The Mammoth Book Best International Crime

by Maxim Jakubowski

  And he’d walked out under a bus.

  TELL ME WHO TO KILL.

  Which meant Rebus had wasted half a day. Half a day that could have been better spent . . . well, spent differently anyway. And the film had been preposterous: the assistant’s summary had only just scratched the surface. Starting off with a surfeit of twists, there’d been nowhere for the film to go but layer on more twists, deceits, mixed identities, and conspiracies. Rebus could not have been more insulted if the guy had woken up at the end and it had all been a dream.

  He went into the kitchen to make some coffee. The place still held the aroma of the fry-up he’d amassed before sitting down to watch the video. Over the sound of the boiling kettle, he heard his phone ringing. Went back through to the living room and picked it up.

  “Got a name for you, sorry it took so long.”

  “Ray? Is that you?” Rebus checked his watch: not far short of midnight. “Tell me you’re not still at work.”

  “Called a halt hours ago, but I just got a text message from my friend who was doing some cross-checking for me.”

  “He works odder hours than even we do.”

  “He’s an insomniac, works a lot from his house.”

  “So I shouldn’t ask where he got this information?”

  “You can ask, but I couldn’t possibly tell you.”

  “And what is it I’m getting?”

  “The text message came from a phone registered to Alexis Ojiwa. I’ve got an address in Haddington.”

  “Might as well give it to me.” Rebus picked up a pen, but something in his voice had alerted Ray Duff.

  “Do I get the feeling you no longer need any of this?”

  “Maybe not, Ray.” Rebus explained about the film.

  “Well, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of it.”

  “It was news to me, too,” Rebus didn’t mind admitting.

  “But for the record, I do know Alexis Ojiwa.”

  “You do?”

  “I take it you don’t follow football.”

  “I watch the results.”

  “Then you’ll know that Hearts put four past Aberdeen this afternoon.”

  “Four-one, final score.”

  “And two of them were scored by Alexis Ojiwa . . .”

  Rebus’s mobile woke him an hour earlier than he’d have liked. He blinked at the sunshine streaming through his uncurtained windows and grabbed at the phone, dropping it once before getting it to his ear.

  “Yes?” he rasped.

  “I’m sorry, is this too early? I thought maybe it was urgent.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Am I speaking to DI Rebus?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name’s Richard Hawkins. You put your card through my door.”

  “Did I?”

  Rebus heard a soft chuckle. “Maybe I should call back later . . .”

  “No, wait a sec. You live at Gilby Street?”

  “Flat 2, yes.”

  “Right, right.” Rebus sat down on his bed, ran his free hand through his hair. “Thanks for getting back to me.”

  “Not at all.”

  “It was about your neighbour, actually.”

  “Will Smith?”

  “What?”

  Another chuckle. “When he introduced himself, we had a laugh about that coincidence. Really, it was down to me. He called himself “William”, and it just clicked: Will Smith, same as the actor.”

  “Right,” Rebus was trying to gather himself. “So you’ve met Mr Smith, talked to him?”

  “Just a couple of times. Passing on the stairs . . . He’s never around much.”

  “Not much sign of his flat being lived in either.”

  “I wouldn’t know, never been inside. Must have something going for him though.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Absolute cracker of a girlfriend.”

  “Really?”

  “Just saw her the once, but you always know when she’s around.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Her perfume. It fills the stairwell. Smelled it last night actually . . .”

  Yes, Rebus had smelt it, too. He moistened his lips, feeling sourness at the corners of his mouth. “Mr Hawkins, can you describe William Smith to me?”

  Hawkins could, and did.

  Rebus turned up unannounced at Alexis Ojiwa’s, reckoning the player would be resting after the rigours of the previous day. The house was an unassuming detached bungalow with a red Mazda sports car parked in the driveway. It was on a modern estate, a couple of neighbours washing their cars, watching Rebus with the intensity of men for whom his arrival was an event of sorts, something they could dissect with their wives over the carving of the afternoon sirloin. Rebus rang the doorbell and waited. A woman answered. She seemed surprised to see him.

  He showed his ID as he introduced himself. “Mind if I come in for a minute?”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing. I just have a question for Mr Ojiwa.”

  She left the door standing open and walked back through the hall and into an L-shaped living area, calling out: “Cops are here to put the cuffs on you, baby.” Rebus closed the door and followed her. She stepped out through french windows into the back garden, where a tiny, bare-chested man stood, nursing a drink that looked like puréed fruit. Alexis Ojiwa was wiry, with thick-veined arms and a tight chest. Rebus tried not to think about what the neighbours thought. Scotland was still some way short of being a beacon of multiculturalism, and Ojiwa, like his partner, was black. Not just coffee-coloured, but as black as ebony. Still, probably the only question that would count in most local minds was whether he was Protestant black or Catholic black.

  Rebus held out a hand to shake, and introduced himself again.

  “What’s the problem, officer?”

  “I didn’t catch your wife’s name.”

  “It’s Cecily.”

  Rebus nodded. “This is going to sound strange, but it’s about your mobile phone.”

  “My phone?” Ojiwa’s face creased in puzzlement. Then he looked to Cecily, and back again at Rebus. “What about my phone?”

  “You do have a mobile phone, sir?”

  “I do, yes.”

  “But I’m guessing you wouldn’t have used it yesterday afternoon? Specifically not at 16.31. I think you were still on the pitch at that time, am I right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then someone else used your phone to send this message.” Rebus held up William Smith’s mobile so Ojiwa could read the text. Cecily came forward so she could read it, too. Her husband stared at her.

  “What’s this all about?”

  “I don’t know, baby.”

  “You sent this?” His eyes had widened. She shook her head.

  “Am I to assume that you had your husband’s phone with you yesterday, Mrs Ojiwa?” Rebus asked.

  “I was shopping in town all day . . . I didn’t make any calls.”

  “What the hell is this?” It appeared that the footballer had a short fuse, and Rebus had touched a match to it.

  “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation, sir,” Rebus said, raising his hands to try to calm Ojiwa.

  “You go spending all my money, and now this!” Ojiwa shook the phone at his wife.

  “I didn’t do it!” She was yelling too now, loud enough to be heard by the car-polishers. Then she dived inside, producing a silver mobile phone from her bag. “Here it is,” she said, brandishing the phone. “Check it, check and see if I sent any messages. I was shopping all day!”

  “Maybe someone could have borrowed it?” Rebus suggested.

  “I don’t see how,” she said, shaking her head. “Why would anyone want to do that, send a message like that?”

  Ojiwa had slumped on to a garden bench, head in hands. Rebus got the feeling that theirs was a relationship stoked by melodrama. He seated himself on the bench next to the footballer.

  “Can I ask you something, Mr Ojiwa?
”

  “What now?”

  “I was just wondering if you’d ever needed physio?”

  Ojiwa looked up. “Course I need physio! You think I’m Captain Superman or something?” He slapped his hands against his thighs.

  If anything, Rebus’s voice grew quieter as he began his next question. “Then does the name Carl Guthrie mean anything to you . . .?”

  “You’ve not committed any crime.”

  These were Rebus’s first words to Frances Guthrie when she opened her door to him. The interior of her house was dark, the curtains closed. The house itself was large and detached and sited in half an acre of grounds in the city’s Ravelston area. Physios either earned more than Rebus had counted on, or else there was family money involved.

  Frances Guthrie was wearing black slacks and a loose, low-cut black top. Mourning casual, Rebus might have termed it. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and the area around her nose looked raw.

  “Mind if I come in?” Rebus asked. It wasn’t really a question. He was already making to pass the widow. Hands in pockets, he walked down the hallway and into the sitting room. Stood there and waited for her to join him. She did so slowly, perching on the arm of the red leather sofa. He repeated his opening words, expecting that she would say something, but all she did was stare at him, wide-eyed, maybe a little scared.

  He made a tour of the room. The windows were large, and even when curtained there was enough light to see by. Rebus stopped by the fireplace and folded his arms.

  “Here’s the way I see it. You were out shopping with your friend Cecily. You got to know her when Carl was treating her husband. The pair of you were in Harvey Nichols. Cecily was in the changing room, leaving her bag with you. That’s when you got hold of her phone and sent the message.” He paused to watch the effect his words were having. Frances Guthrie had lowered her head, staring down at her hands.

  “It was a video you’d watched recently. I’m guessing Carl watched it, too. A film about a man who cheats on his wife. And Carl had been cheating on you, hadn’t he? You wanted to let him know you knew, so you sent a text to his other phone, the one registered to his fake name – William Smith.” Smith’s neighbour had given Rebus a good description of the man, chiming with accident victim Carl Guthrie. “You’d done some detective work of your own, found out about the phone, the flat in town . . . the other woman.” The one whose perfume had lingered in the stairwell. Saturday afternoon: Carl Guthrie heading home after an assignation, leaving behind only two glasses and an unfinished bottle of wine.

  Frances Guthrie’s head jerked up. She took a deep breath, almost a gulp.

  “Why use Cecily’s phone?” Rebus asked quietly.

  She shook her head, not blinking. Then: “I never wanted this . . . Not this . . .”

  “You weren’t to know what would happen.”

  “I just wanted to do something.” She looked up at him, wanting him to understand. He nodded slowly. “What . . . what do I do now?”

  Rebus slipped his hands back into his pockets. “Learn to live with yourself, I suppose.”

  That afternoon, he was back at the Oxford Bar, nursing a drink and thinking about love, about how it could make you do things you couldn’t explain. All the passions – love and hate and everything in between – they all made us act in ways that would seem inexplicable to a visitor from another planet. The barman asked him if he was ready for another, but Rebus shook his head.

  “How’s the weekend been treating you?” the barman asked.

  “Same as always,” Rebus replied. It was one of those little lies that went some way towards making life appear that bit less complicated.

  “Seen any good films lately?”

  Rebus smiled, stared down into his glass. “Watched one last night,” he said. “Let me tell you about it . . .”

  Endnotes

  1 SEK Spezialeinsatzkommando, a German Special Forces group

  2 Bundeskriminalamt or BKA, Federal Criminal Police Office, the national investigative police agency of Germany.