7

Karen paused in her reading. ‘So now the wife swims into focus. Bethan Carmichael mentioned Stein’s ex-wife when she was explaining about the archive. It didn’t seem important at the time. But now . . . What do we know about Rosalind Stein?’

Daisy scrambled back through her notebook. ‘Like the book says, she’s a lawyer. Probate and wills. There’s no personal stuff on Google, except that she divorced Stein after an “incident” at a publishing event. She’s never given an interview as far as I could see.’

‘So we’ve got no idea if she’s having an affair or has ever had an affair, with Ross McEwen or anybody else?’

Daisy shook her head. ‘If she has, she’s kept it well out of the headlines.’

‘Maybe she was as scared of her husband’s reaction as the fictional wife.’ Karen sighed. This was growing more complicated by the minute. ‘Or maybe that’s what we’re being set up to think. It’s still possible that we’re being strung along here, that there never was an affair.’

‘So what do we do?’

Karen ran a frustrated hand through her hair. It was flimsy, but she kept telling herself it was something for them to get their teeth into during these strange disconnected lockdown days. She was certainly learning how Daisy’s mind worked; she thought she was beginning to draw her into the tight-knit unit of the HCU. ‘Let’s just move on very carefully. Take it at face value but interrogate it as we go along. First, how the hell did Jake Stein know about the beginnings of the affair between his wife and Rob McEwen? Surely neither of them would have told him, since they were determined to keep it secret?’

Daisy pondered. ‘Well, if we’re going to say for the sake of argument that this account maps on to reality then obviously Stein found out about the affair at some point. That’s why he’s got it in for Ross McEwen.’

‘But how could he have known all the details of how they got together?’

‘I just assumed he’d made it up.’ Daisy looked perplexed. ‘It’s fiction, boss. Even if it’s rooted in truth, he’s got to put stuff on the page he can’t know. Surely he would have known his wife well enough to understand what would excite her about a man? After all, they’d been in love once. He might even have used their own early connection and pasted it on to how he imagined Ross and Ros got together.’

‘Wouldn’t that have been a kind of torture?’

Daisy shrugged. ‘Writers do it all the time. They give their own experiences to their characters, or they nick them off their friends. All it would have taken would have been somebody in his circle complaining about how rubbish their kitchen was compared to Stein’s. That’d set him off down that road.’

It made sense, and it made Karen even more glad she’d never considered a career where you constantly had to pick the scabs of your past mistakes. She pondered what she’d read, and wondered once more what it was that had set alarm bells ringing for Meera Reddy. So far, what they had was pitifully thin. The chances of this going somewhere useful were diminishing by the hour.

‘I’m not really seeing anything of interest to us yet.’ She registered the flash of relief in Daisy’s eyes. ‘I tried a Jake Stein a couple of years ago, but I struggled to get past the first chapter – cardboard cut-out blonde with zero personality who’s obviously going to get dead, you know the kind of thing. I only picked it up because it was the one book in English in the hotel where I was staying.’ She scoffed. ‘I have the same issue here if I’ve forgotten to bring a book with me.’

‘He doesn’t read much fiction, does he?’ Daisy scanned the motivational paperbacks and the business manuals that filled Hamish’s bookshelves.

‘So what do you think’s going on here? You’re the one with the degree.’

Daisy shrugged. ‘French and Legal Studies doesn’t make me a literary critic. I read the same kind of thing as you do, I reckon. Like I said, I got sucked in once and read three on the bounce – he was a good storyteller but I started to feel uncomfortable about his female characters.’

Karen prodded the pages with her finger. ‘This is quite clever, though. He writes in a way that makes it feel smarter than it really is. You get propelled along and don’t stop to question how likely it all is. A cut above genre, kind of. Does that make sense?’

‘It’s something to do with the syntax, I think. The sentence structure.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know what “syntax” means, Daisy.’ Karen caught herself sounding grumpy. It was always the same, waiting for a case to start moving. Even worse when there might not be a case at all.

Daisy cut her eyes at her boss. ‘There’s one wee thing that did strike me. And I don’t know whether it means anything . . . ’

Karen perked up. ‘Don’t be shy, Daisy.’

‘This is supposed to be a first draft, yeah?’

‘I think so. I mean, there’s not enough of it for it to be finished.’

Daisy thumbed through the pages she’d read. ‘I’d have thought there would be scribbles all over it. Changing words, cutting bits out, adding bits. But this looks pretty polished.’

‘Mibbes he does all the revisions on the screen and doesn’t print it out till he’s happy with it?’

‘That’s probably it.’ Daisy seemed unconvinced.

‘The trouble is, we don’t know enough about this. Is it really the first draft of something Stein was planning to publish? Or is he just playing around with an idea? Was he going to rework it to make it more anonymous? So it wouldn’t read like him confessing? Mibbes he had another version in mind where Ross McEwen was pointed to as the murderer? And if Stein was planning to publish it, why didn’t he finish it? Was he still working on it or had he dumped it? The time frame in the novel probably doesn’t correspond to real life either. Like the song says, more questions than answers . . . ’ Karen let out a sigh that seemed to come from her boots. ‘Either way, we shouldn’t take anything it says for gospel.’

Daisy gave her boss an anxious look, clearly lost for a response. When in doubt, she knew there was one way to go. ‘Do you want a coffee or will we just crack on?’

Karen picked up the next bundle of manuscript. ‘Onwards. Save the coffee for a reward at the end. Let’s see whether we can find whatever it is that’s ringing the librarian’s bell.’

THE VANISHING OF LAUREL OLIVER

Part Two

7

Cognitive dissonance. That was the posh term for it, and it was driving Jamie Cobain tonto. On the one hand, he’d become addicted to going head-to-head over the chessboard with Rob Thomas. Those nights were the only oasis of pure pleasure in this life he’d been shunted into. On the other hand, he hated Rob Thomas with every fibre of his being. Rob was fucking his wi— his ex-wife. Had been for more than a year now. Rob was the reason he’d not been able to salvage something from the wreckage. She’d only jumped ship when she finally thought she’d found a lifeboat. And he still loved her. The tension between love and hate was costing him sleep and any possibility of pleasure.

The thunderbolt realisation of the only resolution for this had come out of the blue a few weeks ago while he’d been watching the own-brand budget macaroni cheese slowly spinning in the microwave. He had to destroy Rob. In the process, he’d probably royally fuck up Rachel. But maybe out of the wreckage, they’d find a way to get back together. OK, somebody would have to die. But you can’t make an omelette without breaking some chicken’s heart.

What was that saying about the cobbler’s kids being the worst shod? There should be a modern version about the tech-savvy crime writers being the easiest to spy on. Rob and Rachel thought they’d been so careful, sneaking around the city under cover of darkness. She’d even disabled the ‘find my phone’ feature on her iPhone. It never occurred to her to check her car for a tracker. Or inside the lining of her four favourite handbags. Mind you, she wouldn’t have been any the wiser if she had. She wouldn’t know a tracker from a tracksuit.

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.

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.