13

Karen retreated to Hamish’s study to delve into the alien world of podcasts. There was one that she did dip into from time to time; she’d stumbled on it by accident while looking for a school friend on Facebook. Hosted by a guy who had been in the year above her at school, it featured road trips around Scotland that ended up in weirdly interesting places. She’d never heard of most of them – The Man in the Bath in a loch near Oban; the Devil’s Pulpit in Finnich Glen; the Garden of Cosmic Speculation – but she was familiar with others – the Chain Walk at Elie; the Electric Brae in Ayrshire; the Hermit’s Castle in Sutherland. But listening to Johnny Spinks taking her for a tour was an entertaining way to spend an occasional half an hour on her night walks.

But she hadn’t wanted to explore that universe any further. As far as she could see, there seemed to be a preponderance of true crime podcasts. The very description set her teeth on edge. Why did people think they could solve a crime better than trained detectives and forensic experts? Of course there were miscarriages of justice; Karen had worked her way through a few of those in her time. But these amateurs who thought they knew best simply muddied the waters more often than not. She reckoned the people who made the podcasts were every bit as blinkered and biased as the laziest of cops, and every bit as inclined to leave out what didn’t suit their theory.

Then there were the political podcasts. Speculation and precooked opinions, she reckoned, acknowledging her own bias and prejudices. If she wanted to hang out in an echo chamber, she could just spend more time on Twitter.

She was aware that she was an anomaly. People her own age and years younger seemed to live their lives on screens, swapping the identifiable details of their lives on Twitter and WhatsApp and TikTok and Instagram. At least, she thought that’s what it was right now. Next year, there would doubtless be another cool place in cyberspace to hang out.

But none of that stuff ever went away, not really. And Karen knew only too well from what she’d seen and heard at work that the toxicity of trolls spilled over into the real world all too often. Her problem was that she was a visible cop. Not good in a world where some of the people they were supposed to serve and protect didn’t see those things the same way. As a woman, she’d always been the easiest to clock in any team she’d been part of. She had no intention of making herself more visible to the crazies. She’d given Daisy the lecture, but Daisy had given her the ‘I know why we call you KP Nuts,’ look and carried on as before. God knows who she was talking to on whatever ‘swipe right, swipe left’ dating app she was into. At least lockdown made her safer, Karen thought. She wasn’t meeting up with anyone IRL, as they called it.

Sighing, she set off to explore further. There seemed to be podcasts about everything from the menopause to 1960s football, with everything in between. She actually found one for dogs to listen to. Even if you liked this stuff, how did you ever find anything? She tried searching for ‘crime fiction’ and was swamped with suggestions, none of which was really what she was looking for. But Karen never gave up and she kept on worming her way down the rabbit hole. Eventually she found what she thought she was looking for. Black Thistles promised in-depth interviews with Scottish crime writers, ‘Complete with all the jaggy bits.’

Karen looked at a list of episodes reaching back more than two years. Sometimes there were two a month, sometimes only one. It was presented by two men, one from Glasgow, the other from Kirriemuir. They claimed to cover ‘the gamut of the genre, from granny-pleasers to gruesome gothic’. She thought its faux jollity threatened to take all the joy out of murder mysteries. But looking down their list of past guests, she spotted a clutch of writers whose books she’d enjoyed enough to buy more than one. And then, to her delight, she found Jake Stein. Two years ago, before the sky had fallen in on him. Scrolling down the page, she found a Twitter handle and an email address.

Hastily, Karen knocked out an email.

Hi, guys. I’m DCI Karen Pirie with Police Scotland. I’ve got a quick query for you about a Scottish crime writer who’s actually been on your podcast. Obviously, this isn’t for public consumption, but I’d appreciate five minutes of your time. We can do a WhatsApp call, if that works for you.

She added her number, then clicked on the Stein interview.

It was illuminating, in the sense that she could detect a depressing congruence between Jamie Cobain and his creator. Jake Stein had cultivated an air of hail-fellow-well-met camaraderie, but to a practised listener like Karen, the reality that lay beneath peeped out often enough for her to form a different impression. He had false modesty down to a fine art, but she reckoned it hid a pomposity that would be easily pricked and an insecurity that would readily turn to resentment. She’d have enjoyed facing him across an interview room table. It would have been a challenge to see how quickly she could puncture that highly polished ego.

She’d almost come to the end of the podcast with no mention of chess when her phone buzzed with a WhatsApp call. ‘Karen,’ a breezy voice greeted her. She recognised it immediately as the podcast co-host from Kirriemuir. ‘This is Chesney here, from Black Thistles. I must say, we are honoured to be the podcast of choice for Scotland’s top cold case cop.’

Karen chuckled. ‘More like the podcast of last resort, Chesney. But I must admit, you do a very professional job. Nothing like the intensity of a real interrogation—’

‘But then there’s generally a wee bit more at stake when you’ve got somebody in the hot seat, Karen. All we’re doing is feeding the reading machine. So, what’s this burning question that’s driven you into our arms?’

Bumptious as he was, it was hard to dislike his bounce. ‘You’ll understand that I can’t give you any details about my reasons for asking what I’m about to put to you?’

He groaned. ‘Aw, don’t give me that “jeopardising an ongoing investigation” malarkey, Karen. We’re in the middle of lockdown and you’re a celebrity cold case cracker. How ongoing can it be?’

‘I’m not a celebrity, sir. I’m a detective who deals with some of the most upsetting cases that Police Scotland investigates. And I don’t work cold cases, I work historic cases. Because unsolved serious crimes are never cold in our eyes. So can you maybe dial down the flippancy a bit?’

‘OK, OK. Sorry. I’m not used to dealing with people like yourself, who do this for real. Facetiousness is always my fallback. Can we start this again? You want to ask me a question but you can’t tell me what it’s about?’

‘That’s about the size of it. And the other thing is that I would very much appreciate it if this conversation went no further. If crime writers are anything like the polis, there’s nothing you like more than a good gossip.’

He gave a roar of laughter. ‘You nailed it there. The public think when we get together we talk about how to kill people and get rid of bodies. They couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re like a bunch of old grannies in the steamie. Nobody’s rep is safe with us. We relish tales of disgrace and disaster. Authors being dumped by their publishers, publicists ratting out prima donna writers, true stories of whose books are really put together by their editors. And that’s before we get on to the shagging.’

‘I’m afraid you’ll be very disappointed with my question. I’d put it at zero gossip value.’ Karen tried to sound rueful to disguise how tedious she found cheery Chesney.

‘Fire away, then.’

‘Jake Stein had a regular chess opponent. Do you know who it was?’

A moment of stunned silence. ‘That’s it? You just want to know who he played chess with?’

‘That’s it. You could say I’ve got a bit of a chess problem he might be able to help me with.’

‘If I’d tried to guess what you wanted to know, we’d still have been here at the next Bloody Scotland,’ he scoffed. ‘If there ever is another festival anywhere, thanks to this bloody COVID. Jake Stein used to play chess with Ross McEwen. You know who I mean?’

It fit. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. ‘I know the name, yes.’

‘Rising star,’ Chesney said. ‘It was weird – like their careers were mirror images of each other. Jake kind of took Ross under his wing when his first book took off. So it would look like he’d been his big supporter before the rest of the world caught up. Of course, it wasn’t like that at all – Jake just heard the bandwagon approaching and leapt aboard early enough to look as if he’d been there all along. He’s not the only one who does that, by the way – he was just a bit better at it than most. And then Jake got the legs cut from under him when he did that atrocious thing to lovely Marga Durham.’

‘And is she? Lovely, I mean?’

‘Honest to God, you couldn’t meet a nicer lassie. Genuinely kind. Goes out of her way for folk. No way did she deserve that, even if she did bin him. But oh boy, did he pay the price. His career flushed down the toilet while Ross just kept getting bigger and bigger. He’s another good guy too.’ He ground to a halt.

‘So Ross McEwen and Jake Stein played chess together?’

Another snort of laughter. ‘I wouldn’t say they played “together”. More like “against each other”. It was definitely a serious business. It’s about the only thing Stein managed to hang on to from his old life. He basically got the frozen shoulder from everybody else.’

Karen was surprised. She hadn’t thought this was a world where a little light adultery would get a man thrown out of the club. She said as much.

Suddenly serious, he responded with a sober answer. ‘ “He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled,” ’ he said. ‘Guilt by association. Nobody in a relationship would want to explain to their other halves why it was still OK to hang out with a scumbag like Jake turned out to be. And if you were looking to find yourself a relationship, it’d be pretty hard to explain why he was one of your mates. None of the women wanted anything to do with him. Not even the groupies. I know they say everybody loves a bad boy, but you’d have to be terminally stupid to want to hook up with someone who might do to you what he did to Marga. And for all his faults, Jake wasn’t interested in the terminally stupid.’

‘So, Ross McEwen was his last remaining friend?’

‘I suppose so. But I don’t think it went much beyond the chess, to be honest. It’s not like Ross was sharing platforms with him. He didn’t even blurb his last book.’

Karen wondered how a man as invested in other people’s business as Chesney could have let this one get past him unexamined. ‘Did you ask him why?’

A brief pause. ‘I didn’t.’ He sounded puzzled. Then a sigh. ‘I think Ross is just one of those really reserved guys. He doesn’t talk about himself. I honestly don’t even know if he’s with anybody. And I couldn’t hazard a guess as to whether the somebody he’s not with is male or female. So it would feel really intrusive to ask him about Jake.’

‘Does Ross McEwen live in Edinburgh, do you know?’

‘He does. He’s got a lovely modern house out at Cramond. Architect designed. In its own grounds. It’s not got the sea views, but the house is immaculate. It’s got a sort of turret on one corner, glass on all sides. I went out there one time to deliver him a set of my proofs. Do you want the address?’

‘That’d be helpful,’ she said, overcoming her natural resistance to finding herself obliged to anyone. Her phone pinged almost immediately with a contact card.

‘You didn’t get that from me, mind,’ Chesney cautioned. ‘Like I said, he’s quite reserved.’

‘Just one more thing,’ Karen said.

That gust of laughter again. ‘OK, Columbo. Fire away.’

‘Can you think of any writers Jake gave a helping hand to when they were starting out?’

‘There were a few. I don’t think he did it out of the goodness of his heart, I think he was always looking for a bit of reflected glory. But he had a good eye, so it usually paid off. Ross McEwen was one. Deni Blackadder, she was another. And that lassie from Inverness, Josy Heriot. He’d get them on panels and blurb their books. So, is this like the genie of the lamp? I help you and I get three wishes?’

Karen couldn’t help laughing. ‘Not even one. I didn’t come up the Forth on a biscuit, Chesney.’

‘I’ve heard about you and your night walking,’ he said. ‘Can I steal it for one of my characters?’

Karen froze. What the fuck was this? Who would turn her insomniac wanderings into the currency of gossip? Anyone who knew about her nocturnal walking knew it had only started after Phil’s murder. After she’d lost the gift of sleep. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said calmly.

‘It’s not a big secret, Karen. Scotland’s a village, you know that. There’s dozens of crime writers in Scotland now. We all have our tame contacts. And they tell us the quirky stuff as well as the dramatic scary stuff. Plenty people must have heard about the woman who walks by night.’ He dropped his voice to horror story hollowness.

‘Is this the kind of bollocks that inspires your books? Look, fascinating though this is, I have to go. I’ve got work to do.’

‘Take me on a walk with you one of these nights.’

Exasperated, she said, ‘Look, Chesney. For one thing, we’re in lockdown and it’s against the rules to go for walks with somebody outside your bubble. For another thing, you’ve been misinformed. And since three’s the charm, I don’t go for walks with strange men even in the middle of the day. Thanks for your help, but goodbye, Chesney.’

She cut him off in the middle of, ‘You can’t blame me for—’

Karen dropped her head into her hands. Was this what keeping your own counsel got you? She was the talk of the steamie? ‘The woman who walks by night’? Like she was some kind of freak? She knew she shouldn’t care.

But she did.