by Val McDermid
Edinburgh
Karen reclined the car seat back from bolt upright and settled herself in for the drive to Edinburgh. ‘I tell you,’ she said. ‘My head’s nipping with this case. Every time I think I’m making sense of it, something trips me up.’
‘Which case did you have in mind? The one the Macaroon thinks you’re prioritizing or the one you’re actually working?’ Phil said, turning on to the back road that would bring them to a farm tearoom by the motorway. One thing about cold cases was that you could generally manage to eat at regular times. There wasn’t the pressure of the clock ticking before another offence was committed. It was a regime that suited both of them just fine.
‘I can’t do anything about Cat Grant until I get a proper report from the Italian police. And they’re not exactly going hell for leather. No, I’m talking about Mick Prentice. First, everybody thinks he’s gone to Nottingham. But now it looks like he never left the Wemyss alive. He never went with the scabs, even though one of them confused the issue by sending money to Jenny. But the one thing we did learn from the scabs is that Mick was alive and well and walking round the Newton a good twelve hours after Jenny claims he walked out.’
‘Which is odd,’ Phil said. ‘If he was leaving her, you’d think he’d be long gone. Unless he was just trying to teach her a lesson. Maybe he’d stayed away for hours to wind her up. Maybe he was on the way back home and something happened to divert him.’
‘It certainly sounds like something knocked him out of character. The guys going scabbing obviously expected him to lose his head with them. When they saw him, they thought they were in for a tongue-lashing or a fight. But all they got was him pleading with them, looking like he was ready to burst into tears.’
‘Maybe that was the night he found out there was something going on between Jenny and Tom Campbell,’ Phil suggested. ‘That would have knocked his confidence for six.’
‘Maybe.’ She sounded unconvinced. ‘If you’re right, he would have been in a state. He wouldn’t have wanted to go home. So maybe he crashed with his pal Andy in the cottage in the woods.’
‘If he did, why did nobody see him again after that night? You know what it used to be like round here. When people split up, they didn’t leave town. They just moved three houses down the street.’
Karen sighed. ‘Fair enough. But he could still have gone to Andy’s. It could have played out a different way. We know Andy was on the sick with depression. And we know from his sister that he liked to go up into the Highlands, walking. What if Mick decided to go with him? What if they both had an accident and their bodies are lying in some ravine? You know what it’s like up there. Climbers go missing and they’re never found. And that’s just the ones we know about.’
‘It’s possible.’ Phil signalled and turned into the car park. ‘But if that’s what happened, whose body is it in the cave? I think it’s a lot simpler than you’re making out, Karen.’
They walked into the café in silence. They ordered steak pie, peas and new potatoes without looking at the menu, then Karen said, ‘Simpler how?’
‘I think you’re right, he did go to Andy’s. I don’t know if he was planning on leaving for good or just putting a bit of space between him and Jenny. But I think he told Andy about Ben Reekie. And I think there was some sort of confrontation. I don’t know if Andy lost the place with Mick, or if Ben came round and it all got out of hand. But I think Mick died in that cottage that night.’
‘What? And they took him down the cave to get rid of him? That seems a bit elaborate. Why not just bury him in the woods?’
‘Andy was a countryman. He knew bodies don’t stay buried in shallow graves in woodland. Putting him in the cave then engineering a rock fall was a much safer place to put him. And a lot more private than trying to dig a grave in the middle of the Wemyss woods. Remember what it was like back then. Every bit of woodland was alive with poachers trying to get a rabbit or even a deer to put on the table.’
‘You’ve got a point.’ Karen smiled an acknowledgement at the waitress who brought their coffees. She added a heaped spoonful of sugar to hers and stirred slowly. ‘So what happened to Andy? You think he went off and topped himself?’
‘Probably. From what you’ve told me, he sounds like the sensitive kind.’
She had to admit it made sense. Phil’s distance allowed him to see the case more clearly. Smart though she was, she knew when to step back and let someone else consider the facts. ‘If you’re right, I suppose we’ll never know how it panned out. Whether it was between Andy and Mick, or whether Ben Reekie was in the picture too.’
Phil smiled, shaking his head. ‘That’s one theory we can’t run past Effie Reekie. Not unless we want another body on our hands.’
‘She’d stroke out on the spot,’ Karen agreed.
He chuckled. ‘Of course, this could all be a wild-goose chase if Jenny was telling the truth when she told you to lay off.’
Karen snorted. ‘Fantasy island, that line. I reckon she’s trying to shut down the aggravation. She wants us out of her hair so she can get back to her life of martyrdom.’
Phil looked surprised. ‘You think she rates her own peace and quiet above her grandson’s life?’
‘No. She’s incredibly self-absorbed, but I don’t think she sees it in those terms. I think deep down she feels some responsibility for Mick disappearing. And that means she has to carry some of the guilt for his unavailability to be a donor for Luke. So she’s trying to offload the guilt by getting us to stop looking for him so she can go back to hiding her head in the sand like before.’
Phil scratched his chin. ‘People are so fucked up,’ he sighed.
‘True enough. At least this jaunt will get us some answers.’
‘Maybe. But it makes you wonder,’ Phil said.
‘Makes you wonder what, exactly?’
He pulled a face. ‘We’re going all the way to Edinburgh to take a DNA sample so River can compare it to the corpse. But what if Misha’s not Mick’s kid? What if she’s Tom Campbell’s bairn?’
Karen gave him an admiring look. ‘You have a truly evil mind, Phil. I think you’re wrong, but it’s a beautiful thing all the same.’
‘You want to take a bet on the DNA showing it’s Mick Prentice?’
They both leaned back to let the waitress put the piled plates of food in front of them. The aroma was killer. Karen wanted to pick up the plate and inhale it. But first she had to answer Phil. ‘No,’ she said. ‘And not because I think Misha might be Tom Campbell’s kid. There’s other possibilities. River says it’s the back of the skull that’s smashed in, Phil. If Andy Kerr killed Mick Prentice, it was in the heat of the moment. He would never have crept up behind him and caved his head in. Your theory’s neat enough, but I’m not convinced.’ She smiled. ‘But then, that’s why you love me.’
He gave her an odd look. ‘You’re always full of surprises.’
Karen swallowed a divine mouthful of meat and pastry. ‘I want some answers, Phil. Real answers, not just the daft notions you and me dream up to fit what we know. I want the truth.’
Phil cocked his head, considering her. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘that’s why I love you, ma’am.’
An hour later, they were standing on the doorstep of the Marchmont tenement where Misha Gibson lived. Karen was still wondering whether there had been anything more than a tease in Phil’s words. She’d thought for a long time that nothing was off limits between them. Apparently she’d been wrong. She certainly wasn’t going to ask him what he’d meant. She pressed the buzzer again, but there was no reply.
A voice from behind them said, ‘Are you looking for Misha?’
‘That’s right,’ Phil said.
An elderly man stepped round them, forcing Karen to move away from the door or be trampled on. ‘You’ll not find her in at this time of day. She’ll be down at the Sick Kids’ with the boy.’ He looked pointedly at them. ‘I’m not letting you in and I’m not putting my code in while you’re
standing there looking.’
Karen laughed. ‘Very commendable, sir. But at the risk of sounding like a cliché, we are the police.’
‘That’s no guarantee of honesty these days,’ the old man said.
Taken aback, Karen stepped away. What was the world coming to when people thought the police would burgle them? Or worse? She was about to protest when Phil put his hand on her arm. ‘No point,’ he said softly. ‘We’ve got what we need.’
‘I tell you,’ Karen said when they were out of earshot. ‘They sit watching their American cop shows where every other cop is bent and they think that’s what we’re like. It makes me mad.’
‘That’s a bit rich, coming from the woman who put the Assistant Chief Constable behind bars. It’s not just the Americans,’ Phil said. ‘You get people who take the piss everywhere. That’s where the scriptwriters get their ideas from.’
‘Oh, I know. It just offends me. All the years I’ve been in this job, Lawson’s the only truly bad apple I’ve ever come up against. But that’s all it takes for people to lose all respect.’
‘You know what they say: Trust is like virginity. You can only lose it once. So, you ready for “good cop, bad cop”?’ They paused on the kerb to wait for a break in the traffic and headed on down the hill to the hospital.
‘Count me in,’ Karen said.
Finding Luke Gibson’s ward was easy but harrowing. It was impossible to avoid the presence of ill children, the images of their sickness burning themselves into memory. It was, Karen thought, one of the few upsides of being childless. You didn’t have to stand by impotent as your kid suffered.
The door to Luke’s room was open and Karen couldn’t stop herself watching mother and son together for a few minutes. Luke seemed very small, his face pale and pinched but still hanging on to a young boy’s prettiness. Misha was sitting on the bed next to him, reading a Captain Underpants book. She was doing all the voices, making the story come alive for her boy, who laughed out loud at the bad puns and the daft storyline.
Finally, she cleared her throat and stepped inside. ‘Hi, Misha.’ She smiled at the boy. ‘You must be Luke. My name’s Karen. I need to have a wee word with your mummy. Is that OK?’
Luke nodded. ‘Sure. Mum, can I watch my Dr Who DVD if you’re going away?’
‘I’ll be right back,’ Misha said, scrambling off the bed. ‘But yeah, you can have the DVD on.’ She reached for a personal DVD player and set it up for him.
Karen waited patiently, then led her into the corridor, where Phil was waiting. ‘We need to talk to you,’ Karen said.
‘That’s fine,’ Misha said. ‘There’s a parents’ room down the hall.’ She set off without waiting for a response and they followed her into a small, brightly decorated room with a coffee vending machine and a trio of sagging couches. ‘It’s where we escape to when it all gets too much.’ She gestured at the sofas. ‘It’s amazing what you can catnap on after twelve hours sitting by a sick kid’s bed.’
‘We’re sorry to intrude -’
‘You’re not intruding,’ Misha interrupted. ‘It’s good that you’ve met Luke. He’s a wee doll, isn’t he? Now you understand why I’m willing to pursue this even though my mother doesn’t like you poking into the past. I told her she was out of order on Sunday. You need to ask these questions if you’re going to find my dad.’
Karen flashed a quick glance at Phil, who looked as surprised as she felt. ‘Did you know your mother came to see me this morning?’ she said.
Misha frowned. ‘I had no idea. Did she tell you what you wanted to know?’
‘She wanted us to give up looking for your father. She said she didn’t think he was missing. That he’d walked out on the pair of you from choice and that he didn’t want to come back.’
‘That makes no sense,’ Misha said. ‘Even though he did walk out on us, he wouldn’t turn his back on his own grandson if he needed his help. All I’ve heard about my dad was that he was one of the good guys.’
‘She says she’s trying to protect you,’ Karen said. ‘She’s scared that if we do find him he’ll reject you for a second time.’
‘Either that or she knows more about his disappearance than she’s letting on,’ Phil said grimly. ‘What you probably don’t know is that we’ve found a body.’
Campora
Bel sat on her tiny terrace, watching the sky and the hills range through the spectrum as the sun set slowly and gloriously. She picked at the cold leftovers of pork and potato that Grazia had left in her fridge, considering her next move. She wasn’t relishing the battle with Italian bureaucracy that lay ahead of her, but if she was to find Gabriel Porteous, it would have to be faced. She pulled out Renata’s prints again, wondering whether she was imagining the resemblance.
But again, it leapt off the page at her. The deep-set eyes, the curved beak of the nose, the wide mouth. All mimicking Brodie Grant’s distinctive features. The mouth was different, it was true. The lips were fuller, more shapely. Definitely more kissable, Bel thought, chiding herself instantly for the thought. The hair was a different colour too. Both Brodie Grant and his daughter had had hair so dark it was almost black. But this boy’s hair was much lighter, even allowing for the bleaching of the Italian sun. His face was broader too. There were points of difference. You wouldn’t mistake Gabriel Porteous for the young Brodie Grant, not judging by the photos Bel had seen around Rotheswell. But you might take them for brothers.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the phone. With a sigh, she picked it up. It was a pain that caller ID didn’t always work abroad. You could never tell whether the person on the other end was someone you were trying to avoid. And letting calls go to voicemail so you could screen them soon became hideously expensive. Plus, being partly responsible for her nephew meant she could never ignore the mystery callers. ‘Hello?’ she said cautiously.
‘Bel? It’s Susan Charleson. Is this a good moment?’
‘Yes, perfect.’
‘I got your email. Sir Broderick asked me to tell you he’s very pleased with your progress so far. He wanted to know whether you needed anything at this end. We can organize record searches, that sort of thing.’
Bel bit back a rueful laugh. She’d spent her working life doing her own dirty work, or else persuading others to do it for her. It hadn’t occurred to her that working for Brodie Grant meant she could offload all the boring bits. ‘It’s all in hand,’ she said. ‘Where you could give me a hand is on the personal stuff. I can’t help thinking there must be a point in her past where Catriona’s life intersected either with Daniel Porteous or this Matthias who might be German or British. I suppose he might even be Swedish, given that’s where Catriona studied. I need to find out when and where that happened. I don’t know if she kept diaries or an address book? Also, when I get back, I could really do with tracking down her female friends. The sort of women she would confide in.’
Susan Charleson gave a well-bred little laugh. ‘You’re going to be disappointed, then. You might think her father plays things close to his chest, but Catriona made him look like a soul-barer. She was the ultimate cat who walks alone. Her mother was her best friend, really. They were very close. Apart from Mary, the only person who really got inside Cat’s head was Fergus.’ She left the name dangling in the air between them.
‘I don’t suppose you know where I’ll find Fergus?’
‘You could talk to his father when you get back. He often visits his family around this time of year,’ Susan said. ‘It’s not something Willie feels the need to communicate to Sir Broderick. But I’m aware of it.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And I’ll see what I can do about diaries and address books. Don’t hold your breath, though. The trouble with artists is that they let their work do the talking. When will you be back?’
‘I’m not sure. It depends how I get on tomorrow. I’ll let you know.’
There was nothing more to say, no pleasantries. Bel couldn’t remember the last time she’d
failed so completely to make a connection with another woman. She’d spent her adult life learning how to get people to like her enough to confide things they didn’t really want to tell anyone. With Susan Charleson, she had failed. This job that had started out as little more than an off-chance of persuading a famously reclusive man to talk had exposed her to herself in the most unexpected of ways.
What next, she wondered, taking a long sip of her wine. What next?
Wednesday 4th July 2007; East Wemyss
Some American woman on the radio was belting out a cracking alt. country song about Independence Day. Only this wasn’t about the Stars and Stripes, it was about a radical approach to domestic violence. As a police officer, Karen couldn’t approve; but as a woman, she had to admit the song’s solution had its appeal. If Phil had been there, she would have bet him a pound to a gold clock that the man she was about to meet wouldn’t have had ‘Independence Day’ blasting out of his car radio.
She drove slowly up the narrow street that led to what had been the pithead and offices of the Michael colliery. There was nothing there now apart from a scarred area of hard standing where the canteen and wages office had been. Everything else had been landscaped and transformed. Without the rust-red pylon of the winding gear it was hard to orientate herself. But at the far end of the asphalt, a single car sat pointing out to sea. Her rendezvous.
The car she pulled up beside was an elderly Rover, buffed to within an inch of its life. She felt faintly embarrassed about the collection of dead insects on her number plate. The Rover’s door opened in synch with her own and both drivers got out simultaneously, like a choreographed shot from a film. Karen walked to the front of her car and waited for him to join her.
He was shorter than she expected. He must have struggled to make the 5'8'' minimum for a cop. Maybe his hair had tipped him over the edge. It was steel grey now, but the quiff would have put Elvis to shame. He wouldn’t have been allowed the DA and the sideburns when he was a serving officer, but when it came to hairstyle, Brian Beveridge had taken full advantage of retirement.