by Ian Rankin
‘What?’
‘Would we drive over here if there wasn’t news,’ Rebus explained. They were in the entrance hall by now, Clarke pushing the door closed.
‘Has he been sighted, is that it?’ Mrs Forbes had her back to the detectives as she headed in the direction of the kitchen. But she paused when she reached its threshold, and turned towards the living room instead.
‘I’m parched,’ Rebus said, holding his hand to his throat for effect. ‘Water or a cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss.’
‘I’ll make tea,’ Mrs Forbes said.
‘Very grateful.’ Rebus even gave a small bow.
‘If you’d like to wait in there.’ She was gesturing towards the living room.
‘Fine,’ Rebus agreed.
‘I might just use the…’ Clarke held up a thumb, indicating one of the closed doors behind her.
‘On the left behind the stairs,’ Barbara Forbes said with a sigh. Then she turned and entered the kitchen. Rebus gave Clarke the nod and made sure he was filling the kitchen doorway as she started making her way noiselessly up the stairs.
‘It’s very quiet out here, isn’t it?’ Rebus asked.
‘Comparatively,’ Mrs Forbes agreed, filling the kettle and switching it on. ‘I did say you could wait in the—’
‘You’re not anxious to hear what we’ve learned?’
‘All right then.’ But rather than stop to concentrate, she got busy with mugs, teapot, sugar bowl and milk. Rebus said his piece anyway–as much of the story as she needed to hear. By the time he had finished, Clarke was back. He felt the pressure of her hand on the small of his back and turned his head. She nodded gravely. So the passport was in the drawer in the bedroom, and Barbara Forbes had lied to them.
‘I’ve never thought much of Archie Sellers,’ she was saying as she stared at the kettle, willing it to come to the boil. ‘He’s like an adolescent in many respects. Bloody irresponsible of him to send that message. I hope he feels a measure of guilt.’
‘Interesting phrase,’ Rebus said.
‘What?’
‘“A measure of guilt”. Meaning there’s more to be apportioned elsewhere.’
‘I’m not sure I understand.’
‘I think you do, Mrs Forbes. And if we were to go upstairs, I think we’d find your husband’s passport just where he left it. You saw an opportunity to muddy the water and you took it. But that means you were trying to mislead us, and that looks bad. Almost as bad as that rug.’
‘The rug?’ She looked down at it.
‘Not something you often see in a kitchen. On a stone floor, I mean. It’s too slippy. Could lead to a nasty accident. A rug like this is more the sort of thing you’d find in a room like your husband’s den. So what is it doing here?’ He had placed one foot on the rug and was starting to move it.
‘Don’t touch that!’ she implored. But Rebus had already revealed the stained surface beneath. A series of blotches and splashes of a dull rust colour.
‘Will Forensics tell us that’s blood, Mrs Forbes?’ Rebus enquired quietly. Clarke had stepped past him to switch off the kettle, and to stand guard near the display of chef’s knives. But Barbara Forbes had gone very still, one hand clasped in the other as when they’d first set eyes on her.
‘So here’s what I think,’ Rebus intoned. ‘Either you saw the original email, in which case you were maybe the one who deleted it, not knowing it would linger on the machine. Or else it was the text you saw, the one Andrea Mathieson sent to your husband’s phone. Was he maybe asleep by then? Or in a different room? You’d known about the relationship but he’d promised it was in the past. Now here was proof to the contrary. She still had her talons in him, and you were furious. Furious enough to grab one of those big solid knives. Furious enough to stab at him. The blood wouldn’t shift, so you covered it up as best you could in the meantime.’
Her eyes were closed but she seemed at peace–the ordeal over now that her secret was out. No tears, her breathing slow and steady.
‘What happens next?’ was all she said, after a few seconds of silence, a silence deeper than any Rebus could remember.
‘You need to show us–show us or tell us.’
She nodded, understanding exactly.
‘The Mercedes Benz in the garage,’ she said quietly. ‘It was the only one with a boot big enough. Anyway, I wanted to drop the Bentley at the airport; that’s the one he would have taken.’ She opened her eyes again and seemed to be staring into some distance far beyond the walls of her kitchen and her home.
‘After Rory died,’ she began. But then she decided that those three words were maybe enough. Enough to her mind, certainly.
‘After Rory died,’ she repeated in a whisper, closing her eyes again as if for the last time.
The Very Last Drop
‘And this is where the ghost’s usually seen,’ the guide said. ‘So I hope nobody’s of a nervous disposition.’ His eyes were fixed on Rebus, though there were four other people on the tour. They had wandered through the brewery in their luminous health-and-safety vests and white hard-hats, climbing up flights of steps, ducking for low doorways, and were now huddled together on what seemed to be the building’s attic level. The tour itself had been a retirement present. Rebus had almost let the voucher lapse, until reminded by Siobhan Clarke, whose gift it had been.
‘Ghost?’ she asked now. The guide nodded slowly. His name was Albert Simms, and he’d told them to call him ‘Albie’–‘not alibi, though I’ve provided a few in my time’. This had been said at the very start of the tour, as they’d been trying the protective helmets for size. Siobhan had made a joke of it, warning him that he was in the presence of police officers. ‘Officer singular,’ Rebus had almost interrupted.
Almost.
Simms was currently looking uncomfortable, eyes darting around him. ‘He’s usually only seen at night, our resident ghost. More often it’s the creaking of the floorboards the workers hear. He paces up and down… up and down…’ He made a sweeping gesture with his arm. The narrow walkway was flanked by rectangular stainless-steel fermentation tanks. This was where the yeast did its work. Some vats were three-quarters full, each topped with a thick layer of brown foam. Others were empty, either clean or else waiting to be sluiced and scrubbed.
‘His name was Johnny Watt,’ Simms went on. ‘Sixty years ago he died–almost to the day.’ Simms’s eyes were rheumy, his face blotchy and pockmarked. He’d retired a decade back, but liked leading the tours. They kept him fit. ‘Johnny was up here on his own. His job was to do the cleaning. But the fumes got him.’ He pointed towards one of the busier vats. ‘Take too deep a breath and you can turn dizzy.’
‘He fell in?’ Siobhan Clarke guessed.
‘Aye,’ Simms appeared to agree. ‘That’s the story. Banged his head and wasn’t found for a while.’ He slapped the rim of the nearest vat. ‘They were made of stone back then, and metal-lined.’ His eyes were on Rebus again. ‘A fall like that can do some damage.’
There were murmurs of agreement from the other visitors.
‘Two more stops,’ Simms told them, clapping his hands together. ‘Then it’s the sample room…’
The sample room was laid out like a rural pub, its brickwork exposed. Simms himself manned the pumps while the others removed their safety-ware. Rebus offered a brief toast to the guide before taking his first gulp.
‘That was interesting,’ Siobhan offered. Simms gave a nod of thanks. ‘Is it really sixty years ago? Almost exactly, I mean–or do you tell all the tours that?’
‘Sixty years next week,’ Simms confirmed.
‘Ever seen the ghost yourself, Albie?’
Simms’s face tightened. ‘Once or twice,’ he admitted, handing her a glass and taking Rebus’s empty one. ‘Just out the corner of my eye.’
‘And maybe after a couple of these,’ Rebus added, accepting the refill. Simms gave him a stern look.
‘Johnny Watt was real enough, and he doesn’t seem to want to go away. Quite a c
haracter he was, too. The beer was free to employees back then, and no limits to how much you had. Legend has it Johnny Watt could sink a pint in three seconds flat and not be much slower by the tenth.’ Simms paused. ‘None of which seemed to stop him being a hit with the ladies.’
Clarke wrinkled her nose. ‘Wouldn’t have been a hit with me.’
‘Different times,’ Simms reminded her. ‘Story goes, even the boss’s daughter took a bit of a shine to him…’
Rebus looked up from his glass, but Simms was busy handing a fresh pint to one of the other visitors. He fixed his eyes on Siobhan Clarke instead, but she was being asked something by a woman who had come on the tour with her husband of twenty years. It had been his birthday present.
‘Is it the same with you and your dad?’ the woman was asking Clarke. ‘Did you buy him this for his birthday?’
Clarke replied with a shake of the head, then tried to hide the fact that she was smiling by taking a long sip from her glass.
‘You might say she’s my “companion”,’ Rebus explained to the woman. ‘Charges by the hour.’
He was still quick on his toes; managed to dodge the beer as it splashed from Siobhan Clarke’s glass…
The next day, Rebus was back at the brewery, but this time in the boardroom. Photos lined the walls. They showed the brewery in its heyday. At that time, almost a century ago, there had been twenty other breweries in the city, and even this was half what there had been at one time. Rebus studied a posed shot of delivery men with their dray horse. It was hitched to its cart, wooden barrels stacked on their sides in a careful pyramid. The men stood with arms folded over their three-quarter-length aprons. There was no date on the photograph. The one next to it, however, was identified as ‘Workers and Managers, 1947’. The faces were blurry. Rebus wondered if one of them belonged to Johnny Watt, unaware that he had less than a year left to live.
On the wall opposite, past the large, polished oval table, were portraits of twenty or so men, the brewery managers. Rebus looked at each of them in turn. The one at the end was a colour photograph. When the door opened and Rebus turned towards the sound, he saw the man from the portrait walk in.
‘Douglas Cropper,’ the man said, shaking Rebus’s hand. He was dressed identically to his photo–dark blue suit, white shirt, burgundy tie. He was around forty and looked the type who liked sports. The tan was probably put there by nature. The hair showed only a few flecks of grey at the temples. ‘My secretary tells me you’re a policeman…’
‘Was a policeman,’ Rebus corrected him. ‘Recently retired. I might not have mentioned that to your secretary.’
‘So there’s no trouble, then?’ Cropper had pulled out a chair and was gesturing for Rebus to sit down too.
‘Cropper’s a popular name,’ Rebus said, nodding towards the line of photographs.
‘My grandfather and my great-grandfather,’ Cropper agreed, crossing one leg over the other. ‘My father was the black sheep–he became a doctor.’
‘In one picture,’ Rebus said, ‘the inscription says “workers and managers”…’
Cropper gave a short laugh. ‘I know. Makes it sound as if the managers don’t do any work. I can assure you that’s not the case these days.’
‘Your grandfather must have been in charge of the brewery when that accident happened,’ Rebus stated.
‘Accident?’
‘Johnny Watt.’
Cropper’s eyes widened a little. ‘You’re interested in ghosts?’
Rebus offered a shrug, but didn’t say anything. The silence lengthened until Cropper broke it.
‘Businesses weren’t so hot on health and safety back then, I’m afraid to say. Lack of ventilation… and nobody partnering Mr Watt.’ Cropper leaned forward. ‘But I’ve been here the best part of twenty years, on and off, and I’ve never seen anything out of the ordinary.’
‘You mean the ghost? But other people have?’
It was Cropper’s turn to shrug. ‘It’s a story, that’s all. A bit of shadow… a squeaky floorboard… Some people can’t help seeing things.’ He sat back again and placed his hands behind his head.
‘Did your grandfather ever talk to you about it?’
‘Not that I remember.’
‘Was he still in charge when you started here?’
‘He was.’
Rebus thought for a moment. ‘What would have happened after the accident?’ he asked.
‘I dare say the family would have been compensated–my grandfather was always very fair. Plenty of evidence of it in the annals.’
‘Annals?’
‘The brewery’s records are extensive.’
‘Would they have anything to say about Johnny Watt?’
‘No idea.’
‘Could you maybe look?’
Cropper’s bright blue eyes drilled into Rebus’s. ‘Mind explaining to me why?’
Rebus thought of Albie Simms’s words: Johnny Watt was real… and he doesn’t seem to want to go away… But he didn’t say anything, just bided his time until Douglas Cropper sighed and began getting to his feet.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Cropper conceded.
‘Thank you, sir,’ Rebus said.
‘You’re supposed to be retired,’ Dr Curt said.
In the past, the two men would normally have met in the city mortuary, but Rebus had arrived at the pathologist’s office at the university, where Curt maintained a full teaching load between autopsies. The desk between them was old, ornate and wooden. The wall behind Curt was lined with bookshelves, though Rebus doubted the books themselves got much use. A laptop sat on the desk, its cover closed. There was no paperwork anywhere.
‘I am retired,’ Rebus stated.
‘Funny way of showing it…’ Curt opened a drawer and lifted out a leather-bound ledger. A page had been marked. He opened the book and turned it to face Rebus.
‘Report of the post-mortem examination,’ he explained. ‘Written in the finest copperplate lettering by Professor William Shiels.’
‘Were you ever taught by him?’ Rebus asked.
‘Do I really look that old?’
‘Sorry.’ Rebus peered at the hand-written notes. ‘You’ve had a read?’
‘Professor Shiels was a great man, John.’
‘I’m not saying he wasn’t.’
‘Contusions… fractured skull… internal bleeding to the brain… We see those injuries most days even now.’
‘Drunks on a Saturday night?’ Rebus guessed. Curt nodded his agreement.
‘Drink and drugs. Our friend Mr Watt fell eleven feet on to an inch-thick steel floor. Unconscious from the fumes, no way to defend himself…’
‘The major damage was to the base of the skull,’ Rebus commented, running a finger along the words on the page.
‘We don’t always fall forehead first,’ Curt cautioned. Something in his tone made Rebus look up.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
Curt gave a twitch of the mouth. ‘I did a bit of digging. Those vats give off carbon dioxide. Ventilation’s an issue, same now as it was back then. There are plenty of recorded cases of brewery employees falling into the vats. It’s worse if someone tries to help. They dive into the beer to rescue their friend, and come up for air… take a deep breath and suddenly they’re in as much trouble as the other fellow.’
‘What a way to go…’
‘I believe one or two had to climb out and go to the toilet a couple of times prior to drowning,’ Curt offered. Rebus smiled, as was expected.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Carbon dioxide poisoning… but what is it you’re not saying?’
‘The vat our friend fell into was empty, John. Hence the injuries. He didn’t drown in beer–there was no beer.’
Finally Rebus got it.
‘No beer,’ he said quietly, ‘meaning no fermenting. No carbon dioxide.’ His eyes met the pathologist’s. Curt was nodding slowly.
‘So what was it caused him to pass out?’ Curt asked. ‘Of course,
he could have just tripped and fallen, but then I’d expect to see signs that he’d tried to stop his fall.’
Rebus glanced back at the ledger. ‘No injuries to the hands,’ he stated.
‘None whatsoever,’ Professor Curt agreed.
Rebus’s next stop was the National Library of Scotland, where a one-day reader’s pass allowed him access to a microfiche machine. A member of staff threaded the spool of film home and showed him how to wind it to the relevant pages and adjust the focus. It was a slow process–Rebus kept stopping to read various stories and sports reports, and to smile at some of the advertisements. The film contained a year’s worth of Scotsman newspapers, the year in question being 1948. I was one year old, Rebus thought to himself. Eventually he came to news of Johnny Watt’s demise. It must have been a quiet day in the office: they’d sent a journalist and a photo grapher. Workers had gathered in the brewery yard. They looked numbed. The manager, Mr Joseph Cropper, had been interviewed. Rebus read the piece through twice, remembering the portrait of Douglas Cropper’s grandfather–stern of face and long of sideburn. Then he spooled forward through the following seven days.
There was coverage of the funeral, along with another photograph. He wondered if the horse pulling the carriage had been borrowed from the brewery. Warriston Cemetery was the destination. Watt and his family had lived in the Stockbridge area for umpteen generations. He had no wife, but three brothers and a sister, and had served a year in the army towards the end of World War Two. Rebus paused for a moment, pondering that: you survived a war, only to die in your home town three years later. Watt was twenty years old, and had only been working at the brewery for eleven months. Joseph Cropper told the reporter that the young man had been ‘full of energy, a hard worker with excellent prospects’.
In the photo showing the procession into the cemetery, Cropper was central. There was a woman next to him, identified as his wife. She wore black, her eyes to the ground, her husband gripping her arm. She was skinny and slight, in contrast to the man she’d married. Rebus leaned in a little further towards the screen, then wound the film back to the previous photo. Twenty minutes later, he was still looking.
