s discussing the dichotomy between body and spirit.’

‘You’ve lost me already,’ Rebus said.

Devlin just smiled at him. ‘I think you pretend to be less able than you are. Probably useful to you in your chosen career.’

Rebus admitted as much with a shrug. ‘This speaker,’ he said. ‘It’s not Father Conor Leary, is it?’

Devlin’s eyes widened. ‘You know him? All the more reason to join us.’

Rebus was thoughtful. ‘Maybe just for a drink before dinner.’

Back at St Leonard’s, Ellen Wylie was not best pleased.

‘Your idea of a “break” differs somewhat from mine,’ she complained.

‘I bumped into someone,’ he said. She didn’t say anything else, but he knew she was holding back. Her face remained tense and when she snatched up the receiver it was as though with malice aforethought. She wanted something more from him: a fuller apology maybe, or some words of praise. He held off for a while, then, as she attacked the telephone again, asked:

‘Is it because of that press conference?’

‘What?’ She slammed the receiver back down.

‘Ellen,’ he said, ‘it’s not as—’

‘Don’t you fucking dare patronise me!’

He held up his hands in surrender. ‘Okay, no more first names. Sorry if it sounded patronising, DS Wylie.’

She glowered at him, then suddenly her face changed, became looser. She forced a smile from somewhere and rubbed at her cheeks with her hands.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

‘Me too.’ She looked at him. ‘For being out so long. I should have called it in.’ He shrugged. ‘But now you know my awful secret.’

‘Which is?’

‘To wring an apology from John Rebus, you first have to violate a telephone.’

This time she laughed. It was far from full-blooded, and retained an edge of hysteria, but she seemed the better for it. They got back to work.

By the end of play, however, they’d achieved next to nothing. He told her not to worry, it was bound to be a rocky start. She shrugged her arms into her coat, asked if he was going for a drink.

‘Previous appointment,’ he told her. ‘Another night though, eh?’

‘Sure,’ she said. But she didn’t sound as if she believed it.

He drank alone: just the one before the walk to Surgeons’ Hall; a Laphroaig, with the merest trickle of water to smooth its edges. He chose a pub Ellen Wylie wouldn’t know, didn’t like the thought of bumping into her after he’d turned her down. He’d need a few drinks in him to tell her she was wrong, that one tongue-tied press conference wasn’t the end of her career. Gill Templer was down on her, no question of that, but Gill wasn’t stupid enough to let it turn into a feud. Wylie was a good cop, an intelligent detective. She’d get her chance again. If Templer kept knocking her back, she herself would start to look bad.

‘Another?’ the barman said.

Rebus checked his watch. ‘Aye, go on then.’

It suited him, this place. Small and anonymous and hidden away. There wasn’t even a name outside, nothing to identify it. It was on a corner in a back street where only the knowing would find it. Two old regulars in the corner, sitting straight-backed, eyes hypnotised by the far wall. Their dialogue was sparse and guttural. The TV had its sound turned off, but the barman watched it anyway: some American courtroom drama, with lots of pacing about and walls painted grey. Now and then there was a close-up of a woman trying to seem worried. Unwilling to rely on facial expression alone, she wrung her hands as well. Rebus handed over his money and poured the remains of his first drink into its replacement, shaking the drips out. One of the old men coughed, then sniffed. His neighbour said something, and he nodded silent agreement.

‘What’s going on?’ Rebus couldn’t help asking the barman.

‘Eh?’

‘The film, what’s happening in it?’

‘Same as always,’ the barman said. It was as if each day held its identical routine, right down to the drama being played out on the screen.

‘How about yourself?’ the barman said. ‘How’s your day been?’ The words sounded rusty in his mouth: small talk with the customers not part of the routine.

Rebus thought of possible answers. The potential that some serial killer was on the loose, and had been since the early seventies. A missing girl almost sure to turn up dead. A single, twisted face shared by Siamese twins.

‘Ach, you know,’ he said at last. The barman nodded agreement, as though it was exactly the answer he’d expected.

Rebus left the bar soon after. A short walk back on to Nicolson Street and the doors of Surgeons’ Hall now, as Professor Devlin had predicted, standing open. Guests were already filtering in. Rebus had no invite to show to staff, but an explanation and his warrant card seemed to do the trick. Early arrivals were standing on the first-floor landing, drinks in hand. Rebus made his way upstairs. The banqueting hall was set for dinner, waiters scurrying around making last-minute adjustments. A trestle table just inside the doorway had been covered with a white cloth and an array of glasses and bottles. The serving staff wore black waistcoats over crisp white shirts.

‘Yes, sir?’

Rebus considered another whisky. The problem was, once he had three or four under his belt, he wouldn’t want to stop. And if he did stop, the thumping head would be nestling in just about the time he was due to meet Jean.

‘Just an orange juice, please,’ he said.

‘Holy Mother, now I can die a peaceful death.’

Rebus turned towards the voice, smiling. ‘And why’s that?’ he asked.

‘Because I’ve seen all there is to see on this glorious planet of ours. Give the man a whisky and don’t be niggardly,’ he ordered the barman, who stopped halfway through pouring the orange juice. The barman looked at Rebus.

‘Just the juice,’ he said.

‘Well now,’ Father Conor Leary said. ‘I can smell whisky on your breath, so I know you’ve not gone TT on me. But for some inexplicable reason you want to stay sober...’ He grew thoughtful. ‘Is the fairer sex involved at all?’

‘You’re wasted as a priest,’ Rebus said.

Father Leary roared with laughter. ‘I’d have made a good detective, you mean? And who’s to say you’re wrong?’ Then, to the barman: ‘Do you need to ask?’ The barman didn’t, and was generous with the measure. Leary nodded and took the glass from him.

‘Slainte!’ he said.

‘Slainte.’ Rebus sipped the juice. Conor Leary looked almost too well. When Rebus had last spoken with him, the old priest had been ailing, medicines jostling for space with the Guinness in his fridge.

‘It’s been a while,’ Leary stated.

‘You know how it is.’

‘I know you young fellows have little enough time to visit the weak and infirm. Too busy with the sins of the flesh.’

‘Been a long time since my flesh saw any sins worth reporting.’

‘And by God there’s plenty of it.’ The priest slapped Rebus’s stomach.

‘Maybe that’s the problem,’ Rebus admitted. ‘You, on the other hand...’

‘Ah, you were expecting me to wither and die? That’s not the way I’d choose. Good food, good drink and damn the consequences.’

Leary wore his clerical collar beneath a grey V-neck jumper. His trousers were navy blue, the shoes polished black. It was true he’d lost some weight, but his stomach and jowls sagged, and his thin silver hair was like spun silk, the eyes sunken beneath a Roman fringe. He held his whisky glass the way a workman would grip a flask.

‘We’re neither of us dressed for the occasion,’ he said, looking around at the array of dinner jackets.

‘At least you’re in uniform,’ Rebus said.

‘Just barely,’ Leary said. ‘I’ve retired from active service.’ Then he winked. ‘It happens, you know. We’re allowed to down tools. But every time I put the old collar on for something like this, I envision papal emissaries leaping forward, daggers drawn, to slice it from my neck.’

Rebus smiled. ‘Like leaving the Foreign Legion?’

‘Indeed! Or clipping the pigtail from a retiring Sumo.’

Both men were laughing as Donald Devlin came alongside. ‘Glad you felt able to join us,’ he told Rebus, before taking the priest’s hand. ‘I think you were the deciding factor, Father,’ he said, explaining about the dinner invitation.

‘The offer of which still stands,’ he added. ‘I’m sure you’ll want to hear the Father’s speech.’ Rebus shook his head.

‘Last thing a heathen like John needs is me telling him what’s good for him,’ Leary said.

‘Too right,’ Rebus agreed. ‘And I’m sure I’ve heard it all before anyway.’ He caught Leary’s eye, and in that moment they shared a memory of the long talks in the priest’s kitchen, fuelled by trips to the fridge and the drinks cabinet. Conversations about Calvin and criminals, faith and the faithless. Even when Rebus agreed with Leary, he’d try to play devil’s advocate, the old priest amused by his stubbornness. Long talks they’d had, and regularly... until Rebus had started finding excuses to stay away. Tonight, if Leary asked why, he knew he couldn’t give a reason. Maybe it was because the priest had begun to offer him certainties, and Rebus had no time for them. They’d played this game, Leary convinced he could convert ‘the heathen’.

‘You’ve got all these questions,’ he’d tell Rebus. ‘Why won’t you let someone supply the answers?’

‘Maybe because I prefer questions to answers,’ Rebus had replied. And the priest had thrown up his hands in despair, before making another foray to the fridge.

Devlin was asking Leary about the theme of his talk. Rebus could see that Devlin had had a drink or two. He stood rosy-faced with hands in pockets, his smile contented but distant. Rebus was getting his OJ topped up when Gates and Curt appeared, the two pathologists dressed almost identically, making them seem more of a double-act than usual.

‘Bloody hell,’ Gates said, ‘the gang’s all here.’ He caught the barman’s attention. ‘Whisky for me, and a glass of tonic water for this fairy here.’

Curt snorted. ‘I’m not the only one.’ He nodded towards Rebus’s drink.

‘Ye Gods, John, tell me there’s vodka in that,’ Gates boomed. Then: ‘What the hell are you doing here anyway?’ Gates was sweating, his shirt collar constricting his throat. His face had turned almost puce. Curt, as usual, looked completely at ease. He’d gained a couple of pounds but still looked slim, though his face was grey.

‘I never see sunlight,’ was the excuse he always gave when asked about his pallor. More than one woolly-suit at St Leonard’s had taken to calling him Dracula.

‘I wanted to catch the pair of you,’ Rebus said now.

‘The answer’s no,’ Gates said.

‘You don’t know what I was going to say.’

‘That tone of voice was enough. You’re going to ask a favour. You’ll say it won’t take long. You’ll be wrong.’

‘Just some old PM results. I need a second opinion.’

‘We’re rushed off our feet,’ Curt said, looking apologetic.

‘Whose are they?’ Gates asked.

‘I haven’t got them yet. They’re from Glasgow and Nairn. Maybe if you were to put in a request, it would push things along.’

Gates looked around the group. ‘See what I mean?’

‘University duties, John,’ Curt said. ‘More students and coursework, fewer people to do the teaching.’

‘I appreciate that...’ Rebus began.

Gates lifted his cummerbund and pointed to the pager hidden there. ‘Even tonight, we could get a call, another body to deal with.’

‘I don’t think you’re winning them over,’ Leary said, laughing.

Rebus fixed Gates with a hard look. ‘I’m serious,’ he said.

‘So am I. First night off I’ve had in ages, and you’re after one of your famous “favours”.’

Rebus decided there was no point pushing it, not when Gates was in a mood. Hard day at the office maybe, but then weren’t they all?

Devlin cleared his throat. ‘Might I perhaps...?’

Leary slapped Devlin’s back. ‘There you are, John. A willing victim!’

‘I know I’ve been retired a good few years, but I don’t suppose the theory and practice have changed.’

Rebus looked at him. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘the most recent case is nineteen eighty-two.’

‘Donald was still wielding the scalpel in eighty-two,’ Gates said. Devlin acknowledged this truth with a small bow.

Rebus hesitated. He wanted someone with a bit of clout, someone like Gates.

‘Motion carried,’ Curt said, deciding the matter for him.

Siobhan Clarke sat in her living room watching TV. She’d tried cooking herself a proper dinner, but had given up halfway through chopping the red peppers, putting everything in the fridge and pulling a ready-meal from the freezer. The empty container was on the floor in front of her. She sat on the sofa with her legs tucked under her, head resting on one arm. The laptop was on the coffee table, but she’d unhooked her mobile phone. She didn’t think Quizmaster would be calling again. She lifted her notepad and stared at the clue. She’d gone through dozens of sheets of paper, working out possible anagrams and meanings. Seven fins high is king... and mentions of the queen and ‘the bust’: it sounded like something from a card game, but the compendium of card games she’d borrowed from the Central Library hadn’t been any help. She was just wondering if she should read it through a final time when her phone rang.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s Grant.’

Siobhan turned the sound down on the TV. ‘What’s up?’

‘I think maybe I’ve cracked it.’

Siobhan swivelled her legs so her feet were on the floor. ‘Tell me,’ she said.

‘I’d rather show you.’

There seemed to be a lot of background noise on the line. She stood up. ‘Are you on your mobile?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Parked right outside.’

She walked over to the window and looked out. Sure enough, his Alfa was sitting in the middle of the street. Siobhan smiled. ‘Find a parking space then. My buzzer’s second from the top.’

By the time she’d taken the dirty dishes through to the sink, Grant was at her intercom. She checked anyway that it was him, then pressed the button to let him into the tenement. She was standing by the open door when he hauled himself up the last few steps.

‘Sorry it’s so late,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t keep it to myself.’

‘Coffee?’ she asked, closing the door after him.

‘Thanks. Two sugars.’

They took the coffees into the living room. ‘Nice place,’ he said.

‘I like it.’

He sat down next to her on the sofa and placed his coffee mug on the table. Then he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a London A — Z.

‘London?’ she said.

‘I went through all the kings I could think of from history, then anything else to do with the word king.’ He held up the book so its back cover was showing. A map of the London Underground.

‘King’s Cross?’ she guessed.

He nodded. ‘Take a look.’

She took the book from him. He could hardly sit still in his seat.

‘Seven fins high is king,’ he said.

‘And you think the king is King’s Cross?’

He slid across the sofa, his finger tracing the light blue line which went through the station. ‘Do you see?’ he said.

‘No,’ she said grimly. ‘So you’d better tell me.’

‘Go one stop north of King’s Cross.’

‘Highbury and Islington?’

‘And again.’

‘Finsbury Park... then Seven Sisters.’

‘Now backwards,’ he said. He was practically bouncing on the spot.

‘Don’t wet yourself,’ she said. Then she looked at the map again. ‘Seven Sisters... Finsbury Park... Highbury and Islington... King’s Cross.’ And saw it. The exact same sequence, but abbreviated. ‘Seven... Fins... High Is... King.’ She looked at Grant. He was nodding. ‘Well done you,’ she added, meaning it. Grant leaned over and gave her a hug, which she squirmed out of. Then he leaped from the sofa and clapped his hands together.

‘I couldn’t believe it myself,’ he said. ‘The way it just suddenly screamed at me. It’s the Victoria Line.’

She nodded, couldn’t think of anything to say. It was indeed a section of London Underground’s Victoria Line.

‘But what does it mean?’ she said at last.

He sat down again, leaning forward, elbows on knees. ‘That’s what we have to work out next.’

She slid across the sofa a little, making some space between them, then lifted her pad and read from it. ‘“This queen dines well before the bust.”’ She looked at him, but he just shrugged.

‘Could the answer be in London?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Buckingham Palace? Queen’s Park Rangers?’ He shrugged. ‘Could be London.’

‘All these Underground stops... what do they mean?’

‘They’re all on the Victoria Line,’ was all he could think to say. Then they stared at one another.

‘Queen Victoria,’ they said in unison.

Siobhan had a London guidebook, bought for a weekend away which she’d never taken. It took her a while to find it. Meantime Grant booted up the computer and did a search on the Internet.

‘Could be the name of a pub,’ he suggested. ‘Like in EastEnders.’

‘Yes,’ she said, busy reading. ‘Or the Victoria and Albert Museum.’

‘Not forgetting Victoria Station — also on the Victoria Line. There’s a coach station there too. Worst cafeteria in Britain.’

‘You’re speaking from experience?’

‘I bussed it down there a few weekends in my teens. Didn’t like it.’ He was scrolling down some text.

‘Didn’t like the bus or didn’t like London?’

‘Both, I suppose. “Bust” couldn’t mean a drug bust, could it?’

‘Maybe. Or some stock-market crash. There was one not that long back, wasn’t there? Black Monday?’

He nodded.

‘Still, more likely it’s a statue,’ she said. ‘Maybe of Queen Victoria, with a restaurant in front of it.’

They worked in silence for a while after that, until Siobhan’s eyes started to hurt and she got up to make more coffee.

‘Two sugars,’ Grant said.

‘I remember.’ She looked at him, hunched over the computer screen, one knee pumping away. She wanted to say something about the hug... warn him off somehow... but she knew she’d missed her chance.

Bringing the mugs back through from the kitchen, she asked if he’d found anything.

‘Tourist sites,’ he said. He took the mug from her with a nod of thanks.

‘Why London?’ she asked.

‘What do you mean?’ His eyes were still on the screen.

‘I mean, why not somewhere closer to home?’

‘Could be Quizmaster lives in London. We don’t know, do we?’

‘No.’

‘And who’s to say Flip Balfour was the only one playing the game? Something like this, my bet is there’s a website somewhere — or was. Anyone wanting to join in could go there. They wouldn’t all come from Scotland.’

She nodded. ‘I’m just wondering... was Flip bright enough to solve this clue?’

‘Obviously, or she wouldn’t have gone on to the next level.’

‘But maybe this is a new game,’ she said. He turned his head to look at her. ‘Maybe it’s just for us.’

‘If we ever meet the bastard, I’ll be sure to ask him.’

A further half-hour later, Grant was working his way through a list of London restaurants. ‘You wouldn’t believe how many Victoria Roads and Victoria Streets there are in this bloody place, and half of them have restaurants on them.’

He leaned back, straightening his spine. The energy seemed to have leached out of him.

‘And that’s before we start looking at pubs.’ Siobhan ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it back tight from her forehead. ‘It’s too...’

‘What?’

‘The first bit of the clue was clever. But this... this is just looking at lists. Does he expect us to go to London, visit every chip shop and café in the hope of finding Queen Victoria’s bust?’

‘He can whistle if he does.’ Grant’s chuckle was empty of humour.

Siobhan looked at the book of card games. She’d spent a couple of hours flicking through it, and all the time looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place. She’d only just got to the library in time. Five minutes till closing. Left her car on Victoria Street and prayed she didn’t get a ticket...

‘Victoria Street?’ she said out loud.

‘Take your pick, there are dozens of the buggers.’

‘And some of them are right here,’ she told him.

He looked up. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘they are.’

He went down to his car, brought back an Ordnance Survey atlas of East-Central Scotland, opened it at the index and ran his finger down the list.

‘Victoria Gardens... there’s a Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy... Victoria Street and Victoria Terrace in Edinburgh.’ He looked at her. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think there are a couple of restaurants in Victoria Street.’

‘Any statues?’

‘Not on the outside.’

He checked his watch. ‘They won’t be open at this hour, will they?’

She shook her head. ‘First thing tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Breakfast’s on me.’

Rebus and Jean sat in the Palm Court. She was drinking a long vodka, while he nursed a ten-year-old Macallan. The waiter had brought a little glass jug of water, but Rebus hadn’t disturbed it. He hadn’t been inside the Balmoral Hotel in years. Back then it had been the North British. The old place had changed a bit in the interim. Not that Jean seemed interested in her surroundings, not now she’d heard Rebus’s story.

‘So they might all have been murdered?’ she said, her face pale. The lights in the lounge had been turned low, and a pianist was playing. Rebus kept recognising snatches of tunes; he doubted Jean had taken in any of them.

‘It’s possible,’ he admitted.

‘But you’re basing all of it on the dolls?’

Her eyes met his and he nodded. ‘Maybe I’m reading too much into it,’ he said. ‘But it needs to be investigated.’

‘Where on earth will you start?’

‘We’re waiting for the original case notes.’ He paused. ‘What’s the matter?’

There were tears in her eyes. She sniffed and searched her bag for a handkerchief. ‘It’s just the idea of it. All this time, I had those cuttings... Maybe if I’d given them to the police sooner...’

‘Jean.’ He took her hand. ‘All you had were stories about dolls in coffins.’

‘I suppose so,’ she said.

‘Meantime, maybe you can help.’

She hadn’t found a handkerchief. Picked up her cocktail napkin and dabbed at her eyes with it. ‘How?’ she said.

‘This whole thing goes back as far as nineteen seventy-two. I need to know who back then might have shown an interest in the Arthur’s Seat exhibits. Can you do some digging for me?’

‘Of course.’

He gave her hand another squeeze. ‘Thanks.’

She gave a half-hearted smile and picked up her drink. The ice rattled as she finished it.

‘Another?’ he said.

She shook her head, looked around her. ‘I get the feeling this isn’t your kind of place.’

‘Oh? And what is?’

‘I think you feel more comfortable in small, smoky bars filled with disappointed men.’

There was a smile on her face. Rebus nodded slowly.

‘You catch on quick,’ he said.

Her smile faded as she looked around again. ‘I was here just last week, such a happy occasion... It seems like a long time ago.’

‘What was the occasion?’

‘Gill’s promotion. Do you think she’s coping?’

‘Gill’s Gill. She’ll tough it out.’ He paused. ‘Speaking of toughing it out, is that reporter still giving you grief?’

She managed a thin smile. ‘He’s persistent. Wants to know what “others” I was talking about in Bev Dodds’s kitchen. That was my fault, sorry.’ She seemed to have regained some composure. ‘I should be getting back. I can probably find a taxi if...’

‘I said I’d run you home.’ He signalled for their waitress to bring the bill.

He’d parked the Saab on North Bridge. There was a cold wind blowing, but Jean stopped to look at the view: the Scott Monument, the Castle, and Ramsay Gardens.

‘Such a beautiful city,’ she said. Rebus tried to agree. He hardly saw it any more. To him, Edinburgh had become a state of mind, a juggling of criminal thoughts and baser instincts. He liked its size, its compactness. He liked its bars. But its outward show had ceased to impress him a long time ago. Jean wrapped her coat tightly around her. ‘Everywhere you look, there’s some story, some little piece of history.’ She looked at him and he nodded agreement, but he was remembering all the suicides he’d dealt with, people who’d jumped from North Bridge maybe because they couldn’t see the same city Jean did.

‘I never tire of this view,’ she said, turning back towards the car. He nodded again, disingenuously. To him, it wasn’t a view at all. It was a crime scene waiting to happen.

When he drove off, she asked if they could have some music. He switched on the cassette-player and the car filled to bursting with Hawkwind’s In Search of Space.

‘Sorry,’ he said, ejecting the tape. She found cassette boxes in the glove compartment. Hendrix, Cream and the Stones. ‘Probably not your style,’ he said.

She waved the Hendrix at him. ‘You haven’t got Electric Ladyland by any chance?’

Rebus looked at her and smiled.

Hendrix was the soundtrack for their drive to Portobello.

‘So what made you a policeman?’ she asked at one point.

‘Is it such a strange career choice?’

‘That doesn’t answer my question.’

‘True.’ He glanced at her and smiled. She took the hint, nodding her understanding. Then she concentrated on the music.

Portobello was on Rebus’s short-list come the move from Arden Street. It had a beach, and a main street of small local shops. At one time, it had been a fairly grand location, a place the gentry flocked to for reviving air and healthy doses of chill seawater. It wasn’t quite so grand now, but the housing market dictated its rebirth. Those who couldn’t afford the smart homes in the city centre were moving to ‘Porty’, which still had big Georgian houses, but without the premium. Jean had a house on a narrow street near the promenade. ‘You own the whole thing?’ he said, peering through the windscreen.

‘I bought it years back. Porty wasn’t so fashionable.’ She hesitated. ‘Do you want to come in for coffee this time?’

Their eyes met. His were questioning; hers tentative. Then their faces collapsed into smiles.

‘I’d love one,’ he said. Just as he was turning off the ignition, his mobile started ringing.

‘I just thought you’d want to know,’ Donald Devlin said. His voice trembled slightly, body likewise.

Rebus nodded. They were standing just inside the imposing front doors of Surgeons’ Hall. There were people upstairs, but speaking in hushed tones. Outside, one of the grey transit vans from the mortuary was waiting, a police car standing beside it, roof-lights flashing, turning the front of the building blue every couple of seconds.

‘What happened?’ Rebus asked.

‘Heart attack, it looks like. People were enjoying a postprandial brandy, leaning against the railing.’ Devlin pointed upwards. ‘He suddenly went very pale, leaned over the rail. They thought he was going to be sick. But he just slumped, and his weight took him over.’

Rebus looked down at the marble floor. There was a smear of blood which would need cleaning. Men stood on the periphery, some outside on the lawns. They smoked and spoke of the awful shock. When Rebus looked back at Devlin, the old man seemed to be studying him, as if he were some specimen in a jar.

‘Are you all right?’ Devlin asked, watching as Rebus nodded. ‘The two of you were pretty close, I gather.’

Rebus didn’t answer. Sandy Gates walked up, mopping his face with what looked like a napkin swiped from the dining room.

‘Bloody awful,’ was all he said. ‘Probably have to be an autopsy, too.’

The body was being stretchered away. A blanket covered the body-bag. Rebus resisted the temptation to stop the attendants and pull the zip down. He wanted his last memories of Conor Leary to be of the lively man he’d shared that drink with.

‘He’d just made a fascinating speech,’ Devlin said. ‘A sort of ecumenical history of the human body. Everything from the sacrament to Jack the Ripper as haruspex.’

‘As what?’

‘Someone who foretells the truth by looking at the entrails of animals.’

Gates belched. ‘Half of it was above my head,’ he said.

‘And the other half you slept through, Sandy,’ Devlin commented with a smile. ‘He did the whole thing without notes,’ he added admiringly. Then he looked up at the first-floor landing again. ‘The fall of man, that was his starting point.’ He rummaged in his pocket for a handkerchief.

‘Here,’ said Gates, handing over the napkin. Devlin blew his nose loudly.

‘The fall of man, and then he fell,’ Devlin said. ‘Perhaps Stevenson was right.’

‘What about?’

‘He called Edinburgh a “precipitous city”. Maybe vertigo is in the nature of the place...’

Rebus thought he knew what Devlin meant. Precipitous city... each and every one of its inhabitants falling slowly, almost imperceptibly...

‘Bloody awful meal it was, too,’ Gates was saying, as though he’d have preferred to lose Conor Leary after a veritable feast. Rebus didn’t doubt Conor would have felt the same.

Outside, Dr Curt was one of the smokers. Rebus joined him.

‘I tried phoning you,’ Curt said, ‘but you were already on your way.’

‘Professor Devlin caught me.’

‘He said as much. I think he sensed some bond between you and Conor.’ Rebus just nodded slowly. ‘He’d been pretty ill, you know,’ Curt continued, in that dry voice that always sounded like dictation. ‘After you’d left us this evening, he talked about you.’

Rebus cleared his throat. ‘What did he say?’

‘He said he sometimes thought of you as a penance.’ Curt flicked ash into the air. A flash of blue lit his face for a moment. ‘He was laughing as he said it.’

‘He was a friend,’ Rebus said. Inwardly he added, and I let him go. So many friendships he’d pushed away, preferring his own company, the chair by the window in the darkened room. He pretended sometimes that he was doing them all a favour. People he’d let get close to him in the past, they had a habit of getting hurt, sometimes even killed. But it wasn’t that. It wasn’t that. He wondered about Jean, and where it might be leading. Was he ready to share himself with someone else? Ready to let her into his secrets, his darkness? He still wasn’t sure. Those conversations with Conor Leary, they’d been like confessionals. He’d probably revealed more of himself to the priest than to anyone before him: wife, daughter, lovers. And now he was gone... up to heaven maybe, though he’d cause havoc there, no doubt about it. He’d be in dispute with the angels, looking for Guinness and a good argument.

‘You okay, John?’ Curt reached out a hand and touched his shoulder.

Rebus shook his head slowly, eyes squeezed shut. Curt didn’t make it out the first time, so Rebus had to repeat what he said next:

‘I don’t believe in heaven.’

That was the horror of it. This life was the only one you got. No redemption afterwards, no chance of wiping the slate clean and starting over.

‘It’s all right,’ Curt was saying, clearly unused to the role of comforter, the hand which touched Rebus’s arm more used to easing human organs from a gaping wound. ‘You’ll be all right.’

‘Will I?’ Rebus said. ‘Then there’s no justice in the world.’

‘You’d know more about that than I would.’

‘Oh, I know all right.’ Rebus took a deep breath, let it out. There was sweat beneath his shirt, the night air chilling him. ‘I’ll be okay,’ he said quietly.

‘Of course you will.’ Curt finished his cigarette and pushed it into the grass with his heel. ‘Like Conor said: despite rumours to the contrary, you’re on the side of the angels.’ He took his hand from Rebus’s arm. ‘Whether you like it or not.’

Donald Devlin came bustling up. ‘Should I order some taxis, do you think?’

Curt looked at him. ‘What does Sandy say?’

Devlin took off his glasses, made a show of wiping them. ‘Told me not to be so “bloody pragmatic”.’ He slipped the glasses on again.

‘I’ve got the car,’ Rebus said.

‘You’re okay to drive?’ Devlin asked.

‘It’s not like I’ve just lost my fucking dad!’ Rebus exploded. Then he started to apologise.

‘An emotional time for all of us,’ Devlin said, waving the apology aside. Then he took his glasses off and started polishing them again, as if the world could never reveal itself too vividly for him.