Val McDermid 3-Book Crime Collection: A Place of Execution, The Distant Echo, The Grave Tattoo. Val McDermid

       1

      It wasn’t the Christmas George Bennett had envisaged a few months before. He’d been looking forward to his first Christmas in their own home, just him and Anne. He’d reckoned without the pressures of family. Anne was an only child, so there were no conflicting demands on her parents; and being newlyweds, they automatically became the focus for George’s mother and father. Realizing it would be their first and last chance to celebrate alone, Anne had done her best to persuade their families that a Boxing Day get-together would be just the ticket. She had failed. As it was, they’d barely escaped George’s sister, his brother-in-law and their three small children.

      Still, it had been a wonderful lunch. Anne had been planning and working for weeks ahead to make everything run smoothly. Not even Alison Carter’s disappearance could dent her determination that her first Christmas in her own home would be exemplary. And it had been. Once the presents were opened and he’d made the appropriate expressions of delight over socks, shirts, sweaters and cigarettes, George had had little to do except make sure everyone’s glass was topped up with sherry and Babycham for the women, bottled beer for the men.

      As they’d decided in advance, they revealed Anne’s pregnancy after the Queen’s speech. The mothers rivalled each other in their excitement and, using the washing-up as an excuse, soon disappeared into the kitchen to give the mother-to-be the benefit of their counsel. Anne’s father congratulated George gruffly then settled down with a celebratory brandy and cigar to watch TV. George and his father Arthur remained at the dining table. As usual, they were not entirely comfortable with each other, but the news of the baby had bridged some of the distance a university degree had put between George and his train-driver father.

      ‘You’re looking tired, lad,’ Arthur said.

      ‘It’s been a hard couple of weeks.’

      ‘That missing lass, is it?’

      George nodded. ‘Alison Carter. We’ve all been putting the hours in, but we’re not a lot further forward than we were the night she went missing.’

      ‘Did I not read somewhere in the papers that you’d found some of her clothes?’ Arthur asked, sending a perfect smoke ring heading for the light fitting.

      ‘That’s right. In a disused lead mine. But all that’s really told us is that she definitely didn’t run away. It hasn’t brought us any closer to finding out what really happened or where she is now. Except that we also found a couple of bullets embedded in the limestone,’ he added. ‘One was mangled beyond recognition, but we were lucky with the other one. It went into a crack in the limestone wall, so the forensics boys got it out more or less intact. If we ever find the gun it came from, we’ll be able to make a positive identification.’

      His father sipped his brandy and shook his head sadly. ‘Poor lass. She’s not going to be alive when you find her, is she?’

      George sighed. ‘You wouldn’t find a bookie to give you odds on it. It’s been keeping me awake nights. Especially with Anne in her condition. It changes things, doesn’t it? I’d never given it much thought before. You know how it is – you reckon you’ll find the right girl, get married, have a family. It’s the way things go if you’re lucky. But I’d never sat down and thought about what it would mean to be a father. But knowing that it’s going to happen, and finding it out in the middle of an investigation like this…Well, you can’t help thinking how you’d be feeling if it was your kid.’

      ‘Aye.’ His father breathed heavily through his nostrils. ‘You’re right, George. Having a kid makes you realize how many hazards there are in the world. You’d go mad if you let yourself brood on it. You’ve just got to tell yourself that nothing’s going to happen to your own.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘You made it through more or less in one piece.’

      It was a cue to swap stories of George’s childhood brushes with danger. But part of him was immune to the shift of subject. Deep inside, Alison Carter was lodged like a crumb in the windpipe. Eventually, George extinguished his cigar and stood up. ‘If you don’t mind, Dad, I’m going to pop out for an hour. My sergeant’s volunteered for Christmas duty, and I thought I’d nip round to the station and wish him a Merry Christmas.’

      ‘On you go, lad. I’m going to settle down with Anne’s dad and pretend to watch the telly.’ He winked. ‘We’ll try not to snore too loud.’

      George pocketed a box of fifty cigarettes he’d been given by an aunt and drove across town to the police station. He found Tommy Clough’s desk vacant, apart from the ballistics file on the bullets from the mining cavern. His jacket was slung over the back of his chair, so he couldn’t be far away, George reasoned. He picked up the familiar file and flicked through it again. One bullet was mashed beyond redemption, but the one that had found a crack in the rock had told a distinct story to the firearms examiner.

      ‘The exhibit is a round-nose full-metalled-jacket lead bullet,’ he read. ‘The calibre is .38. The bullet reveals seven lands and grooves, the lands narrow and the grooves broad. The grooves demonstrate a right-hand twist. These rifling marks are consistent with a projectile fired from a Webley revolver.’

      The door swung open and Tommy Clough walked in, brow furrowed as he read a telex. ‘Merry Christmas, Tommy,’ George said, tossing the box of cigarettes across the room.

      ‘Cheers, George,’ Clough said, sounding surprised. ‘What brings you in? Family at war?’ He crossed the room and sat down, shoving the telex in the file.

      ‘I was sitting there with my paper hat on pulling crackers and eating goose and wondering what kind of Christmas they’re having at Scardale Manor.’

      Clough ripped the cellophane off the cigarettes.