Broken Ground (Karen Pirie Book 5)

by Val McDermid

  Strictly speaking, DNA analysis was nothing to do with Tamsin Martineau, a digital forensics specialist. But she had a way of persuading her colleagues to go the extra mile for Karen’s team. ‘Tamsin always looks out for us. I think she gets a kick out of using her box of tricks to catch the bastards who have been living free and clear all those years.’

  ‘She’s not the only one.’ Jason stood up. ‘Will I away and get some coffees?’

  But before she could respond, the door opened and a flushed DCI Jimmy Hutton stepped in, closing the door swiftly behind him. ‘Karen,’ he said, ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘I was heading out for coffee,’ Jason said.

  ‘Take your time,’ Jimmy said. ‘Mine’s a cappuccino.’ He stepped aside to give Jason room to leave then leaned against the door. In spite of his high colour, the skin around his eyes was pale and his jaw was tight.

  ‘What’s wrong, Jimmy?’

  ‘A clusterfuck, Karen. That’s the simplest way of putting it. That conversation you overheard in Aleppo? The one you told me about the other night?’

  A cold apprehension made the hairs on Karen’s neck quiver. ‘You’re kidding?’

  Jimmy bit his lip and shook his head. ‘I wish. But it’s even worse than you imagined. It all went off last night. A woman called Dandy Muir is dead. A guy called Logan Henderson is on the critical list at the Royal. And his wife, Willow Henderson – the woman you overheard in Aleppo – was allegedly too traumatised to speak to us last night.’

  Karen’s chest tightened. Sudden violent death usually only became her concern in retrospect. She’d seldom been directly confronted with it in the present tense. But each of those occasions had left its mark on her. Some of her colleagues, she knew, had perfected the skill of professional detachment. But not even the most experienced cops and forensics experts were completely immune. One of Karen’s former colleagues from Fife had been seconded to a UN investigative team in Iraq. Confronted by the mutilated body of a girl the same age as his own daughter, his defences had collapsed, leaving him sobbing on his knees like a child. Back when he’d told her about the experience, Karen had never gone through anything comparable. She’d been convinced she was strong enough to deal with whatever the job threw at her.

  She’d been wrong. The first time she’d been faced with the immediate aftermath of murder, all her barricades had crumbled. It had taken all she had not to show how close she’d come to emotional meltdown. Somehow, over the years, she’d grown more adept at concealment. It didn’t mean she’d escaped those searing moments of empathy.

  But she wasn’t about to show that. Not even to Jimmy, who had seen her grief and matched it with his own. ‘How did Dandy die?’ she said.

  ‘Stabbed with a kitchen knife.’

  ‘In the kitchen?’

  ‘Where else?’ Jimmy’s mouth twisted in a bitter line.

  ‘Fuck. I even said that to them. Kitchens are bad places for confrontation. I told them. What about Logan?’

  ‘Multiple stab wounds.’

  ‘And Willow’s said nothing?’

  Jimmy gave a dry little laugh. ‘I never said that. She was coherent enough to tell the first responders that Logan had come at her with a knife but Dandy had stepped between them to save her. And then Willow grabbed a knife to defend herself against him.’

  Karen was appalled. Somehow, this was all her fault. If she’d said nothing to Dandy … A thought occurred to her. ‘Was Logan stabbed with the same knife as Dandy?’

  Jimmy shook his head. She could feel the suppressed rage coming off him like a wave of heat. ‘Oh no. That would have been a schoolboy error, wouldn’t it? Ironically, that second knife may have been what’s keeping Logan alive. It had a shorter blade. Did less damage.’

  ‘Christ. This is down to me,’ Karen said, feeling the prickle of tears.

  ‘Stop that right now.’ His voice was cold and angry. ‘Whatever happened in that kitchen – and we can surmise all we like but we don’t know for sure yet – whatever happened, you are not responsible.’

  ‘If I’d not said anything—’

  ‘It would have happened regardless.’

  ‘Dandy wouldn’t have been there. Willow was talking about going alone.’

  ‘Karen, stop. I don’t need you having a guilt trip. I need you at your sharpest and toughest. I need your help.’

  A question dawned on Karen. ‘Wait a minute, Jimmy. How is this yours? Your team’s all about murder prevention. You don’t do sharp end stuff unless it’s all gone wrong. How come you know so much about this?’

  He sat down at McCartney’s desk. ‘I happened to be in St Leonard’s last night, going through a case that’s due in the High Court with one of the E division MIT crew when the report came in. I recognised the names.’ He shrugged. ‘Given what you know, I thought it was going to be important that you were in the loop. I knew it would get stupidly complicated if one of the MIT grandstanders took it on.’

  Karen nodded. Jimmy was too kind to say so, but he was protecting her. ‘There are ways of reading this that don’t put me in a good light. Mostly because I’m not in a good light—’

  ‘Whatever. I thought it would be better all round if I managed to hijack it. And then I remembered you’d said Willow had already reported Logan to the police for trying to strangle her. So I blagged it. I said we’d been looking at the husband so it was an open case on our books.’

  Karen stared at Jimmy. ‘You did that? To cover my back?’

  ‘It’s about a lot more than covering your back, Karen. This is exactly the kind of case my team understands. We’ll do it properly. The MIT guys, they’re always after something more glamorous than a domestic that’s got out of hand. They want to be out there on the streets detecting. Not interviewing fucked-up Morningside ladies in what looks like a sordid open-and-shut case. There’s nothing gung-ho about this, so they were more than happy to let me claim it.’ His angry flush had subsided now and he gave her a self-conscious smile. ‘So if we’re right and this is a nasty, devious piece of dirty work, it’ll get put to bed properly.’

  Karen blew out a deep breath. ‘Right enough, Jimmy. What could possibly go wrong? I’m already on the Dog Biscuit’s shit list. I might as well go for the top spot. What’s next?’

  Before Jimmy could answer, there was a timid knock at the door and Jason inched it open. ‘Is it OK to come back in now?’ he asked. ‘Only Sergeant McCartney just drove in and he’ll be along in a minute.’

  Karen waved him in. He clutched his cardboard tray of coffees to his chest like a shield. ‘Thanks, Jason.’

  ‘Nae bother. Only, I thought you might not like the sergeant bursting in on whatever you and DCI Hutton were talking about.’

  ‘Good thinking, Jason. Phil would be proud of you, son,’ Jimmy said, taking the proffered cup and getting to his feet. To Karen, he said, ‘I’ll call you when our traumatised witness feels able to speak.’

  On his way out, he passed McCartney, who looked puzzled to see him there. He stared after Jimmy, then said, ‘Was that not DCI Hutton? From the Murder Prevention Squad?’

  ‘Aye,’ Karen said, staring at her laptop and typing.

  ‘What was he after?’

  ‘A decent cup of coffee, I think.’ Distracted, finding the screen more interesting than McCartney.

  Frustrated, he dropped hard into his chair. ‘That’s all anybody round here ever seems to care about.’

  Karen looked up and grinned. ‘And your point would be?’

  35

  2018 – Edinburgh

  Waiting for Jimmy’s call, Karen struggled to concentrate. She set Jason on the task of tracking down who else had been competing at the 1995 Invercharron Highland Games in the hope that Joey had said something to someone about his plans. Or that they’d met the American woman who’d been talking to Joey. There was, Karen thought, an outside chance that she might have approached another of the heavy athletes if she was looking to hire some muscle to excavate the bikes.
One who’d refused, but knew something of who she was. Because outside chances sometimes provided the loose end that unravelled the skein that had obscured the past.

  McCartney was doing the paperwork on the interviews he’d conducted on the red Rover, occasionally grumbling that it was all a waste of time. Karen blanked his complaints, determined not to let him undermine the unit. She’d figure out a way to ditch him, but not today. Today was for a different kind of calculation.

  It was almost noon when the call came. Karen was shrugging into her coat even as she listened to Jimmy. ‘On my way,’ she said, grabbing her bag and heading for the door.

  ‘Where are you off to?’ McCartney said. But the door was already closing behind her.

  She left her car in the office car park and hustled up to the taxi rank outside the Playhouse. It would be quicker than trying to find a parking space near the St Leonard’s police station and she didn’t want to attract attention by asking the front desk for a slot in the car park. She was surprised that Jimmy had brought Willow Henderson in to E Division’s headquarters. Given the state of her husband, Karen would have expected Willow’s lawyer – and maybe even the doctors – to insist that the interview took place at the hospital. He’d done well to extricate her from that protective cocoon and get her on their turf.

  Jimmy was waiting for her in the foyer, as they’d arranged. He led her down to the characterless corridor that housed the interview rooms. Their destination was the final door, which opened on to a dimly lit observation room. There was a traditional two-way mirror but these days it was augmented by a live video feed from two wall-mounted cameras. The room they were looking into had two inhabitants; Willow Henderson, dressed in hospital scrubs, and an expensively suited man who looked like he’d spent a lot more time in a facial spa than a police station.

  ‘Who’s the brief?’ Karen asked.

  ‘Gil Jardine. The coming man when it comes to defending the rich and discreet. The good news is that he’s not done many murders. I’ll leave you here for now. I just need to grab my sergeant then it’s curtain up. If I think there’s any value in you talking to her alone, I’ll get the brief out of the room at the end.’

  ‘Thanks. Let’s see how it plays out.’

  Once Jimmy had gone, Karen moved closer to the glass. There was no denying the night had taken its toll on Willow. Some of it might be artificial – the tangled hair, the lips bare of colour, the disaster of smudged mascara and eyeliner – but the eyes puffy from weeping were the real thing. So were the lines of tension round her mouth. Ironically, she looked good in blue scrubs, until you remembered she was wearing them because the crime scene techs had placed her bloodstained clothes in bags for forensic testing.

  She said something to the lawyer, who patted her hand in reassurance, the way men who thought they held all the cards had always done to women. The sound wasn’t turned on yet; conversations with lawyers were privileged. The police were not supposed to eavesdrop. Not for the first time, Karen thought she should have learned how to lip-read.

  Then Jimmy walked in, followed by DS Jacqui Laidlaw. Laidlaw was a generously proportioned blonde with a face like a child’s doll. It would have been hard to find anyone less doll-like under the surface. She was smart and hard and Karen was never going to be her friend. But then, she’d have struggled to warm to whoever had replaced Phil as Jimmy’s bag carrier.

  Jimmy and Laidlaw sat down with their backs to the mirror. She pressed the buttons on the recording equipment and the audio feed to the observation room sprang into life. Jimmy made the introductions for the tape then said, ‘Mrs Henderson, you’ve come here voluntarily to make a witness statement, is that correct?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that exactly,’ she said, her voice slightly tremulous. ‘I wanted to talk to you at my home but you insisted we come here.’

  ‘I’m afraid your family home is still a crime scene.’

  ‘We could have gone to my friend Fiona’s granny flat, where I’ve been staying with the children. At least that way I could have changed out of these.’ Her face twisted in disgust as she pinched the blue cotton between finger and thumb.

  Jimmy ignored her. ‘I’d like you to take us through the events of yesterday evening.’

  Willow sighed and blinked several times. ‘This isn’t easy for me. My best friend’s dead.’

  ‘I appreciate that. You’ve been through a very traumatic experience. But we need to understand what happened. I gather you and your husband had been living separately?’

  She wiped one eye with a delicate gesture. ‘We’d separated. I wanted a divorce. Logan refused to move out of the family home. Fortunately, my friend was able to offer us her granny flat on a temporary basis so I went there with my children.’ Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘I need to get back to the children. My mother’s not able to look after them properly.’

  ‘Why did your marriage break up?’ Laidlaw sounded friendly. The sort of woman you could open your heart to.

  Willow sighed again. ‘Logan lost his job. And then I discovered all the lies he’d been telling me about our security. He’d been gambling. High-stakes sports betting. He’d gone through all our savings. Remortgaged the house. He hadn’t paid the bloody mortgage for months. We were on the verge of bankruptcy.’ A bitter edge cut through her piteousness.

  ‘And you didn’t think you could weather that together?’ Jimmy again.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Didn’t somebody say, “Trust is like virginity. You can only lose it once”? I couldn’t contemplate ever being able to trust him again. About anything. So I left and started divorce proceedings.’

  ‘How did Logan react to that?’ Jimmy was soft as a cashmere shawl.

  ‘How do you think? How would you react?’

  ‘I’m not your husband, Mrs Henderson. How did he react? Did he become violent towards you?’

  Karen couldn’t swear to it, but she thought she saw a momentary shift in Willow’s expression. It was gone in a flash, if it had been there at all. Willow’s eyes dropped to the table. The shame of the victim to a tee. If she was acting, she was good at it.

  ‘I went round to talk to him.’ Her voice was a low monotone. ‘I wanted him to see sense and move out so the children could come home with me. He said … he said the children could come back any time but that I wasn’t welcome in the house any more. I told him there wasn’t a court in the land that would support that. That he’d be thrown out on the streets as soon as my lawyer could get in front of a judge.’ She covered her face with her hands for a long moment. ‘He just lost it. He put his hands round my throat and squeezed.’ She looked up and gazed imploringly at Jimmy. ‘I thought he was going to kill me. I was choking. Everything started swimming, I felt like I was passing out. Then he let go. I fell on to the floor and the next thing? He was on his knees beside me, telling me how sorry he was.’ She made a soft noise in the back of her throat.

  ‘I got out as fast as I could. He kept apologising, said he was devastated, that it would never happen again.’ A catch in her voice. Textbook stuff, Karen thought, and Jimmy would know that too. He’d seen the real thing more than enough in his work with the Murder Prevention Squad.

  ‘And you reported that incident to the police?’

  She bowed her head. ‘I wanted it on the record. I was scared. Not so much for myself. For the children.’

  ‘Has he ever been violent towards the children?’ Laidlaw leaned in for the question.

  Willow let out a shuddering breath. ‘No,’ she scoffed, ‘but then he’d never been violent to me before.’

  ‘Did you share what had happened with your friends?’

  ‘I told Dandy. She’s—she was my best friend. And one or two others. But Logan told everybody himself. He barged into a dinner party at a friend’s house and made this melodramatic confession that he’d nearly strangled me and he was appalled at himself and he wanted everybody to know it was completely out of character and he’d never do it again.’ She closed her eyes m
omentarily. ‘It was excruciating.’ A faint smile. ‘I’m quite a private person. I was mortified for him as much as for myself.’

  ‘We’ll need the names of the dinner party guests.’ The lawyer nodded and made a note. ‘And yet you decided to confront him about the house again.’ Jimmy’s voice was light but the question was not.

  For the first time, the lawyer broke into the interview. ‘I think “confront” is a pretty loaded term, DCI Hutton. What’s wrong with “speak to him”?’

  Jimmy dipped his head in concession. ‘Fair point. I apologise. What made you decide to speak to your husband about the house again?’

  She’d had a chance to collect herself. ‘I thought it was worth one last go. He’d been so contrite, you see. I was going to see if I could make a deal with him. I wouldn’t press charges on the domestic violence if he moved out and let me move back in with the children.’

  ‘And you decided to take Mrs Muir with you for moral support? Or as a witness if things went wrong?’

  Willow shook her head. ‘I didn’t think things were going to go wrong. Not like that. If I’d thought for a moment … I’d never have let Dandy come with me.’ Her voice caught again and a tear leaked out from the corner of one eye. ‘But she insisted. She said Logan would never do anything if she was there. He’d be too ashamed.’ She gave a raw bark of laughter. ‘How wrong can you be?’

  The police officers gave her a moment to collect herself. Karen couldn’t quite make her mind up about Willow Henderson. Either she had a level of emotional intelligence that made the Mint look like a genius or she was a superb actor. But which was it? Karen had met plenty of self-obsessed women over the years; it wasn’t a given that this was a performance, she reminded herself.

  But Jimmy was talking again and she had to pay attention. ‘So what happened when you and Dandy turned up at the house?’

  ‘I let us in. It’s my house as much as his. And he hadn’t changed the locks. He probably couldn’t afford a locksmith. We could hear the TV in the kitchen so we went straight through. He was sitting at the breakfast bar and he jumped off the stool as soon as he realised we were there. He was obviously shocked to see us. He shouted something like, “What the fuck are you doing here?” I could tell he was rattled.’ She reached out for the bottle of water in front of her and took a long draught. ‘I said I wanted to make an appeal to his better side. The side that had confessed to our friends and apologised to me.’