Falls

by Ian Rankin

‘I wouldn’t drink any,’ a voice called. He looked up into the light, saw a woman emerging from the line of trees. She wore a long muslin dress over her thin frame. With the sun behind her, the outline of her figure was discernible beneath the cloth. As she came forward, she ran a hand behind her head to pull back long curly blonde hair, taking it out of her eyes. ‘The farmers,’ she explained. ‘All the chemicals they use run off the soil and into the streams. Organo-phosphates and who knows what.’ She seemed to tremble at the thought.

  ‘I never touch the stuff,’ Rebus said, drying his hand on his sleeve as he stood up. ‘Are you Ms Dodds?’

  ‘Everybody calls me Bev.’ She stuck out a skeletal hand which itself was at the end of a tapering arm. Like chicken bones, Rebus thought, making sure not to squeeze too hard.

  ‘DI Rebus,’ he said. ‘How did you know I was here?’

  ‘I saw your car. I was watching from my window. When you drove up the lane, I just knew instinctively.’ She bounced on her toes, pleased to have been proved right. She reminded Rebus of a teenager, but her face told a different story: laughter lines around the eyes; the skin of the cheekbones sagging. She had to be in her early fifties, albeit with the zest of someone far younger.

  'You walked?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, looking down at her open-toed sandals. ‘I was surprised you didn’t come to me first.’

  ‘I just wanted a look around. Where exactly was it you found this doll?’

  She pointed towards the fall of water. ‘Right at the foot, sitting on the bank. It was completely dry.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because I know you’ll have been wondering if it floated downstream.’

  Rebus didn’t let on that he’d been thinking exactly this, but she seemed to sense it anyway and bounced on her toes again.

  ‘And it was out in the open,’ she went on. ‘I don’t think it could have been left there by accident. They’d have noticed and come back for it.’

  ‘Ever considered a career in the police, Ms Dodds?’

  She tutted. ‘Please, call me Bev.’ She didn’t answer his question, but he could see she was pleased by it.

  ‘I don’t suppose you brought it with you?’

  She shook her head, which sent her hair tumbling, so that she had to draw it back again. ‘It’s down in the cottage.’

  He nodded. ‘Lived here long, Bev?’

  She smiled. ‘Haven’t quite got the accent yet, have I.

  'You’ve a way to go,’ he admitted.

  ‘I was born in Bristol, spent more years than I care to remember in London. Divorce sent me scampering, and this is where I ran out of breath.’

  ‘How long ago was that?’

  ‘Five, six years. They still call my home “the Swanston cottage”.’

  ‘The family who lived there before you?’

  She nodded. ‘Falls is that kind of place, Inspector. Why are you smiling?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure how it would be pronounced.’

  She seemed to understand. ‘Funny, isn’t it? I mean, there’s just the one little waterfall, so why “Falls”? Nobody seems to know.’ She paused. ‘It was a mining village.’

  His forehead furrowed. ‘Coal mines? Here?’

  She stretched out her arm towards the north. ‘A mile or so that way. Little came of it. This was back in the thirties.’

  ‘Which was when they built Meadowside?’

  She nodded.

  ‘But there’s no mining now?’

  ‘Not for forty years. I think most of Meadowside is unemployed. That patch of scrubland, it’s not the meadow in question, you know. When they built the first houses there was a proper meadow there, but then they needed more houses … and they built right on top of it.’ She shivered again, and changed the subject. ‘Think you can get your car turned?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Well, take your time,’ she said, beginning to move away. ‘I’ll head back and make some tea. See you at Wheel Cottage, Inspector.’

  Wheel, she explained, pouring water into the teapot, for her potter’s wheel.

  ‘It began as therapy,’ she went on. ‘After the break-up.’ She paused for a moment. ‘But I found out I was actually quite good at it. I think that surprised quite a number of my old friends.’ The way she said these last two words make Rebus think that these friends had no place in her new life. ‘So maybe “wheel” stands for the wheel of life too,’ she added, lifting the tray and leading him into what she called her ‘parlour’.

  It was a small, low-ceilinged room with bright patterns every- where. There were several examples of what he took to be Beverly Dodds’ work: glazed blue earthenware shaped into dishes and vases. He made sure she noticed him noticing them.

  ‘Mostly early stuff,’ she said, trying for a dismissive tone. ‘I keep them for sentimental reasons.’ Bangles and bracelets slid down her wrists as she pushed her hair back again.

  ‘They’re very good,’ he told her. She poured the tea and handed him a robust cup and saucer of the same blue colouring. He looked around the room but couldn’t see any sign of a coffin or doll.

  ‘In my workshop,’ she said, seeming to read his mind again. ‘I can fetch it, if you like.’

  ‘Please,’ he said. So she got up and left the room. Rebus was feeling claustrophobic. The tea wasn’t tea at all but some herbal alternative. He considered pouring it into one of the vases, but pulled out his mobile instead, intending to check for messages. The screen was blank, no signal showing. The thick stone walls perhaps; either that or Falls was in a dead zone. He’d known it happen in East Lothian. There was just the one small bookcase in the room: arts and crafts mostly, and a couple of volumes on ‘Wiccan’. Rebus picked one up, started to flip through it.

  ‘White magic,’ the voice behind him said. ‘A belief in the power of Nature.’

  Rebus put the book back and turned towards her.

  ‘Here we are,’ she said. She was carrying the coffin as though part of some solemn procession. Rebus took a step forward and she held it at arm’s length towards him. He lifted it gently from her, as he felt was expected, and at the same time a thought hurtled through his brain: she’s unhinged … this is all her doing! But his attention was diverted to the coffin itself. It was made of a dark wood, aged oak maybe, and held together with black nails, akin to carpet tacks. The wooden panels had been measured and sawn, the cut edges sandpapered but otherwise untreated. The whole thing was about eight inches long. It wasn’t the work of a professional carpenter; even Rebus, who wouldn’t know an awl from his elbow, could tell that. And then she lifted off the lid for him. Her eyes were wide and unblinking, fixed on his, awaiting his response.

  ‘It was nailed shut,’ she explained. ‘I prised it open.’

  Inside, the small wooden doll lay with arms flat by its sides, its face rounded but blank, and dressed in scraps of muslin. It had been carved, but with little artistry, deep grooves in the surface where the chisel had done its work. Rebus tried lifting it out of its box, but his fingers were too clumsy, the space between doll and coffin sides too tight. So he turned the container upside down and the doll slid into his palm. His first thought was to compare the cloth wraparound to the various materials on show in the parlour, but there were no obvious matches.

  ‘The cloth’s quite new and clean,’ she was whispering. He nodded. The coffin hadn’t been outdoors long. It hadn’t had time to stain or suffer damp.

  ‘I’ve seen some strange things, Bev . .’ Rebus said, his voice trailing off. ‘Nothing else at the scene? Nothing unusual?’

  She shook her head slowly. ‘I walk up that way every week. This,’ touching the coffin, ‘was the only thing out of place.’

  ‘Footprints.. .?’ Rebus started, but he broke off. It was asking too much of her. But she was ready with an answer.

  ‘None that I could see.’ She tore her eyes away from the coffin and towards him again. ‘I did look, because I knew it couldn’t just have appeared out of
thin air.’

  ‘Is there anyone in the village who’s keen on woodwork? Maybe a joiner … ?’

  ‘Nearest joiner is Haddingron. Offhand, I don’t know anyone who’s … I mean, who in their right mind would do something like this?’

  Rebus smiled. ‘I bet you’ve thought about it though.’

  She smiled back. ‘I’ve thought of little else, Inspector. I mean, in general maybe I’d shrug something like this off, but with what’s happened to the Balfour girl … ’

  ‘We don’t know anything’s happened,’ Rebus felt bound to say.

  ‘Surely it’s connected though?’

  ‘Doesn’t mean it’s not a crank.’ He kept his eyes on hers as he spoke. ‘In my experience, every village has its resident oddball.’

  ‘Are you saying that I—’ She broke off at the sound of a car drawing up outside. ‘Oh,’ she said, getting to her feet, ‘that’ll be the reporter.’

  Rebus followed her to the window. A young man was emerging from the driver’s side of a red Ford Focus. In the passenger seat, a photographer was fixing a lens on to his camera. The driver stretched and rolled his shoulders, as though at the end of a long journey.

  ‘They were here before,’ Bev was explaining. ‘When the Balfour girl first went missing. Left me a card, and when this happened … ’ Rebus was following her into the narrow hall as she made for the front door.

  ‘That wasn’t the cleverest move, Ms Dodds.’ Rebus was trying to keep his anger in check.

  Hand on the door handle, she half turned towards him. ‘At least they didn’t accuse me of being a crank, Inspector.’

  He wanted to say, but they will, but the damage was already done.

  The reporter’s name was Steve Holly, and he worked for the Edinburgh office of a Glasgow tabloid. He was young, early twenties, which was good: maybe he’d take a telling. If they’d sent one of the old pros out, Rebus wouldn’t even have bothered trying.

  Holly was short and a bit overweight, his hair gelled into a jagged line, reminding Rebus of the single strand of barbed wire you got at the top of a farmer’s fence. He had a notebook and pen in one hand, and shook Rebus’s with the other.

  ‘Don’t think we’ve met,’ he said, in a way that made Rebus suspect his name was not unknown to the reporter. ‘This is Tony, my glamorous assistant.’ The photographer snorted. He was hefting a camera bag over one shoulder. ‘What we thought, Bev, is if we take you to the waterfall, have you picking the coffin up off the ground.’

  'Yes, of course.

  ‘Saves the hassle of setting up an interior shot,’ Holly went on. ‘Not that Tony would mind. But stick him in a room and he comes over all creative and arty.’

  ‘Oh?’ She looked appraisingly at the photographer. Rebus repressed a smile: the words ‘creative’ and ‘arty’ had different connotations for the reporter and Bev. But Holly was quick to pick up on it, too. ‘I could send him back later, if you like. Do a nice portrait of you, maybe in your studio.’

  ‘It’s hardly a studio,’ Bev countered, stroking a finger down her neck, enjoying the thought. ‘Just the spare bedroom with my wheel and some drawings. I pinned white sheets to the walls to help with the light.’

  ‘Speaking of light,’ Holly broke in, staring at the sky meaning- fully, ‘we’d better get a move on, eh?’

  ‘Perfect just now,’ the photographer explained to Bev. ‘Won’t stay that way for long.’

  Bev looked up too, nodding agreement, one artist to another. Rebus had to admit: Holly was good.

  ‘Do you want to stay here, mind the fort?’ he was now asking Rebus. ‘We’ll only be fifteen minutes.’

  ‘I’ve got to get back to Edinburgh. Any chance I can have your number, Mr Holly?’

  ‘Should have my card somewhere.’ The reporter began searching his pockets, produced a wallet and from it a business card.

  ‘Thanks,’ Rebus said, taking it. ‘And if I could have a quick word … ?’

  As he led Holly a few steps away, he saw that Bev was standing close beside the photographer, asking him if her clothes were suitable. He got the feeling she missed the presence of another artist in the village. Rebus turned his back on them, the better to mask what he was about to say.

  ‘Have you seen this doll thing?’ Holly was asking. Rebus nodded. Holly wrinkled his nose. ‘Reckon we’re wasting our time?’ His tone was matey, inviting the truth.

  ‘Almost certainly,’ Rebus said, not believing it, and knowing that once Holly saw the bizarre carving he wouldn’t believe it either. ‘It’s a day out of the city anyway,’ Rebus went on, forcing levity into his tone.

  ‘Can’t stand the countryside,’ Holly admitted. ‘Too far from the carbon monoxide for my liking. Surprised they sent a DI … ’

  ‘We have to treat each lead seriously.’

  ‘Sure you do, I understand that. I’d still have sent a DC or DS, tops.’

  ‘Like I say—’ But Holly was turning away from him, ready to get back to work. Rebus gripped his arm. You know that if this does turn out to be evidence, we could want it kept quiet?’

  Holly nodded perfunctorily and tried for an American accent. ‘Get your people to speak to my people.’ He released his arm and turned back to Bev and the photographer. ‘Here, Bev, that what you’re wearing? I just thought, nice day like this, maybe you’d be comfier in a shorter skirt …'

  Rebus drove back up the lane, not stopping by the stile this time, keeping going, wondering what else he might find. A half-mile further along, a wide driveway surfaced with pink chippings ended abruptly in a set of tall wrought-iron gates. Rebus pulled over and got out of the car. The gates were padlocked shut. Beyond them he could see the driveway curve through a forest, the trees blocking any view of a house. There were no signs, but he knew this had to be Junipers. High stone walls either side of the gates, but eventually tapering down to a more manageable height. Rebus left his car, walked a hundred yards down the main road, then hoisted himself over the wall and into the trees.

  He got the feeling that if he tried a short cut, he could end up wandering the woods for hours, so he made for the driveway and hoped that around the curve he wouldn’t find another, and another after that.

  Which was precisely what he did find. He wondered idly about deliveries: how did the postman get on? Probably not something that concerned a man like John Balfour. He’d walked a full five minutes before the house came into view. Its walls had aged the colour of slate, an elongated two-storey gothic confection with turrets either end. Rebus didn’t bother getting too close, couldn’t even be sure there’d be anyone home. He supposed there’d be security of some kind—maybe a police officer manning the phone—but if so it was low-key. The house looked on to a spread of manicured lawn, fiowerbeds either side. There was what looked like a paddock beyond the far end of the main building. No cars or garages, probably out of sight around the back. He couldn’t imagine anyone actually being happy in such a dour setting. The house almost seemed to have a frown on it, a warning against gaiety and ill manners. He wondered if Philippa’s mother felt like an exhibit in some locked museum. Then he caught sight of a face at an upstairs window, but as soon as he saw it, it vanished again. Some apparition maybe, but a minute later the front door was hauled open and a woman came running down the steps and on to the gravel driveway. She was heading towards him, wild hair obscuring her face. When she tripped and fell, he ran forwards to help her, but she saw him coming and got quickly to her feet, ignoring her skinned knees and the chippings still sticking to them. A cordless phone had slipped from her hand. She picked it up.

  ‘Stay away!’ she shrieked. When she pushed the hair away from her face, he saw that it was Jacqueline Balfour. As soon as the words were out, she seemed to regret them, and put up two pacifying hands. ‘Look, I’m sorry. Just … just tell us what it is you want.’

  And then he realised, realised that this stricken woman standing before him thought he was her daughter’s abductor.

  ‘Mrs Balfo
ur,’ he said, raising his own hands, palms out towards her, ‘I’m a police officer.’

  She had stopped crying finally, the pair of them seated on the front step, as if she were unwilling to let the house take possession of her again. She kept saying she was sorry, and Rebus kept saying he was the one who should be apologising.

  ‘I just didn’t think,’ he said. ‘I mean, I didn’t think anyone would be home.’

  Nor was she alone. A WPC had come to the door, but had been ordered firmly by Jacqueline Balfour to 'just go away’. Rebus had asked if she wanted him to go too, but she’d shaken her head.

  ‘Is there something you’ve come to tell me?’ she asked, handing back his dampened handkerchief. Tears: tears he’d caused. He told her to keep it, and she folded it neatly, then unfolded it and started the process again. She still hadn’t seemed to notice the damage to her knees. Her skirt was tucked between them as she sat.

  ‘No news,’ he said quietly. Then, seeing all hope drain from her: ‘There might be a lead down in the village.’

  ‘The village?’

  ‘Falls.’

  ‘What sort of lead?’

  Suddenly he wished he’d never started. ‘I can’t really say just now.’ An old fallback and one that wouldn’t work here. All she had to do was say something to her husband, and he’d be on the phone, demanding to know. And even if he didn’t, or if he hid the news of the strange find from her, the media would hardly be so tactful …

  ‘Did Philippa collect dolls?’ Rebus asked now.

  ‘Dolls?’ She was playing with the cordless phone again, turning it in her hand.

  ‘It’s just that someone found one, down by the waterfall.’

  She shook her head. ‘No dolls,’ she said quietly, as if feeling that somehow there should have been dolls in Philippa’s life, and that their absence reflected badly on her as a mother.

  ‘It’s probably nothing,’ Rebus said.

  ‘Probably,’ she agreed, filling the pause.

  ‘Is Mr Balfour at home?’

  ‘He’ll be back later. He’s in Edinburgh.’ She stared at the phone. ‘No one’s going to call, are they? John’s business friends, they’ve all been told to keep the line clear. Same thing with family. Keep the line clear in case they phone. But they won’t, I know they won’t.’