by Val McDermid
What she got was pretty much what she expected. 'Holy moly, Charlie. I see you never mastered the euphemism.'
'I prefer not to leave room for ambiguity. A few weeks later, Philip's business partners were arrested for his murder. They'd been using privileged information to make a killing on the stock market. Philip had found out and was planning to blow the whistle when he got back from his honeymoon. So they killed him. Magda found the key evidence that clinched the case against them. And this week they were both found guilty of his murder. And somewhere in the middle of all that, you sent me a package of newspaper clippings.'
Corinna stirred her coffee mechanically. 'You haven't lost the gift for precis.'
'But why am I here, Corinna? What in God's name is all this about? Why do you care about the convicted killers of your son-in-law?'
She stirred some more, then sighed. 'This is going to sound crazy. I thought about going to the police, but I knew they wouldn't take me seriously, not when they had such a good case against Paul and Joanna. This is why I wanted to talk to you and not some stranger in a private investigator's office. You know I'm not a crazy woman.'
Charlie gave a sad, wry smile. 'You don't have to be crazy to have the occasional crazy fixation, Corinna. It happens all the time.'
'Trust me, Charlie. This is not a crazy fixation. I am convinced that Paul Barker and Joanna Sanderson did not kill Philip.'
Corinna clearly expected this to be a bombshell to Charlie, but she'd already worked out that she was going to hear something like that. 'The police got it wrong? The jury got it wrong?'
Corinna finally put her spoon down. 'It wouldn't be the first time.'
That was a well-aimed barb, and it stung. 'It happens less often than you think.'
'It nearly happened to Bill Hopton.' Corinna's voice was as level as her stare. 'I bet you wish it had.'
Charlie took a deep breath through her nose and counted to ten. She'd forgotten quite how challenging Corinna could be. 'No. I don't. I know it's not a popular position, but I still believe the legal system is worthless if we don't put truth at the heart of it.'
To her surprise, Corinna grinned. 'That's the Charlie I remember. That's why I wanted you on board.'
Charlie shook her head. 'A discredited expert waiting to be struck off? Nobody in their right mind would want me in their corner these days.'
Corinna flapped a hand impatiently. 'That'll sort itself out. You'll see. In the meantime, you're the person to get to the heart of this.'
'To the heart of what? Why are you so sure this is a miscarriage of justice?'
'Because I know who really killed Philip.'
Charlie knew this was the point where she should, like an investigative journalist in a massage parlour, make her excuses and leave. Knowing as she spoke that she was going to regret it, she said, 'Who?'
'The person who murdered my son-in-law was Jay Macallan Stewart.'
14
Sometimes it seemed to Jay that the past was more immediate than the present. She could lose herself in making love with Magda, but when they lay together afterwards, Jay often found her thoughts drifting away from the moment, sifting through memory before settling on one particular episode. It wasn't just because she was delving into her past to make sure her memoir leapt off the page. It had always been like this. It was as if she was constantly re-examining the past in an attempt to cast it in a shape she found acceptable. Jay wanted to look back down the vista of the years and see an unbroken, consistent upward path. Sometimes that took more effort than others.
By the time Louise and I were discovering just what it was that lesbians did in bed, I was already committed to running for President of the Junior Common Room - the quaint term for the undergraduate student body of an Oxford college. It has always been one of those jobs that looks more impressive on a CV than it ever is in reality. But for me it was the next step in the reconstruction of insignificant Jennifer Stewart. Another measure of the distance I had travelled.
All it really involved at Schollie's in my day was making sure the other committee members did whatever they had been elected to do; meeting weekly with the college principal to thrash out any contentious issues and to drink the dry sherry I'd had to train myself to love; running college meetings and, depending on how Stalinist the holder of the office felt, altering the political and practical direction of life for the college's undergraduates. If, for example, one were so minded, one could persuade the JCR members to donate all their funds to the Society for Distressed Gentlewomen. Or some radical Marxist Central American guerrilla army. Depending on your point of view, it was either power without responsibility or responsibility without power.
My main rival for the presidency emerged as Jess Edwards, a geographer with a sharp line in rhetoric, a rowing blue and a disturbing degree of admiration for the historic achievements of Margaret Thatcher. The issues that divided us were practical as well as ideological. For example: I proposed a fund-raising programme aimed at the provision of a proper college launderette with state-of-the-art machines; Jess wanted to spend more on rowing coaches to improve the college's growing reputation on the river.The arguments between us had been hard fought, but soon after Louise and I became lovers, I realised my edge had blunted. Love had knocked the ginger out of me. Where before I would have cornered Jess and metaphorically ripped her limb from limb, now I was making more conciliatory noises than the most wishy-washy bleeding-heart liberal.
Jay leaned back in her chair, remembering her frustration when she'd realised it was all slipping away because she'd lost the relish for the fight. She'd never seen herself as someone for whom love would be enough. Her mother's fecklessness in the early part of her childhood, combined with the savage restrictiveness that had followed, had made sure of that. But with Louise, emotion had overwhelmed her, and the feeling of being at the heart of someone else's world was curiously intoxicating.
The problem was that she couldn't put her ambitions on hold. This was the fourth term of her three years at Schollie's. Soon her time would hit the halfway mark. It wasn't long to make an impression, to create a foundation for a life that was light years away from the grim and narrow prospects of her adolescence. For people like her, there was no second bite of the cherry. This was her chance and she had to make the most of it. Somehow, she had to find a way to turn it round.
Like a carnivore scenting blood, Jess fell on the weakness without mercy. Four days before the election, I was working in my usual spot in the college library when a shadow fell over my notes. 'A word,' Jess said quietly.
I followed her out into the garden and took the opportunity to light a pungent Gitane. The fact that I knew Jess loathed my cigarettes was merely an added pleasure. 'You've got as long as it takes me to smoke this,' I said bluntly.
'I won't need that long. I want you to withdraw your candidacy. '
I shook my head in disbelief. 'When you get back to planet earth, give me a call,' I said sarcastically.
'I'm making the suggestion for your sake. I don't want you to humiliate yourself. The JCR members won't vote a lesbian in as JCR President,' Jess retorted, smugness smeared across her face like dogshit on a shoe.
I had a moment of panic. We'd been so careful. Our embraces had all been inside the safety of our own rooms. I didn't think we'd ever done anything publicly that could be thrown in our faces; we'd never even been to a gay bar. Jess had to be bluffing, I decided. She couldn't know. Nobody could know. 'I'm sure you're right,' I said mildly. 'But why should you think that would bother me?'
'I spent ten years at boarding school, Jay. Give me some credit. I know you didn't have my advantages, but surely you're not so naive as to think you and Louise could make kissy faces at each other over breakfast ever since the roof fell in on you without half the JCR noticing?'
I could feel my ears turning scarlet. Right then, I wasn't sure if I was angrier about our love being reduced to a schoolgirl crush or being reminded I was socially not up to snuff. Either way,
it didn't matter. With that one speech, Jess had managed to undo all the softening I'd undergone at the hands of love. 'You're full of shit, Jess,' I snarled.
'I don't think so. As I say, I can't be the only one who's noticed. And unless you withdraw your candidacy, I suspect more people will know by polling day.'
'Are you trying to blackmail me?'
'Good lord, no,' Jess protested. 'But on my way out, I couldn't help noticing the election poster in the kitchen on your floor of the Sackville Building had been defaced. We wouldn't want that sort of thing to happen all over college, would we?'
There had been several times since I'd left the North East when I'd felt the urge to demonstrate my street fighting skills. Never more than at that moment. Somehow, I stopped myself, letting my hands relax out of their reflexive fists. Instead, I pushed past Jess and, leaving my books and notes behind for collection later, I made straight for the Sackville Building.
It was even worse than I'd imagined. The poster that this morning had read, 'Put a Stewart back on the throne' now had 'DYKE' pasted over my name. And added to the list of bullet-point promises I'd made were, 'Lesbian erotica section to be established in college library' and 'Coming-out workshops with professional counsellors'.
I ripped the sheet from the wall, tearing it to pieces. I dumped the remains in the sink and with a shaking hand spun the wheel of my Zippo and reduced its vileness to ashes. I leaned against the sink panting, my eyes smarting with more than the smoke. The knowledge that not many people would have seen it between first thing and now was no balm. I couldn't believe what Jess Edwards had done to me. I'd thought I was the ruthless one.
But I knew with stony certainty that, if I didn't back down, there would be a smear campaign the length and breadth of the college by next morning. And my chances of becoming JCR President would have vanished in the kind of humiliation that people would talk about for years afterwards. Whenever my name came up in conversation where there was anyone from my Oxford vintage, it would be, `Oh, wasn't she the lesbian who thought she could be JCR President?'
And there was Louise to consider. Her ambitions were different from mine; she had no desire for power or notoriety. She'd been having difficulty enough adjusting to the idea of being gay without being humiliated by our fellow undergraduates. And make no mistake about it, I thought bitterly, humiliated we would be. Not much reality lay behind the romantic notions of the solidarity and supportiveness of a community of educated women. At St Scholastika's they were every bit as petty, envious and self-seeking as anywhere else. Thanks to Corinna's indiscreet gossip, I knew of two fellows of the college who had not spoken to each other for the best part of twenty years because of an irreconcilable disagreement over the true cradle of classical civilisation. No, my peers would barely tolerate Louise and certainly would never forgive me for thrusting the personal so very firmly into the public arena, even though I had had nothing to do with its dissemination.
For once in my life, I really didn't know what to do. I couldn't even turn to Corinna. I hadn't told her about Louise; some instinct had made me hold back. I knew the Catholic Church's line on homosexuality only too well, since it was the principal stumbling block between Louise and me. I simply couldn't trust Corinna to let her personal affections supersede her religious views. Wisely, as things turned out.
Jay cocked her head, considering what she'd just written about Corinna. She didn't think there was anything there that would upset Magda. After all, Corinna's subsequent behaviour spoke for itself, and Jay wasn't going to sugar-coat it when she got to that part of the story. However things turned out now, it was still valid. If Corinna welcomed her as a daughter-in-law now, it would play as a Damascene conversion; if not, Jay could take the moral high ground and stand tall under the weight of Corinna's continued disapproval. It might force Magda to a difficult choice, but Jay was convinced she would choose lover over mother at this point. And once that choice was made, there was no going back. Just as there had been no going back all those years ago.
I was sitting at my desk, staring out across the meadows when Jess reappeared. She knocked and stuck her head round my door. 'I see you removed the poster.'
'Wouldn't you?'
'Let me know what you decide,' she said, as casually as if she were asking me how I liked my coffee. 'I'll see you at breakfast.'
But she didn't. By breakfast time, Jess Edwards was dead.
Part Two
1
Charlie stared at Corinna, incredulous. 'You're sitting there and telling me you honestly think Jay Macallan Stewart is a murderer? Internet multimillionaire and misery memoir author Jay Macallan Stewart? Your family friend Jay Macallan Stewart?'
Corinna looked affronted. 'She's no friend of this family.'
'According to the newspapers she is. I know Magda's said nothing to the press, but I did see one photograph taken in the street where she was with' - Charlie made a quotation marks sign in the air - '"family friend" Jay Macallan Stewart.' She cocked her head to one side. 'I did wonder about that.'
'No way is she a friend. She's not welcome in this house. Hasn't been for fifteen years or more. Damn it, Charlie. Damned media and their lies.'
'But Jay? Why the holy fuck do you think Jay killed Philip?'
Corinna winced. Blasphemy or obscenity offended her, a prudery that had always amused Charlie. 'Because she's done it before. At least once, and almost certainly more.'
Until that point, Charlie had been willing to give Corinna the benefit of the doubt. But this was too much. 'Is this some kind of elaborate Oxford joke, Corinna? Some wind-up at my expense?'
'It's the truth, Charlie.' At least this intensity was familiar to Charlie from her professional life. It often accompanied the most sincerely held delusions.
Charlie held her hands up, palms outward. 'OK, let's just take this step by step. For now, let's leave to one side the suggestion that Jay Stewart is a serial killer and look at the case in point. Corinna, why on earth would Jay want Philip dead? What's the connective tissue here?'
She'd seen Corinna disappointed by her pronouncements before but Charlie would have said she was past being affected by it. To her surprise, she felt nettled when Corinna said, 'Can't you work it out, Charlie? You're the one who brought up the newspaper photo.'
'Magda? You're seriously suggesting that Jay killed Philip because she wanted Magda? Corinna, do you have any idea how bonkers that sounds? Even from the most besotted of mothers, that would sound mad.'
'Be that as it may, Charlie. But they're together. Jay is my daughter's lover. My beautiful, clever daughter. Magda hasn't had the nerve to tell me in so many words, but I know my daughter and I know what's going on. I've no idea how they met again, but I'm convinced that Magda's version of events is a lie. She says they ran into each other at the house of a colleague a couple of months after Philip died. But I think they were already seeing each other by then.'
Charlie frowned. 'But why on earth would Magda marry Philip if she was already having a relationship with Jay?'
Corinna shrugged in frustration. 'I don't think they were lovers then. Magda's too honest, too honourable. I can't imagine her cheating on Philip, no matter how attracted she was to Jay. And Jay's no fool. She must have realised that the only way she'd have a chance with Magda was to get rid of Philip.'
'That's a hell of a stretch. Killing the bridegroom on the wedding day in the hope you can move in on the bride? In my professional life, that's what I'd call grandiose thinking.'
Corinna refilled their mugs and started the stirring ritual again. 'Oh, come on, Charlie. You're a psychiatrist. You know how vulnerable people are to emotional predators when they've been bereaved. Jay would never have a better chance. She's a manipulator. You must remember that, surely?'
'I didn't know her that well. I was two years ahead of her, remember. That's a big gap in student terms. But Corinna, it's a huge jump from "I fancy her" to "I'm going to kill for her".'
'Not so big if you've killed bef
ore.'
Charlie held her hand up in a 'stop' signal. 'We'll come back to that, I promise. Just for the sake of argument, let's suppose that Jay had set her sights on Magda and she didn't care what she had to do to get her. But that's just supposition. It is - forgive me, Corinna, but it is - just a fantasy. You've got to have something that vaguely qualifies as evidence before you can go around making accusations like that.'
'You think I don't realise that? I do have some more to go on. The wedding wasn't the only event in college that day. There was also a weekend seminar on setting up online businesses. And guess who the keynote speaker was?'
'Jay?'
'That's right. She was there, on the spot, when Philip was killed.'
'So were a lot of other people. At least two of them with a confirmed motive, as opposed to a possible motive you've just dreamed up.'
Corinna pursed her lips in disapproval. 'And speaking of motive . . . do you know how the police came up with the evidence against Barker and Sanderson?'
'According to what I read, there was a letter on Philip's computer to the Serious Fraud Office and the Financial Services Authority indicating how the pair of them had come by their confidential information and how they'd used it in an insider trading scheme to make themselves very rich. Is that not how it was?'