The Beat Goes On

by Ian Rankin

  ‘Just the victim’s prints on that.’

  Rebus ran a hand along his jawline. ‘They sure?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘So our notion that the attacker put the sign up to stop anyone going in…’

  ‘May need rethinking. Victim had downed a fair few gin and tonics and eaten nothing but salted peanuts. No drugs. Signs of sexual intercourse–traces of the lubricant from a condom.’

  ‘No condom in the room, though.’

  ‘And no wrapper either. So the assailant either pocketed both or else flushed them. And we can’t be sure if penetration was pre- or post-mortem. No signs of trauma.’

  Rebus rubbed at his jaw again. ‘We’re saying this is all the one guy? She picks him up in a bar and takes him to her room. Instead of saying thank you, he then strangles her?’

  ‘It’s the simplest explanation, no?’

  Eventually Rebus nodded.

  ‘There are some strands of hair that don’t seem to match the victim…’ Clarke was skimming the pages. ‘Et cetera, et cetera.’ She paused, holding up one final sheet. ‘And then there’s this.’

  Rebus took the piece of paper from Clarke and started to read as she spoke.

  ‘A team from Newcastle went to her flat. Everything neat and tidy, but there was stuff next to her computer, including correspondence from her GP and a couple of hospitals…’

  ‘Brain tumour,’ Rebus muttered.

  ‘Shelf in her bathroom stacked with strong painkillers, none of which she brought to Edinburgh–unless he lifted them.’

  Rebus placed the sheet of paper on top of the others. ‘She was dying.’

  ‘Maybe Edinburgh was on her bucket list.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Ironic, though, isn’t it? You head north to let your hair down. You want to feel something, so you maybe don’t bother deadening the pain with drugs. And you end up meeting the one man you shouldn’t.’

  ‘Ironic, yes,’ Rebus echoed, though he didn’t really believe it. ‘And his name’s Robert Jeffries, by the way.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The man who went up to her room with her. I’m in the process of getting an address.’

  ‘You better take a seat and tell me.’

  Rebus nodded his agreement. ‘But can we make it quick?’

  Clarke just stared at him.

  ‘I have a book I need to read,’ he explained.

  That evening, Rebus and Clarke sat in the office, listening to the record ing that had been made of their interview with Robert Jeffries. A lawyer had been present throughout, but Jeffries had made it clear that he had nothing to hide and wanted to explain.

  ‘That’s good, Mr Jeffries,’ Clarke had said. ‘And we appreciate your help.’

  ‘I hate my voice,’ she said to Rebus as she listened.

  ‘Hush,’ he chided her.

  ‘I was in the Abilene,’ Jeffries was saying. ‘It’s a nightclub on Market Street. I don’t go often, but sometimes the boredom gets to me. Ever since Margaret passed away, I’ve found my life… not withering away exactly. Squeezed into a box maybe. Just the telly and the computer, you know. Used to go to the football, but I lost interest. Stopped returning friends’ calls. Bit pathetic really.’

  Rebus’s voice: ‘Why the Abilene in particular?’

  ‘I suppose it’s handy for the train back to Falkirk. You can sit at the bar and sometimes people talk to you. Even if they don’t, you can watch them enjoying themselves. I used to reminisce about clubs me and Margaret went to. Duran Duran was her thing. Simon Le Bon. Even in the living room, I’d come home and find her shimmying around the place.’

  There was a pause. A plastic cup of water was being lifted, sipped from, placed with care back on the table. A chair creaked as the lawyer shifted slightly, trying to get more comfortable.

  ‘I only meant to have a couple of drinks that night, but then she was standing beside me. I told her I liked her perfume. She laughed. Really nice white teeth. So then we got talking. Gin and tonic she was drinking. With a slice of lime rather than lemon, and not too much ice. After the third round, they brought us some peanuts and pretzels. She didn’t like pretzels.’

  Clarke: ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘My job… her job. She’d dumped her husband–that was the word she used, “dumped”–and found herself a nice flat near the river in Newcastle. I said I’d been through it on the train to York and London but never stopped. She said I should. “It’s full of life.” She was full of life. It was like sparks were coming off her. Deep dark eyes and a nice husky voice. A couple of times I thought she was losing interest–she would scan the room, smiles for everybody. But then she would turn her attention back to me. I was… flattered.’

  Rebus: ‘Whose idea was it to leave?’

  ‘Hers. I think she saw me glance at my watch. Horrible thing to say, but I was thinking of last trains. “You’re not leaving?” she said. She sounded aghast that I might be. “It’s Friday night, you need to live!” Then she mentioned her hotel and how it had a bar that would be getting lively. I honestly thought that was where we were heading.’

  Another pause.

  ‘No, I’m lying. I hoped that after the bar there’d be an invite to her room. I was tingling all over. Feelings I hadn’t had in years. But as it turned out, the bar wasn’t the destination she had in mind.’

  Clarke: ‘You paid for the drinks like a gentleman?’

  ‘I nearly didn’t, though. I got my PIN wrong twice.’

  Rebus: ‘Footage from the hotel entrance shows you a few seconds behind Ms Stokes…’

  ‘Yes. I thought I’d lost my phone. I stopped to check my pockets. By the time I caught up, she was already in the lift. So that was that.’

  Rebus: ‘But you’d come prepared? A condom, I mean?’

  ‘That was hers. She had it in her bag.’

  ‘You flushed it afterwards?’

  ‘Yes.’ Another pause for water. ‘After I’d got dressed. We’d fallen asleep. I mean… I was sure she was asleep. I woke up feeling awful. Pounding headache and everything.’

  Clarke: ‘We need you to tell us what happened, Mr Jeffries. Not just the before and the after.’

  ‘Oh God…’

  There was a short interjection by the lawyer, but Jeffries started to make noises. Then: ‘No, I need to say it. I need to!’ Sniffling, nose-blowing, throat-clearing.

  ‘I need you to know it wasn’t me. I’m not the adventurous sort. I’d never even heard of it. I know now, though–auto-erotic asphyxiation. She said she liked it, said she wanted it. My hands around her throat while we had sex. “Squeeze tighter. Keep squeezing. Your thumbs. Harder…” Oh Christ.’ Another loud sob. ‘And this look on her face, her eyes tight shut, teeth clenched. I thought she was enjoying it, getting into it. So I kept pressing down, pressing, pressing. And then I collapsed on her, rolled off, even said a few sweet nothings… And passed out.’

  Clarke: ‘And when you woke up?’

  ‘I got dressed as quietly as I could. Didn’t want to wake her. I thought… well, cold light of day and all that. She might hate herself or me.’

  Rebus: ‘You didn’t check she was breathing?’

  ‘She looked so peaceful. I still can’t believe she was dead. It was an accident. A terrible, terrible accident…’

  Clarke: ‘Why didn’t you come forward, sir? Why did we have to fetch you?’

  ‘I knew how horrible it would sound. The whole thing. And I didn’t think.’ A further pause. ‘Just that, really–I didn’t think…’

  Clarke stopped the recording and leaned back in her chair, staring across the desk at Rebus.

  ‘You’ve had a chance to read it?’ he asked.

  She nodded and took the copy of The Driver’s Seat from her drawer, flicking through its pages.

  ‘It’s a sort of nightmare,’ she said. ‘A woman travels to a strange city looking for someone to kill her. Not because she has cancer, but… well, I’m not quite sure why. T
o create a sensation at the end of a mundane life?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘The book gave Maria Stokes the idea?’

  Rebus shrugged. ‘The story doesn’t turn out the way Maria’s life did.’

  ‘She was in the driving seat, though–is that what we’re saying? With Robert Jeffries as her passenger–meaning we should feel sorry for him.’

  ‘You don’t sound as if you do.’

  Clarke started gathering up all the loose sheets of paper on the desk, as if putting them in some sort of order were suddenly important.

  ‘A single ticket,’ Rebus said into the silence.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘She didn’t buy a return because she wasn’t going home. Yet she paid for three nights at the hotel–three shots at getting it right.’

  ‘Her head was pretty messed up.’

  ‘And she’s messed up Robert Jeffries’ head pretty good now too.’ Rebus rose to his feet. ‘Let me buy you a drink,’ he said, reaching across the desk for the book.

  ‘Anywhere but the Abilene.’

  ‘Anywhere but the Abilene,’ Rebus agreed.

  Clarke placed the paperwork in a drawer, stood up and lifted her jacket from the back of her chair. She crossed to the window as she slipped it on. There was a whole city somewhere out there, waking to another night of possibility and accident, chance and fate, pity and fear.

  A Three-Pint Problem

  The missing man’s car was found on the third day.

  It was a gloss-black Bentley GT, parked in a bay two floors up at Edinburgh airport’s multi-storey car park–a businessman had recognised it from the description on the news. When police arrived, they found the Bentley unlocked. No key, no parking chitty.

  ‘So we’ve no idea what time it was left there,’ Siobhan Clarke explained to Rebus on the way to the man’s home.

  ‘He took a flight?’

  ‘We’re checking.’

  ‘Was the business in trouble? That’s why people usually run.’

  ‘According to the wife, things had picked up after a lean couple of years.’

  ‘P.T. Forbes–I’ve been past the showroom many a time.’

  ‘Me too. There was a red E-type in the window one time…’

  ‘You were tempted?’

  ‘Until I saw the price tag. Plus: no power steering in those old models.’

  ‘What does the P stand for, by the way?’

  ‘Philip. The wife’s name is Barbara. Twenty-six years married.’

  Rebus had seen the photos of P.T. Forbes in the Scotsman and the Evening News–a head of thick silver hair, a bit of heft filling out a pinstripe suit. Always posing with one of his cars. He dealt in ‘cherished’ high-end automobiles, meaning second-hand but pricier than most new models.

  ‘Was the Bentley his?’ Rebus asked as Clarke slowed to a stop at a set of traffic lights. They were heading out of town down the coast, towards Musselburgh. The Forbes home was part of a small modern estate backing on to a newish golf course. Rebus reckoned the developer would have called it ‘bespoke’, like one of P.T. Forbes’s motors.

  ‘Not as such,’ Clarke was answering. ‘According to Mrs Forbes, he came home with a different car every week.’

  ‘Must have been confusing when she came out of the super market looking for it.’

  ‘She drives a Mini,’ Clarke said.

  The disappearance of Philip Forbes was out of character. He had left the house as usual at 9.30 on Monday morning, headed for his glass-fronted South Gyle premises. His wife hadn’t begun to fret until 7 p.m. She had called her husband’s right-hand man, but found him driving back from Carlisle, where he’d spent the day negotiating the purchase of an Aston Martin DB5. He in turn had called the showroom’s receptionist, but she’d been at home all day with a migraine, having texted her boss to apologise.

  Forbes had never replied. The showroom had remained closed all that day, mail sitting unopened on the floor.

  Philip Forbes was what was known as ‘a weel-kent face’ in the city. He had been part of a group that had dug deep to try to keep one of the local football teams afloat, and he was photographed at plenty of charity balls and black-tie events. The local MPs and MSPs knew him, as did many councillors and the Lord Provost. Consequently, there was media interest, though no one had gone to the lengths of doorstepping the family home or setting up camp nearby.

  Clarke signalled off the main road into Musselburgh and headed down a long straight lane. The modern two-storey golf club was visible in the near distance, the houses bordering it forming a wide crescent. They were constructed predominantly of brick, with feature windows, and garages big enough for three or four vehicles. Each house boasted a name rather than a number. The Forbeses lived at Heriots.

  ‘They’re all named after private schools,’ Rebus pointed out as Clarke parked her car on the driveway.

  Barbara Forbes was already at the door, one hand clasped in the other. She was dressed soberly, and hadn’t bothered with her hair or make-up. There were tired cusps under her eyes.

  ‘You’ve found the Bentley?’ she said.

  Clarke nodded her agreement, before identifying herself and Rebus.

  ‘Come in,’ Mrs Forbes said, backing up a couple of steps into a huge entrance hall. Polished wood underfoot, cream-coloured walls, and a wide central staircase. The space was flooded with light from a glass cupola.

  ‘You know about the car?’ Rebus was asking. ‘We thought we were here to break the news…’

  ‘A reporter phoned me. He said it was at the airport.’

  ‘I’m assuming your husband had no plans to fly anywhere?’ Clarke enquired.

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Did he carry his passport with him?’

  ‘It’s kept in one of the drawers in the bedroom.’

  ‘You’ve checked?’

  The woman hesitated. ‘I don’t remember,’ she finally admitted. ‘Should I go and look?’

  ‘Please,’ Clarke said.

  They watched her as she headed upstairs. Rebus walked across the hall to a set of double doors and opened them, entering a well-appointed living room. There was a flat-screen TV attached to one wall. French windows led to an enclosed patio beyond which stretched a professionally tended garden. Behind a further set of doors was a formal dining room. One more door and he was back in the entrance hall. Clarke had gone in the opposite direction and was emerging from the kitchen.

  ‘Worth a look,’ she informed him.

  ‘Ditto,’ he replied, gesturing over his shoulder.

  The kitchen offered all mod cons, several of which Rebus failed to recognise. There was a table where he reckoned husband and wife took most of their meals. He nearly tripped over a narrow Persian rug, smoothing it back into place with the heel of his shoe. Off the kitchen was a smaller room, probably originally intended for laundry or as a walk-in pantry but converted into a home office. There were shelves crammed with paperwork, car brochures stacked on the floor, and a laptop computer on the wooden desk. It was currently in sleep mode, a green light on the side of the keyboard pulsing slowly. Rebus lifted a framed snapshot from the far corner of the desk. Voices were approaching, Clarke and Mrs Forbes entering the kitchen.

  ‘No sign of it,’ Clarke explained for Rebus’s benefit.

  ‘But why would he take a sudden notion to fly anywhere?’ Barbara Forbes was asking, voice trembling a little.

  ‘Your son?’ Rebus asked, holding up the photo.

  ‘Until five years ago,’ she replied. Then, into the questioning silence: ‘He took an overdose. In Thailand.’

  Clarke was looking at the photo with its three smiling faces. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘That picture was a couple of years before. Rory was twenty-two when he…’

  ‘Just the one child?’ Rebus asked. The woman nodded. She seemed dazed, pinching the bridge of her nose and screwing shut her eyes for a moment.

  ‘I hate to ask,’ Rebus said, ‘but is Rory
buried here or in Thailand?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘We brought him home.’ She suddenly saw what he was getting at. ‘Why would Philip go to Thailand?’

  Rebus could only shrug.

  ‘We’re checking with the airport anyway,’ Clarke offered. ‘Still no sign of him using his credit cards or withdrawing money?’

  ‘It’s been a few hours since I checked. I know he hasn’t switched his phone on.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He was very proud of some tracking thing he has on it. The phone’s been off since Monday.’ She paused. ‘Should I look at the bank stuff again?’

  ‘Might be an idea,’ Clarke said. ‘Maybe while I put the kettle on…?’

  Barbara Forbes went through to her husband’s study and woke up the computer. Rebus followed her, placing the photo back where he’d found it.

  ‘A terrible blow, losing your son like that,’ he offered.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. She had taken a pair of spectacles from a pocket and was peering at the screen.

  ‘Your husband must trust you,’ Rebus added.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Allowing you to see all his finances.’

  ‘This only lets me into our joint account.’

  ‘He has others in his own name?’

  She nodded. ‘I’ve applied for access. Apparently it takes time. You think he’s using those to fund his… well, whatever it is he’s doing or done? I mean, nobody’s kidnapped him, have they?’ She looked up at Rebus.

  ‘There’s no evidence of it.’

  ‘Archie probably knows more about the company money than I do.’

  ‘Archie being your husband’s business partner?’

  ‘Not partner, no–Archie works for Philip.’

  ‘An employee, in other words. But he’d still know if Mr Forbes had dipped into the till, as it were?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘What about the receptionist?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘In my experience, they often know more about the place where they work than anyone else.’

  ‘Then ask her.’

  Rebus stayed silent for a moment, watching over her shoulder. ‘Is this the only computer in the house?’

  ‘We have laptops, too.’