Ian Rankin - A Question of Blood

“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.

“That’s right. Come in, come in.”

As Niles entered the room, Hogan made to close the door after him.

“Not in here,” Lesser commanded. “The door is always open.”

Two ways of taking that: openness, nothing to hide; or meaning an attack was more likely to be spotted.

Lesser was gesturing for Niles to take her chair, while she retreated behind her desk. As Niles sat down, so did the two detectives, wedging themselves back into the sofa.

Niles stared at them, face angled downwards, eyes hooded.

“These men have a few questions they’d like to ask you, Robert.”

“What sort of questions?” Niles was wearing a dazzling white T-shirt and gray jogging bottoms. Rebus was trying not to stare at the tattoos. They were old, probably dated back to his army days. When Rebus had been a soldier, he’d been the only recruit not to celebrate joining up by getting a few tattoos on his first home leave. Niles’s specimens included a thistle, a couple of writhing snakes, and a dagger with a banner wrapped around it. Rebus suspected the dagger had something to do with his time in the SAS, even though the regiment frowned upon ornamentation: tattoos were like scars-means of identification. Which meant they could be used against you if you were ever captured…

Hogan decided to take the initiative. “We want to ask you about your friend Lee.”

“Lee?”

“Lee Herdman. He visits you sometimes?”

“Sometimes, yes.” The words came slowly. Rebus wondered how much medication Niles was on.

“Have you seen him lately?”

“Few weeks back… I think.” Niles swung his head towards Dr. Lesser. Time probably didn’t mean much in Carbrae. She nodded encouragingly.

“What do you talk about when he comes to see you?”

“The old days.”

“Anything in particular?”

“Just… the old days. Life was good back then.”

“Was that Lee’s opinion, too?” Hogan ended the question and sucked in air, realizing he’d just used the past tense about Herdman.

“What’s all this about?” Another look towards Lesser, reminding Rebus of a trained animal seeking some instruction from its owner. “Do I have to be here?”

“Door’s open, Robert.” Lesser waved a hand in its direction. “You know that.”

“Lee seems to have gone, Mr. Niles,” Rebus said, leaning forwards a little. “We just want to know what happened to him.”

“Gone?”

Rebus shrugged. “It’s a long drive down here from Queensferry. The pair of you must be pretty close.”

“We were soldiers together.”

Rebus nodded. “SAS Regiment. You were the same unit?”

“C Squadron.”

“That was nearly me once.” Rebus tried a smile. “I was a Para… tried for the regiment.”

“What happened?”

Rebus was trying not to think back. There were horrors lurking there. “Flunked the training.”

“How soon did you drop?”

Easier to tell the truth than to lie. “I passed everything up until the psychological stuff.”

A smile broke Niles’s face wide open. “They cracked you.”

Rebus nodded. “I cracked like a fucking egg, mate.” Mate: a soldier’s word.

“When was this?”

“Early seventies.”

“Bit before me, then.” Niles was thinking. “They had to change the interrogations,” he remembered. “Used to be a lot harder.”

“I was part of that.”

“You cracked under interrogation? What did they do to you?” Niles’s eyes narrowed. He was more alert now, having a conversation, someone else answering his questions.

“Kept me in a cell… constant noise and light… screams from the other cells…”

Rebus knew he had everyone’s attention now. Niles clapped his hands together. “The chopper?” he asked. When Rebus nodded, he clapped again, turned to Dr. Lesser. “They put a sack over your head and take you up in a chopper, then say they’ll drop you if you don’t give them what they want. When they dump you out, you’re only eight feet above the ground, only you don’t know that!” He turned back to Rebus. “It really fucks you up.” Then he thrust forwards a hand for Rebus to shake.

“It really does,” Rebus agreed, trying to ignore the searing pain of the handshake.

“Sounds barbaric to me,” Dr. Lesser commented, her face paler than before.

“It breaks you, or it makes you,” Niles corrected her.

“It broke me,” Rebus agreed. “But you, Robert… did it make you?”

“For a while it did.” Niles grew a little less agitated. “It’s when you get out… that’s when it hits you.”

“What?”

“The fact that all the things you…” He fell silent, as still as a statue. Some new set of chemicals kicking in? But behind Niles’s back, Lesser was shaking her head, meaning there was nothing to worry about. The giant was just lost in thought. “I knew some Paras,” he said at last. “Right hard bastards, they were.”

“I was Rifle Company, Second Para.”

“Saw time in Ulster, then?”

Rebus nodded. “And elsewhere.”

Niles tapped the side of his nose. Rebus imagined those fingers gripping a knife, drawing the blade across a smooth white throat… “Mum’s the word,” Niles said.

But the word Rebus had been thinking of was wife. “Last time you saw Lee,” he asked quietly, “did he seem okay? Maybe he was worried about something?”

Niles shook his head. “Lee always puts on a brave face. I never get to see him when he’s down.”

“But you know there are times when he is down?”

“We’re trained not to show it. We’re men! ”

“Yes, we are,” Rebus confirmed.

“Army doesn’t have any place for crybabies. Crybabies can’t shoot a stranger dead, or lob a grenade at him. You’ve got to be able to… what you’re trained for is…” But the words wouldn’t come. Niles twisted his hands together, as though trying to choke them into existence. He looked from Rebus to Hogan and back again.

“Sometimes… sometimes they don’t know how to switch us off…”

Hogan sat forwards. “Does that apply to Lee, do you think?”

Niles stared at him. “He’s done something, hasn’t he?”

Hogan swallowed back a response, looked to Dr. Lesser for guidance. But it was too late. Niles was rising slowly from his chair.

“I’m going to go now,” he said, moving towards the door. Hogan opened his mouth to say something, but Rebus touched his arm, stilling him, knowing he was probably about to toss a grenade into the room: Your pal’s dead, and he took some schoolkids with him… Dr. Lesser got up and walked to the doorway, reassuring herself that Niles wasn’t hiding just out of sight. Satisfied, she took the chair he’d just vacated.

“He seems pretty bright,” Rebus commented.

“Bright?”

“In control. Is that the medication?”

“Medication plays its part.” She crossed one trousered leg over the other. Rebus noticed that she wore no jewelry at all, nothing on her wrists or around her neck, and no earrings that he could see.

“When he’s… ‘cured’… does he go back to jail?”

“People think coming to a place like this is a soft option. I can assure you it isn’t.”

“That’s not what I was getting at. I just wondered -”

“From what I remember,” Hogan interrupted, “Niles never explained why he slit his wife’s throat. Has he been any more forthcoming with you, Doctor?”

She looked at him, unblinking. “That has no relevance to your visit.”