Fever of the Bone

by Val McDermid

  Carrying a tray loaded with steaming mugs, milk and sugar, Shami returned. ‘Tea,’ she said, handing round the drinks. It was a mundane moment that broke the mood and made it possible for Patterson to move the interview forward.

  ‘According to Claire, Jennifer said she was planning to bake you a cake to welcome you home. That she had to go to the Co-op to get some chocolate for it. Was that something she usually did? Made a cake for you coming home?’ Patterson said gently.

  Maidment looked baffled. ‘She’d never done it before. I didn’t even realise she knew how to bake a cake.’ He bit his lip. ‘If she hadn’t done that, if she’d just gone to Claire’s like she was supposed to . . .’

  ‘We’re not convinced she was telling Claire the truth,’ Patterson said, his voice gentle. Ambrose had always been impressed with Patterson’s care for those left in the shadows of violent death. The only word he could think to apply to it was ‘tender’. Like he was conscious of how much damage they’d already taken and he didn’t want to add to it. He could be tough, asking questions Ambrose would have struggled with. But underneath it, there was always a consideration of other people’s pain. Patterson let his words sink in, then continued. ‘We wondered if she was using that as an excuse so Claire wouldn’t ask too many questions about where Jennifer was really going. But we had to check with you. To see if it was the kind of thing she did when you’d been away.’

  Maidment shook his head. ‘She’d never done anything like that. We usually went out for a celebration dinner if I’d been away for more than a couple of nights. All three of us. We’d go for a Chinese. It was always Jennifer’s favourite. She never baked me a cake.’ He shivered. ‘Never will now.’

  Patterson waited for a few moments, then said, ‘We’ve been looking at Jennifer’s computer. It seems she and Claire spent a lot of time online, both together and separately. Did you know about that?’

  Maidment clutched his drink like a man possessed by cold. He nodded. ‘They all do it. Even if you wanted to stop them, they’d still find a way. So we got together with the Darsies and insisted on the girls’ computers having all the parental controls on. It restricts where they can go and who can get to them.’

  Up to a point, thought Ambrose. ‘She used RigMarole a lot,’ he said, picking up the baton of the questioning. He and Patterson had been working together so long they didn’t even have to discuss their tactics in advance. They knew instinctively how to let things flow between them. ‘The social networking site. Did she ever talk to you about it?’

  Maidment nodded. ‘We’re very open as a family. We try not to be heavy-handed with Jennifer. We’ve always made a point of talking things through, explaining the reasons why we don’t let her do something or why we don’t approve of some behaviour or other. It kept the lines of communication open. I think she talked to us more than most teenagers. At least, judging by what our friends and my colleagues say about their kids.’ As often happened with the abruptly bereaved, talking about his dead daughter seemed to shift Maidment to a place where he could briefly disconnect from his grief.

  ‘So what did she have to say about RigMarole?’ Patterson said.

  ‘They liked it, her and Claire. She said they’d made a lot of online buddies who’re into the same TV programmes and music. I’ve got a page on RigMarole myself, I know how it works. It’s a very straightforward way of making connections with people who share your interests. And their filters are very good. It’s easy to shut somebody out of your community if they don’t fit or they’re breaking the boundaries you’re comfortable with.’

  ‘Did she ever mention someone with the initials Zed Zed? Or maybe Zee Zee?’ Ambrose asked.

  Maidment ran a finger and thumb across his eyelids then rubbed the bridge of his nose. He took a deep breath and exhaled. ‘No. I’m pretty sure she didn’t. You’d be better off asking Claire about that level of detail. Why are you asking? Has this person been stalking her?’

  ‘Nothing like that, as far as we can see,’ Ambrose said. ‘But we recovered some message sessions between them. It looks as if ZZ was suggesting he or she knew some secret Jennifer had. Did she say anything like that to you or your wife?’

  Maidment looked bewildered. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Look, Jennifer isn’t some wild child. She leads a pretty sheltered life, to tell you the truth. She’s hardly ever given us a minute’s worry. I know you’ve heard all that before, parents trying to make out their kid was a little angel. I’m not saying that. I’m saying she’s stable. Young for her years, if anything. If she had a secret, it wouldn’t be the sort of thing you’re thinking about. Drugs, or sex, or whatever. It would have been a crush on some lad, or something silly like that. Not the sort of thing that gets you murdered.’ The word brought reality crashing back down on Maidment, crushing him all over again. The tears began to creep down his cheeks. Without a word, Shami reached for a box of tissues and pressed a couple into his hand.

  There was nothing else useful to be learned here, Ambrose thought. Not today. Maybe never. He glanced across at Patterson, who nodded almost imperceptibly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Patterson said. ‘We’ll be on our way now. I want you to know that we’re throwing everything we’ve got at this. But we still need your help. Maybe you could ask your wife if Jennifer said anything about this ZZ. Or about secrets.’ He stood up. ‘If there’s anything you need, DC Patel here will sort you out. We’ll be in touch.’

  Ambrose followed him from the house, wondering how long it would be before Paul Maidment could get through five minutes without thinking of his murdered daughter.

  CHAPTER 7

  Tony surveyed his living room, reflecting that it was a convenient proof of the second law of thermodynamics: entropy increases. He wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but piles seemed to accumulate whenever his back was turned. Books, papers, DVDs and CDs, console games and controllers and magazines. All of these were more or less comprehensible. But the other stuff - he had no idea how that had gravitated there. A cereal box. A Rubik’s cube. A small pile of red rubber bands. Six mugs. A T-shirt. A tote bag from a bookshop he was sure he’d never visited. A box of matches and two empty beer bottles he couldn’t remember buying.

  For a brief moment, he thought about tidying up. But what would be the point of that? Most of the chaos didn’t belong anywhere specific in the house, so he would just be shifting the mess to another room. And all of them already had their own particular brand of disarray. His study, his bedroom, the spare room, the kitchen and the dining room were each the repository of a particular aspect of his turmoil. The bathroom wasn’t bad. But then, he never spent time there that wasn’t strictly functional. He’d never been one for reading on the toilet or working in the bath.

  When he’d bought this house, he’d thought there was enough room to absorb his stuff without it spilling over into these uncontrollable little nests of miscellany. He’d had the whole house painted a sort of off-white bone colour and he’d even gone out and bought a job lot of framed black-and-white photographs of Bradfield’s cityscape that he found both soothing and interesting. For about two days the house had looked quite stylish. Now he wondered if there might perhaps be scope for a Parkinson’s Law of Thermodynamics: entropy expands to fill the space available.

  He’d been so convinced that he had more than enough space that his first decision on moving in had been to convert the surprisingly light and spacious basement into a self-contained flat. He’d imagined letting it out to academics spending a sabbatical at Bradfield University, or junior doctors doing a six-month stint at Bradfield Cross Hospital. Nobody long-term, nobody who would impinge on his life.

  Instead, he’d ended up with Carol Jordan as his tenant. It hadn’t been planned. She’d been living in London at the time, holed up in a cool and elegant flat in the Barbican, holding the world at bay. A couple of years before, when John Brandon had persuaded her to return to front-line police work, she’d been reluctant to sell her London
flat and commit to buying a place in Bradfield. Perching in Tony’s basement was supposed to be temporary. But it had turned out to be an arrangement that suited them strangely well. They were careful enough of each other not to impose. But knowing the other was at hand was comforting. At least, he thought it was.

  He decided against clearing up. It would only revert to type within days anyway. And he had better things to do. Theoretically, working only part-time at Bradfield Moor Secure Hospital was supposed to provide Tony with enough free time to work with the police and to read and write the articles and books that helped him stay connected with the community of his colleagues. In practice, there were never enough hours in the day, especially when he factored in the time he spent playing computer games, an indulgence he genuinely believed freed up his subconscious creativity. It was amazing how many apparently intractable problems could be solved after an hour adventuring with Lara Croft or building a medieval Chinese kingdom.

  Things had grown worse lately, thanks to Carol. She’d had the brilliant idea that a Wii would help him eliminate the limp he still carried after an attack from a patient had left him with a shattered knee. ‘You spend too long hunched over a computer, ‘ she’d said. ‘You need to get fit. And I know there’s no point in trying to persuade you to go to the gym. At least a Wii will get you off your backside.’

  She’d been right. Too right, unfortunately. His surgeon might have given the thumbs-up to the amount of time Tony now spent lumbering round his living room playing tennis, bowling and golf or indulging in surreal games against weirdly dressed rabbits. But Tony had a feeling her approval wouldn’t be matched by the editors whose deadlines he was in serious danger of missing.

  He was about to destroy the chief rabbit in a shoot-out on the streets of Paris when he was interrupted by the intercom that Carol had installed between her basement flat and his house above.

  ‘I know you’re there, I can hear you jumping,’ her voice crackled. ‘Can I come up or are you too busy pretending to be Bradfield’s answer to Rafa Nadal?’

  Tony stepped away from the screen with barely a pang of regret and pressed the door-release button. By the time Carol joined him, he’d replaced the game controllers on their charger and poured a couple of glasses of sparkling water. Carol took hers, looking sceptical. ‘Is this the best you can do?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I need to maintain my fluid balance.’ He walked past her, back towards the living room, his move calculated to make resistance easier.

  ‘I don’t. And I’ve had the kind of day that deserves a treat.’ Carol stood her ground.

  Tony kept on walking. ‘And yet you came here, knowing I’m trying to help you move away from drinking so much. Your actions are saying the opposite of your words.’ He looked over his shoulder and grinned at her, trying to take the sting out of thwarting her. ‘Come on, sit down and talk to me.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’ Clearly grumpy now, Carol followed him and plonked herself down on the sofa opposite his chair. ‘I’m here because I have something important to talk to you about. Not because deep down I want to not have a drink.’

  ‘You could have asked me to come down to your flat. Or to meet you somewhere that serves alcohol,’ Tony pointed out. Finding the arguments was tedious, but helping her back to a point where she genuinely didn’t need a drink was the best way he knew of demonstrating how much he cared for her.

  Carol threw her hands in the air. ‘Give me a break, Tony. I really do have something important to discuss.’ It sounded like she meant it.

  Another good reason why he wanted her to stop leaning on alcohol. Her need for a drink masked so many other things - something genuinely important to share with him, a truly difficult day - and that made it hard to read her. And not being able to read her was something he found very hard to bear. Tony leaned back in his chair and smiled, his blue eyes twinkling in the pool of light cast by a nearby reading lamp. ‘Go on then. I’ll stop being your nagging friend and revert to interested colleague. Has this got anything to do with your meeting with your new boss, by any chance?’

  Carol’s answering smile was sardonic. ‘Got it in one.’ She swiftly laid out the ultimatum James Blake had given her team. ‘It’s so unrealistic,’ she said, frustration obviously gnawing at her composure. ‘We’re entirely at the mercy of what comes up over the next three months. Am I supposed to be wishing for some tasty murders, just so that I can show off how good my team is? Or fake evidence to clear up a few high-profile cold cases? You can’t apply some time-and-motion study to a specialist investigative unit.’

  ‘No, you can’t. But that’s not what’s going on here. He’s already made his mind up. This trial period’s bogus, for precisely the reasons you’ve laid out.’ Tony scratched his head. ‘I think you’re screwed. So you might as well just do things exactly as you would anyway.’

  He saw her shoulders slump. But she knew better than to come to him for anything less than honesty. If they started down that road, the trust they’d spent years building would crumble faster than overcooked meringue. And since neither of them had anyone else in their life as close as the other, they couldn’t afford that. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ she sighed. She took a long drink from her water glass. ‘But that’s not all.’ She stared down into her glass, the thick tumble of her hair hiding her face.

  Tony closed his eyes momentarily, rubbing the bridge of his nose. ‘He’s told you to stop using me.’

  Galvanised by his acuity, Carol’s neck straightened and her startled eyes met his. ‘How did you know that? Has Blake spoken to you?’

  Tony shook his head. ‘It’s the dog that didn’t bark in the night.’

  Carol nodded, getting it. ‘He didn’t speak to you. I introduced you, he didn’t engage.’

  ‘Which I took to mean that I’m not part of his budget or his plans.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t worry about me, there’s plenty of other chief constables that still think I’m money well spent.’

  ‘I’m not worried about you, I’m worried about me. And my team.’

  He spread his hands in the equivalent of a shrug. ‘It’s hard to fight a man who reduces everything to the maximum bangs for his buck. The truth is, I’m not the cheapest option, Carol. You’re turning out your own profilers these days. Your bosses think it’s better to go down the American route - train cops in psychology - rather than rely on specialists like me who know nothing about the realities of policing the streets.’ Only someone who knew him as well as Carol could have detected the subtle edge of irony in his tone.

  ‘Yeah, well, you get what you pay for.’

  ‘Some of them are pretty good, you know.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  He chuckled. ‘I’m one of the people who’s been training them.’

  Carol looked shocked. ‘You never said.’

  ‘It was supposed to be confidential.’

  ‘So why are you telling me now?’

  ‘Because if you have to work with them, you should know they’ve had the benefit of input from some of the most experienced profilers around. Not just me, other people in the same field that I’ve got a lot of time for. And these bright young officers have not had their knowledge cluttered up by having to decide on treatment regimes. They’re very focused on one aspect of psychology, and they’re not stupid. Give them a chance. Don’t dismiss them because they’re not me.’ There was another layer of meaning to his words which they both understood. Unfortunately for Tony, it wasn’t a good time to remind Carol of the bond between them that underpinned all their professional ventures.

  She covered her eyes with her hand, like a woman shielding herself from the sun. ‘Blake was really snide, Tony. He implied that my reasons for choosing to consult you are grubby and corrupt. He knows that I’m your tenant, and he made it sound like there was more to it than that, that we had something sordid to hide.’ She turned her head away and drank more water.

  It was hard to understand why a man in Blake’s position would
choose to undermine one of his most effective officers before he’d even seen for himself what she was capable of. But undermine her he had, and he couldn’t have chosen a more effective pressure point if he’d consulted Tony himself. With any other pair of people who shared their history, the assumption that they were lovers would probably have been right on the money. But the emotional bond they’d shared from the earliest days of their professional connection had never spilled over into the physical. Right from the start, he’d levelled with her about the impotence that had consistently blighted his relationships with women. She’d had the good sense not to decide she was the woman who could redeem him. But in spite of their unspoken agreement to keep their feelings on a limited leash, there had been times when the forces pulling them together had seemed strong enough to overcome his fear of humiliation and her anxiety that she wouldn’t be able to hide her disappointment. But each time, the world had thrown obstacles in their path. And given the atrocities that were commonplace in their world, those were not obstacles that could be overcome lightly. He’d never forget the one time she’d let her guard slip because of him, and the darkness it had unleashed. For a while, it had looked as if she could never make her way back from that particular abyss. That she had was, he believed, no thanks to him and everything to do with the power the job had over her. Tony doubted whether Blake knew anything real about their history, but the gossip factory had provided him with enough information to use him against her. He hated that that was possible. ‘Stupid bastard,’ Tony said. ‘He should be making alliances, not alienating the likes of you.’ He gave a thin smile. ‘Not that there are many like you.’

  She shifted in her seat. He thought she probably wished she smoked so she would have something to occupy herself with. ‘Maybe it’s time I thought about moving out. I mean, we both only ever meant it to be temporary. While I decided if I wanted to be back in Bradfield.’ She raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. ‘While I decided if I still wanted to be a cop.’