A Darker Domain

Phil Parhatka looked up as she flopped into her chair. Not for the first time, the angle of his head reminded her that he looked like a darker, skinnier version of Matt Damon. There was the same jut of nose and jaw, the straight brows, The Bourne Identity haircut, the expression that could swing from open to guarded in a heartbeat. Just the colouring was different. Phil’s Polish ancestry was responsible for his dark hair, brown eyes and thick pale skin; his personality had contributed the tiny hole in his left earlobe, a piercing that generally accommodated a diamond stud when he was off duty. ‘How was it for you?’ he said.

‘More interesting than I expected,’ she admitted, getting up again to fetch herself a Diet Coke. Between bites and swallows, she gave him a concise précis of Misha Gibson’s story.

‘And she believes what this old geezer in Nottingham told her?’ he said, leaning back in his chair and linking his fingers behind his head.

‘I think she’s the sort of woman who generally believes what people tell her,’ Karen said.

‘She’d make a lousy copper, then. So, I take it you’ll be passing it across to Central Division to get on with?’

Karen took a chunk out of her sandwich and chewed vigorously, the muscles of her jaw and temple bulging and contracting like a stress ball under pressure. She swallowed before she’d finished chewing properly then washed the mouthful down with a swig of Diet Coke. ‘Not sure,’ she said. ‘It’s kind of interesting.’

Phil gave her a wary look. ‘Karen, it’s not a cold case. It’s not ours to play with.’

‘If I pass it over to Central, it’ll wither on the vine. Nobody over there’s going to bother with a case where the trail went cold twenty-two years ago.’ She refused to meet his disapproving eye. ‘You know that as well as I do. And according to Misha Gibson, her kid’s drinking in the last-chance saloon.’

‘That still doesn’t make it a cold case.’

‘Just because it wasn’t opened in 1984 doesn’t mean it’s not cold now.’ Karen waved the remains of her sandwich at the files on her desk. ‘And none of this lot is going anywhere any time soon. Darren Anderson - nothing I can do till the cops in the Canaries get their fingers out and find which bar his ex-girl friend’s working in. Ishbel Mackindoe - waiting for the lab to tell me if they can get any viable DNA from the anonymous letters. Patsy Millar - can’t get any further with that till the Met finish digging up the garden in Haringey and do the forensics.’

‘There’s witnesses in the Patsy Millar case that we could talk to again.’

Karen shrugged. She knew she could pull rank on Phil and shut him up that way, but she needed the ease between them too much. ‘They’ll keep. Or else you can take one of the DCs and give them some on-the-job training.’

‘If you think they need on-the-job training, you should give them this stone-cold missing person case. You’re a DI now, Karen. You’re not supposed to be chasing about on stuff like this.’ He waved a hand towards the two DCs sitting at their computers. ‘That’s for the likes of them. What this is about is that you’re bored.’ Karen tried to protest but Phil carried on regardless. ‘I said when you took this promotion that flying a desk would drive you mental. And now look at you. Sneaking cases out from under the woolly suits at Central. Next thing, you’ll be going off to do your own interviews.’

‘So?’ Karen screwed up the sandwich container with more force than was strictly necessary and tossed it in the bin. ‘It’s good to keep my hand in. And I’ll make sure it’s all above board. I’ll take DC Murray with me.’

‘The Mint?’ The tone in Phil’s voice was incredulous, the look on his face offended. ‘You’d take the Mint over me?’

Karen smiled sweetly. ‘You’re a sergeant now, Phil. A sergeant with ambitions. Staying in the office and keeping my seat warm will help your aspirations become a reality. Besides, the Mint’s not as bad as you make out. He does what he’s told.’

‘So does a collie dog. But a dog would show more initiative.’

‘There’s a kid’s life at stake, Phil. I’ve got more than enough initiative for both of us. This needs to be done right and I’m going to make sure it is.’ She turned to her computer with an air of having finished with the conversation.

Phil opened his mouth to say more, then thought better of it when he saw the repressive glance Karen flashed in his direction. They’d been drawn to each other from the start of their careers, each recognizing nonconformist tendencies in the other. Having come up the ranks together had left the pair of them with a friendship that had survived the challenge of altered status. But he knew there were limits to how far he could push Karen and he had a feeling he’d just butted up against them. ‘I’ll cover for you here, then,’ he said.

‘Works for me,’ Karen said, her fingers flying over the keys. ‘Book me out for tomorrow morning. I’ve a feeling Jenny Prentice might be a wee bit more forthcoming to a pair of polis than she was to her daughter.’

Thursday 28th June 2007; Edinburgh

Learning to wait was one of the lessons in journalism that courses didn’t teach. When Bel Richmond had had a fulltime job on a Sunday paper, she had always maintained that she was paid, not for a forty-hour week, but for the five minutes when she talked her way across a doorstep that nobody else had managed to cross. That left a lot of time for waiting. Waiting for someone to return a call. Waiting for the next stage of the story to break. Waiting for a contact to turn into a source. Bel had done a lot of waiting and, while she’d become skilled at it, she had never learned to love it.

She had to admit she’d passed the time in surroundings that were a lot less salubrious than this. Here, she had the physical comforts of coffee, biscuits and newspapers. And the room she’d been left in commanded the panoramic view that had graced a million shortbread tins. Running the length of Princes Street, it featured a clutch of keynote tourist sights - the castle, the Scott Monument, the National Gallery and Princes Street Gardens. Bel spotted other significant architectural eye candy but she didn’t know enough about the city to identify it. She’d only visited the Scottish capital a few times and conducting this meeting here hadn’t been her choice. She’d wanted it in London, but her reluctance to show her hand in advance had turfed her out of the driving seat and into the role of supplicant.

Unusually for a freelance journalist, she had a temporary research assistant. Jonathan was a journalism student at City University and he’d asked his tutor to assign him to Bel for his work experience assignment. Apparently he liked her style. She’d been mildly gratified by the compliment but delighted at the prospect of having eight weeks free from drudgery. And so it had been Jonathan who had made the first contact with Maclennan Grant Enterprises. The message he’d returned with had been simple. If Ms Richmond was not prepared to state her reason for wanting a meeting with Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant, Sir Broderick was not prepared to meet her. Sir Broderick did not give interviews. Further arm’s-length negotiations had led to this compromise.

And now Bel was, she thought, being put in her place. Being forced to cool her heels in a hotel meeting room. Being made to understand that someone as important as the personal assistant to the chairman and principal shareholder of the country’s twelfth most valuable company had more pressing calls on her time than dancing attendance on some London hack.

She wanted to get up and pace, but she didn’t want to reveal any lack of composure. Giving up the high ground was not something that had ever come naturally to her. Instead she straightened her jacket, made sure her shirt was tucked in properly and picked a stray piece of grit from her emerald suede shoes.

At last, precisely fifteen minutes after the agreed time, the door opened. The women who entered in a flurry of tweed and cashmere resembled a school mistress of indeterminate age but one accustomed to exerting discipline over her pupils. For one crazy moment, Bel nearly jumped to her feet in a Pavlovian response to her own teenage memories of terrorist nuns. But she managed to restrain herself and stood up in a more leisurely manner.

‘Susan Charleson,’ the woman said, extending a hand. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting. As Harold Macmillan once said, “Events, dear boy. Events.”’

Bel decided not to point out that Harold Macmillan had been referring to the job of Prime Minister, not wet nurse to a captain of industry. She took the warm dry fingers in her own. A moment’s sharp grip, then she was released. ‘Annabel Richmond.’

Susan Charleson ignored the armchair opposite Bel and headed instead for the table by the window. Wrong-footed, Bel scooped up her bag and the leather portfolio beside it and followed. The women sat down opposite each other and Susan smiled, her teeth like a line of chalky toothpaste between the dark pink lipstick. ‘You wanted to see Sir Broderick,’ she said. No preamble, no small talk about the view. Just straight to the chase. It was a technique Bel had used herself on occasion, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed the tables being turned.

‘That’s right.’

Susan shook her head. ‘Sir Broderick does not speak to the press. I fear you’ve had a wasted journey. I did explain all that to your assistant, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.’

It was Bel’s turn to produce a smile without warmth. ‘Good for him. I’ve obviously got him well trained. But there seems to be a misunderstanding. I’m not here to beg for an interview. I’m here because I think I have something Sir Broderick will be interested in.’ She lifted the portfolio on to the table and unzipped it. From inside, she took a single A3 sheet of heavyweight paper, face down. It was smeared with dirt and gave off a faint smell, a curious blend of dust, urine and lavender. Bel couldn’t resist a quick teasing look at Susan Charleson. ‘Would you like to see?’ she said, flipping the paper.

Susan took a leather case from the pocket of her skirt and extracted a pair of tortoiseshell glasses. She perched them on her nose, taking her time about it but her eyes never leaving the stark black-and-white images before her. The silence between the women seemed to expand, and Bel felt almost breathless as she waited for a response. ‘Where did you come by this?’ Susan said, her tone as prim as a Latin mistress.

Monday 18th June 2007; Campora, Tuscany, Italy.

At seven in the morning, it was almost possible to believe that the baking heat of the previous ten days might not show up for work. Pearly daylight shimmered through the canopy of oak and chestnut leaves, making visible the motes of dust that spiralled upwards from Bel’s feet. She was moving slowly enough to notice because the unmade track that wound down through the woods was rutted and pitted, the jagged stones scattered over it enough to make any jogger conscious of the fragility of ankles.

Only two more of these cherished early-morning runs before she’d have to head back to the suffocating streets of London. The thought provoked a tiny tug of regret. Bel loved slipping out of the villa while everyone else was still asleep. She could walk barefoot over cool marble floors, pretending she was chatelaine of the whole place, not just another holiday tenant carving off a slice of borrowed Tuscan elegance.

She’d been coming on holiday with the same group of five friends since they’d shared a house in their final year at Durham. That first time, they’d all been cramming for their finals. One set of parents had a cottage in Cornwall that they’d colonized for a week. They’d called it a study break, but in truth, it had been more of a holiday that had refreshed and relaxed them, leaving them better placed to sit exams than if they’d huddled over books and articles. And although they were modern young women not given to superstition, they’d all felt that their week together had somehow been responsible for their good degrees. Since then, they’d gathered together every June for a reunion, committed to pleasure.

Over the years, their drinking had grown more discerning, their eating more epicurean and their conversation more outrageous. The locations had become progressively more luxurious. Lovers were never invited to share the girls’ week. Occasionally, one of their number had a little wobble, claiming pressure of work or family obligations, but they were generally whipped back into line without too much effort.

For Bel, it was a significant component of her life. These women were all successful, all private sources she could count on to smooth her path from time to time. But still, that wasn’t the main reason this holiday was so important to her. Partners had come and gone, but these friends had been constant. In a world where you were measured by your last headline, it felt good to have a bolthole where none of that mattered. Where she was appreciated simply because the group enjoyed themselves more with her than without her. They’d all known each other long enough to forgive each other’s faults, to accept each other’s politics and to say what would be unsayable in any other company. This holiday formed part of the bulwark she constantly shored up against her own insecurities. Besides, it was the only holiday she took these days that was about what she wanted. For the past half dozen years, she’d been bound to her widowed sister Vivianne and her son Harry. The sudden death of Vivianne’s husband from a heart attack had left her stranded emotionally and struggling practically. Bel had barely hesitated before throwing her lot in with her sister and her nephew. On balance it had been a good decision, but even so she still treasured this annual work-free break from a family life she hadn’t expected to be living. Especially now that Harry was teetering on the edge of teenage existential angst. So this year, even more than in the past, the holiday had to be special, to outdo what had gone before.

It was hard to imagine how they could improve on this, she thought as she emerged from the trees and turned into a field of sunflowers preparing to burst into bloom. She speeded up a little as she made her way along the margin, her nose twitching at the aromatic perfume of the greenery. There was nothing she’d change about the villa, no fault she could find with the informal gardens and fruit trees that surrounded the loggia and the pool. The view across the Val d’Elsa was stunning, with Volterra and San Gimignano on the distant skyline.

And there was the added bonus of Grazia’s cooking. When they’d discovered that the ‘local chef’ trumpeted on the website was the wife of the pig farmer down the hill, they’d been wary of taking up the option of having her come to the villa and prepare a typically Tuscan meal. But on the third afternoon, they’d all been too stunned by the heat to be bothered with cooking so they’d summoned Grazia. Her husband Maurizio had delivered her to the villa in a battered Fiat Panda that appeared to be held together with string and faith. He’d also unloaded boxes of food covered in muslin cloths. In fractured English, Grazia had thrown them out of the kitchen and told them to relax with a drink on the loggia.

The meal had been a revelation - nutty salamis and prosciutto from the rare-breed Cinta di Siena pigs Maurizio bred, coupled with fragrant black figs from their own tree; spaghetti with pesto made from tarragon and basil; quails roasted with Maurizio’s vegetables, and long fingers of potatoes flavoured with rosemary and garlic; cheeses from local farms, and finally, a rich cake heavy with limoncello and almonds.

The women never cooked dinner again.

Grazia’s cooking made Bel’s morning runs all the more necessary. As forty approached, she struggled harder to maintain what she thought of as her fighting weight. This morning, her stomach still felt like a tight round ball after the meltingly delicious melanzane alla parmigiana that had provoked her into an excessive second helping. She’d go a little further than usual, she decided. Instead of making a circuit of the sunflower field and climbing back up to their villa, she would take a track that ran from the far corner through the overgrown grounds of a ruined casa colonica she’d noticed from the car. Ever since she’d spotted it on their first morning, she’d indulged a fantasy of buying the ruin and transforming it into the ultimate Tuscan retreat, complete with swimming pool and olive grove. And of course, Grazia on hand to cook. Bel had few qualms about poaching, neither in fantasy nor reality.

But she knew herself well enough to understand it would never be more than a pipe dream. Having a retreat implied a willingness to step away from the world of work that was alien to her. Maybe when she was ready to retire she could contemplate devoting herself to such a restoration project. Except that she recognized that as another daydream. Journalists never really retired. There was always another story on the horizon, another target to pursue. Not to mention the terror of being forgotten. All reasons why past relationships had failed to stay the course, all reasons why the future probably held the same imperfections. Still, it would be fun to take a closer look at the old house, to see just how bad a state it was in. When she’d mentioned it to Grazia, she’d pulled a face and called it rovina. Bel, whose Italian was fluent, had translated it for the others; ‘ruin’. Time to find out whether Grazia was telling the truth or just trying to divert the interest of the rich English women.

The path through the long grass was still surprisingly clear, bare soil packed hard by years of foot traffic. Bel took the opportunity to pick up speed, then slowed as she reached the edge of the gated courtyard in front of the old farmhouse. The gates were dilapidated, hanging drunkenly from hinges that were barely attached to the tall stone posts. A heavy chain and padlock held them fastened. Beyond, the courtyard’s broken paving was demarcated with tufts of creeping thyme, camomile and coarse weeds. Bel shook the gates without much expectation. But that was enough to reveal that the bottom corner of the right-hand gate had parted company completely with its support. It could readily be pulled clear enough to allow an adult through the gap. Bel slipped through and let go. The gate creaked faintly as it settled back into place, returning to apparent closure.

Close up, she could understand Grazia’s description. Anyone taking this project on would be in thrall to the builders for a very long time. The house surrounded the courtyard on three sides, a central wing flanked by a matching pair of arms. There were two storeys, with a loggia running round the whole of the upper floor, doors and windows giving on to it, providing the bedrooms with easy access to fresh air and common space. But the loggia floor sagged, what doors remained were skewed, and the lintels above the windows were cracked and oddly angled. The window panes on both floors were filthy, cracked or missing. But still the solid lines of the attractive vernacular architecture were obvious and the rough stones glowed warm in the morning sun.

Bel couldn’t have explained why, but the house drew her closer. It had the raddled charm of a former beauty sufficiently self-assured to let herself go without a fight. Unpruned bougainvillea straggled up the peeling ochre stucco and over the low wall of the loggia. If nobody chose to fall in love with this place soon, it was going to be overwhelmed by vegetation. In a couple of generations, it would be nothing more than an inexplicable mound on the hillside. But for now, it still had the power to bewitch.

She picked her way across the crumbling courtyard, passing cracked terracotta pots lying askew, the herbs they’d contained sprawling and springing free, spicing the air with their fragrances. She pushed against a heavy door made of wooden planks hanging from a single hinge. The wood screeched against an uneven floor of herringbone brick, but it opened wide enough for Bel to enter a large room without squeezing. Her first impression was of grime and neglect. Cobwebs were strung in a maze from wall to wall. The windows were mottled with dirt. A distant scurrying had Bel peering around in panic. She had no fear of news editors, but four-legged rats filled her with revulsion.

As she grew accustomed to the gloom, Bel realized the room wasn’t completely empty. A long table stood against one wall. Opposite was a sagging sofa. Judging by the rest of the place, it should have been rotten and filthy, but the dark red upholstery was still relatively clean. She filed the oddity for further consideration.

Bel hesitated for a moment. None of her friends, she was sure, would be urging her to penetrate deeper into this strange deserted house. But she had built her career on a reputation for fearlessness. Only she knew how often the image had concealed levels of anxiety and uncertainty that had reduced her to throwing up in gutters and strange toilets. Given what she’d faced down in her determination to secure a story, how scary could a deserted ruin be?

A doorway in the far corner led to a cramped hallway with a worn stone staircase climbing up to the loggia. Beyond, she could see another dark and grubby room. She peered in, surprised to see a thin cord strung across one corner from which half a dozen metal coat hangers dangled. A knitted scarf was slung round the neck of one of the hangers. Beneath it, she could see a crumpled pile of camouflage material. It looked like one of the shooting jackets on sale at the van that occupied the lay-by opposite the café on the main Colle Val d’Elsa road. The women had been laughing about it just the other day, wondering when exactly it had become fashionable for Italian men of all ages to look as if they’d just walked in from a tour of duty in the Balkans. Weird, she thought. Bel cautiously climbed the stairs to the loggia, expecting the same sense of long-abandoned habitation.

But as soon as she emerged from the stairwell, she realized she’d stepped into something very different. When she turned to her left and glanced in the first door, she understood this house was not what it seemed. The rancid mustiness of the lower floor was only a faint note here, the air almost as fresh as it was outside. The room had obviously been a bedroom, and fairly recently at that. A mattress lay on the floor, a bedspread flung back casually across the bottom third. It was dusty, but had none of the ingrained grime the lower floor had led Bel to expect. Again, a cord was strung across the corner. There were a dozen empty hangers, but the final three held slightly crumpled shirts. Even from a distance, she could see they were past their best, fade lines across the sleeves and collars.

A pair of tomato crates acted as bedside tables. One held a stump of candle in a saucer. A yellowed copy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung lay on the floor next to the bed. Bel picked it up, noting that the date was less than four months ago. So that gave her an idea of when this place had been last abandoned. She lifted one of the shirtsleeves and pressed it to her nose. Rosemary and marijuana. Faint but unmistakable.

She went back to the loggia and checked out the other rooms. The pattern was similar. Three more bedrooms containing a handful of leftovers - a couple of T-shirts, paperbacks and magazines in English, Italian and German, half a bottle of wine, the stub of a lipstick, a leather sandal whose sole had parted company with its upper - the sort of things you would leave behind if you were moving out with no thought of who might come after. In one, a bunch of flowers stuck in an olive jar had dried to fragility.

The final room on the west side was the biggest so far. Its windows had been cleaned more recently than any of the others, its shutters renovated and its walls whitewashed. Standing in the middle of the floor was a silk-screen printing frame. Trestle tables set against one wall contained plastic cups stained inside with dried pigments, and brushes stiff with neglect. A scatter of spots and blots marked the floor. Bel was intrigued, her curiosity overcoming any lingering nervousness at being alone in this peculiar place. Whoever had been here must have cleared out in a hurry. Leaving a substantial silk-screen frame behind wasn’t what you would do if your departure was planned.