There’s no mystery,” Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke said. “Herdman lost his marbles, that’s all.”
She was sitting by a hospital bed in Edinburgh ’s recently opened Royal Infirmary. The complex was to the south of the city, in an area called Little France. It had been built at considerable expense on open space, but already there were complaints about a lack of useable space inside and car-parking space outside. Siobhan had found a spot eventually, only to discover that she would be charged for the privilege.
This much she had told Detective Inspector John Rebus on her arrival at his bedside. Rebus’s hands were bandaged to the wrists. When she’d poured him some tepid water, he’d cupped the plastic glass to his mouth, drinking carefully as she watched.
“See?” he’d chided her afterwards. “Didn’t spill a drop.”
But then he’d spoiled the act by letting the cup slip as he tried to maneuver it back on to the bedside table. The rim of its base hit the floor, Siobhan snatching it on the first bounce.
“Good catch,” Rebus had conceded.
“No harm done. It was empty anyway.”
Since then, she’d been making what both of them knew was small talk, skirting questions she was desperate to ask and instead filling him in on the slaughter in South Queensferry.
Three dead, one wounded. A quiet coastal town just north of the city. A private school, taking boys and girls from ages five to eighteen. Enrollment of six hundred, now minus two.
The third body belonged to the gunman, who’d turned his weapon on himself. No mystery, as Siobhan had said.
Except for the why.
“He was like you,” she was saying. “Ex-army, I mean. They reckon that’s why he did it: grudge against society.”
Rebus noticed that her hands were now being kept firmly in the pockets of her jacket. He guessed they were clenched and that she didn’t know she was doing it.
“The papers say he ran a business,” he said.
“He had a powerboat, used to take out water-skiers.”
“But he had a grudge?”
She shrugged. Rebus knew she was wishing there was a place for her at the scene, anything to take her mind off the other inquiry-internal this time, and with her at its core.
She was staring at the wall above his head, as if there were something there she was interested in other than the paintwork and an oxygen outlet.
“You haven’t asked me how I’m feeling,” he said.
She looked at him. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m going stir-crazy, thank you for asking.”
“You’ve only been in one night.”
“Feels like more.”
“What do the doctors say?”
“Nobody’s been to see me yet, not today. Whatever they tell me, I’m out of here this afternoon.”
“And then what?”
“How do you mean?”
“You can’t go back to work.” Finally, she studied his hands. “How’re you going to drive or type a report? What about taking phone calls?”
“I’ll manage.” He looked around him, his turn now to avoid eye contact. Surrounded by men much his age and sporting the same grayish pallor. The Scots diet had taken its toll on this lot, no doubt about it. One guy was coughing for want of a cigarette. Another looked like he had breathing problems. The overweight, swollen-livered mass of local manhood. Rebus held up one hand so he could rub a forearm over his left cheek, feeling the unshaven rasp. The bristles, he knew, would be the same silvered color as the walls of his ward.
“I’ll manage,” he repeated into the silence, lowering the arm again and wishing he hadn’t raised it in the first place. His fingers sparked with pain as the blood pounded through them. “Have they spoken to you?” he asked.
“About what?”
“Come on, Siobhan…”
She looked at him, unblinking. Her hands emerged from their hiding place as she leaned forwards on the chair.
“I’ve another session this afternoon.”
“Who with?”
“The boss.” Meaning Detective Chief Superintendent Gill Templer. Rebus nodded, satisfied that as yet it wasn’t going any higher.
“What will you say to her?” he asked.
“There’s nothing to tell. I didn’t have anything to do with Fairstone’s death.” She paused, another unasked question hanging between them: Did you? She seemed to be waiting for Rebus to say something, but he stayed silent. “She’ll want to know about you,” Siobhan added. “How you ended up in here.”
“I scalded myself,” Rebus said. “It’s stupid, but that’s what happened.”
“I know that’s what you say happened…”
“No, Siobhan, it’s what happened. Ask the doctors if you don’t believe me.” He looked around again. “Always supposing you can find one.”
“Probably still combing the grounds for a parking space.”
The joke was weak enough, but Rebus smiled anyway. She was letting him know she wouldn’t be pressing him any further. His smile was one of gratitude.
“Who’s in charge at South Queensferry?” he asked her, signaling a change of subject.
“I think DI Hogan’s out there.”
“Bobby’s a good guy. If it can be wrapped up fast, he’ll do it.”
“Media circus by all accounts. Grant Hood’s been drafted in to handle liaison.”
“Leaving us short-changed at St. Leonard ’s?” Rebus was thoughtful. “All the more reason for me to get back there.”
“Especially if I’m suspended…”
“You won’t be. You said it yourself, Siobhan-you didn’t have anything to do with Fairstone. Way I see it, it was an accident. Now that something bigger’s come along, maybe it’ll die a natural death, so to speak.”
“‘An accident.’” She was repeating his words.
He nodded slowly. “So don’t worry about it. Unless, of course, you really did top the bastard.”
“John…” There was a warning in her tone. Rebus smiled again and managed a wink.
“Only joking,” he said. “I know damned fine who Gill’s going to want to see in the frame for Fairstone.”
“He died in a fire, John.”
“And that means I killed him?” Rebus held up both hands, turning them this way and that. “Scalds, Siobhan. That’s all, just scalds.”
She rose from the chair. “If you say so, John.” Then she stood in front of him, while he lowered his hands, biting back the sudden rush of agony. A nurse was approaching, saying something about changing his dressings.
“I’m just going,” Siobhan informed her. Then, to Rebus: “I’d hate to think you’d do something so stupid and imagine it was on my behalf.”
He started shaking his head slowly, and she turned and walked away. “Keep the faith, Siobhan!” he called after her.
“That your daughter?” the nurse asked, making conversation.
“Just a friend, someone I work with.”
“You something to do with the Church?”
Rebus winced as she started unpeeling one of his bandages. “What makes you say that?”
“The way you were talking about faith.”
“Job like mine, you need more than most.” He paused. “But then, maybe it’s the same for you?”
“Me?” She smiled, her eyes on her handiwork. She was short and plain-looking and businesslike. “Can’t hang around waiting for faith to do anything for you. So how did you manage this?” She meant his blistered hands.
“I got into hot water,” he explained, feeling a bead of sweat beginning its slow journey down one temple. Pain I can handle, he thought to himself. The problem was everything else. “Can we switch to something lighter than bandages?”
“You keen to be on your way?”
“Keen to pick up a cup without dropping it.” Or a phone, he thought. “Besides, there’s got to be someone out there needs the bed more than I do.”
“Very public-minded, I’m sure. We’ll have to see what the doctor says.”
“And which doctor would that be?”
“Just have a bit of patience, eh?”
Patience: the one thing he had no time for.
“Maybe you’ll have some more visitors,” the nurse added.
He doubted it. No one knew he was here except Siobhan. He’d got one of the staff to call her so she could tell Templer that he was taking a sick day, maybe two at the most. Thing was, the call had brought Siobhan running. Maybe he’d known it would; maybe that’s why he’d phoned her rather than the station.
That had been yesterday afternoon. Yesterday morning, he’d given up the fight and walked into his GP’s office. The doctor filling in had taken one look and told him to get himself to a hospital. Rebus had taken a taxi to A amp;E, embarrassed when the driver had to dig the money for the fare out of his trouser pockets.
“Did you hear the news?” the cabbie had asked. “A shooting at a school.”
“Probably an air gun.”
But the man had shaken his head. “Worse than that, according to the radio…”
At A amp;E, Rebus had waited his turn. Eventually, his hands had been dressed, the injuries not serious enough to merit a trip to the Burns Unit out at Livingston. But he was running a high temperature, so they’d decided to keep him in, an ambulance transferring him from A amp;E to Little France. He thought they were probably keeping an eye on him in case he went into shock or something. Or it could be they feared he was one of those self-harm people. Nobody’d come to talk to him about that. Maybe that’s why they were hanging on to him: waiting for a psychiatrist with a free moment.
He wondered about Jean Burchill, the one person who might notice his sudden disappearance from home. But things had cooled there a little. They managed a night together maybe once every ten days. Spoke on the phone more frequently, met for coffee some afternoons. Already it felt like a routine. He recalled that a while ago he’d dated a nurse for a short time. He didn’t know if she still worked locally. He could always ask, but her name was escaping him. It was a problem: he had trouble sometimes with names. Forgot the odd appointment. Not a big deal really, just part and parcel of the aging process. But in court he found himself referring to his notes more and more when giving evidence. Ten years ago he hadn’t needed a script or any prompts. He’d acted with more confidence, and that always impressed juries-so lawyers had told him.
“There now.” His nurse was straightening up. She’d put fresh grease and gauze on his hands, wrapped the old bandages back around them. “Feel more comfortable?”
He nodded. The skin felt a little cooler, but he knew it wouldn’t last.
“You due any more painkillers?” The question was rhetorical. She checked the chart at the bottom of his bed. Earlier, after a visit to the toilet, he’d looked at it himself. It gave his temperature and medication, nothing else. No coded information meant to be understood only by those in the know. No record of the story he’d given when he was being examined.
I’d run a hot bath… slipped and fell in.
The doctor had made a kind of noise at the back of his throat, something that said he would accept this without necessarily believing it. Overworked, lacking sleep-not his job to pry. Doctor rather than detective.
“I can give you some paracetamol,” the nurse suggested.
“Any chance of a beer to wash them down?”
She smiled that professional smile again. The years she’d worked in the NHS, she probably didn’t hear too many original lines.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“You’re an angel,” Rebus said, surprising himself. It was the sort of thing he felt a patient might say, one of those comfortable clichés. She was on her way, and he wasn’t sure she’d heard. Maybe it was something in the nature of hospitals. Even if you didn’t feel ill, they still had an effect, slowing you down, making you compliant. Institutionalizing you. It could be to do with the color scheme, the background hum. Maybe the heating of the place was complicit, too. Back at St. Leonard’s, they had a special cell for the “maddies.” It was bright pink and was supposed to calm them down. Why think a similar psychology wasn’t being employed here? Last thing they wanted was a stroppy patient, shouting the odds and jumping out of bed every five minutes. Hence the suffocating number of blankets, tightly tucked in to further hamper movement. Just lie still… propped by pillows… bask in the heat and light… Don’t make a fuss. Any more of this, he felt, and he’d start forgetting his own name. The world outside would cease to matter. No job waiting for him. No Fairstone. No maniac spraying gunfire through the classrooms…
Rebus turned on his side, using his legs to push free the sheets. It was a two-way fight, like Harry Houdini in a straitjacket. The man in the next bed over had opened his eyes and was watching. Rebus winked at him as he levered his feet into fresh air.
“Just you keep tunneling,” he told the man. “I’ll go for a walk, trickle the earth out of my trouser leg.”
The reference seemed lost on his fellow prisoner…
Siobhan was back at St. Leonard’s, loitering by the drink machine. A couple of uniforms were seated at a table in the small cafeteria, munching on sandwiches and crisps. The drink machine was in the adjoining hallway, with a view out to the car park. If she were a smoker, she would have an excuse to step outside, where there was less chance of Gill Templer finding her. But she didn’t smoke. She knew she could try ducking into the underventilated gym farther along the corridor, or she could take a walk to the cells. But there was nothing to stop Templer using the station’s PA system to hunt down her quarry. Word would get around anyway that she was on the premises. St. Leonard’s was like that: no hiding place. She yanked on the cola can’s ring pull, knowing what the uniforms at the table would be discussing-same thing as everyone else.
Three dead in school shoot-out.
She’d scanned each of the morning’s papers. There were grainy photos of both the teenage victims: boys, seventeen years old. The words “tragedy,” “waste,” “shock,” and “carnage” had been bandied about by the journalists. Alongside the news story, additional reporting filled page after page: Britain’s burgeoning gun culture… school security shortfalls… a history of suicide killers. She’d studied the photos of the assassin-apparently, only three different snaps had so far been available to the media. One was very blurry indeed, as if capturing a ghost rather than something made of flesh and blood. Another showed a man in overalls, taking hold of a rope as he made to board a small boat. He was smiling, head turned towards the camera. Siobhan got the feeling it was a publicity shot for his water-skiing business.
The third was a head-and-shoulders portrait from the man’s days in military service. Herdman, his name was. Lee Herdman, age thirty-six. Resident in South Queensferry, owner of a speedboat. There were photos of the yard where his business operated from. “A scant half-mile from the site of the shocking event,” as one paper gushed.
Ex-forces, probably easy enough for him to get a gun. Drove into the school grounds, parked next to all the staff cars. Left his driver’s-side door open, obviously in a hurry. Witnesses saw him barge into the school. His first and only stop, the common room. Three people inside. Two now dead, one wounded. Then a shot to his own temple, and that was that. Criticisms were already flying-how was it possible, post-Dunblane, for Christ’s sake, for someone just to walk into a school? Had Herdman shown any signs that he might be about to crack? Could doctors or social workers be blamed? The government? Somebody, anybody. It had to be someone’s fault. No point just blaming Herdman: he was dead. There had to be a scapegoat out there. Siobhan suspected that by tomorrow they’d be wheeling out the usual suspects: violence in modern culture… films and TV… pressures of life… Then it would quiet down again. One statistic she had taken notice of-since the laws on gun ownership had been tightened after the Dunblane massacre, gun offenses in the UK had actually risen. She knew what the gun lobby would make of that…
One reason everyone at St. Leonard’s was talking about the murders was that the survivor’s father was a member of the Scottish Parliament-and not just any MSP. Jack Bell had found himself in trouble six months back, apprehended by police during a trawl of the red-light district down in Leith. Residents had been holding demonstrations, petitioning the constabulary to take action against the problem. The constabulary had reacted by swooping down one night, netting Jack Bell MSP amongst others.
But Bell had protested his innocence, putting his appearance in the area down to “fact-finding.” His wife had backed him up, as had most of his party, with the result that Police HQ had decided to let the matter drop. But not before the media had had their fun at Bell’s expense, leading the MSP to accuse the police of being in cahoots with the “gutter press,” of hounding him because of who he was.
The resentment had festered, leading Bell to make several speeches in Parliament, usually remarking on inefficiency within the force and the need for change. All of which, it was agreed, might lead to a problem.
Because Bell had been arrested by a team from Leith, the very station now in charge of the shooting at Port Edgar Academy.
And South Queensferry just happened to be his constituency…
As if this wasn’t enough to get tongues wagging, one of the murder victims happened to be the son of a judge.
All of which led to the second reason why everyone at St. Leonard’s was talking. They felt left out. Being a Leith call rather than St. Leonard’s, there was nothing to do but sit and watch, hoping there might be a need to draft officers in. But Siobhan doubted it. The case was cut and dried, the gunman’s body laid out in the morgue, his two victims somewhere nearby. It wouldn’t be enough to deflect Gill Templer from -
“DS Clarke to the chief super’s office!” The squawked imperative came from a loudspeaker attached to the ceiling above her head. The uniforms in the cafeteria turned to look at her. She tried to appear calm, sipping from her can. Her insides suddenly felt cold-nothing to do with the chilled drink.
“DS Clarke to the chief super!”
The glass door was ahead of her. Beyond it, her car sat obediently in its space. What would Rebus do, run or hide? She had to smile as the answer came to her. He’d do neither. He’d probably take the stairs two at a time on his way to the boss’s office, knowing he was right, and she, whatever she had to say to him, was wrong.
Siobhan dumped her can and headed for the stairs.
“You know why I wanted you?” Detective Chief Superintendent Gill Templer asked. She was seated behind the desk in her office, surrounded by the day’s paperwork. As DCS, Templer was responsible for the whole of B Division, composed of three stations on the city’s south side, with St. Leonard’s as Divisional HQ. It wasn’t as hefty a workload as some, though things would change when the Scottish Parliament finally moved into its purpose-built complex at the foot of Holyrood Road. Templer already seemed to spend a disproportionate amount of time in meetings focused on the needs of the Parliament. Siobhan knew that she hated this. No police officer joined the force because of a fondness for paperwork. Yet more and more, budgeting and finances were the topics of the day. Officers who could run their cases or their stations on-budget were prized specimens; those who could actually underspend were seen as altogether rarer and more rarefied beings.
Siobhan could see that it was taking its toll on Gill Templer. She always had a slightly harried look about her. Glints of gray were showing in her hair. She either hadn’t noticed or couldn’t find time these days to get them done. Time was defeating her. It made Siobhan wonder what price she would be asked to pay for climbing the career ladder. Always supposing that ladder was still visible after today.
Templer seemed preoccupied with a search of her desk drawer. Eventually she gave up and closed it, focusing her attention on Siobhan. As she did so, she lowered her chin. This had the effect of hardening her gaze but also, Siobhan couldn’t help noticing, of accentuating the folds of skin around the throat and mouth. When Templer moved in her chair, her suit jacket creased below the breasts, showing that she’d gained some weight. Either too much fast food or too many dinners at evening functions with the brass. Siobhan, who’d been in the gym at six o’clock that morning, sat a little more upright in her own chair, and lifted her head a little higher.
“I’m assuming it’s about Martin Fairstone,” she said, beating Templer to the opening jab of the bout. When Templer stayed quiet, she went in again. “I had nothing to do with -”
“Where’s John?” Templer interrupted sharply.
Siobhan just swallowed.
“He’s not at his flat,” Templer continued. “I sent someone round there to check. Yet according to you, he’s taken a couple of days’ sick leave. Where is he, Siobhan?”
“I…”
“The thing is, two nights ago Martin Fairstone was seen in a bar. Nothing unusual in that, except that his companion bore a striking resemblance to Detective Inspector John Rebus. Couple of hours later, Fairstone’s being fried alive in the kitchen of his house.” She paused. “Always supposing he was alive when the fire started.”
“Ma’am, I really don’t -”
“John likes to look out for you, doesn’t he, Siobhan? Nothing wrong in that. John’s got this knight-in-tarnished-armor thing, hasn’t he? Always has to be looking for another dragon to fight.”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with DI Rebus, ma’am.”
“Then what’s he hiding from?”
“I’m not aware that he’s hiding at all.”
“But you’ve seen him?” It was a question, but only just. Templer allowed herself a winning smile. “I’d put money on it.”
“He’s really not well enough to come in,” Siobhan parried, aware that her punches were losing much of their previous force.
“If he can’t come here, I’m quite willing for you to take me to him.”
Siobhan felt her shoulders sag. “I need to talk to him first.”
Templer was shaking her head. “This isn’t something you can negotiate, Siobhan. According to you, Fairstone was stalking you. He gave you that black eye.” Siobhan raised an involuntary hand towards her left cheekbone. The marks were fading; she knew they were more like shadows now. They could be hidden with makeup or explained by tiredness. But she still saw them when she looked in the mirror.
“Now he’s dead,” Templer was continuing. “In a house fire, possibly suspicious. So you can see that I have to talk to anyone who saw him that night.” Another pause. “When was the last time you saw him, Siobhan?”
“Which one-Fairstone or DI Rebus?”
“Both, if you like.”
Siobhan didn’t say anything. Her hands went to clasp the metal arms of her chair, but she realized it had no arms. A new chair, less comfortable than the old one. Then she saw that Templer’s chair was new, too, and set an inch or two higher than before. A little trick to give her an edge over any visitor… which meant the chief super felt the need of such props.
“I don’t think I’m prepared to answer, ma’am.” Siobhan paused. “With respect.” She got to her feet, wondering whether she’d sit down again if told to.
“That’s very disappointing, DS Clarke.” Templer’s voice was cold, no more first names. “You’ll tell John we’ve had a word?”
“If you want me to.”
“I expect you’ll want to get your stories straight, prior to any inquiry.”
Siobhan acknowledged the threat with a nod. All it needed was a request from the chief super, and the Complaints would come shuffling into view, bringing with them their briefcases full of questions and skepticism. The Complaints: full title, the Complaints and Conduct Department.
“Thank you, ma’am,” was all Siobhan said, opening the door and closing it again behind her. There was a toilet cubicle along the hall, and she went and sat there for a while, taking a small paper bag from her pocket and breathing into it. The first time she’d suffered a panic attack, she’d felt as if she was going into cardiac arrest: heart pounding, lungs giving out, her whole body surging with electricity. Her doctor had said she should take some time off. She’d entered his office thinking he would recommend her to the hospital for tests, but instead he’d told her to buy a book about her condition. She’d found one in a pharmacy. It listed every single one of her symptoms in its first chapter, and made a few suggestions. Cut down on caffeine and alcohol. Eat less salt and fat. Try breathing into a paper bag if an attack seems imminent.
The doctor had said her blood pressure was a bit high, suggested exercise. So she’d started coming into work an hour early, spending that time in the gym. The Commonwealth Pool was just down the road, and she’d promised herself she’d start swimming there.
“I eat fine,” she’d told her doctor.
“Try making a list over the course of a week,” he’d said. So far, she hadn’t bothered. And she kept forgetting her swimsuit, too.
All too easy to blame Martin Fairstone.
Fairstone: in court on two charges-housebreaking and assault. One of the neighbors challenging him as he left the flat he’d just looted; Fairstone smashing the woman’s head into a wall, stamping on her face so hard the sole of one sneaker left its impression. Siobhan giving evidence, doing her best. But they hadn’t recovered the shoe, and none of the haul from the flat had turned up in Fairstone’s home. The neighbor had given a description of her attacker, then had picked out Fairstone’s mug shot, later on choosing him again at the ID parade.
There were problems, which the procurator fiscal’s office had been quick to identify. No evidence at the scene. Nothing to link Fairstone to the crimes except an ID and the fact that he was a known housebreaker with several convictions for assault.
“The shoe would have been nice.” The fiscal depute had scratched at his beard and asked if they might try dropping either of the charges, maybe do a deal.
“And he gets a cuff round the ear and heads back home?” Siobhan had argued.
In court it was pointed out to Siobhan by the defense that the neighbor’s original description of her attacker bore little resemblance to the figure in the dock. The victim herself fared little better, admitting to a margin of uncertainty that the defense exploited to the full. When giving her own evidence, Siobhan used as many hints as she could to let everyone know that the defendant had a history. Eventually, the judge couldn’t ignore the remonstrations by the defense counsel.
“You’re on a final warning, Detective Sergeant Clarke,” he had said. “So unless you have some reason why you wish to scupper the Crown’s chances in this case, I suggest you choose your answers more carefully from now on.”
Fairstone had just glared at her, knowing full well what she was trying to do. And afterwards, the not-guilty verdict delivered, he’d bounded out of the court building as if there were springs in the heels of his brand-new sneakers. He’d grabbed Siobhan by the shoulder to stop her from walking away.
“That’s assault,” she’d told him, trying not to show how furious and frustrated she felt.
“Thanks for helping me get off in there,” he’d said. “Maybe I can return the favor someday. I’m off to the pub to celebrate. What’s your poison?”
“Drop down the nearest sewer, will you?”
“I think I’m in love.” A grin spreading to cover his narrow face. Someone called to him: his girlfriend. Bottle-blond hair, black tracksuit. Pack of cigs in one hand, mobile phone to her ear. She’d provided his alibi for the time of the attack. So had two of his friends.
“Looks like you’re wanted.”
“It’s you I want, Shiv.”
“You want me?” She waited till he nodded. “Then invite me along next time you’re going to beat up a complete stranger.”
“Give me your phone number.”
“I’m in the book-under ‘Police.’”
“Marty!” His girlfriend’s snarl.
“Be seeing you, Shiv.” Still grinning, he walked backwards for a few paces, then turned away. Siobhan had headed straight back over to St. Leonard’s to reacquaint herself with his file. An hour later, the switchboard had put through a call. It was him, phoning from a bar. She’d put the receiver down. Ten minutes later, he’d called again… and then another ten after that.
And the next day.
And the whole of the following week.
Unsure at first how to play it. She didn’t know if her silences were working. They just seemed to make him laugh, made him try all the harder. She prayed he would tire, find something else to occupy him. Then he turned up at St. Leonard’s, tried following her home. She’d spotted him that time, led him a dance while summoning help on her mobile. A patrol car had picked him up. Next day, he was curbside again, just outside the car park at the back of St. Leonard’s. She’d left him there, exiting on foot instead by the front door, taking a bus home.
Still he wouldn’t give up, and she realized that what had started-presumably-as a joke had turned into a more serious form of game. So she’d decided to bring one of her stronger pieces into play. Rebus had noticed anyway: the calls she wasn’t taking, the time she spent by the office window, the way she kept glancing around her when they were out on a call. So eventually she’d told him, and the pair of them had paid a visit to Fairstone’s public housing unit in Gracemount.
It had started badly, Siobhan soon realizing that her “piece” played by his own set of rules rather than anyone else’s. A struggle, the leg snapping from a coffee table, pine veneer yielding to the MDF within. Siobhan feeling worse than ever afterwards-weak, because she had brought Rebus in rather than deal with it herself; trembling, because at the back of her mind lurked the thought that she’d known what would happen, and had wanted it to happen. Instigator and coward.
They’d stopped for a drink on the way back into town.
“Think he’ll do anything?” Siobhan had asked.
“He started it,” Rebus told her. “If he keeps on hassling you, he knows now what he’s in for.”
“A hiding, you mean?”
“All I did was defend myself, Siobhan. You were there. You saw.” His eyes fixing hers until she nodded. And he was right. Fairstone had lunged at him. Rebus had pushed him down onto the coffee table, trying to hold him there. Then the leg snapped and both men slid to the floor, rolling and struggling. It had all been over in a matter of seconds, Fairstone’s voice shaking with rage as he told them to get out. Rebus pointing a warning finger, repeating his order to “back off from DS Clarke.”
“Just clear out, the pair of you!”
Her hand touching Rebus’s arm. “It’s finished. Let’s go.”
“You think it’s finished?” Flecks of white saliva spitting from the corners of Fairstone’s mouth.
Rebus’s final words: “It better be, pal, unless you really want to start seeing some fireworks.”
She’d wanted to ask him what he’d meant, but instead had bought a final round of drinks. In bed that night, she’d stared at the dark ceiling before falling into a doze, waking with a sudden feeling of terror, leaping to her feet, adrenaline surging through her. She’d crawled on hands and knees from her bedroom, believing that if she got to her feet, she would die. Eventually it passed, and she used her hands on the hallway wall as she rose up from the floor. She walked slowly back to bed and lay down on her side, curled into a ball.
More common than you might think, her doctor would eventually tell her, after the second attack.
Between times, Martin Fairstone made a complaint of harassment, dropping it eventually. And he’d also kept on calling. She’d tried to keep it from Rebus, didn’t want to know what he meant by “fireworks”…
The CID office was dead. People were out on calls, or busy in court. It seemed you could spend half your life waiting to give evidence, only for the case to collapse or the accused to make a change of plea. Sometimes a juror went AWOL, or someone crucial was sick. Time seeped away, and at the end of it all the verdict was “not guilty.” Even when found guilty, it might be a question of a fine or suspended sentence. The prisons were full and seen more than ever as a last resort. Siobhan didn’t think she was growing cynical, just realistic. There’d been criticism recently that Edinburgh had more traffic wardens than cops. When something like South Queensferry came up, it stretched things tighter. Holidays, sick leave, paperwork, and court… and not nearly enough hours in any given day. Siobhan was aware that there was a backlog on her desk. Because of Fairstone, her work had been suffering. She could still feel his presence. If a phone rang, she would freeze, and a couple of times she caught herself heading for the window, to check if his car was out there. She knew she was being irrational, but couldn’t help it. Knew, too, that it wasn’t the kind of thing she could talk to someone about… not without seeming weak.
The phone was ringing now. Not on her own desk, but on Rebus’s. If no one answered, the switchboard might try another extension. She crossed the floor, willing the sound to stop. It did so only when she picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Who’s that?” A male voice. Brisk, businesslike.
“DS Clarke.”
“Hiya, Shiv. It’s Bobby Hogan here.” Detective Inspector Bobby Hogan. She’d asked him before not to call her Shiv. A lot of people tried it. Siobhan, pronounced “Shi-vawn,” shortened to Shiv. When people wrote her name down, it turned into all sorts of erroneous spellings. She remembered that Fairstone had called her Shiv a few times, attempting familiarity. She hated it and knew she should correct Hogan, but she didn’t.
“Keeping busy?” she asked instead.
“You know I’m handling Port Edgar?” He broke off. ’Course you do, stupid question.”
“You come over well on TV, Bobby.”
“I’m always open to flattery, Shiv, and the answer is ‘no.’”
She couldn’t help smiling. “I’m not exactly snowed under here,” she lied, glancing across at the folders on her desk.
“If I need an extra pair of hands, I’ll let you know. Is John around?”
“Mr. Popular? He’s taken a sickie. What do you want him for?”
“Is he at home?”
“I can probably get a message to him.” She was intrigued now. There was some urgency in Hogan’s voice.
“You know where he is?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“You never answered my question: what do you want him for?”
Hogan gave a long sigh. “Because I need that other pair of hands,” he told her.
“And only his will do?”
“So far as I know.”
“I’m suitably crushed.”
He ignored her tone. “How soon can you let him know?”
“He might not be well enough to help.”
“If he’s anywhere short of an iron lung, I’ll take him.”
She rested her weight against Rebus’s desk. “What’s going on?”
“Just get him to call me, eh?”
“Are you at the school?”
“Best if he tries my mobile. Bye, Shiv.”
“Hang on a sec!” Siobhan was looking towards the doorway.
“What?” Hogan failed to mask his exasperation.
“He’s just here. I’ll put him on.” She stretched the receiver out towards Rebus. His clothes all seemed to be hanging awkwardly. At first, she thought he must be drunk, but then she realized what it was. He’d struggled to get dressed. His shirt was tucked into his waistband, but only just. His tie hung loose around his neck. Instead of taking the phone from her, he came forward and leaned his ear against it.
“It’s Bobby Hogan,” she explained.
“Hiya, Bobby.”
“John? Connection must be breaking up…”
Rebus looked at Siobhan. “Bit closer,” he whispered. She angled the mouthpiece so it rested against his chin, noting that his hair needed washing. It was plastered to his scalp in the front, but sticking up in the back.
“That better, Bobby?”
“Fine, yes. John, I need a favor.”
When the phone dipped a little, Rebus looked up at Siobhan. Her gaze was directed at the doorway again. He glanced around and saw Gill Templer standing there.
“My office!” she snapped. “Now!”
Rebus ran the tip of his tongue around his lips. “I think I’m going to have to call you back, Bobby. Boss wants a word.”
He straightened up, hearing Hogan’s voice becoming tinny and mechanical. Templer was beckoning for him to follow. He gave a little shrug in Siobhan’s direction and began to leave the room again.
“He’s gone,” she told the mouthpiece.
“Well, get him back!”
“I don’t think that’s going to be possible. Look… maybe if you could give me a clue what this is all about. I might be able to help…”
“I’ll leave it open if you don’t mind,” Rebus said.
“If you want the whole station to hear, that’s fine by me.”
Rebus slumped down on the visitor’s chair. “It’s just that I’m having a bit of trouble with door handles.” He lifted his hands for Templer to see. Her expression changed immediately.
“Christ, John, what the hell happened?”
“I scalded myself. Looks worse than it is.”
“Scalded yourself?” She leaned back, fingers pressing the edge of the desk.
He nodded. “There’s no more to it than that.”
“Despite what I’m thinking?”
“Despite what you’re thinking. I filled the kitchen sink to do some dishes, forgot I hadn’t added cold and plunged my hands in.”
“For how long exactly?”
“Long enough to scald them, apparently.” He tried for a smile, reckoned the dishes story was easier to swallow than the bathtub, despite which Templer looked far from convinced. Her phone started ringing. She picked up the receiver and dropped it again, cutting the connection.
“You’re not the only one having some bad luck. Martin Fairstone died in a fire.”
“Siobhan told me.”
“And?”
“Accident with a chip pan.” He shrugged. “It happens.”
“You were with him Sunday night.”
“Was I?”
“Witnesses saw you together in a bar.”
Rebus shrugged. “I did chance to bump into him.”
“And left the bar with him?”
“No.”
“Went back to his place?”
“Says who?”
“John…”
His voice was rising. “Who says it wasn’t an accident?”
“The fire investigators are still looking.”
“Good luck to them.” Rebus made to fold his arms, realized what he was doing, and dropped them to either side again.
“That probably hurts,” Templer commented.
“It’s bearable.”
“And it happened on Sunday night?”
He nodded.
“Look, John…” She leaned forwards, elbows on the desktop. “You know what people are going to say. Siobhan claimed Fairstone was stalking her. He denied it, then countered that you’d threatened him.”
“A charge he decided to drop.”
“But now I hear from Siobhan that Fairstone attacked her. Did you know about that?”
He shook his head. “The fire’s just a stupid coincidence.”
She lowered her eyes. “It doesn’t look good, though, does it?”
Rebus made a show of examining himself. “Since when have I been interested in looking good?”
Despite herself, she almost smiled. “I just want to know that we’re clean on this.”
“Trust me, Gill.”
“Then you won’t mind making it all official? Get it down in writing?” Her phone had started ringing again.
“I’d answer it this time,” a voice said. Siobhan was standing in the hallway, arms folded. Templer looked at her, then picked up the receiver.
“DCS Templer speaking.”
Siobhan caught Rebus’s eye and gave a wink. Gill Templer was listening to whatever the caller was telling her.
“I see… yes… I suppose that would be… Care to tell me why him exactly?”
Rebus suddenly knew. It was Bobby Hogan. Maybe not on the phone-Hogan could have gone over Templer’s head, got the deputy chief constable to make the call on his behalf. Needing that favor from Rebus. Hogan had a certain measure of power right now, power gifted him along with his latest case. Rebus wondered what sort of favor he wanted.
Templer put down the phone. “You’re to report to South Queensferry. Seems DI Hogan needs his hand-holding.” She was staring at her desktop.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Rebus said.
“Fairstone won’t be going anywhere, John, remember that. Soon as Hogan’s finished with you, you’re mine again.”
“Understood.”
Templer looked past him to where Siobhan was still standing. “Meantime, maybe DS Clarke will shed some light -”
Rebus cleared his throat. “Might be a problem there, ma’am.”
“In what way?”
Rebus held up his arms again and turned his wrists slowly. “I might be all right for holding Bobby Hogan’s hand, but I’ll need a bit of help for everything else.” He half turned in the chair. “So if I could just borrow DS Clarke for a little while…”
“I can get you a driver,” Templer snapped.
“But for writing notes… making and taking calls… needs to be CID. And from what I saw in the office, that narrows things down.” He paused. “With your permission.”
“Get out then, the pair of you.” Templer made a show of reaching for some paperwork. “Soon as there’s news from the fire investigators, I’ll let you know.”
“Very decent of you, boss,” Rebus said, rising to his feet.
Back in the CID room, he had Siobhan slide a hand into his jacket pocket, bringing out a small plastic jar of pills. “Bastards measured them out like gold,” he complained. “Get me some water, will you?”
She fetched a bottle from her desk and helped him wash down two tablets. When he demanded a third, she checked the label.
“Says to take two every four hours.”
“One more won’t do any harm.”
“Not going to last long at this rate.”
“There’s a prescription in my other pocket. We’ll stop at a chemist’s once we’re on the road.”
She screwed the top of the jar back on. “Thanks for taking me with you.”
“No problem.” He paused. “Want to talk about Fairstone?”
“Not particularly.”
“Fair enough.”
“I’m assuming neither of us is responsible.” Her eyes bored into his.
“Correct,” he said. “Which means we can concentrate on helping Bobby Hogan instead. But there’s one last thing before we start…”
“What?”
“Any chance you could do my tie properly? Nurse hadn’t a clue.”
She smiled. “I’ve been waiting to get my hands around your throat.”
“Any more of that and I’ll throw you back to the boss.”
But he didn’t, even when she proved incapable of following his instructions for knotting a tie. In the end, the woman at the chemist’s did it for him while they waited for the pharmacist to fill his prescription.
“Used to do it for my husband all the time,” she said. “God rest his soul.”
Outside on the sidewalk, Rebus looked up and down the street. “I need cigarettes,” he said.
“Don’t expect me to light them for you,” Siobhan said, folding her arms. He stared at her. “I’m serious,” she added. “This is the best chance of quitting that you’re ever likely to have.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Beginning to,” she admitted, opening the car door for him with a flourish of her arm.
There was no quick route to South Queensferry. They headed across the city center and down Queensferry Road, picking up speed only when they hit the A90. The town they were approaching seemed to be nestled between the two bridges-road and rail-that spanned the Firth of Forth.
“Haven’t been out here in years,” Siobhan said, just to fill the silence inside the car. Rebus didn’t bother answering. It seemed to him as if the whole world had been bandaged, muffled. He guessed the tablets were to blame. One weekend, a couple of months back, he’d brought Jean to South Queensferry. They’d had a bar lunch, a walk along the promenade. They’d watched the lifeboat being launched-no urgency about it, probably an exercise. Then they’d driven to Hopetoun House, taking a guided tour of the stately home’s ornate interior. He knew from the news that Port Edgar Academy was near Hopetoun House, thought he remembered driving past its gates, no building visible from the road. He gave Siobhan directions, only for them to end up in a cul-de-sac. She did a three-point turn and found Hopetoun Road without further help from the passenger seat. As they neared the gates to the school, they had to squeeze past news vans and reporters’ cars.
“Hit as many as you like,” Rebus muttered. A uniform checked their ID and opened the wrought-iron gates. Siobhan drove through.
“I thought it would be on the waterfront,” she said, “with a name like Port Edgar.”
“There’s a marina called Port Edgar. Can’t be too far away.” As the car climbed a winding slope, he turned to look back. He could see the water, masts seeming to rise from it like spikes. But then it was lost behind trees, and turning again, he saw the school come into view. It was built in the Scots baronial style: dark slabs of stone topped with gables and turrets. A saltire flew at half-mast. The car park had been taken over by official vehicles, people milling around a Portakabin. The town boasted only a single, tiny police substation, probably not big enough to cope. As their tires crunched over gravel, eyes turned to check them out. Rebus recognized a few faces, and those faces knew him, too. Nobody bothered to smile or wave. As the car stopped, Rebus made an attempt to pull the door handle but had to wait for Siobhan to get out, walk around to the passenger side, and open the door.
“Thanks,” he said, easing himself out. A uniformed constable walked over. Rebus knew him from Leith. His name was Brendan Innes, an Australian. Rebus had never got around to asking him how he’d ended up in Scotland.
“DI Rebus?” Innes was saying. “DI Hogan’s up at the school. Told me to tell you.”
Rebus nodded. “Got a cigarette on you?”
“Don’t smoke.”
Rebus looked around, seeking out a likely candidate.
“He said you’re to go right up,” Innes was stressing. Both men turned at a noise from the Portakabin’s interior. The door flew open and a man stomped down the three exterior steps. He was dressed as if for a funeral: somber suit, white shirt, black tie. It was the hair Rebus recognized, in all its silvery back-combed glory: Jack Bell, MSP. Bell was in his mid-forties, face square-jawed, permanently tanned. Tall and wide-bodied, he had the look of a man who’d always be surprised not to get his own way.
“I’ve every right!” he was yelling. “Every bloody right in the world! But I might’ve known to expect nothing from you lot but utter bloody downright obstructiveness!” Grant Hood, liaison officer on the case, had come to the doorway.
“You’re welcome to your opinion, sir,” he tried remonstrating.
“It’s not an opinion, it’s an absolute, undeniable fact! You got egg all over your faces six months ago, and that’s not something you’re ever likely to forget or forgive, is it?”
Rebus had taken a step forward. “Excuse me, sir…?”
Bell spun around to face him. “Yes? What is it?”
“I just thought you might want to keep your voice down… out of respect.”
Bell jabbed a forefinger at Rebus. “Don’t you dare start playing that card! I’ll have you know my son could have been killed at the hands of that maniac!”
“I’m well aware of that, sir.”
“But I’m here representing my constituents, and as such I demand to be allowed inside…” Bell paused for breath. “Who are you anyway?”
“The name’s DI Rebus.”
“Then you’re no bloody good to me. It’s Hogan I need to see.”
“You’ll appreciate that Detective Inspector Hogan’s up to his eyes at the minute. It’s the classroom you want to see, is that right?” Bell nodded, looking around as if seeking out anyone more useful to him than Rebus. “Mind if I ask why, sir?”
“None of your business.”
Rebus shrugged. “It’s just that I’m on my way to talk to DI Hogan…” He turned away, started walking. “Thought I might be able to put a word in on your behalf.”
“Hold on,” Bell said, voice immediately losing some of its stridency. “Maybe you could show me…”
But Rebus was shaking his head. “Best if you wait here, sir. I’ll let you know what DI Hogan says.”
Bell nodded, but he was not to be placated for long. “It’s scandalous, you know. How can someone just walk into a school with a gun?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out, sir.” Rebus looked the MSP up and down. “Got a cigarette on you, by any chance?”
“What?”
“A cigarette.”
Bell shook his head, and Rebus started heading towards the school again.
“I’ll be waiting, Inspector. I won’t be budging from this spot!”
“That’s fine, sir. Best place for you, I daresay.”
There was a sloping lawn to the front of the school, playing fields to one side. Uniformed officers were busy on the playing fields, turning away trespassers who had climbed the perimeter wall. Media maybe, but more likely just ghouls: you got them at every murder scene. Rebus caught a glimpse of a modern building behind the original school. A helicopter flew over. He couldn’t see any cameras aboard.
“That was fun,” Siobhan said, catching up with him.
“Always a pleasure to meet a politician,” Rebus agreed. “Especially one who holds our profession in such esteem.”
The school’s main entrance seemed to be a carved wooden double door with glass panels. Inside was a reception area with sliding windows leading to an office, probably the school secretary’s. She was in there now, giving a statement from behind a large white handkerchief, presumably belonging to the officer seated opposite her. Rebus knew his face but couldn’t put a name to it. Another set of doors led into the body of the school. They’d been wedged open. A sign on them stated that ALL VISITORS SHOULD REPORT TO THE OFFICE. An arrow pointed back towards the sliding windows.
Siobhan gestured towards a corner of the ceiling, where a small camera was fitted. Rebus nodded and passed through the open doors, into a long corridor with stairs off to one side and a large stained-glass window at the far end. The floor was polished wood, creaking under his weight. There were paintings on the walls: robed figures of past teachers, captured at their desks or reaching towards a bookcase. Farther along were lists of names-prefects of the school, headmasters, those who’d gone on to die in service of their country.
“Wonder how easy it was for him to get in,” Siobhan said quietly. Her words reverberated in the silence and a head appeared around a door halfway down the corridor.
“Took you long enough,” boomed the voice of DI Bobby Hogan. “Come and have a look.”
He had retreated back inside the sixth-year common room. It was about sixteen feet by twelve, with windows high up on the external wall. There were about a dozen chairs, and a desk with a computer on it. An old-looking hi-fi sat in one corner, CDs and tapes scattered about. Some of the chairs had magazines on them: FHM, Heat, M8. A novel lay open and facedown nearby. Backpacks and blazers hung on hooks below the windows.
“You can come in,” Hogan told them. “The SOCOs have been through this lot with a fine-toothed comb.”
They edged into the room. Yes, the SOCOs-the scene of crime officers-had been here, because this was where it had happened. Blood spatters on one wall, a fine airbrushing of dull red. Larger drops on the floor, and what looked like skid marks from where feet had slid across a couple of pools. White chalk and yellow adhesive tape showed where evidence had been gathered.
“He entered through one of the side doors,” Hogan was explaining. “It was break time, they weren’t locked. Walked down the corridor and straight in here. Nice sunny day, so most of the kids were outside. He only found three…” Hogan nodded towards where the victims had been. “Listening to music, flicking through magazines.” It was as if he were talking to himself, hoping if he repeated the words often enough, they would start answering his questions.
“Why here?” Siobhan asked. Hogan looked up as if seeing her for the first time. “Hiya, Shiv,” he said with just a trace of a smile. “You here out of curiosity?”
“She’s helping me,” Rebus said, raising his hands.
“Christ, John, what happened?”
“Long story, Bobby. Siobhan asked a good question.”
“You mean, why this particular school?”
“More than that,” Siobhan said. “You said yourself, most of the kids were outdoors. Why didn’t he start with them?”
Hogan answered with a shrug. “I’m hoping we’ll find out.”
“So how can we help, Bobby?” Rebus asked. He hadn’t moved far into the room, content to stay just inside the threshold while Siobhan browsed the posters on the walls. Eminem seemed to be giving the world the benefit of his middle finger, while a group next to him, boiler-suited and rubber-masked, looked like extras from a mid-budget horror film.
“He was ex-army, John,” Hogan was saying. “More than that, he was ex-SAS. I remember you telling me once that you’d tried for the Special Air Service.”
“That was thirty-odd years ago, Bobby.”
Hogan wasn’t listening. “Seems like he was a bit of a loner.”
“A loner with some sort of grudge?” Siobhan asked.
“Who knows.”
“But you want me to ask around?” Rebus guessed.
Hogan looked at him. “Any buddies he had are likely to be like him-armed forces castoffs. They might open up to someone who’s been the same road as them.”
“It was thirty-odd years ago,” Rebus repeated. “And thanks for grouping me with the ‘castoffs.’”
“Ach, you know what I mean… Just for a day or two, John, that’s all I’m asking.”
Rebus stepped back into the corridor and looked around him. It seemed so quiet, so peaceful. And yet the work of a few moments had changed everything. The town, the school would never be the same. The lives of everyone involved would stay convulsed. The school secretary might never emerge from behind that borrowed handkerchief. The families would bury their sons, unable to think beyond the terror of their final moments…
“What about it, John?” Hogan was asking. “Will you help?”
Warm, fuzzy cotton… it could protect you, cushion you…
No mystery… Siobhan’s words… lost his marbles, that’s all…
“Just one question, Bobby.”
Bobby Hogan looked tired and slightly lost. Leith meant drugs, stabbings, prossies. Those, Bobby could deal with. Rebus got the feeling he’d been summoned here because Bobby Hogan needed a friend by his side.
“Fire away,” Hogan said.
“Got a cigarette on you?” Rebus asked.
There were too many people fighting for space in the Portakabin. Hogan loaded Siobhan’s arms with paperwork, everything they had on the case, the copies still warm from the machine in the school office. Outside, a group of herring gulls had gathered on the lawn, seemingly curious. Rebus flicked them his cigarette butt and they sprinted towards it.
“I could report you for cruelty,” Siobhan told him.
“Ditto,” he said, looking the amount of paperwork up and down. Grant Hood was finishing a phone call, tucking his mobile back in his pocket. “Where did our friend go?” Rebus asked him.
“You mean Dirty Mac Jack?” Rebus smiled at the nickname, which had graced the front page of a tabloid the morning after Bell’s arrest.
“That’s who I mean.”
Hood nodded down the hill. “A member of the press corps called him, offering a TV slot at the school gates. Jack was off like a flash.”
“So much for not budging from the spot. Are the press boys behaving themselves?”
“What do you think?”
Rebus responded with a twitch of the mouth. Hood’s phone sounded again, and he turned away to take the call. Rebus watched Siobhan maneuver the car trunk open, some of the sheets slipping onto the ground. She picked them up again.
“That everything?” Rebus asked her.
“For now.” She slammed shut the trunk. “Where are we taking them?”
Rebus examined the sky. Thick, scudding clouds. Probably too windy for rain. He thought he could hear the distant sound of rigging clanging against yacht masts. “We could get a table at a pub. Down by the rail bridge, there’s a place called the Boatman’s…” She stared at him. “It’s an Edinburgh tradition,” he explained with a shrug. “In times past, professionals ran their businesses from the local pub.”
“We wouldn’t want to mess with tradition.”
“I’ve always preferred the old-fashioned methods.”
She didn’t say anything to this, just walked around to the driver’s side and opened the door. She’d closed it and put the key in the ignition before she remembered. Cursing, she reached across to open Rebus’s door for him.
“Too kind,” he said, smiling as he got in. He didn’t know South Queensferry that well, but he knew the pubs. He’d been brought up on the other side of the estuary, and remembered the view from North Queensferry: the way the bridges seemed to drift apart as you looked south. The same uniformed officer opened the gates to let them out. Jack Bell was in the middle of the road, saying his piece to the camera.
“A nice long blast on the horn,” Rebus ordered. Siobhan obliged. The journalist lowered his microphone, turned to glower at them. The cameraman slid his headphones down around his neck. Rebus waved at the MSP, gave him what might pass for an apologetic smile. Sightseers blocked half the carriageway, staring at the car.
“I feel like a bloody exhibit,” Siobhan muttered. A line of traffic was passing them at a crawl, wanting a look at the school. Not professionals, just members of the public who’d brought their families and video cameras with them. As Siobhan made to pass the tiny police station, Rebus said he would get out and walk.
“I’ll meet you at the pub.”
“Where are you going?”
“I just want to get a feel for the place.” He paused. “Mine’s a pint of IPA if you get there first.”
He watched her drive away, taking her place in the slow procession of tourist traffic. Rebus stopped and turned to look up at the Forth Road Bridge, hearing its swoosh of cars and lorries, something almost tidal about it. There were tiny figures up there, standing on the footpath, looking down. He knew there would be more at the side of the opposite carriageway, where there was a better view of the school grounds. Shaking his head, he started walking.
Commerce in South Queensferry took place on a single thoroughfare, stretching from the High Street to the Hawes Inn. But change was coming. Driving past the town recently, headed for the road bridge, he’d noticed a new supermarket and business park. A sign tempting the backup: TIRED OF COMMUTING? YOU COULD BE WORKING HERE. The message telling them that Edinburgh was full to the brim, the traffic slowing every year. South Queensferry wanted to be part of the movement away from the city. Not that you’d know it from the High Street: locally owned small shops, narrow pavements, tourist information. Rebus knew some of the stories: a fire at the VAT 69 distillery, hot whiskey running down the streets, people drinking it and ending up in the hospital; a pet monkey that, teased to distraction, ripped open the throat of a scullery maid; apparitions such as the Mowbray Hound and the Burry Man…
There was a celebration every year to commemorate the Burry Man, bunting and flags put up, a procession through the town. It was months away yet, but Rebus wondered if there’d be a procession this year.
Rebus passed a clock tower, Remembrance Day wreaths still pinned to it, untouched by vandals. The road grew so narrow, traffic had to use passing places. Every now and then he caught glimpses of the estuary behind the buildings on the left. Across the road, the single-story row of shops was topped with a terrace, itself fronted by houses. Two elderly women were standing by an open front door, their arms folded as they shared the latest rumors, eyes flitting towards Rebus, knowing him for a stranger. Their scowls dismissed him as just another ghoul.
He walked on, passing a newsagent’s. Several people had gathered inside, sharing information from the evening paper’s early printing. A news crew passed him on the other side of the road-a different crew from the one outside the school gates. The cameraman carried his camera in one hand, tripod slung over the other shoulder. Soundman with his rig hanging by his side, headphones around his neck, boom held like a rifle. They were on the lookout for a good spot, led by a young blond woman who kept peering down vennels in her search for the perfect shot. Rebus thought he’d seen her on TV, reckoned the crew were probably from Glasgow. Her report would start: A shattered community is today trying to come to terms with the horror which visited this once peaceful haven… Questions are being asked, but as yet the answers seem to be eluding everyone… Blah blah. Rebus knew he could write the script himself. With the police offering no leads, the media had nothing to do but harass the locals, seeking droplets of news and prepared to squeeze them out of any rock or stone that might yield.
He’d seen it at Lockerbie and didn’t doubt Dunblane had been the same. Now it was South Queensferry’s turn. He came to a curve in the road, beyond which was the esplanade. Stopping for a moment, he turned back to view the town, but most of it was hidden: behind trees, behind other buildings, beyond the arc he’d just traveled. There was a seawall here, and he decided it was as good a place as any to light the spare cigarette Bobby Hogan had gifted him. The cigarette was tucked behind his right ear, and he pawed at it, not quite catching it as it fluttered to the ground, a gust sending it rolling. Stooped, eyes down, Rebus started following and almost collided with a pair of legs. The cigarette had come to rest against the pointed toe of a gloss-black ankle-high stiletto. The legs above the shoes were covered in ripped black fishnet tights. Rebus stood up straight. The girl could have been anything from thirteen to nineteen years old. Dyed black hair lay like straw against her head, Siouxsie Sioux style. Her face was deathly white, the eyes and lips painted black. She was wearing a black leather jacket over layers of gauzy black material.
“Did you slash your wrists?” she asked, staring at his bandages.
“I probably will if you crush that cigarette.”
She bent down and picked it up, leaned forward to place it between his lips. “There’s a lighter in my pocket,” he said. She fished it out and lit the cigarette for him, cupping her hand expertly around the flame, keeping her eyes fixed on his as if to gauge his response to her nearness.
“Sorry,” he apologized, “this is my last one.” It was hard to smoke and speak at the same time. She seemed to realize this, because after a couple of inhalations, she plucked the cigarette from his mouth, then placed it in her own. Inside her black lace gloves, her fingernails were black, too.
“I’m no fashion expert,” Rebus said, “but I get the feeling you’re not just in mourning.”
She smiled enough to show a row of small white teeth. “I’m not in mourning at all.”
“But you go to Port Edgar Academy?” She looked at him, wondering how he knew. “Otherwise you’d probably still be in class,” he explained. “It’s only kids from Port Edgar who’re off just now.”
“You a reporter?” She returned the cigarette to his mouth. It tasted of her lipstick.
“I’m a cop,” he told her. “CID.” She didn’t seem interested. “You didn’t know the kids who died?”
“I did.” She sounded hurt, not wanting to be left out.
“But you don’t miss them.”
She caught his meaning, nodding as she remembered her own words: I’m not in mourning at all. “If anything, I’m jealous.” Again, her eyes were boring into his. He couldn’t help wondering how she would look without the makeup. Pretty, probably; maybe even fragile. Her painted face was a mask, something she could hide behind.
“Jealous?”
“They’re dead, aren’t they?” She watched him nod, then gave a shrug of her own. Rebus looked down at the cigarette, and she took it from him, placing it in her mouth again.
“You want to die?”
“I’m just curious, that’s all. I want to know what it’s like.” She made an O of her lips and produced a swirling circle of smoke. “You must have seen dead people.”
“Too many.”
“And how many’s that? Ever watched someone die?”
He wasn’t about to answer. “I’ve got to be going.” She made to give him what little was left of the cigarette, but he shook his head. “What’s your name, by the way?”
“Teri.”
“Terry?”
She spelled it for him. “But you can call me Miss Teri.”
Rebus smiled. “I’ll assume that’s an assumed name. Maybe I’ll see you around, Miss Teri.”
“You can see me whenever you like, Mr. CID.” She turned and started walking into town, confident in her inch-and-a-half heels, hands brushing her hair back and letting it fall, then giving a little wave of one lace-gloved hand. Knowing he was watching, enjoying playing the role. Rebus reckoned she qualified as a Goth. He’d seen them in town, hanging around outside record shops. For a time, anyone who fitted the description had been banned from entering Princes Street Gardens: a municipal edict, something to do with a trampled flowerbed and the knocking over of a litter bin. When Rebus had read about it, he’d smiled. The line stretched back from punks to teddy boys, teenagers undergoing their rites of passage. He’d been pretty wild himself before he’d joined the army. Too young for the first wave of teddy boys, but growing into a secondhand leather jacket, a sharpened steel comb in the pocket. The jacket hadn’t been right-not biker goods but three-quarter length. He’d cut it shorter with a kitchen knife, threads straggling from it, the lining showing.
Some rebel.
Miss Teri disappeared around the bend, and Rebus headed for the Boatman’s, where Siobhan was waiting with the drinks.
“Thought I was going to have to drink yours,” she said by way of complaint.
“Sorry.” He cupped the glass in both hands and lifted it. Siobhan had found them a corner table, nobody close by. Two piles of paperwork sat in front of her, alongside her lime soda and an open packet of peanuts.
“How are the hands?” she asked.
“I’m worried I may never play the piano again.”
“A tragic loss to the world of popular music.”
“You ever listen to heavy metal, Siobhan?”
“Not if I can help it.” She paused. “Maybe a bit of Motorhead to get the party started.”
“I was thinking of the newer stuff.”
She shook her head. “You really think we’re all right here?”
He looked around. “Locals don’t seem interested. It’s not like we’re going to be flashing autopsy photos or anything.”
“There are pictures of the crime scene, though.”
“Keep them tucked away for now.” Rebus swallowed another mouthful of beer.
“You sure you can drink with those tablets you’re taking?”
He ignored her, nodded towards one of the piles instead. “So,” he said, “what have we got, and how long can we stretch this assignment out for?”
She smiled. “Not keen on another meeting with the boss?”
“Don’t tell me you’re looking forward to it?”
She seemed to give this some thought, then offered a shrug.
“You glad Fairstone’s dead?” Rebus asked.
She glared at him.
“Just curious,” he said, thinking again of Miss Teri. He made a show of trying to slide one of the top sheets towards him, until Siobhan took the hint and did it for him. Then the two of them sat side by side, not noticing the light outside waning as the afternoon slurred towards evening.
Siobhan went to the bar for more drinks. The barman had tried asking her about the paperwork, but she’d deflected the conversation and they’d ended up talking about writers instead. She hadn’t known of the Boatman’s connection with the likes of Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson.
“You’re not just drinking in a pub,” the barman had explained. “You’re drinking in history.” A line he’d used a hundred times before. It made her feel like a tourist. Ten miles from the city center, but everything felt different. It wasn’t just the murders-about which, she suddenly realized, her barman hadn’t said anything. Denizens of the city tended to lump the outlying settlements together-Portobello, Musselburgh, Currie, South Queensferry… they were regarded as just “bits” of the city. Yet even Leith, connected to the city center by the ugly umbilical cord of Leith Walk, worked hard to preserve a separate identity. She wondered why anywhere else should be different.
Something had brought Lee Herdman here. He’d been born in Wishaw, joined the army at seventeen. Service in Northern Ireland and farther abroad, then SAS training. Eight years in that regiment before finding himself back, as he would probably have put it, “on civvy street.” He abandoned his wife, leaving her with two kids in Hereford, home of the SAS, and headed north. The background information was patchy. No mention of what happened to the wife and kids, or why he broke with them. He’d moved to South Queensferry six years ago. And he’d died here, age thirty-six.
Siobhan looked across to where Rebus was studying another sheet of paper. He’d been in the army, and she’d often heard rumors that he’d trained for the SAS. What did she know about the SAS? Only what she’d read in the report. Special Air Service, based in Hereford, motto: Who Dares Wins. Selected from the best candidates the army could muster. The regiment had been founded during World War II as a long-range reconnaissance unit but had been made famous by the Iranian embassy siege in 1980 and the 1982 Falklands campaign. A penciled footnote to one sheet stated that Herdman’s previous employers had been contacted and asked to provide what information they could. She’d mentioned this to Rebus, who’d just snorted, indicating that he didn’t think they would be very forthcoming.
Sometime after his arrival in South Queensferry, Herdman had started his boat business, towing water-skiers and such. Siobhan didn’t know how much it cost to buy a speedboat. She’d made a note to this effect, one of dozens listed on the pad back at the table.
“You’re not in a hurry, then,” the barman said. She hadn’t noticed him coming back.
“What?”
He lowered his eyes, directing her to the drinks in front of her.
“Oh, right,” she said, trying for a smile.
“Don’t worry about it. Sometimes a dwam’s the best place to be.”
She nodded, knowing that “dwam” meant dream. She seldom used Scots words; they jarred with her English accent. That she’d never tried altering her accent was testament to its usefulness. It could wind people up, which had proved handy in some interviews. And if people occasionally mistook her for a tourist, well, they sometimes dropped their guard, too.
“I’ve figured out who you are,” the barman was saying now. She studied him. Mid-twenties, tall and broad-shouldered with short black hair and a face that would retain its sculpted cheekbones for a few years yet, booze, diet and cigarettes notwithstanding.
“Impress me,” she said, leaning against the bar.
“At first I took you for a pair of reporters, but you’re not asking any questions.”
“You’ve had a few reporters in, then?” she asked.
He rolled his eyes in reply. “Way you’ve been sifting through that lot,” he said, nodding towards the table, “I’m thinking detectives.”
“Clever lad.”
“He came in here, you know. Lee, I mean.”
“You knew him?”
“Oh, aye, we chatted… just the usual stuff, football and that.”
“Ever go out on his boat?”
The barman nodded. “Brilliant, it was. Scudding underneath both the bridges, craning your neck to look up…” He angled his head now to show her what he meant. “He was a boy for the speed was Lee.” He stopped abruptly. “I don’t mean drugs. He just liked going fast.”
“What’s your name, Mr. Barman?”
“Rod McAllister.” He held out a hand, which she shook. It was damp from washing glasses.
“Pleased to meet you, Rod.” She withdrew her hand and reached into her pocket, bringing out one of her business cards. “If you think of anything that might help us…”
He took the card. “Right,” he said. “Right you are, Seb…”
“It’s pronounced ‘Shi-vawn.’”
“Christ, is that how it’s spelled?”
“But you can call me Detective Sergeant Clarke.”
He nodded and tucked the card into the breast pocket of his shirt. Looked at her with renewed interest. “How long will you be in town?”
“As long as it takes. Why?”
He shrugged. “Lunchtimes we do a mean haggis, neeps and tatties.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.” She picked up the glasses. “Cheers, Rod.”
“Cheers.”
Back at the table, she stood Rebus’s pint glass next to the open notebook. “Here you go. Sorry it took a while, turns out the barman knew Herdman, could be he’s got…” By now she was sitting down. Rebus wasn’t paying any attention, wasn’t listening. He was staring at the sheet of paper in front of him.
“What is it?” she asked. Glancing at the sheet, she saw it was one she’d already read. Family details of one of the victims. “John?” she prompted. His eyes rose slowly to meet hers.
“I think I know them,” he said quietly.
“Who?” She took the sheet from him. “The parents, you mean?”
He nodded.
“How do you know them?”
Rebus held his hands up to his face. “They’re family.” He saw that she didn’t understand. “My family, Siobhan. They’re my family…”
It was a semi-detached house at the end of a cul-de-sac on a modern development. From this part of South Queensferry there was no view of the bridges, and no inkling of the ancient streets only a quarter of a mile away. Cars sat in their driveways-middle-management models: Rovers and BMWs and Audis. No fences separating the homes, just lawn leading to path leading to more lawn. Siobhan had parked curbside. She stood a couple of feet behind Rebus as he managed to ring the doorbell. A dazed-looking girl answered. Her hair needed washing and brushing, and her eyes were bloodshot.
“Your mum or dad in?”
“They’re not talking,” she said, making to close the door again.
“We’re not reporters.” Rebus fumbled with his ID. “I’m Detective Inspector Rebus.”
She looked at the ID, then stared at him.
“Rebus?” she said.
He nodded. “You know the name?”
“I think so…” Suddenly there was a man behind her. He held out a hand to Rebus.
“John. It’s been a while.”
Rebus nodded at Allan Renshaw. “Probably thirty years, Allan.”
The two men were studying each other, trying to fit faces to their memories. “You took me to the football once,” Renshaw said.
“Raith Rovers, wasn’t it? Can’t remember who they were playing.”
“Well, you better come in.”
“You understand, Allan, I’m here in an official capacity.”
“I heard you were in the police. Funny how things turn out.” As Rebus followed his cousin down the hall, Siobhan introduced herself to the young woman, who in turn said she was Kate, “Derek’s sister.”
Siobhan remembered the name from the case information. “You’re at university, Kate?”
“St. Andrews. I’m studying English.”
Siobhan couldn’t think of anything else to say, nothing that wouldn’t sound trite or forced. So she just made her way down the long, narrow hallway, past a table strewn with unopened mail, and into the living room.
There were photographs everywhere. Not just framed and decorating the walls or arranged along the shelving units, but spilling from shoeboxes on the floor and coffee table.
“Maybe you can help,” Allan Renshaw was telling Rebus. “I’m having trouble putting names to some of the faces.” He held up a batch of black-and-white photos. There were albums, too, open on the sofa and showing the growth of two children: Kate and Derek. Starting with what looked like christening pictures and progressing through summer holidays, Christmas mornings, days out and special treats. Siobhan knew that Kate was nineteen, two years older than her brother. She knew, too, that the father worked as a car salesman on Seafield Road in Edinburgh. Twice-in the pub and again on the drive here-Rebus had explained his connection to the family. His mother had had a sister, and that sister had married a man called Renshaw. Allan Renshaw was their son.
“You never kept in touch?” she had asked.
“That’s not the way our family worked,” he’d replied.
“I’m sorry about Derek,” Rebus was saying now. He hadn’t managed to find anywhere to sit, so he was standing by the fireplace. Allan Renshaw had perched on the arm of the sofa. He nodded, but then saw that his daughter was about to clear a space so that their visitors could sit.
“We’re not finished sorting them yet!” he snapped.
“I just thought…” Kate’s eyes were filling.
“What about some tea?” Siobhan said quickly. “Maybe we could all sit in the kitchen.”
There was just enough room for the four of them around the table, Siobhan squeezing past to deal with the kettle and the mugs. Kate had offered to help, but Siobhan had cajoled her into sitting down. The view from the window above the sink was of a handkerchief-sized garden, hemmed in by a picket fence. A single dishcloth was pegged to a whirligig dryer, and two strips of lawn had been cut, the mower stationary now as the grass grew around it.
There was a sudden noise as the cat flap rattled and a large black and white cat appeared, leapt onto Kate’s lap, and glared at the newcomers.
“This is Boethius,” Kate said.
“Ancient queen of Britain?” Rebus guessed.
“That was Boudicca,” Siobhan corrected him.
“Boethius,” Kate explained, “was a Roman philosopher.” She stroked the cat’s head. Its markings, Rebus couldn’t help thinking, made it look like it was wearing a Batman mask.
“A hero of yours, was he?” Siobhan guessed.
“He was tortured for his beliefs,” Kate went on. “Afterwards, he wrote a treatise, trying to explain why good men suffer -” She broke off, glancing towards her father. But he appeared not to have heard.
“While evil men prosper?” Siobhan guessed. Kate nodded.
“Interesting,” Rebus commented.
Siobhan handed out the tea and sat down. Rebus ignored the mug in front of him, perhaps unwilling to draw attention to his bandages. Allan Renshaw had tight hold of the handle of his own mug but seemed in no hurry to try lifting it.
“I had a phone call from Alice,” Renshaw was saying. “You remember Alice?” Rebus shook his head. “Wasn’t she a cousin on… Christ, whose side was it?”
“Doesn’t matter, Dad,” Kate said softly.
“It matters, Kate,” he argued. “Time like this, family’s all there is.”
“Didn’t you have a sister, Allan?” Rebus asked.
“Aunt Elspeth,” Kate answered. “She’s in New Zealand.”
“Has anyone told her?”
Kate nodded.
“What about your mother?”
“She was here earlier,” Renshaw interrupted, gaze fixed on the table.
“She walked out on us a year ago,” Kate explained. “She lives with -” She broke off. “She lives back in Fife.”
Rebus nodded, knowing what she’d been about to say: she lives with a man…
“What was the name of that park you took me to, John?” Renshaw asked. “I’d only have been seven or eight. Mum and Dad had taken me to Bowhill, and you said you’d go for a walk with me. Remember?”
Rebus remembered. He’d been home on leave from the army, itching for some action. Early twenties, SAS training still ahead of him. The house had felt too small, his father too set in a routine. So Rebus had taken young Allan down to the shops. They’d bought a bottle of juice and a cheap football, then had headed to the park for a kickabout. He looked at Renshaw now. He would be forty. His hair was graying, with a pronounced bald spot at the crown. His face was slack, unshaven. He’d been all skin and bones as a kid but was now heavily built, most of it around the waist. Rebus struggled for some vestige of the kid who’d played football with him, the kid he’d taken to Kirkcaldy to watch Raith play some forgotten opponent. The man in front of him was aging fast: wife gone, son now murdered. Aging fast and struggling to cope.
“Is anyone looking in?” Rebus asked Kate. He meant friends, neighbors. She nodded, and he turned back to Renshaw.
“Allan, I know this has been a shock for you. Do you feel up to answering a few questions?”
“What’s it like being a policeman, John? You have to do this sort of thing every day?”
“Not every day, no.”
“I couldn’t do it. Bad enough selling cars, watching the buyer driving off in this perfect machine, big smile on their face, and then you watch them coming back for service or repairs or whatever, and you see the car losing that shine it once had… They’re not smiling anymore.”
Rebus glanced at Kate, who just shrugged. He guessed she’d been hearing a lot of her father’s ramblings.
“The man who shot Derek,” Rebus said quietly, “we’re trying to work out why he did it.”
“He was a madman.”
“But why the school? Why that particular day? You see what I’m saying.”
“You’re saying you won’t let it lie. All we want is to be left alone.”
“We need to know, Allan.”
“Why?” Renshaw’s voice was rising. “What’s it going to change? You going to bring Derek back? I don’t think so. The bastard who did it’s dead… I don’t see that anything else matters.”
“Drink your tea, Dad,” Kate said, a hand reaching for her father’s arm. He took it in his own hand, held it up to plant a kiss.
“It’s just us now, Kate. Nobody else matters.”
“I thought you just told me family mattered. The inspector’s our family, isn’t he?”
Renshaw looked at Rebus again, eyes filling with tears. Then he got up and walked from the room. They sat for a moment, hearing him climbing the stairs.
“We’ll just leave him,” Kate said, sounding sure of her role and comfortable with it. She straightened in her seat and pressed her hands together. “I don’t think Derek knew the man. I mean, South Queensferry’s a village, there’s always the chance he knew his face, maybe even who he was. But nothing other than that.”
Rebus nodded but stayed quiet, hoping she would feel the need to fill the silence. It was a game Siobhan knew how to play, too.
“He didn’t pick them out, did he?” Kate went on, going back to stroking Boethius. “I mean, it was just the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“We don’t know yet,” Rebus responded. “It was the first room he went into, but he’d passed other doors to get to it.”
She looked at him. “Dad told me the other boy was a judge’s son.”
“You didn’t know him?”
She shook her head. “Not well.”
“Weren’t you a pupil at Port Edgar?”
“Yes, but Derek’s two years younger than me.”
“I think what Kate means,” Siobhan clarified, “is that all the boys in his year were two years younger than her, so she wouldn’t be disposed to have any interest in them.”
“Too true,” Kate agreed.
“What about Lee Herdman? Did you know him?”
She met Rebus’s stare, then nodded slowly. “I went out with him once.” She paused. “I mean, I went out on his boat. A bunch of us did. We thought waterskiing would be glamorous, but it was too much like hard work, and he scared the shit out of me.”
“In what way?”
“If you were on the skis, he tried to freak you out, pointing the boat towards one of the bridge supports or Inch Garvie Island. You know it?”
“The one that looks like a fortress?” Siobhan guessed.
“I suppose they must have had guns there during the war, cannons or something to stop anyone coming up the Forth.”
“So Herdman tried scaring you?” Rebus asked, steering the conversation back on course.
“I think it was some sort of trial, to see if your nerve held. We all thought he was a maniac.” She stopped abruptly, hearing her own words. Some of the color left her already pale face. “I mean, I never thought he’d…”
“Nobody did, Kate,” Siobhan reassured her.
It took the young woman a few seconds to regain her composure. “They’re saying he was in the army, maybe even a spy.” Rebus didn’t know where she was headed, but nodded anyway. She looked down at the cat, who now lay with eyes closed, purring loudly. “This is going to sound crazy…”
Rebus leaned forwards. “What is it, Kate?”
“Well, it’s just… the first thing that went through my mind when I heard…”
“What?”
She looked from Rebus to Siobhan and then back again. “No, it’s just too stupid.”
“Then I’m your man,” Rebus said, giving her a smile. She almost smiled back, then took a deep breath.
“Derek was in a car smash a year back. He was okay, but the other kid, the one who was driving…”
“He died?” Siobhan guessed. Kate nodded.
“Neither of them had a license, and they’d both been drinking. Derek felt really guilty about it. Not that there was a court case or anything…”
“So what’s it got to do with the shooting?” Rebus asked.
She shrugged. “Nothing at all. It’s just that when I heard… when Dad phoned me… I suddenly remembered something Derek told me a few months after the crash. He said the dead boy’s family hated him. And that’s why I thought what I did. Soon as I remembered that, the word that jumped into my head was… revenge.” She rose from her chair, holding on to Boethius, placing the cat on the vacant seat. “I think I should check on Dad. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Siobhan got up, too. “Kate,” she said, “how are you coping?”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m sorry about your mother.”
“Don’t be. Her and Dad used to fight all the time. At least we don’t have that anymore…” And with another forced smile, Kate left the kitchen. Rebus looked at Siobhan, a slight raising of the eyebrows the only indication that he’d heard anything of interest in the past ten minutes. He followed Siobhan into the living room. It was dark outside now, and he switched on one of the lamps.
“Think I should close the curtains?” Siobhan asked.
“Reckon anyone would open them again come morning?”
“Maybe not.”
“Then leave them open.” Rebus switched on another lamp. “This place needs all the light it can get.” He sifted through some of the photos. Blurred faces, backdrops he recognized. Siobhan was studying the family portraits lining the room.
“The mother’s been erased from history,” she commented.
“Something else,” Rebus said casually. She looked at him.
“What?”
He waved an arm towards the shelf units. “It may be my imagination, but seems like there are more photos of Derek than there are of Kate.”
Siobhan saw what he meant. “What do we make of that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe some of the photos of Kate had her mother in them, too.”
“Then again, they sometimes say the youngest child becomes the parents’ favorite.”
“You’re speaking from experience?”
“I’ve got a younger brother, if that’s what you mean.”
Siobhan thought about this. “Do you think you should tell him?”
“Who?”
“Your brother.”
“Tell him he was always the apple of our dad’s eye?”
“No, tell him what’s happened here.”
“That would entail locating his whereabouts.”
“You don’t even know where your own brother is?”
Rebus shrugged. “That’s the way it is, Siobhan.”
They heard footsteps on the stairs. Kate came back into the room.
“He’s asleep,” she said. “He’s been sleeping a lot.”
“I’m sure it’s the best thing,” Siobhan said, almost wincing as the cliché trickled out.
“Kate,” Rebus interrupted, “we’re going to leave you alone now. But I’ve got one last question, if that’s all right with you.”
“I won’t know till I’ve heard it.”
“It’s just this: I’m wondering if you can tell us exactly when and where Derek’s car crash took place?”
D Division headquarters was a venerable old building in the middle of Leith. The drive from South Queensferry hadn’t taken too long-the evening traffic had been heading out of the city rather than in. The CID offices were quiet. Rebus reckoned everyone had been pulled to the school shooting. He found a member of the admin staff and asked her where the files might be kept. Siobhan was already stabbing at a keyboard, in case she could find anything that way. In the end, the file was tracked down to one of the storage closets, moldering on a shelf alongside hundreds of others. Rebus thanked the admin clerk.
“Happy to help,” she said. “This place has been a real graveyard today.”
“Just as well the villains don’t know that,” Rebus said with a wink.
She snorted. “It’s bad enough at the best of times.” By which she meant understaffing.
“I owe you a drink,” Rebus told her as she turned to go. Siobhan watched her wave a hand, not looking back.
“You didn’t even get her name,” she said.
“I won’t be buying her a drink either.” Rebus placed the file on a desk and sat down, making room so that Siobhan could slide a chair across to join him.
“Still seeing Jean?” she asked as he opened the file. Then she screwed up her face. Sitting on top of the sheets of paper was a glossy color photograph of the accident scene. The dead teenager had been wrenched from the driving seat, so that the upper half of his body was sprawled across the car hood. There were more photos underneath: autopsy shots. Rebus slid them beneath the file and started to read.
Two friends: Derek Renshaw, sixteen, and Stuart Cotter, seventeen. They’d decided to borrow Stuart’s dad’s car, a nippy Audi TT. The father was on a business trip, due back later that night, flying in and taking a taxi home. The boys had plenty of time, and decided to drive into Edinburgh. They had a drink at one of the shoreside bars in Leith, then headed for Salamander Street. The plan had been to hit the A1, put the car through its paces, then head for home. But Salamander Street looked to them like a nice racing straight. It was calculated that they’d probably been doing seventy when Stuart Cotter lost control. The car had tried braking for the light, spun across the road, up onto the sidewalk and into a brick wall. Head-on. Derek had been wearing a seat belt and survived. Stuart, despite the airbag, had not.
“Do you remember this?” Rebus asked Siobhan. She shook her head. He didn’t remember it either. Maybe he’d been away, or involved in a case of his own. If he’d come across the report… well, it was nothing he hadn’t seen too many times before. Young men confusing thrills with stupidity, adulthood with risk. The name Renshaw might have clicked with him, but there were a lot of Renshaws out there. He sought the name of the officer in charge. Detective Sergeant Calum McLeod. Rebus knew him vaguely: a good cop. Meaning the report would be scrupulous.
“I want to know something,” Siobhan said.
“What?”
“Are we seriously considering that this was a revenge killing?”
“No.”
“I mean, why wait a whole year? Not even a year to the day… thirteen months. Why wait that long?”
“No reason at all.”
“So we don’t think…”
“Siobhan, it’s a motive. Right now, I think that’s what Bobby Hogan wants from us. He wants to be able to say that Lee Herdman just lost it one day and decided to top a couple of schoolkids. What he doesn’t want is for the media to get hold of a conspiracy theory or anything that could make it look as though we’d left some stone unturned.” Rebus sighed. “Revenge is the oldest motive there is. If we clear Stuart Cotter’s family, it’s one less thing to worry about.”
Siobhan nodded. “Stuart’s father’s a businessman. Drives an Audi TT. Probably got the money to pay for someone like Herdman.”
“Fine, but why kill the judge’s son? And that other kid he wounded? Why kill himself, if it comes to it? That’s not what a hired assassin does.”
Siobhan shrugged. “You’d know more about that than me.” She flicked through more sheets. “Doesn’t say what line of business Mr. Cotter is in… Ah, here it is: entrepreneur. Well, that covers a multitude of sins.”
“What’s his first name?” Rebus had the notebook out but couldn’t hold the pen. Siobhan took it from him.
“William Cotter,” she said, writing it down and adding the address. “Family lives in Dalmeny. Where’s that?”
“Next door to South Queensferry.”
“Sounds posh: Long Rib House, Dalmeny. No street name or anything.”
“Things must be good in the entrepreneur business.” Rebus studied the word. “I’m not even sure I could spell it.” He read a little further. “Partner’s name is Charlotte, runs two tanning salons in the city.”
“I’ve been thinking of trying one of those,” Siobhan said.
“Now’s your chance.” Rebus was almost at the bottom of the page. “One daughter, Teri, aged fourteen at the time of the crash. Making her fifteen now.” He frowned in concentration and tried as best he could to sift through the other sheets.
“What are you looking for?”
“A photo of the family…” He was in luck. DS McLeod had indeed been scrupulous, clipping newspaper stories about the case. One tabloid had got hold of a family snapshot, mum and dad on the sofa, son and daughter behind so that only their faces could be seen. Rebus was fairly sure he recognized the girl. Teri. Miss Teri. What was it she’d said to him?
You can see me whenever you like…
What the hell had she meant by that?
Siobhan had seen the look on his face. “Not someone else you know?”
“Bumped into her when I was walking to the Boatman’s. She’s changed a bit though.” He studied the shining, makeup-free face. The hair seemed mousy-brown rather than jet-black. “Dyed her hair, powdered her face white with big black eyes and mouth… black clothes, too.”
“A Goth, you mean? That’s why you were asking me about heavy metal?”
He nodded.
“Think it has anything to do with her brother’s death?”
“Might have. There’s something else, though.”
“What?”
“It was what she said… Something about not being sad they were dead…”
They got takeaway food from Rebus’s favorite curry house on Causewayside. While the order was being filled, a liquor store down the street yielded six bottles of chilled lager.
“Fairly abstemious really,” Siobhan said, hoisting the shopping bag from the counter.
“You don’t honestly think I’m sharing these?” Rebus stated.
“I’m sure I can twist your arm.”
They took the provisions to his flat in Marchmont, parking the car in the last space going. The flat was two flights up. Rebus fumbled to slot the key into the lock.
“I’ll do it,” Siobhan said.
Inside, the flat was musty. There was a fug which could have been bottled as eau de bachelor. Stale food, alcohol, sweat. CDs were scattered across the living-room carpet, marking out a trail between the hi-fi and Rebus’s favorite chair. Siobhan left the food on the dining table and went into the kitchen for plates and cutlery. There were few signs that anyone had been cooking of late. Two mugs in the sink, a margarine tub open on the draining board, its contents spotted with mold. A shopping list in the form of a yellow Post-it note had been stuck to the refrigerator door: bread / milk / marge / bacon / b.sauce / w.up liq / lightbulbs. The note was beginning to curl, and she wondered how long it had been there.
When she returned to the living room, Rebus had managed to put on a CD. It was something she’d given him as a present: Violet Indiana.
“You like it?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I thought you might.” Meaning he hadn’t got around to playing it until now.
“Better than some of that dinosaur stuff you play in your car.”
“Don’t forget, you’re speaking to a dinosaur.”
She smiled and started lifting containers out of the bag. Glancing over to the hi-fi, she saw Rebus chewing on a bandage.
“You can’t be that hungry.”
“Easier to eat with these things off.” He started unwinding the strips of gauze, first one hand and then the other. She noticed that he slowed down as he got closer to the end. Finally, both hands were revealed, red and blistered and hot-looking. He tried flexing his fingers.
“Time for some more tablets?” Siobhan suggested.
He nodded, went over to the table and sat down. She opened a couple of lagers and they started to eat. Rebus didn’t have a strong grip on his fork, but he persevered, dripping dollops of sauce onto the table but managing to avoid splashing his shirt. They ate in silence, other than to comment on the food. When they’d finished, Siobhan cleared the table and wiped it clean.
“Better add Handi Wipes to your shopping list,” she said.
“What shopping list?” Rebus sat down in his chair, resting a second bottle of lager on his thigh. “Can you see if there’s any cream?”
“Are we having dessert?”
“I mean in the bathroom-antiseptic cream.”
Dutifully, she checked the cabinet, noticing that the bath was full to the brim. The water looked cold. She came back holding a blue tube. “For stings and infections,” she said.
“That’ll do.” He took the tube from her and rubbed a thick layer of white cream over both hands. She’d opened her second bottle, rested against an arm of the sofa.
“Want me to let the water out?” she asked.
“What water?”
“The bath. You forgot to pull the plug. I’m assuming it’s the one you say you fell into…”
Rebus looked at her. “Who’ve you been talking to?”
“Doctor at the hospital. He sounded skeptical.”
“So much for patient confidentiality,” Rebus muttered. “Well, at least he’ll have told you they really are scalds, not burns?” She twitched her nose. “Thanks for checking up on my story.”
“I just knew it wasn’t very likely you’d be washing dishes. Now, about that bathwater…?”
“I’ll do it later.” He sat back, took a swig from his bottle. “Meantime, what are we going to do about Martin Fairstone?”
She shrugged, slid down onto the sofa proper. “What are we supposed to do? Apparently, neither of us killed him.”
“Talk to any fireman, they’ll all say the same thing: you want to do someone in and get away with it, you get them blind drunk and then turn on the chip pan.”
“So?”
“It’s something every cop knows, too.”
“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t an accident.”
“We’re cops, Siobhan: guilty until proven innocent. When did Fairstone give you that shiner?”
“How do you know it was him?” The look on Rebus’s face told her he felt insulted by the question. She sighed. “The Thursday before he died.”
“What happened?”
“He must’ve been following me. I was unloading bags of groceries from the car, carrying them into the stairwell. When I turned round, he was biting into an apple. He’d lifted it from one of the bags sitting at the curb. Had this big smile on his face. I walked right up to him… I was furious. Now he knew where I lived. I gave him a slap…” She smiled at the memory. “The apple went flying halfway across the road.”
“He could have had you for assault.”
“Well, he didn’t. He threw a fast right, caught me just below the eye. I staggered back and tripped over the step. Landed on my backside. He just walked away, picking up the apple again as he crossed the road.”
“You didn’t report it?”
“No.”
“Tell anyone how it happened?”
She shook her head. She remembered Rebus asking her; she’d shaken her head then, too. But knowing… knowing he wouldn’t have to work too hard. “Only after I found out he was dead,” she said. “I went to the boss and told her.”
There was a silence between them. Bottles were raised to mouths, eyes meeting eyes. Siobhan swallowed and licked her lips.
“I didn’t kill him,” Rebus said quietly.
“He made that complaint about you.”
“And withdrew it pronto.”
“Then it was an accident.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “Guilty until proven innocent,” he repeated.
Siobhan lifted her drink. “Here’s to the guilty.”
Rebus managed a half-smile. “That was the last time you saw him?” he asked.
She nodded. “What about you?”
“Weren’t you scared he’d come back?” He saw the look she gave him. “Okay, not ‘scared,’ then… but you must have wondered?”
“I took precautions.”
“What kind of precautions?”
“The usual: watched my back… tried not to go in or out after dark unless someone else was around.”
Rebus rested his head against the back of his chair. The music had finished. “Want to hear something else?” he asked.
“I want to hear you say that the last time you saw Fairstone was the time you had that fight.”
“I’d be lying.”
“So when did you see him?”
Rebus angled his head to look at her. “The night he died.” He paused. “But then, you already know that, don’t you?”
She nodded. “Templer told me.”
“I was just out for a drink, that’s all. Ended up next to him in a pub. We had a bit of a chat.”
“About me?”
“About the black eye. He said it was self-defense.” He paused. “Way you tell it, maybe it was.”
“Which pub was it?”
Rebus shrugged. “Somewhere near Gracemount.”
“Since when did you start drinking so far from the Oxford Bar?”
He looked at her. “So maybe I wanted to talk to him.”
“You went hunting for him?”
“Listen to Little Miss Prosecution!” Color had risen to Rebus’s face.
“And no doubt half the pub clocked you as CID,” she stated. “Which is how Templer found out.”
“Is that called ‘leading the witness’?”
“I can fight my own battles, John!”
“And he’d have put you on the deck every time. This bastard had a history of thumping people. You saw his record…”
“That didn’t give you the right -”
“We’re not talking about rights here.” Rebus leapt from the chair and made for the dining table, helping himself to a fresh bottle. “You want one?”
“Not if I’m driving.”
“Your choice.”
“That’s right, John. My choice, not yours.”
“I didn’t top him, Siobhan. All I did was…” Rebus swallowed back the words.
“What?” She’d turned her body on the sofa to face him. “What?” she repeated.
“I went back to his house.” She just stared, mouth open a fraction. “He invited me back.”
“He invited you?”
Rebus nodded. The bottle opener trembled in his hand. He delegated the job to Siobhan, who returned the opened bottle to him. “Bastard liked playing games, Siobhan. Said we should go back and have a drink, bury the hatchet.”
“Bury the hatchet?”
“His exact words.”
“And that’s what you did?”
“He wanted to talk… not about you, about anything but. Time he’d served, cell stories, how he grew up. Usual sob story, dad who thumped him, mum who didn’t care…”
“And you sat there and listened?”
“I sat there thinking how badly I wanted to smack him.”
“But you didn’t?”
Rebus shook his head. “He was pretty dopey by the time I left.”
“Not in the kitchen, though?”
“In the living room…”
“Did you see the kitchen?”
Rebus shook his head again.
“Have you told Templer this?”
He made to rub his forehead, then remembered that it would hurt like blazes. “Just go home, Siobhan.”
“I had to pull the two of you apart. Next thing you’re back at his house sharing a drink and a chat? You expect me to believe that?”
“I’m not asking you to believe anything. Just go home.”
She stood up. “I can -”
“I know, you can look after yourself.” Rebus sounded tired all of a sudden.
“I was going to say, I can wash the dishes, if you like.”
“That’s okay, I’ll do them tomorrow. Let’s just get some sleep, eh?” He walked across to the room’s large bay window, stared down at the quiet street.
“What time do you want to be picked up?”
“Eight.”
“Eight it is.” She paused. “Someone like Fairstone, he must have had enemies.”
“Almost certainly.”
“Maybe someone saw you with him, waited till you’d left…”
“See you tomorrow, Siobhan.”
“He was a bastard, John. I keep expecting to hear you say that.” She deepened her voice. “‘World’s better off without him.’”
“I don’t remember saying that.”
“You would have, though, not so long ago.” She made towards the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He waited, expecting to hear the lock click shut. Instead, he could hear a background gurgling of water. He drank from the bottle of lager, staring from the window. She did not emerge onto the street. When the living-room door opened, he could hear the bath filling.
“You going to scrub my back, too?”
“Beyond the call of duty.” She looked at him. “But a change of clothes wouldn’t be a bad idea. I can help you sort some out.”
He shook his head. “Really, I can manage.”
“I’ll hang around till you’re done in the bath… just to make sure you can get out again.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll wait anyway.” She’d walked towards him, plucked the lager from his loose grasp. Lifted it to her mouth.
“Better keep the water tepid,” he warned her.
She nodded, swallowed. “There’s just one thing I’m curious about.”
“What?”
“What do you do when you need the toilet?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I do what a man’s got to do.”
“Something tells me that’s as much as I need to know.” She handed back the bottle. “I’ll check the water’s not too hot this time round…”
Afterwards, wrapped in a toweling robe, he watched as she emerged at street level, looking up and down the sidewalk before making for her car. Looking up and down the sidewalk: checking her back, even though the bogeyman had gone.
Rebus knew there were more of them out there. Plenty of men like Martin Fairstone. Teased at school, becoming the “runt,” tagging along with gangs who would make jokes about him. But growing stronger for it, graduating to violence and petty theft, the only life he would ever know. He had told his story, and Rebus had listened.
“Reckon I need to see a head doctor, get myself checked out, like? See, what’s on the inside of your head isn’t always the same as what you do on the outside. Does that sound like pish? Maybe it’s because I’m pished. There’s more whiskey when you need a top-up. Just say the word, I’m not used to doing the whole host bit, know what I’m saying? Just chantering away here, don’t pay any heed…”
And more… so much more, with Rebus listening, taking small sips of whiskey, knowing he was feeling it. Four pubs he’d been to before tracking Fairstone down. And when the monologue had finally dried up, Rebus had leaned forwards. They were seated in squishy armchairs, coffee table between them with a cardboard box beneath in place of the missing leg. Two glasses, a bottle, and an overflowing ashtray, and Rebus leaning forwards now to say his first words in nearly half an hour.
“Marty, let’s put all this shit with DS Clarke on the back burner, eh? Fact is, I couldn’t give a monkey’s. But there is a question I’ve been meaning to ask…”
“What’s that?” Fairstone, heavy-lidded in his chair, cigarette held between thumb and forefinger.
“I heard a story that you know Peacock Johnson. Anything you can tell me about him?”
Rebus at the window, thinking about how many painkillers were left in the bottle. Thinking about nipping out for a proper drink. Turning from the window and making for his bedroom. Opening the top drawer and pulling out ties and socks, finally finding what he’d been looking for.
Winter gloves. Black leather, nylon-lined. Never worn, until now.