A Darker Domain

by Val McDermid

  A1, Firenze-Milano

  There had been no reason to ditch Bel’s hire car, Gabriel had decided. Not at this point. That mad bastard cop had shaken the living daylights out of him, but he couldn’t have seen the licence plate. Nobody would be connecting a car hired by an English journalist with what had happened on the Boscolata hillside. Putting distance between himself and Tuscany was the most important thing now. Leave the past and its terrible necessities behind. Make a clean break and drive straight into the future.

  It had been horrible, but he’d stripped the body, partly to make it easier for the pigs to do his dirty work for him, and partly to make it harder to identify her in the unlikely event that she was found soon enough to make identification a possibility. As it had turned out, that had been a great decision. It had been bad enough when that crazy cop had appeared out of nowhere. It would have been a million times worse if he’d left anything on the body that could make it easier to work out who she was.

  And so the car would be safe for now. He’d park it in the long-stay at Zurich airport and pick up a flight. Thanks to Daniel’s insistence that there was nothing for him there but pain and ghosts, he’d never been to the UK before, had no idea what the security would be like. But there was no reason for them to look twice at him and his British passport.

  He wished he hadn’t had to kill Bel. It wasn’t like he was some stone-cold killing machine. But he’d already lost everything once. He knew what that felt like, and he couldn’t bear it to happen again. Even mice fight when they’re cornered and he definitely had more bottle than a mouse. She’d left him no choice. Like Matthias, she’d pushed him too far. OK, it had been different with Matthias. That time, he’d lost control. Realizing that someone he’d loved since childhood had been his mother’s killer had cracked open some well of pain in his head and he’d stabbed him before he even knew he had a knife in his hand.

  With Bel, he’d known what he was doing. But he’d acted in self-preservation. He’d been on the very point of contacting his grandfather when Bel barged into his life, threatening everything. The last thing he needed was her spilling the beans, linking him to Matthias’s murder. He wanted to arrive at his grandfather’s house with a clean sheet, not have the life he’d been denied fucked up by some muck-raking journalist.

  He kept telling himself that he’d done what he had to do. And that it was good that he felt bad about it. It showed he was basically a decent person. He’d been ambushed by events. It didn’t mean he was a bad person. He desperately needed to believe that. He was on his way to start a new life. Within days, Gabriel Porteous would be dead and Adam Maclennan Grant would be safely under the wing of his rich and powerful grandfather.

  There would be time to feel remorse later.

  Rotheswell Castle

  Susan Charleson clearly didn’t like the police turning up without prior invitation. The few minutes’ notice between Karen’s arrival at the gate and her presence on the front doorstep hadn’t been quite long enough for Grant’s right-hand woman to disguise her affront. ‘We weren’t expecting you,’ replaced the welcome that had been applied previously. ‘Where is he?’ Karen swept in, forcing Susan to take a couple of quick steps to the side.

  ‘If you mean Sir Broderick, he is not yet available.’ Karen made an ostentatious study of her watch. ‘Twenty-seven minutes past seven. I’m betting he’s still at his breakfast. Are you going to take me to him, or am I going to have to find him myself?’

  ‘This is outrageous,’ Susan said. ‘Does Assistant Chief Constable Lees know you’re here, behaving in this highhanded manner?’

  ‘I’m sure he soon will,’ Karen said over her shoulder as she set off down the hall. She threw open the first door she came to: a cloakroom. The next door: an office.

  ‘Stop that,’ Susan said sharply. ‘You are exceeding your authority, Inspector.’ The next door: a small drawing room. Karen could hear Susan’s running feet behind her. ‘Fine,’ Susan snapped as she overtook Karen. She stopped in front of her, spreading her arms wide, apparently under the illusion that would stop Karen if she was seriously minded to continue. ‘I’ll take you to him.’

  Karen followed her through to the rear of the building. Susan opened the door on to a bright breakfast room that looked over to the lake and woods beyond. Karen had no eyes for the view or for the buffet laid out on the long sideboard. All she was interested in was the couple sitting at the table, their son perched between them. Grant immediately stood up and glowered at her. ‘What’s going on?’ he said.

  ‘It’s time for Lady Grant to get Alec ready for school,’ Karen said, realizing she was sounding like a bad script but not caring how foolish that felt.

  ‘How dare you barge into my home shouting the odds.’ His was the first raised voice, but he appeared not to notice.

  ‘I’m not shouting, sir. What I have to say, it’s not appropriate for me to say in front of a child.’ Karen met his glare, not backing down. Somehow, this morning she had lost what little fear of consequences she possessed.

  Grant gave a quick, nonplussed look at his son and wife. ‘Then we’ll go elsewhere, Inspector.’ He led the charge to the door. ‘Susan, coffee. In my office.’

  Karen struggled to keep up with his long stride, barely catching up as he stormed into a spartan room with a glass desk which held a large spiral-bound notebook and a slim laptop. Behind the desk was a functional, ergonomically designed office chair. Filing drawers lined one wall. Against the other were two chairs Karen recognized from a trip to Barcelona where she’d mistakenly got off the city tour bus at the Mies van der Rohe pavilion and been surprisingly captivated by its calm and simplicity. Seeing them here grounded her somehow. She could hold her own against any big shot, she told herself.

  Grant threw himself into his chair like a petulant child. ‘What the hell is all this in aid of?’

  Karen dropped her heavy satchel on the floor and leaned against a filing cabinet, arms folded across her chest. She was dressed to impress in her smartest suit, one she’d bought from Hobbs in Edinburgh at the sales. She felt absolutely in control and to hell with Brodie Grant. ‘She’s dead,’ she said succinctly.

  Grant’s head jerked back. ‘Who’s dead?’ He sounded indignant.

  ‘Bel Richmond. Are you going to tell me what she was chasing?’

  He attempted a nonchalant half-shrug. ‘I’ve no idea. She was a freelance journalist, not a member of my staff.’

  ‘She was working for you.’

  He waved a hand at her. The brush-off. ‘I was employing her to act as press liaison should anything come of this cold case inquiry.’ He actually curled his lip. ‘Which doesn’t seem very likely at this point.’

  ‘She was working for you,’ Karen repeated. ‘She was doing a lot more than press liaison. She wasn’t a publicist. She was an investigative journalist, and that’s precisely what she was doing for you. Investigating.’

  ‘I don’t know where you get your ideas from, but I can assure you, you won’t be having any more of them about this case after I’ve spoken to Simon Lees.’

  ‘Be my guest. I’ll enjoy telling him how Bel Richmond flew out to Italy on your private jet yesterday. How she picked up a hire car on your company account at Florence airport. And how her killer was disturbed by the police trying to feed her naked body to the pigs a couple of hundred yards from the house where Bel herself found the poster that kick-started this whole inquiry.’ Karen straightened up and crossed to the desk, leaning on it with her fists. ‘I am not the fucking numpty you take me for.’ She gave him glare for glare.

  Before he could work out how to respond, a young woman in a black dress arrived with a tray of coffee. She looked around uncertainly. ‘On the desk, lassie,’ Grant said. Somehow Karen didn’t think she was going to be offered a cup.

  She waited till she heard the door close behind her, then she said, ‘I think you’d better tell me why Bel went to Italy. It’s likely what got her killed.’

  Grant tilte
d his head back, thrusting his strong chin towards her. ‘As far as I am aware, Inspector, Fife police’s jurisdiction doesn’t stretch to Italy. This is nothing to do with you. So why don’t you fuck off?’

  Karen laughed out loud. ‘I’ve been told to fuck off by better men than you, Brodie,’ she said. ‘But you should know, I am here at the request of the Italian police.’

  ‘If the Italian police want to talk to me, they can come here and talk to me. Organ grinders, not monkeys. That’s my way. Besides, if this was in any way official, you’d have your wee boy with you, taking notes. I do know my Scots law, Inspector. And now, as I previously requested, fuck off.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m going. But for the record, I don’t need corroboration for a witness statement for the Italian police. I’ll tell you something else for nothing. If I was your wife, I’d be seriously unhappy about all these women’s bodies in your slipstream. Your daughter. Your wife. And now your hired gun.’

  His lips stretched back in a reptilian rictus. ‘How dare you!’

  In spite of her determination, Grant had got under her skin. Karen reached for her bag and drew out the scale map of the ransom handover scene. ‘This is how I dare,’ she said, spreading it out on Grant’s desk. ‘You think your money and your influence can buy anything. You think you can bury the truth like you’ve buried your wife and your daughter. Well, sir, I’m here to prove you wrong.’

  ‘I don’t know what the hell you think you’re talking about.’ Grant had to force out his words between stretched lips.

  ‘The received account,’ she said, stabbing the map with her finger. ‘Cat takes the bag from your wife, the kidnappers fire a shot that hits her in the back and kills her. The police fire a shot that goes high and wide.’ She glanced up at him. His face was motionless, frozen in a mask of rage. She hoped her expression was giving as good as it got. ‘And then there’s the truth: Cat takes the bag from your wife, she turns to take it back to the kidnappers. You start waving your gun around, the kidnappers plunge the beach into darkness, you fire.’ She looked him straight in the eye. ‘And you kill your daughter.’

  ‘This is a sick fantasy,’ Grant hissed.

  ‘I know you’ve been in denial all these years, but that’s the truth. And Jimmy Lawson is ready to tell it.’

  Grant slammed his hand down on the desk. ‘A convicted murderer? Who’s going to believe him?’ His lip quivered in a sneer.

  ‘There’s others who know you had a gun that night. They’re retired now. There’s nothing you can hold over their heads any more. You can maybe get Simon Lees to shut me up, but the genie’s out of the bottle now. It wouldn’t hurt you to start cooperating with me over Bel Richmond’s murder.’

  ‘Get out of my house,’ Grant said. ‘Next time you come back, you’d better have a warrant.’

  Karen gave him a tight little smile. ‘You can count on it.’ She still had plenty of shots in reserve, but this wasn’t the time to fire them. Mick Prentice and Gabriel Porteous could wait for another day. ‘It’s not over, Brodie. It’s not over till I say so.’

  The about-to-be-former Gabriel Porteous had no problem entering the UK. The immigration official at Edinburgh Airport swiped his passport, compared his image to the photograph and nodded him through. He had to stick with his old ID for the car hire too. This collision of past and future was hard to balance. He wanted to let go of Gabriel and all he had done. He wanted to enter his new life clean and unencumbered. Emotionally, psychologically and practically, he wanted no connection to his past life. No possibilities of awkward questions from the Italian authorities. Please God, his grandfather would accept that he wanted a clean break with his past. One thing was certain - he wouldn’t have to exaggerate the shock and pain his father’s letter had inflicted on him.

  He had to stop at a petrol station and ask directions to Rotheswell Castle, but it was still only mid-morning when he approached the impressive front gate. He pulled up and got out, grinning at the CCTV. When the intercom asked who he was and what his business might be, he said, ‘I’m Adam Maclennan Grant. That’s my business.’

  They kept him waiting almost five minutes before they opened the outer gate. At first, it pissed him off. His anxiety had reached an intolerable level. Then it dawned on him that you only took precautions like this when there was something serious to protect. So he waited, then he drove into the pen between the two sets of gates. He tolerated the security pat-down. He didn’t complain when they searched his vehicle and asked him to open his holdall and his backpack so they could rummage around. When they finally let him through the inner gate and he caught his first glimpse of what he’d lost, his breath caught in his throat.

  He drove slowly, making sure he had his emotions under control. He wanted this fresh start so badly. No more fuck-ups. He parked on the gravel near the front door and climbed out of the car, stretching luxuriously. He’d been folded into seats for too long. He squared his shoulders, straightened his spine and walked up to the door. As he approached, it swung open. A woman in a tweed skirt and a woollen jumper stood in the doorway. Her hand flew up to her mouth involuntarily and she gasped, ‘Oh my God.’

  He gave her his best smile. ‘Hello. I’m Adam.’ He extended a hand. One look at this woman and he knew the kind of uptight manners expected in this house.

  ‘Yes,’ the woman said. Training overcame emotion and she took his hand in a firm grip and held on tight. ‘I’m Susan Charleson. I’m your gran—, I mean, I’m Sir Broderick’s personal assistant. This is the most extraordinary shock. Surprise. Bolt from the blue.’ She burst out laughing. ‘Listen to me. I’m not usually like this. It’s just that - well, I never imagined I’d see this day.’

  ‘I appreciate that. It’s all been a bit of a shock for me too.’ He gently freed his hand. ‘Is my grandfather at home?’

  ‘Come this way.’ She closed the door and ushered him down a hallway.

  He’d been in some fine houses in Italy thanks to his father’s business, but this place was utterly foreign. With its stone walls and its spare décor, it felt cold and naked. But it didn’t hurt to make nice. ‘This is a beautiful house,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  ‘Where do you live?’ Susan asked as they turned into a long corridor.

  ‘I grew up in Italy. But I’m planning on returning to my roots.’

  Susan stopped in front of a heavy studded oak door. She knocked and entered, beckoning Adam to follow. The room, a book-lined bolt-hole, was a blur to him. His total focus was on the white-haired man standing by the window, deep-set eyes unreadable, face immobile.

  ‘Hello, sir,’ Adam said. To his surprise, he found it hard to speak. Emotion that he hadn’t expected welled up and he had to swallow hard to avoid tears.

  The old man’s face seemed to disintegrate before his eyes. An expression somewhere between smiling and sorrow engulfed him. He took a step towards Adam then stopped. ‘Hello,’ he said, his voice choked too. He looked beyond Adam and waved Susan from the room.

  The two men stared hungrily at each other. Adam managed to get himself under control, clearing his throat. ‘Sir, I’m sure you’ve had people claiming to be Catriona’s son before. I just want to say that I don’t want anything from you and I’m happy to undergo any tests - DNA, whatever - that you want. Until my father died three months ago, I had no idea who I really was. I’ve spent those three months wondering whether I should contact you or not…And, well, here I am.’ He took Daniel’s letter from the inside pocket of his one good suit. ‘This is the letter he left me.’ He stretched out his arm to Grant, who took the creased sheets of paper. ‘I’ll happily wait outside while you read it.’

  ‘There’s no need for that,’ Grant said gruffly. ‘Sit down there, where I can see you.’ He took a chair opposite the one he had indicated and began to read. Several times he paused and scrutinized Adam, who forced himself to stay still and calm. At one point, he covered his mouth with his hand, the fingers visibly trembling. He ca
me to the end and gazed hungrily at Adam. ‘If you’re a fake, you’re a bloody good one.’

  ‘There’s also this -’ Adam took a photograph from his pocket. Catriona sat on a kitchen chair, hands folded over the high curve of a heavily pregnant belly. Behind her, Mick leaned over her shoulder, one hand on the bump. They were both grinning. It had the slightly awkward look of something posed for the timer. ‘My mum and dad.’

  This time, Grant couldn’t hold back his tears. Wordlessly, he held out his arms to his grandson. Adam, his eyes wet, got up and accepted the embrace.

  It felt as if it went on forever and lasted no time at all. Finally they drew apart, each wiping their eyes with their hands. ‘You look like I did fifty years ago,’ Grant said heavily.

  ‘You should still have the DNA test done,’ Adam said. ‘There are some bad people out there.’

  Grant gave him a long, measured look. ‘I don’t think they’re all on the outside,’ he said with an air of melancholy. ‘Bel Richmond was working for me.’

  Adam struggled not to show he recognized the name, but he could tell from his grandfather’s face that he’d failed. ‘She came to see me,’ he said. ‘She never mentioned that you were her boss.’

  Grant gave a thin smile. ‘I wouldn’t say I was her boss. But I did hire her to do a job for me. She did it so well it killed her.’

  Adam shook his head. ‘That can’t be right. It was only last night that I spoke to her.’

  ‘It’s right enough. I’ve had the police here earlier. Apparently her killer tried to feed her to the pigs right next door to the villa where your pal Matthias was squatting until round about the time when your father died,’ Grant continued grimly. ‘And the police are also investigating a presumed murder there. That one happened round about the time Matthias and his little troupe of puppeteers disappeared.’

  Adam raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s bizarre,’ he said. ‘Who else is supposed to be dead?’

  ‘They’re not sure. The puppeteers scattered to the four winds. Bel was planning to track them down next. But she never got the chance. She was a good journalist. Good at sniffing things out.’