‘Deer Hill, Stag’s Brae, Doe Bank...’
Siobhan nodded. ‘You’re assuming “sounds dear” means “d-e-e-r”?’
Hood took a sip of wine. ‘I’m assuming a lot. But it’s better than nothing.’
‘And it couldn’t wait till morning?’
‘Not when Quizmaster suddenly decides we’re against the clock.’ Hood picked up the first map-book and flicked to the index.
Siobhan studied him over the top of her glass. Yes, she was thinking, but you didn’t know there was a time element until you got here. She was also still shaken by the way he’d e-mailed her by phone. She wondered just how mobile Quizmaster was. She’d given him her name, and the city where she worked. These days, how hard would it be for him to get an address? Five minutes on the Net would probably do it.
Hood didn’t seem to notice that she was still staring at him. Maybe he’s closer than you think, girl, Siobhan thought to herself.
After half an hour, she put on some music, a Mogwai EP, about as laid-back as the band ever got. She asked Hood if he wanted coffee. He was sitting on the floor, back against the sofa, legs stretched out. He had spread an Ordnance Survey map across his thighs and was studying one of the squares. He looked up at her and blinked, as though the lighting in the room was new to him.
‘Cheers,’ he said.
When she came back with the mugs, she told him about Ranald Marr. The look on his face changed to a scowl.
‘Keeping it a secret, were you?’
‘I thought it could wait till morning.’ Her answer didn’t seem to satisfy him, and he took his coffee from her with only a grunt of thanks. Siobhan could feel her anger rising again. This was her place, her home. What was he doing here anyway? Work was for the office, not her living room. How come he didn’t phone and tell her to go to his place? The more she thought about it, the more she realised that she really didn’t know Grant at all. She’d worked with him before; they’d been to parties, gone out drinking and for that one meal. She didn’t think he’d ever had a girlfriend. At St Leonard’s a few of the CID called him Go-Go Gadget, a reference to some TV cartoon. He was both a useful officer and a figure of amusement at the same time.
He wasn’t like her. He was nothing like her at all. And yet here she was sharing her free time with him. Here she was letting him turn that free time into yet more work.
She picked up another of the map books, Handy Road Atlas Scotland. The first page, square B4 was the Isle of Man. This really annoyed her for some reason: the Isle of Man wasn’t even in Scotland! The next page, B4 was in the Yorkshire Dales.
‘Bloody hell,’ she said out loud.
‘What is it?’
‘This map, it’s like Bonnie Prince Charlie won the war.’ She flipped to the next page, where B4 was the Mull of Kintyre, but the page after that her eyes fixed on the words ‘Loch Fell’. She studied the square more closely: the M74 motorway and the town of Moffat. She knew Moffat: a picture-postcard place with at least one good hotel, where she’d stopped once for lunch. At the top of square B4 she saw a small triangle, indicating a peak. The peak was called Hart Fell. It was eight hundred and eight metres high. She looked at Hood.
‘A hart’s a kind of deer, isn’t it?’
He got up off the floor, came and sat next to her. ‘Harts and hinds,’ he said. ‘The hart is the male.’
‘Why not a stag?’
‘Harts are older, I think.’ He studied the map, his shoulder touching Siobhan’s arm. She tried not to flinch, but it was hard work. ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘it’s the middle of nowhere.’
‘Maybe it’s coincidence,’ she suggested.
He nodded, but she could see he was convinced. ‘Square B4,’ he said. ‘A fell is another name for a law. A hart is a kind of deer...’ He looked at her and shook his head. ‘No coincidence.’
Siobhan switched her TV on and pressed for Teletext.
‘What are you doing?’ Hood asked.
‘Checking the weather for tomorrow. No way I’m climbing Hart Fell in a gale.’
Rebus had dropped into St Leonard’s, gathered together the notes on the four cases: Glasgow, Dunfermline, Perth and Nairn.
‘All right, sir?’ one of the uniforms had asked.
‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
He’d had a few drinks, so what? Didn’t make him incapable. The taxi was waiting for him outside. Five minutes later, he was climbing the stairs to his flat. Another five after that, he was smoking a cigarette, drinking tea, and opening the first file. He sat in his chair by the window, his little oasis in the midst of chaos. He could hear a siren in the distance; sounded like an ambulance, hurtling along Melville Drive. He had photos of the four victims, culled from newspapers. They smiled at him in black and white. The snatch of poetry came back to him, and he knew all four shared the same characteristic.
They’d died because they’d been available.
He started pinning the photos to a large corkboard. He had a postcard, too, bought from the museum shop: three of the Arthur’s Seat coffins in close-up, surrounded by darkness. He turned the postcard over and read: ‘Carved wooden figures, with fabric clothing, in miniature coffins of pine, from a group found in a rocky niche on the north-eastern slopes of Arthur’s Seat, in June 1836.’ It struck him that the police of the time had probably been involved, which meant there might be paperwork somewhere. Then again, just how organised had the force been back then? He doubted there’d been anything like the modern CID. Probably they’d resorted to examining victims’ eyeballs, looking for images of the murderer. Not too far removed from the witchcraft which was one theory behind the dolls. Had witches ever plied their trade on Arthur’s Seat? These days, he suspected they’d get some sort of Enterprise Initiative.
He got up and put some music on. Dr John, The Night Tripper. Then back to the table, a fresh cigarette lit from the stub of the old. The smoke stung his eyes, and he squeezed them shut. When he opened them again, his vision was slow to focus. It was as if the photos of the four women were lying behind a layer of muslin. He blinked a couple of times, shook his head, trying to stave off weariness.
When he awoke a couple of hours later, he was still seated at the table, head resting on his arms. The photos were still there, too, restless faces which had invaded his dreams.
‘I wish I could help,’ he told them, getting up to go to the kitchen. He returned with a mug of tea, which he took over to the chair by the window. Here he was, getting through another night. So how come he didn’t feel like celebrating?
8
Rebus and Jean Burchill were walking on Arthur’s Seat. It was a bright morning, but there was a cold breeze blowing. Some people said Arthur’s Seat looked like a lion about to spring. But to Rebus’s mind it more resembled an elephant or mammoth, with a great bulbous head, a dip towards the neck, and an expanse of torso.
‘It started life as a volcano,’ Jean was explaining, ‘same as Castle Rock. Later on there were farms and quarries, plus chapels.’
‘People used to come here for sanctuary, didn’t they?’ Rebus said, keen to show off what knowledge he had.
She nodded. ‘Debtors were banished here until they’d got their affairs in order. A lot of people think it’s named after King Arthur.’
‘You mean it isn’t?’
She shook her head. ‘More likely it’s Gaelic: Ard-na-Said, “Height of the Sorrows”.’
‘That’s a cheery name.’
She smiled. ‘The park’s full of them: Pulpit Rock, Powderhouse Corner.’ She looked at him. ‘Or how about Murder Acre and Hangman’s Crag?’