The George Hotel was a large, imposing grey building in a very wide street flanked by large imposing grey buildings. It was a solid testament to comfortable, unostentatious wealth.
Hanlon went into the hotel up to Reception and asked where Cameron’s suite was. She was politely given directions to an upstairs floor. She got into the lift, barely noticing her surroundings. She was still in a state of shock over what had happened to Morag. It was hard to believe that someone so young, so confident, someone with the world at her feet, was gone. Who the hell could have done it and why?
And with that thought came rage, that someone, maybe the men who had beaten her up, probably the men who had beaten her up, had so casually taken a girl’s life. She silently vowed to herself to bring them to justice.
She walked down the corridor and knocked on the door. Cameron opened it. He was wearing a dark blue, two-piece suit and a plain white T-shirt. His stomach was flat beneath the fabric; he looked good for a man of his age. He was every inch the confident, successful businessman.
‘My God, what’s happened to your face?’ He was visibly shocked.
‘Someone tried to warn me off looking for Aurora,’ Hanlon said grimly.
‘Shit, I’m sorry.’ Then he realised that she was still in the corridor. ‘Do come in…’
He ushered her into the suite. He had a view over George Street; the room was flooded with the cold grey Edinburgh light. He waved her to a seat, and sat down on a settee opposite. She looked around. Cameron had a sitting room, a small kitchen area and through one door she could see his bedroom; opposite was a closed door, presumably the bathroom. It was a far cry from her dingy room at the Dunedin. She wondered if the George took dogs – probably not. Then again, if you had money, most things were possible.
She briefly described what had happened in the car park of the hotel.
‘I’m so sorry…’ He shook his head regretfully. He seemed to assume it was somehow his fault.
‘Don’t be,’ she said dismissively. ‘In some ways it’s quite encouraging – it shows maybe I’m headed in the right direction. I’ve certainly rattled somebody’s cage.’
Cameron nodded. ‘So, have you found anything out about Aurora?’
She gave him a brief synopsis of what had been happening: that Aurora was happy at university, well regarded by her tutors; that something had frightened her; that she was in hiding, probably in Edinburgh; she didn’t have her passport – tactfully leaving out Griffiths’ theory that Cameron was an incestuous paedophile.
‘Drugs?’ he asked, an agonised expression on his face.
Hanlon shook her head. ‘She’s been clean for a while.’
‘Thank God,’ Cameron said with relief. ‘It’s just that I lost Giulia to drugs. I know Aurora’s had problems in the past. I don’t want to lose her to them too, and it’s so easily done. One batch of heroin that’s purer than you’re used to… or, I forget the statistic but you’re several times more likely to suicide if you’re high. So, thank God for small mercies.’
‘Indeed. But just before I arrived here,’ she said, ‘I passed by Aurora’s flat. Her flatmate—’
‘Morag, Morag McMillan.’ His lip curled contemptuously. There was no mistaking the venom in his voice.
‘You know her?’ asked Hanlon. It seemed unlikely.
‘I know of her,’ he said, pulling a face.
‘You don’t like her?’
‘I’ve got nothing against her,’ he said.
Hanlon raised her eyebrows. Let’s wait for the qualification, she thought.
‘But…’
‘But?’ She raised an eyebrow.
‘I know David Carmichael quite well,’ Cameron said. Hanlon looked blank. ‘Grassmarket Books, one of Scotland’s premier publishers, mainly literary fiction. Morag sent them a manuscript – she knows one of the editors, seemingly.’
‘Is this to do with Morag’s book?’ she said.
‘She told you about it?’ he asked.
‘She did,’ Hanlon confirmed.
‘Anyway,’ he carried on, giving her a suspicious look, ‘Carmichael got in touch with me. I featured prominently in the novel, and not, may I add, in a flattering way.’
‘In what respects?’ she asked.
‘Well, I was a wife-murderer with a thing for under-age girls.’
‘Under-age girls? Anything else?’ She was really curious to know if Morag had claimed he was having sex with his daughter, Aurora.
‘What do you mean, anything else?’ he said irritably. ‘Isn’t that bad enough?’ He frowned.
Maybe not, then, thought Hanlon.
‘I suppose it could have been worse,’ he admitted.
You betcha, thought Hanlon.
‘It wasn’t like they were children – I mean, we’re talking teens, not tots,’ he hastened to add. She stared at him. ‘These under-aged girls I’m alleged to be involved with,’ he clarified.
She was fascinated by his all-round creepiness. The morning was not turning out brilliantly. Morag dead. Cameron airily discussing sex with barely pubescent girls.
She was beginning to feel that she wanted to have a shower after this conversation had finished. Cameron took a mouthful of coffee. Hanlon had a sudden vision of the diligent Gillies wading through Morag’s book with a highlighter, loyally marking up any passage that might be libellous and sending threatening letters to any would-be publisher.
‘Anyway, Carmichael rejected the manuscript, and warned me about it. And I was just one of the players in it. I never read it, but there were seemingly descriptions of people that he guessed were very much not drawn from imagination.’
My novel will be a media sensation. She remembered Morag’s words. She might well have been right. Most Scots wouldn’t have a clue who Cameron was, or care, come to that, but journalists would. He might not be well known but he was a big fish in a small pond and wealthy men pressuring vulnerable young girls into sex was currently news for once.
Maybe too, Hanlon thought, you didn’t want the police alerted to what you’ve been up to. Maybe you don’t want your computer seized and its contents examined. The acronym came back to her: PTHC, pre-teen hard core – maybe that’s what you don’t want dragged into the public domain.
‘Trouble is,’ he said bitterly, ‘there’d be nothing I could do about it. It’s too good a lie to deny. People would want to believe it – everywhere I went people would be sniggering at me behind my back. Look, there’s the child-fucking wife-murderer. Well, hope the bitch never gets it published. Trouble is, these days, she could do it herself.’
‘Well, Morag won’t be doing that,’ Hanlon said.
‘Why not? What makes you so sure?’ He looked puzzled.
‘She’s dead.’