The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories (Rebus Collection) (51 page)

The main Edinburgh showroom for Waters Motors was just off Calder Road. Rebus headed there next morning, the rush-hour traffic numbing his senses, so that he happily accepted the secretary’s offer of caffeine.

‘Instant OK?’ she asked apologetically.

‘Instant’s fine.’ Colin Waters had yet to arrive from his home in Linlithgow, but that didn’t bother Rebus. He had a call to make: to the Scottish Criminal Records Office. During part of the crawl here, he’d stared at the blacked-out windows of the van in front, and this had triggered a memory – a name, which in turn had brought another name into play. He gave both to his
SCRO
colleague, along with his mobile phone number.

‘How soon till you call me?’ he asked. He was seated on the showroom’s mezzanine level, its smoked-glass walls giving a view of the business area below. The cars on display gleamed. Their very tyres sparkled, picked out by well-positioned halogen bulbs suspended from the ceiling. The salesmen were young and wore commission-bought suits, which made it easy to spot the most successful ones. When the revolving door spat out a newcomer, those who had been sitting leaped to their feet, eyes seeking an acknowledgement from the elderly man in the sagging jacket and slacks.

Colin Waters.

He was in his seventies, much the same age as his brother, but there the similarity ended. Colin Waters was about a foot shorter than Lionel, and boasted a thick head of hair and a face grown pink and round from indulgence. Ignoring the greetings from those around him, he started climbing the open-sided glass staircase, a busy man with a crowded schedule ahead. He glanced at Rebus as he passed him, perhaps mistaking him for a rep of some kind. He closed the office door after him, and Rebus thought he could hear the muffled conversation that followed. When the door opened again, Colin Waters gestured with a crooking of his finger. Rebus thought about staying put – just to see how the man would react – but decided against it. He followed Waters into the office, accepted the mug from the secretary, and watched her leave, closing the door quietly behind her.

There were two desks: one for the secretary, one for her boss. Rebus decided that the proximity had to be for one of two reasons: either Waters liked looking at her, or else he didn’t want to miss anything going on around him. Waters was gesturing again, this time for Rebus to sit, but Rebus stayed standing. There was a full-height glass wall here, again looking down on to the sales floor. Rebus pretended to be watching from it, mug cupped in front of him.

‘Elaine says you’re a police officer,’ Waters barked, landing heavily on his own leather-upholstered chair and pulling it in towards his desk.

‘That’s right, sir.
CID
.’

‘You wouldn’t tell her what it’s about. All very mysterious.’

‘Not really, sir. Just didn’t think you’d want me discussing family matters in front of the staff.’ When Rebus turned his head, the blood was draining from Waters’s face.

‘Lionel?’ he gasped.

‘Don’t worry, sir, your brother’s fine.’ Rebus decided finally to sit down.

‘Then what’s … Not Martha?’

‘Martha?’

‘My sister.’ Waters caught himself. ‘Obviously not, since you don’t know who I’m talking about.’

Rebus was remembering Lionel’s words:
she buried the body
. ‘Actually, sir, it is about your brother. I happened to be at Renshaw House yesterday, and had to help the staff restrain him. Seems he wanted to walk out of there, so he could find you and say sorry.’

‘Oh Christ.’ Waters bowed his head, pinching the skin at the bridge of his nose.

‘You know he thinks he killed you?’

Colin Waters nodded. ‘Right from when he was a kid, we knew there was something that wasn’t right about him. He was a lot of fun, though … boisterous, you know?’ He seemed to expect some response, so Rebus produced a slow nod. ‘But he never seemed to
have any sense of when he was taking things too far. He’d bite … lash out … even at strangers on the street. Our parents decided he needed to be kept home, at least for as long as they were able.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Martha and I … we tried to pretend he was just like anybody else.’ He broke off, flicked at something invisible on the arm of his jacket. ‘Special needs is the term these days; back then, the local children had other ways of putting it. Keeping Lionel at home became problematic.’

‘It couldn’t have been easy,’ Rebus acknowledged. Waters gave the briefest of smiles.

‘We were wrestling one day,’ he said. ‘Middle of July – teenagers, the pair of us – out on the lawn. Lionel loved to wrestle … probably fell on me a bit too solidly – he was well built in those days.’

‘What happened?’

‘I think I passed out. When I came to, he was up to high doh … reckoned he’d done me in. We couldn’t make him see sense.’

‘By “we” you mean …?’

‘Martha and me. She’s younger than us. The way he was carrying on, it scared the hell out of her – roaring like a wild beast, almost foaming at the mouth. As far as Lionel was concerned, I was a ghost …’

Waters paused, lost in memory. His fingers had stretched out to touch a photo frame on his desk. Rebus could see only the back of it.

‘Is that …?’ He pointed to the frame.

‘This is afterwards. Me and Martha.’

‘Do you mind if I take a look?’

Waters’s shoulder twitched as he turned the photo round. It was black and white, and showed Colin Waters still not quite out of his teens. His sister looked four or five years younger, breasts just beginning to appear, hair still held in pigtails. They were seated on the staircase of what appeared to be a grand house – probably not dissimilar to Renshaw House. They were peering through the iron banisters. There was a painting on the wall behind them. Neither looked particularly happy, and the photographer had failed to get their faces in sharp focus. There was a ghostly quality to the whole. Rebus couldn’t help wondering why the photo was so important. To him, it seemed a daily reminder of something lost: the hopes and dreams of youth.

‘Interesting painting,’ he said, as Waters turned the photo back towards himself.

‘It’s still in the family.’

‘Is it a loch or a river?’

‘I think the artist invented it, whatever it is. Not too many clifftop castles in Scotland.’

‘Not that I know of.’ Rebus made to rise to his feet, Waters following suit.

‘I’m still not sure why you came, Inspector,’ he commented.

‘Me neither,’ Rebus told him. Then he slid his hands into his pockets. ‘Your brother just seemed so confused and lonely. I take it a visit from you would upset him?’

Waters shrugged. ‘I’m a ghost, remember.’

‘And your sister? Does she see him much?’

Waters shook his head. ‘It upsets her too much to see him like that.’ He gestured with an expansive right arm. ‘Now, if there’s nothing else …’

‘I appreciate your time, sir.’ Rebus didn’t bother mentioning the Saab; reckoned it would do him another year.

He decided that a further visit to Renshaw House was in order, but first drove towards his home in Marchmont, stopping at the local butcher’s shop. He was a known face here, and as with a good barman, the butcher knew what his regulars liked.

‘Steak pie, Mr Rebus?’ he was asking as Rebus walked over the threshold.

‘No thanks, Andy.’

‘Couple of nice pork chops, then?’

Rebus shook his head. There was sawdust on the floor – for show rather than anything else. Andy wore a striped apron and a straw boater. Photos on the white-tiled wall showed his father in the selfsame get-up. Rebus was struck again by what the photo on Waters’s desk must have meant to the car dealer.

‘Just a question actually, Andy,’ he said.

‘Is this me becoming a police informer? The Huggy Bear of Edinburgh?’

Rebus answered the laugh with a smile of his own. He’d never seen the butcher at rest. Even now, with no order to fill, Andy was sorting the display of various hams and sausages. ‘I was wondering if you knew about a butcher called Pakenham.’

‘Pakenham?’

Rebus spelled it for him. ‘They’d be local, I think. “Fresh Fleshing” is what it says on their van.’

‘Have they got a shop?’

‘I’ve only seen the van. It was delivering to an old folk’s home’

Andy pursed his lips.

‘What is it?’ Rebus asked.

‘Well, it’s not always top-grade, is it?’

‘Cheap cuts, you mean?’

‘Cheapest possible.’ Andy held his hands up. ‘I’m not saying they’re all like that …’

‘But some are?’ Rebus nodded to himself. ‘Got a phone book, Andy?’

The butcher fetched one from the back of the shop. Rebus checked, but there was no Pakenham Fresh Fleshing.

‘Thanks, Andy,’ he said, handing it back.

‘Sorry I can’t be more help. More Yogi Bear than Huggy, eh?’

‘Actually, you’ve been a big help. And maybe I will take one of those steak pies.’

‘Family size, as usual?’

‘As usual,’ Rebus confirmed. He would drop it home before his visit to Renshaw House.

He rang the bell and waited. It was late afternoon now, the sun low in the sky. The detached villa sat on Minto Street, a busy thoroughfare on the city’s south side. The house had a faded elegance, its stonework blackened by time and traffic. Most of the houses around it had become bed and breakfasts, but not this one. The name on the unpolished brass door plate was Waters, the letters picked out in verdigris. The sister, it seemed, had never married.

She opened the door herself. No pigtails now, the hair grey and thin, scraped back from the forehead and tucked behind both ears. Her eyes were sunken, as were her cheeks. Colin Waters, it seemed, had stolen all the heartiest genes from his parents.

‘Martha Waters?’ Rebus said, realising that he was pitching his voice a little louder than was probably necessary – she was only ten or so years older than him.

‘Yes?’

He held open his warrant card. ‘I’m from the police, Miss Waters. Do you mind if I come in?’

She said nothing, her mouth forming a crumpled O. But she held the door open so he could pass into the hall. It wasn’t the same one as in the photograph. The banisters were wooden, darkly varnished. The only natural light came from a window on the upstairs landing. The carpet was ornate but as worn as its owner. She closed the door, adding to the pervasive gloom. Rebus noted an alarm panel on the wall beside the umbrella stand. The panel looked new, with a digital display. A sensor blinked in the far corner of the ceiling.

‘Would you care for a cup of tea?’ She spoke quietly, pronouncing each syllable. She had yet to ask him why he was here.

‘Is there somewhere we can sit, Miss Waters?’

She shuffled in her carpet slippers towards another door, opening it to reveal what she would probably call the parlour. It was like stepping back in time: antimacassars on the sofas, an empty three-tiered cake stand on a large embroidered doily. Little ornaments and knick-knacks covered every surface. A grandfather clock had ceased to work some time back, frozen for ever at one minute to twelve.

‘Did you say you wanted tea?’ she enquired.

‘No thanks.’ Rebus had strode over to the fireplace, admiring the large painting framed above the mantel. A bus sped past outside, causing some of the ornaments to rattle. Martha Waters sat herself down. Before his arrival, she’d been listening to the radio: a classical station, the sound barely audible. Nothing much wrong with her hearing, then … or she was just saving batteries.

‘This is a grand painting,’ Rebus told her.

‘I used to like it,’ she said. ‘I hardly see it any more.’

Rebus nodded his understanding. Nothing wrong with her eyes either; she meant something else entirely.

‘Who’s it by?’ he asked.

‘My brother says it’s a Gainsborough.’

‘Explains the alarm system … I take it Colin had that fitted?’

‘Do you know about art?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘But I know the name. It must be quite old, then.’

‘Seventeen eighties.’

‘As old as that? And worth a bit, I dare say?’

‘Six figures, so Colin tells me.’

Rebus shook his head again, this time in apparent wonder. ‘I saw that photograph of it. You know the one I mean?’ He turned to her. ‘Colin keeps it on his office desk. It stares back at him every working day.’

Her eyes seemed to regain their focus. ‘What is it you want here?’

‘Me?’ He shrugged. ‘I just wanted to see it in the flesh. I thought maybe you’d’ve sold it or something.’

‘We could never sell it.’

‘Not even after what you went through to get it?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I think you do, Miss Waters. I think it’s been your little secret all these long years. I’ve just come from Renshaw House, had a nice long chat with Lionel.’

At the mention of her brother’s name, Martha stiffened, clasping her hands on her lap in front of her.