by Val McDermid
She conducted a quick sound check with Nugent, parked a few streets away. He could hear her, she could hear him. She took a look at her app again. Greig’s Mercedes was on the outskirts of Omagh now. He’d be with them within minutes. A final circuit of the room; it appeared entirely normal to her. ‘Right, everybody. Get set.’ She smiled at Auld. ‘Keep the heid and it’ll all be over soon.’ She sat down at the table nearest the booth, ready to spring into action as soon as Greig reached his partner.
Karen sipped the coffee in front of her. It was cold now, but it was still better than nothing. She looked at the app again. Greig was closer, it was true. But his car was no longer moving. She expanded the map, looking for clues. Was it a petrol station? Had he stopped to pick something up in a convenience store? The phone map settled and told her his Merc was in the car park of the BMW dealership. What the fuck?
‘Nugent?’ Urgent now. ‘He’s stopped at the BMW dealership.’ She got up and leaned on the table of Auld’s booth. ‘Why would he do that? Why would he go to the BMW dealership?’
Auld looked scared. ‘He’ll be convinced he can get them to fix the car faster than they told me. He thinks I’m too soft with tradesmen.’ He swallowed hard. ‘He’s going to find out I’ve lied to him.’
‘You hear that, Nugent?’ Karen shouted. In her earpiece she could hear the sound of an engine, the crackle of a police radio, Nugent instructing the team in the Land Rover to head for the BMW dealership.
‘I’m on it, Pirie,’ Nugent said. ‘We’re less than two minutes away.’
Karen ran for the door. ‘Stay with Auld, Daisy,’ she cried as she ran into the street and hauled open the door of the unmarked car.
‘Drive,’ she yelled at the startled detective. He looked terrified but did as he was told, clambering across the central console and starting the engine. ‘The BMW dealership,’ she told him. ‘Fast as you can. But no siren,’ she added, seeing his hand creep towards the button.
‘Best-laid fucking plans,’ she muttered as they wove through the busy streets. ‘Nugent, what’s happening?’ she said, checking her phone. ‘He’s still there. Or at least, his car is.’
‘We’re here but I can’t see the bastard,’ Nugent said. ‘We’re going in, but I don’t know where.’ His voice faded out.
Karen’s driver turned into the showroom car park. ‘Go straight round the back,’ Karen said. ‘Where it says “Service and MOT”.’
Obediently, he raced through the car park and screeched round the corner to the rear of the showroom. The wide roller doors leading to the service bays and the body shop were open to reveal a dozen mechanics and technicians working on a variety of cars and SUVs. Karen was out and running almost before the car skidded to a halt, looking wildly around her, alert for anyone who didn’t fit in.
There was an office area behind the bays. As she drew near, she could hear raised voices. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ a man was shouting in an accent that definitely wasn’t local.
‘Look for yourself, there’s no black X5 in the workshop. I’ll take you round the bodyshop myself if you don’t believe me. Maybe it’s not been towed in yet.’
Through the window, she could see the man who had walked out of Hill House with Iain Auld two days ago. David Greig, or whatever he was calling himself these days. His fists were on the desk, arms straight, head jutting forward, aggression personified. The man behind the desk in a uniform blouson was pink-cheeked but not giving an inch.
Karen glanced over her shoulder. The detective had left the car, ignoring the protest of a mechanic who wanted it out of the way, and he was trotting behind her as if he was out for a slow jog in the park. Impatient, Karen pushed the door open. Both men turned to face her, startled. She planted her feet in a wide stance and said. ‘David Greig, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of James Auld. You do not have—’
He launched himself at her, smashing his forearm into her throat. Karen collapsed to her knees, choking for breath. Greig moved to get past her but spotted the other officer coming up behind. He didn’t hesitate for a second. He picked up a chair and threw it through the window that looked on to the service bays and vaulted through the frame, miraculously managing not to open a vein. He took off at speed, pursued a moment later by the Irish detective. Greig was moving fast for a man of his age.
Karen struggled to her feet, still making noises like a damaged animal and saw he was opening up the gap with his pursuer. She wanted to howl with rage, but she could barely breathe. All this, and now Greig was getting away.
And then a mechanic stepped out from behind a great brute of an SUV and swung a long spanner at Greig’s trailing leg. He hit the ground with a scream and a crunch. And then the detective was on top of him and Karen thought she might possibly breathe again.
55
Sunday, 22 March 2020
Jason hirpled into the HCU office still leaning on his crutch but moving better than the last time they’d gathered there. Somehow they’d squeezed another desk into the room; Daisy’s temporary attachment had become a permanent assignment. The Chief Constable’s pleasure at the media response to their results on two high-profile cases had trumped the Dog Biscuit’s hostility to all things Pirie and she’d been forced to paste a smile on.
Now the prosecutorial system was grinding its way through the long hard road to the courtroom. Ruth Wardlaw and her boss were still wrangling over how many different crimes they could lay at the door of a still-protesting David Greig, and how much leeway they were prepared to grant the wreckage of Iain Auld in exchange for his full cooperation. The McAndrew case was less complex, but the prosecution lawyers knew they would struggle to persuade a jury not to fall for the defence argument that Dani Gilmartin’s death had been a tragic accident, followed by panic.
Amanda McAndrew’s parents had flown back from Greece to support their daughter. But the spectre of being trapped in Edinburgh by the fallout from Covid-19 had driven them back to their olive grove. ‘She should have been a more devoted daughter,’ Daisy had remarked. ‘What goes around comes around.’
Karen would never forget Mary Auld’s reaction to the revelations about her husband. Karen had insisted on being the person to tell her. ‘It’s my responsibility,’ she said. ‘I’m the person she’ll want to lash out at.’ But Mary hadn’t lashed out. She hadn’t even tried denial. She’d simply crumpled before Karen’s words, her face seeming to collapse in on itself. Karen didn’t know how you would even begin to recover from such a seismic upheaval of all you had believed to be true. ‘Is she even still technically married to him?’ she’d asked Hamish as they’d lain in bed together the night after she’d come back from Omagh. ‘That poor woman. Everything she thought she knew, shattered into pieces.’
Hamish had sighed. ‘I can’t comprehend how he could do that. You said they were married for years, happily by all accounts. So how the actual fuck could he tear up all those years? It’s magical thinking, isn’t it? He set a time-bomb down in the middle of her life and kidded himself it would never go off.’
‘That’s a good way of putting it. He never intended her to find out. But that doesn’t excuse it. He says he was mad with love. But that doesn’t excuse it either.’
‘He wanted the thrill. He wanted to be a bad boy and get away with it.’ Hamish sighed. ‘I’ve known guys like that. They were lucky enough to avoid hooking up with one of the genuine bad boys like David fucking Greig.’
It had taken weeks for Karen, Daisy and Jason to complete the detailed reports that the prosecution needed. Latterly, it had been a race against time. The virus that had been a whisper on the wind when they’d been running around assorted jurisdictions had taken firm root in Scotland and they’d been warned that in the morning, lockdown was scheduled to begin. They’d be working from home, whatever that meant in practice.
So today they were clearing their desks, making sure everything they need
ed was on their laptops or accessible on the cloud. Karen had earmarked for review half a dozen cases whose notes, photographs and reports had all been previously digitised. ‘We’ll take another detailed look at them,’ she’d explained. ‘And see whether we can tease out any new possibilities.’
‘What about lab work, if we need it?’ Daisy asked.
Jason laughed. ‘I bet Tamsin will bring in her sleeping bag and go into lockdown in the lab.’
‘I wouldn’t put it past her,’ Karen said. ‘River’s heading back to Cumbria, though. She’s been planning to write a book for ages. A mash-up of the scientific stuff and her own case experiences. She’s looking forward to hanging out with Ewan for a few weeks.’
Now they’d taken the giant step of becoming affianced, Jason and Eilidh had decided to do lockdown in his flat at the bottom of Leith Walk. ‘Lucky you,’ Karen had said. ‘Lockdown with a hairdresser. At the end of all this, you’ll be the only well-groomed polis in Edinburgh.’
Hamish had decided he needed to lockdown in his croft in Wester Ross. ‘The coffee shops are shut, there’s nothing I can do in Edinburgh, and there’s always work needs doing on the land. Come with me. There’s no reason for you to stay in Edinburgh.’
Karen had been tempted. But she knew she didn’t have the right to escape to a community that wasn’t her own, whose scarce resources would be stretched thin if this pandemic turned out anything like the worst-case scenario. ‘I can’t do it,’ she said. ‘I need to show solidarity with my neighbours. And my colleagues. If this gets really bad, HCU is going to be a luxury Police Scotland will have to put on the back burner. Like the Met’s Art Squad after Grenfell. I might have to go back to front-line policing with a stab vest and a baton.’ She’d made a joke of it, but she knew it was a very real possibility.
That left Daisy. The obvious solution was for her to go back to her flat in Fife and lockdown on her own. Karen knew her sergeant was dreading the isolation. Unlike Karen, who revelled in her own company, Daisy was a social creature. Karen had considered inviting her to hunker down with her, but while her waterfront flat was perfect for one, it would be intolerable with two, one of whom needed space. She’d voiced her concerns to Hamish, and he’d immediately proposed a solution.
‘I’m going to be in Clashstronach, Karen. My place will be empty. It’s way big enough for two. And I’ve got keys for the private gardens in the square.’ He was right, of course. His flat at the top of the New Town had two bedrooms, a study, a big living room and a dining kitchen with a table that sat eight. And its private roof garden had views over the Georgian rooftops across the Forth to Fife, so she couldn’t even complain about losing her sea view. It was seven minutes’ walk from her office, should she be called back in. Karen loved Hamish’s flat in the detached way one can afford to love a place that will never be within one’s own budget.
It was a generous offer. But was it a devious way of trying to get her to move in with him? He’d shown a capacity for manipulation before. And the business with Merrick Shand was still fresh in her memory.
In the end, she’d accepted his offer, as much for Daisy as for herself. Hamish had left for Clashstronach two days previously, and Karen and Daisy had moved in the evening before. Karen had no idea how it was going to work. But she was slowly learning that change wasn’t always something to chafe against. And she was one of the fortunate ones. A roof over her head. Access to healthcare if the worst came to her door. And a secure job – because people would always need the polis – and even in a pandemic, murder should never go unprosecuted.
She’d deal with the survivor guilt later. Right now, what mattered was survival.
Acknowledgements
Writers never fly solo. The more I do this, the more I understand all the contributions that make a book. Many of them go unnoticed, especially by the author, but there are others I am well aware of.
I owe grateful thanks to Patrice Hoffman of my French publisher, Flammarion, for his help with French policing arrangements. The bits I’ve got wrong are literary licence!
Closer to home, Dorothy Bain QC, Sheriff Norman McFadyen and Sheriff Tom Welsh clarified legal process and the administration of European Arrest Warrants for me.
Liz Nugent offered excellent location suggestions; in these constrained times, I wasn’t able to go and scout them for myself!
As always, I lean on the generosity and patience of forensic scientists who happily share their expertise and their experience. In these days of lockdown, they don’t even get cake in exchange . . . Thanks to Professor Wolfram Meier-Augenstein for information on stable isotope analysis and to Dame Professor Sue Black for the Coco Pops, among other things.
Thanks too to James Auld and David Greig whose generous charitable donations to Breast Cancer Now, the Homeless World Cup Foundation and Raith Rovers FC have been rewarded by their questionable appearances in these pages. Your kindness, forbearance and good nature are appreciated by all who know you!
Most of this book was written and all the editorial work was carried out in the strange half-world of lockdown. Like most of the writers I know, I found sustained concentration very difficult. Throughout the process, my support team at Little, Brown have been patient, dedicated and immensely competent in spite of their other responsibilities. Hats off to all of you, and thanks for always being cheery on the screen! Lucy Malagoni and Laura Sherlock at LB and the indomitable Jane Gregory at DHA kept me going through the difficult days.
What saved me in lockdown was sharing it with my partner Jo Sharp. She discovered new skills as a video producer (Check out Cooking the Books – Val McDermid on YouTube), a hairdresser, and a gardener. Through it all she’s made me laugh, made me think and made me believe in myself. Jo, I couldn’t have done it without you. You are my Wonder Woman.
