A Question of Blood

  Seated in the Elephant House coffee shop, sipping a large milky coffee, Rebus took out his mobile. He’d smoked a cigarette on the pavement before coming in: never knew these days whether smoking would be allowed indoors or not. He punched buttons with his thumbnail, connecting to Bobby Hogan’s mobile.

  “Goon Squad taken over yet, Bobby?” he asked.

  “Not completely.” Hogan knowing who Rebus meant: Claverhouse and Ormiston.

  “But they’re in the area?”

  “Pallying up to your girlfriend.”

  It took Rebus a moment to work it out. “Whiteread?” he guessed.

  “That’s the one.”

  “Nothing Claverhouse would like more than hearing a few old stories about me.”

  “Might explain the grin on his face.”

  “Exactly how persona non grata do you reckon I am?”

  “Nobody’s said. Whereabouts are you anyway? Is that an espresso machine I can hear hissing in the background?”

  “Mid-morning break, guv’nor, that’s all. I’m digging into Herdman’s time in the regiment.”

  “You know I fell at the first hurdle?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Bobby. I couldn’t see the SAS handing over his file without a bigger fight than we can put up.”

  “So how are you managing to look into his army record?”

  “Laterally, you might say.”

  “Care to enlighten me further?”

  “Not until I’ve found something useful.”

  “John . . . the parameters of the inquiry are shifting.”

  “In plain English, Bobby?”

  “The ‘why’ doesn’t seem to matter so much anymore.”

  “Because the drug angle’s a lot more interesting?” Rebus guessed. “Are you shutting me down, Bobby?”

  “Not my style, John, you know that. What I’m saying is, it may be out of my hands.”

  “And Claverhouse isn’t running my fan club?”

  “He’s not even on the mailing list.”

  Rebus was thoughtful. Hogan filled the silence. “Way things are going, I might as well join you for that coffee . . .”

  “You’re being sidelined?”

  “From referee to fourth official.”

  Rebus had to smile at the image. Claverhouse as ref, Ormiston and Whiteread his linesmen . . . “Any other news?” he asked.

  “Herdman’s boat, the one with the dope on it, seems that when he purchased it he paid the bulk in cash—dollars, to be precise. The international currency of illegal substances. More than a few trips to Rotterdam this past year, most he tried to keep hidden.”

  “Looks good, doesn’t it?”

  “Claverhouse is wondering if there might be a porn angle, too.”

  “The man’s mind is a sewer.”

  “He may have a point: plenty of hard core to be found in places like Rotterdam. Thing is, our friend Herdman seems to have been a bit of a lad.”

  Rebus’s eyes narrowed. “Defined as . . . ?”

  “We took his computer from home, remember?” Rebus remembered: it had already gone by the time he’d made his first visit to Herdman’s flat. “The lab guys at Howdenhall were able to pinpoint sites he’d been using. A lot of them were aimed at peepers.”

  “You mean voyeurs?”

  “That’s what I mean. Mr. Herdman liked to watch. And how about this: some of the sites are registered in the Netherlands. Herdman paid his dues every month by credit card.”

  Rebus was staring out of the window. It had started to rain, a softly angled drizzle. People were lowering their heads, walking faster. “Ever heard of a porn baron paying to watch the stuff, Bobby?”

  “First time for everything.”

  “It’s a non-starter, trust me . . .” Rebus paused, eyes narrowing. “You’ve looked at these sites?”

  “Duty-bound to study the evidence, John.”

  “Describe them.”

  “You after a cheap thrill?”

  “For those I go to Frank Zappa. Humor me, Bobby.”

  “A girl sits on a bed, she’s wearing stockings, suspenders . . . all that sort of stuff. Then you type in whatever it is you want her to do.”

  “Do we know what Herdman liked them to do?”

  “Afraid not. Apparently there’s only so much the lab guys can extract.”

  “You got a list of the sites, Bobby?” Rebus was forced to listen to a low chuckle on the line. “I’m just hazarding a guess here, but was there one called Miss Teri’s or Dark Entry?”

  Silence at the other end, and then: “How did you know?”

  “I was a mind-reader in a previous life.”

  “I mean it, John: how did you know?”

  “See? I knew you were going to ask that.” Rebus decided to put Hogan out of his misery. “Miss Teri is Teri Cotter. She’s a pupil at Port Edgar.”

  “And doing porn on the side?”

  “Her site’s not porn, Bobby . . .” Rebus broke off, but too late.

  “You’ve seen it?”

  “A webcam in her room,” Rebus admitted. “Seems to run twenty-four hours a day.” He winced, realizing again that he’d said too much.

  “And how long have you spent watching it, just so you could be sure?”

  “I’m not certain it’s got anything to do with —”

  Hogan ignored him. “I need to go to Claverhouse with this.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “John, if Herdman was obsessed with this girl . . .”

  “If you’re going to interview her, I want to be there.”

  “I don’t think you —”

  “I gave you this, Bobby!” Rebus looked around, realizing his voice had risen. He was seated at a communal counter beside the window. He caught two young women, office workers on a break, just as they averted their eyes. How long had they been eavesdropping? Rebus lowered his voice. “I need to be there. Promise me that, Bobby.”

  Hogan’s voice softened a little. “For what it’s worth, I promise. Doesn’t mean Claverhouse will be so accommodating.”

  “Sure you have to go to him with this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The two of us, Bobby, we could talk to her . . .”

  “That’s not how I work, John.” The tone stiffening again.

  “I suppose not, Bobby.” Rebus had a thought. “Is Siobhan there?”

  “I thought she’d be with you.”

  “No matter. You’ll let me know about that interview?”

  “Yes.” The word dissolving into a sigh.

  “Cheers, Bobby. I owe you.” Rebus ended the call and walked away from what was left of his coffee. Outside, he lit another cigarette. The office girls were in a huddle, cupping hands to their mouths, maybe in case he could lip-read. They tried not to make eye contact with him. He blew smoke at the window and headed back to the library.

  Siobhan had got to St. Leonard’s early, done some work in the gym, and then headed to the CID suite. There was a large walk-in closet where old case notes were stored, but when she examined the spines of the brown cardboard document boxes, she realized one was missing. In its place was a slip of paper.

  Martin Fairstone. Removed by order. Gill Templer’s signature.

  Stood to reason. Fairstone’s death was no accident. A murder investigation was being instigated, linked to an internal inquiry. Templer would have removed the file so it could be passed on to whoever needed it. Siobhan closed the door again and locked it, then went into the corridor and listened at Gill Templer’s door. Nothing but the distant trill of a telephone. She looked up and down the hall. There were bodies in the CID suite: DC Davie Hynds, and “Hi-Ho” Silvers. Hynds was still too new to query anything she might do, but if Silvers spotted her . . .

  She took a deep breath, knocked and waited, then turned the handle and pushed.

  The door wasn’t locked. She closed it behind her and tiptoed across her boss’s office. There was nothing on the desk itself, and the drawers weren’t big
enough. She stared at the green four-drawer filing cabinet.

  “In for a penny,” she told herself, sliding open the top compartment. There was nothing inside. Plenty of paperwork in the other three, but not what she was looking for. She exhaled noisily and took another look around. Who was she kidding? There were no hiding places here. It was as utilitarian a space as was feasible. Once upon a time, Templer had nurtured a couple of plants on the windowsill, but even those had gone, either killed by neglect or thrown away during a sort-out. Templer’s predecessor had lined his desk with framed photos of his extended family, but there was nothing here even to identify the occupant as a woman. Confident that she hadn’t missed anything, Siobhan opened the door, only to find a frowning man standing there.

  “The very person I wanted to see,” he said.

  “I was just . . .” Siobhan glanced back into the room as if seeking a believable end to the sentence she’d started.

  “DCS Templer’s in a meeting,” the man explained.

  “I’d gathered as much,” Siobhan said, regaining control of her voice. She clicked the door shut.

  “By the way,” the man was saying, “my name’s —”

  “Mullen.” Siobhan straightened her back, bringing her to within a few inches of his height.

  “Of course,” Mullen said, displaying the thinnest of smiles. “You were DI Rebus’s driver the day I managed to run him to ground.”

  “And now you want to ask me about Martin Fairstone?” Siobhan guessed.

  “That’s right.” He paused. “Always supposing you can spare me a few minutes.”

  Siobhan shrugged and smiled, as if to say that she could think of nothing more pleasant.

  “If you’ll follow me, then,” Mullen said.

  As they passed the open door of the CID suite, Siobhan glanced in and saw that Silvers and Hynds were standing side by side. Both were holding their neckties above their heads, necks twisted, as though they were swinging from a noose.

  The last they saw of their victim was her raised middle finger as it disappeared from view.

  She followed the Complaints officer as he descended the staircase and, just before reaching the reception area, unlocked the door to Interview Room 1.

  “I assume you had a good reason to be in DCS Templer’s office,” he said, sliding out of his suit jacket and placing it over the back of one of the room’s two chairs. Siobhan sat down, watching him as he took his seat opposite, the chipped and ink-stained desk between them. Mullen leaned down and lifted a cardboard box from the floor.

  “Yes, I had,” she said, watching him prize open the lid. The first thing she saw was a photo of Martin Fairstone, taken shortly after his arrest. Mullen took the picture out and held it in front of her. She couldn’t help noticing that his nails were immaculate.

  “Do you think this man deserved to die?”

  “I’ve no real opinion,” she said.

  “This is just between us, you understand?” Mullen lowered the photo a little so that the top half of his face appeared above it. “No taping, no third parties . . . all very discreet and informal.”

  “Is that why you took your jacket off, trying for informality?”

  He chose not to answer. “I’ll ask you again, DS Clarke, did this man deserve his fate?”

  “If you’re asking me if I wanted him dead, the answer is ‘no.’ I’ve come across plenty of scumbags worse than Martin Fairstone.”

  “You’d class him as what, then: a minor irritation?”

  “I wouldn’t bother classifying him at all.”

  “He died horribly, you know. Waking up to those flames and the choking smoke, trying to wrestle his way free from the chair . . . Not the way I’d choose to leave this life.”

  “I’d guess not.”

  They locked eyes, and Siobhan knew that any moment now he would get to his feet, start walking around, trying to unnerve her. She beat him to it, her chair scraping the floor as she rose. Arms folded, she walked to the farthest wall so that her interrogator had to turn around to see her.

  “You look like you might make the grade, DS Clarke,” Mullen said. “Inspector within five years, maybe chief inspector before you’re forty . . . that gives you a whole ten years to catch up on DCS Templer.” He paused for effect. “All of that waiting for you, if you manage to steer clear of trouble.”

  “I like to think I’ve got a pretty good navigation system.”

  “I hope for your sake that you’re right. DI Rebus, on the other hand . . . well, whatever compass he uses seems to point unerringly towards grief, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I’ve no real opinion.”

  “Then it’s time you did. A career like the one you seem destined for, you need to choose your friends with care.”

  Siobhan paced to the other end of the room, turning when she reached the door. “There must be plenty of candidates out there who’d want Fairstone dead.”

  “Hopefully the inquiry will turn up lots of them,” Mullen said with a shrug.

  “But meantime . . .”

  “In the meantime you want to give DI Rebus a going-over?”

  Mullen studied her. “Why don’t you sit down?”

  “Do I make you nervous?” She leaned down over him, knuckles resting against the edge of the desk.

  “Is that what you’ve been trying to do? I was beginning to wonder . . .”

  She held his stare, then relented and sat down.

  “Tell me,” he said quietly, “when you first found out that DI Rebus had visited Martin Fairstone on the night he died, what were your thoughts?”

  She offered a shrug, nothing more.

  “One theory,” the voice intoned, “is that someone could have been trying to give Fairstone a fright. It just went wrong, that’s all. Could be that DI Rebus tried to get back into the house to save the man . . .” His voice trailed away. “We had a call from a doctor . . . a psychologist, name of Irene Lesser. She had dealings recently with DI Rebus on another matter. She was thinking of making a complaint actually, something to do with a breach of patient confidentiality. At the end of her call, she offered the opinion that John Rebus is a ‘haunted’ man.” Mullen leaned forwards. “Would you say he was haunted, DS Clarke?”

  “He lets his cases get to him sometimes,” Siobhan conceded. “I don’t know if that’s the same thing.”

  “I think Dr. Lesser meant that he has trouble living in the present . . . that there’s a rage in him, something bottled up from years back.”

  “I don’t see where Martin Fairstone fits in.”

  “Don’t you?” Mullen smiled ruefully. “Do you consider DI Rebus a friend, someone you spend time with outside work?”

  “Yes.”

  “How much time?”

  “Some.”

  “Is he the kind of friend you’d take problems to?”

  “Maybe.”

  “But Martin Fairstone wasn’t a problem?”

  “No.”

  “Not to you, at any rate.” Mullen let the silence lie between them, then leaned back in his chair. “Do you ever feel the need to protect Rebus, DS Clarke?”

  “No.”

  “But you’ve been driving him around, while his hands mend.”

  “Not the same thing.”

  “Has he offered a believable explanation of how he managed to burn them in the first place?”

  “He put them in water that was too hot for them.”

  “I specified ‘believable.’”

  “I believe it.”

  “You don’t think it would be entirely in his nature for him to see you with a black eye, put two and two together, and go out hunting for Fairstone?”

  “They sat in a pub together . . . I haven’t heard anyone saying they were having a fight.”

  “Not in public perhaps. But once DI Rebus had inveigled an invite back to the house . . . in the privacy of that place . . .”

  Siobhan was shaking her head. “That’s not what happened.”

  “I??
?d love to have your confidence, DS Clarke.”

  “Would that mean swapping it for your smug arrogance?”

  Mullen seemed to consider this. Then he smiled and placed the photograph back in its box. “I think that’s all for now.” Siobhan made no motion to leave. “Unless there’s something else?” Mullen’s eyes glinted.

  “Actually, there is.” She nodded towards the box. “The reason I was in DCS Templer’s office.”

  Mullen looked at the box, too. “Oh?” Sounding interested.

  “It’s nothing to do with Fairstone really. It’s the Port Edgar inquiry.” She decided she had nothing to lose by telling him. “Fairstone’s girlfriend, she’s been seen in South Queensferry.” Siobhan gave a surreptitious swallow before uttering her little white lie. “DI Hogan wants her for interview, but I couldn’t remember her address.”

  “And it’s in here?” Mullen patted the box, considered for a moment, and then prized open the lid again. “Can’t see the harm,” he said, pushing it towards her.

  The blonde’s name was Rachel Fox and she worked in a supermarket at the foot of Leith Walk. Siobhan drove down there, past the uninviting bars, secondhand shops and tattoo parlors. Leith, it seemed to her, was always on the verge of some renaissance or other. When the warehouses were turned into “loft-style apartments,” or a cinema complex opened, or the Queen’s superannuated yacht was berthed there for tourists to visit, there was always talk of the port’s “rejuvenation.” But to her mind, the place never really changed: same old Leith, same old Leithers. She’d never felt apprehensive there, even at the dead of night when knocking on the doors of brothels and drug dens. But it could seem a spiritless place, too, where a smile might mark you as an outsider. There were no spaces in the supermarket car park, so she did a circuit, eventually noting that a woman was loading her trunk with grocery bags. Siobhan waited, engine idling. The woman was shouting at a sobbing five-year-old. Two lines of light green mucus connected the boy’s nostrils to his top lip. His shoulders were slumped, hiccuping with each sob. He was dressed in a puffy silver Le Coq Sportif jacket two sizes too big for him, so that he appeared to have no hands. When he began to wipe his nose on one sleeve, his mother erupted, shaking him. Watching, Siobhan realized that her fingers were gripping the door handle. But she didn’t get out of the car, knew her interference wouldn’t make things any better for the child, and the woman wasn’t suddenly going to see the error of her ways, just because a complete stranger bothered to give her a chewing-out. The trunk was being closed, the child pushed into the car. As the woman walked around to the driver’s side, she looked at Siobhan and shrugged in what she thought was a sharing of her burden. You know what it’s like, the shrug seemed to say. Siobhan just glared, the futility of the gesture lingering as she parked, grabbed a cart, and wheeled it into the store.