McDermid, Val: Trick of the Dark

Five minutes later, dressed in crisp white cotton shirt and black jeans, she sat down at the breakfast table she'd laid earlier while Maria was showering, their morning routine still a reassuringly fixed point in Charlie's emotional chaos. Even on the days when she didn't have work, she still made herself get up at the regular time and go through the rituals of the employed life. As usual, Maria was spreading Marmite on granary toast. She gestured with her knife towards a large padded envelope by the bowl where Charlie's two Weetabix sat. 'Postman's been. Still don't know why you gave up cornflakes for those,' she added, pointing at the cereal bars with her knife. 'They look like panty shields for masochists.'

Charlie snorted with surprised laughter. Then guilt kicked in. If Maria could still make her laugh like that, how could she be in love with Lisa? She picked up the envelope. The computer-printed address label revealed nothing, but the Oxford postmark made her stomach lurch. Surely Lisa wouldn't…? She was a therapist, for God's sake, she wouldn't drop a grenade on the breakfast table. Would she? How well did Charlie really know her? Panicked, she froze momentarily.

'Anything interesting?' Maria asked, breaking the spell.

'I'm not expecting anything.'

'Better open it, then. Given you don't have X-ray vision.'

'Yeah. My Supergirl days are long behind me.' Charlie contrived to free the flap of the envelope without giving Maria any chance to see the contents. Puzzled, she stared down at a bundle of photocopied sheets. She inched them carefully out of the envelope. They appeared to offer no threat, only bewilderment. 'How bizarre,' Charlie said.

'What is it?'

Charlie thumbed through the pile of papers and frowned. 'Press cuttings. A murder at the Old Bailey.'

'An old case?'

'Still going on, I think. I vaguely noticed a couple of reports already. Those two city slickers who murdered their business partner on his wedding day. At St Scholastika's. That's the only reason it stuck in my mind.'

'You mentioned it. I remember. They drowned him down by the punts or something, didn't they?'

'That's right. Not the done thing in my day.' Charlie spoke absently, her attention on the clippings.

'So who's sent you this? What's it all about?'

Charlie shrugged, her interest pricked. 'Don't know. Not a clue.' She fanned through the papers to see if there was anything to identify the sender.

'Is there no covering letter?'

Charlie checked inside the envelope again. 'Nope. Just the photocopies.' If this was Lisa, it was completely incomprehensible. It didn't fit any notion of therapy or love token that Charlie understood.

'A mystery, then,' Maria said, finishing her toast and standing up to put her dirty crockery in the dishwasher. 'Not exactly worthy of you, but a chance at least to put your investigative skills into practice.'

Charlie made a small dismissive sound. 'Something to mull over while I'm invigilating, anyway.'

Maria leaned over and kissed the top of Charlie's head. 'I'll give it some thought while I'm torturing the patients.'

Charlie winced. 'Don't say that. Not if you ever want to treat me again.'

'What? "Torturing the patients"?'

'No, suggesting that your mind is on something other than drilling teeth. It's too terrifying to contemplate.'

Maria grinned, revealing an appropriately perfect smile. 'Big girl's blouse,' she teased, wiggling her fingers and waggling her hips in farewell as she headed out of the kitchen. Charlie stared bleakly after her until she heard the front door close. Then, with a deep sigh, she put the two Weetabix back in the packet and her bowl into the dishwasher.

'Fuck you, Lisa,' she muttered as she scooped the papers back into the envelope and stalked out of the room.

Coming home against the stream of humanity heading for work reminded Magdalene Newsam of her years as a junior doctor. That feeling of dislocation, of living at odds with the rest of the world's timetable, had always buoyed her up at the end of another grinding stint. She might have been so tired that her fingers trembled as she put the key in the door, but at least she was different from the rest of the herd. She'd chosen a path that set her apart.

Thinking about it now, she felt pity for that former Magda. To cling to something so trivial as a marker of her individuality seemed pathetic. But at that point, there had been so many roads not taken in Magda's life that she'd had to grab at whatever she could to convince herself she had some shred of independence.

She couldn't help the smile. Everything was so different now. The reason she was weaving through the head-down pavement crowds heading for the Tube couldn't have been further removed from the old explanation. Not work but delight. Awake half the night not because of a patient in crisis but because she and her lover still found each other as irresistible as they had at the start. Awake half the night and not tired but exhilarated, body weak from love instead of other people's pain.

The surface of her happiness wobbled slightly when she turned into Tavistock Square and confronted the imposing Portland stone facade of the block where she still lived. A three-bedroomed mansion flat in central London, only minutes away from work, was beyond the wildest dreams of her fellow junior registrars. They were resigned either to cramped inadequate accommodation in the heart of the city or marginally less cramped housing in the inconvenient suburbs. But Magda's home was a luxurious haven, a place chosen to provide a comfortable and comforting escape from whatever the outside world threw at her.

Philip had insisted on it. Nothing less would do for his Magda. They could afford it, he'd insisted. 'Well, you can,' she'd said, barely allowing herself to acknowledge that accepting this as their home implied that she also accepted her dependence. And so they'd viewed a selection of flats that had made Magda feel as if she was playing house. The one they'd ended up with had felt least like a fantasy to her. Its traditional features were more of a match for the rambling North Oxford Victorian house she'd grown up in. The aggressive modernism of the others had felt too alien. It was impossible to imagine inhabiting somewhere that looked so like a magazine feature.

Accustoming herself to living here had turned into something very different from Magda's first imaginings. Philip had barely had time to learn the darkling route from bed to bathroom before he'd been killed. The breakfast conversations and evening entertainments Magda had pictured never had the chance to become habit. That she occasionally allowed herself to admit that this was almost a relief provoked shame and guilt that triggered a dark flush across her cheekbones. Transgression, it seemed, was not something she could wholeheartedly embrace yet.

She was trying, though. If she was honest, she liked coming home to her flat after a night with Jay. There was something a little sleazy about rolling out of bed and putting on yesterday's clothes, something sluttish about crossing central London unwashed on the Tube, knowing she smelled musky and salty. They'd agreed long before the trial that they couldn't start living together until that was all done and dusted. Jay had pointed out that they didn't want anything to muddy the waters of other people's guilt. There was no suggestion that they should try to hide their relationship. Just a sensible acknowledgement that there was no need to trumpet it from the rooftops just yet.

So in the mornings, Magda came home alone. Dirty clothes in the laundry basket, dirty body in the power shower. Coffee, orange juice, crumpets from freezer to toaster then a skim of peanut butter. Another demure outfit for court. And another day of missing Jay and wishing she was by her side.