Ian Rankin - A Question of Blood

Rebus nodded. James flicked through the book, then tapped it against his thigh. “Reckon I’ve got what I came for,” he said.

“Anything else you want to take?” Rebus lifted a CD. “It’ll probably go into a Dumpster, to be honest.”

“Will it?”

“His wife doesn’t seem interested.”

“What a waste…” Rebus held out the CD, but James shook his head. “I couldn’t. It wouldn’t seem right.”

Rebus nodded, remembering his own reticence in front of the fridge.

“I’ll leave you to it, Inspector.” James tucked the book beneath his arm, stretched out his right hand for Rebus to shake. The coat slipped from his shoulder, crumpling to the floor. Rebus stepped around him and picked it up, replacing it.

“Thank you,” James Bell said. “I’ll see myself out.”

“Cheers, James. Good luck to you.”

Rebus waited in the living room, chin resting on one gloved hand as he listened to the front door open and then close. James was a long way from home… drawn by a light shining in a dead man’s house. Rebus still wondered who the young man had expected to find… Muffled footsteps descending the stone stairs. Rebus crossed to the desk and shuffled through the remaining books. They all had a military theme, but Rebus was confident he knew which one the young man had taken.

The same one Siobhan had held up on their first visit to the flat.

The one from which Teri Cotter’s photo had fallen…

Tuesday morning, Rebus left his flat, walked to the foot of Marchmont Road, and proceeded across the Meadows, an area of parkland leading to the university. Students passed him, some of them on creaky bicycles. Others shuffled sleepily towards classes. The day was overcast, the sky’s color mirroring the slate-gray roofs. Rebus was headed for George IV Bridge. By now, he knew the drill at the National Library. The guard would allow you through, but you then had to climb the stairs and persuade the librarian on duty that your need was desperate and no other library would do. Rebus showed his warrant card, explained what he wanted, and was directed towards the microfiche room. That was the way they kept the old papers nowadays: as rolls of microfilm. Years back, working one particular case, Rebus had taken a seat in the reading room, a janitor dutifully unloading a cart of bound broadsheets onto the desk. Now, it was a case of switching on a screen and threading a spool of tape through the machine.

Rebus had no specific dates in mind. He’d decided to go back a full month before the crash on Jura and just let the days roll across his vision, see what was happening back then. By the time he got to the day of the crash, he had a pretty good idea. The story had made the front page of the Scotsman, accompanied by photos of two of the victims: Brigadier General Stuart Phillips and Major Kevin Spark. A day later, Phillips being Scots-born, the paper ran a lengthy obituary, giving Rebus more than he needed to know about the man’s upbringing and professional accomplishments. He checked the notes he’d been scribbling and wound the film to its end, replacing it with a roll from the previous two weeks, eventually spooling back to the date in his notes, the story about the IRA cease-fire in Northern Ireland, and the part being played in ongoing negotiations by Brigadier General Stuart Phillips. Preconditions being discussed, distrustful paramilitaries on both sides, splinter groups to be appeased… Rebus tapped his pen against his teeth until he noticed another user nearby frowning. Rebus mouthed the word “sorry” and cast his eyes over some of the other stories in the paper: earth summits, foreign wars, football reports… The face of Christ found in a pomegranate; a cat that got lost but found its way back to its owners, even though they’d moved in the interim…

The photo of the cat reminded him of Boethius. He went back to the main desk, asked where the encyclopedias were kept. He looked up Boethius. Roman philosopher, translator, politician… accused of treason and while awaiting execution wrote The Consolations of Philosophy, in which he argued that everything was changeable and lacked any measure of certainty… everything except virtue. Rebus wondered if the book might help him comprehend Derek Renshaw’s fate, and its effect on those closest to him. Somehow he doubted it. In his universe, the guilty too often went unpunished, while the victims went unnoticed. Bad things were always happening to good people, and vice versa. If God had planned things that way, the old bastard was blessed with a sick sense of humor. Easier to say that there was no plan, that random chance had taken Lee Herdman into that classroom.

But Rebus suspected that this wasn’t true either…

He decided to head out onto George IV Bridge for coffee and a cigarette. He’d spoken to Siobhan first thing by telephone, letting her know he’d be busy in town and wouldn’t be hooking up with her. She hadn’t sounded too bothered, hadn’t even seemed curious. She seemed to be drifting away from him, not that he could blame her. He’d always been a magnet for trouble, and her career prospects wouldn’t exactly be enhanced by his proximity. All the same, he thought there was more to it than that. Maybe she really did see him as a collector, as someone who got too close to certain people, people he cared about or was interested in… uncomfortably close at times. He thought of Miss Teri’s website, how it maintained an illusion that the viewer was connected to her. A one-way relationship: they could see her, but she couldn’t see them. Was she another example of a “specimen”?

Seated in the Elephant House coffee shop, sipping a large milky coffee, Rebus took out his mobile. He’d smoked a cigarette on the pavement before coming in: never knew these days whether smoking would be allowed indoors or not. He punched buttons with his thumbnail, connecting to Bobby Hogan’s mobile.

“Goon Squad taken over yet, Bobby?” he asked.

“Not completely.” Hogan knowing who Rebus meant: Claverhouse and Ormiston.

“But they’re in the area?”

“Pallying up to your girlfriend.”

It took Rebus a moment to work it out. “Whiteread?” he guessed.

“That’s the one.”

“Nothing Claverhouse would like more than hearing a few old stories about me.”

“Might explain the grin on his face.”

“Exactly how persona non grata do you reckon I am?”

“Nobody’s said. Whereabouts are you anyway? Is that an espresso machine I can hear hissing in the background?”

“Mid-morning break, guv’nor, that’s all. I’m digging into Herdman’s time in the regiment.”

“You know I fell at the first hurdle?”

“Don’t worry about it, Bobby. I couldn’t see the SAS handing over his file without a bigger fight than we can put up.”

“So how are you managing to look into his army record?”

“Laterally, you might say.”

“Care to enlighten me further?”

“Not until I’ve found something useful.”

“John… the parameters of the inquiry are shifting.”

“In plain English, Bobby?”

“The ‘why’ doesn’t seem to matter so much anymore.”

“Because the drug angle’s a lot more interesting?” Rebus guessed. “Are you shutting me down, Bobby?”

“Not my style, John, you know that. What I’m saying is, it may be out of my hands.”

“And Claverhouse isn’t running my fan club?”

“He’s not even on the mailing list.”

Rebus was thoughtful. Hogan filled the silence. “Way things are going, I might as well join you for that coffee…”

“You’re being sidelined?”

“From referee to fourth official.”