“That’ll do.” He took the tube from her and rubbed a thick layer of white cream over both hands. She’d opened her second bottle, rested against an arm of the sofa.
“Want me to let the water out?” she asked.
“What water?”
“The bath. You forgot to pull the plug. I’m assuming it’s the one you say you fell into…”
Rebus looked at her. “Who’ve you been talking to?”
“Doctor at the hospital. He sounded skeptical.”
“So much for patient confidentiality,” Rebus muttered. “Well, at least he’ll have told you they really are scalds, not burns?” She twitched her nose. “Thanks for checking up on my story.”
“I just knew it wasn’t very likely you’d be washing dishes. Now, about that bathwater…?”
“I’ll do it later.” He sat back, took a swig from his bottle. “Meantime, what are we going to do about Martin Fairstone?”
She shrugged, slid down onto the sofa proper. “What are we supposed to do? Apparently, neither of us killed him.”
“Talk to any fireman, they’ll all say the same thing: you want to do someone in and get away with it, you get them blind drunk and then turn on the chip pan.”
“So?”
“It’s something every cop knows, too.”
“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t an accident.”
“We’re cops, Siobhan: guilty until proven innocent. When did Fairstone give you that shiner?”
“How do you know it was him?” The look on Rebus’s face told her he felt insulted by the question. She sighed. “The Thursday before he died.”
“What happened?”
“He must’ve been following me. I was unloading bags of groceries from the car, carrying them into the stairwell. When I turned round, he was biting into an apple. He’d lifted it from one of the bags sitting at the curb. Had this big smile on his face. I walked right up to him… I was furious. Now he knew where I lived. I gave him a slap…” She smiled at the memory. “The apple went flying halfway across the road.”
“He could have had you for assault.”
“Well, he didn’t. He threw a fast right, caught me just below the eye. I staggered back and tripped over the step. Landed on my backside. He just walked away, picking up the apple again as he crossed the road.”
“You didn’t report it?”
“No.”
“Tell anyone how it happened?”
She shook her head. She remembered Rebus asking her; she’d shaken her head then, too. But knowing… knowing he wouldn’t have to work too hard. “Only after I found out he was dead,” she said. “I went to the boss and told her.”
There was a silence between them. Bottles were raised to mouths, eyes meeting eyes. Siobhan swallowed and licked her lips.
“I didn’t kill him,” Rebus said quietly.
“He made that complaint about you.”
“And withdrew it pronto.”
“Then it was an accident.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “Guilty until proven innocent,” he repeated.
Siobhan lifted her drink. “Here’s to the guilty.”
Rebus managed a half-smile. “That was the last time you saw him?” he asked.
She nodded. “What about you?”
“Weren’t you scared he’d come back?” He saw the look she gave him. “Okay, not ‘scared,’ then… but you must have wondered?”
“I took precautions.”
“What kind of precautions?”
“The usual: watched my back… tried not to go in or out after dark unless someone else was around.”
Rebus rested his head against the back of his chair. The music had finished. “Want to hear something else?” he asked.
“I want to hear you say that the last time you saw Fairstone was the time you had that fight.”
“I’d be lying.”
“So when did you see him?”
Rebus angled his head to look at her. “The night he died.” He paused. “But then, you already know that, don’t you?”
She nodded. “Templer told me.”
“I was just out for a drink, that’s all. Ended up next to him in a pub. We had a bit of a chat.”
“About me?”
“About the black eye. He said it was self-defense.” He paused. “Way you tell it, maybe it was.”
“Which pub was it?”
Rebus shrugged. “Somewhere near Gracemount.”
“Since when did you start drinking so far from the Oxford Bar?”
He looked at her. “So maybe I wanted to talk to him.”
“You went hunting for him?”
“Listen to Little Miss Prosecution!” Color had risen to Rebus’s face.
“And no doubt half the pub clocked you as CID,” she stated. “Which is how Templer found out.”
“Is that called ‘leading the witness’?”
“I can fight my own battles, John!”
“And he’d have put you on the deck every time. This bastard had a history of thumping people. You saw his record…”
“That didn’t give you the right -”
“We’re not talking about rights here.” Rebus leapt from the chair and made for the dining table, helping himself to a fresh bottle. “You want one?”
“Not if I’m driving.”
“Your choice.”
“That’s right, John.
“I didn’t top him, Siobhan. All I did was…” Rebus swallowed back the words.
“What?” She’d turned her body on the sofa to face him. “What?” she repeated.
“I went back to his house.” She just stared, mouth open a fraction. “He invited me back.”
“He
Rebus nodded. The bottle opener trembled in his hand. He delegated the job to Siobhan, who returned the opened bottle to him. “Bastard liked playing games, Siobhan. Said we should go back and have a drink, bury the hatchet.”
“Bury the hatchet?”
“His exact words.”
“And that’s what you did?”
“He wanted to talk… not about you, about anything but. Time he’d served, cell stories, how he grew up. Usual sob story, dad who thumped him, mum who didn’t care…”
“And you sat there and listened?”
“I sat there thinking how badly I wanted to smack him.”
“But you didn’t?”
Rebus shook his head. “He was pretty dopey by the time I left.”
“Not in the kitchen, though?”
“In the living room…”
“Did you see the kitchen?”
Rebus shook his head again.
