The Skeleton Road (16 page)
Authors: Val McDermid
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths, #International Mystery & Crime, #Thrillers, #Suspense, #General, #Mystery
At first, it was almost possible to believe we might yet avoid full-scale war. In the snatched hours Mitja squeezed out of his day to spend with me, I learned that the JNA were having their own problems. Apparently, not all their soldiers were keen on a fight with their next-door neighbours. The JNA generals were threatening dire reprisals against deserters and reservists who were ignoring the call-up. And the federal authorities in Belgrade kept insisting there would be no attack against Dubrovnik.
We’d lie in bed in our hotel room – it had to be hotels because I couldn’t take Mitja to Varya’s and he couldn’t take me to his barracks – and hold each other close while we talked about the probability of war, the possibility of peace. It doesn’t sound very romantic, I know. But ideas were what had drawn us together. Being at the heart of what happens when ideology spills over into real life was both terrifying and fascinating for both of us.
The hope that we would somehow escape the conflict died a week after the mobilisation. JNA artillery hammered the villages to the south-east of the city. It was clear that they planned to start with the southernmost tip of Croatia and work their way up. Melissa had sent me a series of increasingly insistent emails, telling me to cut and run. I suspect my bland refusals must have driven her mad with frustration.
That night, Mitja said, ‘It’s not too late to leave, Maggie. I can make sure you get safely away.’ He didn’t look happy at the prospect, but I could see he meant what he said.
‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I’ve made my choice. I can’t walk away from you.’
His grip on me tightened. ‘I understand that. But once the fighting starts, there won’t be many opportunities for us to be together. I’m a soldier, Maggie. In a war, I have to go where they send me. Do what they tell me.’
‘I know. But you’re in intelligence, right? You’re not going to be in the front line. You’ll be here, doing your thing. And I’ll be here too. Whenever you can manage to get away, I’ll be waiting.’
‘That’s not how your life should be.’ For the first time since I’d known him, he sounded angry. ‘What happened to your feminism? Suddenly you’re going to be some submissive little woman waiting for her man to grace her with his presence?’
I was shocked. ‘No, that’s not what I meant. Whatever happens, I’ll find something useful to do with myself. I’m not going to sit around weaving a bloody tapestry. What I’m saying is that now I’ve found this, now I’ve found you, I’m not walking away. I’m not counting the cost, Mitja. I —’ I stopped abruptly. It had only been nine days, after all. So far, we’d avoided ‘I love you.’ I love your body, I love when you do that, I love being here with you – all that we’d said, but we’d never quite nailed our colours to the mast.
‘I know,’ he said, laying his head on my shoulder. ‘I feel the same.’
I could feel his heart beat against my hand. Three words, but I’d only ever said them a couple of times in my life. I don’t believe in saying things you don’t mean, even if it makes life less awkward. But it was time. ‘I love you, Mitja.’
‘I love you too, Maggie. And that’s why I want you to go. I can’t protect you here. We’ve got less than five hundred troops in Dubrovnik. We can’t defend fifty thousand people, it’s not possible. I need to be able to do my job without worrying about your safety.’
‘Tough,’ I said. ‘It’s not up to you. I’m staying, Mitja, and that’s that. You need to get used to the idea of having someone who loves you.’ It didn’t occur to me then, the chances were that I wasn’t the only one who loved him. We hadn’t shared much of our emotional histories; we’d been too busy creating our own past. But later, I couldn’t help wondering whether he’d severed himself from a life complete with wife, children and home when he chose me. He never said anything to suggest that was the case. Nevertheless, when he left, I thought perhaps I’d indulged in a wilful blindness. It suited me not to think of him having loved anyone completely before me because that was the position I was in.
And so we both pledged our allegiance to each other as the bombs started to fall on southern Croatia. Two days later, the Yugoslav navy began its long blockade of the sea roads leading to Dubrovnik. We were well on the way to being an island. Well on the way to being under siege.
I
t was gone midnight by the time Jason dropped Karen off at home. In spite of having had to drive her all the way back to Kirkcaldy, he’d been remarkably cheerful, seeing the extra miles from his flat in Edinburgh only as an excuse to spend the night at his parents’ house and have his mother cook him breakfast. ‘That way I can pick you up nice and early in the morning, boss,’ he reminded her as she dragged herself out of the car.
Phil and River were still up, slumped in front of the TV picking holes in a rerun of
Se7en.
When she walked in, Phil was holding forth. ‘And that’s the fatal flaw. We’re expected to believe that the killer set all this in motion more than a year ago. But he couldn’t have known then that the detective hunting him down would have the deadly sin of anger, could he? He might have ended up with a laid-back lazy sod who wasn’t that bothered. Or a jobsworth who only cared about his reputation for clearing cases. So the whole thing falls to – Oh, hello, darling. You guys made good time.’ He stretched his arms out to her, looking for a hug, but not quite eager enough to get out of his seat.
Some women might have been irritated by that. Not Karen. She saw it for what it was. Comfortable, relaxed affection. No need to put on a show for her or for River. Nights like this reminded her how lucky she was to have Phil. When she’d just about given up hope, when she’d resigned herself to a life of self-reliance, Phil had wakened up to a complex of emotions that matched hers. He loved her for who she was; he never tried to change her. He was smart enough to know that she was smarter, and secure enough not to mind. But most of all, he was reliable. The idea of coming home to find him gone for good was unimaginable.
Karen shrugged off her coat and perched on the arm of his chair, kneading his shoulders with one hand. In a way, that had been the saddest thing about her encounter with Maggie Blake. Not that she was still waiting, eight years on, for the man she loved to come home. No, what bothered Karen was that she seemed to have taken in her stride the fact that he’d gone without a word. Phil often talked about the women he encountered in the Murder Prevention Team as having a perilously low level of self-esteem; they almost believed they deserved to be treated like shit. It seemed to Karen that Maggie Blake had more in common with those women than she’d ever have allowed herself to believe.
Phil put his arm round her waist. ‘Good day?’
‘Interesting. Made some progress, but not as much as I’d have liked.’ She picked up her bag from where she’d let it fall. ‘Before I forget, River, here’s something for you to play with.’ She took out the bagged shaver and passed it across. ‘Sign for it so my chain of custody stays intact. And I’ve got some pix to forward on to you.’
‘Excellent. I can do the Buck Ruxton test and superimpose them on an X-ray of the skull. The quick-and-dirty ID from the pre-DNA days.’
‘You had a good day?’ Karen asked her.
River grinned. ‘Always a joy to be in the Dundee lab. I ran more tests that confirm what we already knew about your skeleton. I did some research on the metal plate and the screws in his femur. It’s an alloy that was used for a while in the eighties in Soviet-controlled Central Europe. So, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria. That sort of region. But they made a pretty good job of it, which suggests he was either lucky or important.’
‘Or both,’ Phil said.
‘My guy had a scar on his left thigh from being knocked off his bike when he was a student. He may or may not have broken his leg – the professor can’t say for sure.’
River nodded. ‘A break so bad it needed a plate could well have broken the skin. And if he was a student, chances are he was treated at a training hospital, which would explain the quality of the work. Some consultant showing off to his students. So he was lucky, your dead man.’
‘Aye, well, his luck ran out on top of the John Drummond.’ Karen sighed.
The film credits began to roll and River stretched in her chair, yawning. ‘I’m off to bed. I’ll deal with this first thing, then I’ll probably head back down the road. My department is pining for me.’
‘Not to mention Ewan,’ Karen said.
‘Oh, he’s too busy coaching the under-twelve rugby team to notice whether I’m there or not,’ she said with a laugh. They all knew she didn’t mean it.
Left on their own, Karen and Phil snuggled together on the chair for a few minutes longer. Then he gently pushed her away. ‘Time for bed. I’ve got a big day tomorrow. We’re fronting up the money-laundering rapist property developer. I’m looking forward to it.’ His smile was grim, his eyes cold.
‘Good for you. Have I told you how much I love that you’re doing this job?’
He pulled her back into his arms. ‘You have. How about you show me?’
Walking into her office the next morning, Karen felt distinctly underslept and undercaffeinated. When the receptionist told her she had visitors, it was the last thing she wanted to hear. ‘Who is it?’ she asked. ‘Jason, away and get me an Americano with milk, there’s a good lad.’
The receptionist checked her list. ‘From the Department of Justice.’
‘What? You mean London?’
‘That’s what their ID said. Alan Macanespie and Theo Proctor.’
It didn’t sound like the sort of encounter that would start the day with a zing. ‘Never heard of them. Did they say why they were here?’
‘Nope. I stuck them in Interview Two down the hall.’
‘Nobody ever uses Interview One,’ Karen said. ‘Why is that?’
‘Putting them in Interview Two gives the impression there’s more going on than there really is,’ the receptionist told her. ‘Apparently we like to look busy.’
‘Police Scotland,’ Karen muttered under her breath. ‘OK. I’ll just wait for Jason to bring my coffee back, then we’ll head in and see what joys the DoJ has for us.’
When Jason returned with the coffees, she steered him down the hall. ‘There’s two punters from the DoJ in London waiting to see us. Now, you know I’m not a betting woman, but five’ll get you ten that this has got something to do with General Petrovic. So what I want you to do, Jason, is to keep your mouth firmly shut. OK? This is about gathering information, not giving it out willy-nilly. We clear on that?’
He nodded solemnly. ‘Aye, boss. What do you think they’re after?’
‘One way to find out.’ They had reached the interview room. Without knocking, Karen marched in. ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ she said briskly, noting that they’d already annexed the chairs that faced the door.
Boys’ games
. As if she needed that sort of petty jockeying for position. She set her coffee down, took out her notebook then dumped her bag on the floor and sat down. ‘I’m DCI Pirie, head of the Historic Cases Unit. This is DC Murray. ID please, gentlemen.’
‘We signed in at the front desk,’ the dark-haired one with the scowl said.
‘Yes. You did. And she’s a receptionist, not a detective. For all I know, you could have bluffed your way in with a couple of fake IDs you cobbled together in some back-street copy shop. So I’ll take a look, if you don’t mind?’
The ginger one gave his colleague a rueful shake of the head and produced a leather wallet which he flicked open to reveal he was Alan Macanespie of the Department of Justice. The other half of the wallet showed a pass for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. ‘You do right, Chief Inspector,’ he said.
With a face full of resentment, his colleague did the same. Theo Proctor. Karen made a point of writing both names down. ‘Now, why are we all here?’
Macanespie leaned his elbows on the table, spreading his hands in a conciliatory gesture. ‘It’s very simple,’ he said. ‘You instigated a CRO search that flagged up an individual of interest to us. All we want to know is the nature of your interest.’
‘We instigate a lot of CRO searches in Historic Cases. Who is it that you’re interested in?’
Macanespie dipped his head, acknowledging that he understood she wasn’t a pushover. ‘Dimitar Petrovic.’
‘And can I ask why General Petrovic is an individual of interest to you?’
Proctor glowered at her. ‘The clue is in the names. International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Petrovic.’
‘Are you telling me that Dimitar Petrovic is wanted for war crimes?’ Karen tried not to sound as if this was a complete surprise.
‘We’re not telling you anything,’ Proctor said. ‘We’re here to establish what you know about Petrovic and his whereabouts.’
Karen bristled. There were few things she hated more than petty bureaucrats throwing their weight around. She shook her head. ‘That’s not how it works. For a start, I don’t think you have any jurisdiction here. Under the terms of the Scotland Act, we’re responsible for our own justice system north of the border. And while we’re happy to cooperate, we don’t take orders from your ministry or its functionaries.’ She had no idea whether she was right, but she enjoyed saying it and it sounded good. She smiled. ‘So once you’ve told me why you’re interested in Petrovic, maybe I’ll consider telling you what I know. Why don’t we give you a few minutes to have a wee think about that?’ She got to her feet, ostentatiously collecting coffee, bag and notebook.
In the corridor outside, Jason gave her his standard look of puzzlement. ‘How come you don’t want to tell them about the skeleton? I mean, once Dr Wilde gives us the thumbs-up on the ID, it’ll be on the Internet, right?’
‘Aye, but they don’t know that. Because they don’t know what we know. And likewise, I don’t know what they know, but as soon as I tell them what we know, there’s no incentive for them to tell us what they know and they’ll just disappear back over Hadrian’s Wall and leave us none the wiser. Does that make sense?’
Jason looked dubious. ‘I suppose. But what if they won’t tell us?’
‘Then we’ll call their bluff and send them on their merry way. And they won’t like that because then their boss will have to talk to our boss and he’ll not be a happy bunny.’
‘Then our boss’ll give you a hard time.’
Karen gave the kind of smile that makes small children cry. ‘I don’t think so. Not for maintaining the integrity of our investigation, he won’t.’
Five minutes later, she walked back into the interview room. Macanespie and Proctor looked glum. ‘We’ll show you ours if you show us yours,’ Macanespie said.
‘I’m glad to hear it. You first, you’re the guests.’ Karen won a wry smile from Macanespie and another glare from Proctor.
‘We’ve been seconded to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. To be honest, it’s had mixed success. Part of that has been because a string of significant players never made it to the courtroom. They were, in effect, assassinated before they could be arrested. They were all Serbs. And the prime suspect is General Dimitar Petrovic, who disappeared from our radar just before the killing started.’ He leaned back and folded his hands over his generous stomach.
‘Why? What made him a suspect?’
Proctor sighed. ‘He’d been making a lot of noise about what a poor job the tribunal was doing. That what was needed was a proper truth and reconciliation forum like they had in South Africa. We decided to check him out after the first murder, because he’d been complaining about that particular individual enjoying his freedom on the backs of massacred Croats. He had actually given information to the tribunal about where this individual was living, and his new identity. But he thought we were dragging our heels, that we weren’t doing anything about it, when in fact we were building a strong case against him. Anyway, when we went to take a look at what Petrovic was up to, we discovered he’d vanished. Nobody seemed to know where he was or what he was doing.’
Macanespie nodded. ‘And after the second murder, a wee bird whispered that Petrovic had decided to take the law into his own hands. He has a little list, apparently. So far, we think he’s executed eleven suspected war criminals.’
Karen almost felt sorry for him. ‘No, he hasn’t.’
Macanespie looked startled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘What do you know about it?’ Proctor demanded.
‘I’ll know for certain within twenty-four hours, but I’m pretty sure that Dimitar Petrovic isn’t the Lone Ranger of the Balkans. Mostly because he’s been dead for eight years.’
‘Dead?’ Macanespie echoed.
‘It must have crossed your mind, surely? It’s often the reason people disappear without a trace. Plus, you had a load of other murders in the frame.’ Karen couldn’t quite believe they hadn’t already considered that option. But both men looked discomfited.
‘You said “other murders”,’ Macanespie said. ‘He was definitely murdered, your dead man?’
Karen nodded. ‘Shot in the head.’
‘See, now. Right away, that doesn’t fit. The murders we’re looking at, none of the victims was shot. They all had their throats cut. And they were Serbs. All the other victims were Serbs. And Petrovic is a Croat. Not to mention that he isn’t a notorious war criminal,’ Proctor said sarcastically. ‘Why would we think he was a victim in the same series?’
‘Beats me,’ Karen said. ‘But if you’re looking for Petrovic, I reckon you’ll find what’s left of him in our mortuary. I don’t suppose you can come up with anybody who might have wanted him dead? The first one of your victims, for example?’
Macanespie frowned then shook his head. ‘No. Petrovic was potentially a useful witness in several trials, but he wasn’t crucial to any of them. He had enemies, like everybody who played a part in those conflicts, but I never heard that he was the top of anybody’s shit list.’
‘So you can’t actually help my investigation?’
‘No,’ Proctor said firmly.
Macanespie pushed a business card across the table towards Karen. ‘But if you come across anything that might help ours…’
Karen scraped her chair back. ‘My pleasure,’ she said, her tone indicating the opposite. ‘Jason will see you out, gentlemen. I’ve got a murder to solve.’