Falls

by Ian Rankin

  The churchyard doll had been found in May. He started at the beginning of April. Problem was, Glasgow was a big city, more crime than a place like Perth. He wasn’t sure he’d know if and when he found something. And if it was a missing person, would it even make the paper? Thousands of people disappeared each year. Some of them left without being noticed: the homeless, the ones with no family or friends. This was a country where a corpse could sit in a chair by the fire until the smell alerted the neighbours.

  By the time he’d searched April, he had no reported MisPers, but six deaths, two of them women. One was a stabbing after a party. A man, it was stated, was helping police with their inquiries. Rebus guessed the boyfriend. He was pretty sure that if he read on, he’d find the case coming to court. The second death was a drowning. A stretch of river Rebus had never heard of: White Cart Water, the body found by its banks on the southern border of Rosshall Park. The victim was Hazel Gibbs, aged twenty-two. Her husband had walked out, leaving her with two kids. Friends said she’d been depressed. She’d been seen out drinking the previous day, while the kids fended for themselves.

  Rebus walked outside and got on his mobile, punching in the number for Bobby Hogan at Leith CID.

  ‘Bobby, it’s John. You know a bit about Glasgow, don’t you?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Ever heard of White Cart Water?’

  ‘Can’t say I have.’

  ‘What about Rosshall Park?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Got any contacts out west?’

  ‘I could make a phone call.’

  ‘Do that, will you?’ Rebus repeated the names and ended the call. He smoked a cigarette, staring across at a new pub on the opposite corner. He knew one drink wouldn’t do him any harm. Then he remembered that he was supposed to be seeing the doctor. Hell, it would have to wait. He could always make another appointment. When, at cigarette’s end, Hogan hadn’t called back, Rebus returned to his desk and started going through the editions for May ‘82. When his mobile sounded, the staff and readers gave a look of collective horror. Rebus cursed and put the phone to his ear, getting up from his seat to head outside again.

  ‘It’s me,’ Hogan said.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Rebus whispered, moving towards the exit.

  ‘Rosshall Park’s in Pollok, south-west of the city centre. White Cart Water runs along the top of it.’

  Rebus stopped in his tracks. You sure?’ His voice was no longer a whisper.

  ‘It’s what I’m told.’

  Rebus was back at his desk. The Herald cutting was just below the one from the Courier. He eased it out, just to be sure.

  ‘Thanks, Bobby,’ he said, ending the call. People around him were making exasperated noises, but he didn’t pay them any heed. ‘Church Condemns Sick Joke Find’: the coffin found in the churchyard. The church itself located on Potterhill Road.

  In Pollok.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’d care to explain yourself,’ Gill Templer said. Rebus had driven to Gayfield Square and asked her for five minutes. They were back in the same stale office.

  ‘That’s just what I want to do,’ Rebus told her. He placed a hand to his forehead. His face felt like it was burning.

  'You were supposed to be attending a doctor’s appointment.’

  ‘Something came up. Christ, you’re not going to believe it.’

  She stabbed a finger at the tabloid newspaper open on her desk. ‘Any idea how Steve Holly got hold of this?’

  Rebus turned the paper so it was facing him. Holly couldn’t have had much time, but he’d patched together a story which managed to mention the Arthur’s Seat coffins, a ‘local expert from the Museum of Scotland’, the Falls coffin, and the ‘persistent rumour that more coffins exist’.

  ‘What does he mean, “more coffins”?’ Gill asked.

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you.’ So he told her, laid the whole thing out before her. In the musty, leatherbound sets of Dunfermline Presses and Inverness Couriers he’d found exactly what he’d known and dreaded he would find. In July 1977, a scant week before the Nairn beach coffin had been found, the body of Paula Gearing had been washed ashore four miles further along the coast. Her death could not be explained, and was put down to ‘misadventure’. In October 1972, three weeks before the finding of the coffin in Dunfermline Glen, a teenage girl had been reported missing. Caroline Farmer was a fourth-year student at Dunfermline High. She’d recently been jilted by a long-term boyfriend, and the best guess was that this had led her to leave home. Her family said they wouldn’t rest until they’d heard from her. Rebus doubted they ever had …

  Gill Templer listened to his story without comment. When he’d finished, she looked at the cuttings and the notes he’d taken in the library. Finally, she looked up at him.

  ‘It’s thin, John.’

  Rebus jumped from his seat. He needed to be moving, but the room didn’t have enough space. ‘Gill, it’s … there’s something there.’

  ‘A killer who leaves coffins near the scene?’ She shook her head slowly. ‘I just can’t see it. You’ve got two bodies, no signs of foul play, and two disappearances. Doesn’t exactly make a pattern.’

  ‘Three disappearances including Philippa Balfour.’

  ‘And there’s another thing: the Falls coffin turned up less than a week after she went AWOL. No pattern again.’

  'You think I’m seeing things?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Can I at least follow it through?’

  ‘John … ’

  ‘Just one, maybe two more officers. Give us a few days to see if we can convince you.

  ‘We’re stretched as it is.’

  ‘Stretched doing what? We’re whistling in the dark till she comes back, phones home or turns up dead. Give me two people.’

  She shook her head slowly. You can have one. And three or four days, tops. Understood?’

  Rebus nodded.

  ‘And John? Go see the doctor, or I’m reeling you back in. Understood?’

  ‘Understood. Who will I be working with?’

  Templer was thoughtful. ‘Who do you want?’

  ‘Give me Ellen Wylie.’

  She stared at him. ‘Any particular reason why?’

  He shrugged. ‘She’ll never make it as a TV presenter, but she’s a good cop.’

  Templer was still staring. ‘Okay,’ she said at last. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘And is there any chance you can keep Steve Holly away from us?’

  ‘I can try.’ She tapped the newspaper. ‘I’m assuming the “local expert” is Jean?’ She waited till he’d nodded, then she sighed. ‘I should have known better, bringing the two of you together … ’ She started rubbing at her forehead. It was something the Farmer had done, too, whenever he got what he called his ‘Rebus heads’ …

  'What exactly are we looking for?’ Ellen Wylie asked. She’d been summoned to St Leonard’s, and didn’t look thrilled at the prospect of working a two-hander with Rebus.

  ‘The first thing,’ he told her, ‘is to cover our backsides, and that means checking that the MisPers never turned up.’

  ‘Talking to the families?’ she guessed, writing a note to herself on her pad.

  ‘Right. As for the two bodies, we need to take another look at the PM results, see if there’s anything the pathologists could have missed.’

  ‘Nineteen seventy-seven and eighty-two? You think the records won’t have been ditched?’

  ‘I hope not. In any case, some of those pathologists have long memories.

  She made another note. ‘I’ll ask again: what are we looking for? You think there’s a possibility of proving these women and the coffins are related?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ But he knew what she meant: it was one thing to believe something, quite another to be able to prove it, especially in a court of law.

  ‘It might set my mind at rest,’ he said at last.

  ‘And all of this started with some coffins on Arthur’s Seat?�
�� He nodded, his own enthusiasm making no impact on her scepticism.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘if I’m seeing things, you’ll get your chance to tell me. But first we do a bit of digging.’

  She shrugged, made a show of jotting another note on to her pad. ‘Did you ask for me, or were you given me?’

  ‘I asked.’

  ‘And DCS Templer said okay?’

  Rebus nodded again. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She gave the question serious consideration. ‘Probably not.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Then let’s get started.’

  It took him the best part of two hours to type up everything he had. What he wanted was a ‘bible’ they could work from. He had dates and page references for each of the newspaper stories, and had arranged with the library for copies to be made. Wylie meantime was busy on the phone, begging favours from police stations in Glasgow, Perth, Dunfermline and Nairn. She wanted case notes if any still existed, plus pathologists’ names. Whenever she laughed, Rebus knew what had just been said to her: You don’t ask for bloody much, do you?’ Hammering away at his keyboard, he listened to her work. She knew when to be coy, when to get tough, and when to flirt. Her voice never betrayed the set features of her face as repetition made her weary.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said for the umpteenth time, dropping the receiver into its cradle. She scribbled a note on her pad, checked the time and wrote that down too. She was thorough, all right. ‘A promise is one thing,’ she said more than once.

  ‘It’s better than nothing.’

  ‘As long as they come through.’ Then she lifted the handset again, took another deep breath, and made the next call.

  Rebus was intrigued by the long gaps in the chronology: 1972, 1977, 1982, 1995. Five years, five years, thirteen years. And now, just maybe, another five-year gap. The fives made for a nice pattern, but it was immediately broken by that silence between ‘82 and ‘95. There were all sorts of explanations: the man, whoever he was, could have been away somewhere, maybe in prison. Who was to say the coffins had only been left dotted around Scotland? It might be worth putting out a more general search, see if any other forces had come across the phenomenon. If he’d done a stretch in prison, well, records could be checked. Thirteen years was a long one: had to be murder, most probably.

  There was another possibility, of course: that he hadn’t been anywhere. That he’d gone on with his spree right here, but somehow hadn’t bothered with the coffins, or they hadn’t ever been found. A little wooden box … a dog would chew it to pulp; a kid might take it home; someone might bin it, the better to be rid of the sick joke. Rebus knew that a public appeal would be one way of finding out, but he couldn’t see Templer going for it. She would need convincing first.

  ‘Nothing?’ he asked as Wylie put down the phone.

  ‘No one’s answering. Maybe word’s gone round about the crazy cop from Edinburgh.’

  Rebus crumpled a sheet of paper and tossed it overarm towards the bin. ‘I think maybe we’re getting a bit stir-crazy,’ he said. ‘Let’s take a break.’

  Wylie was heading off to the baker’s for a jam doughnut. Rebus decided he’d just take a walk. The streets around St Leonard’s didn’t offer a great deal of choice. Tenements and housing schemes, or Holyrood Road with its speeding traffic and backdrop of Salisbury Crags. Rebus decided to head into the warren of narrow passages between St Leonard’s and Nicolson Street. He nipped into a newsagent’s and bought a can of Irn-Bru, sipping from it as he walked. They said the stuff was perfect for hangovers, but he was using it to fend off the craving for a proper drink, a pint and a nip, somewhere smoky with the horses on TV … The Southsider was a possibility, but he crossed the road to avoid it. There were kids playing on the pavements, Asians mostly. School was over for the day and here they were with their energy, their imagination. He wondered if maybe his own imagination was putting in some overtime today … It was the final possibility: that he was seeing connections where none existed. He got out his mobile and a scrap of paper with a number on it.

  When the call was answered, he asked to be put through to Jean Burchill.

  ‘Jean?’ He stopped walking. ‘It’s John Rebus. We might have struck gold with your little coffins.’ He listened for a moment. ‘I can’t tell you about it right now.’ He looked around. ‘I’m on my way to a meeting. Are you busy tonight?’ He listened again. ‘That’s a pity. Would you be up for a nightcap?’ He brightened. ‘Ten o’clock? Portobello or in town?’ Another pause. Yes, town makes sense if you’ve been in a meeting. I’ll drive you home after. Ten at the museum then? Okay, bye.’

  He looked around. He was in Hill Square, and there was a sign on the railings nearest him. Now he knew where he was: at the back of Surgeons’ Hall. The anonymous door in front of him was the entrance to something called the Sir Jules Thorn Exhibition of the History of Surgery. He checked his watch against the opening times. He had about ten minutes. What the hell, he thought, pushing the door and going inside.

  He found himself in an ordinary tenement stairwell. Climbing one flight brought him to a narrow landing with two doors facing. They looked like they led to private flats, so he climbed a further flight. As he passed the museum threshold an alarm sounded, alerting a member of staff that there was a new visitor.

  ‘Have you been here before?’ she asked. He shook his head. ‘Well, modern-day is upstairs, and just off to the left is the dental display … ’ He thanked her and she left him to it. There was no one else around, no one Rebus could see. He lasted half a minute in the dentistry room. It didn’t seem to him that the technology had moved so very far in a couple of centuries. The main museum display took up two floors, and was well presented. The exhibits were behind glass, well lit for the most part. He stood in front of an apothecary’s shop, then moved to a full-size dummy of the physician Joseph Lister, examining his list of accomplishments, chief among them the introduction of carbolic spray and sterile catgut. A little further along, he came across the case containing the wallet made from Burke’s skin. It reminded him of a small leatherbound Bible an uncle had gifted him one childhood birthday. Beside it was a plaster cast of Burke’s head—the marks of the hangman’s noose still visible—and one of an accomplice, John Brogan, who had helped transport the corpses. While Burke looked peaceful, hair groomed, face at rest, Brogan looked to have suffered torments, the skin pulled back from his lower jaw, skull bulbous and pink.

  Next along was a portrait of the anatomist Knox, recipient of the still-warm cadavers.

  ‘Poor Knox,’ a voice behind him said. Rebus looked around. An elderly man, dressed in full evening attire—bow-tie, cummerbund and patent shoes. It took Rebus a second to place him: Professor Devlin, Flip’s neighbour. Devlin shuffled forward, staring at the exhibits. ‘There’s been a lot of discussion about how much he knew.’

  'You mean, whether he knew Burke and Hare were killers?’

  Devlin nodded. ‘For myself, I think there’s no doubt he knew. At the time, most bodies worked on by the anatomists were cold indeed. They were brought to Edinburgh from all over Britain—some came by way of the Union Canal. The resurrectionists—body-snatchers—pickled them in whisky for transportation. It was a lucrative trade.’

  ‘But did the whisky get drunk afterwards?’

  Devlin chuckled. ‘Economics would dictate that it did,’ he said. ‘Ironically, both Burke and Hare came to Scotland as economic migrants. Their job was to help build the Union Canal.’ Rebus recalled Jean saying something similar. Devlin paused, tucked a finger into his cummerbund. ‘But poor Knox … the man was possessed of a kind of genius. It was never proven that he was complicit in the murders. But the Church was against him, that was the problem. The human body was a temple, remember. Many of the clergy were against exploration—they saw it as desecration. They raised the rabble against Knox.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘He died of apoplexy, according to the literature. Hare, who had turn
ed King’s evidence, had to flee Scotland. Even then he wasn’t safe. He was attacked with lime, and ended his days blind and begging on the streets of London. I believe there’s a pub called the Blind Beggar somewhere in London, but whether it has any connection …'

  ‘Sixteen murders,’ Rebus said, ‘in an area as confined as the West Port.’

  ‘We can’t imagine it happening these days, can we?’

  ‘But these days we’ve got forensics, pathology …'

  Devlin unhooked the finger from his cummerbund and wagged it before him. ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘And we’d have had no pathological studies at all had it not been for the resurrectionists and the likes of Messrs Burke and Hare!’

  ‘Is that why you’re here? Paying homage?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Devlin said. Then he checked his watch. ‘There’s a dinner upstairs at seven. I thought I’d arrive early and spend some time amongst the exhibits.’

  Rebus recalled the invitation on Devlin’s mantelpiece: black tie and decorations …

  ‘I’m sorry, Professor Devhn,’ the curator called. ‘It’s time I was locking up.

  ‘That’s okay, Maggie,’ Devlin called back. Then, to Rebus: ‘Would you like to see the rest of the place?’

  Rebus thought of Ellen Wylie, probably back at her desk by now. ‘I should really …'

  ‘Come on, come on,’ Devlin insisted. You can’t visit Surgeons’ Hall and miss out on the Black Museum …

  The curator had to let them through a couple of locked doors, after which they entered the main body of the building. The corridors were hushed and lined with portraits of medical men. Devlin pointed out the library, then stopped in a marble-floored circular hall, pointing upwards. ‘That’s where we’ll be eating. Lots of Profs and Docs all dressed to the nines and feasting on rubber chicken.’

  Rebus looked up. The ceiling was topped with a glass cupola. There was a circular railing on the first floor, with a doorway just visible beyond. ‘What’s the occasion?’