Trick of the Dark

by Val McDermid

  I crouched in front of her. 'It's time for bed, Wheelie. I bet you're tired.'

  `No,' she said mutinously, bottom lip thrust outwards.

  I tried to pick her up. It was like wrestling a seal under water. 'No!' Catherine screeched, unfolding her arms and landing a punch on my mouth, smashing my lip against my teeth. I could feel the flesh swelling already. Now I began to understand how children get battered.

  From behind me, Maggot said, 'Tell her you'll read her a story and she can choose. That usually works.'

  I nodded. 'OK, Wheelie. Why don't you come upstairs with me and I'll read you a story? Any story you like?'

  Half an hour and five stories later, Catherine's eyes closed. I watched for the best part of a minute, to make sure they weren't going to fly open again, then I crept downstairs. The boys were easier. I did a deal with them; they could watch some documentary about Isambard Kingdom Brunel provided they watched it in bed and promised faithfully to turn off the TV afterwards.

  'They won't, you know,' Maggot informed me the minute the deal was struck.

  'Maybe not,' I said, not caring. 'I'll check later.'

  'They'll fall asleep eventually and you can turn it off before Mum and Dad get home,' Maggot said. 'Otherwise they'll only get stroppy with you.'

  'And what's the deal with you?' I said. 'I take it you don't want reading to?'

  'Hardly,' Maggot said with the superiority of someone who isn't yet in the tortured grip of adolescence. 'I go to bed at nine. I read till half past. I can be trusted. Until then, you can talk to me.'

  I didn't have the first idea what nice middle-class eleven-year-old girls talked about. Where I came from, it was lads and shoplifting. Somehow, I didn't think either was on Magdalene Newsam's agenda. 'Can you play cribbage?' I asked desperately.

  'No,' Maggot said curiously. 'What is it?'

  So I taught her. There wasn't a cribbage board in the house, but I improvised with the boys' Lego. We talked too, but it was easier over a game of cards than facing each other across the scrubbed pine table and searching for something to fill the silence. There was nothing in that first encounter to predict what has come from it. But this isn't the place for that story. Not yet, dear reader.

  By the end of that first term, I was babysitting for the Newsams about once a week. I still went out drinking with Corinna, and dropped in whenever I was at that end of town. For most of that term, I was homesick and lonely, cast adrift by geography and social class. But Corinna made me feel there was somewhere I belonged, somewhere I had value. There wasn't much of that elsewhere in my life in those days.

  Jay paused. She knew what she wanted to say. Was there any point in even typing a line that could never survive the most cursory of edits? 'Yes,' she said. She wanted to see what it would look like on the page.

  I would have cheerfully killed for Corinna Newsam then.

  9

  How to get to Oxford without Maria, without Maria ever realising: that had been the plan. That was the challenge for Charlie. If the stereotypes held, it should have been laugh-ably easy; psychiatrist versus dentist, no contest. But Charlie knew Maria too well to rely on that. Maria often saw the bigger picture while Charlie was focused on the detail. Maria had been the first one to warn her of the dangers of the Bill Hopton situation. The first of many. The many she'd chosen to ignore because she'd been so fixated on pure principle over dirty practicality. And look what that had cost her.

  She wondered now whether she could have done anything differently. She remembered their conversation the night before she'd delivered the report that had set the ball rolling. Although Charlie was scrupulous about not revealing confidential details to Maria, she'd always talked about the issues raised by her cases. 'Tomorrow I've got to write a report that's going to piss everybody off,' she'd said. 'They've got somebody in the frame for a particularly unpleasant murder. But I don't think he did it. I think he's a psychopath and I think there's every likelihood that one day he will graduate to a full-blown sex killer, but he isn't there yet. Some of my colleagues would say that's reason enough to put up and shut up, but I can't do it.'

  Maria had probed her options and the depth of her convictions, then she'd sat at the dinner table looking worried. 'You need to not do this,' she said.

  'I can't go against my principles.'

  'Isn't there another way? Can't you excuse yourself from the case? Pretend you've got a conflict of interest?'

  Charlie sighed. 'I don't see how.'

  Maria considered. 'If you come up with this report, they won't use it in court, will they?'

  'Of course not. It completely undermines what isn't a very strong case to start with. They might bring someone else in to see if a second opinion will come out differently, but there's no way the prosecution will use me now.'

  'In that case, you have to persuade the police and the prosecutor to keep really quiet about your involvement. Let the court sort it out. Keep your nose clean, Charlie. You know what it's like when a prosecution fails. Somebody has to carry the can.'

  And if things had played out the way Maria had suggested, things might have been OK. But they hadn't. They'd gone as wrong as they could. Someone had leaked her report to Hopton's defence team and they'd come looking for Charlie. They'd dragged her into the witness box and then it had been all over for the prosecution.

  That would have been embarrassing but Charlie's reputation and career would have survived. If they'd listened to her recommendation that Hopton should be held in a secure mental hospital, it might even have been described as a reasonable outcome. But instead, Hopton had gone on to murder four women and nobody was looking past Charlie for someone to blame.

  Corinna was right. She was more desperate than she could ever admit for something that would make her feel good about herself. Putting right a miscarriage of justice would do just that. And the chance to spend time with Lisa Kent might even be the icing on the cake.

  Now Charlie drained the pasta and returned it to the pan, then tipped in a slug of the spicy salsiccia and tomato sauce she'd cooked earlier. 'Dinner,' she shouted, dishing it up and bringing it to the kitchen table. Maria arrived, still half-absorbed in the newspaper feature section. She found her chair by habit and sat down, the thin line of a frown between her eyebrows.

  'Scary,' she said, setting the paper to one side and acknowledging her meal with a satisfied nod.

  'What's scary?'

  'Scary in a good way,' Maria said, helping herself to the bowl of Parmesan curls Charlie had prepared. 'This stem cell stuff. You know I told you a while back that we're going to be able to grow new teeth for ourselves from these little bundles of cells?'

  Charlie, who generally paid attention to Maria because she was a trained listener as well as an instinctive one, nodded. 'I remember. You said the big problem was figuring out how the cells knew what kind of tooth to be.'

  'Exactly. Because nobody wants a molar where an incisor should be. Not even if it's their own molar.' Maria gobbled a couple of forkfuls of pasta. 'Mmm, that's good. Well, there's a team of dental researchers who reckon they're close to cracking it.' She rolled her eyes.

  'But that's good, isn't it?'

  'It's good if you're the person who has a big hole where their teeth should be. It's not so great if you're the dentist who has invested time and money getting to be the best dental implant person north of the Severn-Trent watershed.' Maria reached for the glass of water sitting by her plate and took a swig. 'Here's hoping it takes them longer than they think to unravel the puzzle. Long enough for me to make my money and retire.'

  Charlie laughed. 'You're barely forty.'

  Maria's hand stopped halfway to her mouth. 'And just how long do you think I want to spend my days staring into the ruins of people's mouths?'

  It had never occurred to Charlie that they should discuss retirement. She loved her job. No, strike that. She'd loved the job that used to be hers. When she'd had a functioning career, retirement had been for other people. They'd
have had to carry her out kicking and screaming. She'd assumed Maria felt the same. Apparently she'd been wrong. Maybe her accusers were right. Maybe she wasn't much of a psychiatrist. 'I thought you loved your job.' It sounded like a dare.

  Maria's eyebrows twitched. 'I love the challenge. I love the difficult cases. But the routine stuff? What's to love? What I always envisaged was giving up general practice in a few years and just doing a few days a month on the really specialist stuff.'

  'You never said.'

  Maria reached out and smoothed Charlie's hair. 'It never came up. Charlie, I don't know if you've ever noticed, but we hardly ever talk about the future. Or the past. I can't think of another couple who live more in the present than we do.'

  'And that's a good thing.' Charlie pushed her food round.

  'But that's not how it's been with you lately.' Maria's voice had softened and she laid her fork on the plate. 'Even since the Hopton business, you've been brooding over the past and worrying about the future.'

  'That's what you do when the present isn't very rosy.'

  Maria sighed. 'I know it's crap, having to get by on whatever crumbs you can pick up to keep you from going mad with frustration and boredom, but this is temporary, Charlie. Everybody says you're going to come out of this with a clean sheet.'

  Charlie snorted. 'Professionally, maybe. But as far as the public's concerned . . .'

  'It's not the public that hire you to profile and treat.'

  'Maria, I'm no use as an expert witness if I'm so notorious that they can't find a jury that hasn't already made its mind up about me.'

  Maria stared at her plate. 'You don't have to go to court. There's other things you do that satisfy you just as much. At least, that's what you always said.'

  Charlie said nothing. There was no answer that didn't make her sound shallow and superficial, and that wasn't how it was for her. Giving evidence in court mattered because it was one of the few aspects of her work that had a concrete end product. If she did her job right, the guilty went to jail, the innocent walked free and the ill got treatment. Even if things didn't work out the way she believed was right, there was still a line that was drawn. An enclosure. When you spent your working life dealing with people whose mental processes were off-kilter enough to bring them to your door, anything that could be boxed off was something to be craved. Now she'd experienced the benefits of being an expert witness, she wasn't sure she could continue her work without them.

  'There are still plenty of challenges for you,' Maria said, getting up and fetching a bottle of wine. She poured two glasses and put them on the table. Charlie recognised the gesture. Maria was drawing a line under a conversation she didn't want to continue because it wasn't going anywhere. Her next gambit would be a complete change of subject. 'Speaking of challenges,' she said, 'did you get to the bottom of those newspaper clippings? The ones that came in the post.'

  Bingo. Charlie smiled. There was a lot to be said for living with somebody whose processes you understood. 'I did,' she said, letting herself be led to where she wanted to go. 'I looked online for other reports of the trial and it didn't take me long to work out that I knew the widow of the victim.'

  'What? "Knew" as in personally?'

  'As in personally and as in past tense. I used to babysit her when I was a student.'

  'How come?' Maria absently picked up her fork and resumed eating.

  'Her mother was my philosophy tutor. She had four kids and a useless husband so she used to pick out one or two undergraduates every year to be her default babysitters. I was the lucky one in my second year.'

  Maria looked aghast. 'Lucky? Taking care of four kids?'

  Charlie lifted one shoulder in a shrug. 'They were pretty easy kids. And I got paid. Not to mention the extra tuition over the late-night glasses of wine. Corinna Newsam was always generous with her time and her booze.' She sipped her wine. 'And now it's payback time.'

  'Payback?'

  'She wants me to do something for her. Hence the lure of this morning's delivery.'

  'She sent you the cuttings? This Corinna Newsam?'

  'That's right.'

  'But why? Why you? And why all the mystery?'

  Charlie grinned. 'She's an Oxford don. It's like a bloody medieval quest. First you have to prove you're worthy of the task. Then you get to find out what the task is. Then you get to ride out against a legion of enemies and come back with the Holy Grail.'

  Maria shook her head, bemused. 'I'm just a simple dentist, Charlie. You're going to have to explain that in words of one syllable.'

  'You are "just a simple dentist" in the same way that Albert Einstein was a bit good at sums. Corinna sent me a puzzle. If I couldn't solve it or I wasn't interested, then obviously I couldn't be the right person to help. So she gets to eliminate the unsuitable candidate without ever actually having to lose face by asking for help. I solved it and I called her, so I passed the suitability test.'

  'You called her?'

  Charlie gave the one-shouldered shrug again. 'Well, yes. I mean, how else was I going to find out what's going on?'

  'And what is going on?'

  Charlie rolled her eyes. 'I wish I knew. But it's Oxford. So it's not as simple as ringing up and getting the full story. If I want that, I have to go and talk to Corinna face to face.'

  Maria shook her head, bemused. 'Did they fuck your head up like this the whole time you were studying? No wonder you're so good at dealing with twisted minds. I presume you told her you weren't interested?'

  'Not that simple, Maria. Corinna's smart. She knows what's been happening to me. And she baited the hook with the one phrase she knew would suck me in. "Miscarriage of justice," she said.' Charlie paused to take a drink, seeing the dismay on Maria's face. 'It might just be my chance at redemption. I can't say no at this stage. I have to go and find out what Corinna's problem is.'

  'Charlie, you never get involved when people contact you directly. "Take it to the police. Or to a lawyer. If they think I'm the right person for the job, they'll come to me." That's what you always say. That's the line. I can't believe you're going to run off to Oxford on what's probably a wild-goose chase just because you used to babysit this woman's kids.'

  'But nobody's coming to me any more, are they?' Charlie's anger burst suddenly, a boil whose surface tension couldn't hold any longer. 'I'm suspended from my clinical work, I'm suspended from the Home Office-approved expert witness list, the university's even suspended me from lecturing students. I'm stuck invigilating A-levels and teaching the occasional class at a sixth-form college. A wild-goose chase is better than no chase at all.' She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to breathe evenly.

  'Fair enough,' Maria said after a long silence.

  'I'm sorry,' Charlie said wearily. 'You didn't deserve that.' She paused momentarily, aiming for the right pitch of nonchalance. 'You could come with me, if you want.'

  'To Oxford?'

  'You make it sound like the moon.'

  'It's another planet, that's for sure. It's your world, not mine. I'm a simple Northern lass, me.'

  'You could keep me from getting involved in a wild-goose chase.' Charlie made a mock-piteous face. 'Save me from myself.' The best lies were always the ones closest to the truth, she reminded herself.

  'I've got work.' Maria gathered the now empty plates and stacked them together busily.

  'I'm not going till the weekend. I've got some more teaching and invigilating this week. Why not come? You've never seen St Scholastika's. You might even like it.'

  Maria snorted. 'I'm too old to be seduced by those pretty buildings and glamorous minds. I like nice empty bits of nature to relax in, not cities. It's OK. You go, make a sentimental journey. See what your old teacher thinks you can do for her.'

  'Then decline politely and come home?'

  'Only if that's what you want.'

  Charlie could see the worry in Maria's eyes and felt a quiver of guilt. It didn't matter that Maria was worried about the wrong thing. The dange
rous adventure Charlie was embarking on was not the professional end of her visit to Oxford. Whatever Corinna might throw at her, it couldn't be half as risky as putting herself in Lisa Kent's way. But she was in the grip of something beyond her normal control. 'Thanks,' Charlie said, getting up from the table and turning away so Maria couldn't see her face. 'You never know. It might be just what I need.'

  10

  Her back arching, her muscles in spasm, Magda cried out once, a guttural sound that could as easily have been despair as joy. Her hands clawed at the sheet beneath her. Beyond conscious thought, beyond anything except the powerful surge of orgasm, she was incoherent, half-formed words tumbling from her mouth. Jay put her fingers over Magda's lips. 'I love you,' she murmured.

  'Ungh,' Magda groaned. She'd never had sex like this. Wild, dirty, dark and never quite enough. That's how it was with Jay. Intoxicating and exhilarating. An excursion into discovery.

  It wasn't as if she'd been dissatisfied with Philip in bed. Once they'd got to know each other, it had always been enjoyable. She'd liked it enough to initiate it more often than not. But with Jay, from the very first time they'd fallen into bed together it had been rapturous. Maybe it was something to do with accepting the true north of her sexuality. Or maybe it was the fact that her girlfriend was undoubtedly gifted. The sex alone would have been enough to keep her in thrall. But here there was so much more than that. Magda groaned again as Jay's fingers brushed her cheek and neck. 'Thank you,' she said.

  'Again?' Jay's hand strayed over Magda's breast and down her stomach.