Val Mcdermid - Killing the Shadows

Now it was Richards’s turn to push the direction of the conversation. And she wasted no time. It wasn’t that she was sexually inexperienced, she said. But she’d found herself growing quickly bored with the men she’d slept with in the past. “They’re just so predictable, so conventional,” she complained. “I want to be sure next time I get involved with someone, that he’s got an imagination, that he’ll take me places I’ve never been before.”

Blake immediately asked her what she meant, and presumably as Horsforth had instructed her, Richards had backed off again, saying she wasn’t sure she could discuss it openly in the middle of Regent’s Park. She explained that she had to go out of town the next week, to a training course in Manchester, and she would write to him. “I feel a bit exposed out here,” she’d said. “I can put it down on paper better. Then if you’re shocked or turned off me forever, I won’t have to see your face, will I?”

Blake had seemed almost amused by her alternation between suggestiveness and coyness. “I bet there’s nothing you could say that would shock me,” he’d said. “I promise you, whatever you want, Eileen, I can take you there. All the way there, whatever it is you want. You write me that letter tonight so I get it first thing on Monday morning, and I guarantee you’ll be panting to get back to London by return of post.”

Somehow, Fiona doubted it. However, there was no time now to pursue her doubts to their conclusion. Kit had packed his computer into its case, the ‘Fasten Seatbelts’ sign was illuminated and the cabin crew were moving purposefully towards their seats for landing. Major Berrocal would be waiting for them at the arrivals gate, and a job where she was convinced she could provide useful advice was always going to take precedence over something already wrecked by someone else.

Whatever perverse fantasies Francis Blake and Erin Richards had exchanged would have to remain in the file for the time being.

Major Salvador Berrocal was not waiting for them by the arrivals gate. He was actually standing impatiently tapping his foot by the door of the plane when it swung open. He had obviously arranged for a message to be transmitted ahead, for as soon as the cabin crew were back on their feet after landing, a steward was by Fiona’s side, asking her to come forward to the front of the plane so she could disembark ahead of the other passengers. Kit followed in her wake, giving the steward his best smile and saying, “We’re travelling together.”

Fiona’s first impression of the Spanish policeman was of tremendous energy barely held in check. He was of medium height, slender and pale-skinned, with dark-blue eyes that were never still. His charcoal-grey suit looked as if it had been freshly pressed that morning, and his black boots shone with a military gleam. Both were at odds with a shock of untidy black wavy hair, worn long enough to cover the back of his shirt collar. He acknowledged her with a polite but abrupt nod of the head, saying, “Thank you for coming, Doctor.”

“Thank you for meeting us. Major, this is my partner, Kit Martin. I mentioned he’d be travelling with me?”

Kit extended a hand. “Pleased to meet you. Don’t worry, I won’t be getting under your feet.”

Berrocal’s nod was noncommittal. “I have a car waiting, Doctor,” he said to Fiona. He reached for her briefcase and laptop. “Señor Martin, if you wouldn’t mind going to the baggage carousel, one of my men will meet you there. He will take you and your luggage to your hotel in Toledo.” He pulled a card out of his breast pocket. “This is my mobile number. You can reach Dr. Cameron, she will be with me.” He flashed a cool smile and set off down the pier towards the main concourse.

“Mr. Friendly,” Kit said.

“Mr. Under Pressure, I think,” Fiona replied. She put one arm round Kit and gave him a quick squeeze. “Ring me on my mobile, if you need me.”

They set off in Berrocal’s wake, Fiona almost having to break into a trot to keep him in sight. “Don’t worry about me,” Kit said. “I’ve got the guide book. I will be pursuing my own investigations into Toledo. Either that or I’ll be hunched over a hotel bedside table trying to write.”

They caught up with Berrocal who was waiting by a security door. “You must go through customs and immigration,” he said to Kit, pointing down a corridor to the left.

“Nice to meet you,” Kit said. Being pleasant was cheap, especially since Berrocal had taken the trouble to lay on a car for him. He gave Fiona a swift peck on the cheek, said, “See you later,” and headed off without a backward glance.

“He really won’t be any trouble,” Fiona said as they strode towards the customs and immigration area. “Kit has no problem with his own company.”

Berrocal flashed his badge and steered her ahead of him past the formalities. “I wouldn’t expect you to have brought him otherwise,” he said briskly. “I have arranged for you both to stay at the parador in Toledo, but I would prefer to go straight to the scenes of the crimes. Also, I wanted to be able to discuss the case on the way there, which would not have been possible in front of Señor Martin.”

A uniformed officer stood by an unmarked saloon car, snapping to attention as Berrocal approached. He opened the rear door, and Fiona climbed in, Berrocal walking round to the far side to slide in beside her. “Toledo is about an hour’s drive from the airport,” he told her. “If you have any questions for me, I can answer them on the way.”

Clearly not a man for small talk, Fiona thought. None of those polite and pointless queries about her flight that usually marked her arrival in strange cities. Nor did he feel the need to make polite conversation about Kit’s books, as had usually happened when he had accompanied her on foreign trips. “What lines of inquiry have you pursued?” she asked. “Apart from looking for witnesses, of course.”

Berrocal shifted in his seat so he could look directly at her. “We have examined our records of violent sexual assaults. Several people have been interviewed. But either they have an alibi for the first or the second murder or both. Or else we have no reason to keep them in custody.”

“Your English is very fluent,” Fiona couldn’t help remarking.

“I speak better than I write,” he said, flashing a smile for the first time since they’d met. “My wife is Canadian. We go to Vancouver every year on holiday. So when we talked about bringing in an English expert on crime linkage and serial offenders, I was the obvious choice for the liaison officer. As I said in my e — mail, we have no local expertise in this area.”

“I don’t know if any of us have what I would term expertise in crime linkage,” Fiona said dryly. “I have some experience, but every time I do this, it seems like I’m feeling my way almost as much as the detectives. Every case is different, and sometimes the lessons of the past are not entirely helpful.”

He nodded. “I understand. Nobody is expecting a miracle from you, Dr. Cameron. But in a case like this, we need all the help we can get. It is no secret to you that when a killer targets a stranger, most of our usual police procedures are useless. So we need a different kind of insight and that is what you can bring to the case.”

Fiona raised her eyebrows and turned away from his penetrating eyes, staring out of the window at the speeding motorway traffic. On one side of the motorway, she could see the city sprawling towards the centre; on the other the scarred red earth of the central Spanish plain, exposed by some sort of construction work. The terra cotta soil, the almost metallic blue sky and the heavy shadows of the earth-moving equipment turned the vista into a moving De Chirico painting, resonating with heat and menace. For some reason, it reminded Fiona of the surrealism of Cervantes’s imagination. Like Don Quixote, she thought, she’d be out there tilting at windmills, trying to separate the shadows from the reality, with this restless man as her Sancho Panza to mitigate her confusion.