Past Lying, page 19
‘Enough, pal,’ a thick Fife accent said in his ear as he forced Ronan to spin round and head for the door. ‘You’re gonnae walk the plank for this.’
‘Let go of me,’ Ronan hissed as they returned to the corridor.
‘I’m reporting you,’ the Asian woman said. ‘I’ve got your number, I’ll be speaking to your commanding officer. Now get off my ward.’
The brutal Fifer let go of Ronan and pushed him away, towards the far end of the corridor. As he staggered, Ronan caught sight of a real polis heading towards the commotion. He took flight. Down the hall, round a corner, down a flight of stairs, along another corridor, down more stairs and out an emergency exit. He emerged, panting, on a cement path alongside a shrubbery. He had no idea where he was in relation to the car park.
But going there would be a stupid move. That would be the first place they’d look for a man on the run. He put his hands on his knees while he caught his breath and considered his next move. Cautiously, he moved along the path in what seemed to be the direction of traffic noise. He emerged alongside a dramatic modern building, all concrete and strong lines. He recognised its unmistakable profile and knew he’d never be happier to see the Maggie’s Fife cancer centre, the architectural star in the crown of the Vic. They wouldn’t be looking for him round this side of the hospital. He could make his escape and walk back to his mum’s house in less than half an hour. He’d get changed and come back for the car later, when all the fuss had died down.
As he walked, Ronan congratulated himself on at least managing to speak to his mum. She’d heard him, he knew it. Her eyes had nearly opened. OK, he’d maybe not managed to sit and talk to her like he’d planned. But at least he’d done better than his chicken-hearted brother.
Maybe not tell him that, though.
Karen took a photograph of the list of names then passed it over to Daisy. ‘Bloody hell,’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s solid.’
‘That’s what I thought at first sight,’ Karen said. ‘But if I was a defence counsel, I’d say, “My client was intrigued by the disappearance of Lara Hardie and merely used that as a jumping-off place for his imagination.” ’
Daisy considered this, her expression growing crestfallen. ‘But surely, if we tie it to all the other pieces of circumstantial evidence?’
‘It’s an interesting point. Because here’s the thing, Daisy. We’re never actually going to be trying this in court. Jake Stein is dead. We might believe he killed Lara Hardie, but that’s never going to be tested by the legal process. Now, you might argue that we could go down the balance of probabilities route and tell her parents we think we know what happened to her. But what if we’re wrong?’
Daisy chewed her lip. ‘We’d at least be giving them closure, no?’
‘Which would be all very well, unless Lara’s killer gained confidence from getting away with it, and did it again.’ Karen sighed. ‘We need to be certain. Copper bottom certain.’
Daisy groaned. ‘And to think I thought the HCU might be more satisfying than live cases.’
‘Trust me, it is. But because we have the opportunity to dig deeper, we have to make sure we dig wider too.’ Karen looked at her watch. ‘God, it’s nearly six. Let’s give it another half hour and call it a day.’
She turned back to her task and picked up the other loose sheet of paper, which was face down for some reason. It was a page printed out from a computer. At the top of the page was a fragment of narrative. Karen was no expert in the finer points of typography but she thought this was a different font from either of the ones she’d seen Stein using.
If you’re a student of true crime, you’ve probably already read the official version of the events of the night of May 9th, 2014 in New Orleans, as outlined above. Trust me, the truth is far stranger than the fictions constructed by the powers that be. It had nothing to do with shrewd detection and everything to do with my pal Joey’s natural-born instinct for mayhem.
But what I knew about that night was only one small piece of a jigsaw I only managed to piece together seven years and three deaths later. [Quote for LO?]
Beneath it, a few lines of poetry.
let them go – the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers – you must let them go they
were born
to go
‘Have you seen anything else in this font?’ Karen passed it across. ‘What do you make of it?’
‘I’ve not noticed.’ Then Daisy stopped abruptly, shock on her face.
‘What is it?’
She visibly pulled herself together. ‘I just . . . I recognise the poetry.’
‘I didn’t know you were a poetry buff. You’ve kept that quiet.’ Karen’s tone was teasing.
‘I’m not. Someone sent this to me, years ago now. It’s a stanza from a poem called “let it go” by e e cummings. He was an American poet. He didn’t use capitals or much in the way of punctuation. It’s about letting everything go that stands between you and your desire, your dreams.’ Daisy spoke abruptly: ‘It ends up saying the only way you can accept love is to let everything else go.’
‘And did you?’
‘I thought I did. But she didn’t think I had.’ Daisy’s eyes widened as she realised she’d said more than she’d intended.
‘Aye, well, more fool her.’ Karen kept her tone light. Daisy had clearly guarded her sexuality with care. Not a whisper of gossip had crossed Karen’s radar, probably because most male cops had a very particular idea of what a lesbian looked like, and it wasn’t Daisy. So Karen was determined not to make her colleague fear her slip of the tongue.
They looked at each other across the table. Karen read dismay in Daisy’s expression. ‘So is he a good poet, this e e cummings? I’ve never heard of him.’
‘He wrote a lot of love poetry. You’ve probably seen quotes from him on greetings cards, which I think would have driven him mad. “i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)”? That’s him. And “i like my body when it is with your body”.’
Karen shrugged. ‘Not the kind of greetings cards I get. I’m obviously doing something wrong.’
‘He was a prisoner of war in the First World War. He wrote a novel about it. But his politics were a bit dodgy. He supported McCarthy in the 1950s in his communist witch hunt. It’s one of those, “can you still admire the writing if the writer’s got terrible politics?” things.’
‘You seem to know a lot about this guy.’
Daisy flushed. ‘I’m a detective, boss. When something crosses my path I don’t know about, I find out what I can. I’ve seen you do the same thing.’
‘Fair point. OK, so what’s a bit of a poem by a politically dodgy American poet doing in Jake Stein’s files? I don’t see any other sign he was interested in poetry.’
‘Maybe somebody sent it to him?’
Karen thought about it. ‘But he’d already lost everything. He’d had to let it go and what it brought him was the opposite of love.’
‘Maybe they sent it before his downfall? Maybe it was actually Marga Durham who sent it to him?’
‘That’s possible, but it was in the box right next to the Laurel Oliver thing, which suggests it was later. What about the bit of text above it? It reads like the opening of one of those crime novels where the author goes all round the houses to avoid telling you what any normal person would say in the first sentence. “That night in New Orleans that Fred Smith got murdered, x, y, and z happened.” ’ Karen was scornful; she’d thrown aside a few of those, infuriated by a twist that any decent detective would have picked up in the first fifty pages.
Daisy studied it, frowning. ‘That bit in the end, in the square brackets – it looks like he was deliberately choosing it as an example of bad writing. Maybe the LO stands for Laurel Oliver? What if Stein planned to incorporate it in his novel as proof she was nothing special as a writer? In the notes, he says he’s going to use quotes from her work, doesn’t he?’
‘That’s a good idea. I can’t tell you how much I wish we had more of the bloody thing.’
‘Hopefully Belle will manage to find Lara’s manuscript on her computer. Then we can check it against this and see whether Stein lifted it from Lara?’
Before Karen could respond, her phone rang. She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, God, it’s Eilidh. I hope Jason’s mum’s no worse.’ She answered the call. ‘Hi Eilidh, it’s DCI Pirie here.’
‘Where’s Jason?’ she demanded, her voice as audible to Daisy as it was to Karen.
‘He’s not at home?’
‘He went out first thing this morning and I’ve not seen him since. I tried phoning him, but it just goes to voicemail.’
‘Gayfield Square.’ Daisy, sotto voce.
‘Has something happened? Has his mum taken a turn for the worse?’
‘Something’s happened all right, but it’s not Sandra.’ Eilidh sounded grim. ‘I’ve just had the polis at the door. A pair of them, looking for Jason. They wouldn’t tell me what they were after him for. I asked if Sandra was OK and they both looked as if they didn’t know what I was on about. They asked to come in to check if he was there and I said no. Was that OK?’
‘You were quite within your rights, Eilidh.’ Karen thought it was a fifty/fifty. Let them in and they’d take that as permission to turn the place over; refuse and they’d assume you had something to hide.
‘That’s what I thought. They weren’t very happy about it. One of them said something about “KP Nuts’ awkward squad”. Anyway, they said when he got in, he should report directly to Fettes. What’s going on? This is scary.’
‘I don’t know, Eilidh. Nobody’s been in touch with me about Jason.’
‘How not? You’re his boss.’
‘I know, I’m as puzzled as you. Look, don’t panic. Obviously nothing’s happened to him. It’ll be something or nothing. Just sit tight. Let me look into this and see what I can find out. I’ll call you back as soon as I hear anything.’
‘I’m scared, Chief Inspector. What if he’s lying in the dark again, hurt, bleeding?’
‘That’s not very likely, Eilidh.’
‘So where is he? It’s lockdown, there’s hardly any place he could go. I mean, he’s not been walking round Sainsbury’s for eight hours, has he?’
‘I’ll find out all I can, Eilidh. Soon as I can. And I’ll call you back.’ There was no arguing with Karen’s tone. Instead, Eilidh simply cut the line. Karen gave a rueful smile. ‘That’ll be me off the Christmas card list.’ She stood up and reached for her coat. ‘Come on. Let’s go and find the lost boy. And see if we can figure out why he’s a wanted man.’
22
They were halfway over the hump of the Royal Mile when Karen stopped in her tracks. ‘It’s just dawned on me. Sorry, Daisy, but I think you need to go straight home. Jason isn’t in our bubble, and I can only justify being in the same room as him because we’re doing key work.’
Daisy smacked her forehead lightly. ‘Duh. Of course, I wasn’t thinking. I’ll peel off at Picardy Place and go home. Maybe Lara’s pal Belle will have tracked down the manuscript of her masterpiece.’ Or maybe she could get online while she had the place to herself.
‘Have an evening off,’ Karen said. ‘It’s not like we’re skiving. I’ll sort out Jason, then I’ve got a bit of business to sort out down at the shore. I’ll see you later.’
Daisy raised her eyebrows. What was this bit of business that was making her boss dodge around the lockdown rules? Yesterday morning she’d sloped off, now this. It wasn’t anything to do with Lara Hardie, that was for sure. According to Jason, even when Karen went off on one of her hunches, she was quick to keep him in the loop. No, there was something else going on. Daisy decided to park it for now, but if it continued, she’d be doing a wee investigation of her own. Because it was always handy to have something on your boss tucked away in your back pocket.
‘When are we going to talk to Ross McEwen?’ Daisy asked as they passed beneath the railway tracks and headed under the Waterloo Place viaduct. The rain had given up the ghost; now the air simply felt damp against their faces.
‘I haven’t decided yet. It all feels kind of muddled in my head right now. I’m still struggling to make sense of this bloody manuscript. I need to sit down and work out what we actually know, what we think we know and what’s fiction. I’m not there yet.’
There was no point, Daisy knew, in trying to push Karen in a direction she didn’t want to go in. She headed off down Broughton Street, intent on picking up a fish supper to take home. It was one of the few pleasures available these days. Fresh fish in batter and a pile of chips, and she’d be ready for an evening of pleasure. She hoped whatever it was that Karen was up to, it would give her enough time for what she wanted to do.
Karen walked away from Daisy and turned down Leith Walk. She paused in the lee of a shop doorway and took out her phone. She dialled a former colleague from Fife who was now desk-bound in one of the intel analysis teams. ‘Hey, Stevie. KP here.’
‘All right, Karen? How’s tricks?’
‘Doing away. Yourself?’
‘Ach, just bashing the keys and trying to flush out the scammers. Being stuck inside has given some of them a new lease of life. So, I’m assuming you’re not just calling to say I love you? What can I do for you?’ He sounded ridiculously cheerful.
‘You still got your finger on the pulse down at Fettes?’
‘Nobody better. It’s a bit harder with the two metres distance. Folk do prefer to whisper the juicy stuff but what can I say? I’ve got a gift.’
Karen smiled. She knew all about Stevie Malcolm’s gift. It had come to her rescue a couple of times in the past. ‘My wingman?’
‘The Mint?’ A note of caution in his tone.
‘The same. A couple of uniforms turned up on his doorstep looking for him this afternoon. He wasn’t there because he was elsewhere doing his job. As instructed by me. The pair of polis at the door didn’t actually kick the door in, but they were clearly not there to invite Jason on a night out. They told his fiancée that Jason should come in as soon as he got home. To see the Dog Biscuit.’
‘Is Jason’s mum in the Vic?’
Karen’s heart sank. ‘Aye. She’s in the COVID ward.’
‘I know what this is about.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Your man Jason broke all the rules and tried to get in to see his mother on the COVID ward. He assaulted a nurse and a doctor and legged it when the local lads turned up. The doctor clocked the epaulette number and it matched up with the Mint. A very pissed off local commander called the Dog Biscuit.’
Karen groaned. It was worse than she’d feared. It was infuriating that the local guv’nor hadn’t had the wit to deal with it himself, though. Dumping it on Ann Markie was the sure and certain way of getting her to dump it more heavily on anyone she could blame. Somehow, Karen knew this would end up being her fault. ‘Great. And now she wants him to turn himself in?’
‘You’d know more about that than me,’ Stevie said. ‘But I will tell you one thing – there’s no point in him rocking up here tonight. She’s away home in time for some Zoom meeting with the Justice Secretary. She’ll not be back till tomorrow morning.’
‘Thanks for the heads-up.’
‘You want my advice? Get him here at seven in the morning. She usually gets in about twenty past.’
‘Even on a Sunday?’
‘Even on a Sunday. You know what she’s like. In serious need of a life.’
‘I’ll get him here. Hangdog and grovelling. Thanks, Stevie. I owe you one.’
He sighed. ‘If the pubs ever open again. Who knew I’d be nostalgic for happy hour?’
Karen chuckled. ‘Anybody that knows you.’
After she ended the call, she leaned against the door jamb. What the actual was Jason thinking? She thought she’d talked sense into him the day before, but it seemed she was kidding herself. So where was he?
She presumed he wasn’t so stupid that he’d have hung around at his mother’s house in Kirkcaldy. But he wasn’t at home either. She could only imagine he might have gone back to Gayfield Square because it was the only safe haven he could think of. What’s the best place to hide from the police? Inside the nick, obviously.
Karen used her digital pass card to get into the station. Running a skeleton crew made it easier to come and go without raising eyebrows; tonight, she wasn’t looking for a car, so there was no need to communicate her presence. She knew she was disregarding more COVID rules than she cared to count, but she consoled herself with the fact that she was keeping her distance and wearing a mask. Nor was she in crowded places; Gayfield Square felt like the aftermath of a neutron bomb – all the buildings left standing, all the people vaporised.
With every step closer to the HCU office, she grew more apprehensive. What if Jason wasn’t here? Worse, what if he’d done something beyond the bounds of standard stupidity? She paused in front of the door and took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. Then she opened the door.
For a moment, her breathing stopped. Jason was indeed in the office, but he was face down on the desk, head cradled in his arms. There was no sound and she couldn’t see any movement. But she refused to believe the message her brain was receiving.
‘Jason,’ she barked.
He started up from the desk in a jumble of limbs, his chair shooting backwards on its castors, his head falling forward on to the edge of the desk with a wicked crack. ‘What? What? Oh fuck,’ he mumbled, grabbing his forehead. He looked across at the door, eyes bleary, expression appalled. ‘What just happened?’
‘I think I woke you up,’ Karen said.
He cleared his throat noisily and rubbed his eyes. ‘I fell asleep.’
