A Question of Blood

  Rebus looked at her. “Do you?”

  “Most people would . . . most normal people, I mean.” A knock at the door. It opened a fraction and the constable’s head appeared.

  “No joy with the drinks,” he said.

  “We’re done here anyway. Thanks for trying.”

  They left the constable to lock the tape away again and headed out, squinting into the daylight. “James didn’t tell us much, did he?” Siobhan said.

  “No,” Rebus admitted. He was replaying the interview in his mind, seeking anything they could use. The only glimmer: James Bell had known Herdman. But so what? Plenty of people in the town had known Lee Herdman.

  “Shall we head up the High Street, see if we can find a café?”

  “I know where we can get a cuppa,” Rebus said.

  “Where?”

  “Same place we got one yesterday . . .”

  Allan Renshaw hadn’t shaved since the day before. He was alone in the house, having sent Kate out to see some friends.

  “Not good for her being cooped up here with me,” he said as he led them through to the kitchen. The living room hadn’t been touched, photos still waiting to be pored over, sorted or shoved back into their boxes. Rebus noted that some remembrance cards had appeared on the mantelpiece. Renshaw picked up a remote from the arm of the sofa and switched off the TV. A video had been playing, homemade, family holiday. Rebus decided not to comment. Renshaw’s hair stuck up in places, and Rebus wondered if he’d slept in his clothes. Renshaw sat down heavily on one of the kitchen chairs, leaving Siobhan to fill the kettle. Boethius was lying on the countertop, and Siobhan made to stroke him, but the cat leapt onto the floor and padded through to the living room.

  Rebus sat down opposite his cousin. “Just wondered how you were,” he said.

  “Sorry I left you with Kate the other night.”

  “No need to apologize. You sleeping okay?”

  “Far too much.” A humorless smile. “A way of shutting it all out, I suppose.”

  “How are the funeral arrangements?”

  “They won’t let us have his body, not just yet.”

  “It’ll be soon, Allan. It’ll all be over soon.”

  Renshaw looked up at him with bloodshot eyes. “You promise, John?” He waited till Rebus nodded. “Then how come the phone keeps ringing, reporters wanting to talk to me? They don’t think it’s going to end soon.”

  “Yes, they do. That’s why they’re pestering you. They’ll move on somewhere else in a day or so, just you watch. Anyone in particular you want me to chase off?”

  “There’s a guy Kate’s talked to. He seems to upset her.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “It’s written down somewhere . . .” Renshaw looked around as if the name might be right there under his nose.

  “Next to the phone maybe?” Rebus guessed. He got up and walked back into the hall. The phone was on a ledge just inside the front door. Rebus picked it up, hearing only silence. He saw that the line had been disconnected at its wall jack: Kate’s work. There was a pen next to the phone, but no paper. He looked over towards the stairs and saw a pad. Scribbled names and numbers on its top sheet.

  Rebus walked back through to the kitchen, placing the notepad on the table.

  “Steve Holly,” he announced.

  “That’s the name,” Renshaw agreed.

  Siobhan, who’d been pouring tea, paused and looked at Rebus. They both knew Steve Holly. He worked for a Glasgow tabloid and had proved his nuisance value in the past.

  “I’ll have a word,” Rebus promised, reaching into his pocket for the painkillers.

  Siobhan handed around the mugs and sat down. “You okay?” she asked.

  “Fine,” Rebus lied.

  “What happened to your hands, John?” Renshaw asked. Rebus shook his head.

  “Nothing, Allan. How’s the tea?”

  “It’s fine.” But Renshaw made no move to drink. Rebus stared at his cousin, thinking of the tape, of James Bell’s calm narrative.

  “Derek didn’t suffer,” Rebus said quietly. “Probably didn’t know anything about it.”

  Renshaw nodded.

  “If you don’t believe me . . . well, one day soon you’ll be able to ask James Bell. He’ll tell you.”

  Another nod. “I don’t think I know him.”

  “James?”

  “Derek had a lot of friends, but I don’t think he was one of them.”

  “He was friends with Anthony Jarvies, though?” Siobhan asked.

  “Oh, aye, Tony was round here a lot. They’d help each other with homework, listen to music . . .”

  “What sort?” Rebus asked.

  “Jazz mostly. Miles Davis, Coleman something . . . I forget the names. Derek said he was going to buy a tenor sax, learn to play it when he went to university.”

  “Kate was saying Derek didn’t know the man who shot him. Did you know him, Allan?”

  “I’d seen him in the pub. Bit of a . . . loner’s not the right word. But he wasn’t always in company. Used to disappear for days at a time. Hill walking or something. Or maybe away on that boat of his.”

  “Allan . . . if this is out of order, you’ve every right to say so.”

  Renshaw looked at him. “What?”

  “I was wondering if I could maybe take a look at Derek’s room . . .”

  Renshaw climbed the stairs in front of Rebus, Siobhan at the rear. He opened the door for them but stood aside to let them enter.

  “Haven’t really had a chance to . . .” he apologized. “Not that the place is . . .”

  The bedroom was small, dark with the curtains closed.

  “Mind if I open them?” Rebus asked. Renshaw just shrugged, unwilling to cross the threshold. Rebus pulled the curtains apart. The window looked down onto the back garden, where the dishcloth still hung from the whirligig, the mower still stood on the lawn. There were prints on the walls: moody black-and-white shots of jazz players. Photos torn from magazines showing elegant young women in repose. Bookshelves, a hi-fi, a fourteen-inch combination TV/VCR. A desk with a laptop computer connected to a printer. Barely leaving space for the single bed. Rebus looked at the spines of some of the CDs: Ornette Coleman, Coltrane, John Zorn, Archie Shepp, Thelonious Monk. There was some classical stuff, too. Draped over a chair: a running vest and shorts, a sheathed tennis racket.

  “Derek was into sports?” Rebus remarked.

  “Did a lot of jogging and cross-country.”

  “Who did he play tennis with?”

  “Tony . . . a few others. Didn’t get any of it from me, I’ll tell you that.” Renshaw looked down at himself, as if assessing his girth. Siobhan gave him the smile she felt was expected. She knew, though, that there was nothing natural about anything he said. It was coming from a small part of his brain while the rest still reeled in horror.

  “He liked dressing up, too,” Rebus said, holding up a framed photo of Derek with Anthony Jarvies, both in their CCF uniforms and caps. Renshaw stared at it from the safety of the doorway.

  “Derek only joined because of Tony,” he said. Rebus remembered Eric Fogg saying much the same thing.

  “Did they ever go out sailing together?” Siobhan asked.

  “Might have done. Kate tried waterskiing . . .” Renshaw’s voice died. His eyes widened slightly. “That bastard Herdman took her out in his boat . . . her and some friends. If I ever see him . . .”

  “He’s dead, Allan,” Rebus said, reaching out to touch his cousin’s arm. Football . . . down in the park in Bowhill . . . young Allan grazing his knee on the pavement, Rebus rubbing a dock leaf over the broken skin . . .

  I had a family, but I let them get away . . . His wife estranged, daughter in England, brother God knew where.

  “See when they bury him,” Renshaw was saying, “I’ve a good mind to dig him up and kill him again.”

  Rebus squeezed the arm, watching the man’s eyes brim with fresh tears. “Let’s go down,” he said, guidin
g Renshaw back to the top of the stairs. There was just enough room for them to stand side by side in the passageway. Two grown men, hanging on.

  “Allan,” Rebus said, “any chance we could borrow Derek’s laptop?”

  “His laptop?” Rebus stayed silent. “What’s the point of . . . ? I don’t know, John.”

  “Just for a day or two. I’ll bring it back.”

  Renshaw seemed to be having difficulty making sense of the request. “I suppose . . . if you think . . .”

  “Thanks, Allan.” Rebus turned his head, nodding to Siobhan, who retreated back up the staircase.

  Rebus took Renshaw into the living room, seating him on the sofa. Renshaw immediately picked up a handful of photographs.

  “I need to get these sorted,” he said.

  “What about work? How long are you off for?”

  “They said I could go back after the funeral. It’s a quiet time of year.”

  “Maybe I’ll come and see you,” Rebus said. “It’s time I traded my junk heap in.”

  “I’ll look after you,” Renshaw promised, looking up at Rebus. “You see if I don’t.”

  Siobhan appeared in the doorway, laptop tucked beneath her arm, trailing cables.

  “We better be going,” Rebus said to Renshaw. “I’ll look in again, Allan.”

  “You’ll always be welcome, John.” Renshaw made the effort to stand up, reaching out a hand. Then he pulled Rebus to him in a sudden embrace, slapping his hands against Rebus’s back. Rebus returned the gesture, wondering if he looked as awkward as he felt. But Siobhan had averted her eyes, studying the tips of her shoes as if to assess their need for a polish. When they walked out to the car, Rebus realized he was sweating, his shirt sticking to him.

  “Was it hot in there?”

  “Not especially,” Siobhan said. “You still running a temperature?”

  “Looks like it.” He mopped his brow with the back of one glove.

  “Why the laptop?”

  “No reason really.” Rebus met her look. “Maybe to see if there’s anything about the car crash. How Derek felt, whether anyone blamed him.”

  “Apart from the parents, you mean?”

  Rebus nodded. “Maybe . . . I don’t know.” He sighed.

  “What?”

  “Maybe I just want to go through it to get a sense of the lad.” He was thinking of Allan, perhaps even now switching the TV back on and settling down with the video remote, bringing his son back to life in color and sound and movement. But only a facsimile, contained by the tight confines of the box.

  Siobhan nodded and bent down to slide the laptop onto the backseat of the car. “I can understand that,” she said.

  But Rebus wasn’t so sure that she could.

  “You keep up with your family?” he asked her.

  “A phone call every other weekend.” He knew both her parents were alive, lived down south. Rebus’s mother had died young; he’d been in his mid-thirties when his father had joined her.

  “Did you ever want a sister or brother?” he asked.

  “Sometimes, I suppose.” She paused. “Something happened to you, didn’t it?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I don’t know exactly.” She thought about it. “I think at some point you decided that a family was a liability, because it could make you weak.”

  “As you’ve already surmised, I was never one for hugs and kisses.”

  “Maybe so, but you hugged your cousin back there . . .”

  He got into the passenger seat and closed his door. The painkillers were coating his brain in bubble wrap. “Just drive,” he said.

  She put the key in the ignition. “Where?”

  Rebus remembered something. “Get your mobile out and call the Portakabin.” She pushed the numbers and relinquished the phone to his outstretched hand. When it was answered, Rebus asked to speak to Grant Hood.

  “Grant, it’s John Rebus. Listen, I need a number for Steve Holly.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “He’s been hassling one of the families. I thought I’d have a quiet word.”

  Hood cleared his throat. Rebus remembered the same sound from the tape, and wondered if it was becoming a regular thing with Hood. When the number came, Rebus repeated it so Siobhan could note it down.

  “Hold on a minute, John. Boss wants a word.” Meaning Bobby Hogan.

  “Bobby?” Rebus said. “News on that bank account?”

  “What?”

  “The bank account . . . any big deposits? Jog your memory at all?”

  “Never mind that.” There was urgency in Hogan’s voice.

  “What is it?” Rebus prompted.

  “Seems Lord Jarvies put away one of Herdman’s old pals.”

  “Oh, aye? When was this?”

  “Just last year. Guy by the name of Robert Niles—ring any bells?”

  Rebus furrowed his brow. “Robert Niles?” he repeated. Siobhan nodded, made a slashing motion across her neck.

  “The guy who cut his wife’s throat?”

  “That’s the one,” Hogan said. “Found fit to plead. Guilty verdict, and life from Lord Jarvies. I got a call, seems Herdman’s been a regular visitor to Niles ever since.”

  “What was it . . . nine, ten months back?”

  “They put him in Barlinnie, but he flipped, went for another prisoner, then started cutting at himself.”

  “So where’s he now?”

  “Carbrae Special Hospital.”

  Rebus was thoughtful. “You think Herdman was after the judge’s son?”

  “It’s a possibility. Revenge and all that . . .”

  Yes, revenge. That word now hung over both the dead boys . . .

  “I’m going to see him,” Hogan was saying.

  “Niles? Is he fit to see anyone?”

  “Seems like. Want to tag along?”

  “Bobby, I’m flattered. Why me?”

  “Because Niles is ex-SAS, John. Served alongside Herdman. If anyone knows the inside of Lee Herdman’s head, it’s him.”

  “A killer locked up in a psycho ward? My, aren’t we lucky.”

  “The offer’s there, John.”

  “When?”

  “I was thinking first thing tomorrow. It’s a couple of hours by car.”

  “Count me in.”

  “Good man. Who knows, you might get stuff out of Niles . . . empathy and all that.”

  “You think so?”

  “Way I see it, one look at your hands, and he’ll take you for a fellow sufferer.”

  Hogan was chuckling as Rebus handed the phone to Siobhan. She ended the call.

  “I got most of that,” she said. Her phone chirruped immediately. It was Gill Templer.

  “How come Rebus never answers his phone?” Templer bellowed.

  “I think he has it switched off,” Siobhan said, eyes on Rebus. “He can’t push the buttons.”

  “Funny, I’ve always taken him for an expert at pushing buttons.” Siobhan smiled: Especially yours, she thought.

  “Do you want him?” she asked.

  “I want the pair of you back here,” Templer said. “Pronto, with no excuses.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “You’ve got trouble, that’s what. The worst kind . . .” Templer let her words hang in the air. Siobhan saw what she must mean.

  “The papers?”

  “Bingo. Someone’s on to the story, only they’ve added some bells and whistles that I’d like John to explain to me.”

  “What sort of bells and whistles?”

  “He was spotted leaving the pub with Martin Fairstone, walking home with him, in fact. Spotted leaving, too, a good while later, and just before the house went up in flames. The paper in question is getting ready to lead with it.”

  “We’re on our way.”

  “I’ll be waiting.” The phone went dead. Siobhan started the car.

  “We’ve to go back to St. Leonard’s,” she informed Rebus, going on to explain why.
/>
  “Which paper is it?” was all Rebus said at the end of a lengthy silence.

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “Call her again.”

  Siobhan looked at him but made the call.

  “Give me the phone,” Rebus ordered. “Don’t want you going off the road.”

  He took the phone and held it to his ear, asked to be put through to the chief super’s office.

  “It’s John,” he said when Templer answered. “Who’s got the story?”

  “Reporter by the name of Steve Holly. And the sod’s like a terrier at a lamppost convention.”

  6

  I knew it would look bad,” Rebus explained to Templer. “That’s why I didn’t say anything.” They were in Templer’s office at St. Leonard’s. She was seated, Rebus standing. She held a sharpened pencil in one hand, manipulating it, studying its tip, maybe weighing it as a weapon. “You lied to me.”

  “I just left out a few details, Gill . . .”

  “A few details?”

  “None of them relevant.”

  “You went back to his house!”

  “We had a drink together.”

  “Just you and a known criminal who’d been threatening your closest colleague? Who’d made an allegation of assault against you?”

  “I had a word with him. We didn’t argue or anything.” Rebus began to fold his arms, but this served to increase the blood pressure in his hands, so he unfolded them again. “Ask the neighbors, see if they heard raised voices. I’ll tell you right now, they didn’t. We were drinking whiskey in the living room.”

  “Not the kitchen?”

  Rebus shook his head. “I wasn’t in the kitchen all night.”

  “What time did you leave?”

  “No idea. Gone midnight, easy.”

  “Not long before the fire, then?”

  “Long enough.”

  She stared at him.

  “The man had had a skinful, Gill. We’ve all seen it: they get the munchies, turn on the chip pan, and fall asleep. It’s either that or the lit cigarette down the side of the sofa.”

  Templer tested the pencil’s sharpness against her finger.

  “How much trouble am I in?” Rebus asked, the silence getting to him.

  “Depends on Steve Holly. He makes a song and dance, we have to be seen to be doing something about it.”