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“You can’t talk to me like that.” Looking at James, voice barely audible.
“I thought I just did,” James told his father. Then, eyes focused on Rebus, “Let’s get this over with.”
Rebus moistened his lips. “Right now, James, probably the only thing we can prove is that you were shot at point-blank range-contrary to the story you’ve been sticking to thus far-and that the angle of the shot would suggest that you did it yourself. However, you’ve also admitted knowing of at least one of Lee Herdman’s guns, which is why I think maybe you took the Brocock intending to shoot and kill Anthony Jarvies and Derek Renshaw.”
“They were wankers, the pair of them.”
“And that constitutes a good enough reason?”
“James,” Jack Bell warned, “I don’t want you saying anything to these men.”
His son ignored him. “They had to die.”
Jack Bell’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. James concentrated on the water glass, turning it and turning it.
“Why did they have to die?” Rebus asked quietly.
James shrugged. “I’ve already said.”
“You didn’t like them?” Rebus suggested. “And that’s all there is to it?”
“Plenty of my peers have killed for less. Or haven’t you been watching the news? America, Germany, Yemen… Sometimes it’s enough that you don’t like Mondays.”
“Help me understand, James. I know you had different taste in music…”
“Not just in music: in everything!”
“A different outlook on life?” Hogan suggested.
“Maybe,” Rebus said, “a part of you wanted to impress Teri Cotter, too.”
James glared at him. “Leave her out of this.”
“That’s not easy to do, James. After all, Teri’d told you she was obsessed with death, hadn’t she?” James said nothing. “I think you’d become a bit infatuated with her.”
“How would you know?” the teenager sneered.
“Well, for a start, you made that trip to Cockburn Street to take her picture.”
“I took a lot of photos.”
“But you kept hers in that book you loaned to Lee. You didn’t like it that she’d slept with him, did you? Didn’t like it when Jarvies and Renshaw told you they’d found her website, watching her in her bedroom.” Rebus paused. “How am I doing?”
“You know a lot, Inspector.”
Rebus shook his head. “But there’s so much I don’t know, James. And I’m hoping maybe you’ll fill in the gaps.”
“You don’t have to say anything, James,” his father croaked. “You’re a minor… there are laws to protect you. You’ve suffered a trauma. No court in the land would…” He looked across at the detectives. “Surely he should have a solicitor present?”
“I don’t want one,” James snapped.
“But you must.” The father sounded aghast.
The son sneered. “It’s not about you anymore, Dad, do you see? It’s all about me now. I’m the one who’s going to put you back on the front pages, but for all the wrong reasons. And in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not a minor-I’m eighteen. Old enough to vote, old enough to do lots of things.” He seemed to wait for a retort that did not come, then turned his attention back to Rebus. “What is it you need to know?”
“Am I right about Teri?”
“I knew she was sleeping with Lee.”
“When you gave him that book… you left her photo there deliberately?”
“I suppose so.”
“Hoping he’d see it, and do what?” Rebus watched as James shrugged. “Maybe it was enough that he would know you liked her, too.” Rebus paused. “Why that particular book, though?”
James looked at him. “Because Lee wanted to read it. He knew the story, how the guy had jumped to his death from a plane. He wasn’t…” James seemed unable to find the words he needed. He took a deep breath. “He was a deeply unhappy man, you must realize that.”
“Unhappy in what way?”
The word came to James. “Haunted,” he said. “That’s the sense I always got. He was haunted.”
There was silence in the room for a moment, broken by Rebus: “You took the gun from Lee’s flat?”
“That’s right.”
“He didn’t know?”
A shake of the head.
“You knew about the Brocock?” Bobby Hogan asked, just about keeping his voice under control. James nodded.
“So how come he turned up at the school?” Rebus asked.
“I left him a note. Didn’t expect him to find it so soon.”
“What was your plan then, James?”
“Just walk into the common room-usually only the two of them there-and kill them.”
“In cold blood?”
“That’s right.”
“Two kids who’d done you no harm?”
“Two less on the planet.” The teenager shrugged. “I don’t see typhoons and hurricanes, earthquakes and famine…”
“And that’s why you did it, because it wouldn’t matter?”
James was thoughtful. “Maybe.”
Rebus looked down at the carpet, trying to control the rage growing within him. My family… my blood…
“It all happened so fast,” James was telling them. “I was amazed how calm I felt. Bang bang, two bodies… Lee was walking in the door as I shot the second one. He just stood there, the pair of us did. Didn’t know quite what to do.” He smiled at the memory. “Then he held out his hand for the gun, and I handed it over.” The smile evaporated. “Last thing I expected was for the stupid sod to point it at his own head.”
“Why do you think he did that?”
James shook his head slowly. “I’ve been trying to work it out ever since… Do you know?” An imploring edge to the question; needing an answer. Rebus had a few theories: because the gun was his, and he felt responsible… because the incident would bring whole teams of professionals sniffing around, including the army… because it was a way out…
Because he would no longer be haunted.
“You took the gun from him and shot yourself in the shoulder,” Rebus said quietly. “Then placed it back in his hand?”
“Yes. The note I’d left for him, it was in his other hand. I took that, too.”
“What about fingerprints.”
“I did what they do in the films, wiped the pistol with my shirt.”
“But when you first walked in there… you must have been prepared for everyone to know you’d done it. Why the change of heart?”
The teenager shrugged. “Because the chance presented itself maybe. Do we really know why we do what we do… in the heat of the moment?” He turned to his father. “Instincts sometimes get the better of us. Those dark little thoughts…”
Which was when his father lunged at him, grabbing him around the neck, the two of them falling backwards over the sofa, crashing to the floor.
“You little bastard!” Jack Bell was yelling. “Do you know what you’ve done? I’m ruined now! In tatters! Absolute fucking tatters!”
Rebus and Hogan separated them, the father still snarling and swearing, the son almost serene by comparison and studying his father’s incoherent ire as though it was a memory he would treasure in the years to come. The door had opened, Kate standing there. Rebus wanted to make James Bell fall down at her feet, beg forgiveness. She was taking in the scene, trying to make sense of it.
“Jack?” she asked softly.
Jack Bell looked at her, as if she was a stranger to him. Rebus was still holding the MSP in a bear hug from behind.
“Get out of here, Kate,” he pleaded. “Just go home.”
“I don’t understand.”
James Bell, passive in Hogan’s grasp, looked across to the doorway, then over to where his father and Rebus stood. A smile spread slowly across his face.
“Will you tell her, or shall I…?”