The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Maid must have got a fright.’ Rebus was staring at the unmade bed. He thought Maria Stokes’s outline was still there, contoured into the sheets and pillows.

  ‘Doctor reckons she was probably killed the night she got here. Whoever did it, they were clever to put the sign on the door.’

  ‘I suppose we’re lucky she didn’t pay for a week. How do you think he got in?’

  ‘Either he had a key card, or he just knocked.’

  Rebus nodded. ‘Someone knocks, you’ll assume it’s staff. Hotel’s the easiest place to walk in and out of, as long as you look like you belong.’

  ‘We’ll be asking the manager if there have been any problems.’

  ‘Stuff going missing from rooms, you mean? Not the sort of thing they’d want to broadcast.’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so.’

  Rebus was studying a card on the dressing table. ‘There’s a list here of all the different pillows you can request with your turndown service. Doesn’t say if strangulation comes extra. What time’s the autopsy?’

  Clarke glanced at her watch. ‘Just under an hour.’

  ‘Staff are being questioned? CCTV?’ Rebus watched her nod. ‘Not much more for us to do here, then.’

  ‘Not much,’ she agreed.

  He took a final look around. ‘A better place to die than some, but even so …’

  ‘Even so,’ Clarke echoed.

  Maria Stokes had reverted to her own surname after the divorce. Her ex-husband’s name was Peter Welburn. They had been separated for four years and divorced for one. No children.

  Welburn sat in one of the small office cubicles at Gayfield Square police station. He was holding a mug of tea, focusing all his attention on it. He had just been explaining that Maria and he lived on opposite sides of Newcastle but were still friendly.

  ‘Well, sociable, anyway. No nastiness.’

  ‘The separation was amicable?’ Clarke asked.

  ‘We just sort of drifted apart – busy lives, usual story.’

  ‘Where did she work?’

  ‘She owns a graphic design business.’

  ‘In Newcastle?’ Rebus watched the man nod. ‘Doing OK, is it?’

  ‘Far as I know.’ Welburn lifted one hand from the mug long enough to scratch the side of his head. He was in his late forties, a couple of years older than his ex-wife. Rebus reckoned they’d have made a good-looking couple – same sort of height and build.

  ‘What do you do, Mr Welburn?’ Clarke was asking.

  ‘Architect – currently between projects.’

  ‘Any support from Ms Stokes? Financially, I mean?’

  The man shook his head. ‘I hardly ever saw her – maybe a phone call or a text once a week.’

  ‘But no nastiness?’ Rebus asked, echoing Welburn’s own words.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you know she was coming to Edinburgh?’

  Another slow shake of the head.

  ‘Did she have any friends in the city? Any connection to the place?’

  ‘We visited a few times – years ago now. It’s quick on the train. Used to book a B and B, hit a few of the pubs, maybe catch some music …’ Welburn’s voice cracked as the memories took hold. He cleared his throat. ‘It was terrible, seeing her like that.’

  ‘Formal identification is always difficult on the loved ones,’ Clarke offered, trying to sound sympathetic, though she had trotted out the same words so many times before.

  ‘When was the last time you were in Edinburgh?’ Rebus broke in. ‘Before today, I mean?’

  ‘Couple of years, probably.’

  ‘And this past weekend …?’

  Welburn lifted his eyes to meet Rebus’s. ‘I was at home. With my girlfriend and her kid.’

  Clarke lifted a hand. ‘I’m sorry, but these things have to be asked.’

  ‘Why would I want to kill Maria? It’s insane.’

  ‘Did she have anyone she was seeing? Someone she might have wanted to spend the weekend with?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘And I’m guessing no enemies that you’d know of ?’

  ‘Enemies?’ Welburn’s face crumpled. ‘She was a sweetheart, an absolute angel. Even when we were splitting up, there wasn’t any drama. We just … got on with it.’ He placed the mug on the desk and let his head fall into his hands, shoulders spasming as he sobbed.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ Clarke asked. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel as she waited for the lights to change.

  ‘Seemed genuine enough. Did the deceased take the train this time, or did she drive?’

  ‘She didn’t leave a car at the hotel. It’s a five-minute walk from the station.’

  ‘I didn’t see a return ticket in her bag. Maybe her coat or jacket?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Meaning she only bought a single. Does she strike you as the impetuous type?’

  ‘We really don’t know much about her.’

  ‘Are you on to CID in Newcastle?’

  Clarke nodded. ‘They’ll give her flat a look. See if there’s a diary, or maybe something useful on her computer. You think she was meeting someone? Returning to Newcastle not uppermost in her mind?’

  ‘Or she left in a hurry.’

  ‘She’d taken some care packing that case. Didn’t look thrown together in a panic.’

  ‘Then we’re not much further forward, are we?’

  ‘Not much. But whoever did it, they’ve had three days to make themselves scarce.’

  ‘And arrange an alibi.’

  ‘That too,’ Clarke agreed.

  The general manager’s name was Kate Ferguson. She met them in the airy reception and asked if anyone had offered them something to drink.

  ‘We declined,’ Clarke replied.

  ‘Well then. This way.’

  Ferguson led them to an office on the mezzanine level. Her sizeable desk had been cleared of everything but a laptop computer. Two chairs awaited, both with a view of the screen.

  ‘Two of your officers have already viewed the footage,’ she said, in a tone that told them she was busy and important and wanted the whole business consigned to history.

  ‘Just need to see for ourselves.’

  ‘I’m sure we could have forwarded you a copy.’

  Clarke offered a professional smile. ‘We appreciate the hotel’s cooperation.’

  Realising that she had lost the skirmish, Ferguson used the mouse to start the film. Four onscreen squares, all in colour and of high quality: the outside steps, reception desk, lift and bar.

  ‘This is her checking in,’ she said. She was standing just behind the two detectives, her hand reaching between them to point to the top left square. ‘Just the one overnight case, meaning she didn’t need help with luggage and didn’t want to be escorted to her room.’

  ‘How long ago did she book?’

  ‘Ten days.’

  ‘By phone? Email?’

  ‘It was an online booking.’

  ‘She didn’t say if it was business or pleasure?’

  ‘She arrives dressed for business,’ Clarke interrupted. ‘Two-piece, neutral, flat shoes.’

  The clothes that had been left in a pile on the bathroom floor, prior to her shower.

  ‘She didn’t hang anything up,’ Rebus commented.

  The action moved to the lift, Maria Stokes pushing the button. Then pushing it again a couple of times.

  ‘She’s in a hurry,’ Clarke said.

  ‘No calls that needed connecting to her room?’ Rebus asked.

  ‘Everyone has their own phone these days.’ The general manager seemed every bit as irritated by this as by the intrusion of the police into her life.

  ‘We’re asking her service provider for a breakdown,’ Clarke added for Rebus’s benefit.

  They watched as the lift doors opened and Maria Stokes got in. ‘No cameras in the corridors?’ Rebus enquired.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So someone could try the doors on
every floor and not be spotted?’

  ‘As I told your colleagues, that sort of thing has never happened here.’

  ‘Why not?’ Rebus turned to meet Ferguson’s stare. ‘It’s a genuine question – seems to me you’ve left the place wide open.’

  ‘Staff are rigorously vetted. They’re also trained to tell a guest from someone who doesn’t belong.’

  ‘So what happens now?’ Clarke interrupted. ‘With Ms Stokes, I mean.’

  Ferguson dragged the cursor along the timeline at the bottom of the screen.

  ‘Seven twenty-three p.m.,’ she said. ‘As you can see, she’s changed her outfit.’

  Stokes was emerging from the lift, dressed in the clothes they had seen next to her bed. She looked nervous, scanning the lobby.

  ‘A rendezvous?’ Rebus offered. He watched as she made her way to the bar. She stopped at the threshold, a member of staff smiling a greeting.

  ‘She’s looking for someone, isn’t she?’ Clarke asked, to herself as much as anyone else.

  ‘And not finding them,’ Rebus added. Because now Stokes was shaking her head at the offer of a table. There seemed to be only two couples in the whole place. Friday night was happening elsewhere.

  Back in the lobby, she stopped to talk to someone.

  ‘That’s one of our concierges,’ Ferguson offered. ‘Daniel. Very knowledgeable.’

  ‘So what’s he telling her?’ Clarke asked.

  ‘She wanted to know where to eat, where to drink.’ Daniel was nodding in the direction of the bar. ‘Of course,’ Ferguson went on, sounding proud, ‘he told her that our own bar and dining room couldn’t be bettered.’

  There was a little laugh from Maria Stokes, and she even touched the concierge on the arm.

  ‘Friendly sort,’ Rebus commented.

  ‘His patter didn’t seal the deal, though.’ Clarke leaned in a little towards the screen, where Stokes was walking out of the hotel – the door held open by Daniel. She looked to right and left, until the obliging concierge emerged to point her in the right direction. Then off she went, slightly hesitantly, as though the height of her heels were a new and daunting experience.

  ‘Which brings us to …’ Ferguson again used the mouse, dragging the cursor along the screen. ‘Ten twenty-six.’

  ‘So she was out and about for almost exactly three hours.’ Clarke added the numbers to a small notepad. The sky was dark but the front of the hotel was brightly illuminated. The bar area was at last doing good business, and a middle-aged couple laden with luggage were checking in at the reception desk. There was no one to hold open the door for Maria Stokes, and she struggled a little. Tipsy strides across the floor to the lift, whose button she needed to press just the once, its doors sliding open immediately. A half-glance behind her as a man arrived from outside. She entered the lift and he hurried forward, squeezing in as the doors slid shut.

  ‘Another guest?’ Clarke asked.

  ‘Or the person she was meeting?’ Rebus added.

  ‘Did she look as though she knew him?’

  ‘Hard to say?’ Rebus turned towards Ferguson. ‘We need as clear a printout of his face as we can get. Then all the staff need to be shown it.’

  ‘I assumed he was staying here,’ Ferguson blurted out. ‘Are you saying he could be the one who …?’ She lifted the palm of one hand to her mouth.

  ‘As of right now, we’re saying precisely nothing,’ Rebus said in a warning tone. ‘But we do need that printout.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Anything while you’re waiting? A tea or coffee maybe?’

  ‘Tea would be fine,’ Clarke said.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And one more thing,’ Rebus said. ‘Get Daniel to fetch it, please.’

  ‘I only spoke to her that one time,’ the concierge protested.

  ‘Easy, Daniel. No one’s accusing you of anything.’

  They were in Ferguson’s office, with the general manager on the other side of the door. Clarke was seated behind the desk and Daniel Woods opposite her, with Rebus standing off to one side, feet apart and arms folded. Woods was in his late twenties, lean and sharp-faced. His uniform consisted of charcoal waistcoat and tie, white shirt, dark trousers. Only the shoes really belonged to him, and they were scuffed and cheap.

  ‘Actually,’ Rebus broke in, ‘I’m accusing him of something.’ He had Clarke’s attention, while his was on the concierge. ‘Faking your application, for a start. Ferguson’s vetting’s not as hot as she thinks. Been a while, though, hasn’t it, Daniel? Since you did time, I mean.’

  Woods’s mouth opened but then closed again soundlessly.

  ‘Don’t know what it is that changes a man when they’re put away,’ Rebus ploughed on. ‘But it sticks to them. Either that or I’m just receptive. Young Offenders, was it? Fighting or break-ins?’

  Woods was running a finger along the edge of his gold-coloured badge, the one that identified him as Concierge. ‘Drugs,’ he eventually muttered.

  ‘Wee bit of dealing? Probably grassed up by the competition. Clean since?’

  ‘Ever since.’ Woods tightened his jaw. ‘So do I lose my job now or what?’

  ‘Management hold you in high regard, Danny. I just wanted you to know how things lie, here in this room, between the three of us.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So tell us again.’

  Woods took a deep breath. ‘Just like I said. She looked dressed for a bit of fun, said she was after a wine bar or similar, somewhere she could maybe get a bite. She’d put on too much perfume and lipstick – trying that bit too hard. I wondered if she’d already had a drink, either that or a wee bit of powder or a tab.’

  ‘Nothing out of the minibar,’ Clarke interjected. ‘No sign of drugs in her handbag.’

  ‘Maybe it was just excitement, then. She was like one of those … cougars, is it?’

  ‘An older woman out for a good time?’

  ‘And a bit of male company,’ Woods added with a nod.

  ‘You didn’t offer?’ Rebus enquired.

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Don’t tell me it hasn’t happened in the past.’

  ‘Not once.’ The fixing of the jaw again. ‘I mean, sometimes guests ask me to sort them out …’

  ‘With an escort?’

  Another nod. ‘But I didn’t get the feeling she was in the market.’

  ‘So where did you send her?’

  ‘The Abilene, on Market Street.’

  Clarke looked to Rebus, who knew pretty much every pub in the city, but he just offered a twitch of one shoulder. ‘Why there?’ she asked Woods.

  ‘It’s not too raucous. They do bar food that’s edible and pretty good cocktails.’

  ‘You know anyone who works there?’

  ‘Doddy works the door, but he wouldn’t have been on duty till later.’

  ‘What sort of crowd is it?’

  ‘Office drones. Ties off and jackets over chairs while they work up a sweat on the dance floor. Tunes the ladies can sing along to. It can be a fun night.’

  ‘Ms Stokes was back here by ten thirty.’

  ‘Do we know she even went there? Plenty of other places in the vicinity.’

  Clarke turned the laptop around so it was facing Woods. The CCTV footage had been paused. ‘This man here,’ she said, ‘the one making for the lift.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘A guest?’

  ‘Might be.’

  ‘You don’t recognise him?’

  Woods shook his head. ‘Has he got something to do with it?’

  Clarke didn’t answer. Instead she swivelled the laptop back around again.

  ‘One way to tell if he’s a guest,’ Woods offered.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Keep watching. See if he leaves …’

  With Clarke supplied with another pot of tea and the fast-forward function, Rebus stepped outside for a cigarette. He’d just missed a shower and the pavement glistened, the evening crowd hurrying pas
t, some with hair still dripping. The doorman knew he was a cop and didn’t have anything to say. He was in his sixties and had the thickset build and squashed nose of a one-time boxer. Pale blue eyes sinking into puffy red-veined flesh. He held a rolled umbrella, ready for any taxi that might arrive.

  Someone had died a few windows up, strangled in their bed, the last moments of their life filled with horror and terror. Rebus doubted any of the pedestrians would care. They had worries of their own and not half enough time. As he headed back inside, the doorman cleared his throat.

  ‘Papers have been sniffing,’ he said.

  ‘Make sure they cough up for anything you give them,’ Rebus advised. As reward, the door was held open for him, as if he were a regular and cherished guest, the kind that always tipped.

  At reception, Rebus showed his ID and asked for the key to 407. He shared the lift with a young couple who didn’t look as if they were going to make it fully clothed to their room. Rebus slid the key card into 407’s lock, stepped inside and switched on the light. Everything deemed potential evidence had been removed by the forensics team since his last visit – sheets and pillowcases, Stokes’s bag and belongings. But the book was still there. Maybe someone had decided that it belonged to the hotel or a previous guest. Maybe it did at that. Rebus picked it up and sniffed it. It smelled faintly of perfume. It was called The Driver’s Seat and had obviously been turned into a film – the cover showed a heavily made-up Elizabeth Taylor. It had cost £1.25 when first published, but had been bought second-hand for twice that, according to a pencilled price on the inside cover. The author’s biography was there, too: born and educated in Edinburgh … spent time in Africa … became a Roman Catholic … Rebus nodded to himself when he came to the title of another of her books: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. He’d gone to see the film when it had come out. Had it been on a double bill with something else Scottish …? The Wicker Man, maybe? Closing the book, he rubbed his thumb over Elizabeth Taylor’s face, removing a light dusting of fingerprint powder. Then he stuck the book in his jacket pocket, went over to the chair in the corner, and sat down to think.

  ‘Quarter past four,’ Clarke said, sounding satisfied.