The Hanging Garden

Over the marble fireplace was a large gilt-framed mirror. Rebus studied himself in it. Behind him he could see the room. He knew he didn't fit here.

One bedroom was for guests, the other was Lintz's. A faint smell of embrocation, half a dozen medicine bottles on the bedside table. Books, too, a pile of them. The bed had been made, a dressing-gown draped across it. Lintz was a creature of habit; he'd been in no special hurry this morning.

The next floor up, Rebus found two further bedrooms and a toilet. There was a slight smell of damp in one room, and the ceiling was discoloured. Rebus didn't suppose Lintz got many visitors; no impetus to redecorate. Out on the landing again, he saw that one of the stair-rails was missing. It had been propped against the wall, awaiting repair. A house this size, things would always be going wrong.

He went back downstairs. Hogan was in the basement. The kitchen had a door on to a back garden – stone patio, lawn covered in rotting leaves, an ivy-covered wall giving privacy.

`Look what I found,' Hogan said, coming back from the utility room. He was holding a length of rope, frayed at one end where it had been cut.

`You think it'll match with the noose? That would mean the killer got it from here.’

`Meaning Lintz knew them.’

`Anything in the office?’

`It's going to take a bit of time. There's an address book, lots of entries, but most of them seem to go back a while.’

`How can you tell?’

`Old STD codes.’

`Computer?’

`Not even a typewriter. He used carbons. Lots of letters to his solicitor.’

`Trying to shut the media up?’

`You get a couple of mentions, too. Anything upstairs?’

`Go take a look. I'll check the office.’

Rebus climbed upstairs and stood in the office doorway, looking around. Then he sat down at the desk and imagined the room was his. What did he do here? He conducted his daily business. There were two filing-cabinets, but to get to them he'd have to stand up from the desk. And he was an old man. Say the cabinets were for dead correspondence. More recent stuff would be closer to hand.

He tried the drawers. Found the address book Hogan had mentioned. A few letters. A small snuff-box, its contents turned solid. Lintz hadn't even allowed himself that small vice. In a bottom drawer were some files. Rebus lifted out the one marked `General/ Household'. It comprised bills and guarantees. A large brown envelope was marked BT. Rebus opened it and took out the phone bills. They went back to the begi

But Rebus was damned if he could find it.

Lintz's correspondence was all business, either to lawyers or else to do with local charities and committees. He'd been resigning from his committees. Rebus wondered if pressure had been applied. Edinburgh could be cruel and cold that way.

`Well?’

Hogan said, sticking his head round the door.

`I'm just wondering…’

`What?’

`Whether to add on a conservatory and knock through from the kitchen.’

`We'd lose some garden space,' Hogan said. He came in, rested against the desk. `Anything?’

`A missing phone bill, and a sudden change from being itemised.’

`Worth a call,' Hogan admitted. `I found a chequebook in his bedroom. Stubs show payments of £60 a month to E. Forgan.’

`Where in the bedroom?’

`Marking his place in a book.’

Hogan reached into the desk's top drawer, lifted out the address book.

Rebus got up. `Pretty rich street this. Wonder how many of them do their own dusting.’

Hogan shut the book. `No listing for an E. Forgan. Think the neighbours will know?’

`Edinburgh neighbours know everything. It's just that they most often keep it to themselves.’

Hogan was nodding. `And remember to get me copies of your files. Are you busy otherwise?’

`Bobby, if time was money, I'd be in hock to every lender in town.’

16

Joseph Lintz's neighbours: an artist and her husband on one side; a retired advocate and his wife on the other. The artist used a Ccleaning lady called Ella Forgan. Mrs Forgan lived in East Claremont Street. The artist gave them a telephone number.

Conclusions drawn from the two interviews: shock and horror that Lintz was dead; praise for the quiet, considerate neighbour. A Christmas card every year, and an invitation to drinks one Sunday afternoon each July. Hard to tell when he'd been at home and when he'd been out. He went off on holiday without telling anyone except Mrs Forgan. Visitors to his home had been few – or few had been noticed, which wasn't quite the same thing.

'Men? Women?’

Rebus had asked. `Or a mixture?’

`A mixture, I'd say,' the artist had replied, measuring her words. `Really, we knew very little about him, to say we've been neighbours these past twenty-odd years…’

Ah, and that was Edinburgh for you, too, at least in this price bracket. Wealth was a very private thing in the city. It wasn't brash and colourful. It stayed behind its thick stone walls and was at peace.

Rebus and Hogan held a doorstep conference.

`I'll call the cleaning lady, see if I can meet her, preferably here.’

Hogan looked back at Lintz's front door.

`I'd love to know where he got the money to buy this place,' Rebus said.

`That could take some excavating.’

Rebus nodded. `Solicitor would be the place to start. What about the address book? Worth tracking down some of these elusive friends?’

`I suppose so.’

Hogan looked dispirited at the prospect.

`I'll follow up on the phone bills,' Rebus said. `If that'll help.’

Mae Crumley reached Rebus on his mobile.

`I thought you'd forgotten me,' he told Sammy's boss.

`Just being methodical, Inspector. I'm sure you'd want no less.’

Rebus stopped at traffic lights. `I've been in to see Sammy. Is there any news?’

`Nothing much. So you've talked to her clients?’

`Yes, and they all seemed genuinely upset and surprised. Sorry to disappoint you.’

`What makes you think I'm disappointed?’

'Sammy has a good rapport with all her clients. None of them would have wanted her hurt.’

`What about the ones who didn't want to be her clients?’

Crumley hesitated. `There was one man… When he was told Sammy had a police inspector for a father, he'd have nothing to do with her.’

`What's his name?’

`It couldn't have been him though.’

`Why not?’

`Because he killed himself. His name was Gavin Tay. He used to drive an ice-cream van…’

Rebus thanked her for her call, and put down the phone. If someone had tried to kill Sammy on purpose, the question was: why? Rebus had been investigating Lintz; Ned Farlowe had been following him. Rebus had twice confronted Telford; Ned was writing a book about organised crime. Then there was Candice… Could she have told Sammy something, something which might have threatened Telford, or even Mr Pink Eyes? Rebus just didn't know. He knew the most likely culprit – the most vicious – was Tommy Telford. He remembered their first meeting, and the young gangster's words to him: That's the beauty of games. You can always start again after an accident. Not so easy in real life. At the time it had sounded like bravado, a performance for the troops. But now it sounded like a plain threat.