Falls

  ‘Sorry, no idea,’ Silvers said into the phone. Then: ‘Hang on a sec. He held the receiver out towards Siobhan.

  ‘Lady wants to speak to you.

  Siobhan crossed the floor, mouthing the word ‘who?’, but Silvers just shrugged, handed her the phone.

  ‘Hello, DC Clarke speaking?’

  ‘Siobhan, it’s Jean Burchill.’

  ‘Hi, Jean, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Have you identified her yet?’

  ‘Not a hundred per cent. How did you know?’

  ‘John told me, then he rushed off’

  Siobhan’s lips formed a silent O. John Rebus and Jean Burchill … well, well. ‘Do you want me to tell him you called?’

  ‘I tried his mobile.’

  ‘He might have it turned off: you don’t always want interruptions at the locus.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The crime scene.’

  ‘Arthur’s Seat, isn’t it? We were there only yesterday morning.’ Siobhan looked across to Silvers. It seemed like every other person had been on Arthur’s Seat recently. When her eyes moved to Grant, she saw that he was staring at his notepad, as if mesmerised by something there.

  ‘Do you know where on Arthur’s Seat?’ Jean was asking.

  ‘Across the road from Dunsapie Loch and a bit further around towards the east.’

  Siobhan was watching Grant. His eyes were on her as he got up from his chair, picking up the notebook.

  ‘Where’s that … ?’ The question was rhetorical, Jean trying to picture the location. Grant was holding the notebook out in front of him, but still too far away for her to make out much: jumbles of letters, and then a couple of words circled. Siobhan narrowed her eyes.

  ‘Oh,’ Jean said suddenly, ‘I know where you mean. Hellbank, I think it’s called.’

  ‘Hellbank?’ Siobhan made sure Grant could hear her, but his mind seemed to be elsewhere.

  ‘Quite a steep slope,’ Jean was saying, ‘which might explain the name, though of course the folklore prefers witches and devilry.’

  'Yes,’ Siobhan said, dragging the word out. ‘Look, Jean, I’ve got to go.’ She was staring at the words circled on Grant’s notepad. He’d worked out the anagram. ‘That’s a surer’ had become ‘Arthur’s Seat’.

  Siobhan put down the phone.

  ‘He was leading us to her,’ Grant said quietly.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘What do you mean, “maybe”?’

  'You’re saying he knew Flip was dead. We can’t know that for certain. All he was doing was taking us to the places Flip went.’

  ‘She turned up dead at this one. And who apart from Quizmaster knew she’d be there?’

  ‘Someone could have followed her, or even chanced upon her.’

  'You don’t believe that,’ Grant said confidently.

  ‘I’m playing devil’s advocate, Grant, that’s all.’

  ‘He killed her.’

  ‘Then why bother helping us play the game?’

  ‘To fuck with our heads.’ He paused. ‘No, to fuck with your head. And maybe more than that.’

  ‘Then he’d have killed me before now.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because now I don’t need to play the game any more. I’ve come as far as Flip did.’

  He shook his head slowly. 'You’re saying if he sends you the clue for … what’s the next stage?’

  ‘Stricture.’

  He nodded. ‘If he sends it, you won’t be tempted?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  'You’re lying.’

  ‘Well, after this there’s no way I’d go anywhere without back-up, and he must know that.’ She had a thought. ‘Stricture,’ she said.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘He e-mailed Flip … after she’d been killed. Why on earth would he do that if he’d killed her?’

  ‘Because he’s a psychopath.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  'You should get online and ask him.’

  ‘Ask if he’s a psychopath?’

  ‘Tell him what we know.’

  ‘He could just disappear. Face it, Grant, we could walk past him in the street and not know him. He’s just a name—and not even a real name.’

  Grant thumped the desk. ‘Well, we’ve got to do something. Any minute now he’s going to hear on the radio or TV that the body’s been found. He’ll be expecting to hear from us.’

  'You’re right,’ she said. The laptop was in her shoulder-bag, still hooked up to the mobile phone. She got it out and set it up, plugging both computer and phone into the floor point for a recharge.

  Which gave Grant time enough to start having second thoughts. ‘Hang on,’ he said, ‘we need to clear this with DCS Templer.’

  She gave him a look. ‘Back to playing by the rules, eh?’

  His face reddened, but he nodded. ‘Something like this, we need to tell her.’

  Silvers and Wylie, who’d been listening intently throughout, had understood enough to know something important was going on.

  ‘I’m with Siobhan,’ Wylie said. ‘Strike while the iron is hot and all that.’

  Silvers disagreed. 'You know the score: Chief Super’ll blast the pair of you if you go behind her back.’

  ‘We’re not going behind her back,’ Siobhan stated, eyes on Wylie.

  'Yes we are,’ Grant said. ‘It’s a murder case now, Siobhan. The time for playing games just stopped.’ He rested both hands on her desk. ‘Send that e-mail, and you’re on your own.’

  ‘Maybe that’s where I want to be,’ she retorted, regretting the words the moment they were out.

  ‘Nice to have a bit of plain speaking,’ Grant said.

  ‘I’m all for it,’ John Rebus said from the doorway. Ellen Wylie straightened up and folded her arms. ‘Speaking of which,’ he went on, ‘sorry, Ellen, I should have called you.’

  ‘Forget it.’ But it was clear to everyone in the room that she wouldn’t.

  When Rebus had listened to Siobhan’s version of the morning’s events—Grant interrupting now and then with a comment or different perspective—they all looked to him for a decision. He ran a finger along the top of the laptop’s screen.

  ‘Everything you’ve just told me,’ he advised, ‘needs to be taken to DCS Templer.’

  To Siobhan’s eyes, Grant didn’t look so much vindicated as revoltingly smug. Ellen Wylie, meantime, looked like she was spoiling for a fight with anyone … about anything. As a murder team, they weren’t exactly ideal.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, ready to make at least a partial peace, ‘w~l go talk to the Chief Super.’ And, as Rebus started nodding, she added: ‘Though I’m willing to bet it’s not what you would have done.’

  ‘Me?’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have had the first clue, Siobhan. Know why?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because e-mail’s a black art as far as I’m concerned.’

  Siobhan smiled, but there was a thread running through her mind: black art … coffins used in witches’ spells … Flip’s death on a hillside called Hellbank.

  Witchcraft?

  Six of them in the cramped office at Gayfield Square: Gill Templer and Bill Pryde; Rebus and Ellen Wylie; Siobhan and Grant. Templer was the only one sitting. Siobhan had printed off all the emails, and Templer was sifting through them silently. Finally she looked up.

  ‘Is there any way we can identity Quizmaster?’

  ‘Not that I know of” Siobhan admitted.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Grant added. ‘I mean, I’m not sure how, but I think it’s possible. Look at these viruses, somehow the Americans always seem to be able to trace them back.’

  Templer nodded. ‘That’s true.’

  ‘The Met has a computer crime unit, doesn’t it?’ Grant went on. ‘They could have links to the FBI.’

  Templer studied him. ‘Think you’re up to it, Grant?’

  He shook his head. ‘I like computers, but this is way out of my league. I mean, I’d be happy
to liaise …'

  ‘Fair enough.’ Templer turned to Siobhan. ‘This German student you were telling us about …'

  'Yes?'

  ‘I’d like a bit more detail.’

  ‘Shouldn’t be too difficult.’

  Suddenly Templer’s gaze shifted to Wylie. ‘Can you run with that, Ellen?’

  Wylie looked surprised. ‘I suppose so.

  'You’re splitting us up?’ Rebus interrupted.

  ‘Unless you can think of a good reason not to.’

  ‘A doll was left at Falls, now the body’s turned up. It’s the same pattern as before.’

  ‘Not according to your coffin-maker. Different workmanship altogether, I believe he said.’

  'You’re putting it down to coincidence?’

  ‘I’m not putting it down to anything, and if something else crops up in connection with it, you can start back in again. But we’re on a murder case now, and that changes everything.’

  Rebus glanced towards Wylie. She was simmering—the transfer from dusty old autopsies to a background check on a student’s curious demise … it wasn’t exactly thrilling her. But at the same time she wasn’t going to throw her weight behind Rebus—too busy working on her own sense of injustice.

  ‘Right,’ Templer said into the silence. ‘For the moment, you’ll be going back to the body of the investigation—and yes, I know there’s a joke in there somewhere.’ She tidied the sheets of paper together, made to hand them back to Siobhan. ‘Can you stay behind for a sec?’

  ‘Sure,’ Siobhan said. The rest of them squeezed out of the room, glad of the fresher, cooler air. Rebus, however, loitered near Templer’s door. He stared across the room to the array of information on the far wall—faxes, photos and the rest. Someone was busy dismantling the collage, now that this was no longer a MisPer inquiry. The pace of the investigation seemed already to have slowed, not from any sense of shock or out of respect for the dead, but because things had changed: there was no need to rush, no one out there whose life they might just possibly save …

  Inside the office, Templer was asking Siobhan if she’d like to reconsider the liaison position.

  ‘Thanks,’ Siobhan replied. ‘But I don’t think so.’

  Templer leaned back in her chair. ‘Want to share the reasons with me?’

  Siobhan looked around, as though seeking out the phrases that might be hidden on the bare walls. ‘I can’t think of any offhand,’ she shrugged. ‘I just don’t fancy it right now.’

  ‘I may not fancy asking again.’

  ‘I know. Maybe I’m just too deep into this case. I want to keep working it.’

  ‘Okay,’ Templer said, dragging out the second syllable. ‘I think that’s us finished here.’

  ‘Right.’ Siobhan reached for the doorhandle, trying not to read too much into those words.

  ‘Oh, could you ask Grant to pop in?’

  Siobhan paused with the door an inch or two open, then nodded and left the room. Rebus stuck his head round.

  ‘Got two seconds, Gill?’

  ‘Just barely.’

  He wandered in anyway. ‘Something I forgot to mention … ’

  ‘Forgot?’ She produced a wry smile.

  He had three sheets of fax paper in his hand. ‘These came through from Dublin.’

  ‘Dublin?’

  ‘A contact there called Declan Macmanus. I was asking about the Costellos.’

  She looked up from the sheets. ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘Just a hunch.’

  ‘We’d already looked into the family.’

  He nodded. ‘Of course: a quick phone call, and back comes the news that there are no convictions. But you know as well as I do, that’s often just the beginning of the story.’

  And in the case of the Costellos, that story was a long one. Rebus knew he had Templer hooked. When Grant Hood knocked, she told him to come back in five minutes.

  ‘Better make that ten,’ Rebus added, winking towards the young man. Then he moved three file-boxes from the spare chair and made himself comfortable.

  Macmanus had come good. David Costello had been wild in his youth: ‘the result of too much money given and not enough attention’, in Macmanus’s phrase. Wild meant fast cars, speeding tickets, verbal warnings issued where some miscreants would have found themselves behind bars. There were fights in pubs, smashed windows and phone boxes, at least two episodes when he’d relieved himself in a public place—O’Connell Bridge, mid-afternoon. Even Rebus had been impressed by this last. It was said that the eighteen-year-old David had held a record of sorts in the number of pubs he was barred from at the same time: the Stag’s Head, J. Grogan’s, Davie Byrnes, O’Donoghue’s, Doheny and Nesbitt’s, the Shelbourne … eleven in total. The previous year, an ex-girlfriend complained to police that he’d punched her in the face outside a nightclub on the banks of the Liffey. Templer looked up when she reached that part.

  ‘She’d had a few, couldn’t remember the name of the nightclub,’ Rebus said. ‘Eventually, she let it drop.’

  'You think maybe money changed hands?’

  He shrugged. ‘Keep reading.’

  Macmanus conceded that David Costello had cleaned up his act, pinpointing the turnaround to an eighteenth birthday party, where a friend had tried to leap between two roofs for a dare, falling short, plummeting into the alley below.

  He wasn’t killed. But there was brain damage, spinal damage … not much more than a vegetable, cared for round the clock. Rebus thought back to David’s flat—the half-bottle of Bell’s … Not a drinker, he’d thought.

  ‘Bit of a shock at that age,’ Macmanus had written. ‘Got David clean and sober in no seconds flat, otherwise he might have turned out not so much a chip off the old block as a bloody great boulder.’

  Like son, like father. Thomas Costello had managed to write off eight cars, yet never lose his driving licence. His wife Theresa had twice called police to the home when her husband was in a rage. Both times they’d found her in the bathroom, door locked but missing some splinters where Thomas had started attacking it with a carving knife. ‘Just trying to get the bloody thing open,’ he’d explained to officers the first time. ‘Thought she was going to do herself in.

  ‘It’s not me that needs doing in!’ Theresa had yelled back. (In the margins of the fax, Macmanus had added a handwritten note to the effect that Theresa had twice taken overdoses, and that everyone in the city felt sorry for her: hard-working wife, abusive and lazy husband who just happened to be hugely wealthy through no significant effort of his own.)

  At the Curran, Thomas had verbally abused a tourist visitor and been ejected by stewards. He’d threatened to cut off a bookmaker’s penis after the man had asked if Mr Costello might wish finally to settle up his huge losses, losses the bookmaker had been carrying for several months.

  And so it went on. The two rooms at the Caledonian made sense now …

  ‘Lovely family,’ Templer commented.

  ‘Dublin’s finest.’

  ‘And all of it covered up by police.’

  ‘Tut tut,’ Rebus remarked. ‘We wouldn’t do that here, would we?’

  ‘Dear me, no,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘And your thinking on all this is … ?’

  ‘That there’s a side of David Costello we didn’t know about till now. And that goes for his family, too. Are they still in the city?’

  ‘They went back to Ireland a couple of days ago.’

  ‘But they’ll be coming over again?’

  She nodded. ‘Now that Philippa’s been found.’

  ‘Has David Costello been told?’

  ‘He’ll have heard. If Philippa’s parents haven’t said, the media will have.’

  ‘I’d like to have been there,’ Rebus said to himself.

  'You can’t be everywhere.’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘Okay, talk to the parents when they get here.’

  ‘And the boyfriend?’

  She nodded. ‘Bu
t not too heavy … doesn’t look good with someone who’s grieving.’

  He smiled. ‘Always thinking of the media, eh, Gill?’

  She looked at him. ‘Could you send Grant in, please?’

  ‘One impressionable young officer coming right up.’ He pulled open the door. Grant was standing there, rocking on the heels of his shoes. Rebus didn’t say anything, just gave another wink as he passed.

  Ten minutes later, Siobhan was getting a coffee from the machine when Grant found her.

  ‘What did Templer want?’ she asked, unable to stop herself.

  ‘Offered me liaison.’

  Siobhan concentrated on stirring her drink. ‘Thought it might be that.’

  ‘I’ll be on the telly!’

  ‘I’m thrilled.’

  He stared at her. 'You could try a bit harder.’

  'You’re right, I could.’ They locked eyes. ‘Thanks for helping with the clues. I couldn’t have done it without you.’

  Only now did he seem to realise that their partnership truly was dissolved. ‘Oh … right,’ he said. ‘Look, Siobhan … ’

  ‘What happened in the office … I really am sorry.’

  She allowed herself a sour smile. ‘Afraid I’ll tell on you?’

  ‘No … it’s not that …'

  But it was, and they both knew it. ‘Haircut and a new suit this weekend,’ she suggested.

  He looked down at his jacket.

  ‘If you’re going to be on the box. Plain shirt: no stripes or checks. Oh, and Grant … ?’

  ‘What?’

  She reached out a finger and slipped it under his tie.

  ‘Keep this plain, too. Cartoon characters just aren’t funny.’

  ‘That’s what DCS Templer said.’ He sounded surprised, angling his head to examine the little Homer Simpson heads which decorated his tie.

  Grant Hood’s first TV appearance took place that same afternoon. He was seated next to Gill Templer as she read out a short statement concerning the finding of the body. Ellen Wylie watched on one of the office monitors. There wasn’t going to be a speaking part for Hood, but she noticed how, as the media all started asking questions, he leaned over to whisper some comment into Templer’s ear, the Chief Super nodding a response. Bill Pryde was on Templer’s other side, fielding most of the queries. Everyone wanted to know if the corpse was that of Philippa Balfour; everyone wanted to know the cause of death.