Beth took another deep breath, but before she could say anything, Stewart interrupted her.
“I’m sorry.” He blurted the words out. “Beth, listen, I want to say sorry. I’m sorry for my reaction, and for what I said to you. You were right, absolutely right.”
Beth’s face was a combination of pain and severity, her eyes beginning to glisten in the corners.
“I know what I did was wrong. I had no right to say those things. I know that, eh, you know, the ego … Well, fear and anger, you know … Well, look, I just, I just felt hurt, and I lashed out. And I shouldn’t have. I’ve felt, absolutely shite about it ever since. I mean it. Sitting in my room upstairs on my own last night, it was just going around in my head. And even worse that you were sitting down here, feeling terrible because of me. I’m really sorry.”
Beth’s face seemed to grow grimmer still.
“I wanted to say something this morning, but somehow, I don’t know, the words just wouldn’t come out.” He rushed to finish as Beth opened her mouth to speak. “Listen, I want to make it up to you. What I’m about to say, I want you to know that I’m not doing this to guilt trip you into forgiving me. I just want you to know that I really appreciate you as a friend. So, anyway, I don’t know if you went to the gig last night, but I ordered you a couple of tickets for another performance on Sunday night.”
She gulped and cleared her throat, but the hard expression remained. “Thanks, Stewart. That’s nice.”
“And, look, I hope you don’t mind, but I spoke with Dakar about, well, about what happened. What with him being a bit of an expert on the old feelings, and everything. And, well, he offered to meet with you, if you still wanted, for a one-to-one with him.”
Beth’s eyes widened. “A session with Dakar?”
“Aye. And like I said, you don’t need to forgive me for this. These things are yours now, as if you owned them. Eh, yeah. Although, you know, don’t get me wrong, it would be nice if you did forgive me. But if you don’t want to, I get it.”
Beth exhaled, and her expression broke, her whole body relaxing from its tensed position, a tired smile appearing on her face. “Stewart … Thank you.”
“Right, yeah. Okay. Well, maybe we can talk about it later. And, you know, if you want to have Hamish around, for dinner or whatever, no worries. I mean, I might not stick around, you know, small talk might be a bit awkward, but I can easily head out and grab a beer. I just want you to know, it’s grand. Seriously.”
Beth’s expression darkened again, and she shook her head. “I’m not seeing Hamish again.”
“Oh. Oh, right. Eh, sorry to hear that?”
“You weren’t the only one who was angry. I phoned him this morning and gave him a piece of my mind.”
Stewart remembered Hamish coming into the office that morning and calling him a prick. He’d never stopped to think about how Hamish had found out. “Oh, right, yeah. Of course. Okay. Well. I’m sorry, I guess.”
“Mmmmmm.” She nodded in acceptance. She stopped, but something in the air told Stewart she wasn’t done talking. She took a deep breath. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you, but I didn’t know it was Hamish at the time.”
“What?”
“I didn’t know who he was the night we got together. I’d seen him a few times during yoga class before, and this time, we ended up sitting next to each other afterwards when we were getting our socks and shoes back on and putting our stuff away.”
“Hamish does yoga?”
“Yes.”
“Hamish? Does yoga?”
Beth’s eyes narrowed. “Yes.”
Stewart pulled himself together. “Eh, right. Right, okay.”
“He was really down about something. I asked him what had happened, and he told me that he had a chance to work with Sebastian Dakar, but that Sebastian had chosen to work with someone else. We got to talking about Sebastian’s books, and what he must be like, and I mentioned that my flatmate had worked with him and how amazing it had been. I told him who you were.”
Stewart’s eyes narrowed. “But he didn’t mention who he was.”
She shook her head. “No. I think he knows you don’t exactly like him. He was devastated that Sebastian asked to work with you rather than him. But anyway, we kept on talking, and after quite a few drinks, what happened, happened. I’m sorry about that. I know you don’t like Hamish. I would never have done it if I’d known it was him. At least, not without talking to you first.”
Stewart grimaced as he tried for a smile.
“I wanted to tell you before you saw him again, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it the next morning. I already felt awful, and the thought of how upset you’d be was too much. But then you said you wouldn’t be working that day, so I didn’t think there was any danger of you bumping into Hamish. And then I was going to tell you last night. At the gig.”
Stewart nodded once, taking in and then letting go of a deep breath.
“But why didn’t you tell me you were working with Dakar again?”
Stewart sighed. “I should have. But I was planning to tell you at the Oak. I thought it would be cooler that way, I suppose, once I was in the thick of it with Dakar. Trying to impress, and all that.”
Beth’s face fell. She stood up and held her arms wide. Stewart looked at her for a second, then walked over to her. She hugged him tightly, Stewart returning it a bit awkwardly. They separated after a few seconds, Stewart retreating back a few paces.
“So what were you doing with Sebastian?”
“With Dakar? Well, eh, there was this murder, and—”
Beth held up a hand, and pointed to the sofa seat opposite her. Stewart smiled, a small smile, and went and collapsed into it.
He told her everything that had happened. He tried to give it to her in the order he’d encountered it himself, but he got tangled up, and things got turned around, and Beth had to ask questions to sort it all out. She was shocked by the appearance of Frank, and Dakar’s shouting at Stewart. She audibly gasped when he told her he’d been arrested and handcuffed.
He didn’t mention Jane’s parts, instead sticking to the official story. Dakar’s words about choices echoed in his head.
“And will there be a record of the arrest?”
Stewart shook his head. “They didn’t write anything down. And DI Thomas told me there wouldn’t be any notes made about that part.”
Beth nodded her head. “That’s crazy about Dakar. But I suppose everyone has a past. But what about the journalist, Frank? Any idea what he’s going to do?”
Stewart shook his head again. “None. Dakar doesn’t seem all that worried anymore, though. He was back to his Zen self by the time Frank was shouting at him this morning. So maybe nothing will come of it after all.”
Epilogue
Stewart woke up, blinking puffy eyes against the sun streaming in through the window. It had been a nice night. He’d stayed in with Beth, watching rubbish on TV and talking about Dakar, and then Saz had come back and they’d shared some wine and beers, and all staggered off to bed. Plenty of laughter and fun, Saz even beginning to tease him about shouting at Beth. To his surprise, both he and Beth had laughed along with her.
He staggered downstairs. His watch told him it was ten in the morning. Beth was sitting at the breakfast table, in a pair of pyjamas. Stewart smiled at her as he came in, but the look of alarm on her face made him blink the sleep out of his eyes.
“What is it?”
She pointed down at the laptop in front of her, scrolling up to the headline on a news website. It screamed ‘Ex-cop admits to tampering with evidence’. And just underneath, the large photo right in the centre, a picture of Dakar was smiling out at him.
Stewart desperately read the article. It was the story about Billy Crudup. There was a claim that Dakar, a Zen celebrity, had told a journalist after the trial that he had planted the gun in Billy Crudup’s coat, ‘found’ it there during the official search and then perjured himself at trial. The article
contained some other allegations as well, matching statements, strong-arming suspects, but it all centred on the planting of the gun.
The by-line read ‘Frank McPherson’.
Stewart stood back up from the laptop, feeling dazed. And so it was done. Frank had followed through on his threat. And now Dakar was up a particular creek without anything even resembling a paddle.
“What’s Dakar going to do?”
Stewart looked down at Beth, and shook his head slowly, a grimace on his face.
About the author
A former criminal prosecutor both in Scotland and at the international level for several years, Euan B. Pollock (a pseudonym) is a new author writing murder-mysteries in the classic style. He currently resides in Cambodia. To find out more, visit his website or follow him on Twitter and Facebook. His debut novel Tricks of the Trade, the first in the Scott and Dakar series, was published in January 2018.
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