Past lying, p.23
Past Lying, page 23
‘And I’ve told you the conversation never took place.’ There was a nervous edge to her repeated denials.
‘Alice, this is a potential murder inquiry. Lara’s parents deserve to know what happened to their daughter. Withholding evidence isn’t only a potential crime, it’s also a cruelty.’
‘This is harassment.’ Her voice had thinned to a hiss. ‘I could complain about this. My father’s a minister in the Scottish Government. You didn’t know that, did you?’ Defiant now.
Karen hadn’t known that, but it explained a lot. The last thing the daughter of a government minister would want was to be associated with a murder victim, no matter how tangentially. Being put on trial on the unregulated battlefield of social media wouldn’t just be harsh for her; it could impact on her father. ‘Then he’ll understand the importance of telling the truth. Look, you needn’t worry about this coming back to bite you. Nobody in my team is going to mention your name outside our office. And you’re not going to end up testifying in court.’ Not unless Lara told you Jake Stein had threatened to kill her.
‘I’m going to report you for harassment.’
‘Well, that’s your prerogative.’ Karen kept her tone light and warm. ‘But that’s when you will end up all over the socials. I can guarantee the silence of my team, but I can’t say the same for the rest of my colleagues. It grieves me to say it, but some of them have a hotline to their pet journalists.’
A long pause. Karen was afraid Alice was about to hang up on her. Then she spoke, her words tumbling over each other in a rush. ‘Yes, all right, I did speak to Lara. We both agreed it had been a fantastic day and that the takeaways had been useful for both of us. She said she’d been recommended to come by another writer she knew, because she needed to write with more pace.’
‘Did she mention which other writer had recommended Stein?’
‘I didn’t ask. I said I’d been impressed with the clarity of his session on story structure. And that was that. You see? No big deal. It’s not like I was hiding some deep dark secret. It was just a little white lie.’
‘Thank you. You were worried about how your dad would react if you got dragged into a murder inquiry, and I get that. But all that happened is that your little white lie made you stand out. Made you look suspicious.’ Karen sighed. ‘I don’t think we’ll need to talk to you again, Alice. But in future, if you’re interviewed by the police, I’d recommend you not to try the little white lies.’
Alice cleared her throat. ‘You don’t know what it’s like. Every time I do anything, even if it’s just to make a comment in a seminar at uni, some dickhead tweets a sarky comment.’
‘I’d hate that if it was me. But if it gets out of hand, you can report them. To the university, if it’s fellow students. Or to us, if you feel threatened.’
Alice scoffed. ‘Yeah, right. Have you ever been on Twitter? Anyway, I’ve told you all I know about Lara Hardie, so you can leave me alone from now on, right?’
‘Thanks. I hope we don’t have to talk again.’
‘Me too.’
And the line went dead. Just like that line of inquiry. Alice Barker’s reticence was nothing to do with Lara, and everything to do with a father who regularly garnered more than his fair share of negative headlines, a fate that rubbed off on his daughter. Karen felt a moment of relief that the only time her parents had ever troubled the media was when her dad had won the Men’s Championship at the local bowling club.
She climbed the spiral staircase to the garden room on the roof and watched the clouds slowly moving up the estuary, driven by a strong east wind. It had been a rough day so far, and there was still more to come. At moments like these, when a case seemed to be hitting the buffers, Karen would normally seek the company of her friends. Not to discuss the case, but to loosen the tightened gears of her brain. A Thai curry with social work manager Giorsal; a Vietnamese meal with forensic anthropologist River Wilde; a gin evening with Jimmy Hutton; or a night in with a pizza and a movie with Hamish. All of those companions were available online but like millions of others, Karen had already come to the conclusion that digital meeting places were a pale simulacrum of reality. It was easy to have superficial conversations, albeit with limited gossip. But anything beyond that felt contrived and artificial.
COVID was taking far more of a toll than the lives of those who succumbed to it. It was already damaging the fabric of the relationships that bound people together, she thought as she gazed across the city. All the lonely people; wasn’t that how the song went? COVID had turned everyone into Eleanor Rigby.
She was jolted out of her reverie by the phone. Jason. Had he spotted something in Jake Stein’s manuscript that she and Daisy had missed? Karen took the call and heard ragged breathing. ‘Jason? Are you OK?’
‘It’s my mum. Boss, they’re definitely going to put her on a ventilator. They say it’s to help her breathe, but I’m really scared.’ His voice cracked and broke. He sniffed.
‘They know what they’re doing, the doctors. The ventilator, it’s there to help her breathe. To make it easier on her.’ She tried to sound as if she meant it, that it was no big deal.
‘They’re going to—’ He choked back a sob. ‘They’re going to set up a FaceTime. On a tablet. Because . . . ’ More throat clearing. ‘She’ll not be able to speak after they put her on the ventilator. Karen, this might be the last time she gets to speak to me.’
‘Don’t be thinking like that, Jason. People go off ventilators all the time, they come out of ICU and go home—’
‘Phil didn’t. He went into ICU and never came home.’
Karen squeezed her eyes tight shut and gripped the phone so hard her fingers hurt. ‘You have to be strong for Sandra. Help her to believe she’ll make it through this. Have you heard from Ronan? Does he know what’s happening?’
A hiccupping sob. ‘I’ve not spoken to him. I don’t know where he is. His phone’s turned off. But he’ll be phoning the hospital every day. Fuck, I hope he gets the message in time.’
‘Are you still at home?’
‘I was just about out the door on my way to the office when I got the call.’
‘Stay put with Eilidh. Make your call. Tell her how much she means to you.’ She forced a small chuckle. ‘You’ll be as embarrassed as hell when Sandra comes home and reminds you of all the things you said. But say them anyway. And when you feel ready, give me a call and let me know how you’re doing.’
‘Aye. I will.’
‘And tell her I was asking for her. Not that she’ll care, but I think a lot of Sandra.’
Jason ended the call with a strangled noise that might have been a farewell or simply the point where control had gone. Karen’s eyes were damp; she cared about Jason and Sandra, and that made her think about her own parents. She’d grown apart from them in her teens. Not in a hostile way. Just a lack of common ground. They’d wanted her to go to university but she couldn’t see the point. She wanted to become a polis, sooner rather than later. And in a way, she thought, they’d never quite forgiven her for not living up to their aspirations. But the thought of losing one – or both – of them to COVID made her feel nauseous.
How much worse it must be for Jason, whose bond with his open-hearted mother was so important to him. Karen wished there was something she could do. But she couldn’t even give him a hug.
‘Fucking COVID,’ she murmured, sliding down the glass wall till she was sitting on the floor, arms around her knees. It had dawned on her that the person she really wanted to talk to was beyond her reach, and not because of the pandemic. The image of Phil Parhatka shimmered in her mind’s eye. She gave up on blinking back the tears and let them fall.
27
The sound of the front door closing dragged Karen back into the moment. She rubbed her cheeks dry and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. The last thing she wanted was for Daisy to see her vulnerable. She got on well with her sergeant, but not well enough to count her a friend yet. Karen blew her nose and descended the stairs to find Daisy emptying her backpack of all the things that didn’t make it on to the supermarket shopping list that Karen had written. Three large assorted bars of chocolate, two family-sized bags of crisps, a macaroon bar, two packets of scones – one plain, one sultana – and, bizarrely, Flamin’ Hot Wotsits Giants. Karen had always hated Wotsits of any description. She loathed the way the aerated corn snacks stuck to her teeth. No temptation there, then.
‘I left the manuscript in the office. I didn’t see Jason, so I stayed inside the rules,’ Daisy said over her shoulder as she put her treasure trove in the cupboard.
‘After you’d gone, I told him to stay put with Eilidh. He’s not going to be in any fit state to scrutinise a manuscript. They’re putting Sandra on a ventilator.’
Daisy’s eyes widened. ‘Oh no. That’s really scary. How’s he holding up?’
Karen shook her head. ‘Not well. He’s clearly terrified.’ She looked away, staring through the window at the New Town roofs. ‘All he can think about is that Phil – my partner, I expect you know the story – Phil was in intensive care on a ventilator after he was run over, and he didn’t come out the other side. So Jason thinks this is a death sentence for his mum.’
Daisy stopped what she was doing and said, ‘I didn’t know the details about Phil. Poor Jason. And poor you, too. It must bring it all back.’
Karen turned to meet her stricken gaze. ‘It never goes away, Daisy. It never goes away.’ A wan smile. ‘I hope you never have to find out.’
‘Me too.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I’ll just crack on with reading Lara’s deathless prose, then.’ She settled down at the table, a block of chocolate Turkish delight beside her, and frowned at the page. ‘Stein must have chosen her because he thought she was so desperate to be a writer. It couldn’t have been because of the writing.’
‘I’d have thought that was obvious. If she’d had a genuine flair for it, somebody would have picked up on it earlier. Somebody who wasn’t looking for someone to kill.’ She returned to the kitchen and stared into the fridge. ‘I need to do something with those chicken thighs,’ she said, half to herself.
‘Spanish chicken. We’ve got the end of a chorizo and there’s peppers and onions. And I think there’s a sweet potato too,’ Daisy suggested.
‘Good idea.’ Karen grabbed the items and started prepping the vegetables. ‘How are you getting on with Lara?’
‘It’s not what I’d call a fun read. It’s all a bit immature, to be honest. Her protagonist is supposedly in a long-term relationship with a guy who’s suspected of murder, but honestly, it’s about as passionate as sucking a gobstopper. Very teen romance.’
‘There is a market for that, I’m told.’
Daisy pulled a face and groaned. ‘Give me half an hour and I’ll be done. Then I can read you some of the most toe-curling bits.’
Karen quartered onions, sliced peppers and was about to chop the sweet potato into chunks when a cry of, ‘Oh, fuck!’ rang out so loudly she nearly stabbed her hand.
‘What is it?’
‘You’ve got to come and look at this.’ Daisy beckoned her to her laptop screen.
Karen looked over her shoulder and read:
PART THE SECOND
If you’re a student of true crime, you’ve probably already read the official version of the events of the night of May 9th, 2014 in New Orleans, as outlined above. Trust me, the truth is far stranger than the fictions constructed by the powers that be. It had nothing to do with shrewd detection and everything to do with my pal Joey’s natural-born instinct for mayhem.
But what I knew about that night was only one small piece of a jigsaw I only managed to piece together seven years and three deaths later.
‘Is that not in Stein’s notes? Or something like it?’
‘Word for word,’ Daisy confirmed. ‘But look. Here’s the next page.’ She scrolled down and broken lines appeared on the page.
The only way I could make sense of what I’d seen with my own eyes was to throw out everything I thought I knew about Guy. I remembered an e e cummings poem that had stuck in my head for years.
let them go – the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers – you must let them go they
were born
to go
If I cleared out everything I thought I knew, I could start afresh and come to the truth that way.
‘How could Jake Stein have quoted these exact bits of text unless he’d read Lara’s manuscript?’ Daisy’s tone was incredulous.
Karen took it as a rhetorical question. ‘I suppose he could argue that he was quoting from her to make his story sound more authentic . . . ’ She wasn’t even convincing herself, never mind Daisy.
‘Not quoting so much as stealing. He was thumbing his nose at Lara. It wasn’t enough to kill her, he had to humiliate her, even if he was the only one who knew it.’
Karen stared at the screen, her expression grim. ‘He’d found his victim.’
28
There was always a point in an investigation where Karen felt the tangle of evidence start to unravel. She had the sense that they were teetering on the edge of organising the disjointed bits and pieces they’d amassed. Get it wrong now, and it might never work out. But get it right, and they’d have the answer to what had happened to Lara Hardie.
Thrilled by her discovery, Daisy needed to let off steam and decided to go for her official exercise while Karen cooked dinner. ‘I’m going to go up Calton Hill,’ she announced. ‘That’ll blow the cobwebs away.’
‘Enjoy yourself,’ Karen said absently. She found shallots and peppers, a slightly soft beetroot and half a bulb of fennel and began peeling and chopping. But her hands were on automatic pilot. What was going on behind her eyes was a very different process. She was sifting and sorting, adjusting and adapting, searching for the right route to resolution. She turned on the oven, chopped up the chorizo, unwrapped the chicken and patted it dry. She paused in mid-action as something struck her afresh.
Chorizo into the hot roasting tin, followed by a generous slug of chilli and garlic oil. Then the chicken, followed by the vegetables. Karen gave them a good rummle around then slammed them into the oven. Cooking was the best distraction, she reckoned. The only trouble was that sometimes she was so rapt that a crucial ingredient went on the missing list.
That evening, though, everything went to plan. Daisy returned just as Karen was giving the roasting tin a final shake. ‘Three minutes,’ she said, reaching for a bottle of full-on Australian Shiraz. Daisy’s eyebrows rose. Wine was usually reserved for the weekend, a mutual decision at the end of the first week of lockdown after they realised there were eight empty wine bottles in the recycling bin. ‘We deserve it,’ Karen said. ‘I’m worried about Jason and his mum and his fuckwit brother.’
They said little as they ate, but once they’d cleared their plates, Karen said, ‘I’m starting to see the way forward here. It’s almost exactly a year since Lara went missing. I think it’s time we talked to the family.’
Daisy seemed surprised. ‘Won’t that be giving them false hope? If we rock up after all this time, they’ll be expecting us to have something positive to tell them.’
‘That’s why the anniversary works in our favour. It’s not like we’re showing up out of the blue for no reason, which really would be a major indication of progress.’ There was no arguing with Karen when she adopted that tone of voice. ‘I’m going to call them and ask for a meeting.’
‘Face to face?’
‘They live in Perth. The place is full of parks and outdoor spaces. The weather forecast’s good for tomorrow – I checked. I’m going to call them now and see if I can set something up.’ She stood up and headed for the table laden with files. A quick search turned up the Hardie family details. Janet and Andrew, and their daughter Emma, still living at home.
Karen took a deep breath and keyed in the landline, aware of Daisy’s eyes on her. It rang half a dozen times, then a young woman’s voice said, ‘Hello?’
‘Is that Emma?’
‘Speaking. Who is this, please?’
‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie from Police—’
‘Have you found Lara?’ Excitement and trepidation in those few words.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t have any news to give you.’
‘Oh.’ Crestfallen.
‘But I was hoping I could meet you and your parents. To reassure you we’re still investigating her disappearance. I know it’s coming up for a year since Lara vanished and it might be helpful for me to talk to you all.’
‘Helpful how? We told you everything, again and again.’
Karen dug deep. ‘Sometimes things surface after a while. Would you be willing to meet?’
A long pause. ‘How can we meet? We’re in lockdown, remember?’ Frustration creeping in now.
‘Police officers are allowed to travel further than the five-mile limit when we’re working. I thought we could get together safely somewhere out of doors. The weather’s quite mild, and I know Perth has a lot of green space in the city. I could drive up tomorrow and meet you in the morning, somewhere that suits you.’
‘I don’t know. I’ll have to ask Mum and Dad if they want to.’
‘I understand. I’ll give you my number and maybe you could call me back?’
‘OK. But I’m not sure they’ll be up for it. My dad especially. But I’ll ask.’ She ended the call abruptly.
Daisy gave Karen the thumbs up. ‘That sounded pretty positive.’
‘I’m not holding my breath. The lassie was all over the place, and no wonder. Let’s see what happens next. Come on, it’s time for some crap telly.’
As instructed, at ten precisely the next morning, Karen walked up the path of the Hardies’ house. It was a solid Victorian semi-detached villa set back from the Glasgow Road. In normal times, there would be a steady flow of traffic on the busy arterial road, but this morning scarcely a car passed. She rang the bell, took a couple of steps back and waited. The door opened a crack and a young woman’s face appeared. The resemblance to Lara Hardie was striking. ‘I’m DCI Pirie,’ Karen said.
