Falls

  She was reminded of some communist leader and thinker—was it Marx himself?—who had predicted that the revolution in western Europe would have Scotland as its starting-point. Another dream …

  Jean didn’t know much about David Hume, but stood in front of his monument while she attacked her carton of juice. Philosopher and essayist … a friend had once told her that Hume’s achievement had been in making the philosophy of John Locke comprehensible, but then she didn’t know anything much about Locke either.

  There were other graves: Blackwood and Constable, publishers, and one of the leaders of ‘the Disruption’, which had led to the founding of the Free Church of Scotland. Just to the east, over the cemetery wall, was a small crenellated tower. This she knew was all that remained of the old Calton Prison. She’d seen drawings of it, taken from Calton Hill opposite: friends and family of the prisoners would gather there to shout messages and greetings. Closing her eyes, she could almost replace the traffic noises with yelps and whoops, the dialogue between loved ones echoing back along Waterloo Place …

  When she opened her eyes again, she saw what she’d hoped to find: Dr Kennet Lovell’s grave. The headstone had been set into the cemetery’s eastern wall, and was now cracked and soot-blackened, its edges fallen away to reveal the sandstone beneath. It was a small thing, close to the ground. ‘Dr Kennet Anderson Lovell,’ Jean read, ‘an eminent Physician of this City.’ He’d died in 1863, aged fifty-six. There were weeds rising from ground level, obscuring much of the inscription. Jean crouched down and started pulling them away, encountering a used condom which she brushed aside with a dock leaf. She knew that there were people who used Calton Hill at night, and imagined them coupling against this wall, pressing down on the bones of Dr Lovell. How would Lovell feel about that? For a moment, she formed a picture of another coupling: herself and John Rebus. Not her type at all really. In the past she’d dated researchers, university lecturers. One brief dalliance with a sculptor in the city—a married man. He’d taken her to cemeteries, his favourite places. John Rebus probably liked cemeteries, too. When they’d first met she’d seen him as a challenge and a curiosity. Even now she had to work hard not to think of him in terms of an exhibit. There were so many secrets there, so much of him that he refused to show to the world. She knew there was digging still to be done …

  As she cleared the weeds, she found that Lovell had married no fewer than three times, and that each wife had passed away before him. No evidence of any children … she wondered if the offspring might be buried elsewhere. Maybe there were no children. But then hadn’t John said something about a descendant … ? As she examined the dates, she saw that the wives had died young, and another thought crossed her mind: they’d died in childbirth, perhaps.

  His first wife: Beatrice, nee Alexander. Aged twenty-nine.

  His second wife: Alice, nee Baxter. Aged thirty-three.

  His third wife: Patricia, nee Addison. Aged twenty-six.

  An inscription read: Passed over, to be met again so sweetly in the Lord’s domain.

  Jean couldn’t help thinking that it must have been some meeting, Lovell and his three wives. She had a pen in her pocket, but no notepad or paper. She looked around the cemetery, found an old envelope, torn in half. She brushed dirt and dust from it and jotted down the details.

  Siobhan was back at her desk, trying to form anagrams from the letters in ‘Camus’ and ‘ME Smith’, when Eric Bain came into the office.

  ‘All right?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll survive.’

  ‘That good, eh?’ He placed his briefcase on the floor, straightened up and looked around. ‘Special Branch get back to us yet?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’ She was scoring out letters with her pen. The M and E had no space between them. Did Quizmaster mean them to be read as “me”? Was he saying his name was Smith? ME was also a medical condition. She couldn’t recall what the letters stood for … remembered it being called “yuppie flu” in the newspapers.

  Bain had walked over to the fax machine, picked up some sheets and sifted through them.

  ‘Ever think to check?’ he said, sliding two sheets out and putting the rest back next to the machine.

  Siobhan looked up. ‘What is it?’

  He was reading as he approached. ‘Bloody marvellous,’ he gasped. ‘Don’t ask me how they did it, but they did it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’ve traced one of the accounts already.’

  Siobhan’s chair fell back as she got to her feet, hands grabbing at the fax. As Bain relinquished it, he asked her a simple question.

  ‘Who’s Claire Benzie?’

  'You’re not in custody, Claire,’ Siobhan said, ‘and if you want a solicitor, that’s up to you. But I’d like your permission to make a tape recording.’

  ‘Sounds serious,’ Claire Benzie said. They’d picked her up at her flat in Bruntsfield, driven her to St Leonard’s. She’d been compliant, not asking questions. She was wearing jeans and a pale-pink turtleneck. Her face looked scrubbed, no make-up. She sat in the interview room with arms folded while Bain fed tapes into both recording machines.

  ‘There’ll be a copy for you, and one for us,’ Siobhan was saying. ‘Okay?’

  Benzie just shrugged.

  Bain said ‘okey-dokey’ and set both tapes running, then eased himself into the chair next to Siobhan. Siobhan identified herself and Bain for the record, adding time and place of interview.

  ‘If you could state your full name, Claire,’ she asked.

  Claire Benzie did so, adding her Bruntsfield address. Siobhan sat back for a moment, composing herself, then leaned forward again so her elbows were resting on the edge of the narrow desk.

  ‘Claire, do you remember when I spoke to you earlier? I was with a colleague, in Dr Curt’s office?’

  'Yes, I remember.’

  ‘I was asking you if you knew anything about the game Philippa Balfour had been playing?’

  ‘It’s her funeral tomorrow.’

  Siobhan nodded. ‘Do you remember?’

  ‘Seven fins high is king,’ Benzie said. ‘I told you about it.’

  ‘That’s right. You said Philippa had come up to you at a bar … ’

  'Yes.’

  ' … . and explained it to you.’

  'Yes.’

  ‘But you didn’t know anything about the game itself?’

  ‘No. I hadn’t a clue till you told me.’

  Siobhan sat back again, folded her own arms so that she was almost a mirror-image of Benzie. ‘Then how come whoever was sending Flip those messages was using your Internet account?’

  Benzie stared at her. Siobhan stared back. Eric Bain scratched his nose with his thumb.

  ‘I want a solicitor,’ Benzie said.

  Siobhan nodded slowly. ‘Interview ends, three twelve p.m.’ Bain switched off the tapes and Siobhan asked if Claire had anyone in mind.

  ‘The family solicitor, I suppose,’ the student said.

  ‘And who’s that?’

  ‘My father.’ When she saw the puzzled look on Siobhan’s face, the corners of Benzie’s mouth curled upwards. ‘I mean my stepfather, DC Clarke. Don’t worry, I’m not about to summon ghosts to fight my corner … '

  News had travelled, and there was a scrum in the corridor when Siobhan came out of the interview room, just as the summoned WPC was going in. Whispered questions flew.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Did she do it?’

  ‘What’s she saying?’

  ‘Is it her?’

  Siobhan ignored everyone except Gill Templer. ‘She wants a solicitor, and as chance would have it there’s one in her family.’

  ‘That’s handy.’

  Siobhan nodded and squeezed her way into the CID office, unplugging the first free phone she came to.

  ‘She also wants a soft drink, Diet Pepsi for preference.’

  Templer looked around, eyes fixing on George Silvers. ‘Hear that, George?’

  Yes,
ma’am.’ Silvers seemed reluctant to leave, until Gill shooed him out with her hands.

  ‘So?’ Gill was now blocking Siobhan’s path.

  ‘So,’ Siobhan said, ‘she’s got some explaining to do. It doesn’t make her the killer.’

  ‘Be nice if she was though,’ someone said.

  Siobhan was remembering what Rebus had said about Claire Benzie. She met Gill Templer’s gaze. ‘Two or three years from now, she said, ‘if she sticks with pathology, we could end up working side by side with her. I don’t think we can afford to be heavy-handed.’ She wasn’t sure if she was copying Rebus’s words verbatim, but she knew she was pretty close. Templer was looking at her appraisingly, nodding slowly.

  ‘DC Clarke’s got a very good point,’ she told the surrounding faces. Then she moved aside to let Siobhan past, murmuring something like ‘Well done, Siobhan’ as they were shoulder to shoulder.

  Back in the interview room, Siobhan plugged the telephone into the wall and told Claire it was 9 for an outside line.

  ‘I didn’t kill her,’ the student said with quiet confidence.

  ‘Then everything’s going to be okay. We just need to find out what happened.’

  Claire nodded, picked up the receiver. Siobhan gestured to Bain, and they left the room together, the WPC taking over the watch.

  Out in the corridor, the scrum had melted away, but the hubbub from inside the CID office was loud and excited.

  ‘Say she didn’t do it.’ Siobhan spoke quietly, her words for Bain’s ears only.

  ‘Okay,’ he said.

  ‘Then how could Quizmaster be tapping into her account?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I mean, I suppose it’s possible, but it’s also highly unlikely.’

  Siobhan looked at him. ‘So you think it’s her?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’d like to know who the other access accounts belong to.’

  ‘Did Special Branch say how long it would take?’

  ‘Maybe later today, maybe tomorrow.’

  Someone walked past, patted both of them on the shoulder, gave a thumbs-up as he bounced down the corridor.

  ‘They think we’ve cracked it,’ Bain said.

  ‘More fool them.’

  ‘She had the motive, you’ve said so yourself.’

  Siobhan nodded. She was thinking of the Stricture clue, trying to imagine it composed by a woman. Yes, it was possible; of course it was possible. The virtual world: you could pretend to be anyone you liked, either gender, any age. The newspapers were full of stories about middle-aged paedophiles who’d infiltrated children’s chat rooms in the guise of teens and pre-teens. The very anonymity of the Net was what attracted people to it. She thought of Claire Benzie, of the long and careful planning it must have taken, the anger fermenting ever since her father’s suicide. Maybe she’d started out wanting to know Flip again, wanting to like and forgive her, but had found rising hatred instead, hatred of Flip’s easy world, her friends with fast cars, the bars and night clubs and dinner parties, the whole lifestyle enjoyed by people who’d never known pain, never lost anything in their lives that couldn’t be bought again.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, running both hands through her hair, pulling so hard that her scalp hurt. ‘I just don’t know.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Bain said. ‘Approach the interview with an open mind: textbook stuff.’

  She smiled tiredly, squeezed his hand. ‘Thanks, Eric.’

  'You’ll be fine,’ he told her. She hoped he was right.

  Maybe the Central Library was the right place for Rebus. Many of the customers today seemed to be the dispossessed, the tired, the unemployable. Some sat sleeping in the more comfortable chairs, the books on their laps mere props. One old man, toothless mouth gaping, sat at a desk near the telephone directories, his finger running ponderously down each column. Rebus had asked one of the staff about him.

  ‘Been coming in here for years, never reads anything else,’ he was informed.

  ‘He could get a job with Directory Enquiries.’

  ‘Or maybe that’s where he was fired from.’

  Rebus acknowledged that this was a good point, and got back to his own research. So far he’d established that Albert Camus was a French novelist and thinker, the author of novels such as La Chute and La Peste. He’d won the Nobel Prize and then died while still in his forties. The librarian had done a search for him, but this was the only Camus of note to be found.

  ‘Unless, of course, you’re talking street names.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Edinburgh street names.’

  Sure enough, it turned out that the city boasted a Camus Road, along with Camus Avenue, Park and Place. No one seemed to know whether they were named after the French writer; Rebus reckoned the chances were pretty good. He looked up Camus in the phone book—by luck the old man wasn’t using it at the time—and found just the one. Taking a break, he thought about walking home and getting his car, maybe taking a drive out to Camus Road, but when a taxi came by he hailed it instead. Camus Road, Avenue, Park and Place turned out to be a little quartet of quiet residential streets just off Comiston Road in Fairmilehead. The taxi driver seemed bemused when Rebus told him to head back for George IV Bridge. When they hit a traffic hold-up at Greyfriars, Rebus paid the taxi off and got out. He headed straight into Sandy Bell’s pub, where the afternoon crowd hadn’t yet been swollen by workers on their way home. A pint and a nip. The barman knew him, told a few stories. He said that when the Infirmary moved to Petty France, they’d lose half their trade. Not the doctors and nurses, but the patients.

  ‘Pyjamas and slippers, I’m not joking: they walk straight out the ward and in here. One guy even had the tubes hanging out his arms.’

  Rebus smiled, finished his drinks. Greytriars Kirkyard was just around the corner, so he took a wander in. He reckoned that all those Covenanting ghosts would be pretty miserable, knowing a wee dog had made the place more famous than they had. There were tours up here at night, stories of sudden chill hands clamping shoulders. He recalled that Rhona, his ex, had wanted to be married in the kirk itself. He saw graves covered with iron railings—mortsafes, protecting the deceased from the Resurrection Men. Edinburgh seemed always to have thrived on cruelty, its centuries of barbarism masked by an exterior by turns douce and strict …

  Stricture … he wondered what the word had to do with the clue. He thought it meant being tied up, something along those lines, but realised that he wasn’t sure. He left the kirkyard and headed on to George IV Bridge, turning in to the library. The same librarian was still on duty.

  ‘Dictionaries?’ he asked. She directed him towards the shelf he needed.

  ‘I did that check you asked for,’ she added. ‘There are some books by a Mark Smith, but nothing by anyone called M. E. Smith.’

  ‘Thanks anyway.’ He started to turn away.

  ‘I also printed you out a list of our Camus holdings.’

  He took the sheet from her. ‘That’s great. Thank you very much.’

  She smiled, as if unused to compliments, then looked more hesitant as she caught the alcohol on his breath. On his way to the shelves, he noticed that the desk by the telephone directories was vacant. He wondered if that was the old guy finished for the day; maybe it was like a nine-to-five for him. He pulled out the first dictionary he found and opened it at ‘stricture’: it meant binding, closure, tightness. ‘Binding’ made him think of mummies, or someone with their hands tied, held captive …

  There was a clearing of the throat behind him. The librarian was standing there.

  ‘Chucking-out time?’ Rebus guessed.

  ‘Not quite.’ She pointed back towards her desk, where another member of staff was now positioned, watching them. ‘My colleague … Kenny … he thinks maybe he knows who Mr Smith is.’

  ‘Mr who?’ Rebus was looking at Kenny: barely out of his teens, wearing round metal-framed glasses and a black T-shirt.

  ‘M. E. Smith,’ the libraria
n said. So Rebus walked over, nodded a greeting at Kenny.

  ‘He’s a singer,’ Kenny said without preamble. ‘At least, if it’s the one I’m thinking of: Mark E. Smith. And not everyone would agree with the description “singer”.’

  The librarian had gone back around the desk. ‘I’ve never heard of him, I must confess,’ she said.

  ‘Time to widen your horizons, Bridget,’ Kenny said. Then he looked at Rebus, wondering at the detective’s wide-eyed stare.

  ‘Singer with The Fall?’ Rebus said quietly, almost to himself.

  You know them?’ Kenny seemed surprised that someone Rebus’s age would have such knowledge.

  ‘Saw them twenty years ago. A club in Abbeyhill.’

  ‘Real noise merchants, eh?’ Kenny said.

  Rebus nodded distractedly. Then the other librarian, Bridget, gave voice to his thoughts.

  ‘Funny really,’ she said. Then she pointed to the sheet of paper in Rebus’s hand. ‘Camus’ novel La Chute translates as “The Fall”. We’ve a copy in the Fiction section if you’d like one … '

  Claire Beuzie’s stepfather turned out to be Jack McCoist, one of the city’s more able defence solicitors. He asked for ten minutes alone with her before any interview could begin. Afterwards, Siobhan entered the room again, accompanied by Gill Templer who, much to his visible annoyance, had ousted Eric Bain.

  Claire’s drink can was empty. McCoist had half a cup of lukewarm tea in front of him.

  ‘I don’t think we need a recording made,’ McCoist stated. ‘Let’s just talk this through, see where it takes us. Agreed?’

  He looked to Gill Templer, who nodded eventually.

  ‘When you’re ready, DC Clarke,’ Templer said.

  Siobhan tried for eye contact with Claire, but she was too busy with the Pepsi can, rolling it between her palms.

  ‘Claire,’ she said, ‘these clues Flip was getting, one of them came from an e-mail address which we’ve traced back to you.’

  McCoist had an A4 pad out, on which he’d already written several pages of notes in handwriting so bad it was like a personal code. Now he turned to a fresh sheet.