(2011) Trick of the Dark by Val McDermid

Author:Val McDermid [McDermid, Val]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Digital
Published: 2010-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

18

Wednesday

Unlike most cops, Nick Nicolaides never minded days when he was due to give evidence in court. Most of his colleagues liked activity. Sitting around for hours waiting to be called to the witness stand drove them mad with boredom. Nick had never had any problem with occupying his mind. Music in his ears, a book in his hand, and he was happy. The iPhone had been a glorious addition to his life. He could compose music, he could surf the web, he could read, he could play games. If he felt like it, he could even download files from the office and catch up on his report reading.

Or, like today, he could pursue his own investigations without anybody looking over his shoulder and wondering why in God's name he was Googling Swedish newspapers when he was supposed to be smashing an international child-trafficking ring. Because here, today, all he was supposed to do was wait till he was called into court and then respond to questions he already knew the answers to.

After he'd spoken to Charlie, Nick had put Jay Macallan Stewart to the back of his mind and concentrated on the operation his team were working on. But when he fell into bed, exhausted by a day of comparing CCTV images against their databank of known traffickers and pimps, his mind had drifted back to their earlier conversation. He'd gone to sleep thinking about what Charlie had told him and what information they needed to gather. And in the morning, staring at his reflection in the mirror as he shaved, he'd realised he was looking at the Ulf Ingemarsson case from the wrong end of the telescope.

'Alibi,' he muttered. That was the place to start. The only problem was how to nail down what Jay Macallan Stewart was doing during a particular week in 2004. Nobody could be expected to remember what they were doing six years ago.

'But their staff might.' He rinsed his face in the basin and gave himself a confident wink. Now all he had to do was figure out an approach.

Meanwhile, he could use the waiting time to see what he could find out about Ulf Ingemarsson. The translate function Google offered sometimes provoked more hilarity than clarity, but it was good enough to cope with press articles. The initial news stories - 'Swedish man murdered in Spain' - gave the usual spin of outrage. Bloodthirsty foreign brigands, incompetent foreign police, the risks of Abroad to decent Swedes. Behind the headlines, a story of a man holidaying in an isolated mountain villa, confronting burglars. A scuffle, a knife. A corpse lying on the floor for days, until the next visit from the cleaning company.

Then the counter-attack. Ingemarsson's girlfriend, a primary school teacher called Liv Aronsson, claimed this had been no ordinary burglary. As well as the obvious valuables, the thieves had stolen Ingemarsson's papers, which she insisted were meaningless and worthless to anyone other than a handful of web developers. She talked about his

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