by Ian Rankin
‘What?’
‘The first bit of the clue was clever. But this … this is just looking at lists. Does he expect us to go to London, visit every chip shop and café in the hope of finding Queen Victoria’s bust?’
‘He can whistle if he does.’ Grant’s chuckle was empty of humour.
Siobhan looked at the book of card games. She’d spent a couple of hours flicking through it, and all the time looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place. She’d only just got to the library in time. Five minutes till closing. Left her car on Victoria Street and prayed she didn’t get a ticket …
‘Victoria Street?’ she said out loud.
‘Take your pick, there are dozens of the buggers.’
‘And some of them are right here,’ she told him.
He looked up. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘they are.’
He went down to his car, brought back an Ordnance Survey atlas of East-Central Scotland, opened it at the index and ran his finger down the list.
‘Victoria Gardens … there’s a Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy … Victoria Street and Victoria Terrace in Edinburgh.’ He looked at her. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think there are a couple of restaurants in Victoria Street.’
‘Any statues?’
‘Not on the outside.’
He checked his watch. ‘They won’t be open at this hour, will they?’
She shook her head. ‘First thing tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Breakfast’s on me.’
Rebus and Jean sat in the Palm Court. She was drinking a long vodka, while he nursed a ten-year-old Macallan. The waiter had brought a little glass jug of water, but Rebus hadn’t disturbed it. He hadn’t been inside the Balmoral Hotel in years. Back then it had been the North British. The old place had changed a bit in the interim. Not that Jean seemed interested in her surroundings, not now she’d heard Rebus’s story.
‘So they might all have been murdered?’ she said, her face pale. The lights in the lounge had been turned low, and a pianist was playing. Rebus kept recognising snatches of tunes; he doubted Jean had taken in any of them.
‘It’s possible,’ he admitted.
‘But you’re basing all of it on the dolls?’
Her eyes met his and he nodded. ‘Maybe I’m reading too much into it,’ he said. ‘But it needs to be investigated.’
‘Where on earth will you start?’
‘We’re waiting for the original case notes.’ He paused. ‘What’s the matter?’
There were tears in her eyes. She sniffed and searched her bag for a handkerchief. ‘It’s just the idea of it. All this time, I had those cuttings … Maybe if I’d given them to the police sooner …’
‘Jean.’ He took her hand. ‘All you had were stories about dolls in coffins.’
‘I suppose so,’ she said.
‘Meantime, maybe you can help.’
She hadn’t found a handkerchief. Picked up her cocktail napkin and dabbed at her eyes with it. ‘How?’ she said.
‘This whole thing goes back as far as nineteen seventy-two. I need to know who back then might have shown an interest in the Arthur’s Seat exhibits. Can you do some digging for me?’
‘Of course.’
He gave her hand another squeeze. ‘Thanks.’
She gave a half-hearted smile and picked up her drink. The ice rattled as she finished it.
‘Another?’ he said.
She shook her head, looked around her. ‘I get the feeling this isn’t your kind of place.’
‘Oh? And what is?’
‘I think you feel more comfortable in small, smoky bars filled with disappointed men.’
There was a smile on her face. Rebus nodded slowly.
‘You catch on quick,’ he said.
Her smile faded as she looked around again. ‘I was here just last week, such a happy occasion … It seems like a long time ago.’
‘What was the occasion?’
‘Gill’s promotion. Do you think she’s coping?’
‘Gill’s Gill. She’ll tough it out.’ He paused. ‘Speaking of toughing it out, is that reporter still giving you grief ?’
She managed a thin smile. ‘He’s persistent. Wants to know what “others” I was talking about in Bev Dodds’s kitchen. That was my fault, sorry.’ She seemed to have regained some composure. ‘I should be getting back. I can probably find a taxi if …’
‘I said I’d run you home.’ He signalled for their waitress to bring the bill.
He’d parked the Saab on North Bridge. There was a cold wind blowing, but Jean stopped to look at the view: the Scott Monument, the Castle, and Ramsay Gardens.
‘Such a beautiful city,’ she said. Rebus tried to agree. He hardly saw it any more. To him, Edinburgh had become a state of mind, a juggling of criminal thoughts and baser instincts. He liked its size, its compactness. He liked its bars. But its outward show had ceased to impress him a long time ago. Jean wrapped her coat tightly around her. ‘Everywhere you look, there’s some story, some little piece of history.’ She looked at him and he nodded agreement, but he was remembering all the suicides he’d dealt with, people who’d jumped from North Bridge maybe because they couldn’t see the same city Jean did.
‘I never tire of this view,’ she said, turning back towards the car. He nodded again, disingenuously. To him, it wasn’t a view at all. It was a crime scene waiting to happen.
When he drove off, she asked if they could have some music. He switched on the cassette-player and the car filled to bursting with Hawkwind’s In Search of Space.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ejecting the tape. She found cassette boxes in the glove compartment. Hendrix, Cream and the Stones. ‘Probably not your style,’ he said.
She waved the Hendrix at him. ‘You haven’t got Electric Ladyland by any chance?’
Rebus looked at her and smiled.
Hendrix was the soundtrack for their drive to Portobello.
‘So what made you a policeman?’ she asked at one point.
‘Is it such a strange career choice?’
‘That doesn’t answer my question.’
‘True.’ He glanced at her and smiled. She took the hint, nodding her understanding. Then she concentrated on the music.
Portobello was on Rebus’s short-list come the move from Arden Street. It had a beach, and a main street of small local shops. At one time, it had been a fairly grand location, a place the gentry flocked to for reviving air and healthy doses of chill seawater. It wasn’t quite so grand now, but the housing market dictated its rebirth. Those who couldn’t afford the smart homes in the city centre were moving to ‘Porty’, which still had big Georgian houses, but without the premium. Jean had a house on a narrow street near the promenade. ‘You own the whole thing?’ he said, peering through the windscreen.
‘I bought it years back. Porty wasn’t so fashionable.’ She hesitated. ‘Do you want to come in for coffee this time?’
Their eyes met. His were questioning; hers tentative. Then their faces collapsed into smiles.
‘I’d love one,’ he said. Just as he was turning off the ignition, his mobile started ringing.
‘I just thought you’d want to know,’ Donald Devlin said. His voice trembled slightly, body likewise.
Rebus nodded. They were standing just inside the imposing front doors of Surgeons’ Hall. There were people upstairs, but speaking in hushed tones. Outside, one of the grey transit vans from the mortuary was waiting, a police car standing beside it, roof-lights flashing, turning the front of the building blue every couple of seconds.
‘What happened?’ Rebus asked.
‘Heart attack, it looks like. People were enjoying a postprandial brandy, leaning against the railing.’ Devlin pointed upwards. ‘He suddenly went very pale, leaned over the rail. They thought he was going to be sick. But he just slumped, and his weight took him over.’
Rebus looked down at the marble floor. There was a smear of blood which would need cleaning. Men stood on the periphery, some outside on
the lawns. They smoked and spoke of the awful shock. When Rebus looked back at Devlin, the old man seemed to be studying him, as if he were some specimen in a jar.
‘Are you all right?’ Devlin asked, watching as Rebus nodded. ‘The two of you were pretty close, I gather.’
Rebus didn’t answer. Sandy Gates walked up, mopping his face with what looked like a napkin swiped from the dining room.
‘Bloody awful,’ was all he said. ‘Probably have to be an autopsy, too.’
The body was being stretchered away. A blanket covered the body-bag. Rebus resisted the temptation to stop the attendants and pull the zip down. He wanted his last memories of Conor Leary to be of the lively man he’d shared that drink with.
‘He’d just made a fascinating speech,’ Devlin said. ‘A sort of ecumenical history of the human body. Everything from the sacrament to Jack the Ripper as haruspex.’
‘As what?’
‘Someone who foretells the truth by looking at the entrails of animals.’
Gates belched. ‘Half of it was above my head,’ he said.
‘And the other half you slept through, Sandy,’ Devlin commented with a smile. ‘He did the whole thing without notes,’ he added admiringly. Then he looked up at the first-floor landing again. ‘The fall of man, that was his starting point.’ He rummaged in his pocket for a handkerchief.
‘Here,’ said Gates, handing over the napkin. Devlin blew his nose loudly.
‘The fall of man, and then he fell,’ Devlin said. ‘Perhaps Stevenson was right.’
‘What about?’
‘He called Edinburgh a “precipitous city”. Maybe vertigo is in the nature of the place …’
Rebus thought he knew what Devlin meant. Precipitous city … each and every one of its inhabitants falling slowly, almost imperceptibly …
‘Bloody awful meal it was, too,’ Gates was saying, as though he’d have preferred to lose Conor Leary after a veritable feast. Rebus didn’t doubt Conor would have felt the same.
Outside, Dr Curt was one of the smokers. Rebus joined him.
‘I tried phoning you,’ Curt said, ‘but you were already on your way.’
‘Professor Devlin caught me.’
‘He said as much. I think he sensed some bond between you and Conor.’ Rebus just nodded slowly. ‘He’d been pretty ill, you know,’ Curt continued, in that dry voice that always sounded like dictation. ‘After you’d left us this evening, he talked about you.’
Rebus cleared his throat. ‘What did he say?’
‘He said he sometimes thought of you as a penance.’ Curt flicked ash into the air. A flash of blue lit his face for a moment. ‘He was laughing as he said it.’
‘He was a friend,’ Rebus said. Inwardly he added, and I let him go. So many friendships he’d pushed away, preferring his own company, the chair by the window in the darkened room. He pretended sometimes that he was doing them all a favour. People he’d let get close to him in the past, they had a habit of getting hurt, sometimes even killed. But it wasn’t that. It wasn’t that. He wondered about Jean, and where it might be leading. Was he ready to share himself with someone else? Ready to let her into his secrets, his darkness? He still wasn’t sure. Those conversations with Conor Leary, they’d been like confessionals. He’d probably revealed more of himself to the priest than to anyone before him: wife, daughter, lovers. And now he was gone … up to heaven maybe, though he’d cause havoc there, no doubt about it. He’d be in dispute with the angels, looking for Guinness and a good argument.
‘You okay, John?’ Curt reached out a hand and touched his shoulder.
Rebus shook his head slowly, eyes squeezed shut. Curt didn’t make it out the first time, so Rebus had to repeat what he said next:
‘I don’t believe in heaven.’
That was the horror of it. This life was the only one you got. No redemption afterwards, no chance of wiping the slate clean and starting over.
‘It’s all right,’ Curt was saying, clearly unused to the role of comforter, the hand which touched Rebus’s arm more used to easing human organs from a gaping wound. ‘You’ll be all right.’
‘Will I?’ Rebus said. ‘Then there’s no justice in the world.’
‘You’d know more about that than I would.’
‘Oh, I know all right.’ Rebus took a deep breath, let it out. There was sweat beneath his shirt, the night air chilling him. ‘I’ll be okay,’ he said quietly.
‘Of course you will.’ Curt finished his cigarette and pushed it into the grass with his heel. ‘Like Conor said: despite rumours to the contrary, you’re on the side of the angels.’ He took his hand from Rebus’s arm. ‘Whether you like it or not.’
Donald Devlin came bustling up. ‘Should I order some taxis, do you think?’
Curt looked at him. ‘What does Sandy say?’
Devlin took off his glasses, made a show of wiping them. ‘Told me not to be so “bloody pragmatic”.’ He slipped the glasses on again.
‘I’ve got the car,’ Rebus said.
‘You’re okay to drive?’ Devlin asked.
‘It’s not like I’ve just lost my fucking dad!’ Rebus exploded. Then he started to apologise.
‘An emotional time for all of us,’ Devlin said, waving the apology aside. Then he took his glasses off and started polishing them again, as if the world could never reveal itself too vividly for him.
7
Tuesday at eleven a.m., Siobhan Clarke and Grant Hood started working Victoria Street. They drove up George IV Bridge, forgetting that Victoria Street was one-way. Grant cursed the No Entry sign and rejoined the crawl of traffic heading for the lights at the junction with Lawnmarket.
‘Just park kerbside,’ Siobhan said. He shook his head. ‘Why not?’
‘Traffic’s hopeless as it is. No use making things worse.’
She laughed. ‘Do you always play by the rules, Grant?’
He glanced at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing.’
He didn’t say anything, just flipped on the left-turn signal as they stopped three cars back from the lights. Siobhan couldn’t help but smile. He had the boy-racer car, but it was all a front, behind which sat a polite wee laddie.
‘Going out with anyone just now?’ she asked as the lights changed.
He considered his answer. ‘Not just at the moment,’ he said at last.
‘For a while there, I thought maybe you and Ellen Wylie …’
‘We worked one bloody case together!’ he objected.
‘Okay, okay. It’s just that the pair of you seemed to hit it off.’
‘We got along.’
‘That’s what I mean. So where was the problem?’
His face had reddened. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I just wondered if the difference in rank was maybe a factor. Some men can’t handle it.’
‘Because she’s a DS and I’m a DC?’
‘Yes.’
‘The answer’s no. Never even thought of it.’
They’d reached the roundabout outside The Hub. The right fork led to the Castle, but they took the left.
‘Where are we going?’ Siobhan asked.
‘I’ll take a left along West Port. With any luck we’ll find a space in the Grassmarket.’
‘And I bet you’ll put money in the meter, too.’
‘Unless you want the honour.’
She snorted. ‘I walk on the wild side, kid,’ she said.
They found a parking bay, and Grant dropped a couple of coins into the machine, peeling back the ticket and sticking it to the inside of his windscreen.
‘Half an hour long enough?’ he asked.
She shrugged. ‘Depends what we find.’
They walked past the Last Drop pub, named for the fact that criminals had swung from Grassmarket’s scaffold at one time in the city’s history. Victoria Street was a steep curve back up to George IV Bridge, lined with bars and gift shops. On the far side of the street, pubs and clubs seemed to predominate.
One place doubled as a Cuban bar and restaurant.
‘What do you reckon?’ Siobhan asked.
‘Not too many statues, I wouldn’t have thought, unless there’s one of Castro.’
They walked the length of the street, then doubled back. Three restaurants this side, along with a cheesemonger and a shop selling nothing but brushes and string. Pierre Victoire was the first stop. Peering through the window, Siobhan could see that it was a fairly empty space with little in the way of decoration. They went in anyway, not bothering to introduce themselves. Ten seconds later they were back on the pavement.
‘One down, two to go,’ Grant said. He didn’t sound hopeful.
Next was a place called the Grain Store, through a doorway and up a flight of stairs. The place was being readied for lunchtime trade. There were no statues.
As they descended to the street, Siobhan repeated the clue. ‘“This queen dines well before the bust.”’ She shook her head slowly. ‘Maybe we’ve got it wrong.’
‘Then the only thing we can do is send another e-mail, appeal to Quizmaster for help.’
‘I don’t think he’s the type.’
Grant shrugged. ‘Next stop, can we at least have a coffee? I skipped breakfast this morning.’
Siobhan tutted. ‘What would your mum say?’
‘She’d say I slept in. Then I’d tell her it’s because I was up half the night trying to solve this bloody puzzle.’ He paused. ‘And that someone had promised me breakfast would be on them …’
Restaurant Bleu was their final call. It promised ‘world cuisine’ but had a traditional feel as they walked through the door: old varnished wood, the small window doing little to illuminate the cramped interior. Siobhan looked around, but there wasn’t so much as a vase of flowers.
She turned to Grant, who pointed towards a winding staircase. ‘There’s an upstairs.’
‘Can I help?’ the assistant said.
‘In a minute,’ Grant assured her. He followed Siobhan up the stairs. One small room led to another. As Siobhan entered this second chamber, she gave a sigh. Grant, following her, thought the worst. Then he heard her say, ‘Bingo,’ in the same instant as he saw the bust. It was Queen Victoria, two and a half feet high, in black marble.