30

The skin round Ross McEwen’s eyes paled. ‘That’s an outrageous thing to say.’ His jaw set hard.

‘I think it’s the truth. As you said yourself, why would he decide to write a plot to destroy you unless he had a very good reason.’

He shook his head, scowling. ‘It’s a helluva jump from a novel’s plot to me screwing Jake’s wife.’

Karen gave him a long, measured look. ‘As you may have noticed, we were waiting here for you to arrive. It’s a habit of mine when I’m meeting people on unfamiliar ground. Two mornings ago, I was waiting to interview Rosalind Harris. Opposite the entrance to the block where she lives. And—’

‘Enough,’ he said savagely. ‘I know what you saw. Yes. Rosalind and I are together now. So what?’

‘Jake Stein was trying to fit you up for murder. The perfect murder, he called it. Did he ever mention that to you?’

McEwen’s eyes popped. ‘Jesus,’ he breathed. ‘Yes. He talked about a novel celebrating the perfect murder. Where the killer framed someone flawlessly.’

‘He was writing it and you were recognisably the man in the frame. Do you remember anything else about it?’

McEwen began his truncated pacing again. ‘This is a nightmare,’ he said. He stopped abruptly. ‘And you think this has something to do with Lara Hardie’s disappearance?’

‘We believe it may be connected.’ Karen’s voice was gentle now. ‘What it is you’ve remembered, Ross?’

He swallowed hard and sank down into a crouch. ‘He said . . . He said he wanted to make sure it would work so he had to practise it.’ His voice had dropped, as if he were talking to himself. ‘I thought he was joking.’ He clamped his hands over his face and groaned.

Daisy and Karen exchanged looks. Daisy had an air of suppressed excitement. Karen just felt the sadness welling up in her chest. They waited for McEwen to recover himself. Eventually, he stood up again. ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘When did your relationship with Rosalind begin?’

‘June 2018. It wasn’t something we planned. It happened very quickly and it took us both by surprise. Look, can we go and sit down? I feel a bit shoogly.’

Karen led the way to a bench in an alcove in the wall. She told him to sit down and instructed Daisy to sit on the other bench. ‘We’ll give anybody else who tries to sit down the bum’s rush.’ She stood facing them both, hands in her pockets, looked as relaxed as if this was any other day at the shore. ‘Tell me about it,’ she said.

He stared at the ground between his feet. ‘I’d met Ros a couple of times, just hello, goodbye, on our chess nights. I turned up one evening as usual to find that Jake’s flight from Leeds had been cancelled. He’d jumped on a train and he wouldn’t be back for another hour and a half. I was going to leave, but Ros said he’d been insistent that I stay. She said’ – he looked up with a sweet smile – ‘she was under orders to keep me there.’

It was a story not so different from the one in the book. Rosalind had fed him a monkfish curry with coconut rice and he’d asked for the recipe. They found a common interest in eating well and cooking, an interest not shared by Jake. ‘You know people who choose wine by the price tag, rather than the contents of the bottle? Jake was like that with food. He’d always choose the most expensive dish on the menu, and he’d just shovel it down without noticing. Ros was wasted on him in every possible way.’

Then they’d run into each other at a cookery writer’s event in a bookshop. Jake was away on tour, and she’d invited Ross for dinner. They talked each other to a standstill and ended the evening dazed with infatuation. Jake’s book tour lasted ten days; by the time he returned, they were lovers.

‘We knew we had to keep our relationship a secret. Jake was incredibly possessive. As far as he was concerned, Ros belonged to him and that was that. If he’d found out, he would have destroyed both of us.’

They’d carried on snatching time when they could, tamping down their greed for each other to avoid taking undue risks. And then Marga Durham had brought Jake Stein’s temple crashing down around his ears. And Rosalind walked.

‘Why didn’t you make it public then?’ Karen had asked. She was pretty sure she knew the answer, but she wanted to hear McEwen’s version of events.

‘Jake was in a state of perpetual rage and pain, like a bull in the ring tormented by the banderilleros. He only ever seemed to calm down when we were playing chess. He would rant about Ros – how she was still his, how she could never be rid of him, how she still loved him deep down, how he would destroy any man she took up with.’ He spread his hands in a gesture of despair. ‘A writer’s reputation is a vulnerable thing. Ours is a gossipy world, and I’ve seen people cold-shouldered and brought down by nothing more than an ill-judged tweet. So I agreed with Ros. We’d keep our relationship under wraps until Jake took ownership of some other poor woman.’ McEwen shook his head sadly.

‘What I don’t understand is why you’re still under wraps,’ Daisy said, a touch of belligerence to break the soft focus.

McEwen looked momentarily pissed off. Then he almost smiled and said, ‘Like I said. Reputation. Jake’s only been dead for a few months. I don’t want it to look like I couldn’t wait for him to drop dead before running off with the woman he professed to love.’

‘So how long is respectable?’ Daisy again.

He gave her a cool glance and said, ‘We reckon about a year should be acceptable.’

Karen studied McEwen, frowning slightly. ‘You’ve been very helpful, Mr McEwen. There’s only one thing outstanding. In his manuscript, Jake Stein gave a very full account of the perfect murder he was planning. Right down to where he would dispose of the body to best implicate you.’

‘You really think he went through with it? You think he actually abducted Lara Hardie and murdered her? Just to take revenge on me and Ros? That’s sick.’

‘I can’t disagree with that judgement. But I’m afraid we’re going to have to search your property. In particular, your garage. Now, we can do this the easy way, where you give us permission because you’ve got nothing to hide, and DS Mortimer and I come back with you and conduct the search ourselves. Or we can go to the sheriff for a warrant, which complicates everything. Not least, the media are bound to get wind of it. I’m sure you remember the BBC helicopters over Cliff Richard’s house?’

‘This is crazy,’ he said.

‘On the other hand, it might not be. And it’s my job to find out which of us is right.’