by Val McDermid
‘How come?’
‘He died. Took a massive heart attack on the golf course at Lundin Links. It must be getting on for ten years ago. And when the will was read, Jenny got a hell of a shock. He’d left everything in trust for Misha. She got the lot when she was twenty-five, and Jenny never saw a penny.’ Mrs McGillivray raised her teacup in a toast. ‘Served her right, if you ask me.’
Karen couldn’t find it in her heart to disagree. She drained her cup and pushed back her chair. ‘You’ve been very helpful,’ she said.
‘He was round here the very day Mick went to Nottingham,’ Mrs McGillivray said. It was the verbal equivalent of grabbing someone by the arm to prevent them leaving.
‘Tom Campbell?’
‘The very same.’
‘When did he show up?’ Karen asked.
‘It must have been round about three o’clock. I like to listen to the afternoon play on the radio in the front room. I saw him coming up the path then hanging about waiting for Jenny to get back. I think she’d been down the Welfare - she’d got some packets and tins, one of the hand-outs they picked up there.’
‘You seem to remember it very clearly.’
‘I mind it so well because that morning was the last time I ever saw Mick. It stuck in my mind.’ She poured herself another cup of tea.
‘How long did he stay? Tom Campbell, I mean.’
Mrs McGillivray shook her head. ‘Now there I can’t help you. After the play was finished, I went down to the green to catch the bus for Kirkcaldy. I’m not able for it now, but I used to like to go to the big Tesco down by the bus station. I’d get the bus in and a taxi back. So I don’t know how long he stayed.’ She took a long drink of her tea. ‘I sometimes wondered, you know.’
‘Wondered what?’
The old woman looked away. Reached into the pocket of her saggy cardigan and pulled out a packet of Benson & Hedges. Extracted a cigarette and took her time lighting it. ‘I wondered if he paid Mick off.’
‘You mean, paid him to leave town?’ Karen couldn’t hide her incredulity.
‘It’s not such a daft idea. Like I said, Mick had his pride. He wouldn’t have stayed where he thought he wasn’t wanted. So if he was set on going anyway, maybe he took Tom Campbell’s money.’
‘Surely he’d have had too much self-respect for that?’
Mrs McGillivray breathed out a thin stream of smoke. ‘It would be dirty money either way. Maybe Tom Campbell’s money felt a wee bit cleaner than the coal board’s? And besides, when he left that morning, it didn’t look like he was going any further than the shore, to do his painting. If Tom Campbell paid him, he wouldn’t have needed to come back for his clothes or anything, would he?’
‘You’re sure he didn’t come back for his stuff later?’ ‘I’m sure. Trust me, there’s no secrets in this row.’ Karen’s eyes were on the old woman but her mind was racing. She didn’t believe for a minute that Mick Prentice had sold his place in the marital bed to Tom Campbell. But maybe Tom Campbell had wanted to take that place badly enough to come up with a different scenario to dispose of his rival.
So much for picking up a bit of character background. Karen bit back a sigh and said, ‘I’d like to send a couple of officers round to see you on Monday morning. Maybe you could tell them what you’ve just told me?’
Mrs McGillivray perked up. ‘That would be lovely. I could bake some scones.’
Rotheswell Castle
Just because she was stuck at Rotheswell like a self-immured Rapunzel didn’t mean Bel Richmond could turn her back on the rest of her work. Even if she was deprived of access to Grant, she didn’t have to twiddle her thumbs. She’d spent most of the day writing up an interview for a Guardian feature. It was almost done, but she needed a bit of distance before the final polish. A visit to the pool house concealed in a nearby stand of pine trees would do the trick, she thought, pulling her swimsuit from her bag. Halfway across the room, the house phone rang.
Susan Charleson’s voice was crisp and clear. ‘Are you busy?’
‘I was just going for a swim.’
‘Sir Broderick has an hour free. He’d like to continue your background briefing.’
There was clearly no room for discussion. ‘Fine,’ Bel sighed. ‘Where’ll I find him?’
‘He’ll see you downstairs in the Land Rover. He thought you might like to see where Catriona lived.’
She couldn’t complain about that. Anything that added colour to the story was well worth her time. ‘Five minutes,’ she said.
‘Thank you.’
Quickly, Bel changed into jeans and her weatherproof jacket, thanking the fashionista gods that stylized construction boots had come into vogue, allowing her to look vaguely as if she was ready for country life. She grabbed her recorder and hurried downstairs. A shiny Land Rover Defender sat outside the front door, engine running. Brodie Grant sat behind the wheel. Even from a distance, she could see his gloved fingers drumming on the steering wheel.
Bel climbed aboard and gave him her best smile. She hadn’t seen him since the bizarre interview with the cops the day before. She’d eaten a working lunch alone in her room, and he’d been missing from the dinner table. Judith had said he was at some men-only charity boxing dinner and had sounded relieved to be missing it. Their conversation had been anodyne; either Judith herself or the ever-present Susan had steered it sideways whenever it threatened to become in any way revealing. Bel had felt frustrated and exploited.
But now she was alone with him again she could forgive all that. She considered asking him if he really thought he could control Karen Pirie like the lord of the manor in a 1930s crime drama, but thought better of it. Best to use the time to beef up her background on the case. ‘Thanks for taking me to see Cat’s place,’ she said.
‘We won’t be able to go inside,’ he said, releasing the handbrake and setting off round the back of the house and down a track that led through the pine trees. ‘It’s had several sets of tenants since, so you’re not really missing anything. So, what did you think of Inspector Pirie?’
There was no clue in his face or voice to what he wanted to hear, so Bel settled on the truth. ‘I think she’s one of those people it’s easy to underestimate,’ she said. ‘I suspect she’s a smart operator.’
‘She is,’ Grant said. ‘I expect you know that she’s the reason the former Assistant Chief Constable of this county is serving life in prison. A man who was apparently beyond suspicion. But she was capable of questioning his probity. And once she started, she didn’t stop till she’d established beyond doubt that he was a cold-blooded killer. Which is why I want her on this. Back when Catriona died, we were all guilty of thinking along the traditional tramlines. And look where that got us. If we’re going to have a second bite at the cherry, I want someone who will think outside the box.’
‘Makes sense,’ Bel said.
‘So what do you want to talk about next?’ he said as they emerged from the trees into a clearing that ended with a high wall and another of the airlock-style gates like the one Bel had entered by when she first arrived. Clearly nobody got into the grounds of Rotheswell unless they were welcome. Grant slowed enough to let the security guards be sure who was behind the wheel, then accelerated on to the main road.
‘What happened next?’ she said, switching on her recorder and holding it out between them. ‘You got the first demand and started working with the police. How did things go after that?’
He stared ahead resolutely, showing no signs of emotion. As they rolled past chequered fields of ripening grain and grazing, the sun slipping in and out of louring grey clouds, his words spilled out in an unsettling flow. It was hard for Bel to keep any kind of professional distance. Living with her nephew Harry had given her insight enough to readily imagine the anguish of a parent in Brodie Grant’s situation. That understanding generated enough sympathy to absolve him from almost any criticism. ‘We waited,’ he said. ‘I’ve never known time to drag like it did then.’
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br /> Monday 21st January 1985; Rotheswell Castle
For a man who didn’t have the patience to let a pint of Guinness settle, waiting to hear from the Anarchist Covenant of Scotland was exquisite torture. Grant roamed Rotheswell like a pinball, almost literally bouncing off walls and doorways in his efforts to stop himself imploding. There was no sense or logic to his movements and when he and his wife crossed paths, he could barely find the words to respond to her anxious enquiries.
Mary seemed to be much more in control, and he came close to resenting her for it. She had been to Cat’s cottage and reported to both him and Lawson that, apart from an overturned chair in the kitchen, nothing seemed out of place. The sell-by date on the milk had been Sunday, indicating she hadn’t been gone more than a few days at most.
The nights were worse than the days. He didn’t sleep so much as collapse when physical exhaustion overcame him. Then he’d wake with a start, disorientated and unrefreshed. As soon as consciousness reasserted itself, he wished he was unconscious again. He knew he was supposed to be behaving normally, but that was beyond him. Susan cancelled all his engagements and he holed up inside the walls at Rotheswell.
By Monday morning, he was as close to a wreck as he’d ever felt. The face he saw in the mirror looked as if it belonged in a prisoner-of-war camp, not a rich man’s castle. He didn’t even care that those around him could see his vulnerability. All he wanted was for the post to arrive, to bring with it something concrete, something that could liberate him from impotence and give him a task. Even if it was only raising whatever ransom the bastards wanted. If it had been up to him, he would have staked out the sorting office in Kirkcaldy, stopping his postie like an old-fashioned highwayman and demanding his mail. But he accepted the madness of that. Instead he paced to and fro behind the letterbox where the castle’s mail would drop to the mat at some point between half past eight and nine o’clock.
Lawson and Rennie were already on the spot. They’d arrived in a plumber’s van wearing tradesmen’s overalls via the back drive at eight. Now they sat stolidly in the hall, waiting for the post. Mary, stunned with the valium he’d insisted she take, sat on the bottom step in her pyjamas and dressing gown, arms wrapped around her calves, chin on her knees. Susan moved among them with teas and coffees, her normal composure hiding God alone knew what. Grant certainly had no idea how she had held everything together over the past couple of days.
Lawson’s radio crackled an incomprehensible message and moments later there was a rustle and a clatter of the letterbox. The day’s bundle of mail cascaded to the floor, Grant falling on it like a starving man on the promise of food. Lawson was almost as fast, grabbing the big manila envelope seconds after Grant’s fingers closed on it. ‘I’ll take that,’ he said.
Grant yanked it from him. ‘No, you bloody won’t. It’s addressed to me and you’ll see it in good time.’ He clasped it to his chest and stood up, backing away from Lawson and Rennie.
‘OK, OK,’ Lawson said. ‘Just take it easy, sir. Why don’t you sit down next to your wife?’
To his own surprise Grant did as Lawson suggested, subsiding on the stairs beside Mary. He stared at the envelope, suddenly unwilling to discover what demands were about to be made of him. Then Mary laid her hand on his arm and it felt like an unexpected transfusion of strength. He ripped back the flap and pulled out a thick wad of paper. Unfolding it, he saw that this time there were two copies of the puppeteer poster. Before he could take in the words written inside the box at the foot of each, he spotted the Polaroid. He went to cover it, but Mary was too fast for him, reaching across and grabbing it.
This time, Cat’s mouth wasn’t taped up. Her expression was angry and defiant. She was bound to a chair with loops of parcel tape, the wall behind her a white blank. A gloved hand held the previous day’s Sunday Mail in the foreground of the picture.
‘Where’s Adam?’ Mary demanded.
‘We have to assume he’s there. It’s a bit harder to get a baby to pose,’ Lawson said.
‘But there’s no proof. He could be dead for all you know.’ Mary put her hand to her mouth as if trying to push the treacherous words back.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Grant said, putting his arm round her and injecting spurious warmth into his voice. ‘You know what Catriona’s like. There’s no way she’d be this cooperative if they’d done anything to Adam. She’d be screaming like a banshee and throwing herself to the floor, not sitting there all meek and still.’ He squeezed her shoulders. ‘It’s going to be all right, Mary.’
Lawson waited for a moment then said, ‘Can we take a look at the message?’
Grant’s eyelids flickered and he nodded. He spread the top poster open on his knees and read its message, written in the same thick black marker as the previous one.
We want a million. £200,000 in used, non-sequential £20 notes, in a holdall. The rest in uncut diamonds. The handover will be on Wednesday evening. When you hand over the ransom, you will get one of them back. You get to choose which one.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Grant said. He passed the poster to Lawson, who had gloved up in anticipation. The second sheet offered no more cheer.
When we authenticate the diamonds and know the money is safe, we will release the other hostage. Remember, no police. Do not fuck with us. We know what we are doing and we are not afraid to spill blood for the cause. The Anarchist Covenant of Scotland.
‘What have you done to track these people down?’ Grant demanded. ‘How close are you to finding my family?’
Lawson held a hand up while he studied the second poster. He passed it to Rennie and said, ‘We’re doing everything we can. We’ve spoken to Special Branch and MI5, but neither of them has any knowledge of an activist group called the Anarchist Covenant of Scotland. We managed to get a fingerprint man and an evidence officer into Catriona’s cottage under cover of darkness on Saturday night. So far we’ve no direct leads from that, but we’re working on it. Also, we had an officer posing as a customer asking around to see if anyone knew when Catriona’s workshop would be open. We’ve established that she was definitely working on Wednesday but nobody can confirm they saw any sign of her after that. We’ve had no reports of anything untoward in the area. No suspicious vehicles or behaviour. We -’
‘What you’re saying is that you have nothing and you know nothing,’ Grant interrupted brutally.
Lawson didn’t even flinch. ‘That’s often the way in kidnap cases. Unless the snatch happens in a public place, there’s little to go on. And where there’s a small child involved, it’s very easy to control the adult, so you don’t even get the sort of struggle that generates forensic evidence. Generally, the handover is the point where we can make real progress.’
‘But you can’t do anything then. Can’t you read, man? They’re going to hold on to one of them till they’re sure we haven’t double-crossed them,’ Grant said.
‘Brodie, they’re both going to be there at the handover,’ Mary said. ‘Look, it says we get to choose one of them.’
Grant snorted. ‘And which one are we going to choose? It’s bloody obvious that we’d go for Adam. The most vulnerable one. The one who can’t look out for himself. Nobody in their right mind would leave a six-month-old baby with some bunch of anarchist terrorists if they had any choice. They’ll bring Adam and leave Catriona behind wherever they’re keeping them. That’s what I’d do if it was me.’ He looked to Lawson for confirmation.
The policeman refused to meet his eyes. ‘That’s certainly one possibility,’ he said. ‘But whatever they do, we have options. We can try to follow them. We can put a tracking device in the holdall and another among the diamonds.’
‘And if that doesn’t work? What’s to stop them coming back for more?’ Grant said.
‘Nothing. It’s entirely possible they’ll ask for a second ransom.’ Lawson looked deeply uncomfortable.
‘Then we’ll pay,’ Mary said calmly. ‘I want my daughter and my grandson back safely. Brodie and I will
do whatever it takes to achieve that. Won’t we, Brodie?’
Grant felt cornered. He knew what the answer was supposed to be, but he was surprised by his ambivalence. He cleared his throat. ‘Of course we will, Mary.’ This time Lawson’s eyes locked on his and Grant understood that he might have given a little too much away. He needed to remind the cop that he had something at stake too. ‘And so will Mr Lawson, Mary. I promise you that.’
Lawson folded the posters together and slid them back into the envelope. ‘We’re all a hundred per cent committed to getting Catriona and Adam back safely,’ he said. ‘And the first thing on the agenda is that you have to start making arrangements with your bank.’
‘My bank? You mean, we’re giving them the real thing?’ Grant felt incredulous. If he’d ever thought about anything like this, he’d assumed the police had a stash of marked counterfeit ready for such contingencies.
‘It would be very dangerous at this point to do anything else,’ Lawson said. He stared at the carpet, the very picture of embarrassment. ‘I take it you do have the money?’
Saturday 30th June 2007; Newton of Wemyss
‘Cheeky bastard tried to look like he was embarrassed to ask, but I could tell he was actually enjoying putting me on the spot,’ Grant said, stepping on the gas as they left Coaltown of Wemyss behind them. ‘Don’t get me wrong. Lawson never put a foot out of place in the whole investigation. I’ve no reason to suspect he was anything other than totally committed to catching the bastards who took Catriona and Adam. But I could tell there was a part of him that was secretly enjoying watching me get my come-uppance.’
‘Why was that, do you think?’
