Ian Rankin - A Question of Blood

She nodded. “Last thing I did before clocking off. It was Brimson’s.”

“Curiouser and curiouser…”

Siobhan folded the screen shut. “How are you coping?” she asked. “I mean, dressing and undressing?”

“I’m all right.”

“Not sleeping in your clothes?”

“No.” He tried to sound indignant.

“So I can expect to see a clean shirt tomorrow?”

“Stop mothering me.”

She smiled. “I could run you another bath.”

“I can manage.” He waited till her eyes met his. “Cross my heart.”

“And hope to die?”

Which took him back to his first meeting with Teri Cotter… asking him about deaths he’d witnessed… wanting to know what it felt like to die. With a website that would be as good as an invitation to some sick minds.

“There’s something I want to show you,” Siobhan said, rummaging in her bag. She produced a book, showed him the cover: I’m a Man by Ruth Padel. “It’s about rock music,” she explained, opening it to a marked page. “Listen to this: ‘the heroism dream begins in the teenage bedroom.’”

“Meaning what?”

“She’s talking about how teenagers use music as a kind of rebellion. Maybe Teri’s using her actual bedroom.” She flicked to another page. “And there’s something else… ‘the gun is male sexuality in jeopardy.’” She looked at him. “Makes sense to me.”

“You’re saying Herdman was jealous after all?”

“You’ve never been jealous? Never flown into a rage?”

He thought for a moment. “Maybe once or twice.”

“Kate mentioned a book to me. It was called Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream. Maybe Herdman’s rage took him too far.” She held a hand to her mouth, stifling a yawn.

“Time you got to bed,” Rebus told her. “Plenty of time in the morning for amateur analysis.” She unplugged the laptop, gathered up the cables. He saw her out, then watched from his window as she made it to the safety of her car. Suddenly, a man’s figure appeared at her driver’s-side door. Rebus turned and ran for the stairs, took them two at a time. Hauled open the front door. The man was saying something, voice raised above the ticking engine. He was holding something to the windshield. A newspaper. Rebus grabbed his shoulder, feeling a jab of fire from his fingers. Turned him around… recognized the face.

It was the reporter, Steve Holly. Rebus realized that what he was holding was probably the next morning’s edition.

“Very man I wanted to see,” Holly said, shrugging himself free and offering a grin. “Nice to see CID making home visits to each other.” He turned to glance at Siobhan, who had cut her engine and was stepping from the car. “Some might think it a bit late in the evening for chitchat.”

“What do you want?” Rebus asked.

“Just after a comment.” He held up the paper’s front page so Rebus could make out the headline: HELL HOUSE COP MYSTERY. “We’re not printing any names as yet. Wondered if you wanted to put your side of the story. I understand you’re on suspension, subject to an internal inquiry?” Holly had folded the paper and produced a microrecorder from his pocket. “That looks nasty.” He was nodding towards Rebus’s ungloved hands. “Burns take a while to heal, don’t they?”

“John…” Siobhan warning him not to lose his head. Rebus pointed a blistered finger at the reporter.

“Stay away from the Renshaws. You hassle them, you’ll have me to deal with, understood?”

“Then give me an interview.”

“Not a chance.”

Holly looked down at the paper he was holding. “How about this for a headline: COP FLEES MURDER SCENE?”

“It’ll look good to my lawyers when I sue you.”

“My paper’s always open to a fair fight, DI Rebus.”

“Then that’s a problem,” Rebus said, smothering the tape recorder with his hand. “Because I never fight fair.” Spitting the words out, showing Holly two rows of bared teeth. The reporter pressed his finger to a button, stopping the tape.

“Nice to know where we stand.”

“Lay off the families, Holly. I mean it.”

“In your sad, misguided way, I’m sure you do. Sweet dreams, Detective Inspector.” He bowed slightly in Siobhan’s direction, then strode off.

“Bastard,” Rebus hissed.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Siobhan said soothingly. “Only a quarter of the population reads his paper anyway.” She climbed back into her car, turned the ignition and backed out of the parking space. Gave a little wave as she drove away. Holly had disappeared around a corner, heading for Marchmont Road. Rebus climbed his stairwell, went indoors and found his car keys. Put his gloves back on. Double-locked the door on the way out.

The streets were quiet, no sign of Steve Holly. Not that he was looking for him. He got into his Saab and tried gripping the steering wheel, turning it left and right. He thought he could manage. He drove down Marchmont Road and onto Melville Drive, heading towards Arthur’s Seat. He didn’t bother putting any music on, thought instead of everything that had happened, letting conversations and images swirl around.

Irene Lesser: You might want to talk to someone… a long time to be carrying any baggage…

Siobhan: quoting from that book.

Kate: Bad Men Do…

Boethius: Good men suffer…

He didn’t think of himself as a bad man but knew he probably wasn’t a good one either.

“I’m a Man”: title of an old blues song.

Robert Niles, leaving the SAS, but without having been switched off first. Lee Herdman, too, had carried “baggage” with him. Rebus felt that if he could understand Herdman, maybe he would understand himself better, too.

Easter Road was quiet, bars still serving, a queue beginning to form in the chip shop. Rebus was headed for Leith police station. The driving was okay, the pain in his hands bearable. The skin there seemed to have grown taut, as if from sunburn. He saw a space curbside, not fifty yards from the front door of the station, and decided to take it. Got out and locked the car. There was a camera crew across the street, probably wanting the station in the background as the reporter did his piece. Then Rebus saw who it was: Jack Bell. Bell, turning his head, recognized Rebus, pointed to him before turning back to the camera. Rebus caught his words:

“… while CID officers like the one behind me continue to mop up, without ever offering workable solutions…”

“Cut,” the director said. “Sorry, Jack.” He nodded towards Rebus, who had crossed the road and was standing directly behind Bell.

“What’s going on?” Rebus asked.

“We’re doing a piece on violence in society,” Bell snapped, annoyed at the interruption.

“I thought maybe it was a self-help video,” Rebus drawled.

“What?”

“A guide to curb crawling, something like that. Most of the girls work down that way now,” Rebus added, nodding in the direction of Salamander Street.

“How dare you!” the MSP spluttered. Then he turned to the director. “Symptomatic, you see, of the very problem we’re tackling. The police have ceased to be anything other than petty-minded and spiteful.”

“Unlike yourself, I’m sure,” Rebus said. He noticed for the first time that Bell was holding a photograph. Bell held it up in front of him.

“Thomas Hamilton,” he stated. “No one thought him exceptional. Turned out he was evil incarnate when he walked into that school in Dunblane.”

“And how could the police have prevented that?” Rebus asked, folding his arms.

Before Bell could answer, the director had a question for Rebus. “Were any videos or magazines found in Herdman’s home? Violent films, that sort of thing?”