Authors: Val McDermid
With a sigh, Charlie opened it.
Charlie: Swedes are amazing. I got a number for Ulf Ingemarsson's gf, Liv Aronsson, from a journalist! Can you believe it? No warrant or threats necessary, he just handed it over. School's out 3.30 local time, so 2.30 here. This is a mobile, so any time after that I guess. I think she might talk more to you than to a cop.
Not so disappointing after all. Charlie glanced at the clock. Three hours to kill. It was strange. When she'd had a job, she'd always craved time to herself to read, to catch up with Radio 4 podcasts, to go swimming or just to lie on the sofa listening to music. Now she had the time, it hung heavy on her hands. She struggled to keep her mind occupied, and when her mind was at a loose end, either Lisa crept out of the corners and invaded her space or else she brooded endlessly and fruitlessly about her upcoming trials and tribulations. It was a toss-up which activity was the more pointless. Sometimes it seemed all she could think of was Lisa - her eyes, her smile, her playful humour, her emotional intelligence. There was something irresistible about her, some attraction so powerful it bled the brightness from Charlie's image of Maria. This wasn't what she wanted, but it was growing no easier to resist.
'Get over yourself, Charlie,' she said, abruptly switching to Google. She wanted to see whether she could track down the record of the Fatal Accident Inquiry relating to Kathy Lipson's death. The more she could uncover before she went to Skye, the easier it would be.
The FAI report made riveting reading. There was a list of witnesses, a precis of all their evidence, a description of the background and circumstances of the incident as well as the cause of death - injuries to the head and internal organs as a result of a fall from Sgurr Dearg mountain on the Isle of Skye. The only critical note sounded in the Sheriff's conclusion was the suggestion that climbers should make sure their routes were within their capabilities and experience. By the time she'd finished reading and making notes about what she might ask the mountain rescue witnesses, it was almost three o'clock. Liv Aronsson should be free of small children by now, she reckoned.
Charlie plugged the phone into her digital recorder then dialled the number, still without a clear idea of how she was going to play it. She'd let Ms Aronsson take the lead and see where that got them. The phone rang out several times before a breathless voice answered. 'Tja?'
'Is that Liv Aronsson?' Charlie said.
A short pause, then the voice said, 'This is Liv. Who are you?'
'My name is Charlie Flint. Dr Charlie Flint. I wondered if I might speak to you about Ulf Ingemarsson.' Charlie was conscious of speaking distinctly and more slowly than usual while trying not to sound condescending.
'Are you a journalist?' Her English was clear, her accent imposing a sing-song rhythm.
'No. I'm a psychiatrist.' She checked that the recorder was working, then wondered if she should be recording herself in what was, at the very least, a deceptive role.
'A shrink?'
Charlie winced at the Americanism she hated. 'Kind of.'
'Why does a shrink want to talk about Ulf?'
'Your English is very good.'
'Ulf and I lived in California for a year when he was doing his masters degree. I am a little rusty, but I think I do OK. So, I ask you again. Why does a shrink want to talk about Ulf?'
'It's a bit complicated,' Charlie said. 'Is this a good time to talk?'
'Where are you calling from? Are you here in Stockholm?'
'No, I'm in England. I can phone you later if that's better for you.'
A long moment, then Liv said, 'This is good for me. But I don't understand why a shrink is interested in my dead boyfriend after all this time.'
'As well as being a therapist, I work with the police,' Charlie said, trying to come up with an explanation that was clear and didn't contain too many lies.
'The police in Spain? That seems strange to me.'
'No, not in Spain. Here in England.'
Liv Aronsson sniffed. 'So. I understand even less. Why are the police in England interested in a murder in Spain?'
'The starting point for this inquiry was not the murder but the theft that took place at the same time,' Charlie said. 'In the course of another investigation, the police were told that Ulf Ingemarsson's work had ended up in the hands of a British company. If this is true and we can find out how it came to be, then we might be able to help the Spanish police to solve the murder of your partner.'
'Well, of course it's true,' Liv snapped. 'I have said this from the beginning. This was not a Spanish burglar stealing from a holiday villa. This was an organised crime, for the benefit of his rival.'
'When you say "his rival" do you have anyone specific in mind?'
'Of course I do. The woman who has made herself rich on Ulf's work. Jay Macallan Stewart.'
It was what she'd hoped for, but hearing the words was the moment she always worked for in her patient interviews. It was never enough to assume that what you thought you were going to hear was what had been said. 'What makes you so definite about this?'
'Ulf had this idea about three years before he died. He thought it should be possible to make guides that fitted with what people were interested in. He was a geek, he had the skills to write the software that would make this idea work. But what he didn't have was the knowledge of how to sell it. And how to get the information to put on the site. And I knew nothing about this also. I am an elementary school teacher, I know seven-year-old children, that's all.'
'Not the most transferable skill when it comes to an online business.'
Liv gave a dry laugh. 'No, not at all. So, he knew he was going to have to find a partner who knew the other end of the business. He did some research and he found Jay Macallan Stewart. She had been away from commerce since she sold her first web business for a lot of money. But he thought she understood the travel business. More important, he thought she understood people's dreams and desires.'
Charlie thought that had been a very shrewd judgement for a geek. The more she found out about Jay, the more convinced she became that she had never met anyone with a clearer vision of her dreams and desires. Being able to translate that outwards empathetically was a rare talent. And one that was never in the armoury of a psychopathic killer. However, it wouldn't be the first time that such a person had been able to mask their reality. Ted Bundy was the classic example. But there had been others. 'He made contact with her, then?'
'He sent her an email. And she responded within a day or two.'
'Did he make contact with any other potential business partners?'
'No. I said he should speak to various people. To see who gave him the best offer. But he said he didn't want to get caught up in all that. Stressful shit, he called it. He wanted to find someone he could work with, that he trusted. That was the most important thing to him.' Liv sighed. 'He trusted the wrong one, as it turns out.'
'So what happened next?'
'They exchanged a few emails. It seemed like they might have a fit. So she came over here to Stockholm to meet Ulf. She was here for three or four days. She brought a software guy with her, somebody she had worked with before, I don't remember his name. We had dinner with them. I didn't like her, I'll be honest. Sometimes with little kids, they've not learned to cover what's really going on inside them and you get a glimpse of something a bit wild. A bit feral, is that the word?'
'That's the word, yes.'
'I thought she was like that. At one point Ulf started to sound a little cool about the whole idea, saying he wanted time to think his way through it. And there was this flash in her eyes, just a moment then gone. And I thought, I would not want to be your enemy.'
Charlie contemplated this dramatic statement and wondered how much it had been shaped by hindsight. 'What happened after that?' she asked, her tone mild.
'After she went back to the UK, she sent a proposal to Ulf. But he didn't think it was a fair agreement. They spoke on the phone a couple of times, and in the end he said he didn't think they would be working together.'
'I guess that was a disappointment for him.'
'More for her, I think. To get where Ulf was would have taken her years of software development and testing. But he could more easily find a partner who knew about online business. Anyway, he decided he would go away for a couple of weeks. We'd been there before and he knew he would have no distraction, so he could refine the program. The next thing, he was dead.'
'I can't imagine how hard that must have been for you,' Charlie said. 'Had you spoken to him while he was in Spain?'
'Just when he arrived, to let me know he was safe. But I told you, he didn't want any distraction, so he was planning to have his phone turned off. When he was in the middle of something, he was totally into it. But she knew where he was going. I heard him telling her on the phone before he left. She was interested in places off the beaten track, he said. Always looking for new places to send people.' Her voice was bitter. Charlie heard the unmistakable sound of a cigarette being lit. 'It's hard, talking about all this again.'
'I know. And I appreciate you being so frank with me. Did you tell the Spanish police about Jay Stewart?'
'Of course I did. I'm not stupid and I'm not afraid of her. As soon as they said there were no papers and no laptop, I knew this wasn't an ordinary burglar. Why would a burglar take notebooks and papers? The only person interested in that stuff is someone in the software business.'
'What did the police say?'
'They stuck to it being a simple burglary gone wrong. They weren't interested in anything more than that. And of course they didn't catch any burglar among their usual suspects. They thought I was a stupid hysterical girl. That's what the lawyer said. And I had no kind of evidence, so in the end I came home and tried to tell the police here what had happened. But they didn't want to get caught in the middle so they just played hide and seek with me. The trouble is, nobody in the police understands the process. When 24/7 launched less than a year after Ulf was killed I knew they must have his codes. They couldn't have developed this sophisticated software so much like Ulf's in less than a year.'
It was suggestive, Charlie thought. But hardly conclusive. 'Unless Jay Stewart was already working on a similar idea with her software guy.'
'If they were that far down the line, why would they need Ulf in the first place?' Liv said triumphantly.
'Maybe they wanted to buy him out because they didn't want the competition,' Charlie suggested.
'That's not how it was. He told me the software guy was really impressed with his work. No, what happened here is that Jay Stewart stole Ulf's work. I'm not accusing her of murder.' A harsh bark of laughter. 'I'm not so stupid. But I think she ordered the theft. And it all went wrong. So she is responsible, even if she didn't mean it to happen. I want her to pay for that.'
'But you've not been able to sue her?'
A long silence broken by a heavy exhale. 'My problem is I have no hard evidence. I have a little bit of Ulf's early work on the project on his old laptop. But nothing of the later work. If I had complete code, we could maybe force her to let some independent experts compare. But that's not possible. So, do you think the English police can prove anything?' It seemed finally to have sunk in that Charlie was offering a lifeline.
'I don't know. It's my job to assess the credibility of the witness. '
'You mean to figure out if he's lying? You're like a human lie detector?'
Charlie chuckled. 'In a way.'
'Then the person you need to speak to is Jay Macallan Stewart. Ask her to her face if she is responsible for my man's death. And you'll see it in her eyes. The feral person behind her smooth outside.'
'Unfortunately, they don't let me do that. Tell me, Liv. Did you ever try to establish whether Jay Stewart had been in the area when Ulf was killed?'
This time, when she spoke Charlie could hear grief instead of the earlier anger. 'I printed some photos of her from the web. I took them round hotels and bars and restaurants and car-rental agencies. But it's a tourist area. Nobody looks twice at their customers. They just run their credit cards and pretend to look at their passports. Also, I don't bet that she did it herself. '
'So the only evidence is the program?'
'It's not much, is it? But it's about Ulf and his work. It's about him getting credit for leaving his mark on how we live.'
That struck Charlie as the most telling thing Liv Aronsson had said. It restored the human dimension to what had happened to Ulf Ingemarsson. 'I'll do what I can,' she said.
'I am not going to hold my breath,' Liv said, not unkindly. 'But if you can find something you can punish Jay Macallan Stewart for, be sure you send me a ticket.'
23
M
agda's intention to tell Jay about her encounter with Nigel Fisher Boyd had been thwarted by her lover's inability to stay awake. She'd looked tired in spite of her obvious pleasure at seeing Magda and they'd barely cleared the precincts of the airport when Jay's eyelids had fluttered and she'd slumped in her seat. Their relationship was new enough for Magda to find this endearing. 'She trusts me enough to sleep while I drive,' she told herself. It didn't cross her mind that nobody could survive the amount or the type of travel Jay had done over the past few years without learning to sleep when you were tired, no matter where you were.
When Magda pulled into the underground garage, Jay unwound, stretching and yawning as cats do. 'Nice driving,' she said in a sleepy drawl. 'Sorry I wasn't company for you. But I did tell you not to bother.'
'It wasn't a bother. I wanted to see you. Being in the car with you asleep is better than being home alone.' Magda leaned over and kissed Jay. 'Besides, now you've had a nap, you'll be restored and refreshed.'
Jay laughed. 'Ah, the insatiable appetites of the young.' She grabbed her bag from the back of the car and followed Magda upstairs. 'I hope you don't have to be up too early in the morning.'