by Val McDermid
‘Helpful, though,’ Daisy pointed out.
‘That’s part of what makes him annoying. I wish you’d thought things through and not left us any further in his debt.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Daisy said. ‘I’ve never been part of an operation like this.’
‘And there was really nothing of interest from the boys in the band?’
‘Right at the end, I asked if Auld had said anything about his trip to Scotland. Apparently, he said he was hoping to see someone he hadn’t seen for years. But that’s all. Could that mean something?’
Karen shrugged. ‘That could mean anything.’ Before she could continue, her phone rang. She glanced at the screen and gave a wry smile. ‘News, with a bit of luck. But not in this case.’
She stepped out of the room as she took the call, leaving the young gendarme confused as to who he should be keeping an eye on. ‘River,’ Karen said, crossing to the bedroom.
‘How’s Paris?’
‘Very French. How’s Dundee?’
‘Not nearly French enough. So, that was an interesting exercise, doing the superimposition. I set it as an exercise for some of my students. And it turned out to be a bit more complicated than I expected.’ She paused for effect.
‘How?’ Karen asked obediently.
‘If you take away the very different hairstyles, the two women actually resemble each other facially. But then, it’s not unusual for people to be attracted to someone who looks quite like them. So when the students did the superimpositions, it wasn’t entirely straightforward. In the end, it came down to a significant difference in the zygomatic arch.’
Karen sighed. ‘I knew you were going to blind me with science.’
‘Cheekbone, to the likes of you. Dani’s the one with the cheekbones. Amanda’s are much flatter and less distinctive.’
‘So which of them matches the skull, River?’
‘The assumptive identity of the skull in the camper van is Daniella Gilmartin.’
‘You can’t be more certain?’
‘Assumptive, remember? But if it’s one of those two women, it’s definitely not Amanda McAndrew.’
Karen sighed. ‘And that raises more questions than answers.’
‘Why? Is there a problem?’
‘Dani Gilmartin appears to be very much alive. She’s a practising silversmith with a website. It’s a bit hard to pull that off from the other side of the grave.’
‘I’m sorry it’s not the answer you wanted. But remember, assumptive. Daniella Gilmartin isn’t the only woman on the planet with dark hair and lovely cheekbones, Karen.’
24
Not for the first time, Jason’s initial response to Karen’s information was, ‘I don’t get it.’ Dani Gilmartin’s website showed pictures of her work. There were instructions on how to buy examples of those earrings, bracelets and necklaces. There was a page where you could upload your own designs and Dani would come back to you with how she could incorporate them into a piece. There was a blog, which seemed to be updated every six weeks or so. The last entry had been a fortnight ago. In it, Dani had spoken about a walk through a January wood. There were photographs of skeleton leaves and bare branches against a winter sky which she said would provide inspiration for new work. There were messages from satisfied customers, the most recent dating from just before Christmas.
All this he’d explained to Karen when she’d called him from Paris with the results of River’s analysis. She’d thought for a moment, then said, ‘Two possibilities that I can see. Either the website is smoke and mirrors and there is no jewellery. Or else Amanda has picked up enough knowledge about silversmithing to assume Dani’s identity and her business.’
‘So how do we find out? There’s no address on the website. Just an email.’
‘Did the blog say where she went for her January walk? Any details?’
‘I don’t think so. I think it was the kind of thing you could write about anywhere.’
‘Check it out. And go back through the blog entries and see if there’s any clues.’ Her voice had slowed, a sign he recognised. A smart idea was about to emerge. ‘There’s one easy way to find if the website is for real. It’s about time you bought Eilidh a wee present, isn’t it?’
‘You want me to buy something off the website? It’s not cheap stuff, boss. I think the lowest priced earrings were something like forty quid,’ he protested.
‘Surely she’s worth it?’ He thought he could hear a tease in Karen’s voice but he wasn’t sure. He waited and was rewarded. ‘You can claim it on expenses, Jason. I’ll vouch for it.’
‘Thanks, boss.’
‘And it’ll give us an answer, one way or another.’
‘I got a DNA sample off her dad, by the way. I took it to Gartcosh myself, because of everything being held up by this bug. Oh, and he told me she had a dental implant. A front tooth. From when she was a teenager.’
Typical of Jason to leave the best till last. With some people, that might be a deliberate choice. With Jason, it was simply because that was the last thing he’d learned. ‘That clinches it, then.’
‘That’s what I thought. But belt and braces, right? That’s what we do?’
‘It is. Good job, Jason.’
‘Thanks. So how’s the Paris thing going?’
‘Not very productive, to be honest.’
Jason had a moment of gratification at that news, then swiftly hated himself for it. It wasn’t a competition with Daisy, after all. He was Karen’s wingman, they were a team. Daisy was just temporary, drafted in because she spoke the language and hers was the team that happened to catch the live end of the case. ‘Sorry to hear that, boss.’
‘We’ve got a mountain of stuff to sort through in Auld’s living room. That’s going to see us through to bedtime, I suspect. And in the morning we’re off to Caen, wherever that is. I’d like to get home tomorrow night. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I hate working a case at a distance.’ He heard a muffled voice in the background. ‘Right,’ Karen said. ‘I’ve got to get back to work here. Get that blog read and see if you can find any clues as to where our so-called Dani is based.’
‘Do you want me to find out where the website’s registered?’
There was a pause. ‘Don’t you need a warrant for stuff like that?’
‘No, there’s websites you can sign up for and they’ll tell you where the URL is registered and you can find out who hosts the site and everything,’ Jason said, ridiculously pleased that he knew something she didn’t.
‘How do you know that?’ Karen sounded like she was struggling not to sound amazed.
‘Ages ago, I was trying to track down somebody that ripped off Ronan. All we had was the website address. I thought Tamsin would know how to do it, so I asked her and she told me. It’s totally straightforward. Do you want me to do that, then?’
Karen stared at her phone. Obviously, ‘what would Phil do?’ was having the right sort of effect. Not only was Jason using his initiative, he’d found the confidence to tell her as much. Maybe she should adopt the same approach. What would Phil do? She twisted her mouth in a half-smile and sent Jason a text of two thumbs-up emojis.
Back in the living room, Daisy was sorting through another stack of sheet music and magazines. She glanced up, glum. ‘I think this is a waste of time,’ she muttered.
‘Probably, but we’ve got to do it.’ Karen hunkered down by a fresh pile of newspapers and books.
‘We don’t even know what we’re looking for.’
Karen gave their chaperone a quick look. ‘We’ll know if we find it. A letter, a photograph, a newspaper cutting.’
‘How will we know if it’s important? Or even relevant?’
‘We use our common sense. If it’s anything to do with his brother, or visits to Scotland, or something that doesn’t fit with the rest of his l
ife.’ She was, she knew, whistling in the dark herself. But it didn’t help junior officers if they thought you were as much at sea as they were. She began to work her way through the pile, tossing over any letters in French to Daisy, who swiftly dismissed them.
‘Someone offering to sell him a soprano sax . . . An appointment a year ago with his doctor to discuss the results of blood tests . . . a reply from an art dealer in Dublin to an inquiry about an artist . . . a letter from the Legion about his pension . . . ’ And so on.
Shortly after nine, Giles Chevrolet returned. They were on the final two piles of papers and had found nothing more interesting than James Auld’s tax returns. ‘I have two rooms for you in the next street,’ he said.
‘Thanks. We’re nearly finished here.’
‘Did you find anything I should know about?’
Karen smiled, shaking her head. ‘It’s been a complete waste of time. You should be grateful we were here to do the dirty work for you.’
‘I am so grateful that I will take you to dinner. There’s a very fine bistro round the corner. The gendarmerie are friends of the house.’
Over a platter of charcuterie and cheese in a wood-panelled bar with low ceilings, Chevrolet interrogated Karen about the Iain Auld case. ‘The more you tell me, the more convinced I am that the answers you seek will not be found here,’ he said, topping up their glasses from a carafe of ruby red wine.
‘Even so, I still want to go to Caen to talk to his girlfriend. It’s possible he spoke to her about what he intended to do in Scotland.’ Weary though she was, Karen wasn’t about to fold. When she dug her heels in, they stayed dug. Chevrolet was smart enough to recognise an immovable object when he found one.
‘Very well. We will go tomorrow morning. We’ll pick you up at the hotel at nine thirty. There is no point in leaving earlier, not unless we want to deprive Madame Vargas of her beauty sleep. Nightclub owners don’t get up much before noon.’
Karen couldn’t argue with that. Her body craved sleep now and the thought of an early start made her feel faintly sick. They finished their wine and Chevrolet insisted on walking them back to the hotel, chattering all the way about the charms of Caen and the Normandy beaches. They managed to disengage from him after they’d checked into the small private hotel, only because the ancient lift was barely large enough for the two women.
‘I thought he’d never go,’ Karen said.
‘I know. Who knew there was so much to hear about Caen?’
‘“The chateau was built by William the Conqueror before he conquered your country.”’ Karen imitated Chevrolet’s accent. ‘Not my country, pal.’
Daisy laughed. ‘Just as well you didn’t get into that.’
They peered at the door numbers in the dimly lit corridor. Karen found hers first. ‘Dump your stuff in your room and come back. There’s something I want to show you.’ Daisy looked startled.
Karen tutted and rolled her eyes. ‘From the apartment. I didn’t want to share it with the French because it’s obviously to do with the Iain Auld case.’
Relieved, Daisy hurried off. Karen found herself in a fussily decorated room with a double bed and a wardrobe that was about the same size. An armchair with worn tapestry upholstery and an upright chair tucked under the smallest desk she’d ever seen completed the overstuffed impression. She’d barely tossed her backpack on the bed when Daisy knocked.
‘Grab a seat.’ Karen took out the folder. ‘I found this in James Auld’s bedside table. I decided not to share because I don’t think it’s got anything to do with his life in France.’ She spread the contents on the bed and Daisy pulled the chair close to the bed to inspect them more closely.
‘Is that James Auld?’ she asked hesitantly, pointing at the photograph.
‘No. It’s his brother Iain. There’s a resemblance, I agree, but trust me, I looked at enough pictures of Iain two years ago to know the difference.’
‘OK. So who’s the other man?’
‘I have no idea. There’s no name on the back of the photo.’
Daisy continued to stare at it, frowning. ‘That’s a very intimate photo. I mean, they look like they’re together. Don’t you think?’
Karen nodded. ‘I’d say so. There’s definitely something about it that says “lovers” rather than “friends”. It’s not two guys mucking about on a rugby club night out.’
‘Do you think Mary knew about it?’
‘Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? She never gave the slightest hint that there was any issue in the marriage. But who knows what goes on under that smooth, self-contained surface? Very Edinburgh. There’s the swan sailing serenely along, no clue that under the surface the feet are paddling away like buggery fuck.’ Karen pulled the other chair forward and threw herself into it. ‘You’ve seen her more recently than me. What did you make of the lovely Mary?’
Daisy shrugged. ‘She was upset about James. Jamie, she calls him. But she held it all together.’ She smiled. ‘Like you said. Very Edinburgh.’
‘If she did know her husband was leading a secret gay life, some might say it would be a motive for doing away with him. The embarrassment, the insult, the duplicity, the loss of status.’ Karen ran a hand through her hair. ‘But these days? Even ten years ago? Sure, it would have been humiliating, but only for about five minutes. It’s not like they were in the public eye. They could have separated and each gone their own way and that would have been the end of it. I don’t see it myself.’
‘All the same . . . ’ Daisy looked thoughtful. ‘Where was she the night he went missing?’
‘Good question. She claimed at the time she’d been at home in Edinburgh. She’d had a quick drink in the early evening with friends but there was nobody to vouch for her later on. Same absence of an alibi the next day. She worked part-time and the following day was one of her non-working days. She said she’d been at home all day, cooking. Filling the freezer.’ Karen’s incredulity was obvious. ‘Apparently she’d let things get a bit low.’ She shook her head. ‘All credit to the officer who interviewed her – he checked the freezer. His report said there were a dozen Tupperware containers all neatly labelled with the contents and the right date.’
‘That proves nothing,’ Daisy said. ‘She’s a smart woman.’
‘Really smart people don’t bother with convoluted plots involving freezer labels and driving through the night to London. They push their victim down a flight of steep stairs or off the side of a mountain, or they slip something lethal in the foraged berries. And unless she was in league with James, how could she have set it up so the two of them had a blazing row the night before Iain disappeared? It’s way too complicated.’
‘Maybe she was in league with James? Maybe they wanted rid of Iain so they could be together?’
Karen rolled her eyes. ‘That’s what divorce is for, Daisy. Whatever this photograph is all about, I don’t think it’s much of a motive for Mary.’
Daisy frowned. ‘He was a senior civil servant, though. Top level in the Scotland Office. Could he not have been blackmailed over this?’
‘Twenty years ago, maybe. But ten years ago, in the Scotland Office? It wasn’t even a Tory Secretary of State, it was a Lib Dem, and they’re not exactly noted for their persecution of the LGBT community.’
‘So it’s irrelevant.’ Daisy looked sulky.
‘I didn’t say that. I just don’t know how it’s relevant.’ Karen moved the photograph aside and unfolded the newspaper offprint. ‘A fire in a modern art gallery four years ago. What’s that got to do with anything?’
Daisy skimmed the article. ‘Mary Auld’s got a lot of paintings on her walls,’ she said dubiously. ‘They look quite modern.’
‘I remember. I don’t know much about art, but I don’t think the Aulds’ paintings were like the ones that went up in flames. This gallery’ – Karen tapped the paper – ‘seems to be all
about contemporary artists. What do they call them? Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin?’
‘Conceptual art. But there were paintings here too, it mentions that.’
‘Then there’s this note.’ She pulled out the sheet of paper with the cryptic message.
12 NT
Ouds
Hilary 92/3
‘Does that mean anything at all to you? I have not got a scooby.’
‘Maybe Hilary’s the guy in the picture? That can be a man’s name too, right? Maybe that’s when they first met? And then they got together again?’
It wasn’t a bad idea, Karen thought, disgruntled that she hadn’t thought of it herself. This case was messing with her head.
Daisy picked up the final piece of paper. It was a printout from a website that reported the prices paid at auction for a list of paintings. They ranged from a small sketch by Picasso to a swathe of artists she’d never heard of. She frowned. ‘One of those letters in the flat was from an art dealer. Remember? In Dublin.’
‘Fuck,’ Karen exclaimed. ‘How did that not set alarm bells ringing?’ She groaned. ‘This is what happens when I don’t get enough sleep. I miss obvious connections. Do you remember the name of the artist Auld was asking about?’
‘I didn’t pay attention, sorry. It didn’t seem important at the time.’
‘No reason why you should have thought so. We’ll have to go back and get the letter.’
‘We don’t have the keys. And it’s nearly midnight.’
‘Not right now, obviously. We’ll have to go back in the morning. Which means explaining to Gautier why we want to go back.’ Karen stood up and moved restlessly round the room. ‘I can’t believe I missed that.’
‘It happens to all of us,’ Daisy ventured. Karen glared at her.
‘Maybe if we leave it till after we’ve spoken to Pascale,’ she said slowly, thinking out loud. ‘We can always say she referred to something that reminded us of one of the letters in the flat. Then I won’t have to admit to walking off with evidence Les Gautiers will think I should have shared with them.’ Daisy looked surprised. Karen grinned. ‘What? Nobody told you I can be devious when I have to be?’