Past Lying, page 8
He’d had the car tracker installed when she’d bought the car, mostly to stop it being nicked by one of the neds who regularly infiltrated Ravelston Dykes on the hunt for plunder. But it was her own fault he’d resorted to the handbags. He’d been in New York, being passed over for an award that should have had his name written all over it. When he’d got home, she’d acted like that was no big deal. Instead, she was full of bounce and good cheer for no apparent reason. And the outside food waste bin was full of lobster shells. More lobster than one person could reasonably eat.
No bisque, either. Rachel always made bisque with the remains of lobsters and crabs. There was only one possible conclusion. She was hiding the fact that she’d had company. And company that, for some reason, she didn’t want to tell Jamie about. It was a stab in the heart.
He’d run through the mental card index of men of their acquaintance. He couldn’t picture any of them holding a candle to him. He flirted briefly with the idea of a woman, but dismissed it with regret. Rachel and another woman was his fantasy, not hers. But now Jamie was on the alert. He’d be checking those trackers every day now and if there was anything going on, it would only be a matter of time before he’d know all about it.
Three days later, he called her at work to say he was going to Glasgow for a curry with some of the lads and he’d be on the last train. Would she pick him up at Waverley?
Rachel agreed without a word of complaint, even telling him to enjoy himself, that there was some documentary on Netflix she wanted to watch.
Of course, he didn’t go to Glasgow. He sat in a corner booth in a quiet bar in a side street in Stockbridge where they didn’t mind him making each cocktail last an hour. He didn’t have too long to wait. Just before seven, when he was near the end of his second Bloody Mary, one of the handbag trackers left the house and almost instantly overlapped with the car tracker.
Jamie leaned forward as if that would bring him closer to her. He followed the car’s journey down Lothian Road, down Hanover Street and on to Canonmills. He couldn’t think of anyone in their friendship group who lived in this part of town. She passed Rosebank Cemetery and Pilrig Park. There were a couple of good restaurants near Great Junction Street, the only reason he could think of for being in these parts after dark. Then she turned right.
His mouth dried and his cheeks flushed. Rachel’s car had stopped in the middle of the dead-end street. But her handbag hadn’t. It left the car and travelled a short distance ahead. Jamie could feel a pulse beating in his temple. He switched from the map to street view, unwilling to believe what the tracker was showing.
He knew that street. He knew the very building the tracker was hovering over. He knew it because he’d visited it once to drop someone off after they’d done an event together. OK, people said Edinburgh was a village. But unless this was the most preposterous coincidence, the person Rachel was visiting was Rob fucking Thomas. His friend. And he didn’t think they’d be watching a Netflix documentary.
Jamie wanted to break something. To hurt someone, preferably Rob. It took all his willpower not to summon an Uber and confront the double-dealing bastards. He kept telling himself that he could hurt them much more if he took his time. Let them think they were safe and secure, then let the heavens rain fire on their treacherous fucking heads.
For now, he had to dissemble. He’d hold fast to the plan he’d already made for the evening. He finished his drink and walked up the hill towards Haymarket station. He stopped in a pub in the West End and ordered a burger and fries. He managed a couple of mouthfuls then barely made it to the toilet in time to throw up. When an eager fangirl came over to ask for an autograph, he gave her a blank look. ‘I’m at my dinner,’ he said, pushed the plate away and then, head down, bulled his way into the street.
He knew that some might say sauce for the goose was fair exchange after the gander had had his beak in the sauce boat. But he’d always maintained that men and women had different attitudes to sex. For men, for him anyway, it was about scratching an itch. If it was on offer, no strings attached, he wouldn’t say no. It didn’t steal anything from Rachel. But for women, he believed it was a different story. Certainly, for Rachel. Sex was inextricably bound up with love. For her to have an affair, she’d have to be emotionally engaged. And of all the people for her to be emotionally engaged with, Rob Thomas was the most profound insult of all. A man he’d trusted, a man whose company he had developed a need for. It was a double dagger to the heart.
At Haymarket, he sat in the waiting room for hours, holding on for the last train from Glasgow so he could make the short hop to Waverley, where Rachel would be waiting. He spent the time forcing himself into a state of composure. He had to get past his outrage to a place where he could plan.
But he kept coming back to the same refrain. How dare she? How could she? She was his wife. She was his. Bound to him. He knew she’d try to hide behind his own misbehaviour. But she knew that the women he’d fucked over the years had been just that, no more. A fuck. He’d never screwed any of her friends, never shat on his own doorstep. Because she was the one he loved. The rest were just about passing the time. So how could she say that shagging his chess partner, his literary rival, his mate, for fuck’s sake, was the same as him having a random legover? No, this was different.
They were going to pay. There was no room in his head for any other thought. He simply had to stay calm enough for long enough to work out exactly how to destroy them.
8
The trouble with constructing a plot perfectly watertight in every detail was that it made you take your eye off the ball. Jamie had been so preoccupied with figuring out how to destroy Rob and Rachel that he simply hadn’t paid enough attention to disguising that piece of shit Gala Faraday on the page. He should have been more subtle. Carefully calibrated nuances so that those in the know would put the pieces together and work out it was Gala. Instead, he’d used the truth like a blunt instrument and the bitch had turned it round and weaponised it against him.
Somebody should have been covering his back. His agent, his editor, his copy editor. Surely one of them must have heard the gossip, or at the very least, recognised Gala Faraday from the description? They’d all had their pathetic little excuses. His agent said she’d never run across Gala Faraday. His editor claimed he hadn’t heard the gossip and thought that any resemblance to Gala was coincidental. His copy editor lived in the far north-west of Scotland and was so far out of the loop she might as well have been on Mars. Allegedly.
That slap had been like a full stop in Jamie’s life. His career was in ruins, his reputation wrecked. If Rachel had stood by him, it would have been a different story. But in this post-#MeToo world, men who had fallen over themselves to buy him pints and curries now treated him as if he was toxic waste. The only ones who slapped him on the back these days were the ones whose bottom-of-the-heap books glamorised violence and rough sex in equal measure. And Rachel jumped on this excuse for a divorce before he’d even had the chance to gather evidence against her and that snake Rob Thomas.
The worst of it was that he couldn’t give up the chess. At first Jamie told himself that was because he didn’t want Rob to suspect he knew about him and Rachel. He still wanted his revenge to come like a thunderbolt from a blue sky. But deep down, he knew that their matches were like a drug. Over the chessboard, he felt like himself. For those few hours, he could put aside the horrors that life had visited on him. He could shut out everything except the hypnotic interplay of pieces on the board. And more often than not, he could beat the little shit who had helped to inflict these body blows on him.
For he was in no doubt that without Rob Thomas in the picture, Rachel would have stayed with him. Maybe not quite forgiven him, not right away. But without someone else to run to, she’d still be there on his arm, showing the world he wasn’t a pariah. She’d have been his stepping stone back to his place in the sun. Her apparent acceptance and forgiveness would have paved the way for everyone else to move on to the next gobbet of salacious gossip. But no. Instead she’d left him to the wolves, happy to screw his reputation.
Jamie knew that if he was going to succeed in his elaborate plan he’d have to pack away his pain. Letting his hurt leak out would make him careless, and when it came to murder, he couldn’t afford that. So for a few weeks, he spent his mornings drafting out the opening chapters of the book that would drive his plot towards fruition. He could move forward inch by inch in the story, examining each potential pitfall or problem and figuring out how to make it foolproof. Not that he thought the police were fools; far from it, in spite of the way some of his colleagues portrayed them.
In the afternoons, he punished his body. He needed to be on top physical form as well as mentally fit. He went on long loping runs along the beach at Portobello, through Joppa then into the grounds of Newhailes House, quartering the paths before returning via the prom. He’d persuaded the guy who ran the burger van near the toilets to let him store a pair of hand weights there, and he’d spend half an hour on the waste ground running through a set of exercises designed to build muscle and flexibility. All the while, his scheme was running through his head till he stumbled on something not quite right. Then he’d backtrack and figure out a way to fix it. Every step forward was like the application of balm to his wounds.
The first thing he had to do was find the perfect victim. He didn’t think it would be hard. He was still doing events, albeit on a smaller scale. No Edinburgh International Book Festival for him this year, but there were booksellers and small festivals that could draw a half-decent crowd. Some were there to gawp at the man in the stocks, but there were plenty of others who recognised that the books were separate from the man. The signing queues were shorter, it was true. But nevertheless they were there.
In preparation, Jamie had bought a burner phone and created a new gmail account. Now it was about playing the waiting game. That didn’t come naturally to him, but he was determined to control his impulses to serve his plot.
Three weeks later, in a village hall in an East Lothian town, a candidate appeared. She hung about at the back of the queue, the mark of someone who wanted to open up a conversation. Or at least, to ask a question. Medium height, shoulder-length dirty blonde hair, mildly pretty in a nondescript kind of way. Most people would have forgotten her five minutes after meeting her. Not Jamie. He prided himself on his observational skills. Every encounter was an entry in his mental database of potential characters.
He kept sneaking glances at her. A quick flick of the eyes to check she was still there and hadn’t bottled it. At first, he dismissed her because he vaguely recognised her. It took him three or four automatic signatures, smiles and selfies before he nailed it down.
He’d done a workshop on plotting about a year before at a festival in Dundee. She hadn’t made much impact because she was neither startlingly good or terrifyingly bad. He would have given her some feedback, but he had no notion what. There was something about her, some distinction, some difference but he couldn’t quite remember what it was.
Then it dawned on him what it was. She might be the one.
Her turn. She put the book on the table, an uncertain smile not reaching her eyes. ‘Hi, Jamie. You probably don’t remember me, but I did your workshop in Dundee on Rob Thomas’s recommendation? Laurel Oliver?’
He gave her the full hundred-watt smile. One of the few things he hadn’t lost was the ability to be charming. It still worked on people who didn’t know him. ‘Of course I remember you. How are you doing?’ Pen poised over the title page.
‘OK, thanks. I’m in my final year at Edinburgh now.’
‘And the writing? I remember your piece showed real promise.’
She pinked up. ‘You’re just saying that.’
‘No, really. Have you stuck with it?’
‘I chucked that story away – you were right, it didn’t feel like it was going anywhere. I’m working on a novel now.’
‘Good for you. The more you write, the better you get. Is this for you, Laurel?’ She nodded and he scribbled, ‘To Laurel. All the very best, Jamie Cobain.’ He pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘Walk me out. Tell me about your book.’
He led the way to the door, turning to wave to the organisers. ‘Thanks for a great night,’ he said. When you can fake sincerity, you can get away with anything, an actor had once told him.
‘To be honest, I’m struggling a bit with the structure. Are you doing any more workshops?’ she asked as they emerged into the cold.
‘I’ve nothing planned, I’m afraid.’ Then he stopped, as if something had just struck him. ‘Look, I’ve always believed in supporting new writing. I could take a look at what you’ve got and give you some personal feedback?’
She lit up. ‘Really? You’d do that?’
‘I’ve done it a few times before.’ He shrugged, aiming for modesty. ‘I’ve done it with three or four writers at the start of their career and I’m proud to say two of them have gone on to be very successfully published.’ A smile. ‘Obviously, you’ll have to take my word for that. Nobody wants to share the credit for their success.’
‘I would,’ Laurel said, her voice wistful.
‘Well, I wouldn’t want you to. If you did, I’d have every aspiring author in Edinburgh chapping at my door.’ A chuckle. ‘Why don’t you email it to me, and I’ll take a look?’
She looked as if she might burst into tears. ‘That’s so amazing of you.’ She pulled out her phone. ‘What’s your email address?’
He reached for the phone. ‘I’ll put it in.’ He added the contact. JC: jcnumberone@gmail.com. ‘I look forward to seeing it. But remember, don’t tell anybody. Not even if they’re not writers themselves. I’m still well known in Edinburgh, the word would get out and I’d be flooded.’ Then he gave her the killer smile. ‘Besides, you know what people are like. They’d say I was just taking pity on you because of your illness.’
She flushed. ‘You remembered that?’
‘You did have that episode in our session.’ His voice was gentle. ‘I remember thinking how hard it must be for you, never knowing when you’d lose all control.’ And he remembered her insistence that there was nobody she wanted to be contacted in the wake of her momentary collapse. Flatmates would freak out, parents would go, ‘We told you not to push yourself.’
‘It doesn’t happen too often,’ she said, arms wrapped around her chest. ‘It’s usually stress that brings it on, and I was so worried you’d think I was crap . . . ’
‘So let’s reduce the stress by not telling anyone you’ve got this opportunity. That way, if I can’t manage to make a difference, you don’t have the embarrassment of telling people.’ He stopped by a silver hatchback. ‘This is me.’ He suddenly looked aghast. ‘I’ve left my bag inside with my keys. I’ll need to go back and get it. Be in touch, Laurel.’ He turned on his heel and hurried away from the car that was not his but which looked like Rob’s.
Inside the hall, Jamie went back to speak to the bookseller. ’Sorry, I should have said thank you,’ he said. ‘Appreciate it.’ He went back into the foyer and checked for Laurel Oliver. He didn’t have a bag with him; it had been an excuse to get away from the girl. He couldn’t see any sign of her. Either she’d had her own car or she’d set off to walk to the station.
Jamie walked across to his own car, the black luxury SUV he’d managed to hang on to in the divorce on the grounds that he needed it for work. He climbed aboard and lowered the seat back. He took out his phone, googled ‘Drop fall seizures’ and started reading. He wanted to give her long enough to get away.
This time.
‘There it is,’ Karen said. ‘That’s the smoking gun. That’s what Meera picked up on. It’s in the files, it was in the media coverage. Lara Hardie suffered from Atonic Seizure epilepsy. And so does Laurel Oliver.’
‘You might argue Stein just stole it from real life,’ Daisy pointed out.
‘Not if he was trying to frame his ex-wife’s lover for murder.’
9
The file was already in his inbox by the time Jamie got home: THE VIEW FROM THE LAW by Laurel Oliver. There was no real need to read it but he was curious. Maybe she’d learned something from him after all. His face creased in a predatory grin. Maybe there would even be something here worth stealing. He went to bed with his laptop propped up on his knees and began reading.
It was set in Dundee, hence the title – the Law being the conical hill that rose from the heart of the city. The central character was – surprise, surprise – a female cop struggling to be taken seriously by her male colleagues. Things took an awkward turn in chapter three when she came home from work to find her boyfriend lying dead on the kitchen floor, still warm. Her alibi was shoogly, but their relationship, by all accounts, wasn’t. Nevertheless . . . etc, etc. Jamie could see where it was going and although the prose was competent enough, there was little suspense and even less empathy.
The actual plot wasn’t bad, with an interesting twist. But the story structure was far too linear. Jamie brought himself up short. Why the fuck was he bothering with practical criticism here? It wasn’t as if she was going to have the chance to put any of it into practice. He’d reply to her tomorrow. It didn’t do to seem too eager, like he had nothing better to do than sit about reading her immature draft. Jamie closed his laptop, turned out the light and slept like a man who had never contemplated murder.
Jamie did not vary his routine the following day, except that when he returned from his run, he sent an email from his burner phone.
