A Question of Blood (2003) (4 page)

He narrowed his eyes. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“Beginning to,” she admitted, opening the car door for him with a flourish of her arm.

2

T
here was no quick route to South Queensferry. They headed across the city center and down Queensferry Road, picking up speed only when they hit the A90. The town they were approaching seemed to be nestled between the two bridges—road and rail—that spanned the Firth of Forth.

“Haven’t been out here in years,” Siobhan said, just to fill the silence inside the car. Rebus didn’t bother answering. It seemed to him as if the whole world had been bandaged, muffled. He guessed the tablets were to blame. One weekend, a couple of months back, he’d brought Jean to South Queensferry. They’d had a bar lunch, a walk along the promenade. They’d watched the lifeboat being launched—no urgency about it, probably an exercise. Then they’d driven to Hopetoun House, taking a guided tour of the stately home’s ornate interior. He knew from the news that Port Edgar Academy was near Hopetoun House, thought he remembered driving past its gates, no building visible from the road. He gave Siobhan directions, only for them to end up in a cul-de-sac. She did a three-point turn and found Hopetoun Road without further help from the passenger seat. As they neared the gates to the school, they had to squeeze past news vans and reporters’ cars.

“Hit as many as you like,” Rebus muttered. A uniform checked their ID and opened the wrought-iron gates. Siobhan drove through.

“I thought it would be on the waterfront,” she said, “with a name like Port Edgar.”

“There’s a marina called Port Edgar. Can’t be too far away.” As the car climbed a winding slope, he turned to look back. He could see the water, masts seeming to rise from it like spikes. But then it was lost behind trees, and turning again, he saw the school come into view. It was built in the Scots baronial style: dark slabs of stone topped with gables and turrets. A saltire flew at half-mast. The car park had been taken over by official vehicles, people milling around a Portakabin. The town boasted only a single, tiny police substation, probably not big enough to cope. As their tires crunched over gravel, eyes turned to check them out. Rebus recognized a few faces, and those faces knew him, too. Nobody bothered to smile or wave. As the car stopped, Rebus made an attempt to pull the door handle but had to wait for Siobhan to get out, walk around to the passenger side, and open the door.

“Thanks,” he said, easing himself out. A uniformed constable walked over. Rebus knew him from Leith. His name was Brendan Innes, an Australian. Rebus had never got around to asking him how he’d ended up in Scotland.

“DI Rebus?” Innes was saying. “DI Hogan’s up at the school. Told me to tell you.”

Rebus nodded. “Got a cigarette on you?”

“Don’t smoke.”

Rebus looked around, seeking out a likely candidate.

“He said you’re to go right up,” Innes was stressing. Both men turned at a noise from the Portakabin’s interior. The door flew open and a man stomped down the three exterior steps. He was dressed as if for a funeral: somber suit, white shirt, black tie. It was the hair Rebus recognized, in all its silvery back-combed glory: Jack Bell, MSP. Bell was in his mid-forties, face square-jawed, permanently tanned. Tall and wide-bodied, he had the look of a man who’d always be surprised not to get his own way.

“I’ve every right!” he was yelling. “Every bloody right in the world! But I might’ve known to expect nothing from you lot but utter bloody downright obstructiveness!” Grant Hood, liaison officer on the case, had come to the doorway.

“You’re welcome to your opinion, sir,” he tried remonstrating.

“It’s not an opinion, it’s an absolute, undeniable fact! You got egg all over your faces six months ago, and that’s not something you’re ever likely to forget or forgive, is it?”

Rebus had taken a step forward. “Excuse me, sir . . . ?”

Bell spun around to face him. “Yes? What is it?”

“I just thought you might want to keep your voice down . . . out of respect.”

Bell jabbed a forefinger at Rebus. “Don’t you dare start playing
that
card! I’ll have you know my son could have been killed at the hands of that maniac!”

“I’m well aware of that, sir.”

“But I’m here representing my constituents, and as such I
demand
to be allowed inside . . .” Bell paused for breath. “Who are you anyway?”

“The name’s DI Rebus.”

“Then you’re no bloody good to me. It’s Hogan I need to see.”

“You’ll appreciate that Detective Inspector Hogan’s up to his eyes at the minute. It’s the classroom you want to see, is that right?” Bell nodded, looking around as if seeking out anyone more useful to him than Rebus. “Mind if I ask why, sir?”

“None of your business.”

Rebus shrugged. “It’s just that I’m on my way to talk to DI Hogan . . .” He turned away, started walking. “Thought I might be able to put a word in on your behalf.”

“Hold on,” Bell said, voice immediately losing some of its stridency. “Maybe you could show me . . .”

But Rebus was shaking his head. “Best if you wait here, sir. I’ll let you know what DI Hogan says.”

Bell nodded, but he was not to be placated for long. “It’s scandalous, you know. How can someone just walk into a school with a gun?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out, sir.” Rebus looked the MSP up and down. “Got a cigarette on you, by any chance?”

“What?”

“A cigarette.”

Bell shook his head, and Rebus started heading towards the school again.

“I’ll be waiting, Inspector. I won’t be budging from this spot!”

“That’s fine, sir. Best place for you, I daresay.”

There was a sloping lawn to the front of the school, playing fields to one side. Uniformed officers were busy on the playing fields, turning away trespassers who had climbed the perimeter wall. Media maybe, but more likely just ghouls: you got them at every murder scene. Rebus caught a glimpse of a modern building behind the original school. A helicopter flew over. He couldn’t see any cameras aboard.

“That was fun,” Siobhan said, catching up with him.

“Always a pleasure to meet a politician,” Rebus agreed. “Especially one who holds our profession in such esteem.”

The school’s main entrance seemed to be a carved wooden double door with glass panels. Inside was a reception area with sliding windows leading to an office, probably the school secretary’s. She was in there now, giving a statement from behind a large white handkerchief, presumably belonging to the officer seated opposite her. Rebus knew his face but couldn’t put a name to it. Another set of doors led into the body of the school. They’d been wedged open. A sign on them stated that
ALL VISITORS SHOULD REPORT TO THE OFFICE.
An arrow pointed back towards the sliding windows.

Siobhan gestured towards a corner of the ceiling, where a small camera was fitted. Rebus nodded and passed through the open doors, into a long corridor with stairs off to one side and a large stained-glass window at the far end. The floor was polished wood, creaking under his weight. There were paintings on the walls: robed figures of past teachers, captured at their desks or reaching towards a bookcase. Farther along were lists of names—prefects of the school, headmasters, those who’d gone on to die in service of their country.

“Wonder how easy it was for him to get in,” Siobhan said quietly. Her words reverberated in the silence and a head appeared around a door halfway down the corridor.

“Took you long enough,” boomed the voice of DI Bobby Hogan. “Come and have a look.”

He had retreated back inside the sixth-year common room. It was about sixteen feet by twelve, with windows high up on the external wall. There were about a dozen chairs, and a desk with a computer on it. An old-looking hi-fi sat in one corner, CDs and tapes scattered about. Some of the chairs had magazines on them:
FHM, Heat, M8.
A novel lay open and facedown nearby. Backpacks and blazers hung on hooks below the windows.

“You can come in,” Hogan told them. “The SOCOs have been through this lot with a fine-toothed comb.”

They edged into the room. Yes, the SOCOs—the scene of crime officers—had been here, because this was where it had happened. Blood spatters on one wall, a fine airbrushing of dull red. Larger drops on the floor, and what looked like skid marks from where feet had slid across a couple of pools. White chalk and yellow adhesive tape showed where evidence had been gathered.

“He entered through one of the side doors,” Hogan was explaining. “It was break time, they weren’t locked. Walked down the corridor and straight in here. Nice sunny day, so most of the kids were outside. He only found three . . .” Hogan nodded towards where the victims had been. “Listening to music, flicking through magazines.” It was as if he were talking to himself, hoping if he repeated the words often enough, they would start answering his questions.

“Why here?” Siobhan asked. Hogan looked up as if seeing her for the first time. “Hiya, Shiv,” he said with just a trace of a smile. “You here out of curiosity?”

“She’s helping me,” Rebus said, raising his hands.

“Christ, John, what happened?”

“Long story, Bobby. Siobhan asked a good question.”

“You mean, why this particular school?”

“More than that,” Siobhan said. “You said yourself, most of the kids were outdoors. Why didn’t he start with them?”

Hogan answered with a shrug. “I’m hoping we’ll find out.”

“So how can we help, Bobby?” Rebus asked. He hadn’t moved far into the room, content to stay just inside the threshold while Siobhan browsed the posters on the walls. Eminem seemed to be giving the world the benefit of his middle finger, while a group next to him, boiler-suited and rubber-masked, looked like extras from a mid-budget horror film.

“He was ex-army, John,” Hogan was saying. “More than that, he was ex-SAS. I remember you telling me once that you’d tried for the Special Air Service.”

“That was thirty-odd years ago, Bobby.”

Hogan wasn’t listening. “Seems like he was a bit of a loner.”

“A loner with some sort of grudge?” Siobhan asked.

“Who knows.”

“But you want me to ask around?” Rebus guessed.

Hogan looked at him. “Any buddies he had are likely to be like him—armed forces castoffs. They might open up to someone who’s been the same road as them.”

“It was thirty-odd years ago,” Rebus repeated. “And thanks for grouping me with the ‘castoffs.’”

“Ach, you know what I mean . . . Just for a day or two, John, that’s all I’m asking.”

Rebus stepped back into the corridor and looked around him. It seemed so quiet, so peaceful. And yet the work of a few moments had changed everything. The town, the school would never be the same. The lives of everyone involved would stay convulsed. The school secretary might never emerge from behind that borrowed handkerchief. The families would bury their sons, unable to think beyond the terror of their final moments . . .

“What about it, John?” Hogan was asking. “Will you help?”

Warm, fuzzy cotton . . . it could protect you, cushion you . . .

No mystery
. . . Siobhan’s words . . .
lost his marbles, that’s all . . .

“Just one question, Bobby.”

Bobby Hogan looked tired and slightly lost. Leith meant drugs, stabbings, prossies. Those, Bobby could deal with. Rebus got the feeling he’d been summoned here because Bobby Hogan needed a friend by his side.

“Fire away,” Hogan said.

“Got a cigarette on you?” Rebus asked.

There were too many people fighting for space in the Portakabin. Hogan loaded Siobhan’s arms with paperwork, everything they had on the case, the copies still warm from the machine in the school office. Outside, a group of herring gulls had gathered on the lawn, seemingly curious. Rebus flicked them his cigarette butt and they sprinted towards it.

“I could report you for cruelty,” Siobhan told him.

“Ditto,” he said, looking the amount of paperwork up and down. Grant Hood was finishing a phone call, tucking his mobile back in his pocket. “Where did our friend go?” Rebus asked him.

“You mean Dirty Mac Jack?” Rebus smiled at the nickname, which had graced the front page of a tabloid the morning after Bell’s arrest.

“That’s who I mean.”

Hood nodded down the hill. “A member of the press corps called him, offering a TV slot at the school gates. Jack was off like a flash.”

“So much for not budging from the spot. Are the press boys behaving themselves?”

“What do you think?”

Rebus responded with a twitch of the mouth. Hood’s phone sounded again, and he turned away to take the call. Rebus watched Siobhan maneuver the car trunk open, some of the sheets slipping onto the ground. She picked them up again.

“That everything?” Rebus asked her.

“For now.” She slammed shut the trunk. “Where are we taking them?”

Rebus examined the sky. Thick, scudding clouds. Probably too windy for rain. He thought he could hear the distant sound of rigging clanging against yacht masts. “We could get a table at a pub. Down by the rail bridge, there’s a place called the Boatman’s . . .” She stared at him. “It’s an Edinburgh tradition,” he explained with a shrug. “In times past, professionals ran their businesses from the local pub.”

“We wouldn’t want to mess with tradition.”

“I’ve always preferred the old-fashioned methods.”

She didn’t say anything to this, just walked around to the driver’s side and opened the door. She’d closed it and put the key in the ignition before she remembered. Cursing, she reached across to open Rebus’s door for him.

“Too kind,” he said, smiling as he got in. He didn’t know South Queensferry that well, but he knew the pubs. He’d been brought up on the other side of the estuary, and remembered the view from North Queensferry: the way the bridges seemed to drift apart as you looked south. The same uniformed officer opened the gates to let them out. Jack Bell was in the middle of the road, saying his piece to the camera.

“A nice long blast on the horn,” Rebus ordered. Siobhan obliged. The journalist lowered his microphone, turned to glower at them. The cameraman slid his headphones down around his neck. Rebus waved at the MSP, gave him what might pass for an apologetic smile. Sightseers blocked half the carriageway, staring at the car.