The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories (Rebus Collection) (16 page)

‘I think so, yes.’

‘So then what happened?’ asked Rebus.

‘A few weeks later, this would be just over a week ago, we had another call from Miss Hooper. She said a man in the tenement across the back from her was a peeping Tom. She’d seen him at a window, aiming his binoculars towards her building. More particularly, she thought, towards her own flat. We investigated and spoke to Mr Brodie. He appeared quite concerned about the allegations. He showed us the binoculars and admitted using them to watch from his kitchen window. But he assured us that he was bird-watching.’ The other constable smiled at this. ‘“Bird-watching,” he said.’

‘Ornithology,’ said Rebus.

‘That’s right, sir. He said he was very interested in birds, a bird-fancier sort of thing.’ Another smile. They were obviously hoping Rebus would come to enjoy the joke with them. They were wrong, though they didn’t seem to sense this just yet.

‘Go on,’ he said simply.

‘Well, sir, there did seem to be a lot of pictures of birds in his flat.’

‘You mean the prints in the living-room?’

‘That’s right, sir, pictures of an ornithological nature.’

Now the other constable interrupted. ‘You won’t believe it, sir. He said he was watching the tenement and the garden because he’d seen some. …’ pause for effect … ‘bearded tits.’

Now both the young constables were grinning.

‘I’m glad you find your job so amusing,’ Rebus said. ‘Because I don’t think frightening phone calls, peeping Toms and arson attacks are material for jokes!’

The grins disappeared.

‘Get on with it,’ Rebus demanded. The constables looked at one another.

‘Not much more to tell, sir,’ said the one called Jim. ‘The gentleman, Mr Brodie, seemed genuine enough. But he promised to be a bit more careful in future. Like I say, he seemed genuinely concerned. We informed Miss Hooper of our findings. She didn’t seem entirely convinced.’

‘Obviously not,’ said Rebus, but he did not go on to clarify. Instead, he dismissed the two officers and sat back in his chair. Brodie suspected Hooper of the arson attack, not, it would appear, without reason. What was more, Brodie had said he couldn’t think of any other enemies he might have made. Either that or he wasn’t about to tell Rebus about them. Rebus leaned back in his chair and rested his arm along the radiator, enjoying its warmth. The next person to speak to, naturally, was Miss Hooper herself. Another day, another tenement.

‘Bearded tits,’ Rebus said to himself. This time, he allowed himself a smile.

‘It’s your lucky day,’ Miss Hooper told him. ‘Normally I don’t come home for lunch, but today I just felt like it.’

Lucky indeed. Rebus had knocked on the door of Miss Hooper’s first-floor flat but received no answer. Eventually, another door on the landing had opened, revealing a woman in her late forties, stern of face and form.

‘She’s not in,’ the woman had stated, unnecessarily.

‘Any idea when she’ll be back?’

‘Who are you then?’

‘Police.’

The woman pursed her lips. The nameplate above her doorbell, to the left of the door itself, read McKAY. ‘She works till four o’clock. She’s a schoolteacher. You’ll catch her at school if you want her.’

‘Thank you. Mrs McKay, is it?’

‘It is.’

‘Could I have a word?’

‘What about?’

By now, Rebus was standing at Mrs McKay’s front door. Past her, he caught sight of a dark entrance hall strewn with bits and pieces of machinery, enough to make up most, but not quite all, of a motorbike.

‘About Miss Hooper,’ he said.

‘What about her?’

No, she was not about to let him in. He could hear her television blaring. Lunchtime game-show applause. The resonant voice of the questionmaster. Master of the question.

‘Have you known her long?’

‘Ever since she moved in. Three, four years. Aye, four years.’ She had folded her arms now, and was resting one shoulder against the door-jamb. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘I suppose you must know her quite well, living on the same landing?’

‘Well enough. She comes in for a cuppa now and again.’ She paused, making it quite clear to Rebus that this was not an honour
he
was about to receive.

‘Have you heard about the fire?’

‘Fire?’

‘Across the back.’ Rebus gestured in some vague direction with his head.

‘Oh aye. The fire engine woke me right enough. Nobody hurt though, was there?’

‘What makes you say that?’

She shuffled now, unfolding her arms so one hand could rub at another. ‘Just … what I heard.’

‘A man was injured, quite seriously. He’s in hospital.’

‘Oh.’

And then the main door opened and closed. Sound of feet on stone echoing upwards.

‘Oh, here’s Miss Hooper now,’ said Mrs McKay. Said with relief, Rebus thought to himself. Said with relief …

Miss Hooper let him in and immediately switched on the kettle. She hoped he wouldn’t mind if she made herself a sandwich? And would he care for one himself ? Cheese and pickle or peanut butter and apple? No, on second thoughts, she’d make some of both, and he could choose for himself.

A teacher? Rebus could believe it. There was something in her tone, in the way she seemed to have to utter all of her thoughts aloud, and in the way she asked questions and then answered them herself. He could see her standing in her classroom, asking her questions and surrounded by silence.

Alison Hooper was in her early thirties. Small and slim, almost schoolboyish. Short straight brown hair. Tiny earrings hooked into tiny ears. She taught in a primary school only ten minutes’ walk from her flat. The flat itself was scattered with books and magazines, from many of which had been cut illustrations, clearly intended to find their way into her classroom. Mobiles hung from her living-room ceiling: some flying pigs, an alphabet, teddy bears waving from aeroplanes. There were colourful rugs on her walls, but no rugs at all on the stripped floor. She had a breathy, nervous way with her and an endearing twitch to her nose. Rebus followed her into the kitchen and watched her open a loaf of brown sliced bread.

‘I usually take a packed lunch with me, but I slept in this morning and didn’t have time to make it. I could have eaten in the canteen, of course, but I just felt like coming home. Your lucky day, Inspector.’

‘You had trouble sleeping last night then?’

‘Well, yes. There was a fire in the tenement across the back.’ She pointed through her window with a buttery knife. ‘Over there. I heard sirens and the fire-engine’s motor kept rumbling away, so I couldn’t for the life of me get back to sleep.’

Rebus went across to the window and looked out. John Brodie’s tenement stared back at him. It could have been any tenement anywhere in the city. Same configuration of windows and drainpipes, same railing-enclosed drying-green. He angled his head further to look into the back garden of Alison Hooper’s tenement. Movement there. What was it? A teenager working on his motorbike. The motorbike standing on the drying-green, and all the tools and bits and pieces lying on a piece of plastic which had been spread out for the purpose. The nearby garden shed stood with its door propped open by a wooden stretcher. Through the doorway Rebus could see yet more motorbike spares and some oil cans.

‘The fire last night,’ he said, ‘it was in a flat occupied by Mr John Brodie.’

‘Oh!’ she said, her knife-hand pausing above the bread. ‘The peeping Tom?’ Then she swallowed, not slow on the uptake. ‘That’s why you’re here then.’

‘Yes. Mr Brodie gave us your name, Miss Hooper. He thought perhaps—’

‘Well, he’s right.’

‘Oh?’

‘I mean, I do have a grudge. I do think he’s a pervert. Not that I seem able to convince the police of that.’ Her voice was growing shriller. She stared at the slices of bread in a fixed, unblinking way. ‘No, the police don’t seem to think there’s a problem. But I know. I’ve talked to the other residents. We
all
know.’ Then she relaxed, smiled at the bread. She slapped some peanut butter onto one slice. Her voice was calm. ‘I do have a grudge, Inspector, but I did not set fire to that man’s flat. I’m even pleased that he wasn’t injured.’

‘Who says he wasn’t?’

‘What?’

‘He’s in hospital.’

‘Is he? I thought someone said there’d been no—’

‘Who said?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. One of the other teachers. Maybe they’d heard something on the radio. I don’t know. Tea or coffee?’

‘Whatever you’re having.’

She made two mugs of decaffeinated instant. ‘Let’s go through to the living-room,’ she said.

There, she gave him the story of the phone calls, and the story of the man with the binoculars.

‘Bird-watching my eye,’ she said. ‘He was looking into people’s windows.’

‘Hard to tell, surely.’

She twitched her nose. ‘Looking into people’s windows,’ she repeated.

‘Did anyone else see him?’

‘He stopped after I complained. But who knows? I mean, it’s easy enough to see someone during the day. But at night, in that room of his with the lights turned off. He could sit there all night watching us. Who would know?’

‘You say you spoke to the other residents?’

‘Yes.’

‘All of them?’

‘One or two. That’s enough, word gets round.’

I’ll bet, thought Rebus. And he had another thought, which really was just a word: tenementality. He ate the spicy sandwich and the sickly sandwich quickly, drained his mug and said he’d leave her to finish her lunch in peace. (‘Finish your piece in peace,’ he’d nearly said, but hadn’t, just in case she didn’t get the joke.) He walked downstairs, but instead of making along the passage to the front door, turned right and headed towards the tenement’s back door.

Outside, the biker was fitting a bulb to his brake-light. He took the new bulb from a plastic box and tossed the empty box onto the sheet of plastic.

‘Mind if I take that?’ asked Rebus. The youth looked round at him, saw where he was pointing, then shrugged and returned to his work. There was a small cassette recorder playing on the grass beside him. Heavy Metal. The batteries were low and the sound was tortuous.

‘Can if you like,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’ Rebus lifted the box by its edges and slipped it into his jacket pocket. ‘I use them to keep my flies in.’

The biker turned and grinned.

‘Fishing flies,’ Rebus explained, smiling himself. ‘It’s just perfect for keeping my fishing flies in.’

‘No flies on you, eh?’ said the youth.

Rebus laughed. ‘Are you Mrs McKay’s son?’ he asked.

‘That’s right.’ The bulb was fitted, the casing was being screwed back into place.

‘I’d test that before you put the casing on. Just in case it’s a dud. You’d only have to take it apart again.’

The boy looked round again. ‘No flies on you,’ he repeated. He took the casing off again.

‘I’ve just been up seeing your mum.’

‘Oh aye?’ The tone told Rebus that the boy’s parents were either separated, or else the father was dead. You’re her latest, are you? the tone implied. Mum’s latest fancy-man.

‘She was telling me about the fire.’

The boy examined the casing closely. ‘Fire?’

‘Last night. Have you noticed any of your petrol-cans disappearing? Or maybe one’s got less in than you thought?’

Now, the red see-through casing might have been a gem under a microscope. But the boy was saying nothing.

‘My name’s Rebus, by the way, Inspector Rebus.’

Rebus had a little courtroom conversation with himself on the way back to the station.

And did the suspect drop anything when you revealed your identity to him?

Yes, he dropped his jaw.

Dropped his jaw?

That’s right. He looked like a hairless ape with a bad case of acne. And he lost his nut.

Lost his nut?

A nut he’d been holding. It fell into the grass. He was still looking for it when I left.

What about the plastic box, Inspector, the one in which the new brake-light bulb had been residing? Did he ask for it back?

I didn’t give him the chance. It’s my intention
never
to give a sucker an even chance.

Back at the station, comfortable in his chair, the desk solid and reliable in front of him, the heater solid and reliable behind, Rebus thought about fire, the easy assassin. You didn’t need to get your hands on a gun. Didn’t even need to buy a knife. Acid, poison, again, difficult to find. But fire … fire was everywhere. A disposable lighter, a box of matches. Strike a match and you had fire. Warming, nourishing, dangerous fire. Rebus lit a cigarette, the better to help him think. There wouldn’t be any news from the lab for some time yet. Some time. Something was niggling. Something he’d heard. What was it? A saying came to mind: prompt payment will be appreciated. You used to get that on the bottom of invoices. Prompt payment.