The Falls

by Ian Rankin

  ‘DC Hood.’

  ‘You sound happy.’

  ‘Who is this, please?’

  ‘It’s Steve Holly. Remember me?’

  ‘Sure, Steve, what can I do for you?’ But the tone was immediately more professional.

  ‘Well … Grant.’ Holly managed to get a sneer into the word. ‘I was just after a quote to go with a piece I’m running.’

  ‘Yes?’ Grant leaned forward a little in his chair, not quite so comfortable now.

  ‘Women going missing all over Scotland … dolls found at the scene … games on the Internet … students dead on hillsides. Any of it ring a bell?’

  Grant thought he’d squeeze the life out of the receiver. The desk, the walls … they’d all gone hazy. He closed his eyes, tried to shake his head clear.

  ‘Case like this, Steve,’ he said, attempting levity, ‘a reporter will hear all kinds of stuff.’

  ‘Believe you solved some of the Internet clues yourself, Grant. What do you reckon? Got to be connected to the murder, haven’t they?’

  ‘I’ve no comment to make on that, Mr Holly. Look, whatever you think you may know, you’ve got to understand that stories – true or false – can do irreparable damage to an investigation, especially one at a crucial stage.’

  ‘Is the Balfour inquiry at a crucial stage? I hadn’t heard …’

  ‘All I’m trying to say is …’

  ‘Look, Grant, admit it: you’re fucked on this one, pardon my French. Best thing you can do is fill me in on the small print.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Sure about that? Tasty new posting you’ve got there … I’d hate to see you go down in flames.’

  ‘Something tells me you’d like nothing better, Holly.’

  The telephone receiver laughed into Grant’s ear. ‘Steve to Mr Holly to Holly … you’ll be calling me names next, Grant.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Something this big, you can never keep it watertight.’

  ‘So who punched the hole through the hull?’

  ‘A whisper here, a whisper there … you know how it is.’ Holly paused. ‘Oh no, that’s right – you don’t know how it is. I keep forgetting, you’ve only been in the job five fucking minutes, and already you think you can lord it over the likes of me.’

  ‘I don’t know what—’

  ‘Those little individual briefings, just you and your favoured poodles. Stuff all that, Grant. It’s the likes of me you should be looking out for. And you can take that any way you like.’

  ‘Thanks, I will. How soon are you going to press?’

  ‘Going to try slapping us with a two-eye?’ When Grant didn’t say anything. Holly laughed again. ‘You don’t even know the lingo!’ he crowed. But Grant was a fast learner.

  ‘It’s an interim interdict,’ he guessed, knowing he was right. Two i’s: a court injunction, halting publication. ‘Look,’ he said, pinching the bridge of his nose, ‘on the record, we don’t know that any of the stuff you’ve mentioned is pertinent to the current case.’

  ‘It’s still news.’

  ‘And possibly prejudicial.’

  ‘So sue me.’

  ‘People play dirty like this, I never forget it.’

  ‘Get in the fucking queue.’

  Grant was about to put down the phone, but Holly beat him to it. He got up and kicked the desk, then kicked it again, followed by the waste-bin, his briefcase (bought at the weekend), and the corner where two walls met. He rested his head against the wall.

  I have to go to Carswell with this. I have to tell Gill Templer!!

  Templer first … chain of command. Then she’d have to break the news to the ACC, who in turn would probably have to disturb the Chief Constable’s daily routine. Mid-afternoon … Grant wondered how late he could leave it. Maybe Holly would call Templer or Carswell himself. If Grant sat on it till day’s end, he’d be in bigger trouble. It could even be that there was still time for that two-eye.

  He picked up the phone, squeezed shut his eyes once more in what, this time round, was a short and silent prayer.

  Made the call.

  It was late afternoon, and Rebus had been staring at the coffins for a good five minutes. Occasionally he would pick one up, examine the workmanship, comparing and contrasting with the others. His latest thought: bring in a forensic anthropologist. The tools used to make the coffins would have left tiny grooves and incisions, marks an expert could identify and explore. If the exact same chisel had been used on each joint, maybe it could be proven. Perhaps there were fibres, fingerprints … The scraps of cloth: could they be traced? He slid the list of victims so that it sat in front of him on the desk: 1972 …’77 …’82 and ’95. The first victim, Caroline Farmer, was the youngest by far; the others were in their twenties and thirties, women in the prime of life. Drownings and disappearances. Where there was no body, it was all but impossible to prove a crime had been committed. And death by drowning … pathologists could tell if someone were alive or dead when they entered the water, but other than that … Say you knocked someone unconscious and pushed them in: even if it came to court, there’d be room for haggling, the murder charge reduced to culpable homicide. Rebus remembered a fireman once telling him the perfect way to commit murder: get the victim drunk in their kitchen, then turn the heat up under the chip-pan.

  Simple and clever.

  Rebus still didn’t know how clever his adversary had been. Fife, Nairn, Glasgow and Perth – certainly he’d ranged far and wide. Someone who travelled. He thought of Quizmaster and the jaunts Siobhan had taken so far. Was it possible to connect Quizmaster to whoever had left the coffins? Having scribbled the words ‘forensic pathologist’ on to his notepad, Rebus added two more: ‘offender profiling’. There were university psychologists who specialised in this, deducing aspects of a culprit’s character from their MO. Rebus had never been convinced, but he felt he was banging his fists against a locked and bolted door, one he was never going to break down without help.

  When Gill Templer stormed down the corridor, past the CID suite’s doorway, Rebus didn’t think she’d seen him. But now she was heading straight for him, her face furious.

  ‘I thought,’ she said, ‘you’d been told.’

  ‘Told what?’ he asked innocently.

  She pointed to the coffins. ‘Told that these were a waste of time.’ Her voice vibrated with anger. Her whole body was taut.

  ‘Jesus, Gill, what’s happened?’

  She didn’t say anything, just swung her arm across the desk, sending the coffins flying. Rebus scrambled from his chair, started picking them up, checking for damage. When he looked round, Gill was on her way to the door again, but she stopped, half turned.

  ‘You’ll find out tomorrow,’ she said, making her exit.

  Rebus looked around the room. Hi-Ho Silvers and one of the civilian staff had stopped the conversation they’d been having.

  ‘She’s losing it,’ Silvers commented.

  ‘What did she mean about tomorrow?’ Rebus asked, but Silvers just shrugged.

  ‘Losing it,’ he said again.

  Maybe he was right.

  Rebus sat back down at his desk and pondered the phrase: there were lots of ways of ‘losing it’. He knew he was in danger of losing it too … whatever it was.

  *

  Jean Burchill had spent much of her day trying to trace the correspondence between Kennet Lovell and the Reverend Kirkpatrick. She’d spoken to people in Alloway and Ayr – the parish minister; a local historian; one of Kirkpatrick’s descendants. She’d spent over an hour on the phone to the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. She’d taken the short walk from the Museum to the National Library, and from there to the Faculty of Advocates. Finally, she’d walked back along Chambers Street and headed for Surgeons’ Hall. In the museum there she’d stared long and hard at the portrait of Kennet Lovell by J. Scott Jauncey. Lovell had been a handsome young man. Often in portraits, the artist left little clues as to the characte
r he was painting: profession, family, hobbies … But this was a simple execution: head and upper body. The background was plain and black, contrasting with the bright yellows and pinks of Lovell’s face. The other portraits in Surgeons’ Hall, they usually showed their subjects with a textbook in front of them, or some paper and a pen. Maybe standing in their library or posed with a few telling props – a skull or femur, an anatomical drawing. The sheer plainness of the Lovell portrait bothered her. Either the painter had had little enthusiasm for the commission, or else the subject had insisted on giving little enough away. She thought of Reverend Kirkpatrick, imagined him paying the artist’s fee and then receiving this bland decoration. She wondered if it perhaps showed some ideal of its subject, or if it was the equivalent of a picture postcard, a mere advertisement for Lovell. This young man, hardly out of his teens, had assisted in the Burke autopsy. According to one report of the time, ‘the quantity of blood that gushed out was enormous, and by the time the lecture was finished the area of the classroom had the appearance of a butcher’s slaughter-house, from its flowing down and being trodden upon’. The description had made her queasy, first time she’d read it. How much more preferable to have died as one of Burke’s victims, made insensible with drink and then smothered. Jean stared into Kennet Lovell’s eyes again. The black pupils seemed luminous, despite the horrors they’d witnessed.

  Or, she couldn’t help wondering, because of them?

  The curator wasn’t able to help answer her questions, so she’d asked if she might see the bursar. But Major Bruce Cawdor, while affable and willing, wasn’t able to add much to what Jean already knew.

  ‘We don’t seem to have any record,’ he told her as they sat in his office, ‘of how the Lovell portrait came into the College’s possession. I’d presume it was a gift, perhaps to defer death duties.’ He was short but distinguished-looking, well dressed and with a face shining with good health. He’d offered her tea, which she’d accepted. It was Darjeeling, each cup coming with its own silver tea-strainer.

  ‘I’m also interested in Lovell’s correspondence.’

  ‘Yes, well, we would be, too.’

  ‘You don’t have anything?’ She was surprised.

  The bursar shook his head. ‘Either Dr Lovell wasn’t a great man for the pen, or else they’ve perished or ended up in some obscure collection.’ He sighed. ‘A great pity. We know so little about his time in Africa …’

  ‘Or in Edinburgh, come to that.’

  ‘He’s buried here. Don’t suppose his grave’s of much interest to you … ?’

  ‘Whereabouts is it?’

  ‘Calton cemetery. His plot’s not far from David Hume’s.’

  ‘I might as well take a look.’

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t be more help.’ He thought for a moment, and his face brightened. ‘Donald Devlin’s supposed to have some table made by Lovell.’

  ‘Yes, I know, though there’s nothing in the literature about an interest in carpentry.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s mentioned somewhere; I seem to recall reading something …’ But try as he might, Major Cawdor couldn’t remember what or where.

  That evening, she sat with John Rebus in her Portobello home. They ate Chinese takeaway, washed down with cold Chardonnay for her, bottled beer for him. Music on the hi-fi: Nick Drake, Janis Ian, Pink Floyd’s Meddle. He seemed wrapped up in his thoughts, but she could hardly complain. After the food, they walked down to the promenade. Kids on skateboards, looking American but sounding pure Porty, swearing like troopers. One chip shop open, that childhood smell of hot fat and vinegar. They still didn’t say much, which didn’t make them so very different from the other couples they passed. Reticence was an Edinburgh tradition. You kept your feelings hidden and your business your own. Some people put it down to the influence of the Church and figures like John Knox – she’d heard the city called ‘Fort Knox’ by outsiders. But to Jean, it was more to do with Edinburgh’s geography, its louring rock-faces and dark skies, the wind whipping in from the North Sea, hurtling through the canyon-like streets. At every turn you felt overwhelmed and pummelled by your surroundings. Just travelling into town from Portobello, she felt it: the bruising and bruised nature of the place.

  John Rebus, too, was thinking of Edinburgh. When he moved from his flat, where would he make his next home? Was there any district he liked better than any other? Portobello itself was fine, pretty relaxed. But he could always move south or west, into the country. Some of his colleagues travelled in from as far as Falkirk and Linlithgow. He wasn’t sure he was ready for that kind of commute. Portobello would be okay though. The only problem was, when they walked along the promenade, he kept looking towards the beach, as if expecting to see a little wooden coffin there, like the one they’d found in Nairn. It wouldn’t matter where he went, his head would go with him, colouring his surroundings. The Falls coffin was working away at him now. He only had the carpenter’s word for it that it had been made by someone else, someone who hadn’t made the other four. But if the killer was being really clever, wouldn’t he have anticipated just that, changing his work habits and tools, trying to dupe them into …

  Oh Christ, here he went again … the same old dance, reeling around his skull. He sat down on the sea wall, and Jean asked if something was wrong.

  ‘Bit of a headache,’ he said.

  ‘Isn’t that supposed to be the woman’s prerogative?’ She was smiling, but he could see she wasn’t happy.

  ‘I should be heading back,’ he told her. ‘Not great company tonight.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ He raised his eyes so they met hers, and she snorted with laughter. ‘Sorry, stupid question. You’re a Scottish male, of course you don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘It’s not that, Jean. It’s just …’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe therapy wouldn’t be such a bad idea.’

  He was trying to make a joke of it, so she didn’t push him.

  ‘Let’s head back,’ she said. ‘Bloody freezing out here anyway.’

  She slid her arm through his as they walked.

  12

  By the time Assistant Chief Constable Colin Carswell arrived at Gayfield Square police station on that underlit Tuesday morning, he was out for blood.

  John Balfour had bawled him out; Balfour’s lawyer had done his damage more subtly, the voice never wavering in its professional and well-educated tones. Still, Carswell felt bruised, and he wanted some measure of revenge. The Chief Constable was remaining aloof – his position, his unassailability, had to be maintained at all costs. This was Carswell’s mess, one he’d spent all the previous evening busy surveying. He might as well have been exploring a landscape of shrapnel and broken glass, armed only with a dustpan and some tweezers.

  The best minds in the Procurator Fiscal’s office had pored over the problem and had concluded, in an annoyingly bland and objective way (letting Carswell know that it was no skin off their noses) that there was little chance of blocking the story. After all, they couldn’t prove that either the dolls or the German student had anything to do with the Balfour case – most senior officers seemed to agree that a connection was unlikely at best – and so would find it difficult to persuade a judge that Holly’s information could, once published, be detrimental to the inquiry.

  What Balfour and his lawyer wanted to know was why the police hadn’t seen fit to share with them the story of the dolls, or the information about the German student and the Internet game.

  What the Chief Constable wanted to know was what Carswell intended doing about it.

  And what Carswell himself wanted was blood.

  His official car, driven by his acolyte DI Derek Linford, drew up in front of a station already crowded with officers. Everyone who had worked or was currently working on the Balfour case – uniforms, CID, even the forensic team from Howdenhall – had been ‘requested’ to attend the morning meeting. Consequently, the briefing room was packed and stifling. Outside, the morning was still recovering fro
m overnight sleet, the pavement damp and chilling to the feet as Carswell’s leather-shod soles stamped across it.

  ‘Here he comes,’ someone said, watching as Linford, having opened Carswell’s door for him, now closed it and, showing a slight limp, walked back round to the driver’s side. There was a sound of folding paper as the fresh tabloids – each copy the same title, each open at the same gathering of pages – were closed and put out of sight. DCS Templer, dressed as though for a funeral, dark lines under her eyes, came into the room first. She whispered something into the ear of DI Bill Pryde, who nodded and tore the corner from a notepad, spitting into it the wad of chewing gum he’d been gnawing for the past half-hour. When Carswell himself walked in, there was a ripple of movement as officers subconsciously corrected their posture or checked their attire for obvious blemishes.

  ‘Is anyone missing?’ Carswell called out. No ‘good morning’, no ‘thank you all for coming’, the usual protocols forgotten. Templer had a few names for him – minor ailments and complaints. Carswell nodded, didn’t seem interested in what he was being told, and didn’t wait for her to finish the roll-call.

  ‘We’ve got ourselves a mole,’ he bawled, loud enough to be heard down the corridor. He nodded slowly, eyes trying to take in every face in front of him. When he saw that there were people at the back, out of staring range, he walked up the aisle between the desks. Officers had to shift so he could get through, but left enough room so that there was no possibility he might brush against them.

  ‘A mole’s always an ugly little thing. It lacks vision. Sometimes it has big greedy paws. It doesn’t like to be exposed.’ There were flecks of saliva either side of his mouth. ‘I find a mole in my garden, I put down poison. Now, some of you will say that moles can’t help it. They don’t know they’re in someone’s garden, a place of order and calm. They don’t know they’re making everything ugly. But they are, whether they know it or not. And that’s why they have to be eradicated.’ He paused, the silence lingering as he walked back down the aisle. Derek Linford had entered the room as if by stealth and was standing by the door, eyes searching out John Rebus, the two of them recent enemies …