Trick of the Dark

by McDermid, Val

  'I don't want to seem patronising, Corinna, but eyewitness reports are notoriously inaccurate. And there's a perfectly respectable psychological mechanism behind it. Our brains look for patterns. We seek resemblances. So we overlay what we actually see with what we expect to see based on visual clues. And as time goes by, we reinforce the memory with more details that come not from what we saw but from what our brain tells us we must have seen. You saw a figure who for some reason reminded you of Jay. You saw them in an area where you might reasonably expect to see Jay herself. And your brain filled in the gaps.' Charlie spread her arms wide and shrugged. 'We all do it all the time. You've nothing to reproach yourself with.'

  'I still believe my own eyes.' The stubborn set of Corinna's jaw didn't bode well for the success of Charlie's plan. But there was nothing to do but press on.

  'Fine. But you have to ask yourself who Magda's going to accept — you with a figure glimpsed through the dark, or Jay with her perfect alibi. At this point, Magda has no reason to distrust Jay. But you? She knows you're violently opposed to her and Jay being together.'

  Corinna's look was venomous. 'What else did you find out?' she demanded.

  'I checked out the Fatal Accident Inquiry into Kathy Lipson's death. There's no question that Jay cut the rope when Kathy fell off the rock pinnacle they were climbing. But there's also nothing to contradict her version of events. Kathy was the driving force behind the trip to Skye. She'd apparently always wanted to do winter climbing in the Cuillins and you only get a couple of chances every winter. You have to grab it when you can. And sometimes the weather closes in on you, as it did on them.'

  'She could have pushed her off and made it look like an accident.'

  Charlie nodded. 'She could have. But there's no witnesses. And nothing in the physical evidence to contradict Jay's version. I spoke to two of the mountain rescue guys who brought her off the mountain. They were sorry for her. They understood the stigma she's suffered in climbing circles after cutting the rope. But they also totally supported what she did. It's right to cut the rope when you have the stark choice. You're both going to die unless you cut the rope, in which case one of you might live. It's hard to argue with that, Corinna.'

  Corinna glared at her. 'Has she got to you? Is this some kind of lesbian solidarity?'

  Charlie felt the blush of anger spread up her neck. 'That is incredibly insulting. I've just spent nine days and a chunk of change trying to prove your crazy theory. Not because I owe you a thing, but because I like your daughter and I think she needs somebody in her corner. But if you think I would cover up evidence of murder just for the sake of sisterhood, you are so far off the scale of sanity that I could probably call a colleague right now and have you sectioned.' She picked up her bag and gathered her coat around her, preparing to leave.

  'Wait,' Corinna said urgently. 'Please. I'm sorry, Charlie. I'm truly sorry.' Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. 'You see how this business has thrown me off kilter?' She stood up abruptly and went to a tall mahogany cabinet. She opened it and took out a bottle of red wine. 'I do know you better than that, Charlie. Forgive me. I'm just so bitterly disappointed. Take a drink with me?'

  Charlie sat back in the chair, but shook her head. She wanted nothing to blunt her edge for this conversation. She waited while Corinna poured herself a modest glass of wine. 'I looked at Ulf Ingemarsson's murder too. And while it's true that Jay was out of the country when it happened, my friend the detective has seen her schedule for that week. There's no room for a side trip to Spain,' she said earnestly. 'Even if she'd driven through the night, she couldn't have got to Ingemarsson's villa and back to where she was supposed to be next morning.' Another lie, but Charlie was on a roll now. Whatever her suspicions, she had no proof against Jay. The woman was entitled to the presumption of innocence; more importantly, she was entitled not to be the victim of Corinna's notion of justice.

  'She could have hired someone,' Corinna said defiantly.

  Charlie groaned. 'Sure, she could have hired someone. People in her line of work come across hitmen all the time.' Her voice was heavy with sarcasm. 'Would you know where to start looking for a hired killer? I've been working in the field of abnormal psychology for more than a dozen years. I spend my days with killers and rapists and paedophiles and I have no idea how to find a hitman. It's not like you can Google it.'

  'She might have commissioned burglary and got murder,' Corinna insisted.

  'Same argument. Where is she going to find herself a burglar for hire? Would you know where to start? It's not like you can ask one of your magistrate pals to recommend a good one, is it? And here's another thing. Speaking purely as a psychiatrist, with all I know about Jay Stewart, I cannot see her putting herself at someone else's mercy. Once you commission a crime, you're vulnerable for ever. It's just not her personality type. She likes being in control too much.'

  Corinna drained her glass and put it down. 'You make a good case,' she said, voice and eyes dull. 'You always knew how to frame an argument. I'd hoped you were going to be marshalling that sharp intellect on the other side of the question. ' She sighed and stood up, walking over to the window and staring down at the college garden where Magda's wedding reception had taken place. 'It's funny,' she said. 'That day started so perfectly. I'd worried about Magda. She'd always been so focused on her job, I thought she was missing out on love and friendship and the possibility of the kind of life I've been privileged to enjoy.'

  Charlie bit her tongue, thinking of the inescapable Catholic misery of being married to Henry; of juggling the demands of four children, a big house and a constant stream of students with their intellectual challenges; of those six a.m. shifts at her college desk trying to achieve the publications that would make it impossible for the college not to offer her a fellowship; of the succession of bright young undergraduates who were needy enough to be grateful to Corinna for friendship and biddable enough to be cheap and reliable babysitters. And she was glad beyond words that Magda had a different prospect ahead of her.

  'But then Philip came along,' Corinna continued. 'What I liked about him was something you don't find a lot in young men. He was kind. He wasn't pushy or aggressive. You could see he was ambitious, but not ruthless. We figured he'd take good care of our girl. That morning, I felt like everything had fallen into place. Magda marrying a good man, the wedding here at my own college.'

  Charlie was finding Corinna's melodramatic monologue hard to take. 'But by nightfall, it had all gone to shit,' she said drily.

  Corinna winced at the language. 'It was tragedy,' she said, turning back to the room. 'If Philip had lived, you can't tell me Magda wouldn't be happily married at this moment. We wouldn't have had any of this lesbian nonsense, never mind having to worry about our daughter living with a killer.'

  'Excuse me? "Lesbian nonsense"? Are you deliberately trying to be offensive?' Charlie shook her head and reached for the spare glass Corinna had brought for her. She poured herself some wine and took a deep draught. This time, she let her anger flow. 'Your daughter's a lesbian, Corinna. It's not some adolescent phase. If Philip had lived, the marriage would have collapsed when Magda couldn't go on resisting her true nature. Either that or she'd have endured a life half-lived for the sake of respectability and not upsetting you and Henry. Whatever way it had gone, she'd have been bloody miserable. So spare me the fairy-tale romance. Magda's a dyke. Get over it.'

  'You don't know that,' Corinna said. 'I've come across a few cases over the years where women have gone back to men after years of lesbian affairs. What is it you call them? Has-bians? Was-bians?'

  'Lobotomised,' Charlie said acidly. Seeing Corinna's expression, she added wearily, 'That was a joke, Corinna. I'm finding this all a bit hard to stomach. I haven't had a conversation like this in a dozen years. It's all a bit weird to find myself talking to someone who makes the Daily Mail look tolerant. Especially since you're the one who's been asking me favours.'

  'It's hard to abandon a lifetime
of principles,' Corinna said.

  'One woman's principles are another woman's bigotry, Corinna. Even if you manage to prise Magda out of Jay's arms, she's not going to have a Damascene conversion back to heterosexuality. ' Charlie gave a wicked grin. 'I think she's finally discovered fun.'

  'I'd like to be able to cross that bridge when we come to it,' Corinna said, making her way back to her chair and refilling her glass. 'So. Was Philip's murder as much of a dead end as the other cases?'

  One more lie. 'As far as Jay is concerned, yes. I can't tell you who her alibi is, but I've spoken to the person who was with her that evening and I am convinced that at the time Philip was murdered, she was in another part of the college altogether. '

  'Why can't you tell me who she was with?'

  'Because I promised not to reveal this person's identity. I could lie to you and say it was a business meeting, that it had to do with commercial confidentiality. But I'm not going to do that. The person Jay was with has good reasons for wanting their meeting to remain secret, and I agreed to honour that.'

  Corinna's lip curled in disdain. 'Some married woman, no doubt.'

  'Why do you care? Believe me, Jay's alibi for Philip's murder is rock solid. I'll be completely candid with you, Corinna. When we talked about this last week, I came round to your way of thinking. I was more than halfway to being convinced that Jay really was a murderer. But I've had to accept that we were both wrong. What's happened around her has genuinely been coincidence. You made a mistake the morning Jess Edwards died, and it's tainted your opinion of everything that's occurred around Jay ever since. I know it's hard to unpick all those assumptions, but you have to accept that your brain tricked you into a misapprehension. The honest truth is that she didn't deserve to be shown the door all those years ago. And she doesn't deserve it now.' Charlie suddenly realised she was getting carried away with herself. She'd almost fallen for her own assumed sincerity. It was hard not to despise herself for her ability to persuade against what she herself believed had happened.

  Corinna stared at her, glassy-eyed. 'I was so sure,' she said. 'And then everything else made sense.'

  'I understand,' Charlie said gently. 'But if you take away that first certainty, you can see there's no real reason to hold Jay responsible for any of those other deaths.'

  'I've got some thinking to do,' Corinna said, her voice heavy and slow. 'It's hard to hold on to my mental image of Jay as this evil psychopath in the teeth of what you're telling me. But I suppose, for Magda's sake, I should be grateful that she's not what I took her for.'

  'You should,' Charlie said, getting to her feet. 'And you need to build some bridges there. Magda clearly values her place in your family. Don't punish her for being who she is.'

  Charlie walked back through college, her depression building with every step. She'd saved Corinna from taking some drastic and destructive step, but it had taken its toll on her. She'd had to argue against what she had come to believe, all because Jay Stewart had been smart enough to commit a series of perfect murders. Charlie remembered hearing a radio presenter once asking a crime writer if she knew of anyone having committed a perfect murder. The writer had said, 'The perfect murder is the one nobody suspects is a murder.' Jay hadn't quite managed that every time, but she'd managed to vary her methods enough to keep herself out of the frame.

  What Charlie had said to Nick had been right. They would have to wait for the next death before they could have any chance of making Jay pay for her crimes. It was a profoundly depressing thought. She wished there was another explanation for the chain of deaths that circled Jay Stewart, but any other theory would have to embrace an eye-popping amount of coincidence.

  Charlie walked out into the North Oxford street, heading towards the University Parks with the force of a habit that hadn't been exercised for seventeen years. The spring afternoon had a distinct chill, the sky as grey as her mood. She had no eyes for the dramatic displays of spring bulbs. All she could see was that she'd reached the end of the road. What had started as a distraction had ended up magnifying the doubt and disappointment that had plagued her since Bill Hopton's second murder trial. She'd take a walk through the park then catch a bus to the station. There was still plenty of time to get back to Manchester.

  Enough time for her to make one last detour, a little voice in the back of her head suggested. She wouldn't be back in Oxford any time soon. How could it hurt? 'It could hurt a million ways,' she said out loud, earning an indulgent smile from a passing student.

  She cut through the Parks and emerged opposite Keble College, taking a left down towards the Broad. She could cut down Queen's Lane to the High and easily catch a bus to Iffley. To Charlie, like some renegade banker, a million just wasn't enough.

  10

  This time, Charlie decided she wasn't going to call ahead and give Lisa the chance to prepare herself. If she was busy, so be it. Charlie would walk away, and this time maybe she could manage to make it for good. But the last proper thing that Lisa had said to her was that Charlie's feelings were not a one-way street. Charlie couldn't leave it at that. She realised that the time was approaching when she would have to choose between the life she had with Maria and the possibility of a future with Lisa, but she wanted to be sure it was a real choice. She needed to be clear that if she chose Lisa, there was a genuine offer of a relationship there.

  But equally, Charlie knew it would be dishonest to stay with Maria if the only reason she was there was that there was nothing better on offer. Maria deserved so much more than that. If she was brutally honest with herself, Charlie had to admit that her feelings for Lisa had undermined their relationship. Pursuing Jay Stewart had provided her with the perfect excuse for spending time with Lisa and indulging her emotions. But as that investigation drew to a close, so too did the time for vacillation. The first decision was whether to stay with Maria; the second, whether to pursue a relationship with Lisa.

  Sometimes Charlie wished she was more like the psychopaths she dealt with professionally. It must in some sense be a relief not to be possessed of insight into one's inner life.

  Only Lisa's car was in the drive. Charlie walked up the path and physically gathered herself together, squaring her shoulders and straightening her spine. She reached for the bell and paused for a few seconds. It wasn't too late. She could still turn and walk away, walk back to a life that really should be sufficient for anybody.

  But Charlie had to know. Charlie always had to know. And in this matter, not knowing wasn't just a matter of curiosity unsatisfied. This time, not knowing would torture her. It would take on a life of its own in her imagination. Every time she and Maria bickered, she would wonder how things would have been different with Lisa. Inevitably it would assume a gloss that would destroy their relationship. The promise not explored would always be the tantalising prospect of true happiness and fulfilment. Damned if she did, damned if she didn't.

  Charlie pressed the bell.

  It took Lisa a while to answer. Charlie had almost given up, assuming Lisa had gone somewhere on foot or by taxi. But at last, the door swung open and there she was. She was wearing another shalwar kameez, this time in deep fuchsia. She looked annoyed, but when she saw it was Charlie the frown disappeared and she produced the full-on smile. 'Charlie,' she exclaimed. 'What a delicious surprise. But you should have called, I could have postponed my next meeting.' She glanced at her watch. 'We've only got twenty minutes to ourselves. Come in, come in.'

  Charlie was taken aback by the effusiveness of the welcome. Under the full glare of Lisa's charisma, she had no defence. 'I think we've got unfinished business,' she said, following Lisa down the hall to the sitting room. A single floor lamp turned the afternoon gloom to intimacy. There was a smell of spice in the air: cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice. Charlie wanted to lie down and make the world go away.

  Lisa settled on one of the sofas, legs tucked under so she looked like a startling blossom on the cream fabric. 'Come and sit beside me,' she said, patting the sofa n
ext to her. 'Take your coat off.'

  Charlie obeyed, sitting beside Lisa but not quite touching. 'I didn't want to leave things between us the way they were,' she said.

  'Of course not,' Lisa said. 'It's important that we recognise the power of the connection between us. We may not be able to do anything about it, but we'll always know there is that deep bond that draws us together.'

  'I was wondering whether that's enough to get it out of our path and move forward,' Charlie said, her throat dry. She couldn't help wishing they could get past the abstractions to physical abandon.

  Lisa shifted so that she was leaning into Charlie. Charlie was conscious of every point where their bodies touched. 'It's so tempting, isn't it? Just to fall into each other, to lose ourselves and forget everything else? There's nothing I'd like more than for us to be lovers, Charlie. But this isn't the right time. It's too combustible. You need to be past Maria before you can open yourself to me. And me? Well, I'm still trying to free my spirit of the deep past. I won't give you the second best I can spend on the likes of Nadia. I wouldn't insult you.'

  Charlie gave a wry smile. 'I've got a pretty thick skin, Lisa. I could live with an insult like that.'

  Lisa didn't echo the smile. 'See, Charlie, I think that's precisely where you're wrong. I think you couldn't live with the insult. I think it would eat away at you and in the end it would poison everything between us. I've seen it happen to other people and I don't want it to happen to us. This isn't the time, Charlie. You need to be patient.'

  It was an answer, though not the one she'd wanted to hear. Somehow, Charlie understood that whatever decision she made concerning Maria, there would always be a reason why Lisa wouldn't be able to commit. She drew away from her. 'In that case, better we don't touch at all.'