Walked down the corridor and straight in here. Nice sunny day, so most of the kids were outside. He only found three…” Hogan nodded towards where the victims had been. “Listening to music, flicking through magazines.” It was as if he were talking to himself, hoping if he repeated the words often enough, they would start answering his questions.
“Why here?” Siobhan asked. Hogan looked up as if seeing her for the first time. “Hiya, Shiv,” he said with just a trace of a smile. “You here out of curiosity?”
“She’s helping me,” Rebus said, raising his hands.
“Christ, John, what happened?”
“Long story, Bobby. Siobhan asked a good question.”
“You mean, why this particular school?”
“More than that,” Siobhan said. “You said yourself, most of the kids were outdoors. Why didn’t he start with them?”
Hogan answered with a shrug. “I’m hoping we’ll find out.”
“So how can we help, Bobby?” Rebus asked. He hadn’t moved far into the room, content to stay just inside the threshold while Siobhan browsed the posters on the walls. Eminem seemed to be giving the world the benefit of his middle finger, while a group next to him, boiler-suited and rubber-masked, looked like extras from a mid-budget horror film.
“He was ex-army, John,” Hogan was saying. “More than that, he was ex-SAS. I remember you telling me once that you’d tried for the Special Air Service.”
“That was thirty-odd years ago, Bobby.”
Hogan wasn’t listening. “Seems like he was a bit of a loner.”
“A loner with some sort of grudge?” Siobhan asked.
“Who knows.”
“But you want me to ask around?” Rebus guessed.
Hogan looked at him. “Any buddies he had are likely to be like him-armed forces castoffs. They might open up to someone who’s been the same road as them.”
“It was thirty-odd years ago,” Rebus repeated. “And thanks for grouping me with the ‘castoffs.’”
“Ach, you know what I mean… Just for a day or two, John, that’s all I’m asking.”
Rebus stepped back into the corridor and looked around him. It seemed so quiet, so peaceful. And yet the work of a few moments had changed everything. The town, the school would never be the same. The lives of everyone involved would stay convulsed. The school secretary might never emerge from behind that borrowed handkerchief. The families would bury their sons, unable to think beyond the terror of their final moments…
“What about it, John?” Hogan was asking. “Will you help?”
Warm, fuzzy cotton… it could protect you, cushion you…
“Just one question, Bobby.”
Bobby Hogan looked tired and slightly lost. Leith meant drugs, stabbings, prossies. Those, Bobby could deal with. Rebus got the feeling he’d been summoned here because Bobby Hogan needed a friend by his side.
“Fire away,” Hogan said.
“Got a cigarette on you?” Rebus asked.
There were too many people fighting for space in the Portakabin. Hogan loaded Siobhan’s arms with paperwork, everything they had on the case, the copies still warm from the machine in the school office. Outside, a group of herring gulls had gathered on the lawn, seemingly curious. Rebus flicked them his cigarette butt and they sprinted towards it.
“I could report you for cruelty,” Siobhan told him.
“Ditto,” he said, looking the amount of paperwork up and down. Grant Hood was finishing a phone call, tucking his mobile back in his pocket. “Where did our friend go?” Rebus asked him.
“You mean Dirty Mac Jack?” Rebus smiled at the nickname, which had graced the front page of a tabloid the morning after Bell’s arrest.
“That’s who I mean.”
Hood nodded down the hill. “A member of the press corps called him, offering a TV slot at the school gates. Jack was off like a flash.”
“So much for not budging from the spot. Are the press boys behaving themselves?”
“What do you think?”
Rebus responded with a twitch of the mouth. Hood’s phone sounded again, and he turned away to take the call. Rebus watched Siobhan maneuver the car trunk open, some of the sheets slipping onto the ground. She picked them up again.
“That everything?” Rebus asked her.
“For now.” She slammed shut the trunk. “Where are we taking them?”
Rebus examined the sky. Thick, scudding clouds. Probably too windy for rain. He thought he could hear the distant sound of rigging clanging against yacht masts. “We could get a table at a pub. Down by the rail bridge, there’s a place called the Boatman’s…” She stared at him. “It’s an Edinburgh tradition,” he explained with a shrug. “In times past, professionals ran their businesses from the local pub.”
“We wouldn’t want to mess with tradition.”
“I’ve always preferred the old-fashioned methods.”
She didn’t say anything to this, just walked around to the driver’s side and opened the door. She’d closed it and put the key in the ignition before she remembered. Cursing, she reached across to open Rebus’s door for him.
“Too kind,” he said, smiling as he got in. He didn’t know South Queensferry that well, but he knew the pubs. He’d been brought up on the other side of the estuary, and remembered the view from North Queensferry: the way the bridges seemed to drift apart as you looked south. The same uniformed officer opened the gates to let them out. Jack Bell was in the middle of the road, saying his piece to the camera.
“A nice long blast on the horn,” Rebus ordered. Siobhan obliged. The journalist lowered his microphone, turned to glower at them. The cameraman slid his headphones down around his neck. Rebus waved at the MSP, gave him what might pass for an apologetic smile. Sightseers blocked half the carriageway, staring at the car.
“I feel like a bloody exhibit,” Siobhan muttered. A line of traffic was passing them at a crawl, wanting a look at the school. Not professionals, just members of the public who’d brought their families and video cameras with them. As Siobhan made to pass the tiny police station, Rebus said he would get out and walk.
“I’ll meet you at the pub.”
“Where are you going?”
“I just want to get a feel for the place.” He paused. “Mine’s a pint of IPA if you get there first.”
He watched her drive away, taking her place in the slow procession of tourist traffic. Rebus stopped and turned to look up at the Forth Road Bridge, hearing its swoosh of cars and lorries, something almost tidal about it. There were tiny figures up there, standing on the footpath, looking down. He knew there would be more at the side of the opposite carriageway, where there was a better view of the school grounds. Shaking his head, he started walking.
Commerce in South Queensferry took place on a single thoroughfare, stretching from the High Street to the Hawes Inn. But change was coming. Driving past the town recently, headed for the road bridge, he’d noticed a new supermarket and business park. A sign tempting the backup: TIRED OF COMMUTING? YOU COULD BE WORKING HERE. The message telling them that Edinburgh was full to the brim, the traffic slowing every year. South Queensferry wanted to be part of the movement away from the city. Not that you’d know it from the High Street: locally owned small shops, narrow pavements, tourist information. Rebus knew some of the stories: a fire at the VAT 69 distillery, hot whiskey running down the streets, people drinking it and ending up in the hospital; a pet monkey that, teased to distraction, ripped open the throat of a scullery maid; apparitions such as the Mowbray Hound and the Burry Man…
There was a celebration every year to commemorate the Burry Man, bunting and flags put up, a procession through the town. It was months away yet, but Rebus wondered if there’d be a procession this year.
Rebus passed a clock tower, Remembrance Day wreaths still pinned to it, untouched by vandals. The road
