V. McDermid - Hostage to Murder

Crestfallen, Kevin slumped in his seat, watching the unfamiliar city roll past the windows. He knew he was supposed to like Michael, for his sister’s sake, but he was a moody bastard to work with and no mistake.

By closing time, Michael’s mood had blackened to a pitch where even Kevin realized silence was the best option. They’d explored pubs ranging from raucous student bars with loud insistent music to more traditional pubs where old men nursed their pints with the tenderness of new mothers. Michael had cast an apparently negligent but actually sharp look over hundreds of women, none of them Bernadette Dooley.

They walked back through streets shared with drinkers heading home, the air aromatic with curry and fish suppers, to the scruffy B&B where they were inconspicuous among the transient workers and DSS claimants who made it their home. All the way back, a scowl deepened the crease between Michael’s eyebrows. Kevin had lost count of the number of pubs they’d scouted out, but his pockets were bulging with boxes of matches and loose change. And not so much as a glass of stout had passed his lips.

Michael broke the silence as they turned on to Argyle Street. ‘We’ll do a school in the morning.’

‘Eh?’

‘Patrick says she has a child. A child has to go to school. We’ll stake out the nearest primary to the supermarket.’

‘I don’t remember anything being said about a child,’ Kevin complained.

‘I checked in when we got here. You were in the toilet. Patrick said he’d forgotten to mention she has a child.’

‘I never knew that. From before, like. When she was working in the shop.’

Michael made a kissing sound of exasperation. ‘She didn’t have it then. Whoever it was who spotted her in the supermarket told Patrick she had a child with her.’

‘Maybe it’s not old enough to be at the school,’ Kevin pointed out, proud of himself for coming up with the argument. ‘I mean, it’s not seven years since she left.’

Michael flashed a look of surprise at Kevin. It was always a shock when he said something that wouldn’t be self-evident to a three-year-old. ‘Maybe not. But apart from hanging around the supermarket, we’ve got nothing else to go at. Like Patrick said, she’ll not be on the voter’s roll or in the phone book, not if she’s got any sense. So we’ll check out the primary schools on the map and we’ll be there first thing.’

Kevin saw the prospect of a decent night’s sleep rapidly receding. ‘Right you are,’ he sighed. ‘The school it is.’

Kevin wasn’t the only one who reckoned sleep might be elusive. Lindsay had had one of the worst evenings in living memory, and the turmoil of emotions raging through her didn’t feel as if they were going to subside any time soon. Part of her wished she’d taken Rory up on her suggestion of a celebratory meal out to cement their new partnership and to hell with the consequences. But she knew that, being who she was, that would always have been impossible. She couldn’t be sure whether it was cowardice, love, good manners or fear that meant she had to go home and participate in the insemination she dreaded; all she knew was that she couldn’t bring herself to do otherwise.

She’d returned via the greengrocer in Hyndland who seemed somehow always to have the freshest vegetables in town. Sprue asparagus, a selection of wild mushrooms, fresh strawberries, peaches and raspberries. She’d remembered Fraser’s boyfriend was vegetarian, and while deep down she longed to serve them all congealed Kentucky Fried Chicken, her need to see the world well fed wouldn’t allow it. It was a mark of pride to Lindsay that when people ate in her kitchen, they ate memorably and well. So she’d take the time and trouble to produce grilled asparagus, wild mushroom risotto garnished with parmesan and rocket, and a fresh fruit salad. If she’d liked them better, she’d have made a meringue shell for a pavlova, but her soul wasn’t feeling that generous.

She’d thought that Sophie would be home early for once, but her lover only just made it through the door ahead of their guests. ‘Trying to avoid talking about it?’ Lindsay had said sourly when Sophie finally walked into the kitchen and came up behind her to kiss her on the neck.

‘No,’ Sophie replied evenly, refusing to be drawn. ‘I was called in on an emergency consult at the Western. You’ll be pleased to hear we saved the baby and the mother, though it was touch and go with the mum.’

Guilt-tripped, Lindsay said nothing, taking out her spleen on the parmesan, producing a pile of extravagant curls.

The rest of the evening hadn’t gone any better. Fraser and Peter had clearly already been to the pub before they arrived, drowning their apprehensions in whisky, to judge by the smell on their breath as they leaned forward in turn to plant air kisses on Lindsay’s cheeks. ‘So, what’s the drill?’ Fraser had demanded with an air of forced gaiety. ‘Is there some ceremony to the Goddess, or do we run straight through to the spare room and have a wank?’

Lindsay closed her eyes momentarily, biting down hard to keep her mouth firmly shut. ‘Don’t be daft,’ Sophie said, her voice more affectionate than Lindsay could ever have managed in the circumstances. ‘We’ll eat first. Lindsay’s cooked us a lovely meal. And then …’

‘He can provide his specimen, eh?’ Peter chipped in, his ferret smile disturbingly predatory. Lindsay was glad Sophie had asked Fraser to be their donor; at least he looked like a human being, not an escapee from a vivisection lab. Sophie’s chosen donor would be a good match for her, Lindsay thought dispassionately as she poured wine for everyone. Like her lover, Fraser was above average height, especially for a Scot, and he had the same trim build. His hair and eye colour were close to Sophie’s and, like her, he had good facial bone structure.

Lindsay supposed it made sense to have a donor who resembled Sophie so closely. It increased the chances of any baby that resulted resembling its mother. But she couldn’t help feeling an irrational pang of exclusion that Sophie had never even bothered to ask if she’d like them to find a donor who was a match for her, so that there would be at least a chance that any child would look like an amalgam of both of them, rather than be so clearly Sophie’s child.

The dinner conversation had been gruesome. When the two men had eaten with them previously it had been an easy and comfortable evening. But what lay ahead sat like a ponderous elephant in the middle of the dinner table, impossible to ignore yet equally unfit for discussion according to any rules of decorum.

Fed up of the dismal attempts at small talk that kept running aground, Lindsay finally said, ‘You don’t want to be a parent, then, Fraser?’

Fraser looked startled. ‘Well, not in the sense of day-to-day involvement, no. Though I like the idea that my genetic material will continue after I’ve gone.’

Selfish bastard, Lindsay thought. She wondered why he thought his genes were so special they deserved to be preserved, but realized this wasn’t a line of conversation that would endear her to Sophie. ‘So you’re not going to be popping round to take the wean to the football? Or the Scottish country dancing,’ she added as an afterthought, remembering that Peter had revealed that he and Fraser had first met at a gay and lesbian ceilidh – the sort of event she would have slit her throat rather than attend. Lindsay had grown up in the Highlands and knew what ceilidhs were supposed to be like. She thought Peter and Fraser would last about ten minutes, tops, at any village dance she’d ever attended.

Fraser smiled uncertainly, unsure if he was really hearing hostility. ‘I’m happy to let you and Sophie bring up the child without any interference from me,’ he said cautiously. ‘I don’t mind it knowing I’m the other half of its genetic make-up when it’s older, but I’m not planning on being a father in any active way.’