‘Sure, you know we love you, Harry,’ Jo replied. ‘Just as you are. You’re welcome to come out with us at any time!’
‘And act the gooseberry? I think not.’ Harry grinned, but a moment of awkwardness passed between Jo and Lorcan, which Harry wasn’t slow in picking up on. ‘Oh, you two, don’t look at me, or each other, like that. I’ve been around a long time and seen enough couples get together and either make it or split and I can see when there’s a spark.’
‘Grandad…’ Lorcan began.
‘Lorcan, son, you can’t be cross with me or tell me off because I’m an old man and my heart isn’t what it used to be. You can’t be upsetting me.’ Harry coughed for dramatic effect and Jo felt herself wishing that she could just turn and walk out without drawing any further attention to herself.
‘Grandad, I’m not cross, and I’m not trying to upset you, but we’ve talked about this,’ Lorcan replied, which shocked Jo. They had talked about this? About Harry’s thoughts about the pair of them? She blushed from the tips of her toes to the hairs on her head, and knew she absolutely did not want this conversation to progress any further.
She gave a delicate cough, just to remind them both she was in the room, and then opted to change the topic. ‘Actually, Harry, I’m just here to see Lorcan about a work thing.’
‘That writer man?’ Harry said, and Jo wondered was there anything that Lorcan and his grandad didn’t talk about.
‘The very one. Are you okay if we have a chat?’
‘Of course I’m okay. As I said, you’re two of my favourite people and if someone is doing wrong by you, Jo, then I absolutely want this young lad of mine here to do what he can to help you out.’
‘She’s quite capable on her own, but I am only too happy to help,’ Lorcan said.
‘Well then, do that, Lorcan, instead of standing here chinwagging. Why don’t you go up and get one of your fancy coffees with Libby and talk it all out?’
‘Are you sure, Grandad? I’m supposed to be doing the heavy lifting for you here today,’ Lorcan said.
‘I never say anything unless I’m sure. I’ll amuse myself here with the paper and one of my not-fancy coffees from that blasted machine!’
Jo smiled. ‘You’re a gentleman, Harry. We can bring you a nice coffee back?’
‘Not at all. But, here, can you give these to Libby for me? I think they’re her favourites.’
He lifted a bag of what appeared to be packets of biscuits and thrust them in Jo’s direction. ‘They’re a little bit past their date, but not much. I’d say they’d be okay for a week or two yet.’
All Jo could do was smile. She doubted Harry would ever change and that wasn’t a bad thing.
35
The Invention of Lying
‘I found some stuff out,’ Lorcan said as they sat in Once Upon A Book drinking coffee. ‘About Ewan. More information about what he has been up to. I know this all feels really horrible now, but I think you might have had a lucky escape,’ Lorcan remarked as he pushed his hair back from his face.
It did indeed feel horrible, but that didn’t stop Jo from being completely intrigued. She wanted to make sure that Ewan could never do to anyone else what he had done to her. She wanted all his dirty little secrets to come out.
‘I did a few basic searches last night,’ Lorcan continued. ‘Remembered some of the forums that we had found some info on before. Unfortunately, a lot of those forums have closed or have gone so quiet they might as well have closed. Thankfully, though, a lot of them have left some sort of digital trail. Now, obviously I was a bit limited because it was via my laptop, using my phone as a hotspot, but I did find some of the posts and reached out to the posters.’
Jo watched him and listened, totally fascinated by how he worked, but also so touched that he had gone to this effort. She loved how his brow crinkled as he tried to explain some details about IP addresses and VPNs and things she couldn’t say she had ever thought about before.
‘I didn’t expect anyone to come back to me at all, never mind so quickly,’ he said. ‘But within an hour, I had an email from a woman who says Ewan “borrowed” heavily from some work she’d shared with him in a one-to-one mentoring session, and had blocked her and cut her off entirely when she questioned him about it.’
Jo shook her head. Ewan was a shit. A really shitty shit at that.
‘This was, like, fifteen years ago and she didn’t have the digital trail people might have now. She had a handwritten manuscript. She hadn’t even typed it up, never mind showed it anyone else or submitted it. She wasn’t able to prove he had used her ideas. The whole thing made her so disillusioned she decided to give up on writing altogether.’
‘No!’ Jo said. ‘She didn’t, did she? That’s awful!’ Jo understood the devastating effect that being used like that could have. And it made her very angry. She just needed to work out what she was going to do about it. Should they go to the press? Tell their story to Twitter? Or just pass all the information on to Graham, and possibly the police?
They were on their second cup of coffee and no further forward when Noah called in, Paddy – the only dog apart from guide dogs allowed in Once Upon A Book – by his side. Jo was so engrossed in her conversation with Lorcan, she didn’t even realise until she felt a cold dog nose nudge her bare forearm.
‘Paddy!’ she exclaimed, as he raised his paw for a shake and his tail wagged enthusiastically.
‘I’m here too,’ Noah said. ‘Just calling in to see if Libby wants to go for a walk.’
‘Well, I didn’t think he wandered over here on his own,’ Jo teased. ‘I think Libby might be in the stockroom.’
Noah, not ever known for his subtlety, pulled a chair over and sat down beside them both. ‘I sense something serious in the works,’ he said. ‘Is this about McLachlan?’
‘It is,’ Jo replied, sitting back and crossing her legs. ‘Lorcan has uncovered a number of other victims and we’re just trying to figure out what to do next.’
Noah exhaled. ‘We could set Paddy here on him.’
Jo looked down to where Paddy lay placidly on the ground as he licked his front paws. Unless Ewan McLachlan had a fear of dogs licking him to death, that didn’t really work as a threat.
‘We’re thinking of taking the information to the press, or the police,’ she said. ‘Or at least contact the other women and chat to them about it.’
‘I have some names that haven’t been mentioned on Twitter yet. This is bigger than we could’ve thought and we want to make sure he never does this again to anyone else,’ Lorcan added, and Jo nodded.
‘And then I want to keep on writing, my own stories, and become successful enough to stick two fingers up to him,’ she said.
‘I like your fighting attitude,’ Noah said. ‘And we’ll do whatever we can to help.’
‘The best revenge is a life well lived,’ Jo said, ‘but I think I’d quite enjoy the second-best revenge too, which is to make sure he doesn’t do it again.’