As she cleared the weeds, she found that Lovell had married no fewer than three times, and that each wife had passed away before him. No evidence of any children... she wondered if the offspring might be buried elsewhere. Maybe there were no children. But then hadn’t John said something about a descendant...? As she examined the dates, she saw that the wives had died young, and another thought crossed her mind: they’d died in childbirth, perhaps.
His first wife: Beatrice, née Alexander. Aged twenty-nine.
His second wife: Alice, née Baxter. Aged thirty-three.
His third wife: Patricia, née Addison. Aged twenty-six.
An inscription read: Passed over, to be met again so sweetly in the Lord’s domain.
Jean couldn’t help thinking that it must have been some meeting, Lovell and his three wives. She had a pen in her pocket, but no notepad or paper. She looked around the cemetery, found an old envelope, torn in half. She brushed dirt and dust from it and jotted down the details.
Siobhan was back at her desk, trying to form anagrams from the letters in ‘Camus’ and ‘ME Smith’, when Eric Bain came into the office.
‘All right?’ he asked.
‘I’ll survive.’
‘That good, eh?’ He placed his briefcase on the floor, straightened up and looked around. ‘Special Branch get back to us yet?’
‘Not that I know of.’ She was scoring out letters with her pen. The M and E had no space between them. Did Quizmaster mean them to be read as ‘me’? Was he saying his name was Smith? ME was also a medical condition. She couldn’t recall what the letters stood for... remembered it being called ‘yuppie flu’ in the newspapers. Bain had walked over to the fax machine, picked up some sheets and sifted through them.
‘Ever think to check?’ he said, sliding two sheets out and putting the rest back next to the machine.
Siobhan looked up. ‘What is it?’
He was reading as he approached. ‘Bloody marvellous,’ he gasped. ‘Don’t ask me how they did it, but they did it.’
‘What?’
‘They’ve traced one of the accounts already.’
Siobhan’s chair fell back as she got to her feet, hands grabbing at the fax. As Bain relinquished it, he asked her a simple question.
‘Who’s Claire Benzie?’
‘You’re not in custody, Claire,’ Siobhan said, ‘and if you want a solicitor, that’s up to you. But I’d like your permission to make a tape recording.’
‘Sounds serious,’ Claire Benzie said. They’d picked her up at her flat in Bruntsfield, driven her to St Leonard’s. She’d been compliant, not asking questions. She was wearing jeans and a pale pink turtleneck. Her face looked scrubbed, no make-up. She sat in the interview room with arms folded while Bain fed tapes into both recording machines.
‘There’ll be a copy for you, and one for us,’ Siobhan was saying. ‘Okay?’
Benzie just shrugged.
Bain said ‘okey-dokey’ and set both tapes running, then eased himself into the chair next to Siobhan. Siobhan identified herself and Bain for the record, adding time and place of interview.
‘If you could state your full name, Claire,’ she asked.
Claire Benzie did so, adding her Bruntsfield address. Siobhan sat back for a moment, composing herself, then leaned forward again so her elbows were resting on the edge of the narrow desk.
‘Claire, do you remember when I spoke to you earlier? I was with a colleague, in Dr Curt’s office?’
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘I was asking you if you knew anything about the game Philippa Balfour had been playing?’
‘It’s her funeral tomorrow.’
Siobhan nodded. ‘Do you remember?’
‘Seven fins high is king,’ Benzie said. ‘I told you about it.’
‘That’s right. You said Philippa had come up to you at a bar...’
‘Yes.’
‘... and explained it to you.’
‘Yes.’
‘But you didn’t know anything about the game itself?’
‘No. I hadn’t a clue till you told me.’
Siobhan sat back again, folded her own arms so that she was almost a mirror-image of Benzie. ‘Then how come whoever was sending Flip those messages was using your Internet account?’
Benzie stared at her. Siobhan stared back. Eric Bain scratched his nose with his thumb.
‘I want a solicitor,’ Benzie said.
Siobhan nodded slowly. ‘Interview ends, three-twelve p.m.’ Bain switched off the tapes and Siobhan asked if Claire had anyone in mind.
‘The family solicitor, I suppose,’ the student said.
‘And who’s that?’
‘My father.’ When she saw the puzzled look on Siobhan’s face, the corners of Benzie’s mouth curled upwards. ‘I mean my stepfather, DC Clarke. Don’t worry, I’m not about to summon ghosts to fight my corner...’
News had travelled, and there was a scrum in the corridor when Siobhan came out of the interview room, just as the summoned WPC was going in. Whispered questions flew.
‘Well?’
‘Did she do it?’
‘What’s she saying?’
‘Is it her?’
Siobhan ignored everyone except Gill Templer. ‘She wants a solicitor, and as chance would have it there’s one in her family.’
‘That’s handy.’
Siobhan nodded and squeezed her way into the CID office, unplugging the first free phone she came to.
‘She also wants a soft drink, Diet Pepsi for preference.’
Templer looked around, eyes fixing on George Silvers. ‘Hear that, George?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Silvers seemed reluctant to leave, until Gill shooed him out with her hands.
‘So?’ Gill was now blocking Siobhan’s path.
‘So,’ Siobhan said, ‘she’s got some explaining to do. It doesn’t make her the killer.’
‘Be nice if she was though,’ someone said.
Siobhan was remembering what Rebus had said about Claire Benzie. She met Gill Templer’s gaze. ‘Two or three years from now,’ she said, ‘if she sticks with pathology, we could end up working side by side with her. I don’t think we can afford to be heavy-handed.’ She wasn’t sure if she was copying Rebus’s words verbatim, but she knew she was pretty close. Templer was looking at her appraisingly, nodding slowly.
‘DC Clarke’s got a very good point,’ she told the surrounding faces. Then she moved aside to let Siobhan past, murmuring something like ‘Well done, Siobhan’ as they were shoulder to shoulder.
Back in the interview room, Siobhan plugged the telephone into the wall and told Claire it was 9 for an outside line.
‘I didn’t kill her,’ the student said with quiet confidence.
‘Then everything’s going to be okay. We just need to find out what happened.’
Claire nodded, picked up the receiver. Siobhan gestured to Bain, and they left the room together, the WPC taking over the watch.