Trick of the Dark

by Val McDermid

  Charlie had been determined not to let Helena get under her defences, but she could feel the niggles and barbs cutting into her. 'Helping people deal with their psychoses isn't exactly ephemeral. And I could never have achieved the enthusiasm for Greek philosophers that you bring to Zeno and Aristotle.' There was truth in what she said; Helena was a passionate teacher, with the articulacy and energy to pass her enthusiasm on to her pupils. But Charlie had come to Oxford for more than academic credentials and she wasn't about to be deflected by any steel-eyed bluestocking who wanted her for a scholar far more than Jesus had ever wanted her for a sunbeam. It dawned on Charlie that at least part of the reason for Helena's attitude was that Charlie had demonstrated the independence of mind to plough her own furrow, turning her back on what had been mapped out for her. 'You look remarkably well, by the way. I heard you'd been ill.'

  Helena's wide mouth curved into a thin sickle smile, the deep lines in her fine skin spreading out like concentric ripples on a pond. 'I had a lump removed from my groin,' she said bluntly. 'Doubtless some of my colleagues will have recalled the comment made by Evelyn Waugh of Randolph Churchill when he had a similar experience.'

  Charlie raised a questioning eyebrow. Helena had always enjoyed her little triumphs; even though Charlie knew the quotation, it cost nothing to pretend ignorance.

  '"How extraordinarily talented of the surgeon to find the one part of Randolph that was not malignant and to remove it,"' Helena said with a grim smile.

  'I'm glad it was nothing serious.'

  She acknowledged the reply with another gracious nod. 'And you? I hear you're being tested in a quite different manner.'

  Charlie turned away from the twin scalpels of her eyes and stared out over the river. 'It's not been easy. But I will get through it.'

  'You will. You're tough, and you're talented. So why are you here, Charlie? I don't imagine you think the answers to your problems lie in the tenets of Antisthenes.'

  Charlie smiled. 'I'll leave the Cynicism to you. The reason I'm here is that I need you to confirm something I've been told.'

  'That sounds intriguing. I can't imagine the intersection of what I know and what you need to know.'

  Charlie knew she had to proceed carefully. Helena Winter had always been as generous to an unsupported statement as a fox to a wounded chicken. 'Seventeen years ago, Corinna Newsam came to you with a moral dilemma. I need you to confirm what she told you that morning.'

  Charlie had never seen Helena genuinely taken aback. It was a beautiful moment. 'I have no idea to what you're referring, ' she said. It was a good attempt at her best hauteur, but it fell short.

  'Let me jog your memory. I know how it is when we get older and things don't surface as readily as they once did.' Charlie enjoyed the brief tightening of the muscles round Helena's mouth. 'It was a memorable day here. The day Jess Edwards died.' Helena did not look away; she held Charlie's steady gaze, a trickle of smoke rising unwavering from her hand. 'Corinna tells me she came to see you.'

  'Suppose for a moment that the circumstance you describe took place. Why on earth should I disclose it to you? You have no standing here. We haven't spoken for years. I know nothing of your motives.' She raised her hand and inhaled deeply. 'But that is idle speculation. I have no recollection of any such event.'

  Charlie shook her head. 'Call Corinna and ask her if you can trust me.' She dug into her pocket and produced her mobile. 'Here. Save yourself the bother of getting up. Use my phone.'

  Helena ignored the offer, reaching instead for her own landline handset. She stubbed out her cigarette then keyed in a number from memory and waited. 'Corinna? It's Helena. I . . .' Obviously cut off by Corinna, her lips tightened in displeasure. 'She is indeed,' she said, then fell silent again. 'Very well. Come and see me tomorrow at quarter to nine.' She ended the call and gave Charlie a long, considering look. 'Whatever information I have is impotent. Nothing can come of it. Where there is no proof, there can be no purpose in dissemination. Do you understand me?'

  'I'm not about to run off to the tabloids.' Charlie let her disapproval leak into her voice. 'If I was that sort of person, do you think for a moment that Corinna would have entrusted me with this?'

  'Whatever "this" is,' Helena said tartly. 'I have no idea why Corinna feels the need to revisit this episode.'

  'That's her business. What did she tell you?'

  At last, Helena looked away, studying the hand that had held the cigarette. 'It was towards the end of the morning. The news of Jess's death had shaken everyone. It's always the same when an undergraduate dies. There's a profound sense of shock, but also an anger that so much promise will never be fulfilled. That's even stronger when it's someone like Jess who has obvious gifts over and above their intellectual ability. The details fly round the place like wildfire, so by mid-morning everyone knew that Jess had somehow fallen, hit her head and drowned. We also knew that this must have happened very early in the morning, since she was already dead when the rest of the rowers arrived for their morning practice. According to the other rowers, Jess had complained that her seat wasn't moving smoothly and she planned to go down to the boathouse ahead of practice to see if she could sort out the problem.'

  'Was that common knowledge before the accident?' Charlie asked. Opening the subject out was often the best way to draw information from a reluctant witness.

  'I couldn't say. I seem to remember the girls saying that Jess talked about it over dinner the previous evening. In theory, I suppose anyone could have overheard.' Helena reached for another cigarette but didn't light it straight away, preferring to roll it between her fingers. Her hands, roped with veins and marked with liver spots, revealed the passage of the years far more than her face or posture. With a sudden shock, Charlie realised Helena had become an old woman.

  'Why did Corinna need to see you?' she asked.

  Helena took her time lighting the cigarette. 'She needed advice. She had seen something - or rather, someone - in the meadow that morning. Very early in the morning. And she was in a quandary as to what she should do about it.'

  'Why was she in a quandary? She'd seen someone at the scene of a violent death. Surely the obvious thing to do would be to talk to the police?' Charlie kept any accusation out of her voice, making her question sound like a casual query.

  'But it wasn't that simple. It was late November. When Corinna had entered the meadow by the side gate, it had still been dark. She was certain of her identification because she knew the person in question very well, but she was well aware that in a coroner's court or a criminal court, she could soon be made to look unreliable on the question of identification at a distance in poor lighting. Furthermore, the presence of an individual did not, in and of itself, point to any kind of involvement in Jess's death. Even if the person in question had met Jess at the boathouse, there was no reason to suppose anything sinister in that.'

  'Even if the person in question benefited from Jess's death? And it's OK to use her name, Helena. We both know we're talking about Jay Stewart. That's who Corinna saw, and that's whose ambition was being thwarted by Jess Edwards' popularity. And, according to Corinna, victim of a dirty tricks campaign led by Jess.'

  Helena gave Charlie a pained smile. 'Much as I love this college, it's hard for me to believe that someone would murder in order to become JCR President.'

  'I'm with you on that. But I've spent time with a lot of killers, and you'd be depressed beyond measure by the apparent triviality of most of their motives.'

  'You may be right. But I did point out to Corinna that what she thought she had seen was open to several interpretations. And that as soon as she voiced any suspicion to the police, both the college and the person in question would become media fodder in the most unpleasant of ways. At a time when the college was desperately trying to raise endowment, it would have been a disaster. And a pointless one at that.'

  It was, Charlie thought, breathtaking. Stifle any possibility of suspicion attaching to what might well have be
en a murder just to protect the reputation of a college, and its fund-raising programme. Only in Oxford. Well, maybe in Cambridge too. 'You don't think that if the police had been alerted to the possibility of foul play they might have found evidence?'

  'My dear Charlie, our intention was not to suppress evidence. As I said to Corinna at the time, had there been the slightest suggestion of anything untoward about Jess's death, it would have been her duty to report what she had seen. But it was never suggested that Jess's death was anything other than an accident.'

  'So far as you know,' Charlie said.

  'I believe the police did keep the college fully informed of their thinking.'

  Charlie shook her head wearily. That might be a comfortable thought for Helena to cling to, but she knew there was little chance of the police having shared vague suspicions with anyone outside their closed circle. 'In my experience, the police only tell what they want you to know,' she said. 'Corinna's information might have transformed the nature of their inquiry.'

  Helena tilted her head back and savoured the smoke. 'I think it far more likely that it would merely have served to tarnish the name of the college and of the person involved.'

  'You still haven't said her name,' Charlie said.

  'And I have every intention of continuing my discretion on that point. Corinna may trust you, but I do not have her certainty. For all I know, you may be recording this on some clever electronic gadget. I have no desire to expose myself to a slander suit.'

  'You are something else, Dr Winter.'

  'I'll take that as a compliment, Dr Flint.'

  Charlie made a small derisive sound. 'I wouldn't. Is there anything else that Corinna said that might be of interest to someone who was taking a fresh look at Jess Edwards' death?'

  Helena gave Charlie a contemplative look, as if she were weighing her in some internal balance. 'To be perfectly frank, I was surprised that Corinna shared what she had seen with anyone.'

  'Because a secret can be kept by two people providing one of them be dead?'

  Helena's smile was wry. 'In a way. But more specifically, because at that time, the undergraduate in question was Corinna's protegee. Much as you had been a couple of years before. Corinna always spoke highly of her and defended her against any criticism. That she was prepared to say anything that was in any way potentially critical of her favourite seemed to me to be highly surprising. That it was something that rendered the girl so potentially vulnerable was staggering. It was an indication to me of how seriously troubled Corinna was by what she'd seen.'

  'Did you put that point to her?'

  Helena gave Charlie a hard stare, her manner condescending. 'That would not have been appropriate.'

  'Appropriate. Of course.' Charlie shook her head as she sat up, gathering herself together to rise and leave. 'One small thing. Why was Corinna coming into college so early in the morning?'

  There was nothing kind in Helena's smile. 'She had ambition. She desperately wanted a fellowship. She refused to accept she was too much of an outsider, that there was too much stacked against her - marriage, motherhood, being Canadian, being Catholic. So she would come into college around six in the morning and do a couple of hours' work before rushing home to see her children off to school. She thought hard work would be enough to overcome her drawbacks. '

  'Apparently it was,' Charlie said, getting to her feet. 'I mean, she is a fellow now.'

  'We have men who are fellows now,' Helena said, using the word 'men' as if it were comparable to 'cats' or 'monkeys'.

  'Thank you for talking to me,' Charlie said, moving towards the door. 'You know, I always thought you were a brilliant philosopher. I had so much respect for the quality of your mind.' This time Helena's smile was sincere, if surprised. 'We all make mistakes, I guess.' Charlie went on. 'You and Corinna, with your desperate desire to protect the college - it looks like you might have let a killer walk free to take more lives.' One hand on the door handle, Charlie realised that somewhere in the past half hour she'd crossed a line. She'd decided Jay Stewart had a case to answer, and she was going to do her best to make her answer it. 'You should have stopped her then, if you really cared about the college.'

  7

  Finding the perfect ending for her previous chapter left Jay feeling stranded. Writing about her exploits as JCR President, the final terms at Oxford, the process of coming out once she had a glamorous London journalist girlfriend, the friendships and the contacts that would pave the way for her future seemed flat and uninteresting after the high adrenaline flush of love and death. The drama of her enforced separation from Louise, followed by her lover's suicide attempt, would make good copy, she knew. And she relished the chance finally to take her revenge on Louise's family of narrow-minded bigots. But that posed its own problems. And it wasn't what she wanted to think about now.

  She'd heard some writers describe their process of memoir writing as starting at the beginning and continuing steadily to the end. But that hadn't been a formula that worked for her. She remembered how it had been with Unrepentant. She'd written the high points first - the powerful memories, the dramatic set pieces that had changed the course of her early life. Then she'd gone back and sketched in the gaps. Finally, she'd filled in the background, like a graphic artist colouring in their drawings and giving Superman his scarlet cape. When she'd described it to her agent, he'd frowned. 'But don't you get fed up when you've cherry-picked the best bits? Isn't it boring to go back and fill in the gaps?'

  Jay had thought about it, then said, 'I think it's more like what a jeweller does. You start with the stone. It's been cut and polished to make the most of what's there. Then the jeweller has to make a setting that shows it off to the best advantage. That's a real challenge, to make something sparkle even more than it would on its own.'

  Jasper had laughed in delight. 'How very lyrical. Darling, you're wasted on memoir. I really must get you to write a romance.'

  They'd both known how absurd a notion that was. Jay checked out the time on the computer screen. Almost four. How long did it take to have lunch and argue with your parents? She knew Magda would call before she set off from Oxford, so she had at least an hour to continue writing.

  Given the theme that seemed to be gripping her today, the next section was obvious. No need to write much about Kathy - by the time the reader had reached this point, they'd know all they needed to know about her business partner. The geeky one, the practical mind behind doitnow.com. The crazy climber, the one who was safety first at work but put all her risks in the single basket of rock faces and perilous pitches. They'd been working together for three years at that point, climbing together for almost as long. They'd been planning the Skye trip for months. Winter climbing on the Black Cuillin, the most challenging and dramatic experience you could have on a mountain in the UK.

  There's plenty of time to back out of the Inaccessible Pinnacle. Like most of the climbing in Skye, it's a long walk to get to where the view is secondary to the effort. The Black Cuillin ridge in the west of Skye is the only place in the country where the raw jaggedness of the rock comes close to standing shoulder to shoulder with the Alps and the Rockies. And the Inaccessible Pinnacle - the In Pinn to those in the in crowd who have climbed it - is the most serious summit of all.

  Even the man who gave his name to the list of Scottish mountains over 3000ft, Sir Hugh Munro, never managed the In Pinn on Sgurr Dearg. Everybody agrees Sgurr Dearg is the hardest Munro to bag, because it's the only one that requires rock-climbing skills. You can't scramble your way up the In Pinn. You need to know what you're doing. And we did. We weren't novices or idiots.

  We'd waited weeks for the right conditions, ready to abandon the office and our work commitments the minute we heard the ice conditions were right for winter climbing. Our rucksacks had been sitting in the office, packed, checked and double-checked. When we got the call from our contact in Glen Brittle, we headed for the airport. When you run a travel company called doitnow.com, you're well plac
ed to pick up those last-minute flights! A quick hop to Glasgow, then a nail-biting seven hours on icy roads to Skye itself.

  We'd decided to do the In Pinn on our second climbing day of the holiday. The first day was a warm-up, getting us accustomed to the effect of the snow and ice on the black basalt and gabbro that combine to make the Cuillin such a fantastic surface for rock climbing. We did a couple of slab faces and some chimneys, enough to limber us up for the main attraction. As usual, we climbed well together. Kathy and I never had to talk much when we were on the hill; we had an instinctive understanding of each other's needs. It always surprised me, how well we got on when we were climbing. In any other circumstances we didn't have much to say to each other unless it was to do with work.

  We went to bed early that first night so we'd be at our best for the climb. Not for us the camaraderie and carousing of some of the others who were planning assaults on the ridge and Sgurr Alasdair in the morning.The weather forecast wasn't great so we wanted to be up and gone early. We'd already decided to set off while it was still dark.That's the trouble with winter climbing in the north - your days are so short and the best climbs often involve a long walk in and out again.

  We parked beside the Glen Brittle mountain rescue post. We were excited about the day ahead of us; it never occurred to me that we might end up needing the services of that very mountain rescue team. We had headlamps on, and even under the thin crust of snow there was no possibility of missing the start of the footpath, a wide depression running along the side of sheep pens. We could hear the rushing water of the Allt Coire na Banachdich, and before long we reached the wooden bridge that crosses the stream, which was a black-and-white torrent in the dawn light.

  I wished we'd been able to leave later, because it was still too dark to appreciate the grandeur of the Eas Mor waterfalls tumbling down into the gorge. I remembered the guidebook I'd bought the first time I visited Skye. 'On Skye,' it announced, 'it rains 323 days out of 365. Never mind. Think how lovely it makes the waterfalls.' Kathy wasn't impressed, not least because the occasional flurry of sleet was buffeting us in the face as we carried on up the rough path, past impressive buttresses and gullies that looked as challenging as anything I'd ever climbed. By the time it was fully light, we were surrounded by astonishing views - great crags, sensational shapes and contours, a jagged skyline, all streaked white with snow and glittering with ice.