A Question of Blood (2003) (21 page)

“I doubt it, Miss Teri.” He watched the door swing open, Siobhan walk in. She saw him, and nodded towards the toilets, holding up her hands to let him know she was going to wash them.

“You like being an outsider, don’t you?” Rebus asked.

Teri Cotter nodded.

“And that’s why you liked Lee Herdman: he was an outsider, too.” She looked at him. “We found your photo in his flat. From which I assume you knew him.”

“I knew him. Can I see the photo?”

Rebus took it from his pocket. It was held inside a clear polyethylene envelope. “Where was it taken?” he asked.

“Right here,” she said, gesturing towards the street.

“You knew him pretty well, didn’t you?”

“He liked us. Goths, I mean. Never really understood why.”

“He had a few parties, didn’t he?” Rebus was remembering the albums in Herdman’s flat: music for Goths to dance to.

Teri was nodding, blinking back tears. “Some of us used to go to his place.” She held up the photo. “Where did you find this?”

“Inside a book he was reading.”

“Which book?”

“Why do you want to know?”

She shrugged. “Just wondered.”

“It was a biography, I think. Some soldier who ended up doing himself in.”

“You think that’s a clue?”

“A clue?”

She nodded. “To why Lee killed himself.”

“Might be, I suppose. Did you ever meet any of his friends?”

“I don’t think he had many friends.”

“What about Doug Brimson?” The question came from Siobhan. She was sliding onto the banquette.

Teri’s mouth twitched. “Yeah, I know him.”

“You don’t sound enthusiastic,” Rebus commented.

“You could say that.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Siobhan wanted to know. Rebus could see her prickling.

Teri just shrugged.

“The two lads who died,” Rebus said, “ever see them at the parties?”

“As if.”

“Meaning what?”

She looked at him. “They weren’t the type. Rugby and jazz music and the Cadets.” As if this explained everything.

“Did Lee ever talk about his time in the army?”

“Not much.”

“But you asked him?” She nodded slowly. “And you knew he had a thing about guns?”

“I knew he kept pictures . . .” She bit her lip, but too late.

“On the inside of his wardrobe door,” Siobhan added. “It’s not everyone who’d know that, Teri.”

“Doesn’t mean anything!” Teri’s voice had risen. She was playing with her neck chain again.

“Nobody’s on trial here, Teri,” Rebus said. “We just want to know what made him do it.”

“How should I know?”

“Because you knew him, and it seems not many people did.”

Teri was shaking her head. “He never told me anything. That was the thing about him—like he had secrets. But I never thought he’d . . .”

“No?”

She fixed her eyes on Rebus’s but said nothing.

“He ever show you a gun, Teri?” Siobhan asked.

“No.”

“Ever hint that he had access to one?”

A shake of the head.

“You say he never really opened up to you . . . what about the other way round?”

“How do you mean?”

“Did he ask about you? Maybe you spoke to him about your family?”

“I might have.”

Rebus leaned forwards. “We were sorry to hear about your brother, Teri.”

Siobhan, too, leaned forwards. “You probably mentioned the crash to Lee Herdman.”

“Or maybe one of your pals did,” Rebus added.

Teri saw that they were hemming her in. No escape from their stares and questions. She had placed the photo on the table, concentrating her attention on it.

“Lee didn’t take this,” she said, as if trying to change the subject.

“Anyone else we should talk to, Teri?” Rebus was asking. “People who went to Lee’s little soirees?”

“I don’t want to answer any more questions.”

“Why not, Teri?” Siobhan asked, frowning as though genuinely puzzled.

“Because I don’t.”

“Other names we can talk to . . .” Rebus was saying. “Might get us off your back.”

Teri Cotter sat for a moment longer, then rose to her feet and climbed onto the banquette, stepped onto the table and jumped down to the floor at the other side, the gauzy black layers of her skirts billowing out around her. Without looking back, she made for the door, opened it and banged it shut behind her. Rebus looked at Siobhan and gave a grudging smile.

“The girl has a certain style,” he said.

“We panicked her,” Siobhan admitted. “Pretty much as soon as we mentioned her brother’s death.”

“Could be they were just close,” Rebus argued. “You’re not really going for the assassin theory?”

“All the same,” she said. “There’s something . . .” The door opened again, and Teri Cotter strode towards the table, leaning on it with both hands, her face close to her inquisitors.

“James Bell,” she hissed. “There’s a name for you, if you want one.”

“He went to Herdman’s parties?” Rebus asked.

Teri Cotter just nodded, then turned away again. The regulars, watching her make her exit, shook their heads and went back to their drinks.

“That interview we listened to,” Rebus said, “what was it James Bell said about Herdman?”

“Something about going water-skiing.”

“Yes, but the way he said it: ‘we’d met socially,’ something like that.”

Siobhan nodded. “Maybe we should have picked up on it.”

“We need to talk to him.”

Siobhan kept nodding, but she was looking at the table. She peered beneath it.

“Lost something?” Rebus asked.

“No, but you have.”

Rebus looked, too, and it dawned on him. Teri Cotter had taken her photograph with her.

“Think that was why she came back?” Siobhan guessed.

Rebus shrugged. “I suppose it counts as her property . . . a memento of the man she’s lost.”

“You think they were lovers?”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“In which case . . .”

But Rebus shook his head. “Using her womanly wiles to persuade him to turn assassin? Do me a favor, Siobhan.”

“Stranger things have happened,” she echoed.

“Speaking of which, any chance of you buying me a drink?” He held up his empty glass.

“None whatsoever,” she said, getting up to leave. Glumly, he followed her out of the bar. She was standing by her car, seemingly transfixed by something. Rebus couldn’t see anything worthy of note. The Goths were milling around as before, minus Miss Teri. No sign of the Lost Boys either. A few tourists stopping for photographs.

“What is it?” he asked.

She nodded towards a car parked opposite. “Looks like Doug Brimson’s Land Rover.”

“You sure?”

“I saw it when I was out at Turnhouse.” She looked up and down Cockburn Street. Brimson wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

“It’s in worse shape than my Saab,” Rebus commented.

“Yes, but you don’t have a Jag garaged at home.”

“A Jag and a clapped-out Land Rover?”

“I reckon it’s an image thing . . . boys and their toys.” She looked up and down the street again. “Wonder where he is.”

“Maybe he’s stalking you,” Rebus suggested. He saw the look on her face and shrugged an apology. She turned her attention to the car again, certain in her mind that it was his.
Coincidence,
she told herself,
that’s all it is.

Coincidence.

But all the same, she jotted down the number.

11

T
hat evening, she settled down on her sofa, trying to get interested in anything on TV. Two gaudily dressed hosts were telling their victim that her clothes were all wrong for her. On another channel, a house was being “decluttered.” Which left Siobhan the choice of a gray-looking film, a dreary comedy series, or a documentary about cane toads.

All of which served her right for not bothering to stop off at the video shop. Her own collection of films was small—“select,” as she preferred to call it. She’d watched each one half a dozen times at least, could recite dialogue, knew exactly what was coming in every scene. Maybe she would put some music on, turn the TV to mute and invent her own script for the boring-looking film. Or even for the cane toads. She’d already skimmed a magazine, picked up a book and put it down again, eaten the crisps and chocolate she’d bought at the garage when she’d stopped for petrol. There was a half-finished chow mein on the kitchen table, which she might get around to microwaving. Worst of all, she’d run out of wine, nothing in the flat but empty bottles awaiting the recycling run. She had gin in the cupboard, but nothing to mix it with except Diet Coke, and she wasn’t
that
desperate.

Not yet, anyway.

There were friends she could phone, but she knew she wouldn’t make great company. There was a message on her answering machine from her friend Caroline, asking if she fancied a drink. Blond and petite, Caroline always attracted attention when the two of them went out together. Siobhan had decided not to return the call just yet. She was too tired, with the case buzzing around her head, refusing to leave her alone. She’d made herself coffee, taking a mouthful before realizing she hadn’t boiled the kettle. Then she’d spent a couple of minutes searching the kitchen for sugar before remembering she didn’t take sugar. Hadn’t taken it in coffee since she’d been a teenager.

“Senile dementia,” she’d muttered aloud. “And talking to yourself: another symptom.”

Chocolate and crisps weren’t on her panic-free diet. Salt, fat and sugar. Her heart wasn’t exactly racing, but she knew she had to calm down somehow, had to relax and start winding down as bedtime approached. She’d stared out of her window for a while, checking on the neighbors across the street, pressing her nose to the glass as she looked down two stories to the passing traffic. It was quiet outside, quiet and dark, the pavement picked out by orange streetlamps. There were no bogeymen; nothing to be scared of.

She remembered that a long time ago, back in the days when she’d still taken sugar in her coffee, she’d been afraid of the dark for a while. About the age of thirteen or fourteen: too old to confide in her parents. She would spend her pocket money on batteries for the flashlight she kept on all night, keeping it beneath the covers with her, holding her breath in an attempt to pick out the breathing of anyone else in the room. The few times her parents caught her, they just thought she was staying up late to read. She could never be sure which was the right thing to do: leave the door open, so you could make a run for it, or close it to keep out intruders? She checked beneath her bed two or three times each day, though there was little enough room under there: it was where she stored her albums. The thing was, she never had nightmares. When she did eventually drop off to sleep, that sleep was deep and cleansing. She never suffered panic attacks. And eventually she forgot why she’d ever been afraid in the first place. The flashlight went back in its drawer. The money she’d been wasting on batteries she now started spending on makeup.

She could never be sure which came first: did she discover boys, or did they discover her?

“Ancient history, girl,” she told herself now. There were no bogeymen out there, but precious few knights either, tarnished or otherwise. She walked over to her dining table, looked at her notes on the case. They were laid out in no order whatsoever—everything she’d been given that first day. Reports, autopsy and forensics, photos of crime scene and victims. She studied the two faces, Derek Renshaw and Anthony Jarvies. Both were handsome, in a bland sort of way. There was a haughty intelligence to Jarvies’s heavy-lidded stare. Renshaw looked a lot less sure of himself. Maybe it was a class thing, Jarvies’s breeding showing through. She reckoned Allan Renshaw would have been proud of the fact that his son boasted a judge’s son as a friend. It was why you sent your kids to private school, wasn’t it? You wanted them to meet the right sort of people, people who might prove useful in the future. She knew fellow officers, not all of them on CID salaries, who scrimped to send their offspring to the kind of schools they themselves had never been offered the chance of. The class thing again. She wondered about Lee Herdman. He’d been in the army, the SAS . . . ordered about by officers who’d been to the right schools, who spoke the right way. Could it be as simple as that? Could his attack have been motivated by nothing more than bitter envy of an elite?

There’s no mystery . . .
Remembering her own words to Rebus, she laughed out loud. If there was no mystery, what was she worrying about? Why was she slogging her guts out? What was to stop her putting it all to one side and relaxing?

“Bugger it,” she said, sitting down at the table, pushing away the paperwork and pulling Derek Renshaw’s laptop towards her. She booted it up, plugging it in to her phone line. There were e-mails to be gone through, enough to keep her awake half the night if need be. Plenty of other files, too, that she hadn’t checked yet. She knew the work would calm her. It would calm her because it was work.

She decided on some decaf, this time remembering to turn the kettle on. Took the hot drink to the living room. The password “Miles’ got her online, but the new e-mails were junk. People trying to sell insurance or Viagra to someone they couldn’t know was dead. There were a few messages from people who’d noted Derek’s absence from various bulletin boards and chat rooms. Siobhan thought of something and dragged the icon to the top of the screen, clicking on “Favorite Places.” Up came a list of sites, shortcuts to addresses Derek had used regularly. The chat rooms and bulletin boards were there, along with the usual suspects: Amazon, BBC, Ask Jeeves . . . But one address was unfamiliar. Siobhan clicked on it. Connection took only a few moments.

WELCOME TO MY DARKNESS!

The words were in dull red, the color pulsing with life. The rest of the screen was a blank background. Siobhan moved the cursor onto the letter
W
and double-clicked. Connection took a little longer this time, the screen changing to a picture of a room’s interior. The image was fairly indistinct. She tried altering the screen’s contrast and brightness, but the problem was with the image itself, there was little she could do to improve it. She could make out a bed and a curtained window behind it. She tried moving the cursor around the screen, but there was no hidden marker for her to click on. This was all there was. She was sitting back, arms folded, wondering what it might mean, wondering what interest the image could have had for Derek Renshaw. Maybe it was his room. Maybe the “darkness” was another side to his character. Then the screen changed, a strange yellow light passing across it. Interference of some kind? Siobhan sat forwards, grasping the edge of her table. She knew what it was now. It was a car’s headlights, brief illumination from behind the curtains. Not a picture then, not a captured still.

“Webcam,” she whispered. She was watching a real-time broadcast of somebody’s bedroom. Moreover, she knew now whose bedroom it was. Those headlights had done just enough. She got up, found her telephone and made the call.

Siobhan plugged everything in and rebooted the computer. The laptop was on a chair—not enough cable to stretch from Rebus’s telephone jack to his dining table.

“All very mysterious,” he said, bringing in a tray—mugs of coffee for the pair of them. She could smell vinegar: a fish supper probably. Thinking of the chow mein waiting for her at home, she realized how similar they were—takeaway food, no one to go home to . . . He’d been drinking beer, an empty bottle of Deuchars on the floor by his chair. And listening to music: the Hawkwind anthology she’d bought him last birthday. Maybe he’d put it on specially, to make her think he hadn’t forgotten.

“Almost there,” she said now. Rebus had turned off the CD and was rubbing his eyes with his ungloved, hot-looking hands. Nearly ten o’clock. He’d been asleep in his chair when she’d phoned, quite content to stay there till morning. Easier than getting undressed. Easier than untying shoelaces, fiddling with buttons. He hadn’t bothered tidying up. Siobhan knew him too well. But he’d closed the kitchen door so she wouldn’t see the dirty dishes. If she saw them, she’d offer to wash up for him, and he didn’t want that.

“Just need to connect . . .”

Rebus had brought one of the dining chairs over to sit on. Siobhan was kneeling on the floor in front of the laptop. She angled its screen a little, and he nodded to let her know he could see it.

WELCOME TO MY DARKNESS!

“Alice Cooper fan club?” he guessed.

“Just wait.”

“Royal Society for the Blind?”

“If I so much as smile, you have permission to hit me over the head with the tray.” She sat back a little. “There . . . now take a look.”

The room was no longer completely dark. Candles had been lit. Black candles.

“Teri Cotter’s bedroom,” Rebus stated. Siobhan nodded. Rebus watched the candles flicker.

“This is a film?”

“It’s a live feed, as far as I know.”

“Meaning?”

“There was a webcam attached to her computer. That’s where the picture’s coming from. When I first watched, the room was dark. She must be home now.”

“Is this supposed to be interesting?” Rebus asked.

“Some people like it. Some of them
pay
to watch stuff like this.”

“But we’re getting a show for free?”

“Seems like.”

“You reckon she switches it off when she comes in?”

“Where would the fun be in that?”

“She keeps it on all the time?”

Siobhan shrugged. “Maybe we’re going to find out.”

Teri Cotter had entered the frame, moving jerkily, the camera presenting a series of stills broken up by momentary delays.

“No sound?” Rebus inquired.

Siobhan didn’t think so, but she tried turning up the volume anyway. “No sound,” she acknowledged.

Teri had seated herself cross-legged on her bed. She was dressed in the same clothes as when they’d met. She seemed to be looking towards the camera. She leaned forwards and stretched out on her bed, supporting her chin on her cupped hands, face close to the camera now.

“Like one of those old silent films,” Rebus said. Siobhan didn’t know if he was referring to the picture quality or the lack of sound. “What exactly are we supposed to be doing?”

“We’re her audience.”

“She knows we’re here?”

Siobhan shook her head. “Probably no way of knowing who’s watching—if anyone.”

“But Derek Renshaw used to watch?”

“Yes.”

“You think she knows?”

Siobhan shrugged, sipped the bitter-tasting coffee. It wasn’t decaf, and she might suffer for it later, but she didn’t care.

“So what do you think?” he asked.

“It’s not so unusual for young girls to be exhibitionists.” She paused. “Not that I’ve come across anything like this before.”

“I wonder who else knows about this.”

“I doubt her parents do. Is it something we need to ask her?”

Rebus was thoughtful. “How would people get here?” He pointed towards the screen.

“There are lists of home pages. She’d just have to provide a link, maybe a description.”

“Let’s take a look.”

So Siobhan quit the page and went hunting through cyberspace, typing in the words “Miss” and “Teri.” Page after page of links came up, mostly for porn sites and people called Terry, Terri, and Teri.

“This could take a while,” she said.

“So this is what I’ve been missing out on, not having a modem?”

“All human life is here, most of it ever so slightly depressing.”

“Just what’s needed after a day at the coal mines.”

Her face creased in what could almost have passed for a smile. Rebus made a show of reaching for the tea tray.

“Here we go, I think,” Siobhan said a couple of minutes later. Rebus looked at where she was underlining some words with her finger.

Myss Teri—visit my 100% non-pornographic (sorry, guys!) home page!
“Why ‘Myss’?” Rebus asked.

“Could be all the other spellings were already taken. My e-mail’s ‘66Siobhan.’”

“Because sixty-five Siobhans got there ahead of you?”

She nodded. “And I thought I had an uncommon name.” Siobhan had clicked on the link. Teri Cotter’s home page started to load. There was a photo of her in full Goth mode, palms held to either side of her face.

“She’s drawn pentagrams on her hands,” Siobhan noted. Rebus was looking: five-pointed stars enclosed by circles. There were no other photos, just some text outlining Teri’s interests, which school she attended, and an invitation to “come worship me, Cockburn Street most Saturday afternoons . . .” There was an option of sending her an e-mail, adding comments to her guest book, or clicking on various links, most of which would send the visitor to other Goth sites, one of which was marked “Dark Entry.”

“That’ll be the webcam,” Siobhan said. She tried the link, just to be sure. The screen changed back to the same red words:
WELCOME TO MY DARKNESS!
Another click and they were in Teri Cotter’s bedroom again. She’d changed position so that she had her head against the headboard, knees tucked in front of her. She was writing something in a loose-leaf binder.

“Looks like homework,” Siobhan said.

“Could be her potions book,” Rebus suggested. “Anyone accessing her home page would know her age, which school she goes to, and what she looks like.”

Siobhan was nodding. “And where to find her on a Saturday afternoon.”