A Darker Domain

by Val McDermid

  The trouble with cold cases, Karen thought, was that there were so many brick walls to run into. When there really was nothing you could do next. No obvious witness to interview. No convenient forensic samples to organize. At times like this, she was at the mercy of her wits, twisting the Rubik’s Cube of what she knew in the hope that a new pattern would emerge.

  She’d interviewed everyone who might have been able to give her a lead on what had happened to Mick Prentice. In a way, that should have worked to her advantage when it came to investigating Andy Kerr’s death because she’d been talking to them in the context of a missing-person inquiry. Unless they had something to hide, people were generally pretty open with the police when it was a matter of helping to track down those missing and missed. When it came to murder, they were more reluctant to talk. And what they did say was hedged with qualifications and anxieties. Theoretically, she knew she should go back to her witnesses and take fresh statements, statements that might lead her to other witnesses who remembered what Andy Kerr was saying and doing leading up to his death. But experience told her it would be a waste of time now suspicious death was on the agenda. Nevertheless, she’d sent the Mint and a bright new CID aide on a fresh round of interviews. Maybe they’d get lucky and pick up on something she’d missed. A girl could always hope.

  She turned to the Cat Grant file. She was stalled there, too. Until she had a proper report from the Italian police, it was hard to see where she could make progress. There had been one stroke of luck in that area, however. She’d contacted Fergus Sinclair’s parents, hoping to find out where their son was working so she could arrange to interview him. To her surprise, Willie Sinclair had told her his son would be arriving with his wife and children that very evening for their annual Scottish holiday. Tomorrow morning, she would have the chance to talk to Fergus Sinclair. It sounded as if he was the only person left who might be willing to unlock Cat Grant’s personality. Her mother was dead, her father was unwilling, and the files offered no clue to any close friendships.

  Karen wondered if the lack of friendships was a matter of choice or personality. She knew people so invested in their work that the lack of close human relationships was something they barely noticed. She also knew others who were desperate for intimacy but whose only talent was for driving people away. She counted her blessings; she had friends whose support and laughter filled an important place in the pattern of her days. It might lack a central relationship at its heart, but hers was a life that felt solid and comfortable.

  What had Cat Grant’s life felt like? Karen had seen women consumed by their children. Witnessing their adoring gaze, she’d felt uneasy. Children were human, not gods to be worshipped. Was Cat’s child the centre of her world? Had Adam occupied her entire heart? It looked that way from the outside. Everyone assumed Fergus was the baby’s father, but even if he hadn’t been, one thing seemed clear. Adam’s father had been banished from his life; it appeared that his mother had wanted him for herself alone.

  Or maybe not. Karen wondered if she was looking through the wrong end of the telescope. What if it hadn’t been Cat who had cast out Adam’s father? What if he’d had his own reasons for refusing to accept a role in his son’s life? Maybe he didn’t want the responsibility. Maybe he had other responsibilities, another family whose call on him was thrown into relief by the prospect of another child. Maybe he’d only been passing through and had gone before she even knew she was pregnant. There was no denying that there were other possibilities worth considering.

  Karen sighed. She’d know more after she’d spoken to Fergus. With luck, he’d help her to narrow down some of her wilder ideas. ‘Cold cases,’ she said out loud. They’d break your heart. Like lovers, they tantalized with promises that this time it would be different. It would start out fresh and exciting, you’d try to ignore those little niggles that you felt sure would disappear as you got to understand things better. Then suddenly it would be going nowhere. Wheels spinning in a gravel pit. And before you knew it, it was over. Back to square one.

  She glanced up at Phil, who was working computer databases, trying to track down a witness in another case. Probably just as well it had never come to anything between them. Better to have him as a friend than to end up with bitterness and frustration measuring the distance between them.

  And then the phone rang. ‘CCRT, DI Pirie speaking,’ she said, trying not to sound as pissed off as she felt.

  ‘This is Capitano di Stefano from the carabinieri in Siena,’ a heavily accented voice said. ‘You are the officer I have talked to about the Villa Totti near Boscolata?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Karen sat bolt upright, reaching for pen and paper. She remembered di Stefano’s style from their previous conversation. His English was surprisingly good as far as vocabulary and grammar were concerned, but his accent was atrocious. He pronounced English as if it were an opera libretto, the stresses in peculiar places and the pronunciation bordering on the bizarre. None of that mattered. What mattered was the content, and Karen was prepared to work as hard as necessary to nail that down precisely. ‘Thanks for calling.’

  ‘It is my pleasure,’ he said, every vowel distinct. ‘So. We have visited the villa and talked to the neighbours.’

  Who knew you could get four syllables out of ‘neighbours’? ‘Thank you. What did you discover?’

  ‘We have found more copies of the poster you emailed to us. Also, we have found the silk screen it was printed from. Now we are processing fingerprints from the frame and other areas inside the villa. You understand, many people have been here, and there are many traces everywhere. As soon as we have processed the prints and the other material, we will transmit our results as well as copies of prints and DNA sequences. I am sorry, but this aspect is not a priority for us, you understand?’

  ‘Sure, I understand. Is there any chance that you can send us some samples so we can run our own tests? Just in the interests of time, not for any other reason.’ Like, everybody in my department thinks you’re useless.

  ‘Si. This is already done. I have sent you samples from the bloodstain on the floor and other bloodstains in the kitchen and living area. Also, other evidence where we have multiple samples. So, I hope this will come to you tomorrow.’

  ‘What did the neighbours have to say?’

  Di Stefano tutted down the phone. ‘I think you call these people lefties. They don’t like the carabinieri. They’re the kind of people who go to Genoa for the G8. They are more on the side of the people living illegally at the Villa Totti. So my men did not learn a great deal. What we know is that the people living here ran a travelling puppet show called BurEst. We have some photos from a local newspaper and my colleague is emailing them to you. We know some names, but these are the kind of people who can very easily disappear. They live in the world of the black economy. They don’t pay taxes. Some of them are probably illegals.’

  Karen could almost see him spreading his hands in a frustrated shrug. ‘I appreciate how hard it is. Can you send me a list of the names you do have?’

  ‘I can tell you now. We only have first names for these people. So far, no family names. Dieter, Luka, Maria, Max, Peter, Rado, Sylvia, Matthias, Ursula. Matthias was in charge. I am sending you this list. Some of them, we think we know their nationality, but it’s mostly guessing I think.’

  ‘Any Brits?’

  ‘It does not look like it, although one of the neighbours thinks that Matthias might have been English because of his accent.’

  ‘It’s not a very English name.’

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t always his name,’ di Stefano pointed out. ‘The other thing about people like this, they are always trying to be born again. New name, new history. So, I am sorry. There does not seem to be very much here for you.’

  ‘I appreciate what you’ve been able to do. I know it’s hard to justify manpower on something like this.’

  ‘Inspector, it looks to me as if there has been a murder in this villa. We are treating thi
s as a possible murder investigation. We try to help you in the course of this, but we are more interested in what we think happened three months ago than what happened twenty-two years ago in your country. We are looking very hard for these people. And tomorrow, we bring in the body dogs and the ground-penetrating radar to see if we can find a burial site. It will be difficult because it is surrounded by woodland. But we must try. So you see, manpower is not the issue here.’

  ‘Of course. I didn’t mean to suggest you weren’t taking it seriously. I know what it’s like, believe me.’

  ‘There is one more thing we have found out. I don’t know if this matters to you, but there has been an English journalist here, asking questions.’

  Karen was momentarily at a loss. Nothing had been released to the media. What was a hack doing sniffing around in her case? Then suddenly it dawned on her. ‘Bel Richmond,’ she said.

  ‘Annabel,’ di Stefano said. ‘She was staying at a farm up the hill. She left this afternoon. She is returning to England tonight. The neighbours, they said that she wanted to know about the BurEst people. A teenager told one of my men that she was also interested in a couple of friends of Matthias. An English painter and his son. But I have no names, no photos, no nothing. Maybe you can speak to her? Maybe the Boscolata neighbours think it’s better to talk to a journalist rather than a cop, what do you think?’

  ‘Tragically, I think you might be right,’ Karen said bitterly. They exchanged pleasantries and empty promises to visit, then the call was over. Karen screwed up a piece of paper and tossed it at Phil. ‘Can you believe it?’

  ‘What?’ He looked up, startled. ‘Believe what?’

  ‘Fucking Bel Richmond,’ she said. ‘Who does she think she is? Brodie Grant’s private police force?’

  ‘What’s she done?’ He stretched his arms above his head, grunting as he unkinked his spine.

  ‘She’s only been to Italy.’ Karen kicked her bin. ‘Fucking cheeky bitch. Going out there and chatting up the neighbours. The neighbours that won’t say much to the police because they’re a bunch of unreconstructed lefties. Jesus Christ.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Phil said. ‘Shouldn’t we be pleased about that? I mean, that we’ve got somebody getting the dirt, even if it’s not our colleagues in Italy?’

  ‘Can you come over here and look in my email inbox and show me the message from Bel Richmond telling us what she’s dug up in bloody Tuscany? Can you maybe let your fingers do the walking through my intray and show me the fax she sent with all the information she’s gathered out there? Or maybe it’s my voicemail that I’ve lost the ability to access? Phil, she might have found out all sorts. But we’re not the ones she’s telling.’

  Edinburgh Airport to Rotheswell Castle

  Bel watched the empty luggage carousel circling, exhaustion rendering her incapable of thought. A drive to Florence airport, mysteriously hidden somewhere in the suburbs, a dismal journey via Charles de Gaulle, an airport surely designed by a latter-day Marquis de Sade, and still miles to go before she could sleep. And not even in her own bed. At last, suitcases and holdalls started to appear. Ominously, hers was absent from the first circuit. She was about to throw a tantrum at the ground services counter when her case finally came limping through, one latch hanging loose from its moorings. In her heart, she knew Susan Charleson had nothing to do with her miseries, but it was nice to have someone to lay irrational blame on. Please God she’d sent someone to pick her up.

  Her spirits should have risen when she emerged in the arrivals area to see there was indeed a chauffeur waiting for her. But the fact that it was Brodie Grant himself only emphasized her weariness. She wanted to curl up and sleep or curl up and drink. She did not want to spend the next forty minutes under interrogation. He wasn’t even paying her, now she came to think about it. Just fronting her exes and opening doors for her. Which wasn’t exactly a bad gig. But in her book, it didn’t entitle him to 24/7 service. Like you’re going to tell him that.

  Grant greeted her with a nod and they wrestled momentarily over the suitcase before Bel gave in gracelessly. As they hustled through the terminal, Bel was conscious of eyes on them. Brodie Grant clearly had street recognition. Not many businessmen achieved that. Richard Branson, Alan Sugar. But they were familiar TV faces, on screen for reasons that were nothing to do with business. She didn’t think Grant would be noticed in London, but here in Scotland, the punters knew his face in spite of his media shyness. Charisma, or just a big fish in a small pond? Bel wouldn’t have liked to hazard a guess.

  It wasn’t just the punters. Outside the terminal, where signs and PA announcements strictly banned the parking of cars, an armed police officer was standing next to Grant’s Land Rover. He wasn’t there to warn Grant or give him a ticket; he was there to make sure nobody messed with the Defender. Grant gave him a patriarchal nod as he loaded the case, then waved graciously as they drove off.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ Bel said. ‘I thought it was just royalty that got that sort of treatment.’

  His face twitched as if he wasn’t certain whether she was being critical. ‘In my country, we respect success.’

  ‘What? Three hundred years of English oppression hasn’t knocked that out of you?’

  Grant started upright, then realized she was teasing him. To her relief, he laughed. ‘No. You’re much keener to knock success than we are. I think you like success too, Annabel. Isn’t that why you’re up here working with me instead of uncovering some ghastly tale of rape and sex trafficking in London?’

  ‘Partly. And partly because I’m interested in finding out what happened.’ As soon as the words were out, she could have kicked herself for giving him the perfect opening.

  ‘And what have you found out in Tuscany?’ he asked.

  As they raced through the night on empty roads, she told him what she had discovered and what she had surmised. ‘I came back because I don’t have the resources to track Gabriel Porteous down,’ she concluded. ‘DI Pirie might be able to kick the Italian cops into action -’

  ‘We’re not going to be talking to DI Pirie about this,’ Grant said firmly. ‘We’ll hire a private investigator. He can buy us the information we need.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell the police what I’ve found out? You’re not sharing the info with them? Or the photos?’ She knew she shouldn’t be shocked by the antics of the very rich, but she was taken aback by so adamant a response.

  ‘The police are useless. We can wrap it up ourselves. If this boy is Adam, it’s a family matter. It’s not up to the police to find him.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Bel said. ‘When we started this, you were the one who went to the police. Now you want to shut them out.’

  There was a long silence. The dashboard lit up his profile against the night, the muscles in his jaw tight and hard. At last, he spoke. ‘Forgive me, but I don’t think you’ve entirely thought this through, Bel.’

  ‘What have I missed?’ She felt the old clutch of fear that news editors had always induced with their questioning of her copy.

  ‘You talked about a significant amount of blood on the kitchen floor. You thought someone who lost that much blood would probably be dead. That means there’s a body somewhere, and now the police are looking, they’ll probably find it. And when they find it, they’ll be looking for a killer -’

  ‘And Gabriel was there the night before they all disappeared. You think Gabriel will come under suspicion,’ Bel said, suddenly getting it. ‘And if he is your grandson, you want him out of the picture.’

  ‘You got there, Bel,’ he said. ‘More than that, I don’t want the Italian police fitting him up because they can’t find the real killer. If he’s not around, the temptation is less, especially since there will be other, more attractive suspects on the ground. The Italian private eyes won’t just be looking for Gabriel Porteous.’

  Oh my God, he’s going to have someone else fitted up. Just as an insurance policy. Bel felt nauseous. ‘You mean, you�
�re going to find a scapegoat?’

  Grant gave her an odd look. ‘What an extraordinary suggestion. I’m just going to make sure the Italian police get all the help they deserve.’ His smile was grim. ‘We’re all citizens of Europe now, Bel.’

  Thursday 5th July 2007; Kirkcaldy

  Karen had conducted interviews in strange places before, but Ravenscraig Castle would probably have made the top five. When she’d asked Fergus Sinclair to meet her, he’d suggested the venue. ‘That way, my wife can take the kids round the castle and down to the shore,’ he said. ‘This is our summer holiday. I don’t see why we have to be cooped up just because you want to talk to me.’

  ‘The weather,’ would have been as good an answer as any. Karen was sitting on the remains of a wall with her anorak collar turned up against a sharp breeze coming off the sea, Phil sat next to her huddled into his leather jacket. ‘This better be worth it,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure whether it’s rheumatism or piles I’m getting here, but I know it’s not good for me.’

  ‘He’s probably used to it. Working on a hunting estate like he does.’ Karen squinted up at the sky. The cloud was high and thin, but she’d still have put money on rain by lunchtime. ‘You know that, back in the Middle Ages, this was the St Clair family seat?’

  ‘That’s why this part of Kirkcaldy’s called Sinclairtown, Karen.’ Phil rolled his eyes. ‘You think he’s trying to intimidate us?

  She laughed. ‘If I can survive Brodie Grant, I can survive a descendant of the St Clairs of Ravenscraig. Do you think this is him?’

  A tall, rangy man walked through the castle gatehouse followed by a woman almost as tall as him and a pair of small sturdy boys, each with a shock of bright blond hair like their mother. The lads looked around them and then they were off, running and jumping, clambering and exploring. The woman turned her face upwards and the man planted a kiss on her forehead, then patted her back as she turned to chase the boys. He looked around and caught sight of the two cops. He raised a hand in greeting and came towards them with quick, long strides.