Val Mcdermid - Blue Genes

‘Good point,’ I said appreciatively. He wasn’t to know, after all, that Sarah Blackstone was so security conscious it bordered on the paranoid, and with good reason. Another argument against the random burglar. There was no way Sarah Blackstone would leave the alarm switched off. ‘This woman that phoned in — wasn’t it a bit funny that she didn’t give her name?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘More often than not, they don’t, around there,’ I deciphered through a mouthful of barm cake. ‘They don’t want to get involved. Even when they’re the only proper witness we’ve got. They don’t want to have to miss work to come to court to give evidence, they’re frightened that if they stick their necks out, it’ll be their house the bad boys come to next. Far as they’re concerned, their civic duty stops with the 999 call.’

‘That’s your middle classes for you,’ I said.

‘You’re not wrong. Especially after the riots down Hyde Park. They’re terrified of repercussions. We tell them they’re safe to give evidence, but they don’t believe us.’

Neither did I. I’d heard too much about West Yorkshire Police. I know a woman whose house was being broken into by three teenagers with a sledgehammer in broad daylight. The next-door neighbour dialled 999 and the police arrived a full half-hour later, protesting that there wasn’t a lot they could do since the burglars had already gone. I flicked back through my notes. ‘Fascinating case, this one. No forensic, I take it?’

‘There are some indicators that the forensic team are working with,’ he said guardedly. ‘But they won’t even tell me what they’ve got. All I know is that it’s a bit of a struggle to make it look like one of the usual suspects.’ He winked.

‘She took her time coming home from St Hilda’s,’ I commented. ‘Can’t be more than fifteen minutes’ drive at that time of night.’

‘She’ll have stopped off on her way home for a drink or fish and chips,’ he said confidently.

‘Or popped round to see somebody who turned out not to be in,’ I suggested. ‘So you’ve no other eye witnesses except for the mystery caller?’

‘That’s right. It was chucking it down, so the usual dog walkers and drunks would have been head down and hurrying, that time of night. We were a bit surprised that no one saw him going over the back wall on his way in, since it’s overlooked by the student residences, but we’ve not had a lot of luck all round with this one. Something else to tell your readers — set up a Neighbourhood Watch scheme if you want to cut down the risk of violent burglary in your street. It really works, according to our Community Security team.’

‘Community Security?’

He had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘What used to be called Crime Prevention,’ he admitted sheepishly.

Only it didn’t. So in the same way that ‘closing hospital beds’ became ‘care in the community’, a quick name change had been necessary. I asked a few anodyne questions, bought Collier a second pint, then made my excuses and left before I had to watch him demolish a slice of Black Forest gateau about the same size as its namesake.

I sat on the top floor of the city art gallery under the huge Frank Brangwen panels representing the horny-handed sons of toil of the industrial revolution, their bodies suspiciously like those of the desk-bound Stallone wannabes you see down every designer gym in the country. Today, though, I wasn’t thinking about social change. I was staring at The Rolling Mill without seeing it. All I could see was the picture in my mind’s eye of Helen Maitland’s face, ugly with anger and pain as she lashed out at the woman she had once loved and who had deprived her of her dream of motherhood.

I had a pretty clear idea now what had happened. The results of DNA testing would have confirmed Helen’s guess at what Sarah had been doing. This wasn’t an experiment that had come out of nowhere; I could imagine the conversations as the lovers had snuggled together under the duvet, Sarah fantasizing about the day the technology would be there to make babies from two women, Helen dreaming of what it would mean to them, to her. But Sarah had refused, for whatever reason. And the refusal had driven a wedge so deeply between them that it was impossible to continue their relationship.

The scenario was as vivid as film to me. When she realized the truth, Helen must have gone round to confront Sarah. But Sarah hadn’t been home. She’d been working late. I could picture Helen sitting in her car, impotent rage building like a bonfire. When Sarah had eventually arrived, Helen had probably been beyond rational conversation. She had insisted on being admitted and the two women had gone through to the kitchen. There, the argument had raged before Helen had snapped, seized a knife and thrust it deep into Sarah’s body.

The act of murder must have sobered her. She’d had the sense to go to the back door and make it look like someone had broken in. If they’d had drinks, she had cleared glasses or cups. Then, making sure she was hidden by darkness, she’d slipped out of the house, back to her car, and driven to the phone box where she’d made the spurious 999 call.

It accounted for the awkward facts that spoke against it being a burglar. It covered the time gap between Sarah leaving the hospital and being found dead. It explained why the killer had taken the knife; she wouldn’t have been wearing gloves and for her there was less risk in taking it home, sterilizing it and dumping it in her own cutlery drawer. She’d probably been bloodstained, but it had been raining that night and she’d likely been wearing a mac or raincoat that she could simply take off and dispose of later.

Helen Maitland had done a good job of covering her tracks. Lucky for her that West Yorkshire Police are crap. But if the police did start to take a serious interest in her rather than doggedly chasing their mystery burglar, there would be proof for the taking. A voice print of the 999 tape would match hers. A new mac would be another circumstantial nail in her coffin. And, of course, she’d have no alibi. They might be short on motive, but if they started to push Helen Maitland, the truth might pour out. If that happened, it was only a matter of time before they started knocking on Alexis and Chris’s door. And that was what I’d been hired to prevent.

I sighed. It must have been louder than I thought, because the middle-aged attendant strolled casually into my line of vision, concern producing a pair of tram tracks between her eyebrows. ‘You all right, lovey?’ she asked.

I nodded. ‘I’m fine. Just something I’m trying to work out.’

She inclined her head. Now she understood. ‘We get a lot of that,’ she said. ‘Especially since Alan Bennett did that TV programme about the gallery.’

Like a character in one of Bennett’s screenplays, she walked on, nodding to herself, her shampoo-and-set hair as rigid as one of the Epstein busts next door. I roused myself and looked at my watch. Just gone four. Time to head for another confrontation. At least this time I could be fairly sure that I wouldn’t end up staring down the barrel of a gun.

I parked about fifty metres down the street from Helen Maitland’s house and settled back to wait. By six o’clock, I knew the news headlines better than the newsreaders. Seven o’clock and I was expecting Godot along any minute. As the numbers on the clock headed towards 20:00 I decided I’d had enough. I needed to eat, and Bryan’s was frying a haddock with my name on it not five minutes’ drive away.

When I returned nearly an hour later, there were lights showing in Helen Maitland’s house. When she opened the door to see me on her doorstep, she looked momentarily annoyed, then resigned. ‘The return of Sherlock Holmes,’ she said wryly.