A Darker Domain - Val McDermid

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mother doesn’t understand the power of the internet. She doesn’t know about things like online electoral rolls or 192.com. She thinks if there’s no human being to ask, you’re screwed. She didn’t think she was giving you anything you could use. She doesn’t want you poking about in this, she’s not going to help you.’

      ‘That makes two of you then.’ Misha pulled her arm free and strode out ahead of him.

      John caught up with her on the corner of their street. ‘That’s not fair,’ he said. ‘I just don’t want you getting hurt unnecessarily.’

      ‘You think watching my boy die and not doing anything that might save him isn’t hurting me?’ Misha felt the heat of anger in her cheeks, knew the hot tears of rage were lurking close to the surface. She turned her face away from him, blinking desperately at the tall sandstone tenements.

      ‘We’ll find a donor. Or they’ll find a treatment. All this stem cell research, it’s moving really fast.’

      ‘Not fast enough for Luke,’ Misha said, the familiar sensation of weight in her stomach slowing her steps. ‘John, please. I need to go to Nottingham. I need you to take a couple of days off work, cover for me with Luke.’

      ‘You don’t need to go. You can talk to the guy on the phone.’

      ‘It’s not the same. You know that. When you’re dealing with clients, you don’t do it over the phone. Not for anything important. You go out and see them. You want to see the whites of their eyes. All I’m asking is for you to take a couple of days off, to spend time with your son.’

      His eyes flashed dangerously and she knew she’d gone too far. John shook his head stubbornly. ‘Just make the phone call, Misha.’

      And that was that. Long experience with her husband had taught her that when John took a position he believed was right, going over the same ground only gave him the opportunity to build stronger fortifications. She had no fresh arguments that could challenge his decision. So here she was, sitting on the floor, trying to shape sentences in her head that would persuade Logan Laidlaw to tell her what had happened to her father since he’d walked out on her more than twenty-two years earlier.

      Her mother hadn’t given her much to base a strategy on. Laidlaw was a waster, a womanizer, a man who, at thirty, had still acted like a teenager. He’d been married and divorced by twenty-five, building the sour reputation of a man who was too handy with his fists around women. Misha’s picture of her father was patchy and partial, but even with the bias imposed by her mother, Mick Prentice didn’t sound like the sort of man who would have had much time for Logan Laidlaw. Still, hard times made for strange company.

      At last, Misha picked up the phone and keyed in the number she’d tracked down via internet searches and directory enquiries. He’d probably be out at work, she thought on the fourth ring. Or asleep.

      The sixth ring cut off abruptly. A deep voice grunted an approximate hello.

      ‘Is that Logan Laidlaw?’ Misha said, working to keep her voice level.

      ‘I’ve got a kitchen and I don’t want any insurance.’ The Fife accent was still strong, the words bumping into each other with the familiar rise and fall.

      ‘I’m not trying to sell you anything, Mr Laidlaw. I just want to talk to you.’

      ‘Aye, right. And I’m the Prime Minister.’

      She could sense he was on the point of ending the call. ‘I’m Mick Prentice’s daughter,’ she blurted out, strategy hopelessly holed beneath the waterline. Across the distance, she could hear the liquid wheeze of his breathing. ‘Mick Prentice from Newton of Wemyss,’ she tried.

      ‘I know where Mick Prentice is from. What I don’t know is what Mick Prentice has to do with me.’

      ‘Look, I realize the two of you might not see much of each other these days, but I’d really appreciate anything you could tell me. I really need to find him.’ Misha’s own accent slipped a few gears till she was matching his own broad tongue.

      A pause. Then, with a baffled note, ‘Why are you talking to me? I haven’t seen Mick Prentice since I left Newton of Wemyss way back in 1984.’

      ‘OK, but even if you split up as soon as you got to Nottingham, you must have some idea of where he ended up, where he was heading for?’

      ‘Listen, hen, I don’t have a clue what you’re on about. What do you mean, split up as soon as we got to Nottingham?’ He sounded irritated, what little patience he had evaporating in the heat of her demands.

      Misha gulped a deep breath then spoke slowly. ‘I just want to know what happened to my dad after you got to Nottingham. I need to find him.’

      ‘Are you wrong in the head or something, lassie? I’ve no idea what happened to your dad after I came to Nottingham, and here’s for why. I was in Nottingham and he was in Newton of Wemyss. And even when we were both in the same place, we weren’t what you would call pals.’

      The words hit like a splash of cold water. Was there something wrong with Logan Laidlaw’s memory? Was he losing his grip on the past. ‘No, that’s not right,’ she said. ‘He came to Nottingham with you.’

      A bark of laughter, then a gravel cough. ‘Somebody’s been winding you up, lassie,’ he wheezed. ‘Trotsky would have crossed a picket line before the Mick Prentice I knew. What makes you think he came to Nottingham?’

      ‘It’s not just me. Everybody thinks he went to Nottingham with you and the other men.’

      ‘That’s mental. Why would anybody think that? Do you not know your own family history?’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Christ, lassie, your great-grandfather. Your father’s granddad. Do you not know about him?’

      Misha had no idea where this was going but at least he hadn’t hung up on her as she’d earlier feared he would. ‘He was dead before I was even born. I don’t know anything about him, except that he was a miner too.’

      ‘Jackie Prentice,’ Laidlaw said with something approaching relish. ‘He was a strike breaker back in 1926. After it was settled, he had to be moved to a job on the surface. When your life depends on the men in your team, you don’t want to be a scab underground. Not unless everybody else is in the same boat, like with us. Christ knows why Jackie stayed in the village. He had to take the bus to Dysart to get a drink. There wasn’t a bar in any of the Wemyss villages that would serve him. So your dad and your granddad had to work twice as hard as anybody else to be accepted down the pit. No way would Mick Prentice throw that respect away. He’d sooner starve. Aye, and see you starve with him. Wherever you got your info, they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.’

      ‘My mother told me. It’s what everybody says in the Newton.’ The impact of his words left her feeling as if all the air had been sucked from her.

      ‘Well, they’re wrong. Why would anybody think that?’

      ‘Because the night you went to Nottingham was the last night anyone in the Newton saw him or heard from him. And because my mother occasionally gets money in the post with a Nottingham postmark.’

      Laidlaw breathed heavily, a concertina wheeze in her ear. ‘By Christ, that’s wild. Well, sweetheart, I’m sorry to disappoint you. There was five of us left Newton of Wemyss that December night. But your dad wasn’t among us.’

      Karen stopped at the canteen for a chicken salad sandwich on the way back to her desk. Criminals and witnesses could seldom fool Karen, but when it came to food, she could fool herself seventeen ways before breakfast. The sandwich, for example. Wholegrain bread, a swatch of wilted lettuce, a couple of slices of tomato and cucumber, and it became a health food. Never mind the butter and the mayo. In her head, the calories were cancelled by the benefits. She tucked her notebook under her arm and ripped open

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