The parents were professionals – the father an architect, mother a lecturer – but they’d given up work to concentrate on finding their son. The story shifted into bold type for its final paragraph: ‘Now, two grieving parents know they’ve found their son. Yet for them the mystery has only deepened. How did Jürgen come to die on a barren Scottish mountaintop? Who else was there with him? Whose was the gun … and who used it to end the young student’s life?’
‘The backpack and stuff, they never turned up?’ Wylie asked.
‘Never. But then if it wasn’t him, you would hardly expect them to.’
She smiled. ‘You’ve been a real help, Sergeant Maclay.’
‘Just put that request in writing, and I’ll let you have chapter and verse.’
‘Thanks, I’ll do that.’ She paused. ‘We’ve got a Maclay in Edinburgh CID, works out of Craigmillar …’
‘Aye, we’re cousins. Met him at a couple of weddings and funerals. Craigmillar’s where the posh folk live?’
‘Is that what he told you?’
‘Was I being fed a line?’
‘Come see for yourself sometime.’
Wylie was laughing when she finished the call, had to tell Shug Davidson why. He came over to her desk. The CID room wasn’t big: four desks, doors leading off to walk-in cupboards where they kept old case files. Davidson picked up the photocopied news story, read it through.
‘Looks like something Holly made up all by himself,’ he commented.
‘You know him?’
‘Had a couple of run-ins with him. Holly’s speciality is blowing a story up.’
She took the article from him. Sure enough, all the stuff about fantasy games and role-playing was kept ambiguous, the text peppered with conditionals: ‘may have’, ‘could be’, ‘if, as it is thought …’
‘I need to speak to him,’ she stated, picking up the phone again. ‘Do you know his number?’
‘No, but he’s based at the paper’s Edinburgh office.’ Davidson started back towards his own desk. ‘You’ll find it in Yellow Pages under “Leper Colonies” …’
Steve Holly was still on his way into work when his mobile sounded. He lived in the New Town, only three streets from what he’d recently called in print ‘the tragic death flat’. Not that his own place was in the same league as Flip Balfour’s. He was at the top of an unmodernised tenement – one of few still left in the New Town. And his street didn’t have the cachet of Flip’s address. Still, he’d watched the paper value of his flat soar. Four years ago, he’d decided he wanted to live in this part of town. But even then it had seemed beyond his means, until he started reading the death notices in the city’s daily and evening papers. When he saw a New Town address, he’d head round there with an envelope marked ‘Urgent’ and addressed to ‘The Owner’. The letter inside was short. He introduced himself as someone who’d been born and raised in whichever street, but whose family had moved away and encountered bad fortune since. With both parents dead, he now wished to return to a street which held such fond memories, and should the owner ever wish to consider selling …
And bloody hell, it had worked. An old woman – house-ridden for a decade – had died, and her niece, who was her closest living relative, had read Holly’s letter, phoning him that afternoon. He’d gone to look at the place – three bedrooms, a bit smelly and dark but he knew such things could be fixed. Nearly shot himself in the foot when the niece asked which number he’d lived at, but he’d managed to fool her well enough. Then his pitch: all the estate agents and solicitors getting their cut … better to agree a fair price between them and cut out the middle-men.
The niece lived in the Borders, didn’t seem to know what flats in Edinburgh were fetching. She’d even thrown in a lot of the old lady’s furniture, for which he’d thanked her profusely, turfing out the lot his first weekend in residence.
If he sold up now he’d have a hundred grand in his pocket, a nice nest egg. In fact, only this morning he’d wondered about trying something similar with the Balfours … only somehow he reckoned they’d know to the last penny what Flip’s place was worth. He stopped, halfway up the Dundas Street climb, and answered his mobile.
‘Steve Holly speaking.’
‘Mr Holly, this is Detective Sergeant Wylie, Lothian and Borders CID.’
Wylie? He tried to place her. Of course! That brilliant press conference! ‘Yes, DS Wylie, and what can I do for you this morning?’
‘It’s about a story you ran three years or so back … the German student.’
‘Would that be the student with the twenty-foot reach?’ he asked with a grin. He was outside a small art gallery, peered in through the window, curious about the prices first, paintings second.
‘That’s the one, yes.’
‘Don’t tell me you’ve caught the killer?’
‘No.’
‘What then?’
She hesitated; he frowned in concentration. ‘Some new evidence may have come to light …’
‘What new evidence?’
‘Right now, I’m afraid I can’t divulge …’
‘Yeah, yeah. Tell me something I don’t hear every other day. Your lot always want something for nothing.’
‘And your lot don’t?’
He turned away from the window, just in time to catch a green Aston revving away from the lights: not too many about, had to be the grieving father … ‘What’s it got to do with Philippa Balfour?’ he asked.
Silence on the line. ‘Sorry?’
‘That’s not a very good answer, DS Wylie. Last time I saw you, you were attached to the Balfour case. Are you saying they’ve suddenly shifted you on to a case which isn’t even in the Lothian and Borders remit?’
‘I …’
‘You’re probably not at liberty to say, right? Me, on the other hand, I can say whatever I like.’
‘The way you made up that sword-and-sorcery stuff ?’
‘That wasn’t made up. I got it from the parents.’
‘That he liked role-playing, yes, but the idea that it was some game brought him to Scotland … ?’
‘Speculation based on the available evidence.’
‘But there was no evidence of such a game, was there?’
‘Highland mountains, all that Celtic myth rubbish … just the place someone like Jürgen would end up. Sent out on some quest, only there’s a gun waiting for him when he gets there.’
‘Yes, I read your story.’
‘And somehow it ties in with Flip Balfour, but you’re not going to tell me how?’ Holly licked his lips; he was enjoying this.
‘That’s right,’ Wylie said.
‘It must have hurt.’ His voice was almost solicitous.
‘What?’
‘When they pulled you from liaison. Not your fault, was it? We’re like bloody savages at times. They should have prepared you better. Christ, Gill Templer worked liaison for a hundred years … she should have known.’
Another silence on the line. Holly softened his voice. ‘And then they go and give it to a detective constable. DC Grant Hood. A shining example. Now there’s one cocky little bastard if ever I saw one. Like I say, something like that’s got to hurt. And what’s happened to you, DS Wylie? You’re stuck halfway up a Scottish mountain, scrabbling around for a reporter – one of the enemy – to put you right.’
He thought she’d gone, but then heard something which was almost a sigh.
Oh, you’re good, Stevie boy, he thought to himself. You’ll have the right address some day, and works of art on the walls for people to gawp at …
‘Detective Sergeant Wylie?’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Sorry if I hit a nerve. But, look, maybe we could meet. I think I might just have a way to help, even if only a little.’
‘What is it?’
‘Face to face?’
‘No.’ The voice hardening. ‘Tell me now.’
‘Well …’ Holly angled his head towards the sun. ‘Say this thi
ng you’re working on … it’s confidential, right?’ He took a breath. ‘Don’t answer that. We both know already. But say someone … a journalist, for want of a better example … got hold of this story. People would want to know how he got it, and do you know who they’d look to first?’
‘Who?’
‘The liaison officer, Detective Constable Grant Hood. He’s the one with the line to the media. And if a certain journalist – the one in possession of the leak – happened to … well, indicate that his source was not a thousand miles from the liaison officer … I’m sorry, it probably sounds petty to you. You probably don’t want to see DC Hood with a bit of mud on his new starched shirt, or the flak that would head the way of DCS Templer. It’s just that sometimes when I start thinking something, I need to go the whole way. Do you know what I’m saying?’
‘Yes.’
‘We could still have that meeting. I’m free all morning. I’ve already told you what you need to know about Mountain Boy, but we could talk anyway …’
Rebus had been standing in front of Ellen Wylie’s desk a full half-minute before she seemed to realise he was there. She was staring towards the paperwork in front of her, but Rebus didn’t think she was seeing it. Then Shug Davidson wandered past, slapping Rebus on the back and saying ‘Morning, John’, and Wylie looked up.
‘Weekend that bad, was it?’ Rebus asked.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Looking for you, though I’m beginning to wonder why I bothered.’
She seemed to pull herself together, ran a hand over her head and muttered something approaching an apology.
‘So am I right, was it a bad weekend?’
Davidson was passing again, papers in hand. ‘She was fine till ten minutes ago.’ He stopped. ‘Was it that wanker Holly?’
‘No,’ Wylie said.
‘Bet it was,’ Davidson stated, moving off again.
‘Steve Holly?’ Rebus guessed.
Wylie tapped the newspaper story. ‘I had to talk to him.’
Rebus nodded. ‘Just watch out for him, Ellen.’
‘I can handle him, don’t worry.’
He was still nodding. ‘That’s more like it. Now, do you feel like doing me a favour?’
‘Depends what it is.’
‘I got the feeling this German student thing would be driving you mental … Is that why you came back to West End?’
‘I just thought I might get more work done here.’ She threw her pen down on the desk. ‘Looks like I was wrong.’
‘Well, I’m here to offer you a break. I’ve got a couple of interviews to do, and I need a partner.’
‘Who are you interviewing?’
‘David Costello and his father.’
‘Why me?’
‘I thought I’d already explained that.’
‘Charity case, am I?’
Rebus let out a long breath. ‘Jesus, Ellen, you can be hard work sometimes.’
She looked at her watch. ‘I have a meeting at half-eleven.’
‘Me too: doctor’s appointment. But this won’t take long.’ He paused. ‘Look, if you don’t want to …’
‘All right,’ she said. Her shoulders were slumped. ‘Maybe you’re right.’
Too late, Rebus was having second thoughts. It was as if the fight had gone out of her. He thought he knew the reason, but knew also that there was little he could do about it.
‘Great,’ he said.
Reynolds and Davidson were watching from one of the other desks. ‘Look, Shug,’ Reynolds said, ‘it’s the Dynamic Duo!’
It seemed to take all Ellen Wylie’s effort to lift her from her chair.
He briefed her in the car. She didn’t ask much, seemed more interested in the passing parade of pedestrians. Rebus left the Saab in hotel parking and walked into the Caledonian, Wylie a couple of steps behind.
The ‘Caley’ was an Edinburgh institution, a red-stone monolith at the west end of Princes Street. Rebus had no idea what a room cost. He’d eaten in the restaurant once, with his wife and a couple of friends of hers who were honeymooning in the city. The friends had insisted on putting dinner on their room tab, so Rebus had never known the final figure. He’d been uncomfortable all evening, right in the middle of a case and wanting to get back to it. Rhona knew, too, and excluded him from the conversation by concentrating on reminiscences she shared with her friends. The honeymooners holding hands between courses, and sometimes even while they ate. Rebus and Rhona almost strangers to one another, their marriage faltering …
‘How the other half live,’ he said to Wylie as they waited for the receptionist to call the Costellos’ room. When Rebus had phoned David Costello’s flat, there’d been no answer, so he’d asked around the office and been told that the parents flew into town Sunday evening, and that their son was spending the day with them.
‘I don’t think I’ve been inside before,’ Wylie replied. ‘It’s just a hotel, after all.’
‘They’d love to hear you say that.’
‘Well, it’s true, isn’t it?’
Rebus got the feeling she wasn’t thinking about what she was saying. Her mind was somewhere else, the words just filling spaces.
The receptionist smiled at them. ‘Mr Costello’s expecting you.’ She gave them the room number and directed them towards the lifts. A liveried porter was hovering, but one look at Rebus told him there was no work for him here. As the lift glided upwards, Rebus tried to get the song ‘Bell-Boy’ out of his head, Keith Moon growling and wailing.
‘What’s that you’re whistling?’ Wylie asked.
‘Mozart,’ Rebus lied. She nodded as if she’d just placed the tune …
It wasn’t a room after all, but a suite, with a connecting door to the suite next to it. Rebus caught a glimpse of Theresa Costello before her husband closed the door. The living area was compact: sofa, chair, table, TV … There was a bedroom off, and a bathroom down the hall. Rebus could smell soap and shampoo, and behind them the unaired smell you sometimes got in hotel rooms. There was a basket of fruit on the table, and David Costello, seated there, had just helped himself to an apple. He had shaved, but his hair was unwashed, lank and greasy. His grey T-shirt looked new, as did the black denims. The shoelaces on both his trainers were untied, either by accident or design.
Thomas Costello was shorter than Rebus had imagined him, a boxer’s roll to his shoulders when he walked. His mauve shirt was open-necked, and his trousers were held up with pale pink braces.
‘Come in, come in,’ he said, ‘sit yourselves down.’ He gestured towards the sofa. Rebus, however, took the armchair, while Wylie stayed standing. There was nothing for the father to do but sink into the sofa himself, where he spread his arms out either side of him. But a split second later he brought his hands together in a single sharp clap and exclaimed that they needed something to drink.
‘Not for us, Mr Costello,’ Rebus said.
‘You’re sure now?’ Costello looked to Ellen Wylie, who managed a slow nod.
‘Well then.’ The father once again arranged his arms either side of him. ‘So what can we be doing for you?’
‘I’m sorry we have to intrude at a time like this, Mr Costello.’ Rebus glanced towards David, who was showing about as much interest in proceedings as Wylie.
‘We quite understand, Inspector. You’ve got a job to do, and we all want to help you catch the sick bastard who did this to Philippa.’ Costello clenched his fists, showing he was ready to do some damage to the culprit himself. His face was almost wider than it was long, the hair cut short and brushed straight back from the forehead. The eyes were narrowed slightly, and Rebus guessed that the man wore contact lenses, and was ever fearful of them falling out.
‘Well, Mr Costello, we just have some follow-up questions …’
‘And do you mind me staying while you ask them?’
‘Not at all. It may even be that you can help.’
‘Go ahead then.’ His head snapped round. ‘Davey! Are y
ou listening?’
David Costello nodded, ripping another bite from the apple.
‘The stage is all yours, Inspector,’ the father said.
‘Well, maybe I could start by asking David a couple of things.’ Rebus made a show of easing the notebook from his pocket, though he knew the questions already and didn’t think he’d need to write anything down. But sometimes the presence of a notebook could work a little magic. Interviewees seemed to trust the written word: if you had something in your notebook, then it had probably been verified. Additionally, if they thought their replies were going to be recorded, they gave each utterance more consideration, or else became flustered and blurted out the truth.
‘You’re sure you won’t sit?’ the father asked Wylie, patting the space on the sofa.
‘I’m fine,’ she answered coolly.
The exchange had somehow broken the spell; David Costello didn’t look in the least bothered about the notebook.
‘Fire away,’ he told Rebus.
Rebus took aim and fired. ‘David, we’ve asked you about this Internet game we think Flip might have been playing …’
‘Yes.’
‘And you said you didn’t know anything about it, and didn’t go much for computer games and such-like.’
‘Yes.’
‘But now we hear that in your schooldays you were a bit of a whizz at dungeons and dragons.’
‘I remember that,’ Thomas Costello interrupted. ‘You and your pals, up there in your bedroom all day and all night.’ He looked at Rebus. ‘All night, Inspector, if you can believe that.’
‘I’ve heard of grown men doing the same thing,’ Rebus said. ‘A few hands of poker and a big enough pot …’
Costello conceded as much with a smile: one gambling man to another.
‘Who told you I was a “whizz”?’ David asked.
‘It just came up.’ Rebus shrugged.
‘Well, I wasn’t. The D and D craze lasted about a month.’
‘Flip played, too, when she was at school, did you know that?’
‘I’m not sure.’