The Skeleton Road

by Val McDermid

  It’s hard to imagine now, but in 1992 email coverage was patchy, slow and unpredictable. So I wrote him old-fashioned letters. He’d told me where to send them – ‘They can always find me,’ he’d said. ‘I’m not allowed to be out of touch for more than a few hours, not ever.’ I numbered them in the top left-hand corner of the envelope so he could read them in the correct order, but also so that he could be sure none had gone missing. Neither of us really trusted the authorities to allow us completely free communication.

  His letters to me arrived sporadically. I’d go for a whole agonised week without a word, then five or six would arrive together, sometimes showing signs of having been ill-treated at the very least. Sometimes the envelope would contain only a few scribbled sentences at an angle on the page, a clear sign of late nights and poor light. Other times, there would be half a dozen sheets of tight script, giving a detailed account of the aftermath of some atrocity or a description of a particular landscape or a plan for us to have a day out in the mountains when the Balkans stopped tearing themselves to pieces.

  I cherished the letters equally. What they represented was the totality of our relationship. We were more than just sex; we were laughter, we were intellectual curiosity, we were political opinions, we were engagement with the landscape. We were the future, not the past. I held those thoughts and feelings close to me. They were my only comfort when being without him became too hard to bear.

  Which was most days, if I’m honest. His absence was like the enervating thrum of machinery just on the threshold of hearing, a vibration that wears down your resistance till you understand you would commit an act of violence to make it stop. I slept badly and I suspect I wasn’t the world’s best thesis supervisor. My mind, like my heart, was elsewhere.

  By now, news was filtering out of the shocking extent of the massacres that had been happening with a numbing regularity since the JNA had started their full-scale war against Croatia. It seemed that not a week had gone by without another bloodbath in some small community or town. I’d heard a little of this from Mitja, but I don’t think even he grasped at the time the full extent of the carnage that had been carried out against his fellow countrymen.

  I knew from his letters that hospitals and clinics were desperate for supplies. So I decided that as soon as term was over, I was going to drive an ambulance loaded to the roof with medical necessities to Croatia. This wasn’t just about my love life, it was about my humanity. I managed to track down an ambulance that was being taken out of service in the West Country, so Tessa and I caught a bus down to Plymouth and drove back in the rickety old vehicle. Tessa knew a mechanic who agreed to restore the engine, and I set about filling it.

  We went round every Oxford college, talking to Junior Common Room meetings, to college fellows drinking port after dinner, to sports societies and dining clubs. Anyone who’d listen, really. I contacted pharmaceutical companies and persuaded those of my colleagues who taught medics to pump their contacts for anything they could get their hands on. By the time the Easter vac began, we had an ambulance crammed with medicines, dressings and all the paraphernalia that went with them. We were like a hospital pharmacy on wheels. Tessa’s friend had persuaded one of his mates to repaint the ambulance with giant red crosses on every panel, just to drive home the point that we were on a mission of mercy.

  I didn’t tell Mitja what we’d done. He knew I was coming, knew Tessa and I were arriving by road. We’d arranged to meet in Pula, in the north, near the Slovenian border, almost as far away from the war zone as it was possible to be. He gave us directions to a little restaurant on the edge of the strip down by the port. ‘It’s easy to find,’ he wrote. ‘And they have space for car parking beside it.’

  We’d had one or two sticky moments on the way with border officials wondering what we were up to. But nothing we couldn’t bluff our way through. And finally, we were driving down the coast to Pula, singing at the tops of our voices.

  Mitja was right, it was easy to find the restaurant. And my heart jumped when I spotted him sitting at a pavement table. He glanced up when he saw the ambulance then looked away. Then looked again, realising it was a right-hand drive with British plates. And then he understood what he was seeing. He jumped to his feet and ran across the street towards us, his face split open in a grin of pure delight.

  That’s how I’ll remember him. Running towards me, arms wide, hair blowing back from his forehead, laughing like he hadn’t a care in the world. Everyone should carry a memory like that.

  Sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps us going.

  34

  Macanespie rubbed his smarting eyes and blinked hard. He’d been staring into his computer screen for so long his very brain felt pixelated. He’d repeatedly watched the footage from the two cameras going back seven days and he was no longer sure whether he could trust himself. One thing was certain, though. He trusted himself more than he trusted Theo Proctor, whose resentment levels had risen in tandem with Macanespie’s enthusiasm.

  While the Scot had been scanning the footage with infinitesimal care, his colleague had been sending emails and making phone calls to the officers investigating the other murders in their putative sequence. First he had to explain the reason for his interest – the half-truth that new information had come to light connecting that particular killing with other similar cases. Then he had to find a detective who had worked the case and could remember anything about it. Then he had to persuade them to unearth any relevant CCTV footage from the evidence lockers and forward those images to Macanespie and Proctor. It was a task that demanded diplomacy and patience, which was normally Proctor’s forte. But it was obvious that he was growing weary of playing the supplicant. There would be an explosion eventually, Macanespie knew.

  Until then, he’d keep his head down. Every so often he would spot something that merited a second look. He’d put together a folder of images that he planned to return to when he finished his slow crawl through the footage. Which he reckoned would be any minute now. The last jerky frames passed across his screen, and he was done.

  He went back to the shots he’d selected and clicked through them, checking whether what he thought he’d seen was real or illusory. On the first pass he discarded a couple. On the second pass, he discounted another. That left him with half a dozen screen grabs. He sent them to the colour printer down the hall, which gave him an excuse to go walkabout. He picked up the printed sheets and headed for the cafeteria, where he settled in at a corner table with a can of Coke and a packet of chocolate buttons. He spread the printouts across the table and ruminated as he popped the buttons one after the other into his mouth.

  When he finished the chocolates, Macanespie shuffled the papers together and marched back to his office. ‘Look at this,’ he said as soon as he crossed the threshold. Proctor glared at him and gestured pointedly at the phone held to his ear. Unabashed, Macanespie laid the screenshots out across his desk and waited.

  ‘I’ll look forward to seeing that,’ Proctor said. ‘Yes, thank you.’ He dropped the phone back into its cradle. ‘Couldn’t you see I was on the phone?’ he grumbled. But still he got to his feet and came over to look at Macanespie’s desk. ‘What am I looking at?’

  The Scot pointed to the first three shots. ‘Wednesday evening. I focused on the woman, but in each of those shots, Simunovic has just gone past. The next three are Thursday evening. Same thing. What do you think?’

  Proctor peered hard at the pictures. ‘Wednesday she’s got a floppy hat and sunglasses. Thursday she’s got a different big hat and different sunglasses and a scarf round her neck. Every time she’s wearing baggy clothes so you can’t see what size or shape she is. If it’s the same woman, she doesn’t want to be recognised.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ Macanespie said triumphantly. ‘A heavily disguised woman on three consecutive nights, following a man who gets murdered on the third night. That’s hard to swallow as a coincidence.’

  ‘If it’s the same woma
n,’ Proctor said. He looked more closely. ‘If it’s a woman at all, Alan. Like you said before, it could easily be a bloke under all that.’

  Macanespie grunted. ‘He’d have to be pretty slim.’

  ‘Yes, well, we’re not all built like you. But seriously, under all that floaty material it could be.’

  Macanespie nodded. ‘It’s an outside possibility, I suppose. But if it’s a woman, it’s more likely she’s the spotter, not the killer.’

  ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

  Macanespie gathered the pages together again. ‘I’m going to print out some stills from the first lot of film, then I’m going to see Cagney. Apparently he’s in the building. He needs to see there’s some proper work going on here.’ He leaned across his desk and summoned up the stills from the footage they’d first seen in Crete then sent them to the printer. He made for the door and seemed surprised to find Proctor at his heels. ‘Don’t you have phone calls to make?’ he said.

  ‘You’re not leaving me out in the cold on this,’ Proctor said. ‘We’re in it together. Don’t be an arse.’

  Macanespie shook his head but made no further effort to shake off his colleague. He hustled down the hallways and up the escalator to the meeting room where Cagney set up temporary camp when he visited. There was no gatekeeper; Macanespie simply knocked and was invited to enter.

  Cagney sat alone at the meeting table, his suit jacket draped over an empty chair. His cuffs were rolled back and his laptop was open in front of him. ‘A delegation,’ he said with an ironic raise of his eyebrows.

  ‘We think we might have something,’ Macanespie said without preamble. He spread the pages out on the table in front of himself, forcing Cagney to get up and join them.

  ‘And this is?’ he said, casting an eye over the photos.

  ‘We think it’s the same person on three consecutive nights. She – or possibly he – is about five or six yards behind Miroslav Simunovic every time. That close looks like a tail. Nobody else fits the bill. If that’s not the killer, it’s the spotter, I’d say.’ Macanespie took a step backwards and gestured expansively at his work.

  ‘Interesting,’ Cagney said. He glanced at Macanespie, his lips twisted in what might have been a smile. ‘But not exactly an image we can put out on Crimewatch. What’s your next angle of approach?’

  ‘We’re gathering other CCTV footage. We’ll be checking it very carefully to see whether the same person reappears. And eventually we’ll get lucky,’ Macanespie said confidently.

  ‘I prefer not to rely on luck.’ Cagney stepped away from the table and returned to his seat. ‘But we’re not without resources. No reason why you should be up to speed with the cutting edge of digital forensics, but I think there are ways to improve on what you’ve got here. There are programs that can amalgamate images such as these and actually offer predictive suggestions of what the undisguised face might look like. They can figure out height, certainly, and maybe give us a definitive assessment on gender.’ He nodded slowly. ‘I didn’t think you had it in you. So carry on proving me wrong. Find me some more images that we can feed into the program. Email me everything you have.’ And then he turned back to his screen.

  Out in the hallway, they grinned at each other and high-fived. ‘We’re back,’ Proctor crowed.

  Macanespie punched him on the shoulder. ‘Aye, and this time, it’s personal. Come on, Theo. Time to cherchez la femme.’

  ‘Or l’homme. Don’t forget, it might be a skinny little guy.’

  ‘Whatever. It’s time to cherchez.’

  35

  Maggie could hardly bring herself to ask the question. But she couldn’t bear ignorance either. ‘What did Mitja do?’ she whispered.

  ‘What we always do round here.’ The priest’s voice was strong and bitter. He banged his stick on the ground.

  ‘Revenge,’ Karen said. ‘An eye for an eye.’

  He nodded. ‘We like the jealous God of the Old Testament here.’

  ‘So what did Mitja actually do?’ Karen prompted him when it seemed he had no plans to continue.

  ‘He arrived two days later, distraught. Nobody blamed him for what had happened. Nobody but himself. He was ashamed that he had been so wrapped up in himself that he hadn’t thought about sending Jablanka and the boys to a safer place. He was angry that he hadn’t arranged protection for his village when he knew he was a thorn in the side of his enemies. And he was guilty because he’d fallen in love with you, Professor. As if that had somehow kept him from taking care of his family. He spoke of never seeing you again, of taking that as a punishment. I sat up with him all night, persuading him that to give up love would be to give the victory to the evil men who had done this. In the end, I convinced him. Obviously.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Maggie said, her voice shaky.

  Begovic inclined his head in acknowledgement. ‘He stayed for a day or two and then he went back to his unit. He was burning with rage. I knew he could not let it pass.’

  ‘You can’t exactly blame him,’ Karen said.

  ‘I don’t blame him. I pity him his pain and his shame,’ Begovic said. ‘But I know I could not have stopped him.’

  ‘What happened?’ Karen asked.

  ‘He was in intelligence. He knew how to find out who was responsible for what happened here. He was also a popular officer. There were men who would follow him to hell and back and never stop to ask why. When he was certain he knew who led the raiding party here, he waited until the man’s family were celebrating a wedding. With a dozen of his most loyal men, he came to the church. They barricaded the doors and threw burning torches and petrol bombs through the windows. Anyone who tried to escape through the windows was shot. They killed forty-seven people that day.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Karen groaned. ‘That’s hellish.’

  ‘Yes. But the next time I saw him, he said, “It ends here. There’s nobody left alive to carry it on.” And I thought he was right. He lived through the rest of the war unharmed. He went to live with you in Oxford, Professor. He would not have risked your life if he’d thought someone would be coming after him for vengeance. He’s had years of living without looking over his shoulder. But now, at last, his past has caught up with him.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Karen said.

  Begovic frowned. ‘But why else are you here, officer? The professor said Mitja had been murdered.’

  ‘He has indeed been murdered,’ Karen said. ‘But it wasn’t recent. His body has only just come to light. He actually died about eight years ago.’

  The priest frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’ He turned to Maggie. ‘You did nothing about this? Had he left you? Was your marriage over?’

  Maggie shook her head. ‘I spent eight years thinking that’s what had happened. But he didn’t leave me. He was taken from me. Murdered. By someone he knew back in the Balkans. I didn’t know that, though. I thought he’d abandoned me because he couldn’t bear to be without the past he’d given up for me. I was so, so wrong.’

  ‘And all that time he was lying dead.’ The priest shook his head in weary resignation. ‘Well, whoever killed him, it must have been one of the Serbs. Perhaps someone who was a young child and grew up with a heart full of hatred. So, still it goes on —’

  His homily was interrupted by the ringing of Karen’s phone. ‘I’m sorry, I have to take this,’ she said, getting to her feet and walking away down the nave. When she was out of earshot, she said, ‘OK, Jason. What have you got for me?’

  ‘We found the hotel,’ he said.

  ‘What? Tamsin what’s-her-name came up with the goods?’

  ‘No, boss. Good old-fashioned coppering. It was your Phil that suggested it. I ran into him in the canteen in Kirkcaldy nick. I got a photo of the key-card and made a list of hotels and guest houses. I started with the ones nearest the John Drummond and spread out from there. I phoned round to eliminate the ones that didn’t have red key-cards and then I went on the knocker. Bingo.’

  Karen was
impressed in spite of herself. the Mint wasn’t quite smart enough to claim credit for himself – or maybe he was just smart enough to realise Phil would likely tell her what he’d recommended. Either way, it was a step in the right direction. ‘What have you got?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a guest house near Murrayfield. The room was registered in his name, Dimitar Petrovic. He booked in for two nights and he paid in cash. There were sixteen other rooms occupied that night. Some of them paid by cash. It’s not that dear.’

  ‘Have you got a printout of the names and addresses of all the other punters?’

  She could almost hear the beaming smile. ‘I’ve got copies of all of it,’ the Mint said proudly.

  ‘Well done. Do me a favour and email it to me. I’ll take a look at it as soon as I can. Maybe see if Professor Blake recognises any of the names.’

  ‘Right you are, boss. Because, after all, somebody on that list is likely a murderer, right? And we are so going to nail him.’

  36

  The priest’s story shocked Maggie so much she could barely take it in. Her first response had been on automatic pilot, answering questions that seemed to have shrivelled to insignificance in the face of the enormity that had just been revealed. The ringing of Karen’s phone shattered her brittle surface and her emotions started to engage.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said feverishly. ‘He’s been blamed for something somebody else did.’ It was unthinkable. The man she had known, the man she had loved for more than twenty years… that man could never have done what this crazy old priest was accusing him of.