42

With an apologetic shrug, Karen stepped away from River and the forensics team. ‘Fire away, Jason.’

‘The bookseller, she’s called Louise Fairbairn, she was a bit surprised to hear from me again, but she wasn’t bothered about it. I said we were trying to fill in some gaps about Lara’s disappearance and I wondered whether she could remember anybody else who was there who might be able to help. Turns out half the audience were her customers and she’s going to email me their contact details.’

Karen chuckled. ‘Good approach.’

‘I said did they ever get other writers turning up to events. Just in a chatty kind of way, you know?’

‘And, she goes, “Funny you should ask, Ross McEwen stopped in that night. He wasn’t there from the start, which is why I sort of forgot about him.” She said . . . ’ The sound of pages being turned. ‘She said he showed up at the beginning of the Q&A, hung about for a bit then went outside while Jake was packing up and saying his goodbyes.’

‘Did he make any contact with Lara Hardie?’

‘She didn’t see anything. But she was busy dealing with book sales.’

‘And did you record this, Jason?’ Please.

‘I did. I’ll forward it to you.’

‘Nice work. That takes us another wee bit further forward.’

‘But that’s not all.’ He sounded lively for the first time in days. ‘I went on about how lucky she was to live down the coast and how lovely it was and how me and Eilidh like driving down for a walk and a fish supper or a nougat wafer. And I said it must be a magnet for writers wanting to escape from the city. And she was off.’

‘You’ve been playing a blinder today, Jason. Who did she finger?’

‘Duncan Drysdale and Jess Hawkins live in North Berwick. Linda Marshall, J. P. Logan and his wife, Rona Balfour, they live in Dunbar. There were a couple of others in Haddington and somebody in Skateraw. I asked about boltholes and she said Deni Blackadder has a place at Cockburnspath and some Olga lassie from Belarus has a caravan at St Abb’s Head. I’ve got it all on the voice recording.’

‘That’s terrific work. Are you OK with doing all this?’

‘Uh huh. It takes my mind off my mum. Do you want me to see what I can find out about the Blackadder lassie and Olga what’s-her-name?’

‘That’s a good idea. Start with Deni Blackadder – she’s a crime writer, I think.’

‘According to Louise the bookseller, Olga’s a poet and a translator.’

‘Less likely to have been pals with either Stein or McEwen, then. They all seem to stick to their silos.’

‘I’m on it.’

She hung up, feeling a little burn of excitement in her chest. She turned back to the garage, where River was ­readying herself for a second round of delving into the horrors of the human slurry. There was nothing Karen could do there, so she made for the house. She found Daisy in the kitchen, reading a Sri Lankan cookbook. ‘He’s in his study, playing on the X-box,’ she said. ‘He made a big performance of leaving his phone on the counter, going on about he didn’t want me thinking he was sneaking phone calls behind my back. Like I don’t know you can message people in-game.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Somehow, I don’t see Ros Harris playing console games in office hours.’

‘He’s too savvy to be having incriminating conversations with anybody,’ Karen said. ‘Jason’s got a statement putting him at that event the night before Lara went missing.’

Daisy sat up sharply, letting the book fall from her. ‘You’re kidding!’

‘It’s only circumstantial. He wasn’t seen with Lara. But Jason’s chasing something up that might help us further along the way.’

Daisy looked momentarily put out. ‘Nothing I can help with?’

‘No need, he’s got it covered. It’s something to focus on that isn’t his mum in the COVID ward or his brother in custody.’ Karen settled in one of the armchairs by the window and took out her phone.

She googled Deni Blackadder. Thirty-two, single, born and raised in Stirling. A distant cousin of the exceptional Scottish artist Elizabeth Blackadder, and author of three crime novels. She clicked through to her webpage, where the first thing she saw among several endorsements was one from Ross McEwen. ‘Just when you thought there was nothing new under the crime fiction sun, along comes Deni Blackadder.’ So there was a link.

It didn’t prove anything. But it was suggestive. She went back to the Google results and spotted a recent podcast Deni had featured on. She popped her earphones in and pressed play. She was ‘in conversation’ with the Mystery Maven, who talked to crime writers about their life and work. There was nothing that caught Karen’s interest till they got to the bit about how Deni was first published. ‘I did a masterclass with Ross McEwen, and he was incredibly supportive. He said he loved what I’d written but that there were a couple of issues. One was structural, and hearing that made me want to go outside and howl at the moon because nobody loves a structural rewrite!’ Laughter. ‘But when he broke it down for me I could see it was more about moving bits of text around to change the order of when we get to know what we get to know.

‘The other issue was that the protagonist was too clichéd. That was hard to hear but surprisingly easy to fix. So I did the rewrites with Ross’s encouragement and sent it to Katya Green, who is now my agent. And she did the rest. I’d never have made it without their input.’ This, Karen thought, was investigative gold.

She listened to the rest of the podcast but heard nothing of interest, except that Deni was doing lockdown in her cabin. ‘I couldn’t face seeing the city so denuded of people, of personality. So I took off to my tiny wee but and ben down the coast, looking out over the North Sea. I feel very privileged.’

Karen looked across at Daisy. ‘How do you fancy a wee run down the coast tomorrow? Cockburnspath?’

‘Will it involve fish and chips?’

It was time, Karen thought as she climbed the stairs to Hamish’s flat. She couldn’t ignore him forever. She fixed herself an Arbikie’s AK gin with ginger ale and went through to the study. Long swig, short text.

Is this a good time to talk?

Almost as soon as she’d sent it, the FaceTime alert sounded. Karen connected and Hamish grinned out at her. ‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to ignore me forever,’ he said.

‘This isn’t capitulation. It’s a truce.’

He shrugged. He was looking particularly well, she thought. Beard trimmed, hair artfully tousled. It was almost as if he’d been expecting her. ‘Call it what you will, we’re talking. And that’s how we fix things.’

‘We fix things by making changes, Hamish. And I don’t know whether the two of us are capable of making the kind of changes we need.’

‘We won’t know until we try.’ He frowned. ‘And I’m willing to try. You know how I feel about you. I love it when we’re out and about, enjoying ourselves. Or staying in, enjoying ourselves. My friends think you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m sure when you meet my parents they’ll think the same.’

‘Whoa! Who said anything about meeting your parents? You’re rushing at things we’ve never talked about, making out like they’re the logical next step when they’re a massive jump.’

He threw his hands in the air. ‘That’s because it feels like the next step. It’s what people do when they’re serious about each other. I’ve met your parents, haven’t I?’

Karen’s heart sank. ‘Only by accident.’ Her parents had come over from Kirkcaldy for lunch one Saturday. Hamish had arrived unexpectedly – although she’d told him they were coming – just as she was serving the rhubarb crumble and custard. He’d been effusive and charming and her parents couldn’t get out the door fast enough. Later, her mother said, ‘He’s a smooth operator, right enough.’ Her father had just grunted. The next time they’d been alone, he’d said, ‘Are you sure about yon lad? You seem different when you’re with him. Not like when you were with Phil. Then, you were yourself. Just more.’

For her father it was a major speech. It had given her pause, but maybe not enough. ‘They’ve not met many folk like you.’

‘What? Because I grew up in the US? Because I’m a businessman? Because I’ve made money? Come on, Karen, they’re not as small-minded as all that.’

‘We’re different, Hamish. And you don’t always get it. I grew up in a working-class home in a working-class town here in Scotland. I look at the world through a different prism to the one you use. You think throwing money at a problem is a solution. I’ve grown up without that option so I have to work at things to sort them out.’

‘Karen, I work hard for what I have. I’m not going to apologise for enjoying the fruits of my success.’

She sighed. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with that. But you make assumptions all the time about what I’ll enjoy. Half the time I feel like you’ve got a completely different woman in your sights. You don’t see me. You don’t hear me.’

There was a long pause. ‘But I love you,’ he said simply, all the bombast stripped away.

‘But do you? I think the person you love is not me.’

‘When we make love, none of that matters. We fuse. We’re a perfect match.’

‘When we make love, it papers over the cracks because it’s so good.’ Karen was beginning to feel cornered, and not for the first time. ‘Your reaction when you found Rafiq in my flat frightened me. Not because you were scary – which you clearly were – but because it was a side of yourself you’d kept hidden from me.’

‘No, that’s not—’

‘Let me speak, Hamish,’ she said, raising her voice to bat him away. ‘I’ve seen men who bully women too many times to take that behaviour lightly.’

‘I don’t bully you.’

‘Not now, you don’t. And I’d like to think I’d be strong enough to stand up to you. But jealousy is an ugly thing and you had absolutely no reason to distrust me. Absolutely no reason to be jealous of Rafiq. A guy on the run from people who had murdered his wife and son, a man living in constant fear. And you freaked him out. What happens the next time you think you have grounds for jealousy? What happens if the other man is not somebody you can bully? Will it be me you turn on?’

A long silence. ‘All I’ve done is to love you.’ His voice was quiet.

‘I know that’s how you see it. And I thought I could maybe love you. But I don’t think I can. So I think it would be better all round if we stuck to what I said the other night. When lockdown is over, I’ll move back to my place and we’ll shake hands and call it a day.’

‘You’re making a terrible mistake here, Karen.’

And that was the moment when a woman’s voice called out from off-screen, ‘Dinner’ll be on the table in five minutes, Hamish.’

‘Who’s that? Is it Teegan?’

His eyes flicked in the direction of the kitchen. ‘That’s right. She’s cooking the dinner.’

‘Why is she cooking your dinner? I thought she was shacked up in the yurt?’

‘She is, yeah, but we’ve been taking turns with cooking the dinner for each other a couple of times a week.’

Karen could hardly believe her ears. ‘Hamish, that’s a total breach of the regulations. Teegan and you, you’re not a bubble.’ A horrible pause. ‘Or are you?’ She’d never doubted him before, not for a moment.

There was nothing artificial about his laugh. It was Hamish, loud and hearty as always. ‘God, no. How could you even think that?’

‘So there’s no excuse for you completely ignoring the COVID rules? Hamish, they’re in place for a reason. They apply to everybody—’

‘Not you, when you’re out and about chasing a case.’ He was still grinning.

‘Yes, me. There are certain exemptions for policing, but that doesn’t extend to getting one of the neighbours in to cook my tea. What gives you the right to trash the rules?’

‘Karen, Teegan and I work the sheep together every day. Anything I’ve got, she’s got. It’s just bureaucracy.’

‘Your attitude is the reason people like Jason’s mum are in hospital right now. Everything you’ve said has made me realise I was absolutely right to say this thing is over,’ she said coolly and broke the connection.