Trick of the Dark

by Val McDermid

  After he'd spoken to Charlie, Nick had put Jay Macallan Stewart to the back of his mind and concentrated on the operation his team were working on. But when he fell into bed, exhausted by a day of comparing CCTV images against their databank of known traffickers and pimps, his mind had drifted back to their earlier conversation. He'd gone to sleep thinking about what Charlie had told him and what information they needed to gather. And in the morning, staring at his reflection in the mirror as he shaved, he'd realised he was looking at the Ulf Ingemarsson case from the wrong end of the telescope.

  'Alibi,' he muttered. That was the place to start. The only problem was how to nail down what Jay Macallan Stewart was doing during a particular week in 2004. Nobody could be expected to remember what they were doing six years ago.

  'But their staff might.' He rinsed his face in the basin and gave himself a confident wink. Now all he had to do was figure out an approach.

  Meanwhile, he could use the waiting time to see what he could find out about Ulf Ingemarsson. The translate function Google offered sometimes provoked more hilarity than clarity, but it was good enough to cope with press articles. The initial news stories - 'Swedish man murdered in Spain' - gave the usual spin of outrage. Bloodthirsty foreign brigands, incompetent foreign police, the risks of Abroad to decent Swedes. Behind the headlines, a story of a man holidaying in an isolated mountain villa, confronting burglars. A scuffle, a knife. A corpse lying on the floor for days, until the next visit from the cleaning company.

  Then the counter-attack. Ingemarsson's girlfriend, a primary school teacher called Liv Aronsson, claimed this had been no ordinary burglary. As well as the obvious valuables, the thieves had stolen Ingemarsson's papers, which she insisted were meaningless and worthless to anyone other than a handful of web developers. She talked about his plans for an individually tailored travel guide system and revealed that he had been in talks with a British software developer, but the discussions had broken down over the issue of how the profits should be split. Her story was covered briefly in a couple of newspapers and one news magazine wrote a longer feature. Then the story died for a while.

  When Jay Macallan Stewart launched 24/7, Liv Aronsson's story surfaced again on a couple of Swedish internet sites. Nothing was said to link Ingemarsson directly with 24/7, but it was there between the lines for anyone savvy enough. Again, the Spanish police were criticised for their refusal to consider this was more than a simple burglary, and Aronsson hinted that she believed her partner might have been killed for his idea.

  Definitely worth talking to, Nick thought. He emailed the journalist who had written the article, asking for contact details for Aronsson. It's possible there may be a connection between Ulf Ingemarsson's death and a cold case I am investigating, he wrote. It seems that Liv Aronsson may have some helpful information. Either it would work or it wouldn't. In the UK, journalists didn't generally want to hand information over to the police. Maybe it would be easier in Sweden.

  Now he'd read the Swedish coverage, Nick was even less keen to call the Spanish police. He didn't suppose there was much difference between them and his own colleagues when it came to being slagged off in the press, especially the foreign press. Lazy journalism was a great shield to hide behind when you knew you hadn't covered yourselves in glory. He'd have been very surprised if the Spanish cops were too dim to understand the significance of the stolen papers. And they would have been under pressure from their foreign ministry to solve the murder of a Swede. Bad for business, apart from anything else. If the cops had failed, he reckoned it wouldn't have been for lack of trying. And they wouldn't be thrilled by some Brit sticking his nose in and suggesting they weren't up to the job.

  The option was taken from him by the arrival of the court usher, calling him to the witness box. To his surprise, Nick's testimony was over and done with by the time the court rose for lunch. Nobody would be expecting him back at base till late afternoon. If Jay was out of her office, he could make some useful progress without anyone noticing. He felt no guilt about sneaking off; in any given week, he did hours of unpaid overtime. Doing a little work on his own account was hardly stealing time from his employer.

  Nick pulled up Twitter on his phone and typed 'Jay Macallan Stewart' into the search box. And there, posted two hours before, was a tweet from the woman herself: @ prosciutto tasting, Bologna. Will post best on 24/7 site l8r. If she'd been in Bologna two hours ago, she wasn't going to be in her office off the Brompton Road in the time it would take him to get there. As the thought struck him, he fired off a text passing on the information to Charlie. She'd wanted to talk to Magda without Jay being around. This could be her perfect opportunity.

  The 24/7 offices occupied the upper floors of a double-fronted brick building. The entrance was a discreet doorway next to the designer handbag shop on the ground floor. Nick had read somewhere that the average woman spends PS4000 in her lifetime on handbags. Looking in the shop window as he waited for someone to answer the intercom, it was easy to see how.

  His photo ID held up to the security camera was enough to have him buzzed in. The stairwell was clean and fresh, the carpet recently vacuumed and the walls bright with glamorous photographs of European cities. The reception office was just as smart - decent furniture, a proper coffee machine and plenty of space. Nick was impressed. He'd been behind the scenes of too many businesses that didn't seem to care about the working environment of their staff. The Metropolitan Police could learn something from Jay Stewart, he thought.

  The woman behind the desk fit the room. She was beautifully groomed without fussiness. Nick put her at a good-looking thirty-something. Her immaculate white shirt amazed him. He could never manage to look that perfect, not even when he sent his shirts to the ironing service. He gave her his best smile, holding his ID up beside his face. 'Detective Sergeant Nick Nicolaides,' he said.

  She smiled, but Nick could see she was anxious. That didn't mean anything. Most innocent people were unnerved by the presence of a policeman they hadn't actually summoned. 'Hi,' she said. 'I'm Lauren Archer. Is there a problem? How can I help you?'

  Conscious that he was looming over her, Nick perched on the edge of a table set against the wall. 'It's OK, I've not come to arrest anyone, I promise you. This is a bit of a long shot,' he said, giving her a wry smile that invited complicity. 'We're investigating a cold case.'

  Lauren nodded, still looking uncertain. 'Yes?'

  'It goes back to 2004 but we've got fresh evidence analysis that has pointed us to a new suspect,' Nick lied fluently. 'The problem is, the guy we're looking at is claiming he has an alibi.'

  Lauren frowned. 'How can that have anything to do with us? 24/7 wasn't even up and running then.'

  'No, but as I understand it, the business was in the development stages. We understand that Ms Macallan Stewart wasn't working alone?'

  Lauren smiled. 'That's right. Anne, her PA, has been with her since doitnow.com.' She frowned again. 'But what's that got to do with your case?'

  Nick sighed. 'It's all a little bit complicated. We can't be precise about when the crime occurred. It could have taken place any time in the course of a particular week. And the man in question claims he spent that week doing work experience with Ms Macallan Stewart's company. That he was actually shadowing her for most of the time.'

  Lauren's eyebrows shot up. 'That doesn't sound like Jay,' she said. 'She hates people looking over her shoulder.'

  'You see? Already you're being helpful. I wonder - do you think Anne would have a record of what Jay was actually doing on the week in question? An old diary or something?'

  'Hang on a minute, I'll get her to come through.' Lauren picked up the phone. 'Anne? I've got a police officer here, he's got a query relating to Jay's schedule . . . No, not this week. A while back. Can you come through?' She replaced the phone. This time her smile was whole-hearted, the look of a woman who has passed the baton to the next person in the team.

  A door behind Nick opened and a deep voice said,
'I'm Anne Perkins. And you are?'

  Nick stood up straight and introduced himself again, submitting his ID for scrutiny. Anne Perkins could have been any age between forty and sixty. Her thick salt and pepper hair was cut and styled in fashionable disarray, her glasses were on the cutting edge of chic and she wore a tight-fitting capsleeved T-shirt and cropped cargo pants that revealed tanned limbs and toned muscles. She looked like someone who cycled to work, Nick thought. And without getting out of breath. 'Thank you, Sergeant,' she said, handing back his ID. 'How can I help you?'

  Nick repeated his story. Anne Perkins listened carefully, her head cocked to one side, a line of concentration between her brows. 'Your man's a liar,' she said. 'We have given people internships and work experience opportunities in the past, but never at the level of shadowing our chief executive. We'd never take that degree of risk in terms of corporate confidentiality. ' She half-turned, as if her saying her piece should mark the end of the matter.

  'Thank you,' Nick said. 'Please don't take this the wrong way, but I can't just accept the uncorroborated word of one person on a matter like this.' He gave an apologetic shrug. 'Rules of evidence, and all that. I'm sure you appreciate my problem.'

  She looked shocked. Nick imagined she wasn't accustomed to her position being contradicted. He hoped he hadn't overplayed his hand. 'I thought our legal system thrived on the word of one person against another?' she said coolly.

  'We prefer it when we don't have to trust to the intelligence of a jury,' he said, playing to her sense of superiority. 'Maybe if I could confirm that with Jay herself?'

  Anne shook her head. 'She's not in today.'

  'Could I call her?'

  'That would be tricky. She's got a very full programme.'

  Interestingly defensive of the boss, Nick noted. He nodded sympathetically. 'She's obviously a very busy lady. What about if you've got a diary for 2004 that I could look at? Problem solved. And I'm out of here, never to be seen again.'

  Anne Perkins raised one eyebrow. '2004? Give me a minute. Lauren, show the nice policeman how the coffee machine works.'

  Lauren gave him an anguished smile as they were left alone. 'Would you like a coffee?'

  'That would be too much of a commitment. I'm not planning on being here that long.' He perched on the edge of the desk again. 'Have you worked here for long?'

  'Five years now,' Lauren said. 'Since 24/7 launched.'

  'Must be a good place to work if you've stayed here that long.'

  Lauren grinned. 'We get great travel perks. And I love to travel. Plus Jay's a good boss. She demands a lot from her staff, but she gives a lot in return. Have you been a policeman for long?'

  Nick pulled a face. 'Too long. We don't get travel perks. So what's she like, Jay? I imagine she must be pretty ruthless, being such a success in business.'

  'She knows what she wants and she's very good at getting it.' Lauren stopped abruptly, as if realising she was giving too much away to the nice policeman. 'But if you really want to know what she's like, you should read her memoir, Unrepentant. She had a pretty difficult childhood. Getting over that and making such a success of her life, that's inspiring, you know?'

  Before Nick could respond, Anne Perkins returned carrying a slim notebook computer. 'I think this is what you need,' she said, putting the machine on the side table and flipping it open. Her fingers flashed over the keys and an application opened up on the screen. Nick came closer and saw it was a calendar for 2004. 'What were the dates you were interested in?'

  'May ninth to May sixteenth,' he said.

  She stopped abruptly, fingers poised over the keys. She turned her head to look directly at him. 'I've looked up those dates before,' she said. 'It was a long time ago, but I remember it well. It's not often you get asked about the same dates for two different reasons by two different police forces.'

  Startled, Nick managed to maintain his composure. 'We do work closely with our colleagues in Europe,' he said.

  'So this is about that Swedish software developer who got killed? What was his name? Ulf something or other?' Anne had moved from defensive to wary now. 'Surely they haven't finally got someone?'

  Nick shrugged. 'I can't comment. I just need to be sure whether this man was shadowing Jay that week.'

  'Really?' She sounded sceptical. 'I'll tell you what I told the Spaniards. No way was it possible for Jay to have been in northern Spain that week.'

  'I never said--'

  'Of course you didn't. You're just a foot soldier investigating an unnamed suspect in an unidentified crime.' She turned back to the computer and navigated to the relevant dates. This was obviously the real thing, not something faked up at the last minute to keep him happy. Seconds later he was looking at seven rectangular boxes. At the top was the day and date; down the side, 'JMS', 'AP' and 'VF'. Each day, including the weekends, was filled with details of appointments.

  'Who's VF?' Nick asked as he tried to take in Jay's movements.

  'Vinny Fitzgerald,' Anne said. 'He's our systems guy. Very talented man. He's in charge of making the site work. Jay discovered him when she was setting up doitnow.com. And he wasn't anywhere near Spain that week either.' She tapped the screen, which revealed VF had been running a training course in Bracknell. Then she pointed to Jay's schedule. 'As you can see, nothing here about a work experience person. And obviously nobody was shadowing Jay that week. Sunday and Monday she was in Brussels, Tuesday and Wednesday in Marseilles, Thursday and Friday in Biarritz. Lots of appointments with potential contributors. And a schedule of things to visit and places to eat and drink. Jay doesn't like company when she's travelling for work. There's no way your suspect was shadowing her that week.'

  'I can see that,' Nick said. 'Any chance you could give me a print-out, make it easier for me to convince my boss?'

  Anne chewed her lip for a moment. 'I don't see why not. There's nothing commercially sensitive about it. No privacy issues that I can see.' She straightened up, clearly having come to a decision. 'Yes, I can do that. You're sure you can't give me a name for your suspect?'

  It was an odd way to phrase it and for a moment Nick wondered if he'd been rumbled. 'Why do you ask?' he said.

  'I just wondered why on earth he chose us for his alibi.' She picked up the notebook and tapped in the print commands. 'There must be hundreds of big companies where he could pretend he'd just slipped through the bureaucratic net without a record. It occurred to me that he might have a connection to 24/7 or to Jay.'

  Nick gave her an anguished look. 'I'm not supposed to reveal that,' he said. 'People are entitled to their privacy until they're arrested. I'm afraid it'll just have to remain a mystery.'

  Anne chuckled. 'Just as well Jay's not here, then. There's nothing she hates more than a mystery.'

  Nick smiled. 'Me and her both,' he said. 'Me and her both.' Then he turned his most feral smile on her. 'One interesting thing, though. You've got a lot of time that week that isn't blocked out. I don't suppose you were in Spain?'

  She looked as if he'd slapped her. 'I think it's time you left, Sergeant.' She crossed to the printer and handed him the printed page from the diary.

  Nick gave her a long, considering look. 'You've been very helpful. Maybe we'll talk again.'

  'I doubt that very much.' Her voice was ice, her eyes watchful. 'I can't imagine why there would be any need for that.'

  Right then, neither could Nick. But there was some undercurrent in Anne Perkins' reaction to his casual comment that made him wonder.

  19

  When it came to the psychology of individual difference, Charlie thought the group of A-level students she was teaching were bloody lucky to have her. Instead of a dry academic discussion about gathering empirical evidence on mental and behavioural disturbance and deviance, they were getting despatches from the front line of psychiatry. And, thank heavens, they were smart enough to appreciate it. Her two hours of teaching had turned out to be less of a chore than she'd feared. All the same, she was glad to escap
e the clamour of teenage girls and recover the peace of her car.

  When she turned her phone back on, she picked up the text from Nick, offering her the chance to talk to Magda without Jay eavesdropping. No point in calling now, though. Magda would be at work, her mind on her patients. Charlie made a mental note to remember to contact Magda later.

  Meanwhile, she had other work to do. None of the media reports of the trial had mentioned the names of the defence solicitors, only the barristers who had represented Barker and Sanderson in court. The barristers would be on to their next cases, their disappointed clients forgotten; the solicitors were still involved and only they could get her into prison to interview Philip Carling's supposed killers. She drove home, planning her strategy.

  Charlie settled down at the computer with the phone and a mug of coffee. She had the names of the barristers but not the chambers where they worked. Google gave her the information she needed in a matter of moments; all she had to decide now was which one to go for. Sanderson was probably the junior partner in whatever had gone on, so she might be more willing to spill the beans. But Barker might respond better to a woman. 'Eeny meeny miny mo,' she said. 'So much for the scientific method.'

  A young male voice answered the phone at the first chambers she called. 'Friary Court Chambers,' he said, brisk and businesslike.

  Charlie tried to match him on both counts. 'Hi, I wonder if you can help me? I'm trying to track down the solicitor for Joanne Sanderson. Your Mr Cordier represented her last week at the Bailey? I'm trying to find out who the instructing solicitor was.'

  'Who am I speaking to, please?'

  Just what she didn't want to get into. 'This is Dr Flint. I'm a psychiatrist. I'm supposed to set up an interview with Sanderson, but for some reason I don't have the solicitor's name. I don't have to tell you how it goes sometimes.' She sighed.

  'Tell me about it,' he said. 'Bear with me a minute.'