by Val McDermid
“To tell you the truth, I’ve made myself forget a lot of what happened back there. That’s how I’ve coped. The scars are still there though, deep down.”
There was a long silence. Finally, the young skipper drained his beer and said, “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I know your granddad didn’t. We used to meet up for a drink now and then, and he admitted that he’d never told you. I thought he was wrong. I think you deserved to know what made him the man he was.” Holtz reached out with his bony fingers and covered the other man’s hand with his. “I don’t know for sure, but I expect it was not easy being brought up by him. But you have to know that, if he was harsh to you, he did it for your own protection. He didn’t want to risk you turning into the kind of boy he was, with all the consequences that could bring with it.
“Men like me and your granddad, we might know with our heads that the Nazis aren’t coming back, that nobody is going to do to our children and grandchildren what was done to us. But deep down, we’re still terrified that there are bastards out there who would do the same thing to the people we love. Those doctors, they didn’t come out of nowhere. The monsters weren’t just there for one generation. They never paid the price for what they did, you know. They carried on, respected and well rewarded, climbing to the top of their so-called profession, using what they’d learned to train the ones who came after them. There are still monsters out there, only they’re better hidden now. Or they’re somewhere else. So, you should know that whatever he did to you that might have seemed cruel or heartless, it was done with the best of motives. He was trying to save you.”
He had pulled his hand back then. He couldn’t bear the dry papery feel of old skin against his own. His head hurt, a dull ache starting at the base of his skull and spreading outwards like steel fingers squeezing his brain. He felt the familiar blackness rising inside him, swallowing all his pleasure in saying a last farewell to his grandfather. He didn’t know how to deal with what he’d just been told, and physical contact with this ruined old man wasn’t helping. “I have to go,” he said. “My crew. They’re waiting.”
Holtz stared down at the table. “I understand,” he said.
On the drive back to town, they sat in silence, each staring out at the road ahead. When they reached the outskirts, Holtz said, “You can let me out here. I can catch a bus. I don’t want to put you out.” He reached into his pocket and took out a slip of paper. “I wrote down my address and phone number. If you want to talk some more about this, call me.”
Holtz got out in the gathering gloom of the afternoon and walked off without a backward glance. They both knew they’d never meet again.
He rubbed his temples, trying to replace his bleak thoughts with the joy he’d felt when he’d pushed the old man into the water. But it wasn’t working. He put the old Ford in gear and headed back to the docks. He’d always known there must be a reason for what had happened to him. The brutality, the segregation from other kids, the refusal to let him have anything more than a basic education because cleverness got you into trouble; that all had to have come from somewhere. But whatever he had imagined, it hadn’t been this. Now at last, he had someone to blame.
Tony pulled up in the drive of Frances’s semi-detached house. Everything about it was squared off and neat. Built before developers started putting flourishes on their executive homes, it was entirely plain in its appearance and, unlike several of her neighbours, Frances had steadfastly avoided anything that would break up the straight lines of doors and windows, gable end and garden. No fake Georgian bottle-glass window panes for her, no elaborate front door with panels and mouldings. No island beds or wishing wells in the garden, just neat rectangular borders with roses pruned to within a bud of their lives. At first, Tony had liked the orderliness of it all, a contrast to the blurred edges and confusion of his own life.
But now he acknowledged that there were good reasons why he had chosen an old cottage without a single wall that was plumb, and a patch of garden filled with rambling geraniums and over-grown hebes. As he had come to know Frances better, he had been reminded that those who impose such regimented order on their surroundings are also inclined to hedge in their internal lives with restrictions and barriers for fear their unruly souls might burst forth and create an unmanageable chaos.
There were times when he longed for chaos.
This evening they were due to play bridge with some acquaintances over in Cupar. Frances, he knew, would have dinner cooking, ready to serve within minutes of his arrival so that they would be sure of getting to Cupar in good time. He wanted to speak to Carol, to find out how her undercover day had gone, but he knew that there would be no chance later. He’d tried to call her before he left the office, but she hadn’t been home. Maybe in the ten minutes it had taken him to drive across St. Andrews she’d have returned.
He keyed her number into his mobile and waited. Three rings and he was connected to her machine. “Hi, Carol, it’s Tony. I was wondering how…”
“Tony? I just walked through the door. Hang on.”
He heard the electronic beep of the machine being turned off. Then her voice again. “How lovely of you to call.”
“Put it down to professional curiosity. I was interested to hear how it had gone.”
“I was going to e-mail you later, but this is better still.”
Even several hundred miles away, he could hear the elation in her voice. “You sound like you’re on a real high. How was it?”
Her low chuckle was infectious. He could feel the smile spreading across his face. “I suppose that depends on your point of view.”
“Start with your point of view.”
“Brilliant. There were a couple of moments where I was absolutely bricking it, but I never felt as if it was slipping out of my control. All the work we did together made me feel confident I could handle whatever they threw at me, and I did.”
“I’m glad,” he said. “So, who didn’t think it was brilliant?”
“Oh God,” she groaned. “I am numero uno on the Drugs Squad shit list tonight.”
“Why? What happened?”
Laughter bubbled up in Carol’s voice as she outlined the fiasco to Tony. “I know I should be mortified, but I’m too busy being pleased with myself.”
“I can’t believe they had so little confidence in you,” Tony said. “They should have realized you’re smart enough to spot a surveillance. You’ve set up enough of them over the years. From there, it’s not a big step to working out that you’d come up with some way to evade the take-down. So, what else did they throw at you?” He settled back in the driving seat and let Carol take him through the day. When she finally ran out of steam, he said, “Hey, you should be proud of yourself. One day on the streets and already you’ve stopped thinking like the hunter and begun to think like the prey. I’m impressed.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you.”
He smiled. “You’ve no idea how much of a kick I got from feeling I was back in the game again, however peripherally. My life is so predictable these days, it was great fun to sit down and work with you again. In fact, it was even better than before, because there were no lives at stake this time.”
“Maybe you should think about getting back into harness,” Carol said.
Tony sighed. “There’s no place for people like me in today’s offender-profiling strategy.”
“It wouldn’t have to be front line. You could train. Think about it, Tony. If the Home Office don’t want to take a chance, maybe you should think about Europe. All those intelligence officers in Europol need to learn how to profile crimes and criminals, so they can determine what’s connected. There must be a place for someone with your talents,” Carol said insistently.
“Yeah, well, we’ll see. So, did they tell you whether you’ve got the job?”
“They did. And I have. But I still don’t know what it is. They’re going to brief me tomorrow. Here’s the best bit: if I perform well
, I get to write my own ticket. The world’s going to be my oyster.”
Tony couldn’t help the prickle of misgiving raising the hairs on the back of his neck. For them to have made Carol a promise of that magnitude, the assignment that lay ahead of her was bound to be fraught with risk. It had to be the kind of enterprise that would provoke an instinctive refusal. With this much sugar coating, the pill would of necessity be an extremely bitter one. “That’s great,” he said. His eye caught the digital clock on the dashboard. He was cutting it tight if he was going to have time to eat before they had to leave for Cupar.
“Listen, Carol, I’ve got to go now. But I want you to promise me that you’ll call as soon as you know what they want from you. I’m not saying this because I have any doubts about your ability. It’s just…it sounds like you’re going to need all the help you can get, and they’re probably going to put you in a position where help won’t be easy to come by. I want you to know that I’m here for you. Whatever you need from me, you’ve got it.”
There was a moment’s silence, then she said, “You’ve no idea how much that means to me. Thank you. I’ll be in touch.”
“Take care.”
“And you. Thanks for calling.”
He ended the call, shoved his phone back in his pocket, and got out of the car. When he walked in, he could smell the fragrant aroma of a rich tomato and meat sauce. As he passed the open door of the darkened living room, he heard Frances speak. “I’m in here,” she said.
Tony followed the sound of her voice into the living room. He couldn’t see much detail, but he could make out Frances’s shape silhouetted against the window. “I heard your car and I couldn’t work out why you hadn’t come in,” she said. “So I came to have a look, make sure everything was all right.”
“The phone rang just as I pulled up.” Some lies are a necessary veneer, he thought sadly.
“You were ages,” Frances said.
He couldn’t see her face, but there was something in her voice that twisted inside him. “Sorry about that. I hope dinner isn’t spoilt.”
“I think my cooking’s a wee bit more robust than that.” Frances turned so her back was to the street. Now her face was even more obscured. “Was it Carol?”
“What makes you think that?” As soon as the words were out, he realized how much of a revelation they were. In part, it was a professional response. Answer a question with a question, don’t let the subject take control of the interview. But it was also the instinctive response of someone who has something to conceal. The innocent man would have said, “Yes, it was Carol, she’s very excited because she’s got the job she was after.” However, where Carol Jordan was concerned, Tony could never be an innocent man.
“She’s the only person you wouldn’t want to talk to with me listening in the background.”
Tony flushed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’ve got something to hide where Carol Jordan is concerned.”
“You’re wrong. She was talking to me about a confidential police assignment, that’s the only reason I took the call in the car.”
Frances snorted. “Do you think my head buttons up the back? You took the call in the car because you knew I’d spot the obvious.”
Tony took a couple of steps towards her. “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, Frances.”
“Don’t play games with me. You’re in love with her. Christ, I only had to be in your company for five minutes to work that one out.”
“No,” he said. “You’re wrong.”
“I’m right. And I’ve got far too much self-respect to put up with having my nose rubbed in it.”
“Look, Carol is a former colleague, a friend. How can you be jealous of someone I’ve never even slept with?”
“Well, more fool you. You should have tried the little blue pills a bit sooner, shouldn’t you? Because she’s obviously gagging for it.”
Her words hit like a slap to the cheek. “Leave Carol out of this. Whatever you’ve got into your head, it’s between you and me.”
“That’s the trouble, Tony. It’s not between you and me. It’s always been between you and Carol, only you never let me see that before. You kept it hidden away, pretending you wanted to be with me when the truth is she’s the one you want.”
“You’re so wrong, Frances. There’s no future for me and Carol. All there is between us is a very difficult past. I’m with you because I want to be.”
Suddenly Frances picked up a small crystal vase from the window sill and hurled it at him. “You lying bastard,” she shouted as he dodged to one side. It crashed into the wall with an incongruous tinkle of smashed glass. “I’m not a masochist, Tony,” she panted, anger stealing her breath. “Life is too damn short to fritter away my emotions on a man who’s desperate for somebody else. So get the hell out.”
There was nothing he could think of to say. It surprised him how little he cared that it was clearly over. He turned and headed for the door.
“Leave your keys on the hall table on the way out,” Frances shouted at his retreating back.
Tony carried on walking. To his surprise, the prevailing emotion he felt was relief. Relief and a sudden surge of hope. He hadn’t felt this optimistic in years.
14
Sometimes, Petra wished Marijke van Hasselt didn’t live so far away. Tonight, it would have been good to settle down with a bottle of wine and discuss the day’s events with someone who didn’t have anything at stake but who understood the intricacies of police work. At least tonight Marijke was on-line too, she saw with a lightening of her spirits. They moved into a private chat room and Petra went straight to the question that interested her most. Anything to take her mind off the dead ends of the Kamal/Marlene inquiry.
P: so, how’s the murder going?
M: A lot of work and not much progress. I spent today at the university interviewing his colleagues and students, but we didn’t get a single lead worth pursuing.
P: what, you finally found a victim everybody loves?
M: Plenty of people didn’t like de Groot, but nobody with anything that looks remotely like a motive. You don’t kill somebody just because he failed your thesis or blocked your promotion.
P: god, you dutch are so civilized…
M: What’s even more annoying is that we didn’t find an appointments diary. Apparently he had one of those Palm Pilots that he always carried. But no sign of it.
P: the killer probably took it with him to cover his tracks.
M: So, did you manage to track down what it was that jogged your memory when I told you about de Groot?
P: i’ve narrowed it down to a couple of possibilities, but i haven’t heard back from either of them. you know what these provincials are like, no sense of urgency.
M: FWIW, there’s nothing in our records anywhere in Holland that corresponds to the de Groot murder.
P: so, you’re running round in the dark? nothing from forensics?
M: Not so far. It’s all been very frustrating, going through the motions without any sense of what we should be looking for.
P: there’s nothing harder to work than this kind of killing.
M: I know. Take my mind off it. Tell me about your day.
P: frustrating. i’m trying to prove a negative—a woman who claims she was the lover of a man who is now dead, but i don’t think they even knew each other. i think there’s a chance we could use this as a lever to lift the lid on a major figure in organized crime. this guy has always kept his hands clean, kept his distance from the sharp end. we’ve never laid a finger on him, and i want to be the one who nails him. the only trouble is, she’s got a kid, and i suspect that our man has spirited her away somewhere to use as a pressure point over her. so i need to find the kid as well.
M: Any joy?
P: not so far. if she doesn’t turn up in school tomorrow, i’m going to tell plesch we should put out a national appeal for her as missing. act like she might be the victim o
f a paedo. it’ll drive the mother nuts and it’ll make whoever is taking care of her very, very nervous.
M: As long as you don’t make them so nervous they do something stupid.
P: i don’t think these guys would use anyone who’d panic for something this sensitive. if anything happens to the kid, they’ve lost their pressure point on the mother. more than that, they’re going to turn her into a vengeful fury who will be out to get their blood.
M: But how safe will the mother be if you get your hands on the kid?
P: her life won’t be worth a pocketful of euros. which means, as soon as we get the kid, we take the mother out of the general prison population and put her somewhere very, very safe.
M: Sounds like you’re pushing really hard on this one.
P: i want to get this guy so bad i can taste it. but the other thing is that i heard a rumour there’s some kind of major operation being planned against him that would take the ball out of our court. so i feel like time isn’t on my side.
M: Be careful. It’s hard to do your best work when you’re looking over your shoulder. That’s when we make mistakes, no?
P: i know. part of me realizes it doesn’t matter who gets him, as long as we take him down. but i’m greedy.
M: As if I didn’t know that.
P: so, you want to satisfy my greed?
M: I thought you’d never ask…
Petra smiled. Sometimes, distance really didn’t matter so much after all.
Morgan’s office was exactly what Carol would have conjured up if she’d been asked to imagine it. It was a large cubicle partitioned off from an open plan office space. The frosted glass panels that were supposed to provide an illusion of privacy had been turned into memo boards. Maps, photographs and sheets of paper with single words or phrases written in sprawling capitals in thick magic marker were sellotaped to the glass, completely obscuring its inhabitant and his activities from anyone outside the room.