A Question of Blood (2003) (34 page)

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

“Do you think this man deserved to die?”

“I’ve no real opinion,” she said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’d guess not.”

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

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

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

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

“I’ve no real opinion.”

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

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

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

“But meantime . . .”

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

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

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

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

She held his stare, then relented and sat down.

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

She offered a shrug, nothing more.

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes.”

“How much time?”

“Some.”

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

“Maybe.”

“But Martin Fairstone wasn’t a problem?”

“No.”

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

“No.”

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

“Not the same thing.”

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

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

“I specified ‘believable.’”

“I believe it.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What was she doing here anyway? Was she here because of Fairstone, or the notes, or because Rachel Fox had turned up at the Boatman’s? Maybe all three. Fox was a checkout assistant, so Siobhan scanned the row of registers and saw her almost immediately. She was wearing the same blue uniform as the other women and had piled her hair atop her head, a ringlet hanging down over either ear. She had a vacant look on her face as she slid item after item over the bar-code reader. The sign above her register read
NINE ITEMS OR LESS.
Siobhan made her way down the first aisle, couldn’t find anything she needed. She didn’t want to wait in the queues at the fish and meat counters. It would be just her luck if Fox took a break, or skipped out early. Two bars of chocolate went into the cart, followed by a kitchen towel and a can of Scotch broth. Four items. At the top of the next aisle, she made sure Fox was still working the checkout. She was, and three pensioners were waiting their turn to pay. Siobhan added a tube of tomato puree to her provisions. A woman in an electric wheelchair whizzed past, her husband toiling to keep up. She kept yelling instructions to him: “Toothpaste! The pump, mind, not the tube! And did you remember the cucumber?”

His sudden wince told Siobhan that he had in fact forgotten the cucumber and would need to go back.

The other shoppers seemed to be moving at half-speed, as if trying to make the activity last longer than was strictly necessary. They’d probably end the trip with a visit to the in-store café—tea and a slice of cake, the cake to be chewed slowly, the tea sipped. And then home to the afternoon cooking shows.

A bag of pasta. Six items.

Only one pensioner was now waiting at the express lane. Siobhan fell in behind him. He said hello to Fox, who managed a tired “Hiya,” cutting off any further conversation.

“Grand day,” the man said. His mouth seemed to be lacking the necessary dental plates, tongue protruding wetly. Fox just gave a nod, concentrating on processing his purchases as speedily as possible. Looking down at the conveyor belt, two things struck Siobhan. The first was that the gentleman had twelve items. The second, that like him she should have bought some eggs.

“Eight-eighty,” Fox said. The man’s hand withdrew slowly from his pocket, counting out coins. He frowned and counted again. Fox held out her hand and took the money from him.

“Fifty pence short,” she informed him.

“Eh?”

“You’re fifty pence short. You’ll have to put something back.”

“Here, take this,” Siobhan said, adding another coin to the collection. The man looked at her, gave a toothless grin and a bow of his head. Then he lifted his bag and shuffled towards the exit.

Rachel Fox began dealing with her new customer. “You’re thinking ‘poor old soul,’” she said without looking up. “But he tries pulling that one every week or so.”

“More fool me, then,” Siobhan said. “It was worth it just to stop him doing another slow-motion recount.”

Fox glanced up, then back to the conveyor belt, then up again. “I know you from somewhere.”

“Been sending me any letters, Rachel?”

Fox’s hand froze on the pasta. “How d’you know my name?”

“It’s on your badge, for one thing.”

But Fox knew now. Her eyes were heavily made up. She narrowed them as she stared at Siobhan. “You’re that cop, tried to get Marty put away.”

“I gave evidence at his trial,” Siobhan conceded.

“Yeah, I remember you . . . Got one of your pals to torch him, too.”

“Don’t believe everything the tabloids tell you, Rachel.”

“You were giving him hassle, weren’t you?”

“No.”

“He talked about you . . . said you had it in for him.”

“I can assure you I didn’t.”

“Then how come he’s dead?”

The last of Siobhan’s six items had gone through, and she was holding out a ten-pound note. The cashier at the next register had stopped serving and, like her customer, was now listening in.

“Can I talk to you someplace, Rachel?” Siobhan looked around. “Somewhere more private.” But Fox’s eyes were filling with tears. Suddenly she reminded Siobhan of the kid outside.
In some ways,
she thought,
we just don’t grow up. Emotionally, we never grow up
. . .

“Rachel . . .” she said.

But Fox had opened the register to give Siobhan her change. She was shaking her head slowly. “Got nothing to say to you lot.”

“What about the notes I’ve been getting, Rachel? Can you tell me about the notes?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The sound of a motor told Siobhan that the woman in the wheelchair was right behind her. No doubt there were exactly nine items in her husband’s cart. Siobhan turned, and saw that the woman was cradling a hand basket, with what looked like another nine items inside. The woman was glowering at Siobhan, wishing her gone.

“I saw you in the Boatman’s,” Siobhan told Rachel Fox. “What were you doing there?”

“Where?”

“The Boatman’s . . . South Queensferry.”

Fox handed over Siobhan’s change and receipt, gave a loud sniff. “That’s where Rod works.”

“He’s a . . . friend . . . is he?”

“He’s my brother,” Rachel Fox said. When she looked up at Siobhan, the water in her eyes had been replaced by fire. “Does that mean you’re going to want him killed, too? Eh? Does it?”

“Maybe we’ll try another register, Davie,” the woman in the wheelchair told her husband. She was backing away as Siobhan snatched her shopping bag and headed for the exit, Rachel Fox’s voice following her all the way out:

“Murdering bitch! What had he ever done to you? Murderer!
Murderer!
”

She dumped the bag on the passenger seat, got in behind the steering wheel.

“Nothing but a slut!” Rachel Fox was walking towards the car. “Couldn’t get a man if you tried!”

Siobhan turned the ignition, backed out of the space as Fox aimed a kick at the driver’s-side headlight. She was wearing sneakers, and her foot glanced off the glass. Siobhan was craning her neck around, making sure she didn’t hit anyone behind her. When she turned, Fox was wrestling with a line of parked carts. Siobhan moved the car forwards, pushing the accelerator hard, hearing the clatter of the carts as they just missed her. Looked in the rearview and saw them blocking the road behind her, their leader bumping against a parked VW Beetle.