A Question of Blood

  “Senile dementia,” she’d muttered aloud. “And talking to yourself: another symptom.”

  Chocolate and crisps weren’t on her panic-free diet. Salt, fat and sugar. Her heart wasn’t exactly racing, but she knew she had to calm down somehow, had to relax and start winding down as bedtime approached. She’d stared out of her window for a while, checking on the neighbors across the street, pressing her nose to the glass as she looked down two stories to the passing traffic. It was quiet outside, quiet and dark, the pavement picked out by orange streetlamps. There were no bogeymen; nothing to be scared of.

  She remembered that a long time ago, back in the days when she’d still taken sugar in her coffee, she’d been afraid of the dark for a while. About the age of thirteen or fourteen: too old to confide in her parents. She would spend her pocket money on batteries for the flashlight she kept on all night, keeping it beneath the covers with her, holding her breath in an attempt to pick out the breathing of anyone else in the room. The few times her parents caught her, they just thought she was staying up late to read. She could never be sure which was the right thing to do: leave the door open, so you could make a run for it, or close it to keep out intruders? She checked beneath her bed two or three times each day, though there was little enough room under there: it was where she stored her albums. The thing was, she never had nightmares. When she did eventually drop off to sleep, that sleep was deep and cleansing. She never suffered panic attacks. And eventually she forgot why she’d ever been afraid in the first place. The flashlight went back in its drawer. The money she’d been wasting on batteries she now started spending on makeup.

  She could never be sure which came first: did she discover boys, or did they discover her?

  “Ancient history, girl,” she told herself now. There were no bogeymen out there, but precious few knights either, tarnished or otherwise. She walked over to her dining table, looked at her notes on the case. They were laid out in no order whatsoever—everything she’d been given that first day. Reports, autopsy and forensics, photos of crime scene and victims. She studied the two faces, Derek Renshaw and Anthony Jarvies. Both were handsome, in a bland sort of way. There was a haughty intelligence to Jarvies’s heavy-lidded stare. Renshaw looked a lot less sure of himself. Maybe it was a class thing, Jarvies’s breeding showing through. She reckoned Allan Renshaw would have been proud of the fact that his son boasted a judge’s son as a friend. It was why you sent your kids to private school, wasn’t it? You wanted them to meet the right sort of people, people who might prove useful in the future. She knew fellow officers, not all of them on CID salaries, who scrimped to send their offspring to the kind of schools they themselves had never been offered the chance of. The class thing again. She wondered about Lee Herdman. He’d been in the army, the SAS . . . ordered about by officers who’d been to the right schools, who spoke the right way. Could it be as simple as that? Could his attack have been motivated by nothing more than bitter envy of an elite?

  There’s no mystery . . . Remembering her own words to Rebus, she laughed out loud. If there was no mystery, what was she worrying about? Why was she slogging her guts out? What was to stop her putting it all to one side and relaxing?

  “Bugger it,” she said, sitting down at the table, pushing away the paperwork and pulling Derek Renshaw’s laptop towards her. She booted it up, plugging it in to her phone line. There were e-mails to be gone through, enough to keep her awake half the night if need be. Plenty of other files, too, that she hadn’t checked yet. She knew the work would calm her. It would calm her because it was work.

  She decided on some decaf, this time remembering to turn the kettle on. Took the hot drink to the living room. The password “Miles’ got her online, but the new e-mails were junk. People trying to sell insurance or Viagra to someone they couldn’t know was dead. There were a few messages from people who’d noted Derek’s absence from various bulletin boards and chat rooms. Siobhan thought of something and dragged the icon to the top of the screen, clicking on “Favorite Places.” Up came a list of sites, shortcuts to addresses Derek had used regularly. The chat rooms and bulletin boards were there, along with the usual suspects: Amazon, BBC, Ask Jeeves . . . But one address was unfamiliar. Siobhan clicked on it. Connection took only a few moments.

  WELCOME TO MY DARKNESS!

  The words were in dull red, the color pulsing with life. The rest of the screen was a blank background. Siobhan moved the cursor onto the letter W and double-clicked. Connection took a little longer this time, the screen changing to a picture of a room’s interior. The image was fairly indistinct. She tried altering the screen’s contrast and brightness, but the problem was with the image itself, there was little she could do to improve it. She could make out a bed and a curtained window behind it. She tried moving the cursor around the screen, but there was no hidden marker for her to click on. This was all there was. She was sitting back, arms folded, wondering what it might mean, wondering what interest the image could have had for Derek Renshaw. Maybe it was his room. Maybe the “darkness” was another side to his character. Then the screen changed, a strange yellow light passing across it. Interference of some kind? Siobhan sat forwards, grasping the edge of her table. She knew what it was now. It was a car’s headlights, brief illumination from behind the curtains. Not a picture then, not a captured still.

  “Webcam,” she whispered. She was watching a real-time broadcast of somebody’s bedroom. Moreover, she knew now whose bedroom it was. Those headlights had done just enough. She got up, found her telephone and made the call.

  Siobhan plugged everything in and rebooted the computer. The laptop was on a chair—not enough cable to stretch from Rebus’s telephone jack to his dining table.

  “All very mysterious,” he said, bringing in a tray—mugs of coffee for the pair of them. She could smell vinegar: a fish supper probably. Thinking of the chow mein waiting for her at home, she realized how similar they were—takeaway food, no one to go home to . . . He’d been drinking beer, an empty bottle of Deuchars on the floor by his chair. And listening to music: the Hawkwind anthology she’d bought him last birthday. Maybe he’d put it on specially, to make her think he hadn’t forgotten.

  “Almost there,” she said now. Rebus had turned off the CD and was rubbing his eyes with his ungloved, hot-looking hands. Nearly ten o’clock. He’d been asleep in his chair when she’d phoned, quite content to stay there till morning. Easier than getting undressed. Easier than untying shoelaces, fiddling with buttons. He hadn’t bothered tidying up. Siobhan knew him too well. But he’d closed the kitchen door so she wouldn’t see the dirty dishes. If she saw them, she’d offer to wash up for him, and he didn’t want that.

  “Just need to connect . . .”

  Rebus had brought one of the dining chairs over to sit on. Siobhan was kneeling on the floor in front of the laptop. She angled its screen a little, and he nodded to let her know he could see it.

  WELCOME TO MY DARKNESS!

  “Alice Cooper fan club?” he guessed.

  “Just wait.”

  “Royal Society for the Blind?”

  “If I so much as smile, you have permission to hit me over the head with the tray.” She sat back a little. “There . . . now take a look.”

  The room was no longer completely dark. Candles had been lit. Black candles.

  “Teri Cotter’s bedroom,” Rebus stated. Siobhan nodded. Rebus watched the candles flicker.

  “This is a film?”

  “It’s a live feed, as far as I know.”

  “Meaning?”

  “There was a webcam attached to her computer. That’s where the picture’s coming from. When I first watched, the room was dark. She must be home now.”

  “Is this supposed to be interesting?” Rebus asked.

  “Some people like it. Some of them pay to watch stuff like this.”

  “But we’re getting a show for free?”

  “Seems like.”

  “You reckon she switches it off wh
en she comes in?”

  “Where would the fun be in that?”

  “She keeps it on all the time?”

  Siobhan shrugged. “Maybe we’re going to find out.”

  Teri Cotter had entered the frame, moving jerkily, the camera presenting a series of stills broken up by momentary delays.

  “No sound?” Rebus inquired.

  Siobhan didn’t think so, but she tried turning up the volume anyway. “No sound,” she acknowledged.

  Teri had seated herself cross-legged on her bed. She was dressed in the same clothes as when they’d met. She seemed to be looking towards the camera. She leaned forwards and stretched out on her bed, supporting her chin on her cupped hands, face close to the camera now.

  “Like one of those old silent films,” Rebus said. Siobhan didn’t know if he was referring to the picture quality or the lack of sound. “What exactly are we supposed to be doing?”

  “We’re her audience.”

  “She knows we’re here?”

  Siobhan shook her head. “Probably no way of knowing who’s watching—if anyone.”

  “But Derek Renshaw used to watch?”

  “Yes.”

  “You think she knows?”

  Siobhan shrugged, sipped the bitter-tasting coffee. It wasn’t decaf, and she might suffer for it later, but she didn’t care.

  “So what do you think?” he asked.

  “It’s not so unusual for young girls to be exhibitionists.” She paused. “Not that I’ve come across anything like this before.”

  “I wonder who else knows about this.”

  “I doubt her parents do. Is it something we need to ask her?”

  Rebus was thoughtful. “How would people get here?” He pointed towards the screen.

  “There are lists of home pages. She’d just have to provide a link, maybe a description.”

  “Let’s take a look.”

  So Siobhan quit the page and went hunting through cyberspace, typing in the words “Miss” and “Teri.” Page after page of links came up, mostly for porn sites and people called Terry, Terri, and Teri.

  “This could take a while,” she said.

  “So this is what I’ve been missing out on, not having a modem?”

  “All human life is here, most of it ever so slightly depressing.”

  “Just what’s needed after a day at the coal mines.”

  Her face creased in what could almost have passed for a smile. Rebus made a show of reaching for the tea tray.

  “Here we go, I think,” Siobhan said a couple of minutes later. Rebus looked at where she was underlining some words with her finger.

  Myss Teri—visit my 100% non-pornographic (sorry, guys!) home page! “Why ‘Myss’?” Rebus asked.

  “Could be all the other spellings were already taken. My e-mail’s ‘66Siobhan.’”

  “Because sixty-five Siobhans got there ahead of you?”

  She nodded. “And I thought I had an uncommon name.” Siobhan had clicked on the link. Teri Cotter’s home page started to load. There was a photo of her in full Goth mode, palms held to either side of her face.

  “She’s drawn pentagrams on her hands,” Siobhan noted. Rebus was looking: five-pointed stars enclosed by circles. There were no other photos, just some text outlining Teri’s interests, which school she attended, and an invitation to “come worship me, Cockburn Street most Saturday afternoons . . .” There was an option of sending her an e-mail, adding comments to her guest book, or clicking on various links, most of which would send the visitor to other Goth sites, one of which was marked “Dark Entry.”

  “That’ll be the webcam,” Siobhan said. She tried the link, just to be sure. The screen changed back to the same red words: WELCOME TO MY DARKNESS! Another click and they were in Teri Cotter’s bedroom again. She’d changed position so that she had her head against the headboard, knees tucked in front of her. She was writing something in a loose-leaf binder.

  “Looks like homework,” Siobhan said.

  “Could be her potions book,” Rebus suggested. “Anyone accessing her home page would know her age, which school she goes to, and what she looks like.”

  Siobhan was nodding. “And where to find her on a Saturday afternoon.”

  “A dangerous pastime,” Rebus muttered. He was thinking of her potential as prey to any of the hunters out there.

  “Maybe that’s why she likes it.”

  Rebus rubbed his eyes again. He was remembering his first meeting with her. The way she’d said she was jealous of Derek and Anthony . . . and her parting remark: You can see me whenever you like . . . He knew now what those words had been hinting at.

  “Seen enough?” Siobhan asked, tapping the screen.

  He nodded. “Initial thoughts, DS Clarke?”

  “Well . . . if she and Herdman were lovers, and if he was the jealous type . . .”

  “That only works if Anthony Jarvies knew about the site.”

  “Jarvies and Derek were best friends: what are the chances Derek didn’t let him in on it?”

  “Good point. We’ll need to check.”

  “And talk to Teri again?”

  Rebus nodded slowly. “Can we open the visitors’ book?”

  They could, but it didn’t have much to say. No obvious notes from either Derek Renshaw or Anthony Jarvies, just twaddle from some of Miss Teri’s admirers, the majority of whom seemed to be based abroad, if their English was anything to go by. Rebus watched Siobhan as she shut the laptop down.

  “Did you run that license plate?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Last thing I did before clocking off. It was Brimson’s.”

  “Curiouser and curiouser . . .”

  Siobhan folded the screen shut. “How are you coping?” she asked. “I mean, dressing and undressing?”

  “I’m all right.”

  “Not sleeping in your clothes?”

  “No.” He tried to sound indignant.

  “So I can expect to see a clean shirt tomorrow?”

  “Stop mothering me.”

  She smiled. “I could run you another bath.”

  “I can manage.” He waited till her eyes met his. “Cross my heart.”

  “And hope to die?”

  Which took him back to his first meeting with Teri Cotter . . . asking him about deaths he’d witnessed . . . wanting to know what it felt like to die. With a website that would be as good as an invitation to some sick minds.

  “There’s something I want to show you,” Siobhan said, rummaging in her bag. She produced a book, showed him the cover: I’m a Man by Ruth Padel. “It’s about rock music,” she explained, opening it to a marked page. “Listen to this: ‘the heroism dream begins in the teenage bedroom.’”

  “Meaning what?”

  “She’s talking about how teenagers use music as a kind of rebellion. Maybe Teri’s using her actual bedroom.” She flicked to another page. “And there’s something else . . . ‘the gun is male sexuality in jeopardy.’” She looked at him. “Makes sense to me.”

  “You’re saying Herdman was jealous after all?”

  “You’ve never been jealous? Never flown into a rage?”

  He thought for a moment. “Maybe once or twice.”

  “Kate mentioned a book to me. It was called Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream. Maybe Herdman’s rage took him too far.” She held a hand to her mouth, stifling a yawn.

  “Time you got to bed,” Rebus told her. “Plenty of time in the morning for amateur analysis.” She unplugged the laptop, gathered up the cables. He saw her out, then watched from his window as she made it to the safety of her car. Suddenly, a man’s figure appeared at her driver’s-side door. Rebus turned and ran for the stairs, took them two at a time. Hauled open the front door. The man was saying something, voice raised above the ticking engine. He was holding something to the windshield. A newspaper. Rebus grabbed his shoulder, feeling a jab of fire from his fingers. Turned him around . . . recognized the face.

  It was the reporter, Steve
Holly. Rebus realized that what he was holding was probably the next morning’s edition.

  “Very man I wanted to see,” Holly said, shrugging himself free and offering a grin. “Nice to see CID making home visits to each other.” He turned to glance at Siobhan, who had cut her engine and was stepping from the car. “Some might think it a bit late in the evening for chitchat.”

  “What do you want?” Rebus asked.

  “Just after a comment.” He held up the paper’s front page so Rebus could make out the headline: HELL HOUSE COP MYSTERY. “We’re not printing any names as yet. Wondered if you wanted to put your side of the story. I understand you’re on suspension, subject to an internal inquiry?” Holly had folded the paper and produced a microrecorder from his pocket. “That looks nasty.” He was nodding towards Rebus’s ungloved hands. “Burns take a while to heal, don’t they?”

  “John . . .” Siobhan warning him not to lose his head. Rebus pointed a blistered finger at the reporter.

  “Stay away from the Renshaws. You hassle them, you’ll have me to deal with, understood?”

  “Then give me an interview.”

  “Not a chance.”

  Holly looked down at the paper he was holding. “How about this for a headline: COP FLEES MURDER SCENE?”

  “It’ll look good to my lawyers when I sue you.”

  “My paper’s always open to a fair fight, DI Rebus.”

  “Then that’s a problem,” Rebus said, smothering the tape recorder with his hand. “Because I never fight fair.” Spitting the words out, showing Holly two rows of bared teeth. The reporter pressed his finger to a button, stopping the tape.

  “Nice to know where we stand.”

  “Lay off the families, Holly. I mean it.”

  “In your sad, misguided way, I’m sure you do. Sweet dreams, Detective Inspector.” He bowed slightly in Siobhan’s direction, then strode off.

  “Bastard,” Rebus hissed.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Siobhan said soothingly. “Only a quarter of the population reads his paper anyway.” She climbed back into her car, turned the ignition and backed out of the parking space. Gave a little wave as she drove away. Holly had disappeared around a corner, heading for Marchmont Road. Rebus climbed his stairwell, went indoors and found his car keys. Put his gloves back on. Double-locked the door on the way out.