The Truth About Julia: A Chillingly Timely Psychological Novel (20 page)

Given that Alison didn’t know anything more concrete about Chris than the wild legends spread by her classmates, I decided to travel to Edinburgh to find out more about this elusive figure. On 3 October I arrived at Waverley station. It was a bright and windy afternoon, and, after having checked into my bed and breakfast in one of the grand grey townhouses located at the edge of the Meadows (you would have loved it, George), I began to look for Mo’s place. Starting at the lower end of the Cowgate near the Scottish Parliament and Holyrood Palace, I walked up every single one of the winding side-streets that branched off that gloomy road, which always makes me think of pestilence and ancient bloodshed. Perhaps not entirely surprisingly, I found that Mo’s place no longer existed. Quite a few new places had been opened in that area in the past five years, though, and I tried to speak to the manager of every one of them to ask whether they remembered a pub run by a Glaswegian called Mo. Finally, in an artisan bakery on Old Fishmarket Close, I got lucky. The young couple who owned it remembered Mo and his tavern. They told me it had been on Blackfriars Street, and that it was now home to an overpriced and underspiced vegan restaurant. They had never been there, nor did they know Mo personally, but his name rang a bell because three years ago, in the summer of 2011, he had been killed in a brutal knife attack, just a few yards away from his pub after he had closed it down for the night. The killer had not just stabbed him eleven times, but had also removed a piece of skin from his face with a particular tattoo on it (the woman thought it was a Celtic cross; the man remembered it as a Japanese character). The police never managed to catch the perpetrator, but rumour had it that Mo had been murdered by a jilted lover, whom he had apparently left for a younger companion just three days prior to the attack.

The only other lead I had was the bookshop on Windmill Street, which I decided to visit the next morning. I had actually come across its name before, since it was one of the few bookshops left in the country that still invited guest speakers and hosted political debates. I had slept very badly that night, kept awake both by worries about the approaching deadline (I had four weeks left) and my lack of a narrative angle, and by the noisy sexual exploits of the inhabitants of the room right next to mine.

When I entered the bookshop around 11 a.m., I felt immediately at home: it smelled of freshly brewed tea; polished hardwood floors, white walls and glossy white shelves testified to the owner’s elegant taste; and the bookcases were filled from top to bottom with exactly the kind of books I loved best. I browsed for a while, and noticed with great pleasure that some of my own pre-trial works were there, too. Finally, I turned to the man behind the till, an Iranian in his late forties with turquoise eyes and very white teeth. In a mellow voice, he asked what he could do for me. I told him I was writing a book about Julia White and was looking for someone called Chris, with whom Julia seemed to have formed a bond while studying in Edinburgh a few years ago. I watched his face closely, but his features didn’t betray anything.

‘I don’t think I can help you there,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

I looked at him in silence for a while. Silences usually disconcert people. Often, they grow uncomfortable and start talking, and eventually give away something, however small and unintended it may be – and that’s all I need. Once they open their door, even if ever so slightly, I, like a good double-glazing salesman, get my foot in. But this man simply held my gaze, not at all put off by the silence.

‘Chris must have spent a lot of time in this bookshop in December 2009 and early in 2010, according to my sources,’ I finally added.

‘Sorry,’ the man said. ‘I don’t remember anyone called Chris.’

‘When did you start working here? Were you around at that time?’

‘I own this shop. I’ve been around since 2005,’ he said with a sweet little smile that betrayed just a hint of pride.

Fortunately, I’d done my research that morning. ‘I see. You must be Tariq Ghaznavi, then. It’s so nice to meet you. I love your shop. My name is Clare Hardenberg.’

‘Clare Hardenberg?’ He looked surprised. ‘Of
The Deal
fame?’

‘Yes, that’s me,’ I said, and now it was I who broke into a small, shy smile.

Then Tariq locked the shop door, invited me to sit, offered me tea, and asked me to tell him all about my current project. We chatted for hours. I must have drunk at least a dozen glasses of the sweet, strong black tea Tariq kept pouring from a samovar into our coloured glasses (I wasn’t able to sleep that night, either). Tariq did remember Chris, but it took me a long time to convince him that Chris would at no point be in danger of prosecution as a result of my project. (I also promised him that I would deliver my first public reading after the launch of Julia’s biography in his bookshop, and eventually, after I added a hundred exclusively signed copies to the deal, he began to talk.)

Tariq first met Chris in 2007. Chris was studying for a doctorate in anthropology at that time, and used to spend a lot of time hanging out in Tariq’s bookshop. According to Tariq, Chris was a bright, passionate idealist and an active member of numerous NGOs. His thesis was supposed to be a study of trade and barter patterns of the Ogoni people in Nigeria, but he got sidetracked by their ongoing struggle against the exploitation of their lands by Shell Oil, a sustained campaign of resistance initiated by the then already brutally murdered Ken Saro-Wiwa. Chris grew ever more disgusted with what he learned about the Ogoni’s plight. He changed his research topic to ‘Biopiracy in Nigeria’ and went to live with the Ogoni in the Niger Delta for six months. When he returned, he gave up his studies in order to concentrate more fully on campaigning for their rights.

Tariq didn’t know much about Chris’s background, but suspected he came from a rich family. It was the way he spoke, he said, and the fact that he never seemed to have to work and always appeared to have enough money to pay for his accommodation, travels and so on. I asked Tariq about the dealer and the bank robber rumours, but he just laughed.

With Tariq’s support Chris organized a few anti-Shell campaigns in Edinburgh. Chris was arrested a couple of times on anti-G8 and WTO protests, and for chaining himself to a petrol station gate. He was a likeable, outgoing person, Tariq said, with an easy manner and bags of charm, and many people, especially women, felt drawn to him. He had hundreds of friends and acquaintances, and Tariq reckoned he was one of the best-connected people in the Scottish left-wing scene. Tariq had even met Julia once – Chris introduced her just before the two of them left town. He remembered thinking her very beautiful and that the couple seemed very much in love, but couldn’t recall any other impressions. He received a few postcards from Chris while the two of them were abroad. After his travels, Chris didn’t return to Edinburgh, but stayed in touch with Tariq. Finally, Tariq told me that Chris was currently working in a camp for illegal immigrants awaiting deportation in the South of France, and agreed to email him to ask whether he would be prepared to speak to me.

He was a lovely man, Tariq, and that evening, after he had closed his shop for the day, we went for a drink, and then he invited me to his place, where he cooked a delicious chicken and almond tagine, which we enjoyed with a bottle of strong, spicy Syrah. I didn’t return to the B&B that night. You never liked that about me, my ability to enjoy such encounters entirely without guilt or false expectations. You always got grumpy and paternal when I told you about them, even long after our relationships had ended, and I liked to imagine that there was, perhaps, a part of you that was still in love with me on some level, and a little jealous. But who knows? Maybe you simply disapproved. You were never like me that way.

I left my card with Tariq the next morning, and, while I was on the train back to London, he called to say that Chris had agreed to get in touch with me. Until I went to bed that night, I kept checking my email every two minutes to see whether he had written, and I grew increasingly anxious that he might have changed his mind. Meeting Chris, I felt, was my final chance – the future of the entire project seemed to hinge on the frame of mind of Julia’s former lover.

XV

Once again I slept badly that night, tossing and turning, and imagining all kinds of horror scenarios that would ensue if I were unable to deliver the manuscript on time. I got up early, and to my enormous relief found a message from Chris in my inbox. He told me to come and see him in Marseille whenever it suited me. He asked me to keep my meeting with him secret, since he had ‘unresolved issues’ with the UK authorities and didn’t want them to find him. His email address was registered in Poland, and he didn’t sign off with his real name. I booked my flight for the next day, and emailed him my mobile number and arrival time.

The very minute my plane touched down on French soil I emailed Chris again to let him know I was in town and ready to meet him whenever he was free. His email address was all I had – he had sent me neither a phone number nor an address. It took him two days to respond, during which I explored the city’s famous promenades, the harbour and the winding alleyways of its labyrinthine centre, and spent many hours in a charmingly run-down brasserie at the Old Port. It was evening and I was at the brasserie reading over my notes when Chris finally contacted me, just after I’d ordered my fourth glass of the house pastis – I had grown very anxious, fearing that my trip had been in vain, and that I wouldn’t hear from Chris again. However, he suggested we meet two hours later in a shisha café in the French-African part of town, near the old market. I cursed my lack of faith, as I hate conducting interviews when I’m not sober, ordered a strong double espresso, and then tried to find a cab to take me to our meeting place. Three taxi-drivers refused me before an old Berber with a thin white beard agreed to drive me to the edge of the African quarter. Even he, however, declined to take me all the way, and, once I climbed out of the taxi, I could see why.

The area was ruin-strewn. More than half of the buildings in this apocalyptic urban wasteland were boarded up; many had broken or missing roofs and neither doors nor windows, and I could see the shadowy figures of ragged children lurking in the entrances. Rubbish lined the streets, and the potholes in the cracked tarmac were so deep they looked like bomb-craters. At first my fear concentrated on a big rat that rushed right past me, but soon my focus shifted to the groups of hooded youths with hostile eyes who loitered at the street corners. The hissed sing-song with which they greeted me was bristling with sexual aggression. I attempted to follow the vague instructions of the taxi-driver as faithfully as possible, while I hurried deeper into this maze and attracted far more attention than I should have.

Eventually, I arrived at a mosque – the café was supposed to be just around the corner from one. I walked past another large group of men, who were congregating outside their place of worship and followed me with dark eyes, and I sighed with relief when I finally spotted a café in the dusty window of which I could make out the shape of a waterpipe. The entire place was covered with thick Persian rugs and filled with smoke, and groups of men in kaftans were sitting cross-legged around low tables on which stood magnificent azure-coloured hookahs. When I entered, a tall, bearded man with sand-coloured dreadlocks tied together at his neck, who had been chatting to the proprietor behind the counter, raised his hand and came to greet me.

‘Clare, glad you found it,’ he said in a bright, clear voice while he firmly shook my hand. ‘Come, follow me.’

He led me to a quieter corner at the back of the café, and arranged some cushions for me so that I could lean against the wall. He wore dirty jeans and a white linen shirt. His bushy beard covered most of his features, but his brow was high and clear, and something about his alert blueberry eyes drew me to him immediately. His skin was tanned and I noticed his smooth, cat-like movements; he clearly felt very at home in his body. His age was difficult to establish: he could have been anything between twenty-five and forty. He emanated a faint woodland smell, of ferns and pine trees. We looked at each other for a while without speaking.

‘You should try the mint tea – it’s excellent,’ he said finally.

‘With pleasure,’ I responded, and he signalled to the waiter.

After the tea had arrived, having poured me a glass he stretched back languorously and said: ‘OK, Clare, shoot. What do you want to know?’

‘Right, let’s get started,’ I said and switched on my recording device. ‘Why did Julia and you fall out?’ I was nervous and flustered from the unpleasant trip to the café and dizzy from all the pastis I had drunk before our meeting; I didn’t quite feel myself.

Chris raised his eyebrows, leaned forward and studied me. ‘Seriously? That’s a really weird first question. Why don’t we start at the beginning? Or are you in a rush? There’s so much basic stuff to cover before anyone can even begin to understand why Julia and I eventually fell out.’

He was right, of course. It was a silly first question. I blushed and sipped some of my mint tea. ‘Fine by me,’ I said eventually. ‘Please start wherever you want. I’ll interrupt if I have any questions, if that’s OK.’

‘Sure, chip in anytime, Clare. Well, it makes most sense to start with our first meeting, don’t you think? We met by chance, in a bar in Edinburgh owned by a friend of mine.’

‘Mo’s place,’ I said, keen to make up for my blundering opening and to show that I wasn’t completely ignorant of their story.

Chris looked surprised. ‘Yeah, that’s right. How did you know that? Anyway, Julia and I hit it off immediately. We were completely on the same wavelength. It was totally intense, sparks, tension, chemistry in spades and all that: have you ever met someone you thought was your soul-mate? That’s what it was: we seemed to think exactly the same way about everything we talked about that night. I mean,
everything
. I’d never met anyone before who was so super-sharp and articulate, and so hot! She
is
beautiful, don’t you think? That milky-white skin, those cat-like eyes, the pert ass, the long legs. Man, I was totally blown away.