‘What then?’
‘He gave me the creeps.’
Rebus looked at her. ‘Not the same thing?’
She shook her head. ‘The old-pal act he played with you, that irritated me a bit, because I wasn’t part of it. But the newspaper clipping …’
‘The one on the wall?’
She nodded. ‘That gave me the creeps.’
‘He’s a pathologist,’ Rebus explained. ‘They’ve thicker skins than most of us.’
She thought about this, and allowed herself a little smile.
‘What?’ Rebus asked.
‘Oh, nothing,’ she said. ‘It’s just that, as I was getting up to leave, I couldn’t help noticing a piece of the jigsaw on the floor under the table …’
‘Where it still sits?’ Rebus guessed, smiling too now. ‘With that kind of eye for detail, we’ll make a detective of you yet …’
He pressed the next door-buzzer, and it was back to work.
The news conference took place at the Big House, with a live feed to the inquiry room at Gayfield Square. Someone was trying to clean fingerprints and smears from the TV monitor with a handkerchief, while others tilted the blinds against the afternoon’s sudden burst of sunshine. With the chairs all filled, officers were sitting two and three to a desk. A few of them were taking a late lunch: sandwiches and bananas. There were mugs of tea and coffee, cans of juice. The conversation was muted. Whoever was in charge of the police camera at the Big House, they were coming in for some stick.
‘Like my eight-year-old with the video-cam …’
‘Seen Blair Witch a couple times too many …’
It was true that the camera seemed to be swooping and diving, picking out bodies at waist height, rows of feet, and the backs of chairs.
‘Show’s not started yet,’ a wiser head counselled. It was true: the other cameras, the ones from TV, were still being set up, the invited audience – journalists clutching mobile phones to their ears – still settling. Hard to make out anything that was being said. Rebus stood at the back of the room. A bit too far from the TV, but he wasn’t about to move. Bill Pryde stood next to him, clearly exhausted and just as clearly trying not to show it. His clipboard had become a comforter, and he held it close to his chest, now and then pulling back to look at it, as though fresh instructions might magically have appeared. With the blinds closed, thin beams of light pierced the room, highlighting motes of dust which would otherwise have remained invisible. Rebus was reminded of cinema trips in childhood, the sense of expectation as the projector came to life and the show began.
On the TV, the crowd was settling. Rebus knew the room – a soulless space used for seminars and occasions such as this. One long table sat at the end, a makeshift screen behind it displaying the Lothian and Borders badge. The police video-cam swung round as a door opened and a file of bodies trooped into the room, quieting the hubbub. Rebus could hear the sudden whirr of camera motors. Flashes of illumination. Ellen Wylie first, then Gill Templer, followed by David Costello and John Balfour.
‘Guilty!’ someone in front of Rebus called out as the camera zoomed in on Costello’s face.
The group sat down in front of a sudden array of microphones. The camera stayed with Costello, panning back a little to take in his upper body, but it was Wylie’s voice that came over the loudspeaker, preceded by a nervous clearing of the throat.
‘Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us. I’ll just go over the format and some of the rules, before we get started …’
Siobhan was over to Rebus’s left. She was sitting on a desk alongside Grant Hood. Hood was staring at the floor. Maybe he was concentrating on Wylie’s voice: Rebus remembered that the pair of them had worked closely together on the Grieve case a few months before. Siobhan was watching the screen, but her gaze kept wandering elsewhere. She held a bottle of water, and her fingers were busy picking off the label.
She wanted that job, Rebus thought to himself. And now she was hurting. He willed her to turn his way, so he could offer something – a smile or shrug, or just a nod of understanding. But her eyes were back on the screen again. Wylie had finished her spiel, and it was Gill Templer’s turn. She was summarising and updating the details of the case. She sounded confident, an old hand at news conferences. Rebus could hear Wylie clearing her throat again in the background. It seemed to be putting Gill off.
The camera, however, showed no interest in the two CID officers. It was there to concentrate on David Costello, and – to a far lesser extent – Philippa Balfour’s father. The two men sat next to one another, and the camera moved slowly between them. Quick shots of Balfour, then back to Costello. The auto-focus was fine until the cameraman decided to zoom in or out. Then, the picture took a few seconds to clear.
‘Guilty,’ the voice repeated.
‘Want a bet?’ someone else called back.
‘Let’s have a bit of shush,’ Bill Pryde barked. The room fell silent. Rebus gave him a round of mimed applause, but Pryde was looking at his clipboard again, then back to the screen, where David Costello was beginning to speak. He hadn’t shaved, and looked to be in the same clothes as the previous night. He’d unfolded and flattened a sheet of paper against the table-top. But when he spoke, he didn’t glance down at what he’d written. His eyes flitted between cameras, never sure where he should be looking. His voice was dry and thin.
‘We don’t know what happened to Flip, and we desperately want to know. All of us, her friends, her family …’ he glanced towards John Balfour ‘… all those who know and love her, we need to know. Flip, if you’re watching this, please get in touch with one of us. Just so we know you’re … you’ve not come to any harm. We’re worried sick.’ His eyes were shining with the onset of tears. He stopped for a second, bowed his head, then drew himself straight again. He picked up the sheet of paper but couldn’t see anything there that hadn’t been said. He half turned, as if seeking guidance from the others. John Balfour put his hand out to squeeze the younger man’s shoulder, then Balfour himself started speaking, his voice booming as if the microphones might somehow be defective.
‘If anyone’s holding my daughter, please get in touch. Flip has the number for my private mobile phone. I can be reached at any time, day or night. I’d like to talk with you, whoever you are, why ever you’ve done what you’ve done. And if anyone knows Flip’s whereabouts, there’ll be a number onscreen at the end of this broadcast. I just need to know Flip’s alive and well. To people watching this at home, please take a second to study Flip’s photograph.’ A further clicking of cameras as he held up the photo. He turned slowly so every camera could capture the moment. ‘Her name’s Philippa Balfour and she’s just twenty. She’s my daughter. If you’ve seen her, or even just think you may have, please get in touch. Thank you.’
The reporters were ready with their questions, but David Costello was already on his feet and making for the exit.
It was Wylie’s voice again: ‘Not appropriate at this time … I’d like to thank you for your continuing support …’ But the questions battered against her. Meantime the video-cam was back on John Balfour. He looked quite composed, hands clasped on the table in front of him, unblinking as the flashguns threw his shadow on to the wall behind.
‘No, I really don’t …’
‘Mr Costello!’ the journalists were yelling. ‘Could we just ask …?’
‘DS Wylie,’ another voice barked, ‘can you tell us something about possible motives for the abduction?’
‘We don’t have any motives yet.’ Wylie was sounding flustered.
‘But you accept that it is an abduction?’
‘I don’t … no, that’s not what I meant.’
The screen showed John Balfour trying to answer someone else’s question. The ranks of reporters had become a scrum.
‘Then what did you mean, DS Wylie?’
‘I just … I didn’t say anything about …’
And then Ellen Wylie’s voice wa
s replaced by Gill Templer’s. The voice of authority. The reporters knew her of old, just as she knew them.
‘Steve,’ she said, ‘you know only too well that we can’t speculate on details like that. If you want to make up lies just to sell a few more papers, that’s your concern, but it’s hardly respectful to Philippa Balfour’s family and friends.’
Further questions were handled by Gill, who insisted on some calm beforehand. Although Rebus couldn’t see her, he imagined Ellen Wylie would be shrinking visibly. Siobhan was moving her feet up and down, as though all of a sudden some adrenalin had kicked in. Balfour interrupted Gill to say that he’d like to respond to a couple of the points raised. He did so, calmly and effectively, and then the conference started to break up.
‘A cool customer,’ Pryde said, before moving off to regroup his troops. It was time to get back to the real work again.
Grant Hood approached. ‘Remind me,’ he said. ‘Which station was giving the longest odds on the boyfriend?’
‘Torphichen,’ Rebus told him.
‘Then that’s where my money’s going.’ He looked to Rebus for a reaction, but didn’t get one. ‘Come on, sir,’ he went on, ‘it was written all over his face!’
Rebus thought back to his night-time meeting with Costello … the story of the eyeballs and how Costello had come up close. Take a good long look …
Hood was shaking his head as he made to pass Rebus. The blinds had been opened, the brief interlude of sun now ended as thick grey clouds rolled back over the city. The tape of Costello’s performance would go to the psychologists. They’d be looking for a glimmer of something, a short outburst of bright illumination. He wasn’t sure they’d find it. Siobhan was standing in front of him.
‘Interesting, wasn’t it?’ she said.
‘I don’t think Wylie’s cut out for liaison,’ Rebus answered.
‘She shouldn’t have been there. A case like this for her first outing … she was as good as thrown to the lions.’
‘You didn’t enjoy it?’ he asked slyly.
She stared at him. ‘I don’t like blood sports.’ She made to move away, but hesitated. ‘What did you think, really?’
‘I thought you were right about it being interesting. Singularly interesting.’
She smiled. ‘You caught that too?’
He nodded. ‘Costello kept saying “we”, while her father used “I”.’
‘As if Flip’s mother didn’t matter.’
Rebus was thoughtful. ‘It might mean nothing more than that Mr Balfour has an inflated sense of his own importance.’ He paused. ‘Now wouldn’t that be a first in a merchant banker? How’s the computer stuff going?’
She smiled – ‘computer stuff’ just about summed up Rebus’s knowledge of hard disks and the like. ‘I got past her password.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning I can check her most recent e-mails … soon as I get back to my desk.’
‘No way to access the older ones?’
‘Already done. Of course, there’s no way of telling what’s been deleted.’ She was thoughtful. ‘At least I don’t think there is.’
‘They’re not stored somewhere on the … mainframe?’
She laughed. ‘You’re thinking of sixties spy films, computers taking up whole rooms.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t worry. You’re doing okay for someone who thinks LOL means Loyal Orange Lodge.’
They’d moved out of the office and into the corridor. ‘I’m heading back to St Leonard’s. Need a lift?’
She shook her head. ‘Got my car with me.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘It looks like we’re getting hooked up to HOLMES.’
This was one piece of new technology Rebus did know something about: the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System. It was a software system that collated information and speeded up the whole process of gathering and sifting. Its application meant that Philippa Balfour’s disappearance was now the priority case in the city.
‘Won’t it be funny if she traipses back from an unannounced shopping spree?’ Rebus mused.
‘It would be a relief,’ Siobhan said solemnly. ‘But I don’t think that’s going to happen, do you?’
‘No,’ Rebus said quietly. Then he went to find himself something to eat on the way back to base.
*
Back at his desk, he went through the files again, concentrating on family background. John Balfour was the third generation of a banking family. The business had started in Edinburgh’s Charlotte Square in the early 1900s. Philippa’s great-grandfather had handed the running of the bank to her grandfather in the 1940s, and he hadn’t taken a back seat until the 1980s, when John Balfour had taken over. Almost the first thing Philippa’s father had done was open a London office, concentrating his efforts there. Philippa had gone to a private school in Chelsea. The family relocated north in the late eighties after the death of John’s father, Philippa changing to a school in Edinburgh. Their home, Junipers, was a baronial mansion in sixteen acres of countryside somewhere between Gullane and Haddington. Rebus wondered how Balfour’s wife Jacqueline felt. Eleven bedrooms, five public rooms … and her husband down in London a minimum of four days each week. The Edinburgh office, still in its original premises in Charlotte Square, was run by an old friend of John Balfour’s called Ranald Marr. The two had met at university in Edinburgh, heading off together to the States for their MBAs. Rebus had called Balfour a merchant banker, but Balfour’s was really a small private bank geared to the needs of its client list, a wealthy elite requiring investment advice, portfolio management, and the kudos of a leatherbound Balfour’s chequebook.
When Balfour himself had been interviewed, the emphasis had been on the possibility of a kidnapping for profit. Not just the family phone, but those in the Edinburgh and London offices were being monitored. Mail was being intercepted in case any ransom demand arrived that way: the fewer fingerprints they had to deal with, the better. But as yet, all they’d had were a few crank notes. Another possibility was a deal gone sour: revenge the motive. But Balfour was adamant that he had no enemies. All the same, he’d denied the team access to his bank’s client base.
‘These people trust me. Without that trust, the bank’s finished.’
‘Sir, with respect, your daughter’s well-being might depend …’
‘I’m perfectly aware of that!’
After which the interview had never lost its edge of antagonism.
The bottom line: Balfour’s was conservatively estimated to be worth around a hundred and thirty million, with John Balfour’s personal wealth comprising maybe five per cent of the whole. Six and a half million reasons for a professional abduction. But wouldn’t a professional have made contact by now? Rebus wasn’t sure.
Jacqueline Balfour had been born Jacqueline Gil-Martin, her father a diplomat and landowner, the family estate a chunk of Perthshire comprising nearly nine hundred acres. The father was dead now, and the mother had moved into a cottage on the estate. The land itself was managed by Balfour’s Bank, and the main house, Laverock Lodge, had become a setting for conferences and other large gatherings. A TV drama had been filmed there apparently, though the show’s title meant nothing to Rebus. Jacqueline hadn’t bothered with university, busying herself instead with a variety of jobs, mainly as a personal assistant to some businessman or other. She’d been running the Laverock estate when she’d met John Balfour, on a trip to her father’s bank in Edinburgh. They’d married a year later, and Philippa had been born two years after that.
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 pr
obability, 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?’