The Paper Cell Read online

  Oh.

  Fran Watson.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, not quite ashamed but at least embarrassed at the memory. She had been a walk-in, dowdy and anxious and underwhelming, and he had taken his frustration with Freddie out on her, been cool, unfriendly. Perhaps even patronising. He had taken the manuscript home and promised to read it, though he had no authority to do so – a petty act of defiance against his job description. Watson had an appointment to exchange feedback in a fortnight or so, if he recalled correctly. He hadn’t read it, of course, his mind too wrapped up in his own petty jealousies. It must have been amongst the papers he removed from his bag the next morning at their writers’ meeting. Ken wasn’t excited by one of his own samples – he was excited by Fran Watson’s book. Lewis thought for an alarming moment that he might cry.

  ‘Which manuscript?’ he asked finally, a dull hope taking hold that perhaps he was mistaken.

  ‘Infinite Eden,’ Ken said.

  Ah.

  ‘It’s really something, Lewis. Let me take it to Crothers. They’ve just done well with Cummings’ new book – good publishers. I can agent you. We’ll both benefit here.’ His words were rushed, pleading almost, betraying his own self-interest.

  Lewis pinched the bridge of his nose and decided that Ken either hadn’t spotted Watson’s name on the front page of the manuscript sample or thought it was some sort of pseudonym.

  ‘Ken, it’s not –’

  ‘Think about it!’ Ken interjected, plainly reading the negative response. Lewis sighed, made to open his mouth and speak, but Ken put his hand in the air to stop him. ‘Just think about it, alright? This is the one, Carson. This is your debut.’

  Lewis shut his mouth. He was too dulled to argue. Dulled by Freddie, dulled by Fran Watson. He finished his pint in silence, a dismal throbbing behind his eyes, his mind elsewhere.

  6

  Ken insisted on walking him back to the flat and postulated expansively on their imminent success. Lewis tried to shush him as they approached the front door, but Ken was unflappable, determined perhaps to win him over by sheer force of enthusiasm.

  ‘And there’s Arthur,’ he snorted, ‘thinking he’s won a watch with a puny poem in Low’s!’

  Lewis bit off his reply when Freddie appeared in front of them on the shaded pathway. He was upset, quite visibly. His hair was a wavy tangle and he was holding his glasses in a clenched fist. No tie, no jacket, just a crumpled white shirt with its sleeves rolled above the elbow and the top two buttons undone.

  Ken peered at him through the gloom and stopped short. ‘Hobbs?’ he asked, incredulous.

  Freddie seemed to shudder, and he looked at them both with a wild air of suspicion that made Lewis blanch. He couldn’t think…?

  ‘It is too,’ Ken said. ‘Been upstairs with Mrs Bell, have you?’ he continued, finding himself hilarious.

  ‘We need to talk,’ Freddie said, ignoring Ken and staring impenetrably at Lewis.

  Ken’s laugh faded and he looked at them, his brow furrowed. ‘Everything alright?’ he asked, finally sensing the tension. Freddie spared him an irritated glare.

  ‘Just a work thing,’ Lewis said, the lie profoundly obvious to them all.

  Ken sniffed and began to back off down the path. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it,’ he said, edging out of the gate. ‘Just think about what I said, Carson.’

  ‘Will do, Ken. Goodnight.’

  The two men stared at one another for several beats. Ken’s footsteps retreated off into the distance, and the faint sound of him whistling soon fell to silence.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Lewis asked.

  Freddie laughed, but it was tinged with hysteria, not mirth. ‘Upstairs. Please,’ he said, his voice hoarse.

  They crept up the stairwell as silently as they could, and Mrs Bell mercifully remained absent. Lewis ushered Freddie into the room and locked the door. Turning to face him, he was caught off-guard by Freddie’s weight against him, and they fell back against the door with a thud.

  ‘What are –’

  He stopped, Freddie’s mouth suddenly on his, bruising and desperate. He felt Freddie pull at his hair and he gasped for breath. Something was wrong. It was too needy, too intense. He tried to push Freddie away gently but he merely pulled him closer, Lewis’s lower lip caught in a stinging bite.

  ‘Ah! Fuck!’ Lewis moved once more to push him away, and Freddie pinned his arm against the doorframe.

  Despite himself, Lewis felt his body respond. He wrapped his free arm around Freddie’s waist and they half-stumbled, half-dragged one another towards the bed. Just as they reached its edge, Lewis remembered himself. Julie’s face appeared in his mind, a stabbing reminder, and he roughly pushed Freddie away. He fell onto the bed in a sitting position, and Lewis took two strides back, wiping at his bloodied lip.

  ‘Stop,’ Lewis said, his voice deadly.

  Freddie burst into tears. Lewis stood, confounded, unsure of himself. He took in a dark graze on Freddie’s forearm, the tousled hair, and felt cold dread steal over him.

  ‘What happened tonight?’ he asked again.

  Freddie let out a last rasping sob before calming himself. He helped himself to a sip of the wine still on Lewis’s desk and made a futile attempt to smooth his hair.

  ‘You were right,’ he said, throwing him an almost hateful glance. ‘She does know. And she saw right through my flirtation with her.’

  Lewis closed his eyes and rocked back on his heels. There was no savouring the vindication, he thought. He didn’t want to be right.

  ‘I took her to dinner. I was sure that if I deflected her, made her think I was attracted to her, that she would assume she was wrong about us.’

  ‘I told you she’s not an idiot,’ Lewis said. Freddie snorted disdainfully. Lewis ignored that. ‘So how did you leave it?’ Given Freddie’s state of dress, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

  Freddie was crying again.

  ‘Freddie,’ he said, his voice low.

  Freddie got up from the bed and strode over to him. His breath smelled of wine and tobacco. He grazed Lewis’s jaw with his thumb and kissed him.

  ‘Please,’ Freddie whispered against him. ‘Please let’s forget her for now.’

  Lewis cursed himself as he felt himself pull Freddie closer. It was unfair, to make him feel so desperately needed. It was unfair. They fell back onto the bed, and he forgot about Julie.

  Edinburgh, 1998

  Two days after he met Barbara in the café, Lewis received a visitor.

  Ken looked almost gaunt, the heft of his youth long since melted off his bones. His face was permanently tinged pink, a series of burst blood vessels forming a delicate map across his nose and jowls. Lewis made them coffees in the kitchen, and they sat at the table there, rather than have Ken struggle up the stairs to the study.

  He had not had to travel far; like Lewis, he had returned to Scotland shortly after his sixtieth, bought a large house in Marchmont. He lived alone, a lifelong bachelor. Sarah pitied his loneliness, and Lewis knew that she sometimes called on him. It was Sarah, he assumed, who had told him about his spell in the café, Sarah who no doubt asked him to call in for a visit.

  Ken had brought a printout of Ann’s interview with him and spread it flat now on the table in front of Lewis.

  ‘I knew you’d want to read it,’ he said by way of explanation.

  Lewis nodded his thanks, though in truth he wasn’t sure if he did. ‘Have you seen her?’

  ‘Every Sunday afternoon. I take her the papers and make her lunch. She’s doing well.’

  Lewis wasn’t much interested in Ann. When he tried to summon a memory of their last meeting, he found he couldn’t – it was certainly after Sarah’s wedding, but he couldn’t be more specific. She had been vibrant at the wedding: stylish in a bright dress, her grey hai
r long and loose, the uniform of someone trying to self-identify as an ageing bohemian. They had seen one another perhaps a handful of times in the years afterwards, certainly on Sarah’s thirtieth birthday and at the funeral of a mutual friend. He was sure the very last time had been more humdrum, but he could not remember the details. He only recalled that she had looked thin, and her hair had been cut short in a style he associated with much older women. It might even have been permed. It had shocked him at the time, the displacement of his image of her as a middle-aged woman, replaced now with one of elderly frailty. Looking at Ken now, though, Lewis supposed they had all changed.

  Turning his attention to the article, he skimmed through the first few questions. It was focused on gender inequality in publishing, a subject with which Ann had always been passionately engaged. Her answers certainly seemed lucid, right enough, just as Barbara had said. As he continued reading, his mouth pursed in distaste. The interviewer had changed approach, the questions becoming more personal. His own name leapt out at him, distracting him from thoughts of the journalist.

  You met your husband at a writers’ group, and your first novel was published within a year of his debut [Barbour was married to celebrated novelist Lewis Carson for 34 years. They separated in 1989]. Your biographer has hinted at his heavy influence on your work during this time.

  He certainly inspired me. His success was something I craved for myself, and I’m not ashamed to admit that.

  You’ve always been fairly candid about that period in both your careers, and yet Mr Carson has distanced himself from it. Why do you think that is?

  Victory Lap was such a stunning debut. It catapulted Lewis into the public consciousness and he was thankful for that. But eventually, it became a sort of paper prison to him. That’s what he called it, I think – his paper cell. It strangled him, overshadowed every success. Everything always came back to Victory Lap. That book was his cell. He never really left it, I think.

  Lewis swallowed and slid the printout away from him.

  These were not words a journalist had put in her mouth – they were his words. Bitter words, spat at her in anger and frustration over years of crippling self-doubt. His paper cell indeed. Damn that book to hell.

  Ken was watching him from across the kitchen table. As though he might erase its words, he folded and quartered the article and stowed it away in his jacket pocket.

  ‘She doesn’t know, does she?’ he asked, carefully looking at his coffee cup rather than at Lewis.

  Lewis blinked at him, surprised. ‘Know what?’ he responded.

  ‘Lewis,’ Ken met his eye, his tone flat. ‘She doesn’t know about Infinite Eden.’

  Lewis stilled, his breath slow and weak in the silence. They had never spoke of it, not once in all the years. He had even begun to wonder if perhaps Ken hadn’t known, had never seen the name on the front of the manuscript.

  ‘No,’ he said, finally. ‘I could never tell her. She resented my secrets, and I resented her for trying to pry them from me. It’s why I left, in the end.’

  Ken nodded, satisfied. Lewis realised that he had been concerned. Ann’s newfound candour threatened them both, he supposed.

  ‘What possessed you to arrange the Herald interview?’ Ken asked then, a question he hadn’t expected. Sarah had most certainly called on him.

  Lewis shrugged, embarrassed. ‘Vanity,’ he said, simply.

  ‘Quite. You always were overly concerned with what people thought of you.’

  Lewis was annoyed, primarily because he knew it to be true. It was disquieting, the perceptiveness with which Ken spoke these days. He was too sombre, too astute, too self-possessing. The raucous man he had once been was being ground down by a gnawing cancer that ate the flesh from his bones and the warmth of humour from his personality. Ken was dying, and it had made a serious man of him.

  ‘Don’t bring it all tumbling down now,’ he said, a plea rather than an instruction.

  ‘No,’ Lewis agreed.

  ‘We’ll have to remain in your paper cell for a bit longer yet,’ Ken concluded, only the slightest note of irony in his voice.

  London, 1953

  ‘Lewis!’ Mrs Bell’s voice was shrill as she rattled against his door. ‘Mr Carson, wake up, now!’

  ‘Shit, shit, shit,’ Lewis whispered, tumbling out from under the sheets and dragging on his trousers. He moved to shake Freddie awake and was half relieved, half disappointed to see that the other side of the bed was empty. He dragged a hand through his hair and jogged across the living room floor.

  He threw the door wide, forgetting that he hadn’t yet put on a shirt. Mrs Bell eyed him in shock, while the two policemen behind her exchanged glances. Mrs Bell’s gaze travelled from his bare torso to the tangled bedsheets, and her mouth compressed into a hard, flat line.

  ‘These two gentlemen wish to speak to you.’

  He gaped at her, trying to piece together the why of it.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, standing aside to let them enter.

  Mrs Bell peered at them for a moment and then turned on her heel, obviously disappointed that she wouldn’t be privy to their conversation.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Bell!’ Lewis called, a feeble attempt to curry some favour.

  She didn’t turn around. He closed the door and turned to face the two policemen, awkwardly thrusting his hands into his pockets and wishing dearly he knew where his shirt was.

  ‘Um.’ He swallowed. ‘I’d offer you some tea…’

  ‘No need, Mr Carson. We won’t take up too much of your time.’ The sergeant had removed his hat and was surveying the messy room with a grave expression.

  Lewis noted the plate of ham and eggs and decided he wouldn’t care to accept tea from such a slattern either.

  ‘Do take a seat,’ he said, gesturing towards the unmade bed.

  The sergeant looked like he might laugh but merely waved his hand. ‘Thank you, but we shan’t be long. We have some questions regarding a colleague of yours. Well, colleagues,’ he amended. The shorter of the two had retrieved a notebook and pen from his pocket and stood poised and silent.

  Lewis rubbed at his eyes. ‘Of course. Which colleagues?’

  ‘A Mr Frederick Hobbs and a Ms Julie Sutherland.’

  Oh.

  ‘What about them?’

  He felt a sudden chill, and yet a sweat had sprung under his arms.

  ‘Julie Sutherland was found dead by her flatmate early this morning, sir.’

  He leaned hard against the door, muttered an expletive under his breath. Oh, Freddie, what have you done?

  He thought about the graze on Freddie’s forearm. Lying in the dark last night, he’d touched it lightly and asked if it hurt. Freddie hadn’t answered. He hadn’t answered any of Lewis’s questions about the dinner except to state that she knew – she knew – in a dull, flat tone.

  He looked up at the two policemen and shrugged helplessly. He opened his mouth more than once to ask a question before shutting it again.

  ‘What happened to her?’ he finally managed.

  ‘The circumstances are suspicious, I’m afraid, Mr Carson,’ – a brief pause – ‘Ms Sutherland’s flatmate informed us that she dined with Frederick Hobbs last night. Do you know if that’s the case?’

  The policeman was watching him carefully. Lewis swallowed. If they’d already spoken to Freddie and he’d lied, what would he be doing by contradicting him? Why were they even here, questioning him? He smoothed his hair and met the man’s eye.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I believe they did have dinner together.’

  The silent officer scribbled a note on his pad, nodding to himself. Was that the right answer, then, Lewis wondered?

  ‘Mr Hobbs has indicated to us that he left Ms Sutherland alive and well at Guido’s restaurant at around 9pm, and that he met you here to discuss a work matter at roughl
y 9.30pm. Can you confirm that, Mr Carson?’

  Lewis stilled. You bastard, he thought. You utter bastard. Consciously smoothing his expression, he nodded.

  ‘That sounds about right,’ he said.

  ‘And he remained here to discuss that work matter until around 3am this morning?’ A sceptical tone, unmistakable and tinged with sarcasm, was evident in the policeman’s voice now.

  Lewis glanced at the paperwork on his desk and their eyes followed.

  ‘It’s not so unusual,’ he answered, mustering a grim sort of smile. The note-taker smirked, onside.

  ‘Quite,’ the senior officer said. ‘And that explains why you’re not in work this morning, Mr Carson.’

  Lewis blinked, startled. ‘What time is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Just gone twenty minutes past ten, sir,’ the note-taker said, pulling his sleeve back down over his watch.

  ‘Fuck! Sorry.’

  The two exchanged glances. Lewis ignored them and began throwing his sheets to the side, lifting three pillows before he found his shirt.

  ‘I’m sorry, I have to go,’ he said, stuffing an arm into the wrong sleeve, tutting, removing it and trying again.

  ‘Of course,’ the senior officer said, glancing at his colleague before moving towards the door. ‘You’ve confirmed what Mr Hobbs told us this morning. Thank you very much for your time.’

  Lewis nodded absently, his eyes searching the room for some socks. As they opened the door to leave, he stopped his search and spoke without thinking.

  ‘Julie – how did she die?’

  The senior paused in the doorway, turned to him with a grave expression.