by Ian Rankin
‘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 photographer. 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.
Albert Simms seemed surprised to see him.
Simms had just finished one of his brewery tours. Rebus was sitting at a table in the sample room, nursing the best part of a pint of IPA. It had been a busy tour: eight guests in all. They offered Rebus half-smiles and glances but kept their distance. Simms poured them their drinks but then seemed in a hurry for them to finish, ushering them from the room. It was five minutes before he returned. Rebus was behind the pumps, topping up his glass.
‘No mention of Johnny Watt’s ghost,’ Rebus commented.
‘No.’ Simms was tidying the vests and hard-hats into a plastic storage container.
‘Do you want a drink? My shout.’
Simms thought about it, then nodded. He approached the bar and eased himself on to one of the stools. There was a blue folder lying nearby, but he tried his best to ignore it.
‘Always amazes me,’ Rebus said, ‘the way we humans hang on to things – records, I mean. Chitties and receipts and old photographs. Brewery’s got quite a collection. Same goes for the libraries and the medical college.’ He handed over Simms’s drink. The man made no attempt to pick it up.
‘Joseph Cropper’s wife never had a daughter,’ Rebus began to explain. ‘I got that from Joseph’s grandson, your current boss. He showed me the archives. So much stuff there …’ He paused. ‘When Johnny Watt died, how long had you been working here, Albie?’
&
nbsp; ‘Not long.’
Rebus nodded and opened the folder, showing Simms the photo from the Scotsman, the one of the brewery workers in the yard. He tapped a particular face. A young man, seated on a corner of the wagon, legs dangling, shoulders hunched. ‘You’ve not really changed, you know. How old were you? Fifteen?’
‘You sound as if you know.’ Simms had taken the photocopy from Rebus and was studying it.
‘The police keep records too, Albie. We never throw anything away. Bit of trouble in your youth – nicking stuff; fights. Brandishing a razor on one particular occasion – you did a bit of juvenile time for that. Was that when Joseph Cropper met you? He was the charitable type, according to his grandson. Liked to visit prisons, talk to the men and the juveniles. You were about to be released; he offered you a job. But there were strings attached, weren’t there?’
‘Were there?’ Simms tossed the sheet of paper on to the bar, picked up the glass and drank from it.
‘I think so,’ Rebus said. ‘In fact, I’d go so far as to say I know so.’ He rubbed a hand down his cheek. ‘Be a bugger to prove, mind, but I don’t think I need to do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you want to be caught. You’re an old man now, maybe only a short while left, but it’s been plaguing you. How many years is it, Albie? How long have you been seeing Johnny Watt’s ghost?’
Albert Simms wiped foam from his top lip with his knuckles, but didn’t say anything.
‘I’ve been to take a look at your house,’ Rebus continued. ‘Nice place. Semi-detached; quiet street off Colinton Road. Didn’t take much searching to come up with the transaction. You bought it new a couple of months after Johnny Watt died. No mortgage. I mean, houses were maybe more affordable back then, but on wages like yours? I’ve seen your pay slips, Albie – they’re in the company files too. So where did the money come from?’
‘Go on then – tell me.’
‘Joseph Cropper didn’t have a daughter. You told me he did because you knew fine well it would jar if I ever did any digging. I’d start to wonder why you told that particular lie. He had a wife, though, younger than him.’ Rebus showed Simms a copy of the photo from the cemetery. ‘See how her husband’s keeping a grip on her? She’s either about to faint or he’s just letting everyone know who the boss is. To be honest, my money would be on both. You can’t see her face, but there’s a photo she sat for in a studio …’ He slid it from the folder.
‘Very pretty, I think you’ll agree. This came from Douglas Cropper, by the way. Families keep a lot of stuff too, don’t they? She’d been at school with Johnny Watt. Johnny, with his eye for the ladies. Joseph Cropper couldn’t have his wife causing a scandal, could he? Her in her late teens, him in his early thirties …’ Rebus leaned across the bar a little, so that his face was close to that of the man with the sagging shoulders and face.
‘Could he?’ he repeated.
‘You can’t prove anything, you said as much yourself.’
‘But you wanted someone to find out. When you found out I was a cop, you zeroed in on me. You wanted to whet my appetite, because you needed to be found out, Albie. That’s at the heart of this, always has been. Guilt gnawing away at you down the decades.’
‘Not down the decades – just these past few years.’ Simms took a deep breath. ‘It was only meant to be the frighteners. I was a tough kid but I wasn’t big. Johnny was big and fast, and that bit older. I just wanted him on the ground while I gave him the warning.’ Simms’s eyes were growing glassy.
‘You hit him too hard,’ Rebus commented. ‘Did you push him in or did he fall?’
‘He fell. Even then, I didn’t know he was dead. The boss … when he heard …’ Simms sniffed and swallowed hard. ‘That was the both of us, locked together … We couldn’t tell. They were still hanging people back then.’
‘They hanged a man at Perth jail in ’48,’ Rebus acknowledged. ‘I read it in the Scotsman.’
Simms managed a weak smile. ‘I knew you were the man, soon as I saw you. The kind who likes a mystery. Do you do crosswords?’
‘Can’t abide them.’ Rebus paused for a mouthful of IPA. ‘The money was to hush you up?’
‘I told him he didn’t need to – working for him, that was what I wanted. He said the money would get me a clean start anywhere in the world.’ Simms shook his head slowly. ‘I bought the house instead. He didn’t like that, but he was stuck with it – what was he going to do?’
‘The two of you never talked about it again?’
‘What was there to talk about?’
‘Did Cropper’s wife ever suspect?’
‘Why should she? Post-mortem was what we had to fear. Once they’d declared it an accident, that was that.’
Rebus sat in silence, waiting until Albert Simms made eye contact, then asked a question of his own. ‘So what are we going to do, Albie?’
Albert Simms exhaled noisily. ‘I suppose you’ll be taking me in.’
‘Can’t do that,’ Rebus said. ‘I’m retired. It’s up to you. Next natural step. I think you’ve already done the hard part.’
Simms thought for a moment, then nodded slowly. ‘No more ghosts,’ he said quietly, almost to himself, as he stared up at the ceiling of the sample room.
‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Rebus said.
‘Been here long?’ Siobhan Clarke asked as she entered the Oxford Bar.
‘What else am I going to do?’ Rebus replied. ‘Now I’m on the scrapheap. What about you – hard day at the office?’
‘Do you really want to hear about it?’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I know what you’re like. Soon as you get a whiff of a case – mine or anyone else’s – you’ll want to have a go at it yourself.’
‘Maybe I’m a changed man, Siobhan.’
‘Aye, right.’ She rolled her eyes and told the landlord she’d have a gin and tonic.
‘Double?’ he asked.
‘Why not?’ She looked at Rebus. ‘Same again? Then you can make me jealous by telling me stories of your life of leisure.’
‘Maybe I’ll do that,’ said Rebus, raising his pint glass and draining it to the very last drop.
Rankin on Rebus
I
‘Male hero (a policeman?)’
That was my first note to myself, dated 15 March 1985, about the character who would eventually become Detective Inspector John Rebus. I was twenty-four years old and a postgraduate student at the University of Edinburgh. I was living in a shared apartment with two other – female – postgrads in Arden Street. I’d been in the city six and a half years, and still I couldn’t fathom the place. My doctoral thesis was concentrating on the novelist Muriel Spark, and through her I was beginning to investigate the Edinburgh of the imagination. In Spark’s most celebrated work, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Miss Brodie is a descendant of William Brodie, a real historical character. William Brodie was a deacon of the city, a councillor, cabinet-maker and a man who lived a double life. Respectable and industrious by day, by night he led a masked gang into the homes of his victims, robbing them of their valuables. Brodie was trying to fund his lavish lifestyle (including a couple of demanding mistresses), and had diversified into lock fitting, meaning he had little trouble gaining unlawful entry. When caught and found guilty, he was hanged on a scaffold he had helped to modernise as part of his daily profession.
Deacon Brodie provided the template for another great character from Scottish literature – Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Henry Jekyll. Muriel Spark was a huge fan of Stevenson, and my research took me to The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The idea of the doppelganger had been explored before, however, in James Hogg’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner . . . so I had to read that book, too. At the same time, I was becoming fascinated by contemporary literary theory, enjoying the ‘game playing’ aspect of storytelling. Eventually, I would name my own fictional detective after a type of picture puzzle, and the mystery in his first adventure wou
ld be solved with the help of a professor of semiotics.
That’s the problem with Knots and Crosses (and one reason I find it hard to read the book these days) – it is so obviously written by a literature student. Rebus reads too many books and even quotes from Walt Whitman – a writer whose works he really shouldn’t have known. He is overly literate, perhaps because I didn’t quite know him. I was twenty-four and knew little enough of life outside the confines of academia. I certainly didn’t know what it would be like to work as a cop. The plot of Knots and Crosses demanded that Rebus be a seasoned pro, so I made him forty years old. He’s separated from his wife and has a young daughter. Really, this guy was unlike me in so many ways, and our one resemblance – that love of literature – made him less than realistic.
It seems to me now that I wasn’t interested in Rebus as a person – he was a way of telling a story about Edinburgh, and of updating the doppelganger tradition. Knots and Crosses was self-consciously based on Jekyll and Hyde, just as a later Rebus novel, The Black Book, would use Justified Sinner as its starting point. The thing is, I’d always been a bit of an outsider/doppelganger, always tried to present several faces to the world. I’d grown up in a fairly tough neighbourhood – a town of 7,000 inhabitants, which had existed only as a hamlet and a couple of farms until coal was discovered at the start of the twentieth century. That’s when my grandfather shifted the family east from the Lanarkshire coalfields. Houses were constructed quickly – and cheaply – to house the new labour force. There wasn’t even time to think up names for the streets, so they just got numbers instead. My dad, the youngest of seven, didn’t work down the mines, but all his brothers did. By the time I came along, however, the coal was running out. The klaxon which signalled the start of each new shift fell silent one day, and that was that. Not that I took much of this in, being too busy living a completely separate life inside my own head.
