Ian Rankin: A Question of Blood

“Let’s just say I’m wavering.”

“Thanks for backing me up, boss. Let me know if you get anything else, will you?”

“I’ll try. What are you up to? Anything new I should be starting to worry about?”

“Maybe… Watch the sky over Barnton for fireworks.” He cut the call, made sure his phone was switched off, and went back into the room.

“I assure you, we’ll be as quick as we can,” Hogan was saying. Then he looked up at Rebus. “Now I’m going to hand things over to my colleague.” Rebus pretended to take his time over forming his first question, then stared hard at James Bell.

“Why did you do it, James?”

“What?”

Jack Bell shifted forwards. “I think I must protest at your tone…”

“Sorry about that, sir. I get a bit agitated sometimes when someone’s been lying to me. Not just to me, but to everyone: the whole inquiry, his parents, the media… everyone .” James was staring back at him. Rebus folded his arms. “See, James, we’re beginning to piece together what really happened in that classroom, and I’ve got news for you. When you fire a gun, there are traces left on your skin. They can last weeks, last through a dozen washings and scrubbings. On your shirt cuffs, too. Remember, we’ve still got the shirt you were wearing.”

“What the hell are you saying?” Jack Bell snarled, face filling with blood. “Do you expect me to let you walk into my house and accuse an eighteen-year-old boy of…? Is that the way you work in the police force these days?”

“Dad…”

“It’s because of me, isn’t it? You’re trying to get at me through my son. Just because you made a horrific mistake that nearly cost me my job, my marriage…”

“Dad…” James’s voice had risen a fraction.

“Now this terrible tragedy occurs and all you can do is -”

“There’s no vendetta here, sir,” Hogan was protesting.

“Even though the arresting officer in Leith swears he had you dead to rights,” Rebus couldn’t help adding.

“John…,” Hogan warned.

“You see?” Jack Bell’s voice was a tremor of anger. “You see the way it is, and always will be? Because you’re too arrogant to -”

James leapt to his feet. “Will you shut the fuck up? For once in your bloody life, will you just shut the fuck up?”

Silence in the room, even though the words seemed to hang in the air, reverberating. James Bell sat back down again slowly.

“Maybe,” Hogan said quietly, “if we could let James have his say.” Directing his words to the MSP, who seemed stunned, eyes on a son he’d never known existed, someone suddenly revealed to him.

“You can’t talk to me like that.” Looking at James, voice barely audible.

“I thought I just did,” James told his father. Then, eyes focused on Rebus, “Let’s get this over with.”

Rebus moistened his lips. “Right now, James, probably the only thing we can prove is that you were shot at point-blank range-contrary to the story you’ve been sticking to thus far-and that the angle of the shot would suggest that you did it yourself. However, you’ve also admitted knowing of at least one of Lee Herdman’s guns, which is why I think maybe you took the Brocock intending to shoot and kill Anthony Jarvies and Derek Renshaw.”

“They were wankers, the pair of them.”

“And that constitutes a good enough reason?”

“James,” Jack Bell warned, “I don’t want you saying anything to these men.”

His son ignored him. “They had to die.”

Jack Bell’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. James concentrated on the water glass, turning it and turning it.

“Why did they have to die?” Rebus asked quietly.

James shrugged. “I’ve already said.”

“You didn’t like them?” Rebus suggested. “And that’s all there is to it?”

“Plenty of my peers have killed for less. Or haven’t you been watching the news? America, Germany, Yemen… Sometimes it’s enough that you don’t like Mondays.”

“Help me understand, James. I know you had different taste in music…”

“Not just in music: in everything!”

“A different outlook on life?” Hogan suggested.

“Maybe,” Rebus said, “a part of you wanted to impress Teri Cotter, too.”

James glared at him. “Leave her out of this.”

“That’s not easy to do, James. After all, Teri’d told you she was obsessed with death, hadn’t she?” James said nothing. “I think you’d become a bit infatuated with her.”

“How would you know?” the teenager sneered.

“Well, for a start, you made that trip to Cockburn Street to take her picture.”

“I took a lot of photos.”

“But you kept hers in that book you loaned to Lee. You didn’t like it that she’d slept with him, did you? Didn’t like it when Jarvies and Renshaw told you they’d found her website, watching her in her bedroom.” Rebus paused. “How am I doing?”

“You know a lot, Inspector.”

Rebus shook his head. “But there’s so much I don’t know, James. And I’m hoping maybe you’ll fill in the gaps.”

“You don’t have to say anything, James,” his father croaked. “You’re a minor… there are laws to protect you. You’ve suffered a trauma. No court in the land would…” He looked across at the detectives. “Surely he should have a solicitor present?”

“I don’t want one,” James snapped.

“But you must.” The father sounded aghast.

The son sneered. “It’s not about you anymore, Dad, do you see? It’s all about me now. I’m the one who’s going to put you back on the front pages, but for all the wrong reasons. And in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not a minor-I’m eighteen. Old enough to vote, old enough to do lots of things.” He seemed to wait for a retort that did not come, then turned his attention back to Rebus. “What is it you need to know?”

“Am I right about Teri?”

“I knew she was sleeping with Lee.”

“When you gave him that book… you left her photo there deliberately?”

“I suppose so.”

“Hoping he’d see it, and do what?” Rebus watched as James shrugged. “Maybe it was enough that he would know you liked her, too.” Rebus paused. “Why that particular book, though?”

James looked at him. “Because Lee wanted to read it. He knew the story, how the guy had jumped to his death from a plane. He wasn’t…” James seemed unable to find the words he needed. He took a deep breath. “He was a deeply unhappy man, you must realize that.”

“Unhappy in what way?”

The word came to James. “Haunted,” he said. “That’s the sense I always got. He was haunted.”

There was silence in the room for a moment, broken by Rebus: “You took the gun from Lee’s flat?”

“That’s right.”

“He didn’t know?”

A shake of the head.

“You knew about the Brocock?” Bobby Hogan asked, just about keeping his voice under control. James nodded.

“So how come he turned up at the school?” Rebus asked.

“I left him a note. Didn’t expect him to find it so soon.”

“What was your plan then, James?”

“Just walk into the common room-usually only the two of them there-and kill them.”

“In cold blood?”

“That’s right.”

“Two kids who’d done you no harm?”

“Two less on the planet.” The teenager shrugged. “I don’t see typhoons and hurricanes, earthquakes and famine…”

“And that’s why you did it, because it wouldn’t matter?”

James was thoughtful. “Maybe.”

Rebus looked down at the carpet, trying to control the rage growing within him. My family… my blood …

“It all happened so fast,” James was telling them. “I was amazed how calm I felt. Bang bang, two bodies… Lee was walking in the door as I shot the second one. He just stood there, the pair of us did. Didn’t know quite what to do.” He smiled at the memory. “Then he held out his hand for the gun, and I handed it over.” The smile evaporated. “Last thing I expected was for the stupid sod to point it at his own head.”