“I don’t think that would stop her, do you?”
“Probably right,” he admitted. Then, raising his voice: “One last thing, Whiteread-young Gav was looking up your skirt!”
As Rebus turned to leave, he shrugged at Siobhan, as if to acknowledge that the shot had been cheap.
Cheap, but worthwhile.
“I mean it, Bobby, what the hell’s the matter with you?” Rebus was walking down one of the school’s long corridors towards what looked very much like a floor-to-ceiling safe, the old kind with a wheel and some tumblers. It stood open, as did an interior steel gate. Hogan was staring inside.
“God almighty, man, those bastards have no place here.”
“John,” Hogan said quietly, “I don’t think you’ve met the principal…” He gestured into the vault, where a middle-aged man was standing, surrounded by enough guns to start a revolution. “Dr. Fogg,” Hogan said, by way of introduction.
Fogg stepped over the threshold. He was a short, stocky man with the look of a onetime boxer: one ear seemed puffy, and his nose covered half his face. A nick of scar tissue cut through one of his bushy eyebrows. “Eric Fogg,” he said, shaking Rebus’s hand.
“Sorry about my language back there, sir. I’m DI John Rebus.”
“Working in a school, you hear worse,” Fogg stated, making it sound like something he’d said a hundred times before.
Siobhan had caught up and was about to introduce herself when she saw the contents of the vault.
“Jesus Christ!” she exclaimed.
“My thoughts exactly,” Rebus agreed.
“As I was explaining to DI Hogan,” Fogg began, “most independent schools have something like this on the premises.”
“CCF, is that right, Dr. Fogg?” Hogan added.
Fogg nodded. “The Combined Cadet Force-army, navy and air force cadets. They parade each Friday afternoon.” He paused. “I think a big incentive is that they can eschew school uniforms that day.”
“For something slightly more paramilitary?” Rebus guessed.
“Automatic, semi-automatic and other weapons,” Hogan recited.
“Probably deters the odd housebreaker.”
“Actually,” Fogg said, “I was just telling DI Hogan that if the school’s alarm system is activated, the responding police units are instructed to make for the armory first. It dates back to when the IRA and suchlike were looking for guns.”
“You’re not saying the ammo’s kept here, too?” Siobhan asked.
Fogg shook his head. “There’s no live ammo on the premises.”
“But the guns are real enough? They’re not deactivated?”
“Oh, they’re real enough.” He looked at the contents of the vault with something approaching distaste.
“You’re not a fan?” Rebus guessed.
“I think the practice is… slightly in danger of outliving its useful application.”
“There speaks a diplomat,” Rebus said, forcing a smile from the principal.
“Herdman didn’t get his gun from here?” Siobhan was asking.
Hogan shook his head. “That’s another thing I’m hoping the army investigators might help us with.” He looked at Rebus. “Always supposing you can’t.”
“Give us a break, Bobby. We’ve hardly been here five minutes.”
“Do you do any teaching, sir?” Siobhan asked Fogg, hoping to defuse any argument her two senior officers might be thinking of starting.
Fogg shook his head. “I used to: RME-religious and moral education.”
“Instilling a sense of morality in teenagers? That must’ve been tough.”
“I’ve yet to meet a teenager who started a war.” The voice rang slightly false: another prepared answer to an oft-put point.
“Only because we don’t tend to give them the firepower,” Rebus commented, staring again at the array of arms.
Fogg was relocking the iron gate.
“So nothing’s missing?” Rebus asked.
Hogan shook his head. “But both victims were in the CCF.”
Rebus looked at Fogg, who nodded confirmation. “Anthony was a very keen member… Derek a little less so.”
Anthony Jarvies: the judge’s son. His father, Roland Jarvies, was well known in Scottish courts. Rebus had probably given evidence fifteen or twenty times in cases over which Lord Jarvies had presided with wit and what one lawyer had described as “a gimlet eye.” Rebus wasn’t sure what a gimlet eye was, but he got the idea.
“We were wondering,” Siobhan was saying, “whether anyone’s been looking at Herdman’s bank or credit union.”
Hogan studied her. “His accountant’s been very helpful. Business wasn’t going to the wall or anything.”
“But no sudden deposits?” Rebus asked.
Hogan narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
Rebus glanced in the principal’s direction. He hadn’t meant for Fogg to notice, but he did.
“Would you like me to…?” Fogg said.
“We’re not quite finished, Dr. Fogg, if that’s all right.” Hogan’s eyes met Rebus’s. “I’m sure whatever DI Rebus wants to say will be kept between us.”
“Of course,” Fogg stressed. He had locked the door of the vault and now turned the combination wheel.
“The other kid who was killed,” Rebus started to explain to Hogan. “He was in a car crash last year. The driver was killed. We’re wondering if it’s too far back for revenge to be a motive.”
“Doesn’t explain why Herdman would top himself after.”
“Botched job maybe,” Siobhan said, folding her arms. “Two other kids got hit, Herdman panicked…”
“So when you talk about Herdman’s bank, you’re thinking a big, recent deposit?”
Rebus nodded.
“I’ll get someone to take a look. Only thing we’ve got from his business accounts is a missing computer.”
“Oh?”
Siobhan asked if it could be a tax dodge.
“Could be,” Hogan agreed. “But there’s a receipt. We’ve talked to the shop that sold him the setup-top of the line.”
“Reckon he ditched it?” Rebus asked.
“Why would he do that?”
Rebus shrugged.
“Perhaps to cover something up?” Fogg suggested. When they looked at him, he lowered his eyes. “Not that it’s my place to…”
“Don’t apologize, sir,” Hogan reassured him. “You might have a good point.” Hogan rubbed a hand across his eyes, turned his attention back to Rebus. “Anything else?”
“These army bastards,” Rebus began. Hogan held up the same hand.
“You just have to accept them.”
“Come on, they’re not here to shed any light. If anything, it’ll be the opposite. They want his SAS past forgotten, hence the plainclothes. For Whiteread, read ‘whitewash.’”
“Look, I’m sorry if they’re stepping on your toes -”
“Or trampling us to death,” Rebus interrupted.
“John, this investigation’s bigger than you and me, bigger than
“Language, please, Bobby,” Rebus said, glancing meaningfully towards Fogg.
As Rebus had hoped, Hogan started to remember Rebus’s own recent outburst, and his face cracked into a smile.
