The Falls

by Ian Rankin

  If rising through the ranks meant losing a part of herself, Siobhan didn’t want it. She’d known as much back at the dinner in Hadrian’s, when Gill had hinted at things to come.

  Maybe that was what she was doing out here, out on her limb – proving something to herself. Maybe it wasn’t really about the game and Quizmaster so much as it was about her.

  She moved in her seat so she was facing the laptop. The line was already open, had been since she’d got into the car. No new messages, so she typed in one of her own.

  Meeting accepted. See you there. Siobhan.

  And clicked on ‘send’.

  After which, she shut down the computer, disconnected the phone and powered it down – battery needed a boost anyway. She placed both beneath the passenger seat, making sure they weren’t visible to pedestrians: didn’t want someone breaking in. When she got out of the car, she made sure all the doors were locked, and that the little red alarm button was flashing.

  Just under two hours to go now; a little time to kill …

  Jean Burchill had tried calling Professor Devlin, but no one ever answered. So finally she wrote him a note, asking him to contact her, and decided to deliver it by hand. In the back of the taxi, she wondered what the sense of urgency was, and realised it was because she wanted to be rid of Kennet Lovell. He was taking up too much of her waking time, and last night he’d even infected her dreams, slicing the meat from cadavers only to reveal planed wood beneath, while her colleagues from work watched and applauded, the performance turning into a stage show.

  If her research into Lovell was to progress, she needed some kind of proof of his interest in woodwork. Without that, she was at a dead end. Having paid the driver, she stood in front of the Professor’s tenement, note in hand. But there was no letter-box. Each flat would have its own, the postman gaining entry by pressing the buzzers until someone let him in. She supposed she could slip the note under the door, but reckoned it would lie there ignored, along with all the junk mail. So instead, she looked at the array of buzzers. Professor Devlin’s just said ‘D. Devlin’. She wondered if he might be back from his wanderings, and pressed the buzzer. When there was no answer, she looked at the remaining buttons, wondering which one to pick. Then the intercom crackled.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Dr Devlin? It’s Jean Burchill from the Museum. I wonder if I can have a word …’

  ‘Miss Burchill? This is somewhat of a surprise.’

  ‘I’ve tried phoning …’

  But the door was already signalling that it was no longer locked.

  Devlin was waiting for her on his landing. He wore a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up, with thick braces holding up his trousers.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said, taking her hand.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you like this.’

  ‘Not at all, young lady. Now just you come in. I’m afraid you’ll find my housekeeping somewhat lacking …’ He led her into the living room, cluttered with boxes and books.

  ‘Separating the wheat from the chaff,’ he informed her.

  She picked up a case and opened it. It contained old surgical instruments. ‘You’re not throwing it out? Perhaps the Museum would be interested …’

  He nodded. ‘I’m in contact with the bursar at Surgeons’ Hall. He thinks perhaps the exhibition there might have room for one or two pieces.’

  ‘Major Cawdor?’

  Devlin’s eyebrows lifted. ‘You know him?’

  ‘I was asking him about the portrait of Kennet Lovell.’

  ‘So you’re taking my theory seriously?’

  ‘I thought it was worth pursuing.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Devlin clapped his hands together. ‘And what have you found?’

  ‘Not a great deal. That’s really why I’m here. I can’t find any reference in the literature to Lovell having an interest in carpentry.’

  ‘Oh, it’s a matter of record, I assure you, though it’s many years since I came across it.’

  ‘Came across it where?’

  ‘Some monograph or dissertation … I really can’t recall. Could it have been a university thesis?’

  Jean nodded slowly. If it had been a thesis, only the university itself would hold a copy; there’d be no record in any other library. ‘I should have thought of that,’ she admitted.

  ‘But don’t you agree he was a remarkable character?’ Devlin asked.

  ‘He certainly lived a very full life … unlike his wives.’

  ‘You’ve been to his graveside?’ He smiled at the idiocy of the question. ‘Of course you have. And you took note of his marriages. What did you think?’

  ‘At first, nothing … but then later, when I thought about it …’

  ‘You began to speculate as to whether or not they had been assisted on their final journey?’ He smiled again. ‘It’s obvious, really, isn’t it?’

  Jean became aware of a smell in the room: stale sweat. Perspiration was shining on Devlin’s forehead, and the lenses of his spectacles looked smeared. She was amazed he could see her through them.

  ‘Who better,’ he was saying, ‘than an anatomist to get away with murder?’

  ‘You’re saying he murdered them?’

  He shook his head. ‘Impossible to tell after all this time. I’m merely speculating.’

  ‘But why would he do that?’

  Devlin shrugged, his shoulders stretching the braces. ‘Because he could? What do you think?’

  ‘I’ve been wondering … he was very young when he assisted at Burke’s autopsy; young and impressionable maybe. That might explain why he fled to Africa …’

  ‘And God alone knows what horrors he encountered out there,’ Devlin added.

  ‘It would help if we had his correspondence.’

  ‘Ah, the letters between himself and the Reverend Kirkpatrick?’

  ‘You don’t happen to know where they might be?’

  ‘Consigned to oblivion, I’d wager. Tossed on to the pyre by some descendant of the good minister …’

  ‘And here you are doing the same thing.’

  Devlin looked around him at the mess. ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘Selecting that by which history shall judge my small endeavours.’

  Jean picked up a photograph. It showed a middle-aged woman, dressed for some formal function.

  ‘Your wife?’ she guessed.

  ‘My dear Anne. She passed away in the summer of nineteen seventy-two. Natural causes, I assure you.’

  Jean looked at him. ‘Why should you have to assure me?’

  Devlin’s smile faded. ‘She meant the world to me … more than the world …’ He clapped his hands together again. ‘What can I be thinking of, not offering you something to drink. Tea perhaps?’

  ‘Tea would be wonderful.’

  ‘I can’t promise any sense of wonder from PG tea-bags.’ His smile was fixed.

  ‘And afterwards, maybe I could see Kennet Lovell’s table.’

  ‘But of course. It’s in the dining room. Bought from a reputable dealer, though I admit they couldn’t be categorical about its provenance – caveat emptor, as they say, but they were fairly persuasive, and I was willing to believe.’ He had taken his glasses off to give them a polish with his handkerchief. When he slipped them on again, his eyes seemed magnified. ‘Tea,’ he repeated, making for the hallway. She followed him out.

  ‘Have you lived here long?’ she asked.

  ‘Ever since Anne passed on. The house held too many memories.’

  ‘That’s thirty years then?’

  ‘Almost.’ He was in the kitchen now. ‘Won’t be a minute,’ he said.

  ‘Fine.’ She started to retrace her steps back to the living room. The summer of ’72, his wife had died … She passed an open doorway: the dining room. The table filled almost the whole space. A completed jigsaw lay on top of it … no, not quite complete: missing just the one piece. Edinburgh, an aerial photograph. The table itself was a plain enough design. She walked into the room, studied the t
able’s surface of polished wood. The legs were sturdy, lacking any ornamental flourishes. Utilitarian, she thought. The incomplete jigsaw must have taken hours … days. She crouched down, seeking the missing piece. There it was: almost completely hidden beneath one of the legs. As she reached for it, she saw that the table boasted one nice, secretive touch. Where the two leaves met in the middle, there was a central element, and into this a small cupboard had been inserted. She’d seen similar designs before, but not from as far back as the nineteenth century. She wondered if Professor Devlin had been duped into buying something from much later than Lovell’s period … She squeezed into the narrow confines so that she could open the cupboard. It was stiff, and she almost gave up, but then it clicked open, revealing its contents.

  A plane, set-square and chisels.

  A small saw and some nails.

  Woodwork tools.

  When she looked up, Professor Devlin was filling the doorway.

  ‘Ah, the missing piece,’ was all that he said …

  Ellen Wylie had heard reports of the funeral, how Ranald Marr had suddenly turned up and been embraced by John Balfour. The talk at West End was that Marr had been brought in for questioning but then released.

  ‘Stitch-up,’ Shug Davidson had commented. ‘Somebody somewhere’s pulling strings.’

  He hadn’t looked at her as he’d said it, but then he hadn’t needed to. He knew … and she knew. Pulling strings: wasn’t that what she’d thought she was doing when she met with Steve Holly? But somehow he’d become the puppeteer, making her the marionette. Carswell’s speech to the troops had cut into her like a knife, not just nicking the skin but radiating pain through her whole body. When they’d all been called into the office, she’d half hoped her silence would give her away. But then Rebus had stepped in, taken the whole thing upon himself, leaving her feeling worse than ever.

  Shug Davidson knew it … and though Shug was a colleague and mate, he was also a friend of Rebus’s. The pair of them went way back. Now, every time he made some remark she found herself analysing it, seeking the sub-text. She couldn’t concentrate, and her home station, which she’d seen so recently as a refuge, had become inhospitable and alien.

  Which was why she’d made the trip to St Leonard’s, only to find the CID suite all but deserted. A suit-carrier, hanging from one of the coat pegs, told her that at least one officer had been at the funeral, returning here to change back into work clothes. She guessed Rebus, but couldn’t be certain. There was a plastic bag beside his desk, one of the coffins inside. All that work, and no case to show for it. The autopsy notes were sitting on the desk, waiting for someone to follow the instructions left on them. She lifted the note from the top, sat down in Rebus’s chair. Without really meaning to, she found herself untying the ribbon which held the notes together. Then she opened the first file and started to read.

  She’d done this before, of course; or rather, Professor Devlin had, while she’d sat by his side taking note of his findings. Slow work, yet she realised now that she’d enjoyed it – the notion that there might be some case hidden in the midst of those typewritten pages; the sense of working on the edge of things, a not-quite-investigation; and Rebus himself, as driven as the rest of them put together, biting down on a pen as he concentrated, or furrowing his brow, or stretching suddenly, unlocking his neck. He had this reputation as a loner, yet he’d been happy to delegate, happy to share the work with her. She’d accused him of pitying her, but she didn’t really believe that. He did have a martyr complex, but it seemed to work for him … and for everyone else.

  Skimming the pages now, she realised finally why she’d come: she wanted to apologise in some way he’d understand … And then she looked up and he was standing not four yards away, watching her.

  ‘How long have you been there?’ she asked, dropping a couple of the pages.

  ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She picked up the sheets. ‘I was just … I don’t know, maybe one final look before it all went back into the storeroom. How was the funeral?’

  ‘A funeral’s a funeral, no matter who they’re burying.’

  ‘I heard about Marr.’

  He nodded, walked into the room.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘I was hoping Siobhan might be here.’ He walked over to her desk, hoping for some clue … something, anything.

  ‘I wanted to see you,’ Ellen Wylie said.

  ‘Oh?’ He turned away from Siobhan’s desk. ‘Why’s that then?’

  ‘Maybe to thank you.’

  Their eyes met, communicating without words.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Ellen,’ Rebus said at last. ‘I mean it.’

  ‘But I got you into trouble.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. I got myself into trouble, and maybe made things worse for you too. If I’d stayed quiet, I think you’d have spoken up.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she admitted. ‘But I could have spoken up anyway.’

  ‘I didn’t make it any easier, for which I apologise.’

  She had to stifle a smile. ‘There you go again, turning the tables. It’s me who’s supposed to be saying sorry.’

  ‘You’re right; I can’t help it.’ There was nothing on or in Siobhan’s desk.

  ‘So what do I do now?’ she asked. ‘Talk it through with DCS Templer?’

  He nodded. ‘If that’s what you want. Of course, you could just keep quiet about it.’

  ‘And let you take the flak?’

  ‘Who says I don’t like it?’ The phone rang and he snatched at it. ‘Hello?’ Suddenly his face relaxed. ‘No, he’s not here right now. Can I take a … ?’ He put the receiver down. ‘Someone for Silvers; no message.’

  ‘You’re expecting a call?’

  He rubbed a hand against the grain of the day’s stubble. ‘Siobhan’s gone walkabout.’

  ‘In what sense?’

  So he told her. Just as he was finishing, a phone on one of the other desks started ringing. He got up and answered it. Another message. He got a pen and a scrap of paper and started writing it down.

  ‘Yes … yes,’ he was saying, ‘I’ll stick it on his desk. No promises when he’ll see it though.’ While he’d been on the phone, Ellen Wylie had been flicking through the autopsy stuff again. As he put the receiver down, he saw her lower her face towards one of the files, as though trying to read something.

  ‘Old Hi-Ho’s popular today,’ he said, placing the telephone message on Silvers’s desk. ‘What’s the matter?’

  She pointed to the bottom of the page. ‘Can you read this signature?’

  ‘Which one?’ There were two, at the foot of an autopsy report. Date to the side of the signatures: Monday 26 April, 1982 – Hazel Gibbs, the Glasgow ‘victim’. She’d died on the Friday night …

  Typed beneath the signature were the words ‘Deputising Pathologist’. The other signature – marked ‘Chief Pathologist, City of Glasgow’ – wasn’t much clearer.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Rebus said, examining the squiggle. ‘The names should be typed on the cover-sheet.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ Wylie said. ‘No cover-sheet.’ She turned back a few pages to confirm this. Rebus came around the desk so he was standing next to her, then bent down a little closer.

  ‘Maybe the pages got out of order,’ he suggested.

  ‘Maybe.’ She started going through them. ‘But I don’t think so.’

  ‘Was it missing when the files arrived?’

  ‘I don’t know. Professor Devlin didn’t say anything.’

  ‘I think the Chief Pathologist for Glasgow back then was Ewan Stewart.’

  Wylie flicked back to the signatures. ‘Yep,’ she said, ‘I’ll go with that. But it’s the other one that interests me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, maybe it’s just me, sir, but if you sort of screw your eyes shut a little and take another look, isn’t it just possible it says Donald Devlin?’

  ‘What?’ Rebus looked, b
linked, looked again. ‘Devlin was in Edinburgh back then.’ But his voice dropped off. The word Deputising floated into view. ‘Did you look through the report before?’

  ‘That was Devlin’s job. I was more like a secretary, remember?’

  Rebus put his hand to the back of his neck, rubbed at the knot of muscle there. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘Why wouldn’t Devlin say … ?’ He grabbed the phone, hit 9 and punched a local number. ‘Professor Gates, please. It’s an emergency. Detective Inspector Rebus here.’ A pause as the secretary put him through. ‘Sandy? Yes, I know I always say it’s an emergency, but this time I might not be stretching the truth. April nineteen eighty-two, we think we’ve got Donald Devlin assisting an autopsy in Glasgow. Is that possible?’ He listened again. ‘No, Sandy, eighty-two. Yes, April.’ He nodded, making eye contact with Wylie, started relaying what he was hearing. ‘Glasgow crisis … shortage of staff … gave you your first chance at being in charge here. Mm-hm, Sandy … is that your way of saying Devlin was in Glasgow in April nineteen eighty-two? Thanks, I’ll talk to you later.’ He slammed the phone down. ‘Donald Devlin was there.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Wylie said. ‘Why didn’t he say something?’

  Rebus was flicking through the other report, the one from Nairn. No, neither pathologist was Donald Devlin on that occasion. All the same …

  ‘He didn’t want us to know,’ he said at last, answering Wylie’s question. ‘Maybe that’s why he removed the cover-sheet.’

  ‘But why?’

  Rebus was thinking … the way Devlin had returned to the back room of the Ox, anxious to see the autopsies consigned once more to history … the Glasgow coffin, made of balsa wood, cruder than the others, the sort of thing you might make if you didn’t have access to your usual supplier, or your usual tools … Devlin’s interest in Dr Kennet Lovell and the Arthur’s Seat coffins …

  Jean!

  ‘I’m getting a bad feeling,’ Ellen Wylie said.

  ‘I’ve always been one for trusting a woman’s instincts …’ But that was just what he hadn’t done: all those times women had reacted badly to Devlin … ‘Your car or mine?’ he said.

  Jean was rising to her feet. Donald Devlin still filled the doorway, his blue eyes as cold as the North Sea, pupils reduced to black pinpoints.