Past lying, p.31
Past Lying, page 31
Rosalind’s eyes narrowed in anger. ‘You never asked me about Ross.’
‘I asked you if you knew him. You said you’d met him a couple of times. Another lie. And an interesting one. Apart from anything else, it provides motivation for why your ex-husband wanted to destroy you. And your lover. So why deny it?’
‘Because I thought it was none of your business,’ she snapped.
Karen chuckled. ‘It’s easy to see you’ve never practised criminal law. In my world, Ros, everything’s relevant until it’s not. When did you and Mr McEwen become lovers?’
She stared at the ground. ‘You’ve read the book.’
‘I thought you hadn’t?’
‘You told me enough.’
‘It’s not what you’d call precise.’
Rosalind squeezed her eyes shut momentarily, then raised her head. ‘It was well before the divorce. I was still living in the Ravelston Dykes house, trying to figure out how I could get to be a free agent. Because Jake would never have conceded that. It took the very public Marga Durham incident to make that possible.’
‘Do you think your husband might have known you were lovers?’
She looked everywhere but at Karen. ‘I thought not. I believed he would have gone off like a thermonuclear explosion had he known. But obviously, I was wrong. Once I was out of his reach, his warped mind had to come up with something else.’
There was a long silence. There was something about this version of events that wasn’t sitting right with Karen. ‘Do you have any idea how Lara Hardie’s body might have ended up in your lover’s garage? If it is her remains.’
‘Dear God. No, I don’t. I didn’t know Jake was writing a bizarre story about a perfect murder, though I’m not entirely surprised you think he had it in him to kill someone. But if you’re looking at Ross for Lara Hardie, you’re looking in the wrong place.’ She stood up, wrapping her coat around her. ‘Try the Dean Cemetery. That’s Jake’s address these days.’
38
Karen watched Rosalind Harris stalk off down Jawbone Walk, her coat swinging around her like a flag. This was clearly her week for pissing people off. But something the lawyer had said had provoked a niggling thought. I believed he would have gone off like a thermonuclear explosion had he known. But obviously, I was wrong. Once I was out of his reach, his warped mind had to come up with something else.
Because warped was the perfect word to describe the revenge plot Jake Stein had come up with. She’d been swept away by the idea of Stein trying to destroy the happiness of his ex-wife and her lover, but the only truly ruptured reputation in the fraction of the book that had been left behind was that of its supposed author. Although all they had was a partial manuscript; who knew what twists and turns Jake Stein had planned? In the world of crime writers, maybe coming up with the perfect plot would be sufficient to restore his damaged name, even if it meant delivering a posthumous confession to a murder.
Before she could explore that idea further, her phone rang. A quick glance at the screen told her she needed to answer it. Tamsin Martineau extended her favours to the HCU in exchange for nothing more than a supply of premium chocolate biscuits because she was as committed to bringing the dead home as was Karen. So when the HCU’s woman inside the forensic unit at Gartcosh called, Karen was always quick to respond. ‘Tamsin,’ she said, unable to keep the weariness from her voice.
‘Bloody hell, Karen, you sound like you lost a dollar and found a cent.’ Mostly, Tamsin had acquired the idiom of her adopted country but every now and again the Aussie in her slipped out.
‘Tough week,’ she said. ‘Complicated case, Jason’s in trouble, I think me and Hamish have hit the buffers.’
‘That’s harsh. And I’m afraid I don’t have much to lighten the load.’
‘Damn, I thought bad things only came in threes.’
‘No, but listen, this isn’t all bad, it’s only “not good”. We’ve got a new bloke in digital, just joined us from the private sector. Devon. Not only is he greased lightning, he seems to have a soft spot for me.’
Karen wondered what kind of space cadet would have a soft spot for a tattooed and pierced post-punk whose hair changed colour and style as often as a computer geek’s T-shirt. Then scolded herself for being so superficial. Tamsin wasn’t just a hotshot in the lab, she was smart and kind too. Devon might end up being a very lucky boy. ‘No accounting for tastes,’ she said, making sure the tease in her voice shone through. ‘So has he made some headway with the external drive?’
‘He has. It’s quite interesting. On the face of it, what you’ve got appears to be a mirror drive of Lara Hardie’s laptop. Data files, apps, etc. You could run a brand-new machine off this.’
‘But? I can hear a but.’
‘Everything is clean. There’s no history. You try to roll out the version history of a file or a folder, and there’s nothing there. There’s no trace of anything having been erased. No “recently deleted” emails. Nothing in the trash.’
‘The manuscript said something like that,’ Karen recalled. ‘A bit over my head, Tamsin.’
‘One of these days you’re going to have to go on a digital forensics 101 course, Karen. What it means is that, at first glance, this looks like a back-up hard drive. But in reality, it’s a carefully curated version of a hard drive that’s been scrubbed of anything the person who made it didn’t want you to see. It’s been painstakingly moved across chunk by chunk. None of the fragments that inevitably get left behind when you erase something are there.’
‘You mean, it’s a fake copy?’
‘That’s exactly it. Hard to say why anyone would go to all that trouble; you know and I know that there’s no good reason for creating an artefact like this. It’s all about the appearance of candour without being candid.’
‘I think it makes sense. It gives us access to what the killer wants us to know but he’s obviously not copied anything that calls that version of events into question. It’s clever.’
‘It would fool most people at first or even second glance. But put it in front of a wizard like our Devon and it falls apart in his hands.’
‘Sounds like the soft spot is mutual.’
Tamsin snorted. ‘It’s his expertise I’ve fallen for, and that’s all. So, does this take you any further forward?’
‘I don’t honestly know. But if your Devon’s at a loose end, there’s a fine digital harvest en route to Gartcosh. All the devices we could lay hands on belonging to one Ross McEwen. That should keep him busy for a while. Not least distinguishing truth from fiction.’
‘We like a challenge out here in the Crime Campus. To be honest, we’re not overwhelmed right now, we’re actually managing to clear some of the backlog. And the guys who came home from Italy with COVID before we even knew what COVID was, they’re all back at work.’
‘No lasting effects, then?’
‘Hard to say. One of them is complaining about reduced lung capacity and a couple seem to be permanently knackered, but none of them was exactly Mr Sparky before. I will say, though, that it’s made me a bit more religious about masking up and hand sanitising.’
Karen grunted assent. ‘Jason’s mum’s on the brink of going on a ventilator. He’s terrified.’
‘Who wouldn’t be? Give him my best, would you? He’s a good egg. But what’s with you and Hamish?’
‘Long story. For another day. I’ll be fine.’
‘Course you will, girlfriend. If you need me, you know where I am. Now bugger off and figure out what Devon’s discovery means.’
Jason was lying on top of the bed, still fully dressed. He’d been drifting in and out of sleep for a few hours, his exhausted body at odds with his troubled heart and fearful thoughts. What would he do without his mum? OK, he’d still have his dad, but since their parents had split up, the two boys had been clear in their allegiance. Ronan was his father’s son; slippery, over-confident, economical with the truth, great fun on a night out. Jason wanted to be like his mother; loyal, reliable, hard-working, kind and honest. Losing Sandra on top of Phil, his mentor, would leave him adrift. Karen was great, but she was always his boss ahead of being his friend.
Eilidh was lovely, no getting away from that. But she didn’t know what to do in a crisis. OK, when he’d had the accident that had left him in a dark cellar with a broken leg, she’d turned up at his bedside in Stockport with his mum. And then she couldn’t get away home quick enough. The women whose hair she had to cut took precedence over Jason in his hospital bed. Not that he blamed her – she had her job to consider and there was nothing she could do for him. But Sandra had stayed. They’d watched stupid TV programmes together, had a good laugh about people they knew, even watched football on his laptop. She’d been a comfort.
He turned over again and tried to settle, punching the pillow into submission. He recited Scottish football goal scorers of the previous decade in his head, and he’d begun to drift off to Shaun Maloney, Steven Fletcher, Steven Naismith, Chris Berra, when his phone cut through the reverie. He jerked upright and freaked out when he saw the hospital’s number on the screen. His heart raced and he felt sweat breaking out on his forehead. ‘Uh huh, this is Jason,’ he gabbled.
‘Hello, Jason. This is Abu from the COVID ward. We spoke before about your mum?’
‘How’s she doing? Is she—’
‘I’m sorry to say she’s having increasing issues with her breathing. We want to help her, and the best way to do that is to put her on a ventilator, as we discussed before. We hoped we could avoid it, but now it’s the best thing for her. She’ll be more comfortable.’
‘Is she going to die?’ He’d blurted it out without meaning to.
‘Not if we can help it. The thing is, Jason, she’ll not be able to speak once we get the ventilator up and running. So what we’re going to do is a FaceTime call for the two of you. Have you got a tablet? A phone will do fine if not, you just get a better picture on a tablet.’
He leapt up from the bed and ran into the living room. He snatched up his iPad and ran back, leaving Eilidh trailing a battery of questions in his wake. It was a matter of a few minutes to set up the call, and suddenly Jason was face to face with a woman he barely recognised as his mother. Gaunt and pale, sweating and panting, she was a strange distortion of the woman he loved. ‘Hi Mum,’ he said through dry lips. ‘It’s me, Jason. I’m sorry I’m not there beside you but they willnae let me in.’
Sandra croaked something that might have been, ‘I love you, son.’
‘I love you too, Mum. The doctors say you’re a fighter, like I needed telling. I know you’re gonnae beat this thing, Mum. Everybody’s rooting for you. Eilidh, Ronan. Even the boss, she can’t believe you’ve not sent the COVID packing.’
Her eyelids fluttered and her mouth worked, as if she wanted to say something but it was lost in translation. A gloved hand moved into shot, a moistened sponge dabbing at her lips. ‘Jason,’ she said, clearly this time. ‘I’m so proud of you. Best son a woman could—’ she broke off to cough, a harsh bark that felt like it would never stop. At last, she lay gasping. ‘Best . . . boy.’
Then a Black man he took to be Abu appeared in the corner of the screen. ‘I’m sorry, Jason, Sandra. But it’s time.’ He gave a wee self-conscious wave.
‘I love you, Mum,’ Jason said desperately.
She moved her head in an almost-nod. ‘I know.’
Then the screen blanked for a moment, then Abu reappeared. ‘Thanks, Jason, it meant a lot to you both, I could see that. Now the doctors and nurses have to do their work. We’ll speak to you this evening.’
And it was over. ‘The kindness of strangers.’ He remembered there had been a film called that last year. Now he knew what they meant. It eased his heart a little to know that his mother was surrounded by kindness. But he wouldn’t know peace till she was back home, surrounded by love.
Karen sat on the bench on Jawbone Walk. She was trying to make sense of the disparate pieces they’d uncovered over the past few days. If she arranged the pieces in their logical order, everything seemed to fit. It wasn’t as if something was rammed into place in a spot where it really wasn’t supposed to go. Her father had been guilty of that when they’d done jigsaws together in her teens. If he thought a piece belonged somewhere, then he’d do everything short of hitting it with a hammer to make it so. This case didn’t appear to suffer from that problem.
And yet when she ran through the story in her head, something niggled. Maybe it was nothing more than that the run-through was simply too neat. She was still troubled by Jake Stein writing himself into the role of the bad guy if he was simply trying to fuck up McEwen and his wife. Was it enough to pin her conviction on the unwritten section of Stein’s book?
In the end, she got to her feet, intending to return to the flat and pick up her car. Now Rafiq had disappeared, her flat was empty and she’d offered it to River. She’d wait for her in the underground car park and they could walk round the breakwater while Karen filled her in.
As she walked down George IV Bridge, Karen called her friend. ‘What’s your ETA?’
‘According to the satnav, twenty-three minutes. Do you want me to come round to Hamish’s flat to collect your key?’
‘No, I’ll meet you in the underground car park at my place.’
‘Very Deep Throat,’ River chuckled. ‘I’ll see you there.’
River made it to the breakwater flats four minutes ahead of Karen, who pointed her towards her designated space. She parked two cars away from River; she knew that neighbour had gone into lockdown with his fiancée in Glasgow. They kept the two cars’ distance between them as they greeted each other. It was strangely poignant to meet up without opening their arms to an embrace.
‘I want to give you a massive hug,’ River said.
‘Me too. It’s been a shit few days. And Jason’s mum’s gone on a ventilator – I just got a text from his fiancée with the news.’
River groaned. ‘That’s not good. What’s her health like generally?’
‘I’d have said she was tough as old boots, but COVID’s knocked the feet from under her. All we can do now is wait. And poor Jason’s under suspension thanks to his fuckwit brother.’
‘Tell me,’ River commanded as they walked up the ramp out into the dark skies of evening. So Karen did.
As if on cue, her phone rang. The screen read DCI TODD. Daisy’s old boss before Karen had stolen her. He ran the MIT team in Fife, which could only mean one thing right now. She rolled her eyes at River. ‘Charlie,’ she said, accepting the call. ‘Tell me my mum’s not gone on a shoplifting spree in Aldi.’
‘I wish,’ he said, a chuckle in his voice. ‘No. It’s a courtesy call to let you know we’ve lifted Ronan Murray.’
A sharp intake of breath, then Karen said, ‘Where did you pick him up?’
‘He checked in with the hospital and they said Mrs Murray was going on a ventilator but he could speak to her on FaceTime if he was quick. So he rang back five minutes later to talk to his mum.’
Karen groaned. ‘I can guess what’s coming.’
‘The background. He was in the Beveridge Park. By the kids’ play area.’
‘All those unmistakable turrets . . . I take it you sent a patrol car down?’
‘We did. They picked him up swaggering out the park with his two best mates. He’s cooling his heels in a cell. I know it’s tough on your boy Jason, but we’re going to have to charge him. Impersonating a police officer, and three counts of assault against hospital staff, it’s too much to ignore. We’ll probably not bother with the fixed penalty notice for breaching COVID restrictions in the circumstances.’
‘Poor Jason.’
‘Aye. Do you want to pass on the glad tidings?’
In the hierarchy of stupid questions, that one was up there with, ‘Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?’ Karen sighed. ‘No, but I will. In exchange, if Ronan lets Jason off the hook, will you tell ACC Markie that he had nothing whatsoever to do with his brother’s string of stupid offences?’
‘Aye, I’ll make sure I get that loud and clear from the eejit. And I’ll pass it up the line.’
‘Thanks. And thanks for letting me know, Charlie.’ She ended the call, and explained the situation to River. ‘I’m going to have to go round and tell Jason. Can we pick this up later? I’ll call you when I’m clear and we can huddle on one of the benches?’
‘Sure. Give me the key and I’ll get settled in to the flat. Good luck.’
Karen walked back to her car. Luck was in short supply that week, she thought. It was about time the wheel turned in her favour. Trouble was, she couldn’t imagine what luck looked like right now.
39
It was almost reassuring to find herself trailing the 36 bus, Karen thought. It was a moment of normality on the otherwise quiet streets of Leith. The bus pulled up at a stop to pick up a passenger, and Karen overtook it, finding herself back on a ghostly street. She double-parked outside Jason’s building. Nobody would be going anywhere, and she wasn’t planning on being there long. She called the landline and Eilidh answered. ‘Hi Eilidh, I need to speak to Jason. Could you ask him to come downstairs?’
‘Is it about his mum? Because he knows, he spoke to her on FaceTime before they put her on the ventilator.’
‘No, it’s not his mum.’
‘Because if it’s his work, he’s not coming down. You should have stood up for him in front of Ann Markie, not let her put him on suspension for doing nothing. And then you’ve got the cheek to sit him outside somebody’s house in Barnton all night.’ A muffled sound, a small struggle, then Jason spoke.
‘Sorry, boss. Eilidh’s just . . . you know?’
‘It’s OK, Jason. But I do need to speak to you. Can you come down, please?’
