The Falls by Ian Rankin

him time for this to sink in. ‘And you’ll be getting that appointment any day …’
    He drove out of Edinburgh along the A1. Traffic was light, the sun low and bright. East Lothian to him meant golf links and rocky beaches, flat farming land and commuter towns, fiercely protective of their own identities. The area had its share of secrets – caravan parks where Glasgow criminals came to hide – but it was essentially a calm place, a destination for day-trippers, or somewhere you might detour through on the route south to England. Towns such as Haddington, Gullane and North Berwick always seemed to him reserved, prosperous enclaves, their small shops supported by local communities which looked askance at the retail-park culture of the nearby capital. Yet Edinburgh was exerting its influence: house prices in the city were forcing more people further out, while the green belt found itself eroded by housing and shopping developments. Rebus’s own police station was on one of the main arteries into town from the south and east, and over the past ten years or so he’d noticed the increase of rush-hour traffic, the slow, pitiless convoy of commuters.
    Falls wasn’t easy to find. Trusting to instinct rather than his map-book, he managed to miss a turning and ended up in Drem. While there, he stopped long enough to buy two bags of crisps and a can of Irn-Bru, had a bit of a picnic right there in the car, his window down. He still thought he was out here to prove a point, the point being to put him in his place. And as far as his new Detective Chief Super was concerned, that place was some distant outpost called Falls. Snack finished, he found himself whistling a tune he only half remembered. Some song about living beside a waterfall. He got the feeling it was something Siobhan had taped for him, part of his education in post-seventies music. Drem was just a single main street, and that street was quiet around him. The odd passing car or lorry, but no one on the pavement. The shopkeeper had tried engaging him in conversation, but Rebus hadn’t had anything to add to her remarks about the weather, and he hadn’t been about to ask directions to Falls. He didn’t want to look like a bloody tourist.
    He got the map-book out instead. Falls barely registered as a dot. He wondered how the place had come by its name. Knowing how things went, he wouldn’t be surprised to find that it had some obscure local pronunciation: Fails or Fallis, something like that. It took him only another ten minutes along winding roads, dipping and rising like a gentle roller-coaster, before he found the place. It would have taken less than ten minutes, too, had a combination of blind summits and slow-moving tractor not reduced his progress to a second-gear crawl.
    Falls wasn’t quite what he’d been expecting. At its centre was a short stretch of main road with houses either side. Nice detached houses with well-tended gardens, and a row of cottages which fronted the narrow pavement. One of the cottages had a wooden sign outside with the word Pottery painted neatly on it. But towards the end of the village – more of a hamlet actually – was what looked suspiciously like a 1930s council estate, grey semis with broken fences, tricycles sitting in the middle of the road. A patch of grass separated this estate from the main road, and two kids were kicking a ball back and forth between them, with little enthusiasm. As Rebus drove past, their eyes turned to study him, as though he were some rare species.
    Then, as suddenly as he’d entered the village, he was out into countryside again. He stopped by the verge. Ahead in the distance he could see what looked like a petrol station. He couldn’t tell if it was still a going concern. The tractor he’d overtaken earlier came past him now, then slowed so it could make a turn into a half-ploughed field. The driver didn’t pay Rebus any heed. He came to a juddering halt and eased himself from the cab. Rebus