Black Widow (23 page)

Parlabane had a go with the sniper rifle. Harper picked out a target in the middle distance: a tree with a wooden sign pinned to it stating ‘Out of bounds beyond this point'. He missed by a foot with the first shot, then compensated and bullseyed the second. It was indeed more accurate but the HK was more fun. He hefted it again and enthusiastically emptied half a clip.

‘I'm guessing most people opt for spray and pray. More fun running around than camping in a sniping spot. Better exercise too.'

‘You're not wrong. Given the weight of these things, folk end up lashed with sweat even when it's sub-zero. I brought my wife once and she had one of those wrist monitor things, 'cause she's a gym nut. She clocked up about a thousand calories.'

‘You get a lot of women turning up?'

He grimaced.

‘Not really. I wish we could. Maybe your piece will help. We shelled out for a ladies-only Portaloo. Guys just have to go against a tree and hope they don't get a BB in the boabby.'

‘You got kids?'

‘Aye, two. Gemma's eight and Graham's six. Too young for this carry-on. My wife sometimes moans that I'm doing this every Sunday because she's got them on her own, but she knows it brings in extra money. You got weans yourself?'

Parlabane shook his head.

‘Never wanted them, or …? Actually that's none of my business, sorry.'

This was precisely what Parlabane was thinking, but he decided that being a little more vulnerable might provide a plausible route into where he wanted to take the conversation.

‘I did want them. Always assumed I'd have them, in fact. But it turned out my wife and I couldn't … and then a wee while later she wasn't my wife any more.'

‘Ooft, sorry man.

‘I mean, not just like that. It was a long and messy process.'

‘Still, didn't mean to intrude.'

‘Not at all. I've got the scars but I'm still here. There are worse ways to lose somebody, you know?'

Parlabane let it hang. He was hoping Harper would chip in with a remark about the recent tragedy. It was always helpful if you could make the other person think they were the one who brought up the subject you wanted them to talk about. Unfortunately he didn't respond, but from his distant expression, Parlabane guessed it was what he was thinking about.

He decided to push it.

‘Drifting apart is prolonged and messy, but at least it doesn't come out of nowhere.'

Parlabane flipped the safety on and turned to face his host.

‘I mean, look what happened to Peter Elphinstone. I gather you knew him.'

Surprise and caution immediately registered on Harper's face. He looked edgy enough for Parlabane to fear he'd moved in too soon.

‘We had a mutual acquaintance,' Parlabane quickly clarified. ‘She told me he came here for airsoft, said he'd known you a long time.'

‘She?'

Harper's apprehension wasn't quite of the strain Parlabane had expected. He didn't seem suspicious or defensive, but he was definitely uncomfortable; plus the way he had spoken suggested there was someone specific he hoped Parlabane's acquaintance wasn't, and that someone was female.

‘Lucy: Peter's sister. That's who told me about you and how I got the idea to do a feature on your site.'

Parlabane saw relief in his face, but could tell the barricades were still up.

‘How do you know her?'

‘She lives near to me in Edinburgh. She was in bits the last time I saw her, to be honest. Do you know her, at all?'

‘No, we've never met.'

‘How did you know Peter?'

Harper seemed a little pressed, shifting visibly on the spot. He stammered at the start of his response.

‘Just … just through the airsoft, really.'

‘How long had he been coming here?'

Harper glanced away, as though thinking about it, but when he looked back at Parlabane, it was clearly something else that had occurred to him.

‘You're not here to do an article about airsoft, are you? You're from the tabloids, doing a piece about the tragedy.'

He sounded disappointed rather than accusatory. He wasn't about to decry Parlabane for being a bloodsucking hack and storm off in the huff, but nobody liked being deliberately misled. Either way the interview had about three seconds left to run, so there was no point in lying any more.

‘Firstly, I'm not from the tabloids. I'm freelance, and the fact is I might not be doing a piece about anything. I'm just looking a wee bit closer to see whether everything about this tragedy is quite what it appears on the surface. I'm trying to speak to people who knew Peter and who might have had contact with him recently.'

Harper eyed Parlabane with the most intense scrutiny. He looked tormented and resentful, as though he might indeed stomp off or maybe even grab the HK and start peppering Parlabane's face with it. He gazed back into the woods for a very long time, then finally spoke.

‘Can I be off the record?'

As a journalist these were not Parlabane's favourite words, but on this occasion they were music to his ears. This guy had something.

‘Absolutely. Right now I'm only casting around for information.'

Harper bit his lip and exhaled loudly through his nose.

‘You promise what I tell you here won't come back to me?'

With this question Parlabane understood what had been weird about his apprehension from the second Peter was mentioned. Harper had been carrying something around that he didn't know what to do with.

‘I never give up my sources.'

Harper paused a moment more, but Parlabane was patient. He knew this guy
needed
to talk.

‘He called me the night he died.'

‘Jesus.'

This was considerably more than Parlabane had been expecting.

‘I didn't answer. I mean, my phone was in my jacket and I never heard it. He left a message. I'm not somebody who lives on their mobile, so I never got it until the next day, after I'd learned about the accident. Spookiest thing, hearing somebody's voice only a few hours after they're dead.'

Parlabane barely dared ask.

‘Do you still have it?'

He shook his head.

‘No. I deleted it a couple of days after. Apart from the fact it was freaking me out knowing it was there, I was terrified somebody would find out about it.'

‘Why? What did he say?'

‘He sounded in a state. Distressed. He said he'd done something he couldn't take back and that he was in way over his head. He didn't say what. Last thing he said was: “I need to talk to somebody”, but I wasn't there. Guy sounded at his wits' end. I'd never heard him like that.'

‘Why didn't you tell anybody about this?'

‘Why do you think? I didn't want the polis all over me, looking for things that aren't there. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I guessed it contributed to him having his crash, or worse, that maybe he even topped himself. Either way, it was nothing to do with me, but I can't get his voice out of my head.'

‘Why did he call
you
specifically?'

‘That's the thing: I really don't know. Well…'

‘What?'

‘What I mean is, Peter told me a lot of things in recent months, but I couldn't work out why. We'd had a few drinks over the years, but he started acting like I was his best friend in the world: or maybe his only friend.'

‘What kind of things?'

‘Things that would seriously come into the category of overshares. I mean, don't get me wrong, we weren't sitting in the pub all night talking about his emotions: we were guys. Mostly we'd jaw about airsoft and games: we were both big into old-school Starfire. But a few times he got all candid. It made me uncomfortable until I realised he wasn't looking for advice: he just wanted to unload about his marriage.'

Parlabane would have considered the man before him an unlikely choice of confidant, then thought of Lucas's impression of Peter as a shy and socially awkward IT nerd, out of his depth in sophisticated company. Maybe Harper was right, and he didn't have anybody else to reach out to.

‘What about his marriage?'

‘Not the fairytale everyone seemed to think. Obviously I was only getting one side of it, but she sounded like a bunny boiler. She became really jealous and obsessive, and I don't mean asking why he was home late. I mean extreme lengths.'

‘Such as?'

‘Trivial stuff at first. Micromanaging his diet, for instance. She started off moaning about him having take-aways, and when he didn't fall in line she started cooking all his meals in advance and presenting them on the table, all laid out for two.'

‘What a bitch. Imagine making your man's dinner for him.'

Harper made a face.

‘That was my response too, but he made out it was a lot more intense than it sounds: very passive-aggressive. If he worked a wee bit late and brought home a pizza, he knew she'd be sitting there with dinner for two. She laid out a glass and filled it with mineral water or maybe juice, so that it was an overt act if he opened a beer. From an outside perspective you've got what looks like domestic bliss: a wife and husband sitting down to a dinner she's cooked, but Peter said it was a psychological battleground.'

‘Or maybe he was a wee bit immature in his expectations of married life,' Parlabane suggested. ‘Women do like to knock us into shape. If I had lived alone all my days, I'd be four stone heavier with heart disease and a drink problem.'

‘Oh, I hear you.'

Harper patted a flat stomach. He'd mentioned his wife being a gym nut.

‘But I think Diana was unrealistic in her expectations too. From the sound of it, she thought it was always going to be like when they were dating. Didn't realise guys are on their best behaviour when they're trying to impress a girl. You'll sit up all night talking when you've first met, but that doesn't mean you're going to want to do that on a weeknight after a day's work, you know?'

Parlabane nodded his agreement.

‘Still, none of this sounds extreme, as you put it.'

‘That was just context. It got weirder, fast. Peter reckoned she was trying to track down his exes.'

‘How did he find out?'

‘Don't know, but he also found out she had been accessing his medical records.'

‘Jesus.'

Parlabane had considered the bunny-boiler description excessive for someone who was maybe just curious and insecure over their spouse's past sex life, but this crossed several lines.

‘Did he ask why she did it? Did he challenge her?'

‘I doubt it. I'd have said he was scared of her, but other times he'd talk about how lucky he was to have her. Peter was a tricky guy to get a handle on, though.'

‘How so?'

Harper shrugged, screwing up his face.

‘He could talk without ever really telling you what he thought. He would give the impression he agreed with you, but then later you'd realise he was subtly sounding you out.'

Harper looked down at the HK Parlabane was holding; or rather, by this time resting with its stock on the ground and its muzzle leaning against his thigh.

‘You can tell a lot about people when you're a marshal: watching them when they think nobody's looking, seeing how they play the game, what decisions they make. Peter acted like it was all fun, and to be fair he didn't cheat, but he liked to win a lot more than he let on. We never had bother with him getting aggressive, like with some players, and he was always friendly and cooperative, but…'

Parlabane recognised a reluctance to speak ill of the dead, but one that was overpowered by a need for catharsis.

‘Did you ever read
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
?' Harper asked.

‘A long time ago. Remind me.'

‘There was a character described as one of those people who are soft and squidgy as long as they're getting what they want. Douglas Adams said that there's something very hard at the centre of those people, which is what all the soft and squidgy bits are there to protect. That was my impression of Peter.'

‘And did you ever meet his wife?'

He nodded subtly, as though carefully measuring his thoughts.

‘She came here, about a year ago. Shortly after they met, I believe.'

‘What was she like?'

‘I didn't speak to her, but I did witness her winning a last-man-standing game single-handed by silently taking out six enemies with knife kills. It was a sight to behold: an unnerving display of stealth, positional awareness, tactical acumen, ruthlessness and one other utterly crucial factor.'

‘Which was what?'

‘She cheated.'

‘How? Did she ignore hits?'

‘No. Nobody hit her because nobody saw her. She slipped in behind several of her targets by going out of bounds.'

‘Did she know she was out of bounds?'

Harper nodded towards the sign Parlabane had been hitting with the sniper rifle.

‘I explain about boundaries before every game. On that occasion I had stressed it because that particular boundary was to keep players away from a public footpath. Don't want unwary ramblers getting shot in the eye.'

‘What did you do about it?'

‘Nothing. I was the only one who knew, and I decided to keep it to myself on that occasion. Partly because everyone was so amused and delighted with the outcome that I didn't want to spoil it, and partly because it helps for the future to know what you're dealing with. Like I said, you can learn a lot from watching how people play.'

‘And what did you feel you learned about Dr Diana Jager?'

‘That you would be unwise ever to turn your back to her. And that if you ever pissed her off, you should worry.'

Looking back, I can see that marriage is a lot like that silly airsoft game he took me to when we first met. There are many ways in which you can cheat without the other side ever knowing or being able to prove it. But unless you observe the rules, then what you yourself are doing within this game becomes meaningless.