A Question of Blood

  “Like putting me on suspension?”

  “It had crossed my mind.”

  “I don’t suppose I could blame you.”

  “That’s awfully magnanimous, John. Why did you go to his house?”

  “He asked me. I think he liked playing games. That’s all Siobhan was to him. Then I came along. He sat there feeding me drinks, spouting on about his adventures . . . I think it gave him a buzz.”

  “And what did you think you were going to get out of it?”

  “I don’t know exactly . . . I thought it might distract him from Siobhan.”

  “She asked you for help?”

  “No.”

  “No, I’ll bet she didn’t. Siobhan can fight her own battles.”

  Rebus nodded.

  “So it’s a coincidence?”

  “Fairstone was a disaster waiting to happen. It’s a blessing he didn’t take anyone else with him.”

  “A blessing?”

  “I won’t be losing too much sleep, Gill.”

  “No, I suppose that would be too much to ask.”

  Rebus straightened his back, held on to the silence, embracing it. Templer flinched. She’d drawn a bead of blood from her finger with the pencil tip.

  “Final warning, John,” she said, dropping her hand, unwilling to deal with the injury—that sudden fallibility—in front of him.

  “Yes, Gill.”

  “Final means final with me.”

  “I understand. Want me to fetch a Band-Aid?” His hand reached for the doorknob.

  “I want you to leave.”

  “If you’re sure there’s nothing —”

  “Out!”

  Rebus closed the door after him, feeling the muscles in his legs starting to work again. Siobhan was standing not ten feet away, one questioning eyebrow raised. Rebus gave her an awkward thumbs-up, and she shook her head slowly: I don’t know how you get away with it.

  He wasn’t sure he knew either.

  “Let me buy you a drink,” he said. “Cafeteria coffee all right?”

  “That’s pushing the boat out.”

  “I’m on a final warning. It’s hardly the winning goal at Hampden.”

  “More of a throw-in at Easter Road?”

  She managed a smile from him. He felt an aching in his jaw, the feeling of sustained tension that a simple smile could displace.

  Downstairs, however, it was chaos. People milled around, the interview rooms all seemed to be full. Rebus recognized faces from Leith CID, meaning Hogan’s team. He grabbed an elbow.

  “What’s going on?”

  The face glowered at him, then softened as he was recognized. The detective constable’s name was Pettifer. He’d been only half a year in CID; already he was toughening up nicely.

  “Leith’s jam-packed,” Pettifer explained. “Thought we’d use St. Leonard’s for the overflow.”

  Rebus looked around. Pinched faces, ill-fitting clothes, bad haircuts . . . the cream of Edinburgh’s lower depths. Informers, junkies, touts, scammers, housebreakers, muscle, alkies. The station was filling with their mingled scents, their slurred, expletive-strewn protestations. They’d fight anyone, anytime. Where were their lawyers? Nothing to drink? Needing a pish. What was the game? What about human rights? No dignity in this fascist state . . .

  Detectives and uniforms tried for a semblance of order, taking names, details, pointing to a room or a bench where a statement could be taken, everything denied, a muttered complaint made. The younger men had a swagger, not yet ground down by the constant attentions of the law. They smoked, despite the warning signs. Rebus bummed a cigarette from one of them. He wore a checked baseball cap, its rim pointing skywards. Rebus reckoned one gust of Edinburgh wind would have the thing sailing from its owner’s head like a Frisbee.

  “No’ done nothing, like,” the youth said, twitching one shoulder. “Just helping out, so they says. Dinne want nothing to do with shooters, chief, that’s the gospel. Pass it along, eh?” He winked a snake’s cold eye. “One good turn and all that.” Meaning the rumpled cigarette. Rebus nodded, moved off again.

  “Bobby’s looking for whoever might have supplied the guns,” Rebus told Siobhan. “Rounding up the usual desperadoes.”

  “Thought I recognized some faces.”

  “Aye, and not from judging any bonny baby contests.” Rebus studied the men—they were all men. Easy to see them as mere debris; work hard enough and you might find a smear of sympathy somewhere in your soul. These were men on whom the Fates had decided not to shine, men who’d been brought up to respect greed and fear, men whose whole lives had been tainted from the word go.

  Rebus believed this. He saw families where the children ran wild and would grow up indifferent to anything but the rules of survival in what they saw as a jungle. Neglect was almost in their genes. Cruelty made people cruel. With some of these young men, Rebus had known their fathers and grandfathers, too, criminality in their blood, aging the one and only disincentive to their recidivism. These were basic facts. But there was a problem. By the time Rebus and his like had reason to confront these men, the damage was already done, and in many cases appeared irreversible. So there could be little room for sympathy. Instead, it came down to attrition.

  And then there were men like Peacock Johnson. Peacock wasn’t his real name, of course. It was because of the shirts he wore, shirts that could curdle any hangover an onlooker might be harboring. Johnson was lowlife masquerading as high. He made money, and spent it, too. The shirts were often custom-made by a tailor in one of the narrow lanes of the New Town. Johnson sometimes affected a homburg and had grown a thin, black mustache, probably thinking he looked like Kid Creole. His dental work was good—which by itself would have marked him out from his fellow denizens—and he used his smile prodigally. He was a piece of work.

  Rebus knew he was in his late thirties but could pass for either ten years older or a decade younger, depending on his mood and outfit. He went everywhere with a runt of a guy named Evil Bob. Bob sported what was almost a uniform: baseball cap, tracksuit top, baggy black jeans and oversized sneakers. Gold rings on his fingers, ID bracelets on both wrists, chains around his neck. He had an oval, spotty face with a mouth that hung open almost permanently, giving him a look of constant bewilderment. Some people said that Evil Bob was Peacock’s brother. If so, Rebus guessed some cruel genetic experiment had taken place. The tall, nearly elegant Johnson and his brutish sidekick.

  As for the “evil” in Evil Bob, as far as anyone knew, it was just a name.

  As Rebus watched, the two men were being separated. Bob was to follow a CID officer upstairs to where a space was newly available. Johnson was about to accompany DC Pettifer into Interview Room 1. Rebus glanced towards Siobhan, then pushed his way through the scrum.

  “Mind if I sit in on this one?” he asked Pettifer. The young man looked flustered. Rebus tried for a reassuring smile.

  “Mr. Rebus . . .” Johnson was holding out his hand. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  Rebus ignored him. He didn’t want a pro like Johnson to know just how new Pettifer was to the game. At the same time, he had to persuade the detective constable that no dirty trick was being played, that Rebus wasn’t going to be there as invigilator. All he had was his smile, so he tried it again.

  “Fine,” Pettifer said at last. The three men entered the interview room, Rebus holding his index finger up in Siobhan’s direction, hoping she’d know he wanted her to wait for him.

  IR1 was small and stuffy and held the body odors of what seemed like its last half a dozen guests. There were windows high up on one wall, but they wouldn’t open. On the small table sat a dual-tape deck. There was a panic button at shoulder height behind it. A video camera was trained on the room from a bracket above the door.

  But there’d be no recording today. These interviews were informal, goodwill a priority. Pettifer carried nothing into the room but a couple of sheets of blank paper and a cheap pen. He would have studied the file on Johns
on but wasn’t about to brandish it.

  “Take a seat, please,” Pettifer said. Johnson brushed the chair’s surface with a bright red handkerchief before lowering himself onto it with showy deliberation.

  Pettifer sat down opposite, then realized there was no chair for Rebus. He made to stand up again, but Rebus shook his head.

  “I’ll just stand here, if that’s okay,” he said. He was leaning against the wall opposite, legs crossed at the ankles, hands resting in his jacket pockets. He’d found a spot where he was in Pettifer’s line of vision but where Johnson would have to turn to see him.

  “You’re sort of like a guest star, Mr. Rebus?” Johnson obliged with a grin.

  “VIP treatment for you, Peacock.”

  “The Peacock always travels first-class, Mr. Rebus.” Johnson sounded satisfied, resting against the back of the chair, arms folded. His hair was jet-black, slicked back from the brow, curling where it met the nape of his neck. He’d been known to keep a cocktail stick in his mouth, working it like a lollipop. Not today, though. Today he was chewing a piece of gum.

  “Mr. Johnson,” Pettifer began, “I assume you know why you’re here?”

  “You’re asking all us cats about the shooter. I told the other cop, told anyone who’d listen, the Peacock doesn’t do that sort of thing. Shooting kids, man, that’s pure evil.” He shook his head slowly. “I’d help you if I could, but you’ve got me here under false pretexts.”

  “You’ve been in a spot of trouble before over firearms, Mr. Johnson. We just wondered if you might be the sort of man who’d have his ear to the ground. Could be you’ve heard something. Maybe a rumor, someone new in the marketplace . . .”

  Pettifer sounded confident. It could be 90 percent front; inside he could be shivering like the last leaf on autumn’s tree, but he sounded okay, and that was what mattered. Rebus liked what he saw.

  “The Peacock isn’t what you’d call a snitch, Your Honor. But in this case, it’s a definite. If I hear something, I come straight to you. No worries on that bulletin board. And for the record, I deal in replica weapons—collectors’ market, respectable gentlemen of industry and suchlike. When the powers above make such trade illegal, you can be sure the Peacock will cease operations.”

  “You’ve never sold illegal firearms to anyone?”

  “Never.”

  “And don’t happen to know of anyone who might?”

  “As I said in a previous answer, the Peacock is not a snitch.”

  “What about reactivating these collectors’ guns of yours: know anyone who’d be able to do that?”

  “Not a scooby, m’lud.”

  Pettifer nodded and looked down at the sheets of paper, which were just as blankly white as they’d been when he’d placed them on the table. During the lull, Johnson turned his head to check on Rebus.

  “What’s it like back in cattle class, Mr. Rebus?”

  “I like it. The people tend to be that bit cleaner in their habits.”

  “Now, now . . .” Another grin, this time accompanied by a wagging finger. “I won’t have uppity public servants soiling my VIP suite.”

  “You’re going to love it in Barlinnie, Peacock,” Rebus said. “Put it another way: the guys in there are going to love you to absolute bits. Dressing up always tends to go down well in the Bar-L.”

  “Mr. Rebus . . .” Johnson lowered his head and produced a sigh. “Vendettas are ugly things. Ask the Italians.”

  Pettifer shifted in his chair, its legs scraping the floor. “Maybe if we could get back to the question of where you think Lee Herdman could have scored those guns . . . ?”

  “They’re mostly made in China these days, aren’t they?” Johnson said.

  “I mean,” Pettifer went on, an edge creeping into his voice, “how would someone go about getting hold of them?”

  Johnson gave an exaggerated shrug. “By the grip and the trigger?” He laughed at his own joke, laughed alone into the room’s silence. Then he shifted in his seat, tried for a solemn face. “Most gun sellers are Glasgow-based. They’re the cats you should be talking to.”

  “Our colleagues in the west are doing just that,” Pettifer said. “But meantime, you can’t think of anyone in particular we should be asking?”

  Johnson shrugged. “Search me.”

  “You should do that, DC Pettifer,” Rebus said, making for the door. “You should definitely take him up on that . . .”

  Outside, the situation was no calmer and there was no sign of Siobhan. Rebus guessed she’d retreated to the cafeteria, but instead of looking for her, he headed upstairs, glancing in on a couple of rooms before finding Evil Bob, who was being interviewed by a shirt-sleeved DS named George Silvers. Around St. Leonard’s, Silvers was known as “Hi-Ho.” He was a time-server, awaiting the oncoming pension with all the anticipation of a hitchhiker at a truck stop. He didn’t so much as nod when Rebus entered the room. There were a dozen questions on his list, and he wanted them asked and answered so that the specimen in front of him could be deposited back on the street. Bob watched as Rebus pulled a chair between the two men and sat down, his right knee only inches from Bob’s left. Bob squirmed.

  “I’ve just been in with Peacock,” Rebus said, ignoring that he was interrupting one of Silvers’s questions. “He should change his name to canary.”

  Bob stared at him dully. “Why’s that, then?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “Dunno.”

  “What do canaries do?”

  “Fly around . . . live in trees.”

  “They live in your grannie’s fucking birdcage, you moron. And they sing.”

  Bob thought about this; Rebus could almost hear the cogs grinding. With a lot of lowlifes, it was an act. Many of them were clever enough, wise not just in the ways of the street. But either Bob was Robert De Niro in full method mode, or else he was no actor at all.

  “What sort of stuff?” he asked. Then he saw Rebus’s look. “I mean, what sort of stuff do they sing?”

  Not De Niro, then . . .

  “Bob,” Rebus said, elbows on knees, leaning close to the squat young man, “you hang around with Johnson, you’re going to spend half your life behind bars.”

  “So?”

  “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  Stupid question, Rebus realized as the words came out. The arch look from Silvers told him as much. Prison would be just another sleepwalking session for Bob. It would have no effect on him whatsoever.

  “Peacock and me, we’re partners.”

  “Oh, aye, and I’m sure he’s splitting it right down the middle. Come on, Bob . . .” Rebus smiled conspiratorially. “He’s ripping you off. Big grin on his face, blinding you with dental work. But he’s framing you. And when things start going wrong, guess who’ll be taking the fall? That’s why he keeps you around. You’re the guy in the panto who gets the custard pie in his face every performance. The pair of you buy and sell guns, for Christ’s sake! Think we’re not on to you?”

  “Replicas,” Bob stated, as if remembering a lesson and repeating it rote. “For collectors to hang on their walls.”

  “Oh, aye, everybody wants a bunch of fake Glock 17s and Walther PPKs above the fireplace . . .” Rebus straightened up. He didn’t know if it was possible to get through to Bob. There had to be something, a weakness to be exploited. But the guy was like so much wet dough. You could knead him, twist him all out of shape . . . you’d only ever end up with a spongy mass. He decided on one last try.

  “One of these days, Bob, a kid’s going to draw one of your replicas and someone’ll take him down, thinking the gun’s real. It’s only a matter of time.” Rebus was aware that he was allowing some emotion to creep into his voice. Silvers was studying him, beginning to wonder what he was up to. Rebus looked at him, then shrugged, started to push up from the chair.

  “Think about it, Bob, just do that for me.” Rebus tried for eye contact, but the young man was staring at the ceiling lights, as if at a fireworks displ
ay.

  “I’ve never been to a panto . . .” he was starting to tell Silvers as Rebus left.

  Siobhan, dumped by Rebus, had gone upstairs to CID. The main office was busy, detectives seated at borrowed desks, facing their interviewees. At her own desk, the computer monitor had been pushed to one side, her in-tray relegated to the floor. Detective Constable Davie Hynds was taking notes as a young man, pupils reduced to pinpoints, droned on.

  “What’s wrong with your own desk?” Siobhan asked.

  “DS Wylie pulled rank on me.” Hynds nodded towards where Detective Sergeant Ellen Wylie sat at his desk, preparing for her next interview. She looked up at the mention of her name and smiled. Siobhan smiled back. Wylie was based at the West End station. Same rank as Siobhan, but more years on her clock. Siobhan knew they might become rivals in the promotion stakes. She decided to squeeze her in-tray into one of the desk drawers, didn’t like the idea of this invasion. Each police station was a fiefdom of sorts. No telling what the raiders could take away with them . . .

  When she picked up the in-tray, she saw the corner of a white envelope poking out from beneath a series of stapled reports. She eased it out, then placed the in-tray in the desk’s single deep drawer, closing and locking it. Hynds was looking at her.

  “Nothing you need, is there?” Siobhan asked him. He shook his head, wondering if an explanation was on its way. But all Siobhan did was walk away, heading back downstairs to the drink machine. It was more peaceful down here. A couple of the visiting detectives were on a break, smoking and sharing some joke in the car park. She didn’t see Rebus there, so she stayed by the machine, opening the ice-cold can. The sugar hit her teeth and then her stomach. She found the can’s list of contents, reminding herself that the panic attack books said to lay off caffeine. She was trying to find room in her affections for decaf coffee, and she knew there were caffeine-free soft drinks out there somewhere. Salt: that was another one to avoid. High blood pressure and all that. Alcohol was all right in moderation. She wondered if a bottle of wine in the evening after work could be classed as “moderate,” doubted it somehow. Thing was, if she drank half a bottle, the rest tasted foul the next day. Memo to self: explore possibility of buying half-bottles of wine only.