Rebus didn’t think any of the reporters had noticed Carswell; too busy trying to make sense of this curious interruption. And then he saw that Siobhan was staring into the grave, eyes flickering to the coffin and back, as if she could see something there. All at once, she turned her back on proceedings and started walking between the tombstones, as if searching for something she’d dropped.
‘For I am the Resurrection and the Life,’ the minister was saying. Marr was standing beside John Balfour now, eyes on the coffin and nothing else. Off to one side, Siobhan was still moving between the graves. Rebus didn’t think any of the reporters could see her: the mourners formed a barrier between her and them. She crouched down in front of one stubby gravestone, seemed to be reading its inscription. Then she rose to her feet again and moved off, but more slowly now, without the same sense of urgency. When she turned, she saw that Rebus was watching her. She flashed him a quick smile, which for some reason he didn’t find reassuring. Then she was on the move again, round to the rear of the mourning party, and out of his immediate sight.
Carswell was muttering something to Gill Templer: instructions on how to deal with Marr. Rebus knew they’d probably let him leave the churchyard, but insist on accompanying him immediately afterwards. Maybe they’d head to Junipers, do the questioning there; more likely, Marr wouldn’t be seeing the marquee and the finger buffet. Instead, it would be an interview room at Gayfield and a mug of greyish tea.
‘Ashes to ashes...’
Rebus couldn’t help it; found the first few bars of the Bowie tune bouncing through his head.
A couple of the reporters were already preparing to head off, either back to the city or up the road to Junipers, where they could make a tally of the invited guests. Rebus slipped his hands into the pockets of the raincoat, started a slow patrol of the churchyard’s perimeter. Earth was raining on to Philippa Balfour’s coffin, the last rain the polished wood would ever feel. Her mother sent a cry up into the sky. It was carried by the breeze towards the surrounding hills.
Rebus found himself standing in front of a small headstone. Its owner had lived from 1876 to 1937. Not quite sixty-one when he died, missing the worst of Hitler, and maybe just too old to have fought in the First World War. He’d been a carpenter, probably serving the surrounding farms. For a second, Rebus remembered the coffin-maker. Then he went back to the name on the headstone — Francis Campbell Finlay — and had to suppress a smile. Siobhan had looked at the box in which lay the remains of Flip Balfour, and she’d thought: boxing. Then she’d looked at the grave itself and realised that it was a place where the sun didn’t shine. Quizmaster’s clue had been leading her right here, but it was only once she’d arrived that she’d been able to work it out. She’d gone looking for Frank Finlay, and found him. Rebus wondered what else she’d found when she crouched in front of the headstone. He glanced back to where the mourners were departing the churchyard, the chauffeurs stubbing out their cigarettes and preparing to open car doors. He couldn’t see Siobhan, but Carswell himself had taken Ranald Marr to one side so they could have a discussion, Carswell doing the talking, Marr responding with resigned nods of the head. When Carswell put out his hand, Marr dropped his car keys into it.
Rebus was the last to leave. Some of the cars were making three-point turns. A tractor-trailer was waiting to get past. Rebus didn’t recognise the driver. Siobhan was standing on the verge, leaning her arms on her car roof, in no hurry. Rebus crossed the road, nodded a greeting.
‘Thought we might see you here,’ was all she said. Rebus leaned one of his own arms on the roof. ‘Get a bollocking, did you?’
‘Like I told Gill, it’s not against the law.’
‘You saw Marr arriving?’
Rebus nodded. ‘What’s the story?’
‘Carswell’s driving him up to the house. Marr wants a couple of minutes with Balfour to explain things.’
‘What things?’
‘We’re next in line.’
‘Doesn’t sound to me like he’s about to confess to murder.’
‘No,’ she said.
‘I was wondering...’ Rebus let the utterance fade.
She tore her eyes away from the spectacle of Carswell attempting a three-pointer in the Maserati. ‘Yes?’
‘The latest clue: Stricture. Any more ideas?’ Stricture, he was thinking, as in confinement. There was nothing in life quite as confining as a coffin...
She blinked a couple of times, then shook her head. ‘What about you?’
‘I did wonder if “boxing” might mean putting things in boxes.’
‘Mmm.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘Maybe.’
‘Want me to keep trying?’
‘Can’t do any harm.’ The Maserati was roaring down the road, Carswell having applied just too much pressure to the accelerator.
‘I suppose not.’ Rebus turned to face her. ‘You heading on to Junipers?’
She shook her head. ‘Back to St Leonard’s.’
‘Things to do, eh?’
She took her arms off the car roof, slid her right hand into the pocket of her black Barbour jacket. ‘Things to do,’ she agreed.
Rebus noticed that she held the car keys in her left hand. He wondered what was in that right-hand pocket.
‘Ca’ canny then, eh?’ he said.
‘See you back at the ranch.’
‘I’m still on the blacklist, remember?’
She took her hand out of her pocket, opened her driver’s-side door. ‘Right,’ she said, getting in. He leaned down to peer through the window. She offered him a brief smile and nothing more. He took a step back as the car came to life, wheels sliding before finding tarmac.
She’d done just what he’d have done: kept to herself whatever it was she’d found. Rebus jogged to where his own car was parked and made set to follow.
Driving back through Falls, Rebus slowed a little outside Bev Dodds’s cottage. He’d half expected to see her at the funeral. The interment had brought with it a number of sightseers, though police cars each end of the road had dissuaded the casual intruder. Parking space was at a premium in the village, too, though most Wednesdays he had the feeling there’d be room to spare. The potter’s makeshift sign had been replaced with something more eye-catching and professionally made. Rebus pushed a little harder on the accelerator, keeping Siobhan’s car in view. The coffins were still in the bottom drawer of his desk. He knew Dodds wanted the one from Falls back in her possession. Maybe he’d be charitable, pick it up this afternoon and drop it off Thursday or Friday. One more excuse to visit the ranch, where he could have another go at Siobhan — always supposing that was where she was headed...
He remembered there was a half-bottle of whisky under his driver’s seat. He really did feel like a drink — it was what you did after funerals. The alcohol washed away death’s inevitability. ‘Tempting,’ he said to himself, slotting home a cassette tape. Early Alex Harvey: ‘The Faith Healer’. Problem was, early Alex Harvey wasn’t too far removed from late Alex Harvey. He wondered how big a part alcohol had played in the Glasgow singer’s demise. You started making a line of booze deaths, it would just refuse ever to come to an end...
‘You think I killed her, don’t you?’
Three of them in the interview room. An unnatural hush outside the door: whispers and tippy-toes and phones snatched up almost before they could ring. Gill Templer, Bill Pryde, and Ranald Marr.