Albert Simms seemed surprised to see him.
Simms had just finished one of his brewery tours. Rebus was sitting at a table in the sample room, nursing the best part of a pint of IPA. It had been a busy tour: eight guests in all. They offered Rebus half-smiles and glances but kept their distance. Simms poured them their drinks but then seemed in a hurry for them to finish, ushering them from the room. It was five minutes before he returned. Rebus was behind the pumps, topping up his glass.
“No mention of Johnny Watt’s ghost,” Rebus commented.
“No.” Simms was tidying the vests and hard-hats into a plastic storage container.
“Do you want a drink? My shout.”
Simms thought about it, then nodded. He approached the bar and eased himself on to one of the stools. There was a blue folder lying nearby, but he tried his best to ignore it.
“Always amazes me,” Rebus said, “the way we humans hang on to things — records, I mean. Chitties and receipts and old photographs. Brewery’s got quite a collection. Same goes for the libraries and the medical college.” Rebus handed over Simms’s drink. The man made no attempt to pick it up.
“Joseph Cropper’s wife never had a daughter,” Rebus began to explain. “I got that from Joseph’s grandson, your current boss. He showed me the archives. So much stuff there...” He paused. “When Johnny Watt died, how long had you been working here, Albie?”
“Not long.”
Rebus nodded and opened the folder, showing Simms the photo from the Scotsman, the one of the brewery workers in the yard. He tapped a particular face. A young man, seated on a corner of the wagon, legs dangling, shoulders hunched. “You’ve not really changed, you know. How old were you? Fifteen?”
“You sound as if you know.” Simms had taken the photocopy from Rebus and was studying it.
“The police keep records, too, Albie. We never throw anything away. Bit of trouble in your youth — nicking stuff; fights. Brandishing a razor on one particular occasion — you did a bit of juvenile time for that. Is that when Joseph Cropper met you? He was the charitable type, according to his grandson. Liked to visit prisons, talk to the men and the juveniles. You were about to be released, he offered you a job. But there were strings attached, weren’t there?”
“Were there?” Simms tossed the sheet of paper on to the bar, picked up the glass and drank from it.
“I think so,” Rebus said. “In fact, I’d go so far as to say I know so.” He rubbed a hand down his cheek. “Be a bugger to prove, mind, but I don’t think I need to do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because you want to be caught. You’re an old man now, maybe only a short while left, but it’s been plaguing you. How many years is it, Albie? How long have you been seeing Johnny Watt’s ghost?”
Albert Simms wiped foam from his top lip with his knuckles, but didn’t say anything.
“I’ve been to take a look at your house,” Rebus continued. “Nice place. Semi-detached; quiet street off Colinton Road. Didn’t take much searching to come up with the transaction. You bought it from new a couple of months after Johnny Watt died. No mortgage. I mean, houses were maybe more affordable back then, but on wages like yours? I’ve seen your pay slips, Albie — they’re in the company files, too. So where did the money come from?”
“Go on then — tell me.”
“Joseph Cropper didn’t have a daughter. You told me he did because you knew fine well it would jar, if I ever did any digging. I’d start to wonder why you told that particular lie. He had a wife though, younger than him.” Rebus showed Simms a copy of the photo from the cemetery. “See how her husband’s keeping a grip on her? She’s either about to faint or he’s just letting everyone know who the boss is. To be honest, my money would be on both. You can’t see her face but there’s a photo she sat for in a studio...” Rebus slid it from the folder.
“Very pretty, I think you’ll agree. This came from Douglas Cropper, by the way. Families keep a lot of stuff, too, don’t they? She’d been at school with Johnny Watt. Johnny, with his eye for the ladies. Joseph Cropper couldn’t have his wife causing a scandal, could he? Her in her late teens, him in his early thirties...” Rebus leaned across the bar a little, so that his face was close to that of the man with the sagging shoulders and face.
“Could he?” he repeated.
“You can’t prove anything, you said as much yourself.”
“But you wanted someone to find out. When you found out I was a cop, you zeroed in on me. You wanted to whet my appetite, because you needed to be found out, Albie. That’s at the heart of this, always has been. Guilt gnawing away at you down the decades.”
“Not down the decades — just these past few years.” Simms took a deep breath. “It was only meant to be the frighteners. I was a tough kid but I wasn’t big. Johnny was big and fast, and that bit older. I just wanted him on the ground while I gave him the warning.” Simms’s eyes were growing glassy.
“You hit him too hard,” Rebus commented. “Did you push him in or did he fall?”
“He fell. Even then I didn’t know he was dead. The boss... when he heard...” Simms sniffed and swallowed hard. “That was the both of us, locked together... we couldn’t tell. They were still hanging people back then.”
“They hanged a man at Perth jail in 1948,” Rebus acknowledged. “I read it in the Scotsman.”
Simms managed a weak smile. “I knew you were the man, soon as I saw you. The kind who likes a mystery. Do you do crosswords?”
“Can’t abide them.” Rebus paused for a mouthful of IPA. “The money was to hush you up?”
“I told him he didn’t need to — working for him, that was what I wanted. He said the money would get me a clean start anywhere in the world.” Simms shook his head slowly. “I bought the house instead. He didn’t like that, but he was stuck with it — what was he going to do?”
“The two of you never talked about it again?”
“What was there to talk about?”
“Did Cropper’s wife ever suspect?”
“Why should she? Post-mortem was what we had to fear. Once they’d declared it an accident, that was that.”
Rebus sat in silence, waiting until Albert Simms made eye contact, then asked a question of his own. “So what are we going to do, Albie?”
Albert Simms exhaled noisily. “I suppose you’ll be taking me in.”
“Can’t do that,” Rebus said. “I’m retired. It’s up to you. Next natural step. I think you’ve already done the hard part.”
Simms thought for a moment, then nodded slowly. “No more ghosts,” he said quietly, almost to himself, as he stared up at the ceiling of the sample room.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Rebus said.
“Been here long?” Siobhan Clarke asked as she entered the Oxford Bar.
“What else am I going to do?” Rebus replied. “Now I’m on the scrap-heap. What about you — hard day at the office?”
“Do you really want to hear about it?”
“Why not?”
“Because I know what you’re like. Soon as you get a whiff of a case — mine or anyone else’s — you’ll want to have a go at it yourself.”
“Maybe I’m a changed man, Siobhan.”
“Aye, right.” She rolled her eyes and told the landlord she’d have a gin and tonic.
“Double?” he asked.
“Why not?” She looked at Rebus. “Same again? Then you can make me jealous by telling me stories of your life of leisure.”
“Maybe I’ll do that,” said Rebus, raising his pint-glass and draining it to the very last drop.