A Darker Domain

by Val McDermid

  Max and Luka instinctively threw themselves between her and Gabriel, dragging her back, keeping her clawing fingers from his eyes. Panting, she spat on the ground. ‘We loved you like a son,’ she wailed. Then something in German that sounded like a curse.

  ‘He killed my mother,’ Gabriel insisted. ‘Did you know that?’

  ‘I wish he’d killed you,’ she screamed.

  ‘Get her out of here,’ Rado shouted.

  Max and Luka hauled her to her feet and half-carried her towards the door. ‘Pray I never see you again,’ Ursula screamed as she disappeared.

  Rado crouched beside Gabriel. ‘What happened, man?’

  ‘My dad left me a letter.’ He shook his head, dazed with shock and drink. ‘It’s all over now, isn’t it? He killed my mother, but I’m the one who’s going to jail.’

  ‘Fuck, no,’ Rado said. ‘No way is Ursula going to the cops. It goes against everything she believes in.’ He put his arm round Gabriel. ‘Besides, we can’t let her drag us all into this shit. No way I’m going back where I came from. Matthias is dead, there’s nothing we can do to help him. No need to make things worse.’

  ‘She’s not going to let me get away with this,’ Gabriel said, leaning into Rado. ‘You heard her. She’s going to want to hurt me.’

  ‘We’ll help her,’ Rado said. ‘We love you, man. And eventually she’ll remember she does too.’

  Gabriel dropped his head into his hands and let the tears come. ‘What am I going to do?’ he wailed.

  Once his sobbing had subsided, Rado pulled him to his feet. ‘I hate to sound like a cold-hearted bastard, but the first thing you need to do is help me get rid of Matthias’s body.’

  ‘What?’

  Rado spread his hands. ‘No body, no murder. Even if we can’t keep Ursula away from the cops, they’re not going to sweat it if there’s no body.’

  ‘You want me to help you bury him?’ Gabriel sounded faint, as if this was one step more than he could manage.

  ‘Bury him? No. Buried bodies have a way of turning up. We’re going to carry him down to the field. Maurizio’s pigs will eat anything.’

  By morning, Gabriel knew Rado had been right.

  Thursday 5th July 2007; Celadoria, near Greve in Chianti

  Remembering that night now, Gabriel felt as though Bel Richmond was hollowing his stomach out with a spoon. Losing his father had been bad enough. But Daniel’s letter and what it had led to had been devastating. It was as if his life was a piece of fabric that had been ripped from top to bottom and tossed in a heap. If the letter had plummeted him into a state of turmoil, killing Matthias had made matters infinitely worse. His father had not been the man he thought he was. His lies had poisoned so much. But Gabriel himself was worse than a liar. He was a killer. He’d committed an act that he would never have believed himself capable of. With such fundamental elements of his life exposed as a fantasy, how could he cling to any of it with confidence?

  He’d grown up thinking his mother was an art teacher called Catherine. That she’d died giving birth to him. Gabriel had struggled with that guilt for as long as he could remember. He’d seen his father’s isolation and sadness and had shouldered the blame for that too. He’d grown up carrying a weight that was completely bogus.

  He didn’t know who he was any more. His history had been just a story, made up to protect Daniel and Matthias from the consequences of the terrible thing they’d been part of. For their sake, he’d been wrenched out of the country where he belonged and brought up on alien soil. Who knew what his life would have been if he’d grown up in Scotland instead of Italy? He felt cast adrift, rootless and deliberately cheated out of his birthright.

  His torment was made worse by constant fear, shivering behind him like the backdrop in a puppet booth. Every time he heard the sound of a car, he was on his feet, back to the wall, convinced that this time it was the carabinieri come for him at Ursula’s insistence. He’d tried to cover his tracks, but he didn’t have his father’s experience and he was afraid he hadn’t succeeded.

  But time had crawled past and after a few weeks of being holed up like a sick animal, he had started to put himself back together. Gradually, he’d managed to find a way to distance the guilt, telling himself Matthias had lived free and clear for over twenty years, never paying a penny of the debt that was owed for Catriona’s death. All Gabriel had done was force him to make amends for the life he’d stolen from all of them - Catriona, Daniel and Gabriel himself. It wasn’t entirely satisfactory from the perspective of the morality Daniel had instilled in him, but holding fast to this conviction made it possible for Gabriel to attempt to move forward, accommodating his remorse and assimilating his pain.

  One overwhelming imperative drove him forward. He wanted to find the family that was his by rights, the clan he’d always craved, the tribe he belonged to. He wanted the home he’d been denied, a land where people looked like him rather than escapees from medieval paintings. But he’d known he wasn’t ready yet. He had to get his head straight before he attempted to take on Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant. The little he had been able to glean from his father’s letter, from Matthias and from the internet had left him certain that Grant would not give any claimant an easy time. Gabriel knew he needed to be able to hold his own and to keep his story straight in case that terrible April night ever came back to haunt him.

  And now it looked as if it had. Fucking Bel Richmond with her digging and her determination was going to destroy the one hope he’d been clinging to for the past weeks. She knew she was on to something. Gabriel hadn’t had much to do with the media, but he knew enough to realize that now she had the threads of her story, she wouldn’t give up till she had nailed him. And when she published her scoop, any hope he had of making a new life with his mother’s family would be dead in the water. Brodie Grant wouldn’t be happy to embrace a murderer. Gabriel couldn’t let it happen. He couldn’t lose everything for a second time. It wasn’t fair. It so wasn’t fair.

  Somehow, he remained composed, meeting her long level stare. He had to find out exactly what she knew. ‘What do you think happened?’ he said, a sneer on his face. ‘Or should I say, what are you planning to tell the world happened?’

  ‘I think you killed Matthias. I don’t know whether you planned it or it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. But, like I said, there’s a witness who can put you two together earlier that day. The only reason he hasn’t told the police is that he doesn’t understand the significance of what he saw. Of course, if I was to explain that to him…Well, it’s not rocket science, is it, Adam? It took me three days to find you. I know the carabinieri have a reputation for being a bit slow on the uptake, so it might take them a bit longer. Time enough to get yourself under the protective wing of your grandfather, I’d have thought. Oh, but he’s not your grandfather, is he? That’s just my little fantasy.’

  ‘You can’t prove any of this,’ he said. He poured the last of the wine into her glass then went over to the wine rack to fetch another. He felt cornered. He’d come through a terrible ordeal. And now this fucking woman was going to steal the one hope that had held him together. His challenge was his way of giving her a chance to prevent him having to do whatever it took to stop her.

  He glanced over his shoulder. Bel wasn’t really paying attention to him now; she was absorbed in the chase, focused on turning the interview in the direction she sought. Absently, she said, ‘There are ways. And I know all of them.’

  He’d given her the chance and she’d deflected it. His past was corrupt beyond redemption. All he had left was the future. He couldn’t let her take that from him. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said, coming up behind her.

  At the last minute, some primitive warning signal hit her brain and she swung round just in time to catch a flash of the blade as it headed unwaveringly for her.

  Kirkcaldy

  After Phil had made the first move, things had progressed at breakneck speed. Clothes stripped. Skin to feverish skin. Him on
top. Her on top. Then to the bedroom. Face down, his hands cupping her breasts, her hands clinging to the struts of the bed-head. When they finally needed to pause for a second wind, they lay on their sides, grinning stupidly at each other.

  ‘Whatever happened to foreplay?’ Karen said, a giggle in her voice.

  ‘That’s what working together all these years has been,’ Phil said. ‘Foreplay. You getting me all het up. Your mind’s as sexy as your body, you know that?’

  She slid a hand down between them and let her fingertips caress the soft skin below his belly button. ‘I have wanted to do this for so long.’

  ‘Me too. But I really didn’t want to fuck things up between us at work. We’re a good team. I didn’t want to chance spoiling that. We both love our work too much to risk it. Plus it’s against the rules.’

  ‘So what’s changed?’ Karen said, a hollow feeling in her stomach.

  ‘There’s an inspector’s job coming up in Dunfermline and I’ve been told unofficially that it’s mine for the asking.’

  Karen pulled away, leaning on one elbow. ‘You’re leaving CCRT?’

  He sighed. ‘I’ve got to. I need to move up and there’s not room for another inspector in the CCRT. Besides, this way I get to have you too.’ His face screwed up in anxiety. ‘If that’s what you want. Obviously.’

  She knew how much he loved working cold cases. She also knew he was ambitious. After she’d blocked his career path with her promotion, she’d expected him to go sooner or later. What she hadn’t bargained for was that she might figure in his calculations. ‘It’s the right move for you,’ she said. ‘Better get out quick before the Macaroon realizes he should hate you as much as he hates me. I’ll miss working with you, though.’

  He wriggled close to her, gently rubbing the palms of his hands against her nipples. ‘There will be compensations,’ he said.

  She let her hand drift downwards. ‘Apparently,’ she said. ‘But it’s going to take a lot to make it up to me.’

  Boscolata, Tuscany

  Carabiniere Nico Gallo crushed the cigarette under the heel of his highly polished boot and pushed himself off the olive tree he was leaning against. He brushed off the back of his shirt and his tightly fitting breeches and set off again along the path that bordered Boscolata’s olive grove.

  He was fed up. Hundreds of miles from his home in Calabria, living in a barracks only marginally better than a fisherman’s shack, and still getting the shitty end of every assignment, he could hardly get through a day without regretting choosing a career in the carabinieri. His grandfather, who had encouraged him in his choice, had told him how women fell for men in uniform. That might have been the case in the old man’s day, but it was the polar opposite now. All the women of his age he seemed to meet were feminists, environmentalists or anarchists. To them, his uniform was a provocation of a very different kind.

  And to him, Boscolata was just another hippie commune inhabited by people with no respect for society. He bet they didn’t pay their taxes. And he bet that the killer who had claimed the unknown victim at the Villa Totti wasn’t far from where he was walking now. It was a waste of time, having a night patrol out here. If the killer had wanted to cover his tracks, he’d had months to do it. And even now, Nico reckoned everybody in Boscolata knew how to get inside the ruined villa without him having a clue they were in there. If this had been his village back in the south, that’s exactly how it would have been.

  Another round of the olive grove and he was going back to his car for a cup from the flask of espresso he’d thoughtfully brought with him. These were the milestones that made it possible to stay awake and alert: coffee, cigarettes and chewing gum. When he got to the corner closest to the Villa Totti, he could have another cigarette.

  As the sound of his match died away, Gallo realized there was another noise on the night air. This far up the hill, the night was silent but for the crickets, the odd night bird and the occasional dog barking. But now the silence had been invaded by the straining sound of an engine climbing the steep dirt road to Boscolata and beyond. But curiously, it wasn’t matched with the brilliance of headlights on full beam. He could make out pale glimmers through the trees and hedgerows, as if the vehicle was travelling on sidelights. Only one reason for that, in his books. The driver was up to something he didn’t want to draw attention to.

  Gallo glanced ruefully at his cigarette. He’d made sure he had enough for the night’s duty, but that didn’t mean he wanted to waste one. So he cupped it in his hand and moved closer to the villa to cut off anyone attempting to enter the crime scene.

  It soon became clear he’d made the wrong choice. Instead of heading towards Boscolata and the villa, the lights swerved off to the right at the far end of the olive trees. Cursing, Gallo took a last drag on his cigarette then started down the side of the grove as quickly and as quietly as he could.

  He could just about make out the shape of a small hatchback. It stopped at the end of the trees, where the Totti property butted up against the substantial acreage farmed by the guy with the pigs. Maurizio, wasn’t that the old man’s name? Something like that. Gallo, about twenty metres away, edged closer, trying not to make a sound.

  The car’s interior light came on as the driver’s door swung open. Gallo saw a tallish guy wearing dark sweats and a baseball cap get out and open the tailgate. He seemed to be dragging out a rolled-up carpet or something similar, bending down to get his body underneath to take the weight. As he straightened up, staggering a little under the weight of his burden as he approached the sturdy wire fence that kept the pigs penned in, Gallo realized with a horrible lurch of his stomach that this wasn’t an instance of midnight fly-tipping but something much more serious. The evil fucker was about to feed a body to the pigs. Everybody knew pigs would eat bloody anything and everything. And this was indisputably a body.

  He grabbed his torch and turned it on. ‘Police! Freeze!’ he shouted in the most melodramatic style he could muster. The man stumbled, tripped and fell forward, his burden landing athwart the fence. He regained his feet and raced back to the car, reaching it seconds before Gallo. He jumped in and started the engine, throwing it into reverse just as Gallo hurled himself at the bonnet. The carabiniere tried to hang on, but the car was speeding backwards towards the track, jouncing and jittering every metre of the way and he finally slid off in an ignominious heap as the car disappeared into the night.

  ‘Oh God,’ he groaned, rolling over so he could reach his radio. ‘Control? This is Gallo, on guard at the Villa Totti.’

  ‘Roger that, Gallo. What’s your ten?’

  ‘Control, I don’t know the ten-code for this. But some guy just tried to dump a body in a pig field.’

  Friday 6th July 2007; Kirkcaldy

  The phone penetrated Karen’s light sleep on the first ring. Dazed and disorientated, she groped for it, thrilled into full consciousness by the mumble of, ‘Phone,’ next to her ear. He was still here. No hit and run. He was still here. She grabbed the phone, forcing sticky eyelids apart. The clock read 05.47. She was CCRT. She didn’t get calls at this time of the morning any more. ‘DI Pirie,’ she grunted.

  ‘Morning, DI Pirie,’ a disgustingly bright voice said. ‘This is Linda from Force Control. I’ve just had a Capitano di Stefano on from the carabinieri in Siena. I wouldn’t usually have woken you, but he said it was urgent.’

  ‘It’s OK, Linda,’ Karen said, rolling away from Phil and trying to get her head into work mode. What the hell could be quarter-to-six-in-the-morning urgent on a three-month-old maybe murder? ‘Fire away.’

  ‘There’s not much to fire, Inspector. He said to tell you he’s emailed you a photo to see if you can ID it. And it’s urgent. He said it three times, so I think he meant it.’

  ‘I’ll get right on to it. Thanks, Linda.’ She replaced the phone and Phil immediately pulled her to him with a different kind of urgency.

  She squirmed round, trying to free herself from his grip.

 
‘I need to get up,’ she protested.

  ‘So do I.’ He covered her mouth with his and started kissing her.

  Karen pulled away, gasping. ‘Can you do quickies?’ He laughed. ‘I thought women didn’t like quickies.’ ‘Better learn how if you’re going back on front-line policing,’ she said, drawing him into her.

  Feeling only mildly guilty, Karen logged on to her email. The promised message from di Stefano was the latest addition to her inbox. She clicked it open and set the attachment to download while she read the brief note. Someone tryed to feed a body to Maurizio Rossi’s Cinta di Siena pigs. Maybe this is where the other victim went. Here is a picture of the face. Maybe you know who it is? God, that was a nasty thought. She’d heard that pigs had been known to eat everything but the belt buckle when unfortunate farmers had had accidents inside their pens, but it would never have occurred to her to consider it as a means of body disposal.

  And then an even nastier thought occurred to her. Pig eats victim. Pig incorporates human into its own meat. Pig gets turned into salami. And people end up eating people. Somehow, she didn’t think Maurizio Rossi was going to have much of a business left once this got out.

  Karen hesitated, wondering why di Stefano thought she might recognize the victim. Could this be Adam Maclennan Grant, his future with his grandfather snatched from him at the last moment? Or the mysteriously disappeared Matthias, aka Toby Inglis? Anxiety dried her mouth, but she clicked on the attachment.

  The face that filled her screen was definitely dead. The spark that animated even coma patients was entirely absent. But it was still shockingly unmistakable. The day before, Karen had interviewed Bel Richmond. And now she was dead.