Trick of the Dark

by Val McDermid

  Magda frowned. 'So how did you get dragged in? If the police said it was a burglary?'

  'Ingemarsson had a girlfriend who's developed an obsession about 24/7. She thinks either I killed him or I had him killed for his programs. Because Kathy was the IT brain behind doitnow.com and she wasn't around any more. So obviously I was going to have to steal the expertise,' she said sarcastically. 'Like Vinny Fitz couldn't write code or something. Bloody ridiculous. So the girlfriend keeps trying to get a prosecution or a civil case off the ground against me, but she's never got past the first hurdle. It's a nonsense from start to finish.'

  'I don't understand. How would my mother get this crazy stuff into her head?'

  Jay took another bottle of red from the wine store and opened it as she spoke. 'None of this is secret. On the face of it, it looks as if people who come between me and what I want have a nasty habit of dying. Of course, that doesn't take into account all the people who have thwarted me and lived to tell the tale.' Her smile was crooked, her eyes narrowed. 'I didn't kill anybody, Magda, but there have been rumours. Especially about Kathy and Ulf Ingemarsson. Dig deep enough on the internet and you'll always find conspiracy theories about all sorts of shit. Given that she already believed I'd killed Jess, I guess Corinna felt motivated to do the digging.'

  Magda groaned. 'I can't believe this is my mother we're talking about. If she's got an issue with my lover, I'm the person she should be talking to, not some virtual stranger. I don't understand what's going on here.'

  Jay drank some wine and closed her eyes. 'I imagine she's scared for you.' She opened her eyes and fixed Magda with a stare. 'Because there's one more death she's trying to pin on me.'

  She saw dread dawn on Magda's face. 'Oh no. No. That would be ...' She looked as if she would burst into tears. 'Not Philip. Tell me she doesn't think you killed Philip.'

  Jay nodded. 'I'm afraid so. Ironic, isn't it? He was almost certainly killed when we were together. You're my alibi. Though it wouldn't carry much weight these days, not now you're sleeping with me. Thank God the court believed Paul and Joanna were guilty. Otherwise your bloody, bloody mother would probably be down the police station demanding they arrest me.' The sudden overspill of bitterness caught Jay by surprise. She'd managed to keep the lid nailed down on her rage thus far, but it was threatening to break free now. And she couldn't afford that. Exposing Magda to the full flood of her fulminating fury would only scare her. Maybe even make her wonder whether there was a kernel of truth in what her mother was suggesting.

  Magda jumped to her feet. 'I'm going to call her right now. She's got to put a stop to this. It's outrageous. It's slander, for fuck's sake.'

  Quick on her feet, Jay intercepted her, grabbing her wrists in a hold that was strong but not rough. 'No,' she said softly. 'No, Magda. It'll just make things worse. I'm not trying to start a war between you and your family.'

  'She's the one starting a war. I'm not having this, Jay. I won't have somebody sneaking around trying to smear your reputation.' Magda tried to pull free, but Jay held firm.

  'Please, Magda. Leave it. What I told you, it wasn't intended to make you take sides. I know you love me. It's because I trust you that I was able to tell you all this.' She released one wrist and pulled Magda close. She could feel their hearts beating in counterpoint. Her body earthed the tension in Magda; she could feel her body soften. 'The only reason I've told you is so you know the truth. Corinna's going to find nothing against me because there's nothing to find because I didn't murder anybody.'

  'But, Jay--'

  'Ssh. She'll let it lie if she's got any sense.' Jay smooched half a dozen tiny kisses against Magda's mouth. Reassurance. 'But if she doesn't . . . well, you already know the truth. It's not going to come as a shock to you.' Better to feel betrayed by Corinna than me. 'I know this has been a horrible shock for you. But we're OK, you and me. Charlie Flint can look where she likes, talk to whoever she fancies talking to. But she can't hurt us.'

  'But what if ...' Magda leaned into Jay, who released her other wrist. They stood tight together, arms wrapped around each other, heat to heat.

  'What if nothing. I told you, there's nothing to find.'

  Magda pulled back so she could look into Jay's face. 'There was nothing to find against Joanna and Paul either. Till you made something.'

  It was a terrible, chilling moment. Until that point, it hadn't actually occurred to Jay that Corinna Newsam might be as ruthless as she was. Jay could feel her face freeze. For a moment, she could think of nothing to say. 'Corinna wouldn't do that,' she said at last. 'She wouldn't know where to start.'

  Magda's eyes were wide with fear. 'She wouldn't, you're right. But Charlie Flint might.'

  12

  Tuesday

  By the time Charlie set off that morning, only a little of her optimism had been knocked out of her. To her surprise, when she'd returned the night before, Maria had been less than enthusiastic about her trip to the North East. 'I think you should wait a day or two,' she'd said when Charlie had fallen into bed beside her. 'Look at you. You're exhausted. All that driving at the weekend and today you've been to London and Oxford. There's no rush, Charlie. Whatever happened in Roker happened twenty years ago. A couple of days is not going to make any difference.'

  'I know that, but I don't want to lose momentum,' Charlie said, snuggling up to Maria, taking comfort in the familiar curves and angles of her body.

  'If taking a two-day break means you lose momentum, it doesn't say much for your enthusiasm,' Maria said drily.

  'Besides, there's always the risk that Corinna's going to sleep on it and decide she's not as convinced as she thought she was. If she confronts Magda and Jay finds out what's been going on, she might head up to the North East herself to make sure I don't find anything she doesn't want found.'

  Maria jerked away from her and pushed herself upright, horror on her face. 'She'd come after you?'

  'That's not what I said. And it's not what I meant.' The last thing she needed was Maria choosing now to become overprotective. Charlie rolled her eyes. 'I just meant she'd make sure there was nothing to be found. That's all.'

  'This is the woman that you and Nick think is a killer. According to you, she kills people who get in her way. And getting in her way is exactly what you're doing. Christ, Charlie, how can you even think about going up there if there's the slightest chance of her coming after you?'

  'She's not going to be coming after me, Maria. For a start, too many people know that I've been looking into the deaths in her past. Only a complete fool would think they could bump me off and not be at the heart of a massive and highly focused investigation. And Jay Stewart is nobody's fool.' Charlie put her arm around Maria and gave her a squeeze. 'You worry too much.'

  'No,' Maria said, cross now. 'I don't worry too much. I don't worry nearly enough about you. If there's even a chance of Jay Stewart turning up in the North East, I don't want you going there. Death seems to follow her around. Even if she's not coming after you, knowing my luck you'd get swept away by a tsunami or something.'

  'You don't get tsunamis in Tyne and Wear,' Charlie said, laughing at the thought. 'Nothing bad is going to happen, I promise.'

  'You're determined, aren't you? There's nothing I can say that will make you change your mind?'

  Charlie shook her head. 'I'm afraid not. I've got this under my skin. I need to follow it through to the end.'

  'So why not wait till the weekend and I can go with you? Jay's not going to come after you if there's someone else around, is she?'

  Charlie felt a surge of warmth towards Maria. Right now, the thought of being done with her to make way for Lisa was incomprehensible. If she could stay away from Lisa, if she could refuse to feed the appetite for her, she could get past this, Charlie was convinced. Maria would never know. She'd never have to comprehend the world of hurt Charlie had considered visiting on her. 'You're very sweet,' she said. 'And I love you for it. But I can't wait till the weekend. I don't know yet who I'm
going to need to talk to, but chances are there will be places I need to go that won't be open at the weekend. Local paper offices, for example. Look, I'll be fine. You know me, babe. I don't take stupid risks.' She rubbed her head against Maria's chest.

  'That's what I always thought,' Maria said. 'But when I hear you talk like this, I'm not so sure.' She stroked Charlie's hair. 'I love you. I don't want anything bad to happen to you.'

  'And it won't. You think if it was that dangerous Nick would let me go? He knows what I'm planning and he hasn't tried to stop me.' Well, it was mostly true.

  And so Maria had given in. But it had taken the edge off Charlie's pleasure with her brainwave. She was just past York when Nick called. 'Morning, Charlie,' he said cheerily. 'Got your message last night. You sure you don't want to wait till I've got a day off so I can come with you?'

  'Nice of you to ask, Nick. But I don't think Corinna's going to rush into confronting Jay. So there's no reason to be worried, as I keep telling Maria. Besides, I'm already on the road.'

  Nick chuckled. 'I wasn't thinking of Jay pursuing you like an avenging Fury. I just thought the local lads might be more helpful if you had a man with a warrant card with you.'

  'You're probably right. But I'm just crossing the t's and dotting the i's.' Charlie pulled over into the middle lane where the driving was a little less hazardous. Even with hands-free, it wasn't straightforward to multitask when the conversation required concentration. 'I don't really expect to find any fresh evidence in a twenty-year-old missing persons case. All it was-I was talking about Jay with a friend of mine, Lisa Kent. She's a therapist - she runs NV, the self-help seminar company.'

  'I've heard of them, yes.'

  'Well, she used to know Jay years ago, when they were both undergraduates. Anyway, she said something about Jay's issues all going back to her mother. Nothing revelatory - if I'd thought about it, I'd have said exactly the same thing, it's basic. But in the context of what I'd been thinking about, it just clicked and I thought, "Of course. And if she is a killer, it's entirely possible her supposedly missing mother was the first victim." So I thought I'd take a look.'

  'So do many of your clients kick off by murdering their mothers?'

  It was Charlie's turn for the dark chuckle. 'I think it happens a lot more than we know about. Anyway, did you manage to find someone for me to talk to?'

  'Like you said, it was twenty years ago. But that has an upside as well as the obvious downside that there's not likely to be any senior officers still serving.' He paused expectantly.

  Charlie obliged. 'What's the upside?'

  'It's been so long, there's not likely to be anything sensitive in there. And since you are an accredited Home Office expert witness--'

  'You can't say that. I'm suspended,' Charlie protested.

  'Damn, I knew there was something I forgot. It's OK, Charlie, they couldn't give a shit, not over case papers from 1990. If anybody calls you on it, tell them I've got the memory retention of a goldfish. Look, you'll be fine. It's not like you don't know how to behave in a cop shop.'

  'So they're expecting me?'

  'That's right. Because it's such an old case, the paperwork isn't held at the local office or at HQ. They've got a dedicated storage facility near force headquarters at Ponteland. I'll text you the address and the directions. The woman who runs it is a retired sergeant. Hester Langhope is her name. She wants you to give her an hour's notice. I'll text you her number as well.'

  'Thanks, Nick. I owe you a big drink.'

  'You do. By the way, how did it go with Corinna?'

  'I took an executive decision to bullshit her. I told her there was no evidence because Jay hadn't done anything.'

  There was a long pause, then Nick said, 'It's just as well you don't do this for a living. I don't think private investigators are meant to make it up as they go along. I thought we'd decided that she probably had done all of them? We just didn't have enough evidence?'

  'We did. But "not proven" isn't a good verdict to deliver to someone who's already said she'd rather take the law into her own hands than sit quietly while her daughter shacks up with a woman she considers the lesbian equivalent of Hannibal Lecter. So until I get anything approaching solid evidence, the sane thing is to keep lying to Corinna.' Charlie slowed to let a white van cut in front of her as the three lanes narrowed to two.

  'And you're comfortable with Magda Newsam under Jay's roof?'

  'You sound like Corinna. I don't think Magda's at risk. It sounds like they're besotted with each other. Besides, Jay doesn't do crimes of passion. Her murders are strictly functional. They're about getting what she wants. And right now, she's got that. Come on, Nick, you allegedly did a degree in psychology, you should be as sure of this as I am.'

  'I suppose,' he said. 'OK. I'm texting you that stuff now. Call me when you've done your digging.'

  Charlie quickly understood how Hester Langhope had ended up spending her retirement running the evidence and records-storage facility for Northumbria Police. Within minutes of meeting her, it was obvious that she married terrifying efficiency with the sort of personal warmth that makes people want to sit down and unburden themselves of their woes. Not that she looked motherly. She was tall and rangy with the kind of haircut and make-up that require minimal commitment in the morning. Her jeans were clean and pressed, her Northumbria Police polo shirt spotless and her trainers gleamed in the fluorescent light. Though she was clearly in her late fifties, Langhope still moved like an athlete.

  When Charlie arrived, Langhope was at the front counter to greet her. After inspecting her ID, she led Charlie into the bowels of a warehouse crammed with shelving jammed with file boxes. As they walked, Langhope asked about Charlie's journey, with every appearance of genuine interest. She led the way to a bare office at the far side of the warehouse. It contained a table, two chairs, a file box. Langhope opened the box and presented Charlie with the lid. For a moment she was baffled, till she realised that taped to the inside was a log of who had inspected it. 'You'll need to sign for it,' Langhope said. 'You'll see the history of reviews. After the investigation was mothballed, it had an annual review for the first five years. Then every two years for the next six. Now it's every five years. You'll see the last one was 2008.' She tapped it with her biro. 'NFA. No further action.'

  'I'm not really expecting to find anything,' Charlie said.

  'DS Nicolaides said you're looking for possible victims of a serial offender?'

  'That's right. Jenna Stewart fits the profile. I want to see if there are any possible intersections. It's a long shot.'

  Langhope smiled. 'But sometimes they're the ones that pay off. I'll leave you to it. I'm sorry, but I have to lock you in for security reasons.' She pointed to a button on the wall by the door. 'If you need anything - coffee, toilet, to go outside for a smoke - just press the bell and someone will come and fetch you.'

  Charlie was impressed. Most of the evidence stores she had been in took the view that if you were in the building, you were trustworthy. Experience had shown how empty that confidence had too often been. But nobody was going to walk out the door with Hester Langhope's treasures. Not unless they'd signed for them first. With a sigh, Charlie withdrew the stack of papers that filled the box and set to work.

  What it boiled down to was this. Everything had seemed normal in the Calder household on the morning of Friday, 11 October 1990. Howard Calder had left to catch the bus to work as usual at five past eight. Jay - or Jennifer, as she had been then - had dawdled over breakfast, complaining of toothache. Her mother had called the dentist at half past eight, arranging an emergency appointment for twenty past nine. Jenna had written a note for her daughter to hand in at school to account for her lateness, then given her bus fare to make sure she arrived at the dentist on time. That was the last Jay saw of her mother. After the dental appointment, Jay had returned home because she felt dizzy and sick. The house was empty, but she thought nothing of it because her mother had been working as a vol
unteer with a project doing up a block of old people's flats nearby. She'd gone to bed and slept the day away.

  When Howard Calder returned from work, he was surprised to find only Jay at home. Jenna had never failed to be back from her volunteer work in time to prepare the family's evening meal. He and Jay waited till six, then Howard walked over to the restoration project. He found the building locked up and deserted. It took him the best part of an hour to track down the warden of the flats, who told him the work was now complete. Only a handful of volunteers had been there that day, putting the finishing touches to a couple of the flats. He recognised Jenna from Howard's description, but had no recollection of seeing her that day. She'd been working last on flat 4C, and he thought that had been finished the day before.

  Howard returned home, but Jenna still hadn't turned up or phoned. He decided to call the police to report her missing. Charlie imagined the officer taking the call. Another wife who'd had enough of a husband who couldn't believe she'd have the cheek to walk out on him. The officer had suggested Howard should check to see if any of his wife's personal items were missing. At that point, it hadn't even occurred to Howard that Jenna might have left him.

  It didn't take him long to work out what was missing. A small suitcase, some underwear and a couple of blouses, toothbrush and toiletries, her passport, birth certificate and a framed photograph of Jay, aged six. All you'd need to walk away from a life and start over, Charlie thought. It was amazing how little you could get away with.