She looked at him. “Dad told me the other boy was a judge’s son.”
“You didn’t know him?”
She shook her head. “Not well.”
“Weren’t you a pupil at Port Edgar?”
“Yes, but Derek’s two years younger than me.”
“I think what Kate means,” Siobhan clarified, “is that all the boys in his year were two years younger than her, so she wouldn’t be disposed to have any interest in them.”
“Too true,” Kate agreed.
“What about Lee Herdman? Did you know him?”
She met Rebus’s stare, then nodded slowly. “I went out with him once.” She paused. “I mean, I went out on his boat. A bunch of us did. We thought waterskiing would be glamorous, but it was too much like hard work, and he scared the shit out of me.”
“In what way?”
“If you were on the skis, he tried to freak you out, pointing the boat towards one of the bridge supports or Inch Garvie Island. You know it?”
“The one that looks like a fortress?” Siobhan guessed.
“I suppose they must have had guns there during the war, cannons or something to stop anyone coming up the Forth.”
“So Herdman tried scaring you?” Rebus asked, steering the conversation back on course.
“I think it was some sort of trial, to see if your nerve held. We all thought he was a maniac.” She stopped abruptly, hearing her own words. Some of the color left her already pale face. “I mean, I never thought he’d…”
“Nobody did, Kate,” Siobhan reassured her.
It took the young woman a few seconds to regain her composure. “They’re saying he was in the army, maybe even a spy.” Rebus didn’t know where she was headed, but nodded anyway. She looked down at the cat, who now lay with eyes closed, purring loudly. “This is going to sound crazy…”
Rebus leaned forwards. “What is it, Kate?”
“Well, it’s just… the first thing that went through my mind when I heard…”
“What?”
She looked from Rebus to Siobhan and then back again. “No, it’s just too stupid.”
“Then I’m your man,” Rebus said, giving her a smile. She almost smiled back, then took a deep breath.
“Derek was in a car smash a year back. He was okay, but the other kid, the one who was driving…”
“He died?” Siobhan guessed. Kate nodded.
“Neither of them had a license, and they’d both been drinking. Derek felt really guilty about it. Not that there was a court case or anything…”
“So what’s it got to do with the shooting?” Rebus asked.
She shrugged. “Nothing at all. It’s just that when I heard… when Dad phoned me… I suddenly remembered something Derek told me a few months after the crash. He said the dead boy’s family hated him. And that’s why I thought what I did. Soon as I remembered that, the word that jumped into my head was…
Siobhan got up, too. “Kate,” she said, “how are you coping?”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m sorry about your mother.”
“Don’t be. Her and Dad used to fight all the time. At least we don’t have that anymore…” And with another forced smile, Kate left the kitchen. Rebus looked at Siobhan, a slight raising of the eyebrows the only indication that he’d heard anything of interest in the past ten minutes. He followed Siobhan into the living room. It was dark outside now, and he switched on one of the lamps.
“Think I should close the curtains?” Siobhan asked.
“Reckon anyone would open them again come morning?”
“Maybe not.”
“Then leave them open.” Rebus switched on another lamp. “This place needs all the light it can get.” He sifted through some of the photos. Blurred faces, backdrops he recognized. Siobhan was studying the family portraits lining the room.
“The mother’s been erased from history,” she commented.
“Something else,” Rebus said casually. She looked at him.
“What?”
He waved an arm towards the shelf units. “It may be my imagination, but seems like there are more photos of Derek than there are of Kate.”
Siobhan saw what he meant. “What do we make of that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe some of the photos of Kate had her mother in them, too.”
“Then again, they sometimes say the youngest child becomes the parents’ favorite.”
“You’re speaking from experience?”
“I’ve got a younger brother, if that’s what you mean.”
Siobhan thought about this. “Do you think you should tell him?”
“Who?”
“Your brother.”
“Tell him he was always the apple of our dad’s eye?”
“No, tell him what’s happened here.”
“That would entail locating his whereabouts.”
“You don’t even know where your own brother is?”
Rebus shrugged. “That’s the way it is, Siobhan.”
They heard footsteps on the stairs. Kate came back into the room.
“He’s asleep,” she said. “He’s been sleeping a lot.”
“I’m sure it’s the best thing,” Siobhan said, almost wincing as the cliche trickled out.
“Kate,” Rebus interrupted, “we’re going to leave you alone now. But I’ve got one last question, if that’s all right with you.”
“I won’t know till I’ve heard it.”
“It’s just this: I’m wondering if you can tell us exactly when and where Derek’s car crash took place?”
D Division headquarters was a venerable old building in the middle of Leith. The drive from South Queensferry hadn’t taken too long-the evening traffic had been heading out of the city rather than in. The CID offices were quiet. Rebus reckoned everyone had been pulled to the school shooting. He found a member of the admin staff and asked her where the files might be kept. Siobhan was already stabbing at a keyboard, in case she could find anything that way. In the end, the file was tracked down to one of the storage closets, moldering on a shelf alongside hundreds of others. Rebus thanked the admin clerk.
“Happy to help,” she said. “This place has been a real graveyard today.”
“Just as well the villains don’t know that,” Rebus said with a wink.
She snorted. “It’s bad enough at the best of times.” By which she meant understaffing.
“I owe you a drink,” Rebus told her as she turned to go. Siobhan watched her wave a hand, not looking back.
“You didn’t even get her name,” she said.
“I won’t be buying her a drink either.” Rebus placed the file on a desk and sat down, making room so that Siobhan could slide a chair across to join him.
“Still seeing Jean?” she asked as he opened the file. Then she screwed up her face. Sitting on top of the sheets of paper was a glossy color photograph of the accident scene. The dead teenager had been wrenched from the driving seat, so that the upper half of his body was sprawled across the car hood. There were more photos underneath: autopsy shots. Rebus slid them beneath the file and started to read.
Two friends: Derek Renshaw, sixteen, and Stuart Cotter, seventeen. They’d decided to borrow Stuart’s dad’s
