The Skeleton Road (27 page)

She kissed his hand again then backed out of the room. She let herself cry then, soundless sobs and fat unstoppable tears, forehead against the wall, shoulders heaving. Nobody bothered her. Nobody tried to offer pointless comfort. The staff just bustled around her and let her be.

And then she got a grip.

I
t was clear that Jimmy Hutton and his team intended to keep vigil until Phil emerged from surgery. The thought of being trapped in that tiny room full of big men who didn’t know what to say was enough to make Karen want to lock herself in the cleaners’ cupboard. To her surprise, she realised the only person whose company she could tolerate was the Mint.

‘I’m going for some fresh air,’ she announced to the room. ‘Jason, with me.’

Startled, he jumped to his feet, eyes swivelling round the assembled guys like a panicking wild horse. ‘OK, boss.’

Once the door closed behind them, he said, ‘We’re not really going for fresh air, right? You hate fresh air.’

It was a line he’d learned from Phil, she suspected. ‘There’s a Costa Coffee down in the atrium of the new bit,’ she said. ‘That’s where we’re going to set up base camp. I already sorted out with Ms Patel to give me a bell as soon as Phil’s out of the theatre.’

Armed with lattes and muffins the size of a baby’s head, they annexed a table as far from the main thoroughfare as possible. ‘Are you all right, boss?’ Jason reached for the packets of sugar he’d snagged on his way and tipped four into his cup.

‘To quote our national Makar on the occasion of her widowhood, “Hellish, but thanks for asking.” I’m scared and I’m worried and I don’t know what to do with myself except the one thing I know I’m good at.’ Seeing his frown, she added gently, ‘That would be coppering, Jason. And it’s the thing about me Phil was proudest of. So he’d be bloody furious if he thought that him being on the operating table meant me ignoring my work.’

‘So we’re going to work?’ He looked as dubious as he sounded.

‘We are. We’re going to drink our coffee and eat our muffins and we’re going to think very hard about where we’re up to and how we move forward. And if we can’t come up with any better ideas, we’re going down the road to our house and we’re going to hammer the phones and the Internet until we find every one of those hotel guests and either eliminate them or nail them to the wall. You with me? Or do you want to go back and hang out with the boys? I won’t think any less of you if you do. We all deal with crap like this in our own way.’

Jason shook his head. ‘I’ll stay with you, boss. We’re a team, right? And Phil, he’s still kind of part of our team. So it’s like, you and me.’

Karen nodded. She wasn’t sure whether she’d be able to concentrate but she had to try. Surges of black rage and hot fear ran through her at unpredictable intervals; she wondered if this was how Maggie Blake had felt when her general had disappeared without a word. She worked her way slowly down the coffee and the muffin, letting the caffeine and sugar do their thing. She worried at the problem of Petrovic’s death so she didn’t have to think about Phil being carved open by Aryana Patel. But nothing shifted, nothing suggested itself.

And so they ended up back at the house where she and Phil had built their life together. Having Jason there was a blessing; being there alone would have been unbearable. They sat in the study, Karen on the landline and the laptop, Jason on his mobile and Phil’s iPad, working their way down the list. Late in the afternoon, five hours after they’d left the hospital, they agreed there was nothing more they could do. They’d eliminated nine of the sixteen for a variety of reasons ranging from a prosthetic leg to having only set foot outside the isle of Eigg once in a lifetime ahead of this trip. Of the remaining seven, three had given addresses that had no correspondence in reality. They could have been having an illicit affair; they could have simply lied on the principle that they didn’t want junk mail; or one of them could have been a killer. Either way, there was nothing more that Karen and Jason could do.

Karen had gone through to the kitchen to make another cup of coffee when the idea hit her. If Maggie had recognised a name, there was a chance that Dorothea Simpson or Tessa Minogue might know it too. They needed to run those names past the two women. And this time, she wouldn’t make the same mistake. She’d ask them face to face, going through the names one by one.

Excited by the idea, she hustled back to the study to tell Jason. But halfway down the hall, the phone rang. Aryana Patel sounded as knackered as Karen felt. ‘He’s out of surgery,’ she said. ‘He’s had a very bad time. We’ve had to remove his spleen and part of his liver. We had to take out a section of his large intestine and setting the bones of his legs and pelvis has been a real challenge. But he’s holding his own.’

‘When will I be able to see him?’

‘You can come any time you like. But he’s in intensive care and we’ve put him in a medically induced coma to give his body a chance to get over its initial trauma. So for the next three days, he’s going to be deeply unconscious. Some people like to keep a bedside vigil, reading and talking and playing music. Others prefer to stay away because they struggle with seeing the people they love like that. It’s not like someone being in a coma as a result of injury where you want stimulus to rouse them. With a medically induced coma, the aim is to keep the patient stable and pain-free. So I would say it’s entirely up to you, Karen.’

She thought for a moment. Surely the best get-well-soon present she could give Phil would be a solution to the problem of the mysterious skeleton on the roof. She and Jason could go back to Oxford and pursue her latest idea and still be back long before Phil awoke. ‘I think I’ll keep myself busy at work,’ Karen said slowly. ‘But only if you promise me you’ll call me at once if there’s any change in his condition.’

‘I’ll make sure there’s a note to that effect at the nurses’ station. And his parents are already here. I’m sure they’ll be straight on the phone if you’re needed.’

Another good reason for going to Oxford.
Karen ended the call and carried on into the study. ‘Phil’s out of surgery and he’s doing OK. But they’ve kept him in a coma so he can heal better. It’ll be three days before he’s awake. So we’ve got a window of opportunity to do something that’ll totally impress him when he wakes up. It’s brainwave time, Jason. Let’s get going.’

‘Going where, boss?’

‘Oxford, Jason. Where else?’

T
he trouble with dramatic revelations was that the world didn’t stop turning. Sitting at her desk, looking out at the view of rooftops and distant spires, Maggie couldn’t quite believe that everything on the skyline was still the same. Her convictions about her life had been altered beyond recognition, but nobody else knew. Nobody except a Scottish cop, and she didn’t know the half of it. Now Maggie was back in Oxford, everything felt unreal and trivial.

The way she thought about her place in the world had shifted. She wasn’t the woman scorned any more. She knew she’d been an object of pity and of ridicule when Mitja had disappeared. Both reactions had been equally insulting. Now she would have the upper hand over those who had enjoyed her misery and their idea of her as the abandoned partner, but she’d be prey to a whole new kind of pity for her bereavement. The pain was bad enough; the reactions of others would only make it worse. Just the thought of it made her want to go back to bed and pull the covers over her head.

She wondered how long it would be before the official identification of Mitja would seep out into the public domain. She’d checked online and seen that the discovery of the mysterious skeleton had made headlines in the Scottish media but barely a mention in the national news outlets. Once the media realised whose remains they were, it would be a different story. The dramatic murder of a Croatian general on British soil would provoke news stories and features. Some enterprising journalist might even venture into Mitja’s past and uncover the dark secrets Maggie and Karen had learned. The very thought of that made her feel physically sick. Not because she had a vested interest in whitewashing his past but because she knew he was more than that single appalling incident and deserved not to be defined by it.

Acknowledging that thought was difficult enough. Like most people, she’d despised the politicians and generals around the world who had resorted to genocides and ethnic cleansing in pursuit of their ambitions. She’d condemned them as war criminals and applauded the setting up of the international criminal court. She’d sat round other people’s dinner tables and criticised the US for its refusal to participate at The Hague. It had appeared to be one of the few issues where there was only one acceptable side for a civilised person to stand. And now, because of what Mitja had done, she was having to concede that sometimes the world was more complex than it was comfortable to admit.

Some people would have swept such considerations under the carpet and simply got on with their lives. But all Maggie’s academic training militated against that. When the facts were in conflict with her world view, then she had to adjust that world view to accommodate her new knowledge. How she carried on, knowing what she knew now, was the burning question. Because knowledge always brought responsibility in its wake.

She gave herself a mental shake and stood up. Time to take the day in hand and make something of it. She had a student whose DPhil thesis concerned the geography of bodies in Oxford-based crime fiction and Maggie had promised to see whether she could arrange a trip to the balustraded rooftop of the Radcliffe Camera, where Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane had enjoyed a crucial conversation at the end of
Gaudy Night
. According to her student, Dorothy L. Sayers’ description of the view of Oxford from the topmost gallery of the eighteenth-century circular library provided her with a key anchor for her thesis. Maggie thought it was more about making a sentimental journey, but it gave her an excuse to experience one of Oxford’s landmark buildings from a new angle.

The Camera was part of the Bodleian Libraries, the vast complex of book storage at the heart of the university. Cheryl Stevenson, its Head of Technical Services, was an alumna of St Scholastica’s and a frequent guest at High Table for dinner. She and Maggie had become friends, most recently linked by their membership of the same book group. Over the years, Maggie had been allowed behind the scenes at the library for such historic moments as the closing down of the Lamson pneumatic tube system for transmitting book requests, finally superseded by a digital version as late as 2009.

Now, she texted Cheryl and suggested a drink after work. Within minutes, Cheryl had responded, suggesting the King’s Arms which, although always busy, served Young’s Double Chocolate Stout, her favourite beer. With that agreed, Maggie returned to her desk and forced herself to consider the entries she was due to contribute to the forthcoming edition of the
Dictionary of Human Geography
.

Maggie arrived at the pub in good time, intent on snagging a table. The pub, being the oldest in the city and set in the very heart of the tourist zone, was always thronged, but by judiciously staking out a trio of American tourists who didn’t look as if they were set for a long session, Maggie managed to achieve her goal with five minutes to spare. When Cheryl arrived, hot and flustered and seven minutes late, she was gratified to see an empty stool and a full bottle waiting for her.

‘Madhouse in there today,’ she said, straightening her glasses and slipping out of her coat. ‘With all the rebuilding, I seem to spend every day arguing with architects and builders and, frankly, idiots about the simplest of things.’ Cheryl was from Glasgow, equipped with an accent that could make the most generous of compliments sound like a threat. Maggie suspected she gave as good as she got.

It felt strange to be having a catch-up conversation with a friend that was defined more by what she couldn’t say than what she could. Maggie spoke of things that no longer mattered much and tried to remember how she acted when she was interested in another person’s concerns. At last, they worked their way round to Maggie’s reason for the meeting. ‘I’ve got a DPhil student who’s desperate to get on to the roof of the Camera. Any chance I could borrow a key and take her up there? She’s adamant that it would make all the difference to her thesis to see the view that wowed Dorothy L. Sayers. Because
Gaudy Night
is such a love letter to Oxford. And her thesis is all about how crime writers use the cityscape in their work.’

‘I can’t see why not. I think I can trust you not to hold a wild party up there. I could take you both up, if you’d rather?’

‘I don’t want to put you out,’ Maggie said. ‘And I’m not sure what her timetable is.’

Cheryl drained her glass. ‘Since we’re here, come back with me now and we’ll pick up a set of keys for the upper-storey doors.’

Half an hour later, Maggie was back in her rooms. In the centre of her desk was a plain ring of keys labelled ‘Upper Camera roof.’ Her admission to a high place where she could look out over the city that had shaped her life. A place where she could make a decision about her future. ‘Lead us not into temptation,’ she muttered ironically.

If she was to set herself back on an even keel, she had to try to reboot her life. What would she normally do if she’d been handed the gift of a set of keys for one of the most spectacular viewpoints in the city? A privileged access that few people ever had the chance to share? She’d share it. That’s the sort of woman she’d always been.

She picked up her phone and texted her best friend, the woman she’d always turned to ever since they’d first bonded back in Dubrovnik.

The answer arrived in a few minutes. Maggie was still staring at the keys, her face solemn.

Amazed at herself for maintaining so normal a front, Maggie abruptly put the keys out of sight in a drawer. Tomorrow she’d contact her student.

Or not, depending on what she ended up doing.