CHAPTER # 1
# 1 > She was sitting in front of the mirror. The refection staring back was beautiful. In her early forties, she could pass for someone far younger. The natural blond hair was shoulder length, framing a face with high cheeckbones that gave it a sculpted look. Yet the deep blue eyes ensured that hte overall effect was not that of marble, but full of life. The mouth was wide__a slash of exotic red across cool Scandinavian features. The black dress plunged invitingly but it was the neckless that caught her attention. The amber glinted in the discreet mirror light. She played with it thoughtfully. A half-smile crossed her lips. Then a noise disturbed her and her expression changed. She looked around. The sound of someone in the next room, perhaps? Her hand went to her throat and her face creased into puzzlement. Yes, there was definitely a person moving around in the next room. "Rune? she called out coutiously. There was no reply. She stood up slowly. This was a woman who was ready to go out to somewhere smart. The dress was short enough to show that she still possessed head-turning legs but long enough to hint that not all was on show__well, not yet.
# 2 > With a certain amount of trepidation she crossed the bedroom to the door, which was slightly ajar. The room was decorated and furnished in understated Scandinavian elegance. No clutter, no extravagant adorments, nothing that wasn't of some use. She stopped and gingerly opened the bedroom door. Ru... oh, it's you. She sounded disappointed but the nervousness was gone. The object of her disappointment was just of sight, behind the now open door. What are you doing here? She jerked back instinctively as male hands made a grab for her throat. She gurgled helplessly as the fingers pressed around her neck. For a few seconds she tried hopelessly to break the vicelike grip, but she hadn't the strength. The powerful hands were pushing her down onto her knees, her skirt riding up as she went. The unequal struggle ended with her slipping slowly to the floor, all the elegance draining away as fast as her life. The unseen assailant released his grip__then the door closed and the body was left in a still heap.
# 3 > Ewan Strachan shifted in his seat. He could never sit still, however riveting a film was, but this one didn't come into that category. Was it really that easy to strangle someone? He was sure it wasn't, but that was the magic of the movies. And Christina had it coming to her because she had been starting to annoy him. Even he would have been tempted to do her in but, he presumed, he wouldn't find out whodunit until the final reel. Yes, she was very beautiful but some of the lines she had come out with were cringe-making. Ofr course, that could be down to the translation. You were never sure with subtitles. Ewan cast his eye round the small but packed cinema. Most were concentrating fully on the action__or lack of action__until the moment when Christina had copped it. But these were fans of Swedish cinema__and particularly of the director, who was sitting in the front row watching his wife, Malin Lovgren, die dramatically on screen. He was surrounded by disciples. In the question and answer session that followed the screening there would be no dissentig voices. Not even Ewan's. He wouldn't get an interview with Mick Roslyn by being critical beforehand.
# 4 > Sitting five rows in front of Ewan, he still had that familiar long, dark, swept-back hair and the neatly barbered stubble. Not a grey hair in sight, despite his forty-five years. He has certainly aged far better than I have, thought Ewan, who had now lost interest in Gassen or The Geese. Ewan still hadn't worked out how geese fitted into the story, though maybe they were some obscure Swedish metaphor for...stranguation? Long necks, easy to wring. Or pecking? The Christina character had henpeck her poor husband, who was perfectly justified in murdering her. She hadn't been very nice to her lover either. Then again it might be to do with flight. He would have to come up with something to put in his review. He had to justifiy his train fare from Newcastle to Edinburgh for the Northern Stars Film Festival. But if he could grap Roslyn for a quick interview afterwards then even his pain-in-the-arse editor might get off his back for a while. It was a matter of getting Roslyn alone for five minutes. It might help if Mick remembered him.
# 5 > The chance of visiting a prestigious film festival had seemed fanciful only two weeks before. You've got to get off your arse and do something interesting, Brain Fletcher said as he tried to remove some wax from his ear with his finger. Ewan couldn't look. What would he do with it if he got the wax out? The operation was unsuccessful and Brain sat down behind his desk in his cramped office. All the offices signed to the Novocastrian News__or Novo News as it had become management felt the name was snappier__were small. It was a small operation run by a big local Newcastle-based newspaper group. They had created the bi-monthly Novo News magazine as a vehicle for attracting extra advertising revenue. It was also a good place to hide away their journalists who could no longer do the business__or who had never really been able to in the first place. Ewan often wondered for which group he qualified. He hoped it was as a hack who could no longer hack it. At last that meant he hadn't always been useless. Brain, on the other hand, had always been useless journalist. But that didn't stop him thinking that he was a born editor and that any day soon his genius would be recognized and a really good job offer would come along.
# 6 > Your arts reviews lack punch. Sometimes I wonder if you actually go and see the things you're meant to be reviewing. And when was the last time you got a decent interview? Ewan could have answered, if had been arsed, by pointing out that the group's morning and evening papers got first dabs on anybody in the arts world who was of the remotest interest__leading theatricals, controversial artists, top dancers, even the occasional film star. He was left with all the obscure wood carvers, pretentious potters and loopy candlemakers who seemed to emerge every summer in the touristy bits of the North East. It hadn't always been like this, even though Ewan's own career hadn't been much more glorious than Brian's.
# 7 > The boys upstairs have been moaning. They think Novo should be more dynamic. And Arts and Social is an important ingredient in our mix. Don't let me down again. Get something fascinating enough to f.... print or I'll have to find some else who can! After leaving Durham University with high hopes of a stunning journalistic career, Ewan hasn't returned to his native Edinburgh. Too parochial he had pronounced grandly. He did what he saw as his apprenticeship at a couple of very local newspapers, both of which truned into freesheets and were more interested in advertising revenue than news-gathering. Yet, when he did have the chance to move south, he opted for Newcastle. On the evening paper he did general reporting before to move to the more prestigious regional morning. He wanted to specialize in crime; nitty-gritty stories. There was certainly enough villainy around Tyneside and its environs to justify a crime correspondent.
# 8 But the editor, under pressure from the Managing Director, vetoed the idea. It would send out the wrong signals about the region. So he was attached to the sports desk instead. Funnily enough, he quite enjoyed it for a while. As a huge proportion of the Geordie population was far more interested in sport than in anything else, it proved quite lively at first. But then he got bored, got sloppy and got shoved into Novo News. Now he rejoiced in the title of Arts & Social correspondent. He found it difficult to muster the required enthusiasm as he wasn't very interested in the arts and he wasn't very social. But it was a living, of sorts. I hear what you're saying, Brian. I'll dig up something that will please upstair's Ewan stood up and put his hand on the door handle. And you. Had he managed to keep the sarcasm out of his voice? he had. Ewan went out into the main open-plan office. It was only open-plan in as much as there were five desks squashed into the one room. He sat down at his computer and stared at it blankly.
# 9 Opposite, Mary grinned at him. Her hair was a funny off-orange at the moment and she never looked right without a cigarette hanging out of the side of her mouth. In this no-smoking building it meant frequent trips to the back door where she and Ewan used to put the world to rights__well, Novo News to rights. Another bollocking? she asked. Her lined face was creased up in amusement. Fortunately for her, retirement was only a year away. Not dynamic enough, apparently. Then he burst out laughing. Come on, time for a fag break. They made their way along a series of drab corridors. How have I ended up here? Ewan thought for the thousandth time. How come my great dreams have turned into a feckless career? Why have I never escaped the north east of England? Many people had asked him that. He had made various excuses, most of which weren't believed. Yet, if he was honest with himself__and that had rarely happened in his forty-five-years__he knew he could never give them the real answer.
10. Ewan walked through the large wooden doors and up the wide stone steps of the Newcastle Literary & Philosophical Society. Ahead of him was a large white statue of James Losh, recorder and eminent businessman of Newcastle in the 1800s, though he actually hailed from Cumberland. High on the imposing walls, classical grand relief figures showed that appropriate homage had been paid to the mathematical and philosophical influences that had been taken from ancient Greece. There were portraits, too. Robert Stephenson was there as one of the many important scientific-industrial figures who had been members. Lord Armstrong ( warship ), Sir Joseph Swan ( the electric light ) and Sir Charles Parsons ( turbine engines ) were all to be found on the wooden honours board proudly proclaiming past presidents.
11. - When he reached the first floor, swing doors opened into a huge L-shaped room. Tightly packed books rose up from the floor to a gallery with a brass handrail all the way round; then from the gallery floor almost to the ceiling of this huge space. Beyond the reception desk there were leather armchairs, a round table near the coffee hatch and then, round the corner, long tables and assorted chairs in between further stand-alone wooden bookcases. It was Dickensian. It was unhurried. It was charmingly decrepit. It was Ewan's sanctuary. In the Lit & Phil he could escape Brain, the Novo News and the other aspects of his life that he wanted to forget about. Here, over a paid-for coffee and one free biscuit, he could read the national newspapers, delve into obscure ancient books or plan the novel he knew he'd never write. No mobile phones were allowed. No phones of any kind could be heard. However, quiet talking was tolerated, so conversations could be struck up with some of the more eccentric members, which often proved entertaining and enlightening. One newspaper he always made a beeline for was The Scotsman. Why the library stocked it he had no idea, but it was good to catch up with happenings in Edinburgh. Though only an hour and a half away by train, he rarely returned home.
12. - Both his parents were now dead and his brother, a successful lawyer, just annoyed him. Most of his old schoolfriends had either moved on or he had lost touch with them. However, the odd one cropped up in the pages of The Scotsman. Archie Drymen was the last__he had been arrested for downloading child porn. Ewan hadn't seen that one coming. When they had been in the rugby team together, Archie always had a thing about other boys, mums. Show you could never tell. With The Scotsman tucked under his arm, Ewan waited at the coffee hatch. On the other side was Frida, the coffee lady. Though Norwegian, she had lived in England long enough to intersperse her lilting accent with more guttural Geordie phrases. She enjoyed his self-deprecating humour in which he managed to make every episode in his life sound like an amusing disaster. "Time for coffee? Frida asked.
Yes. And I think I'll treat myself to a Bakewell tart, too, please.
Frida eyed him closely. "That sounds like you've had a bad day.
Ewan gave a grimace to confirm her observation.
13. Frida continued to talk as she poured the coffee from the pot. You need a break. Go away and forget about your magazine. Still trying to get me to Norway? Norway is good. The air is clean. She pushed the cup and saucer towards him, "The mountains are fantastic. Might even find a wife, she added with a mischievous smile. But you had to come over here to find a husband. My second one. My first was Norwegian. Ewan settled down to read The Scotsman at one of the long tables. As he munched his way through his cake he caught up on the comings and goings of Hearts, his boyhood football team. By the time he had finished his coffee he was onto the newspaper's arts section. Over the years it had proved useful for pinching ideas to use in his Novo News column. He had been known to use reviews from The Scotsman of films he didn't fancy, vitually word for word, so he didn't have to see the movies himself. He was about to turn the page over when a small article hidden away at the bottom caught his eyes. To be more precise, a name in the first paragraph. He stared at it long and hard.
14. It couldn't be__yet it obviously was. He pushed away his cup and glanced up at the gallery above. A librarian was sorting some books. When Ewan looked back at the newspaper the name was still there. It was another minute or so before he actually read the piece. The article was little more than a straightforward announcement of the events schedule of the 2008 Northern Stars Film Festival, which was starting in a week's time. Yet it unsettled him. Then it gave him an idea. The wind whipped up a discarded crisp packet and tossed it around under the flickering light from the lamp strung across the street. It was cold and the flurry of snow could soon turn into something heavier. The winter hadn't been as bad as last year but there was still plenty of time. The crisp packet landed briefly before corkscrewing away into the dark. The man turned his attention to the window on the fourth floor of the building on the other side of the street. He could see the light was still on though the curtains were drawn. And he knew that she was behind those curtains.
{ 15 }. - What would she be doing at this moment? Watching TV? Having a late meal? Maybe she was painting? He knew she did that. Quite good. He had seen some of her water-colours at that little arty-farty gallery off Lilla Torg in the centre of town. He adjusted his baseball cap and pulled his coat collar up against the bitter winter chill. He stamped his feet, but it didn't seem to warm them up. He felt in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. With gloved hands he found it difficult to extract one. He accomplished the manoeuvre and even managed to light it after the second attempt in cupped hands. He took a puff and exhaled deeply, his smoke a curling its way at right angles to the snow.
