Read A Question of Blood (2003) for Free Online

Siobhan said, folding her arms. He stared at her. “I’m serious,” she added. “This is the best chance of quitting that you’re ever likely to have.”
    He narrowed his eyes. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
    “Beginning to,” she admitted, opening the car door for him with a flourish of her arm.

2
    T here was no quick route to South Queensferry. They headed across the city center and down Queensferry Road, picking up speed only when they hit the A90. The town they were approaching seemed to be nestled between the two bridges—road and rail—that spanned the Firth of Forth.
    “Haven’t been out here in years,” Siobhan said, just to fill the silence inside the car. Rebus didn’t bother answering. It seemed to him as if the whole world had been bandaged, muffled. He guessed the tablets were to blame. One weekend, a couple of months back, he’d brought Jean to South Queensferry. They’d had a bar lunch, a walk along the promenade. They’d watched the lifeboat being launched—no urgency about it, probably an exercise. Then they’d driven to Hopetoun House, taking a guided tour of the stately home’s ornate interior. He knew from the news that Port Edgar Academy was near Hopetoun House, thought he remembered driving past its gates, no building visible from the road. He gave Siobhan directions, only for them to end up in a cul-de-sac. She did a three-point turn and found Hopetoun Road without further help from the passenger seat. As they neared the gates to the school, they had to squeeze past news vans and reporters’ cars.
    “Hit as many as you like,” Rebus muttered. A uniform checked their ID and opened the wrought-iron gates. Siobhan drove through.
    “I thought it would be on the waterfront,” she said, “with a name like Port Edgar.”
    “There’s a marina called Port Edgar. Can’t be too far away.” As the car climbed a winding slope, he turned to look back. He could see the water, masts seeming to rise from it like spikes. But then it was lost behind trees, and turning again, he saw the school come into view. It was built in the Scots baronial style: dark slabs of stone topped with gables and turrets. A saltire flew at half-mast. The car park had been taken over by official vehicles, people milling around a Portakabin. The town boasted only a single, tiny police substation, probably not big enough to cope. As their tires crunched over gravel, eyes turned to check them out. Rebus recognized a few faces, and those faces knew him, too. Nobody bothered to smile or wave. As the car stopped, Rebus made an attempt to pull the door handle but had to wait for Siobhan to get out, walk around to the passenger side, and open the door.
    “Thanks,” he said, easing himself out. A uniformed constable walked over. Rebus knew him from Leith. His name was Brendan Innes, an Australian. Rebus had never got around to asking him how he’d ended up in Scotland.
    “DI Rebus?” Innes was saying. “DI Hogan’s up at the school. Told me to tell you.”
    Rebus nodded. “Got a cigarette on you?”
    “Don’t smoke.”
    Rebus looked around, seeking out a likely candidate.
    “He said you’re to go right up,” Innes was stressing. Both men turned at a noise from the Portakabin’s interior. The door flew open and a man stomped down the three exterior steps. He was dressed as if for a funeral: somber suit, white shirt, black tie. It was the hair Rebus recognized, in all its silvery back-combed glory: Jack Bell, MSP. Bell was in his mid-forties, face square-jawed, permanently tanned. Tall and wide-bodied, he had the look of a man who’d always be surprised not to get his own way.
    “I’ve every right!” he was yelling. “Every bloody right in the world! But I might’ve known to expect nothing from you lot but utter bloody downright obstructiveness!” Grant Hood, liaison officer on the case, had come to the doorway.
    “You’re welcome to your opinion, sir,” he tried remonstrating.
    “It’s