The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories (Rebus Collection) (46 page)

Rebus got up and poured himself another drink, then took a deep breath and pushed the buttons, calling the sender of the text message. The ringing tone sounded tremulous. He was still holding his breath, but after twenty rings he gave up. No one was about to answer. He decided to send a text instead, but couldn’t think what words to use.

Hello, are you a hired killer?

Who do you think I want you to kill?

Please hand yourself in to your nearest police station …

He smiled to himself, decided it could wait. Only half past nine, the night stretching ahead of him. He surfed all five TV channels, went into the kitchen to make some coffee, and found that he’d run out of milk. Decided on a walk to the corner shop. There was a video store almost next door to it. Maybe he’d rent a film, something to take his mind off the message. Decided, he grabbed his keys, slipped his jacket back on.

The grocer was about to close, but he knew Rebus’s face and asked him to be quick. Rebus settled for a packet of sausages, a box of eggs and a carton of milk. Then added a four-pack of lager. Settled up with the grocer and carried his purchases to the video store. He was inside before he remembered that he’d forgotten to bring his membership card; thought the assistant would probably let him rent something anyway. After all, if William Smith could rent a flat in the New Town, surely Rebus could rent a three-quid video.

He was even prepared to pay cash.

But as he stared at the rack of new releases, he found himself blinking and shaking his head. Then he reached out a hand and lifted down the empty video box. He approached the desk with it.

‘When did this come out?’ he asked.

‘Last week.’ The assistant was in his teens, but a good judge of Hollywood’s gold dust and dross. His eyes had gone heavy-lidded, letting Rebus know this film was the latter. ‘Rich guy’s having an affair, hires an assassin. Only the assassin falls for the wife and tops the mistress instead. Rich guy takes the fall, breaks out of jail with revenge in mind.’

‘So I don’t need to watch it now?’

The assistant shrugged. ‘That’s all in the first fifteen minutes. I’m not telling you anything they don’t give away on the back of the box.’

Rebus turned the box over and saw that this was largely true. ‘I should never have doubted you,’ he said.

‘It got terrible reviews, which is why they end up quoting from an obscure radio station on the front.’

Rebus nodded, turning the box over in his hands. Then he held it out towards the assistant. ‘I’ll take it.’

‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ The assistant turned and found a copy of the film in a plain box. ‘Got your card?’

‘Left it in the flat.’

‘Surname’s Rebus, right? Address in Arden Street.’ Rebus nodded. ‘Then I suppose it’s OK, this one time.’

‘Thanks.’

The assistant shrugged. ‘It’s not like I’m doing you a favour, letting you walk out with that film.’

‘Even so … you have to admit, it’s got a pretty good title.’

‘Maybe.’ The assistant studied the box for
Tell Me Who to Kill
, but seemed far from convinced.

Rebus had finished all four cans of lager by the time the closing credits rolled. He reckoned he must have dozed off for a few minutes in the middle, but didn’t think this had affected his viewing pleasure. There were a couple of big names in the main roles, but they too tended towards drowsiness. It was as if cast, crew and writers had all needed a decent night’s sleep.

Rebus rewound the tape, ejected it, and held it in his hand. So it was a film title. That was all the text message had meant. Maybe someone had been choosing a film for Saturday night. Maybe Carl Guthrie had found the phone lying on the pavement. William Smith had dropped it, and Guthrie had found it. Then someone, maybe Smith’s girlfriend, had texted the title of the film they’d be watching later on, and Guthrie had opened the message, hoping to find some clue to the identity of the phone’s owner.

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 home.’

‘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 up, 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’ve 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?’ he 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.