The Falls

by Ian Rankin

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘No reason why you should.’ She paused. ‘Don’t suppose I can expect the same of Jack.’

  Jean wasn’t sure what she meant, but Jan Benzie was studying her, seeming to expect some reply. ‘I suppose,’ Jean said, ‘it would look a bit suspicious, losing two husbands.’

  ‘And yet Kennet Lovell can lose three wives … ?’

  Jean’s thinking exactly …

  Jan Benzie had risen to her feet, walked over to the window. Jean took another look around the room. All the artefacts, the paintings and framed photographs, candlesticks and crystal ashtrays … she got the feeling none of it belonged to Benzie. It had come with her marriage to Jack McCoist, part of the baggage he brought.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’d better be going. Sorry again to have …’

  ‘No trouble,’ Benzie said. ‘I hope you find what you’re looking for.’

  Suddenly there were voices out in the hall, and the sound of the front door being closed. The voices began ascending the staircase, coming closer.

  ‘Claire and my husband,’ Jan said, sitting back down again, arranging herself the way an artist’s model might. The door burst open and Claire Benzie stormed into the room. To Jean’s eye, she bore no physical resemblance to her mother, but perhaps that was partly down to her entrance, the way she crackled with energy.

  ‘I don’t bloody care,’ she was saying. ‘They can lock me up if they want, throw away the bloody key!’ She was pacing the room as Jack McCoist walked in. He had his wife’s slow movements, but they seemed merely the result of fatigue.

  ‘Claire, all I’m saying is …’ He leaned down to peck his wife’s cheek. ‘What a bloody awful time we’ve had,’ he informed her. ‘Cops crawling over Claire like lice. Is there any way you can control your daughter, darling?’ His words died as he straightened and saw they had a visitor. Jean was rising to her feet.

  ‘I really should be going,’ she said.

  ‘Who the hell’s this?’ Claire snarled.

  ‘Ms Burchill is from the Museum,’ Jan explained. ‘We’ve been talking about Kennet Lovell.’

  ‘Christ, not her as well!’ Claire tossed her head back, then dropped on to one of the room’s two sofas.

  ‘I’m researching his life,’ Jean explained for McCoist’s benefit. He was pouring himself a whisky at the drinks cabinet.

  ‘At this time of night?’ was all he said.

  ‘His portrait’s hanging in some hall somewhere,’ Jan Benzie told her daughter. ‘Did you know that?’

  ‘Of course I bloody did! It’s in the museum at Surgeons’ Hall.’ She looked at Jean. ‘Is that where you’re from?’

  ‘No, actually …’

  ‘Well, wherever you’re from, why don’t you piss off back there? I’m just out of police custody and—’

  ‘You will not speak like that to a guest in this house!’ Jan Benzie yelped, springing from her chair. ‘Jack, tell her.’

  ‘Look, I really should …’ Jean’s words were swamped as a three-way argument started. She backed away, heading for the door.

  ‘You’ve no bloody right … !’

  ‘Christ, anyone would think it was you they interrogated!’

  ‘That’s still no excuse for …’

  ‘Just one quiet drink, is that too much to …’

  They didn’t seem to notice as Jean opened the door, closing it again behind her. She walked down the carpeted stairs on tiptoe, and opened the front door as quietly as she could, escaping into the street, where, finally, she let out a huge breath of air. Walking away, she glanced back towards the drawing-room window, but couldn’t see anything. The houses here had walls so thick, they could double as padded cells, and it felt like that was just what she’d escaped from.

  Claire Benzie’s temper had been something to behold.

  13

  Wednesday morning, there was still no sign of Ranald Marr. His wife Dorothy had called Junipers and spoken to John Balfour’s PA. She was reminded in no uncertain terms that the family had a funeral to see to, and that the PA didn’t feel able to disturb either Mr or Mrs Balfour further until some time thereafter.

  ‘They’ve lost a daughter, you know,’ the PA said haughtily.

  ‘And I’ve lost my fucking husband, you bitch!’ Dorothy Marr spat back, recoiling ever so slightly afterwards as she realised it was probably the first time she’d used a swearword in her adult life. But it was too late to apologise: the PA had already put down the phone and was informing a lesser member of the Balfour staff not to accept any further calls from Mrs Marr.

  Junipers itself was full of people: family members and friends were gathering there. Some, having travelled far, had stayed the previous night, and were now wandering the many corridors in search of something resembling breakfast. Mrs Dolan the cook had decided that hot food would not be seemly on such a day, so her usual vapour trail of sausage, bacon and eggs or pungent kedgeree could not be followed. In the dining room sat an array of cereal packets and preserves, the latter home-made but not including Mrs Dolan’s blackcurrant and apple, which had been Flip’s favourite since childhood. She’d left that particular jar back in the pantry. Last time anyone had eaten some, it had been Flip herself on one of her infrequent visits.

  Mrs Dolan was telling her daughter Catriona as much, as Catriona comforted her and handed over another paper handkerchief. One of the guests, sent to inquire whether coffee and cold milk might be available, put his head round the kitchen door, but withdrew again, embarrassed to be witnessing the indomitable Mrs Dolan brought low like this.

  In the library, John Balfour was telling his wife that he didn’t want ‘any bloody police thickos’ at the cemetery.

  ‘But, John, they’ve all worked so hard,’ his wife was saying, ‘and they’ve asked to be there. Surely they’ve as much right as …’ Her voice died away.

  ‘As who?’ His voice had grown less angry, but suddenly colder.

  ‘Well,’ his wife said, ‘all these people we don’t know …’

  ‘You mean people I know? You’ve met them at parties, functions. Jackie, for Christ’s sake, they want to pay their respects.’

  His wife nodded and stayed quiet. After the funeral, there would be a buffet lunch back at Junipers, not just for close family but for all her husband’s associates and acquaintances, nearly seventy of them. Jacqueline had wanted a much smaller affair, something that could be accommodated in the dining room. As it was, they’d had to order a marquee, which had been installed on the back lawn. An Edinburgh firm – run by another of her husband’s clients, no doubt – was doing the catering. The lady owner was busy out there now, supervising the unloading of tables, cloths, crockery and cutlery from what seemed a never-ending series of small vans. Jacqueline’s small victory so far had been to widen the circle of invitees to include Flip’s own friends, though this had not been without its awkward moments. David Costello, for example, would have to be invited, along with his parents, though she’d never liked David and felt he held the family in mild distaste. She was hoping they would either fail to turn up, or would not linger.

  ‘Silver lining, in a way,’ John was droning on, hardly aware of her presence in the room. ‘Something like this, it binds them all to Balfour’s, makes it harder for them to make a move elsewhere …’

  Jacqueline rose shakily to her feet.

  ‘We’re burying our daughter, John! This isn’t about your bloody business! Flip’s not part of some … commercial transaction!’

  Balfour glanced towards the door, making sure it was closed. ‘Keep your voice down, woman. It was only a … I didn’t mean …’ He slumped on to the sofa suddenly, face in his hands. ‘You’re right, I wasn’t thinking … God help me.’

  His wife sat down next to him, took his hands and lowered them from his face. ‘God help both of us, John,’ she said.

  Steve Holly had managed to persuade his boss at the paper’s Glasgow HQ that he needed to be on the scene as early as possi
ble. He’d also, knowing the geographical illiteracy rampant in Scotland, managed to persuade him that Falls was a lot further away from Edinburgh than was actually the case, and that Greywalls Hotel would make an ideal overnight stop. He hadn’t bothered explaining that Greywalls was in Gullane, and consequently wasn’t much more than a half-hour’s drive from Edinburgh, or that Gullane, as the crow flew, wasn’t exactly between Falls and Edinburgh. But what did it matter? He’d had his overnighter, joined by his girlfriend Gina, who wasn’t really his girlfriend but just someone he’d dated a few times over the previous three months. Gina had been keen, but had worried about getting to work the next morning, so then Steve had fixed a taxi for her. He knew how he’d wing it, too: he’d say his car broke down and he’d used the taxi himself to get back to town …

  After a fabulous dinner and a walk around the garden – designed by someone called Jekyll apparently – Steve and Gina had made ample use of their ample bed before sleeping like logs, so that the first they knew of it, Gina’s cab was waiting and Steve had to tuck into breakfast alone, which would have been his preference anyway. But then the first disappointment: the newspapers … all of them broadsheets. He’d stopped in Gullane and bought the competition on his way out to Falls, leaving them on the passenger seat and flicking through them as he drove, cars flashing and tooting at him as he took more than his share of road.

  ‘Bollocks!’ he’d yelled from his window, giving each sheep-shagger and country bumpkin the finger as he got on the mobile, wanting to make sure Tony the photographer was primed for the cemetery shoot. He knew Tony had been out to Falls a couple of times to see Bev, or ‘the Potty Potter’ as Steve had come to call her. He thought Tony reckoned he was in there. His advice had been simple: ‘She’s a nutter, mate – you might get a shag, but two-to-one you wake up with your old wotsit sliced off and lying beside you in the bed.’ To which Tony had laughed and said he just wanted to persuade Bev into some ‘art poses’ for his ‘portfolio’. So when Steve got through to Tony this morning, his first words, as usual, were:

  ‘Got her on your potter’s wheel yet, mate?’

  Then, also as usual, he started laughing at his own joke, which was what he was doing when he happened to glance in the rearview and caught the cop car up his bahooky, lights flashing. No idea how long it had been there.

  ‘Have to call you back, Tony,’ he said, braking and pulling on to the verge. ‘Just make sure you get to the church on time.’

  ‘Morning, officers,’ he said, stepping out of the car.

  ‘And a good morning to you, Mr Holly,’ one of the uniforms said.

  Which was when Steve Holly remembered he wasn’t exactly flavour of the month with the Lothian and Borders Police.

  Ten minutes later, he was back on the road, the cops tailing him to prevent, as they’d put it themselves, ‘further infractions’. When his mobile went, he thought about not answering, but it was Glasgow, so he mirror-signal-manoeuvred back on to the verge and took the call, watching the cops stop ten yards back.

  ‘Yes?’ he said.

  ‘Think you’re a clever little bastard, don’t you, Stevie Boy?’

  His boss.

  ‘Not right this second, no,’ Steve Holly said.

  ‘Friend of mine plays golf in Gullane. It’s practically in Edinburgh, you turd. And the same goes for Falls. So any notion you had of turning that little trip round as expenses can now be stuck well and truly up your arse.’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘Where are you anyway?’

  Holly looked around at fields and dry-stane dykes. There was the distant drone of a tractor.

  ‘I’m scoping out the cemetery, waiting for Tony to turn up. I’ll head to Junipers in a couple of mins, follow them to the church.’

  ‘Oh aye? Care to confirm that?’

  ‘Confirm what?’

  ‘That outright fucking lie that just tripped off your tongue!’

  Holly licked his lips. ‘I don’t follow.’ What was it, did the paper have a tracking device fixed to his car?

  ‘Tony phoned the picture editor not five minutes ago. The picture editor who happened to be standing next to my bloody desk. Guess where your missing photographer was calling from?’

  Holly said nothing.

  ‘Go on, take a wild stab, because that’s what I’m going to take at you next time I see you.’

  ‘The cemetery?’ Holly said.

  ‘That your final answer? Maybe you want to phone a friend.’

  Holly felt his anger rise: best defence was attack, right? ‘Look,’ he hissed, ‘I’ve just given your paper the story of the year, scooped every competitor you’ve got, bar none. And this is how you go and treat me? Well, stuff your miserable paper and stuff you. Get someone else out here to cover the funeral, someone who knows the story the way I do. Meantime I think maybe I’ll be making a couple of calls to the competition – on my time, my phone bill. If that’s okay with you, you chiselling bastard. And if you want to know why I’m not at the cemetery, I’ll tell you. It’s because I’ve been stopped by a couple of Lothian’s finest. They won’t let me shake them off now I’ve gone and shat on them in print. You want the patrol car’s licence plate? Give me a second, maybe they’ll speak to you themselves!’

  Holly shut up, but made sure he was breathing hard into the mouthpiece.

  ‘For once,’ the voice from Glasgow eventually said, ‘and maybe they should carve this on my tombstone, I think I may actually have heard Steve Holly tell the truth.’ There was another pause, and then a chuckle. ‘We’ve got them worried then?’

  We … Steve Holly knew he was home and dry.

  ‘I’ve got what looks like a permanent escort, just in case I’m thinking of taking a hand off the wheel to pick my nose.’

  ‘So you’re not driving as we speak?’

  ‘Up on the verge, indicators going. And, with all due respect, boss, that’s another five minutes I’ve just wasted talking to you … Not that I don’t always enjoy our little tête-à-têtes.’

  Another chuckle. ‘Ah, fuck it, bit of steam needs to be let off now and then, eh? Tell you what, put that hotel through to accounts, okay?’

  ‘Right, boss.’

  ‘And get your raggedy arse back on the road.’

  ‘Ten-four, boss. This is the shining sword of truth, signing off.’ Holly cut the call, exhaled heavily, and did what he’d been told to do: got his raggedy arse back on that road …

  The village of Falls had neither church nor cemetery, but there was a small, little-used church – more the size of a chapel, really – just off the road between Falls and Causland. The family had picked the spot and arranged everything, but secretly those friends of Flip’s who’d been able to attend thought the tranquillity and isolation out of keeping with Flip’s character. They couldn’t help feeling she’d have wanted something livelier, somewhere in the city itself, where people walked their dogs or went for a Sunday stroll, and where, in darkness, lively biker parties and furtive couplings might take place.

  The graveyard here was too neat and compact, the graves too old and looked after. Flip would have wanted wild, straggling creepers and mosses, briar bushes and long wet grass. But then, when they considered, they realised she wouldn’t care one way or the other, because she was dead and that was the end of it. At that moment, perhaps for the first time, they were able to separate loss from numb shock, and to feel the pangs of a life left incomplete.

  There were too many people for the church. The doors were left open so that the short service could be heard outside. The day was cool, the ground heavy with dew. Birds played in the trees, agitated at this unique invasion. Cars lined the main road, the hearse having discreetly pulled away, heading back to Edinburgh. Liveried drivers stood beside several of the vehicles, cigarettes in hands. Rollers, Mercs, Jags …

  Nominally, the family had worshipped in a city church, and the minister had been persuaded to lead the service, though he was used to seeing the Balfours only at Chr
istmas, and then not for the past two or three years. He was a thorough man, who had checked his script with the mother and father, asking solicitous questions whose answers would help him bulk out Flip’s biography, but he was also bemused by the attentions of the media. Being used to encountering cameras only at weddings and christenings, when one was pointed in his direction for the first time, he gave a beaming smile, only afterwards realising the inappropriateness of his action. These were not carnationed relatives but journalists, keeping their distance from the solemnities and their lenses trained only so far. Though the graveyard itself could be viewed clearly from the roadway, there’d be no photos of the coffin being lowered, or the parents by the graveside. Permission had been granted for one photograph only: of the coffin being carried from the church.

  Of course, once the mourners were off church property, they would be reckoned fair game again.

  ‘Parasites,’ one of the guests, a Balfour’s client of long standing, had hissed. All the same, he knew he’d be buying more than one paper next morning, just to see if he figured in any of the spreads.

  With the pews and side aisles being crammed, the police officers present kept their own distance, to the back of the crowd at the church doors. Assistant Chief Constable Colin Carswell stood with hands clasped in front of him, head slightly bowed. Detective Chief Superintendent Gill Templer was next to Detective Inspector Bill Pryde, just behind Carswell. Other officers were further off still, patrolling what grounds there were. Flip’s killer was still out there, and so, if the two could be differentiated, was Ranald Marr. Inside the church, John Balfour kept turning his head, examining each face as if looking for someone. Only those who knew the workings of Balfour’s Bank guessed who this missing face belonged to …

  John Rebus was standing by the far wall, dressed in his good suit and a long green raincoat, its collar up. He kept thinking how bleak the surroundings were: typical bare hillside dotted with sheep; dull yellow gorse bushes. He’d read the noticeboard just inside the churchyard gate. It told him the building dated back to the seventeenth century, and that local farmers had raised the contributions necessary for its construction. At least one Templar grave had been found inside the low stone wall, leading historians to believe that a former chapel and burying place must have rested on this site.