A Question of Blood (2003) (9 page)

“Who owns this place?” he asked.

“Sign at the gate said something about Edinburgh Leisure.”

“Meaning the city council? Which means that technically speaking, you and me own it.”

“Technically speaking,” Siobhan agreed. She was busy studying a hand-drawn plan. “Herdman’s boat shed is on the right, past the toilets.” She pointed. “Down there, I think.”

“Good, you can catch me up,” Rebus told her. Then he nodded towards the cafeteria. “Coffee to go, and not too hot.”

“Not scalding, you mean?” She made for the cafeteria steps. “Sure you can manage on your own?”

Rebus stayed by the car as she disappeared, the door rattling behind her. He took his time lifting cigarettes and lighter from his pocket. Opened the packet and nipped a cigarette out with his teeth, sucking it into his mouth. The lighter was a lot easier than matches, once he’d found a bit of shelter from the wind. He was leaning against the car, relishing the smoke, when Siobhan reappeared.

“Here you go,” she said, handing him a half-filled cup. “Lots of milk.”

He stared at the pale gray surface. “Thanks.”

Together, they headed off, turning a couple of corners and finding no one around, despite the half-dozen cars parked alongside Siobhan’s. “Down here,” she said, leading them ever closer to the bridge. Rebus had noted that one of the long jetties was actually a wooden pontoon, providing tie-ups for visiting boats.

“This must be it,” Siobhan said, tossing her half-empty cup into a nearby bin. Rebus did the same, though he’d taken only a couple of sips of the warmish, milkyish concoction. If there was caffeine in there, he’d failed to find it. Bless the Lord for nicotine.

The shed was just that: a shed, albeit a well-fed example of the species. About twenty feet wide, knocked together from a mixture of wooden slats and corrugated metal. Half its width was a sliding door, which stood closed. Two sets of chains lay on the ground, evidence that police had forced their way in with bolt cutters. A length of blue and white tape had replaced the chains, and someone had fixed an official notice to the door, warning that entry was prohibited under pain of prosecution. A handmade sign above announced that the shed was actually “
SKI AND BOAT
—prop. L. Herdman.”

“Catchy title,” Rebus mused as Siobhan untied the tape and pushed the door open.

“Does exactly what it says on the tin,” she responded in kind. This was where Herdman ran his business, teaching fledgling sailors and scaring the wits out of his water-skiing clientele. Inside, Rebus could see a dinghy, maybe a twenty-footer. It sat on a trailer whose tires needed some air. There were a couple of powerboats, too, again on trailers, their outboard motors gleaming, as was a new-looking Jet Ski. The place was almost too tidy, as though swept and polished by an obsessive. Against one wall stood a workbench, the tools neatly arrayed on the wall above. A single oily rag gave the clue that mechanical work might actually go on here, lest the unwary visitor suspect they’d stepped into the marina’s exhibit space.

“Where was the gun found?” Rebus asked, walking in.

“Cabinet under the workbench.”

Rebus looked: a neatly severed padlock lay on the concrete floor. The cabinet door was open, showing only a selection of ratchets and wrenches.

“Don’t suppose there’s much left for us to find,” Siobhan stated.

“Probably not.” But Rebus was still interested, curious as to what the space could tell him about Lee Herdman. So far it told him Herdman had been a conscientious worker, tidying up after himself. His flat had indicated a man who wasn’t nearly as fussy in his personal life. But professionally . . . professionally, Herdman gave a hundred percent. This chimed with his background. In the army, it didn’t matter how messy your personal life might be, you didn’t let it interfere with your work. Rebus had known soldiers whose marriages were collapsing but still kept their kit immaculate, perhaps because, as one RSM had put it,
the army’s the best fucking shag you’ll ever have . . .

“What do you think?” Siobhan asked.

“It’s almost as if he was waiting for a visit from Health and Safety.”

“Looks to me like his boats are worth more than his flat.”

“Agreed.”

“Signs of a split personality . . .”

“How so?”

“Chaotic home life, quite the opposite at his place of work. Cheap flat and furnishings, expensive boats . . .”

“Quite the little psychoanalyst,” a voice boomed from behind them. The speaker was a stocky woman of about fifty, hair pulled back so tightly into a bun that it seemed to push her face forwards. She was wearing a black two-piece suit and plain black shoes, olive-colored blouse with a string of pearls at the neck. A black leather backpack was slung over one shoulder. Next to her stood a tall, broad-shouldered man maybe half her age, black hair cropped short, hands pressed together in front of him. He wore a dark suit, white shirt and navy tie.

“You’ll be Detective Inspector Rebus,” the woman said, stepping forwards briskly as if to shake hands, unfazed when Rebus didn’t reciprocate. Her voice had dropped a single decibel. “I’m Whiteread, this is Simms.” Her small, beady eyes fixed on Rebus. “You’ve been to the flat, I take it? DI Hogan said you might . . .” Her voice drifted off as she moved just as briskly away from Rebus, into the interior of the shed. She circled the dinghy, inspecting it with a buyer’s eye.
English accent,
Rebus was thinking.

“I’m DS Clarke,” Siobhan piped up. Whiteread stared at her and gave the briefest of smiles.

“Of course you are,” she said.

Simms had walked forwards in the meantime, repeating his name by way of introduction and then turning to Siobhan to go through the exact same procedure, but this time with a handshake. His accent was English, too, voice emotionless, the pleasantries a formality.

“Where was the gun found?” Whiteread asked. Then she noticed the broken padlock and answered her own question with a nod, walking over to the cabinet and squatting down sharply in front of it, her skirt rising to just above the knees.

“Mac-10,” she stated. “Notorious for jamming.” She stood up again, patted her skirt back down.

“Better than some kit,” Simms responded. Introductions over, he was standing between Rebus and Siobhan, legs slightly apart, back straight, hands again clasped in front of him.

“Care to show some ID?” Rebus asked.

“DI Hogan knows we’re here,” Whiteread replied casually. She was examining the surface of the workbench now. Rebus followed her slowly.

“I asked you for ID,” he said.

“I’m well aware of that,” Whiteread said, her attention shifting to what looked like a small office at the rear of the building. She made off towards it, Rebus at her heels.

“You’re marching,” he warned her. “Dead giveaway.” She said nothing. The office had once sported a large padlock, but it, too, had been broken open, and the door fixed shut afterwards with more police-issue tape. “Plus your partner used the word ‘kit,’” Rebus went on. Whiteread peeled the tape away and looked inside. Desk, chair, a single filing cabinet. No space for anything else, other than what looked like a two-way radio on a shelf. No computers or copiers or fax machines. The desk drawers had been opened, contents examined. Whiteread lifted out a sheaf and started flipping through.

“You’re army,” Rebus stated into the silence. “You might be in mufti, but you’re still army. No women in the SAS as far as I know, so what does that make you?”

She snapped her head towards him. “It makes me someone who can help.”

“Help what?”

“With this sort of thing.” She went back to her work. “To stop it from happening again.”

Rebus stared at her. Siobhan and Simms were standing just outside the door. “Siobhan, call Bobby Hogan for me. I want to know what he knows about these two.”

“He knows we’re here,” Whiteread said, not looking up. “He even told me we might be bumping into you. How else would I know your name?”

Siobhan had the mobile in her hand. “Make the call,” Rebus told her.

Whiteread stuffed the paperwork back into its drawer and pushed it shut. “You never quite made it into the regiment, did you, DI Rebus?” She turned slowly towards him. “Way I hear it, the training broke you.”

“How come you’re not in uniform?” Rebus asked.

“It scares some people,” Whiteread said.

“Is that it? Couldn’t be that you don’t want to add to all the bad publicity?” Rebus was smiling coldly. “Doesn’t look good when one of your own throws a maddie, does it? Last thing you want is to remind everybody that he was one of yours.”

“What’s done is done. If we can stop it from happening again, so much the better.” She paused, standing right in front of him. Half a foot shorter, but every bit his equal. “Why should you have a problem with that?” Now she returned his smile. If his had been cold, hers came straight from the deep freeze. “You fell down, didn’t make the grade. No need to let that get to you, Detective Inspector.”

Rebus heard “Detective” as “Defective.” Either her accent, or she’d been trying for the pun. Siobhan had been connected, but it was taking a few moments for Hogan to come to the phone.

“We should take a look in the boat,” Whiteread said to her partner, squeezing past Rebus.

“There’s a ladder,” Simms said. Rebus tried to place the accent: Lancashire or Yorkshire maybe. Whiteread he wasn’t so sure about. Home Counties, whatever that meant. A kind of generic English as taught in the posher schools. Rebus realized, too, that Simms didn’t appear comfortable in either his suit or this role. Maybe it was a class thing again, or maybe he was new to both.

“First name’s John, by the way,” Rebus told him. “What’s yours?”

Simms looked to Whiteread. “Well, tell the man!” she snapped.

“Gav . . . Gavin.”

“Gav to your friends, Gavin when on business?” Rebus guessed. Siobhan was handing him the phone. He took it.

“Bobby, what the hell are you doing letting two numpties from Her Majesty’s armed forces crawl all over our case?” He paused to listen, then spoke again. “I used the word advisedly, Bobby, as they’re about to start crawling over Herdman’s boat.” Another pause. “That’s hardly the point, though . . .” And then: “Okay, okay. We’re on our way.” He pushed the phone back into Siobhan’s hand. Simms was steadying the ladder while Whiteread climbed.

“We’re just away,” Rebus called to her. “And if we don’t see each other again . . . well, I’ll be crying inside, believe me. The smile will just be for show.”

He waited for the woman to say something, but she was aboard now and seemed to have lost interest in him. Simms was climbing the ladder, giving a backwards glance at the two detectives.

“I’ve half a mind,” Rebus said to Siobhan, “to grab the ladder and run for it.”

“I don’t think that would stop her, do you?”

“Probably right,” he admitted. Then, raising his voice: “One last thing, Whiteread—young Gav was looking up your skirt!”

As Rebus turned to leave, he shrugged at Siobhan, as if to acknowledge that the shot had been cheap.

Cheap, but worthwhile.

“I mean it, Bobby, what the hell’s the matter with you?” Rebus was walking down one of the school’s long corridors towards what looked very much like a floor-to-ceiling safe, the old kind with a wheel and some tumblers. It stood open, as did an interior steel gate. Hogan was staring inside.

“God almighty, man, those bastards have no place here.”

“John,” Hogan said quietly, “I don’t think you’ve met the principal . . .” He gestured into the vault, where a middle-aged man was standing, surrounded by enough guns to start a revolution. “Dr. Fogg,” Hogan said, by way of introduction.

Fogg stepped over the threshold. He was a short, stocky man with the look of a onetime boxer: one ear seemed puffy, and his nose covered half his face. A nick of scar tissue cut through one of his bushy eyebrows. “Eric Fogg,” he said, shaking Rebus’s hand.

“Sorry about my language back there, sir. I’m DI John Rebus.”

“Working in a school, you hear worse,” Fogg stated, making it sound like something he’d said a hundred times before.

Siobhan had caught up and was about to introduce herself when she saw the contents of the vault.

“Jesus Christ!” she exclaimed.

“My thoughts exactly,” Rebus agreed.

“As I was explaining to DI Hogan,” Fogg began, “most independent schools have something like this on the premises.”

“CCF, is that right, Dr. Fogg?” Hogan added.

Fogg nodded. “The Combined Cadet Force—army, navy and air force cadets. They parade each Friday afternoon.” He paused. “I think a big incentive is that they can eschew school uniforms that day.”

“For something slightly more paramilitary?” Rebus guessed.

“Automatic, semi-automatic and other weapons,” Hogan recited.

“Probably deters the odd housebreaker.”

“Actually,” Fogg said, “I was just telling DI Hogan that if the school’s alarm system is activated, the responding police units are instructed to make for the armory first. It dates back to when the IRA and suchlike were looking for guns.”

“You’re not saying the ammo’s kept here, too?” Siobhan asked.

Fogg shook his head. “There’s no live ammo on the premises.”

“But the guns are real enough? They’re not deactivated?”

“Oh, they’re real enough.” He looked at the contents of the vault with something approaching distaste.

“You’re not a fan?” Rebus guessed.

“I think the practice is . . . slightly in danger of outliving its useful application.”

“There speaks a diplomat,” Rebus said, forcing a smile from the principal.

“Herdman didn’t get his gun from here?” Siobhan was asking.

Hogan shook his head. “That’s another thing I’m hoping the army investigators might help us with.” He looked at Rebus. “Always supposing you can’t.”

“Give us a break, Bobby. We’ve hardly been here five minutes.”

“Do you do any teaching, sir?” Siobhan asked Fogg, hoping to defuse any argument her two senior officers might be thinking of starting.