The Beat Goes On

by Ian Rankin

  ‘They’re waiting in the office until we’re ready for them.’ They walked together to the MIT suite. The Ugly Sisters–panto stalwarts Davie Clegg and Russell Gloag–had changed out of their costumes but still bore traces of make-up. They were seated alongside the show’s writer/director Maurice Welsh, who was visibly trembling as he spoke with another man. Rebus guessed this would be Alan Yates, producer and owner of the Theatre Royal. Seeing the two detectives, Yates leapt to his feet. He was in his sixties and looked to have dined out for most of them.

  ‘Any news?’ he asked.

  ‘Not yet, sir,’ Clarke assured him.

  ‘We need to offer refunds… prep an understudy. The show must–’

  ‘Sorry to disillusion you, sir,’ Rebus butted in. ‘But the theatre remains a crime scene. It doesn’t open again until we say so.’

  ‘And even then, Alan,’ Welsh added tiredly, ‘who’s going to be in the mood? I mean the audience rather than the cast. We’ll have nothing but ghouls…’

  ‘Run’s finished,’ Davie Clegg agreed. ‘Can’t sit in that dressing-room and not think of Celia.’

  Yates ran a hand through what hair he had left. ‘But without the panto there is no Theatre Royal! It’s our banker!’

  ‘Sorry, Alan.’ Clegg offered a shrug of sympathy.

  ‘Ruined,’ Yates muttered, falling back on to his seat. Maurice Welsh patted his arm.

  ‘That’s all very well,’ Russell Gloag piped up, ‘but it doesn’t tell us who killed poor Celia. And if I find out it was any one of you…’

  ‘Actually that’s our job,’ Clarke informed him. She broke off as an exhausted-looking detective filled the doorway. He checked his notepad.

  ‘Maurice Welsh?’ The director stood up, looking as if a gust might topple him. ‘If you’ll follow me, sir.’ The detective locked eyes with Clarke and shook his head: nothing to report.

  Rebus gestured for Clarke to follow him into the corridor. He checked they were out of earshot. ‘Where’s everyone else? The crew and chorus, plus Dandini and the Stepmother?’

  ‘One of the other offices. Otherwise they’d have been like sardines.’ She studied him. ‘What else did your friend in the pub tell you?’

  ‘Bits and pieces. I’m not sure yet what they–’

  ‘What in God’s name is he doing here?’

  They both turned in the direction of the approaching voice. DCI Doug Maxtone seemed to fill the corridor as he strode towards them.

  ‘I was just passing,’ Rebus explained slowly. ‘Happened to bump into DI Clarke and she was just singing your praises.’

  Maxtone ignored Rebus, his attention fixed on Clarke. He brandished a sheet of paper ripped from a pad. ‘Forensics played a blinder,’ he told her.

  ‘The waste-bin?’

  ‘Salient contents: one promotional photograph of Celia Jagger. Not quite done to a cinder…’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It was signed.’ Maxtone checked his note. ‘“To my darling Ed with all my love”.’

  ‘Ed?’ Clarke narrowed her eyes. ‘Edwin Oakes?’

  ‘AKA Dandini. Is he inside?’ Maxtone was gesturing towards the MIT room.

  ‘He’s with the chorus and crew.’

  Maxtone’s face hardened. ‘I’ve just come from there.’

  Clarke’s lips formed an O. ‘No Dandini?’ she surmised.

  ‘They thought he must be here.’

  Rebus made show of clearing his throat. ‘Maybe he found the trap-door.’

  ‘You’re as useful as last year’s turkey,’ Maxtone snarled, before barrelling his way back along the corridor, Clarke at his heels.

  Rebus stayed where he was. Then he took out his phone and a scrap of paper, reading Willie Mearns’ number from it as he got busy on the keypad.

  ‘I need everything there is to know about Edwin Oakes,’ he said. As he listened, his eyes began to narrow and his brow furrow. Curiouser and curiouser…

  The following morning, Rebus was at St Leonard’s early. He went through the interview transcripts, gleaning bits and pieces. There was no love lost between the Ugly Sisters apparently–they worked together for the sake of the pay cheque, each privately confiding his loathing of the other to various stagehands. Wardrobe department, make-up, deputy stage manager… all had sung for the detectives. The show’s director had a history of substance abuse, as did Prince Charming. Buttons was notoriously lazy, and had almost come to blows with both director and producer while attempting to cut back on his lines so he wouldn’t have to remember them. He would also ad lib weak jokes, meaning more arguments after each and every performance.

  But there was plenty of gossip about the crew, too. Assignations and affairs, minor misdemeanours and fallings-out. As the show’s director had said: it’s a pressure cooker, but if you try turning the heat down sometimes the production suffers. And in the end, it was all about the show, its run sold out weeks before opening.

  ‘Quite the drama,’ Siobhan Clarke said, reading over Rebus’s shoulder. She was carrying a cardboard coffee-cup and a leather satchel. ‘Maxtone not in yet?’

  ‘Think I’d be here if he was?’

  ‘Fair point.’ She put down her things and started removing her long woollen coat. ‘I meant to ask you–what are you doing for Christmas?’

  ‘Probably not going to the panto.’

  ‘I mean the day itself–you know you’d be welcome at mine.’

  ‘Thanks, Siobhan, but I have my own traditions to stick to.’

  ‘Meaning finding a pub that’s open? Maybe a meal from the freezer after?’

  ‘I’m old-fashioned that way.’

  ‘I feel bad about us shutting down Cinderella.’

  ‘We’re not the villains here, remember that. Though sometimes all Doug Maxtone lacks is a moustache to twirl.’ Rebus looked at his watch. ‘Shouldn’t have bothered taking your coat off.’

  ‘Is the heating playing up or something?’

  Rebus shook his head. ‘But we’re going out again.’

  ‘We are? Why’s that?’

  ‘Because Edwin Oakes is a creature of habit,’ he said, rising to his feet.

  They decided on Rebus’s car so Clarke could continue drinking her coffee, but as they turned out of the car park, they were blocked by a man, his arms outstretched. He wore a flapping coat and was wide-eyed and unshaven.

  ‘Isn’t that one of our Ugly Sisters?’ Clarke asked.

  Rebus was already out of the car. ‘Mr Gloag, isn’t it?’ he was saying.

  ‘I know what he told you and it’s not true! Not one word of it!’ There were flecks of foam at the corners of the actor’s mouth.

  ‘Just calm down.’ Rebus held up the palms of both hands. ‘I know everyone’s a bit on edge…’

  ‘He told you I’d slept with Celia, didn’t he?’

  ‘Are we talking about your colleague Davie Clegg?’ Clarke inquired.

  ‘Last time I work with that wretched piece of…’ Gloag looked at his hands, willing them to stop shaking. ‘He told you about Earnest? It’s true, I was in the same play as her, but nothing ever happened. I mean… she flirted a bit. You know–all touchy-feely, and maybe I picked up the signals wrong.’

  ‘You’d have been accommodating?’ Rebus guessed.

  ‘But if you think that was going to make me jealous of Ed…’

  ‘You knew about them though?’ Clarke probed.

  ‘We all knew.’

  ‘But it didn’t make you angry?’ Rebus asked. ‘The same anger you’re feeling right now?’

  ‘I’m not angry.’ Gloag tried to laugh. ‘I just can’t believe Davie would have said anything.’

  ‘Rest easy then, Mr Gloag–Davie Clegg didn’t tell tales.’

  Gloag looked as if he’d been hit. ‘Wh-what?’

  ‘He’s been winding you up, sir,’ Rebus confirmed. ‘Telling you he did something he didn’t.’

  Colour rose to Gloag’s cheeks. ‘That does it!’ he spat. ‘If he thinks we’re working t
ogether again, he can bloody well whistle. That’s our divorce papers right there!’ He spun away, hurtling down the pavement.

  ‘Think we should warn Clegg?’ Clarke asked, getting back into the car.

  ‘We need to be elsewhere.’ Rebus started the car. After a minute of silence, he asked about Oakes.

  ‘Shares a flat in the Grassmarket with Buttons. Though apparently they don’t see much of one another.’

  ‘Because Buttons is shacked up with the Wicked Stepmother?’

  ‘Reading between the lines, yes. Bit awkward, with both flatmates carrying on their little liaisons. Oakes’s actual home is in Glasgow but he hardly gets back there during the season.’

  ‘Officers have been to both?’

  ‘Camped outside through the night,’ Clarke confirmed. ‘We’ve also interviewed Prince Charming’s ex-wife plus our esteemed director’s partner–he’s gay, by the way. And the substance abuse?’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t buy it–he’s just naturally hyper.’ She peered from the window. ‘Where are we headed?’

  ‘The Meadows.’

  ‘Is this your security guy again?’

  ‘He’s like a priest–they all tell him their story at some point.’

  ‘Stagehands mostly knew about Oakes and Celia Jagger.’ Clarke took another sip from her cup. ‘I mean, they knew or they’d had an inkling. Seems she had a bit of history in that department–every production she was in, she managed an affair with someone in the cast. Doesn’t seem to matter that she was old enough to be Oakes’s mother–actually, maybe even his grandmother.’

  ‘But she decides he’s not the one–maybe has her eye on someone else. So he burns the photo and then whacks her over the head.’

  ‘It’s a fairly classic set-up.’

  ‘You may be wiser than you know.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘The relevant phrase is “set up”.’

  She stared at him as he stopped the car kerbside. They were on Melville Drive. The Meadows was an expanse of playing fields criss-crossed by paths. A lot of students used it as a route to the university. In summer, they would host barbecues and games of Frisbee, but there was an icy wind today and the few pedestrians were well wrapped up.

  ‘I wish you’d tell me what’s in that head of yours,’ Clarke complained. Rebus just winked and got out of the car. She followed him to where he had come to a halt, next to a line of trees. There was a circuit of bare earth, the grass worn away by a generation of joggers. Two young women passed them, managing to hold a conversation while they ran. From the opposite direction came an older man, headphones on, steam rising from his singlet. And then, fifty yards or so back, a figure that seemed out of place. He was dressed in cream chinos and a zip-up jacket, below which was an open-necked shirt. Yes, because Edwin Oakes hadn’t felt able to return to his digs or to the theatre. He was wearing the same outfit as when he’d walked out of the police station. And Rebus guessed he hadn’t slept either. Despite which, he had come for his morning run.

  A creature of habit, just as Willie Mearns had said.

  Rebus stepped on to the trail, blocking him. Oakes came to a stop, leaning forward to catch his breath.

  ‘Morning, Mr Oakes,’ Rebus said.

  ‘You’re the police?’ Oakes guessed.

  ‘We need you at St Leonard’s, sir.’

  Oakes straightened his back. ‘I didn’t do anything.’

  ‘You ran away,’ Clarke corrected him.

  ‘I knew you’d think…’ He broke off and shook his head. ‘I just needed some time.’

  ‘To come up with a story?’

  ‘To grieve.’ His eyes bored into Clarke’s. ‘I loved her. I mean, I knew her reputation and everything–once the show ended, we’d be history. But all the same…’

  ‘She gave you a photo,’ Rebus said. ‘We found it in the waste-bin in her dressing-room.’

  Oakes frowned. ‘Nobody knew about that.’

  ‘You’re saying you didn’t set light to it?’ Clarke demanded.

  ‘I kept it in a drawer in my own dressing-room, tucked away where it wouldn’t be seen.’

  ‘Somebody found it,’ Rebus stated. He half-turned towards Clarke. ‘No raised voices from behind Celia Jagger’s door–someone from the crew would have heard an argument, they all seem to have pretty good ears.’

  ‘I could never have hurt her,’ Oakes was saying. ‘Never in a million years.’

  ‘Yet you did a runner.’

  ‘I knew you’d find out about us–either that or I’d have to tell you.’ Oakes rubbed at his hair. ‘I’ve a girlfriend–sort of–back in Glasgow. Someone I’m fond of. She’s got a daughter who dotes on me. It was the look on her face I couldn’t stand, finding out I’d cheated on her mum…’

  ‘You need to come back with us,’ Rebus said quietly. ‘We know you didn’t do anything. Talking to us means taking us a step closer to finding whoever did.’

  Oakes nodded slowly. Clarke’s eyes were on Rebus. He knew what she was thinking: How can we be sure? As they escorted Oakes to the waiting car, she asked the actor when he had last seen the photo.

  ‘A few days back. Maybe longer than that. It actually hurt me a little.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘It’s the sort of thing you hand to a fan at the stage door. I mean, the message was personal but not that personal. And that was actually the real message–none of this means anything except in the moment. Soon as the production ends, we go our separate ways.’ Oakes angled his head back, as if to stop the tears coming.

  Just as well someone usually writes your lines for you, Rebus thought, before inquiring whether Oakes had ever walked into his dressing room and found someone from the cast or crew there.

  ‘All the time–it’s an open house. I’ve usually got chocolate biscuits or cans of cola. Jamie’s a demon for the sugar.’

  ‘Jamie meaning Buttons?’

  Oakes nodded. ‘And John’s always wandering in with some sure-fire bet he wants to share. They’re like family…’ His face darkened. ‘It can’t be any of them. There must be someone else.’

  ‘Maybe so, Mr Oakes. Maybe so.’ Rebus pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it across for Siobhan Clarke to take.

  ‘See if you can track down this guy,’ he said. ‘He’s the one we probably need to talk to now.’

  She read the name. ‘Howard Corbyn? Who the hell is Howard Corbyn?’

  ‘You’re a detective,’ Rebus told her. ‘You’ll work it out.’

  They installed Oakes in the back of the car. But before getting in, Clarke grabbed Rebus by the arm.

  ‘Maxtone needs to know you’re the one who did this.’ She gestured towards the actor.

  ‘I don’t mind you grabbing the good reviews, Siobhan.’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘It’s not over, is it? There’s another act coming?’

  Rebus nodded towards the slip of paper. ‘Depends what comes from that,’ he said, making his way round to the driver’s seat.

  Rebus stood alone on the stage of the Theatre Royal. A stage-hand had raised the curtain and put on a few lights. The scene was still set for the opening of the panto’s second half–the kitchen of Baron Hardup’s castle. Close up, the set and props looked tired, paint fading or flaking, edges chipped–not unlike the building itself. He knew that council officials had ordered expensive modifications (yet to be carried out). The roof needed repairs and the carpets were fraying or threadbare.

  None of which would have mattered to each day’s audience, primed with sugary snacks and drinks, pockets emptied in the purchase of glo-sticks, magic wands and glossy programmes. Each year’s twelve-week panto run just about made up for nine months of loss-making. The box office next door had been handing out refunds when Rebus arrived. The apology taped over the poster for Cinderella said that the show had been cancelled ‘until further notice’.

  ‘Is there any news?’ Alan Yates asked, coming on to the stage from the wings.

  ‘Isn’t
that bad luck?’ Rebus said. Yates looked confused. ‘You entered stage left. Lighting director told me the show was cursed from the moment Celia Jagger made the mistake of entering stage left during the first rehearsal. Stage left is for villains. Goes back to the medieval mysteries or something.’

  Yates forced a smile. ‘Stage left is hell, stage right heaven–I know the story, but it’s only actors who are superstitious that way. Theatre owners live in the real world–we’re even allowed to say the word Macbeth, as long as none of the cast is in earshot.’

  ‘You might have just jinxed yourself then, Mr Yates. You asked if there’s news and there is–we’ve got Russell Gloag in a cell at St Leonard’s.’

  ‘Russell?’ Yates sounded disbelieving.

  ‘He gave Davie Clegg a bit of a battering–so it looks like you’ve lost your Ugly Sisters, too. The real world you live in isn’t doing you any favours, eh?’ Rebus paused. ‘Bit of a blow to your ego, I dare say, when your Fairy Godmother decided on Edwin Oakes.’

  Yates’s face creased. ‘I’m not sure I follow.’

  ‘She played here seven years ago in The Mousetrap. Then again three years later in an Oscar Wilde play…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘And both times you enjoyed what Wilde might have called “a dalliance”.’

  Yates’s face was colouring. ‘We most certainly did not.’

  ‘Oh yes, you did. Crew at the time knew it. Everyone knew it. So you reckoned it would be the same again this year. Must have hurt your pride to be rebuffed.’ Rebus took a step closer. ‘In the lane outside the stage door–the lane covered by CCTV. Willie Mearns saw you. Trying for a clinch, being pushed away. A pointed finger, a slap, a few angry words.’

  ‘This is preposterous.’ Yates made to lean against the table, but it creaked, reminding him that it was not solid. ‘You’re suggesting I killed Celia because she was seeing Oakes?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Rebus paused again. ‘You killed her out of simple greed, more than anything. You’re like Baron Hardup with a castle that’s going to ruin you.’ Rebus gestured to the set. ‘Just the single solitary panto run each year keeping the creditors from your door. But all the renovations and improvements that need to be made… It’d be years before you saw any return. If the panto could be stopped from spinning gold, you’d have the perfect excuse to sell the place off–no one would blame you or paint you as the villain. That’s why you started talking to Howard Corbyn.’