A Darker Domain

by Val McDermid

  A few yards down the hall, a door was cracked ajar, the source of the sound and the smell. Jenny tapped nervously and the room went quiet. At last, a cautious voice said, ‘Come in.’

  She slid round the door like a church mouse. The room was dominated by a U-shaped table covered in tartan oilcoth. Half a dozen men were slouched around it in varying states of despondency. Jenny faltered when she realized the man at the top corner was someone she recognized but did not know. Mick McGahey, former Communist, leader of the Scottish miners. The only man, it was said, who could stand up to King Arthur and make his voice heard. The man who had been deliberately kept from the top spot by his predecessor. If Jenny had a pound for every time she’d heard someone say how different it would have been if McGahey had been in charge, her family would have been the best-fed and best-dressed in Newton of Wemyss. ‘I’m sorry,’ she stuttered. ‘I just wanted a word…’ Her eyes flickered round the room, wondering which of the men she knew would be best to focus on.

  ‘It’s all right, Jenny,’ Ben Reekie said. ‘We were just having a wee meeting. We’re pretty much done here, eh, lads?’ There was a discontented murmur of agreement. But Reekie, the local secretary, was good at taking the temperature of a meeting and moving things along. ‘So, Jenny, how can we help you?’

  She wished they were alone, but didn’t have the nerve to ask for it. The women had learned a lot in the process of supporting their men, but face to face their assertiveness still tended to melt away. But it would be all right, she told herself. She’d lived in this cocooned world all her adult life, a world that centred on the pit and the Welfare, where there were no secrets and the union was your mother and your father. ‘I’m worried about Mick,’ she said. No point in beating about the bush. ‘He went out yesterday morning and never came back. I was wondering if maybe…?’

  Reekie rested his forehead on his fingers, rubbing it so hard he left alternating patches of white and red across the centre. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he hissed from between clenched teeth.

  ‘And you expect us to believe you don’t know where he is?’ The accusation came from Ezra Macafferty, the village’s last survivor of the lock-outs and strikes of the 1920s.

  ‘Of course I don’t know where he is.’ Jenny’s voice was plaintive, but a dark fear had begun to spread its chill across her chest. ‘I thought maybe he’d been in here. I thought somebody might know.’

  ‘That makes six,’ McGahey said. She recognized the rough deep rumble of his voice from TV interviews and open-air rallies. It felt strange to be in the same room with it.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘Six what? What’s going on?’ Their eyes were all on her, boring into her. She could feel their contempt but didn’t understand what it was for. ‘Has something happened to Mick? Has there been an accident?’

  ‘Something’s happened, all right,’ McGahey said. ‘It looks like your man’s away scabbing to Nottingham.’

  His words seemed to suck the air from her lungs. She stopped breathing, letting a bubble form round her so the words would bounce off. It couldn’t be right. Not Mick. Dumb, she shook her head hard. The words started to seep back in but they still made no sense. ‘Knew about the five…thought there might be more…always a traitor in the ranks…disappointed…always a union man.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘How else do you explain him not being here?’ Reekie said. ‘You’re the one that came to us looking for him. We know a van load went down last night. And at least one of them is a pal of your Mick. Where the hell else is he going to be?’

  Thursday 28th June 2007; Newton of Wemyss

  ‘I couldn’t have felt worse if they’d accused me of being a whore,’ Jenny said. ‘I suppose, in their eyes, that’s exactly what I was. My man away scabbing, it would be no time at all before I’d be living on immoral earnings.’

  ‘You never doubted that they were right?’

  Jenny pushed her hair back from her face, momentarily stripping away some of the years and the docility. ‘Not really. Mick was pals with Iain Maclean, one of the ones that went to Nottingham. I couldn’t argue with that. And don’t forget what it was like back then. The men ran the game and the union ran the men. When the women wanted to take part in the strike, the first battle we had to fight was against the union. We had to beg them to let us join in. They wanted us where we’d always been - in the back room, keeping the home fires burning. Not standing by the braziers on the picket lines. But even though we got Women Against Pit Closures off the ground, we still knew our place. You’d have to be bloody strong or bloody stupid to try and blow against the wind round here.’

  It wasn’t the first time Karen had heard a version of this truth. She wondered whether she’d have done any better in the same position. It felt good to think she’d stand by her man a bit more sturdily. But in the face of the community hostility Jenny Prentice must have faced, Karen reckoned she’d probably have caved in too. ‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘But now that it looks like Mick might not have gone scabbing after all, have you got any idea what might have happened to him?’

  Jenny shook her head. ‘Not a scooby. Even though I couldn’t believe it, the scabbing kind of made sense. So I never thought about any other possibility.’

  ‘Do you think he’d just had enough? Just upped and left?’

  She frowned. ‘See, that wouldn’t be like Mick. To leave without the last word? I don’t think so. He’d have made sure I knew it was all my fault.’ She gave a bitter laugh.

  ‘You don’t think he might have gone without a word as a way of making you suffer even more?’

  Jenny’s head reared back. ‘That’s sick,’ she protested. ‘You make him sound like some kind of a sadist. He wasn’t a cruel man, Inspector. Just thoughtless and selfish like the rest of them.’

  Karen paused for a moment. This was always the hardest part when interviewing the relatives of the missing. ‘Had he fallen out with anybody? Did he have any enemies, Jenny?’

  Jenny looked as if Karen had suddenly switched into Urdu. ‘Enemies? You mean, like somebody that would kill him?’

  ‘Maybe not mean to kill him. Maybe just fight him?’

  This time, Jenny’s laugh had genuine warmth. ‘By Christ, that’s funny coming from you.’ She shook her head. ‘The only physical fights Mick ever got into in all the years we were married were with your lot. On the picket lines. At the demonstrations. Did he have enemies? Aye, the thin blue line. But this isn’t South America, and I don’t recall any talk about the disappeared of the miners’ strike. So the answer to your question is no, he didn’t have the kind of enemies that he’d get into a fight with.’

  Karen studied the carpet for a long moment. The gung-ho violence of the police against the strikers had poisoned community relationships for a generation or more. Never mind that the worst offenders came from outside forces, bussed in to make up the numbers and paid obscene amounts of overtime to oppress their fellow citizens in ways most people chose to avoid knowing about. The fallout from their ignorance and arrogance affected every officer in every coalfield force. Still did, Karen reckoned. She took a deep breath and looked up. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘The way they treated the miners, it was inexcusable. I like to think we wouldn’t act like that now, but I’m probably wrong. Are you sure there wasn’t anybody he’d had a run-in with?’

  Jenny didn’t even pause for thought. ‘Not that I knew about. He wasn’t a troublemaker. He had his principles, but he didn’t use them as excuses to pick fights. He stood up for what he believed in, but he was a talker, not a fighter.’

  ‘What if the talking didn’t work? Would he back down?’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow you.’

  Karen spoke slowly, feeling her way into the idea. ‘I’m wondering if he bumped into this Iain Maclean that day and tried to talk him out of going to Nottingham. And if Iain wouldn’t change his mind, and maybe had his pals there to back him up…Would Mick have got into a figh
t with them, maybe?’

  Jenny shook her head firmly. ‘No way. He’d have said his piece and, if that didn’t work, he’d have walked away.’

  Karen felt frustrated. Even after the passage of so much time, cold cases usually provided one or two loose ends to pick away at. But so far, there seemed to be nothing to reach for here. One last question, then she was out of this place. ‘Do you have any idea at all where Mick might have gone painting that day?’

  ‘He never said. The only thing I can tell you is that in the winter he often went along the shore to East Wemyss. That way, if it came on rain, he could go down to the caves and shelter there. The preservation group, they had a wee bothy at the back of one of the caves with a camping stove where they could brew up. He had keys, he could make himself right at home,’ she added, the acid back in her voice. ‘But I’ve no idea whether he was there that day or not. He could have been anywhere between Dysart and Buckhaven.’ She looked at her watch. ‘That’s all I know.’

  Karen got to her feet. ‘I appreciate your time, Mrs Prentice. We will be continuing our inquiries and I’ll keep you informed.’ The Mint scrambled to his feet and followed her and Jenny to the front door.

  ‘I’m not bothered for myself, you understand,’ Jenny said when they were halfway down the path. ‘But see if you can find him for the bairn’s sake.’

  It was, Karen thought, the first sign of emotion she’d shown all morning. ‘Get your notebook out,’ she said to the Mint as they got into the car. ‘Follow-ups. Talk to the neighbour. See if she remembers anything about the day Mick Prentice disappeared. Talk to somebody from the cave group, see who’s still there from 1984. Get another picture of what Mick Prentice was really like. Check in the files for anything about this Andy Kerr, NUM official, supposedly committed suicide around the time Mick disappeared. What’s the story there? And we need to track down these five scabs and get Nottingham to have a chat with them.’ She opened the passenger door again as the Mint finished scribbling. ‘And since we’re here already, let’s have a crack at the neighbour.’

  She was barely two steps from the car when her phone rang. ‘Phil,’ she said.

  No pleasantries, just straight to the point. ‘You need to get back here right now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The Macaroon is on the warpath. Wants to know why the hell you’re not at your desk.’

  Simon Lees, Assistant Chief Constable (Crime), was temperamentally different from Karen. She was convinced his bedtime reading consisted of the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2006. She knew he was married with two teenage children but she had no idea how that could have happened to a man so obsessively organized. It was sod’s law that on the first morning in months when she was doing something off the books the Macaroon should come looking for her. He seemed to believe that it was his divine right to know the whereabouts of any of the officers under his command, whether on or off duty. Karen wondered how close he’d come to stroking out on discovering she was not occupying the desk where he expected to find her. Not close enough, by the sounds of it. ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘I said you were having a meeting with the evidence store team to discuss streamlining their cataloguing procedures,’ Phil said. ‘He liked the idea, but not that fact that it wasn’t listed in your electronic appointments list.’

  ‘I’m on my way,’ Karen said, confusing the Mint by getting back into the car. ‘Did he say why he was looking for me?’

  ‘To me? A mere sergeant? Gimme a break, Karen. He just said it was “of the first importance”. Somebody probably stole his digestive biscuits.’

  Karen gestured impatiently at the Mint. ‘Home, James, and don’t spare the horses.’ He looked at her as if she was mad but he did start the car and drove off. ‘I’m coming in,’ she said. ‘Get the kettle on.’

  Glenrothes

  The double helix of frustration and irritation twisted in Simon Lees’ gut. He shifted in his chair and rearranged the family photos on his desk. What was wrong with these people? When he’d gone looking for DI Pirie and failed to find her where she should be, DS Parhatka had acted as if that were perfectly fine. There was something fundamentally lackadaisical about the detectives in Fife. He’d realized that within days of arriving from Glasgow. It amazed him that they’d ever managed to put anyone behind bars before he’d arrived with his analytical methods, streamlined investigations, sophisticated crime linkage and the inevitable rise in the detection rate.

  What riled him even more was the fact that they seemed to have no gratitude for the modern methods he’d brought to the job. He even had the suspicion that they were laughing at him. Take his nickname. Everybody in the building seemed to have a nickname, most of which could be construed as mildly affectionate. But not him. He’d discovered early on that he’d been dubbed the Macaroon because he shared the surname of a confectionery firm whose most famous product had become notorious because of an ancient advertising jingle whose cheerful racism would provoke rioting in the streets if it were to be aired in twenty-first-century Scotland. He blamed Karen Pirie; it was no coincidence that the nickname had surfaced after his first run-in with her. It had been typical of most of their encounters. He wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but she always seemed to wrong-foot him.

  Lees still smarted at that early memory. He’d barely got his feet under the table but he’d started as he meant to go on, instigating a series of training days. Not the usual macho posturing or tedious revision of the rules of engagement, but fresh approaches to issues of modern policing. The first tranche of officers had assembled in the training suite and Lees had started his preamble, explaining how they would spend the day developing strategies for policing a multicultural society. His audience had looked mutinous and Karen Pirie had led the charge. ‘Sir, can I make a point?’

  ‘Of course, Detective Inspector Pirie.’ His smile had been genial, hiding his annoyance at being interrupted before he’d even revealed the agenda.

  ‘Well, sir, Fife’s not really what you’d call multicultural. We don’t have many people here who are not indigenous Brits. Apart from the Italians and the Poles, that is, and they’ve been here so long we’ve forgotten they’re not from here.’

  ‘So racism’s all right by you, is it, Inspector?’ Maybe not the best reply, but he’d been driven to it by the apparently Neanderthal attitude she’d expressed. Not to mention that bland, pudding face she presented whenever she said anything that might be construed as inflammatory.

  ‘Not at all, sir.’ She’d smiled, almost pityingly. ‘What I would say is that, given we have a limited training budget, it might make more sense to deal first with the sort of situations we’re more likely to encounter day to day.’

  ‘Such as? How hard to hit people when we arrest them?’

  ‘I was thinking more of strategies to deal with domestic violence. It’s a common call-out and it can easily escalate. Too many people are still dying every year because a domestic has got out of hand. And we don’t always know how to deal with it without inflaming the situation. I’d say that was my number one priority right now, sir.’

  And with that short speech, she’d cut the ground from under his feet. There was no way back for him. He could carry on with the planned training, knowing that everyone in the room was laughing at him. Or he could postpone till he could put together a programme to deal with DI Pirie’s suggestion and lose face completely. In the end, he’d told them to spend the rest of the day researching the subject of domestic violence in preparation for another training day.

  Two days later, he’d overheard himself referred to as the Macaroon. Oh yes, he knew who to blame. But as with everything she did to undermine him, there was nothing he could pin directly on her. She’d stand there, looking as shaggy, stolid and inscrutable as a Highland cow, never saying or doing anything that he could complain about. And she set the style for the rest of them, even though she was stranded on the fringes in the Cold Case Review Team where she
should be able to wield no influence whatsoever. But somehow, thanks to Pirie, dealing with the detectives of all three divisions was like herding cats.

  He tried to avoid her, tried to sideline her via his operational directives. Until today, he’d thought it was working. Then the phone had rung. ‘Assistant Chief Constable Lees,’ he’d announced as he picked up the phone. ‘How may I be of assistance?’

  ‘Good morning, ACC Lees. My name is Susan Charleson. I’m personal assistant to Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant. My boss would like to talk to you. Is this a good time?’

  Lees straightened up in his chair, squaring his shoulders. Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant was notorious for three things - his wealth, his misanthropic reclusiveness, and the kidnap and murder of his daughter Catriona twenty-odd years before. Unlikely though it seemed, his PA calling the ACC Crime could only mean that there had been some sort of development in the case. ‘Yes, of course, perfect time, couldn’t be better.’ He dredged his memory for details, only half listening to the woman on the phone. Daughter and grandson kidnapped, that was it. Daughter killed in a botched ransom handover, grandson never seen again. And now it looked as if he was going to be the one to have the chance finally to solve the case. He tuned in to the woman’s voice again.

  ‘If you’ll bear with me, I’ll put you through now,’ she said.

  The hollow sound of dead air, then a dark, heavy voice said, ‘This is Brodie Maclennan Grant. And you’re the Assistant Chief Constable?’

  ‘That’s right, Sir Broderick. ACC Lees. Simon Lees.’

  ‘Are you aware of the unsolved murder of my daughter Catriona? And the kidnapping of my grandson Adam?’