“Is anyone looking in?” Rebus asked Kate. He meant friends, neighbors. She nodded, and he turned back to Renshaw.
“Allan, I know this has been a shock for you. Do you feel up to answering a few questions?”
“What’s it like being a policeman, John? You have to do this sort of thing every day?”
“Not every day, no.”
“I couldn’t do it. Bad enough selling cars, watching the buyer driving off in this perfect machine, big smile on their face, and then you watch them coming back for service or repairs or whatever, and you see the car losing that shine it once had… They’re not smiling anymore.”
Rebus glanced at Kate, who just shrugged. He guessed she’d been hearing a lot of her father’s ramblings.
“The man who shot Derek,” Rebus said quietly, “we’re trying to work out why he did it.”
“He was a madman.”
“But why the school? Why that particular day? You see what I’m saying.”
“You’re saying you won’t let it lie. All we want is to be left alone.”
“We need to know, Allan.”
“Why?” Renshaw’s voice was rising. “What’s it going to change? You going to bring Derek back? I don’t think so. The bastard who did it’s dead… I don’t see that anything else matters.”
“Drink your tea, Dad,” Kate said, a hand reaching for her father’s arm. He took it in his own hand, held it up to plant a kiss.
“It’s just us now, Kate. Nobody else matters.”
“I thought you just told me family mattered. The inspector’s our family, isn’t he?”
Renshaw looked at Rebus again, eyes filling with tears. Then he got up and walked from the room. They sat for a moment, hearing him climbing the stairs.
“We’ll just leave him,” Kate said, sounding sure of her role and comfortable with it. She straightened in her seat and pressed her hands together. “I don’t think Derek knew the man. I mean, South Queensferry’s a village, there’s always the chance he knew his face, maybe even who he was. But nothing other than that.”
Rebus nodded but stayed quiet, hoping she would feel the need to fill the silence. It was a game Siobhan knew how to play, too.
“He didn’t pick them out, did he?” Kate went on, going back to stroking Boethius. “I mean, it was just the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“We don’t know yet,” Rebus responded. “It was the first room he went into, but he’d passed other doors to get to it.”
She looked at him. “Dad told me the other boy was a judge’s son.”
“You didn’t know him?”
She shook her head. “Not well.”
“Weren’t you a pupil at Port Edgar?”
“Yes, but Derek’s two years younger than me.”
“I think what Kate means,” Siobhan clarified, “is that all the boys in his year were two years younger than her, so she wouldn’t be disposed to have any interest in them.”
“Too true,” Kate agreed.
“What about Lee Herdman? Did you know him?”
She met Rebus’s stare, then nodded slowly. “I went out with him once.” She paused. “I mean, I went out on his boat. A bunch of us did. We thought waterskiing would be glamorous, but it was too much like hard work, and he scared the shit out of me.”
“In what way?”
“If you were on the skis, he tried to freak you out, pointing the boat towards one of the bridge supports or Inch Garvie Island. You know it?”
“The one that looks like a fortress?” Siobhan guessed.
“I suppose they must have had guns there during the war, cannons or something to stop anyone coming up the Forth.”
“So Herdman tried scaring you?” Rebus asked, steering the conversation back on course.
“I think it was some sort of trial, to see if your nerve held. We all thought he was a maniac.” She stopped abruptly, hearing her own words. Some of the color left her already pale face. “I mean, I never thought he’d…”
“Nobody did, Kate,” Siobhan reassured her.
It took the young woman a few seconds to regain her composure. “They’re saying he was in the army, maybe even a spy.” Rebus didn’t know where she was headed, but nodded anyway. She looked down at the cat, who now lay with eyes closed, purring loudly. “This is going to sound crazy…”
Rebus leaned forwards. “What is it, Kate?”
“Well, it’s just… the first thing that went through my mind when I heard…”
“What?”
She looked from Rebus to Siobhan and then back again. “No, it’s just too stupid.”
“Then I’m your man,” Rebus said, giving her a smile. She almost smiled back, then took a deep breath.
“Derek was in a car smash a year back. He was okay, but the other kid, the one who was driving…”
“He died?” Siobhan guessed. Kate nodded.
“Neither of them had a license, and they’d both been drinking. Derek felt really guilty about it. Not that there was a court case or anything…”
“So what’s it got to do with the shooting?” Rebus asked.
She shrugged. “Nothing at all. It’s just that when I heard… when Dad phoned me… I suddenly remembered something Derek told me a few months after the crash. He said the dead boy’s family hated him. And that’s why I thought what I did. Soon as I remembered that, the word that jumped into my head was… revenge.” She rose from her chair, holding on to Boethius, placing the cat on the vacant seat. “I think I should check on Dad. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Siobhan got up, too. “Kate,” she said, “how are you coping?”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m sorry about your mother.”
“Don’t be. Her and Dad used to fight all the time. At least we don’t have that anymore…” And with another forced smile, Kate left the kitchen. Rebus looked at Siobhan, a slight raising of the eyebrows the only indication that he’d heard anything of interest in the past ten minutes. He followed Siobhan into the living room. It was dark outside now, and he switched on one of the lamps.
“Think I should close the curtains?” Siobhan asked.
“Reckon anyone would open them again come morning?”
“Maybe not.”
“Then leave them open.” Rebus switched on another lamp. “This place needs all the light it can get.” He sifted through some of the photos. Blurred faces, backdrops he recognized. Siobhan was studying the family portraits lining the room.
“The mother’s been erased from history,” she commented.
“Something else,” Rebus said casually. She looked at him.
“What?”
He waved an arm towards the shelf units. “It may be my imagination, but seems like there are more photos of Derek than there are of Kate.”
Siobhan saw what he meant. “What do we make of that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe some of the photos of Kate had her mother in them, too.”
“Then again, they sometimes say the youngest child becomes the parents’ favorite.”
“You’re speaking from experience?”
“I’ve got a younger brother, if that’s what you mean.”
Siobhan thought about this. “Do you think you should tell him?”
“Who?”
“Your brother.”
“Tell him he was always the apple of our dad’s eye?”
“No, tell him what’s happened here.”
“That would entail locating his whereabouts.”
“You don’t even know where your own brother is?”
Rebus shrugged. “That’s the way it is, Siobhan.”
They heard footsteps on the stairs. Kate came back into the room.
“He’s asleep,” she said. “He’s been sleeping a lot.”
“I’m sure it’s the best thing,” Siobhan said, almost wincing as the cliché trickled out.