‘I just thought you’d want to know,’ Donald Devlin said. His voice trembled slightly, body likewise.
Rebus nodded. They were standing just inside the imposing front doors of Surgeons’ Hall. There were people upstairs, but speaking in hushed tones. Outside, one of the grey transit vans from the mortuary was waiting, a police car standing beside it, roof-lights flashing, turning the front of the building blue every couple of seconds.
‘What happened?’ Rebus asked.
‘Heart attack, it looks like. People were enjoying a postprandial brandy, leaning against the railing.’ Devlin pointed upwards. ‘He suddenly went very pale, leaned over the rail. They thought he was going to be sick. But he just slumped, and his weight took him over.’
Rebus looked down at the marble floor. There was a smear of blood which would need cleaning. Men stood on the periphery, some outside on the lawns. They smoked and spoke of the awful shock. When Rebus looked back at Devlin, the old man seemed to be studying him, as if he were some specimen in a jar.
‘Are you all right?’ Devlin asked, watching as Rebus nodded. ‘The two of you were pretty close, I gather.’
Rebus didn’t answer. Sandy Gates walked up, mopping his face with what looked like a napkin swiped from the dining room.
‘Bloody awful,’ was all he said. ‘Probably have to be an autopsy, too.’
The body was being stretchered away. A blanket covered the body-bag. Rebus resisted the temptation to stop the attendants and pull the zip down. He wanted his last memories of Conor Leary to be of the lively man he’d shared that drink with.
‘He’d just made a fascinating speech,’ Devlin said. ‘A sort of ecumenical history of the human body. Everything from the sacrament to Jack the Ripper as haruspex.’
‘As what?’
‘Someone who foretells the truth by looking at the entrails of animals.’
Gates belched. ‘Half of it was above my head,’ he said.
‘And the other half you slept through, Sandy,’ Devlin commented with a smile. ‘He did the whole thing without notes,’ he added admiringly. Then he looked up at the first-floor landing again. ‘The fall of man, that was his starting point.’ He rummaged in his pocket for a handkerchief.
‘Here,’ said Gates, handing over the napkin. Devlin blew his nose loudly.
‘The fall of man, and then he fell,’ Devlin said. ‘Perhaps Stevenson was right.’
‘What about?’
‘He called Edinburgh a “precipitous city”. Maybe vertigo is in the nature of the place...’
Rebus thought he knew what Devlin meant. Precipitous city... each and every one of its inhabitants falling slowly, almost imperceptibly...
‘Bloody awful meal it was, too,’ Gates was saying, as though he’d have preferred to lose Conor Leary after a veritable feast. Rebus didn’t doubt Conor would have felt the same.
Outside, Dr Curt was one of the smokers. Rebus joined him.
‘I tried phoning you,’ Curt said, ‘but you were already on your way.’
‘Professor Devlin caught me.’
‘He said as much. I think he sensed some bond between you and Conor.’ Rebus just nodded slowly. ‘He’d been pretty ill, you know,’ Curt continued, in that dry voice that always sounded like dictation. ‘After you’d left us this evening, he talked about you.’
Rebus cleared his throat. ‘What did he say?’
‘He said he sometimes thought of you as a penance.’ Curt flicked ash into the air. A flash of blue lit his face for a moment. ‘He was laughing as he said it.’
‘He was a friend,’ Rebus said. Inwardly he added, and I let him go. So many friendships he’d pushed away, preferring his own company, the chair by the window in the darkened room. He pretended sometimes that he was doing them all a favour. People he’d let get close to him in the past, they had a habit of getting hurt, sometimes even killed. But it wasn’t that. It wasn’t that. He wondered about Jean, and where it might be leading. Was he ready to share himself with someone else? Ready to let her into his secrets, his darkness? He still wasn’t sure. Those conversations with Conor Leary, they’d been like confessionals. He’d probably revealed more of himself to the priest than to anyone before him: wife, daughter, lovers. And now he was gone... up to heaven maybe, though he’d cause havoc there, no doubt about it. He’d be in dispute with the angels, looking for Guinness and a good argument.
‘You okay, John?’ Curt reached out a hand and touched his shoulder.
Rebus shook his head slowly, eyes squeezed shut. Curt didn’t make it out the first time, so Rebus had to repeat what he said next:
‘I don’t believe in heaven.’
That was the horror of it. This life was the only one you got. No redemption afterwards, no chance of wiping the slate clean and starting over.
‘It’s all right,’ Curt was saying, clearly unused to the role of comforter, the hand which touched Rebus’s arm more used to easing human organs from a gaping wound. ‘You’ll be all right.’
‘Will I?’ Rebus said. ‘Then there’s no justice in the world.’
‘You’d know more about that than I would.’
‘Oh, I know all right.’ Rebus took a deep breath, let it out. There was sweat beneath his shirt, the night air chilling him. ‘I’ll be okay,’ he said quietly.
‘Of course you will.’ Curt finished his cigarette and pushed it into the grass with his heel. ‘Like Conor said: despite rumours to the contrary, you’re on the side of the angels.’ He took his hand from Rebus’s arm. ‘Whether you like it or not.’
Donald Devlin came bustling up. ‘Should I order some taxis, do you think?’
Curt looked at him. ‘What does Sandy say?’
Devlin took off his glasses, made a show of wiping them. ‘Told me not to be so “bloody pragmatic”.’ He slipped the glasses on again.
‘I’ve got the car,’ Rebus said.
‘You’re okay to drive?’ Devlin asked.
‘It’s not like I’ve just lost my fucking dad!’ Rebus exploded. Then he started to apologise.
‘An emotional time for all of us,’ Devlin said, waving the apology aside. Then he took his glasses off and started polishing them again, as if the world could never reveal itself too vividly for him.
7
Tuesday at eleven a.m., Siobhan Clarke and Grant Hood started working Victoria Street. They drove up George IV Bridge, forgetting that Victoria Street was one-way. Grant cursed the No Entry sign and rejoined the crawl of traffic heading for the lights at the junction with Lawnmarket.
‘Just park kerbside,’ Siobhan said. He shook his head. ‘Why not?’
‘Traffic’s hopeless as it is. No use making things worse.’
She laughed. ‘Do you always play by the rules, Grant?’
He glanced at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing.’
He didn’t say anything, just flipped on the left-turn signal as they stopped three cars back from the lights. Siobhan couldn’t help but smile. He had the boy-racer car, but it was all a front, behind which sat a polite wee laddie.
‘Going out with anyone just now?’ she asked as the lights changed.
He considered his answer. ‘Not just at the moment,’ he said at last.
‘For a while there, I thought maybe you and Ellen Wylie...’
‘We worked one bloody case together!’ he objected.
‘Okay, okay. It’s just that the pair of you seemed to hit it off.’
‘We got along.’
‘That’s what I mean. So where was the problem?’
His face had reddened. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I just wondered if the difference in rank was maybe a factor. Some men can’t handle it.’
‘Because she’s a DS and I’m a DC?’
‘Yes.’
‘The answer’s no. Never even thought of it.’