The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Philip, you mean?’

  Rebus shook his head. ‘Well, that too. But I was thinking of the email.’

  ‘Bloody Archie!’ She spat out the words, causing Clarke to turn away from a sleek BMW.

  ‘Likes to think of himself as a bit of a joker,’ Rebus sympathised. ‘For what it’s worth, the friends he sent the message to were every bit as pissed off. He might be in the market for new drinking buddies.’ He paused. ‘Did you know he was going to Carlisle on the Monday?’

  She eventually nodded. ‘I’ve a good mind to slap him when I see him.’

  ‘He sent you the email Sunday afternoon – when did you open it?’

  ‘That night. I nearly jumped out of my clothes. Ran to the door and made sure it was locked. I was scared half to death. Your imagination starts running away with you …’

  ‘Same for everyone. But only Mr Forbes seemed to take any action.’

  ‘Is that what you think happened?’

  ‘Did you really have a migraine on the Monday?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Or was it that you couldn’t bring yourself to come to work? Maybe because you’d been fretting about that email all night.’

  ‘Well, yes, maybe.’

  ‘Who did you think had sent it?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘No?’

  She shook her head, without making eye contact.

  ‘Not Archie? Not Philip Forbes?’

  ‘I’m not sure what it is you’re getting at.’

  ‘So everything was fine between the three of you? A happy ship and all that?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

  ‘Business doing OK?’

  Clarke had wandered over from her tour of the showroom. She had a question of her own. ‘What car do you drive, Ms Mathieson?’

  ‘A BMW Z4.’

  ‘Oh, those are nice.’ Then, as if for Rebus’s benefit: ‘Sporty. Two-seater. I’d have mine in red …’

  ‘Same as mine,’ Mathieson conceded.

  ‘They drink the fuel, though, don’t they? Probably not a hit with the environmental lobby …’

  Mathieson’s head collapsed into her hands. She mumbled something they struggled to make out.

  ‘Sorry?’ Clarke asked.

  Mathieson lifted her face. Tears were streaming down either cheek. ‘It was a present from Philip!’

  ‘Nice of him,’ Clarke said quietly.

  ‘Is that why you’ve not been able to drive to work, Andrea?’ Rebus asked, dropping his own voice. ‘Every time you see your car, you think of him?’

  ‘He loved me.’

  Rebus and Clarke shared a look.

  ‘You were having an affair?’ Clarke enquired.

  Andrea Mathieson shook her head violently. ‘Not now. Then.’

  ‘Then being … ?’

  ‘Two years ago. It didn’t last long – “a fling”, he called it. But I knew what it really was.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  ‘He was still grieving for his son. After Rory died, Philip felt crushed. His wife didn’t help – that whole part of his life was just dust. He could talk to me – did talk to me. Poured everything out. And that’s when it started. Just long enough for some healing. But not a “fling”. He was wrong about that.’ She took in gulps of air, trying to regain some composure. Clarke offered a tissue, which she accepted with a nod of thanks.

  When enough time had elapsed, Rebus threw out another question.

  ‘So when Mr Forbes opened that email … ?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He might have thought the affair was about to come to light?’

  When Mathieson didn’t answer, Clarke asked a question of her own.

  ‘He phoned you, didn’t he?’

  ‘He tried.’

  ‘Because the message said we need to flee. So if it was to do with your affair, it could only have come from you?’

  ‘I was out early evening. He left a voicemail. I texted him back.’

  ‘On Sunday night?’

  ‘I’d seen the email for myself by then.’

  ‘You must have wondered …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, suddenly it’s not a creepy anonymous message sent out randomly. As far as you knew, only the two of you received it.’

  Rebus cleared his throat. ‘It had to be someone who knew you both, whether it was about the affair or not.’

  ‘I didn’t really think about it,’ Mathieson admitted. ‘My head was … You’re right, of course. Maybe if I’d had the chance to speak to Philip.’

  ‘Did you think he’d come to your home on Monday?’

  ‘I hoped he would.’

  ‘He knew the place from back in the day?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But instead of that, he disappeared. Andrea, do you think he’s run away?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Is there anything that could have panicked him? Anything at all?’

  ‘Maybe he just wanted to be free from that bloody woman.’

  ‘His wife, you mean?’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘Did she know about the affair …?’

  There was a soft tapping from the other side of the glass door. Archie Sellers stood there, attempting to look contrite.

  ‘You bastard!’ Mathieson shrieked. She was up out of her chair, marching towards confrontation, eyes suddenly steely. Sellers had already started to retreat. The Aston Martin DB5 was parked on the forecourt. He unlocked the driver’s side with an old-fashioned key.

  ‘This is all your fault!’ Mathieson was yelling as she pulled open the showroom door. Rebus noticed the large welcome mat she’d had to cross. Various marques were listed on it, but what caught his eye were the runs of tape fixing it firmly to the floor.

  Health and safety.

  Couldn’t have anyone taking a tumble.

  ‘Should we do something?’ Clarke was asking.

  Sellers had gunned the engine and was reversing on to the carriageway. A white van had to brake hard, its horn rasping. Her anger spent, Mathieson’s face was in her hands again, shoulders heaving.

  ‘Maybe make her a cup of tea,’ Rebus suggested.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then we pay another visit to Heriots …’

  ‘You again,’ was all Barbara Forbes said when she opened the door.

  ‘Sorry to trouble you,’ Rebus managed.

  ‘I suppose you want to come in.’

  ‘You’ll be wondering if there’s news.’

  ‘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 a
nd 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 character 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.