Trick of the Dark

by McDermid, Val

  '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 placed 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 wa
rm-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.

  When we first caught sight of the In Pinn it was a bit of a let-down. From that distance, it looks insignificant, a canine tooth a bit longer than the incisors and premolars around it. But as we scrambled and traversed, crossing bealachs — the Gaelic word for mountain pass — and scree slopes, the scale of what we were going to attempt gradually dawned on us. And it was daunting.

  The pinnacle itself is an obelisk of gabbro, an imposing fin of rock that stretches 50 metres upwards from a small plateau just below the main summit of Sgurr Dearg. It doesn't sound much, but once you start the climb, there's a 1000-metre plummet to the valley floor on one side. If you can look at that without feeling vertigo, you've got a stronger stomach than most climbers.

  Before we climbed, we ate a bar of chocolate and took long drinks from our water bottles. There's no water once you get up on to the Cuillin Ridge so you have to carry what you need with you. Taking a big drink before you start means you've got less weight to carry on your back. Kathy's face was alight with anticipation and excitement. I imagine I would have looked much the same.

  I don't know how to explain the exhilaration of climbing to someone who has never done it. Nothing else in my life has ever felt quite the same. I was once in an Alpine climbing hut with a Scottish poet who said he thought it was similar to the excitement you feel when you've clicked with somebody you know is special and you realise tonight's the night you're going to sleep together for the first time. I didn't agree then and I don't agree now. Here's the difference. You don't enter into a partnership with a mountain. A climb is a challenge and it's about victory. I don't feel like that about love, or even sex.

  Jay smiled to herself. Another little white lie to keep Magda happy. Of course love was a challenge. The moment she'd seen Magda as a woman rather than a child, she'd been determined to find a way to have her. So yes, it was like a climb. You assessed the obstacles, you figured out how to surmount or go round them, you planned your route and then you got on with it.

  But the feeling of facing a climb — that was different from waging a campaign of conquest against a woman. Maybe it was something to do with the absolute focus that climbing required. The blend of mind and body, both operating at their limits to make sure you ended up where you wanted to be. Maybe it was also something to do with the danger. Love had its dangers, but they were seldom fatal. Whereas a climb always contained the seeds of disaster. Jay remembered the words of the legendary Joe Simpson, the man who had crawled down a South American mountain with a broken leg and frostbite after being left for dead at the bottom of a crevasse: 'Everything is safe until it goes wrong.'

  8

  Walking back to her parents' house, Magda felt slightly bemused. She wasn't in the habit of opening up to virtual strangers. But there was something about Charlie Flint that invited confidences. Maybe that was why she was so good at her job. Or maybe it was a skill she had acquired because of her job. Chicken, or egg? Then it dawned slowly on Magda that since she'd fallen in love with Jay, Charlie was the first lesbian she'd spent any time with who wasn't already a friend of her lover's. And she'd seized that chance to talk about what was real, not the confection she'd created for public consumption. Although she didn't recognise it at that moment, Magda had just passed the milestone that marked the end of the first phase of being in love — the unfolding of the need for confidantes other than her lover.

  As she approached the house, her spirits sank. Her father's bike had joined the others chained up in the lean-to by the back door. Henry was home. However awkward things had been with her mother, they were about to get a whole lot worse.

  When Magda walked into the kitchen, Henry looked up from the plate of food he was eating and smiled. 'I wondered where you'd got to. Your mother said you'd gone for a walk, which seemed…' He searched for the word. Magda had heard the faint slur in his voice and knew he'd already had a couple of gins. 'Unlike you,' he said.

  Both Corinna and Catherine looked wary. Magda crossed to her father and kissed his bald patch. 'I've been stuck in stuffy courtrooms all week,' she said. 'I just needed some fresh air.' She shrugged off her coat and sat down opposite him. Henry drained the glass of red wine in front of him and waved the empty glass at his wife. She pushed the bottle towards him and he helped himself to a brimming refill. As if she was seeing him for the first time after a long absence, Magda noticed with a shock how much he had aged. Her mother seemed timeless, but the years were trampling all over Henry. His lank gingery hair had greyed to the colour of scuffed ashes in an early-morning fireplace. The flesh of his face seemed to have melted away, leaving his cheeks hollow and his watery blue eyes more prominent. He'd always looked pink and scrubbed like one of the schoolboys he taught, but lately his cheeks had grown purplish red. He was only fifty-eight, but he looked like a wrecked old man. She didn't need medical training to know this was what drink had done to him. Once she had despised him for his lack of self-control; now she pitied him.

  'At least the jury came up with the right verdict,' Henry said. 'Mind you, I suppose they'll be out on the streets again in no time. Bloody murderers, half of them get shorter sentences than bank robbers. The punishment should fit the crime.' Another swig of wine, a couple of mouthfuls of food, then he pushed his half-full plate away from him. 'You always give me too much.' Corinna said nothing, merely taking his plate and noisily scraping the remains into the bin.

  'How was your Open Day?' Magda said, expecting a series of complaints.

  She wasn't disappointed. Standards, apparently, were dropping like a stone. The quality of prospective pupils, the social class of prospective parents and the laziness of his colleagues all came under fire. 'Thank heavens I'll be retiring in a few years,' Henry concluded. He'd been counting the years to his retirement for as long as Magda could remember. Once, in her teens
, she'd asked him why he stayed if he hated it so much. He'd looked at her, bleary with drink, and said, 'The pension, you stupid girl. The pension.' She'd understood enough to realise it was one of the most depressing things she'd ever heard.

  'Will you retire at the same time as Dad?' Catherine asked Corinna. 'I bet you're making plans already.'

  Corinna looked startled. 'I've a few years yet, Wheelie. I can't say I'd given it any thought. Of course, I can stay on past minimum retirement if I want. And unlike your father I still love the teaching. So I don't know.'

  'Bloody college. It's always been more important than your family,' Henry muttered.

  Well done, Wheelie. The last thing Magda wanted right now was a retread of the familiar parental row that had echoed through her life. 'Dad,' she said quickly, 'I've got something to tell you. I wanted to wait till after the trial. Time for a fresh start, you know?'

  Henry leaned back in his chair and beamed at her, his irritation with Corinna vanquished by the prospect of good news from his favourite child. 'That sounds promising. Fresh start. So, what is it? You've met someone? Some chap taken your mind off all the sadness? About time, my girl, You can't mourn for ever.'

  Magda closed her eyes momentarily and prayed for courage. Catherine reached out under the table and patted her thigh. 'I have met someone, yes. But it's not a man.'

  Henry squinted at her, as if he couldn't quite make sense of what she was saying. 'I don't understand. Not a man? What? Someone's offered you a job or something?'

  'No, Dad. Not a job. I'm in love with someone. But it's not a man, it's a woman. I'm having a relationship with a woman.'