A Question of Blood

  Rebus saw, but wasn’t sure what he was supposed to take from any of it.

  “We think we found the remains of some rope . . . a plastic clothesline. The covering has melted, but the nylon was pretty resilient.”

  “You often get a clothesline in a kitchen,” Rebus said, playing devil’s advocate now because suddenly he knew where this was leading.

  “Agreed. But Professor Gates . . . well, he’s got the forensics people looking at it . . .”

  “Because he thinks Fairstone was tied to the chair?”

  Curt just nodded. “The other photos, in some of them . . . the close-ups . . . you can see the bits of rope.”

  Rebus saw.

  “And there’s this train of events, you see. A man is unconscious, tied to a chair. He wakes up, fire is raging around him, the fumes already deep in his lungs. He’s trying to wrestle himself free, the chair tips, and he starts to suffocate. It’s the smoke that’s killing him . . . he’s dead before the flames can break his bonds . . .”

  “It’s a theory,” Rebus said.

  “Yes, it is,” the pathologist said quietly.

  Rebus sorted through the pictures again. “So suddenly it’s murder?”

  “Or culpable homicide. I suppose a lawyer could argue that tying him up wasn’t what killed him . . . that it was meant merely as a warning, say.”

  Rebus looked at him. “You’ve been giving this some thought.”

  Curt lifted his glass again. “Professor Gates will talk to Gill Templer tomorrow. He’ll show her these photos. Forensics will have their say . . . People are whispering that you were there.”

  “Has a reporter been in touch by any chance?” Rebus watched Curt nod. “Name of Steve Holly?” Another nod. Rebus cursed out loud, just as Harry the barman came in to clear the empty glasses. Harry was whistling, a sure sign that he had a woman on the go. Probably wanted to brag about it, but Rebus’s outburst had him beating a retreat.

  “How are you going to . . . ?” Curt couldn’t find the right words.

  “Fight it?” Rebus suggested. Then he smiled sourly. “I can’t fight something like this, Doc. I was there, whole world knows it, or will soon.” He made to gnaw at a fingernail, then remembered he couldn’t. He felt like punching the table, but couldn’t do that either.

  “It’s all circumstantial,” Curt was saying. “Well, almost . . .” He reached across the table and found one particular photograph, a close-up of the skull, its mouth gaping. Rebus felt the beer churning in his stomach. Curt was pointing to the neck.

  “Might look like skin to you, but there’s something . . . there’s been something hanging around the throat. The deceased didn’t wear a cravat or anything?”

  The idea was so ridiculous that Rebus burst out laughing. “This was a housing project in Gracemount, Doc, not a gentlemen’s club in the New Town.” Rebus started to pick his drink up but found he didn’t want it. He was still shaking his head at the notion of Martin Fairstone in a cravat. Why not a smoking jacket, too? A butler to roll him his cigarettes . . .

  “The thing is,” Dr. Curt was saying, “if he wasn’t wearing something around his throat, a neckerchief or something, then what this begins to look like is a gag of some sort. Maybe a handkerchief stuffed into his mouth, knotted behind the head. Only he was able to slip it off . . . maybe too late by then to call out. It slid down around his neck, you see.”

  And again, Rebus saw.

  He saw himself trying to talk his way out of it.

  Saw himself failing.

  7

  Siobhan had this idea. The panic attacks often came when she was asleep. Maybe it had to do with her bedroom. So she decided to try sleeping on the sofa: perfect arrangement really. Duvet thrown over her, TV in the corner, coffee and a box of Pringles. Three times during the evening, she’d found herself standing by the window, looking out on to her street. If the shadows seemed to have movement to them, she’d watch the same spot for a few minutes until reassured. When Rebus had called to tell her about his meeting with Dr. Curt, she’d asked him a question.

  Had the body been properly ID’d?

  He’d asked what she’d meant.

  “Charred remains . . . the ID will come down to DNA, right? Has anyone done that yet?”

  “Siobhan . . .”

  “Just for the sake of argument.”

  “He’s dead, Siobhan. You can start to forget about him.”

  Biting her bottom lip, less reason than ever now to bother him with the letter. His plate was already heaped.

  He’d rung off. Reason for calling her: if the shit hit the fan the next day, he wouldn’t be around for it, and Templer might go looking for a surrogate.

  Siobhan decided to make more coffee—instant decaf. It left a sour taste in her mouth. She stopped by the window, a quick glance out before she headed for the kitchen. Her doctor had asked her to write down a list of her “menus’ for a typical week, then had circled everything he thought might be contributing to her attacks. She tried not to think about the Pringles . . . problem was, she liked them. Liked wine, too, and fizzy drinks, and takeout. As she’d reasoned with her doctor, she didn’t smoke, exercised regularly. She had to let off steam sometime . . .

  “Booze and fast food are how you let off steam?”

  “They’re how I wind down at day’s end.”

  “Maybe you should try not getting wound up in the first place.”

  “You’re going to tell me you’ve never smoked or had a drink?”

  But of course he wasn’t going to say that. Doctors had higher stress levels than cops. One thing she had done—her own initiative—was try getting into ambient music. Lemon Jelly, Oldsolar, Boards of Canada. Some hadn’t worked—Aphex Twin and Autechre; not enough meat on their bones.

  Meat on their bones . . .

  She was thinking of Martin Fairstone. The way he smelled: male chemicals. His discolored teeth. Standing by her car, chewing his way into her shopping, casual in his aggression, secure in it. Rebus was right: he had to be dead. The note was a sick joke. Problem was, she couldn’t seem to find a candidate. There had to be someone out there, someone she was failing to remember . . .

  Bringing her coffee in from the kitchen, she wandered over to the window again. There were lights on in the tenement across the way. A while back, someone had spied on her from there . . . a cop called Linford. He was still on the force, working at HQ. At one time, she’d thought about moving, but she liked this place, liked her flat, the street, the area. Corner shops, young families and professional singles . . . most of the “families” were younger than her, she realized. She was always being asked: when you going to find a fellah? Toni Jackson seemed to ask every time the Friday Club met. She would point out eligible men in the bars and clubs, not taking no for an answer, leading them over to the table where Siobhan sat with her head in her hands.

  Maybe a boyfriend was the answer, keep away the prowlers. But then, a dog would do just as well. Thing about a dog was . . .

  Thing about a dog was, she didn’t want one. Didn’t want a boyfriend either. She’d had to stop seeing Eric Bain for a while, when he’d started talking about taking their friendship “to the next stage.” She missed him: he would arrive late in the evening, sharing pizza and gossip, listening to music, maybe playing a computer game on his laptop. Soon she’d try inviting him around again, see how it went. Soon, but not yet.

  Martin Fairstone was dead. Everyone knew it. She wondered who would know if he wasn’t. The girlfriend maybe. Close friends or family; he had to be staying with someone, making money to keep himself together. Maybe this Peacock Johnson would know. Rebus said the guy was a magnet for local info. She didn’t feel sleepy, could be a drive would do her good. Ambient on the car hi-fi. She picked up her phone, called the Leith cop shop, knowing the Port Edgar case was financed to the hilt, meaning there’d be bodies on the night shift, keen to top up their bank accounts. She got through to one, asked for some details.

  “Peacock
Johnson . . . I don’t know his first name, not sure anybody else does. He was interviewed earlier today at St. Leonard’s.”

  “What is it you need, DS Clarke?”

  “For the moment, just his address,” Siobhan said.

  Rebus had taken a taxi—easier than driving. Even then, opening the passenger door had required a hard squeeze of his thumb on the latch, and his thumb was still burning. His pockets bulged with change. Small change was hard for him to deal with. He was using notes for every possible transaction, filling his pockets with the residual coins.

  His conversation with Dr. Curt was still echoing in the back of his mind. A murder inquiry was all he needed right now, especially with himself as prime suspect. Siobhan had asked him about Peacock Johnson, but he’d managed to keep his answers vague. Johnson: the reason he was standing here, ringing the doorbell. The reason he’d gone back to Fairstone’s house that night, too . . .

  The door was opened to him, bathing him in light.

  “Ah, it’s you, John. Good man, come in.”

  A mid-terraced house, newly built, off Alnwickhill Road. Andy Callis lived there on his own, his wife dead a year, cancer snatching her too young. A framed wedding photo hung in the hall. Callis a good twenty pounds lighter, Mary radiant, haloed by light, flowers in her hair. Rebus had been at the graveside, Callis placing a posy on the coffin. Rebus had accepted the role of pallbearer, one of six, including Andy himself, keeping his eyes on the posy as the coffin was lowered into the earth.

  A year back. Andy seeming to be getting over it, but then this . . .

  “How are you doing, Andy?” Rebus asked. The electric heater was on in the living room. Leather chair and matching footstool facing the TV. The room tidy, fresh-smelling. The garden outside well-tended, its borders free of weeds. Another picture above the mantelpiece: Mary’s portrait, done in a studio. Same smile as in the wedding photo, but a few lines around the eyes, the face fuller. A woman growing into maturity.

  “I’m fine, John.” Callis settled into his chair, moving like an old man. He was early forties, hair not yet gray. The chair creaked as it adjusted itself to him.

  “Help yourself to a drink, you know where it is.”

  “I might have a nip.”

  “Not driving?”

  “Taxi brought me.” Rebus went to the liquor cabinet, raised a bottle, watched Callis shake his head. “Still on those tablets?”

  “Not supposed to mix them with drink.”

  “Me too.” Rebus poured himself a double.

  “Is it cold in here?” Callis was asking. Rebus shook his head. “What’s with the gloves, then?”

  “I hurt my hands. That’s why I’m on tablets.” He lifted the glass. “And other nonprescribed painkillers.” He brought his drink over to the sofa, made himself comfortable. The TV was playing silently, some sort of game show. “What’s on?”

  “Christ knows.”

  “So I’m not interrupting?”

  “You’re fine.” Callis paused, keeping his eyes on the screen. “Unless you’ve come here to try pushing me again.”

  Rebus shook his head. “I’m past that, Andy. Though I’m bound to admit, we’re stretched to the limit.”

  “That school thing?” From the corner of his eye, he watched Rebus nod. “Terrible thing to happen.”

  “I’m supposed to be working out why he did it.”

  “What’s the point? Give people . . . the opportunity, it’s going to happen.”

  Rebus reflected on the pause after “people.” Callis had been about to say “guns” but had swallowed the word. And he’d called it “that school thing” . . . “thing” rather than “shooting.”

  Not out of the woods yet, then.

  “You still seeing the shrink?” Rebus asked.

  Callis snorted. “Fat lot of good.”

  She wasn’t really a shrink, of course. It wasn’t lying on the sofa and talking about your mother. But Rebus and Callis had turned it into this joke. Joking made it easier to talk about.

  “Apparently there are worse cases than me,” Callis said. “Guys who can’t so much as pick up a pen or a bottle of sauce. Everything they see reminds them . . .” His voice faded.

  Rebus finished the sentence in his head: of guns. Everything reminded them of guns.

  “Bloody odd when you think about it,” Callis went on. “I mean, we’re supposed to be scared of them, isn’t that the whole point? But then someone like me reacts, and suddenly it’s a problem.”

  “It’s a problem when it affects the rest of your life, Andy. Having any trouble pouring sauce onto your chips?”

  Callis patted his stomach. “Not so you’d notice.”

  Rebus smiled, leaned back against the sofa, whiskey glass resting on the arm. He wondered if Andy knew about the tic in his left eye or the slight catch in his voice. It had been nearly three months since he’d taken sick leave from the force. Up until then, he’d been a patrol officer, but with specialist training in firearms. Lothian and Borders had only a handful of such men. They couldn’t just be replaced. Edinburgh had only the one Armed Response Vehicle.

  “What does your doctor say?”

  “John, doesn’t matter what he says. The force isn’t going to let me back in without a battery of tests.”

  “You’re scared you might fail?”

  Callis stared at him. “I’m scared I might pass.”

  They sat in silence after that, watching the TV. It looked to Rebus like one of those survival programs: strangers cooped up together, whittled down each week.

  “So tell me what’s been happening,” Callis said.

  “Well . . .” Rebus considered his options. “Not much really.”

  “Apart from the school thing?”

  “Apart from that, yes. The guys keep asking for you.”

  Callis nodded. “The odd face pops round now and then.”

  Rebus leaned forward, elbows on knees. “You’re not coming back, then?”

  A tired smile from Callis. “You know I’m not. They’ll call it stress or something. Put on disability . . .”

  “How many years is it, Andy?”

  “Since I joined?” Callis’s lips puckered in thought. “Fifteen . . . fifteen and a half.”

  “One incident in all that time, and you’re ready to call it a day? Not even really an ‘incident’ . . .”

  “John, look at me, will you? Notice anything? The way the hands tremble?” He raised a hand for Rebus to see. “And this vein that seems to keep pulsing in my eyelid . . .” Raised the same hand to his eye for effect. “It’s not me that’s calling time, it’s my body. All these warning signs, you saying I just ignore them? Know how many calls we had last year? Not far short of three hundred. We drew weapons three times more often than in the previous year.”

  “World’s toughening up all right.”

  “Maybe so, but I’m not.”

  “No reason you should.” Rebus was thoughtful. “So let’s say you don’t go back on gun duty. Plenty of desks need filling.”

  Callis was shaking his head. “That’s not for me, John. The paperwork always got me down.”

  “You could go back on the beat . . . ?”

  Callis was staring into space, not really listening. “The thing that gets me is, I sit here with the shakes, and those little bastards are still out there, carrying guns and getting away with it. What sort of system is that, John?” He turned to stare at Rebus. “What the hell use are we if we can’t stop that from happening?”

  “Sitting here and getting maudlin’s not going to change things,” Rebus said quietly. There was as much anger as defeat in his friend’s eyes. Slowly, Callis lifted both feet from the stool and eased himself upright. “I’m going to put the kettle on. Can I get you anything?”

  On the television, several contestants were arguing over some task. Rebus checked his watch. “I’m fine, Andy. I should really be going.”

  “It’s nice of you to keep dropping in, John, but you shouldn’t fee
l you have to.”

  “It’s only a pretext for raiding your liquor cabinet, Andy. Soon as that’s empty, you won’t see me for dust.”

  Callis tried smiling. “Phone for a cab, if you like.”

  “I’ve got my mobile.” And he could use it, too—albeit by pushing each key with a pen.

  “Sure I can’t get you something else?”

  Rebus shook his head. “Busy day tomorrow.”

  “Me too,” Andy Callis said.

  Rebus obliged him with a nod. Their conversation always finished this way: Busy tomorrow, John? Always busy, Andy. Aye, me too . . . He thought of things he could say—about the shooting, about Peacock Johnson. He didn’t think they would do any good. In time, they’d be able to talk—talk properly rather than the games of Ping-Pong that so often passed for conversation between them. But not yet.

  “I’ll see myself out,” Rebus called to the kitchen.

  “Stay till the taxi gets here.”

  “I need a breath of air, Andy.”

  “What you mean is, you need a ciggie.”

  “Instincts like that, I can’t believe they never made you a detective.” Rebus opened the front door.

  “Never wanted to be one,” came Andy Callis’s closing words.

  In the cab, Rebus decided on a detour, telling the driver to head towards Gracemount, then directing him to Martin Fairstone’s house. The windows had been boarded up, door padlocked against vandals. It would only take a couple of junkies to turn the place into a crack den. There were no scorch marks on the exterior walls. The kitchen was to the back of the property. That was where the damage would be. The fire crew had dragged some fittings and furnishings out onto the overgrown lawn: chairs, a table, a broken-down upright Hoover. Left there, not even worth looting. Rebus told the driver they could go. Some teenagers had gathered at a bus stop. Rebus didn’t think they were waiting for a bus. The shelter was their gang hut. Two of them stood on top of it, three others lurked in its shadows. The driver came to a stop.

  “What’s up?” Rebus asked.