'Word or words,' Grant corrected her. You've got eleven letters to play with.'

'Isn't there some computer program we could use?'

'Probably. But that would be cheating, wouldn't it?'

'Right now, cheating sounds fine to me.'

But Grant wasn't listening. He was already at work.

'I was only up here yesterday,' Rebus said. Bill Pryde had left his clipboard back at Gayfield Square. He was breathing heavily as they climbed. Uniformed officers were standing around. TheY held 216 rolls of striped tape and were waiting to be told whether a cordon was necessary or practical. There was a line of parked cars on the roadway below: journalists, photographers, at least one TV crew. Word had gone around fast, and the circus had come to town.

'Anything to tell us, DI Rebus?' he'd been asked by Steve Holly as he got out of his own car.

'Just that you're annoying me.'

Now Pryde was explaining that a walker had found the body. 'In some gorse bushes. No real attempt to hide it.'

Rebus kept quiet. Two bodies never found... the other two found in water. Now this: a hillside. It broke the pattern.

'Is it her?' he asked.

'From the Versace T-shirt, I'd have to say yes.'

Rebus stopped, looked around. A wilderness in the middle of Edinburgh. Arthur's Seat itself was an extinct volcano, surrounded by a bird sanctuary and three lochs. You'd have a hard job dragging a body up here,' he said.

Pryde nodded. 'Probably killed on the spot.'

'Lured up here?'

'Or maybe just out walking.'

Rebus shook his head. 'I don't figure her for the walking type.' They'd started moving again, getting close now. A cluster of stooped forms on the hillside, white. overalls and hoods: all too easy to contaminate a crime scene. Rebus recognised Professor Gates, red- faced from the exertion of the climb. Gill Templer was next to him, not talking, just listening and looking. The scene-of-crime officers were doing a rudimentary ground search - later on, when the body had been shifted, they'd bring in some of the uniforms and start a fingertip search. It wouldn't be easy: the grass was long and thick. A police photographer was adjusting his lens.

'Better not go any further than this,' Pryde said. Then he called for someone to fetch two more sets of overalls. As Rebus started pulling his on over his shoes, the thin material crackled and flapped in the strong breeze.

'Any sign of Siobhan Clarke?' he asked.

'Tried contacting her and Grant Hood,' Pryde said. 'So far, no luck.'

'Really?' Rebus had to hold back a smile.

'Something I should know about?' Pryde asked.

Rebus shook his head. 'Grim place to die, isn't it?'

'Aren't they all?' Pryde zipped up his one-piece and started forwards towards the corpse.

217 ~rottled,' Gill Templer informed them.

'Best guess at this stage,' Gates corrected her. 'Morning, John.'

Rebus nodded a greeting back. 'Dr Curt not with you?'

'Phoned in sick. He's been sick a lot lately.' Gates was just making conversation while his examination continued. The body lay awkwardly, legs and arms all jutting angles. The gorse bushes next to it must have hidden it well enough, Rebus guessed. Combined with the long grass, you'd need to be closer than eight feet before you'd be able to make out what it was. The clothing helped with the camouflage: light green combat trousers, khaki T- shirt, grey jacket. The clothes Flip had been wearing the day she'd gone missing.

'Parents informed?' he asked.

Gill nodded. 'They know a body's been found.'

Rebus walked around her to get a better view. The face was turned away from him. There were leaves in the hair, and a slug's shimmering trail. Her skin was mauve-coloured. Gates had probably moved the body slightly. What Rebus was seeing was lividity, the blood sinking in death, colouring the body parts nearest the ground. He'd seen dozens of corpses over the years; they never got any less sad, or made him any less depressed. Animation was the key to every living thing, its absence difficult to accept. He'd seen grieving relatives reach out to bodies on mortuary slabs and shake them, as if this would bring them back. Philippa Balfour wasn't coming back.

'The fingers have been guawed at,' Gates stated, more for his tape recorder than his audience. 'Local wildlife most probably.'

Weasels or foxes, Rebus guessed. Facts of nature you didn't find in the TV documentaries.

'Bit of a bugger, that,' Gates went on. Rebus knew what he meant: if Philippa had fought her attacker, her fingertips might have told them a lot - bits of skin or blood beneath the nai~.

'What a waste,' Pryde suddenly said. Rebus got the feeling he didn't mean Philippa's death as such, but the effort they'd expended during the days since her disappearance - the checks on airports, ferries, trains... working on the assumption that she was maybe - just maybe - still alive. And throughout, she'd been lying here, each day robbing them of possible evidence, possible clues.

'Lucky she was found so soon,' Gates commented, perhaps to comfort Pryde. True enough, another woman's body had been found a few months back in a different part of the park, hardly any distance at all from a popular path. Yet the body had lain there for 218 over a month. It had turned out to be a 'domestic', that handy euphemism when victims were killed by their loved ones.

Down below, Rebus recognised one of the grey mortuary vans arriving. The body would be bagged and taken away to the Western General, where Gates would conduct his autopsy.

'Drag marks on her heels,' Gates was reciting into his tape machine. 'Not too severe. Lividity consistent with body's position, so she was either still alive or only just dead when she was dragged here.'

Gill Templer looked around. 'How far do we need to widen the search?'

'Fifty, a hundred yards maybe,' Gates told her. She glanced in Rebus's direction, and he saw that she wasn't hopeful. Unlikely they'd be able to pinpoint exactly where she was dragged from, unless she'd dropped something.

'Nothing in the pockets?' Rebus asked.

Gates shook his head. 'Jewellery on the hands, and quite an expensive watch.'

'Cartier,' Gill added.

'At least we can rule out robbery,' Rebus muttered, causing Gates to smile.

'No signs of the clothing having been disturbed,' the pathologist commented, 'so you can probably rule out a sexual motive while you're at it.'

'Better and better.' Rebus looked at Gill. 'This is going to be a cinch.'

'Hence my ear-to-ear grin,' she parried solemnly.

Back at St Leonard's, the station was buzzing with the news, but all Siobhan could feel was a dazed numbness. Playing Quizmaster's game - the way Phillipa probably had - had made Siobhan feel an affinity with the missing student. Now she was no longer a MisPer, and the worst fears had been realised.

'We always knew, didn't we?' Grant said. 'It was just a matter of when the body turned up.' He dropped his notebook on to the desk in front of him. Three or four pages were covered with anagrams. He sat down and turned to a fresh sheet, pen in hand. George Silvers and Ellen Wylie were in the CID room too.

'I took my kids up Arthur's Seat just last weekend,' Silvers was saying.

Siobhan asked who found the body.

219 'Someone out walking,' Wylie replied. 'Middle-aged woman, I think. Daily constitutional.'

'Be a while before she takes that route again,' Silvers muttered. 'Was Flip lying there all this time?' Siobhan was looking across to where Grant was busy juggling letters. Maybe he was right to keep working, but she couldn't help feeling a certain distaste. How could he not be affected by the news? Even George Silvers - as cynical as they came - looked a bit shell-shocked.

'Arthur's Seat,' he repeated. 'Just last weekend.'

Wylie decided to answer Siobhan's question. 'Chief Super seems to think so.' As she spoke, she looked down at her desk, and rubbed her hand along it as though wiping off dust.

It hurts her, Siobhan thought ... even saying the words 'Chief Super' reminds her of that TV appearance and hardens the sense of resentment.

When one of the phones rang, Silvers went to answer. 'No, he's not here,' he told the caller. Then: 'Hang on, I'll check.' He put his hand over the mouthpiece. 'Ellen, any idea when Rebus will be back?'

She shook her head slowly. Suddenly Siobhan knew where he was: he was on Arthur's Seat... while Wylie, who was supposed to be his partner, wasn't. She thought of Gill Templer, telling Rebus he was needed there. He'd have gone like a shot, leaving Wylie behind. It looked to Siobhan like a calculated snub by Templer. She would know exactly how Wylie would feel.

'Sorry, no idea,' Silvers said into the phone. Then: 'Hang on a sec. He held the receiver out towards Siobhan.

'Lady wants to speak to you.

Siobhan crossed the floor, mouthing the word 'who?', but Silvers just shrugged, handed her the phone.

'Hello, DC Clarke speaking?' 'Siobhan, it's Jean Burchill.' 'Hi, Jean, what can I do for you?' 'Have you identified her yet?'

'Not a hundred per cent. How did you know?'

'John told me, then he rushed off'

Siobhan's lips formed a silent 0. John Rebus and Jean Burchill well, well. 'Do you want me to tell him you called?'

'I tried his mobile.'

'He might have it turned off: you don't always want interruptions at the locus.'

220 'The what?'

'The crime scene.'

'Arthur's Seat, isn't it? We were there oflly yesterday morning.' Siobhan looked across to Silvers. It seemed like every other person had been on Arthur's Seat recently. When her eyes moved to Grant, she saw that he was staring at his notepad, as if mesmerised by something there.

'Do you know where on Arthur's Seat?' Jean was asking.

'Across the road from Dunsapie Loch and a bit further around towards the east.'

Siobhan was watching Grant. His eyes were on her as he got up from his chair, picking up the notebook.

'Where's that ...?' The question was rhetorical, Jean trying to picture the location. Grant was holding the notebook out in front of him, but still too far away for her to make out much: jumbles of letters, and then a couple of words circled. Siobhan narrowed her eyes.

'Oh,' Jean said suddenly, 'I know where you mean. Helibank, I think it's called.'

'Hellbank?' Siobhan made sure Grant could hear her, but his mind seemed to be elsewhere.

'Quite a steep slope,' Jean was saying, 'which might explain the name, though of course the folklore prefers witches and devilry.'

~es,' Siobhan said, dragging the word out. 'Look, Jean, I've got to go.' She was staring at the words circled on Grant's notepad. He'd worked out the anagram. 'That's a surer' had become 'Arthur's Seat'.

Siobhan put down the phone.

'He was leading us to her,' Grant said quietly.

'Maybe.'

'What do you mean, "maybe"?'

~ou're saying he knew Flip was dead. We can't know that for certain. All he was doing was taking us to the places Flip went.'

'She turned up dead at this one. And who apart from Quizmaster knew she'd be there?'

'Someone could have followed her, or even chanced upon her.' ~ou don't believe that,' Grant said confidently.

'I'm playing devil's advocate, Grant, that's all.'

'He killed her.'

'Then why bother helping us play the game?'

221 'To fuck with our heads.' He paused. 'No, to fuck with your head. And maybe more than that.'

'Then he'd have killed me before now.

'Why?'

'Because now I don't need to play the game any more. I've come as far as Flip did.'

He shook his head slowly. ~ou're saying if he sends you the clue for ... what's the next stage?'

'Stricture.'

He nodded. 'If he sends it, you won't be tempted?'

'No,' she said. ~ou're lying.'

'Well, after this there's no way I'd go anywhere without back-up, and he must know that.' She had a thought. 'Stricture,' she said.

'What about it?'

'He e-mailed Flip ... after she'd been killed. Why on earth would he do that if he'd killed her?'

'Because he's a psychopath.'