Still Life by Val McDermid

Author:Val McDermid
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2020-09-21T14:56:03+00:00

30

Karen swung by Aleppo to collect the selection of mezes she’d ordered from the car. Miran, the manager, had never forgotten the helping hand she’d extended when they’d been trying to set up the business; he nodded in resigned approval when she shoved cash into the refugee charity box after he’d refused her money yet again. ‘It’s good to see you, Karen,’ he greeted her.

‘You too. How’s the family?’

He smiled. ‘We are all well. I put some extras in the box, new dishes Amena is trying out. Let us know what you think.’

Miran’s wife Amena was the creative brain in the kitchen. Nothing new had arrived on the menu when she’d briefly been on maternity leave, but normal service was clearly resumed. ‘Now that’s a treat,’ she said. It would give her and Hamish something to talk about, at least.

When she reached home, she texted him before she got cold feet.

I’ll be there in half an hour. x

Karen showered in less than five minutes, taking care not to wet her hair. Loose-linen mix capris and a dark green top with black swirls she’d picked up in the Sahara sale. Trying, but not too hard, was the message she was going for. She laid the table, opened a bottle of Shiraz, then stood looking through her floor-to-ceiling windows at the restless sea beyond. Was Hamish a mess of contradictions, or just a man who’d chosen to embrace multiple possibilities?

When they’d first met, right at the start of one of Karen’s thorniest cases, she’d taken him at face value – a modern crofter in the north-west Highlands, running sheep and holiday lets on his land. Albeit a bit of a hunk who looked like he’d stepped straight out of an episode of Outlander, with his kilt and his work boots, his luxuriant beard and flowing red-gold hair. She’d hoped he was playing it ironically, but a flicker of doubt about who he really was had burst into flames when she walked into the kitchen of his cottage. It wouldn’t have been out of place in one of the flats in Edinburgh’s West End that had been gutted and refitted with steel and marble so they could be sold for a small fortune. Pride of place in Hamish’s kitchen went to a coffee maker that probably had more computing power than the first moon landing. The cup of coffee he’d made her had suckered her in, in spite of her suspicious nature.

Soon, she’d uncovered Hamish’s other existence. He owned Perk, a small chain of hipster coffee shops in Edinburgh. He commuted between the two worlds, swapping his crofter wardrobe for skinny jeans, tweed jacket over checked shirts and a ponytail. A ponytail, for fuck’s sake, she’d chided herself on her first encounter with his city persona.

Then there was his open, hail-fellow-well-met presentation. Just an ordinary guy making a living. Except he’d grown up with the kind of advantages Karen could barely imagine. Both parents high-flying academics. He’d spent his teens in America, shuttling

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