Set in Darkness by Ian Rankin Read Free Book Online

are like a leaky sieve, especially when there’s a drink in it for them and one or more MPs is involved.’
    ‘They’d talk to the media?’
    ‘Bingo.’
    ‘I still don’t see . . .’
    ‘The papers would be all over it, and all over me.’ Cammo waited for his words to sink in. ‘Wouldn’t have a life to call my own.’
    ‘But death threats . . .’
    ‘A crank.’ Cammo sniffed. ‘Not worth mentioning really, except as a warning. My fate could be yours some day, baby bro.’
    ‘If I get elected.’ That shy smile again, the shyness masking a real appetite for the fight.
    ‘If ne’er won fair maiden,’ Cammo said. Then he shrugged. ‘Something like that anyway.’ He looked ahead. ‘Mother’s fairly shifting, isn’t she?’
    Alicia Grieve had been born Alicia Rankeillor, and it was under this name that she’d found fame – and a certain fortune – as a painter. The particular nature of Edinburgh light had been her subject. Her best-known painting – duplicated on greetings cards, prints and jigsaws – showed a series of jagged beams breaking through a carapace of cloud to pick out the Castle and the Lawnmarket beyond. Allan Grieve, though only a few years her elder, had been her tutor at the School of Art. They’d married young, but hadn’t become parents until their careers were well established. Alicia had the sneaking feeling that Allan had always resented her success. He was a great teacher, but lacked the spark of genius as an artist himself. She’d once told him that his paintings were too accurate, that art needed a measure of artifice. He’d squeezed her hand but said nothing until just before his death, when he’d thrown her words back at her.
    ‘You killed me that day, snuffed out any hope I might have still had.’ She’d started to protest but he’d hushed her. ‘You did me a good turn, you were right. I lacked the vision.’
    Sometimes Alicia wished that she’d lacked the vision,too. Not that it would have made her a better, more loving mother. But it might have made her a more generous wife, a more pleasing lover.
    Now she lived alone in the huge house in Ravelston, surrounded by the paintings of others – including a dozen of Allan’s, smartly framed – and a short walk from the Gallery of Modern Art, where they’d recently held a retrospective of her work. She had contrived an illness to excuse her from attending, then had gone in secret one day, only minutes past opening time when the place was dead, and had been shocked to find that thematic order had been placed on her work, an order she didn’t recognise.
    ‘They found a body, you know,’ Hugh Cordover was saying.
    ‘Hugh!’ Cammo piped up with mock cordiality. ‘You’re back with us!’
    ‘A body?’ Lorna asked.
    ‘It was on the news.’
    ‘I heard it was a skeleton actually,’ Seona said.
    ‘Found where?’ Alicia asked, pausing to take in the skyline of Salisbury Crags.
    ‘Hidden in a wall in Queensberry House.’ Seona pointed to the location. They were standing in front of its gates. They all stared at the building. ‘It used to be a hospital.’
    ‘Probably some poor old sod from the waiting list,’ Hugh Cordover said, but no one was listening.

4
    ‘Who do you think you are?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘You heard me.’ Jayne Lister threw a cushion at her husband’s head. ‘Those dishes have been sitting since last night.’ Her head motioned towards the kitchen. ‘You said you were going to do them.’
    ‘I
am
going to do them!’
    ‘When?’
    ‘It’s Sunday, day of rest.’ He was trying to make a joke of it; didn’t want his whole day ruined.
    ‘The whole week’s a day of rest as far as you’re concerned. What time did you get in last night?’
    He tried to see past her to where the TV was playing: some kids’ morning show; presenter was a bit of all right. He’d told Nic about her. She was there right now, talking on the telephone, waving a card. Imagine waking up of a morning and