The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories

by Ian Rankin

  Rebus smiled towards her, but seemed to be thinking about something else. In fact, he wasn’t thinking of anything in particular: he was letting them stew in the silence, letting their minds and imaginations work in whatever way they would.

  At last, he turned to Charles Collins. ‘Do you think David killed himself ?’

  Collins shrugged. ‘What else?’

  ‘Any particular reason why he would commit suicide?’

  ‘Well,’ Collins looked towards the rest of the company. ‘The show,’ he said. ‘The reviews weren’t very complimentary about David’s performance.’

  ‘Tell me a little about the play.’

  Collins tried not to sound keen as he spoke. Tried, Rebus noticed, but failed. ‘It took me most of this year to write,’ he said. ‘What we have is a prisoner in a South American country, tried and found guilty, sentenced to death. The play opens with him standing on the scaffold, the noose around his neck. Scenes from his life are played out around him, while his own scenes are made up of soliloquies dealing with the larger questions. What I’m asking the audience to do is to ask themselves the same questions he’s asking himself on the scaffold. Only the answers are perhaps more urgent, more important for him, because they’re the last things he’ll ever know.’

  Rebus broke in. The whole thing sounded dreadful. ‘And David would be on stage the entire time?’ Collins nodded. ‘And how long was that?’

  ‘Anywhere between two hours and two and a half—’ with a glance towards the stage, ‘depending on the cast.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Sometimes lines were forgotten, or a scene went missing.’ (Peter and Pam smiled in shared complicity.) ‘Or the pace just went.’

  ‘“Never have I prayed so ardently for a death to take place”, as one of the reviews put it,’ Hugh Clay supplied. ‘It was a problem of the play. It didn’t have anything to do with David.’

  Charles Collins looked ready to protest. Rebus stepped in. ‘But David’s mentions weren’t exactly kind?’ he hinted.

  ‘No,’ Clay admitted. ‘They said he lacked the necessary gravitas whatever that means.’

  ‘“Too big a part for too small an actor”,’ interrupted Marty Jones, quoting again.

  ‘Bad notices then,’ said Rebus. ‘And David Caulfield took them to heart?’

  ‘David took everything to heart,’ explained Hugh Clay. ‘That was part of the problem.’

  ‘The other part being that the notices were true,’ sniped Charles Collins. But Clay seemed prepared for this.

  ‘“Overwritten and messily directed by Charles Collins”,’ he quoted. Another fight seemed to be on the cards. Rebus blew his nose noisily.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘Notices were bad, audiences were poor. And you didn’t decide to remedy this situation by staging a little publicity stunt? A stunt that just happened – nobody’s fault necessarily – to go wrong?’

  There were shakes of the head, eyes looked to other eyes, seemingly innocent of any such plans.

  ‘Besides,’ said Marty Jones, ‘you couldn’t hang yourself accidentally on that scaffold. You either had to mean to do it yourself, or else someone had to do it for you.’

  More silence. An impasse seemed to have been reached. Rebus collapsed noisily into a chair. ‘All things considered,’ he said with a sigh, ‘you might have been better off sticking to Twelfth Night.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ Pam said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘That’s the play we did last year,’ she explained. ‘It went down very well, didn’t it?’ She had turned to Peter Collins, who nodded agreement.

  ‘We got some good reviews for that,’ he said. ‘David was a brilliant Malvolio. He kept the cuttings pinned to his bedroom wall, didn’t he, Hugh?’

  Hugh Clay nodded. Rebus had the distinct feeling that Peter Collins was trying to imply something, perhaps that Hugh Clay had seen more of David Caulfield’s bedroom walls than was strictly necessary.

  He fumbled in his pocket, extracting the note from below the handkerchief. Brian Holmes, he noticed, was staying very much in the wings, like the minor character in a minor scene. ‘We found a note in David’s pocket,’ Rebus said without preamble. ‘Maybe your success last year explains it.’ He read it out to them. Charles Collins nodded.

  ‘Yes, that sounds like David all right. Harking back to past glories.’

  ‘You think that’s what it means?’ Rebus asked conversationally.

  Collins nodded. ‘You should know, Inspector, that actors are conceited. The greater the actor, the greater the ego. And David was, I admit, on occasion a very gifted actor.’ He was speechifying again, but Rebus let him go on. Perhaps it was the only way a director could communicate with his cast.

  ‘It would be just like David to get depressed, suicidal even, by bad notices, and just like him to decide to stage as showy an exit as he could, something to hit the headlines. I happen to think he succeeded splendidly.’

  No one seemed about to contradict him on this, not even David Caulfield’s stalwart defender, Hugh Clay. It was Pam who spoke, tears in her eyes at last.

  ‘I only feel sorry for Marie,’ she said.

  Charles Collins nodded. ‘Yes, Marie’s come into her own in “Scenes from a Hanging”.’

  ‘She means,’ Hugh Clay said through gritted teeth, ‘she feels sorry for Marie because Marie’s lost David, not because Marie can no longer act in your bloody awful play.’

  Rebus felt momentary bemusement, but tried not to show it. Marty Jones, however, had seen all.

  ‘The other member of ART,’ he explained to Rebus. ‘She’s back at the flat. She wanted to be left on her own for a bit.’

  ‘She’s pretty upset,’ Peter Collins agreed.

  Rebus nodded slowly. ‘She and David were …?’

  ‘Engaged,’ Pam said, the tears falling now, Peter Collins’s arm snaking around her shoulders. ‘They were going to be married after the Fringe was finished.’

  Rebus stole a glance towards Holmes, who raised his eyebrows in reply. Just like every good melodrama, the raised eyebrows said. A twist at the end of every bloody act.

  III

  The flat the group had rented, at what seemed to Rebus considerable expense, was a dowdy but spacious second-floor affair on Morrison Street, just off Lothian Road. Rebus had been to the block before, during the investigation of a housebreaking. That had been years ago, but the only difference in the tenement seemed to be the installation of a communal intercom at the main door. Rebus ignored the entry-phone and pushed at the heavy outside door. As he had guessed, it was unlocked anyway.

  ‘Bloody students,’ had been one of Rebus’s few voiced comments during the short, curving drive down the back of the Castle towards the Usher Hall and Lothian Road. But then Holmes, driving, had been a student, too, hadn’t he? So Rebus had not expanded on his theme. Now they climbed the steep winding stairwell until they arrived at the second floor. Marty Jones had told them that the name on the door was BLACK. Having robbed the students of an unreasonable rent (though no doubt the going rate), Mr and Mrs Black had departed for a month-long holiday on the proceeds. Rebus had borrowed a key from Jones and used it to let Holmes and himself in. The hall was long, narrow and darker than the stairwell. Off it were three bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and the living-room. A young woman, not quite out of her teens, came out of the kitchen carrying a mug of coffee. She was wearing a long baggy T-shirt and nothing else, and there was a sleepy, tousled look to her, accompanying the red streakiness of her eyes.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, startled. Rebus was quick to respond.

  ‘Inspector Rebus, miss. This is Detective Constable Holmes. One of your friends lent us a key. Could we have a word?’

  ‘About David?’ Her eyes were huge, doe-like, her face small and round. Her hair was short and fair, the body slender and brittle. Even in grief – perhaps especially in grief – she was mightily attractive, and Holmes raised his eyebrows again as she led them into the living-r
oom.

  Two sleeping bags lay on the floor, along with paperback books, an alarm clock, mugs of tea. Off the living-room was a box-room, a large walk-in cupboard. These were often used by students to make an extra room in a temporary flat and light coming from the half-open door told Rebus that this was still its function. Marie went into the room and switched off the light, before joining the two policemen.

  ‘It’s Pam’s room,’ she explained. ‘She said I could lie down there. I didn’t want to sleep in our … in my room.’

  ‘Of course,’ Rebus said, all understanding and sympathy.

  ‘Of course,’ Holmes repeated. She signalled for them to sit, so they did, sinking into a sofa the consistency of marshmallow. Rebus feared he wouldn’t be able to rise again without help and struggled to keep himself upright. Marie meantime had settled, legs beneath her, with enviable poise on the room’s only chair. She placed her mug on the floor, then had a thought.

  ‘Would you like …?’

  A shake of the head from both men. It struck Rebus that there was something about her voice. Holmes beat him to it.

  ‘Are you French?’

  She smiled a pale smile, then nodded towards the Detective Constable. ‘From Bordeaux. Do you know it?’

  ‘Only by the reputation of its wine.’

  Rebus blew his nose again, though pulling the hankie from his pocket had been a struggle. Holmes took the hint and closed his mouth. ‘Now then, Miss …?’ Rebus began.

  ‘Hivert, Marie Hivert.’

  Rebus nodded slowly, playing with the hankie rather than trying to replace it in his pocket. ‘We’re told that you were engaged to Mr Caulfield.’

  Her voice was almost a whisper. ‘Yes. Not officially, you understand. But there was – a promise.’

  ‘I see. And when was this promise made?’

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure exactly. March, April. Yes, early April I think. Springtime.’

  ‘And how were things between David and yourself ?’ She seemed not quite to understand. ‘I mean,’ said Rebus, ‘how did David seem to you?’

  She shrugged. ‘David was David. He could be—’ she raised her eyes to the ceiling, seeking words, ‘impossible, nervous, exciting, foul-tempered.’ She smiled. ‘But mostly exciting.’

  ‘Not suicidal?’

  She gave this serious thought. ‘Oh yes, I suppose,’ she admitted. ‘Suicidal, just as actors can be. He took criticism to heart. He was a perfectionist.’

  ‘How long had you known him?’

  ‘Two years. I met him through the theatre group.’

  ‘And you fell in love?’

  She smiled again. ‘Not at first. There was a certain … competitiveness between us, you might say. It helped our acting. I’m not sure it helped our relationship altogether. But we survived.’ Realising what she had said, she grew silent, her eyes dimming. A hand went to her forehead as, head bowed, she tried to collect herself.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, collapsing into sobs. Holmes raised his eyebrows: someone should be here with her. Rebus shrugged back: she can handle it on her own. Holmes’s eyebrows remained raised: can she? Rebus looked back at the tiny figure, engulfed by the armchair. Could actors always tell the real world from the illusory?

  We survived. It was an interesting phrase to have used. But then she was an interesting young woman.

  She went to the bathroom to splash water on her face and while she was gone Rebus took the opportunity to rise awkwardly to his feet. He looked back at the sofa.

  ‘Bloody thing,’ he said. Holmes just smiled.

  When she returned, composed once more, Rebus asked if David Caulfield might have left a note somewhere. She shrugged. He asked if she minded them having a quick look round. She shook her head. So, never men to refuse a gift, Rebus and Holmes began looking.

  The set-up was fairly straightforward. Pam slept in the box-room, while Marty Jones and Hugh Clay had sleeping-bags on the living-room floor. Marie and David Caulfield had shared the largest of the three bedrooms, with Charles and Peter Collins having a single room each. Charles Collins’s room was obsessively tidy, its narrow single bed made up for the night and on the quilt an acting-copy of ‘Scenes from a Hanging’, covered in marginalia and with several long speeches, all Caulfield’s, seemingly excised. A pencil lay on the typescript, evidence that Charles Collins was taking the critics’ view to heart himself and attempting to shorten the play as best he could.

  Peter Collins’s room was much more to Rebus’s personal taste, though Holmes wrinkled his nose at the used underwear underfoot, the contents of the hastily unpacked rucksack scattered over every surface. Beside the unmade bed, next to an overflowing ashtray, lay another copy of the play. Rebus flipped through it. Closing it, his attention was caught by some doodlings on the inside cover. Crude heart shapes had been constructed around the words ‘I love Edinburgh’. His smile was quickly erased when Holmes held the ashtray towards him.

  ‘Not exactly Silk Cut,’ Holmes was saying. Rebus looked. The butts in the ashtrays were made up of cigarette papers wrapped around curled strips of cardboard. They were called ‘roaches’ by those who smoked dope, though he couldn’t remember why. He made a tutting sound.

  ‘And what were we doing in here when we found these?’ he asked. Holmes nodded, knowing the truth: they probably couldn’t charge Peter Collins even if they’d wanted to, since there was no reason for their being in his room. We were looking for someone else’s suicide note probably wouldn’t impress a latter-day jury.

  The double room shared by Marie Hivert and David Caulfield was messiest of all. Marie helped them sift through a few of Caulfield’s things. His diary proved a dead end, since he had started it faithfully on 1st January but the entries ceased on 8th January. Rebus, having tried keeping a diary himself, knew the feeling.

  But in the back of the diary were newspaper clippings, detailing Caulfield’s triumph in the previous year’s Twelfth Night. Marie, too, had come in for some praise as Viola, but the glory had been Malvolio’s. She wept again a little as she read through the reviews. Holmes said that he’d make another cup of coffee. Did he want her to fetch Pam from the theatre? She shook her head. She’d be all right. She promised she would.

  While Marie sat on the bed and Holmes filled the kettle, Rebus wandered back into the living-room. He peered into the box-room, but saw little there to interest him. Finally, he came back to the sleeping-bags on the floor. Marie was coming back into the room as he bent to pick up the paperback book from beside one sleeping-bag. It was Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities. Rebus had a hardback copy at home, still unopened. Something fell from the back of the book, a piece of card. Rebus retrieved it from the floor. It was a photograph of Marie, standing on the Castle ramparts with the Scott Monument behind her. The wind blew her hair fiercely against her face and she was attempting to sweep the hair out of her eyes as she grinned towards the camera. Rebus handed the picture to her.

  ‘Your hair was longer then,’ he said.

  She smiled and nodded, her eyes still moist. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That was in June. We came to look at the venue.’

  He waved the book at her. ‘Who’s the Tom Wolfe fan?’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it’s doing the rounds. I think Marty’s reading it just now.’ Rebus flipped through the book again, his eyes lingering a moment on the inside cover. ‘Tom Wolfe’s had quite a career,’ he said before placing the book, face down as it had been, beside the sleeping-bag. He pointed towards the photograph. ‘Shall I put it back?’ But she shook her head.

  ‘It was David’s,’ she said. ‘I think I’d like to keep it.’

  Rebus smiled an avuncular smile. ‘Of course,’ he said. Then he remembered something. ‘David’s parents. Have you been in touch at all?’

  She shook her head, horror growing within her. ‘Oh God,’ she said, ‘they’ll be devastated. David was very close to his mother and father.’

  ‘Well,’ said Rebus, ‘give me the details and I’ll phone them
when I get back to the station.’

  She frowned. ‘But I don’t … No, sorry,’ she said, ‘all I know is that they live in Croydon.’

  ‘Well, never mind,’ said Rebus, knowing, in fact, that the parents had already been notified, but interested that Caulfield’s apparent fiancée should know their address only vaguely. If David Caulfield had been so close to his mother and father, wouldn’t they have been told of the engagement? And once told, wouldn’t they have wanted to meet Marie? Rebus’s knowledge of English geography wasn’t exactly Mastermind material, but he was fairly sure that Reading and Croydon weren’t at what you would call opposite ends of the country.

  Interesting, all very interesting. Holmes came in carrying three mugs of coffee, but Rebus shook his head, suddenly the brisk senior officer.

  ‘No time for that, Holmes,’ he said. ‘There’s plenty of work waiting for us back at the station.’ Then, to Marie: ‘Take care of yourself, Miss Hivert. If there’s anything we can do, don’t hesitate.’

  Her smile was winning. ‘Thank you, Inspector.’ She turned to Holmes, taking a mug from him. ‘And thank you, too, constable,’ she said. The look on Holmes’s face kept Rebus grinning all the way back to the station.

  IV

  There the grin promptly vanished. There was a message marked URGENT from the police pathologist asking Rebus to call him. Rebus pressed the seven digits on his new-fangled telephone. The thing had a twenty-number memory and somewhere in that memory was the single-digit number that would connect him with the pathologist, but Rebus could never remember which number was which and he kept losing the sheet of paper with all the memory numbers on it.

  ‘It’s four,’ Holmes reminded him, just as he’d come to the end of dialling. He was throwing Holmes a kind of half-scowl when the pathologist himself answered.

  ‘Oh, yes, Rebus. Hello there. It’s about this hanging victim of yours. I’ve had a look at him. Manual strangulation, I’d say.’

  ‘Yes?’ Rebus, his thoughts on Marie Hivert, was waiting for some punch-line.