“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know… I wouldn’t have asked… ” she began to apologise, reaching out and resting both her hands on his.
“It’s okay. You weren’t to know… ” He coughed and shook his head lightly. “Anyway, the truth is, in the past, when I’ve got close to someone, I end up feeling really insecure and not sure what it is that the woman really wants from me.”
He stopped short of admitting that he often found out that the answer to this question was typically quite simple: ‘millions of pounds’.
Apart from that one special person, who’d let him down and left him wondering for the rest of his life, if he had failed her, and if he hadn’t been there for her enough. After that Stuart had tried but failed to find love again. Instead, he’d had sex. Trophy partners. And a broken heart from the one woman that he’d trusted, and then been very hurt by. Devastated by.
So far, his experience of women had left him unable to trust again.
“Talking about me is not something I’m very good at. I avoid it. There’s very little about me that I think you would find impressive. And I there’s very little I probably have that I can offer you. Apart from what you see here. In front of you now.”
Marie listened to his answers, and processed every word he said.
Stuart was different from other men she’d met.
Unlike most men, he had not yet tried to get her into bed. He’d made no real sexual approaches on her, not even alluded to it, in spite of the fact that they were obviously really attracted to each other and there was some very real chemistry between them.
Stuart wasn’t pushing her at all.
She felt, had an instinct, that he wasn’t lying to her.
He seemed genuine.
And she also sensed, in spite of his obvious strength, both physically and mentally, that inside he nurtured and hid an area of emptiness.
She felt a desire to reach out and comfort him.
Not only that, she also felt a strong desire to reach out and rip his clothes off.
It had been a while since she’d last felt like this.
She squeezed his hand.
“Thank you for the answers. I like what I see, Stuart. And for now you don’t have to offer me anything else. Just you. I must admit to enjoying what I see quite a lot.” She blushed. “I’m sorry for all the questions. Don’t worry. The Inquistion is over. You passed. Do you want to tell me your news now?”
Stuart nodded, and he turned his hand in hers and squeezed it.
“Yes. It’s good for you. I hope really good for you. I hope you won’t be angry with me, but I had a word with some people I know in the company where I work, and I told them about your selfless and pioneering work in Poland and Eastern Europe with your orphans. My company, our company, is always looking for good causes. Cynically, you could say they sometimes take advantage of opportunities to give money away so that they can manipulate their tax position, or maximise a public relations or advertising opportunity, but the way I see it is that if you get the money you need, do you really care?”
Marie shook her head. “All companies are the same. That’s the way it works. I’m not worried about that. But in the case of children there are specific things we have to watch out for. Publicity has to be limited to make sure there’s no photos of the children, and no exploitation.”
“Exactly! Absolutely. And you’d have to be all over that with anyone you talk to… but the thing is, I’ve set you up a meeting with a couple of people where I work, and they would be keen to talk to you about funding, if you would like?”
Marie’s face lit up.
“Are you serious? That would be amazing! Today has been a horrible day. Everyone I spoke to said ‘no’. No one seems to be interested in the plight of my orphans. They just say I should go to the EU for help and it’s not their problem - although they don’t use those exact words.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I hope this is different. If you can, please call this person tomorrow and let them know if you can make an appointment in their offices at 5pm?” He handed her a card from his wallet.
“Will you be there?” she asked.
Stuart shook his head.
“They know I helped set up the meeting, but I won’t be needed. I’ve told them what they need to know.”
She smiled, and her eyes moistened a little.
“Regardless of what happens, I want you to know that I appreciate this. A lot.”
“Just don’t be late.”
“I won’t.” she paused. “I’m in no rush to go home this evening. And I’m free tomorrow evening, if you are?”
“I was hoping you would say that. I want to hear all about your meeting and how it goes. But now, if you want, we could go for a walk up Carlton Hill and see the city lights. It’s a lovely evening.”
Marie squeezed his hand back, and Stuart smiled.
He felt excited for Marie.
She was in for a BIG surprise!
-------------------------
Tuesday
The Grange
The McKenzie Household
08.00
McKenzie woke with a jolt. For a moment he wondered where he was, and then he realised he was in his armchair in his lounge.
He’d been reading ‘Remember Me?’, which he’d at some point let slip from his hands and let fall onto the carpet.
He’d struggled to stay awake through most of it. The book was terrible. It was obviously written by an amateur, someone who’d made the effort to write a book, but had no idea how it should be done.
The book was dominated by terrible grammar, spelling mistakes, and the most boring storyline in the world.
The only thing that kept McKenzie going was that he knew it was probably based on truth, and that aside from the discovery of the tunnel, it was probably their most important lead so far.
Right from page one, McKenzie knew he was reading the story of Maggie Sutherland.
The book told the story of a female pupil who fell in love with a teacher at Portobello High School, and who was then raped by that teacher and two others.
It named the teachers.
It described what happened.
And then went on to describe how the girl plotted revenge and then carried it out.
The book described in great detail what happened to each of the teachers who raped her.
In fact, the fates which Weir, Blake and McRae had recently met in real life matched those as described in the book almost exactly.
Whoever had killed Weir, Blake and McRae had obviously used the book as a template for their deaths.
The crime scenes they were now investigating were all recorded, there, in the book, almost exactly as they had found them.
McKenzie knew that the book was dynamite. He’d done his best to read as much as he could, but even though the material was very revealing, he’d really struggled. It was hard reading.
Picking up the book from the floor, he walked through to the kitchen to make some strong coffee.
Flicking through the pages, he guessed that he’d probably read three-quarters of it. He’d need to freshen up and read the rest as soon as possible.
McKenzie was excited. Perhaps the rest of the book would reveal who else was going to die, and help McKenzie’s team to save them?
The book did differ in certain ways from reality. In the book, the teachers were murdered during a school ball, a year later, on the anniversary of when Maggie was first raped. The old school was still open with no plans for its demolition.
In the book, it was Maggie Sutherland herself who’d lured each of them individually to their deaths in the rooms of the school, or to the top of the roof where she’d let David Weir wander around until he fell to his death stoned on drugs.
In the book there was no tunnel used to enter the building.
Just the staircases and the lifts, which were fully operational.
Also, in the book, the revenge was all hers.
She was the vic
tim who turned hero and then meted out justice to her assailants on behalf of all womankind.
The book was undoubtedly written from a very biased perspective. In the writing, the men were one hundred percent to blame for everything that occurred. Maggie was the victim.
McKenzie felt very uncomfortable reading it from that perspective. Although the writing itself was poor, the anguish she’d suffered really came across, and for that reason McKenzie began to question whether the Headmaster had got it wrong in finding fault on both sides, or erring toward the fault lying solely with Maggie.
Ever since he’d spoken with the Headmaster and learned what had happened, he’d struggled with trying not to take the side of one or the other.
McKenzie had dealt with many rape cases, and he always sided on letting the facts speak for themselves. In this case, neither Maggie, nor the men, could defend themselves further.
So who had told the truth?
Who was the victim?
Sadly, it seemed that now they were all victims.
The big question was; ‘Who wrote the book?’ Was it Maggie? That would be the obvious assumption.
But when was it printed? How many copies were printed? And did all the pupils in the year receive a copy? Was that Maggie’s way of telling everyone the truth and outing those who were guilty? At least, ‘guilty’ as she perceived it.
However, the most important question that the book raised was about who’d read the book and then killed McRae, Blake and Weir - just as was described in the book.
Maggie Sutherland couldn’t have done it. She was already dead.
So who did?
It was now 8.10 a.m. Fiona was normally an early riser, but peaking into their bedroom McKenzie could see she was still fast asleep.
Slipping downstairs again, he showered in the utility room.
Towelling himself down and getting dressed, the same question kept running through his mind.
‘Who wrote the book?’
He knew that the only way he could get that answer was by contacting the publisher. With any luck, they’d be open very soon, hopefully at 8.30 a.m, but if not, then most likely 9 a.m.
So, making another coffee he walked through to his office, fired up his laptop, and Googled ‘Createpace’, the name of the publisher on the first page of ‘Remember Me?’
Curious, McKenzie spent the next ten minutes devouring any information he could about who Createspace were. It turned out the company was part of the ‘self-publishing’ revolution which enabled anyone who had written a book to publish the book themselves. Typically, the service was used by people who didn’t have a normal publishing contract with one of the usual publishing houses, but who wanted to see their own books in print, in paperback. According to the blurb, it all seemed very simple. You wrote the book and uploaded it to the CreateSpace website. Incredible new technology then took over and transformed your text into a draft book which the writer could then proof-read on screen. When the author was satisfied with the way it was laid out and that they’d corrected any mistakes, they could then arrange for bona-fide copies of their new book to be printed and sent to them. One at a time, or in bulk. It seemed amazing!
McKenzie had heard about this before but never personally experienced it. It seemed like every Sunday there was some article in a paper or magazine revealing how an author who’d been rejected by traditional publishing houses, had then become an independent author – or ‘Indie’ as they liked to be known - and self-published their own book and then become a great success. Some had allegedly even made themselves millions of pounds!
McKenzie knew that there was no chance that the book he’d been reading would ever be so successful, but he could see how the Createspace vehicle had given Maggie, presuming it was her, the opportunity to create the book, print it and then distribute it. According to the website, this ‘digital printing revolution’ made all of this possible in just a matter of days!
But who should he contact to establish answers to the questions he needed?
More googling and reading quickly revealed that Amazon had purchased Createspace in 2005, and now offered the service to its growing tribe of indie authors.
Finding no simple way to find a telephone number on the Amazon site, he called Fettes Row and spoke to one of the police officers down there. She was a guru at getting unlisted numbers and it only took her ten minutes before she called him back with the telephone number of Amazon’s ‘KDP’ Digital Publishing service in Europe, which was, she assured him, the organisation that dealt with the service Amazon had set up for Indie authors. The service helped Indie authors to publish their novels electronically on the Amazon Kindle, or have them printed physically using the Createspace service. The headquarters were in London, and within minutes McKenzie was speaking with the secretary to the KDP digital publishing service’s director. She immediately transferred him to her boss.
“Hello, thank you for taking the call so early in the morning. I am Detective Chief Inspector McKenzie from Police Scotland in Edinburgh. I need to speak to you urgently regarding a matter of life and death.”
“Hello, Chief Inspector. I am Gavin Booth, Director of Digital Publishing here at Amazon. How can I help you?”
“I’d appreciate if you would treat what I’m about to tell you with the utmost confidentiality, as no announcements have been made to the public yet while we try to track down next of kin to the deceased. However, I have a book sitting before me on my desk which we believe has been written by a serial killer who has killed three people in the past few days. The book quite clearly outlines the deaths of the victims. What’s more, we have reason to believe that the one or two more people may die in the next few days, or hours, and we urgently need to determine the answers to several questions concerning the book.”
“Which are?” Gavin Booth asked, his tone now very serious.
“I need to determine who wrote the book, when it was published, how many copies were published, where they were sent to, if possible, and any personal details relating to the author of the book or the person responsible for publishing it, such as a credit card number, or home address. If we can determine this information, it may help us to arrest the serial killer before any other people are murdered.”
There was a heavy silence at the other end of the phone.
“Chief Inspector, I understand the urgency of what you are requesting. I really do. However, what you are asking for are personal details of a customer, and I’m afraid that without the permission of the author, I cannot divulge those details. It would not only be against company policy but would be against the Data Protection Act. It would be illegal.”
“Three people have died, in the most gruesome, horrific ways imaginable. Within five minutes you could give me the name of the killer, - the person who wrote the book. If you don’t, one or maybe two people will die in the next day. You will be complicit in their deaths, and personally responsible for that happening, by virtue of not helping us. Are you prepared to accept that responsibility? And the media publicity around that, when I hold a press conference after their deaths and explain what happened?”
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
“I don’t know what to say… I think I will have to talk to our lawyers… do you have a warrant to access this information?”
“Mr Booth, this investigation is happening in real time. In the past three days THREE people have died. Someone else may be dead in the next few hours. Please don’t go down the lawyer route.”
“I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do without talking to them.”
“Okay, Mr Booth, let me promise you this. And I want you to listen very carefully. If you don’t help me, voluntarily, in the next sixty minutes, I will immediately commence the process of obtaining a warrant. This warrant will entitle me to enter your premises and seize ALL your data storage systems so that our experts can commence investigations and a digital search of your servers and data banks in order to determine the ans
wers we’re searching for. We will seize all your servers. Your laptops. Your mobile devices. Anything digital. And then, because we only have a small number of people working on this case due to cutbacks, we will take months, possibly years to obtain the information we need before releasing the computers and servers back to you. During this time, all your digital services will be offline. We will also, I repeat, tell the media what we have done, why we have done it, and why you did not help. If anyone else dies, we will seek to hold you partially responsible for withholding information and therefore being party to the crime of murder. Do you understand?”
There was a stunned silence.
“Alternatively, you can give me the information we need, and I promise you we will never mention your name, or the source of that information publicly. You have my word. The choice is yours. Save a human life and do the right thing, or be a complete and utter prat.”
McKenzie then spelled out the name of the book and provided the Amazon identification number of the book that was printed on the back cover.
He gave the Director his number, and told him he had one hour. After that they would obtain the warrant, and within hours police would be accessing the Amazon premises and starting quarantining all their equipment, even if that meant taking a complete data centre offline.
“One hour. It’s your choice. Please, lives are at stake here, man. Just do the right thing. And don’t forget, you will have to live with the consequences of your decision for the rest of your life.”
When McKenzie hung up, his heart was pounding in his chest.
Fiona was standing in the doorway of his office.
She nodded, clapped her hands and smiled.
“Wow. I wouldn’t like to be him!”
It took fifteen minutes for the Director to call back.
He didn’t have the information yet, but he promised to have it all by lunchtime. All the information he needed, and more.
-------------------------
Tuesday
The Grange
The McKenzie Household
09.00
“I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to leave soon,” McKenzie apologised to Fiona, pouring her another cup of coffee and sitting down at the breakfast table. He’d just whistled up some scrambled eggs, fried tomatoes and toast.
Remember Me 2 Page 13
