A Question of Blood (2003) (25 page)

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.