Still Life

by Val McDermid

  There was nowhere Jason could be hiding. Not unless he’d been folded up toddler-sized and rammed into the Wendy House that occupied one corner. Karen checked it nevertheless, just to make sure.

  They crossed the hall and went through the door at the far end. Daisy slipped into the kitchen on the left, looking for signs of a struggle, for blood, for anything that was out of place. She found it in the bin. Gingerly, using a fork from the cutlery drawer, she fished something out from among the rubbish. ‘Is this Jason’s?’ she asked, showing Karen the suit jacket dangling from the fork.

  Karen nodded, mute. She didn’t trust herself to speak. She turned away and clattered into the women’s toilets. She slapped the doors hard so they banged against the flimsy cubicle partitions, swearing under her breath at each empty space. She did the same in the men’s.

  Daisy held out Jason’s notebook. ‘That’s all that was in there.’

  Karen grabbed it and flipped through to the latest entry. ‘Church hall, side street, Morrisons,’ the last entry read. She shook her head and carried on down the corridor. She followed it round a right-hand corner and nearly walked straight into a stack of easels. Daisy bumped into her, which dislodged the neat pile enough for Karen to realise they were obscuring a door. Adrenaline surged through her. ‘Let’s get these shifted,’ she said, grabbing the nearest one and propping it against the opposite wall.

  It was the urgent work of a few minutes to move the easels out of the way. ‘He’s got to be here,’ Karen panted as she grabbed the last one and virtually threw it down the hall.

  They were confronted by a solid wooden door, bolts at top and bottom, key in the keyhole. ‘Gloves?’ Karen demanded. She’d used her only pair at the service area.

  ‘Kitchen.’ Daisy scuttled back down the corridor and raked in the cupboard where she’d seen a box of flimsy plastic gloves. She grabbed a handful and hurried back.

  Karen slipped a pair on and gently turned the key, careful only to touch the edges of the bow. She doubted Amanda McAndrew would have been so cautious. ‘Open one of those gloves,’ she demanded, and dropped the key into it. Then she struggled with the stiff bolts till they grudgingly slid free. She noticed the light switch by the door and pressed it. She felt on the verge of tears.

  She pulled the door open. ‘Jason,’ she bellowed, running down the stairs without a pause. She stopped at the foot and looked around wildly. What hit her first was the ripe smell of stale piss. But no Jason to be seen or heard. ‘Jason?’ It was almost a whisper, a tremble in her voice.

  And then, a groan. From the corner where the light barely reached. Karen could see what looked like a pile of discarded curtains. Daisy at her heels, she rushed forwards. At closer quarters, she could see the top of Jason’s head, his ginger hair a splash of clashing colour against the plum velvet. Her heart leapt in her chest, relief momentarily overcoming fear. And then the terror was back. What had happened to him? How badly was he hurt?

  Karen crouched beside him and cautiously pulled the edge of the curtain back from his head. He was drip white, dark shadows under his eyes and a long bruise forming on one side of his face. His eyelids flickered and he frowned. ‘Boss?’ he whispered through cracked lips. ‘I’m sorry.’ His eyes rolled back and he breathed heavily.

  ‘Call an ambulance, Daisy.’ Karen laid a hand on the side of his head, careful not to move him. ‘And the police. Where does it hurt, Jason?’

  ‘Leg,’ he groaned. ‘Left leg. Broken.’

  ‘OK. Help’s on its way, hang in there.’ He mumbled something she couldn’t make out. ‘What?’

  ‘Water,’ he said loudly.

  Karen waited till Daisy had finished with the emergency services then shouted, ‘Get a cup of water, Daisy.’

  ‘Should you give him something to drink?’ Daisy said, anxiety overcoming her reluctance to contradict Karen. ‘I mean, if they have to operate on his leg?’

  ‘Good point. But bring some water and a paper towel. I can at least wet his lips, for fuck’s sake.’

  The ambulance seemed to take forever, but Karen knew that was an illusion. The paramedics were efficient and kind, getting a drip into Jason before they moved him. ‘It’s the tibia,’ one explained. ‘It’s either a displaced or a com­minuted fracture. Hard to tell. We need to get him to hospital and get it X-rayed.’

  ‘Will he have to have surgery?’ Karen asked. She didn’t relish telling Mrs Murray her boy had been broken on her watch.

  ‘Not for me to say, love,’ he said. ‘We’re taking him to Stepping Hill hospital, down the A6. Are you coming with?’

  Karen shook her head. ‘I need to wait for the local police. This wasn’t an accident. This is a crime scene.’

  43

  Tuesday, 25 February 2020

  It was after three in the morning when they checked into the same hotel where Jason had stayed the night before. They’d left him at the hospital, sedated and awaiting a surgical procedure to screw his tibia back together. The local police had swung into action with commendable enthusiasm; it was, Karen thought, as if he was one of their own. They’d rousted Patience Cameron from her bed and stood over her while she phoned round the other tenants of the Isherwood Studios till she found someone who had an address for ‘Dani’. They’d invited Karen and Daisy to join them when they kicked in the door of a maisonette on the third and fourth floor of a strip of housing in nearby Gorton that looked like a barracks.

  ‘Last time I was round here, they were using it as a film set for East Germany during the Cold War,’ one of the local lads had remarked. Karen could believe that with no effort at all.

  The flat held little of interest. Karen assumed Amanda had swung by to strip the place of anything that might either have been incriminating or have given a clue to her destination. No family photographs, no letters, no laptop or tablet. Just large watercolours of the Scottish Highlands drawing-pinned to the walls. Karen recognised Schiehallion and the Buachaille. Maybe Amanda wasn’t as tough as she’d thought; the mountains she’d missed showed a degree of homesickness. It spoke of a more vulnerable side than the apparent coolness with which she’d got out from under Dani Gilmartin’s death.

  Although she was bone-weary, sleep eluded Karen once she’d crawled under the covers. Intellectually, she knew that what had happened to Jason had been Amanda McAndrew’s fault, not hers. But emotionally she felt responsible. It hadn’t occurred to her that she was sending Jason into trouble, but it probably should have done. Walking back the cat to the origins of disaster was pointless yet somehow she always found it hard to resist.

  Her phone rang at 03:39 and she nearly fell out of the unfamiliar bed in her urgency to take the call. It was the Area Control Room. ‘Hey, DCI Pirie. Sorry to wake you but I thought you’d want an update.’

  ‘You thought right,’ she said. ‘Has she been picked up?’ She squirmed round to sit on the edge of the bed, elbows on knees, phone to her ear.

  ‘Not as such. But we know where she is. The local lads in Hull found her car two streets away from the ferry ter­minal. We got them to check the ticket sales and she bought a berth yesterday afternoon on the overnight Rotterdam run. It gets in around half past eight in the morning, their time.’

  Karen rolled her eyes. ‘So I’ve got less than five hours to sort out a European Arrest Warrant?’

  ‘Less than four hours. They’re an hour ahead of us, remember?’

  Karen groaned. ‘Leave it with me.’ She hauled herself out of bed and set herself up at the table with her tablet and her phone, earphones plugged in to give her hands-free. The number she called was Fiscal Depute Ruth Wardlaw. Karen knew Ruth well enough to be pretty sure that she’d answer her phone even if she wasn’t the depute on call. Like Karen, she couldn’t resist the siren call of an interesting case, and nobody would dare ring her in the middle of the night unless it was an interesting case. Not to mention that she’d be livid
if Karen took the case to anyone else in the fiscal’s office after she’d done the heavy lifting of securing the arrest warrant in the first place.

  The number rang out half a dozen times then cut out. Karen heard a clatter, then a muffled, ‘Bugger,’ followed by the sound of fumbling. ‘Who is this?’ Ruth sounded justifiably grumpy.

  ‘Karen. I’m sorry to wake you but it’s urgent. Amanda McAndrew is on the night ferry from Hull to Rotterdam. She threw Jason – you remember Jason, DC Murray? She threw him down a flight of stairs and left him for dead, then legged it. We need a European Arrest Warrant and we need it within the next couple of hours.’

  Ruth sighed. ‘Good morning to you too, Karen. She threw DC Murray down a flight of stairs? Where did this happen?’

  ‘Does that matter? It happened in Stockport.’

  Ruth yawned. ‘Well, that’s good news and bad news. The bad news is we can’t add that to the warrant because it happened in a different jurisdiction to the homicide. The good news is we don’t have to complicate things by adding it to the warrant.’

  ‘Can you do it?’

  ‘Karen, it’s me you’re talking to. As soon as we finish this call, I will contact the duty extradition sheriff of the International Crime Unit of the Crown Office and email them the arrest warrant along with a brief outline of reasons why we need the EAW. Meanwhile you will send me a short report of the assault on your officer. I’ll add that in a separate docquet as evidence of intent to flee. And then I will drag my weary body round to the ICU office to make any arguments the sheriff needs to hear and to pick up the EAW.’ Karen could hear sounds of movement in the background and the low mumble of another voice.

  ‘Will you send that on to the Dutch police and immigration officials? Or do I need to do that?’

  ‘It’ll come from our ICU. I’ll send you a copy. If by any chance we’re running out of time, we can apply for a provisional warrant. That means they can arrest her when she gets off the boat regardless, but we have a window of either twenty-four or forty-eight hours to formalise the warrant. I’m not sure off the top of my head what the limit is in Holland. We’ll get her, Karen. Trust me. These guys at the Crown Office are no strangers to urgency. Even in the middle of the night, you’d be amazed at the turn of speed a sheriff can muster. Now, bugger off and let me do what I do. We’ll talk later.’ Dead line.

  It was almost five a.m. when Ruth called back. ‘The warrant’s been issued and the Dutch have it in their hands. Police and immigration have been alerted at the port of arrival. They’re assuring us she’ll not get past them.’

  Karen wished she shared their optimism. ‘Make sure they understand how devious she is. She’s good at getting people to cover for her. She’ll not be on foot. Chances are she’ll have talked somebody into giving her a lift. They need to check all the cars and lorries as well as the foot passengers.’

  ‘I’ll pass it on. I’ll keep you posted. As soon as I hear anything, you’ll know.’

  Karen lay down again and squinched into a comfortable position. She wondered whether Amanda McAndrew was sleeping, or whether the fizz of fear was bubbling in her blood, keeping her edgy and wary. Where would she be heading for? Would she try to reach her parents and hope they’d take her in? Jason had suggested that, from what he’d seen on Facebook, their daughter had visited them two years before, but she hadn’t asked him to dig deeper. Another thing she should have done. Presumably they hadn’t known their daughter was running around on someone else’s passport, so they might have been her backstop. The place where Amanda McAndrew could re-emerge.

  The last thought that drifted through Karen’s head as she slipped into sleep was, ‘Though it would be better to arrest her before it came to that.’

  Karen had set her alarm for eight. The ferry was due to dock half an hour before that, but she reckoned it would take some time for the Dutch authorities to lay hands on Amanda McAndrew and some time after that for the news to filter back through the system to Ruth.

  The lack of sleep and the stress of the previous day had left her feeling as if she’d had an unwise night on the gin. But before she tried to shake off the sloth and arouse the cotton-wool brain, she had a phone call to make. She’d persuaded the number for the direct line to the ward from the nurse who’d been taking care of Jason and now she dialled it. ‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Pirie,’ she said sternly to the man who answered. ‘I’m ringing to inquire about the condition of one of your patients. We brought him in late last night. Jason Murray.’

  ‘Are you a relative?’

  Cheeky bastard. ‘I’m the detective chief inspector who rescued him and accompanied him to hospital. It’s a simple question. How is he doing?’

  ‘We’re only supposed to inform relatives about patients.’

  Don’t do this, son. Really, don’t do this. ‘Are you seriously obstructing a police officer in the commission of her duty?’ She upped the incredulity level to eleven.

  ‘N-no,’ he stumbled. ‘It’s just—’

  Karen heard a firm voice in the background. Then a woman came on the line. ‘Is there a problem?’

  Karen introduced herself again. ‘I’m Jason’s boss,’ she said. ‘I’m the nearest thing he has to a relative in a two-hundred-mile radius and I’m responsible for him.’

  ‘Good point, well made, love. He’s in surgery – they put him at the top of the list on account of him being a copper. If you phone back in an hour or so, I can give you an update. Ask for Shirley. Don’t worry about him, he’s going to be fine.’

  Karen thanked her and closed her eyes for a long moment. She breathed deeply then searched her phone for another number. This was the call she was dreading.

  ‘Is that you, Karen?’ Surprised and wary simultaneously. ‘Are you looking for Jason? He’s not here, hen, I’m not expecting him today.’

  ‘I know, Mrs Murray. He’s been on a job down south. And there’s been a wee accident.’

  A sharp gasp. ‘Oh no, not my Jason—’

  ‘It’s not serious,’ Karen interrupted, her voice urgent. ‘He’s not in any danger, I promise you. He took a tumble down a flight of steps and broke his leg. He’s in the hospital now, they’re operating on his leg to sort it out.’

  ‘An operation?’

  ‘It’s completely routine, I came off the phone this minute with the ward and there’s no grounds for concern.’

  That’s easy for you to say, Karen Pirie. But folk die on the operating table every day of the week.’

  She could hear the tears in Mrs Murray’s voice. ‘If it would put your mind at rest, I could get an officer to drive you down here?’ Sod the Dog Biscuit and her budget.

  ‘No, I don’t want to sit in car with a stranger, I’ll get our Ronan to bring me.’

  Finally, the world had found a use for Ronan. ‘I’ll text you the details. But please, Mrs Murray, try not to worry.’

  ‘Easy seen you’re not a mother.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, Karen, that was uncalled for. You’ve always been good to my Jason. I’ll get Ronan and we’ll get on the road right away. Does Eilidh know?’

  ‘I called you first.’

  ‘Aye, well, I’ll get in touch with her and we can pick her up on the road. She’ll want to be there and I don’t doubt he’d rather see her at his bedside than his old mammy.’

  It would, Karen thought, be a close-run thing. The hard job over, she turned her attention to the business of working out a plan of action for her and Daisy. But first, breakfast. Nothing would be achieved without coffee and calories.

  44

  Karen was on her second cup of coffee when the call came from Ruth Wardlaw. ‘Good news,’ the Fiscal Depute said. ‘The Dutch police followed your advice and checked the cars coming off the ferry. McAndrew had tried to give them the slip by persuading a Polish plumber to give her a lift in his van, but they spotted her. She’s cu
rrently languishing in a holding cell in Rotterdam, waiting to see a lawyer.’

  It felt like a turning of a tide that had been running against her ever since James Auld’s body had been plucked from the waters of the Forth. ‘That’s brilliant news. What happens next? What’s the timescale?’

  ‘It depends. If she agrees to return to face the charge on the warrant, she’ll be back in Scotland within ten days. But if she decides to contest it – and everything you’ve told me about her would suggest she’ll go down that route – the Dutch courts have sixty days to determine whether she should be returned.’

  Karen’s spirits dipped. ‘So she could still walk away from it?’

  ‘Don’t panic! The Dutch hearing won’t be a trial of the evidence. They’ll simply look at whether our ICU were right to issue the warrant, based on the nature of the crime and the legitimacy of the proceedings. And I’ve got no worries on that score. We’re on solid ground here, Karen.’

  ‘What if she tries to argue that it wasn’t homicide but an accident?’

  ‘That’s irrelevant. The charge on the arrest warrant is homicide and that’s what we’ll be pursuing. Whatever she argues in her defence when she has her day in court, we’ll be ready to knock holes in it.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘The bottom line is, you don’t fail to report a death, hide the body then steal your victim’s ID when it’s an accident.’

  Karen demurred. ‘I can see how you might worry about misinterpretation, especially if you were known to have a volatile relationship.’

  ‘You can see that and I can see that, but for the majority of people who sit on a jury, what McAndrew did was inexplicable in anything other than a criminal context. Relax, Karen, you’ve done the heavy lifting. Dani Gilmartin’s father finally gets to know what happened to his daughter, and that’s a result, whatever the outcome in court.’

  She was right. ‘Thanks, Ruth.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Now I’m away to my bed. See you soon.’