by Val McDermid
‘Freda Callow.’ Sounds like Frida Kahlo. The cheeky bastard.
‘He has a sense of humour, our Daniel Porteous.’
Dundee
Karen found River at the university, sitting at her laptop in a small room lined with shelves of plastic boxes crammed with tiny bones. ‘What in the name of God is this place?’ she said, plonking herself down on the only other chair.
‘The professor here is the world’s leading expert in the bones of babies and young children. You ever seen a foetus’s skull?’
Karen shook her head. ‘And I don’t want to, thank you very much.’
River grinned. ‘OK, I won’t make you. Let’s just say when you’ve seen that, you understand where ET came from. So, I take it this isn’t a social visit?’
Karen snorted. ‘Oh, sure. The anatomy department of Dundee University is my number one destination when I want a good day out. No, River, this is not a social visit. I’m here because I need a clear chain of custody on a piece of evidence in a homicide inquiry.’ She placed a sheet of paper on the desk. Angela Kerr’s solicitor had been quick off the mark. ‘That is the DNA of Andy Kerr’s sister Angie. I’m formally requesting that you compare it with the DNA extracted from the human remains discovered in the area known as the Thane’s Cave lying between East Wemyss and Buckhaven. You’ll get that in writing as soon as I get back to my desk.’
River looked at it with curiosity. ‘Fast work, Karen. Where did this come from?’ she asked.
‘Angie Mackenzie is a woman of foresight,’ Karen said. ‘She lodged it with her lawyer. Just in case a body ever turned up.’ As she spoke, River was tapping keys on her laptop.
‘I’ll do you a detailed report in writing,’ she said slowly, distracted by what she was looking at. ‘And I’ll need to scan this in to be certain…But quick and dirty says these two people are closely related.’ She looked up. ‘Looks like you might have an ID for your mystery man.’
Siena
How, Bel wondered, could Italian investigative journalists cope? She’d thought British bureaucracy wearisome and cumbersome. But compared to Italian red tape, it was open access all areas. First there had been the office-to-office shuttle. Then the form-filling shuffle. Then the blank-stared shut-out from officials who clearly minded their leisure being interrupted by someone who wanted them to do their job. It was a miracle anyone ever managed to find out anything in this country.
Towards the end of the morning, she began to fear that time would run out before she had learned what she needed to know. Then, with minutes to go before the registry office closed for lunch, a bored-looking bottle blonde called her name. Bel rushed to the counter, fully expecting to be fobbed off till the next day. Instead, in exchange for a bundle of unreceipted euros, she was handed two sheets of paper that appeared to have been photocopied on a machine painfully short of toner. One was headed Certifcato di Morte, the other Certificato di Residenza. In the end, she’d got more than she’d bargained for.
The death certificate of Daniel Simeon Porteous stated simply that he had died on 7th April 2007 at the age of fifty-two at the Policlinico Le Scotte, Siena. His parents were named as Nigel and Rosemary Porteous. And that was it. No cause of death, no address. About as much use as a chocolate teapot, Bel thought bitterly. She considered going to the hospital to see if she could find anything out, but dismissed the idea at once. Breaching the walls of officialdom would be impossible for someone who didn’t know the system. And the chances of finding someone bribable who remembered Daniel Porteous after this much time were remote and probably beyond her command of the language.
With a sigh, she turned to the other certificate. It seemed to be a short list of addresses and dates. It didn’t take her long to figure out that this was a record of where Daniel had lived since he had come to the Commune di Siena in 1986. And that the last address on the list was where he had been living when he died. Even more surprising was that she knew more or less where it was. Costalpino was the last village she’d driven through on her way from Campora. The main road twisted down through its main street in a series of curves, the road flanked with houses, the occasional shop or bar tucked alongside.
Bel practically ran back to the car in spite of the sweaty heat of the middle of the day. She gasped with gratitude as the air conditioning kicked in and wasted no time getting out of the car park and on to the road heading for Costalpino. The man behind the counter of the first bar she came to provided excellent directions, and a mere fifteen minutes after leaving Siena she was parking a few doors down from the house where she expected to find Gabriel Porteous. It was a pleasant street, wider than most in that part of Tuscany. Tall trees shaded the narrow pavements and waist-high walls topped with iron railings separated small but well-kept villas from each other. Bel felt the pulse of excitement in her throat. If she was right, she could be about to come face to face with Catriona Maclennan Grant’s lost son. The police had failed twice, but Bel Richmond was about to show them all how it was done.
So confident was she that she could hardly credit the sign on the front of the yellow stuccoed villa. She checked the numbers again to make sure she was standing before the right house, but there was no mistake. The dark green shutters were pulled tight. The plants in the tall terracotta pots that lined the driveway looked tired and dusty. Occasional weeds were poking through the gravel and junk mail poked out of the mailbox. All of which reinforced the Se Vende sign with the name and number of an estate agent in nearby Sovicille. Wherever Gabriel Porteous was, it looked like it wasn’t here.
It was a setback. But it wasn’t the end of the world. She’d overcome bigger obstacles than this on her way to the stories that had built her reputation as someone who could deliver. All she had to do was formulate a plan of campaign and follow it through. And for once, if she came up against stuff she couldn’t do, she could call on Brodie Grant’s resources to make it happen. It wasn’t exactly a comforting feeling, but it was better than nothing.
Before she headed off for Sovicille, she decided to check out the neighbours. It wouldn’t be the first time that somebody who knew they were being looked for went out of their way to make their home look uninhabited. Bel had already noticed a man on the loggia of a villa diagonally opposite the Porteous house. There had been nothing covert about the way he had been watching her walk up the street and study the sign. Time for a little stretching of the truth.
She crossed the road and greeted him with a wave. ‘Hello,’ she said.
The man, who could have been anywhere from mid-fifties to mid-seventies, gave her an appraising look, making her wish she’d worn a loose T-shirt rather than the close-fitting spaghetti-strapped top she’d chosen that morning. She loved Italy, but God, she hated the way so many of the men eyed up women as if they were meat on the hoof. This one wasn’t even good looking: one eye bigger than the other, a nose like an ill-favoured parsnip and hair spurting out of the top of his vest. He smoothed down an eyebrow with his little finger and gave her a crooked smile. ‘Hello,’ he said, managing to make it sound freighted with meaning.
‘I’m looking for Gabriel,’ she said. She gestured over her shoulder to the house. ‘Gabriel Porteous. I’m a friend of the family, from England. I haven’t seen Gabriel since Daniel died, and this is the only address I have. But it’s up for sale, and it doesn’t look like Gabe’s still living there.’
The man stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged. ‘Gabriel hasn’t lived here for more than a year now. He’s supposed to be studying some place, I don’t know where. He was back for a while before his father died, but I haven’t seen him for a couple of months now.’ His smile reappeared, a little wider than before. ‘If you want to give me your number, I could call you if he shows up?’
Bel smiled. ‘That’s very kind, but I’m only going to be here for a few days. You said Gabe’s “supposed” to be studying.’ She gave him a look of complicity. ‘Like you think he’s up to his old games?’
It did the trick.
‘Daniel, he worked hard. He didn’t mess about. But Gabe? He’s always messing about, hanging out with his friends. I never saw him with a book in his hands. What kind of studying is he going to be doing? If he’d been serious, he’d have signed up at the university in Siena, so he could live at home and only think about his studies. But no, he goes off some place he can have a good time.’ He tutted. ‘Daniel was sick for weeks before Gabe showed up.’
‘Maybe Daniel didn’t tell him he was ill. He’s always been a very private person,’ Bel said, making it up as she went along.
‘A good son would have visited regularly enough to know,’ the man said stubbornly.
‘And you’ve no idea where he’s studying?’
The man shook his head. ‘No. I saw him on the train one time. I was coming back from Firenze. So, somewhere up north. Firenze, Bologna, Padova, Perugia. Could be anywhere.’
‘Oh well. I guess I’ll just have to try the estate agent. I really wanted to see him. I feel bad about missing the funeral. Were many of the old crowd here?’
He looked surprised. ‘It was a private funeral. None of us neighbours knew anything about it till it was all over. I spoke to Gabe afterwards. I wanted to pay my respects, you know? He said his father had wanted it that way. But now, you’re talking like there was something to miss.’ He took out a pack of cigarettes and lit up. ‘You can’t trust kids to tell you the truth.’
There was no real reason why she should try to cover her tracks with someone she would never meet again, but she’d always believed in keeping her hand in. ‘What I was talking about was more of a gathering for some of Daniel’s old friends. Not a funeral as such.’
He nodded. ‘The arty crowd. Kept them separate from his friends in the village. I met a couple of them once. They turned up at the villa when a few of us were round there playing cards. Another English guy and a German woman.’ He hawked and spat over the stone balustrade. ‘I’ve got no time for the Germans. That Englishman, though. You’d have thought he was German, the way he acted.’
‘Matthias?’ Bel guessed.
‘That’s the one. High-handed. Treated Daniel like he was dirt. Like he was the one with the brains and the talent. And very amused to find Daniel playing cards with the locals. The funny thing was, Daniel let him get away with it. We didn’t stick around, just finished the hand and left them to it. If that’s your arty intellectuals, you can keep them.’
‘I never had much time for Matthias myself,’ Bel said. ‘Anyway, thanks for your help. I’ll head over to Sovicille and see if the agents can put me in touch with Gabe.’
It was amazing how even the least promising encounter could add to your store of knowledge, Bel thought as she set off again. Now she had a second source who thought Matthias was English, in spite of his Teutonic name and German partner. A Brit who didn’t acknowledge his roots, who had artistic leanings, a connection to the ransom notes and a friendship with the man whose son looked eerily like Cat Grant and her father. It was starting to make a tantalizing shape in her mind.
Two young men, struggling artists, aware of Cat Grant because she moved in the same circles. Aware, too, of her father’s wealth. They hatch a plan to feather their nests. Kidnap Cat and her kid, make it look like some political thing. Take off with the ransom and never have to paint for anyone but themselves ever again. Say it fast, it sounds like a great idea. Only it all goes horribly wrong and Cat dies. They’re left with the kid and the ransom money, but now they’re the focus of a murder manhunt.
Professional criminals would know what to do and be cold-hearted enough to do it. But these are nice, civilized boys who thought they were indulging in something only marginally more serious than an art college prank. They’ve got a boat, so they just keep going across the North Sea to Europe. Daniel ends up in Italy, Matthias in Germany. And somewhere along the line, they decide not to kill or abandon the child. For whatever reason, they keep him. Daniel brings him up as his son. Cushioned by the ransom money, he sets them up in comfort then, ironically, becomes a reasonably successful artist. But he can’t cash in on his success with media interviews and personality-based marketing because he knows he’s a criminal on the run. And he knows his son is not Gabriel Porteous. He’s Adam Maclennan Grant, a young man cursed with a distinctive face.
It was an attractive scenario, no doubt about it. It begged questions, true - How did they get their hands on the ransom, given that they were floundering round in the dark trying to find the dead woman who’d been carrying it? How did they outwit the tracking devices the cops had planted on the ransom? How did they get away by boat and not get spotted by the helicopter? How would a couple of art students have got hold of a gun back then? All good questions, but ones she was sure she could finesse one way or another. She’d have to; this was too good to pass by just for the sake of a few awkward details.
She’d known she was on to a good thing with her unique access to Brodie Grant, but this was infinitely better than she could have hoped for. This was the kind of story that would make her name. Establish her as one of that handful of journalists whose name alone stood for the story. Stanley with the discovery of Dr Livingstone. Woodward and Bernstein with Watergate. Max Hastings with the liberation of Port Stanley. Now they’d be able to include Annabel Richmond with the unmasking of Adam Maclennan Grant.
There were lots of gaps in the story at this point, but they could be filled in later. What Bel needed now was the young man known as Gabriel Porteous. With or without his cooperation, she needed a sample of his DNA so Brodie Grant could establish whether this really was his missing grandson. And then her fame was assured. Newspaper features, a book, maybe even a movie. It was a thing of beauty.
The estate agent’s office was tucked in a side street just off Via Nuova. The window was filled with A4 sheets displaying photographs and a few details of each property. The Porteous villa was there, its rooms and facilities enumerated without comment. Bel pushed open the door and found herself in a small, grey office. Grey filing cabinets, grey carpet, pale walls, grey desks. The only inhabitant, a woman in her thirties, was like a bird of paradise by comparison. Her scarlet blouse and turquoise necklace blazed brightly, drawing the eye to her tumble of dark hair and perfectly made-up face. She was definitely making the most of what she had, Bel thought as they made their way through the pleasantries.
‘I’m afraid I’m not actually in the market for a property,’ Bel said, making an apologetic gesture. ‘I’m trying to contact the owner of the villa you have for sale in Costalpino. I was an old friend of Gabriel Porteous’s father, Daniel. Sadly, I was in Australia when Daniel died. I’m back in Italy for a while and I wanted to see Gabriel, to pay my respects. Is it possible for you to put me in touch with him?’
The woman rolled her eyes. ‘I’m really sorry. I can’t do that.’
Bel reached for her wallet. ‘I could pay for your time,’ she said, using one of the traditional formulae for corruption.
‘No, no, it’s not that,’ the woman said, not in the least offended. ‘When I say I can’t, that’s what I mean. Not that I won’t. I can’t.’ She sounded flustered. ‘It’s very unusual. I don’t have an address or a phone number or even an email for Signor Porteous. Not even a mobile phone. I tried to explain this was very unconventional, and he said, so was he. He said now his father was dead, he planned to go travel ling and he didn’t want to be tied down to his past.’ She gave a wry little smile. ‘The sort of thing young men think is very romantic.’
‘And the rest of us think is impossibly self-indulgent,’ Bel said. ‘Gabriel always had a mind of his own. But how are you supposed to sell the house if you can’t contact him? How can he agree to a sale?’
The woman spread her hands. ‘He phones us every Monday. I said to him, “What if someone comes in on a Tuesday morning with an offer?” He said, “In the old days people had to wait for letters to go back and forth. It wouldn’t kill them to wait till the next Monday if they’re serious about buying the hous
e.”’
‘And have there been many offers?’
The woman looked glum. ‘Not at that price. I think he needs to drop at least five thousand before anyone will get serious. But we’ll see. It’s a nice house, it should find a buyer. He’s emptied it too, which makes the rooms look so much bigger.’
Since Bel’s next suggestion had been that she take a look round to see if there were any clues to Gabriel’s whereabouts, that last revelation came as a disappointment. Instead, she fished a business card from her Filofax. One of the ones that had her name, her mobile number and her email address. ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘Perhaps when he rings on Monday you could ask him to get in touch? I knew his father for the best part of twenty years, I’d just like to get together.’ She handed the card over.
Scarlet fingernails plucked it from her hand. ‘Sure, I’ll pass the message on. And if you ever want a property around here…?’ She waved at the array of details in the window. ‘We’ve got a great selection. I always say we are on the unfashionable side of the autostrada so the prices are lower but the properties are just as beautiful.’
Bel walked back to the car, knowing there was nothing else she could do here. Five days until Gabriel Porteous would get her message, and then who knew whether he would get in touch? If he didn’t, tracking him down would be a job for a private detective in Italy, someone who knew the ropes and the right hands to ply with brown envelopes of cash. It would still be her story, but someone else could do the grunt work. Meanwhile she needed to get back to Rotheswell to see if she could nail down a chat with Fergus Sinclair.
Time to exploit the resources Brodie Grant had put at her disposal. She dialled Susan Charleson’s number. ‘Hello, Susan,’ she said. ‘I need a flight back to the UK asap.’
Glenrothes
