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“Just as well, or I suspect you’d have been driving down here on your lonesome.”
“And?”
“And there wouldn’t have been anybody to moan at.” Rebus looked at him. “Feel better for letting it all out?”
Hogan smiled. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Well, wouldn’t that be a first for the books?”
Both men ended up laughing, Hogan insisting on picking up the tab, Rebus leaving a tip. Back in the car, they found the road to Dalbeattie. Ten miles out of Dumfries, a single signpost pointed right, taking them up a narrow, winding track with grass growing in the middle.
“Not much traffic, then,” Rebus commented.
“Bit out of the way for visitors,” Hogan agreed.
Carbrae had been purpose-built in the forward-looking 1960s, a long box-shaped structure with a
“Any chance we might upset Robert Niles?” Hogan asked, his eyes meeting Rebus’s.
“Not in our nature, Bobby,” Rebus said, switching off his phone.
And then an orderly appeared, and they were in.
They walked down a garden path, neat flower beds to either side. There were faces at some of the windows. No bars on the windows themselves. Rebus had expected the orderlies to be thinly disguised bouncers, huge and silent, dressed in hospital whites or some other form of uniform. But their guide, Billy, was small and cheery-looking, casually clothed in T-shirt, jeans and soft-soled shoes. Rebus had a horrible thought: the lunatics had taken over the asylum, the real staff locked away. It would explain Billy’s beaming, rosy-cheeked countenance. Or maybe he’d just been dipping into the medicine locker.
“Dr. Lesser is waiting in her room,” Billy was saying.
“What about Niles?”
“You’ll talk to Robert there. He doesn’t like strangers going into his own room.”
“Oh?”
“He’s fu
The place smelled of… not exactly medicine. What was it? Then Rebus realized: it was the aroma of new carpets-specifically, the blue carpet that stretched before them down the corridor. Fresh paint, too, by the look of it. Apple green, Rebus guessed it had said on the industrial-sized cans. Pictures on the walls, stuck there with tape. Nothing framed, and no thumbtacks. The place was quiet. Their shoes made no noise on the carpet. No piped music, no screams. Billy led them down the hall, stopping before an open door.
“Dr. Lesser?”
The woman inside was seated at a modern desk. She smiled and peered over her half-moon glasses.
“You got here, then,” she stated.
“Sorry we’re a few minutes late,” Hogan began to apologize.
“It’s not that,” she reassured him. “It’s just that people miss the turnoff and then phone to say they’re lost.”
“We didn’t get lost.”
“So I see.” She had come forward to greet them with handshakes. Hogan and Rebus introduced themselves.
“Thanks, Billy,” she said. Billy gave a little bow and backed away. “Won’t you come in? I won’t bite.” She offered her smile again. Rebus wondered if it was part of the job description for working at Carbrae.
The room was small, comfortable. A yellow two-seat sofa, bookshelf, hi-fi. No filing cabinets. Rebus guessed the patient files would be kept well away from prying eyes. Dr. Lesser said they could call her Irene. She was in her late twenties or early thirties, with chestnut-brown hair falling to just below her shoulders. Her eyes were the same color as the clouds that had obscured Arthur’s Seat earlier that morning.
“Please, sit yourselves down.” Her accent was English. Rebus thought Liverpudlian.
“Dr. Lesser…” Hogan began.
“Irene, please.”
“Of course.” Hogan paused, as if weighing whether to use her first name. If he did, she might start using his first name, and that would be way too cozy. “You understand why we’re here?”
Lesser nodded. She had pulled over a chair so she could sit in front of the detectives. Rebus was aware that the sofa was a tight fit: Bobby and him, probably over four hundred pounds between them…
“And you understand,” Lesser was saying, “that Robert has the right to say nothing. If he starts to get upset, the interview is over and that’s final.”
Hogan nodded. “You’ll be sitting in, of course.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Of course.”
It was the answer they’d expected, but disappointing all the same.
“Doctor,” Rebus began, “maybe you could help prepare us. What can we expect from Mr. Niles?”
“I don’t like to pre-empt -”
“For example, is there anything we should avoid saying? Maybe trip words?”
She looked appraisingly at Rebus. “He won’t talk about what he did to his wife.”
“That’s not why we’re here.”
She thought for a moment. “He doesn’t know his friend is dead.”
“He doesn’t know Herdman’s dead?” Hogan repeated.
“News doesn’t interest the patients, on the whole.”
“You’d prefer it if we kept it that way?” Rebus guessed.
“I’m assuming you don’t need to tell him why you’re so interested in Mr. Herdman…”
“You’re right, we don’t.” Rebus looked to Hogan. “Just have to watch we don’t slip up, eh, Bobby?”
As Hogan nodded, there was a knock on the still-open door. All three of them stood up. A tall, muscular man was waiting there. Bull neck, tattooed arms. For a moment, Rebus thought: now that’s what orderlies are supposed to look like. Then he saw Lesser’s face, and realized that this giant was Robert Niles.
“Robert…” The doctor’s smile was back in place, but Rebus knew she was wondering how long Niles had been there, and how much he’d taken in.
“Billy said…” The voice was like a rumble of thunder.
“That’s right. Come in, come in.”
As Niles entered the room, Hogan made to close the door after him.
“Not in here,” Lesser commanded. “The door is always open.”
Two ways of taking that: ope
Lesser was gesturing for Niles to take her chair, while she retreated behind her desk. As Niles sat down, so did the two detectives, wedging themselves back into the sofa.
Niles stared at them, face angled downwards, eyes hooded.
“These men have a few questions they’d like to ask you, Robert.”
“What sort of questions?” Niles was wearing a dazzling white T-shirt and gray jogging bottoms. Rebus was trying not to stare at the tattoos. They were old, probably dated back to his army days. When Rebus had been a soldier, he’d been the only recruit not to celebrate joining up by getting a few tattoos on his first home leave. Niles’s specimens included a thistle, a couple of writhing snakes, and a dagger with a ba
Hogan decided to take the initiative. “We want to ask you about your friend Lee.”