A Darker Domain

by Val McDermid

  River handed them each a torch. ‘I haven’t taped off an approach route,’ she said, strapping on a head lamp. ‘Just stay as far to the left as you can.’

  They followed her bobbing light into the darkness. Karen gave a last look over her shoulder, but it was hard to see anything beyond Phil’s silhouette. The quality of the air changed as they passed the remains of the rock fall, the saltiness replaced by a faint mustiness tinged with the acid of old bird and bat droppings. A dull glow ahead of them indicated the spotlight on the video camera that was still running.

  River stopped as the walls fell back and broadened out into the chamber. Her torch augmented the camera light, revealing a small area of the earthen floor where the soil had been scraped back to create a shallow depression. Gleaming dull against the reddish brown earth was the unmistakable outline of a human skull.

  ‘You were right,’ Phil said softly.

  ‘You have no idea how much that pisses me off,’ Karen said heavily, taking in all the details. She turned away, gathering her thoughts. ‘Poor bastard, whoever you are.’

  Tuesday 3rd July 2007; Glenrothes

  Karen pulled into her parking space at headquarters and turned off the engine. She sat for a long moment, watching the rain reclaim her windscreen. This was not going to be the easiest morning of her career. She had a body, but technically it was the wrong body. She had to stop the Macaroon going off at half-cock and assuming this was one of Catriona Maclennan Grant’s kidnappers. And to do that, she would have to admit she’d been working on something he didn’t know about. Phil had been right. She shouldn’t have indulged her desire for hands-on policing. It was small consolation that she’d made more headway in the case of Mick Prentice than the woolly suits would have done. Getting out of this without a formal reprimand would be a result.

  Sighing, she grabbed her files and ran through the driving rain. She pushed the door open, head down, heading straight for the lifts. But Dave Cruickshank’s voice made her break stride. ‘DI Pirie,’ he called. ‘There’s a lady here to see you.’

  Karen turned as Jenny Prentice rose hesitantly from a chair in the reception area. She’d obviously made an effort. Her grey hair was neatly braided and her outfit was clearly the one she kept for best. The dark red wool coat would normally have been insanely warm for July, but not this year. ‘Mrs Prentice,’ Karen said, hoping the sinking of her heart wasn’t as obvious on the outside.

  ‘I need to speak to you,’ Jenny said. ‘It’ll not take long,’ she added, seeing Karen glance at the wall clock.

  ‘Good. Because I’ve not got long,’ Karen said. There was a small interview room off the foyer and she led the way there. She dumped her folders on a chair in one corner then sat opposite Jenny across a small table. She wasn’t in the mood for coaxing. ‘I take it you’ve come to answer the questions I tried to ask you yesterday?’

  ‘No,’ Jenny said, as mulish as Karen herself could be. ‘I’ve come to tell you to call it off.’

  ‘Call what off?’

  ‘This so-called missing person hunt for Mick.’ Her eyes locked defiantly with Karen’s. ‘He’s not missing. I know where he is.’

  It was the last thing Karen had expected to hear. ‘What do you mean, you know where he is?’

  Jenny shrugged. ‘I don’t know how else to put it. I’ve known for years where he was. And that he wanted nothing more to do with us.’

  ‘So why keep it a secret? Why am I only hearing this now? Don’t you understand the concept of wasting police time?’ Karen knew she was almost shouting, but she didn’t care.

  ‘I didn’t want to upset Misha. How would you feel if somebody told you your father wanted nothing to do with you? I wanted to spare her.’

  Karen stared at her uncertainly. Jenny’s voice and expression held conviction. But Karen couldn’t afford to take her at face value. ‘What about Luke? Surely you want to do everything you can to save him? Doesn’t Misha have the right to ask for his help?’

  Jenny looked at her with contempt. ‘You think I haven’t already asked him? I begged him. I sent him photos of wee Luke to try and change his mind. But he just said the boy was nothing to do with him.’ She looked away. ‘I think he’s got a new family now. We don’t matter to him. Men seem to manage that better than women.’

  ‘I’m going to need to talk to him,’ Karen said.

  Jenny shook her head. ‘No way.’

  ‘Look, Mrs Prentice,’ Karen said through mounting irritation, ‘a man has been reported missing. You say he’s not but I only have your word for that. I need to confirm what you’re telling me. I wouldn’t be doing my job right if I didn’t.’

  ‘And what happens then?’ Jenny gripped the edge of the table. ‘What do you say when Misha asks you how the investigation’s going? Do you lie to her? Is that part of your job? Do you lie to her and hope she never finds out the truth from some other polis somewhere down the line? Or do you tell the truth and let Mick break her heart all over again?’

  ‘It’s not my job to make those judgements. I’m supposed to find out the truth and then it’s out of my hands. You need to tell me where Mick is, Mrs Prentice.’ Karen knew she was hard to resist when she brought the full force of her personality to bear. But this defiant little woman was giving as good as she got.

  ‘All I’m telling you is that you’re wasting your time looking for a missing person that isn’t missing. Call it off, Inspector. Just call it off.’

  Something about Jenny Prentice was striking a bum note. Karen couldn’t identify what it was, but until she could, she wasn’t giving an inch. She stood up and pointedly stepped away to pick up her folders. ‘I don’t believe you. And anyway, you’re too late, Jenny,’ she said, turning back to face her. ‘We’ve found a body.’

  She’d read about the colour draining from people’s faces, but she’d never seen it before. ‘That can’t be right.’ Jenny’s voice was a whisper.

  ‘It’s right enough, Jenny. And the place we found it - thanks to you, we know it’s a place where Mick used to hang about.’ Karen opened the door. ‘We’ll be in touch.’ She waited pointedly while Jenny came to herself and shuffled out the door, a woman utterly reduced by words. For once, Karen had little sympathy. Whatever Jenny Prentice’s motives for that little performance, Karen was certain now that a performance was what it had been. Jenny had no more idea of where Mick Prentice was than Karen herself.

  All she had to do now was figure out why it was so important to Jenny that the police give up the hunt. Another encounter, another puzzle. They seemed to be walking hand in hand these days. Some weeks, you couldn’t buy a straight answer.

  ‘But that’s fantastic news, Inspector.’ It wasn’t often that Karen Pirie’s reports brought Simon Lees satisfaction, far less delight. But he couldn’t hide the fact that he was doubly pleased at what she had to tell him today. Not only had they uncovered a body that would progress a case dormant for over twenty years, but they’d also achieved it on a shoestring budget.

  Then a horrible thought occurred to him. ‘It is an adult skeleton?’ he said, apprehension tightening his chest.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Why was she looking so miserable about it? She’d acted on a hunch and it had come good. In her shoes, he’d be like a dog with two tails. Well, actually, that was pretty much how he felt anyway. This was his operation ultimately; its results reflected credit on him as much as on his officers. For once, she’d brought him sunshine instead of shit. ‘Well done,’ he said briskly, pushing his chair back. ‘I think we should go straight over to Rotheswell and break the good news to Sir Broderick.’ Her pudding face ran through a series of different expressions, ending in what looked very like consternation. ‘What’s wrong? You haven’t told him already?’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ she said slowly. ‘And that’s because I’m really not convinced this has anything to do with Adam Grant’s disappearance.’

  He understood the words, but it made no sense. She’d organized this whole o
peration on the basis that the cave fall had been discovered after the ransom disaster. She’d implied that one of the kidnappers could be lying underneath the rubble. He would never have authorized it otherwise. But now she seemed to be suggesting this body had nothing to do with the case she was supposed to be investigating. It was Alice-through-the-looking-glass stuff. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said plaintively. ‘You told me you thought there might be a boat. Implied there might be a body. And you find a body. But instead of celebrating being right, you’re telling me it’s the wrong body.’

  ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ she said, daring to smile.

  ‘But why?’ He could hear himself almost howling and he cleared his throat noisily. ‘Why?’ he repeated, an octave lower.

  She twisted in her seat and crossed her legs. ‘It’s a bit difficult to explain.’

  ‘I don’t care. Start somewhere. Preferably the beginning.’ Lees couldn’t stop his hands clenching and unclenching. He wished he still had the stress ball his kids had given him one Christmas, the stress ball he’d binned because he was far too much in control to need something like that.

  ‘We had a very unusual case come in the other day,’ she began. She sounded hesitant, a version of herself he’d never seen before. If this wasn’t so infuriating, he’d almost have been able to enjoy that. ‘A man reported missing by his daughter.’

  ‘That’s hardly unusual,’ he snapped.

  ‘It is when the disappearance happened in 1984. At the height of the miners’ strike,’ Karen shot straight back, all hesitancy gone. ‘I took a wee look at it, and discovered there were a couple of people who had good reason for wanting this guy out of the way. Both of them worked in the mining industry. Both of them knew about shot-firing rock. Neither of them would have been too hard-pressed to get their hands on explosives. And like I tried to explain to you before, sir, everybody round here knows about the caves.’ She paused momentarily and glared at him. It was a look that bordered on insubordination. ‘I knew you would never sanction digging out the rock fall on account of one striking miner on the missing list.’

  ‘So you lied?’ Lees pounced. He wasn’t taking this cavalier rebelliousness any longer.

  ‘No, I didn’t lie,’ she said calmly. ‘I was just a bit creative with the truth. That cave fall really was discovered after Catriona Maclennan Grant died. And the chopper couldn’t find the boat the kidnappers escaped in. What I gave you was a reasonable hypothesis. But on the balance of prob abilities, I’m saying this is more likely to be the body of Mick Prentice than some unknown kidnapper.’

  Lees could feel the blood pumping in his head. ‘Unbelievable.’

  ‘Actually, sir, I think you’d have to say we got a result. I mean, it’s not like we spent all this money for nothing. At least we’ve got a body to show for it. OK, it maybe gives us more questions than answers. But you know, sir, we talk about it being our job to speak for the dead, to get justice for people who can’t get it for themselves. If you look at it like that, this is an opportunity to serve.’

  Lees felt something snap inside his head. ‘An opportunity? What planet are you on? It’s a bloody nightmare. You’re supposed to be focusing all your resources on finding who killed Catriona Grant and what happened to her son, not farting around on some missing persons case from 1984. What am I supposed to say to Sir Broderick? “We’ll get round to your family once Inspector Pirie can be bothered.” You think you’re a law unto yourself,’ he raged. ‘You just drive a coach and horses through protocol. You follow your hunches as if they were based on something more than a woman’s intuition. You…you…’

  ‘Careful, sir. You’re bordering on sexism there,’ Karen said sweetly, her eyes wide with assumed innocence. ‘Men have intuition too. Only, you call it logic. Look on the bright side. If it is Mick Prentice, we’ve already put together a lot of information about what was going on around the time of his disappearance. We’ve got a head start on that murder inquiry. And it’s not like we’re ignoring the Grant case. I’m working closely with the Italian police, but these things take time. Of course, if I was to go out to Italy, it might speed things up…?’

  ‘You’re going nowhere. Once this is all over you may not even be - ’ The phone rang across the end of his threat. He grabbed it. ‘I thought I said no calls, Emma?…Yes, I know who Dr Wilde is…’ He sighed harshly. ‘Fine. Send her in.’ He replaced the phone carefully and glared at Karen. ‘We will be revisiting this. But Dr Wilde is here. Let’s see what she has to say.’

  The woman who walked in was not what he’d expected. For a start, she looked like an adolescent still waiting for their growth spurt. Barely five feet tall, she was lean as a whippet. Dark hair pulled back from a face dominated by large grey eyes and a wide mouth accentuated the comparison. She wore construction boots, jeans and denim shirt faded almost white in places under a battered waxed jacket. Lees had never seen anyone who looked less like an academic. She held out a slim hand, saying, ‘You must be Simon Lees. It’s a pleasure to meet you.’

  He looked at her hand, imagining the places it had been and the things it had touched. Trying not to shudder, he gripped her cool fingers briefly and gestured towards the other visitor’s chair. ‘Thank you for your help,’ he said, attempting to put his anger at Karen back in its box for now.

  ‘My pleasure,’ River said, sounding as if she meant it. ‘It’s a great opportunity for me to work a live case with my students. They get a lot of lab experience, but you can’t compare that to the real thing. And they’ve done a terrific job.’

  ‘So it seems. Now, am I to assume you are here because you have something to report?’ He knew he sounded stiff as one of her cadavers, but it was the only way he could keep himself under control. River exchanged a quick unreadable look with Karen and he felt his temper rising again. ‘Or do you need access to more facilities? Is that it?’

  ‘No. We have access to what we need. I just wanted to bring DI Pirie up to speed, and when DS Parhatka told me she was in a meeting with you, I thought I’d grab the chance to meet you. I hope I haven’t interrupted anything?’ River leaned forward, giving him the full benefit of a smile that reminded him of Julia Roberts’. It was hard to maintain anger in the teeth of a smile like that.

  ‘Not at all,’ he said, feeling calmer by the second. ‘It’s always good to put a face to the name.’

  ‘Even when it’s such a stupid name,’ River said ruefully. ‘Hippy parents, before you ask. Now, you’ll want to know what I’ve learned so far.’ She took out her pocket organizer and hit a couple of keys. ‘We worked late into the night to clear the skeleton and remove it from the shallow grave.’ She turned to Karen. ‘I’ve given Phil a copy of the video.’ Back to her organizer. ‘I did a preliminary examination early this morning and I can give you some information. Our skeleton is a male. He’s over twenty and less than forty. There is some hair, but it’s hard to tell what colour it was originally. It’s taken up stain from the soil. He’s had some dental work so once you narrow down the possibilities we can follow up on that. And we’ll be able to get DNA.’

  ‘When was he buried?’ Lees asked.

  River shrugged. ‘There are more extensive and expensive and time-consuming tests that we can do. But right now it’s hard to be precise about how long he’s been in the ground. However, I can say with a high degree of certainty that he was still alive for at least part of 1984.’

  ‘That’s amazing,’ Lees exclaimed. ‘You people in forensics astonish me.’

  Karen gave him a cool stare. ‘Loose change in his pockets, was there?’ she said to River.

  ‘Actually, no pockets left to speak of,’ River said. ‘He was wearing cotton and wool so it’s mostly gone. The coins were lying inside the pelvic girdle.’ She smiled at Lees again. ‘Sorry, not science this time. Just observation.’

  Lees cleared his throat, feeling foolish. ‘Is there anything else you can tell us at this stage?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ River said. ‘
He absolutely didn’t die a natural death.’

  San Gimignano

  As she drove round the car park for the third time in search of the elusive space, Bel cast her mind back to her memories of what San Gimignano had been like before it became a UNESCO World Heritage site. No question that it was worth the rating. The medieval inhabitants had used the soft grey limestone to build a huddled maze of streets around a central piazza with its ancient well. When it threatened to outgrow its massive city walls, they’d simply chosen to build tall rather than sprawl. Dozens of towers speared the skyline, giving a jagged, gap-toothed appearance from the plain below. Definitely unique. Definitely world heritage. And definitely ruined by its status.

  Bel had first come to the spectacular Tuscan hill town in the early eighties when the streets were almost empty of tourists. There were proper shops back then - bakers, greengrocers, butchers, cobblers. Shops where you could buy washing powder or underpants or a comb. Locals actually drank coffee in the bars and cafés. Now, it had been transformed. The only opportunity to buy proper food and clothes was at the Thursday market. Apart from that, everything was targeted at tourists. Enotecas selling overpriced vernaccia and chianti that the locals wouldn’t drink if you paid them. Leather stores, all selling identical factory-produced handbags and wallets. Souvenir shops and gelaterie. And of course, art galleries for those with more money than sense. Bel hoped it was the locals who were making the money, because they were the ones paying the highest price.

  At least the streets wouldn’t be too crowded so early in the day, ahead of the tour buses. Bel finally squeezed into a parking spot and headed for the vast stone portal that guarded the higher entry to the town. She had barely gone a hundred feet when she came to the first art gallery. The owner was just raising his shutters when she arrived. Bel checked him out; probably about her age, smooth skinned and dark haired, stylishly framed glasses that made his eyes look too small, a little too plump for the tight jeans and Ralph Lauren shirt. An appeal to his vanity would probably be the best approach. She waited patiently, then followed him inside. The walls were covered with prints and watercolours filled with the Tuscan clichés - cypress trees, sunflowers, rustic farmhouses, poppies. They were all well executed and pretty, but there wasn’t one she would have hung on her walls. Production-line paintings for tour-bus punters ticking off the next place on the list. God, she’d become a snob in her old age.