by Val McDermid
‘OK, boss,’ Jason mumbled, already focused on the task. Setting a good example, Karen thought. The boy was learning. Slowly but surely, he was learning.
‘Where are you heading?’ McCartney asked as she made for the door.
She wanted to say, ‘None of your business,’ but she decided it was probably worth trying to keep him more or less on side. For now, at least. Till she had the full measure of him and the closeness of his connection to Ann Markie. ‘I’m off to Granton to talk to one of the conservators who thinks she might have seen a stolen painting in a private collection.’
Again that slight twitch of the lip. ‘I didn’t think that was our thing. Stolen paintings.’
‘It is when a security guard got a face full of shotgun pellets in the course of the theft. Eight years ago, and this is the first sniff we’ve had of where the painting might have ended up.’ And she was gone, already planning the route in her head. One of the many things she loved about Edinburgh was that it was easier to get places on the bus and on foot than it was to wrangle a pool car out of the division. Anything that avoided the petty exercise of petty power was a plus in Karen’s book. ‘Number sixteen,’ she muttered as she headed for the bus stops on Leith Walk. ‘That’ll do nicely.’
3
2018 – Wester Ross
Alice Somerville struggled out of the driver’s seat of her Ford Focus with the supple grace of a woman forty years her senior. She groaned as she stretched her limbs, shivering in the cool breeze drifting in from the sea loch at the foot of the slope. ‘I’d forgotten it’s such a long way up,’ she grumbled. ‘That last hour from Ullapool seemed to go on for ever.’
Her husband unfolded himself from the passenger seat. ‘And you were the one who objected when I insisted we stop in Glasgow last night.’ He rolled his shoulders and arched his spine. ‘If I’d listened to you, I’d have suffered irreversible spinal damage.’ He grinned at her, oblivious to the goofy cast it gave his features. ‘Scotland always goes on further than you expect it to.’ He waggled each leg, trying to force his skinny jeans down to meet his brown leather lace-ups.
Alice pulled the scrunchie from her ponytail and shook her dark hair loose. As it fell around her face, it softened the sharpness of her features and emphasised her straight brows and high cheekbones. She popped the boot and took out her backpack. ‘We were so excited last year, we didn’t notice the distance so much. It is lovely, though. Look at those mountains, the way they almost seem to fold into each other. And the sea, those big waves rolling in. It’s hard to believe this is the same country as Hertfordshire.’
She rolled her shoulders then leaned back inside the car to retrieve a sheet of paper she’d printed out before they set off. ‘This is definitely the place,’ she said, comparing the photograph on the page to the long low building they’d parked in front of. It was a graceless huddle of stone crouching against the hillside, but it had clearly been recently renovated with an eye on its original lines. The pointing between the stones was still relatively uncolonised by moss and lichen, the window frames sturdy and true, their paintwork unblemished by the weather.
Will swung round and pointed to a two-storey whitewashed cottage across the glen. ‘And that must be Hamish’s place. It looks pretty smart for the back end of beyond.’
‘It’s no wonder we didn’t work it all out last year. According to Granto’s map, this place was no more than a ruin. A pile of stone that used to be a byre. And there’s no sign of the sheepfold he had down as the key landmark from the road.’ Alice harrumphed. She pointed at the hillside where dozens of sheep nibbled at grass that looked already well cropped. ‘Wherever they get folded, it’s not on that hill any more.’
‘Well, we’re here now. Thanks to Hamish.’ Will unloaded a large holdall. ‘Let’s get settled in.’
Alice gazed across the glen. The white cottage looked tantalisingly near, but Hamish had warned them that a treacherous peat bog lay between them. It certainly didn’t look anything like the manicured countryside near their home. Don’t even think about crossing it, he’d cautioned in the email he’d sent with detailed explanations and directions. It was the best part of a mile by the uneven single-track road but at least they’d arrive safe and dry. ‘It’s not that far. I reckon it wouldn’t take more than half an hour, tops. We could always pop over and say hello now? It’d be nice to stretch our legs.’
‘We told Hamish, tomorrow, Alice. I don’t want to start off on the wrong foot. Let’s not forget, he’s the one doing us a favour. Plus we need to get the dinner on. I’m starving already. Whatever’s waiting for us up at Clashstronach will still be there in the morning.’ The place-name was clumsy in his mouth. He drew her to him in a one-armed hug. ‘You’re always so impatient.’
Alice harrumphed, but she stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. Then she headed up the flagstone path to the rented cottage Hamish had recommended to them. She checked the paper again and typed a code into the secure lockbox. It swung open, revealing two sets of keys on a hook. Will paused to check his look in the wing mirror – dark blond quiff in place, goatee neat, no black-pudding detritus from lunch between his teeth – before he followed her.
The door opened on a small hall, an open door off to one side revealing the main room of the cottage. One end was laid out as a galley kitchen, complete with fridge freezer and gas stove. Next to it, a rustic pine dining table with four cane-backed chairs, comfy-looking cushion pads tied in place. A vase of sweet peas sat in the middle of the table. Alice assumed they were artificial, given the climate and the time of year, but they looked like the real thing and they added a touch of homeliness.
At the other end of the room, a well-stuffed sofa faced a wall-mounted flat-screen TV hanging above a stone fireplace with a solid fuel burner, peat bricks stacked neatly on either side. A pair of armchairs flanked the fireplace. ‘Looks all right,’ Will said.
‘A bit spartan.’ Alice dumped her backpack on one of the kitchen chairs. ‘Even with those pictures on the walls.’ She waved at the photographs of wild seascapes and rocks.
‘Hamish said they’d only finished the work a few weeks ago,’ he reminded her, crossing towards the two doors on the far side of the room. He opened the one on the left, which led to a smartly tiled bathroom with a long picture window that looked out on the sea loch. ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘Helluva view when you’re in the bath or the shower.’
Alice looked over his shoulder. ‘At least the toilet’s behind a modesty screen,’ she said.
‘So bourgeois,’ he teased.
Alice, who generally gave as good as she got, dug him gently in the ribs and said, ‘I just don’t want to provide anyone with an image they can’t un-see.’
The other door led to a bedroom, plainly furnished with a king-sized bed and a suite of matching pine furniture that had clearly come from a flat-pack superstore. The star of the show was another picture window with a stunning view of the sea and blue-grey mountains that folded into each other on the horizon. ‘This will do nicely,’ Alice said.
Will dumped the holdall on the bed. ‘It’s a lot more comfortable than what Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins ended up with on their treasure hunt. I’ll go and bring the shopping in.’
As he turned, Alice stepped close and reached round him, hands on his buttocks, pulling him to her. ‘Plenty of time for that,’ she murmured, running her lips along his neck, her breath warm and teasing against his skin. ‘This is really exciting, Will. I feel like we’re on the brink of uncovering Granto’s real legacy.’
There was, Will thought, something to be said for a treasure hunt. Three years into their marriage, Alice’s enthusiasm for sex bubbled up less frequently. But preparing for this expedition and imagining what it might bring had sparked an excitement in her that he was all too happy to exploit to the full. ‘I’m not going to argue with that,’ he said, wrapping his arms around her, gratified that it still took so little encouragement from her for his body to respond. He let himself fall backwards.
She kissed him again, this time on his mouth, shifting her body so she had him pinned to the bed. She slipped one hand between them. ‘Mmm, I can tell.’
‘We should come treasure-hunting more often.’ And then the time for conversation was past.
4
2018 – Edinburgh
The women locked in conversation at the table behind Karen couldn’t have been more out of place. She could see them in the mirror on the wall of Café Aleppo and if she concentrated, she could hear every word of their conversation. Ironically, she’d have paid no attention if they’d been in their natural habitat – Bruntsfield or Morningside, at a guess, sipping a Viennese filter coffee in the German Konditorei or a flat white in an artisanal hipster café. But there had to be a reason for white, middle-class women of a deliberately indeterminate age to be down at the bottom of Leith Walk hunched over small glasses of Miran’s intense cardamom coffee.
Karen was the only other person in the café who wasn’t from the Middle East and she had her own reasons for being there. For one thing, it was more or less halfway between the storage facility and her office, and she’d needed a coffee to restore her after an hour of artistic dithering down in Granton. For another, she needed to work out what having Ann Markie’s placeman foisted on her meant. She could take time out to consider how to deal with DS Gerry McCartney because she knew with absolute certainty that none of her colleagues would accidentally bump into her here. A social enterprise run by a bunch of Syrian refugees wasn’t the kind of place most police officers would choose for their refreshment break.
That wasn’t her only reason for coming. Karen had first encountered Miran and his fellow Syrians on her nocturnal ramblings round the city. They’d been huddled round a makeshift brazier under a bridge because they had nowhere else to meet. Karen had felt a strange kinship with them and had helped them make the connections that had led to the setting up of the social enterprise café. Every time, it embarrassed her that, as a result, her money was no good there. In her mind she’d been repaying a debt rather than going out of her way to hold out a helping hand. They thought otherwise and consistently refused to let her pay. She’d protested that to an observer, it might look as if they were trying to bribe a Detective Chief Inspector. Miran had laughed. ‘I think nobody who knows you would be so stupid,’ he said.
And so she always calculated the cost of what she ate and drank and dropped an appropriate amount in the collection box for the charity that supported the people who hadn’t been lucky enough to escape the hell that Syria had become. Miran’s wife Amena had caught her eye once and inclined her head in a small nod of approval. If Karen belonged anywhere in Edinburgh, she thought it might be Aleppo.
But those two women with their expertly coloured hair, their understated gold earrings and their cashmere wraps absolutely didn’t fit in. There was usually no shortage of Scottish customers in Aleppo but those were Leithers – locals who came in for the authentic Middle Eastern food and the ferociously strong coffee. Nothing like these women. So because she never quite managed to be off duty, Karen gave her full attention to a conversation that probably wasn’t meant to be overheard.
The blonde-with-lowlights nodded sympathetically to the brunette-with-highlights. ‘We were all shocked,’ she said. Well-modulated Edinburgh, vibrant and low. ‘I mean, obviously we were absolutely appalled when you told us he’d tried to strangle you, but it was just mind-boggling that he barged into the middle of a dinner party and confessed to it.’ Now Karen was well and truly snared. Whatever she’d expected to hear, it wasn’t this.
‘He was trying to get himself off the hook.’ The other voice had subtly different vowels. Perthshire, maybe? ‘Showing remorse. So you’d all feel sorry for poor Logan and blame me. He didn’t realise it was too late. That I’d already gone to the police.’
‘He knows that now, though?’
The brunette scoffed. ‘Damn right he does. He’s being formally interviewed next week.’ Karen relaxed a little. At least the woman had been taken seriously. Though that might be a class thing too. It was regrettable, but a woman like this making such an allegation would always command more attention than someone further down the social scale.
The soft clink of glass on saucer. An indrawn breath. Then, cautiously, feeling her way, the blonde said, ‘You don’t think that maybe, with that hanging over him, this wouldn’t be the best time for you to move back into the house?’
No kidding, thought Karen.
‘He needs to move out.’ Firm. Calm. A woman who had made her mind up. ‘I need to be back in the house with the kids. It’s crazy that we’re camped out in Fiona’s granny flat while he’s in the family home. He’s the one who hasn’t been paying the mortgage. He’s the one who’s lost half a million pounds of our money betting on sports he knows nothing about. He’s the one who had the affair. He’s the one who put his hands round my throat and tried to strangle me.’ Her voice was calm, almost robotic. Karen sneaked another look in the mirror. The speaker looked as relaxed as if she was discussing her weekly Waitrose shopping order. There was something stagey about this, almost as if it was a performance with a purpose. But then, Karen acknowledged she had a naturally suspicious mind.
‘All of that’s true, Willow. But what will you do if he refuses to go?’
Willow sighed. ‘I’ll just have to make sure he sees sense, Dandy. Because Fiona’s goodwill is running out. I’ll appeal to his love for the children.’
‘You can’t go to the house by yourself. You can’t confront a man who’s tried to strangle you without back-up. I’ll get Ed to come with you.’
Willow gave a laugh that Karen suspected would be described in a certain kind of magazine as a tinkle. ‘I’m trying to take the heat out of the situation. Ed’s about four inches taller and six inches broader than Logan. That’ll only make things worse. Look, he’s learned his lesson. He’s got the police on his back already. He’s not going to make things worse.’
Dandy – Dandy? Who named their kid after a comic? – sighed. ‘I think you’re reading this all wrong. He’s got nothing left to lose, Willow. He’s got no money, no job. After the police have finished with him and he’s got a record for domestic abuse, the family courts won’t let him near the children on his own. If you throw him out, to add to all that, he’ll be homeless because, after what we know now, none of us will take him in.’
‘Serves him right.’ Willow’s voice was curiously flat and cold.
A long pause. Long enough for Karen to twist the kaleidoscope and come up with another picture.
‘I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve all of that and more. But think about it from his perspective for a moment, Willow,’ Dandy continued. ‘Right now, the roof over his head is the only thing he’s got left. If you try to take that from him … well, who knows how he’ll react?’
Karen shrugged into her coat and stood up. She moved to the side of their table, aware of the baffled surprise on their faces as they took in her presence. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt, ladies,’ she said. ‘But I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation.’ She gave them her best warm smile. They were polite; they couldn’t resist returning it. ‘I’m a police officer.’ That wiped the smiles off. ‘I simply wanted to say that in my experience when you back someone into a corner who has nothing left to lose, someone who’s already had his hands round your throat? That’s when women end up dead.’
Dandy pushed her chair back, recoiling from this harsh truth, shock rearranging her face. But Willow became still as a cat watching prey. ‘Logan would never kill Willow,’ Dandy protested.
‘Best to avoid that possibility. Best to avoid a showdown between the two of you. Especially in a kitchen equipped with sharp knives,’ Karen said.
‘This is ridiculous. I don’t have to listen to this.’ Willow stood up, drawing her wrap around her. ‘I’m going to the loo, Dandy, then I’m getting the check. I’ll see you outside.’
Karen watched her leave then turne
d back to Dandy, who was still frozen in affront. ‘There’s something else I want to say, Dandy. I have a suspicious mind. It comes with the territory. And listening to your pal just now, seeing how composed she was, I couldn’t help wondering what’s really going on here. Is she actually afraid of him? Or is she preparing the ground for something completely different? The courts are very sympathetic these days to women who defend themselves when they’re in immediate fear of their lives from men who have already been demonstrably violent towards them.’
Now Dandy was on her feet. ‘How dare you!’
Karen shrugged. ‘I dare because it’s my job to protect Logan as much as it is to protect Willow. Are you sure you’re not being set up as a defence witness? Conveniently able to confirm your friend’s version of events?’
‘That is outrageous! What’s your name? I’m going to report you,’ Dandy shouted, drawing the eyes of all the other customers.
Karen took a couple of steps towards the door then turned back. ‘I’ll be keeping a close eye on the news, Dandy. I only hope I don’t ever have to see you or your pal Willow again.’ She dropped a handful of coins in the collection box on the way out, wondering whether she’d just made a complete fool of herself or saved someone’s life.
5
2018 – Edinburgh
Later that evening, when she told DCI Jimmy Hutton about the encounter, Karen was gratified to hear he thought she hadn’t overreacted. They sat inside her waterfront flat, the lights down low not for any romantic reason but because they both enjoyed the dramatic view of the Firth of Forth from the picture window of the living room. Every week it was different, depending on the weather, the season and the traffic on the wide estuary.
