The Skeleton Road

by Val McDermid

  ‘OK. I’ll bow to your superior knowledge. But there’s something else that suggests to me that the general’s murder wasn’t a straightforward vendetta.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I had a visit earlier this week from a couple of government officials. The kind that don’t feel the need to explain exactly what they do or which department they really work for. Frankly, the kind you’d never tire of slapping. They showed up because my criminal records search for Dimitar Petrovic was flagged up on their system as being of interest.’ Karen flashed a quick look at Maggie to see how she was taking this unexpected turn in the conversation.

  ‘That’s not really surprising. He was attached to NATO and the UN during the nineties. He briefed Foreign Office officials on occasion. The security services obviously kept a watching brief,’ she said wearily.

  ‘That wasn’t why they were interested.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Karen pulled a face. ‘I don’t know how to say this without making you furious. But I’m going to tell you anyway because I need all the help I can get to find the person who killed your man.’

  ‘I’m past fury, Karen. I haven’t got anything left today. My tank is empty.’

  ‘OK. The reason they wanted to know why I was interested in Mitja was that they thought he’d spent the last eight years operating as a kind of vigilante, hunting down war criminals and assassinating them.’

  Maggie made a strange choking noise. Karen swiftly turned to check out that she was all right and was bewildered to see the professor was laughing.

  ‘Oh, Jesus Christ,’ Maggie spluttered. ‘You have no idea how funny…’ She laughed again, almost a howl this time. There was nothing Karen could do but wait it out.

  After a couple of minutes, Maggie recovered herself. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You must think I’m a madwoman. It just cracked me up, you coming out with that line so portentously. There’s no way you could know this, but Tessa’s been convinced of the very same thing for years now.’

  ‘Tessa? Your lawyer Tessa?’

  ‘Yes. She does a lot of work at The Hague for the international criminal court. She’s worked on Rwanda, Kosovo… And other stuff. Anyway, according to her, after Mitja went missing, people started gossiping that he was behind this vigilante justice thing. I never believed it because I didn’t think the man I knew was capable of such cold-blooded murder. But she said I was just being sentimental. What an irony.’ She laughed again, but this time it was harsh and bitter. ‘God, I wish she’d been right. Then at least he’d have still been alive.’

  Karen sighed. ‘I’m sorry. Anyway, they were taken aback when I told them the reason I was looking for info on Mitja. But in the light of what we learned today, it seems likely to me that he was a victim of this vigilante killer. Maybe even the first victim.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Maggie groaned. ‘Today just goes on getting worse and worse. And presumably this killer was somebody he knew and trusted. Or else he’d never have gone climbing with them. I can’t imagine what his last thoughts must have been like. The sickening betrayal of it. Everything he’d done, everything he’d been, reduced to that terrible moment.’

  Karen forbore from mentioning the last moments of the Serbian clan at their family wedding. In the light of that, it was hard to have much sympathy for Mitja Petrovic. The single act that now defined him in her head didn’t come into any category Karen recognised as heroism. But still, that didn’t mean his killer got a free pass. The status of the victim wasn’t supposed to have an impact on the hunt for their killer, in spite of the tendency of the media and even some cops to create a hierarchy of victimhood. It was a propensity that Karen deeply disapproved of. To her, the dead were equal when it came to dispensing justice. ‘I’m going to catch him,’ she said. ‘The person who did this. I’m going to make him stand trial.’

  ‘Won’t you have to hand it over to the spooks?’

  Karen shook her head. ‘My house, my rules. He was killed in Scotland. It’s my case.’ She saw a roadside inn up ahead and pulled into the car park. ‘We need to eat. And I have something I want you to look at.’

  The interior was plain – wooden tables, padded stools and benches; a long zinc counter with a couple of beer taps and a boxy coffee machine that might have been state-of-the-art in the seventies. It smelled of pipe tobacco, thanks to the two elderly men playing backgammon and smoking fiercely by the empty fireplace. They barely glanced up as the two women entered and looked uncertainly about them. A short woman with hair pulled back in a tight ponytail appeared behind the bar like a jack in the box. She said something Karen didn’t understand. Maggie replied and within a few sentences they were chatting like old friends. The exchange ended in smiles and nods and Maggie led Karen over to a table in the corner.

  ‘We’re having a bottle of the local Riesling, which is drier and fruitier than you’d expect. And a stew from whatever the landlord killed at the weekend. Probably rabbit and an assortment of game birds. With potatoes and bread,’ Maggie said. ‘There wasn’t a lot of choice.’

  ‘That’s fine by me.’

  ‘So what’s this thing you wanted to show me?’

  Karen took out her phone and opened the list of names that Jason had sent her. ‘We’ve managed to track down the hotel Mitja had booked into in Edinburgh. We thought his climbing partner might be staying in the same place so we got hold of the list of fellow guests. None of them has an obviously foreign name.’ She sighed. ‘It’s never that straightforward. So we think either his companion was somebody he knew back then but wasn’t necessarily from there, or else they were using an alias. Obviously, if it’s an alias, chances are you’re not going to recognise that. But if it is someone else from back then – a Brit or an American or a Canadian – you might just spot them.’

  Maggie looked sceptical. ‘It’s a long shot, don’t you think?’

  ‘It’s the only shot I’ve got right now.’ She offered the phone to Maggie. ‘You want to take a look?’

  Maggie shrugged. ‘After today, what else have I got to lose?’ She reached for the phone and started to read the names. Her face was without expression as she scrolled down, shaking her head as she went. There was a moment where she blinked a few times in quick succession but she continued to shake her head. When she came to the end, she handed the phone back. ‘I’m sorry. None of those names mean anything to me.’

  Karen had seen some good liars in her time. At that precise moment she’d have put Professor Maggie Blake in the top three.

  38

  Four days of hustling and checking out grainy CCTV footage had left Alan Macanespie with a vicious pain behind his right eye and a mouth coated in the residue of endless cups of sour coffee. What kept him going was his newly awakened determination to show Wilson Cagney he wasn’t a washed-up failure. He wasn’t quite sure how his new boss had got under his skin. But he had.

  His enthusiasm for the task hadn’t rubbed off on Proctor, who seemed to be in the process of transferring his resentment against Cagney to his partner. Macanespie pinged a new set of stills across to the Welshman, who immediately grumbled.

  ‘I’m going to need new glasses by the end of this job,’ Proctor complained. ‘What’s this lot?’

  ‘Number four. Tenerife. That’s the last, I think. Unless there’s more to come from your last round of hustling?’

  ‘I’ve shot my bolt. There are several countries where I can no longer go on holiday for fear of being arrested at passport control.’ It was a weak joke but at least it was an attempt at the humour that had formerly characterised many of their exchanges. Proctor stared at the screen. ‘That’s definitely a woman. You can see where the wind catches her top.’ He pointed to slim shoulders and the definite outline of breasts and hip.

  ‘I agree. I was pretty sure after Madeira, but I don’t think there’s any room for doubt.’

  ‘Have you fed these through to the digital reconstruction woman?’

  Macanespie nodded.
‘I told her this was the last bit of data she was likely to have from us, so she can get cracking on an e-fit. Hopefully the twenty-three pics we’ve sent won’t throw up too many contradictions.’

  ‘Yes, because if those images are the spotter rather than the killer, they might not all be the same person.’

  ‘See, when you die and go to heaven, you’ll be spending all your time telling St Peter how they could improve the place. You’re like a one-man weather system. Black clouds overhead.’ Macanespie shook his head in disgust. ‘I think it’ll be interesting to see what she comes up with. I’ve never seen one of these predictive e-fits before. Wouldn’t it be amazing if the printer spat out something and we all went, “Oh, it’s her”?’

  Proctor snorted. ‘More likely we’ll go, “Looks like Picasso drew that one”. Or, “Who knew Hillary Clinton was a serial killer?”’

  Macanespie was saved from having to reply by the arrival of an email. ‘Well, well, well, there’s a turn-up for the books.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘An email from the lovely DCI Pirie. I wonder what she’s got to say for herself?’

  ‘If you open it, you’ll save yourself from an early death from suspense.’

  ‘Christ, you’re a walking exemplar of Welsh humour,’ Macanespie muttered, opening the email. As he read Karen’s message, his expression grew increasingly incredulous. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ he said. ‘How the fuck did we not know this?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Listen to this: “Dear Mr Macanespie, I’m just back from a trip to Croatia where I uncovered some information that I suspect you may not be privy to. In early 1992, a Serb detachment raided Dimitar Petrovic’s home village, Podruvec. In an alleged reprisal attack for the effectiveness of General Petrovic’s work, they massacred the children of the village, including General Petrovic’s two sons. His wife subsequently hanged herself. You can confirm this with the village priest, Uros Begovic. Some time later, Petrovic identified the leader of the Serbs. He assembled a small but loyal group of soldiers and they carried out a revenge attack that wiped out the commander and forty-six members of his family.” Forty-six? Christ, he didn’t do things by halves, did he? “Rumours of this massacre were circulating about eight years ago. It seems possible therefore that Petrovic not only falls into the definition of ‘war criminal’ and may indeed have been a victim of vigilante justice and in spite of the disparity in murder methods, might be an early victim of the killer you’re looking for. In which respect, had it occurred you that the reason for the change in MO might be something as simple as the killer not having ready access to ammunition for his gun? I look forward to sharing the fruits of your investigation and suggest we meet again to discuss collaboration moving forward. Yours respectfully, blah blah.” For fuck’s sake. “Respectfully”? She’s something else, that one.’

  Proctor had the look of a man bemused. ‘Petrovic led a massacre?’

  ‘That’s what she’s saying. How in the name of God does one wee fat lassie nip across to Croatia for five minutes and dig up something the whole war crimes tribunal missed for years? Do you have any idea how Cagney is going to flay our arses for this?’ Macanespie sunk his head in his hands, his shoulders slumped.

  ‘This is not our responsibility,’ Proctor insisted like a reflex. ‘We can only investigate what’s brought to our attention. You and me, we were never responsible for teasing out reports on the ground.’

  Macanespie looked up, bleary-eyed. ‘It’s a bloody big one to miss, considering we’re supposed to have had Petrovic in our sights.’

  ‘Yeah, but that wasn’t exactly an active, current search, was it? I mean, yes, people were looking eight years ago when he dropped off the radar, but let’s be honest, nobody’d given him a thought for years until Pirie ran her CRO check.’

  Macanespie sighed. ‘So, is this a game changer, or what? Do we add him to the list of victims and set up a meeting?’

  ‘I think we just get on with our own inquiries and ignore Pirie.’

  Macanespie was too tired to argue. But he had a sneaky feeling Karen Pirie wasn’t going to be that easy to ignore.

  I’m done with this.

  I had such big ideas of what this was going to be. I was ready to write about Bosnia, about Kosovo, about my growing understanding of the history and politics of the region from a lived perspective.

  It turns out that my life has actually been lived on the wrong side of the looking glass. I have nothing to write worth reading, nothing to say worth listening to. And that’s a very bad place for an academic to find herself.

  I’m done with this.

  39

  By the time Karen had arrived home from Croatia, she’d been exhausted. The combination of the travelling and the stress of what she’d uncovered had left her drained. Phil had taken one look at her and prescribed a bath, a large gin-and-tonic and bed. ‘You never admit to yourself how much these investigations take out of you,’ he scolded her as he poured relaxing bath oil into the cascade of steaming water.

  ‘By comparison with the families and the friends of the victims, I’ve got nothing to complain about,’ she said, dumping her travel-weary clothes in the laundry basket.

  ‘OK, you’ve only got one bag of shit compared to their half a dozen. It’s still shit, though. You need to be kinder to yourself. You’re not indestructible.’ He rumpled her hair as she climbed into the bath.

  ‘Oh no? Want to bet?’ Karen groaned in pleasure, feeling the heat soothe her weary muscles. ‘Tell me about your day, take my mind off murdered children and vendettas.’

  Phil sighed. ‘To be honest, I don’t think anything in my day would cheer you up. Tell you what, I’ll bring in my iPad and we can watch Celebrity Masterchef from last night. That’s a different sort of crime, but I guarantee you’ll have a laugh.’

  She almost felt guilty for letting go the burden of what she’d uncovered in the Balkans. But she told herself the trade-off would be that next morning, she’d be ready to roll with some fresh ideas.

  As she walked in with her giant cup of coffee the following morning, Karen knew she’d been half right. She was ready to roll. But she had nothing new to roll with. She turned on her computer and summoned up the smiling head-shot of Mitja Petrovic that Tessa Minogue had sent her. She knew she was probably projecting what she knew on to the image, but she did think she detected a certain steeliness in his eyes. He was attractive, no denying that. But he wasn’t some tailor’s dummy. There was a spark in his expression, a devil-may-care quality to his grin. And behind it, that uncompromising look. She wouldn’t have enjoyed taking him on in a fight.

  Karen sipped her coffee and stared at the screen, her mind ticking off all the things they’d done and what might possibly still be left that could lead them in the direction of Petrovic’s killer. She was sure Maggie Blake had reacted to one of the names on that list of sixteen. However, there was no way of knowing which. Karen wished she’d thought of reading them aloud one by one. But it had never occurred to her that Maggie would have any reason not to blurt out any name she recognised.

  So what might that reason be? To whom could Maggie owe silence that would trump her dead husband? Did she have a new lover who had decided to take Petrovic out of the game so he could have a clear run at Maggie? Was this nothing to do with the Balkan wars and everything to do with old-fashioned jealousy?

  Karen leaned back in her chair, linking her hands behind her head. Was it likely? There had been no trace of a partner in Maggie’s life. She hadn’t mentioned anyone. Karen reckoned that if there had been someone new, it would have moderated the terms in which Maggie spoke about Petrovic. She wouldn’t have been nearly so keen to perpetuate the idea that he was still alive in Croatia; she’d have wanted him written off so she could enjoy her new life.

  And nobody else had mentioned a new lover. Neither Dorothea Simpson nor Tessa Minogue had so much as hinted in passing that there was anybody else in Maggie’s life. But that didn’t necessarily mean Karen
was chasing the wrong motive. Petrovic might have been taken out of the running by someone who then failed to talk his way into Maggie’s bed. But if that was the case, why had Maggie not admitted it? Could it be she felt guilty about her rejection? So guilty she’d protect the man from the consequences of murder?

  ‘Only if she thought she’d led him on,’ she said out loud, punching the air. Of course, that was the moment when Jason walked into the office. Mildly embarrassed, Karen mumbled a greeting. ‘I was just thinking of an alternative scenario,’ she said, clocking his wary look.

  ‘An alternative to what?’

  ‘What if Petrovic’s activities in the Balkans had nothing to do with his death? What if it was all much more mundane than that?’

  Jason frowned. ‘How?’

  She was moving too fast for the Mint, Karen thought. ‘Imagine some other guy was in love with Maggie Blake. Really besotted with her. Somebody who thought that if that annoying war hero General Petrovic was out of the way, Maggie would be his for the asking.’ She paused.

  Jason nodded. ‘I get it. And he wouldn’t know that the general was actually her husband so if she moaned about him like people do when they’re married, he might have thought she was kind of suggesting she’d be up for somebody who treated her better, right?’

  Karen managed to follow the mangled prose to a reasonable conclusion. ‘Exactly. So the mystery man goes off buildering with the general and takes the chance to murder him.’

  ‘How has he got a gun?’ Jason interrupted.