A Question of Blood (2003) (35 page)

And Rachel Fox, still snarling, shaking both fists, then pointing a finger in the direction of the disappearing car, drawing the same finger across her throat. Nodding slowly, to let Siobhan know she meant it.

“Right you are, Rachel,” Siobhan muttered, turning out of the car park.

20

I
t had taken all of Bobby Hogan’s powers of persuasion—something he wasn’t going to let Rebus forget. The look he gave said it all:
Number one, you owe me; number two, don’t screw this up
. . .

They were in one of the offices at “the Big House’: Lothian and Borders Police HQ on Fettes Avenue. This was the home of Drugs and Major Crime, and as such Rebus was here on sufferance. Rebus didn’t know quite how Hogan had persuaded Claverhouse to let him sit in on the interview, but here they were. Ormiston was present, too, snuffling and screwing his eyes shut tight whenever he blinked. Teri Cotter had come accompanied by her father, and a female police constable was seated nearby.

“Sure you want your father present?” Claverhouse asked matter-of-factly. Teri looked at him. She was in full Goth camouflage, down to knee-length boots with multiple shiny buckles.

“Way you make it sound,” Mr. Cotter said, “maybe I should’ve brought my solicitor, too.”

Claverhouse just shrugged. “I merely asked because I don’t want Teri getting embarrassed in front of you . . .” He let his voice trail off, eyes fixing on Teri’s.

“Embarrassed?” Mr. Cotter echoed, looking in his daughter’s direction, so that he missed it when Claverhouse made a gesture with his fingers, as if typing on a keyboard. But Teri saw it, and knew what it meant.

“Dad,” she said, “maybe it’d be better if you waited outside.”

“I’m not sure I —”

“Dad.” She laid her hand on his. “It’s fine. I’ll explain later . . . honest, I will.” Her eyes boring into his.

“Well, I don’t know . . .” Cotter looked around the room.

“It’ll be fine, sir,” Claverhouse was reassuring him, leaning back in his chair and crossing one leg over the other. “Nothing to worry about, just some background info we think Teri can help us with.” He nodded towards Ormiston. “DS Ormiston can show you to the cafeteria, get yourself a cup of something and we’ll be finished here before you know it . . .”

Ormiston looked unhappy, eyes flickering towards Rebus and Hogan as if asking his partner why one of them couldn’t go in his place. Cotter was studying his daughter again.

“I don’t like leaving you here.” But his words had a defeated sound to them, and Rebus wondered if the man had ever stood up to either Teri or his wife. A man happiest with rows of numbers, stock market movements—things he felt he could predict and control. Maybe the car smash, the death of his son, had robbed him of self-belief, showing him up as powerless and puny in the face of random chance. He was already rising to his feet, Ormiston meeting him at the door, the two men exiting. Rebus thought suddenly of Allan Renshaw, of the effect losing a son could have on a father . . .

Claverhouse beamed a smile at Teri Cotter, who responded by folding her arms defensively.

“You know what this is about, Teri?”

“Do I?”

Claverhouse repeated the typing motion with his fingers. “You know what that means, though?”

“Why don’t you tell me.”

“It means you’ve got a website, Miss Teri. It means people can watch your bedroom any hour of the day or night. DI Rebus here seems to be one of your fans.” Claverhouse nodded in Rebus’s direction. “Lee Herdman was another.” Claverhouse paused, studying her face. “You don’t seem very surprised.”

She offered a shrug.

“Mr. Herdman had a bit of a voyeur thing going.” Claverhouse glanced towards Rebus, as if wondering whether he might fit this category, too. “Quite a lot of sites he liked to go to, most of them he had to use his credit card . . .”

“So?”

“So you’re giving it away for free, Teri.”

“I’m not like those sites!” she spat.

“Then what sort of site are you?”

She seemed about to say something, but bit it back.

“You like being watched?” Claverhouse guessed. “And Herdman liked to watch. Seems the two of you were pretty compatible.”

“He’d screwed me a few times, if that’s what you mean,” she said coldly.

“I might not have used quite those words.”

“Teri,” Rebus said, “there’s a computer Lee bought, we’re having trouble tracing it . . . Is that because it’s sitting in your bedroom?”

“Maybe.”

“He bought it for you, set it up for you?”

“Did he?”

“Showed you how to design a site, set up the webcam?”

“Why are you asking me if you already know?” Her voice had taken on an edge of petulance.

“What did your parents say?”

She looked at him. “I’ve got money of my own.”

“They thought you’d paid for it? They didn’t know about you and Lee?”

She gave him a look that confirmed how stupid his questions were.

“He liked watching you,” Claverhouse stated. “Wanted to know where you were, what you were doing. That’s why you set up the site?”

She was shaking her head. “Dark Entry is for anyone who cares to look.”

“Was that his idea or yours?” Hogan asked.

She gave a shrill laugh. “Am I supposed to be Red Riding Hood, is that it? With Lee as the big bad wolf?” She took a breath. “Lee gave me the computer, said maybe we could keep in touch by webcam. Dark Entry was
my
idea. No one else’s, just mine.” She pointed a finger at herself, finding a piece of bare flesh between her breasts. Her black lace top was low-cut. Her finger went to the diamond, hanging from its gold chain, and she played with it absentmindedly.

“Did he give you that, too?” Rebus asked.

She peered down at the chain, nodded, folded her arms again.

“Teri,” Rebus said quietly, “did you know who else was accessing your site?”

She shook her head. “Being anonymous is part of the fun.”

“You were hardly anonymous. There was plenty of information to tell people who you were.”

She considered this and shrugged.

“Anyone from your school know about it?” Rebus asked.

Another shrug.

“I’ll tell you one person who did know . . . Derek Renshaw.”

Her eyes widened, mouth opening into an O.

“And Derek probably told his good friend Anthony Jarvies,” Rebus went on.

Claverhouse had straightened in his seat, holding up a hand. “Wait a minute . . .” He looked towards Hogan, who offered a shrug, then back to Rebus. “This is the first I’m hearing about this.”

“Teri’s site was bookmarked on Derek’s computer,” Rebus explained.

“And the other kid knew, too? The one Herdman killed?”

Rebus shrugged. “I’d say it’s likely.”

Claverhouse bounded to his feet, rubbing at his jaw. “Teri,” he asked, “was Lee Herdman the jealous type?”

“I don’t know.”

“He knew about your site . . . I’m assuming you told him?” He was standing over her.

“Yes,” she said.

“How did he feel about that? I mean, about the fact that anyone—
anyone
—could watch you in your bedroom of a night?”

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You think that’s why he shot them?”

Claverhouse leaned down over her, so his face was inches from hers. “How does it look to you, Teri? Do you think it’s possible?” He didn’t wait for her reply, wheeled away on one heel and clapped his hands together. Rebus knew what he was thinking: he was thinking that he personally, Detective Inspector Charlie Claverhouse, had just cracked the case, on his first day in charge. And he was wondering how soon he could go trumpeting his triumph to his senior officers. He went to the door and threw it open, looking up and down the corridor, disappointed to find it empty. Rebus took the opportunity to rise from his own chair and place himself in Claverhouse’s. Teri was staring into her lap, one finger running up and down the chain again.

“Teri,” he said quietly, to get her attention. She looked at him, eyes red-rimmed behind the liner and mascara. “You okay?” She nodded slowly. “Sure of that? Anything I can fetch you?”

“I’m fine.”

He nodded, as if trying to convince himself. Hogan had shifted places, too, and was now standing next to Claverhouse in the doorway, one calming hand on his shoulder. Rebus couldn’t make out what they were saying, wasn’t really interested.

“I can’t believe that bastard was watching me.”

“Who? Lee?”

“Derek Renshaw,” she spat. “He as good as killed my brother!” Her voice was rising. Rebus lowered his even further when he spoke.

“As far as I can see, he was in the car with your brother, but that doesn’t mean he was responsible.” Unbidden, an image of Derek’s father flashed into Rebus’s head: a kid abandoned at the edge of the sidewalk, gripping a newly bought football for dear life while the dizzying world spun past. “You really think Lee would walk into a school and kill two people because he was jealous?”

She thought about this, then shook her head.

“Me neither,” Rebus said. She looked at him. “For one thing,” he went on, “how could he have known? Doesn’t look like he knew either of the victims. So how would he have been able to pick them out?” He watched her take this in. “Shooting’s a bit excessive, wouldn’t you say? And in such a public place . . . he’d have to’ve been mad with jealousy. Out of his mind with it.”

“So . . . what did happen?” she asked.

Rebus looked towards the doorway. Ormiston had returned from the cafeteria and was now being hugged by Claverhouse, who’d probably have lifted the larger man off his feet if he’d been able. Rebus caught a hissed “we did it,” followed by a cautious muttering from Hogan.

“I’m still not sure,” Rebus said, answering Teri’s question. “It’s a pretty good motive, which is why you’ve made DI Claverhouse a happy man.”

“You don’t like him, do you?” A smile flitted across her face.

“Don’t worry: the feeling’s entirely mutual.”

“When you clicked on Dark Entry . . .” She lowered her eyes again. “Was I doing anything in particular?”

Rebus shook his head. “The room was empty.” Didn’t want her to know he’d watched her sleeping. “Mind if I ask you something?” He looked towards the doorway again, checking that no one was listening. “Doug Brimson says he’s a family friend, but I get the feeling he’s not at the top of your hit parade?”

Her face sagged. “My mum’s having an affair with him,” she said dismissively.

“You sure?” She nodded, not making eye contact. “Does your dad know?”

Now she did look up, horror-struck. “He doesn’t need to know, does he?”

Rebus considered this. “Suppose not,” he decided. “How did you find out?”

“Woman’s intuition,” she said, with no trace of irony. Rebus sat back, deep in thought. He was thinking about Teri and Lee Herdman and Dark Entry, wondering if any or all of it was a way of getting back at the mother.

“Teri, you’re sure you’d no way of knowing who was watching you on the webcam? None of the other kids at school ever hinted . . . ?”

She shook her head. “I get messages in my guest book, but never from anyone I know.”

“Are any of those messages ever . . . I don’t know . . . off the wall?”

“That’s the way I like them.” She angled her head slightly, trying for the persona of Miss Teri, but too late: Rebus had seen her as plain Teri Cotter, and that was who she’d remain. He stretched his own neck and back. “Tell you who I saw last night,” he said chattily.

“Who?”

“James Bell.”

“So?” Inspecting her black gloss fingernails.

“So I was wondering . . . that photo of you . . . do you remember? You palmed it that day we were in the pub on Cockburn Street.”

“It belonged to me.”

“I’m not saying it didn’t. I also seem to recall that as you lifted it, you were telling me how James used to turn up at Lee’s parties.”

“Does he say he didn’t?”

“On the contrary, the two of them seem to have known each other pretty well, wouldn’t you say?”

The three detectives—Claverhouse, Hogan and Ormiston—were coming back into the room. Ormiston was patting Claverhouse’s back, and with it his ego.

“He liked Lee,” Teri was saying, “no doubt about that.”

“But was it mutual?”

Her eyes narrowed. “James Bell . . . he could have pointed Renshaw and Jarvies out to Lee, couldn’t he?”

“Wouldn’t explain why Lee then shot him, too. Thing is . . .” Rebus knew he had seconds before the interview was wrenched away from him again. “That photo of you . . . you said it was taken on Cockburn Street. What I’m wondering is, who took it?”

She seemed to be looking for the purpose behind the question. Claverhouse was standing in front of them, clicking his fingers to let Rebus know it was time to relinquish the chair. Rebus kept his eyes on Teri as he rose slowly to his feet.

“James Bell?” he asked her. “Was that who it was?”

And she nodded, unable to think of any reason not to tell him.

“He came to see you in Cockburn Street?”

“He was taking shots of all of us—a school project . . .”

“What’s this?” Claverhouse said, bouncing down on to the chair with a grin.

“He was asking me about James Bell,” Teri told Claverhouse matter-of-factly.

“Oh, aye? What about him?”

“Nothing,” she said, sending a wink towards the retreating Rebus. Claverhouse twitched, turned in his seat, but Rebus offered nothing more than a smile and a shrug. When Claverhouse turned away again, Rebus made a downstroke in the air with his forefinger, letting Teri know he owed her one. He knew what Claverhouse would have done with the information: James Bell lends Lee Herdman a book, not realizing there’s a photo of Teri inside, maybe being used as a bookmark . . . Herdman finds it and feels jealous . . . It gave him a reason to wound James: not a gross enough infringement to merit killing him, and besides, James was a friend . . .

As it was, Claverhouse would be wrapping up the inquiry today. Straight to the assistant chief constable’s office to ask for his gold star. The Portakabin at Port Edgar Academy would be emptied, officers returned to their normal duties.

Rebus back under suspension.

And yet none of it really added up. Rebus knew that now. Knew, too, that something was staring him in the face. Then he looked at Teri Cotter, playing with her chain again, and he knew exactly what it was. Porn and drugs weren’t Rotterdam’s only businesses . . .