Trick of the Dark

by Val McDermid

  Magda shifted a little. 'No,' she said. 'I don't think I can take any more right now. I just want to enjoy being with you. To celebrate.' She stroked Jay's back, conscious that there were as many differences as similarities between their bodies. Skin colour and texture. Muscle tone and configuration. Body shape and contours. Hair colour and distribution. She'd heard people say homosexuality was a form of narcissism, but she couldn't see it herself. It was hard to imagine how she and Jay could look less like one another.

  'You want more champagne?' Jay asked. They'd seen off a bottle when Magda returned from the Old Bailey, their relief making them knock it back like lemonade on a hot summer's day.

  'I don't want to move. I want to lie here and savour the moment.' Magda sighed. 'I feel like a weight lifted off me today. It's like I can draw a line under the past and face forward.'

  'I understand that.' Jay shifted so she lay on one hip alongside Magda, stomach pressed to hip, arm lying possessive below Magda's breasts. 'Justice has been done. Paul and Joanna are in jail for what they did to Philip. And you did your bit to make sure his death didn't go unavenged. So now you can be proud of yourself as well as feeling relieved.'

  Magda ran her fingers through Jay's hair. 'I owe it all to you.'

  'Don't be daft. I wasn't the one who had to stand up in the witness box and testify.'

  'No, but there wouldn't have been any case to testify in if you hadn't given it a helping hand,' Magda said fondly, kissing Jay's forehead.

  'Best if we put that behind us too, I think,' Jay said firmly. 'The less we talk about it, the less likely we are to let something slip.'

  Magda was too besotted to be offended by the suggestion that she might not be capable of keeping her mouth shut. 'I'll never forget it, though. What you did, it was risky. And you did it for me. You did it for me when we'd only just got together. Nobody's ever taken a chance like that on me.'

  'It didn't feel like taking a chance. I knew already you were the one for me. I knew how hard Philip's death was on you, and I had to do whatever I could to take the edge off the pain.' She snuggled even closer. 'Letting them walk free would have been an insult to his memory as well as an outrage to you. So I did what had to be done.'

  'If I needed proof that you're the one for me . . .' Magda leaned back and smiled. 'And now we can stop hiding. We can go out together, do the things that lovers do without worrying that we'll end up in some gossip column.'

  Jay chuckled. 'Chances are we'll still appear in some gossip column. But it doesn't matter now. It's not going to be a distraction in terms of the trial. We don't have to worry about some defence counsel insinuating that you had as much of a motive for wanting Philip dead as Joanna and Paul.'

  'I always said that was silly. I mean, if I'd known I wanted to be with you, I'd never have married Philip, would I?'

  'You might have wanted to be respectable,' Jay said. 'I know part of the reason you married him was because it was what everyone expected you to do.'

  'And I was always the one who did what was expected of me.' Magda smiled, an unfamiliar feeling of mischief bubbling inside her. 'At least, until now.'

  'Thank goodness. Of course, you might have wanted Philip's money. Just as decent a motive.' The lightness in Jay's tone was replaced by a more sombre note. 'Don't forget, it's still possible that somebody saw the two of us together on your wedding day. A meaningless encounter, they'd think. Unless they read some hack's innuendo and decided we were the evil plotters, not Joanna and Paul.'

  'With an imagination like that, you should be a crime writer.' Magda reached over and tickled Jay's ribs. 'Nobody who knows either of us could imagine something so ridiculous. So, where are you going to take me for our first public outing?'

  Jay pretended to think. 'I could get tickets for Arsenal at the Emirates on Saturday?' Magda pinched the skin over Jay's hip. 'Ow! I was only joking.'

  'I know. But some jokes are beyond the pale. Come on, you're the publisher of the coolest travel guides on the planet. You must have thought of something.'

  Jay leaned back on the pillows. 'I thought we might go to Barcelona for the weekend. A lovely boutique hotel just off the Ramblas, dinner somewhere glorious . . . What do you say?'

  'This weekend?'

  'That's what I had in mind. Is that a problem?'

  'I'm working on Sunday,' she said. 'And I thought I'd go up to Oxford on Saturday to see my parents. I need to tell them about us.'

  'I thought your mother already knew? You said she kept digging away at you about me when you were home last month.'

  'She knows because she's guessed. I've not actually told her. Not in so many words. And Dad is completely oblivious. He's going to be a nightmare.' Magda drew away slightly, tipping her head back to stare at the ceiling. 'I can already hear the Catholic fundamentalist rant. Honestly, he makes His Holiness Benny One Six look liberal.'

  'Would it help if I came with you?' Jay reached up to stroke Magda's hair.

  Magda gave a fake laugh. 'Not in any sense of the word "help" that I'm familiar with. Have you forgotten that my mother barred you from the house all those years ago when she discovered you were gay? No, I've just got to grit my teeth and get through it. Hopefully, the fallout won't be too horrendous. And Wheelie's coming up with me, so I will have someone in my corner.'

  'Poor Maggot,' Jay said. 'Maybe I should sit outside in the car in case you get cast out like a Victorian fallen woman.'

  'It's not beyond the bounds of possibility.' Magda propped herself up on her elbows. 'Enough of this. We're supposed to be celebrating. Is there any food in the house or do we need to order takeaway? I'm starving.'

  'All that loving. It makes a woman hungry. How does pizza sound?'

  Magda grinned. 'Perfect. We can eat it in bed. Then we don't have far to go afterwards.'

  'That's right. We need to make the most of the next few days if you're going to abandon me for Oxford.'

  Magda raised one eyebrow. 'Maybe you should sit outside in the car after all.'

  11

  Saturday

  Charlie hadn't planned to revisit St Scholastika's, but to get to the Newsams' house from the guest house she'd booked herself into meant passing the college gates. And she couldn't resist her old haunts. Some people, she knew, never quite cut the umbilical cord with their Oxford colleges, continually returning for whatever excuse they could come up with - a lecture, a guest dinner, a gaudy - but she had never been one of them. She'd mostly loved her time at Schollie's, but she'd been ready for the less cosseted world outside. The only time she'd been back had been for her ten-year gaudy, an event that had depressed her beyond words.

  Returning to Schollie's then had been strange. Almost schizophrenic. Charlie had felt like her real-time self-a successful professional whose opinions were sought and respected by her peers, a woman who had made the transition from infatuations to love, someone at home in her own skin - and, simultaneously, like that awkward creature on the cusp of adolescence and adulthood, hiding uncertainty behind arrogance, desperately trying to figure out the shape of her future. Encountering people who knew only what she had been rather than what she had become had been a disorienting experience. She'd felt like a shape-shifter by the end of the evening, glad to escape to the Spartan college room with its grimly single bed. It had not been an experience that filled her with a desire to repeat it.

  So wandering round her old stamping grounds hadn't been on Charlie's agenda. For most of the three-hour drive from Manchester to Oxford, she'd alternated between a fantasy that involved Lisa Kent and not much sleep, and castigating herself for even allowing the thought to cross her mind. What she couldn't deny was that she'd put herself in temptation's way.

  As soon as she'd manoeuvred herself into a trip to Oxford without Maria, Charlie had texted Lisa. Am in Oxford Friday/ Saturday, possibly Sunday. Get together? Lisa had simply texted back, Will email l8r, leaving Charlie in a ferment of impatience. The email, when it arrived, was a disappointment. But Charlie had
to acknowledge that in her present frame of mind, almost any response would have been. According to Lisa, most of her weekend was regrettably spoken for: training sessions with those chosen to spread the Negotiating Vulnerability gospel to the people, meetings with conference organisers and a couple of one-to-one sessions with individual therapy clients. Charlie wondered if booking one of those sessions was the only way she'd ever get some face time with Lisa.

  Then, hot on the heels of the disappointing message came a second. Charlie wondered if it was game-playing, but she didn't much care. At least she was playing with an equal. Now, Lisa was offering to meet her for a late drink on Friday evening. I should be free by nine thirty, ten at the very latest. Why don't we meet at the Gardener's Arms? Near where you're staying, right?

  And so Charlie had arrived at the pub just after eight, setting up base camp with a view of the door in a bar that felt like a living room. She'd ordered a Thai curry from the vegetarian menu and made it last. She was on her third glass of wine by nine thirty, fighting the desire to knock it back and calm the clench of nervous anticipation that had her in its grip. Lisa would soon be sitting opposite her, the air crackling with the tension between them. Irresistible, that's what it would be, Charlie told herself. The guest-house bed would remain empty; they'd go back to Lisa's house in Iffley village. What would happen beyond the sleepless night and the dazed morning, Charlie had no idea. But it would cut through her life like a knife blade. The two parts would fall apart like a split fruit.

  The hubbub of a Friday-evening pub seemed to rise round Charlie as time trickled past. The voices echoed in her ears, the laughter felt like an assault. Quarter to ten and no Lisa. She checked her phone every minute, but nothing appeared on the message screen. By ten, Charlie had started to feel sick. Her hands were clammy, her skin flushed and sweaty. She had to fight the urge to push through the crowd and into the fresh air. When the phone finally vibrated with a message at ten past ten, Charlie's whole body jerked.

  So, so, sorry, everything running l8. Nothing 2 b done. Talk 2moro. Lx She read the words and felt the bile rising. She barely made it to the narrow street outside, vomiting her drink and dinner in the gutter between two tightly parked cars. Shaking and sweating, she leaned against the wall and swore at herself. Why had she let herself be sucked into this emotional game? With Lisa, everything was ambiguity. Was her message genuine? Had she got cold feet over embarking on an affair with a married woman? Was she playing the game for the hell of it? Or was it all on the level and Charlie just torturing herself out of guilt?

  Back at the guest house, Charlie had lain awake, self-pity and self-disgust taking turns to beat her up. Then remorse had kicked in, making sleep impossible. Somewhere around one, she'd given up and gone online, reading everything she could find about the murder of Philip Carling. At least she would be prepared for her meeting with Corinna. Just like a tutorial. Old habits died hard.

  By three, she was yawning. Before she signed off, she did a quick search on Jay Macallan Stewart, to remind herself of the headline public information. Wikipedia gave her a reasonable overview. After Oxford, Jay had used the economics element of her degree to take up a research post with a social policy think-tank. Within two years, she'd figured out where the world was heading and left to set up her own dotcom business buying up excess airline seats and self-catering holiday accommodation at rock-bottom prices and selling the resulting tailored packages on at a profit. Doitnow.com had been one of the runaway successes of the first online boom and Jay had had the wit to sell the business before the bubble burst. She'd spent a couple of years travelling, mostly under the radar, sending despatches home to various newspapers and magazines.

  Her next venture had taken advantage of the second wave of internet business. With the explosion in short-break travel, what the world needed was a series of travel guides, constantly updated, available online and tweaked for the consumer's personal interests. And so the 24/7 brand was born. Available by subscription only, Jay's company boasted that there wasn't a major city in the world to which they couldn't produce a personally designed guide. Charlie herself was a subscriber, cheerfully handing over her PS4.99 a month so she was never at a loss when travelling.

  All of this had built Jay a reputation in the business world. Economics editors knew who Jay Macallan Stewart was. But what broke her out into the wider public consciousness had been a shameless leap on to the bandwagon of misery memoirs. Jay's upbringing had not followed the usual pattern. Her mother had been a hippie and a junkie. For the first nine years of her life, Jay had run as wild as it was possible to run. Then her mother had undergone a dramatic conversion to one of the more restrictive versions of Christianity and married one of the most repressive men in the North East of England. It had been, to quote Jay herself, 'like running headlong into a brick wall'. Factor into the equation Jay's gradual realisation that her burgeoning sexuality would make her even more of an outcast, and it was a recipe for precisely the kind of misery that sold in the millions. Charlie had no idea how truthful Unrepentant had been, but nobody had come out of the woodwork to contradict it, so nothing had interfered with the momentum that took it to the top of the bestseller lists.

  And that was where the online story ended. There was nothing about Jay's personal life beyond the fact of her homosexuality. She was somebody whose name people knew without her actually falling into the dubious category of a celebrity. Charlie had to admit Jay had handled it impeccably. Somehow, she'd managed to airbrush the awkwardnesses out of history.

  For there were awkwardnesses. Even Charlie knew that. She'd fallen asleep with an image of Jay Macallan Stewart in the front of her mind. Not Jay as she was now, but Jay as she had been when Charlie had first clapped eyes on her. Tall, rangy inside a baggy fisherman's sweater, hair a mane of chaotic dark curls, all wreathed in the blue smoke of a French cigarette. She'd made Charlie, two years her senior, feel gauche and adolescent. Even then, even though she had no valid reason for her instinct, she'd understood there was something dangerous about Jay Stewart.

  Charlie had slept more soundly than she'd expected or deserved, and woke feeling groggy with barely enough time to shower and make it to breakfast. That left her with more than an hour to kill before she was due to meet Corinna. A wander through the gardens and the river meadow of Schollie's on a bright spring morning would at least have the advantage of dragging her down memory lane rather than through the tortured back alleys of what Lisa Kent was doing to her head. More importantly, it would give her a clear picture of the scene of Philip Carling's murder. She didn't imagine the college grounds would have changed much since she'd been an undergraduate. Oxford prided itself on its adherence to tradition, after all. But there would be differences, even if they were only subtle ones. If - and at this point it was a very big if - she was going to take a look at Corinna's supposed miscarriage of justice, she needed to treat it exactly as she would any other case and leave aside any preconceptions. And although she was a detective of the interior state, it never hurt to have a first-hand image of the scene of the crime.

  Back when Charlie had been an undergraduate, Schollie's had still been a women's college, one of the last single-sex establishments. Along with St Hilda's, they'd resisted the pull towards admitting men, staunch in the belief that a collegiate university like Oxford should be able to offer a full range of choice to its students. They'd finally, ironically, been forced to give up their stand by the brutal economics of gender equality legislation. So now Schollie's was, like every other college in the university, open to both men and women. Unlike the former men's colleges, its buildings lacked beauty or distinction and, although the grounds were extensive and attractive, the college held no particular attraction for tourists. So there was no admission fee, no scrutiny of ID to establish whether a visitor was entitled to enter. Anybody, it seemed, could wander at will round the gardens and river meadow of St Scholastika's College.

  Term had just ended so suitcases and blue IKEA bags were
being hauled to cars while parents hovered and undergraduates tried to look cheerful about going home. Some who were paying to stay on for an extra week's residence lounged on benches, smug and still liberated from the old lives that lay in waiting to reclaim them. Charlie slipped through the porter's lodge and across the parking area outside Magnusson Hall to the part of the garden where the wedding reception had taken place. It was about the size of a football pitch, perfectly manicured lawn surrounded by a gravel path then herbaceous borders that looked bedraggled and unpromising in March. But back in July, when Magda and Philip had married, Charlie knew they would have been a luxuriant riot of flowers and greenery of every shade. In the middle of the lawn was a pair of cedars of Lebanon, taller and broader than Charlie remembered. On the far side of the grass was a bench where Charlie had often spent summer mornings reading or just staring, trying to get her head round her next tutorial as the fat brown river flowed sluggishly past.

  Charlie crossed the grass, trying to conjure up the summer wedding that had ended so violently. There would have been a marquee, perhaps two. Tables on the grass. A band, a dance floor. People everywhere, shifting patterns of conversation, dancing. Hard to keep track of anyone's movements. Even the bride and groom.

  The other thing about weddings in college was that there was no effective security. Just as anyone could walk in and out of college, so it was with private functions. Especially open-air events. There was no effective way to make them secure, not when there were other people on the site who had legitimate access to the buildings around the lawn. The side door of Magnusson Hall would have been open so guests could have access to the toilets. So anyone inside Magnusson could have walked straight out and joined the party as if they had a right to be there. Other buildings flanked the garden - the Chapter House, a small building that contained only seminar and tutorial rooms, and Riverside Lodge, another residential building. Charlie wondered whether the Chapter House was locked up on a Saturday. In her day, it would have been.