The Falls (42 page)

‘I’ve heard of you,’ Siobhan admitted. ‘Don’t they call you “Brains”?’

‘Sometimes, but to be honest I prefer Eric.’

‘Eric it is. Make yourself comfortable.’

Bain pulled over a chair. As he sat, the material of his light blue shirt stretched, opening gaps between buttons at the front, exposing areas of pale pink skin.

‘So,’ he said, ‘what have we got?’

Siobhan explained, while Bain gave her his full concentration, his eyes fixed on hers. She noticed that his breath came in small wheezes, and wondered if there was an inhaler in one of his pockets.

She tried for eye contact, tried to relax, but his size and proximity made her uncomfortable. His fingers were pudgy and ringless. His watch had too many buttons on it. There was hair below his chin which the morning’s razor had failed to find.

He didn’t ask a single question throughout her speech. At the end, he asked to see the e-mails.

‘Onscreen, or printed out?’

‘Either will do.’

She took the sheets from her shoulder-bag. Bain moved his chair even closer so he could spread them out on the desk. He made a chronological line, working from the dates at the top of each one.

‘These are just the clues,’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘I want all the e-mails.’

So Siobhan booted up the laptop, connecting her mobile while she was at it. ‘Shall I check for new messages?’

‘Why not?’ he asked.

There were two from Quizmaster.

Game time is elapsing. Do you wish to continue, Seeker?

An hour later, this had been followed by:

Communication or cessation?

‘Knows her vocab, doesn’t she?’ Bain stated. Siobhan looked at him. ‘You keep saying “he”,’ he explained. ‘Thought it might help us keep an open mind if I …’

‘Fine,’ she said, nodding. ‘Whatever.’

‘Do you want to reply?’

She started to shake her head, then changed it to a shrug. ‘I’m not sure what I want to say.’

‘Be easier to trace her if she doesn’t shut down.’

She looked at Bain, then typed a reply –
Thinking about it
– and hit ‘send’. ‘Reckon that’ll do?’ she asked.

‘Well, it definitely ranks as “communication”.’ Bain smiled. ‘Now let me have those other messages.’

She hooked up to a printer, only to find there was no paper. ‘Hell,’ she hissed. The store cupboard was locked and she’d no idea where the key was. Then she remembered Rebus’s file, the one he’d taken with him when they’d interviewed Albie the medical student. He’d made it look intimidatingly thick by padding it with sheets from the photocopier. Siobhan walked to Rebus’s desk, started opening drawers. Bingo: the file was there, the half-ream still tucked inside. Two minutes later she had the history of Quizmaster’s correspondence. Bain shuffled the sheets so that everything could fit on her desktop, covering it almost completely.

‘See all this stuff ?’ he asked, pointing to the bottom halves of some of the pages. ‘You probably never look at it, do you?’

Siobhan had to admit as much. Beneath the word ‘Headers’ lay more than a dozen lines of extra material: Return-Path, Message-ID, X-Mailer … It didn’t mean much to her.

‘This,’ Bain said, drawing his lips into his mouth to moisten them, ‘is the juicy stuff.’

‘Can we identify Quizmaster from it?’

‘Not straight away, but it’s a start.’

‘How come some of the messages don’t have headers?’ Siobhan asked.

‘That,’ Bain said, ‘is the bad news. If a message has no headers, it means the sender is using the same ISP you are.’

‘But …’

Bain was nodding. ‘Quizmaster has more than one account.’

‘He’s switching ISPs?’

‘It’s not uncommon. I have a friend who’s averse to paying for Internet access. Before the freeserves came along, he’d sign up with a different ISP every month. That way he took advantage of all those “first month free” deals. When time was up, he cancelled and went looking elsewhere. One whole year, he didn’t pay a penny. What Quizmaster is doing is an extension of that.’ Bain ran his finger down each list of headers, stopping at the fourth line. ‘These tell you his ISP. See? Three different providers.’

‘Making him harder to catch?’

‘Harder, yes. But he must have set up a …’ He noticed the look on Siobhan’s face. ‘What?’ he asked.

‘You said “he”.’

‘Did I?’

‘Would it be simpler if we stuck to that, do you think? Not that I don’t appreciate your idea of keeping an open mind.’

Bain thought about it. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘So, as I was saying, he – or
she
– must have set up a payment account with each one. At least, I’d think so. Even if you’re on a month’s free trial, they’ll usually ask for some details first, including a Visa card or bank account.’

‘So they can start charging you when the time comes?’

Bain nodded. ‘Everyone leaves traces,’ he said quietly, staring at the sheets. ‘They just don’t think they do.’

‘It’s like forensics, isn’t it? A hair, a fleck of skin …’

‘Exactly.’ Bain was smiling again.

‘So we need to talk to the service providers, get them to hand over his details?’

‘If they’ll talk to us.’

‘This is a murder inquiry,’ Siobhan said. ‘They’ll have to.’

He glanced in her direction. ‘There are channels, Siobhan.’

‘Channels?’

‘There’s a Special Branch unit deals with nothing but high-tech crime. They concentrate on hard-core mostly, track down the buyers of kiddie porn, that kind of stuff. You wouldn’t believe the stories: hard disks hidden inside other hard disks, screen-savers which hide pornographic images …’

‘We need their permission?’

Bain shook his head. ‘We need their
help
.’ He checked his watch. ‘And it’s too late tonight to do anything about it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s Friday night in London too.’ He looked at her. ‘Buy you a drink?’

She wasn’t going to say yes: lots of excuses ready to use. But somehow she couldn’t say no, and they found themselves across the road in The Maltings. Again, he placed his briefcase on the floor next to him as they stood at the bar.

‘What do you keep in there?’ she asked.

‘What do you think?’

She shrugged. ‘Laptop, mobile phone … gadgets and floppies … I don’t know.’

‘That’s what you’re supposed to think.’ He hefted the briefcase on to the bar and was about to snap it open, but then paused and shook his head. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Maybe when we know one another a bit better.’ He placed it back beside his feet.

‘Keeping secrets from me?’ Siobhan said. ‘That’s a fine start to a working relationship.’

They both smiled as their drinks arrived: bottled lager for her, a pint of beer for him. There were no free tables.

‘So what’s St Leonard’s like?’ Bain asked.

‘Much the same as any other station, I suppose.’

‘It’s not every station has a John Rebus in it.’

She looked at him. ‘How do you mean?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s something Claverhouse said, about you being Rebus’s apprentice.’

‘Apprentice!’ Even with the stereo blaring, her outburst had heads turning towards them. ‘Bloody cheek!’

‘Easy, easy,’ Bain said. ‘It’s just something Claverhouse said.’

‘Then you tell Claverhouse to stick his head up his arse.’

Bain started laughing.

‘I’m not joking,’ she said. But then she started laughing too.

After two more drinks, Bain said he felt peckish and what about seeing if Howie’s had a table. She wasn’t about to say yes – didn’t really feel that hungry after the lager – but somehow she found herself unable to say no.

Jean Burchill was working late at the Museum. Ever since Professor Devlin had mentioned Dr Kennet Lovell, Jean had been intrigued. She’d decided to do some investigating of her own, to see if the pathologist’s theory could be substantiated. She knew that she could take a short cut by talking to Devlin himself, but something stopped her. She imagined she could still smell formaldehyde on his skin and feel the cold touch of dead flesh when he took her hand. History only brought her in contact with the long-dead, and then usually as mere references in books or artefacts discovered during digs. When her husband had died, his pathology report had made for grim reading, yet whoever had written it had done so with relish, lingering on the liver abnormalities, its swollen and overtaxed nature. ‘Overtaxed’ was the very word the writer had used. Easy enough, she supposed, to diagnose alcoholism after death.

She thought of John Rebus’s drinking. It didn’t seem to her to resemble Bill’s. Bill would toy with his breakfast, then head out to the garage where he kept a bottle hidden. A couple under his belt before getting into the car. She kept finding evidence: empty bourbon bottles in the cellar, and at the back of the topmost shelf of his closet. She never said anything. Bill went on being ‘the life and soul’, ‘steady and reliable’, ‘a fun guy’, right up until the illness stopped him working, sending him to a hospital bed instead.

She didn’t think Rebus was a secret drinker in that way. He just liked to drink. If he did it alone, that was because he didn’t have many friends. She’d asked Bill once why he drank, and he hadn’t been able to answer her. She thought probably John Rebus had answers, though he would be reluctant to give them. They’d be to do with washing away the world, scouring his mind of the problems and questions he kept stored there.

None of which would make him a more attractive drunk than Bill had been, but then so far she hadn’t seen Rebus drunk. She got the feeling he’d be a sleeper: however many drinks it took, and then crashing into unconsciousness wherever he happened to be.

When her phone rang, she was slow to pick it up.

‘Jean?’ It was Rebus’s voice.

‘Hello, John.’

‘Thought you’d have left by now.’

‘I’m working late.’

‘I was just wondering if you …’

‘Not tonight, John. I’ve a lot I want to get done.’ She pinched the bridge of her nose.

‘Fair enough.’ He couldn’t hide the disappointment in his voice.

‘What about this weekend: any plans?’

‘Well, that was something I wanted to tell you …’

‘What?’

‘Lou Reed at the Playhouse tomorrow night. I’ve got two tickets.’

‘Lou Reed?’

‘He could be great, could be mince. Only one way to find out.’

‘I haven’t listened to him in years.’

‘Don’t suppose he’s learned how to sing in the interim.’

‘No, probably not. All right then, let’s do it.’

‘Where shall we meet?’

‘I’ve some shopping to do in the morning … how about lunch?’

‘Great.’

‘If you’ve nothing else on, we could make a weekend of it.’

‘I’d like that.’

‘Me too. I’m shopping in town … wonder if we can get a table at Café St Honore?’

‘Is that just along from the Oxford Bar?’

‘Yes,’ she said, smiling. She thought of Edinburgh in terms of restaurants, Rebus pubs.

‘I’ll phone and book.’

‘Make it one o’clock. If they can’t fit us in, call me back.’

‘They’ll fit us in. The chef’s a regular at the Ox.’

She asked him how the case was progressing. He was reticent, until he remembered something.

‘You know Professor Devlin’s anatomist?’

‘Who? Kennet Lovell?’

‘That’s the one. I had to interview a medical student, friend of Philippa’s. Turns out she’s a descendant.’

‘Really?’ Jean tried not to sound too intrigued. ‘Same name?’

‘No: Claire Benzie. She’s related on her mother’s side.’

They chatted for another couple of minutes. When Jean put the phone down, she looked around her. Her ‘office’ was a small cubicle with desk and chair, filing cabinet and bookshelves. She’d stuck some postcards on the back of the door, including one from the Museum shop: the Arthur’s Seat coffins. Secretarial and support staff shared a larger outer office just outside her door, but they’d all gone home. There would be cleaners busy elsewhere in the building, and a security guard doing the rounds. She’d wandered all through the Museum at night, never in the least spooked by it. Even the old museum, with its displays of stuffed animals, calmed her. Friday night, she knew the restaurant at the top of the Museum would be busy. It had its own lift, and someone on the door to make sure diners headed straight for it and didn’t wander into the Museum instead.

She remembered her first meeting with Siobhan, the story of the ‘bad experience’. Couldn’t have had anything to do with the food, though the bill at the end could sometimes come as a shock. She wondered if she’d treat herself later. The price of a meal went down after ten p.m.; maybe they could squeeze her in. She touched her stomach. Lunch tomorrow … it wouldn’t hurt her to skip dinner tonight. Besides, she wasn’t sure she’d still be here at ten. Her investigation into the life of Kennet Lovell hadn’t thrown up a surfeit of information.

Kennet: she’d first thought the name a misprint, but it kept recurring. Kennet, not Kenneth. Born 1807, in Coylton, Ayrshire, making him just twenty-one at the time of Burke’s execution. His parents were farming folk, his father having employed Robert Burns’s father for a time. Kennet was given an education locally, helped by the local church minister, the Reverend Kirkpatrick …

There was a kettle in the outer office. She got up, walked out of her room. Left the door open, so her shadow stretched across the floor. She didn’t bother with the lights. Switched the kettle on and rinsed a mug under the tap. Tea-bag, powdered milk. She stood in the semi-dark, leaning against the worktop, arms folded. Through the doorway, she could see her desk and the photocopied sheets, all she’d been able to find so far on Dr Kennet Lovell, who’d assisted at a murderer’s autopsy, helped flay William Burke’s skin from his bones. The initial post-mortem examination had been undertaken by Dr Monro, in the presence of a select audience including a phrenologist and a sculptor, as well as the philosopher Sir William Hamilton and the surgeon Robert Liston. This was followed by a public dissection in the university’s packed anatomical theatre, noisy medical students gathered around like so many vultures, hungry for knowledge, while those without tickets hammered at the doors for entry and fought with police.