A Question of Blood (2003) by Ian Rankin Page B

Innes.
    “What sort of shifts are they making you work?” Rebus asked.
    Innes checked his watch. “Another hour, I’ll be out of here.”
    “Anything happening?”
    “People heading to work.”
    “How many flats apart from Herdman’s?”
    “Just the two. Schoolteacher and his girlfriend in one, car mechanic in the other.”
    “Schoolteacher?” Siobhan hinted.
    Innes shook his head. “Nothing to do with Port Edgar. He teaches the local primary. Girlfriend works in a shop.”
    Rebus knew that the neighbors would have been interviewed. The notes would be somewhere.
    “You spoken to them at all?” he asked.
    “Just as they come and go.”
    “What do they say?”
    Innes shrugged. “The usual: he was quiet enough, seemed a nice enough guy . . .”
    “Quiet enough, rather than just quiet?”
    Innes nodded. “Seems Mr. Herdman hosted a few late-nighters for his friends.”
    “Enough to rile the neighbors?”
    Innes shrugged again. Rebus turned to Siobhan. “We’ve got a list of his acquaintances?”
    She nodded. “Probably not comprehensive as yet . . .”
    “You’ll want this,” Innes was saying. He was holding up a Yale key. Siobhan took it from him.
    “How messy is it up there?” Rebus asked.
    “The search team knew he wasn’t coming back,” Innes answered with a smile, lowering his head as he started adding their names to his list.
    The downstairs hall was cramped. No sign of any recent mail. They climbed two flights of stone steps. There were a couple of doors on the first landing, only one on the second. Nothing to identify its occupier—no name or number. Siobhan turned the key and they walked in.
    “Plenty of locks,” Rebus commented. Including two bolts on the interior side. “Herdman liked his security.”
    Hard to say how messy the place had been before Hogan’s team made their search. Rebus picked his way across a floor strewn with clothes and newspapers, books and bric-a-brac. They were in the eaves of the building, and the rooms seemed claustrophobic. Rebus’s head was barely two feet shy of the ceiling. The windows were small and unwashed. Just the one bedroom: double bed, wardrobe, and chest of drawers. Portable black-and-white TV on the uncarpeted floor, empty half-bottle of Bell’s next to it. Greasy yellow linoleum on the floor of the kitchen, foldaway table giving just enough room to turn. Narrow bathroom, smelling of mildew. Two hall closets, which looked to have been emptied and hastily rearranged by Hogan’s men. Leaving only the living room. Rebus went back in.
    “Homey, wouldn’t you say?” Siobhan commented.
    “In real estate agent parlance, yes.” Rebus picked up a couple of CDs: Linkin Park and Sepultura. “The man liked his metal,” he said, tossing them down again.
    “Liked the SAS, too,” Siobhan added, holding up some books for Rebus to see. They were histories of the regiment, books about conflicts in which it had taken part, stories of survival by ex-members. She nodded to a nearby desk, and Rebus saw what she was pointing out: a scrapbook of news cuttings. These were all about soldiering, too. Whole articles discussing an apparent trend: American military heroes who were murdering their wives. Cuttings about suicides and disappearances. There was even one headed SPACE RUNS OUT IN SAS CEMETERY, which Rebus paid most attention to. He knew men who’d been buried in the plots set aside in St. Martin’s churchyard, not far from the regiment’s original HQ. Now a new cemetery site was being proposed near the current HQ at Credenhill. In the same piece, the deaths of two SAS soldiers were mentioned. They’d died on a “training exercise in Oman,” which could mean anything from a cock-up to assassination during covert operations.
    Siobhan was peering into a supermarket shopping bag. Rebus heard the chink of empty bottles.
    “He was a good host,” she said.
    “Wine or spirits?”
    “Tequila and red wine.”
    “Judging from the empty bottle in the