A Question of Blood

12

You slept in your clothes,” Siobhan commented, picking him up the next morning. Rebus ignored her. There was a tabloid on the passenger seat, same one Steve Holly had brandished the previous night.

HELL HOUSE COP MYSTERY

“It’s slim stuff,” Siobhan reassured him. And so it was. High on conjecture, low on facts. All the same, Rebus had ignored phone calls at 7:00 A.M., 7:15 and 7:30. He knew who it would probably be: the Complaints, trying to book an appointment for his persecution. He managed to turn the pages by dint of wetting the fingers of his gloves. “Rumors are flying at St. Leonard’s,” Siobhan added. “Fairstone was gagged and tied to a chair. Everyone knows you were there.”

“Did I say I wasn’t?” She looked at him. “It’s just that I left him alive, nodding off on his sofa.” He turned a few more pages, seeking refuge. Found it in the story of a dog who’d swallowed a wedding ring-the one shaft of light in a paper full of grim little headlines: pub stabbings, celebs being outed by their mistresses, Atlantic oil slicks and American tornadoes.

“Funny how a daytime TV host merits more column inches than an ecological disaster,” he commented, folding the paper and tossing it over his shoulder. “So where are we headed?”

“I thought maybe a face-to-face with James Bell.”

“Good enough.” His mobile rang, but he left it in his pocket.

“Your fan club?” Siobhan guessed.

“I can’t help being popular. How come you know the gossip at St. Leonard’s?”

“I went there before I came to pick you up.”

“A glutton for punishment.”

“I was using the gym.”

“Not a word I’ve come across before.”

She smiled. When her own phone rang, she looked at Rebus again. He shrugged, and she checked the number on her screen.

“Bobby Hogan,” she told Rebus, answering the call. He could hear only her side of the conversation. “We’re on our way… why, what’s happened?” A glance in Rebus’s direction. “He’s right here… not sure his phone’s charged up… yes, I’ll tell him.”

“Time you got one of those hands-free jobs,” Rebus told her as she ended the call.

“Is my driving that bad?”

“I meant so I could listen in.”

“Bobby says the Complaints are looking for you.”

“Really?”

“They asked him to pass on the message. Seems you’re not answering your phone.”

“I’m not sure it’s charged up. What else did he say?”

“Wants to meet us at the marina.”

“Did he say why?”

“Maybe he’s treating us to a day’s cruising.”

“That’ll be it. A thank-you for all our diligence and hard work.”

“Just don’t be surprised if the skipper turns out to be from Complaints…”

“You saw this morning’s paper?” Bobby Hogan asked. He was leading them along the concrete pier.

“I saw it,” Rebus admitted. “And Siobhan passed on your message. None of which explains what we’re doing here.”

“I’ve also had a call from Jack Bell. He’s toying with making an official complaint.” Hogan glanced at Rebus. “Whatever it was you did, please keep it up.”

“If that’s an order, Bobby, then I’m happy to oblige.”

Rebus saw that there was a cordon at the top of the wooden ramp leading down to the pontoons where the yachts and dinghies were moored. Three uniforms standing guard beside a sign saying, BERTH HOLDERS ONLY. Hogan lifted the tape so they could pass through, leading them down the slope.

“Something we shouldn’t have missed.” Hogan frowned. “For which I take responsibility, naturally.”

“Naturally.”

“Seems Herdman owned another boat, something a bit bigger. Seagoing.”

“A yacht?” Siobhan guessed.

Hogan nodded. They were passing a series of anchored vessels, bobbing up and down. That same clanking sound from the rigging. Gulls overhead. There was a stiff breeze, and occasional salt spray. “Too big for him to store in his shed. He obviously used it; otherwise, it’d be kept ashore.” He indicated the shoreline, where a series of boats sat on blocks, well away from the aging effects of seawater.

“And?” Rebus asked.

“And see for yourself…”

Rebus saw. He saw a crowd of figures, recognized a couple of them as coming from Customs and Excise. Knew what that meant. They were examining something that had been laid out on a folded sheet of polyethylene. Shoes were being pressed to the corners of the polyethylene to stop it from blowing away.

“Sooner we get this lot indoors, the better,” one officer was saying. Another was arguing that Forensics should take a look first, before quitting the locus. Rebus stood behind one of the crouched figures, and saw the haul.

“Eckies,” Hogan explained, sliding his hands into his trouser pockets. “We reckon about a thousand. Enough to keep a few all-night raves going.” The Ecstasy tablets were in twelve or so translucent blue plastic bags, the kind you might use to store scraps of food in a freezer. Hogan tipped a few onto his palm. “Anything from eight to ten grand’s worth at street prices.” The pills had a greenish tinge to them, each one half the size of the painkillers Rebus had taken that morning. “There’s some cocaine, too,” Hogan continued for Rebus’s benefit. “Only a grand or so’s worth, maybe for personal use.”

“We found traces of coke in his flat, didn’t we?” Siobhan asked.

“That’s right.”

“And where was this lot?” Rebus inquired.

“Stored in a locker belowdecks,” Hogan said. “Not very well hidden.”

“Who found it?”

“We did.”

Rebus turned towards the voice. Whiteread was walking down the short plank connecting yacht to pontoon, a smug-looking Simms right behind her. She made a show of brushing dust from her hands.

“Rest of the boat looks clean, but your officers might want to check anyway.”

Hogan nodded. “Don’t worry, we will.”

Rebus was standing in front of the two army investigators. Whiteread met his stare.

“You seem happy enough,” Rebus said. “Is that because you found the drugs, or were able to put one over on us?”

“If you’d done your job in the first place, DI Rebus…” Whiteread left it for Rebus to fill in the rest of the sentiment.

“I’m still asking myself the ‘how?’”

Whiteread’s mouth twitched. “There were records in his office. After which it was just a matter of talking to the marina manager.”

“You searched the boat?” Rebus was studying the yacht. It looked well-used. “On your own, or did you follow SOP?” SOP: standard operating procedure. Whiteread’s smile leveled out. Rebus turned his attention to Hogan. “Jurisdiction, Bobby. You might want to ask yourself why they went ahead with the search without contacting you first.” He pointed towards the two investigators. “I trust them about as much as I’d trust a junkie with a chemistry set.”

“What gives you the right to say that?” Simms was smiling, but only with his mouth. He looked Rebus up and down. “And talk about the pot calling the kettle black-it’s not us being investigated for -”

“That’s enough, Gavin!” Whiteread hissed. The young man fell silent. The whole marina seemed suddenly still and noiseless.

“This isn’t going to help us,” Bobby Hogan said. “Let’s send the stuff for analysis -”

“I know who needs analysis,” Simms muttered.

“- and meantime put our heads together to see what all of this might add to the inquiry. That all right with you?” He was looking at Whiteread, who nodded, apparently content. But she shifted her eyes to Rebus, daring him to hold her gaze. He stared back at her, knowing his message was being reinforced.

I don’t trust you…

They ended up in a convoy of cars, heading for Port Edgar Academy. There were fewer ghouls and news crews outside the gates, and no uniforms patrolling the perimeter to repel trespassers. The Portakabin had outgrown its usefulness, and someone had finally thought of annexing one of the classrooms in the school building. The school itself wouldn’t reopen for a few days yet; even then, the crime scene would remain locked and unused. Everyone had gathered behind desks, where pupils would normally have been seated to listen to their geography teacher. There were maps on the walls, rainfall charts, pictures of tribesmen, bats and igloos. Some of the team preferred to stand, legs slightly apart, arms folded. Bobby Hogan stood in front of the pristine blackboard. Beside it was a marker board bearing the single word Homework followed by three exclamation points.

“Could have been meant for us,” Hogan stated, tapping the board. “Thanks to our friends from the armed forces here…”-he nodded in the direction of Whiteread and Simms, who’d chosen to stand in the doorway-“the case has taken a slight turn. A seagoing yacht and a quantity of drugs. What do we make of that?”

“Smuggling, sir,” a voice stated.

“Just to add one fact…” The speaker was standing at the back of the room: Customs and Excise. “The majority of Ecstasy coming into the UK originates in Holland.”

“So we need to take a look at Herdman’s logs,” Hogan announced. “See where he’s been sailing to.”

“Logs can always be falsified, of course,” the Customs man added.

“We also need to talk to the Drugs Squad, see what they know about the Ecstasy scene.”

“We’re sure it’s Eckies, sir?” a voice piped up.

“Whatever it is, it’s not seasickness pills.” There was some forced laughter at this.

“Sir, does this mean the case will be handed over to DMC?” DMC: Drugs and Major Crime.

“I can’t answer that as yet. What we need to do is focus on the work we’re already doing.” Hogan looked around the room, making sure he had everyone’s attention. The only person not looking at him, he noted, was John Rebus. Rebus was staring at the two figures in the doorway, his eyebrows lowered in a thoughtful frown. “We also need to go over that yacht with a fine-tooth comb, see if we managed to miss anything else.” Hogan saw Whiteread and Simms share a look. “Right, any questions?” he asked. There were a few, but he dealt with them briskly. One officer wanted to know how much a yacht like Herdman’s would cost. An answer had already been provided by the marina manager: for a forty-foot yacht, six berths, you’d need sixty thousand pounds. If you were buying secondhand.

“Which didn’t come from his pension fund, trust me,” Whiteread commented.

“We’re already looking at Herdman’s various bank accounts and other assets,” Hogan told the room, glancing again in Rebus’s direction.

“Mind if we’re included in the search of the boat?” Whiteread asked. Hogan couldn’t think of any reason to refuse, so just gave a shrug. As the meeting broke up, he found Rebus by his side.

“Bobby,” the voice reduced to a murmur, “those drugs could be a plant.”

Hogan stared at him. “To what possible purpose?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t trust -”

“You’ve made that abundantly clear.”

“Things were looking like they were winding down. This gives Whiteread and her lackey an excuse to stick around.”

“I don’t see that.”

“You forget, I’ve dealt with their kind before.”

“No old scores to settle?” Hogan was trying to keep his voice down.

“It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it?”

“An ex-soldier goes off on one, last people you’ll see afterwards are his old employers. They don’t want the publicity.” The two men were out in the corridor now. There was no sign of the army duo. “More than that, they don’t want any blame attaching. That’s why they steer clear.”

“So?”

“So, the Gruesome Twosome are sticking to this like shit to a shoe sole. There’s got to be more to it.”

“More to it than what?” Despite his best endeavors, Hogan’s voice had risen. People were looking towards them. “Herdman paid for that boat somehow…”

Rebus shrugged. “Just do me a favor, Bobby. Get hold of Herdman’s army record.” Hogan stared at him. “I’m willing to bet Whiteread’s got a copy with her. You could ask to see it. Tell her you’re just curious. She might be willing.”

“Jesus Christ, John…”

“You want to know why Herdman did what he did? That’s why you brought me here, unless I’m mistaken.” Rebus looked around, to make sure no one was within earshot. “First time I met them, they were crawling all over Herdman’s boat shed. Next thing, they’re snooping around his yacht. Now they’re heading back there. It’s like they’re looking for something.”

“What?”

Rebus shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“John… Complaints and Conduct are just about to start crawling all over you.”

“So?”

“So is there any way you could be… I don’t know…”

“You think I’m reading too much into it?”

“You’re under a lot of stress.”

“Bobby, either you think I’m up to the job or you don’t.” Rebus folded his arms. “Which is it?” Rebus’s mobile was trilling again.

“You going to answer that?” Rebus shook his head. Bobby Hogan sighed. “Okay, I’ll talk to Whiteread.”

“Don’t mention my name. And don’t seem too worried about getting hold of the files. You’re just curious, that’s all.”

“I’m just curious,” Hogan echoed.

Rebus gave him a wink and moved off. Siobhan was waiting at the entrance to the school.

“Are we going to talk to James Bell?” she asked.

Rebus nodded. “But first, let’s see how good a detective you really are, DS Clarke.”

“I think we both know the answer.”

“Okay, then, smarty-pants. You’re army personnel, fairly senior level, and you’re dispatched from Hereford to Edinburgh for a week or so. Where do you base yourself?”

Siobhan thought about it as she got into her car. She slid the key into the ignition and turned to Rebus. “Redford Barracks maybe? Or the Castle: there’s a garrison there, isn’t there?”

Rebus nodded: they were decent enough answers. He just didn’t think they were right. “Does Whiteread look as though she roughs it? Besides, she’d want to stick close to the action.”

“Fair enough: a local hotel, then.”

Rebus nodded. “That’s what I reckon. Either that or bed-and-breakfast.” He gnawed at his bottom lip.

“The Boatman’s has a couple of rooms, doesn’t it?”

Rebus nodded slowly. “Let’s start there, then.”

“Am I allowed to ask why?”

Rebus shook his head. “Less you know, the better-that’s a promise.”

“You don’t think you’re in enough trouble?”

“Room for a bit more, I think.” He tried a reassuring wink, but Siobhan looked far from convinced.

The Boatman’s wasn’t yet open for business, but when the barman recognized Siobhan, he let them in.

“It’s Rod, isn’t it?” Siobhan said. Rod McAllister nodded. “This is my colleague, DI Rebus.”

“Hello,” McAllister said.

“Rod knew Lee Herdman,” Siobhan reminded Rebus.

“Did he ever sell you any Eckies?” Rebus asked.

“Pardon?”

Rebus just shook his head. Now that they were inside the bar, he breathed deeply: last night’s beer and cigarettes, failing to be masked by furniture polish. McAllister had been busy with paperwork, piled on top of the bar. He was running a hand beneath his baggy T-shirt, scratching his chest. The T-shirt had faded badly, its seam broken at one shoulder.

“You a Hawkwind fan?” Siobhan asked. McAllister looked down at the front of the shirt. The faint print showed the cover of In Search of Space. “We won’t keep you,” Siobhan went on. “Just wondered if you had a couple of guests -”

Rebus butted in to provide the names, but McAllister shook his head. He was looking at Siobhan, didn’t seem interested in Rebus.

“Anywhere else in the town that might put up visitors?” Siobhan asked.

McAllister scratched at his stubble, reminding Rebus that the shaving he himself had carried out this morning had been tentative at best.

“There’s a few,” McAllister admitted. “You said someone might come to talk to me about Lee…?”

“Did I?”

“Well, it’s just that nobody has.”

“Any idea why he did it?” Rebus asked abruptly. McAllister shook his head. “Then let’s concentrate on those addresses, shall we?”

“Addresses?”

“B and Bs, other hotels…”

McAllister understood. Siobhan took out her notebook, and he started reciting the names. After half a dozen, he shook his head to let them know he was finished. “Might be more,” he admitted with a shrug.

“Enough to be going on with,” Rebus said. “We’ll let you get back to the important work, Mr. McAllister.”

“Right… thanks.” McAllister made a little bow, and held the door open for Siobhan. Outside, she consulted her notebook.

“This could take all day.”

“If we want it to,” Rebus said. “Looks like you’ve got an admirer.”

She looked up in the direction of the hotel window, saw McAllister’s face there. He shrank back, turned away. “You could do a lot worse-just imagine, never having to pay for another drink in your life…”

“Something you’ve striven towards.”

“That’s a low blow. I pay my share.”

“If you say so.” She waved the notebook at him. “There’s an easier route, you know.”

“Name it.”

“Ask Bobby Hogan. He’s bound to know where they’re staying.”

Rebus shook his head. “Best keep Bobby out of it.”

“Why am I getting such a bad feeling about this?”

“Let’s get back in the car and you can start making those calls.”

Sliding into her seat, she turned to him. “A sixty-grand yacht-where did the money come from?”

“Drugs, obviously.”

“You think so?”

“I think it’s what we’re supposed to be thinking. Nothing we’ve learned about Herdman makes him look like a drug baron.”

“Except his magnetic attraction for bored teenagers.”

“Didn’t they teach you anything at college?”

“Such as?”

“Not jumping to conclusions.”

“I forgot-that’s your department.”

“Another one below the belt. Careful, or the referee will step in.”

She stared at him. “You know something, don’t you?”

He held her stare and shook his head slowly. “Not until you make those calls…”

13

They got lucky: the third address was a hotel just outside town, overlooking the Road Bridge. Its car park was blustery and deserted. Two telescopes were waiting forlornly for tourists. Rebus tried one but couldn’t see anything.

“You have to put money in,” Siobhan explained, indicating the coin slot. Rebus didn’t bother, made for reception instead.

“You should wait out here,” he warned her.

“And miss all the fun?” She followed him in, trying not to show how worried she was. He was on painkillers… and looking for trouble. A bad combination. She’d seen him cross the line before, but he’d always been in control. But with his hands still blistered and pink, and the Complaints about to investigate him for involvement in a possible murder… There was a member of the staff behind the reception desk.

“Good morning,” the woman said brightly.

Rebus already had his ID out. “Lothian and Borders Police,” he said. “You’ve got a woman named Whiteread staying here.”

Fingers clacked against a computer keyboard. “That’s right.”

Rebus leaned across the desk. “I need access to her room.”

The receptionist looked confused. “I’m not…”

“If you’re not in charge, can I speak with whoever is?”

“I’m not sure…”

“Or you could save us the trouble and just give me a key.”

The woman looked more flustered than ever. “I’ll have to find my supervisor.”

“You do that, then.” Rebus placed his hands behind his back, as though impatient. The receptionist picked up her phone, tried a couple of numbers, but didn’t find who she was looking for. The lift sounded, doors slid open. One of the cleaners got out, carrying a duster and a can of aerosol spray. The receptionist put down the phone.

“I’ll just have to find her.” Rebus sighed and checked his watch. Then stared at the receptionist’s back as she pushed open some swing doors and disappeared. He leaned over the desk again, this time pulling the computer screen around so he could see it.

“Room two-twelve,” he told Siobhan. “You staying here?”

She shook her head, followed him to the lift. He pushed the button for the second floor. The doors closed with a dry, rasping sound.

“What if Whiteread comes back?” Siobhan asked.

“She’s busy searching the yacht.” Rebus looked at her and smiled. A bell sounded and the doors shuddered open. As Rebus had hoped, the cleaning staff were still working this floor: a couple of their carts were parked in the corridor. Sheets and towels were piled up, waiting to be taken away for the laundry. He had his story ready: forgotten something… key down in Reception… any chance you could open the door for me? If that didn’t work, maybe a fiver or a tenner would. But his luck was in: the door to 212 stood wide open. The maid was in the bathroom. He put his head around the door.

“Had to pop back for something,” he told her. “Just you carry on.” Then he scanned the bedroom. The bed had been made. Personal items sat on the dressing table. Clothes hung in the narrow wardrobe. Whiteread’s suitcase was empty.

“She probably takes everything with her,” Siobhan whispered. “Keeps it in the car.”

Rebus paid her no heed. He checked beneath the bed, went through both clothes drawers, and slid open the drawer to the bedside table, revealing a Gideon Bible.

“Just like Rocky Raccoon,” he muttered to himself. Then he straightened up. There was nothing here. He’d seen nothing in the bathroom either, when he’d peered around its door. But now he was staring at another door… a connecting door. He tried the handle, and it opened, leading to another door, with no handle on Rebus’s side. Which didn’t matter: it was already open an inch. Rebus pushed it, and found himself in the next bedroom. Clothes strewn over both available chairs. Magazines on the bedside table. Ties and socks spilling from an oversized black nylon sports holdall.

“Simms’s room,” Rebus commented. And there on the dressing table, a brown manila file. Rebus turned it over, picked out the words CONFIDENTIAL and PERSONNEL. Picked out the name LEE HERDMAN. Simms’s idea of security: placing it facedown so no one would see what it was.

“You want to read it here?” Siobhan asked. Rebus shook his head: had to run to forty or fifty sheets.

“Reckon our receptionist would copy it for us?”

“I’ve got a better idea.” Siobhan lifted the file. “There was a sign in Reception for a business suite. I’m guessing they’ll have a photocopier.”

“Then let’s go.” But Siobhan was shaking her head.

“One of us stays here. Last thing we want is the cleaner disappearing, leaving the place locked tight behind her.”

Rebus saw the reasonableness of this, and nodded. So Siobhan took the file while Rebus made a cursory examination of Simms’s room. The mags were the usual men’s fare: FHM, Loaded, GQ. Nothing under the pillows or mattress. None of Simms’s clothes had made it as far as the chest of drawers, though a couple of shirts and suits hung in the wardrobe. Connecting doors… he didn’t know what, if anything, to read into that. Whiteread’s door had been kept closed, meaning Simms couldn’t get into her room. But Simms had left his own door an inch or two open… Inviting her to join him some night? In his bathroom: toothpaste and battery-operated toothbrush. He’d brought his own shampoo: anti-dandruff. Twin-blade razor and a can of shaving cream. Back in the bedroom, Rebus looked more closely at the black holdall. Five pairs of socks and underpants. Two shirts hanging up, two more on the chairs. Making five shirts in total. A week’s worth. Simms had packed for a week’s trip. Rebus was thoughtful. An ex-soldier goes on a killing spree, the army sends two investigators to make sure nothing links back to the killer’s past. Why send two people? And would they require a full week at the scene? What kind of people would you send? Psychologists maybe, to look into the killer’s state of mind. Neither Whiteread nor Simms struck him as having any experience of psychology, or any interest in Herdman’s state of mind.

They were hunters, maybe hunter-gatherers: Rebus was convinced of it.

There was a soft tapping at the door. Rebus checked the spy hole: it was Siobhan. He let her in, and she put the file back on the dressing table.

“Pages in the right order?” Rebus asked.

“Good as gold.” She had the copied sheets in a padded yellow envelope. “We ready to leave?”

Rebus nodded, and followed her to Simms’s door. But then he stopped, turned back. The file was lying faceup. He turned it over, gave the room a final look around, and left.

They’d offered the receptionist a smile as they’d passed her. A smile, but no words.

“Think she’ll tell Whiteread?” Siobhan had asked.

“I doubt it.” And he’d shrugged, because even if she did, there was nothing Whiteread could do about it. There’d been nothing in her room for anyone to find, and nothing was missing. While Siobhan drove them along the A90 towards Barnton, Rebus got started on the file. A lot of it was chaff: various test scores and reports, medical stuff, results from promotion boards. Penciled marginalia commented on Herdman’s strengths and weaknesses. His physical stamina was questioned, but his career was textbook stuff: tours of duty in Northern Ireland, the Falklands, the Middle East; training exercises in the UK, Saudi Arabia, Finland, Germany. Rebus turned a page and found himself staring at a sheet blank save for a few typed words: REMOVED BY ORDER. There was a scribbled signature and a stamped date, going back only four days. The date of the killings. Rebus turned to the next page and found himself reading about Herdman’s closing few months in the army. He had told his employers that he wouldn’t be signing up again-a copy of his letter was enclosed. Moves had been made to entice him to stay, but to no avail. After which the file descended into a bureaucracy of form filling. Events taking their course.

“Did you see this?” Rebus said, tapping the words REMOVED BY ORDER.

Siobhan nodded. “What does it mean?”

“It means something’s been taken out, probably locked away somewhere in SAS HQ.”

“Sensitive information? Not for Whiteread’s and Simms’s eyes?”

Rebus was thoughtful. “Maybe.” He flicked back a page, concentrated on the final paragraphs. Seven months before Herdman had walked away from the SAS, he’d been part of a “salvage team” on Jura. On first glancing down the page, Rebus had seen the word Jura and assumed it referred to an exercise. Jura: a narrow island off the west coast. Isolated, just the one road and some mountains. Real wilderness country. Rebus had done some training there himself, back in his army days. Long marshy hikes, broken up with rock climbing. He remembered the range of hills: the “Paps of Jura.” Recalled the short ferry crossing to Islay, and how, at the end of the exercise, they’d all been taken to a distillery there.

But Herdman hadn’t been there on an exercise. He’d been part of a “salvage team.” Salvaging what exactly?

“Any further forwards?” Siobhan asked, braking hard as the divided highway ended. Ahead of them lay a backup from the Barnton roundabout.

“I’m not sure,” Rebus admitted. Nor was he sure how he felt about Siobhan’s involvement in his little spot of subterfuge. He should have made her stay in Simms’s room. That way, it would have been his face the staff member in the business suite would remember. His description they would give to Whiteread if she ever came sniffing…

“Was it worth it, then?” Siobhan was asking.

He just shrugged, growing thoughtful as they took a left at the roundabout, watching as she pulled up at a driveway, then turned the car into it. “Where are we?” he asked.

“James Bell’s house,” she told him. “Remember? We were going to talk to him?”

Rebus just nodded.

The house was modern and detached, with small windows and harled walls. Siobhan pressed the bell and waited. The door was opened by a tiny woman in her well-preserved fifties, with piercing blue eyes and her hair tied back with a black velvet bow.

“Mrs. Bell? I’m DS Clarke, this is DI Rebus. We were wondering if we could have a word with James.”

Felicity Bell examined both IDs, then stepped back to allow them inside. “Jack’s not here,” she said, in a voice devoid of energy.

“It’s your son we wanted to see,” Siobhan explained, voice dropping for fear of scaring this small, harried-looking creature.

“But all the same…” Mrs. Bell looked around her wildly. She’d brought them into the living room. In an attempt to calm her, Rebus lifted a family photo from the windowsill.

“You’ve got three children, Mrs. Bell?” he asked. She saw what he was holding, stepped forward to pluck it from his grasp, and did her best to put it back in the exact spot it had come from.

“James is the last,” she said. “The others are married… flown the nest.” She made a little flapping movement with one hand.

“The shooting must have been a terrible shock,” Siobhan said.

“Terrible, terrible.” The wild look had come back into her eyes.

“You work at the Traverse, don’t you?” Rebus asked.

“That’s right.” She didn’t seem surprised that he would know this about her. “We’ve got a new play just starting… really, I should be there to help out, but I’m needed here, you see.”

“What’s the play?”

“It’s a version of The Wind in the Willows… do either of you have children?”

Siobhan shook her head. Rebus explained that his daughter was too old.

“Never too old, never too old,” Felicity Bell said in her quavering voice.

“I take it you’re staying home to look after James?” Rebus said.

“Yes.”

“So he’s upstairs, is he?”

“In his room, yes.”

“And would he be able to spare us a couple of minutes, do you think?”

“Well, I don’t know…” Mrs. Bell’s hand had gone to her wrist at Rebus’s mention of “minutes.” Now she decided that she’d better look at her watch. “Gracious, nearly lunchtime already…” She made to wander out of the room, perhaps in the direction of the kitchen, but then remembered these two strangers in her midst. “Maybe I should call Jack.”

“Maybe you should,” Siobhan conceded. She was studying a framed photo of the MSP, triumphant on election night. “We’d be happy to speak to him.”

Mrs. Bell looked up, focusing on Siobhan. Her eyebrows drew together. “What do you need to speak to him for?” She had a clipped, educated Edinburgh accent.

“It’s James we want to talk to,” Rebus explained, taking a step forwards. “He’s in his room, is he?” He waited till she’d nodded. “And that’s upstairs, I take it?” Another nod. “Then here’s what we’ll do.” He had laid a hand on her bone-thin arm. “You go get the lunch started, and we’ll find our own way. Less fuss all round, don’t you think?”

Mrs. Bell seemed to take this in only slowly, but at last she beamed a smile. “Then that’s what I’ll do,” she said, retreating into the hall. Rebus and Siobhan shared a look, then a nod of agreement. The woman was not cooking with a full set of saucepans. They climbed the stairs, found what they took to be James’s room: stickers placed on the door in childhood had been scraped off. Nothing on it now but old concert tickets, mostly from English cities-Foo Fighters in Manchester, Rammstein in London, Puddle of Mudd in Newcastle. Rebus knocked but got no answer. He turned the handle and opened the door. James Bell was sitting up in bed. White sheets and duvet, stark-white walls with no ornamentation. Pale green carpet half-covered with throw rugs. Books were crammed onto bookshelves. Computer, hi-fi, TV… CDs scattered around. Bell wore a black T-shirt. He had his knees up, propping up a magazine. He turned the pages with one hand, the other arm being strapped across his chest. His hair was short and dark, face pale, one cheek picked out by a mole. Few signs of teenage rebellion in this room. When Rebus had been in his teens, his own bedroom had been little more than a series of hiding places: soft-porn mags under the carpet (the mattress wouldn’t do, it got turned occasionally), cigarettes and matches behind one leg of the wardrobe, a knife tucked away beneath the winter sweaters in the bottom drawer of the chest. He got the feeling that if he looked in the drawers here, he’d find clothes; nothing under the carpet but thick underlay.

Music was leaking from the headphones James Bell wore. He still hadn’t looked up from his reading. Rebus guessed he thought his mother had come in, and was studiously ignoring her. The facial similarity between son and father was remarkable. Rebus bent down a little, angling his face, and James finally looked up, eyes widening in surprise. He slipped off the headphones, turned the music off.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Rebus said. “Your mum said we should just come up.”

“Who are you?”

“We’re detectives, James. Wondered if you could give us a moment of your time.” Rebus was standing by the bed, being careful not to kick over the large bottle of water by his feet.

“What’s going on?”

Rebus had lifted the magazine from the bed. It was about gun collecting. “Funny subject,” he said.

“I’m trying to find the one he shot me with.”

Siobhan had taken the magazine from Rebus. “I think I can understand that,” she said. “You want to know all about it?”

“I didn’t get much of a look at it.”

“You sure about that, James?” Rebus asked. “Lee Herdman collected gun stuff.” He nodded towards the magazine, which Siobhan was now flicking through. “That one of his?”

“What?”

“Did he let you borrow it? We hear you knew him a bit better than you’ve been letting on.”

“I never said I didn’t know him.”

“‘We’d met socially’-your exact words, James. I heard them on the tape. You make it sound like you’d bump into him in the pub or the newsagent’s.” Rebus paused. “Except that he’d told you he was ex-SAS, and that’s more than just a casual comment, isn’t it? Maybe you were talking about it at one of his parties.” Another pause. “You used to go to his parties, didn’t you?”

“Some. He was an interesting guy.” James glared at Rebus. “I probably said that on the tape, too. Besides, I told the police all this already, told them how well I knew Lee, and that I went to his parties… even about that time he showed me the gun…”

Rebus’s eyes narrowed. “He showed you?”

“Christ, haven’t you listened to the tapes?”

Rebus couldn’t help but glance towards Siobhan. Tapes, plural… they’d only bothered listening to the one. “Which gun was this?”

“The one he kept in his boathouse.”

“Did you think it was real?” Siobhan asked.

“It looked real.”

“Anyone else there at the time?”

James shook his head.

“You never saw the other one, the pistol?”

“Not until he shot me with it.” The teenager looked down at his injured shoulder.

“You and two others,” Rebus reminded him. “Am I right to say that he didn’t know Anthony Jarvies and Derek Renshaw?”

“Not that I know of.”

“But he left you alive. Are you just lucky, James?”

James’s fingers hovered just above his wound. “I’ve been wondering about that,” he said quietly. “Maybe he recognized me at the last moment…”

Siobhan cleared her throat. “And have you been wondering why he did it in the first place?”

James nodded slowly but didn’t say anything.

“Maybe,” Siobhan continued, “he saw something in you he didn’t see in the others.”

“They were both pretty active in the CCF, could be it had something to do with that,” James offered.

“How do you mean?”

“Well… Lee was in the army half his life… and then they kicked him out.”

“He told you that?” Rebus asked.

James nodded again. “Maybe he had this grudge. I’ve said he didn’t know Renshaw and Jarvies, but that doesn’t mean he hadn’t seen them around… maybe in their uniforms. Some kind of… trigger?” He looked up, smiled. “I know-I should leave the hack psychology to the hack psychologists.”

“You’re being very helpful,” Siobhan said, not because she believed it necessarily but because she thought he was looking for some sliver of praise.

“The thing is, James,” Rebus said, “if we could understand why he’d left you alive, we’d maybe know why the others had to die. Do you see?”

James was thoughtful. “Does it really matter, in the end?”

“We think it does.” Rebus straightened up. “Who else did you see at these parties, James?”

“You’re asking for names?”

“That’s the general idea.”

“It wasn’t always the same people.”

“Teri Cotter?” Rebus hinted.

“Yes, she was there sometimes. Always brought a few Goths with her.”

“You’re not a Goth yourself, James?” Siobhan asked.

He gave a short laugh. “Do I look like one?”

She shrugged. “The music you listen to…”

“It’s just rock music, that’s all.”

She lifted the small machine attached to his headphones. “MP3 player,” she commented, sounding impressed. “What about Douglas Brimson, ever see him at the parties?”

“Is he the guy who flies planes?” Siobhan nodded. “I spoke to him one time, yes.” He paused. “Look, these weren’t really ‘parties,’ not like the organized sort. It was just people dropping in, having a drink…”

“Doing drugs?” Rebus asked casually.

“Sometimes, yes,” James admitted.

“Speed? Coke? A bit of E?”

The teenager snorted. “A couple of joints passed round if you were lucky.”

“Nothing harder?”

“No.”

There was a knock at the door. It was Mrs. Bell. She looked at the two visitors as though she’d forgotten all about them. “Oh,” she said, confused for a moment. Then: “I’ve made some sandwiches, James. What would you like to drink?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“But it’s lunchtime.”

“Do you want me puking up, Mum?”

“No… of course not.”

“I’ll tell you when I’m hungry.” His voice had hardened: not because he was angry, Rebus thought, but because he was embarrassed. “But I’ll have a mug of coffee, not too much milk in it.”

“Right,” his mother said. Then, to Rebus: “Would you like a…?”

“We’re just on our way, thanks all the same, Mrs. Bell.” She nodded, stood for a moment as though forgetting what she’d been about to do, then turned and left, her feet making no sound on the carpet.

“Your mother’s all right, is she?” Rebus asked.

“Are you blind?” James shifted position. “A lifetime with my dad… it’s no wonder.”

“You don’t get on with your father?”

“Not particularly.”

“You know he’s started a petition?”

James screwed up his face. “Fat lot of good it’ll do.” He was silent for a moment. “Was it Teri Cotter?”

“What?”

“Was she the one who told you I went to Lee’s flat?” The detectives stayed silent. “Wouldn’t put it past her.” He shifted again, as if trying to get comfortable.

“Want me to help you?” Siobhan offered.

James shook his head. “I think I need some more painkillers.” Siobhan found them by the other side of the bed, sitting in their silver strip of foil on a readied chess board. She gave him two tablets, which he washed down with water.

“One more question, James,” Rebus said, “then we’ll leave you to it.”

“What?”

Rebus nodded towards the foil. “Mind if I nick a couple of tabs? I’ve run out…”

Siobhan had half a bottle of flat Irn-Bru in her car. Rebus took a mouthful after each tablet.

“Careful they don’t turn into a habit,” Siobhan said.

“What did you reckon to back there?” Rebus asked, changing the subject.

“He could be on to something. Combined Cadet Force… kids running around in uniforms.”

“He also said Herdman was kicked out of the army. Not true, according to his file.”

“So?”

“So either Herdman lied to him or young James made it up.”

“Active fantasy life?”

“You’d need one in a room like that.”

“It was certainly… tidy.” Siobhan started the engine. “You know what he was saying about Miss Teri?”

“He was right: it was her who told us.”

“Yes, but more than that…”

“What?”

She put the car in gear and started off. “Just the way he spoke… You know that old thing about someone protesting too much?”

“Making out he doesn’t like her because he really likes her?” Siobhan nodded. “Reckon he knows about her little website?”

“I don’t know.” Siobhan finished her three-point turn.

“Should have asked him.”

“What’s this?” Siobhan asked, peering through the windshield. A patrol car, its blue light flashing, was blocking the entrance to the driveway. As Siobhan put the brakes on, the back door of the patrol car opened and a man in a gray suit got out. He was tall, with a shiny bald dome of a head and large, heavy-lidded eyes. He held his hands together in front of him, feet apart.

“Don’t worry,” Rebus told Siobhan. “It’s just my twelve o’clock appointment.”

“What appointment?”

“The one I never got round to making,” Rebus told her, opening his door and stepping out. Then he leaned back in. “With my own personal executioner…”

14

The bald man was named Mullen. He was from the Professional Standards Unit of the Complaints. Up close, his skin had a slightly scaly quality, not, Rebus thought, unlike that of his own blistered hands. His elongated earlobes had probably brought him a few Dumbo-sourced nicknames at school, yet it was his fingernails that fascinated Rebus. They were almost too perfect: pink and shiny and unridged, with just enough white cuticle. During the hourlong interview, Rebus was tempted more than once to add a question of his own and ask if Mullen ever visited a manicurist.

But in fact all he’d done was ask if he could get a drink. The aftertaste of James Bell’s painkillers lingered in his mouth. The tablets themselves had done their job-certainly better than the scabby wee pills he himself had been prescribed. Rebus was feeling at one with his world. He didn’t even mind that Assistant Chief Constable Colin Carswell, all haircut and eau de cologne, was sitting in on the interview. Carswell might hate his guts, but Rebus couldn’t find it in himself to blame him for it. Too much history between them for that. They were in an office at Police HQ on Fettes Avenue, and it was Carswell’s turn to have a go at him.

“What the hell did you think you were doing last night?”

“Last night, sir?”

“Jack Bell and that TV director. They’re both demanding an apology.” He wagged a finger at Rebus. “And you’re going to do it in person.”

“Would you rather I dropped my trousers and bent over for them?”

Carswell’s face seemed to swell with rage.

“Once again, DI Rebus,” Mullen interrupted, “we find ourselves returning to the question of what you thought you might hope to gain by going along to a known criminal’s home for a nighttime beverage.”

“I thought I might gain a free drink.”

Carswell expelled a slow hiss of air. He’d uncrossed and recrossed his legs, unfolded and refolded his arms, many dozens of times in the course of the interview.

“I suspect there was more to your visit than that.”

Rebus just shrugged. He wasn’t allowed to smoke, so was playing with the half-empty pack instead, opening and closing it, sending it spinning across the table with the flick of a finger. He was doing this because he could see how much it annoyed Carswell.

“What time did you leave Fairstone’s house?”

“Sometime before the fire broke out.”

“You can’t be more specific?”

Rebus shook his head. “I’d been drinking.” Drinking more than he should have… much, much more. He’d been a good boy since, trying to atone.

“So, sometime after you left,” Mullen continued, “someone else arrived-unseen by neighbors-and proceeded to gag and tie Mr. Fairstone before turning on the heat beneath a chip pan and then departing?”

“Not necessarily,” Rebus felt obliged to state. “The chip pan could already have been on.”

“Did Mr. Fairstone say he was going to make some chips?”

“He might have mentioned being a bit peckish… I can’t be sure.” Rebus straightened in his chair, feeling vertebrae click. “Look, Mr. Mullen… I can see that you’ve got a fair amount of circumstantial evidence sitting here”-he tapped the manila file, not unlike the one that had sat on Simms’s dressing table-“which tells you that I was the last person to see Martin Fairstone alive.” He paused. “But that’s all it tells you, wouldn’t you agree? And I’m not denying the fact.” Rebus sat back and waited.

“Except the killer,” Mullen said, so softly he might have been speaking to himself. “What you should have said was: ‘I was the last person to see him alive, except his killer.’” He glanced up from beneath his drooping eyelids.

“That’s what I meant to say.”

“It’s not what you said, DI Rebus.”

“You’ll have to excuse me, then. I’m not exactly a hundred percent…”

“Are you on drugs of some kind?”

“Painkillers, yes.” Rebus held up his hands to remind Mullen of why.

“And you took the most recent dose when?”

“Sixty seconds before clapping eyes on you.” Rebus let his eyes widen. “Maybe I should have mentioned at the start…?”

Mullen slapped the desk with both palms. “Of course you should have!” He wasn’t talking to himself anymore. He let his chair fall backwards as he got to his feet. Carswell had risen, too.

“I don’t see…”

Mullen leaned across the desk to switch off the tape recorder. “You can’t hold an interview with someone who’s under the influence of prescribed drugs,” he explained, for the ACC’s benefit. “I thought everyone knew that.”

Carswell started muttering something about how he’d just forgotten, that was all. Mullen was glaring at Rebus. Rebus gave him a wink.

“We’ll talk again, Detective Inspector.”

“Once I’m off the medication?” Rebus pretended to guess.

“I’ll need the name of your doctor, so I can ask when that’s likely to be.” Mullen had opened the file, his pen poised over an empty sheet.

“It was the infirmary,” Rebus stated blithely. “I can’t remember the doctor’s name.”

“Well, then, I’ll just have to find out.” Mullen closed the file again.

“Meantime,” Carswell piped up, “I don’t need to remind you about making that apology, or that you’re still on suspension?”

“No, sir,” Rebus said.

“Which rather begs the question,” Mullen said quietly, “of why I found you in the company of a fellow officer at Jack Bell’s house.”

“I was hitching a lift, that’s all. DS Clarke had to stop off at Bell’s place to talk to the son.” Rebus gave a shrug, while Carswell expelled more air.

“We will get to the bottom of this, Rebus. You can be sure of that.”

“I don’t doubt it, sir.” Rebus was the last of the three to rise to his feet. “Well, I’ll leave you to it, then. Enjoy the bottom when you get there…”

Siobhan, as he’d guessed, was waiting with her car outside. “Nicely timed,” she said. The back of the car was full of shopping bags. “I waited ten minutes to see if you’d tell them straight off.”

“And then went to do some shopping?”

“Supermarket at the top of the road. I was going to ask if you fancied coming round for dinner tonight.”

“Let’s see how the rest of the day pans out.”

She nodded agreement. “So when did the question of the painkillers arise?”

“About five minutes ago.”

“You left it a while.”

“Wanted to see if they’d anything new to tell me.”

“And did they?”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t look like they consider you a suspect, though,” he told her.

“Me? Why should they?”

“Because he was stalking you… because every cop knows the old chip-pan trick.” He shrugged.

“Any more of that and the dinner invite’s canceled.” She started driving them out of the car park. “Next stop Turnhouse?” she asked.

“You think I need to be on the next plane out of here?”

“We were going to talk to Doug Brimson.”

Rebus shook his head. “You talk to him. Drop me off somewhere first.”

She looked at him. “Where?”

“Anyplace on George Street will do.”

She was still looking. “Suspiciously close to the Oxford Bar.”

“That wasn’t what I had in mind, but now that you come to mention it…”

“Drink and tranqs don’t mix, John.”

“It’s an hour and a half since I took those pills. Besides, I’m on suspension, remember? I’m allowed to misbehave.”

Rebus was waiting for Steve Holly in the back room of the Oxford Bar.

It was one of the city’s smaller pubs: just the two rooms, neither much bigger than the living room of a normal house. The front room was usually busy, in that three or four bodies could make it seem so. The back room had tables and chairs, and Rebus had positioned himself in the darkest corner, farthest from the window. The walls were the same jaundiced color they’d been when he’d first found the place, three decades back. The stark, old-fashioned interior had the power to intimidate newcomers, but Rebus wasn’t betting on it having any such effect on the journalist. He’d called the tabloid’s Edinburgh office-only a ten-minute walk from the bar. His message had been curt: “I want to talk to you. Oxford Bar. Now.” Cutting the connection before Holly could start a conversation. Rebus knew he would come. He’d come because he would be intrigued. He’d come because of the story he’d broken. He’d come because that was his job.

Rebus heard the door open and close. He wasn’t worried about the occupants of the other tables. Anything they happened to overhear, they would keep to themselves. It was that kind of place. Rebus hoisted what was left of his pint. His grip was improving. He could pick up a glass one-handed, flex his wrist without the pain becoming unbearable. He was steering clear of whiskey: Siobhan had given him good advice, and for once he would heed it. He knew he needed his wits about him. Steve Holly wasn’t going to want to play on Rebus’s terms.

Feet on the steps, a shadow preceding Holly’s entrance into the back room. He peered into the afternoon gloom, squeezing between chairs as he approached the table. He was carrying what looked like a glass of lemonade, maybe with vodka added for good measure. He gave a slight nod, stayed standing until Rebus gestured for him to sit. Holly did so, checking to the left and right, unhappy about sitting with his back to the bar’s other denizens.

“Nobody’s going to leap from the shadows and head-butt you,” Rebus reassured him.

“I suppose I should be congratulating you,” Holly said. “I hear you’re managing to get right up Jack Bell’s nose.”

“And I notice your paper’s supporting his campaign.”

Holly’s mouth twitched. “Doesn’t mean he’s not a prick. You lot should have stuck to your guns, that time you caught him with the prossie. Better yet, you should have phoned my paper, we’d have come down and got some snaps of him in flagrante. Have you met the wife?” Rebus nodded. “Bananas, she is,” the reporter continued. “Nervous wreck by all accounts.”

“She stood by him, though.”

“That’s what MPs’ wives do, isn’t it?” Holly said dismissively. Then: “So, to what do I owe the honor? Decided to put your side of the story?”

“I need a favor,” Rebus said, placing his gloved hands on the table.

“A favor?” Rebus nodded. “In return for what exactly?”

“Special relationship status.”

“Meaning?” Holly lifted his glass to his mouth.

“Meaning whatever I get on the Herdman case, you get first shout.”

Holly snorted. Had to wipe some of his drink from around his mouth. “You’re on suspension, as far as I know.”

“Doesn’t stop me from keeping my ear to the ground.”

“And what exactly is it you can tell me about Herdman that I can’t get from a dozen of my other sources?”

“Depends on that favor. It’s one thing I’ve got that they haven’t.”

Holly rolled some more of his drink around the inside of his mouth. Then he swallowed, smacked his lips.

“Trying to throw me off the scent, Rebus? I’ve got you by the short and curlies over Marty Fairstone. Everyone knows it. And now you’re asking favors?” He chuckled, but there was no humor in his eyes. “You should be begging me not to rip your gonads right off.”

“Think you’ve got the balls for it?” Rebus said, finishing his own drink. He slid the empty glass across the table towards the journalist. “Pint of IPA, when you’re ready.” Holly looked at him, then smiled with half his mouth and rose to his feet, maneuvering his way back through the chairs. Rebus lifted the lemonade glass and sniffed: vodka, definitely. He managed to light a cigarette, had smoked half of it by the time Holly returned.

“Barman’s got an attitude, hasn’t he?”

“Maybe he doesn’t like what you said about me,” Rebus explained.

“So go to the Press Complaints Commission.” Holly handed the pint over. He’d brought another vodka and lemonade for himself. “Only I don’t see you doing that,” he added.

“That’s because you’re not worth the effort.”

“And this is the guy who wants a favor doing?”

“A favor you haven’t bothered listening to yet.”

“Well, here I am…” Holly opened his arms wide.

“A salvage operation of some kind,” Rebus said quietly. “It happened on Jura, June of ’ninety-five. I need to know what it was for.”

“Salvage?” Holly frowned, his instincts aroused. “A tanker? Something like that?”

Rebus shook his head. “On land. The SAS were brought in.”

“Herdman?”

“He might have been involved.”

Holly chewed on his bottom lip as if trying to dislodge the hook Rebus had landed there. “What’s it got to do with anything?”

“We won’t know that till we take a look.”

“And if I agree, what do I get out of it?”

“Like I said, first go at any story.” Rebus paused. “I might also have access to Herdman’s army files.”

Holly’s eyebrows rose perceptibly. “Anything good in them?”

Rebus shrugged. “At this stage, I couldn’t possibly comment.” Reeling the reporter in… knowing full well there was little in the file to interest any tabloid reader. But then how was Steve Holly to know that?

“Well, we could have a look-see, I suppose.” Holly was rising to his feet again. “No time like the present.”

Rebus studied his beer glass, still three-quarters full. Holly had yet to start on his own second drink. “What’s the rush?” he said.

“You don’t think I came here to pass the time of day with you?” Holly said. “I don’t like you, Rebus, and I certainly don’t trust you.” He paused. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Rebus said, rising to follow the reporter out of the bar.

“By the way,” Holly said, “something that’s been bugging me…”

“What?”

“I was talking to a guy, and he said he could kill someone with a newspaper. You ever heard of that?”

Rebus nodded. “A magazine’s better, but a paper might just do it.”

Holly looked at him. “So how does it work? Smothering or what?”

Rebus shook his head. “You roll it up, tight as you can, then you use it on the throat. Enough force, you’ll crush the windpipe.”

Holly was staring. “You learned that in the army?”

Rebus nodded again. “As did whoever you were talking to.”

“It was a bloke at St. Leonard’s… him and some stroppy-looking woman.”

“Her name’s Whiteread; his is Simms.”

“Army investigators?” Holly nodded to himself, as though it all made sense. Rebus stopped himself from smiling: putting Holly onto Whiteread and Simms was most of his plan.

They were outside the pub now, and Rebus expected that they’d be walking to the newspaper office, but Holly had turned left rather than right, pointing his ignition key at the line of cars parked curbside.

“You drove?” Rebus said as the locks clunked open on a silver-gray Audi TT.

“It’s what your legs are for,” Holly informed him. “Now get in.”

Rebus slid into what space there was, thinking that an Audi TT was the car Teri Cotter’s brother had been driving, the night he’d died, with Derek Renshaw sitting in the passenger seat, same seat Rebus was in now… remembering the photos of the crash, Stuart Cotter’s rag-doll body… He watched as Holly slipped a hand beneath the driver’s seat, sliding out a thin black laptop computer. He placed it across his legs, opening it and holding his mobile phone in one hand while he operated the keyboard with the other.

“Infrared connection,” he explained. “Gets us online in a hurry.”

“And why are we going online?” Rebus had to push back a sudden memory of his nighttime vigil at Miss Teri’s website, embarrassed that he’d allowed himself to be drawn into her world.

“Because that’s where my paper has most of its library. I just enter the password…” Holly stabbed half a dozen keys, Rebus trying to see what they were. “No peeking, Rebus,” he warned. “There’s all sorts of stuff on here: clippings, dropped stories, archives…”

“Lists of the cops you pay for information?”

“Would I be that stupid?”

“I don’t know: would you?”

“When people talk to me, they know I can keep a secret. Those names go to my grave.”

Holly turned his attention back to the screen. Rebus had no doubt this machine was state of the art. Connection had been fast, and now pages were popping up in the blink of an eye. The laptop Rebus had borrowed was, as Pettifer had said, coal-fired by comparison.

“Search mode…” Holly was talking to himself. “We enter the month and year, keywords Jura and salvage… and see what Brainiac comes up with.” He hit a final key and sat back, turning again towards Rebus to measure how impressed he was. Rebus was hellish impressed but hoped it didn’t show.

The screen had changed again. “Seventeen items,” Holly said. “Christ, yes, I remember this.” He angled the screen a little, and Rebus leaned towards him so that he could see what was there. And suddenly Rebus remembered it, too, remembered the incident, but hadn’t registered it as happening on Jura. An army helicopter, half a dozen top brass on board. Killed outright, along with the pilot, when the chopper had crashed. Speculation at the time that it had been downed. Jubilation in some quarters in Northern Ireland-a splinter Republican group taking early credit. But in the end, “pilot error” had been given as the cause.

“No mention of the SAS,” Holly pointed out.

Instead, a vague mention of a “rescue team,” sent to locate the debris and, more important, the bodies. Whatever was left of the chopper would be taken away for analysis, the bodies sent for autopsy prior to the funerals. An inquiry was set in motion, its findings a long time coming.

“Pilot’s family weren’t happy,” Holly said, racing through time to the end of the investigation. Memories tarnished by that conclusion: “pilot error.”

“Go back again,” Rebus said, annoyed that Holly was a faster reader than him. Holly obliged, the screen switching in an instant.

“So Herdman was part of the rescue team?” Holly observed. “Makes sense, army sending in their own…” He turned to Rebus. “What point is it you’re supposed to be making?”

Rebus didn’t want to give him much more, so said he wasn’t sure.

“Then I’m wasting my time here.” Holly hit another button, blacking out the screen. Then he twisted his body so he was facing Rebus. “So what if Herdman was on Jura? What the hell’s it got to do with what went on in that school? You going for the stress / trauma angle?”

“I’m not sure,” Rebus repeated. He stared at the reporter. “But thanks anyway.” He pushed open the door and started levering himself out of the low-built seat.

“Is that it?” Holly spat. “I show you mine and you chicken out?”

Rebus leaned back down into the car. “Mine’s more interesting than yours, pal.”

“You didn’t need me for this,” Holly said, glancing towards his laptop. “Half an hour with a search engine and you’d’ve learned as much.”

Rebus nodded. “Or I could have asked Whiteread and Simms, only I don’t think they’d have been quite as accommodating.”

Holly blinked. “Why not?”

Bait taken, Rebus just winked and slammed shut the door, walked back into the Ox, where Harry was about to pour his drink down the sink.

“Let me relieve you of that,” Rebus said, stretching out his hand towards the barman. He heard the roar of the Audi’s engine, Steve Holly making a quick and angry getaway. Rebus wasn’t bothered. He had what he needed.

A helicopter crash. Top brass involved. Now there was something to whet the appetite of a couple of army investigators. What was more, when Holly had flicked back through the screens, Rebus had registered the news that a few of the locals on the island had helped with the search, men who knew the Paps of Jura well. One of them had even been interviewed, giving his description of the crash site. His name was Rory Mollison. Rebus finished off the pint, standing at the bar, his eyes staring at the TV without taking any of it in. A kaleidoscope of colors, that was all it meant to him. His mind was elsewhere, crossing land and then water, gliding over hilltops… Sending the SAS to pick up bodies? Jura wasn’t exactly the most mountainous terrain, certainly a long way short of the peaks you’d find in the Grampians. Why send such a specialized team?

Gliding over moor and glen, inlets and sheer cliff faces… Rebus fumbled for his phone, pulled off his glove with his teeth and punched numbers with his thumbnail. Waited for Siobhan to pick up.

“Where are you?” he said.

“Never mind that: what the hell are you doing talking to Steve Holly?”

Rebus blinked, ran to the door and pulled it open. She was standing right in front of him. He put the phone back in his pocket. As if in a mirror image, she did the same with hers.

“You’re tailing me,” he said, trying to sound appalled.

“Only because you need tailing.”

“Where were you?” He started pulling the glove back on.

She nodded towards North Castle Street. “Car’s parked just around the corner. Now, to return to my original question…”

“Never mind that. At least this means you’ve not been back to the airfield.”

“Not yet, no.”

“Good, because I want you to talk to him.”

“Who? Brimson?” She watched him nod. “And after that, you’ll tell me what you were doing with Steve Holly?”

Rebus looked at her, then nodded again.

“And this’ll be over a drink, which you’re going to buy me?”

The look became a glare. Siobhan had taken the phone back out of her pocket, and was waving it in Rebus’s face.

“All right,” he growled. “Just call the guy, okay?”

Siobhan checked in her notebook, finding Brimson’s details, started punching numbers. “What exactly is it that I’m telling him?”

“Charm offensive: you need a big favor. Maybe more than one actually… But for starters, you can ask him if there’s a landing strip anywhere on Jura…”

When Rebus arrived at Port Edgar Academy, he saw that Bobby Hogan was remonstrating with Jack Bell. Bell wasn’t alone: he had the same camera crew with him. Plus he had one hand clamped around Kate Renshaw’s forearm.

“I think we’ve every right,” the MSP was saying, “to see where our loved ones were gunned down.”

“With respect, sir, that classroom remains a crime scene. No one goes in without good reason.”

“We’re the family, which I’d have thought was the best reason there was.”

Hogan pointed to the crew. “Pretty extended family, sir…”

The director had noticed Rebus’s approach. He tapped Bell’s shoulder. Bell turned, his face forming a cold smile.

“You’ll have come to apologize?” he guessed.

Rebus ignored him. “Don’t go in there, Kate,” he said, standing directly in front of her. “It can’t do any good.”

She couldn’t meet his gaze. “People need to know.” She spoke in an undertone, Bell nodding in agreement.

“Maybe so, but what they don’t need is a publicity stunt. It just cheapens everything, Kate, you must see that.”

Bell had turned his attention back to Hogan. “I must insist that this man be removed from here.”

“Must you?” Hogan echoed.

“He is already on record as having uttered abusive comments at my crew and myself…”

“Plenty more where that came from,” Rebus stated.

“John…” Hogan’s eyes warning him to calm down. Then: “I’m sorry, Mr. Bell, but I really can’t allow filming inside that room.”

“What if there’s no camera?” the director offered. “Sound only?”

Hogan was shaking his head. “You’re not going to move me on this.” He folded his arms, as if to signal an end to the discussion.

Rebus was still concentrating on Kate, trying for eye contact. She seemed to be finding something fascinating in the near distance. The gulls on the playing field perhaps, or the rugby posts…

“Well, where can we film?” the MSP was asking.

“Outside the gates, same as everyone else,” Hogan replied. Bell exhaled furiously.

“You can be sure your obstructiveness will be noted,” he warned.

“Thank you, sir,” Hogan said, keeping his voice level while his eyes burned.

The common room had been emptied: no chairs, hi-fi or magazines. The principal, Dr. Fogg, was standing in the doorway, hands held before him, palms pressed together. He was dressed in a sober charcoal suit, white shirt, black tie. His eyes had dark rings around them, hair speckled with dandruff. He sensed Rebus behind him and turned, offered a watery smile.

“Trying to decide what use might best be made of the room,” he explained. “The chaplain thinks it could be turned into a sort of chapel, something the pupils could use for contemplation.”

“It’s an idea,” Rebus said. The principal had moved aside so Rebus could enter the room. Blood had dried into the walls and floor. Rebus tried to sidestep the stains.

“You could always lock it, leave it a few years. Kids will all have moved on by then… few coats of paint, new carpet…”

“Hard to look that far ahead,” Fogg said, managing another smile. “Well, I’ll leave you to… to your…” He made a little bow and turned away, walking back towards his office.

Rebus was staring at the blood spatter pattern on one wall. This was where Derek had been standing. Derek, part of his family, now obliterated.

Lee Herdman… Rebus was trying to visualize him, waking up that morning and reaching for a gun. What had happened? What in his life had changed? Were demons dancing around his bed when he awoke? Were the voices teasing him? The teenagers he’d befriended… had something broken that spell? Fuck you, kids, I’m coming for you… Driving into the school grounds, stopping the car rather than actually parking it. In a rush, leaving his driver’s door wide open. In through the side entrance, no cameras to catch him… Up the corridor and into this room. Here I am, kids. Anthony Jarvies, shot through the head. He’d probably been first. All the army teaching told you to aim for the center of the chest: bigger target, harder to miss and usually deadly. But Herdman had opted for the head… Why? That first shot had lost him the element of surprise. Maybe Derek Renshaw had been in movement, receiving a shot to the face for his trouble. James Bell ducking down, one bullet to the shoulder, squeezing his eyes shut tight as Herdman turned the gun on himself…

The third head shot, this time to his own temple.

“Why, Lee? That’s all we want to know,” Rebus whispered into the silence. He walked to the door, turned, entered the room again, holding out his right gloved hand as though it were the weapon. Swiveled from one firing position to another. He knew that the forensics team would be doing much the same, albeit in front of their computers. Reconstructing the scene in the room, computing the angles of bullet entry, positioning the gunman for each shot. Every shred of evidence added its own sentence to the story. Here’s where he was standing… then he turned, moved forwards… If we match angle of entry to the blood spatter pattern…

Eventually, they would know every move Herdman had made. They would have brought the scene vividly to life with their graphics and ballistics. And none of it might make them any the wiser about the only question that mattered.

The why.

“Don’t shoot,” a voice said from the doorway. It was Bobby Hogan, standing with arms raised. He had with him two figures Rebus knew. Claverhouse and Ormiston. Claverhouse, tall and lanky, was a detective inspector; Ormiston, shorter and stocky with a permanent sniffle, was a detective sergeant. Both worked for Drugs and Major Crime and had close links to the assistant chief constable, Colin Carswell. In fact, on a bad day Rebus might have called them Carswell’s hatchet men. He realized that he still had his gun hand out, so he lowered it.

“I hear the fascist look’s in this year,” Claverhouse said, indicating Rebus’s leather gloves.

“Making you fashionable year in and year out,” Rebus retorted.

“Now, children,” Hogan warned. Ormiston was peering at the blood on the floor, rubbing the tip of his shoe over it.

“So what brings you sniffing around?” Rebus asked, eyes on Ormiston as the stocky man rubbed the back of his hand across his nostrils.

“Drugs,” Claverhouse said. With all three buttons of his suit jacket closed, he resembled a shop-window mannequin.

“Looks like Ormy’s been sampling the goods.”

Hogan bowed his head to try to hide a smile. Claverhouse swiveled towards him. “I thought DI Rebus was out on his ear.”

“News travels fast,” Rebus said.

“Aye, especially good news,” Ormiston snapped back.

Hogan straightened up. “Do the three of you want detention?” No one replied. “To answer your question, DI Claverhouse, John’s here in a purely advisory capacity, due to his army background. He’s not ‘working’ per se…”

“No change there then,” Ormiston muttered.

“And the kettle’s trailing the pot, one-nil, at halftime,” Rebus informed him.

Hogan held up a hand. “And that’s a yellow card from the referee. Any more shite and you’re out of here, I mean it!” His voice had hardened. Claverhouse’s eyes flickered, but he didn’t say anything. Ormiston had his nose all but pressed to one of the bloodstains on the wall.

“Right…” Hogan said into the silence, sighing heavily. “So what is it you’ve got for us?”

Claverhouse took this as his cue. “Looks like the stuff you found on the boat is checking out: Ecstasy and cocaine. The cocaine’s pretty high grade. Maybe it was due to be cut a bit further…”

“Crack?” Hogan asked.

Claverhouse nodded. “It’s taken hold in a few places-fishing towns up north, some of the housing projects here and in Glasgow… A grand’s worth of good stuff can turn into ten when it’s cut.”

“There’s also a bundle of hash going around,” Ormiston added.

Claverhouse glared at him, not wanting to have his thunder stolen. “Ormy’s right, there’s plenty of hash on the streets.”

“What about Ecstasy?” Hogan asked.

Claverhouse nodded. “We thought it was coming up from Manchester. Could be we were wrong.”

“From Herdman’s logs,” Hogan said, “we know he’s been to and fro to the Continent. Seems to stop off at Rotterdam.”

“Lot of E factories in Holland,” Ormiston stated casually. He was still studying the wall in front of him, hands in pockets and leaning back on his heels, as if concentrating on the exhibit at a gallery. “Lot of cocaine over there, too.”

“And Customs wasn’t suspicious of these jaunts to Rotterdam?” Rebus asked.

Claverhouse shrugged. “Those poor buggers are stretched to the breaking point. No way they can check up on everybody hopping over to Europe, especially in these days of open borders.”

“So what you’re saying is, you let Herdman slip through your net?”

Claverhouse’s eyes met Rebus’s. “Like Customs, we depend on intelligence gathering.”

“Not much sign of that around here,” Rebus countered, shifting his gaze from Claverhouse to Ormiston and back again. “Bobby, have Herdman’s finances been looked into?”

Hogan nodded. “No evidence of sudden large deposits or withdrawals.”

“Dealers steer clear of banks,” Claverhouse stated. “Hence the need for money laundering. Herdman’s boat business would do just fine.”

“What about Herdman’s autopsy?” Rebus asked Bobby Hogan. “Any sign that he was a drug user?”

Hogan shook his head. “Blood tests negative.”

“Dealers aren’t always users,” Claverhouse intoned. “The big players are in it for the money. In the past six months, we busted one operation carrying a hundred and thirty thousand tabs of E, street value of a million and a half, forty-four kilos’ worth. Four kilos of opium was intercepted after being flown in from Iran.” He stared at Rebus. “That was a Customs bust, based on intelligence.”

“And how much did we find on Herdman’s boat?” Rebus asked. “A drop in the ocean, if you’ll pardon the expression.” He had started to light a cigarette but caught Hogan’s look, eyes casting around the room. “It’s not a church, Bobby,” he said, finishing what he’d started. He didn’t think Derek or Anthony would mind. Didn’t care what Herdman thought…

“For personal use perhaps,” Claverhouse offered.

“Except he didn’t use.” Rebus blew smoke down his nostrils in Claverhouse’s direction.

“Maybe he had friends who did. I hear he used to host a few parties…”

“We’ve not spoken to anyone who says he gave them coke or Eckies.”

“As if they’d want to advertise the fact,” Claverhouse snorted. “Fact is, I’m astonished you can find anyone who’ll admit to having known the bastard.” He stared down at the bloodstained floor.

Ormiston ran a hand beneath his nose again, then let out a huge sneeze, further mottling the wall.

“Ormy, you insensitive bastard,” Rebus hissed.

“He’s not the one flicking ash on the floor,” Claverhouse growled.

“The smoke tickles my nose,” Ormiston was saying. Rebus had strode over to stand next to him. “That was somebody from my fucking family!” he snarled, pointing at the pattern of blood.

“I didn’t mean it.”

“What did you just say, John?” Hogan’s voice was a low rumble.

“Nothing,” Rebus said. But it was too late. Hogan was standing right beside him, sliding hands into pockets, expecting an explanation. “Allan Renshaw’s a cousin of mine,” Rebus admitted.

“And you didn’t feel that was information I might need to know?” Hogan’s face was puce with anger.

“Not really, Bobby, no.” Over Hogan’s shoulder, Rebus could see a huge grin spreading across Claverhouse’s narrow face.

Hogan removed his hands from his pockets, tried clenching them behind his back but found the maneuver unsatisfactory. Rebus knew where Bobby really wanted those hands. He wanted them around Rebus’s neck.

“It doesn’t change anything,” he argued. “Like you said, I’m here as an advisor, that’s all. We’re not building a court case, Bobby. No lawyer’s going to be able to use me as a technicality.”

“Bastard was a drug smuggler,” Claverhouse interrupted. “There must be associates out there for us to catch. One of them gets a bright enough lawyer…”

“Claverhouse,” Rebus said wearily. “Do the world a favor and”-his voice a sudden howl-“just shut the fuck up!”

Claverhouse started forwards, Rebus ready to meet him, Hogan stepping between them, though in the certain knowledge of being as useful as chocolate handcuffs. Ormiston’s role was spectator; no way he’d interrupt unless his partner was getting the worst of it.

“Phone call for DI Rebus!” A sudden shout from the open doorway, Siobhan standing there, holding out a mobile phone. “I think it’s urgent: the Complaints.”

Claverhouse stepped back, allowing Rebus clear passage. He even made a mocking motion with his arm, signaling “after you.” And the grin was back on his face. Rebus looked down to where Bobby Hogan still had a handful of the front of his suit jacket. Hogan let go, and Rebus walked to the doorway.

“Want to take it outside?” Siobhan suggested. Rebus nodded, held out his hand for the phone. But she was keeping it, walking with him all the way out of the building. She looked around, saw that they were at a safe distance, and held the phone out to him.

“Better make it look like you’re talking,” she warned. Rebus held the phone to his ear. Nothing there at all.

“No call?” he asked. She shook her head.

“Just thought you needed rescuing.”

He managed a smile, keeping the phone to his ear. “Bobby knows about the Renshaws.”

“I know. I heard.”

“Spying on me again?”

“Not much going on in the geography class.” They were heading towards the Portakabin. “So what do we do now?”

“Whatever it is, it better be away from here… give Bobby time to cool off.” Rebus looked back towards the school. Three figures were watching from the doorway.

“And Claverhouse and Ormiston time to crawl back under their rock?”

“You’re reading my mind.” He paused. “So what am I thinking now?”

“You’re thinking we could go for a drink.”

“This is uncanny.”

“And you’re also thinking of paying, as a way of saying thanks for saving your arse.”

“That is the incorrect answer. Still, as Meat Loaf used to say…” They’d reached her car. He handed back her phone. “Two out of three ain’t bad.”

15

So if no money turned up in Herdman’s bank,” Siobhan said, “we can scratch him as a hired killer.”

“Unless he turned the money into drugs,” Rebus replied, for the sake of argument. They were in the Boatman’s, drinking with the late-afternoon crowd. Suits and laborers who’d finished work for the day. Rod McAllister was behind the bar yet again. Rebus had asked jokingly if he was a permanent feature.

“Day shift,” McAllister had replied unsmilingly.

“You’re a real asset to the place,” Rebus had added, accepting his change.

Now he sat with a half-pint of beer and the remains of a glass of whiskey. Siobhan was drinking a garishly colored mixture of lime juice and soda.

“You really think Whiteread and Simms might have planted those drugs?”

Rebus shrugged. “There isn’t much I wouldn’t put past the likes of Whiteread.”

“Based on…?” He looked at her. “I mean,” she went on, “you’ve always stayed pretty tight-lipped about your army years.”

“Not the happiest of my life,” he admitted. “I saw guys broken by the system. Fact of the matter is, I only just about held on to my own sanity. When I left, I had a nervous breakdown.” Rebus swallowed back the memories. He thought of all the comfortable clichés: what’s done is done… you can’t go living in the past… “One guy-a guy I was close to-he went to pieces during the training. They turfed him out, but forgot to switch him off…” His voice trailed away.

“What happened?”

“He blamed me, came looking for revenge. Way before your time, Siobhan.”

“So you can understand why Herdman might lose it?”

“Maybe.”

“But you’re not sure he did, are you?”

“There are usually warning signs. Herdman wasn’t the archetypal loner. No arsenal in his home, just that one gun…” Rebus paused. “We could do with knowing when he got hold of it.”

“The gun?”

Rebus nodded. “Then we’d know whether he bought it with that one specific purpose.”

“Chances are, if he was smuggling drugs, he’d feel the need for some kind of protection. Might explain the Mac- 10 in the boathouse.” Siobhan was following the progress of a young blond woman who’d just entered the bar. The barman seemed to know her. He was pouring out her drink before she got to him. Bacardi and Coke, it looked like. No ice.

“Nothing came of all those interviews?” Rebus was asking.

Siobhan shook her head. He meant all the lowlifes and firearm merchants. “The Brocock wasn’t the most recent model. Thinking seems to be, he brought it north with him when he moved here. As for the machine gun, who knows?”

Rebus was thoughtful, Siobhan watching as Rod McAllister leaned on the bartop, resting his forearms there. Deep in conversation with the blonde… the blonde Siobhan knew from somewhere. He looked as contented as Siobhan had ever seen him, head tilted to one side. The woman was smoking, blowing ash-gray plumes ceilingwards.

“Do me a favor, will you?” Rebus asked suddenly. “Get on the phone to Bobby Hogan.”

“Why?”

“Because he probably doesn’t want to speak to me right now.”

“And what is it I’m phoning him for?” Siobhan had her mobile out.

“To ask if Whiteread was forthcoming with Lee Herdman’s army records. The answer’s probably no, in which case he should have called the army direct. I want to know if they’ve come through.”

Siobhan was nodding, pushing buttons. The conversation from then on was one-sided.

“DI Hogan, it’s Siobhan Clarke…” Listening, she looked up at Rebus. “No, I’ve no idea what that was about… I think he was called to Fettes.” She widened her eyes questioningly, and Rebus nodded to let her know she’d said the right thing. “What I was wondering was, did you get round to asking Ms. Whiteread for the records on Herdman?” She listened to Hogan’s reply. “Well, John mentioned it to me, and I just thought I’d follow up…” She listened again, squeezing her eyes shut tight. “No, he’s not here listening in.” She’d opened her eyes again. Rebus winked, to let her know she was doing fine. “Mmm… hmm…” She was listening to Hogan. “Doesn’t sound like she’s being as cooperative as we’d have liked… Yes, I’ll bet you told her.” A smile. “What did she say?” More listening. “And did you follow her advice?… So what did they say down at Hereford?” Meaning SAS HQ. “So we’re denied access?” Another look at Rebus. “Well, he can be a difficult creature, we both know that.” Talking about Rebus now, Hogan probably saying that he would have told Rebus all this if the scene in the common room hadn’t imploded. “No, I’d no idea he was related to them.” Siobhan made an O of her mouth. “Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.” Her turn to wink at Rebus. He drew a finger across his neck, but she shook her head. She was beginning to enjoy herself. “And I’ll bet you’ve got a few stories about him, too… I know he is.” A laugh. “No, no, you’re absolutely right. God, it’s just as well he’s not here…” Rebus made a move to snatch the phone from her, but she turned away from him. “Really? Well, thanks. No, that’s… Yes, yes, I’d like that. We’ll maybe… yes, after this has all… I’ll look forward to it. Bye, Bobby.”

She was smiling as she ended the call. Picked up her glass and took a sip.

“I think I got the gist of that,” Rebus muttered.

“I’m to call him ‘Bobby.’ He says I’m a good officer.”

“Jesus…”

“And he’s invited me for a meal, once the case is finished.”

“He’s a married man.”

“He’s not.”

“Okay, his wife left him. He’s old enough to be your dad, though.” Rebus paused. “What did he say about me?”

“Nothing.”

“You laughed when he said it.”

“I was winding you up.”

Rebus glowered at her. “I buy the drinks and you do the winding up? Is that the basis of our relationship?”

“I offered to cook you a meal.”

“So you did.”

“Bobby knows a nice restaurant in Leith.”

“Wonder which kebab shop he’s meaning…”

She thumped his arm. “Go get us another round.”

“After what I’ve just been through?” Rebus shook his head. “Your shout.” He sat back in his chair, as if getting comfortable.

“If that’s the way you want to play it…” Siobhan got to her feet. She wanted a closer look at the woman anyway. But the blonde was leaving, tucking cigarettes and lighter into her shoulder bag, head dipped so that Siobhan could make out only part of her face.

“See you later!” the woman called.

“Aye, see you,” McAllister called back. He was wiping the bartop with a damp cloth. The smile slid from his face at Siobhan’s approach. “Same again, is it?” he asked.

She nodded. “Friend of yours?”

He’d turned away to measure out Rebus’s whiskey. “In a way.”

“I seem to know her from somewhere.”

“Oh, aye?” He placed the drink in front of her. “You want the half as well?”

She nodded. “And another lime juice and…”

“… and soda. I remember. Nothing in the whiskey, ice in the lime.” Another order was already coming from farther down the bar: two lagers and a rum and black. He rang up Siobhan’s drinks, was brisk with her change, and started on the lagers, making a show of being too busy for chitchat. Siobhan stood her ground a few moments longer, then decided it wasn’t worth it. She was halfway back to the table when she remembered. Brought up short, some of Rebus’s beer trickled down the side of the glass, dripping onto the scuffed wooden floor.

“Whoa there,” Rebus cautioned, watching from his chair. She got the drinks to the table and set them down. Went to the window and looked out, but there was no sign of the blonde.

“I know who she was,” she said.

“Who?”

“The woman who just left. You must have seen her.”

“Long blond hair, tight pink T-shirt, short leather jacket? Black ski pants and heels slightly too high for their own good?” Rebus took a sip of beer. “Can’t say I noticed.”

“But you didn’t recognize her?”

“Any reason I should?”

“Well, according to today’s front page, you only went and torched her boyfriend.” Siobhan sat back, holding her own glass in front of her, waiting for her words to sink in.

“Fairstone’s girlfriend?” Rebus said, eyes narrowing.

Siobhan nodded. “I only saw her the once, the day Fairstone walked free.”

Rebus was looking towards the bar. “You’re sure it was her?”

“Fairly sure. When I heard her speak… Yes, I’m positive. I saw her outside the court, when the trial finished.”

“Just that once?”

Siobhan nodded again. “I wasn’t the one who interviewed her about the alibi she gave her boyfriend, and she wasn’t in court when I gave my evidence.”

“What’s her name?”

Siobhan narrowed her eyes in concentration. “Rachel something.”

“Where does Rachel something live?”

Siobhan shrugged. “I’d guess not too far from her boyfriend.”

“Making this not exactly her local.”

“Not exactly.”

“Ten miles from her local, to be precise.”

“More or less.” Siobhan was still holding the glass; had yet to take her first sip.

“You had any more of those letters?”

She shook her head.

“Think she could be following you?”

“Not every minute of the day. I’d’ve spotted her.” Now Siobhan looked towards the bar, too. McAllister’s flurry of activity had ended and he was back to washing glasses. “Of course, it might not be me she came here to see…”

Rebus got Siobhan to drop him off at Allan Renshaw’s house. He told her she should go home; he’d take a taxi back into town or get a patrol car to pick him up.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be,” he’d said. Not an official visit, just family. She’d nodded, driven off. He’d rung the doorbell with no success. Peered through the window. The boxes of snapshots were still spread out across the living room. No sign of life. He tried the door handle, and it turned. The door was unlocked.

“Allan?” he called. “Kate?”

He closed the door behind him. There was a buzzing noise from upstairs. He called out again, but without answer. Cautiously, he climbed the stairs. There was a metal stepladder in the middle of the upstairs hall, leading up through an open hatch in the ceiling. Rebus took each rung slowly.

“Allan?”

There was a light on in the attic and the buzzing was louder. Rebus stuck his head through the hatch. His cousin was seated cross-legged on the floor, a control panel in his hand, mimicking the sound the toy racing car made as it sped around the figure-eight track.

“I always let him win,” Allan Renshaw said, giving the first sign that he was aware of Rebus’s appearance. “Derek, I mean. We got him this for Christmas one year…”

Rebus saw the open box, lengths of unused track spilling from it. Packing boxes had been emptied, suitcases opened. Rebus saw women’s dresses, children’s clothes, a stack of old 45s. He saw magazines with long-forgotten TV stars on the front. He saw plates and ornaments, peeled from their protective newsprint. Some might have been wedding gifts, dispatched to darkness by changing fashions. A folded stroller waited to be claimed by the generation to come. Rebus had reached the top of the ladder, and settled his weight against the edge of the hatch. Somehow, amidst the clutter, Allan Renshaw had negotiated room for the racetrack, his eyes following the red plastic car as it completed its endless circuits.

“Never saw the attraction myself,” Rebus commented. “Same with train sets.”

“Cars are different. You’ve got that illusion of speed… and you can race against everyone else. Plus…” Renshaw pushed his finger down harder on the accelerator button, “if you take a bend too fast and crash…” His car spun from the track. He reached out for it, slid its guiding front brush into the slot on the roadway. Pressed the button and sent it on its renewed journey. “You see?” he said, glancing towards Rebus.

“You can always start again?” Rebus guessed.

“Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s broken,” Renshaw said, nodding. “It’s as if nothing happened.”

“It’s an illusion then,” Rebus intimated.

“A comforting illusion,” his cousin agreed. He paused. “Did I have a race set when I was a kid? I don’t remember…”

Rebus shrugged. “I know I didn’t. If they were around, they were probably too expensive.”

“The money we spend on our kids, eh, John?” Renshaw produced the glimmer of a smile. “Always wanting the best for them, never begrudging anything.”

“Must’ve been expensive, putting your two through Port Edgar.”

“Wasn’t cheap. You’ve just got the one, is that right?”

“She’s all grown now, Allan.”

“Kate’s growing, too… moving on to another life.”

“She’s got a head on her shoulders.” Rebus watched as the car tripped from the track again. It ended up near him, so he reached forwards to replace it. “That crash Derek was in,” he said. “It wasn’t his fault, was it?”

Renshaw shook his head. “Stuart was a wild one. We’re lucky Derek was all right.” He set the car moving again. Rebus had noticed a blue car in the box, and a spare controller sitting by his cousin’s left shoe.

“We going to have a race, then?” he asked, sliding farther into the space, picking up the small black box.

“Why not?” Renshaw agreed, placing Rebus’s car on the starting line. He brought his own car to meet it, then counted down from five. Both cars jolted towards the first bend, Rebus’s careering off straightaway. He crawled over on hands and knees and fixed it back onto the track, just as Renshaw’s car lapped him.

“You’ve had more practice than me,” he complained, sitting back down again. Drafts of warm air were gusting up through the open hatch, providing the attic with its only source of heat. Rebus knew that if he stood, there wouldn’t be quite enough room for him. “So how long have you been up here?” he asked. Renshaw ran a hand over what was now more beard than stubble.

“Since first thing,” he said.

“Where’s Kate?”

“Out helping that MSP.”

“The front door isn’t locked.”

“Oh?”

“Anyone could walk in.” Rebus had waited for Renshaw’s car to catch up with him, and now they were racing again, crossing lanes at one point in the track.

“Know what I was thinking about last night?” Renshaw said. “I think it was last night…”

“What?”

“I was thinking about your dad. I really liked him. He used to do tricks for me, do you remember that?”

“Producing pennies from behind your ear?”

“And making them disappear. He said he’d learned it in the army.”

“Probably.”

“He was in the Far East, wasn’t he?”

Rebus nodded. His father had never said much about his wartime exploits. Mostly, all he’d shared were anecdotes, things they could laugh at. But later on… towards the end of his life, he’d let slip details of some of the horrors he’d witnessed.

These weren’t professional soldiers, John, they were conscripts-men who worked in banks, shops, factories. War changed them, changed all of us. How could it not?

“Thing is,” Allan Renshaw continued, “thinking about your dad got me thinking about you. Remember that day you took me to the park.”

“The day we played football?”

Renshaw nodded, gave a weak smile. “You remember it?”

“Probably not as well as you.”

“Oh, I remember, all right. We were playing football, and then some guys you knew turned up, and I had to play by myself while you talked to them.” Renshaw paused. The cars crossed each other again. “Coming back to you?”

“Not really.” But Rebus supposed it could be true. Whenever he’d gone home on leave, there’d been friends from school to catch up with.

“Then we started walking home. Or you and your pals did, me trailing behind, carrying the ball you’d bought us… Now this bit, this bit I’d pushed to the back of my mind…”

“What bit?” Rebus was concentrating on the racetrack.

“The bit where we were passing the pub. You remember the pub on the corner?”

“The Bowhill Hotel?”

“That was it. We were passing, only then you turned to me, pointed at me, told me I’d to wait outside. Your voice was different, a lot harder, like you didn’t want your pals to know we were pals…”

“You sure about this, Allan?”

“Oh, I’m sure. Because the three of you went inside, and I sat at the curb and waited. I was holding on to the ball, and after a while you came out again, but just to hand me a bag of crisps. You went back inside, and then these other kids came up, and one of them kicked the ball out of my grasp, and they ran off, laughing and kicking it to each other. That’s when I started crying, and still you didn’t come out, and I knew I couldn’t go in. So I got to my feet and walked back to the house by myself. I got lost once, but I stopped and asked someone.” The racing cars were speeding towards the point at which they would switch lanes. They arrived at the same time, met and bounced off the track, landing on their backs. Neither man moved. The attic was silent for a moment. “You came home later,” Renshaw continued, breaking the silence, “and nobody said anything because I’d not said anything to them. But you know what really got me? You never asked what had happened to the ball, and I knew why you didn’t ask. It was because you’d forgotten all about it. Because it wasn’t important to you.” Renshaw paused. “And I was just some little kid again, and not your friend.”

“Jesus, Allan…” Rebus was trying to remember, but there was nothing there. The day he’d thought he’d known had been sunshine and football, nothing else.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last.

Tears were dripping down Renshaw’s cheeks. “I was family, John, and you treated me like I was nothing.”

“Allan, believe me, I never -”

“Out!” Renshaw yelled, sniffing back more tears. “I want you out of my house-now!” He’d risen stiffly to his feet. Rebus was up, too, the two men standing awkwardly, heads angled against the roofbeams, backs bent.

“Look, Allan, if it’s any…”

But Renshaw had him by the shoulder, trying to maneuver him to the hatch.

“All right, all right,” Rebus was saying. He tried yanking himself free of the other man’s grip, and Renshaw stumbled, one foot finding no purchase, sending him falling through the hatch. Rebus grabbed him by the arm, feeling his fingers burn as he tightened his grip. Renshaw scrabbled back upright.

“You okay?” Rebus asked.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Renshaw was pointing at the ladder.

“Okay, Allan. But we’ll talk again sometime, eh? That’s what I came here for: to talk, to get to know you.”

“You had your chance to get to know me,” Renshaw said coldly. Rebus was making his way back down the ladder. He peered up through the gap, but his cousin wasn’t visible.

“Are you coming down, Allan?” he called. No response. Then the buzzing sound again, as the red car recommenced its journey. Rebus turned and headed downstairs. Didn’t really know what to do, whether it was safe to leave Allan like this. He walked into the living room, through to the kitchen. Outside, the lawn mower had yet to move. There were sheets of paper on the table, computer printouts. Petitions calling for gun control, for more safety in schools. No names as yet, just row after row of blank boxes. The same thing had happened after Dunblane. A tightening of rules and regulations. Result? More illegal guns than ever out there on the street. Rebus knew that in Edinburgh, if you knew where to go asking, you could get a gun in under an hour. In Glasgow, it was reckoned to take all of ten minutes. Guns were run like rental videos: you hired them for a day. If they came back unused, you got some money back. Used, and you didn’t. A simple commercial transaction, not too far removed from Peacock Johnson’s activities. Rebus thought about signing his name to the petition but knew it would be an empty gesture. There were lots of newspaper cuttings and reprints of magazine articles: the effects of violence in the media. Knee-jerk stuff, like saying a horror video could make two kids kill a toddler… He had a look around, wondering if Kate had left a contact number. He wanted to talk to her about her father, maybe tell her Allan needed her more than Jack Bell did. He stood at the foot of the stairs for a few minutes, listening to the noises in the attic, then checked the phone book for a taxi firm.

“Be with you in ten,” the voice on the phone told him. A cheery, female voice. It was almost enough to persuade him that there was another world than this…

Siobhan stood in the middle of her living room and looked around her. She walked over to the window and closed the shutters against the dying light. She picked up a mug and plate from the floor: toast crumbs identifying her last meal in the flat. She checked that there were no messages on her phone. It was Friday, which meant Toni Jackson and the other female officers would be expecting her, but the last thing she felt like was girlie bonhomie and the drunken eyeing-up of pub talent. The mug and plate took half a minute to wash and place on the draining board. A quick look in the fridge. The food she’d bought, intending to cook a meal for Rebus, was still there, a few days shy of its “best before” date. She closed the door again and went into her bedroom, straightened the duvet on her bed, confirmed that doing laundry would be necessary this weekend. Then into the bathroom, a glance at herself in the mirror before heading back into the living room, where she opened the day’s mail. Two bills and a postcard. The postcard was from an old college friend. They hadn’t managed to see each other this year, despite living in the same city. Now the friend was enjoying a four-day break in Rome… probably already back, judging by the date on the card. Rome: Siobhan had never been there.

I walked into the travel agent, asked them what they had at short notice. Having a great time, chilling, doing the café thing, a bit of culture when the mood takes me. Love, Jackie.

She stood the card on her mantelpiece, tried remembering her last real holiday. A week with her parents? That weekend break in Dublin? It had been a hen party for one of the uniforms… and now the woman was expecting her first kid. She looked up at the ceiling. Her upstairs neighbor was thumping around. She didn’t think he did it on purpose, but he walked like an elephant. She’d met him on the sidewalk outside when she was coming home, complaining that he’d just had to fetch his car from the city impound.

“Twenty minutes I left it, twenty on a single yellow… by the time I got back, it’d been towed… hundred and thirty quid, can you believe it? I almost told them it was more than the bloody thing’s worth.” Then he’d stabbed a finger at her. “You should do something about it.”

Because she was a cop. Because people thought cops could pull strings, get things sorted, change things.

You should do something about it.

He was raging all around his living room, a caged animal ready to hurl itself against the bars. He worked in an office on George Street: account executive, retail insurance. Not quite Siobhan’s height, he wore glasses with narrow rectangular lenses. Had a male flatmate, but had stressed to Siobhan that he wasn’t gay, information for which she had thanked him.

Stomp, thunk, plod.

She wondered if there was any purpose to his movements. Was he opening and closing drawers? Looking for the lost remote perhaps? Or was movement itself his purpose? And if so, what did that say about her own stillness, about the fact that she was standing here listening to him? One postcard on her mantelpiece… one plate and mug on the draining board. One shuttered window, with a horizontal locking bar that she never bothered fastening. Safe enough in here as it was. Cocooned. Smothered.

“Sod it,” she muttered, turning to make good her escape.

St. Leonard’s was quiet. She’d intended burning off some frustration in the gym, but instead got herself a can of something cold and fizzy from the machine and headed upstairs to CID, checking her desk for messages. Another letter from her mystery admirer:

DO BLACK LEATHER GLOVES TURN YOU ON?

Referring to Rebus, she surmised. There was a note for her to call Ray Duff, but all he wanted to say was that he’d managed to test the first of her anonymous letters.

“And it’s not good news.”

“Meaning it’s clean?” she guessed.

“As the proverbial whistle.” She let out a sigh. “Sorry I can’t be more helpful. Would buying you a drink help?”

“Some other time maybe.”

“Fair enough. I’ll probably be here for another hour or two as it is.” “Here” being the forensic lab at Howdenhall.

“Still working on Port Edgar?”

“Matching blood types, see whose spatters are whose.”

Siobhan was seated on the edge of her desk, phone tucked between cheek and shoulder as she sifted through the rest of the paperwork in her in-tray. Most of it concerned cases from weeks back… names she could barely remember.

“Better let you get back to it, then,” she said.

“Keeping busy yourself, Siobhan? You sound tired.”

“You know what it’s like, Ray. Let’s have that drink sometime.”

“By then, I reckon we’ll both need it.”

She smiled into the phone. “Bye, Ray.”

“Take care of yourself, Shiv…”

She put the phone down. There it was again: somebody calling her Shiv, trying for a kind of intimacy they thought the foreshortening would bring. She’d noticed, though, that no one ever tried the same tack with Rebus, never called him Jock, Johnny, Jo-Jo, or JR. Because they looked at him or listened to him and knew he was none of those things. He was John Rebus. Detective Inspector Rebus. To his closest friends: John. Yet some of these same people would happily see her as “Shiv.” Why? Because she was a woman? Did she lack Rebus’s gravitas or sense of perpetual threat? Were they just trying to worm their way into her affections? Or would the conferring of a nickname make her seem more vulnerable, less edgy and potentially dangerous to them?

Shiv… It meant a knife, didn’t it? American slang. Well, right now she felt just about as blunt as she ever had. And here was another nickname walking into the room. DS George “Hi-Ho” Silvers. Looking around as if for someone in particular. Spotting her, it took him a second to make up his mind that she might suit his particular requirements.

“Busy?” he asked.

“What does it look like?”

“Fancy a wee drive, then?”

“You’re not really my type, George.”

A snort. “We’ve got a DP.” DP: deceased person.

“Where?”

“Over Gracemount way. Abandoned railway track. Looks like he fell from the footbridge.”

“An accident, then?” Like Fairstone’s chip-pan fire: another Gracemount accident.

Silvers shrugged his shoulders as far as he could within the confines of a suit jacket that had fitted him with room to spare three years before. “Story is, he was being chased.”

“Chased?”

Another shrug. “That’s as much as I know till we get there.”

Siobhan nodded. “So what are we waiting for?”

They took Silvers’s car. He asked her about South Queensferry, about Rebus and the house fire, but she kept her answers short. Eventually he got the message and turned on the radio, whistling along to trad jazz, possibly her least favorite music.

“You listen to any Mogwai, George?”

“Never heard of it. Why?”

“Just wondering…”

There was nowhere to park near the railway line. Silvers pulled up to the curb, behind a patrol car. There was a bus stop, and behind it an area of grassland. They crossed it on foot, approaching a low fence overgrown with thistles and brambles. The fence was broken by a short metal stairway leading to the bridge across the railway, where sightseers from the local apartment houses had gathered. A uniformed officer was asking each one if they’d seen or heard anything.

“How the hell are we supposed to get down?” Silvers growled. Siobhan pointed to the far side, where a makeshift stile had been erected from plastic milk crates and cinder blocks, an old mattress folded across the top of the fence. When they reached it, Silvers took one look and decided it wasn’t for him. He didn’t say anything, just shook his head. So Siobhan clambered up and over, skidding down the steep embankment, digging her heels as far as possible into the soft ground, feeling nettles sting her ankles, briars snag at her trousers. Several figures had gathered around the prone body on the track. She recognized faces from the Craigmillar police station, and the pathologist, Dr. Curt. He saw her and smiled a greeting.

“We’re lucky they haven’t reopened this line yet,” he said. “At least the poor chap’s in one piece.”

She looked down at the twisted, broken body. His duffel coat had been thrown open, exposing a torso clad in a loose-fitting checked shirt. Brown cord trousers and brown loafers.

“A couple of people called in,” one of the Craigmillar detectives was telling her, “saying they’d seen him wandering the streets.”

“Probably not too unusual around here…”

“Except he looked like he was on the hunt for somebody. Kept a hand in one pocket, like he might be carrying.”

“And is he?”

The detective shook his head. “Might be he dropped it when he was being chased. Local kids by the sound of it.”

Siobhan looked from the body to the bridge and back again. “Did they catch him?”

The detective shrugged.

“So do we know who he is?”

“Video rental card in his back pocket. Name’s Callis. Initial A. We’ve got someone checking the phone book. If that doesn’t work, we’ll get an address from the video shop.”

“Callis?” Siobhan’s eyebrows creased. She was trying to remember where she’d heard that name… Then it hit her.

“Andy Callis,” she said, almost to herself.

The detective had heard her. “You know him?”

She shook her head. “But I know someone who might. If it’s the same guy, he lives in Alnwickhill.” She was reaching for her mobile. “Oh, and one other thing… if it is him, he’s one of us.”

“A cop?”

She nodded. The detective from Craigmillar sucked air through his teeth and stared up at the spectators on the bridge with a new sense of purpose.

16

There was nobody home. Rebus had been watching Miss Teri’s room for almost an hour. Dark, dark, dark. Just like his memories. He could not even recall which friends he’d met with that day in the park. Yet the scene had stayed with Allan Renshaw these past thirty-odd years. Indelible. It was funny, the things you couldn’t help remembering, the ones you chose to forget. The little tricks your brain could play on you, sudden scents or sensations reviving the long-forgotten. Rebus wondered if perhaps Allan was angry with him because such anger was possible. After all, what point was there in getting angry with Lee Herdman? Herdman wasn’t there to bear the brunt, while Rebus conspicuously was, as if conjured up for the very purpose.

The laptop kicked into screen-saver mode, shooting stars moving out of the far darkness. He hit the RETURN key and was back in Teri Cotter’s bedroom. What was he watching for? Because it satisfied the voyeur in him? He’d always enjoyed surveillances for the same reason: glimpses into secret lives. He wondered what Teri herself got out of it. She wasn’t making money. There was no interaction as such, no way for the viewer to make contact with her or for her to communicate with her audience. Why then? Because she felt the need to be on display? Like hanging out on Cockburn Street, stared at and sometimes set upon. She had accused her mother of spying on her, yet had made straight for her mother’s door when the Lost Boys had attacked. Hard to know what to think about that particular relationship. Rebus’s own daughter had lived her teenage years in London with her mother, remaining a mystery to him. His ex-wife would call him to complain about Samantha’s “attitude” or her “moods,” would let off steam at him and then put down the phone.

The phone.

His phone was ringing. His mobile phone. It was plugged into the wall, recharging. He picked it up. “Hello?”

“I tried ringing your home phone.” Siobhan’s voice. “It was engaged.”

Rebus looked at the laptop, the laptop that was hooked up to his phone line. “What’s up?”

“Your friend, the one you were visiting that night you bumped into me…” She was on her mobile, sounded like she was out- doors.

“Andy?” he said. “Andy Callis?”

“Can you describe him?”

Rebus froze. “What’s happened?”

“Look, it might not be him…”

“Where are you?”

“Describe him for me… that way you’re not headed all the way out here for nothing.”

Rebus squeezed his eyes shut, saw Andy Callis in his living room, feet up in front of the TV. “Early forties, dark brown hair, five-eleven, probably a hundred and sixty-five pounds or thereabouts…”

She was silent for a moment. “Okay,” she sighed. “Maybe you should come after all.”

Rebus was already looking for his jacket. He remembered the laptop, broke the Internet connection.

“So where are you?” he asked.

“How are you going to get here?”

“My problem,” he told her, looking around for his car keys. “Just give me the address.”

She was waiting for him curbside, watched him pull on the hand brake and get out of the driver’s seat.

“How are the hands?” she asked.

“They were fine before I got behind the wheel.”

“Painkillers?”

He shook his head. “I can do without.” He was looking around at the scene. A couple of hundred yards or so up the road was the bus stop where his taxi had stopped for the Lost Boys. They started walking towards the bridge.

“He’d been stalking the place for a couple of hours,” Siobhan explained. “Two or three people reported seeing him.”

“And did we do anything about it?”

“There wasn’t a patrol car available,” she said quietly.

“If there had been, he might not be dead,” Rebus stated starkly. She nodded slowly.

“One of the neighbors heard shouts. She thinks some kids had started chasing him.”

“Did she see anyone?”

Siobhan shook her head. They were on the bridge now. The onlookers had started drifting away. The body had been wrapped in a blanket and loaded onto a stretcher, hitched to a length of rope with which to haul it up the embankment. A van from the morgue had pulled up next to the stile. Silvers was standing there, chatting to the driver and smoking a cigarette.

“We’ve checked the Callises in the phone book,” he told Rebus and Siobhan. “No sign of him.”

“Unlisted,” Rebus said. “Same as you and me, George.”

“You sure it’s the same Callis?” Silvers inquired. There was a yell from below, the driver flicking away his cigarette so he could concentrate on his end of the rope. Silvers kept on smoking, not offering a hand until the driver asked for one. Rebus kept his own hands in his pockets. They felt like they were on fire.

“Heave away!” came the call. In under a minute, the stretcher was being carried over the fence. Rebus stepped forwards, unwrapped the face. Stared at it, noting how peaceful Andy Callis looked in death.

“It’s him,” he said, standing back again so the body could be loaded into the van. Dr. Curt was at the top of the incline, having been helped by the Craigmillar detective. He was breathing hard, climbing over the stile with difficulty. When someone stepped forwards to help, he spluttered that he could manage, his speech thick with effort.

“It’s him,” Silvers was telling the new arrivals. “According to DI Rebus, that is.”

“Andy Callis?” someone asked. “Is he the guy from Firearms?”

Rebus nodded.

“Any witnesses?” the Craigmillar detective was asking.

One of the uniforms answered. “People heard voices, nobody seems to’ve seen anything.”

“Suicide?” someone else asked.

“Or he was trying to escape,” Siobhan commented, noting that Rebus wasn’t adding anything to the conversation, even though he’d known Andy Callis best. Or maybe because…

They watched the morgue van bump over the uneven ground on its way back to the road. Silvers asked Siobhan if she was headed back. She looked at Rebus and shook her head.

“John’ll give me a lift,” she said.

“Please yourself. Looks like Craigmillar’ll be handling it anyway.”

She nodded, waiting for Silvers to leave. Then, left alone with Rebus: “You okay?”

“I keep thinking of the patrol car that never came.”

“And?” He looked at her. “There’s more to it, isn’t there?”

Eventually, he nodded slowly.

“Care to share it?” she asked.

He kept on nodding. When he moved off, she followed, back over the bridge, across the grass to where the Saab was sitting. It wasn’t locked. He opened the driver’s door, thought better of it and handed her the keys. “You drive,” he said. “I don’t think I’m up to it.”

“Where are we going?”

“Just cruising around. Maybe we’ll get lucky, find ourselves in Never-Never Land.”

It took her a moment to decode the reference. “The Lost Boys?” she said.

Rebus nodded, walked around the car to the passenger side.

“And while I’m driving, you’ll be telling me the story?”

“I’ll tell you the story,” he agreed.

And he did.

What it boiled down to was: Andy Callis and his partner on patrol in their car. Called to a nightclub on Market Street, just behind Waverley Station. It was a popular spot, people queuing to get in. One of them had called the police, reporting someone brandishing a handgun. Vague description. Teenager, green parka, three mates with him. Not in the queue as such, just walking past, pulling open his coat so people could see what was tucked into his waistband.

“By the time Andy got there,” Rebus said, “there was no sign of him. He’d gone heading off down towards New Street. So that’s where Andy and his partner went. They’d called it in and been authorized to unlock their guns… had them on their laps. Flak jackets on… Backup was on its way, just in case. You know where the railway passes over the bottom of New Street?”

“At Calton Road?”

Rebus nodded. “Stone railway arches. It’s pretty gloomy down there. Not much in the way of street lighting.”

Siobhan’s turn to nod: it was a desolate spot all right.

“Lots of nooks and crannies, too,” Rebus continued. “Andy’s partner thought he spotted something in the shadows. They stopped the car, got out. Saw these four guys… probably the same ones. Kept their distance, asked if they were carrying any weapons. Ordered them to place anything on the ground. The way Andy told it, it was like shadows that kept shifting…” He rested his head against the back of the seat, closed his eyes. “Wasn’t sure if what he was looking at was a shadow or flesh and blood. He was unclipping his flashlight from his belt when he thought he saw movement, a hand stretching, pointing something. He aimed his own gun, safety off…”

“What happened?”

“Something fell to the ground. It was a pistol: a replica, as it turned out. But too late…”

“He’d fired?”

Rebus nodded. “Not that he hit anyone. He was aiming at the ground. Ricochet could have gone anywhere…”

“But it didn’t.”

“No.” Rebus paused. “There had to be an inquiry: happens every time a weapon’s discharged. Partner backed him up, but Andy knew the guy was just mouthing words. He started doubting himself.”

“And the guy with the gun?”

“Four of them. None would own up to carrying it. Three were wearing parkas, and the kid from the nightclub queue wasn’t about to ID the carrier.”

“The Lost Boys?”

Rebus nodded. “That’s the neighborhood name for them. They’re the ones you ran into on Cockburn Street. The leader-his name’s Rab Fisher-he went to court for carrying the replica, but the case was booted out… waste of the lawyers’ time. And meanwhile, Andy Callis was playing it over and over again in his head, trying to sort out the shadows from the truth…”

“And this is the Lost Boys’ patch?” Siobhan asked, peering out through the windshield.

Rebus nodded. Siobhan was thoughtful, then asked: “Where did the gun come from?”

“At a guess, Peacock Johnson.”

“Is that why you wanted a word with him that day he was brought into St. Leonard’s?”

Rebus nodded again.

“And now you want a word with the Lost Boys?”

“Looks like they’ve gone home for the night,” Rebus admitted, turning his head to watch from the passenger-side window.

“You think Callis came here on purpose?”

“Maybe.”

“Looking to confront them?”

“They got off scot-free, Siobhan. Andy wasn’t too thrilled at that.”

She was thoughtful. “So why aren’t we telling all this to Craigmillar?”

“I’ll let them know.” He felt her staring. “Cross my heart.”

“It could have been an accident. That railway line would look like an escape route.”

“Maybe.”

“Nobody saw anything.”

He turned towards her. “Spit it out.”

She sighed. “It’s just the way you keep trying to fight other people’s battles for them.”

“Is that what I do?”

“Sometimes, yes.”

“Well, I’m sorry if that upsets you.”

“It doesn’t upset me. But sometimes…” She swallowed back what she’d been about to say.

“Sometimes?” Rebus encouraged her.

She shook her head, exhaled noisily and stretched her back, working her neck. “Thank God for the weekend. You got any plans?”

“Thought I might do some hill walking… pump some iron at the gym…”

“Just a hint of sarcasm there?”

“Just a hint.” He’d spotted something. “Slow down a bit.” He was turning to watch from the rear window. “Back the car up.”

She did so. They were on a street of low-rise flats. A supermarket cart, itself a long way from home, sat abandoned on the pavement. Rebus was looking down an alley between two blocks. One… no, two figures. Just silhouettes, so close together they seemed to merge. Then Rebus realized what was happening.

“A good old-fashioned knee-trembler,” Siobhan commented. “Who said the art of romance was dead?”

One of the faces had turned towards the car, noting the idling engine. A rough masculine voice called out: “Enjoying the view, pal? Better than you’re getting at home, eh?”

“Drive,” Rebus ordered.

Siobhan drove.

They ended up at St. Leonard’s, Siobhan explaining that her car was there, without elaborating any further. Rebus had told her he’d be okay to drive home: Arden Street was five minutes away. But by the time he parked outside his flat, his hands were burning. In the bathroom, he smeared more cream on and took a couple of painkillers, hoping he’d be able to snatch a few hours’ sleep. A whiskey might help, so he poured a large measure and sat himself down in the living room. The laptop had gone from screen-saver to sleep mode. He didn’t bother waking it, walked over to his dining table instead. He had some stuff about the SAS laid out there, alongside the copy of Herdman’s personnel file. He sat down in front of it.

Enjoying the view, pal?

Better than you’re getting at home?

Enjoying the view…?