Ian Rankin: The Falls

‘Apart from foreigners asking directions,’ Connolly said. Rebus smiled and looked up and down the street. This was the heart of tourist Edinburgh. A hotel up by the traffic lights, a knitwear shop across the road. Fancy gifts and shortbread and whisky decanters. A kiltmaker’s only fifty yards away. John Knox’s house, hunched against its neighbours, half hidden in scowling shadow. At one time, the Old Town had been all there was of Edinburgh: a narrow spine running from the Castle to Holyrood, steep vennels leading off like crooked ribs. Then, as the place became ever more crowded and insanitary, the New Town had been built, its Georgian elegance a calculated snub to the Old Town and those who couldn’t afford to move. Rebus found it interesting that while Philippa Balfour had chosen the New Town, David Costello had elected to live in the heart of the Old.

‘Is he home?’ he said now.

‘Would we be here if he wasn’t?’ Connolly’s eyes were on his partner, who was pouring tomato soup from a thermos. Distant sniffed the liquid hesitantly, then took a quick gulp. ‘Actually, you could be the very man we want.’

Rebus looked at him. ‘Oh aye?’

‘Settle an argument. Deacon Blue, Wages Day — first album or second?’

Rebus smiled. ‘It has been a quiet night.’ Then, after a moment’s reflection: ‘Second.’

‘Ten notes you owe me,’ Connolly told Distant.

‘Mind if I ask one?’ Rebus had crouched down, felt his knees crack with the effort.

‘Fire away,’ Connolly said.

‘What do you do if you need a pee?’

Connolly smiled. ‘If Distant’s asleep, I just use his thermos.’

The mouthful of soup almost exploded from Distant’s nostrils. Rebus straightened up, feeling the blood pound in his ears: weather warning, force-ten hangover on its way.

‘You going in?’ Connolly asked. Rebus looked at the tenement again.

‘Thinking about it.’

‘We’d have to make a note.’

Rebus nodded. ‘I know.’

‘Just come from the Farmer’s leaving do?’

Rebus turned towards the car. ‘What’s your point?’

‘Well, you’ve had a drink, haven’t you? Might not be the best time for a house call... sir.’

‘You’re probably right... Paddy,’ Rebus said, making for the door.

‘Remember what you asked me?’

Rebus had accepted a black coffee from David Costello. Popped two paracetamol from their foil shroud and washed them down. Middle of the night, but Costello hadn’t been asleep. Black T-shirt, black jeans, bare feet. He’d made an off-licence run at some point: the bag was lying on the floor, the half-bottle of Bell’s sitting not far from it, top missing but only a couple of decent measures down. Not a drinker then, Rebus surmised. It was a non-drinker’s idea of how you handled a crisis — you drank whisky, but had to buy some first, and no point lashing out on a whole bottle. A couple of drinks would do you.

The living room was small, the flat itself reached from a turreted stairwell, winding ever upwards, the stone steps worn concave. Tiny windows. They’d planned this building in a century where heat was a luxury. The smaller the windows, the less heat you lost.

The living room was separated from the kitchen only by a step and what looked like partition walls. An open doorway, double-width. Signs that Costello liked to cook: pots and pans hanging from butcher’s hooks. The living area was all books and CDs. Rebus had trawled the latter: John Martyn, Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell. Laid-back but cerebral. The books looked like stuff from Costello’s English Literature course.

Costello was seated on a red futon; Rebus had chosen one of two straight-backed wooden chairs. They looked like the stuff he saw on Causewayside, placed outside shops for which the description ‘antique’ encompassed school desks from the sixties and green filing cabinets salvaged from office refits.

Costello ran his hand through his hair, didn’t say anything.

‘You asked if I thought you did it,’ Rebus said, answering his own question.

‘Did what?’

‘Killed Flip. I think that’s how you phrased it: “You think I killed her, don’t you?”’

Costello nodded. ‘It’s so obvious, isn’t it? We’d fallen out. I accept that you have to regard me as a suspect.’

‘David, right now you’re the only suspect.’

‘You really think something’s happened to her?’

‘What do you think?’

Costello shook his head. ‘I’ve done nothing but rack my brains since this all started.’

They sat in silence for a few moments.

‘What are you doing here?’ Costello asked suddenly.

‘As I said, it’s on my way home. You like the Old Town?’

‘Yes.’

‘Bit different from the New. You didn’t want to move nearer Flip?’

‘What are you trying to say?’

Rebus shrugged. ‘Maybe it says something about the pair of you, the parts of town you prefer.’

Costello laughed drily. ‘You Scots can be so reductive.’

‘How’s that?’

‘Old Town versus New, Catholic/Protestant, east coast/west... Things can be a mite more complicated than that.’

‘Attraction of opposites, that’s all I was getting at.’ There was another silence between them. Rebus scanned the room.

‘Didn’t make a mess then?’

‘Who?’

‘The search party.’

‘Could have been worse.’

Rebus took a sip of coffee, pretended to savour it. ‘You wouldn’t have left the body here though, would you? I mean, only perverts do that sort of thing.’ Costello looked at him. ‘Sorry, I’m being... I mean, it’s just theoretical. I’m not trying to say anything. But the forensics, they weren’t looking for a body. They deal in things you and me can’t even see. Flecks of blood, fibres, a single hair.’ Rebus shook his head slowly. ‘Juries eat that stuff up. The old idea of policing, it’s going out the window.’ He put down the gloss-black mug, reached into a pocket for his cigarette packet. ‘Mind if I...?’

Costello hesitated. ‘Actually, I’ll take one from you if that’s all right.’

‘Be my guest.’ Rebus took one out of the packet, lit it, then tossed both packet and lighter to the younger man. ‘Roll yourself a joint if you like,’ he added. ‘I mean, if that’s your thing.’

‘It’s not.’

‘Student life must be a bit different these days.’

Costello exhaled, studying the cigarette as if it was something alien to him. ‘I’d assume it is,’ he said.

Rebus smiled. Just two grown-ups having a smoke and a chat. The wee sma’ hours and all that. A time for honesty, the outside world asleep, no one eavesdropping. He got up and walked over to the bookshelves. ‘How did you and Flip meet?’ he asked, picking a book at random and flipping through it.

‘Dinner party. We clicked straight away. Next morning, after breakfast, we took a walk through Warriston Cemetery. That was when I first felt that I loved her... I mean, that it wasn’t just going to be a one-night stand.’

‘You like films?’ Rebus said. He was noticing that one shelf seemed to be all books about movies.

Costello looked over towards him. ‘I’d like to try writing a script some day.’

‘Good for you.’ Rebus had opened another book. It seemed to be a sequence of poems about Alfred Hitchcock. ‘You didn’t go to the hotel?’ he asked after a pause.

‘No.’

‘But you’ve seen your parents?’

‘Yes.’ Costello took another draw, sucking the life from the cigarette. He realised he’d no ashtray and looked around for something suitable: candle-holders, one for Rebus and one for him. Turning from the bookshelves, Rebus’s foot brushed something: a metal toy soldier, no more than an inch high. He stooped to pick it up. The musket had been snapped off, the head twisted over to one side. He didn’t think he was responsible. Rebus placed it quietly on a shelf before sitting down again.