by Val McDermid
Later, as she’d walked along the coast in the small hours, she’d thought about Gabriel Abbott, a man whose life must have been defined by that early loss. A year ago, she wouldn’t have made much of that. But now, she had also become someone defined by loss and she couldn’t help feeling an odd kinship with the dead man. Instead of paying attention to her surroundings, she worried at the handful of details she’d learned online about the catastrophic event that had turned his life upside down, as Phil’s murder had done for her.
On the face of it, there was nothing to link the murder of Caroline Abbott with that of her son. A terrorist bombing and an up-close-and-personal shooting. Just a tragic coincidence.
Except that Karen didn’t believe in coincidence.
The Mint slowed as two main roads merged on the approach to the Forth Road Bridge. The journey north from the capital had been less congested in the months since HGVs had been banned from the bridge because of fears that the whole thing might collapse and dump its users into the freezing waters of the estuary below. The haulage companies were grumbling at the detours that had been forced on them, but Karen had little sympathy. It was their heavily laden behemoths that had done the damage in the first place.
‘I love that bridge,’ the Mint declared, taking one hand off the wheel to gesture at the railway bridge, its cantilevers a dark red diagram sketched with careful accuracy against a blue sky.
‘Me too,’ Karen admitted. To someone from Fife, someone like her, it was a border crossing as definite and iconic as Checkpoint Charlie. It marked the southern frontier between the Kingdom of Fife and the rest of the world. Fife was different. Everybody knew that.
The road bridge was what mostly carried her across the Firth of Forth these days, and that meant she was hardly ever conscious of its span. But the railway bridge was irresistible, a monument to Victorian engineering that had given a fresh idiom to the English language. ‘Like painting the Forth Bridge,’ described a never-ending Sisyphean task. Except that, these days, the idiom was a dead letter. Now the industrial chemists had come up with a paint whose topcoat would last for twenty years. It had made Karen wonder which of the other apparent certainties she carried in her head were equally invalid.
The Mint flashed her a quick glance. She’d schooled him well; he knew not to interrupt her if she was lost in thought. Karen reckoned he’d tossed out the comment on the bridge to see whether there might be an opportunity to talk. ‘Something bothering you, Jason?’ she said. ‘And by the way, are you actually trying to grow a beard or did you just sleep in every morning for the last week?’
‘It’s going to be a goatee when it’s finished.’ His attempt at dignity was touching but unsuccessful.
‘You do know it’s coming in ginger?’
‘Auburn, boss. Auburn.’ He frowned, concentrating on the road ahead.
‘Your hair’s auburn, if you stretch a point. Your beard is the colour of Irn Bru. Trust me, Jason, it’s not going to be a babe magnet. I say that in the spirit of kindness. Other people may not.’
He stuck out his lower lip, like a mutinous toddler. ‘All the other guys in the flat have got beards.’
‘Maybe so, Jason, but they’re all students. They’ve got a licence to walk about looking like numpties. But you are a polis and you need people to take you seriously. Now, was there something other than facial hair you wanted to ask about?’
He moved into the fast lane as they reached the end of the roadworks. ‘How are we going about this, boss? Have we got a plan of action?’
‘First stop, the ICU at Ninewells.’
‘Why are we going there? I thought Ross Garvie was in a coma?’
‘Because it’s not Ross Garvie we’re interested in, is it? Even if he’s up for a conversation, which seems, frankly, a long way from likely, what’s he going to be able to tell us? He wasn’t even a twinkle in his daddy’s eye when Tina McDonald was attacked. But the traditional place to find the parents in a situation like this is the bedside vigil.’
Light broke across the Mint’s face. ‘Right,’ he said, extending the word to three syllables. Karen stifled a sigh. Sometimes she wished for a bagman with a few more functioning synapses. But Jason was willing, he was loyal, and because he didn’t have his eye on a bigger prize, he gave every investigation all he had. And for that, she could forgive his lack of brilliance. ‘So we’ll have a wee word with them and then we’ll see if we can persuade Stewart Garvie to part with a DNA sample.’
‘And if we can’t?’
Karen shrugged. ‘We’ll just have to arrest him.’ It was a last resort, but Tina McDonald’s killer had been walking the streets for twenty-odd years, and she was determined not to let him carry on for a day more than necessary. She looked out of the window at the rolling green unfolding on either side of the ribbon of motorway. This had once been mining country, the heart of the West Fife coalfield. In her youth, the landscape had been peppered with winding gear that looked as if it had come from the same drawing board as the railway bridge – a metal skeleton painted the identical dark red. Now it was country parks and fields and people doing jobs that men like her father didn’t comprehend.
Before she could take the idea any further, Loch Leven sparkled into view on the right, a reminder of Gabriel Abbott’s violent death. All Karen knew about Loch Leven came from her childhood – an uncle who had fished for trout there at weekends to escape his termagant wife; a castle on an island where Mary Queen of Scots had been imprisoned, miscarried twins and abdicated the Scottish throne. Sometimes they’d gone on family outings on Sundays to nearby Kinross, where a vast covered market sold everything from underpants to sausages. The journey provided views of the loch, but she’d usually been too busy reading a comic or a library book to pay much attention.
But now she was interested. She craned forward in her seat to see past the Mint. The brutal bulk of the Bishop was reflected in the still waters, casting a shadow over half of the western end of the loch. One shore in shade, one in sunlight made for a dramatic scene. But not one where you’d expect a murder. Karen pulled out her phone and called Jimmy Hutton.
‘Hi, Karen,’ he said, his voice brisk. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Have you got a number for Giorsal Kennedy?’
‘Aye. Like I said, we liaise with her. So you fancy catching up on the old days after all?’ He sounded upbeat.
‘Why not?’
‘I think the pair of you will get along gangbusters. I’ll text you the number.’
Karen leaned back in her seat and smiled. Gabriel Abbott wasn’t her concern. She knew that. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t take an interest. ‘Jason?’
‘Yes, boss?’
‘How would you feel about getting the train back from Dundee?’
He gave her a puzzled look. It was the expression of his that she knew best. ‘What for?’
‘I think there’s something I want to do on the way back. Somebody I want to go and see.’
‘I could wait,’ he said.
‘It might take a while.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t mind waiting.’
‘That’s good of you, Jason. But I think it would be better if you took the train home.’
This time he understood it wasn’t really a suggestion. ‘OK, boss,’ he sighed. ‘But what if we have to arrest Ross Garvie’s dad?’
‘We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.’
8
Even with the pallor of unconsciousness and the partial shaving of his thick black hair, Ross Garvie’s good looks were evident. Straight dark brows, long lashes, a neat nose with a hawksbill curve and a generous mouth with a natural quirk at the corners that made it look like he was on the edge of a smile. Easy to see how he’d been a leader of the pack, Karen thought. Chances were that would be beyond him in the future, if the nurse’s verdict was on the money.
‘Subdural haematoma,’ she’d said.
‘What’s that?’ Jason clearly wasn’t watching enough episodes of Casualty.
Karen was happy to find that the nurse responsible for Ross Garvie was the talkative sort. She smiled at Jason and said, ‘When you get a blow to the head that damages a blood vessel in the brain, blood leaks out and forms a clot that puts pressure on the brain. It causes brain damage. The severity varies according to how bad the original damage was and how long it is before we manage to relieve the pressure on the brain. Ross took a bad knock on the side of his head and another one on the back of his skull. The chances are he’s going to have quite a bit of impairment to deal with once he wakes up from his coma.’
‘Will he definitely wake up?’ Jason again. Leaning over the bed and peering at Ross as if he was an exotic specimen in a zoo.
The nurse looked a bit more wary. ‘It’s too early to say. Coma’s a very unpredictable state.’
‘What about his other injuries?’ Karen gestured towards the cage supporting the bedclothes.
‘Fractures to the left tib and fib, and the right ankle. Pelvis pretty much shattered. Five busted ribs. Right arm and wrist will need surgery and pinning. He’s looking at a long hard journey back to anything like mobility,’ she said, matter-of-fact now. ‘Not much of a future for a good-looking young lad like him.’
‘Even less of a future for the three lads who were with him in the Land Rover,’ Karen pointed out. ‘So, are his parents not here?’
The nurse shook her head. ‘They were here all day Sunday. She came back yesterday, but we asked her not to spend all her days and evenings here. It’s better all round if we can get the families not to do that. It means we can get on with the work of the ward, which can be quite traumatic sometimes. And it means they don’t get worn out in the same way. Left to themselves, they put their own health at risk, sitting at bedsides day and night. It’s only natural to want to do whatever you can to support somebody you love, but it helps nobody if your own body breaks down in the process.’
‘What did you make of them?’ Karen said, stepping away from the bed and moving closer to the nurse, inviting a more intimate response. She was good at making people relax into revelation. She thought it was something to do with her apparent lack of sophistication. A few extra pounds (less than there used to be, but still . . . ); a wardrobe that always looked slightly rumpled; a haircut that had defeated hairdressers all her life. Women never felt threatened by her and men treated her like a wee sister or a favourite auntie.
Now the nurse was seduced into confidences. ‘They were stricken, but it was like they weren’t surprised. Like they were resigned to something bad happening to the boy. His mum was definitely more upset. His dad . . . it felt like he was more angry than sad. Mind you, it’s often the same with men. They don’t know how to express their feelings, so they hide behind being gruff.’
Karen remembered. Phil had been like that in public. But it had been a different story when they’d been alone together. Then, he’d found the words to anatomise his responses to the people and the situations he encountered at work. His hidden sensitivity was the key to his success in the Murder Prevention Squad, a success that had ended up costing his life. Karen gave herself a mental shake and focused on what the nurse was saying.
‘But I had the definite feeling he couldn’t wait to get out of here on Sunday night. It made him uncomfortable. I asked her if he was coming in yesterday, but she said he’d gone to his work. He needed something to keep himself occupied.’
‘What does he do? Did Mrs Garvie say?’
‘He’s something to do with the redevelopment down by the station. Where the V&A’s going to be.’
‘What about her? Does she work?’
‘She works from home, she said. She’s a freelance transcriber.’
‘What’s that?’ Jason had drifted across to join them.
Impatient with the interruption, Karen explained. ‘When people dictate stuff, or when people need a hard copy of an interview or a meeting, they ping the digital recording over to somebody like Linda Garvie and she turns the audio into a document.’
‘Sheesh. Who knew that was a job?’
‘How did you think our interviews end up as court documents?’
The blank look he gave her said it all. ‘I never thought about it,’ he said.
Karen turned the full beam of her attention back to the nurse. ‘So you reckon she’ll be at home now?’
‘Well, she said she’d be in this afternoon, so you’ll probably catch her. But I don’t think she’ll be able to tell you anything about the accident.’
Karen smiled. ‘We’re only looking for a bit of background. You’ve been very helpful.’ She took Jason’s elbow and steered him towards the door. ‘Time to let these good people get on with saving some lives, Jason.’ While we set about throwing a hand grenade into others.
There was nothing remarkable about the Garvies’ house, nothing that made it stand out from its neighbours in the quiet residential street off the main Perth road. A traditional Scottish stone semi-detached villa with a dormer window thrusting out from the roof. There would be an attic bedroom behind it, the roof and walls intersecting at odd angles apparently designed with the sole intent of cracking the heads of the unwary. Karen wondered if that was the room where Ross Garvie had grown up. Lads from streets like these were supposed to confine their teenage rebellion to tiny acts of nonconformity – stealing a nip of vodka from the bottle in the cupboard, swearing in front of their granny, toking on a skinny joint in a friend’s bedroom. Not getting lashed to the gills and stealing cars. That was supposed to be confined to the underclass. The neighbours would be agog.
Unless of course any of the dead boys were neighbours. Then the atmosphere would be different. Vengeful and poisonous, rich with recrimination and blame. For Linda Garvie’s sake, Karen hoped Ross’s victims lived on the other side of town. Whatever her stupid son had done, it wasn’t her fault. As for Stewart Garvie – if the DNA lab had got it right, he might have worse things to occupy his mind and his neighbours before too long. ‘Let’s do it, then,’ she said.
They walked up a path of neatly laid stone slabs that bisected weed-free gravel, a perfect oval flower bed on each side, miniature daffodils and grape hyacinths adding a splash of colour to the grey. Karen rang the bell and took a step back so she’d appear less intimidating. A long silence. She was about to ring again when the door inched open. In the gap she could see a wedge of dark hair and one blue eye with a dark smudge beneath it. ‘I’ve got nothing to say,’ Linda Garvie said, her voice loud and harsh. ‘I told you people. I’ve got nothing to say.’
‘I’m from Police Scotland,’ Karen said quickly. ‘Not the press.’ She held up the ID she had at the ready.
The eyebrow lowered over the eye as Linda peered at it. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were another journalist.’ The door opened wider to reveal the rest of her face, pinched with misery and lined with anxiety. She was a short, stout woman dressed in black trousers and a pink mohair sweater. Her hair looked dry and mussed, as if she’d slept on it and not bothered with a brush. She sighed. ‘You’d better come in.’
Karen stepped inside, intrigued that the woman hadn’t assumed their presence meant more bad news. In her shoes, Karen’s first thought would have been that the police were there to reveal that her son had died. Linda gestured vaguely to the doorway on the left of the hall. ‘In you go. Take a seat. Do you want a cup of tea or anything?’
‘We’re fine, thanks.’ Karen turned into a living room as neat as the front garden. A sofa, two armchairs, occasional tables set with coasters, a plasma TV hanging above the fireplace where previous generations would have had a mirror or a picture. A display cabinet on the back wall contained glasses and bottles and a shelf of family photographs. Karen recognised the boy in the hospital bed.
Karen and the
Mint perched side by side on the unforgiving sofa. It wasn’t a piece of furniture that encouraged slumping, she thought. Linda Garvie hovered for a moment, then lowered herself gingerly into an armchair, as if she expected it to bite her. She crossed her feet at the ankles and raised her chin in an attempt at defiant propriety. ‘We already spoke to the police,’ she said. ‘We had no idea what Ross was up to. He told us he was having a sleepover at his friend Grant’s house. We’ve met Grant’s parents, they seemed perfectly responsible, perfectly respectable. We had no idea the boys were drinking and going out to clubs.’ She shook her head. ‘He’s got a job. An apprenticeship.’ She screwed up her face, battling tears. ‘He’s had a wee bit of trouble in the past, but we thought he’d put all that behind him.’
A wee bit of trouble. That was one way of putting it. Fourteen-year-old Ross Garvie had a nice line in breaking into garden sheds in Strathmartine, helping himself to whatever he could carry off. He hooked up with an older lad who had a clapped-out van and together they sold off Ross’s loot at Sunday-morning car boot sales when his parents thought their son was off playing tennis. When the police had finally rumbled the racket, Ross had been lucky to get off with a caution. There were no details of how he’d pulled that off, but Karen would have placed money on his parents and his school weighing in at his back. He’d stayed out of formal trouble since then, but she’d managed to track down the local intelligence officer, who had described Garvie as ‘one step away from everything going tits-up’. The boy had been on the fringes of the kind of small-time stuff that had eventually sucked him in and spat him out. And this buttoned-up wee woman in her buttoned-up house looked like she’d been forcing herself to be completely clueless about that inevitability. It was an oblivion that she might well have chosen to apply to her husband as well as her son, Karen thought.
‘You must be worried sick about Ross,’ Karen said. ‘I’m sorry to be bothering you at a time like this.’