“Bobby’s a good guy. If it can be wrapped up fast, he’ll do it.”
“Media circus by all accounts. Grant Hood’s been drafted in to handle liaison.”
“Leaving us short-changed at St. Leonard ’s?” Rebus was thoughtful. “All the more reason for me to get back there.”
“Especially if I’m suspended…”
“You won’t be. You said it yourself, Siobhan-you didn’t have anything to do with Fairstone. Way I see it, it was an accident. Now that something bigger’s come along, maybe it’ll die a natural death, so to speak.”
“‘An accident.’” She was repeating his words.
He nodded slowly. “So don’t worry about it. Unless, of course, you really did top the bastard.”
“John…” There was a warning in her tone. Rebus smiled again and managed a wink.
“Only joking,” he said. “I know damned fine who Gill’s going to want to see in the frame for Fairstone.”
“He died in a fire, John.”
“And that means I killed him?” Rebus held up both hands, turning them this way and that. “Scalds, Siobhan. That’s all, just scalds.”
She rose from the chair. “If you say so, John.” Then she stood in front of him, while he lowered his hands, biting back the sudden rush of agony. A nurse was approaching, saying something about changing his dressings.
“I’m just going,” Siobhan informed her. Then, to Rebus: “I’d hate to think you’d do something so stupid and imagine it was on my behalf.”
He started shaking his head slowly, and she turned and walked away. “Keep the faith, Siobhan!” he called after her.
“That your daughter?” the nurse asked, making conversation.
“Just a friend, someone I work with.”
“You something to do with the Church?”
Rebus winced as she started unpeeling one of his bandages. “What makes you say that?”
“The way you were talking about faith.”
“Job like mine, you need more than most.” He paused. “But then, maybe it’s the same for you?”
“Me?” She smiled, her eyes on her handiwork. She was short and plain-looking and businesslike. “Can’t hang around waiting for faith to do anything for you. So how did you manage this?” She meant his blistered hands.
“I got into hot water,” he explained, feeling a bead of sweat beginning its slow journey down one temple.
“You keen to be on your way?”
“Keen to pick up a cup without dropping it.”
“Very public-minded, I’m sure. We’ll have to see what the doctor says.”
“And which doctor would that be?”
“Just have a bit of patience, eh?”
Patience: the one thing he had no time for.
“Maybe you’ll have some more visitors,” the nurse added.
He doubted it. No one knew he was here except Siobhan. He’d got one of the staff to call her so she could tell Templer that he was taking a sick day, maybe two at the most. Thing was, the call had brought Siobhan running. Maybe he’d known it would; maybe that’s why he’d phoned her rather than the station.
That had been yesterday afternoon. Yesterday morning, he’d given up the fight and walked into his GP’s office. The doctor filling in had taken one look and told him to get himself to a hospital. Rebus had taken a taxi to A amp;E, embarrassed when the driver had to dig the money for the fare out of his trouser pockets.
“Did you hear the news?” the cabbie had asked. “A shooting at a school.”
“Probably an air gun.”
But the man had shaken his head. “Worse than that, according to the radio…”
At A amp;E, Rebus had waited his turn. Eventually, his hands had been dressed, the injuries not serious enough to merit a trip to the Burns Unit out at Livingston. But he was running a high temperature, so they’d decided to keep him in, an ambulance transferring him from A amp;E to Little France. He thought they were probably keeping an eye on him in case he went into shock or something. Or it could be they feared he was one of those self-harm people. Nobody’d come to talk to him about that. Maybe that’s why they were hanging on to him: waiting for a psychiatrist with a free moment.
He wondered about Jean Burchill, the one person who might notice his sudden disappearance from home. But things had cooled there a little. They managed a night together maybe once every ten days. Spoke on the phone more frequently, met for coffee some afternoons. Already it felt like a routine. He recalled that a while ago he’d dated a nurse for a short time. He didn’t know if she still worked locally. He could always ask, but her name was escaping him. It was a problem: he had trouble sometimes with names. Forgot the odd appointment. Not a big deal really, just part and parcel of the aging process. But in court he found himself referring to his notes more and more when giving evidence. Ten years ago he hadn’t needed a script or any prompts. He’d acted with more confidence, and that always impressed juries-so lawyers had told him.
“There now.” His nurse was straightening up. She’d put fresh grease and gauze on his hands, wrapped the old bandages back around them. “Feel more comfortable?”
He nodded. The skin felt a little cooler, but he knew it wouldn’t last.
“You due any more painkillers?” The question was rhetorical. She checked the chart at the bottom of his bed. Earlier, after a visit to the toilet, he’d looked at it himself. It gave his temperature and medication, nothing else. No coded information meant to be understood only by those in the know. No record of the story he’d given when he was being examined.
The doctor had made a kind of noise at the back of his throat, something that said he would accept this without necessarily believing it. Overworked, lacking sleep-not his job to pry. Doctor rather than detective.
“I can give you some paracetamol,” the nurse suggested.
“Any chance of a beer to wash them down?”
She smiled that professional smile again. The years she’d worked in the NHS, she probably didn’t hear too many original lines.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“You’re an angel,” Rebus said, surprising himself. It was the sort of thing he felt a patient might say, one of those comfortable cliches. She was on her way, and he wasn’t sure she’d heard. Maybe it was something in the nature of hospitals. Even if you didn’t feel ill, they still had an effect, slowing you down, making you compliant. Institutionalizing you. It could be to do with the color scheme, the background hum. Maybe the heating of the place was complicit, too. Back at St. Leonard’s, they had a special cell for the “maddies.” It was bright pink and was supposed to calm them down. Why think a similar psychology wasn’t being employed here? Last thing they wanted was a stroppy patient, shouting the odds and jumping out of bed every five minutes. Hence the suffocating number of blankets, tightly tucked in to further hamper movement. Just lie still… propped by pillows… bask in the heat and light… Don’t make a fuss. Any more of this, he felt, and he’d start forgetting his own name. The world outside would cease to matter. No job waiting for him. No Fairstone. No maniac spraying gunfire through the classrooms…
Rebus turned on his side, using his legs to push free the sheets. It was a two-way fight, like Harry Houdini in a straitjacket. The man in the next bed over had opened his eyes and was watching. Rebus winked at him as he levered his feet into fresh air.
“Just you keep tunneling,” he told the man. “I’ll go for a walk, trickle the earth out of my trouser leg.”
The reference seemed lost on his fellow prisoner…
Siobhan was back at St. Leonard’s, loitering by the drink machine. A couple of uniforms were seated at a table in the small cafeteria, munching on sandwiches and crisps. The drink machine was in the adjoining hallway, with a view out to the car park. If she were a smoker, she would have an excuse to step outside, where there was less chance of Gill Templer finding her. But she didn’t smoke. She knew she could try ducking into the underventilated
