Ian Rankin: The Beat Goes On

The answering machine was in the living-room. Rebus played the tape of the previous night’s calls. Moira Bitter’s voice was clipped and confident, her message to the point: ‘Hello.’ Then a pause. ‘I need to see you. Come round as soon as you get this message. Love you.’

MacFarlane had told Rebus that the display unit on the machine showed time of call. Moira’s call registered at 3.50 a.m., about forty-five minutes after her death. There was room for some discrepancy, but not three-quarters of an hour’s worth. Rebus scratched his chin and pondered. He played the tape again. ‘Hello.’ Then the pause. ‘I need to see you.’ He stopped the tape and played it again, this time with the volume up and his ear close to the machine. That pause was curious and the sound quality on the tape was poor. He rewound and listened to another call from the same evening. The quality was better, the voice much clearer. Then he listened to Moira again. Were these recording machines infallible? Of course not. The time displayed could have been tampered with. The recording itself could be a fake. After all, whose word did he have that this was the voice of Moira Bitter? Only John MacFarlane’s. But John MacFarlane had been caught leaving the scene of a murder. And now Rebus was being presented with a sort of an alibi for the man. Yes, the tape could well be a fake, used by MacFarlane to substantiate his story, but stupidly not put into use until after the time of death. Still, from what Rebus had heard from Moira’s own answering machine, the voice was certainly similar to her own. The lab boys could sort it out with their clever machines. One technician in particular owed him a rather large favour.

Rebus shook his head. This still wasn’t making much sense. He played the tape again and again.

‘Hello.’ Pause. ‘I need to see you.’

‘Hello.’ Pause. ‘I need to see you.’

‘Hello.’ Pause. ‘I need—’

And suddenly it became a little clearer in his mind. He ejected the tape and slipped it into his jacket pocket, then picked up the telephone and called the station. He asked to speak to Detective Constable Brian Holmes. The voice, when it came on the line, was tired but amused.

‘Don’t tell me,’ Holmes said, ‘let me guess. You want me to drop everything and run an errand for you.’

‘You must be psychic, Brian. Two errands really. Firstly, last night’s calls. Get the recording of them and search for one from John MacFarlane, claiming he’d just killed his girlfriend. Make a copy of it and wait there for me. I’ve got another tape for you, and I want them both taken to the lab. Warn them you’re coming—’

‘And tell them it’s priority, I know. It’s always priority. They’ll say what they always say: give us four days.’

‘Not this time,’ Rebus said. ‘Ask for Bill Costain and tell him Rebus is collecting on his favour. He’s to shelve what he’s doing. I want a result today, not next week.’

‘What’s the favour you’re collecting on?’

‘I caught him smoking dope in the lab toilets last month.’

Holmes laughed. ‘The world’s going to pot,’ he said. Rebus groaned at the joke and put down the receiver. He needed to speak with John MacFarlane again. Not about lovers this time, but about friends.

Rebus rang the doorbell a third time and at last heard a voice from within.

‘Jesus, hold on! I’m coming.’

The man who answered the door was tall, thin, with wire-framed glasses perched on his nose. He peered at Rebus and ran his fingers through his hair.

‘Mr Thomson?’ Rebus asked. ‘Kenneth Thomson?’

‘Yes,’ said the man, ‘that’s right.’

Rebus flipped open his ID. ‘Detective Inspector John Rebus,’ he said by way of introduction. ‘May I come in?’

Kenneth Thomson held open the door. ‘Please do,’ he said. ‘Will a cheque be all right?’

‘A cheque?’

‘I take it you’re here about the parking tickets,’ said Thomson. ‘I’d have got round to them eventually, believe me. It’s just that I’ve been hellish busy, and what with one thing and another...’

‘No, sir,’ said Rebus, his smile as cold as a church pew, ‘nothing to do with parking fines.’

‘Oh?’ Thomson pushed his glasses back up his nose and looked at Rebus. ‘Then what’s the problem?’

‘It’s about Miss Moira Bitter,’ said Rebus.

‘Moira? What about her?’

‘She’s dead, sir.’

Rebus had followed Thomson into a cluttered room overflowing with bundles of magazines and newspapers. A hi-fi sat in one corner, and covering the wall next to it were shelves filled with cassette tapes. These had an orderly look to them, as though they had been indexed, each tape’s spine carrying an identifying number.

Thomson, who had been clearing a chair for Rebus to sit on, froze at the detective’s words.

‘Dead?’ he gasped. ‘How?’

‘She was murdered, sir. We think John MacFarlane did it.’ ‘John?’ Thomson’s face was quizzical, then sceptical, then resigned. ‘But why?’

‘We don’t know that yet, sir. I thought you might be able to help.’

‘Of course I’ll help if I can. Sit down, please.’

Rebus perched on the chair, while Thomson pushed aside some newspapers and settled himself on the sofa.

‘You’re a writer, I believe,’ said Rebus.

Thomson nodded distractedly. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Freelance journalism, food and drink, travel, that sort of thing. Plus the occasional commission to write a book. That’s what I’m doing now, actually. Writing a book.’

‘Oh? I like books myself. What’s it about?’

‘Don’t laugh,’ said Thomson, ‘but it’s a history of the haggis.’

‘The haggis?’ Rebus couldn’t disguise a smile in his voice, warmer this time: the church pew had been given a cushion. He cleared his throat noisily, glancing around the room, noting the piles of books leaning precariously against walls, the files and folders and newsprint cuttings. ‘You must do a lot of research,’ he said appreciatively.

‘Sometimes,’ said Thomson. Then he shook his head. ‘I still can’t believe it. About Moira, I mean. About John.’

Rebus took out his notebook, more for effect than anything else. ‘You were Miss Bitter’s lover for a while,’ he stated.

‘That’s right, Inspector.’

‘But then she went off with Mr MacFarlane.’

‘Right again.’ A hint of bitterness had crept into Thomson’s voice. ‘I was very angry at the time, but I got over it.’

‘Did you still see Miss Bitter?’

‘No.’

‘What about Mr MacFarlane?’

‘No again. We spoke on the telephone a couple of times. It always seemed to end in a shouting match. We used to be like, well, it’s a cliché, I suppose, but we used to be like brothers.’

‘Yes,’ said Rebus, ‘so Mr MacFarlane told me.’

‘Oh?’ Thomson sounded interested. ‘What else did he say?’

‘Not much really.’ Rebus rose from his perch and went to the window, holding aside the net curtain to stare out onto the street below. ‘He said you’d known each other for years.’

‘Since school,’ Thomson added.

Rebus nodded. ‘And he said you drove a black Ford Escort. That’ll be it down there, parked across the street?’

Thomson came to the window. ‘Yes,’ he agreed, uncertainly, ‘that’s it. But I don’t see what—’

‘I noticed it as I was parking my own car,’ Rebus continued, brushing past Thomson’s interruption. He let the curtain fall and turned back into the room. ‘I noticed you’ve got a car alarm. I suppose you must get a lot of burglaries around here.’

‘It’s not the most salubrious part of town,’ Thomson said. ‘Not all writers are like Jeffrey Archer.’