A Darker Domain - Val McDermid Detective Karen Pirie

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robe and scythe. There was something indisputably sinister about the image. Across the bottom, enclosed by a funereal black border, was a blank area about three inches deep. It was the sort of space where a small bill might be posted announcing a performance.

      ‘Fuck me,’ Lisa said. At last, she looked up. ‘Catriona Maclennan Grant,’ she said. There was wonder in her voice. ‘Bel…where the hell did you find this?’

      Bel smiled. ‘Before I answer that, I want to clarify a few things.’

      Susan Charleson rolled her eyes. ‘You can’t imagine you’re the first person who’s walked through the door with a faked-up copy of the ransom poster. I’ll tell you what I’ve told them. The reward is contingent on finding Sir Broderick’s grandson alive or demonstrating conclusively that he is dead. Not to mention bringing Catriona Maclennan Grant’s killers to justice.’

      ‘You misunderstand me,’ Bel said, smile mischievous but not giving an inch. ‘Ms Charleson, I’m really not interested in Sir Broderick’s money. But I do have one condition.’

      ‘You’re making a mistake here.’ Susan Charleson’s voice had acquired an edge. ‘This is a police matter. You’re in no position to be imposing conditions.’

      Bel placed a hand firmly on the poster. ‘I can walk out the door now with this poster and forget I ever saw it. I’d have little difficulty in lying to the police. I’m a journalist, after all.’ She was beginning to enjoy herself far more than she’d anticipated. ‘Your word against mine, Ms Charleson. And I know you don’t want me to walk out on you. One of the skills a successful journalist has to learn is how to read people. And I saw the way you reacted when you looked at this. You know this is the real thing, not some faked-up copy.’

      ‘You’ve a very aggressive attitude.’ Susan Charleson sounded almost nonchalant.

      ‘I like to think of it as assertive. I didn’t come here to fall out with you, Ms Charleson. I want to help. But not for free. In my experience, the rich don’t appreciate anything they don’t have to pay for.’

      ‘You said you weren’t interested in money.’

      ‘That’s true. And I’m not. I am, however, interested in reputation. And my reputation is built on being not just first with the story but with getting to the story behind the story. I think there are areas where I can help unravel this more effectively than official channels. I’m sure you’ll agree once I’ve explained where this poster came from. All I’m asking is that you don’t obstruct me looking into the case. And beyond that, that you and your boss cooperate when it comes to sharing information about what was going on around the time Catriona was kidnapped.’

      ‘That’s quite a significant request. Sir Broderick is not a man who compromises his privacy readily. You’ll appreciate I don’t have the authority to grant what you are asking.’

      Bel shrugged one shoulder delicately. ‘Then we can meet again when you have an answer.’ She slid the poster across the table, opening the portfolio to replace it there.

      Susan Charleson stood up. ‘If you can spare me a few more minutes, I might be able to give you an answer now.’

      Bel knew at that point that she had won. Susan Charleson wanted this too badly. She would persuade her boss to accept the deal. Bel hadn’t been this excited in years. This wasn’t just a slew of news stories and features, though there wasn’t a paper in the world that wouldn’t be interested. Especially after the Madeleine McCann case. With access to the mysterious Brodie Grant plus the chance of discovering the fate of his grandson, this was potentially a bestseller. In Cold Blood for the new millennium. It would be her ticket for the gravy train.

      Bel gave a little snort of laughter. Maybe she could use the proceeds to buy the casa rovina and bring things full circle. It was hard to imagine what could be neater.

      It had been a few years since Karen had last taken the single-track road to Newton of Wemyss. But it was obvious that the hamlet had undergone the same transformation as its sister villages on the main road. Commuters had fallen ravenous upon all four of the Wemyss villages, seeing rustic possibilities in what had been grim little miners’ rows. One-bedroomed hovels had been knocked through to make lavish cottages, back yards transformed by conservatories that poured light into gloomy living-kitchens. Villages that had shrivelled and died following the Michael pit disaster in ’67 and the closures that followed the 1984 strike had found a new incarnation as dormitories whose entire idea of community was a pub quiz night. In the village shops you could buy a scented candle but not a pint of milk. The only way you could tell there had ever been a mining community was the scale model of pit winding gear that straddled the point where the private steam railway had once crossed the main road laden with open trucks of coal bound for the railhead at Thornton Junction. Now, the whitewashed miners’ rows looked like an architect’s deliberate choice of what a vernacular village ought to look like. Their history had been overwhelmed by a designer present.

      Since her last visit, Newton of Wemyss had spruced itself up. The modest war memorial stood on a triangle of shaven grass in the centre. Wooden troughs of flowers stood around it at perfect intervals. Immaculate single-storey cottages lined the village green, the only break in the low skyline the imposing bulk of the local pub, the Laird o’ Wemyss. It had once been owned collectively by the local community under the Gothenburg system, but the hard times of the eighties had forced it to close. Now it was a destination restaurant, its ‘Scottish Fusion’ cuisine drawing visitors from as far afield as Dundee and Edinburgh and its prices lifting it well out of her budget. Karen wondered how far Mick Prentice would have had to travel for a simple pint of heavy if he’d stayed put in Newton.

      She consulted the Mapquest directions she’d printed out and pointed to a road at the apex of the triangle to her driver, DC Jason ‘the Mint’ Murray. ‘You want to go down the lane there,’ she said. ‘Towards the sea. Where the pit used to be.’

      They left the village centre behind immediately. Shaggy hedgerows fringed a field of lush green wheat on the right. ‘All this rain, it’s making everything grow like the clappers,’ the Mint said. It had taken him the full twenty-five-minute journey from the office to summon up a comment.

      Karen couldn’t be bothered with a conversation about the weather. What was there to say? It had rained all bloody summer so far. Just because it wasn’t raining right this minute didn’t mean it wouldn’t be wet by the end of the day. She looked over to her left where the colliery buildings had once stood. She had a vague memory of offices, pithead baths, a canteen. Now it had been razed to its concrete foundation, weeds forcing through jagged cracks as they reclaimed it. Marooned beyond it was a single untouched miners’ row; eight raddled houses stranded in the middle of nowhere by the demolition of the buildings that had provided the reason for their existence. Beyond them was a thick stand of tall sycamores and beeches, a dense windbreak between the houses and the edge of the cliff that plunged down thirty feet to the coastal path below. ‘That’s where the Lady Charlotte used to be,’ she said.

      ‘Eh?’ the Mint sounded startled.

      ‘The pit, Jason.’

      ‘Oh. Right. Aye. Before my time.’ He peered through the windscreen, making her wonder uneasily if he needed glasses. ‘Which house is it, guv?’

      She pointed to the one second from the end. The Mint eased the car round the potholes as carefully as if it had been his own and came to a halt at the end of Jenny Prentice’s path.

      In spite of Karen’s phone call setting up the meeting, Jenny took her time answering the door, which gave them plenty of time to examine the cracked concrete flags and the depressing patch of weedy gravel in front of the house. ‘If this was mine,’ the Mint began, then tailed off, as if it was all too much to contemplate.

      The woman who answered the door had the air of someone who had spent her days lying down so life could more easily trample over her.

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