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Rebus didn’t know if they were local or not. Sightseers possibly. Hoping to catch a glimpse of themselves on the box over tomorrow morning’s breakfast…
The hymn finished, and the chaplain started saying a few words, her voice faint, hardly carrying as a strong wind started gusting in from the coast. Rebus looked at Kate again and gestured towards the back of the crowd. She followed him to where Siobhan was standing on the periphery. A cameraman had climbed up onto the school’s perimeter wall to get an overview of the crowd and was being told to come down again by one of the uniforms.
“Hi there, Kate,” Siobhan said. Kate pulled her scarf down.
“Hello,” she said.
“Your dad not here?” Rebus asked. Kate shook her head.
“He’ll hardly set foot outside the house.” She folded her arms around herself, bounced on her toes, feeling the chill.
“Good turnout,” Rebus said, eyes on the crowd.
Kate nodded. “I’m amazed how many of them know who I am. They keep saying how sorry they are about Derek.”
“Something like this, it can bring people together,” Siobhan said.
“If it didn’t… well, what would that say about us?” Someone else had caught her attention. “Sorry, I’ve got to…” She started walking over towards the huddle of journalists. It was Bell, Bell who had gestured for her to join him. He put an arm around her shoulder as more flashguns lit the hedgerow behind them. Wreaths and bunches of flowers had been left there, with fluttering messages and snapshots of the victims.
“… and it’s thanks to the support of people like her that I think we stand a chance. More than a chance, in fact, because something like this can-and should-never be tolerated in what we like to call a civilized society. We never want to see it happen again, and that’s why we’re taking this stand…”
When Bell paused to show the journalists the clipboard he was holding, the questions started. He kept a protective arm on Kate’s shoulders as she answered them. Protective, Rebus wondered, or proprietary?
“Well,” Kate was saying, “the petition’s a good idea…”
“An excellent idea,” Bell corrected her.
“… but it’s only the start. What’s really needed is action, action from the authorities to stop guns getting into the wrong hands.” At the word “authorities,” she glanced towards Rebus and Siobhan.
“If I can just give you some figures,” Bell interrupted again, brandishing the clipboard, “gun crime is on the increase-we all know that. But the statistics don’t begin to tell the story. Depending on who you listen to, you’ll hear that gun crime is rising at ten percent a year, or twenty percent, or even forty percent. Any rise whatsoever is not only bad news, not only a shameful blot on the records of police and intelligence-gathering resources, but, more important -”
“Kate, if I could just ask you,” one of the journalists butted in, “how do you think you can get the government to listen to the victims?”
“I’m not sure I can. Maybe it’s time to ignore the government altogether and appeal directly to the people who’re actually doing the shooting, the people selling these guns, bringing them into the country…”
Bell pitched his voice even louder. “As far back as 1996, the Home Office reckoned that two thousand guns per week-per week-were coming into the UK illegally… many of them through the Cha
“Kate, if we could ask you for your opinion of…”
Rebus had turned away, walking back to Siobhan’s car. When she caught up with him, he was lighting a cigarette, or trying to. The wind meant his lighter kept sputtering.
“Going to help me?” he asked.
“No.”
“Cheers.”
But she relented, holding her coat open so that he could shelter himself long enough to get the cigarette lit. He nodded his thanks.
“Seen enough?” she asked.
“Reckon we’re every bit as bad as the ghouls?”
She considered this, then shook her head. “We’re interested parties.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
The crowd was begi
A group of teenagers had come dressed in their Port Edgar uniforms. Rebus didn’t doubt they’d been captured by a few dozen cameras since their arrival. The girls’ mascara had run. The boys looked awkward, as if regretting coming. Rebus looked for Miss Teri but didn’t see her.
“Isn’t that your friend?” Siobhan said, gesturing with her head. Rebus studied the crowd again, saw immediately who she meant.
Peacock Johnson, part of the procession heading back into town. And beside him, a full foot shorter, Evil Bob. Bob had removed his baseball cap for the duration, showing the balding crown of his head. Now, he was fixing the cap back into place. Johnson had dressed down for the occasion: a gray shimmering shirt, silk maybe, beneath a full-length black raincoat. There was a black string tie around his neck, fixed with a silver clasp. He, too, had removed his headgear-a gray trilby-which he held in both hands, ru
Johnson seemed to sense that he was being stared at. When his eyes met Rebus’s, Rebus crooked a finger at him. Johnson said something to his lieutenant, the pair of them threading their way through the throng.
“Mr. Rebus, paying your respects like the true gentleman you doubtless perceive yourself to be.”
“That’s my excuse… what’s yours?”
“The selfsame, Mr. Rebus, the selfsame.” He made a little bow at the waist in Siobhan’s direction.
“Lady friend or colleague?” he asked Rebus.
“The latter,” Siobhan answered.
“No requirement for the two to be, as they say, mutually exclusive.” He gri
“See that guy over there?” Rebus said, nodding towards where Jack Bell was finishing his interview. “If I told him who you are and what you do, he’d have a field day.”
“Mr. Bell, you mean? First thing we did when we got here was sign his petition, isn’t that right, wee man?” Looking down at his companion. Bob didn’t seem to understand but nodded anyway. “Clear conscience, you see,” Johnson continued.
“Doesn’t begin to explain what you’re doing here… unless that conscience of yours is guilty rather than clear.”
“A low blow, if you don’t mind me saying.” Johnson winced for effect. “Say good night to the nice detectives,” he said, patting Evil Bob’s shoulder.
“Good night, nice detectives.” A wet smile appearing on the overfed face. Peacock Johnson had joined the crowd again, head bowed as if in Christian contemplation. Bob fell in a couple of paces behind his master, for all the world like a pet being taken for a walk.
“What do we make of that?” Siobhan asked.
Rebus shook his head slowly.
“Maybe your comment about guilt isn’t wide of the mark.”
“Be nice to nail the bastard for something.”
She gave him a questioning look, but his attention had turned to Jack Bell, who was whispering something in Kate’s ear. Kate nodded, and the MSP gave her a hug.
“Reckon she’s got a future in politics?” Siobhan mused.
“I hope to Christ that’s the attraction,” Rebus muttered, showing his cigarette stub little mercy as he ground it under his heel.