The Skeleton Road (28 page)

B
y the time Karen and the Mint arrived in Oxford, it was too late to go knocking on the doors of elderly women. They checked into a budget motel on the outskirts of the city; Jason looked as if he could barely stand as he said goodnight. Karen knew she should be feeling the same but her brain wouldn’t stop tick, tick, ticking like the timer on a Hollywood bomb.

The minute she arrived in her room, she called the intensive care unit at the Vic. The duty nurse knew her voice by now; she’d been calling every hour since they’d left Kirkcaldy. ‘No change,’ she said sympathetically. ‘He’s very peaceful. His vital signs are giving no cause for concern. Mrs Patel said to tell you she’ll be in first thing in the morning and she’ll speak to you then.’

‘Thanks,’ Karen said. She realised that she’d been so relieved that Phil was still alive that she’d asked Aryana Patel nothing about the long-term prognosis. How long would he be in hospital? What were the implications of his internal injuries? Would he walk properly again? Would he still be a cop at the end of his convalescence? All questions she needed the answer to. Her life was going to change, no two ways about it. And Karen, who didn’t much like surprises, wanted to be as prepared as possible for what was coming at her down the road.

She’d still be with Phil. That went without saying. Whatever had happened to his body, his heart and his head would still be Phil. She knew that life-changing events like this sometimes destroyed relationships, but that wasn’t going to happen to them. She wouldn’t let it. Simple as that.

Karen stripped off her clothes and threw them over a chair. The world had been a different place when she’d put them on that morning. What had happened to Phil had drawn a line through her life. Now events would be characterised as being ‘before Phil was attacked’ and ‘after Phil was attacked’.

Karen pulled on a T-shirt and got into bed, pulling the covers up to her chin like an obedient child. She closed her eyes but nothing changed. Her head was still busy. Her heart still raged. And then her phone vibrated on the night table. She leapt into action, grabbing it and jamming it to her ear without checking who was calling.

‘Karen? It’s River. I just heard about Phil.’

Until River’s voice filled her head, it hadn’t occurred to Karen how much she needed a friend. ‘I should have called you,’ she said.

‘Never mind that. How are you doing?’

‘Shite.’

‘Do you want me to come over?’

‘Don’t be daft. It’s gone eleven. And besides, I’m not at home.’

‘Where are you?’

‘He’s in a medically induced coma. I’d go mad sitting by his bedside playing his Elbow CDs to him. So I’m in Oxford.’

‘The general?’

‘Yeah. We were going nowhere, then I had an idea.’

‘And of course it wouldn’t wait.’ River’s voice was affectionate; not a trace of criticism for actions that most people would have struggled to understand.

‘When he comes out of that coma, he’s going to need to know that life goes on. And me solving a big old mystery like Dimitar Petrovic’s murder will be like a tonic to him.’

‘You’re probably right. Did you take the Mint with you?’

‘Aye. He’s pretty upset about Phil. I thought he’d be better with me rather than having to stop his lip trembling in front of the big boys.’

River chuckled. ‘You don’t fool me. I’m glad you’re not by yourself. Listen, there’s nothing I can say that’ll make any of this better. But if you want to talk, any time of the day or night, I’m here. OK?’

‘Aye. Thanks.’

She’d have been hard pressed to say why, but after River’s call, Karen felt less panicky. She snuggled down, cuddling one of the pillows to her like a giant teddy bear. In spite of her conviction that she’d never sleep, reaction to the day’s events overtook her within minutes. When she surfaced, to her amazement, it was after eight.

Groggy with sleep, she raced through the morning rituals – phone call to check on Phil (‘no change’); shower (bloody awful trickle); hair and clothes (drier hotter than hell) then down to the self-service breakfast. The Mint was already there, eating Coco Pops and drinking orange juice. Judging by the debris around him, neither was his first.

Karen armed herself with a cup of coffee and two boxes of Fruit and Fibre, persuading herself that this was a healthy breakfast.

The Mint looked up expectantly. ‘Any news?’

‘No change.’ She tipped cereal into a too-small bowl.

‘That’s good, then. Better than a turn for the worse.’

‘You always this cheerful in the morning?’ Karen added milk and dug a spoon into the cereal. The Mint looked wounded but at least he kept his mouth shut while she jacked her caffeine and sugar up to manageable levels. Once she’d finished shovelling her food down with the determination of someone who doesn’t want to think about anything else, she took a deep breath and said, ‘Sorry.’ She got out her notebook and checked Dorothea Simpson’s mobile number. ‘Give her a call and say you’d like to have a word with her.’

‘Why me?’ Panic flared in his eyes.

‘Because I’m the boss and I don’t want to forewarn her that this word is an important one. As far as she’s concerned, you’re just the oily rag. So she’s not going to be on her guard.’

‘OK.’ He dialled the number. With a face as informative as his, there was no need for a speakerphone. Karen could tell when the call connected and when it was eventually answered. ‘Aye, hello, Dr Simpson, it’s Detective Constable Murray from Edinburgh. We met the other day at your house… Uh huh. Well, I could do with another wee word with you, just to clear up a couple of details?… Well, I’m in Oxford, so this morning would be… You’re not?’ His look of dismay made Karen want to cry. ‘Well, we could come to you… you are? Brilliant. Where will we find you?… Excellent. We’ll see you very soon.’ He ended the call, pink with achievement.

‘That sounded successful,’ Karen said.

‘She’s not at home,’ he said. ‘So I said we could come to her. And it turns out she’s at St Scholastica’s. She goes in for breakfast a couple of times a week. She’s going to be in the SCR, whatever that is.’

Karen beamed at him. Was she finally turning him into a cop? ‘Well done. So what are we waiting for?’

On the way to the college, Jason said, ‘What’s an SCR?’

‘It’s the Senior Common Room. It’s like the staff room for the college tutors.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s like a secret code, all these fancy names. A way of keeping the likes of us out in the cold.’

‘You’re not far off the mark, Jason.’ And then, just to put the icing on the cake, Jimmy Hutton called to say they’d picked up the driver of the white BMW tractor.

‘Stupid twat was trying to drive it on to the Rotterdam ferry at Newcastle,’ Hutton told her. ‘Like somehow because he was in England they wouldn’t be looking for him.’

Already Karen felt the day was going to be a lot better than the one before.

They found Dorothea Simpson alone in a long drawing room with views of the river. It was furnished in the style of an English country cottage, with comfy-looking sofas and armchairs scattered around a series of low tables. A pair of deep bay windows were lined with cushioned window seats and a refectory table held a collection of newspapers and magazines. Dorothea led them back to the table, where she had clearly been reading a copy of the
London Review of Books
. ‘I can’t afford all the periodicals these days,’ she said. ‘So I come in for breakfast two three times a week and catch up with my reading afterwards.’ She lowered herself into a padded captain’s chair and sighed. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you, Chief Inspector.’

‘Who could resist a trip to Oxford?’ Karen said.

‘Who, indeed,’ said Dorothea without a trace of irony.

Karen took the crumpled list of names from her bag. ‘We’re anxious to track down the person General Petrovic went to Edinburgh with. We think it must have been one of his climbing associates, but so far we’ve drawn a blank. But we do have a list of names from the hotel register of a trip we know he made to go buildering. You know, climbing the outside of buildings for fun. Anyway, I thought it might be helpful to ask people he knew if they recognised any of the names from the hotel register.’

Karen would have sworn that Dorothea’s nose twitched. ‘You think this might be his killer?’

Karen forced a light laugh. ‘I’ve no reason to suspect them. There’s nobody on the list with a foreign name. No, I’m hoping they might be able to remember the general talking about someone he used to go buildering with back in Croatia.’

‘Have you shown this list to Maggie?’

‘She’s not around this morning,’ Karen said. It wasn’t an answer to Dorothea’s question but she hoped the other woman wouldn’t notice that.

‘No, she’s gone off to the Radcliffe Camera,’ Dorothea said. ‘She’s borrowed a set of keys to get up on the roof. It’s a special favour for one of her DPhil students.’

Happy that Dorothea had been diverted from inquiring too closely about the list, Karen unfolded the paper. ‘I thought I could go through the list and you could tell me when any name rings a bell.’

Dorothea nodded doubtfully. ‘I’ll do my best. But my memory is not as sharp as it once was.’

‘Never mind. The first name on the list is Christopher Greenfield.’ She paused while Dorothy repeated the name, shaking her head. And so it went on. Nine names and no reaction. Then Karen said, ‘Ellen Ripley.’

Dorothea perked up. ‘Did you say, “Ellen Ripley”?’

‘Yes. Do you know her?’

Dorothea chuckled. ‘Don’t you know who Ellen Ripley is?’

Karen shook her head. ‘Should I?’

‘Oh, Chief Inspector! “In space, no one can hear you scream.” Surely you’re not too young to remember Ripley?’

Karen felt stupid. Now it was pointed out to her, of course she remembered Sigourney Weaver’s iconic portrayal of the heroic Ripley. What was even more interesting was that Ellen Ripley was one of the trio of names they’d been unable to trace. ‘I guess I never think of her as having a first name.’

‘I suppose not,’ Dorothea said. ‘And in fairness, I suppose I might not either were it not for the fact that Mitja used to tease Tessa about being our Ellen Ripley. Taking on the alien monsters like Milosevic and Mladic.’

‘The general called Tessa Minogue Ellen Ripley?’ Karen said, trying not to show the sudden buzz of excitement in her stomach. ‘And did they go buildering together?’

‘I honestly don’t know about that. I believe she went walking in the Highlands and Snowdonia with Maggie and Mitja and their friends. But why don’t you ask her yourself? Maggie’s taking her up on to the roof of the Radcliffe Camera this morning as a special treat. The view is supposed to be phenomenal.’ Dorothea peered at the grandfather clock standing against the wall. ‘They were meeting at ten. They’ll be on their way up right now.’

T
heir feet clattered on the iron staircase leading to the very top level of the majestic Radcliffe Camera. Maggie glanced down, taking in the baroque details of the interior, wondering exactly how far it was to the ground. Behind her, Tessa was beginning to breathe heavily. ‘Bloody hell, Maggie,’ she complained. ‘I can’t believe you’re fitter than me these days.’

‘You spend too much time working and not enough time in the hills,’ Maggie said. ‘Not enough mountains to climb in The Hague.’

‘This is amazing, though,’ Tessa said. ‘It looks entirely different from this height. You look around at all this elaborate decoration that was hardly ever going to be seen by anybody and you just wonder at it. To go to that much trouble, to create all that detail and to have it appreciated by so few. That’s a real love of craft for craft’s sake.’

‘It’s sad that hardly any of us have the skills these days to make something this beautiful. I was thinking that only the other day, looking out of the train window. So much of what we’ve built, what we’ve made is unnecessarily ugly. Why is function divorced from aesthetics? Why is it so hard for us to grasp that a warehouse doesn’t have to be bloody ugly?’

‘I guess it costs more,’ Tessa said between breaths.

‘I don’t think cost always enters into it. It can’t be that simple. I think it’s that we just don’t care enough.’

‘There’s always been plenty of ugly, Maggie. But mostly the ugly doesn’t survive. It gets knocked down and replaced by something equally unattractive. Or if we’re lucky, something beautiful. I mean, what was here before the Camera? I bet it wasn’t anything special.’

They reached the door at the top of the stairs. Maggie unlocked it and stood back to let Tessa go on ahead of her. ‘Houses. That’s what was here. Undistinguished housing belonging to different colleges. Probably similar to the style of buildings on Longwall. So you’re right. The ugly was always there, it just doesn’t survive.’ She locked the door behind them. ‘Better make sure some adventurous undergraduate doesn’t come sneaking out while we’re not looking. Cheryl would have my guts for garters.’

Tessa was already drinking in the panorama, hands leaning on the stone balustrade. ‘Wow. This is some view, Maggie. Thanks for bringing me up here.’

‘Did you and your buildering cronies never come up the outside?’ Maggie asked, casual as she could manage.

‘Not my scene, buildering,’ Tessa said, equally casually. ‘You’d never get up here, though, it’s far too public. And spotlit at night.’

‘Dorothy L. Sayers has a very vivid description of the view from up here. I should have brought it with me. Something about the twin towers of All Souls being like a house of cards surrounding the grass oval in the quad like an emerald in a ring. New College with dark wings wheeling around the bell tower. Magdalen like a lily, tall and slender.’ Maggie waved an arm at the scene, walking round the parapet to take in the rest of the sights. ‘Schools, Univ, Merton, St Mary the Virgin, Christ Church Cathedral and Tom Tower, Carfax. It’s all there, all Oxford.’

‘Do you suppose this is how Jesus felt when the Devil took him up to a high place and offered him all the temptations of the world?’ Tessa laughed. ‘Listen to me. The curse of a Catholic schooling. The nuns have me branded for life.’

With the battlements of the Bodleian Library behind her, Maggie turned to face Tessa. ‘Is that where you came by your sense of justice? The nuns?’

Tessa looked at her askance, as if she’d caught some nuance in Maggie’s voice that didn’t quite fit their light-hearted excursion. ‘I suppose,’ she said.

‘It’s all a bit Old Testament, though, isn’t it? More retribution than rehabilitation.’

‘My idea of justice? I hadn’t thought about it in those terms. I think people shouldn’t dodge the consequences of their actions, that’s all.’ She forced a light laugh. ‘This is a bit serious, Mags. I thought we were having a nice wee outing to cheer us up after the crap we’ve had to face this past week.’

Maggie was glad Tessa had been first to raise the subject. ‘I think it’ll take more than a pretty view to wipe out what I’ve discovered. You haven’t asked me about Croatia.’

Tessa shrugged and leaned against the balustrade, her back to the view. ‘I reckoned you’d tell me in your own time. I didn’t want to push. I know this is hard for you.’

‘I see. I wondered whether it was because you already knew what I might uncover.’ Maggie’s chin tilted up, her expression as challenging as her words.

Tessa frowned. ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean.’

‘Really? So why did you kill him, if it wasn’t because of the wedding massacre?’

Tessa’s bewilderment was so convincing that Maggie momentarily doubted herself. But then she remembered the list Karen Pirie had shown her. Ellen Ripley. The teasing nickname Mitja had given Tessa. The fact that Tessa had been out of town when Mitja had gone missing. Tessa’s insistence that Mitja was the serial assassin of Balkan war criminals, that improbable accusation from anyone who understood his fundamental humanity, that very humanity he’d betrayed by his single act of vengeance.

‘I really have no fucking idea what you’re on about. What wedding massacre? Who am I supposed to have killed? Are you talking about Mitja? Why in the name of God would I kill Mitja?’ She sounded outraged, bemused, insulted.

‘I remember nights when the three of us – and sometimes other people too – would sit up late, raging about the impotence of the international criminal justice system. How outrageous it was that Milosevic was being held in comfort in The Hague while the monstrous crimes of his regime still reverberated in ordinary people’s lives on a daily basis. How offensive it was that so many of the war criminals who’d presided over massacres and rape camps and appalling desecrations of people’s lives were walking about free as birds.’

‘All of which you agreed with, I seem to remember?’ Tessa had adopted a look of puzzlement, accompanied by the kind of soothing voice people use with drunks who might turn violent at any moment.

‘And I particularly remember when you heard what had happened to Dagmar.’

Now the shutters came down. Dagmar and Tessa had been lovers on and off for about nine months after the Croatian war. Then Dagmar had been caught up in the siege of Sarajevo, trapped like so many others in the kind of nightmare nobody expected to happen at the tail end of the century when Europe was supposed to have learned its lesson when it came to war. They ended up on the wrong side of the lines one night, Dagmar and her current lover. They were identified as lesbians and systematically gang-raped by more soldiers than either of them could count. And then they were thrown into the street in the January snow in the middle of the night. Dagmar died from internal bleeding two days later. Her girlfriend killed herself a week after that. When the news came back via a Red Cross contact, Tessa had been wild with a toxic mix of grief and rage. Maggie had been convinced that if those soldiers had been within reach, Tessa would have torn the flesh from their bones. As it was, they were never identified, never brought anywhere near justice. And Tessa never spoke of it again.

Tessa looked away. ‘I’m sorry, Maggie. I have no idea what’s going on here. I don’t know why you’re dragging Dagmar into this conversation. I don’t need to be reminded about what happened to her to understand how much Mitja’s murder is hurting you.’

‘That’s not the point I’m making. The point is, we all spoke with one voice. It wasn’t long after you heard what had happened to Dagmar that you started working with the Yugoslavian war crimes investigators, was it?’

Tessa shook her head. ‘You know that, Maggie. We talked about it at the time. You know I wanted to feel like she hadn’t died for nothing.’

‘I know. And I was totally behind you.’

Tessa put a hand out and touched Maggie’s arm. It was all Maggie could do not to flinch. ‘I know you were. I loved you for the passion of your support.’

‘And that took you back to the Balkans to investigate reports of war crimes. And I’m guessing that you hadn’t been there that long when you heard the rumours about the wedding massacre.’

Tessa spread her hands in a gesture of bafflement. ‘I don’t know anything about a wedding massacre. I told you. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

Maggie shook her head. ‘Don’t fuck with me, Tessa,’ she said, her voice hard and precise. ‘It wasn’t commonplace to hear about Serbs being butchered by Croats. It’s not something you’d have let slip by you. It would have been interesting if only for its curiosity value. And when you tried to nail it down, all you could get was the name of a Croatian village near the border. It meant nothing to you then. The irony is that it would have meant nothing to me back then either.’

‘This is a very weird fantasy.’ Tessa tried to move away but Maggie gripped her wrist.

‘Stick around, Ripley. There’s more to come. So you and your Scandie sidekick turn up in this village where you’ve heard the raiding party came from. Podruvec, in case you’ve forgotten the name. It’s not that kind of place, though. It doesn’t feel like a guerrilla stronghold. But you’re persistent. You’ve always been persistent, Tessa, haven’t you? Thorough, dedicated, tenacious.’ Maggie spat the words like insults.

‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about, Maggie. Who’s been feeding you this strange story? Has that cop been winding you up? Trying to provoke you into some sort of reaction? Are you OK?’

Tessa’s expression of concern simply stoked Maggie’s anger. She wasn’t going to be that easily diverted. ‘So you asked around. At some point, somebody said something they weren’t supposed to and you learned that Podruvec had been the scene of a massacre of its own. And somewhere down the line, you found the missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. The man behind the wedding massacre was your best friend. The heroic General Petrovic.’ Maggie’s voice faltered momentarily. ‘I know how shocking that must have been. Because last week, it left me feeling like the foundations of my life had been stripped out from under me.’

‘This a fantasy. I don’t know why you’re turning on me like this, Maggie. We love each other, remember?’

‘Remember? How could I forget? How sick is that? You shoot my husband in the head then take me to bed to comfort me?’

Tessa recoiled as if Maggie had slapped her. ‘You think I killed Mitja? What? Because I was jealous of him? Because I wanted you? That’s fucking sick, Maggie.’

Maggie shook her head. ‘Not because of me. I don’t think the world revolves round me. No. I think you killed him because somebody had to pay for what happened to Dagmar. You were burning up with revenge and self-righteousness. You were grieving for someone you’d loved and you were enraged that the official route wasn’t giving justice fast enough. And then you found out about Mitja and something inside you snapped. One of your closest friends wasn’t just a hypocrite. He was a war criminal who was escaping justice. You created this warped, twisted version of moral equivalence between the animals who violated Dagmar and a man who overreacted against the people who murdered his children.’

Tessa’s eyes widened and her lips curled in a snarl. Finally Maggie had pushed the right button. ‘Is that what you think he was? A poor wounded animal who “overreacted”? He killed nearly fifty people, for fuck’s sake. The overwhelming majority of whom had taken absolutely no part in anything remotely approaching a war crime. He was as a much a butcher as the bastards he stirred us up against.’

For a moment, all there was between them was the sound of the city; the murmur of traffic, the rise and fall of voices, a distant siren. Then Maggie spoke. ‘And that’s why you killed him.’

Tessa straightened up. ‘He had a lovely life. You gave him a beautiful life. He was loved. He had a roof over his head and food on the table. He held forth to adoring audiences who thought he was a hero. How can you think that was appropriate? You, who saw the damage at first hand. The Balkans wasn’t just a report on the news to you. You saw it. You lost friends, I know you did. In Sarajevo. In the summer offensive in ninety-two. How was it right that he walked among us pretending to be a good man? How was that right, Maggie?’

‘And who made you judge and jury and Lord High Executioner? Because it didn’t stop with Mitja, did it? You got on your high horse because he made a terrible, terrible mistake, but you liked the view from up there. You realised you could right all the fucking wrongs. Punish the guilty. And with Mitja on the missing list, you could make him the scapegoat for your vigilante campaign.’

‘I’m sorry I laid the credit at his door. But you can sneer all you like, it doesn’t change the fact that justice should be swift if it’s to be truly just. Not bogged down in legal hair-splitting and endless procedural delays. And what I delivered was just.’

‘And was it just to let me go on hoping the man I loved with all my heart was still alive? Was it just to make love to me knowing his blood was on your hands? Christ, you’ve turned my life into one of those Jacobean revenge tragedy melodramas, and all without me knowing a bloody thing about it. How could you do that, Tess? How could you live with yourself?’

For a moment, she caught a glimpse of the Tessa Minogue she’d thought she knew. A flicker of tenderness, of compassion. ‘Who he really was, that was the worst insult to both of us. His whole life was a lie. All I was trying to do was help you heal. Truly, Maggie.’

‘Help me heal? You caused the injury in the first place. I was happy in my ignorance. And even now I know, I’d still take him back in my arms. Because that single misguided evil act does not define him. But what you did – a whole series of evil acts – Tess, that was cold-blooded. None of your victims did you any personal harm. You had no stake in their deaths except self-righteousness. You probably tell yourself you did it for Dagmar. But that’s just an insult to her memory. You did it because it made you feel good.’

Tessa shook her head and spoke slowly, as if to a small child. ‘That’s not true. I did it because nobody else could deliver what felt like justice to those people back in the Balkans. Do you think anyone mourned Miroslav Simunovic or any of the others? They were dancing in the bloody streets. I’m not sorry for what I did, Maggie. I’m sorry for your pain, but that’s all. So now let’s get off this bloody roof and get on with our lives.’