Ian Rankin: The Falls

Just the one child. John Balfour himself was an only child, but Jacqueline had two sisters and a brother, none of them currently living in Scotland. The brother had followed in his father’s footsteps and was on a Washington posting with the Foreign Office. It struck Rebus that the Balfour dynasty was in trouble. He couldn’t see Philippa rushing to join Daddy’s bank, and wondered why the couple hadn’t tried for a son.

None of which, in all probability, was pertinent to the inquiry. All the same, it was what Rebus enjoyed about the job: constructing a web of relationships, peering into other people’s lives, wondering and questioning...

He turned to the notes on David Costello. Dublin-born and educated, the family moving just south of the city to Dalkey in the early nineties. The father, Thomas Costello, didn’t seem to have turned a day’s work in his life, his needs supplied by a trust fund set up by his father, a land developer. David’s grandfather owned several prime sites in the centre of Dublin, and made a comfortable living from them. He owned half a dozen racehorses, too, and spent all his time these days concentrating on that side of things.

David’s mother, Theresa, was something else again. Her background could at best be called lower middle class, mother a nurse, father a teacher. Theresa had gone to art school but dropped out and got a job instead, providing for the family when her mother got cancer and her father fell apart. She worked behind the counter in a department store, then moved to window-dressing, and from there to interior design — for shops at first, and then for wealthy individuals. Which was how she met Thomas Costello. By the time they married, both her parents were dead. Theresa probably didn’t need to work, but she worked anyway, building up her one-woman company until it had grown into a business with a turnover in the low millions and a workforce of five, not including herself. There were overseas clients, and the list was still growing. She was fifty-one now, and showing no signs of slacking, while her husband, a year her junior, remained the man about town. Press clippings from the Irish news showed him at racing events, garden parties and the like. In none of the photos did he appear with Theresa. Separate rooms in their Edinburgh hotel... As their son said, it was hardly a crime.

David had been late going to university, having taken a year out to travel the world. He was now in the third year of his MA degree in English Language and Literature. Rebus remembered the books in his living room: Milton, Wordsworth, Hardy...

‘Enjoying the view, John?’

Rebus opened his eyes. ‘Deep in thought, George.’

‘You weren’t dropping off, then?’

Rebus glared at him. ‘Far from it.’

As Hi-Ho Silvers moved away, Siobhan came and rested against the side of Rebus’s desk.

‘So how deep in thought were you?’

‘I was wondering if Rabbie Burns could have murdered one of his lovers.’ She just stared at him. ‘Or whether someone who reads poetry could.’

‘Don’t see why not. Didn’t some death-camp commander listen to Mozart of an evening?’

‘Now there’s a cheery thought.’

‘Always here to make your day that little bit brighter. Now what about doing me a favour?’

‘How can I refuse?’

She handed him a sheet of paper. ‘Tell me what you think that means.’

Subj: Hellbank

Date: 5/9

From: Quizmaster@PaganOmerta.com

To: Flipside1223@HXRmail.com

Did you survive Hellbank? Time running out. Stricture awaits your call .

QuiM

Rebus looked up at her. ‘Going to give me a clue?’

She took back the sheet of paper. ‘It’s an e-mail printout. Philippa had a couple of dozen messages waiting for her, dating back to the day she went missing. All of them except this one are addressed to her other name.’

‘Her other name?’

‘ISPs—’ she paused — ‘Internet service providers will usually allow you a range of log-on names, as many as five or six.’

‘Why?’

‘So you can be... different people, I suppose. Flipside 1223 is a sort of alias. Her other e-mails all went to Flip-dot-Balfour.’

‘So what does it mean?’

Siobhan expelled air. ‘That’s what I’m wondering. Maybe it means she had a side we don’t know about. There’s not a single saved message from her or to her in the name of Flipside 1223. So either she’s been erasing them as she goes, or else this got to her by mistake.’

‘Doesn’t look like coincidence, does it, though?’ Rebus said. ‘Her nickname’s Flip.’

Siobhan was nodding. ‘Hellbank, Stricture, Pagan Omerta...’

‘Omerta’s the mafia code of silence,’ Rebus stated.

‘And Quizmaster,’ Siobhan said. ‘Signs herself or himself QuiM. Little touch of juvenile humour there.’

Rebus looked at the message again. ‘Beats me, Siobhan. What do you want to do?’

‘I’d like to track down whoever sent this, but that’s not going to be easy. Only way I can think of is to reply.’

‘Let whoever it is know that Philippa’s gone missing?’

Siobhan lowered her voice. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of her replying.’

Rebus was thoughtful. ‘Think it would work? What would you say?’

‘I haven’t decided.’ The way she folded her arms, Rebus knew she was going to do it anyway.

‘Run it past DCS Templer when she gets in,’ he cautioned. Siobhan nodded and made to leave, but he called her back. ‘You went to uni. Tell me, did you ever mix with the likes of Philippa Balfour?’

She snorted. ‘That’s another world. No tutorials or lectures for them. Some of them I only ever saw in the exam hall. And you know what?’

‘What?’

‘The sods always passed...’

That evening, Gill Templer hosted a celebratory gathering at the Palm Court in the Balmoral Hotel. A tuxedoed pianist was playing in the opposite corner. A bottle of champagne sat in an ice-bucket. Bowls of nibbles had been brought to the table.

‘Remember to leave space for supper,’ Gill told her guests. A table in Hadrian’s had been booked for eight-thirty. It had just gone half past seven, and the last arrival was coming through the door.

Slipping off her coat, Siobhan apologised. A waiter appeared and took the coat from her. Another waiter was already pouring champagne into her glass.

‘Cheers,’ she said, sitting down and lifting the glass. ‘And congratulations.’

Gill Templer lifted her own glass and allowed herself a smile. ‘I think I deserve it,’ she said, to enthusiastic agreement.

Siobhan already knew two of the guests. Both were fiscals depute, and Siobhan had worked with them on several prosecutions. Harriet Brough was in her late forties, her black hair permed (and maybe even dyed, too), her figure hidden behind layers of tweed and thick cotton. Diana Metcalf was early forties, with short ash-blonde hair and sunken eyes which, rather than masking, she exaggerated with dark eye-shadow. She always wore brightly coloured clothes, which helped to heighten still further her waif-like, undernourished look.

‘And this is Siobhan Clarke,’ Gill was telling the last member of the party. ‘A detective constable in my station.’ The way she said ‘my station’, it was as if she’d taken on ownership of the place, which, Siobhan supposed, wasn’t so far from the truth. ‘Siobhan, this is Jean Burchill. Jean works at the museum.’

‘Oh? Which one?’

‘The Museum of Scotland,’ Burchill answered. ‘Have you ever been?’

‘I had a meal in The Tower once,’ Siobhan said.

‘Not quite the same thing.’ Burchill’s voice trailed off.

‘No, what I meant was...’ Siobhan tried to find a diplomatic way of putting it. ‘I had a meal there just after it opened. The guy I was with... well, bad experience. It put me off going back.’