The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime, Volume 8
Introduction
Maxim Jakubowski
Introducing last year’s volume of our annual anthology collecting the best crime and mystery stories penned by British authors during the course of the preceding calendar year, I mentioned the fact that Ian Rankin had called a halt to the perennially popular series featuring Edinburgh cop Inspector Rebus. Well, mourn not, our much-loved character returns briefly to open this year’s volume with a short but intriguing story which Ian initially agreed to write for charity! And to please our readers even further, there is a double helping of Ian Rankin, as we close the book with another great tale set in Edinburgh. Two for the price of one can’t be bad. And a heartfelt vote of thanks to Ian and his agent Peter Robinson for allowing us to feature him twice this year.
Crime writing in the UK continues to thrive ever vigorously and in addition to several handfuls of stalwart regulars, it’s also a great pleasure to welcome to our series many new names who have not previously appeared herein, including such luminaries as Kate Atkinson, Louise Welsh, Stephen Booth, Christopher Brookmyre, Colin Bateman, literary star A. L. Kennedy, Sheila Quigley, Lin Anderson, Simon Kernick and David Hewson.
In addition, it’s a decided pleasure to be able to introduce many new talents who’ve mostly hitherto only appeared in the proliferating web magazines devoted to the genre: Nick Quantrill, Jay Stringer, Paul D. Brazill and Nigel Bird. Also comforting is the ability to feature stories by father and son, with Peter Lovesey and Phil Lovesey sharing our pages, together with a wide assortment of other talented writers whose imagination somehow never fails them when it comes to creating stories which blend thrills, puzzles, emotions, shock and great writing.
Long may all these fictional criminals thrive and keep on entertaining us with a dash or more of blood, a zest of death and a galaxy of grey cells involved in solving the dastardly crimes that pepper our pages and delight us in myriad ways.
Another good year for crime!
Maxim Jakubowski
The Very Last Drop
An Inspector Rebus Story
Ian Rankin
“And this is where the ghost’s usually seen,” the guide said. “So I hope nobody’s of a nervous disposition.” His eyes were fixed on Rebus, though there were four other people on the tour. They had wandered through the brewery in their luminous health-and-safety vests and white hard-hats, climbing up flights of steps, ducking for low doorways, and were now huddled together on what seemed to be the building’s attic level. The tour itself had been a retirement present. Rebus had almost let the voucher lapse, until reminded by Siobhan Clarke, whose gift it had been.
“Ghost?” she asked now. The guide nodded slowly. His name was Albert Simms, and he’d told them to call him “Albie” — “not alibi, though I’ve provided a few in my time.” This had been said at the very start of the tour, as they’d been trying the protective helmets for size. Siobhan had made a joke of it, warning him that he was in the presence of police officers. “Officer singular,” Rebus had almost interrupted.
Almost.
Simms was currently looking uncomfortable, eyes darting around him. “He’s usually only seen at night, our resident ghost. More often, it’s the creaking of the floorboards the workers hear. He paces up and down... up and down...” He made a sweeping gesture with his arm. The narrow walkway was flanked by rectangular stainless-steel fermentation tanks. This was where the yeast did its work. Some vats were three-quarters full, each topped with a thick layer of brown foam. Others were empty, either clean or else waiting to be sluiced and scrubbed.
“His name was Johnny Watt,” Simms went on. “Sixty years ago he died — almost to the day.” Simms’s eyes were rheumy, his face blotchy and pockmarked. He’d retired a decade back, but liked leading the tours. They kept him fit. “Johnny was up here on his own. His job was to do the cleaning. But the fumes got him.” Simms pointed towards one of the busier vats. “Take too deep a breath and you can turn dizzy.”
“He fell in?” Siobhan Clarke guessed.
“Aye,” Simms appeared to agree. “That’s the story. Banged his head and wasn’t found for a while.” He slapped the rim of the nearest vat. “They were made of stone back then, and metal-lined.” His eyes were on Rebus again. “A fall like that can do some damage.”
There were murmurs of agreement from the other visitors.
“Two more stops,” Simms told them, clapping his hands together. “Then it’s the sample room...”
The sample room was laid out like a rural pub, its brickwork exposed. Simms himself manned the pumps while the others removed their safety-ware. Rebus offered a brief toast to the guide before taking his first gulp.
“That was interesting,” Siobhan offered. Simms gave a nod of thanks. “Is it really sixty years ago? Almost exactly, I mean — or do you tell all the tours that?”
“Sixty years next week,” Simms confirmed.
“Ever seen the ghost yourself, Albie?”
Simms’s face tightened. “Once or twice,” he admitted, handing her a glass and taking Rebus’s empty one. “Just out the corner of my eye.”
“And maybe after a couple of these,” Rebus added, accepting the refill. Simms gave him a stern look.
“Johnny Watt was real enough, and he doesn’t seem to want to go away. Quite a character he was, too. The beer was free to employees back then, and no limits to how much you had. Legend has it, Johnny Watt could sink a pint in three seconds flat and not be much slower by the tenth.” Simms paused. “None of which seemed to stop him being a hit with the ladies.”
Clarke wrinkled her nose. “Wouldn’t have been a hit with me.”
“Different times,” Simms reminded her. “Story goes, even the boss’s daughter took a bit of a shine to him...”
Rebus looked up from his glass, but Simms was busy handing a fresh pint to one of the other visitors. He fixed his eyes on Siobhan Clarke instead, but she was being asked something by a woman who had come on the tour with her husband of twenty years. It had been his birthday present.
“Is it the same with you and your dad?” the woman was asking Clarke. “Did you buy him this for his birthday?”
Clarke replied with a shake of the head, then tried to hide the fact that she was smiling by taking a long sip from her glass.
“You might say she’s my ‘companion’,” Rebus explained to the woman. “Charges by the hour.”
He was still quick on his toes; managed to dodge the beer as it splashed from Siobhan Clarke’s glass...
The next day, Rebus was back at the brewery, but this time in the boardroom. Photos lined the walls. They showed the brewery in its heyday. At that time, almost a century ago, there had been twenty other breweries in the city, and even this was half what there had been at one time. Rebus studied a posed shot of delivery men with their dray-horse. It was hitched to its cart, wooden barrels stacked on their sides in a careful pyramid. The men stood with arms folded over their three-quarter-length aprons. There was no date on the photograph. The one next to it, however, was identified as “Workers and Managers, 1947”. The faces were blurry. Rebus wondered if one of them belonged to Johnny Watt, unaware that he had less than a year left to live.
On the wall opposite, past the large, polished oval table, were portraits of twenty or so men, the brewery managers. Rebus looked at each of them in turn. The one at the end was a colour photograph. When the door opened and Rebus turned towards the sound, he saw the man from the portrait walk in.
“Douglas Cropper,” the man said, shaking Rebus’s hand. He was dressed identically to his photo — dark blue suit, white shirt, burgundy tie. He was around forty and looked the type who liked sports. The tan was probably put there by nature. The hair showed only a few flecks of grey at the temples. “My secretary tells me you’re a policeman...”