A Question of Blood

by Ian Rankin

  “I think they’ve got rocks. We drive past, they’ll pelt us.”

  Rebus looked. The boys on top of the shelter were standing stock-still. He couldn’t see anything in their hands.

  “Give me a second,” Rebus said, getting out.

  The driver turned. “You off your rocker, pal?”

  “No, but I’ll be mad as hell if you drive off without me,” Rebus warned. Then, leaving the cab door open, he walked towards the bus stop. Three bodies stepped out of the shelter. They wore hooded tops, the hoods pulled tight around their faces to ward off the night chill. Hands tucked into pockets. Thin, wiry specimens in baggy denims and sneakers.

  Rebus ignored them, kept his eye on the two atop the shelter. “Collecting rocks, eh?” he called. “It was birds’ eggs with me.”

  “Fuck are you talking about?”

  Rebus lowered his eyes, meeting the hard stare of the leader. Had to be the leader: flanked either side by his lieutenants.

  “I know you,” Rebus said.

  The youth looked at him. “So?”

  “So maybe you remember me.”

  “I ken you all right.” The youth made a snorting noise, in imitation of a pig.

  “Then you’ll know how much damage I can do you.”

  One of the boys on top of the shelter let out a laugh. “There’s five of us, ya wanker.”

  “Good for you, you’ve learned to count to five.” A car’s headlights appeared, and Rebus could hear his taxi’s engine start to whine. He glanced back, but the driver was only moving it closer to the curb. The approaching car slowed but then sped up, unwilling to get involved. “And I take your point,” Rebus continued. “Five against one, you’d probably kick the shit out of me. But that’s not what I meant. What I meant was what happens after. Because the one thing you can be sure of is that I’d see you charged, sentenced and stuck in jail. Young offenders? Fine: you’d get a spell in some cushy institution. But before that, they’d have you locked up in Saughton. Adult wing. And that, believe me, would be an absolute pain in the arse.” Rebus paused. “Your arses, to be precise.”

  “This is our fucking ground,” one of the others spat. “Not yours.”

  Rebus gestured back towards the taxi. “Which is why I’m leaving . . . with your permission.” His eyes were back on the leader again. His name was Rab Fisher. He was fifteen, and Rebus had heard his gang called the Lost Boys. Plenty of arrests under their belts, no actual prosecutions. Mums and dads at home who would say they’d done their best—“battered the life out of him” first few times he was caught, according to Fisher’s dad. But what can you do?

  Rebus had a few answers. Too late for them, though. Easier just to accept the Lost Boys as another statistic.

  “Do I have your permission, Rab?”

  Fisher was still staring, relishing this moment of power. The world waited on his say-so. “I could do with some gloves,” he said at last.

  “Not these ones,” Rebus told him.

  “They look comfy.”

  Rebus shook his head slowly, started sliding one glove off, trying not to flinch. He held up a blistered hand. “Yours if you want, Rab, but this has been inside it . . .”

  “That’s fucking gross,” one of the lieutenants stated.

  “Which is why you wouldn’t want to wear them.” Rebus slipped the glove back on, turned and headed back to the cab. He got in and shut the door after him.

  “Drive past them,” he ordered. The cab moved forwards again. Rebus kept his eyes front, though he knew five separate stares were on him. As the cab sped up, there was a thud on the roof, and a half-brick bounced across the road.

  “Just a shot across our bow,” Rebus said.

  “Easy for you to say, chief. It’s not your fucking cab.”

  Back on the main road, they paused at a red light. A car had stopped across the road, its interior light on as the driver pored over a street map.

  “Poor sod,” the cabbie commented. “Wouldn’t like to get lost around here.”

  “Do a U-turn,” Rebus ordered.

  “What?”

  “Do a U-turn and pull over in front of it.”

  “What for?”

  “Because I’m asking,” Rebus snapped.

  The driver’s body language told Rebus he’d had easier fares. As the lights turned green, he signaled for a right turn, and executed the maneuver, pulling up to the curb. Rebus already had the money ready. “Keep the change,” he said, getting out.

  “I’ve earned it, pal.”

  Rebus walked back to the parked car, opened the passenger door, and slid inside. “Nice night for a drive,” he told Siobhan Clarke.

  “Isn’t it?” The street map had disappeared, probably beneath her seat. She was watching the cabbie getting out, examining the roof of his vehicle. “So what brings you to this part of the world?”

  “I was visiting a friend,” Rebus told her. “What’s your excuse?”

  “Do I need one?”

  The cabbie was shaking his head, casting a baleful look in Rebus’s direction before getting back into the driver’s seat and heading off, executing another U-turn so he could make for the safety of town.

  “Which street is it you’re looking for?” Rebus asked. She looked at him and he smiled. “I saw you studying the A to Z. Let me guess: Fairstone’s house?”

  It took her a moment to answer. “How did you know?”

  He shrugged. “Call it a man’s intuition.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “I’m impressed. I’m also guessing that’s where you’ve just come from?”

  “I was visiting a friend.”

  “Does this friend have a name?”

  “Andy Callis.”

  “I don’t think I know him.”

  “Andy was one of the woolly suits. He’s on sick leave.”

  “You say ‘was’ . . . makes me think he’s not coming back from sick leave.”

  “Now it’s my turn to be impressed.” Rebus shifted in the seat. “Andy’s lost it . . . mentally, I mean.”

  “Lost it for good?”

  Rebus shrugged. “I keep thinking . . . Ach, never mind.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “Alnwickhill.” Rebus had answered without thinking. He glared at Siobhan, knowing it had been no innocent question. She was smiling back at him.

  “That’s near Howdenhall, isn’t it?” She reached under her seat, produced the street map. “Bit of a distance from here . . .”

  “All right, so I took a detour on the way back.”

  “To look at Fairstone’s house?”

  “Yes.”

  She seemed satisfied, closed the map.

  “I’m in the frame for this, Siobhan,” Rebus said. “That gives me a reason to be nosy. What’s yours?”

  “Well, I just thought . . .” She was struggling, tables effectively turned.

  “Thought what?” He held up a gloved hand. “Never mind. It’s painful watching you trying to come up with a story. Here’s what I think . . .”

  “What?”

  “I think you weren’t looking for Fairstone’s house.”

  “Oh?”

  Rebus shook his head. “You were going to do some sniffing. See if you could conduct a little private investigation, maybe track down friends, people who’d known him . . . Maybe someone like Peacock Johnson. How am I doing?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “I get the feeling you’re not convinced Fairstone’s dead.”

  “Male intuition again?”

  “You hinted as much when I phoned you.”

  She gnawed her bottom lip.

  “Want to talk about it?” he offered quietly.

  She looked down into her lap. “I got a message.”

  “What sort of message?”

  “It was signed ‘Marty,’ waiting for me at St. Leonard’s.”

  Rebus was thoughtful. “Then I know just the thing to do.”

  “What?”

  “Head back int
o town and I’ll show you . . .”

  What he had to show her was the High Street, and Gordon’s Trattoria, where they stayed open late, serving strong coffee and pasta. Rebus and Siobhan slid into an empty booth, either side of the tight-fitting table, ordering double espressos.

  “Make mine decaf,” Siobhan remembered to say.

  “What’s with the unleaded?” Rebus asked.

  “I’m trying to cut down.”

  He accepted this. “Anything to eat, or is that verboten, too?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Rebus decided that he was and ordered a seafood pizza, warning Siobhan that she’d have to help him out with it. The back half of Gordon’s was the restaurant, only one voluble table left sitting, polishing off digestifs. Where Rebus and Siobhan sat, near the front door, it was all booths and snacks.

  “So tell me again what the message said.”

  She sighed and repeated it for him.

  “And the postmark was local?”

  “Yes.”

  “First- or second-class stamp?”

  “What does it matter?”

  Rebus shrugged. “Fairstone struck me as definitely second-class.” He watched her. She looked tired and wired at the same time, a potentially fatal conjunction. Unbidden, the image of Andy Callis came to his mind.

  “Maybe Ray Duff will shed some light,” Siobhan was saying.

  “If anyone can, it’s Ray.”

  The coffee arrived. Siobhan lifted hers to her lips. “They’re going to string you up tomorrow, aren’t they?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Whatever happens, I think you should keep well clear. That means not talking to Fairstone’s friends. If the Complaints catch you, they’ll smell a plot.”

  “You definitely think it was Fairstone who died in that fire?”

  “No reason not to.”

  “Apart from the message.”

  “It wasn’t his style, Siobhan. He wouldn’t have posted a letter, he’d have come straight to you, same as all the other times.”

  She considered this. “I know,” she said at last.

  There was a lull in the conversation, both of them sipping the strong, bitter coffee. “Sure you’re all right?” Rebus eventually asked.

  “Fine.”

  “Sure?”

  “Do you want it in writing?”

  “I want you to mean it.”

  Her eyes had darkened, but she didn’t say anything. The pizza arrived, and Rebus cut it into slices, cajoling her into taking one. There was silence again as they ate. The drunken table was leaving, laughing noisily all the way into the street. Closing the door, their waiter raised his eyes to heaven, giving thanks that the restaurant was quiet again.

  “Everything okay over here?”

  “Fine,” Rebus said, eyes on Siobhan.

  “Fine,” she repeated, holding his gaze.

  Siobhan said she’d give him a lift home. Getting into the car, Rebus glanced at his watch: eleven o’clock.

  “Can we get the news headlines?” he asked. “See if Port Edgar’s still the main story.”

  She nodded, switched on the radio.

  “. . . where a candlelit vigil is being held tonight. Our reporter, Janice Graham, is at the scene . . .”

  “Tonight, in South Queensferry, the residents are making their voices heard. Hymns will be sung, and the local Church of Scotland minister will be joined by the school chaplain. Candles may be a problem, however, as there’s a stiff breeze blowing from the Firth of Forth. For all of that, a sizable crowd is already beginning to gather, with local MSP Jack Bell in attendance. Mr. Bell, whose son was wounded in the tragedy, is hoping to gather support for his gun legislation campaign. Here’s what he said earlier . . .”

  Stopped at a red light, Rebus and Siobhan shared a look. Then she nodded, no words needed between them. When the light changed to green, she drove across the intersection, pulled over to the side of the road, and waited for traffic to clear before doing a U-turn.

  The vigil was being held outside the school gates. A few flickering candles were managing to stay lit, but most people knew better and had brought flashlights. Siobhan double-parked next to a news van. The crews were out in force: TV cameras, microphones, flashbulbs. But they were outnumbered ten to one by singers and the merely curious.

  “Got to be four hundred people here,” Siobhan said.

  Rebus nodded. The road was completely blocked by bodies. A few uniformed constables were standing on the periphery, hands behind their backs in what was probably meant as a gesture of respect. Rebus saw that Jack Bell had been pulled to one side so that he could share his views with half a dozen journalists, who were busily nodding and scribbling, filling sheet after sheet of their notebooks as he talked.

  “Nice touch,” Siobhan said. Rebus saw what she meant: Bell was wearing a black armband.

  “Subtle, definitely,” he agreed.

  At that moment, Bell looked up and noticed them, eyes staying on them as he continued his oration. Rebus started winding his way through the crowd, standing on tiptoe to view the scene immediately in front of the gates. The church minister was tall, young, and in good voice. Next to him stood a much smaller woman of similar age. Rebus guessed that this was the chaplain of Port Edgar Academy. A hand tugged at his arm, and he looked to his immediate left, where Kate Renshaw was standing, well-wrapped against the cold, a pink woolen scarf muffling her mouth. He smiled and nodded. A couple of men nearby, their singing enthusiastic but off-key, looked to have come directly from one of South Queensferry’s hostelries. Rebus could smell beer and cigarettes in the air. One man jabbed his friend in the ribs, nodding towards a roving TV camera. They straightened up and sang all the louder.

  Rebus didn’t know if they were local or not. Sightseers possibly. Hoping to catch a glimpse of themselves on the box over tomorrow morning’s breakfast . . .

  The hymn finished, and the chaplain started saying a few words, her voice faint, hardly carrying as a strong wind started gusting in from the coast. Rebus looked at Kate again and gestured towards the back of the crowd. She followed him to where Siobhan was standing on the periphery. A cameraman had climbed up onto the school’s perimeter wall to get an overview of the crowd and was being told to come down again by one of the uniforms.

  “Hi there, Kate,” Siobhan said. Kate pulled her scarf down.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Your dad not here?” Rebus asked. Kate shook her head.

  “He’ll hardly set foot outside the house.” She folded her arms around herself, bounced on her toes, feeling the chill.

  “Good turnout,” Rebus said, eyes on the crowd.

  Kate nodded. “I’m amazed how many of them know who I am. They keep saying how sorry they are about Derek.”

  “Something like this, it can bring people together,” Siobhan said.

  “If it didn’t . . . well, what would that say about us?” Someone else had caught her attention. “Sorry, I’ve got to . . .” She started walking over towards the huddle of journalists. It was Bell, Bell who had gestured for her to join him. He put an arm around her shoulder as more flashguns lit the hedgerow behind them. Wreaths and bunches of flowers had been left there, with fluttering messages and snapshots of the victims.

  “. . . and it’s thanks to the support of people like her that I think we stand a chance. More than a chance, in fact, because something like this can—and should—never be tolerated in what we like to call a civilized society. We never want to see it happen again, and that’s why we’re taking this stand . . .”

  When Bell paused to show the journalists the clipboard he was holding, the questions started. He kept a protective arm on Kate’s shoulders as she answered them. Protective, Rebus wondered, or proprietary?

  “Well,” Kate was saying, “the petition’s a good idea . . .”

  “An excellent idea,” Bell corrected her.

  “. . . but it’s only the start. What’s really needed is action, action from the autho
rities to stop guns getting into the wrong hands.” At the word “authorities,” she glanced towards Rebus and Siobhan.

  “If I can just give you some figures,” Bell interrupted again, brandishing the clipboard, “gun crime is on the increase—we all know that. But the statistics don’t begin to tell the story. Depending on who you listen to, you’ll hear that gun crime is rising at ten percent a year, or twenty percent, or even forty percent. Any rise whatsoever is not only bad news, not only a shameful blot on the records of police and intelligence-gathering resources, but, more important —”

  “Kate, if I could just ask you,” one of the journalists butted in, “how do you think you can get the government to listen to the victims?”

  “I’m not sure I can. Maybe it’s time to ignore the government altogether and appeal directly to the people who’re actually doing the shooting, the people selling these guns, bringing them into the country . . .”

  Bell pitched his voice even louder. “As far back as 1996, the Home Office reckoned that two thousand guns per week—per week—were coming into the UK illegally . . . many of them through the Channel Tunnel. Since the Dunblane ban came into force, handgun crimes have increased forty percent . . .”

  “Kate, if we could ask you for your opinion of . . .”

  Rebus had turned away, walking back to Siobhan’s car. When she caught up with him, he was lighting a cigarette, or trying to. The wind meant his lighter kept sputtering.

  “Going to help me?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Cheers.”

  But she relented, holding her coat open so that he could shelter himself long enough to get the cigarette lit. He nodded his thanks.

  “Seen enough?” she asked.

  “Reckon we’re every bit as bad as the ghouls?”

  She considered this, then shook her head. “We’re interested parties.”

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  The crowd was beginning to disperse. Many were lingering to study the hedgerow’s makeshift shrine, but others started passing the spot where Rebus and Siobhan stood. The faces were solemn, resolute, tear-stained. One woman was hugging both her preteen children to her, the kids bemused, perhaps wondering what they’d done to bring on their mother’s sobs. An elderly man, leaning heavily on a walker, seemed determined to walk the route home without any other help, shaking his head at the many who offered.