Val Mcdermid - Killing the Shadows

He re-examined the notion he’d earlier dismissed out of hand. It was, of course, possible that Anthony was in on it. Hard though it was to imagine Anthony, that profoundly respectable man, leading press and police up the garden path, if anyone could cajole him into it, it would be Georgia. And if the police weren’t taking her disappearance seriously, the chances of that being the case were probably stronger. It was a hope Kit clung to, not wanting to contemplate the more disturbing possibility that lurked constantly at the edge of his consciousness. If something terrible had happened, he wanted to postpone that certainty for as long as possible. He couldn’t allow himself to begin to imagine that Georgia might never come back.

Kit forced himself away from such thoughts, superstitiously believing he could influence her return by visualizing it. He allowed himself a wry smile. He could just imagine the press conference when Georgia resurfaced. Would she play the amnesia card? Somehow, he doubted it. No, she’d infinitely prefer the melodramatic. She’d gone into hiding in fear of her life after what had happened to poor, dear Drew. But she had decided to re-emerge into the world because she couldn’t bear the thought that uncertainty about her fate was causing pain to her friends, her fans and most of all to her dearly beloved husband Anthony.

Yes, he thought. That would be the way she’d run it. There would be howls of outrage from some quarters at such blatant manipulation of the media and wasting of police time in that order of priority, Kit decided with a cynic’s certainty. But her fans would go for it, their imaginations hyper charged with the fuel he and Georgia and the rest of them provided. And that was the crucial thing.

But his determined whistling in the dark wasn’t entirely successful; the other, less entertaining possibilities still pressed close. He could immediately discount suicide. Nobody who loved herself as much as Georgia did could ever plunge so far into despair so fast. Someone would have noticed and rallied the troops round her.

As for the other, more terrifying, option, that was a route he wasn’t prepared to travel without a guide. And since the best possible guide would be coming home to him that evening, he decided that he wouldn’t even allow himself to consider that scenario till then. As he reached that decision, the need for it was taken out of his hands. A short, thick-set man with tattooed hands dropped into the chair opposite him.

“You’ll be Kit Martin, then?” he said in a strong Geordie accent.

Kit extended a hand across the table. Salvation took many strange forms, but he was always willing to recognize it when it arrived.

Fiona glared angrily across the table, the hazel of her eyes darkening. “That,” she said with plosive precision, “is taking the piss.”

Steve shook his head. “You know me better than that,”

“I thought I did.” She turned away and stared unseeingly at the wall. When she spoke, her voice was calm and measured, a distillation of her fury channelled through her control. “I thought you understood the depth of my commitment to what I do. It wasn’t my pride that was wounded when you threw me out and brought in Andrew Horsforth, you know. It was my belief that people like you had begun to take seriously the value of what me and a handful of my colleagues are doing.”

“You know I do.” There was no apology in his voice.

Fiona faced him. “Your bosses still see psychologists as nothing more than a tool they can use in whatever way suits them. And that’s not good enough.”

“You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t want to change that?” he demanded, his own eyes dark with frustration. “Fi, help me out here. Help me change their minds. All I’m asking is that you run these cases through your crime linkage program and see what the geographic profile comes up with. I thought you wanted Susan Blanchard’s killer caught? If you won’t do it for the sake of our friendship, then do it for her and her kids.”

“Oh, that’s well below the belt, Steve. Look, I’ve already suspended my better judgement and given in to moral blackmail over this. I reviewed Horsforth’s material, even though, God knows, some of it made me feel sick to my stomach. I made some suggestions about how you might continue the investigation. I offered that much out of friendship. But now I feel like you’re taking advantage of that friendship. You’re fresh out of favours.” Her chin came up in a challenge.

Steve held her gaze. He knew there was justice in her words but his determination to get a result in this case was stronger than his shame. “I need this doing, Fi,” he said, laying it out for her as straightforwardly as he could. “I’ve got no resources to fall back on with this case. My bosses don’t want to know unless I can come up with some sort of blinding revelation. They just want the whole thing to go away. So do I, but I want it to go away because we’ve nailed the right person. And right now, I’m dead-ended. I’ve got officers who desperately want to work this case to a standstill, but I need some sort of lead to put them on. My best chance of that is what you can give me.” He clamped his mouth shut and locked stares with her, his lean face taut as sculpture.

They glowered at each other, the friendship of half a lifetime on the line. “I won’t do it,” Fiona said.

Steve’s lips compressed in a thin line. He felt the high hopes he’d arrived with sliding out of reach, but he wouldn’t let go. Not yet. He refused to release her eyes, willing himself to be the last one standing.

“I really won’t do it, Steve,” Fiona repeated.

He recognized it for a tiny crack of weakness and leaned forward. “I need this.”

She nodded wearily. “I know you do. So here’s the deal. I have a PhD student who’s working on crime linkage and geographical profiling. What’s going to happen is that the Met is going to pay my student to analyse the material. On a consultancy basis.”

“I don’t know if I can find leeway in the budget for that.”

“You better had, Steve. At least this way somebody gets some benefit from this.”

“But you’ll supervise?”

Fiona shook her head. “Terry Fowler is perfectly capable of a straightforward analysis like this. I don’t insult my students by looking over their shoulders. I’m out of it, Steve. I keep telling you this and you’re not hearing me.”

He ran a hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “I suppose I’ll have to make do with second best, then.”

“I’m not fobbing you off. Terry will do a good job for you. Steve, you’ve got to stop punishing yourself over this case. I know you care about what you do, but you can’t let it put our friendship at risk.” Fiona reached across the table and took his hand. “I suppose it’s too late to tell you to get a life?”

Steve managed half a smile. “Well past too late.”

“It’s what saved me,” she said simply.

Steve’s eyes clouded over. “He did, didn’t he?” He wanted to say that he’d wished they could have been each other’s saviours, but he never would now. Either she already knew and had made her own accommodation with his feelings; or else the fresh knowledge would swirl through their lives as a disruptive current, threatening the balance that had evolved between them. Whatever, it would be pointless.

As if on cue, the front door opened. “Hi, Fiona, I’m home,” echoed down the hall. They heard the thump of Kit’s satchel hitting the floor as he tossed it into his office in passing. Then he was in the doorway, grinning at the sight of them, oblivious to the tension in the room. “Hey, Stevie, I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight.”