Past Lying, page 9
Hi Laurel. I think this is fixable. Call me.
It took her seven minutes. She sounded breathless, whether from nerves or hurrying to find somewhere private, he couldn’t tell. ‘Jamie? Is that you?’
‘Who else have you been asking to fix your book?’ He managed to sound amused.
‘Nobody, honestly.’ Laurel was earnest. That gave him confidence that she’d keep her word about telling no one. ‘You really think you can help me?’
‘I think so. It’s just a matter of rearrangement. You need to make the structure more complex, and I reckon I know how you can do it.’
‘That’s amazing. And you read it so quickly.’
‘Once I started, I had to know how it finished. Shelley Maclean is a terrific character, she’s the kind of protagonist we all root for. I loved the ending too. Listen, we should sit down together and work our way through this. What are you doing on Thursday evening?’
A moment’s silence. ‘Nothing,’ Laurel said. ‘Wow, you don’t hang about.’
‘Get it down while it’s fresh, that’s my motto.’
‘That makes sense. Do you want to meet up somewhere?’
‘I’ve got a wee place down the coast. It’s where I go to write. I can pick you up and we can drive down together. It’s only forty minutes down the road. If I pick you up at six, we’ll have it all done by ten and I can drive you back again. How does that sound?’
‘Amazing. I can’t thank you enough.’
‘Laurel, I get genuine pleasure from helping young writers along the road. Just ask Mari Gibson, she’ll tell you.’ He’d worked with Mari on her first novel. When The Other Hangman had been shortlisted for the best debut novel at the Daggers Awards, Mari had been full of praise for Jamie’s helping hand. She wasn’t the kind of woman who would kiss and tell. Not like bloody Gala Faraday. Besides, he happened to know Mari was off in Nepal for a month trekking in the Himalayas. Laurel would have to have telepathic powers to reach her there.
‘I can’t believe you’re doing this for me. I’m so grateful. Yes, Thursday evening will be great. I’ll email you my address. Thank you, Jamie. Thank you so much.’
‘And remember, not a word to anyone. I want to choose who I work with, not have people bothering me all the time for help.’ Like you did.
‘I get it. Honestly, I get it.’
‘And bring your laptop. That way we can move blocks of text around easily.’
‘That makes sense. God, Jamie, I’m overwhelmed that you’d do all this for me.’
‘My reward will be to see you published.’ He ended the call then, leaving her with the memory of his warmest tone of voice.
One more duck to put in the row and he was done with his preparations. He dialled Rob’s number. ‘Hi, mate,’ he said.
‘Jamie? How are you?’
‘Fighting fit. We’re still all set for the weekend, yeah?’
‘I’m determined to exact revenge for that last game. And I have a new bottle to broach. A new iteration from Bruaichladdich.’
Jamie chuckled. ‘I can’t wait. Listen, I need a favour.’
‘What’s that?’ Jamie could hear the wariness in Rob’s voice.
‘I’ve got to take my car in to the garage tomorrow. Something’s fucked up with the gearbox and they need to keep it for a couple of days. But I’ve got to go down to Melrose tomorrow night for a meeting about the book festival. I’m trying to get my feet back under the table there, you know how it is. Can you lend me your car? Just for a couple of days.’
‘Of course.’ There was no mistaking the relief.
‘Thank fuck,’ Jamie breathed. ‘You are the only friend I have left in the world.’ And I’m going to bring you to your knees.
‘Pop round tomorrow afternoon, I’ll give you the keys.’
‘Could I come now? I’m a bit tied up tomorrow.’
‘Aye, that would be fine.’
‘I owe you, mate.’
‘No worries. You can repay me by giving me a pawn start on Saturday.’
Jamie tutted. ‘Hard bargain. But yeah, that’s cool.’ He ended the call and did a little victory dance on the spot. It was all so easy. Rob’s car. Mari’s temporarily abandoned writing shed tucked away in a stand of trees near Tyninghame sawmill, the combination for the keybox on his phone. He’d head out there tomorrow and check she’d not added anything obviously pointing to her ownership since he’d last been there. He’d take some of his own awards to dress the set.
And he’d leave the fine cord he’d use to strangle Laurel.
In a couple of days, Laurel Oliver would be making her final journey. Jamie realised he should probably be apprehensive and nervous. But the thought of what lay ahead was strangely thrilling. Maybe he’d finally found his real calling.
8
Karen expelled an angry breath. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘Whether or not this is the real thing, it’s giving me the creeps.’ She shuddered. ‘There’s a genuine cruelty here. It’s almost gleeful.’
‘You think it is the real thing?’ Daisy sounded as anxious as Karen felt. ‘Stein made up this sort of thing for a living, you’d expect him to be convincing, I suppose.’
Karen spoke slowly. ‘I think it’s because it’s so clinical. I mean, most of us, we’ve got some level of empathy. I’ve sat in interviews where people have admitted some truly terrible things, but even so, I’ve always felt a bit of common humanity. A deep-down sense that maybe if I’d been backed into the same corner as them, with the same lack of choices as them and the same lack of any learned moral compass, I could possibly have seen that as the only way out. I can just about imagine being in their shoes. But this? It’s beyond me.’ She meant what she said; Jake Stein was making her feel queasy.
‘I read quite a lot of crime novels, boss. And you’re right. They don’t want to turn us off. They want to shock us but not to disconnect us. And this is weirdly disconnected. See your woman Patricia Highsmith? Her that wrote the Ripley novels – The Talented Mr Ripley – and that Strangers on a Train? She created monsters who did monstrous things, but she never lets us forget they’re human. She almost makes them reasonable. But this isn’t like that. This character, Jamie, he’s got no humanity. And it’s like he doesn’t care that he’s showing that to us.’ Daisy stood up and stretched, arching her back.
Karen nodded. ‘Maybe he doesn’t realise he is. There might be real people like that out there, but I’ve never come face to face with one. Or not that I know about. One thing . . . ’ She flicked back a few pages. ‘He says he spent his mornings drafting out the revenge plot. I think we need to search his archive for those pages. While you’re on your feet, gonnae make a cup of coffee?’
‘Sure.’ Daisy departed, followed by the welcome and familiar sounds. Beans grinding, kettle filling, mugs clattering from cupboard to counter. At least lockdown hadn’t suspended all the things that made life worth living. Karen crossed to the window and looked down on the empty city. What was going on behind all those windows? How was it for people cooped in a small space with young children? For women trapped indoors with abusive men? Were there couples glorying in each other’s company or were they mostly feeling homicidal? And what about the ones running a bit of a temperature and coughing more than usual? How scared would she be in their shoes? How did the health service workers force themselves to turn in, shift after shift? And how did the First Minister stand at that podium every day and manage to tell them the truth at the same time as encouraging them to do the right thing for their community as well as themselves when she knew better than anyone the swathe this disease was carving through her country?
Abruptly she turned away as her phone pinged. A message from Miran, the Syrian refugee she’d helped set up a café in the heart of Leith. Like every other café, it was closed, a source of income and community shut down in the name of protecting lives. It was the right thing to do, but there was no escaping the hardship for people at the bottom of the pile.
Hi Karen, she read. I need to talk to you. I need your advice and maybe your help. Can we do a FaceTime? At your convenience, please? Sorry to ask. Miran.
She was intrigued. Miran was not a man who asked favours for himself. When he’d talked to her about opening the café, he’d talked about its importance to his community, about the need for the Syrians to have a corner they could call their own. And Aleppo had certainly become that – a café providing excellent Middle Eastern meze and pastries, it had developed a devoted clientele of both Syrians and Leithers. The profits from Aleppo all went straight back into supporting the tight-knit group who had lost everything when they’d left their wrecked homes and cities. Karen texted him back right away.
Hi Miran. Happy to help if I can. FaceTime me this evening? 7 p.m.? KP
Daisy returned with two steaming mugs, the aroma lifting Karen’s spirits. ‘There you go, boss.’ She plucked a packet of biscuits from under her arm. ‘Florentines.’
Karen grinned. ‘Where did they come from?’
‘I picked them up when I did the supermarket run last night. They weren’t on the list, but honestly, you’re totally puritanical. I mean, fruit and vegetables and salad stuff and fish and chicken thighs are all very well, but where’s the joy in that?’ Daisy had the appetite of a teenage boy and the same enviable capacity to avoid putting on weight. There were moments when Karen hated her.
‘Plus, I paid for them myself. I didn’t take the money out of the kitty,’ Daisy added, only slightly defensive.
‘Don’t do that again,’ Karen said, pretending severity. Seeing Daisy’s crestfallen expression, she laughed. ‘Next time, pay for the goodies out of the kitty. Otherwise you’ll guilt me into not eating them.’
Daisy laughed, relieved. ‘Fair enough. There’s ice cream in the freezer for tonight. The good stuff, with the wee chocolate fishes. God knows we deserve something to cheer us up after wading through all this.’
‘Even with the epilepsy link, I’m still not sure I’m seeing enough lines of connection to Lara Hardie,’ Karen said.
‘One of her pals said in her witness statement she used to go to book events. That she talked about wanting to be a writer,’ Daisy said.
‘You could say the same about dozens, probably hundreds of folk in this city, though.’ Karen had once had to interview one of the volunteers at the Edinburgh International Book Festival about an assault she’d witnessed on her way home one evening. She’d been taken aback at the hundreds of people spilling out of the huge marquee in Charlotte Square Gardens, not to mention the crowds milling around buying books and beer and baguettes. She enjoyed reading, but it had never occurred to her to go and listen to an author talking about their books. What was the point of that? You liked the book or you didn’t. If you liked it, you looked out for another one by the same writer. If you didn’t, you made a mental note to avoid them. Why would listening to the author make any difference to what you thought about the book?
But clearly there were a lot of smart people who held a different opinion. And she’d lay money on the fact that a sizeable number of them had ambitions to appear on those stages themselves one day.
‘That witness statement from her pal, though. It’s worth making a note. We can go back to her and see whether she remembers Lara mentioning Jake Stein in particular.’ She paused for a moment, deep in thought. Where should she point Daisy next? ‘I wonder if there’s any way of checking whether Stein was doing any events in the Edinburgh area around the time Lara went missing?’
‘His publisher? They’ll have people who do publicity,’ Daisy said. ‘They keep lists of that sort of thing, don’t they?’
‘Didn’t he get dumped by his publisher? After he trashed that poor woman in his book?’
Daisy frowned. ‘Yeah, they couldn’t distance themselves fast enough. But honestly, she must have been either really stupid or really gullible not to think she might end up in one of his books. We know that’s what writers do all the time.’
Karen glared at Daisy. ‘We don’t do blaming the victim on this team, Daisy.’
Daisy flushed. ‘But—’
‘No buts. Writers must learn really quickly to disguise what they’re doing if they don’t want to end up in the libel courts. So either Stein was really careless or else he didn’t give a flying fuck about destroying that woman’s reputation.’
Daisy stared at the pile of paper in front of her. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. But she wasn’t a woman who stayed squashed for long. ‘But he got another publisher, didn’t he?’
Karen googled. ‘Jake Stein books . . . here we are. His last book came out with Stooshie Press. Never heard of them . . . OK, they’re a small Scottish press with a weird-looking list. Put it this way, they’re not going to make the Booker Prize shortlist any time soon.’
‘Do you want me to follow it up?’
‘First, we’ve got to finish wading through the sewer of Jake Stein’s nasty mind. Let’s get back to it. Then we can cleanse our palates with an episode of Sex Education and lust after lovely Ncuti Gatwa.’
Daisy gave a non-committal grunt.
‘What? You don’t think Ncuti Gatwa’s the best thing to come out of Fife since . . . I don’t know, Dougray Scott?’
‘Who is Dougray Scott? How old do you think I am? Anyway Ncuti’s not my type,’ Daisy said. ‘And I’d have thought you had your hands full with Hamish.’
Karen chuckled. ‘Doesn’t hurt to remind him he’s not the only man in the world.’
‘Just don’t fall out with him till after lockdown. We don’t want to be chucked out on the street.’
Karen gave Daisy an unreadable look and picked up the next sheet of paper. ‘Onwards,’ she said. ‘Miles to go before we sleep.’
10
Laurel was sitting on the wall opposite the tenement where she shared a flat with three other students. Right where she’d said she would be. At that time of year in Edinburgh, as winter turned the corner into spring, twilight was creeping in by six o’clock, especially on a grey day with lowering skies. There was no pavement by the wall where she was perched, just a thin strip of scrappy grass, too narrow for anyone to walk along. From the other side of the street, he reckoned she’d be nothing more than a blur. And he certainly wouldn’t be recognisable. She was, he reckoned, as good as invisible.
He pulled up alongside her in Rob’s nondescript silver Toyota Prius. For the first time, he wasn’t scornful of his chess partner’s choice of car. The man could have afforded a top-of-the-line Tesla if he was that bothered about the environment, but no, he’d opted for a set of wheels that only a pensioner could be proud of. Jamie leaned across and opened the door, smiling at her through the dark. He’d turned off the interior light, obviously. ‘Hi, Laurel. Good to see you. In you get.’
She climbed in without a second thought, placing her backpack between her feet and fastening her seat belt. ‘This is amazing,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe you think The View from the Law is worth your attention.’
He pulled away from the kerb. ‘I told you, I think Shelley Maclean is exactly the kind of feisty female protagonist that publishers are looking for right now. I can already see her on the TV screen. We just need to do a bit of structural work to up the suspense and pace the revelations.’
‘What do you think needs—’
‘Not now, Laurel. I need to pay attention to the traffic. We’ll have plenty of time to drill down into it once we get to the cabin. Well, I say cabin, it’s more of a glorified shed. But it meets my needs. The atmosphere somehow lends itself to creativity. Close to the sea, but away from people. I’m lucky I hung on to it in the divorce.’ He let a note of bitterness creep into his voice.
‘That must have been difficult for you,’ she said, hesitant. He thought she was probably trying not to think of the revelations that had precipitated the divorce.
‘It was. I made a terrible mistake and I paid for it.’ He forced a tight little laugh. ‘But I insisted the cabin was one of the tools of my trade, so I was able to keep hold of it. And honestly? I’m happier now. I’m back to being my own boss, and I really believe my writing is the better for it. My next book is going to put me back on top of the chart again, I’m sure of it.’
She smiled, eyes and teeth glinting in the streetlights. ‘I hope so. What’s it about?’
He chuckled. ‘A perfect crime,’ he said.
‘That sounds intriguing.’
‘It will be. But I can’t talk about it yet.’ And certainly not to you . . . ‘I’m superstitious about that. If I say too much about it, it’ll somehow slip through my fingers. Vanish into the ether the way a vivid dream does as soon as you wake up.’
‘Ah. OK. Sorry.’
‘No, you weren’t to know. So, tell me about your course. Who are you reading?’ He really didn’t give a toss, but it got her talking and that was the main thing. It turned out she was looking at the role of doppelgangers in Scottish literature, which was something he knew a bit about. They worked their way through Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde to Iain Banks’s The Bridge and had just begun to address Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting when they turned off the main A1 on to the side road that led to Tyninghame. The road was dark, the sky a low blanket of cloud. There would be nobody about to remember their passage, Jamie thought.
Just past the sawmill was a dense stand of trees. A track led off to the left and Jamie took it. A few hundred yards in, a gate barred the way. ‘Can you jump out and get the gate?’ he asked. Another step on the road to lulling any unease. If he had a nefarious purpose, he surely wouldn’t be offering her the chance to make a break for it, would he?
‘Sure, yes,’ Laurel said eagerly, getting out and trotting the few metres to the barrier. In the beam of the headlights he could see her fumbling with the stiff bolt. But she wrestled it free and swung the gate open. Jamie drove through slowly and waited on the far side for her to close it and return to the car.
