A Question of Blood

by Ian Rankin

“Was it worth it, then?” Siobhan was asking.

  He just shrugged, growing thoughtful as they took a left at the roundabout, watching as she pulled up at a driveway, then turned the car into it. “Where are we?” he asked.

  “James Bell’s house,” she told him. “Remember? We were going to talk to him?”

  Rebus just nodded.

  The house was modern and detached, with small windows and harled walls. Siobhan pressed the bell and waited. The door was opened by a tiny woman in her well-preserved fifties, with piercing blue eyes and her hair tied back with a black velvet bow.

  “Mrs. Bell? I’m DS Clarke, this is DI Rebus. We were wondering if we could have a word with James.”

  Felicity Bell examined both IDs, then stepped back to allow them inside. “Jack’s not here,” she said, in a voice devoid of energy.

  “It’s your son we wanted to see,” Siobhan explained, voice dropping for fear of scaring this small, harried-looking creature.

  “But all the same . . .” Mrs. Bell looked around her wildly. She’d brought them into the living room. In an attempt to calm her, Rebus lifted a family photo from the windowsill.

  “You’ve got three children, Mrs. Bell?” he asked. She saw what he was holding, stepped forward to pluck it from his grasp, and did her best to put it back in the exact spot it had come from.

  “James is the last,” she said. “The others are married . . . flown the nest.” She made a little flapping movement with one hand.

  “The shooting must have been a terrible shock,” Siobhan said.

  “Terrible, terrible.” The wild look had come back into her eyes.

  “You work at the Traverse, don’t you?” Rebus asked.

  “That’s right.” She didn’t seem surprised that he would know this about her. “We’ve got a new play just starting . . . really, I should be there to help out, but I’m needed here, you see.”

  “What’s the play?”

  “It’s a version of The Wind in the Willows . . . do either of you have children?”

  Siobhan shook her head. Rebus explained that his daughter was too old.

  “Never too old, never too old,” Felicity Bell said in her quavering voice.

  “I take it you’re staying home to look after James?” Rebus said.

  “Yes.”

  “So he’s upstairs, is he?”

  “In his room, yes.”

  “And would he be able to spare us a couple of minutes, do you think?”

  “Well, I don’t know . . .” Mrs. Bell’s hand had gone to her wrist at Rebus’s mention of “minutes.” Now she decided that she’d better look at her watch. “Gracious, nearly lunchtime already . . .” She made to wander out of the room, perhaps in the direction of the kitchen, but then remembered these two strangers in her midst. “Maybe I should call Jack.”

  “Maybe you should,” Siobhan conceded. She was studying a framed photo of the MSP, triumphant on election night. “We’d be happy to speak to him.”

  Mrs. Bell looked up, focusing on Siobhan. Her eyebrows drew together. “What do you need to speak to him for?” She had a clipped, educated Edinburgh accent.

  “It’s James we want to talk to,” Rebus explained, taking a step forwards. “He’s in his room, is he?” He waited till she’d nodded. “And that’s upstairs, I take it?” Another nod. “Then here’s what we’ll do.” He had laid a hand on her bone-thin arm. “You go get the lunch started, and we’ll find our own way. Less fuss all round, don’t you think?”

  Mrs. Bell seemed to take this in only slowly, but at last she beamed a smile. “Then that’s what I’ll do,” she said, retreating into the hall. Rebus and Siobhan shared a look, then a nod of agreement. The woman was not cooking with a full set of saucepans. They climbed the stairs, found what they took to be James’s room: stickers placed on the door in childhood had been scraped off. Nothing on it now but old concert tickets, mostly from English cities—Foo Fighters in Manchester, Rammstein in London, Puddle of Mudd in Newcastle. Rebus knocked but got no answer. He turned the handle and opened the door. James Bell was sitting up in bed. White sheets and duvet, stark-white walls with no ornamentation. Pale green carpet half-covered with throw rugs. Books were crammed onto bookshelves. Computer, hi-fi, TV . . . CDs scattered around. Bell wore a black T-shirt. He had his knees up, propping up a magazine. He turned the pages with one hand, the other arm being strapped across his chest. His hair was short and dark, face pale, one cheek picked out by a mole. Few signs of teenage rebellion in this room. When Rebus had been in his teens, his own bedroom had been little more than a series of hiding places: soft-porn mags under the carpet (the mattress wouldn’t do, it got turned occasionally), cigarettes and matches behind one leg of the wardrobe, a knife tucked away beneath the winter sweaters in the bottom drawer of the chest. He got the feeling that if he looked in the drawers here, he’d find clothes; nothing under the carpet but thick underlay.

  Music was leaking from the headphones James Bell wore. He still hadn’t looked up from his reading. Rebus guessed he thought his mother had come in, and was studiously ignoring her. The facial similarity between son and father was remarkable. Rebus bent down a little, angling his face, and James finally looked up, eyes widening in surprise. He slipped off the headphones, turned the music off.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Rebus said. “Your mum said we should just come up.”

  “Who are you?”

  “We’re detectives, James. Wondered if you could give us a moment of your time.” Rebus was standing by the bed, being careful not to kick over the large bottle of water by his feet.

  “What’s going on?”

  Rebus had lifted the magazine from the bed. It was about gun collecting. “Funny subject,” he said.

  “I’m trying to find the one he shot me with.”

  Siobhan had taken the magazine from Rebus. “I think I can understand that,” she said. “You want to know all about it?”

  “I didn’t get much of a look at it.”

  “You sure about that, James?” Rebus asked. “Lee Herdman collected gun stuff.” He nodded towards the magazine, which Siobhan was now flicking through. “That one of his?”

  “What?”

  “Did he let you borrow it? We hear you knew him a bit better than you’ve been letting on.”

  “I never said I didn’t know him.”

  “‘We’d met socially’—your exact words, James. I heard them on the tape. You make it sound like you’d bump into him in the pub or the newsagent’s.” Rebus paused. “Except that he’d told you he was ex-SAS, and that’s more than just a casual comment, isn’t it? Maybe you were talking about it at one of his parties.” Another pause. “You used to go to his parties, didn’t you?”

  “Some. He was an interesting guy.” James glared at Rebus. “I probably said that on the tape, too. Besides, I told the police all this already, told them how well I knew Lee, and that I went to his parties . . . even about that time he showed me the gun . . .”

  Rebus’s eyes narrowed. “He showed you?”

  “Christ, haven’t you listened to the tapes?”

  Rebus couldn’t help but glance towards Siobhan. Tapes, plural . . . they’d only bothered listening to the one. “Which gun was this?”

  “The one he kept in his boathouse.”

  “Did you think it was real?” Siobhan asked.

  “It looked real.”

  “Anyone else there at the time?”

  James shook his head.

  “You never saw the other one, the pistol?”

  “Not until he shot me with it.” The teenager looked down at his injured shoulder.

  “You and two others,” Rebus reminded him. “Am I right to say that he didn’t know Anthony Jarvies and Derek Renshaw?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “But he left you alive. Are you just lucky, James?”

  James’s fingers hovered just above his wound. “I’ve been wondering about that,” he said quietly. “Maybe he recognized me
at the last moment . . .”

  Siobhan cleared her throat. “And have you been wondering why he did it in the first place?”

  James nodded slowly but didn’t say anything.

  “Maybe,” Siobhan continued, “he saw something in you he didn’t see in the others.”

  “They were both pretty active in the CCF, could be it had something to do with that,” James offered.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well . . . Lee was in the army half his life . . . and then they kicked him out.”

  “He told you that?” Rebus asked.

  James nodded again. “Maybe he had this grudge. I’ve said he didn’t know Renshaw and Jarvies, but that doesn’t mean he hadn’t seen them around . . . maybe in their uniforms. Some kind of . . . trigger?” He looked up, smiled. “I know—I should leave the hack psychology to the hack psychologists.”

  “You’re being very helpful,” Siobhan said, not because she believed it necessarily but because she thought he was looking for some sliver of praise.

  “The thing is, James,” Rebus said, “if we could understand why he’d left you alive, we’d maybe know why the others had to die. Do you see?”

  James was thoughtful. “Does it really matter, in the end?”

  “We think it does.” Rebus straightened up. “Who else did you see at these parties, James?”

  “You’re asking for names?”

  “That’s the general idea.”

  “It wasn’t always the same people.”

  “Teri Cotter?” Rebus hinted.

  “Yes, she was there sometimes. Always brought a few Goths with her.”

  “You’re not a Goth yourself, James?” Siobhan asked.

  He gave a short laugh. “Do I look like one?”

  She shrugged. “The music you listen to . . .”

  “It’s just rock music, that’s all.”

  She lifted the small machine attached to his headphones. “MP3 player,” she commented, sounding impressed. “What about Douglas Brimson, ever see him at the parties?”

  “Is he the guy who flies planes?” Siobhan nodded. “I spoke to him one time, yes.” He paused. “Look, these weren’t really ‘parties,’ not like the organized sort. It was just people dropping in, having a drink . . .”

  “Doing drugs?” Rebus asked casually.

  “Sometimes, yes,” James admitted.

  “Speed? Coke? A bit of E?”

  The teenager snorted. “A couple of joints passed round if you were lucky.”

  “Nothing harder?”

  “No.”

  There was a knock at the door. It was Mrs. Bell. She looked at the two visitors as though she’d forgotten all about them. “Oh,” she said, confused for a moment. Then: “I’ve made some sandwiches, James. What would you like to drink?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “But it’s lunchtime.”

  “Do you want me puking up, Mum?”

  “No . . . of course not.”

  “I’ll tell you when I’m hungry.” His voice had hardened: not because he was angry, Rebus thought, but because he was embarrassed. “But I’ll have a mug of coffee, not too much milk in it.”

  “Right,” his mother said. Then, to Rebus: “Would you like a . . . ?”

  “We’re just on our way, thanks all the same, Mrs. Bell.” She nodded, stood for a moment as though forgetting what she’d been about to do, then turned and left, her feet making no sound on the carpet.

  “Your mother’s all right, is she?” Rebus asked.

  “Are you blind?” James shifted position. “A lifetime with my dad . . . it’s no wonder.”

  “You don’t get on with your father?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “You know he’s started a petition?”

  James screwed up his face. “Fat lot of good it’ll do.” He was silent for a moment. “Was it Teri Cotter?”

  “What?”

  “Was she the one who told you I went to Lee’s flat?” The detectives stayed silent. “Wouldn’t put it past her.” He shifted again, as if trying to get comfortable.

  “Want me to help you?” Siobhan offered.

  James shook his head. “I think I need some more painkillers.” Siobhan found them by the other side of the bed, sitting in their silver strip of foil on a readied chess board. She gave him two tablets, which he washed down with water.

  “One more question, James,” Rebus said, “then we’ll leave you to it.”

  “What?”

  Rebus nodded towards the foil. “Mind if I nick a couple of tabs? I’ve run out . . .”

  Siobhan had half a bottle of flat Irn-Bru in her car. Rebus took a mouthful after each tablet.

  “Careful they don’t turn into a habit,” Siobhan said.

  “What did you reckon to back there?” Rebus asked, changing the subject.

  “He could be on to something. Combined Cadet Force . . . kids running around in uniforms.”

  “He also said Herdman was kicked out of the army. Not true, according to his file.”

  “So?”

  “So either Herdman lied to him or young James made it up.”

  “Active fantasy life?”

  “You’d need one in a room like that.”

  “It was certainly . . . tidy.” Siobhan started the engine. “You know what he was saying about Miss Teri?”

  “He was right: it was her who told us.”

  “Yes, but more than that . . .”

  “What?”

  She put the car in gear and started off. “Just the way he spoke . . . You know that old thing about someone protesting too much?”

  “Making out he doesn’t like her because he really likes her?” Siobhan nodded. “Reckon he knows about her little website?”

  “I don’t know.” Siobhan finished her three-point turn.

  “Should have asked him.”

  “What’s this?” Siobhan asked, peering through the windshield. A patrol car, its blue light flashing, was blocking the entrance to the driveway. As Siobhan put the brakes on, the back door of the patrol car opened and a man in a gray suit got out. He was tall, with a shiny bald dome of a head and large, heavy-lidded eyes. He held his hands together in front of him, feet apart.

  “Don’t worry,” Rebus told Siobhan. “It’s just my twelve o’clock appointment.”

  “What appointment?”

  “The one I never got round to making,” Rebus told her, opening his door and stepping out. Then he leaned back in. “With my own personal executioner . . .”

  14

  The bald man was named Mullen. He was from the Professional Standards Unit of the Complaints. Up close, his skin had a slightly scaly quality, not, Rebus thought, unlike that of his own blistered hands. His elongated earlobes had probably brought him a few Dumbo-sourced nicknames at school, yet it was his fingernails that fascinated Rebus. They were almost too perfect: pink and shiny and unridged, with just enough white cuticle. During the hourlong interview, Rebus was tempted more than once to add a question of his own and ask if Mullen ever visited a manicurist.

  But in fact all he’d done was ask if he could get a drink. The aftertaste of James Bell’s painkillers lingered in his mouth. The tablets themselves had done their job—certainly better than the scabby wee pills he himself had been prescribed. Rebus was feeling at one with his world. He didn’t even mind that Assistant Chief Constable Colin Carswell, all haircut and eau de cologne, was sitting in on the interview. Carswell might hate his guts, but Rebus couldn’t find it in himself to blame him for it. Too much history between them for that. They were in an office at Police HQ on Fettes Avenue, and it was Carswell’s turn to have a go at him.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing last night?”

  “Last night, sir?”

  “Jack Bell and that TV director. They’re both demanding an apology.” He wagged a finger at Rebus. “And you’re going to do it in person.”

  “Would you rather I dropped my trousers and bent
over for them?”

  Carswell’s face seemed to swell with rage.

  “Once again, DI Rebus,” Mullen interrupted, “we find ourselves returning to the question of what you thought you might hope to gain by going along to a known criminal’s home for a nighttime beverage.”

  “I thought I might gain a free drink.”

  Carswell expelled a slow hiss of air. He’d uncrossed and recrossed his legs, unfolded and refolded his arms, many dozens of times in the course of the interview.

  “I suspect there was more to your visit than that.”

  Rebus just shrugged. He wasn’t allowed to smoke, so was playing with the half-empty pack instead, opening and closing it, sending it spinning across the table with the flick of a finger. He was doing this because he could see how much it annoyed Carswell.

  “What time did you leave Fairstone’s house?”

  “Sometime before the fire broke out.”

  “You can’t be more specific?”

  Rebus shook his head. “I’d been drinking.” Drinking more than he should have . . . much, much more. He’d been a good boy since, trying to atone.

  “So, sometime after you left,” Mullen continued, “someone else arrived—unseen by neighbors—and proceeded to gag and tie Mr. Fairstone before turning on the heat beneath a chip pan and then departing?”

  “Not necessarily,” Rebus felt obliged to state. “The chip pan could already have been on.”

  “Did Mr. Fairstone say he was going to make some chips?”

  “He might have mentioned being a bit peckish . . . I can’t be sure.” Rebus straightened in his chair, feeling vertebrae click. “Look, Mr. Mullen . . . I can see that you’ve got a fair amount of circumstantial evidence sitting here”—he tapped the manila file, not unlike the one that had sat on Simms’s dressing table—“which tells you that I was the last person to see Martin Fairstone alive.” He paused. “But that’s all it tells you, wouldn’t you agree? And I’m not denying the fact.” Rebus sat back and waited.

  “Except the killer,” Mullen said, so softly he might have been speaking to himself. “What you should have said was: ‘I was the last person to see him alive, except his killer.’” He glanced up from beneath his drooping eyelids.

  “That’s what I meant to say.”