Ian Rankin: The Falls

‘I had to recce, see if you were lying.’

‘I said I’d be on my own.’

‘And here you are.’ He looked around again.

‘Plenty of escape routes,’ Siobhan said, surprised by how calm she was. ‘Is that why you chose it?’

‘It’s where I first realised I loved Flip.’

‘Loved her so much you went and killed her?’

His face fell. ‘I didn’t know that was going to happen.’

‘No?’

He shook his head. ‘Right up until the moment I had my hands round her throat... even then I don’t think I knew.’

She drew in a deep breath. ‘But you did it anyway.’

He nodded. ‘I suppose I did, yes.’ Looked up at her. ‘That’s what you wanted to hear, isn’t it?’

‘I wanted to meet Quizmaster.’

He opened his arms. ‘At your command.’

‘I also want to know why.’

‘Why?’ He framed his lips into an O. ‘How many reasons do you want? Her yah friends? Her pretensions? The way she kept teasing and picking fights, looking to break us up just so she could watch me crawling back?’

‘You could have walked away.’

‘But I loved her.’ When he laughed, it was as if acknowledging his own foolishness. ‘I kept telling her that, and you know what she told me back?’

‘What?’

‘That I wasn’t the only one.’

‘Ranald Marr?’

‘That old goat, yes. Since before she left school. And still at it, even when we were together!’ He stopped, swallowed. ‘Enough motivation for you, Siobhan?’

‘You vented your anger on Marr by disfiguring that toy soldier, and yet Flip... Flip you had to kill? ’ She felt calm, almost numb. ‘That doesn’t seem quite fair to me.’

‘You wouldn’t understand.’

She looked at him. ‘But I think I do, David. You’re a coward, pure and simple. You say you didn’t know you were going to murder Flip that night — that’s a lie. You had it planned all along... and afterwards you were Mr Calm, speaking to her worried friends not much more than an hour after you’d killed her. You knew exactly what you were doing, David. You were Quizmaster.’ She paused. He was staring into the middle distance, soaking up every word. ‘Something I don’t understand... you sent Flip a message after she died?’

He smiled. ‘That day at her flat, while Rebus was watching me and you were working on her computer... he told me something, said I was the only suspect.’

‘You thought you’d try throwing us off the scent?’

‘It was just supposed to be that one message... but when you replied, I couldn’t resist. I was as hooked as you were, Siobhan. The game had us both.’ His eyes sparkled. ‘Isn’t that something?’

He seemed to expect an answer, so she nodded slowly. ‘Are you thinking of killing me, David?’

He shook his head briskly, irritated by the assumption. ‘You know the answer to that,’ he spat. ‘You wouldn’t have come otherwise.’ He walked over to a low headstone and rested against it. ‘Maybe none of it would have happened,’ he said, ‘without the Professor.’

Siobhan thought she must have misheard. ‘Which one?’

‘Donald Devlin. First time he saw me afterwards, he guessed I’d done it. That’s why he came up with that story, someone loitering outside. He was trying to protect me.’

‘Why would he do that, David?’ It felt strange using his name. She wanted to call him Quizmaster.

‘Because of everything we talked about... committing murder, getting away with it.’

‘Professor Devlin?’

He looked at her. ‘Oh yes, he’s killed too, you know. Old bugger as good as said so, daring me to be like him... maybe he was just too good a teacher, eh?’ He ran his hands over the headstone. ‘We had these long talks on the stairwell. He wanted to know all about me, my early days, the angry days. I went to his flat once. He showed me these cuttings... people who’d disappeared or drowned. There was even one about a German student...’

‘That’s where you got the idea?’

‘Maybe.’ He shrugged. ‘Who knows where ideas come from?’ He paused. ‘I helped her, you know. She was dead impressed, all those clues... pulling her hair out until I came along...’ He laughed. ‘Flip was never much good with computers. I gave her the name Flipside, then sent the first clue.’

‘You turned up at the flat, told her you’d solved Hellbank...’

Costello nodded, remembering. ‘She wasn’t going to go with me until I promised to drop her off afterwards... She’d just kicked me out again — final this time, she’d piled my clothes on a chair — and after Hellbank she was heading off for a drink with all those bloody friends of hers...’ He screwed his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them and blinked, turning his head to face Siobhan. ‘Once you’re there, it’s hard to go back...’ He shrugged.

‘There never was a Stricture?’

He shook his head slowly. ‘That clue was all for you, Siobhan...’

‘I don’t know why you kept going back to her, David, or what you thought the game would prove, but one thing I do know: you never loved her. What you wanted was to control her.’ She nodded at the truth of this.

‘Some people like to be controlled, Siobhan.’ His eyes were staring into hers. ‘Don’t you?’

She thought for a moment... or tried to think. Opened her mouth and was about to speak, but a noise interrupted. He snapped his head round: two men approaching. And two more fifty yards beyond them. He turned slowly back to Siobhan.

‘I’m disappointed in you.’

She was shaking her head. ‘Not my doing.’

He leaped from the headstone, hurtled towards the wall, his hands reaching the top, feet scrabbling for purchase. The detectives were running now, one yelling, ‘Stop him!’ Siobhan just watched, rooted to the spot. Quizmaster... she’d given him her word... One of his feet had found a half-inch of ledge, pushing up...

Siobhan threw herself at the wall, grabbed the other leg with both hands and pulled. He tried kicking her off, but she held on, one hand reaching up towards his jacket, trying to haul him back. Then they were both flying backwards, his the only cry. His sunglasses seemed to float past her in slow motion. She was watching them when she hit the ground. He landed heavily on top of her, the air exploding from her lungs. She felt pain as her head connected with the grass. Costello was on his feet and running, but two of the officers had him, wrestled him back on to the ground. He managed to slide his head round so he was looking at Siobhan, the two of them only a couple of yards apart. Hatred filled his face, and he spat in her direction. The saliva hit her on the chin and hung there. Suddenly she didn’t have the strength to wipe it off...

Jean was asleep, but the doctor assured Rebus she’d be fine: cuts and bruises, ‘nothing time can’t heal’.

‘I very much doubt that,’ he told the doctor.

Ellen Wylie was there by the bedside. Rebus walked over and stood beside her. ‘I wanted to say thanks,’ he told her.

‘For what?’

‘Helping break down Devlin’s door, for one thing. I’d never have done it on my own.’

Her reply was a shrug. ‘How’s the ankle?’ she asked.

‘Ballooning nicely, thank you.’

‘A week or two on the sick,’ she said.

‘Maybe more, if I swallowed any of the Water of Leith.’

‘I hear Devlin took a good few gulps himself.’ She stared at him. ‘Got a good story prepared?’

He smiled. ‘You offering to tell a lie or two on my behalf?’

‘Just say the word.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Problem is, a dozen witnesses could say otherwise.’

‘But will they?’

‘We’ll just have to wait and see,’ Rebus said.