Broken Ground (Karen Pirie Book 5)

by Val McDermid

  ‘I won’t keep you,’ he said. ‘I can see you’re busy. I only wanted to bring you this.’ He dug in the pocket of his jacket and came out with a small tissue-wrapped package. He handed it over with a tentative smile.

  Karen had an inkling of what it contained. She unfolded the paper to reveal her missing earring. This time, her grin was wholehearted. ‘Thank you so much. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.’

  ‘I could tell. But it was easy enough to get it. I took off the U-bend and there it was.’

  ‘It looks like new. Really shiny!’

  He looked embarrassed. ‘I buffed it up with a silver cloth.’ One hand made a small gesture of inconsequence. ‘No biggie.’

  ‘But then you took the trouble to bring it round yourself. That’s really kind. I don’t know how to thank you.’

  There was a short pause, then he looked her in the eye. ‘You could buy me dinner tonight.’

  38

  1946 – Michigan; Mid Atlantic

  It had taken him two gruelling years to save up enough money for the trip, but at last Arnie Burke was on his way. The Queen Mary, still fitted out as a troop ship, wasn’t the most luxurious way to spend the best part of five days on the ocean, but it was still a damn sight more comfortable than his voyage back home, when he’d been ravaged by misery and loss.

  He hadn’t spent the two years sitting on his hands. When he hadn’t been working security shifts at the Dodge plant in Hamtramck, he’d been dedicated to finding out what had happened to his diamonds. As soon as he made it to dry land, he wrote to one of his fellow Americans who was still back in Wester Ross. Halfway down his slew of inconsequentialities, he casually wondered what had happened to the kit left behind on the quayside. ‘I envy whoever got their hands on those two brand-new Indians,’ he’d written. ‘What a pair of beauts.’ Then he moved on to what it was like returning to the US, describing the joy of biting into a real hamburger and feeling the meat juices running down his chin.

  It took his buddy’s reply six weeks to get to him. Arnie almost tore the thin airmail pages as he searched for what he was desperate to read. It was almost at the end. ‘The Brits were supposed to do a B&B on all the leftover equipment – that’s Burn and Bury to you and me. They put the two fieldcraft guys in charge. But I didn’t see no bikes getting burned. You ask me, those guys made the Indians disappear a different way. Come the end of the war, they’re going be riding around in style! Can’t blame them, I’d a done the same given half a chance. So, you got yourself a girl yet? Or are they scared off by your ugly puss?’

  ‘The two fieldcraft guys,’ he said. He could picture them. Both medium height, dark hair cropped close at the sides, both with matinee idol moustaches. One was wiry, ropes of muscle across his shoulders and down his arms. Smoked like it was going out of fashion and coughed like a goddamn dog barking. The other was well-set, broad shoulders and narrow hips, a nose that looked like it’d been broken more than once. Arnie had suffered under their tutelage for a couple of days at the start of his training. He’d had to crawl for hours across a heather moor, sun on his back and wet peat under his body. What the fuck were their names?

  He fretted at that problem for days and at last it came to him when he was lying on a lumpy sofa listening to the game on the radio, Hal Newhouser pitching for the Tigers and confounding the batters with his left-handed throw. ‘Kenny,’ he shouted, bouncing upright and sending his ashtray flying. ‘The skinny fuck. Kenny.’

  It wasn’t hard to get Kenny’s name. He’d been trained in deception, after all. He knew the phone number for the castle where he’d been billeted and one Sunday morning he walked into the plant, bold as brass, and let himself into the office of the secretary to the general manager. It took a while to place a transatlantic call, but he waited patiently. The phone was eventually answered by a man with a deep, clipped English voice. Arnie forced himself to sound bright and breezy. ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said.

  ‘It’s afternoon here,’ the voice barked. ‘Where are you calling from?’

  ‘Sir, I’m calling from the Pentagon. We’ve just had a medal ceremony here, been giving one of our guys a silver star. He wanted to send a copy of the photograph to one of your boys who trained him up to go behind enemy lines.’

  ‘Splendid. But what has that to do with me?’

  ‘Well, sir, it’s a little awkward. Our man can’t recall your fella’s surname. His Christian name is Kenny and he’s one of the fieldwork trainers. Expert in camouflage, apparently.’

  ‘You mean Kenny Pascoe? Sergeant Pascoe? That the man?’

  ‘I guess so, if he’s your fieldwork guy.’

  Easy as that. It had taken him a little longer and a little bit of cash to a private eye in London to track down Kenny Pascoe. But now he knew where the man was, he could put his hand on him just as soon as he was ready.

  And now he was ready.

  39

  2018 – Edinburgh

  She hadn’t meant to say yes. Yet here she was, sitting on a hard wooden chair in a quiet corner of her favourite restaurant in Leith with an untouched Arbikie Kirsty’s gin and tonic in front of her, waiting for a man she barely knew. She’d walked round the block twice, lingering on the footbridge where the Water of Leith debouched into the Albert Dock, staring at nothing. But still she was early.

  Was this a date? She didn’t even know. She didn’t get together with Phil by going on dates with him. They’d got to know each other from working together in the close camaraderie of a small team with a defined set of goals. The cold case unit in the old Fife force had been distinct from the rest of CID and they’d developed a way of working that suited the three of them. She’d been in love with Phil for a long time before anything happened between them. Turned out he’d felt the same about her, but they’d both been trapped by the conviction that the other couldn’t possibly be interested in someone as uninteresting as them.

  What had finally overcome that was a case whose resolution had shaken them both to the core. The mummified body of a ten-year-old girl, missing for a dozen years, had turned up stuffed into a suitcase rammed into a defunct chimney. It had come to light when a lorry had lost control on a hill and crashed into the house. The child had clearly been tortured and mutilated before she had died. The forensic evidence had nailed her stepfather, an Episcopalian minister. His wife – the girl’s mother – refused to believe in his guilt. Arresting him had been a harrowing experience.

  They’d gone back to Karen’s house with a bottle of gin but neither of them had any appetite for the drink. It turned out their appetite was for each other. And that had been that. Apart from a certain rueful annoyance at the time they’d wasted, there were no regrets. She’d never imagined she’d find a love like this. And after he died, that was it, as far as Karen was concerned. She didn’t expect another man to show any interest in her.

  That Hamish Mackenzie appeared to be doing just that made her uneasy. He was a key witness in a murder case that she was investigating. She’d be a fool if she didn’t consider the possibility that he might be trying to throw sand in her eyes. Even though Jason’s inquiries had given him a clean bill of health, she had no way of knowing what Hamish might have to hide. Maybe he’d known Joey Sutherland. He’d have been in his teens twenty-three years ago. The perfect age to hero-worship a handsome successful athlete. He’d mentioned his grandparents had been struggling with the croft around that time. Maybe they’d taken a backhander to look the other way when someone wanted to dig a hole on their land. Then there was America. He’d lived there in his teens; there was a mystery American woman at the heart of the case. What if there was a connection in there somewhere?

  And that was for starters. Hamish had gone out of his way to help the Somervilles in their greedy little treasure hunt. He’d done the same for Karen and Jason. Was anybody that straightforwardly good-hearted? Or had she become jaundiced by the job? Had she grown so underexposed to the milk of human kindness that she didn’t trust it
when somebody poured her a glass of it?

  Maybe this was a terrible mistake, personally as well as professionally. If the Dog Biscuit knew what she was doing tonight … But that was the thought that brought Karen up short. She needed to remember she was her own woman. Ann Markie wasn’t the arbiter of her actions. Her instincts told her Hamish Mackenzie was a decent man. Just as it told her the ACC was a self-serving careerist.

  Besides, if she wasn’t doing this, she’d only be fretting endlessly like a hamster on a wheel about Willow bloody Henderson. And that would be an exercise in futility if ever there was one.

  Saving her from more febrile speculation, Hamish walked in, looking around with an appraising eye. He caught sight of her and waggled his fingers in a little wave. He’d swapped his shirt for a white collarless one and let his hair down. It brushed his shoulders in gentle waves. Karen wondered what it would feel like between her fingers then scolded herself for her ridiculousness.

  He pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down. ‘I’m not late, am I?’

  ‘No, I’m not long here myself.’ White lie, but a face-saving one.

  He looked around the room, taking in the dark wood panelling and soft lighting, the well-stocked mahogany bar and the quiet mutter of conversation at the other occupied tables. ‘I didn’t even know this place existed. A Room in Leith.’ He grinned. ‘You have to admit, it doesn’t sound promising.’

  ‘I found it by accident. I like walking the city, and I came down the dockside one night and there it was. I read the menu and thought it sounded interesting, so I came back when it was open. It’s become my regular Sunday brunch treat. Eggs Benedict with Stornoway black pudding.’ Shut up, for fuck’s sake.

  ‘Sounds good to me.’ The waiter hovered and Hamish asked Karen what she was drinking. ‘I’ve heard about that. Single estate, isn’t it? Farm to bottle? I’ll have the same.’

  ‘You know your gin.’

  He made a face. ‘Too hipster by half, that’s me. What’s your excuse?’

  She wasn’t about to tell him about her Gin Nights with Jimmy Hutton. ‘I like a bit of variety.’ She picked up the menu. ‘Shall we?’

  It turned out their taste in food was as similar as their taste in gin. Mussels to start then steak with, at Karen’s insistence, a side of mac and cheese. ‘Trust me, it’s the best,’ she insisted. Hamish gave in without a fight. And he handed her the wine list.

  ‘Your treat, your place, you choose.’

  So she went with a South African Shiraz she loved. Pointed it out to the waiter and hoped he wouldn’t read anything into the name – Cloof Very Sexy Shiraz. Maybe she could keep the label turned away from him.

  ‘You’ve got the edge over me tonight,’ he said.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘You know quite a lot of bits and pieces about me, but I know nothing about you except that you’re a hotshot detective.’

  Karen laughed. ‘I don’t think my boss would recognise that description. Where did you get that idea from?’

  ‘I googled you, of course. That’s what we all do, right? And there’s all those stories about stone-cold cases you’ve cracked.’ He fiddled with his fork. ‘That’s not nothing. Giving closure to grieving people.’

  ‘All I do is follow where the trail leads.’

  ‘What made you want to do this?’

  And so she told him. The conviction that university wasn’t for her. Nor were most of the other careers on offer. The police, she thought, would be interesting. And nobody much cared what you looked like.

  ‘Nobody much cares what you look like in a coffee shop either,’ Hamish said. ‘Though I’m not quite sure why you were so worried about that.’

  She was spared further discussion by the arrival of the mussels. Maybe not the best choice, she thought, staring down into the lavish bowlful. Nobody ever ate a mussel elegantly.

  As if reading her mind, Hamish took his napkin from his lap and tucked it into his undershirt. ‘Fatal error, a white shirt.’

  Karen couldn’t quite work out what it was about Hamish that made her open up so readily. She’d spent most of her adult life in a state of mild wariness, always cautious about letting people too close. Three or four close friends and Phil; that had been about the limit in recent years. But this stranger had somehow found the knack of putting her at her ease.

  When the wine arrived, he caught sight of the label and laughed out loud. ‘First time I’ve had a bottle of wine try to come on to me,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry about that. I’m a sucker for Shiraz and it’s the only one on the list.’

  He took a mouthful. ‘Luckily the mussels are rich enough to stand up to it.’

  They concentrated on their food for a couple of minutes, then Karen said, ‘Now you know about me. What drew you into running coffee shops?’

  ‘When I opened the first one you couldn’t get a decent cup of coffee in Portobello. I did a degree in economics here in Edinburgh and got sucked into financial services. Didn’t much like it, but the money was a big incentive to stay put, and nothing else had grabbed me.’ He focused on his mussels, expertly using a pair of shells like pincers to extract the meat from the rest. ‘And then the global financial crash came along and pulled the rug out from under us. All around me people were being fired. They were literally staggering out of the office like they were drunk. They couldn’t believe their personal gravy trains had walloped straight into the buffers.’

  ‘You didn’t see it coming?’

  He shook his head, pursing his lips. ‘I’m not that smart. And I wasn’t far enough up the greasy pole to have inside information.’

  ‘You got the bullet though?’

  Another shake of the head. ‘Somehow I escaped the cull,’ he scoffed. ‘Which made me very unpopular with a bunch of guys I thought were my friends.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘I realised there was no future in an environment where the bosses cut people off at the knees when it suited them. I’d not long moved to Porty and I really liked it down there but I thought there was a definite gap in the market for a good coffee shop. I sat out the worst of the financial storm then I managed to screw a redundancy payment out of the bank and made my bid for freedom.’ His mouth twisted in self-deprecation. ‘I haven’t worn a suit since.’

  The ice was broken. The rest of the evening slipped by in easy conversation. Every now and then, Karen caught herself relaxing and enjoying herself. It wasn’t how she had expected the evening to turn out. She’d anticipated awkwardness on both sides, a dawning realisation that this had been a bad idea.

  Instead, apparently, it had turned out to be a rather good one.

  40

  2018 – Edinburgh

  Jimmy Hutton had been sitting down to dinner with his wife and kids like a normal human being when he’d got the call. It’d been the first time that week that they’d had their evening meal together, but as soon as his phone rang, his teenage offspring rolled their eyes and his wife sighed. ‘I sometimes wonder if you’re the only DCI in Scotland,’ she said. But he knew there was no rancour behind her words. She was proud of the work he did, all the effort he and his team put into protecting the lives of women and children. And even the occasional man.

  When he saw Jacqui Laidlaw’s name on the screen, he rose from the table to take the call. Walking into the hall, he said, ‘What’s happening, Jacqui?’

  ‘Logan Henderson’s off the critical list. He’s been downgraded to “serious but stable”. The doc says we can talk to him as long as we keep it brief.’

  ‘That’s good news. I’ll meet you there in forty minutes.’ Jimmy stuck his head back into the kitchen to apologise to the family, then set off for the Royal Infirmary. The new site was much easier for him to get to than the stately old Victorian building in the city centre. The old hospital, a dramatic Gothic pile, was about to become the university’s new learning hub, hemmed in by apartment blocks that gleamed with glass and money. Instead of crawling through city t
raffic, at this time of night he could zip round the bypass stress-free.

  Laidlaw was waiting for him by the nurses’ station, leaning on the counter, chatting comfortably to the two women on duty there. She was good with people, Jimmy thought. She had Phil’s easy way about her. He’d been worried that her looks would put a barrier between her and the damaged and abused people they had to deal with. Sometimes people resented beauty. But her manner overcame any resistance to her allure. The bonus he hadn’t expected was that men tended to dismiss her as a bimbo. He loved watching them get their comeuppance.

  ‘Good evening, ladies,’ Jimmy said cheerily. ‘I believe we’re good to go with Mr Henderson?’

  The senior nurse gave him a cool look. ‘I’ll get the doctor.’

  While she made the call, Jimmy drew Laidlaw to one side, his voice low. ‘What do you know?’

  ‘He picked up late afternoon. They wanted to be sure it wasn’t just a flash in the pan before they let us near him. I spoke to the doc. He’s a bit reluctant to let us loose on Henderson, so he wants to sit in on the interview.’

  Jimmy pulled a face. He’d expected as much, but he was an eternal optimist. ‘Let’s hope he’s not the kind that likes to prove they’re in charge.’

  Before he could say more, Laidlaw touched his arm and cut her eyes at the man who was coming up behind Jimmy on silent rubber soles. ‘This is Doctor Gibb, sir,’ she said.

  Jimmy turned and extended a hand. The doctor wore green scrubs under a white coat, his stethoscope hanging round his scrawny neck. He was whip-thin, with dark smudges under his eyes and hollow cheeks that models would have died for. ‘Johnny Gibb,’ he said. ‘You want to talk to Logan Henderson, is that right?’