He handed her the paper and she saw that Peter Bee was the name of the crossword’s compiler.
‘Twelve across,’ Grant said, ‘he had me looking for the name of an old Roman weapon. But all it was in the end was an anagram.’
‘Very interesting,’ Siobhan said, tossing the paper on to the table, where it covered the half-dozen map-books.
‘I’m just trying to explain that sometimes you have to clear your mind for a while, start again from scratch.’
She glared at him. ‘Are you saying we’ve just wasted half the day?’
He shrugged.
‘Well, thanks very much!’ She pulled herself out of her chair and stomped off to the toilets. Inside, she stood leaning against the wash-bowl, staring down at its bright white surface. The sod was, she knew Grant was right. But she couldn’t let go the way he could. She’d wanted to play the game, and now it had drawn her in. She wondered if Flip Balfour had become obsessed in much the same way. If she’d got stuck, would she have asked for help? Siobhan reminded herself that she had yet to ask any of Flip’s friends or family about the game. No one had mentioned it in the dozens of interviews, but then why would they? Maybe to them it had just been a bit of fun, a computer game. Nothing to get worked up about …
Gill Templer had offered her the Press Liaison job, but only after engineering the ritual humiliation of Ellen Wylie. It would be nice to feel she’d rejected the offer out of a sense of solidarity with Wylie, but that had had nothing to do with it. Siobhan herself feared that it was more the influence of John Rebus. She’d worked beside him for several years now, coming to understand his strengths as well as his faults. And when it came down to it, like a lot of other officers she preferred the maverick approach, and wished she could be like that. But the force itself had other ideas. There could be room for only one Rebus, and meantime advancement was hers for the taking. Okay, so it would land her squarely in Gill Templer’s camp: she’d follow orders, back her boss up, never take risks. And she would be safe, would continue to rise through the ranks … Detective Inspector, then maybe DCI by the time she was forty. She saw now that Gill had invited her to drinks and dinner that evening to show her how it was done. You cultivated the right friends, you treated them well. You were patient, and the rewards came. One lesson for Ellen Wylie, and a very different one for her.
Back out in the café, she watched as Grant Hood completed the crossword and threw the paper back down, leaning back in his seat and nonchalantly slipping his pen into his pocket. He was trying hard not to look at the table next to him, where a lone female coffee-drinker had been appraising his performance over the top of her paperback book.
Siobhan started forwards. ‘Thought you’d already done that one?’ she said, nodding towards the Scotsman.
‘Easier the second time,’ he answered in a voice which, had it been any more of an undertone, would have leapt up and broken into the chorus of ‘Teenage Kicks’. ‘Why are you grinning like that?’
The woman had gone back to her book. It was something by Muriel Spark. ‘I was just remembering an old song,’ Siobhan said.
Grant looked at her, but she wasn’t about to enlighten him, so he reached a hand out and touched the crossword. ‘Know what a homonym is?’
‘No, but it sounds rude.’
‘It’s when a word sounds like another word. Crosswords use them all the time. There’s even one in today’s, and second time around it got me thinking.’
‘Thinking what?’
‘About our latest clue. “Sounds dear”: we were thinking of “dear” meaning expensive or cherished, right?’
Siobhan nodded.
‘But it could be a homonym, signalled by “sounds”.’
‘I’m not following.’ But she’d tucked one leg beneath her and leaned forward, interested.
‘It could be telling us that the word we want isn’t d-e-a-r but d-e-e-r.’
She frowned. ‘So we end up with “B4 Scots Law deer”? Is it just me, or does that actually make less sense than before?’
He shrugged, turned his attention to the window again. ‘If you say so.’
She slapped at his leg. ‘Don’t be like that.’
‘You think you’re the only one who can take a moody?’
‘I’m sorry.’
He looked at her. She was smiling again. ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Now … wasn’t there some story about how Holyrood got its name? One of the ancient kings shooting arrows at a deer?’
‘Search me.’
‘Excuse me.’ The voice came from the table next to them. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing.’ The woman put her book down on the table. ‘It was David the First, back in the twelfth century.’
‘Was it now?’ Siobhan said.
The woman ignored her tone. ‘He was out hunting when a stag pinned him to the ground. He reached for its antlers only to find that it had vanished and in its place he was holding a cross. Holy rood means holy cross. David saw it as a sign and built the abbey of Holyrood.’
‘Thank you,’ Grant Hood said. The woman bowed her head and went back to her book. ‘Nice to see an educated person,’ he added, for Siobhan’s benefit. She narrowed her eyes and wrinkled her nose at him. ‘So it might have something to do with the Palace of Holyrood.’
‘One of the rooms could be called B4,’ Siobhan said. ‘Like a school classroom.’
He saw that she wasn’t being serious. ‘There could be part of Scots Law relating to Holyrood – it would make another royal connection, like Victoria.’
Siobhan unfolded her arms. ‘Could be,’ she conceded.
‘So all we have to do is find ourselves a friendly lawyer.’
‘Would someone from the Procurator Fiscal’s office do?’ Siobhan asked. ‘If so, I might know just the person …’
The Sheriff Court was in a new building on Chambers Street, just across from the museum complex. Grant dashed back down to Grassmarket to feed coins to the meter, despite Siobhan’s protestation that it’d have been cheaper getting a fine slapped on him. She went on ahead and asked around the court until she’d located Harriet Brough. The lawyer was wearing yet another tweed two-piece with grey stockings and flat black shoes. Shapely ankles though, Siobhan couldn’t help noticing.
‘My dear girl, this is splendid,’ Brough said, taking Siobhan’s hand and working her arm as if it were a water-pump. ‘Simply splendid.’ Siobhan noted that the elder woman’s make-up served merely to heighten her wrinkles and the folds of skin, and gave her face a garish pall.
‘I hope I’m not disturbing you,’ Siobhan began.
‘Not in the slightest.’ They were in the court’s main entrance hall, busy with ushers and lawyers, security staff and worried-looking families. Elsewhere in the building, guilt and innocence were being judged, sentences handed down. ‘Are you here for a trial?’
‘No, I just had a question and I wondered if you might be able to help.’
‘I’d be delighted to.’
‘It’s a note I’ve found. It might relate to a case, but it seems to be in some sort of code.’
The lawyer’s eyes widened. ‘How exciting,’ she gasped. ‘Let’s just grab somewhere to sit and then you can tell me all about it.’
They found a free bench and sat down. Brough read the note through its polythene jacket. Siobhan watched as she mouthed the words silently, her brow creasing.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last. ‘Maybe the context would help.’
‘It’s a missing person inquiry,’ Siobhan explained. ‘We think she may have been taking part in a game.’
‘And you need to solve this to reach the next stage? How very curious.’
Grant Hood arrived, breathing heavily. Siobhan introduced him to Harriet Brough.
‘Anything?’ he asked. Siobhan just shook her head. He looked towards the lawyer. ‘B4 doesn’t mean anything in Scots Law? Some paragraph or sub-section?’
‘My dear boy,’ Brough laughed, ‘there could be several hundred
examples, though they’d more likely be 4B rather than B4. We use numerals first, as a general rule.’
Hood nodded. ‘So it would be “paragraph 4, sub-section b”?’
‘Exactly.’
‘The first clue,’ Siobhan added, ‘had a royal connection. The answer was Victoria. We’re wondering if this one might have something to do with Holyrood.’ She explained her reasoning, and Brough took another look at the note.
‘Well, the pair of you are cleverer than I am,’ she conceded. ‘Maybe my lawyer’s mind is too literal.’ She made to hand the note to Siobhan, but then snatched it back again. ‘I wonder if the phrase “Scots Law” is there to put you off the scent.’
‘How do you mean?’ Siobhan asked.
‘It’s just that if the clue is meant to be wilfully obscure, then whoever wrote it might have been thinking laterally.’
Siobhan looked to Hood, who merely shrugged. Brough was pointing to the note.
‘Something I learned from my hill-walking days,’ she said, ‘is that “law” is the Scots word for a hill …’
Rebus was on the phone to the manager of the Huntingtower Hotel.
‘So it might be in storage?’ he asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ the manager said.
‘Could you take a look? Maybe ask around, see if anyone knows?’
‘It could have been thrown out during a refit.’
‘That’s the sort of positive attitude I thrive on, Mr Ballantine.’
‘Maybe the person who found it …’
‘He says he handed it in.’ Rebus had already called the Courier and spoken with the reporter who’d covered the case. The reporter had been curious, and Rebus had admitted that another coffin had turned up in Edinburgh, while stressing that any connection was ‘the longest shot in history’. Last thing he wanted was the media sniffing around. The reporter had given him the name of the man whose dog had found the coffin. A couple of calls later, Rebus had traced the man, only to be told that he’d left the coffin at Huntingtower and had thought no more about it.
‘Well,’ the manager was saying now, ‘I won’t make any promises …’
‘Let me know as soon as you find it,’ Rebus said, repeating his name and phone number. ‘It’s a matter of urgency, Mr Ballantine.’
‘I’ll do what I can,’ the manager said with a sigh.
Rebus broke the connection and looked across to the other desk, where Ellen Wylie was seated with Donald Devlin. Devlin was dressed in another old cardigan, this time with most of its buttons intact. Between the pair of them, they were trying to track down the autopsy notes from the Glasgow drowning. By the look on Wylie’s face they were having little luck. Devlin, whose chair was side by side with hers, kept leaning in towards her as she spoke on the phone. He might just have been trying to catch what was being said, but Rebus could see Wylie didn’t like it. She kept trying to move her chair surreptitiously, angling her body so she presented a lot of shoulder and back to the pathologist. So far, she’d avoided eye contact with Rebus.
He made a note to himself about Huntingtower, then got back on the phone. The Glasgow coffin was more awkward. The reporter who’d covered the story had moved on. Nobody at the news desk could remember anything about it. Rebus eventually got a number for the church manse and spoke to a Reverend Martine.
‘Have you any idea what happened to the coffin?’ Rebus asked.
‘I think the journalist took it,’ Reverend Martine said.
So Rebus thanked him and got back to the newspaper, where he was able eventually to speak to the editor, who wanted to hear Rebus’s own story. So he explained about the ‘Edinburgh coffin’ and how he was working for the Department of Long Shots.
‘This Edinburgh coffin, where was it found exactly?’
‘Near the Castle,’ Rebus said blithely. He could almost see the editor writing a note to himself, maybe thinking of following the story up.
After another minute or so, Rebus was transferred to personnel, where he was given a forwarding address for the journalist, whose name was Jenny Gabriel. It was a London address.
‘She went to work for one of the broadsheets,’ the personnel manager stated. ‘It was what Jenny always wanted.’
So Rebus went out and bought coffee, cakes and four newspapers: The Times, Telegraph, Guardian and Independent. He went through each, studying the by-lines, but didn’t find Jenny Gabriel’s name. Undaunted, he called each paper and asked for her by name. At the third attempt, the switchboard asked him to hold. He glanced across to where Devlin was dropping cake crumbs on to Wylie’s desk.
‘Transferring you now.’
The sweetest words Rebus had heard all day. Then the call was picked up.
‘News desk.’
‘Jenny Gabriel, please,’ Rebus said.
‘Speaking.’
And it was time for the spiel again.
‘My God,’ the reporter said at last, ‘that was twenty years ago!’
‘Just about,’ Rebus agreed. ‘I don’t suppose you still have the doll?’
‘No, I don’t.’ Rebus felt his heart sink a little. ‘When I moved south, I gave it to a friend. He’d always been fascinated by it.’
‘Any chance you could put me in touch with him?’
‘Hang on, I’ll get his number …’ There was a pause. Rebus spent the time working loose the mechanism of his ballpoint pen. He realised he had only the vaguest idea how such a pen worked. Spring, casing, refill … he could take it to pieces, put it back together again, and be none the wiser.
‘He’s in Edinburgh actually,’ Jenny Gabriel said. Then she gave him a number. The friend’s name was Dominic Mann.
‘Many thanks,’ Rebus said, cutting the call. Dominic Mann wasn’t home, but his answering machine gave Rebus a mobile number to try. The call was picked up.
‘Hello?’
‘Is that Dominic Mann … ?’ And Rebus was off again. This time getting the result he wanted. Mann still owned the coffin, and could drop it into St Leonard’s later on in the day.
‘I’d really appreciate that,’ Rebus said. ‘Funny thing to hold on to all these years … ?’
‘I was planning to use it in one of my installations.’
‘Installations?’
‘I’m an artist. At least, I was. These days I run a gallery.’
‘You still paint?’
‘Infrequently. Just as well I didn’t end up using it. It might have been wrapped in paint and bandages and sold to some collector.’
Rebus thanked the artist and put down the phone. Devlin had finished his cake. Wylie had put hers to one side, and the old man was eyeing it now. The Nairn coffin was easier: two calls got Rebus the result he wanted. He was told by a reporter that he’d do some digging, and was called back with the number of someone in Nairn, who then did some digging of their own and found the coffin stored in a neighbour’s shed.
‘You want me to post it to you?’
‘Yes, please,’ Rebus said. ‘Next-day delivery.’ He’d thought of sending a car, but didn’t think the budget would stretch. There’d been memos flying on the subject.
‘What about the postage?’
‘Enclose your details and I’ll see you get a refund.’
The caller thought about this. ‘Seems all right, I suppose. Just have to trust you, won’t I?’
‘If you can’t trust the police, who can you trust?’
He put down the phone and looked across to Wylie’s desk again. ‘Anything?’ he asked.
‘Getting there,’ she said, her voice tired and irritated. Devlin got up, crumbs tumbling from his lap, and asked where the ‘facilities’ were. Rebus pointed him in the right direction. Devlin started to leave, but paused in front of Rebus.
‘I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying this.’
‘Glad someone’s happy, Professor.’
Devlin prodded Rebus’s jacket lapel with a finger. ‘I think you’re in your element.’ He beamed, and shuffled out of the room.
Rebus walked across to Wylie’s desk.
‘Better eat that cake, if you don’t want him drooling.’
She considered this, then broke the cake in two and stuffed half into her mouth.
‘I got a result on the dolls,’ he told her. ‘Two traced, with another possible.’
She took a gulp of coffee, washing down the sugary sponge. ‘Doing better than us then.’ She studied the remaining half of the cake, then dropped it into the bin. ‘No offence,’ she said.
‘Professor Devlin will be gutted.’
‘That’s what I’m hoping.’
‘He’s here to help, remember?’
She stared at him. ‘He smells.’
‘Does he?’
‘You’ve not noticed?’
‘Can’t say I have.’
She looked at him as though this comment said much about him. Then her shoulders fell. ‘Why did you ask for me? I’m useless. All those reporters and TV viewers saw it. Everybody knows it. Have you got a thing about cripples or what?’
‘My daughter’s a cripple,’ he said quietly.
Her face reddened. ‘Christ, I didn’t mean …’
‘But to answer your question, the only person around here who seems to have a problem with Ellen Wylie is Ellen Wylie herself.’
Her hand had gone to her face, as if trying to force the blood back down. ‘Tell that to Gill Templer,’ she said at last.
‘Gill ballsed things up. It’s not the end of the world.’ His phone was ringing. He started backing towards his desk. ‘Okay?’ he said. When she nodded, he turned away and answered the call. It was Huntingtower. They’d found the coffin in a cellar used for lost property. A couple of decades’ worth of umbrellas and pairs of spectacles, hats and coats and cameras.