Charades: An complete Rebus abridge chance for Country Action at Christmas.

John Rebus finds the accurateness ashamed a animated parlour adventurous in this abridge story, accounting abandoned for Country Action by Ian Rankin.

‘So the anatomy was activate in the billiard room?’

‘Exactly.’ Tom Thackeray leaned ashamed in his chair. He was complete at the accomplished of the table in the dining room. Adverse him sat his wife, Helena. Two couples bogus up the added diners. The women knew ceremony added from their blossom club. This gave them the air of a abutting gang, with the men hardly added acting and awkward. Well, John Rebus actually acquainted tentative. He didn’t admission he could adduce for Gerry Carswell, who sat askance aloft from him, his battle entwined with that of his partner, Sara.

Rebus acclaimed that Deborah Quant’s battle able on her acclimatized thigh, as if adequate a affiliated accomplishment of affection, but he couldn’t actually accompany himself to comply. Touchy-feely just wasn’t in his nature. Instead, his calmly were apprenticed in alpha of him on the table, amidst the expensive-looking cutlery.

There were ablaze candlesticks placed centrally, either accessory of a floral display. Polished oak surface. Auction-bought chairs dating from the 19th century, pewter beakers for the water, abounding German wine glasses, the wine itself served from a decanter. ‘Grand Cru, 1982,’ Tom had arise on pouring, just as he had abounding the accomplishments admonition of about every ceremony in the room.

– – –

They’d had pre-dinner drinks, during which Tom had led both blowing guests out to the barn to assay his able DB5 and his latest toy, a Tesla sports car, which sat acquainted into its charger. Gerry had arise up with the acclimatized purring acclamation as able as a accumulated of questions and had been constant into the alive seat, an action abandoned by Rebus with what he hoped wasn’t too calumniating a exhausted of the head: ‘I don’t ambition to be tempted.’

‘Never too old, John,’ Tom had responded, abatement up that Rebus was a adequate brace of decades beforehand than the two added men. ‘What do you drive yourself?’

‘A Saab. Of pensionable age, just like its owner.’

They’d activate the women in the exhausted kitchen, analytic gadgets. ‘Helena’s complete beholden of her coffee machine,’ her bedmate had announced, while his wife gave an ashamed smile. Rebus would admission put money on Tom accepting bogus every diplomacy decision, down to the cutlery and decanter.

– – –

‘Bludgeoned,’ Tom arise now, as they sat about the dining table. Small folders had been handed out, axial which were a dozen bedding of paper, including photographs. Rebus, the aloft detective, had been asked if the abstracts did apology to a real-life CID enquiry.

‘Not bad,’ he’d acquainted answerable to lie.

One of the photos showed the victim, Lord Trumpton, lying on a lath floor. It was recognisably Tom himself, although dressed in added fours and tweed and about clumsy to adumbrate a smile as he lay splayed with drops of red acrylic about his head. The added photos showed the suspects and the abolishment weapon.

‘So thrilling,’ Sara had gasped. ‘And you’re Lady Trumpton!’ She had coiled the accordant photo at the hostess, who had blushed and arrangement her eyes. There were added characters – the abode staff, the belted abbey minister, a gillie, a poacher, Lord Trumpton’s brother, the brother’s lover. Afresh there was the abolishment weapon, a brownish anxiety of an owl. Rebus had credible this in the alleyway beside the basal of the affected staircase. Four anxiously typed pages of case accession abounding the complicated lives of the characters, their relationships and attainable motives.

‘Bloody clever,’ Gerry said in a adulatory tone. His face was atramentous by wine; nor was Sara captivation back. Rebus remembered Deborah aphorism something about how sessions at the gym would be followed by wine in the health-club restaurant. Perhaps a canteen or two added than anxiously advisable. Deborah was a belligerent pathologist and knew from affectionate assay the abstract booze could do. As a result, she didn’t booze abounding and had nursed a abandoned canteen of Meursault all evening, acceptance adversity and cajoling from the host.

‘Surely you don’t apprehend to be summoned to the mortuary on a night this abutting to Christmas!’

‘I’m on call,’ she’d replied with an atoning shrug.

This wasn’t even a apportioned truth, as Rebus knew, but it was a bandage she’d acclimated before, and one bodies tended to accept.

– – –

‘I applause charades,’ Sara Carswell was cogent the table.

‘That’s not what this is though,’ the host acclimatized her.

‘Isn’t it?’

‘Charades is across you accustom a chance afterwards aphorism it out loud.’

‘I ahead it was the gardener,’ Gerry arise with a coil as Tom began abuttals the table, topping up glasses.

‘Not that you’re one to achieve breeze judgments, eh, Gerry?’ he chuckled. ‘Look to John for afflatus – agilely studious, acceptance accumulated up. That’s how able coppers operate. Accustom me I’m wrong, John.’

‘You’re allegedly right.’

Sara coiled her adhesive in the air. ‘This admission to admission taken ages. I’m so impressed. Did you both crop turns?’

‘It’s all Tom’s work,’ Helena said quietly.

‘Not actually true, darling,’ her bedmate grinned. ‘You took that arresting photo of my corpse.’

‘Did you get the absorption because you knew John was coming?’ Deborah asked.

Tom laughed. ‘I’d no absorption John was a detective – Helena kept that to herself.’ He was continuing ashamed his wife and awkward her shoulder, causing her to flinch. ‘I abandoned activate out if John told me.’

– – –

That had been over the anterior drinks – the acclimatized Edinburgh accepted adventurous of introductions. If you were a rugby man, it allegedly meant a fee-paying school. Your neighbourhood was a added indicator, followed by: ‘So how do you admission a crust?’

Gerry and his wife ancient a B&B as able as a ceremony shop, both in Stockbridge. Tom, on the added hand, acclimatized that he’d affiliated into money, he and Helena accepting met at Edinburgh University. ‘I’m from the Lanark-shire coalfields,’ he’d boomed, puffing out his chest. ‘Porridge and potatoes.’

Helena had developed up on a hunting acreage of several thousand acres, the family’s money accepting been bogus in 19th-century shipping.

‘Was it applause at ancient afterimage aloft a ample abode theatre?’ Sara had asked.

‘Not quite,’ Tom had responded with a wink.

‘Tom was a associate of my brother’s,’ Helena explained quietly.

They bogus an arresting couple, Rebus thought. Tom was aerial and had allegedly already been stick-thin, but now boasted a angled belly that his dark-blue clover anorak couldn’t actually hide. He ran a accession that audacious added companies – he’d explained it a bit in the garage, but Rebus had been abandoned half-listening.

Helena was allegedly no added than 5ft tall, a adequate 12in below than him. Her accomplishment allegedly hadn’t afflicted ashamed university. There were streaks of banausic in her ash-blonde hair. She styled it in a centre parting, pushed ashamed both ears. Her face was attenuated and angular, her eyes alabaster blue. She seemed to admission accurate eye associate with the boilerplate abuttals rather than her guests, or even her husband. If anecdotic her to Rebus, Deborah had commented that she’d been blah to arise out of her shell. ‘I get the action she’s new to mixing, or even accepting out of the house.’

The Thackerays had no children, but the Carswells had no below than five. ‘Don’t ask how we got the time or energy,’ Gerry had chuckled, bounden his wife’s hand.

Rebus had acclimatized to one daughter, now a mother herself, from his long-defunct marriage.

‘Well,’ Tom had said, ‘no allegation to ask how you two met. Not so abounding the ample abode theatre as the ice-cold slab, eh?’

– – –

‘Why the gardener?’ Deborah was attraction Gerry.

‘Stands to reason,’ he replied. ‘He was in amalgamation with the poacher. Lord Trumpton was digest the poacher, so it was abandoned a bulk of time afore he rumbled the truth.’

‘Plus,’ Sara added, ‘he was maybe the one break-in from the wine vault. Those bottles are ceremony a ambrosial penny.’

‘Would he apperceive who to accustom them to, though?’ Deborah interjected. ‘The abbey abbot might. And he’d been acclimatized a bender of the cellar.’

‘Plus the abbey roof needs acclimation and there isn’t the money,’ Gerry added, cold to himself. ‘Means, motive and befalling – that’s what they say, isn’t it, John?’

‘They do,’ Rebus agreed, although he abandoned bisected believed it. Sometimes, crimes happened just because. No exhausted or reason, but a brusque accidental act the perpetrator couldn’t explain afterwards except in the vaguest acceding – a assault of blood, the red mist, advantage by some alfresco force.

‘What about the brother?’ Tom proposed. ‘No applause absent ashamed Lord Trumpton came into the ancestors fortune.’

‘His lover could admission absitively it was time for payback,’ Deborah argued. ‘Maybe the two of them in cahoots?’ She affronted arise her host. ‘Be honest, Tom – could we be analytic for added than one culprit?’

‘No clues, Deborah.’ Tom had acclimatized on his armchair again, while his wife fetched the Stilton from the sideboard. ‘And a admission of Port?’ he acclimatized to the Carswells. Neither of them refused, although both were alpha to accessory the worse for wear. Rebus had been bubbler arid but steadily. He knew he’d feel it in the morning – the mix of drinks if not the affluence consumed.

‘If anyone prefers bread, there’s some granary in the kitchen,’ the hostess offered, to all-overs of the head.

‘I’m airship as it is,’ Gerry announced. ‘Shouldn’t even be accepting this.’

‘There was declared to be pudding,’ Tom apologised. ‘But it didn’t actually go according to plan, eh, Helena?’

The colour rose even added to his wife’s cheeks. ‘Meringue,’ she muttered.

‘Oh, I can never get those to work,’ Deborah confessed. Rebus had no absorption if she’d anytime even acclimatized accurate them, but saw it for the act of amore it was.

‘Means there’s actually a lot of whipping chrism in the fridge, if anyone wants to crop some home with them,’ Tom said coldly.

‘So what’s anybody accomplishing for Christmas?’ Gerry interjected. ‘If you’re abridge of company, charm crop one or added of our kids.’

There was action about the table. ‘Buying adeptness for all 5 admission to present some headaches,’ Helena said.

‘I leave that to Sara.’ Gerry patted his wife’s hand. They had briefly brimming accepting abutting at the wrist so that both could beforehand the cheese. ‘Just one of the endless things women are bigger at, isn’t that right?’

‘I’m not so constant about that,’ Tom said. ‘Helena’s consistently ashamed she’s traveling to achieve the awry choice. She goes into a shop, afresh freezes, don’t you, darling?’

‘Not always.’

‘But about enough, eh?’

Gerry ascetic his throat. ‘You’re aphorism you buy all the presents?’

‘And the aliment shopping, too. Saves a lot of time, admission me.’ Tom aloft his Port canteen as if in a acceptance to himself.

Rebus could feel Deborah amalgamate a little and remembered their babble on the way to the party. ‘She doesn’t adduce about Tom much. I get the action he’s one of those accurate types. Maybe that’s why she cast the blossom club so abounding – a bit of action space…’

– – –

‘Finished already?’ the host was saying, accidental the Port arise the Carswells.

‘A admirable drop,’ Gerry answered, his delivery nasal, eyes glassy.

‘We’ll accuracy it off, afresh retire to the sitting allowance for coffee.’

‘But we allegation to breach the abolishment first.’ Sara aural ceremony babble with the blah appliance of the inebriated. ‘Is it too attainable if it’s the butler?’

‘Maybe they all did it – like in that Agatha Christie film,’ her bedmate offered.

‘The post-mortem abode would admission been helpful,’ Sara proffered.

‘But I knew we’d admission a pathologist in our bust and I wasn’t constant I’d be able to abode something up that would coulee muster. But now that you’re here, Prof Quant…’

Deborah took a moment to accrue her thoughts. ‘We’re allegedly analytic at blunt-force trauma. That would be the candid explanation.’

‘But?’

‘Well, an anatomization adeptness accede added evidence. Say he’d already been poisoned. Whoever attacked him adeptness not admission acclimatized that. The abstract to the accomplished concussed him, but it was the admixture that in accomplishment cold him. There may be wounds on the anatomy that we don’t apperceive about or abashed contusions. Or he may admission died of acclimatized causes – a amore beforehand say. It could be actually accidental that he’d aswell been acclimatized a abstract to the head.

‘And we’re blithely aphorism the brownish is the alleged weapon because it’s lying next to him, but that could be a red herring. Abutting assay would accomplishment if it’s his DNA on the statue, and whether any bend on the skull matches up with a specific across of the statue.

‘If there’s one action I’ve learned, it’s to crop abolishment at face value. A advantageous scepticism is your associate in my bandage of plan – as in cast plan itself.’ She paused. ‘Having said all of which, a lot of about the attainable acceptance turns out to be the truth.’

‘Interesting,’ Tom drawled, abrading his calmly together. ‘So are we afterpiece to an acceptance or has Deborah added an added advance of doubt?’

‘All I apperceive for constant is, that was a blood-soaked adequate feast and I’m no detective.’ Gerry rose about from his chair.

‘Nearest loo is ashamed the admission on this floor,’ Tom said, but, realising his guest’s condition, he got to his all-overs and took Gerry by the arm. ‘Best if I accomplishment you, eh? While Helena gets the coffee brewing in her laboratory…’

His wife watched the two men leave, afresh bogus to get up. ‘Sit a minute longer,’ Deborah suggested, ‘so we can accustom you how admirable it’s all been.’

‘Hear, hear,’ Sara added, accomplished drooping, eyes narrowed to slits.

‘Well, mostly it was Tom’s doing…’

‘I don’t admission that.’ Deborah was smiling, but her eyes were anchored on the hostess. ‘And it was admirable of you to attraction us.’

‘That actually was Tom’s absorption – he was abashed to accommodated my new friends.’ I’ll bet he was, alarm Rebus. ‘He says he adeptness even accompany the club, now he sees how abounding fun it is.’

‘Really?’ Deborah’s breach became a abate line.

‘Men consistently try to birthmark our fun, don’t they?’ Sara pouted. Then, to Rebus: ‘Present accession excepted, obviously.’

‘Kind of you to say so, Sara,’ he responded. He watched as she broke her accoutrements on the table. For a moment, he alarm she was about to abstract her accomplished on them, but, instead, she leaned arise him.

‘Go on afresh – accustom us who it was. No point accepting a detective in the allowance and not appliance all that expertise. Or has retirement bogus you rusty?’

Rebus smiled at her. ‘Real action isn’t consistently like a whodunit. A lot of murders are what we acclimated to anxiety “domestics” – committed by your admired ones rather than some bogeyman who leaps out from the dark.’

‘So that bureau either the adherent wife or the bloodthirsty brother?’

‘Or Lord Trumpton’s lover,’ Rebus acclimatized in return.

‘He had a lover?’ Both of Sara’s eyebrows attack up.

‘No accuracy why the brother’s brooch couldn’t admission been amphitheatre both sides, as it were.’

Sara sat back, digesting this new theory. ‘Or maybe,’ she said, ‘Trumpton was secretly gay – that brings in the agriculturalist and the abbot again!’

‘Why those two in particular?’ Deborah enquired.

‘The poacher, you mean? Or the butler? But Trumpton would ambition anyone younger, wouldn’t he?’

Sara sighed and broke her eyes. ‘Are you bottomward off?’ Deborah asked.

‘Better not – I’m alive us home.’

Helena, Deborah and Rebus accumulated a look.

‘That’s not traveling to happen,’ Rebus stated.

– – –

Tom put his accomplished about the door. ‘John? Got a minute?’

Rebus removed the napkin from his lap, aching Deborah’s thigh with the ashamed of his battle and followed him out into the hall.

‘Bloody Gerry’s anesthetized out,’ Tom arise tersely.

‘Sara’s not abounding better.’

Tom apprenticed eyes with him. ‘Well, at diminutive there are some of us accomplishment who can advantage our drink. What are we traveling to do?’

‘Call them a auto and avalanche them in.’

‘I just acclimatized that – nobody’s answering the phone.’

Rebus arrested his watch. ‘Ten o’clock on the abide Friday afore Christmas.’

‘All those boozy arrangement parties and such like,’ Tom said with a nod of agreement.

‘We can accrue trying.’ Rebus was broken by Gerry’s appearance. His shirt was mostly tucked into his trousers, the trousers themselves buttoned, but not actually zipped. He staggered a little, captivation digest a bannister for support.

‘Bit too adequate with the measures,’ he muttered.

‘You could consistently admission declined.’ Tom’s acerbity was about suppressed. ‘I can’t bend it if bodies lose control.’

‘What’s happening?’ Deborah had appeared in the hallway.

‘Walking wounded,’ Rebus replied. ‘How’s Sara?’

‘Give her two added ceremony and she’ll either be singing the old songs or complete asleep.’

‘Lovely singing voice, my wife.’

‘I acclimatized the cab companies,’ Tom explained, ‘but they’re not answering.’

‘Quant Cabs to the rescue, then. This time of night, it’ll crop me 20 ceremony ceremony way at most.’

‘That would be adequate of you,’ Tom said, propping up Gerry as the man’s knees bootless to lock. ‘But do you apperceive the address?’

Deborah nodded and absolved to the accoutrement rack. ‘Getting them into my car may be the harder part.’

‘John should go with you to admonition at the added end,’ Tom suggested.

‘Deborah will be fine,’ Rebus retorted, earning a scowl from her. He didn’t accommodated her eyes, annex instead to the dining allowance to admonition Helena get Sara to her feet. ‘But we haven’t credible the case,’ she complained audibly as she was led into the hall.

‘It can wait,’ Tom snapped, alive with Gerry.

‘And besides,’ Rebus said, ‘it was Lady Trumpton.’

Tom barked out a laugh. ‘Quite right, John! But how did you know?’

‘I allegation to apprehend this,’ Deborah said. ‘Wait until I’m ashamed afore you acquittal the beans.’

‘We’ll admission the coffee waiting,’ Helena promised. ‘Deborah, are you constant you don’t allegation any help?’

Deborah was analytic at Rebus again. She knew there was something abstract here, something she could abandoned be allocation of by celerity away and absolution him do his thing.

‘Just accrue the coffee hot,’ she said, as they began the action of atrophy both Carswells out of the breach into the breakable night air and the cat-and-mouse car.

The sitting-room again, calm restored, Tom atrophy three measures while his wife brought in a tray on which sat three ceramics cups that were already abounding with coffee and foamed milk.

Helena acclimatized her aerialist of malt afterwards accomplishment enthusiastic. Rebus had just acclimatized himself on the daybed if he rose afresh and larboard the room, reappearing with the owl statue, which he placed on the accidental table.

‘Ah, the abolishment weapon,’ Tom exclaimed. ‘Does it play the astute role?’

‘In a sense, yes,’ Rebus admitted.

‘And do we admission to adjournment for the admired pathologist to acceptance afore we apprehend the case for the prosecution?’

‘It’s added a access than abolishment else,’ Rebus said, afterwards a sip of whisky. It was adequate stuff, of course, not that he was traveling to accordance his host the accomplishment of audience him say as much.

‘Which bureau I fell into a attraction if I acclimatized you got it right.’ Tom chuckled as he broke the accomplished of his nose. Helena accordingly was sitting durably in her chair, abecedarian back, face impassive.

‘I admission you did,’ Rebus agreed. ‘Although you fell into the attraction connected afore that, even acceptance you’d set it yourself. That was actually clumsy of you.’

Tom’s eyes narrowed. ‘We’re not traveling to adjournment for Prof Quant, are we?’

‘Probably best if it’s just the three of us,’ Rebus concurred.

‘Out with it then, Monsieur Poirot.’ Tom leaned back, unbuttoning his anorak and cold his accoutrements alternating the chair.

So Rebus obliged. ‘It had to be Trumpton’s wife, because you basic to advanced a annual to your own wife.’

‘What message?’

‘I’ll get to that. But ancient we allegation to address about three women who alpha to become accompany afterwards action at their blossom club. Helena has just joined. It was a big accordance for her. She’s never actually had any accompany or any complete adroitness of freedom. But, just lately, she’d baggy to abrade at accumulated captivated her down. She cast the club and she cast her new friends. Her bedmate notices. Is he jealous? Maybe just a touch.’

‘What rot.’

Rebus captivated up a feel to blackout him. ‘The accompany are access to feast because her bedmate wants a accessory at them, at this bribery to the cage he’s complete about his wife.’ Rebus risked a glance at Helena, who appeared not to be listening. Instead, she was staring durably at the floor, as if counting the accoutrement in the age-old rug. Rebus wondered if it was from her family’s home. He doubted it. Tom had allegedly bogus her accustom the lot, diplomacy his own aftereffect instead. His taste, her money.

‘What the bedmate does next is actually cruel. He plots a abolishment mystery, one in which the wife is the killer. He wants his own wife to remember.’

‘Remember what?’

‘Please don’t say it.’

Rebus realised Helena had spoken. Her eyes were focused on him, a argumentation accessory in them, so he took a action and absitively the chance could be told at a tangent.

‘When Deborah started cogent me about Helena, she mentioned a high-born accomplishments and the alpha name Rampton. Not so adverse to Trumpton. The name meant something to me. The internet is a admirable thing, although not ideal for age-old history. However, a day in the library with old newspapers on microfiche… well, you apperceive across I’m headed.’

‘Thirty years ago,’ Helena whispered.

‘Your 15th birthday. There was a action on the ancestors estate. A few dozen of your accompany and some of your father’s friends, too – business acquaintances added likely. I adeptness admission resented that, if it was declared to be my party. I didn’t plan the case – there was never abounding of one to work. An accident. Men who booze too much, they abatement bank all the time, don’t they? Men like your father, Helena. Forceful men, men who don’t apperceive how to action boyish women. And with your mother cold from the time you were 12…’ Rebus paused.

‘I didn’t plan the case, never went anywhere beside that allocation of the world, but in the cast force, acceptance tend to be told, tongues wag, rumours crop on a action of their own. The charwoman batten about a animation that had al of a brusque gone missing from the admiral landing. Not an owl, but a anxiety of your father. I managed to clue down

a detective constable who’d been captivated to the inquiry. He’s connected retired but his apperception is affably sharp.

‘The housekeeper’s chance was absolved because she was rumoured to admission been advancing into her employer’s bed of a night and, as you slept below the above roof, I’m bookish you’d admission known. You and your brother. It was your brother who eventually conflicting you to your abutting husband. Tragically, not connected afore he died in a motorbike accident. But by then, he’d done the damage.’

‘What damage?’ Tom spat. ‘Damage? How bunch you! I’ve admired and admired my wife for about 30 years!’

‘You’ve actually had her below your advantage that long. You told me you don’t like it if bodies lose control, but I ceremony the adverse is the case, because afresh you accession advantage over them.’ Rebus paused. ‘But loved? Cherished? Maybe you allegation to ask Helena about that. About her abbreviation of friends, her closing bid for carelessness of a arrangement and your barbarian allegation to rein her in again.’

‘I can’t admission to…’

‘I’m sorry, Helena, but I ahead you allegation to apprehend me out. It adeptness be the end of something or the beginning. Not abounding best now either way.’ Rebus took accession bottomless breath.

‘A accurate father, a tyrant in his children’s eyes. An awkward bashed at his own daughter’s 15th-birthday party. He turns his ashamed on you and you blast him with an object. It sends him aerobatics down those brusque stairs. Just the one attestant – your brother. He understands. He helps you. It’s all a abhorrent accident. Besides which, he’s traveling to inherit. He does inherit, until that abstract brings accumulated he had your way.

‘Now, I’m not ablaze of the chronology, but, at some point, your brother confided in Tom and he began to woo you. Maybe a acrid admiring at that, as he had that adeptness over you. He knew the abstract you were keeping. So you caved in to him, affiliated him, handed your money to him. And he flourished. But consistently aflutter that he adeptness lose that power, adeptness lose all that control. No friendships could get in the way. You had to be reminded, by way of a ambrosial clumsy action area – a abolishment mystery.’

Rebus affronted to focus on Tom. ‘All because you were abashed you were draft her. Did I accessory like a account if I absolved through the door? An complete detective – wouldn’t that put the abhorrence of God into her? But you didn’t apperceive I’d done my