A Question of Blood

“A cheap point is always worth scoring,” Rebus agreed.

Hogan stopped at the Passat, fumbling in his pocket for the keys. “Douglas Brimson?” he asked.

“Another of Niles’s visitors,” Rebus explained. “With an address at Turnhouse.”

“Turnhouse?” Hogan frowned. “You mean the airport?”

Rebus nodded.

“Is there anything else out there?”

“Apart from the airport, you mean?” Rebus shrugged. “Might be worth finding out,” he said as the car’s central lock clunked open.

“What’s this about you waiting to be suspended?”

“I had to say something.”

“But why pick that?”

“Jesus, Bobby, I thought the analyst had left the building.”

“If there’s anything I should know, John…”

“There isn’t.”

“I brought you in on this, I can dump you just as quickly. Remember that.”

“You’re a real motivator, Bobby.” Rebus pulled the passenger-side door closed. It was going to be a long drive…

9

MAKE MY DAY (C.O.D.Y.).

Siobhan stared at the note again. Same handwriting as yesterday, she was sure of that. Second-class mail, but it had taken only a day to reach her. The address was perfect, down to the St. Leonard’s postcode. No name this time, but she didn’t need a name, did she? That was the point the writer was making.

Make my day: a reference to Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry? Who did she know called Harry? Nobody. She wasn’t sure whether she was meant to get the C.O.D.Y. reference, but straight off she knew what it meant: Come On Die Young. She knew it because it was the title of a Mogwai album, one she’d bought a while back. A piece of American gang graffiti, something like that. Who did she know, apart from her, who liked Mogwai? She’d loaned Rebus a couple of CDs, months ago. Nobody in the station really knew her taste in music. Grant Hood had been to her flat a few times… so had Eric Bain… Maybe she hadn’t been meant to get the meaning, not without working at it. She guessed most fans of the band were younger than her, teens and early twenties. Probably mostly male, too. Mogwai played instrumentals, mixing ambient guitar with ear-wrenching noise. She couldn’t remember if Rebus had ever given her back the CDs… Had one of them been Come On Die Young?

Without realizing it, she’d walked from her desk to the window, peering out on to St. Leonard’s Lane. The CID room was dead, all the Port Edgar interviews concluded. Transcripts would be typed up, collated. It would be someone’s job to feed it all into the computer system, see if technology could find connections missed by the merely mortal…

The letter writer wanted her to make his day. His day? She studied the writing again. Maybe an expert could tell if it was a masculine or feminine hand. She suspected the writer had disguised his or her real handwriting. Hence the scrawl. She went back to her desk and called Ray Duff.

“Ray, it’s Siobhan-got anything for me?”

“Morning to you, too, DS Clarke. Didn’t I say I’d get back to you when-if-I found something?”

“Meaning you haven’t?”

“Meaning I’m up to my neck. Meaning I haven’t yet got round to doing very much about your letter, for which I can only offer an apology and the excuse that I’m flesh and blood.”

“Sorry, Ray.” She gave a sigh, pinched the bridge of her nose.

“You’ve had another one?” he guessed.

“Yes.”

“One yesterday, one today?”

“That’s right.”

“Want to send me it?”

“I think I’ll hang on to this one, Ray.”

“As soon as I’ve got news, I’ll call you.”

“I know you will. Sorry I’ve bothered you.”

“Speak to someone, Siobhan.”

“I already have. Bye, Ray.”

She cut the call, tried Rebus’s mobile, but he wasn’t answering. She didn’t bother with a message. Folded the note, put it back in its envelope, slipped the envelope into her pocket. On her desk sat a dead teenager’s laptop, her task for the day. There were over a hundred files in there. Some would be computer applications, but most were documents created by Derek Renshaw. She’d already looked at a few: correspondence, school essays. Nothing about the car crash in which his friend had died. Looked like he’d been trying to set up some sort of jazz fanzine. There were pages of layout, photos scanned in, some of them lifted from the ’Net. Plenty of enthusiasm, but no real talent for writing. Miles was an innovator, no question, but later on he acted more as a scout, finding the best new talent around and embracing it, hoping something would rub off on himself… Siobhan just hoped Miles had wiped himself clean afterwards. She sat in front of the laptop and stared at it, trying to concentrate. The word CODY was bouncing around her head. Maybe it was a clue… leading to someone with that surname. She didn’t think she knew anyone named Cody. For a moment she had a jarring thought: Fairstone was still alive, and the charred corpse belonged to someone called Cody. She shook the notion aside, took a deep breath, got back to work.

And hit an immediate brick wall. She couldn’t log on to Derek Renshaw’s e-mail account without his password. She picked up the phone and called South Queensferry, thankful that Kate answered rather than her father.

“Kate, it’s Siobhan Clarke.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve got Derek’s computer here.”

“Dad told me.”

“But I forgot to ask for his password.”

“What do you need that for?”

“To look at any new e-mails.”

“Why?” Sounding exasperated, wanting it all to be finished.

“Because that’s what we do, Kate.” Silence on the line. “Kate?”

“What?”

“Just checking you hadn’t hung up on me.”

“Oh… right.” And then the line went dead. Kate Renshaw had hung up on her. Siobhan gave a silent curse, decided she’d try again later or get Rebus to do it. He was family after all. Besides, she had the folder with all Derek’s old e-mails-no code needed to access that. She scrolled back, found that there were four years’ worth of e-mails in the folder. She hoped Derek had been neat and tidy, hoped he’d erased all the junk. She was five minutes into the task and bored of rugby scores and match reports when her phone rang. It was Kate.

“I’m really sorry,” the voice said.

“Don’t be. It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not. You’re just trying to do your job.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to like it. If I’m being honest, I don’t always like it either.”

“His password was Miles.”

Of course. It would have taken Siobhan only a few minutes of lateral thinking.

“Thanks, Kate.”

“He liked to go online. Dad complained for a while about the phone bills.”