The Skeleton Road

by Val McDermid

  And it never stopped working. From those first weeks when we fell into each other’s arms every time like starving wolves to the night before he walked out of my life for ever, making love was always what pulled us straight into each other’s orbit and healed whatever else was wrong in our world. I believe that continuity of tenderness, that perpetual passion was one of the principal reasons he left the way he did. If he’d tried to talk it through, explain why he had to go, I’d have dragged him into bed and that would have been another night, another day when he’d have stayed because he wanted to.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself now.

  That night reconfigured everything for both of us. In truth, we couldn’t have picked a worse combination of time and place to fall in love. The morning after that first night, on 16 September 1991, the JNA mobilised the 2nd Titograd Corps in Montenegro, supposedly because of the threat posed by Croatia. I heard the news at work; I’d been in a daze all day, but that popped the bubble of my happiness. Everybody knew where this was heading now. Nobody could bury their head in the sand any longer.

  Leaving on the next bus would have been the rational thing to do. It’s what most people with any sense did. I might even have done it myself if the mobilisation had been announced a few days earlier. But going was no longer an option. To leave Dubrovnik then would have been to turn my back on my best-ever chance of happiness.

  I look back at that choice now and all that stemmed from it. I saw horror and hardship, courage and catastrophe, devastation and daring. I experienced things I still can’t talk about with equanimity. But even with the benefit of hindsight, I know I would have stayed. And I’m glad that I did.

  19

  All day, Maggie had been twitchy. She felt eyes on her back when she stopped for coffee on her way to the squat concrete block where she was due to give her seminar. She heard footsteps behind her as she cut up the steps from Ashton Lane. She’d never scrutinised a seminar audience so closely, checking every man in the room to gauge whether he could have been one of the pair under the bridge.

  The first thing she’d done when she’d got back to her hotel after last night’s incident was to instruct the front desk to deny she was there if anyone phoned or asked in person. If her hosts called to check she’d arrived safely, that would be too bad. She hung the Do Not Disturb sign outside, slid the chain in place and double-locked the door. And just because she could, she shoved the chair under the door handle. Maggie wasn’t sure how effective it would prove, but that was what people did in books and films. It couldn’t hurt.

  Once she was certain she was as secure as she could be, she opened up her laptop and tried to concentrate on her notes for the morning’s seminar. She needed to take her mind off what had happened. She knew from years of experience under fire in the Balkans that there was no point in brooding after the fact. You had to turn your back on what had terrified you and move on to the next thing, otherwise you’d go crazy. She’d seen that happen to journalists more than once. Raw kids, swaggering into a war zone, determined to make their name. No fallback internal resources to sustain them when they looked death or worse in the face. Next thing, they were running for the first transport out, rapidly deciding that maybe they could be a music critic after all.

  The best way to draw a line was to hang out with people who’d walked the same beat. She’d been lucky. She’d had Mitja. But even if he wasn’t around, as often as not she had Tessa. Failing that, there were always colleagues or NATO personnel that she could sit in a bar with. She’d never felt alone with her demons. But that encounter under the bridge had been different. It had come out of the blue and she had no idea what lay behind it. Except that Tessa had told her Mitja was showing up on someone’s radar.

  So her attempts to divert her attention to the morning’s work were only partly successful. She ended up in bed, still wearing her underwear and a T-shirt, watching junk TV till exhaustion finally swamped her in the small hours. When she woke up, the BBC breakfast show was interviewing some classical composer about a collaboration with a crime writer. It was almost as dreamlike as the memory of the men under the bridge.

  By the time she’d showered and dressed, she’d managed to distance herself from the episode. But that didn’t mean she’d forgotten it and she remained vigilant all through breakfast and on the short taxi ride to the university precincts.

  After the seminar, lunch. Maggie knew she was distracted to the point of rudeness, but she couldn’t help herself. She excused herself as soon as basic manners would allow and practically ran out into the street, gulping at the fresh air as if it could protect her. She hailed a passing taxi then abruptly changed her mind, stepping back on to the pavement and letting the tide of lunchtime shoppers swallow her up. A hundred yards down the street, when she was as sure as she could be that nobody was on her trail, she flagged down another cab to take her to the station.

  As her train slipped south across the river, on the bridge next to the one that had sheltered her attackers, her anxiety levels fell to manageable levels. She was sitting in the last seat, able to see the length of the carriage, a turn of the head away from anyone who entered from behind. Even so, she couldn’t quite relax. Every time the train stopped, she was alert.

  When her taxi deposited her at last at the gates of St Scholastica’s, Maggie finally felt on safe ground. She longed to be back in her own rooms, but habit carried her into the lodge. She greeted the porter over her shoulder as she went to check her pigeonhole. As well as the usual assortment of post, there was a blue envelope with her name in familiar flowing script, clearly delivered by hand. A note from Dorothea, in the context of recent events, obviously wouldn’t keep.

  She shoved her thumb under the flap and tore it open. But before she could pull out the contents, a voice close to her shoulder said, ‘Professor Blake? Could I have a word, please?’

  Maggie whirled round, even as her brain processed the information; a woman’s voice, an East Coast accent, another bloody stranger. She took in a stocky woman of middle height with a shrewd gaze, a messy haircut and a slightly crumpled business suit. Behind her loomed a much younger man with a worried look and an equally wrinkled suit. ‘Who are you?’ she blurted out, sounding guilty even to her own ears.

  ‘I’m sorry, Professor, I was just about to tell you they were looking for you,’ the porter said.

  ‘Who?’ Maggie repeated.

  ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie from Police Scotland. And this is Detective Constable Murray. We’d like to speak to you.’ The woman glanced at the porter. ‘In private.’

  ‘Police Scotland? Is this about my parents?’ Maggie didn’t believe that. If something had happened to them, it would be a local bobby delivering the news. But it was a good holding question. She wasn’t mollified by the identity of the strangers. She remembered what Tessa had told her: the people she’d heard were interested in Mitja were on the official payroll too. And she couldn’t think of any other reason why the police would be looking for her.

  ‘I don’t know anything about your parents, Professor. That’s not why I’m here.’

  ‘So what is this about?’

  Karen Pirie smiled. It was a bit too uncertain to be reassuring, Maggie thought. ‘I’d rather explain somewhere more private. Do you have an office we could go to?’

  Maggie considered her options. She could dig her heels in and insist on information here and now, but the porters were as leaky as they were loyal. Besides, this woman didn’t seem the sort who’d back down easily. She could take them to the Senior Common Room, but at this time of the evening, there would be no privacy there either. That left her with two choices: tell these cops to piss off, or invite them to her set.

  ‘Why would I want to talk to you?’ she hedged.

  Karen’s mouth tightened momentarily. ‘Why would you not? Professor, I’ve been hanging around here for the past twenty-four hours because I need your help. That’s the top and bottom of it. I don’t understand why
you would see that as a problem. I really don’t.’ She spread her hands in a gesture of openness.

  ‘What if I refuse?’

  Karen dropped her hands. ‘Then we will go away. I’ll get the answers to my questions somewhere else. It won’t be as straightforward, but I will get the answers. And if they’re the answers I expect, it’s going to be a lot harder on you than talking to me now. I’m not saying that as a threat. I’m trying to say it as a kindness.’ This time, it was sympathy Maggie saw in the other woman’s eyes.

  Unsure whether she was doing the right thing, Maggie gave in. ‘Come up to my rooms,’ she sighed.

  ‘Shall I tell the Principal?’ the porter asked as they moved towards the door that led into the college.

  Maggie half turned and gave him a withering look. ‘Not until I’m arrested, Steve.’

  In silence, they followed her down the driveway till they came to Magnusson Hall, a daunting Victorian sprawl of red and yellow brick that had started life as an insane asylum. ‘It’s the top floor,’ Maggie said, leading the way to an ornate wooden staircase. ‘No lift, I’m afraid.’ It was a lie; to comply with legislation on disabled access, the college had installed a lift at the rear of the building. But Maggie was feeling petty. She generally took the stairs. If they wanted to talk to her, they could visit on her terms.

  By the time they reached her front door, Karen was pink and breathing hard. Maggie felt a moment’s schadenfreude; her heart rate was barely elevated. She unlocked the door and led them down the hall to the room where she conducted her supervisions, gesturing at a pair of armchairs opposite the small sofa where she preferred to sit. She dropped her backpack by her seat and perched on the edge, elbows on knees, leaning forward. ‘Now tell me,’ she said.

  ‘I’d like you to cast your mind back thirteen years,’ Karen said. ‘You opened a bank account at the Forth and Clyde Bank. It was a joint account with a man called Dimitar Petrovic.’

  Maggie felt a cold sensation in her chest, as if part of her body had been put in a blast chiller. ‘What if I did?’ To her surprise, her voice came out cramped and breathy.

  Karen sighed. ‘We know you did. It’s a matter of record. Can you tell me why that was? Were you in a relationship with Dimitar Petrovic?’

  Maggie jumped to her feet. ‘Jesus. I might have known. You lot are all in bed together.’ She pulled her phone out of the pocket of her jeans and stabbed at the screen. ‘I’m saying nothing to you without a lawyer.’ Even in her agitation, she could see Karen looked stunned. ‘Don’t act the innocent with me. I’m calling my lawyer and until she gets here, this conversation is over.’

  20

  If you couldn’t deal with being wrong-footed, you’d never cut it as a cop. Karen knew that. But that didn’t mean she’d learned to be sanguine about it. She always felt that she should be better prepared. Forewarned, forearmed. All that sort of thing. So when Maggie Blake started ranting about lawyers, she was almost affronted by her failure to anticipate such a move. They’d come, in effect, to do a death knock. Usually the greatest call on her experience was to find a way to be sympathetic while extracting the necessary information. There had been one occasion when it had all gone off like a box of cheap fireworks, but that had been when she was delivering the bad news to the mother of a notorious drug-dealing villain, who seemed to think her son’s death was the fault of the police rather than her son’s lifestyle choices. A nice middle-class woman with nothing to hide shouldn’t be kicking off and demanding a lawyer.

  Unless, of course, she didn’t have nothing to hide.

  Karen sat still while Maggie Blake made her phone call. Somebody called Tessa, apparently.

  ‘I’ve got the cops here,’ Maggie said. Her shoulders were hunched defensively round her phone. ‘Yes, here. In my study… They’re being very cagey but it’s something to do with Mitja… No…’ She ran a hand through her hair and paced towards the window, turning her back on them. As she passed her desk, she reached out and grabbed a silver photo frame, flipping it face down without breaking step. ‘Can you get here right away? I’m not answering any questions without a witness. And advice…’

  Karen watched Maggie’s shoulders relax. It sounded like this Tessa was a friend as well as a lawyer. If Karen was right about the identity of the John Drummond skeleton, it would be better for Maggie to have a friend at her side. Even if the friend was a lawyer.

  ‘Great. Thanks.’ Maggie drew a deep breath then swung round to face them. ‘My lawyer’s on her way. So if you don’t mind, we’ll put this on hold till then. Would you like a drink? Tea, coffee? Something stronger?’

  Karen shook her head. She didn’t want Maggie to leave the room. There wasn’t exactly rapport between them. But there wasn’t quite hostility either. ‘You sound like you’re from my neck of the woods?’ she said. It was a cheat of a question; she’d checked out the professor on the web and discovered she’d attended Bell Baxter school in the heart of Fife, less than twenty miles from where Karen lived. ‘I’m from Kirkcaldy,’ she added.

  Maggie looked sceptical. ‘Is that what they teach you to do? Stoke up the fellow feeling to break down the barriers?’

  Karen sighed. ‘I was only making conversation while we wait for your pal Tessa to turn up. If you’d rather sit here in silence, please yourself. Me and DC Murray’ll get our phones out and play Angry Birds to pass the time if you’d rather?’

  Maggie closed her eyes briefly. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. I’m just not very comfortable right now.’

  ‘I understand that.’ Karen gave her the smile that Phil insisted transformed her from ogre to sweetheart. ‘I’m not trying to trip you up or catch you out. Just doing a wee bit of Fife lassies’ bonding. Because I’m a long way from home too.’ Face it, she thought. She’d have to rely on the geographic bonding because on the surface they didn’t have much else in common. Maggie was immaculately groomed and stylish, her neat brown hair shaped like a bell, her make-up understated but effective, her outfit well-chosen to emphasise a figure that was slim and shapely. She reminded Karen of one of those faintly glamorous executives who turned up on BBC4 dramas. What saved her from homogeneity was her eyes: hyacinth blue, direct and nested with laughter lines. They made Karen think that, in other circumstances, they might have enjoyed a drink together.

  Now Maggie nodded wearily. ‘I grew up in the Howe of Fife. Just outside Ceres.’

  Farming, then. Range Rovers and green wellies. ‘A bit different from down my way.’

  As if she’d read Karen’s mind, Maggie expanded: ‘My dad was a farm labourer.’

  Ouch. Very wrong, Karen. More like you than you thought. ‘Mine worked at Nairns. Linoleum then vinyl flooring.’

  ‘Funny how linoleum’s come back into fashion.’

  ‘Aye. It’s environmentally friendly. Unless you live downwind of the factory or you’ve a fondness for the smell of linseed oil.’

  The two women chuckled. Ice broken. Job done. ‘You’re a long way from the Howe of Fife here,’ Karen said.

  ‘In more ways than one. When I was younger, all the interesting work in my field was being done down south, so I didn’t have any choice in the matter.’

  ‘You ever think about coming back to Scotland? Especially now. The year of Homecoming. The referendum. All that?’

  ‘This is my home now. I only go back a couple of times a year to see my parents. My friends are here, my colleagues are here.’

  ‘You don’t feel like you’re living in exile, then?’ Karen, who hadn’t yet decided which way to vote, was nevertheless convinced she’d feel like a foreigner if she had to live in England.

  Maggie shrugged. ‘I try to live like I’m a citizen of the world. I’ve seen the damage narrow nationalism can do and I don’t want any part of that.’

  ‘Fair enough. I take it you’re talking about the Balkans when you talk about nationalism?’

  In a moment, some of Maggie’s defensiveness returned. She stuck her hands in the pockets
of her jeans and leaned against her desk. ‘Why do you say that?’

  Karen fell back on the placatory smile. ‘I googled you, of course. Your book on the geopolitics of the Balkans is apparently the standard work on the subject.’ She gave a self-deprecatory shrug. ‘I don’t even know what that means, geopolitics. But I’m guessing you’ve spent a bit of time over there to get a better idea of what you’re writing about.’

  ‘I have. It’s a part of the world that changes people’s perspectives. It certainly changed mine.’

  Karen desperately wanted to ask about Petrovic, but she forced herself to stay silent. ‘A wee bit different from Fife,’ she said.

  Maggie gave a wry smile. ‘Yes and no. The extreme sectarianism that infects parts of Scottish civil society isn’t so very different from the religious hatreds that divide communities in the Balkans.’

  ‘You mean Rangers and Celtic? Protestant against Catholic?’

  ‘Exactly. As in the Balkans, what they have in common is that all sides share the same mix of ethnicity. It’s as if they have to be twice as fierce in their hatred of what they perceive as “difference” so they can establish the right of their own position. It’s madness. And it’s gone on for centuries. But finally, with this generation, there seems to be a sliver of hope for change.’

  ‘In Scotland?’

  ‘I don’t know about Scotland. I mean in the Balkans. And it’s thanks to the Internet. In the past, each community tried to keep itself quarantined from the people it defined as “other”. Each generation was taught to demonise the outsiders. They didn’t communicate with them, they didn’t have any opportunity to discover how much common ground there was between them.’