Ian Rankin - A Question of Blood

“Lists of the cops you pay for information?”

“Would I be that stupid?”

“I don’t know: would you?”

“When people talk to me, they know I can keep a secret. Those names go to my grave.”

Holly turned his attention back to the screen. Rebus had no doubt this machine was state of the art. Connection had been fast, and now pages were popping up in the blink of an eye. The laptop Rebus had borrowed was, as Pettifer had said, coal-fired by comparison.

“Search mode…” Holly was talking to himself. “We enter the month and year, keywords Jura and salvage… and see what Brainiac comes up with.” He hit a final key and sat back, turning again towards Rebus to measure how impressed he was. Rebus was hellish impressed but hoped it didn’t show.

The screen had changed again. “Seventeen items,” Holly said. “Christ, yes, I remember this.” He angled the screen a little, and Rebus leaned towards him so that he could see what was there. And suddenly Rebus remembered it, too, remembered the incident, but hadn’t registered it as happening on Jura. An army helicopter, half a dozen top brass on board. Killed outright, along with the pilot, when the chopper had crashed. Speculation at the time that it had been downed. Jubilation in some quarters in Northern Ireland-a splinter Republican group taking early credit. But in the end, “pilot error” had been given as the cause.

“No mention of the SAS,” Holly pointed out.

Instead, a vague mention of a “rescue team,” sent to locate the debris and, more important, the bodies. Whatever was left of the chopper would be taken away for analysis, the bodies sent for autopsy prior to the funerals. An inquiry was set in motion, its findings a long time coming.

“Pilot’s family weren’t happy,” Holly said, racing through time to the end of the investigation. Memories tarnished by that conclusion: “pilot error.”

“Go back again,” Rebus said, annoyed that Holly was a faster reader than him. Holly obliged, the screen switching in an instant.

“So Herdman was part of the rescue team?” Holly observed. “Makes sense, army sending in their own…” He turned to Rebus. “What point is it you’re supposed to be making?”

Rebus didn’t want to give him much more, so said he wasn’t sure.

“Then I’m wasting my time here.” Holly hit another button, blacking out the screen. Then he twisted his body so he was facing Rebus. “So what if Herdman was on Jura? What the hell’s it got to do with what went on in that school? You going for the stress / trauma angle?”

“I’m not sure,” Rebus repeated. He stared at the reporter. “But thanks anyway.” He pushed open the door and started levering himself out of the low-built seat.

“Is that it?” Holly spat. “I show you mine and you chicken out?”

Rebus leaned back down into the car. “Mine’s more interesting than yours, pal.”

“You didn’t need me for this,” Holly said, glancing towards his laptop. “Half an hour with a search engine and you’d’ve learned as much.”

Rebus nodded. “Or I could have asked Whiteread and Simms, only I don’t think they’d have been quite as accommodating.”

Holly blinked. “Why not?”

Bait taken, Rebus just winked and slammed shut the door, walked back into the Ox, where Harry was about to pour his drink down the sink.

“Let me relieve you of that,” Rebus said, stretching out his hand towards the barman. He heard the roar of the Audi’s engine, Steve Holly making a quick and angry getaway. Rebus wasn’t bothered. He had what he needed.

A helicopter crash. Top brass involved. Now there was something to whet the appetite of a couple of army investigators. What was more, when Holly had flicked back through the screens, Rebus had registered the news that a few of the locals on the island had helped with the search, men who knew the Paps of Jura well. One of them had even been interviewed, giving his description of the crash site. His name was Rory Mollison. Rebus finished off the pint, standing at the bar, his eyes staring at the TV without taking any of it in. A kaleidoscope of colors, that was all it meant to him. His mind was elsewhere, crossing land and then water, gliding over hilltops… Sending the SAS to pick up bodies? Jura wasn’t exactly the most mountainous terrain, certainly a long way short of the peaks you’d find in the Grampians. Why send such a specialized team?

Gliding over moor and glen, inlets and sheer cliff faces… Rebus fumbled for his phone, pulled off his glove with his teeth and punched numbers with his thumbnail. Waited for Siobhan to pick up.

“Where are you?” he said.

“Never mind that: what the hell are you doing talking to Steve Holly?”

Rebus blinked, ran to the door and pulled it open. She was standing right in front of him. He put the phone back in his pocket. As if in a mirror image, she did the same with hers.

“You’re tailing me,” he said, trying to sound appalled.

“Only because you need tailing.”

“Where were you?” He started pulling the glove back on.

She nodded towards North Castle Street. “Car’s parked just around the corner. Now, to return to my original question…”

“Never mind that. At least this means you’ve not been back to the airfield.”

“Not yet, no.”

“Good, because I want you to talk to him.”

“Who? Brimson?” She watched him nod. “And after that, you’ll tell me what you were doing with Steve Holly?”

Rebus looked at her, then nodded again.

“And this’ll be over a drink, which you’re going to buy me?”

The look became a glare. Siobhan had taken the phone back out of her pocket, and was waving it in Rebus’s face.

“All right,” he growled. “Just call the guy, okay?”

Siobhan checked in her notebook, finding Brimson’s details, started punching numbers. “What exactly is it that I’m telling him?”

“Charm offensive: you need a big favor. Maybe more than one actually… But for starters, you can ask him if there’s a landing strip anywhere on Jura…”

When Rebus arrived at Port Edgar Academy, he saw that Bobby Hogan was remonstrating with Jack Bell. Bell wasn’t alone: he had the same camera crew with him. Plus he had one hand clamped around Kate Renshaw’s forearm.

“I think we’ve every right,” the MSP was saying, “to see where our loved ones were gunned down.”

“With respect, sir, that classroom remains a crime scene. No one goes in without good reason.”

“We’re the family, which I’d have thought was the best reason there was.”

Hogan pointed to the crew. “Pretty extended family, sir…”

The director had noticed Rebus’s approach. He tapped Bell’s shoulder. Bell turned, his face forming a cold smile.

“You’ll have come to apologize?” he guessed.

Rebus ignored him. “Don’t go in there, Kate,” he said, standing directly in front of her. “It can’t do any good.”

She couldn’t meet his gaze. “People need to know.” She spoke in an undertone, Bell nodding in agreement.

“Maybe so, but what they don’t need is a publicity stunt. It just cheapens everything, Kate, you must see that.”

Bell had turned his attention back to Hogan. “I must insist that this man be removed from here.”

“Must you?” Hogan echoed.

“He is already on record as having uttered abusive comments at my crew and myself…”

“Plenty more where that came from,” Rebus stated.

“John…” Hogan’s eyes warning him to calm down. Then: “I’m sorry, Mr. Bell, but I really can’t allow filming inside that room.”

“What if there’s no camera?” the director offered. “Sound only?”

Hogan was shaking his head. “You’re not going to move me on this.” He folded his arms, as if to signal an end to the discussion.