by Val McDermid
Grant slowed as a gap appeared in the high wall they were driving alongside. ‘Envy, pure and simple. Doesn’t matter what label you put on it - class warfare, machismo, chip on the shoulder. It comes down to the same thing. There’s a lot of people out there who resent what I have.’ He pulled off the road into a large lay-by. The wall angled inwards on both sides, giving way in the middle to tall gates made of a thick lattice of wood painted black, built to resemble a medieval portcullis. Set into the wall on one side was the frontage of a two-storey house, built from the same blocks of local red sandstone as the wall itself. Net curtains blanked the windows, none of them twitching at the sound of the Land Rover’s engine. ‘And those same people resented Catriona too. It’s ironic, isn’t it? People assumed Catriona got such a great start in her professional life because of me. They never realized it was in spite of me.’
He cut the engine and got out, slamming the door behind him. Bel followed, intrigued by the insights he was giving her, the unwitting as much as the witting. ‘And you? Is their envy of you ironic too?’
Grant swung round on his heel and glowered at her. ‘I thought you’d done your research?’
‘I have. I know you started out in a miner’s row in Kelty. That you built your business from nothing. But a couple of places in the cuttings there’s a big hint that your marriage didn’t exactly hurt your meteoric rise.’ Bel knew she was playing with fire here, but she if she was going to capitalize on this unique access and parlay it into something career-changing, she needed to get beneath the surface to the material nobody else had even suspected, never mind reached down into.
Grant’s heavy brows drew together in a glare and for a moment she thought she was going to experience the withering blast of his temper. But something shifted in his expression. She could see the effort it took, but he managed a twisted little smile and shrugged. ‘Yes, Mary’s father did have power and influence in areas that were crucial to the building of my business.’ He spread his arms in a gesture of helplessness. ‘And yes, marrying her did me nothing but good in a professional sense. But here’s the thing, Bel. My Mary was smart enough to know she’d be miserable if she married a man who didn’t love her. And that’s why she chose me.’ His smile slowly faded. ‘I never had a choice in the matter. And I never had a choice when she chose to leave me behind.’ Abruptly he turned away and strode towards the heavy gates.
Friday 23rd January 1987; Eilean Dearg
They spent so little time together these days. The thought had plagued Grant at every meal he’d eaten at Rotheswell all week. Breakfast without her. Lunch without her. Dinner without her. There had been guests; business associates, politicians and of course, Susan. But none of them had been Mary. The time without her had reached critical mass this week. He couldn’t go on with this distance between them. He needed her now as much as he ever had. Nothing made Cat’s death easier, but Mary made it bearable. And now her absence, today of all days, was entirely unbearable.
She’d left on Monday, saying she needed to be on her own. On the island, she would have the peace she wanted. There were no staff there. It only took twenty minutes to walk round, but a couple of miles out to sea felt a long way from anywhere and anyone. Grant liked to go there for the thinking as much as the fishing. Mary mostly left him to it, only joining him occasionally. He couldn’t remember her ever going there alone. But she’d been adamant.
Of course there was no phone line. She had a car phone, but the car would be parked in the hotel car park on Mull, half a mile from the jetty. And besides, there would be no signal for a car phone in the wilderness of the Hebridean chain. He hadn’t even heard her voice since she’d said goodbye on Monday.
And now he’d had enough of the silence. Two years to the day since his daughter had died and his grandson had disappeared, Grant did not want to be alone with his pain. He tried not to be too harsh on himself over what had gone wrong, but guilt had still scarred his heart. He sometimes wondered if Mary blamed him too, if that was why she absented herself so often. He had tried to tell her the only people who should carry responsibility for Catriona’s death were the men who had kidnapped her, but he could barely convince himself, never mind her.
He’d set off after an early breakfast, phoning ahead to the hotel to make sure someone would be available to take him over to his island. He’d had to pull off the road a couple of times when the grief clogging his throat had threatened to overwhelm him. He’d arrived while there was still a faint smudge of daylight in the sky, but by the time they’d crossed the water, dusk was well advanced. But the path to the lodge was broad and well tended, so he had no fear of straying.
As Grant grew near, he was surprised to see no lights showing. When she was quilting, Mary had an array of lights that would shame a theatre rig. Maybe she wasn’t quilting. Maybe she was sitting in the sun room at the back of the house, watching the last threads of light across the western sky. Grant quickened his step, refusing to acknowledge the ragged claws of fear dragging across his chest.
The door wasn’t locked. It swung open on oiled hinges. He reached for the light and the hall sprung into sharp relief. ‘Mary,’ he called. ‘It’s me.’ The dead air seemed to absorb his words, preventing them from carrying any distance.
Grant strode down the hall, throwing doors open as he went, calling his wife’s name, panic tightening his scalp and making him tearful. Where the hell was she? She wouldn’t be outside. Not this late. Not when it was this cold.
He found her in the sun room. But she wasn’t watching the sunset. Mary Grant would never watch the sunset again. A scatter of pills and an empty vodka bottle broke the secret of her silence. Her skin was already cool.
Saturday 30th June 2007; Newton of Wemyss
Bel caught up with Grant by the heavy beams of the gate. Close up, she could see there was a smaller entrance cut into one of the gates, big enough to take a small van or a large car. On the other side was a rutted track leading deep into thick woodland.
‘She left a note,’ he said. ‘I have it by heart still. “I’m so sorry, Brodie. I can’t do this any more. You deserve better and I can’t get better. I can’t bear to see your pain and I can’t bear my own. Please, try to love again. I pray you can.”’ His face twisted in a bitter smile. ‘Judith and Alec. That’s me doing what she told me. Have you heard of the Iditarod race?’
Startled by the abrupt change in subject, Bel could only stutter, ‘Yes. In Alaska. Dog sleds.’
‘One of the biggest hazards they face is something called drum ice. What happens is that the water recedes from under the ice, leaving a thin skin over an air pocket. From above, it looks just like the rest of the ice field. But you put any weight on it and you fall through. And you can’t get out because the sides are sheer ice. That’s what losing Catriona and Adam and Mary feels like sometimes. I don’t know when the ground under my feet is going to stop supporting me.’ He cleared his throat and pointed at a small wooden barn just visible on the edge of the trees. ‘That was Catriona’s workshop and showroom. It was in better nick back then. When she was open for business, she had a couple of A-boards by the roadside. She’d leave the inner gate ajar, enough for people to walk in and out, but not wide enough for cars. There was plenty of room for people to park out here.’ He waved his hand at the ample space where he’d left the Land Rover. The subject of his first wife was clearly closed. But he’d given her a wonderful gift with the image of the drum ice. Bel knew she could make something remarkable out of that.
She surveyed the scene. ‘But, theoretically, whoever kidnapped her could have opened the gate wide enough to drive through? Then they’d have been pretty much invisible from the road.’
‘That was what the police thought initially, but the only tyre tracks they found belonged to Catriona’s own car. They must have parked out here, where it’s hard standing. Anyone driving past could have seen them. They were taking a hell of a risk.’
Bel shrugged. ‘Yes and no. If they physically ha
d hold of Adam, Cat would have done what she was told.’
Grant nodded. ‘Even a woman as bloody-minded as my daughter would have put her son first. I’ve no doubts about that.’ He turned away. ‘I still blame myself.’
It seemed an extreme reaction, even for a control freak. ‘How do you mean?’ Bel asked.
‘I relied too heavily on the police. I should have taken more responsibility for the way things played out. I tried. Just not hard enough.’
Wednesday 23rd January 1985; Rotheswell Castle
‘We know what we’re doing,’ Lawson said. He was beginning to sound tetchy, which didn’t fill Grant with confidence. ‘We can end this tonight.’
‘You should have the area under surveillance,’ Grant said. ‘They could already be in place.’
‘I imagine they know roughly when the mail is delivered,’ Lawson said. ‘If they wanted to get the jump on us, they would have dug in before we even got the message with the arrangements. So it makes no odds, really.’
Grant stared down at that morning’s Polaroid. This time, Cat was lying on her side on a bed, Adam leaning wide-eyed against her. Again, the Daily Record provided proof of life. At least, proof of life for the previous day. ‘Why there?’ he said. ‘It’s such an odd place. It’s not like you can make a quick getaway.’
‘Maybe that’s why they chose it. If they can’t get away quickly, you can’t either. They’re still going to have one hostage. They can use her as a bargaining chip to make you keep your distance until they can get to their vehicle,’ Lawson said. He spread out the large-scale map Rennie had brought in. The site for the handover was circled in red. ‘The Lady’s Rock. It’s about halfway between the old pithead at East Wemyss and the eastern edge of West Wemyss. The nearest points they can drive to are here, at the start of the woods…’ Lawson tapped the map. ‘Or here. In the car park at West Wemyss. If I was them, I wouldn’t choose West Wemyss. It’s further from the main road. It takes a crucial few minutes longer to get on to the grid.’
‘More options when you do get there, though,’ Grant pointed out. ‘Towards Dysart or the Boreland, towards Coaltown, or down the Check Bar Road to the Standing Stone, and then more or less anywhere.’
‘We’ll have all the options covered,’ Lawson said.
‘You can’t take any chances,’ Grant said. ‘They’ll have the ransom. They might sacrifice Cat for the sake of their getaway.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If I was a kidnapper who had my hands on the ransom and I realized your men were on my tail, I’d throw my hostage out of the car,’ Grant said, sounding much cooler than he felt. ‘You’d stop for her because you are civilized. They know that. They can afford to gamble on it.’
‘We won’t take any risks,’ Lawson said.
Grant threw his hands up in frustration. ‘That’s not the right answer either. You can’t play safety first in a situation like this. You have to be willing to take calculated risks. You have to go with the moment. You can’t be rigid. You have to be flexible. I didn’t get to the top of the tree by not taking any risks.’
Lawson gave him a measured stare. ‘And if I take a risk that I think is necessary, and it backfires? Will you be the one shouting loudest for my head on the block?’
Grant closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Of course I bloody will,’ he said. ‘Now, I’ve got two lives and a million pounds riding on this. You need to convince me you know what you’re doing. Can we run through this again?’
Saturday 30th June 2007; Newton of Wemyss
‘I knew I’d let her down. Right then, I knew it.’ Grant sighed heavily. ‘Still, I kept believing that if it all went to hell, someone would come forward. That someone must have seen something.’
‘It didn’t happen.’ It was a flat statement.
‘No. It didn’t happen.’ He turned and looked at Bel. His expression was perplexed. ‘Nobody ever came forward. Not about the actual kidnap itself. Not about where they were held. Nobody ever gave the police a single piece of credible eye-witness testimony. Oh, there were the usual nutters. And people calling in good faith. But after they were investigated, every single report was dismissed.’
‘That seems odd,’ Bel said. ‘Usually there’s something. Even if it’s only a falling out among thieves.’
‘I think so too. The police never seemed to think it was peculiar. But I’ve always wondered how they managed it without there being a single witness to any of it.’
Bel looked pensive. ‘Maybe there wasn’t a falling out among thieves because they weren’t thieves.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m not quite sure,’ she said slowly.
Grant looked frustrated. ‘That’s the trouble with this case.’ He set off towards the Land Rover. ‘Nobody’s ever been sure about bloody anything. The only thing that’s certain is that my daughter is dead.’
Sunday 1st July 2007; East Wemyss
Karen had never had a particularly high opinion of students. It was one reason why she’d opted to join the police straight from school, in spite of her teachers’ attempts to persuade her to go to university. She didn’t see the point of building up four years of debt when she could be earning good money and doing a proper job. Nothing she’d seen of the lives of her former schoolmates had made her feel she’d made a mistake.
But River Wilde’s crew was forcing her to admit that maybe students weren’t all self-indulgent skivers. They’d arrived just before eleven; they’d unloaded their gear and set up their tarpaulins and floodlights by noon; and they’d organized a pizza run, bolted their food and begun the difficult but delicate task of shifting tons of rock and rubble by hand. Once they had established a rhythm with picks, trowels, sieves and brushes, River left them to it and joined Karen where she sat at the cave society’s table, feeling pretty much redundant.
‘Very impressive,’ Karen said.
‘They don’t get out much,’ River said. ‘Well, not in a professional sense, anyway. They’re raring to go.’
‘How long do you think it’ll take to clear the obstruction?’
River shrugged, ‘Depends how far back it goes. It’s impossible to guess. One of my postgrads has his first degree in Earth Sciences and he says that sandstone is notoriously unpredictable when it starts to move. Once we get some clearance up at the top, we can stick a drill probe in. That should give us an idea of how far back it goes. If we hit clear air, we can shove a fibre-optic camera down. Then we’ll have a much better sense of what we’re dealing with.’
‘I really appreciate this,’ Karen said. ‘I’m taking a bit of a flyer here.’
‘So I gathered. You want to fill me in? Or is it better if I don’t know?’
Karen grinned. ‘You’re doing me the favour. Better you know what the score is.’ She took River through the key points of her investigation, elaborating where River asked for more detail. ‘What do you think?’ she said at last. ‘You think I can finesse it?’
River held out a hand, waggling it from side to side to indicate it could go either way. ‘How smart is your boss?’ she asked.
‘He’s a numpty,’ Karen said. ‘All the insight of a shag-pile carpet.’
‘In that case, you might get lucky.’
Before Karen could reply, a familiar shape emerged from the gloom of the cave entry. ‘Are you lassies not one short?’ Phil said, coming into the light and pulling up a chair.
‘What’re you on about?’ Karen said.
‘Hubble bubble, toil and trouble,’ he said. ‘Trick of the light. Sorry, boss.’ He thrust out a hand. ‘You must be Dr Wilde. I have to say, I thought Karen was a one-off, but apparently I was wrong.’
‘He means that in a nice way,’ Karen said, rolling her eyes. ‘Phil, you have to learn to play nice with strange women. Especially ones who know seventeen different undetectable ways to kill you.’
‘Excuse me,’ River said, apparently offended. ‘I know a hell of a lot more than seventeen ways.’
&n
bsp; Ice broken, Phil had River explain what her team were hoping to achieve. He listened carefully, and when she had finished, he stared across at the students. They’d already made a visible dent in the top corner where fallen rocks met the roof. ‘No offence,’ he said, ‘but I hope this all turns out to be a waste of time.’
‘You still hoping Mick Prentice is alive and well and digging holes in Poland, like Iain Maclean suggested?’ Karen said, pity withering her tone.
‘I’d rather that than find him under those rocks.’
‘And I’d rather my numbers had come up on the lottery last night,’ Karen said.
‘Nothing wrong with a bit of optimism,’ River said kindly. She got to her feet. ‘I’d better do some leading by example. I’ll call you if anything comes up.’
There was no difficulty in finding two parking places in Jenny Prentice’s terraced street. Phil followed Karen up the path, muttering under his breath that the Macaroon was going to go spare when he found out about River’s big dig.
‘It’s all under control,’ Karen said. ‘Don’t worry.’ The door opened abruptly and Jenny Prentice glared at them. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Prentice. We’d like to have a wee chat with you.’ Steel in the eyes and the voice.
‘Aye well, I don’t want to have any kind of chat with you just now. It’s not convenient.’
‘It is for us,’ Phil said. ‘Do you want to do it here where the neighbours can tune in? We could come in, if you’d rather do it that way?’
Another figure appeared behind Jenny. Karen couldn’t help being pleased when she recognized Misha Gibson. ‘Who is it, Mum?’ she said, then realized. ‘Inspector Pirie - have you got news?’ The hope that sprang into her eyes felt like a reproach.
‘Nothing concrete,’ Karen said. ‘But you were right. Your dad didn’t go to Nottingham with the scabs. Whatever happened to him, it wasn’t that.’
‘So if you’ve not come with news, why are you here?’
‘We’ve one or two questions we need to ask your mum.’ Phil said.