Falls

  ‘This place is straight out of Cluedo,’ Siobhan murmured, studying the wood panelling, the paintings of Balfours past. There was even a suit of armour at the foot of the stairs. A stack of unopened mail sat on a table next to the armour. The same door the maid had disappeared through was opening now. A tall, middle- aged and efficient-looking woman walked towards them. Her face was composed but unsmiling.

  ‘I’m Mr Balfour’s personal assistant,’ she said in a voice not much above a whisper.

  ‘It’s Mr Marr we were hoping to talk to.’

  She bowed her head to acknowledge as much. ‘But you must appreciate that this is an extremely difficult time.

  ‘He won’t talk to us?’

  ‘It’s not a case of “won’t”.’ She was becoming irritated.

  Rebus nodded slowly. ‘Tell you what then, I’ll just go tell Detective Chief Superintendent Templer that Mr Marr is holding up our inquiry into Miss Balfour’s murder. If you could show me the way … ?’

  She stared daggers at him, but Rebus wasn’t about to blink, never mind flinch.

  ‘If you’ll wait here,’ she said finally. When she spoke, Rebus saw her teeth for the first time. He managed a polite ‘thank you’ as she headed back towards the door.

  ‘Impressive,’ Siobhan commented.

  ‘Her or me?’

  ‘The general combat.’

  He nodded. ‘Two more minutes, I’d have been reaching for that suit of armour.’

  Siobhan walked over to the table and flicked through the mail. Rebus joined her.

  ‘Thought we’d have been opening it,’ he said, ‘looking for ransom demands.’

  ‘We probably were,’ Siobhan answered, studying the postmarks. ‘But this is all yesterday’s and today’s.’

  ‘Keeping the postman busy.’ Several of the envelopes were card- sized and black-edged. ‘Hope the PA opens them.’

  Siobhan nodded. Ghouls again, for whom the death of someone well known was an invitation to become obsessed. You never knew who’d be sending a condolence card. ‘It should be us checking them.’

  ‘Good point.’ After all, the killer could be a ghoul, too.

  The door opened again. This time, Ranald Marr, in black suit and tie, white shirt, strode towards them, looking upset by the interruption.

  ‘What is it this time?’ he asked Siobhan.

  ‘Mr Marr?’ Rebus stuck out his hand. ‘DI Rebus. I just want to say how sorry we are that we’ve had to intrude.’

  Marr, accepting the apology, also accepted Rebus’s hand. Rebus had never joined ‘the craft’, but his father had taught him the handshake one drunken night, back when Rebus had been in his teens.

  ‘As long as it’s not going to take long,’ Marr said, pushing for advantage.

  ‘Is there somewhere we could talk?’

  ‘Along here.’ Marr led them into one of two hallways. Rebus caught Siobhan’s eye and nodded, answering her question. Marr was a Mason. She pursed her lips, looked thoughtful.

  Marr had opened another door, leading into a large room filled with a wall-length bookcase and a full-size billiard table. When he flicked on the lights—the room, like the rest of the house, was curtained in a show of mourning—the green baize was illuminated.

  Two chairs sat against one wall, a small table between them. On the table sat a silver tray laid with a decanter of whisky and some crystal tumblers. Marr sat down and poured himself a drink. He gestured towards Rebus, who shook his head, Siobhan likewise. Marr raised his glass.

  ‘Philippa, God rest her soul.’ Then he drank deeply. Rebus had smelt the whisky on his breath, knew this wasn’t his first of the day. Probably not the first time he’d made the toast either. If they’d been alone together, they would have exchanged information about one another’s home lodge—and Rebus might have been in trouble—but with Siobhan here, he was safe. He rolled a red ball across the table, where it rebounded from the cushion.

  ‘So,’ Marr said, ‘what is it you want this time?’

  ‘Hugo Benzie,’ Rebus said.

  The name caught Marr by surprise. His eyebrows lifted, and he took another pull on his drink.

  'You knew him?’ Rebus guessed.

  ‘Not very well. His daughter was at school with Philippa.’

  ‘Did he bank with you?’

  'You, know I can’t discuss the bank’s business. It wouldn’t be ethical.’

  'You’re not a doctor,’ Rebus said. You just keep people’s money for them.’

  Marr’s eyes narrowed. ‘We do a sight more than that.’

  ‘What? You mean lose money for them too?’

  Marr leapt to his feet., ‘What the hell has this got to do with Philippa’s murder?’

  ‘Just answer the question: did Hugo Benzie have his money invested with you?’

  ‘Not with us, through us.’

  'You advised him?’

  Marr refilled his glass. Rebus glanced towards Siobhan. She knew her place in this, was keeping quiet, standing in the shadows beyond the baize.

  'You advised him?’ Rebus asked again.

  ‘We advised him against taking risks.’

  ‘But he wouldn’t listen?’

  ‘What’s life without a bit of risk: that was Hugo’s philosophy. He gambled … and lost.’

  ‘Did he hold Balfour’s responsible?’

  Marr shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Poor bugger just did away with himself.’

  ‘What about his wife and daughter?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Did they bear a grudge?’

  He shook his head again. ‘They knew what kind of man he was’ He put his glass down on the rim of the billiard table. ‘But what’s this got …?’ Then he seemed to realise. ‘Ah, you’re still looking for motives … and you think a dead man has risen from his grave to seek revenge on Balfour’s Bank?’

  Rebus rolled another ball across the table. ‘Stranger things have happened.’

  Siobhan walked forward now, and handed the sheet of paper to Marr. You remember I asked about games?’

  'Yes.’

  ‘This clue here.’ She pointed to the one relating to Rosslyn Chapel. ‘What do you make of it?’

  He narrowed his eyes in concentration. ‘Nothing at all,’ he said, handing it back.

  ‘Can I ask if you’re a member of a masonic lodge, Mr Marr?’

  Marr glared at her. Then his eyes flickered in Rebus’s direction. ‘I’m not going to dignify that question with a response.’

  'You see, Philippa was given this clue to solve, and so was I. And when I saw the words “mason’s dream”, I had to find a member of a lodge to ask what it meant.’

  ‘And what did it mean?’

  ‘That’s not important. What may be important is whether Philippa sought help along the same lines.’

  ‘I’ve already told you, I knew nothing about any of this.’

  ‘But she might have slipped something into the conversation …?’

  ‘Well, she didn’t.’

  ‘Any other Masons of her acquaintance, Mr Marr?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t know. Look, I really think I’ve given you enough time … today of all days.’

  Yes, sir,’ Rebus said. ‘Thank you for seeing us.’ He held out his hand again, but this time Marr didn’t take it. He walked to the door in silence, opened it, and walked out. Rebus and Siobhan followed him back down the hallway. Templer and Hood were standing in the entrance hall. Marr passed them without a word and disappeared through a door.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Templer asked in an undertone.

  ‘Trying to catch a killer,’ Rebus told her. ‘How about you?’

  'You looked good on the telly,’ Siobhan said to Hood.

  ‘Thanks.’

  'Yes, Grant did bloody well,’ Templer said, her attention deflected from Rebus on to Siobhan. ‘I couldn’t be more pleased.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Siobhan said with a smile.

  They left th
e house and got into their respective cars. Templer’s parting shot: ‘I’ll want a report explaining your presence here. And John? The doctor’s waiting …'

  ‘Doctor?’ Siobhan asked, doing up her seat-belt.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Rebus said, turning the ignition.

  ‘Has she got it in for you as well as me?’

  Rebus turned to her. ‘Gill wanted you by her side, Siobhan. You turned that down.’

  ‘I wasn’t ready.’ She paused. You know, this is going to sound daft, but I think she’s jealous.’

  ‘Of you?’

  Siobhan shook her head. ‘Of you. '

  ‘Me?’ Rebus laughed. 'Why would she be jealous of me?’

  ‘Because you don’t play by the rules, and she has to. Because despite yourself, you always seem to get people working for you, even when they don’t agree with what you’re asking them to do.’

  ‘I must be better than I think.’

  She looked at him slyly. ‘Oh, I think you know how good you are. At least, you think you do.’

  He returned her look. ‘There's an insult buried in there somewhere, but I can’t quite see it.’

  Siobhan sat back in her seat. ‘So what now?’

  ‘Back to Edinburgh.’

  ‘And?’

  Rebus was thoughtful as he eased the car back down the driveway. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Back there, you’d almost have thought Marr had lost his own kid … ’

  You’re not saying … ?’

  ‘Did he look like her at all? I’m useless at that.’

  Siobhan thought about it, gnawing her lip. ‘Rich people all look the same to me. You think Marr and Mrs Balfour could have had an affair?’

  Rebus shrugged. ‘Hard to prove without a blood test.’ He glanced in her direction. ‘Better make sure Gates and Curt keep a sample.’

  ‘And Claire Benzie?’

  Rebus gave a wave to WPC Campbell. ‘Claire’s interesting, but we don’t want to rattle her chain.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because a year or three from now, she could be our friendly local pathologist. I may not be around to see it, but you will, and the last thing you want is … '

  ‘Bad blood?’ Siobhan guessed with a smile.

  ‘Bad blood,’ Rebus agreed with a slow nod.

  Siobhan was thoughtful. ‘But whichever way you look at it, she has every right to feel pissed off with the Balfours.’

  ‘Then how come she was still friends with Flip?’

  ‘Maybe she was playing a game of her own.’ As they drove back down the lane, she kept her eyes open for the tourists, but didn’t see them. ‘Should we check Meadowside, see if they’re all right?’

  Rebus shook his head. They were silent once more until they’d left Falls far behind.

  ‘Marr’s a Mason,’ Siobhan said at last. ‘And he likes playing games.’

  ‘So now he’s the Quizmaster rather than Claire Benzie?’

  ‘I think it’s more likely than him turning out to be Flip’s father.’

  ‘Sorry I spoke.’ Rebus was thinking of Hugo Benzie. Before driving out to Falls, he’d rung a lawyer friend and asked about him. Benzie had specialised in wills and trusts, a quiet and efficient solicitor, part of a large practice in the city. The gambling wasn’t common knowledge, and had never interfered with his work. The rumour was, he’d stuck money into Far East start-ups, guided by tip-offs and the financial pages of his favoured daily paper. If this were true, then Rebus couldn’t see Balfour’s as culpable. Probably all they’d done was channel the money on his instructions, then had to call time when it disappeared up the Yangtze. Benzie hadn’t just lost all his money—as a lawyer he could always earn more. To Rebus’s mind, he’d lost something much~ more substantial: his faith in himself. Having stopped believing in himself, it was probably easy to start believing in suicide as an option, and sometime thereafter as absolute necessity. Rebus had been there himself once or twice, with the bottle and the darkness for company. He knew he couldn’t leap from a high place: he was scared of heights, had been ever since they’d dropped him from a helicopter during his army $ days. Warm bath and a razor across the wrists … the problem there was the mess, the thought of someone, friend or stranger, confronted with such a tableau. Booze and pills … it always came down to those essential drugs. Not at home, but in some anonymous hotel room, discovered by the staff. Just another lonely corpse as far as they’d be concerned.

  Idle thoughts. But in Benzie’s shoes … wife and daughter … he didn’t think he could have done it, leaving behind a devastated family. And now Claire wanted to be a pathologist, a career filled with corpses and ventilated, windowless rooms. Would each body she dealt with be her father’s image … ?

  ‘Penny for them,’ Siobhan said.

  ‘No sale,’ Rebus replied, fixing his eyes on the road ahead.

  ‘Cheer up,’ Hi-Ho Silvers said, ‘it’s Friday afternoon.’

  ‘So what?’

  He stared at Ellen Wylie. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t have a date lined up?’

  ‘A date?’

  You know: a meal, some dancing, then back to his place.’ He started gyrating his hips.

  Wylie screwed up her face. ‘I’m having trouble keeping my lunch down as it is.’

  The remains of the sandwich were on her desk: tuna mayonnaise with sweetcorn. There’d been a slight fizziness to the tuna, and now her stomach was sending her signals. Not that Silvers was about to take any notice.

  ‘Must have a boyfriend though, Ellen?’

  ‘I’ll call you when desperation takes hold.’

  ‘As long as it’s not Friday or Saturday night: my drinking nights, those are.

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind, George.’

  ‘And Sunday afternoon, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ Wylie couldn’t help thinking that this arrangement probably suited Mrs Silvers just fine.

  ‘Unless we get some overtime.’ Silvers’ mind made the switch. ‘What do you reckon the chances are?’

  ‘Depends, doesn’t it?’ And she knew what it depended on: media pressure, forcing the brass to look for a quick result. Or maybe John Balfour, asking another favour, twisting an arm or two. Time was, CID would work seven-day weeks, twelve-hour days on a big case, and be paid accordingly. But budgets were tighter now, along with staffing levels. She’d never seen so many happy cops as the day CHOGM—the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting—had rolled into town, bringing with it an overtime jamboree. But that had been a few years back now. Still she caught officers, Silvers among them, muttering the word ‘chogm’ under their breath, as though it were a talisman. As Silvers shrugged and moved off, overtime probably still on his mind, Wylie turned her attention to the story of the German student, Jurgen Becker. She thought of Boris Becker, her favourite tennis player at one time, and wondered idly if Jurgen might be some relation. She doubted it: a famous relly would have pulled out the stops, like with Philippa Balfour.

  And yet what progress had they made? They didn’t seem to be any further forward than the day the MisPer inquiry had opened. Rebus had all these ideas, but there was no focus to them. It was as if he reached out his hand and plucked possibilities from some tree or bush, expecting people to swallow them. The one time she’d worked with him before—a body found in Queensberry House, just as they were readying to knock most of it down and start building the parliament—there hadn’t been a result. He’d as good as dumped her, refused to talk about the case afterwards. Nothing had come to court.

  And yet … she’d rather be part of Rebus’s team than none at all. She felt she’d burned her bridges with Gill Templer, whatever Rebus said, and she knew it was all her fault. She’d tried too hard, almost to the point of pestering Templer. It was a form of laziness: pushing to be noticed in the hope advancement would follow. And she knew Templer had rejected her precisely because she’d seen it for what it was. Gill Templer hadn’t got to the top that way—she’d had to work her damnedest through
out, fighting a prejudice against women officers which was never discussed, never admitted to.

  But still there.

  Wylie knew she should have kept her head down and her mouth shut. That was how Siobhan Clarke worked; she never looked pushy, even though she was every inch the careerist … and a rival—Wylie couldn’t help but see her that way. Templer’s favourite from the start, which was precisely why she—Ellen Wylie—had begun campaigning overtly and, as it turned out, too strenuously. Leaving her isolated, stuck with a piece of crap like the Jurgen Becker story. On a Friday afternoon, when there’d most likely be no one around to answer her phone calls, reply to her questions. It was dead time, that was all.

  Dead time.

  Grant Hood had another press conference to organise. He already knew the names to put to faces, had arranged short get-to-know meetings with the ‘majors’, these being the more reputable journalists, crime reporters of long standing.

  ‘Thing is, Grant,’ DCS Templer had confided in him, ‘there are some journos we can call our own, in that they’re malleable. They’ll toe the line, place a story for us if and when we want them to, while holding back stuff we don’t want getting out. You already have a foundation of trust there, but it cuts both ways. We have to give them good copy, and they’re hoping they get it an hour or two before the oppo.’

  ‘The oppo, ma’am?’

  ‘Opposition. See, they look like a solid mass when you see them in the press room, but they’re not. At times they’ll cooperate with each other—like sending one of their number on a thankless stake- out. He then shares whatever he gets with the rest of them. They take it in turns.’

  Grant had nodded his understanding.

  ‘But in other respects, it’s dog eat dog. The hacks who’re not in the loop, they’re keenest of all, and not likely to be scrupulous. They’ll get chequebooks out when it suits, and they’ll try to win you over. Not with cash maybe, but with drinks, a bit of dinner. They’ll make you feel one of the lads, and you’ll start thinking: they’re not so bad really. That’s when you’re in trouble, because all the time they’ll be pumping you without you knowing it. You might let drop a hint or a teaser, just to show them you’re in the know. And whatever it is you’ve come out with, you can guarantee they’ll print it with knobs on. You’ll he “a police source or an unnamed source close to the investigation”—that’s if they’re in the mood to be kind. And if they get anything on you, they’ll turn the screws. They’ll want chapter and verse, or they’ll leave you on the rack.’ She’d patted his shoulder, and finished by saying: ‘Just a word to the wise.