‘Don’t do me any favours,’ Siobhan said, but she said it to the same closed door. It was as if Gill had hardened overnight, the humiliation of Ellen Wylie an early show of strength. The thing was... Siobhan did want liaison, but at the same time she felt disgusted with herself, because she’d enjoyed watching the press conference. She’d enjoyed Ellen Wylie’s defeat.
When Gill emerged from the toilets, Siobhan was sitting on a chair in the corridor. Gill stood over her, gazing down.
‘The spectre at the feast,’ she commented, turning away.
3
‘I was expecting some pavement artist,’ Donald Devlin said. To Rebus’s eyes, he was wearing the exact same clothes as when they’d last met. The retired pathologist was seated at a desk beside a computer and the only detective at Gayfield Square who seemed to know how to use the Facemaker programme. Facemaker was a database of eyes, ears, noses and lips, consolidated by special effects which could morph the details. Rebus got an idea of how the Farmer’s old colleagues had been able to graft his features on to beefcake torsos.
‘Things have moved on a little,’ was all Rebus said, in reply to Devlin’s comment. He was drinking coffee from a local café; not up to his barista’s standards, but better than the stuff from the station’s vending machine. He’d had a broken night, waking up sweating and shaking in his living-room chair. Bad dreams and night sweats. Whatever any doctor could tell him, he knew his heart was okay — he could feel it pumping, doing its work.
Now, the coffee was just barely stopping him from yawning. The detective at the computer had finished the draft and was printing it out.
‘There’s something... something not quite right,’ Devlin said, not for the first time. Rebus took a look. It was a face, anonymous and forgettable. ‘It could almost be female,’ Devlin went on. ‘And I’m pretty sure he was not a she.’
‘How about this?’ the detective asked, clicking the mouse. Onscreen, the face developed a full, bushy beard.
‘Oh, but that’s absurd,’ Devlin complained.
‘DC Tibbet’s idea of humour, Professor,’ Rebus apologised.
‘I am doing my best, you know.’
‘We appreciate that, sir. Lose the beard, Tibbet.’
Tibbet lost the beard.
‘You’re sure it couldn’t have been David Costello?’ Rebus asked.
‘I know David. It wasn’t him.’
‘How well do you know him?’
Devlin blinked. ‘We spoke several times. Met one another on the stairs one day, and I asked him about the books he was carrying. Milton, Paradise Lost. We started a discussion.’
‘Fascinating, sir.’
‘It was, believe me. The laddie’s got a brain on him.’
Rebus was thoughtful. ‘Think he could kill someone, Professor?’
‘Kill someone? David?’ Devlin laughed. ‘I doubt he’d find it quite cerebral enough, Inspector.’ He paused. ‘Is he still a suspect?’
‘You know what it’s like with police work, Professor. The world’s guilty until proven otherwise.’
‘I thought it was the other way round: innocent until proven guilty.’
‘I think you’re confusing us with lawyers, sir. You say you didn’t really know Philippa?’
‘Again, we passed on the stairs. The difference between David and her is that she never seemed to want to stop.’
‘Bit stuck-up, was she?’
‘I don’t know that I would say that. She was, however, raised in a somewhat rarefied atmosphere, wouldn’t you think?’ He grew thoughtful. ‘I bank with Balfour’s, actually.’
‘Have you met her father then?’
Devlin’s eyes twinkled. ‘Good Lord, no. I’m hardly one of their more important clients.’
‘I meant to ask,’ Rebus said. ‘How’s your jigsaw coming along?’
‘Slowly. But then that’s the inherent pleasure of the thing, isn’t it?’
‘I’ve never been one for jigsaws.’
‘But you like your puzzles. I spoke to Sandy Gates last night, he was telling me all about you.’
‘That must have done BT’s profits a power of good.’
They shared a smile and got back to work.
At the end of an hour, Devlin decided that a previous incarnation had been closer. Thankfully, Tibbet had stored each and every version.
‘Yes,’ Devlin said. ‘It’s far from perfect, but I suppose it’s satisfactory...’ He made to rise from his chair.
‘While you’re here, sir...’ Rebus was reaching into a drawer. He pulled out a fat dossier of photographs. ‘Some pictures we’d like you to look at.’
‘Pictures?’
‘Photos of Ms Balfour’s neighbours, friends from university.’
Devlin was nodding slowly, but with no show of enthusiasm. ‘The process of elimination?’
‘If you feel you’re up to it, Professor.’
Devlin sighed. ‘Perhaps some weak tea to aid concentration...?’
‘I think we can manage weak tea.’ Rebus looked over to Tibbet, who was busy with his mouse. As Rebus got closer, he saw a face on the screen. It was a pretty good resemblance of Devlin’s own, save for the addition of horns. ‘DC Tibbet will fetch it,’ Rebus said.
Tibbet made sure to save the image before rising from his chair...
By the time Rebus got back to St Leonard’s, news was coming in of another thinly veiled search, this time of the lock-up on Calton Road where David Costello garaged his MG sports car. The forensic unit from Howdenhall had been in, finding nothing of apparent consequence. They already knew Flip Balfour’s prints would be all over the car. No surprise either that some of her belongings — a lipstick, a pair of sunglasses — were in the glove compartment. The garage itself was clean.
‘No chest freezer with a padlock on it?’ Rebus guessed. ‘No trapdoor leading to the torture dungeon?’
Distant Daniels shook his head. He was playing errand boy, transferring paperwork between Gayfield and St Leonard’s. ‘A student with an MG,’ he commented, shaking his head again.
‘Never mind the car,’ Rebus told him. ‘That lock-up probably cost more than your flat.’
‘Christ, you could be right.’ The smile they shared was sour. Everyone was busy: highlights of yesterday’s news conference — with Ellen Wylie’s performance edited out — had been broadcast on the nightly news. Now, sightings of the missing student were being followed up, meaning lots of phone calls...
‘DI Rebus?’ Rebus turned towards the voice. ‘My office.’
And it was her office. Already, she was making it her own. Either the bunch of flowers on the filing cabinet had freshened the air, or she’d used something out of a can. The Farmer’s chair had gone, too, replaced by a more utilitarian model. Where the Farmer had often slouched, Gill sat straight-backed, as if poised to rise to her feet. She held a piece of paper out, so that Rebus had to get out of the visitor’s chair to reach it.
‘A place called Falls,’ she said. ‘Do you know it?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘Me neither,’ she confided.
Rebus was busy reading the note. It was a telephone message. A doll had been found in Falls.
‘A doll?’ he said.
She nodded. ‘I want you to go take a look.’
Rebus burst out laughing. ‘You’re having me on.’ But when he looked up, her face was blank. ‘Is this my punishment?’