A Question of Blood

“Guns?”

“The rescue team brought rifles with them. I thought it was a bit odd at the time.”

“Did you ever happen across any of these documents yourself?” Rebus asked. Mollison nodded. “But I never looked at them. Just crunched them into a ball and brought them back.”

“Pity,” Rebus said, with the wriest smile he could manage.

“It’s beautiful up here,” Siobhan said suddenly, shielding her eyes from the sun.

“It is, isn’t it?” Mollison agreed, face breaking into a grin.

“Speaking of boiling a brew,” Brimson interrupted, “got that canteen of tea on you?” Siobhan opened her backpack and handed it over. The four of them passed the single plastic cup between them. It tasted the way tea always did from a canteen: hot, but somehow not quite right. Rebus was walking around the area at the foot of the incline.

“Did anything strike you as strange?” he was asking Mollison.

“Strange?”

“About the mission… about the people or what they were up to?” Mollison shook his head. “Did you get to know them at all?”

“We were only out here the two days.”

“You didn’t know Lee Herdman?” Rebus had brought a photo with him. He handed it over.

“He’s the one who shot the schoolkids?” Mollison waited for Rebus to nod, then stared at the photo again. “I remember him, all right. Nice enough guy… quiet. Not exactly what you’d call a team player.”

“How do you mean?”

“He liked it best in the woods, tracking down the bits and pieces of paper. Every little scrap. The others joked about it. They’d have to call him two or three times when the tea was being poured.”

“Maybe he knew it wasn’t worth hurrying for.” Brimson sniffed the surface of the cup.

“Are you saying I can’t make tea?” Siobhan complained. Brimson held up his hands in surrender.

“How long were they here?” Rebus was asking Mollison.

“Two days. The salvage squad arrived on the second day. Took them another week to ship the wreckage out.”

“Did you get talking to them much?”

Mollison shrugged. “Seemed nice enough lads. Very focused on their work.”

Rebus nodded and started walking into the forest. Not too far, but it was amazing how quickly you started to get the sense of being isolated, cut off from the still visible faces and still audible voices. What was that Brian Eno album? Another Green World. First there had been the world as seen from the air, and now this… equally alien and vibrant. Lee Herdman had walked into these woods and almost not come out again. His last mission before leaving the SAS. Had he learned something here? Found something?

Rebus had a sudden thought: you never really left the SAS. An indelible mark remained, just beyond your everyday feelings and actions. You came to the realization that there were other worlds, other realities. You’d had experiences beyond the usual. You’d been trained to see life as just another mission, filled with potential booby traps and assassins. Rebus wondered how far he himself had been able to travel from his days in the Paras, and training for the SAS.

Had he been in free fall ever since?

And had Lee Herdman, like the airman of the poem, foreseen his own death?

He crouched down, ran a hand over the ground. Twigs and leaves, springy moss, a covering of native flowers and weeds. Saw in his mind’s eye the helicopter hit the rock face. Malfunction, or pilot error.

Malfunction, pilot error, or something more terrible…

Saw the sky explode as the fuel ignited, rotor blades slowing, buckling. It would drop like a stone, bodies flying from it, concertinaing on impact. The dull thud of flesh hitting solid ground… same noise Andy Callis’s body would have made when it hit the railway line. The explosion sending the contents of the chopper bursting outwards, paper crisped at the edges or reduced to confetti. Secret papers, needing the SAS to recover them. And Lee Herdman busier than most as he plunged deeper and deeper into the woods. He recalled Teri Cotter’s words about Herdman: that was the thing about him… like he had secrets. He thought of the missing computer, the one Herdman had bought for his business. Where was it? Who had it? What secrets might it reveal?

“You okay?” Siobhan’s voice. She was holding the cup, newly replenished. Rebus rose to his feet.

“Fine,” he said.

“I called you.”

“I didn’t hear.” He took the cup from her.

“A touch of the Lee Herdmans?” she said.

“Could be.” He took a slurp of tea.

“Are we going to find anything here?”

He shrugged. “Maybe it’s enough just to see the place.”

“You think he took something, don’t you?” Her eyes were on his. “You think he took something, and the army wants it back.” No longer a question but a statement. Rebus nodded slowly.

“And this concerns us how?” she asked.

“Maybe because we don’t like them,” Rebus answered. “Or because whatever it is, they haven’t found it yet, which means someone else might. Maybe someone found it last week…”

“And when Herdman found out, he went berserk?”

Rebus shrugged again, handed back the empty cup. “You like Brimson, don’t you?”

She didn’t blink but couldn’t hold his gaze.

“It’s okay,” he said with a smile. She misread his tone, managed a glare.

“Oh, so I have your permission, do I?”

His turn to raise his hands in surrender. “I just meant…” But he didn’t think anything he said would help, so he let the words trail off. “Tea’s too strong, by the way,” he told her, making his way back towards the rock face.

“At least I thought to bring some,” Siobhan muttered, tipping out the dregs.

***

On the flight back, Rebus sat silently in the backseat, though Siobhan had offered to swap. He kept his face to the window, as if transfixed by the passing views, giving Siobhan and Brimson the chance to talk. Brimson showed her the controls and how to use them, and made her promise to take a flying lesson from him. It was as if they’d forgotten about Lee Herdman, and maybe, Rebus was forced to reflect, they had a point. Most people in South Queensferry, even the families of the victims, just wanted to get on with their lives. What was past was past, and there was no changing it or making things right again. You had to let go sometime…

If you could.

Rebus closed his eyes against the sun’s sudden glare. It bathed his face in warmth and light. He realized he was exhausted, in danger of dropping off to sleep; realized, too, that it didn’t matter. Sleep was fine. But he awoke again minutes later with a start, having dreamed that he was alone in a strange city, clad only in an old-fashioned pair of striped pajamas. Barefoot and with no money on him, seeking out anyone who might help, while all the time trying to look as if he fitted in. Peering through a cafe window, he’d spotted a man sliding a gun beneath a table, hiding it there on his lap. Rebus knowing he couldn’t go in, not without money. So just standing there, watching with his palms pressed to the glass, trying not to make a fuss…

Blinking his eyes back into focus, he saw that they were over the Firth of Forth again, making their final approach. Brimson was talking.

“I often think about the damage a terrorist could do, even with something as small as a Cessna. You’ve got the dockyard, the ferry, road and rail bridges… airport nearby.”

“They’d be spoiled for choice,” Siobhan agreed.

“I can think of bits of the city I’d rather see leveled,” Rebus commented.

“Ah, you’re with us again, Inspector. I can only apologize that our company wasn’t more sparkling.” Brimson and Siobhan shared a smile, letting Rebus know he hadn’t been too sorely missed.

The landing was smooth, Brimson taxiing towards where Siobhan’s car sat waiting. Climbing out, Rebus shook Brimson’s hand.