A Question of Blood

by Ian Rankin

  A group of teenagers had come dressed in their Port Edgar uniforms. Rebus didn’t doubt they’d been captured by a few dozen cameras since their arrival. The girls’ mascara had run. The boys looked awkward, as if regretting coming. Rebus looked for Miss Teri but didn’t see her.

  “Isn’t that your friend?” Siobhan said, gesturing with her head. Rebus studied the crowd again, saw immediately who she meant.

  Peacock Johnson, part of the procession heading back into town. And beside him, a full foot shorter, Evil Bob. Bob had removed his baseball cap for the duration, showing the balding crown of his head. Now, he was fixing the cap back into place. Johnson had dressed down for the occasion: a gray shimmering shirt, silk maybe, beneath a full-length black raincoat. There was a black string tie around his neck, fixed with a silver clasp. He, too, had removed his headgear—a gray trilby—which he held in both hands, running his fingers around its rim.

  Johnson seemed to sense that he was being stared at. When his eyes met Rebus’s, Rebus crooked a finger at him. Johnson said something to his lieutenant, the pair of them threading their way through the throng.

  “Mr. Rebus, paying your respects like the true gentleman you doubtless perceive yourself to be.”

  “That’s my excuse . . . what’s yours?”

  “The selfsame, Mr. Rebus, the selfsame.” He made a little bow at the waist in Siobhan’s direction.

  “Lady friend or colleague?” he asked Rebus.

  “The latter,” Siobhan answered.

  “No requirement for the two to be, as they say, mutually exclusive.” He grinned at her while sliding his hat back on.

  “See that guy over there?” Rebus said, nodding towards where Jack Bell was finishing his interview. “If I told him who you are and what you do, he’d have a field day.”

  “Mr. Bell, you mean? First thing we did when we got here was sign his petition, isn’t that right, wee man?” Looking down at his companion. Bob didn’t seem to understand but nodded anyway. “Clear conscience, you see,” Johnson continued.

  “Doesn’t begin to explain what you’re doing here . . . unless that conscience of yours is guilty rather than clear.”

  “A low blow, if you don’t mind me saying.” Johnson winced for effect. “Say good night to the nice detectives,” he said, patting Evil Bob’s shoulder.

  “Good night, nice detectives.” A wet smile appearing on the overfed face. Peacock Johnson had joined the crowd again, head bowed as if in Christian contemplation. Bob fell in a couple of paces behind his master, for all the world like a pet being taken for a walk.

  “What do we make of that?” Siobhan asked.

  Rebus shook his head slowly.

  “Maybe your comment about guilt isn’t wide of the mark.”

  “Be nice to nail the bastard for something.”

  She gave him a questioning look, but his attention had turned to Jack Bell, who was whispering something in Kate’s ear. Kate nodded, and the MSP gave her a hug.

  “Reckon she’s got a future in politics?” Siobhan mused.

  “I hope to Christ that’s the attraction,” Rebus muttered, showing his cigarette stub little mercy as he ground it under his heel.

  DAY THREE

  Thursday

  8

  Is this country the pits, or what?” Bobby Hogan asked. Rebus felt it was an unfair question. They were on the M74, one of the most lethal roads in Scotland. Tractor-trailers were lashing Hogan’s Passat with a spray that was nine parts grit to one of water. The wipers were on at high speed and still not coping, despite which Hogan was trying to do seventy. But doing seventy meant getting past the trucks, and the truck drivers were enjoying an extended game of leapfrog, leading to a queue of cars waiting to pass.

  Dawn had brought milky sunshine to the capital, but Rebus had known it wouldn’t last. The sky had been too hazy, blurred like a drunk’s good intentions. Hogan had decided they should rendezvous at St. Leonard’s, by which time fully half of Arthur’s Seat’s great stone outcrop had vanished into the cloud. Rebus doubted David Copperfield could have pulled the trick off with any more brio. When Arthur’s Seat started disappearing, rain was sure to follow. It had started before they reached the city limits, Hogan flipping the wipers to intermittent, then to constant. Now, on the M74 south of Glasgow, they were flying to and fro like the Roadrunner’s legs in the cartoon.

  “I mean, the weather . . . the traffic . . . why do we put up with it?”

  “Penitence?” Rebus offered.

  “Suggesting we’ve done something to deserve it.”

  “Like you say, Bobby, there must be a reason we stay put.”

  “Maybe we’re just lazy.”

  “We can’t change the weather. I suppose it’s in our power to tweak the amount of traffic, but that never seems to work, so why bother?”

  Hogan raised a finger. “Exactly. We simply can’t be arsed.”

  “You think that’s a fault?”

  Hogan shrugged. “It’s hardly a strength, is it?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Whole country’s gone to cack. Jobs up the khyber, politicians with their snouts in the trough, kids with no . . . I don’t know.” He exhaled noisily.

  “Touch of the Victor Meldrews this morning, Bobby?”

  Hogan shook his head. “I’ve been thinking this for ages.”

  “And I thank you for inviting me into the confessional.”

  “Know something, John? You’re more cynical than I am.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Give me a for instance.”

  “For instance, I believe in an afterlife. What’s more, I think the pair of us are going to be entering it sooner than expected if you don’t ease your foot off . . .”

  Hogan smiled for the first time that morning, signaled to pull into the middle lane. “Better?” he asked.

  “Better,” Rebus agreed.

  Then, a few moments later: “You really believe there’s something there after we die?”

  Rebus considered his answer. “I believe it was a way of getting you to slow down.” He pushed in the button for the car’s cigarette lighter, then wished he hadn’t. Hogan noticed him flinch.

  “Still hurting like hell?”

  “It’s getting better.”

  “Tell me again how it happened.”

  Rebus shook his head slowly. “Let’s talk about Carbrae instead. How much are we really going to get from Robert Niles?”

  “With a bit of luck, more than his name, rank and serial number,” Hogan said, pulling out again to pass.

  Carbrae Special Hospital was sited, as Hogan himself described it, in “the sweaty armpit of who knows where.” Neither man had been there before. Hogan’s directions were to take the A711 west of Dumfries and head towards Dalbeattie. They seemed to miss a turnoff, Hogan cursing the solid wall of lorries in the inside lane, reckoning they’d hidden a signpost or access road from view. As a result, they didn’t come off the M74 till Lockerbie, heading west into Dumfries.

  “Were you at Lockerbie, John?” Hogan asked.

  “Just for a couple of days.”

  “Remember that fuckup with the bodies? Laying them out on the ice rink?” Hogan shook his head slowly. Rebus remembered: the bodies had stuck to the ice, meaning the whole rink had to be defrosted. “That’s what I mean about Scotland, John. That just about sums us up.”

  Rebus disagreed. He thought the quiet dignity of the townspeople in the aftermath of Pan Am 103 said a hell of a lot more about the country. He couldn’t help wondering how the people of South Queensferry would cope, once the three-ring circus of police, media and mouthy politicians had moved on. He’d watched fifteen minutes of morning news while slurping down a coffee but had to turn the sound off when Jack Bell appeared, snaking one arm around Kate, whose face shone a ghostly white.

  Hogan had picked up a bundle of newspapers between his home and Rebus’s. Some had managed to get photos from the vigil into their later editions: the minister
leading the singing, the MSP holding up his petition.

  “I can’t sleep at all,” one resident was quoted as saying, “for fear of who else might be out there.”

  Fear: the crucial word. Most people would live their whole lives untouched by crime, yet they still feared it, and that fear was real and smothering. The police force existed to allay such fears, yet too often was shown to be fallible, powerless, on hand only after the event, clearing up the mess rather than preventing it. Meanwhile, someone like Jack Bell began to look as if he was at least trying to do something . . . Rebus knew the terms they trotted out at seminars: proactive rather than reactive. One of the tabloids had latched on to this. They were backing Bell’s campaign, whatever it might be: If our forces of law and order can’t deal with this very real and growing problem, then it’s up to us as individuals or organized groups to take a stand against the tide of violence that is engulfing our culture . . .

  An easy enough editorial to write, Rebus surmised, the author merely parroting the MSP’s words. Hogan glanced at the newspaper.

  “Bell’s on a roll, isn’t he?”

  “It won’t last.”

  “I hope not. Sanctimonious bastard gives me the boak.”

  “Can I quote you on that, Detective Inspector Hogan?”

  “Journalists: now there’s another reason this country’s the pits . . .”

  They stopped for coffee in Dumfries. The café was a dreary combination of Formica and bad lighting, but neither man cared once he’d taken a bite from the thick bacon sandwiches. Hogan looked at his watch and calculated that they’d been on the road the best part of two hours.

  “Least the rain’s stopping,” Rebus said.

  “Put out the flags,” Hogan responded.

  Rebus decided to try a change of subject. “Ever been this way before?”

  “I’m sure I must’ve driven through Dumfries; doesn’t ring a bell, though.”

  “I came on holiday once. Caravan on the Solway Firth.”

  “When was this?” Hogan was licking melted butter from between his fingers.

  “Years back . . . Sammy was still in nappies.” Sammy: Rebus’s daughter.

  “You ever hear from her?”

  “A phone call now and then.”

  “She still down in England?” Hogan watched Rebus nod. “Good luck to her.” He opened his roll and peeled some of the fat from the bacon. “Scottish diet: that’s another thing we’re cursed with.”

  “Christ, Bobby, shall I just drop you off at Carbrae? You could sign yourself in, play Mr. Grumpy to a captive audience.”

  “I’m just saying . . .”

  “Saying what? We get shit weather and eat shit food? Maybe you should have Grant Hood stage a press conference, seeing how it’s going to come as news to every bugger who lives here.”

  Hogan concentrated on his snack, chewing without seeming to swallow. “Too long cooped up in that car, maybe?” he finally offered.

  “Too long on the Port Edgar case,” Rebus countered.

  “It’s only been —”

  “I don’t care how long it’s been. Don’t tell me you’re getting enough sleep? Putting it all behind you when you go home at night? Switching off? Delegating? Letting others share the —”

  “I get the point.” Hogan paused. “I brought you in, didn’t I?”

  “Just as well, or I suspect you’d have been driving down here on your lonesome.”

  “And?”

  “And there wouldn’t have been anybody to moan at.” Rebus looked at him. “Feel better for letting it all out?”

  Hogan smiled. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Well, wouldn’t that be a first for the books?”

  Both men ended up laughing, Hogan insisting on picking up the tab, Rebus leaving a tip. Back in the car, they found the road to Dalbeattie. Ten miles out of Dumfries, a single signpost pointed right, taking them up a narrow, winding track with grass growing in the middle.

  “Not much traffic, then,” Rebus commented.

  “Bit out of the way for visitors,” Hogan agreed.

  Carbrae had been purpose-built in the forward-looking 1960s, a long box-shaped structure with annexes. None of which could be seen until they had parked the car, identified themselves at the gate and been met and escorted within the thick, gray concrete walls. There was an outer perimeter, too, a wire fence twenty feet high, topped here and there with security cameras. At the gatehouse they’d been given laminated passes, hung by a red ribbon from the neck. Signs warned visitors of forbidden items within the complex. No food or drink, newspapers or magazines. No sharp objects. Nothing was to be passed to a patient without prior consultation with a member of the staff. Mobile phones were not permitted: “Our patients can be upset by the slightest thing, no matter how harmless it may seem to you. If in doubt, please ASK!”

  “Any chance we might upset Robert Niles?” Hogan asked, his eyes meeting Rebus’s.

  “Not in our nature, Bobby,” Rebus said, switching off his phone.

  And then an orderly appeared, and they were in.

  They walked down a garden path, neat flower beds to either side. There were faces at some of the windows. No bars on the windows themselves. Rebus had expected the orderlies to be thinly disguised bouncers, huge and silent, dressed in hospital whites or some other form of uniform. But their guide, Billy, was small and cheery-looking, casually clothed in T-shirt, jeans and soft-soled shoes. Rebus had a horrible thought: the lunatics had taken over the asylum, the real staff locked away. It would explain Billy’s beaming, rosy-cheeked countenance. Or maybe he’d just been dipping into the medicine locker.

  “Dr. Lesser is waiting in her room,” Billy was saying.

  “What about Niles?”

  “You’ll talk to Robert there. He doesn’t like strangers going into his own room.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s funny that way.” Billy shrugged his shoulders, as if to say: don’t we all have our little foibles? He punched numbers into a keypad by the front door, smiling up at the camera trained on him. The door clicked open, and they entered the hospital.

  The place smelled of . . . not exactly medicine. What was it? Then Rebus realized: it was the aroma of new carpets—specifically, the blue carpet that stretched before them down the corridor. Fresh paint, too, by the look of it. Apple green, Rebus guessed it had said on the industrial-sized cans. Pictures on the walls, stuck there with tape. Nothing framed, and no thumbtacks. The place was quiet. Their shoes made no noise on the carpet. No piped music, no screams. Billy led them down the hall, stopping before an open door.

  “Dr. Lesser?”

  The woman inside was seated at a modern desk. She smiled and peered over her half-moon glasses.

  “You got here, then,” she stated.

  “Sorry we’re a few minutes late,” Hogan began to apologize.

  “It’s not that,” she reassured him. “It’s just that people miss the turnoff and then phone to say they’re lost.”

  “We didn’t get lost.”

  “So I see.” She had come forward to greet them with handshakes. Hogan and Rebus introduced themselves.

  “Thanks, Billy,” she said. Billy gave a little bow and backed away. “Won’t you come in? I won’t bite.” She offered her smile again. Rebus wondered if it was part of the job description for working at Carbrae.

  The room was small, comfortable. A yellow two-seat sofa, bookshelf, hi-fi. No filing cabinets. Rebus guessed the patient files would be kept well away from prying eyes. Dr. Lesser said they could call her Irene. She was in her late twenties or early thirties, with chestnut-brown hair falling to just below her shoulders. Her eyes were the same color as the clouds that had obscured Arthur’s Seat earlier that morning.

  “Please, sit yourselves down.” Her accent was English. Rebus thought Liverpudlian.

  “Dr. Lesser . . .” Hogan began.

  “Irene, please.”

  “Of course.” Hogan paused, as if weighing whether to use h
er first name. If he did, she might start using his first name, and that would be way too cozy. “You understand why we’re here?”

  Lesser nodded. She had pulled over a chair so she could sit in front of the detectives. Rebus was aware that the sofa was a tight fit: Bobby and him, probably over four hundred pounds between them . . .

  “And you understand,” Lesser was saying, “that Robert has the right to say nothing. If he starts to get upset, the interview is over and that’s final.”

  Hogan nodded. “You’ll be sitting in, of course.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Of course.”

  It was the answer they’d expected, but disappointing all the same.

  “Doctor,” Rebus began, “maybe you could help prepare us. What can we expect from Mr. Niles?”

  “I don’t like to pre-empt —”

  “For example, is there anything we should avoid saying? Maybe trip words?”

  She looked appraisingly at Rebus. “He won’t talk about what he did to his wife.”

  “That’s not why we’re here.”

  She thought for a moment. “He doesn’t know his friend is dead.”

  “He doesn’t know Herdman’s dead?” Hogan repeated.

  “News doesn’t interest the patients, on the whole.”

  “You’d prefer it if we kept it that way?” Rebus guessed.

  “I’m assuming you don’t need to tell him why you’re so interested in Mr. Herdman . . .”

  “You’re right, we don’t.” Rebus looked to Hogan. “Just have to watch we don’t slip up, eh, Bobby?”

  As Hogan nodded, there was a knock on the still-open door. All three of them stood up. A tall, muscular man was waiting there. Bull neck, tattooed arms. For a moment, Rebus thought: now that’s what orderlies are supposed to look like. Then he saw Lesser’s face, and realized that this giant was Robert Niles.

  “Robert . . .” The doctor’s smile was back in place, but Rebus knew she was wondering how long Niles had been there, and how much he’d taken in.

  “Billy said . . .” The voice was like a rumble of thunder.