A Darker Domain

by Val McDermid

  ‘They became our friends,’ Giulia said. ‘The carabinieri are crazy, acting like they’re criminals or something.’

  ‘So they just turned up without warning? How did they know the house was there?’

  ‘Rado had a job at the cement works down in the valley a couple of years ago. He told me he used to go walking in the woods, and he came across the villa. So when they needed a place that was accessible to the main towns in this part of Tuscany, he remembered the villa and they came to stay,’ Giulia said.

  ‘So what exactly did they do?’ Bel asked, searching for some connection to the past at the heart of her inquiries.

  Renata said, ‘They ran a puppet theatre.’ She seemed surprised that Bel hadn’t known this. ‘Marionettes. Street theatre. During the tourist season, they had regular pitches. Firenze, Siena, Volterra, San Gimignano, Greve, Certaldo Alto. They did festivals too. Every little town in Tuscany has a festival of something - porcini mushrooms, antique salami-slicing machines, vintage tractors. So BurEst performed anywhere there was an audience.’

  ‘BurEst? How do I spell that?’ Bel said.

  Renata obliged. ‘It’s short for Burattinaio Estemporaneo. They did a lot of improvisation.’

  ‘The poster from the villa - a black-and-white drawing of a puppeteer with some pretty strange marionettes - was that what they used for advertising?’ Bel asked.

  Renata shook her head. ‘Only for special performances. I only ever saw them use it when they did a performance in Colle Val d’Elsa for All Souls Day. Mostly, they used one with bright colours, sort of comedia del arte. A modern twist on the more traditional images of puppetry. It reflected their performance better than the monochrome poster.’

  ‘Were they popular?’ Bel asked.

  ‘I think they did OK,’ Giulia said. ‘They’d been in the south of France the summer before they came here. Dieter said Italy was a better place to work. He said the tourists were more open-minded and the locals were more tolerant of them. They didn’t make a huge amount of money, but they did OK. They always had food on the table and plenty of wine. And they made everybody welcome.’

  ‘She’s right,’ Renata said. ‘They weren’t scroungers. If they ate dinner at your house, next time you ate with them.’ One corner of her mouth twitched downwards. ‘That’s less usual than you’d think in these circles. They talk a lot about sharing and communality, but mostly they are even more selfish than the people they despise.’

  ‘Except for Ursula and Matthias,’ Giulia said. ‘They were more private. They didn’t really socialize like the others did.’

  Renata snorted. ‘That’s because Matthias thought he was in charge.’ She poured more wine for them all and continued. ‘It was Matthias who started the company and he still liked everyone to treat him like he was the circus ringmaster. And Ursula, his woman, she bought into that whole thing. Matthias obviously took the lion’s share of the income too. They had the best van, their clothes were always expensive hippy style. I think it was partly a generation thing - Matthias must be in his fifties, but most of the others were much younger. Twenties, early thirties at the very most.’

  It was all fascinating, but Bel was struggling to see what the link might be to Cat Grant’s death and the disappearance of her son. This Matthias character sounded like the only one old enough to have had any connection to those distant events. ‘Does he have a son, Matthias?’ she asked.

  Both women looked at each other, puzzled. ‘There was no child with him,’ Renata said. ‘I never heard him speak of a son.’

  Giulia picked up a fig and bit into it, the purple flesh splitting and spilling seeds down her fingers. ‘He had a friend who came to visit sometimes. A British guy. He had a son.’

  Like all good reporters, Bel had an unquantifiable instinct for where the story lay. And that instinct told her she’d just hit gold. ‘How old was the son?’

  Giulia licked her fingers clean while she considered. ‘Twenty? Maybe a bit older, but not much.’

  There were a dozen questions butting against each other inside Bel’s head, but she knew better than to blurt them out in an urgent stream. She took a slow sip of her wine and said, ‘What else do you remember about him?’

  Giulia shrugged. ‘I saw him a couple of times, but I only ever met him properly once. His name was Gabriel. He spoke perfect Italian. He said he’d grown up in Italy, he didn’t remember ever living in England. He was studying, but I don’t know where or what.’ She made an apologetic face. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t that interested in him.’

  OK, it wasn’t decisive. But it felt like a possibility. ‘What did he look like?’

  Giulia looked more uncertain. ‘I don’t know how to describe him. Tall, light brown hair. Quite good looking.’ She screwed her face up. ‘I’m not good at this kind of thing. What’s so interesting about him anyway?’

  Renata saved Bel from having to answer. ‘Was he at the New Year party?’ she asked.

  Giulia’s face cleared. ‘Yes. He was there with his father.’

  ‘So he might be on a photograph,’ Renata said. She turned to Bel. ‘I had my camera with me. I took dozens of photographs that night. Let me get my laptop.’ She jumped up and headed back to her house.

  ‘What about Gabriel’s dad?’ Bel asked. ‘You said he was British?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So how did he know Matthias? Was he British too?’

  Giulia looked dubious. ‘I thought he was German. He and Ursula got together years ago in Germany. But he spoke Italian just like his friend. They sounded the same. So maybe he was British too. I don’t know.’

  ‘What was Gabriel’s dad called?’

  Giulia sighed. ‘I’m not much use to you. I don’t remember his name. I’m sorry. He was just another man my dad’s age, you know? I was with Dieter, I wasn’t interested in some old guy in his fifties.’

  Bel hid her disappointment. ‘Do you know what he does for a living? Gabriel’s dad, I mean.’

  Giulia brightened, pleased that she knew the answer to something. ‘He’s a painter. He paints landscapes for the tourists. He sells to a couple of galleries - one in San Gimignano and one in Siena. He also goes to the same sort of festivals that BurEst performed at, and sells his work there.’

  ‘Is that how he met Matthias?’ Bel asked, trying not to feel disappointed that the mysterious Gabriel’s father was not estate manager Fergus Sinclair. After all, an artist would fit right in with Cat’s background. Maybe Adam’s father was someone she knew from her student days. Or someone she’d met at a galley or exhibition back in Scotland. There would be time to explore those possibilities later. Right now, she needed to pay attention to Giulia.

  ‘I don’t think so. I think they knew each other from way back.’

  As she spoke, Renata returned with her laptop. ‘Are you talking about Matthias and Gabriel’s father? It’s funny. It didn’t seem as though they really liked each other that much. I don’t know why I think that, but I do. It was more…you know how sometimes you stay in touch with someone because she’s the only person left who shares the same past? You might not like them so much, but they give a connection back to something that was important. Sometimes it’s family, sometimes it’s a time of your life when important things happened. And you want to hold on to that link. That’s how it seemed to me when I saw them together.’ As she spoke, her fingers were flying over the keyboard, summoning up a library of pictures. She placed the laptop where Giulia and Bel could see the screen, then came round behind them, leaning in so she could advance the shots.

  It looked like half the parties Bel had ever been to. People sitting at tables drinking. People mugging at the camera. People dancing. People getting more red in the face, more blurred around the eyes and more uncoordinated as the evening wore on. Both of the Boscolata women giggled and exclaimed, but neither identified either Gabriel or his father.

  Bel had almost given up hope when Giulia suddenly called out and pointed at the screen. ‘There
. That’s Gabriel in the corner.’ It wasn’t the clearest of shots, but Bel didn’t think she was seeing things. There were fifty years between them, but it wasn’t hard to discern a resemblance between this boy and Brodie Grant. Cat’s features had been a feminine translation of her father’s striking looks. Unlikely though it was, a simulacrum of the original was staring out at her from a New Year party in an Italian squat. The same deep-set eyes, parrot nose, strong chin and the distinctive thick shock of hair, only blond rather than silver. She dug in her handbag and pulled out a memory stick.

  ‘Can I get a copy of that?’ she asked.

  Renata paused, looking thoughtful. ‘You didn’t answer when Giulia asked why you are interested in this boy. Maybe you should answer now.’

  East Wemyss, Fife

  River stripped off her heavy-duty gloves and straightened her back, trying not to groan. The trouble with working alongside her students was that she couldn’t reveal any signs of weakness. Admittedly, they were a dozen or more years younger than her, but River was determined to demonstrate she was at least as fit as they were. So they might complain of aching arms and sore backs from shifting rock and rubble, but she had to maintain her Superwoman act. She suspected the only person she was kidding was herself, but that made no odds. The deception had to be maintained for the sake of her self-image.

  She walked across the cave to where three of the students were sifting the dirt freed by the shifting of the rocks. So far, nothing of archaeological or forensic interest had turned up, but their enthusiasm seemed undiminished. River could remember her own earliest investigations; how the very fact of being involved in a real case was excitement enough to overcome the tedium of a repetitive, apparently fruitless task. She saw her own reactions mirrored in these students and it made her happy to think that she had some responsibility for making sure the next generation of forensic investigators would bring that same commitment to speaking for the dead.

  ‘Anything?’ she said as she emerged from the shadows into the brilliance that illuminated their huddle.

  Heads were shaken, negatives muttered. One of the archaeology postgrads looked up. ‘It’ll get interesting when the labourers have finished clearing the rocks.’

  River grinned. ‘Don’t let my anthropologists hear you calling them labourers.’ She glanced back at them affectionately. ‘With luck, they should have the bulk of the rocks out of the way by the end of the afternoon.’ They’d all been surprised by the discovery that the rock fall was only a few feet deep. In River’s experience, cave falls tended to extend a long way back. A fault had to grow to a substantial size before it reached critical mass and brought a previously stable roof down. So when it collapsed, it took a lot of rock with it. But this was different. And that made it very interesting indeed.

  Already, they’d removed the top seven or eight feet all the way back. A couple of the more intrepid among them had climbed up for a look when River had been off fetching lunchtime pies and sandwiches for everyone. They’d reported that it looked clear beyond the fall itself, apart from a few boulders that had rolled down from the main pile.

  River walked outside to make a couple of phone calls, appreciating the salt air as a bonus. She’d barely finished speaking to her department secretary when one of the students burst out of the narrow entrance.

  ‘Dr Wilde,’ he shouted. ‘You need to come and see this.’

  Campora, Tuscany

  Bel had pitched her story to provoke the maximum emotional response. From the stunned silence of Renata and Giulia, it looked as if she’d achieved her goal.

  ‘That’s so sad. I’d have been in bits if that had happened in my family,’ Giulia finally said, taking ownership of it in the style of a woman raised on soap operas and celebrity magazines. ‘That poor baby boy.’

  Renata was more objective. ‘And you think Gabriel might be that boy?’

  Bel shrugged. ‘I have no idea. But that poster is the first definite lead there has been in over twenty years. And Gabriel looks incredibly like the missing boy’s grandfather. It might be wishful thinking, but I wonder if we’re on to something here.’

  Renata nodded. ‘So we must help in every way we can.’

  ‘I’m not talking to the carabinieri again,’ Giulia said. ‘Pigs.’

  ‘Hey,’ Grazia complained, rousing herself from her pea-shelling. ‘Don’t you be insulting pigs. Our pigs are wonderful creatures. Intelligent. Useful. Not like the carabinieri.’

  Renata held her hand out. ‘Give me the memory stick. There’s no point in talking to the carabinieri because they don’t care about this case. Not like you do. Not like the family does. That’s why we need to share everything with you.’ Expertly, she copied the picture on to Bel’s memory stick. ‘Now we need to see if there are any more photos of Gabriel and his father.’

  By the end of the search, they had three shots where Gabriel appeared, though none of them was any clearer than the first. Renata had also found two images of his father - one in profile, one where half of his face was obscured by someone else’s head. ‘Do you think anybody else has photos from that night?’ Bel asked.

  Both women looked dubious. ‘I don’t remember anyone else taking pictures,’ Renata said. ‘But with mobile phones, who knows? I’ll ask around.’

  ‘Thanks. And it would be helpful if you could ask if anyone else knew Gabriel or his father.’ Bel took the precious memory stick. As soon as she had the chance, she would send it to a colleague who specialized in enhancing dodgy photos of the great and the good doing things they shouldn’t be doing with people they shouldn’t be doing them with.

  ‘I have a better idea,’ Grazia said. ‘Why don’t I bring a pig down tonight? We can put it on the spit and you can meet everyone else. A nice bit of pork and a few glasses of wine and they’ll be ready to tell you all they know about this Gabriel and his father.’

  Renata grinned and raised her glass in a toast. ‘I’ll drink to that. But I’m warning you, Grazia, your pig might roast in vain. I don’t think this guy was very sociable. I don’t remember him joining in much with the party.’

  Grazia gathered her peapods together and stuffed them in a plastic bag. ‘Never mind. It’s a good excuse to have some fun with my neighbours. Bel, are you staying down here or do you want a ride back up the hill?’

  Now she had the prospect of gossiping with the whole community, Bel felt less urgency. ‘I’ll come back now, and see you girls later,’ she said, draining her wine.

  ‘Don’t you want to know about the blood?’ Giulia asked.

  Caught halfway out of her chair, Bel nearly fell over. ‘The blood on the floor, you mean?’ she said.

  ‘Oh. You know about it.’ Giulia sounded disappointed.

  ‘I know there’s a bloodstain on the floor of the kitchen,’ Bel said. ‘But that’s all I know.’

  ‘We went and had a look after the carabinieri left on Friday,’ Giulia said. ‘And the bloodstain was different from when I first saw it. The day after they left.’

  ‘Different how?’

  ‘It’s all brown and rusty now and soaked into the stone. But back then, it was still quite red and shiny. Like it was fresh.’

  ‘And you didn’t call the cops?’ Bel tried not to show her disbelief.

  ‘It wasn’t up to us,’ Renata said. ‘If the BurEst people had thought it was a police matter, they’d have made the call.’ She shrugged. ‘I know it seems strange to you, and if it had happened in Holland, I don’t know that I would have done nothing. But things are different here. Nobody on the left trusts them. You saw how the Italian police reacted at the G8 in Genoa, the way they treated the protesters. Giulia asked a few of us whether she should call the police and we all agreed that the only thing that would achieve would be to give the cops an excuse to blame the puppeteers, no matter what happened.’

  ‘So you just blanked it?’

  Renata shrugged. ‘It was in the kitchen. Who’s to say it wasn’t animal blood? It was none of our business.’<
br />
  Kirkcaldy

  Karen crawled along the street, checking the house numbers. This was the first time she’d visited Phil Parhatka’s new house in the centre of Kirkcaldy. He’d moved in three months before; kept promising a housewarming party but so far he hadn’t delivered. Once upon a time, Karen had harboured dreams of them buying a place together some day. But she’d got past that. A guy like Phil was never going to be drawn to a dumpy wee thing like her, especially once her latest promotion set her in authority over him. Some men might like the idea of screwing the boss. Karen knew instinctively that wasn’t part of Phil’s fantasy life. So she’d chosen the maintenance of their friendship and close working relationship over what she classified as adolescent hankerings. If she was going to have to settle for being a career-driven spinster, she could at least make sure the career was as satisfying as it could be.

  Part of the recipe for that job satisfaction was having someone to bounce ideas off. No individual detective was smart enough to see the whole picture of a complex investigation. Everyone needed a sounding board who saw things differently and was smart enough to articulate those differences. It was especially important in cold cases where, instead of leading a substantial team of officers, an SIO might have only one or two bodies at her disposal. And those foot soldiers usually didn’t have the experience to make their input as valuable as she wanted. For Karen, Phil ticked all the boxes. And judging by the number of times he ran his cases past her, it was a two-way street.

  Usually, they put their heads together in her office or in a quiet corner of a pub halfway between her house and his. But when she’d rung him on her way back from Peterhead, he’d already had a couple of glasses of wine. ‘I’m probably legal, but only just,’ he’d said. ‘Why don’t you come round to my place? You can help me choose my living-room curtains.’

  Karen spotted the house number she was looking for and parked across Phil’s driveway. She sat for a moment, wedded to the cop habit of checking out her surroundings before committing to leaving her vehicle. It was a quiet, unassuming street of stone semi-detached houses, square and solid, apparently as sound as when they’d first been built at the tail end of the nineteenth century. Gravel driveways and neat flowerbeds. Drawn curtains upstairs where children slept, shut off from the persistent daylight by heavy liners. She remembered how hard it had been to fall asleep on light summer evenings as a child. But her bedroom curtains had been thin. And her street had been noisy with music and conversations from the pub on the corner. Not like this. It was hard to believe the town centre was five minutes’ walk away. It felt like the distant suburbs.