Perfect Crime

by Helen Fields

  As one, every head turned to look at Callanach. The obvious question hung in the air.

  ‘I’ve asked DI Callanach to handle matters as the Scottish police liaison to Interpol, based in Lyon. Given his experience with Interpol, that made the most sense. He’ll be leaving for France later today, so if anyone has any matters to discuss with him, you have a couple of hours.’

  ‘How long?’ Lively asked gruffly.

  Ava hadn’t even noticed him in the corner.

  ‘How long what?’ Ava queried.

  ‘How long will we be without one of our DIs?’ Lively clarified, getting to his feet. He was red-faced and looked nothing like the habitual piss-taker they were all used to.

  ‘For as long as the investigation’s active.’ Ava coughed slightly. ‘It’s a major international case, so we’re making contingency plans for DI Callanach to be away from us for several months. In the meantime, you and DS Tripp’ll be asked to step into his shoes.’

  The room was horribly quiet. Ava tried desperately to think of a way to lighten the atmosphere and came up blank.

  ‘The good news is, the French have better taste than you bastards, so I’ll finally get some of the adulation I’m entitled to,’ Callanach intervened to smiles all round.

  Ava did her best to join in.

  ‘I know you’ll miss me, so I’ll be signing photos in my office for the next hour.’

  That earned him a few whoops.

  Ava waited for calm.

  ‘You’ve all worked a serious amount of overtime in the last month, so I’ll be trying to get you time off in lieu.’

  No response to that.

  ‘Right, well, I’ll be preparing a full briefing on the Interpol case. Expect a package on each desk tomorrow with details. Thanks, everyone.’

  She left the room in silence, hearing chairs scrape as people stood, followed by murmuring and then the sort of backslapping that she knew were the team’s goodbye to its most experienced detective inspector. The irony was overwhelming. Callanach’s arrival had been met with an ill-disguised coldness, now it was as if she’d separated her team from their nearest and dearest. He’d won them all over. Even – perhaps especially – Lively.

  ‘Who’d have thought it?’ she murmured to herself as she wandered back into her office.

  ‘Thought what?’ Callanach asked, directly behind her.

  ‘Holy mother of fuck!’ Ava shouted. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘I thought you could hear me behind you,’ he smiled. ‘You must have been a million miles away.’

  ‘Burst eardrums, remember?’ Ava replied. ‘Have you said your farewells?’

  ‘Not all of them,’ Callanach said quietly, clicking her office door shut behind him. ‘Feels like you’ve been avoiding me since you phoned to say I was being seconded to France.’

  ‘Just busy. Wrapping up two simultaneous cases is a paperwork nightmare.’

  She leaned against her desk. Callanach walked over and stood right in front of her, close enough that the tips of their shoes were touching. Ava looked sideways across the room and out of the window.

  He reached up and gently stroked her cheek.

  ‘I’m so sorry you got hurt. This whole thing with Astrid, from start to finish, has damaged so many innocent people.’

  Ava’s face was aflame. She took hold of his fingertips and put them back down by his side.

  ‘It’s over now. You can get on with living your life. Really living it. Wherever you feel most at home. No more ghosts. Bruce Jenson wasn’t your father. I know there’s still a question about Gilroy Western …’

  ‘I’m leaving that one alone, for now at least. When I got Jenson’s DNA test back, it made me realise I’m better off keeping hold of the memories of the man I always believed was my father. No point making things any harder than they already are.’

  ‘Sounds like you’re starting to come to terms with it all,’ she said.

  ‘Is that why you’re sending me back to France? To see if I settle there again? You didn’t need to do that. I already know where I belong. Scotland isn’t the place I ran away to any more. It’s where my friends are, where my life is happening. It’s where I want to be.’

  ‘My decision was purely professional. You know Interpol like no one in the whole of Police Scotland, never mind MIT. If I’d sent anyone else, I’d be answering serious questions as to why I hadn’t chosen you. I need to sit down, actually, could you just stake a step back, so I can pass …’

  He shook his head, smiling briefly, reaching out a hand to put on her waist.

  ‘Feeling faint?’ he asked. ‘You probably shouldn’t even be back at work yet. What did your doctor say?’

  ‘That’s none of your business,’ she said, the echo of Overbeck ringing in her ears. For a moment, self-loathing overwhelmed her. Tears came. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m tired. It’s all the painkillers.’

  ‘Let me drive you home,’ he said. ‘I’ve got time before my flight. I could even grab you a takeaway. I bet you haven’t eaten for …’

  ‘Luc, stop, please,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t do this. Everything’s broken. I killed Astrid. I failed to protect Janet and your friend, Lance, and I wonder if I haven’t been so distracted by everything going on between us that I didn’t miss evidence. Rune Maclure sat right here in my office, asked me out, for Christ’s sake, and I never treated him like a suspect. Not once. I need to get my head straight and I can’t do that with you here.’

  ‘Ava, don’t …’

  ‘No. This is the end. I lied for you. I covered for you.’

  ‘I hadn’t done anything,’ Callanach said quietly.

  ‘That’s not the point. I broke so many rules. The integrity of the whole investigation was compromised because of the way I felt about you.’

  ‘How did you feel?’ he asked, taking her face in his free hand.

  ‘It’s how I feel now that matters,’ Ava replied stiffly. ‘I don’t want you here, Luc. Everything got too messy. I need to be able to get up in the morning knowing I can do my work, do it properly, make good decisions and that I’ll be able to sleep when I get home.’

  ‘I’m not stopping you from doing any of those things,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, you are. It’s what you do. To Astrid, Selina, to me …’

  ‘That’s not fair. I didn’t ask for any of this.’

  ‘I know,’ she smiled. ‘You don’t even see it coming, do you? There’s just a trail of pathetic women left in your wake.’

  ‘Ava,’ he kissed her cheek. ‘I’m sorry I took the prayer slate from your room. I’m even sorrier I never returned it. It was … weird and wrong on so many levels … even I can’t explain it. But I think all this time I was waiting for something to happen between us, you were already waiting for it to go wrong. And no, I’m not blaming you. I take full responsibility for the disaster that happened at my flat, but still – I think there was something of a self-fulfilling prophesy to it for you.

  ‘I’m going to France. I’m not here to persuade you differently. But I am coming back and when I do, you and I are going to sit down and work this out. Because I care about you far too much to give up on this – whatever it is – before it’s even started.’

  Callanach tightened his grip on her waist and pulled her body forwards to meet his, kissing her gently on the lips and holding her a second longer. Then he let her go.

  Acknowledgments

  My endless thanks for helping with this book – and keeping me writing in general – go, in no particular order, to …

  Caroline Hardman (Agent Extraordinaire), Thérèse Coen on foreign rights, Joanna Swainson and Nicole Etherington from Hardman & Swainson (Best) Literary Agency (In The World). Phoebe Morgan for her pure good nature. Sabah Khan for her boundless energy. Helen Huthwaite for her outstanding instincts. Also to the superlative Avon and HarperCollins team who get these books from concept to production and out into the world – Molly Walker-Sharp, Elke Desanghere, Dom R
igby, Anna Derkacz, Rebecca Fortuin, Laura Daley, Katie Reeves, Hannah O’Brien, Jane Wisbey, Sarah Whittaker and Oli Malcolm. And a special shout out to Cressida McLaughlin for providing me with the name of one of the victims (and to the man himself).

  To Tantallon Castle and the lovely people who work there and answer ridiculous questions from visiting authors (if you haven’t been to Tantallon, you must!). To Whighams Wine Cellars in Edinburgh for great food, a wonderful place and a heavenly cocktail menu (I conducted thorough research). To Sandy Bell’s, also in Edinburgh, the place to go. And to Ruth Chambers who tolerates endless location scouting, random archery and menu tasting in the name of authenticity (and possibly the odd hangover).

  To my friends and family who listen to me drone on about plots and characters, deadlines and crazy new ideas – you know who you are – I love you all. Not a single word would have been written without you. And especially to David, who orders my favourite teabags from England in advance so that I never run out mid-book and hit a writing crisis.

  Thank you x

  Can’t get enough of the Perfect series?

  Then read on for a sneak peek of Helen Fields’ next book, Perfect Dark.

  Chapter 1

  At precisely the same time Bart was coming round from a distinctly chemically induced sleep, his mother was waking from a herbal insomnia remedy and wondering why the house was so quiet. It wasn’t a Sunday. On Sundays, Bart neither had college nor work, and sometimes he slept in. Not all that often, but sometimes. Maggie rolled onto her side and rubbed bleary eyes, trying to focus on the small travel clock perched on her bedside table. 9 a.m. She’d overslept. Not that she had anywhere to be in a hurry, but mornings – it was a Wednesday, she realised – were marked with the clanging of crockery, the pouring of cereal, and the sound of the dishwasher being loaded before Bart exited the house. He was a good boy. The sort of boy her friends were rather jealous of. She was conscious of the fact, sometimes moaning about him a little to make it clear that he wasn’t perfect, although secretly she knew he was. She might tell her neighbour that he’d played his music too loud, or pretend to her weekly library social group that he was forgetful about tidying his room. But Bart was neither loud nor untidy. In fact, he was independent, considerate and helpful. An exception among other twenty-year-old men. (Boys, Maggie thought. Twenty was no age at all. Certainly not mature enough to comprehend all the cruelties the world had to offer.) But then Bart had grown up quickly after his father had been killed serving in Afghanistan. Not in battle. That would have been devastating, of course. The truth had garnered more pity and less admiration from the community. Her husband had choked in the mess hall one night when a fellow officer had cracked a particularly hilarious joke. The meatball he’d been chewing was sucked up into his airways where it had stubbornly lodged and refused to move in spite of no end of back patting, then finally a desperate attempt at the Heimlich manoeuvre which had broken ribs but not allowed any oxygen to his lungs. How did you explain that to a fourteen-year-old boy? That his father, who had been a military man since before Bart was born, had been dispatched not by bomb or bullet, but by a ball of minced beef, egg yolk and breadcrumbs.

  Perhaps Bart was ill, Maggie thought. Or maybe she’d taken too many sleeping tablets and not heard him leave the house. That had happened before. Distracted after a long shift at the call centre, she’d returned home and taken a SleepSaver, eaten dinner, then swallowed another pill without thinking. Such were the perils of tiredness. Living on a military widow’s pension and her wages was too tight for comfort, even with Bart earning a few extra pounds waiting tables in the evenings.

  ‘Bart, you all right love?’ she called, pulling her tatty pink dressing gown over bare shoulders. Bart had bought her a new one for Christmas. It was exquisite. Cream, and so soft it was like one of the really posh cuddly toys you seemed always to find in bookshops, for some inexplicable reason. It was hanging on the back of her bedroom door, and she stroked it every time she entered or exited. But it was too nice to wear. She’d only spill coffee down it, or splash it with the remnants of the previous night’s pasta sauce. The thought of spoiling something so luxurious and thoughtful was enough to keep her in her threadbare robes, at least for another six months or so. She’d start wearing it before Christmas came around, she told herself.

  Bart hadn’t replied by the time she’d reached his bedroom door, knocking politely, always mindful that her boy needed his privacy. He had never bought a girl back for the night, not that Maggie would have minded if they’d been discreet, but Bart conducted his relationships elsewhere. He obviously had girlfriends. He was a good-looking lad, and that wasn’t just the blur of looking at him through mummy-goggles talking. At six foot he was big enough to stand out but not so tall that he attracted silly comments on the street. His father had been six foot four and once threatened to deck a man who had somehow imagined that no one had ever asked her husband what the weather was like up there. Maggie’s husband – God rest his soul – had been a decent man, but not blessed with looks, all sharp features and eyes closer together than suited the average face. She was the exact opposite. Broad, flat face, wide eyes (wide hips too, and getting wider by the year, she reminded herself). Perhaps the differences between them was what had left Bart with that sort of symmetrical, well-balanced face that wasn’t exactly attention-grabbing, but with which no one could find a single fault. Great skin, even teeth, good bone structure, and a fair brain. He was in his final year of a business studies college course that he was hoping would offer a potential career in London. Plenty of work in Edinburgh, Maggie always told him. Or Glasgow, if he wanted to leave home. Anywhere in Scotland. But London was the dream. Always had been.

  In the absence of a reply to her knocking, Maggie opened the door slowly, calling his name softly as she put a foot inside. The curtains were drawn and the bed was made. Nothing surprising there; his lectures started at 9 a.m. every day. He’d have left an hour ago to make sure he was in good time. Bart wasn’t the sort of student who ever turned up late. But he hadn’t woken her up. His normal routine was to wake, shower, have breakfast, clear up the kitchen, and to take her a cup of tea before leaving the house. She in turn would rise later, do the washing, shop and leave something tasty in the slow cooker before going off for her shift – telesales was thankless but they hadn’t missed a mortgage payment yet – which started at lunchtime and went on until 8 p.m.

  It wasn’t the lack of a cup of tea that bothered Maggie. Her son was entitled to forget doing that for her. She counted her blessings on a daily basis for him, with or without his little kindnesses. What she couldn’t understand was why his mobile was still sat on his bed, charging, exactly where he’d left it the night before when he’d dashed out to grab an extra shift at the restaurant. Another waiter had called in sick. Bart had been offered the hours, and the thought of boosting his savings account was too tempting to refuse. The pay wasn’t great but the tips were, and he always attracted enough customer goodwill to make a night’s work worthwhile. His phone had been running on empty so he’d left it on his bed charging ready for the next morning. Maggie had watched him plug it in as she’d delivered a pile of freshly ironed clothes for him to put away. Those, too, sat waiting on the bed for his return.

  She squashed the stupid maternal panic that made the stable bedroom floor feel suddenly more like quicksand. So her boy hadn’t come home. Perhaps he’d met up with friends and gone for a drink, or had a better offer from a pretty girl. Only normally he’d have called her, however late. Let her know to put the chain on the door. Tell her not to worry. Bart was thoughtful like that. His father had taught him well. Maggie took the stairs carefully, and checked the answerphone on the landline. No message. She didn’t have a mobile. It was just one more bill that she didn’t need. Plastering an optimistic smile on her face, she popped her head through the door of the lounge, all ready to have a good laugh in case he’d had a few too many and slept on the couch. She was fooling no one with th
e false jollity, least of all herself. Bart wasn’t an excessive drinker. He’d never reached a point where the couch looked like a better option that his own bed. Her mind began conjuring the ghosts of accidents before she could stop it. Somewhere in there, a misadventure with a meatball loomed large. Like father like son. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate irony? Both of them gone, cause of death Italian cuisine.

  ‘Stop it, you silly woman,’ she scolded herself, wandering into the kitchen to make her own cup of breakfast tea. ‘Your boy’ll be back any minute.’

  But the truth that Maggie had felt in that secret, vile part of the brain no parent ever wanted to hear pipe up, was that he wouldn’t be back in a minute. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Because by then, Bartholomew McBride was 100 miles away.

  It was the stench that woke him. Something acrid with a heavy undertone of sulphur had filled his sinuses and was threatening to make him gag.

  ‘Mum?’ His first thought was that she must be ill. That she’d gone down with food poisoning or a virus overnight and been too embarrassed or too thoughtful to have disturbed him. Only he couldn’t remember getting home. And now that he registered the pain in his body, he realized he wasn’t in his bed. Or any bed at all.

  He sat bolt upright, head swimming, before collapsing back down to the floor. Everything was dark. Not the dark of Scottish nights away from the city camping by a loch. Not even the dark of the private rooms at the back of the night club he occasionally attended with his friends. True dark. Not one star. No bloom of pollution. No crack or spill from beneath a door or at the edge of a blind.

  ‘Hello?’ he shouted, braving movement again, sitting up more slowly. That was when he felt the tugging on his leg.

  Bart froze. Something had hold of his left ankle. He breathed hard, twice, three times, tried to get to grips with his fear first and his imagination next, then he lost it.